A silly prank that actually says a lot about the right’s internal fault lines.
James Lindsay, a prominent right-wing pundit, had submitted the aforementioned adaptation of Marx and Engels’s work and gotten it published. The essay’s publication, per Lindsay, is proof that the far right is basically the same as the far left: that it is, in his words, part of a “woke right” corrupting conservatism from within.
The author is did it because he wants to begin his version of the night of the long knives and purify the conservative movement.
I hope we aint mocking them for this. I think if people dropped a lot of stupid jargon and start talking nuts bolts, we can remove a lot of “politcal” bullshit and start thinking solutions. We never really get to discussing how to fix anything.
Yeah, labels and categories can help make things easier to understand but sometimes they do the opposite. And I think a lot of the labels and categories used in politics are the second kind. And that’s no accident.
And all the wrong lessons were learned:
James Lindsay, a prominent right-wing pundit, had submitted the aforementioned adaptation of Marx and Engels’s work and gotten it published. The essay’s publication, per Lindsay, is proof that the far right is basically the same as the far left: that it is, in his words, part of a “woke right” corrupting conservatism from within.
What an idiotic take.
if he had good takes then he wouldn’t be a right-wing pundit
What an idiotic take.
I don’t think so. The “woke right”, which is different than regular MAGA, is following the same oppressor / oppressed language that has gained so much traction on the other side of the political aisle. You may not agree with who the “woke right” is claiming as oppressors, or even the claim that they are oppressed, but James Lindsay just proved that the language resonates with both groups. He’s not happy about it either, hence his comments that the “woke right” is corrupting conservatism.
So you’re saying there’s a chance?
I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it’d be a nice change of pace to see some of them come over here instead of everyone constantly moving right.
tl;dr: words like woke and labels like communist have lost all meaning
woke means “something i’m afraid of”, while communist means “something im afraid of because it might help people”. they are very similar, but there are subtle differences.
I feel that’s been true since at least the fall of the USSR.
“woke”, used in a US political context (and not as the past tense of “wake”, as from sleep), doesn’t have any meaning in the first place. It’s made-up propaganda noise invented by the far-right. I refuse to parse any sentence containing the word, from the media, because that sentence is guaranteed to contain right-wing propaganda, if only obliquely. I certainly won’t utilize the word in any political way myself - that would mean that I accept as legitimate the propaganda machinations of the right-wing. And they are pure festering slime, so no.
Woke originated in black communities and has held a few meanings over the years. In a political sense, it just refers to having an awareness of social issues.
I will agree with you though that it is meaningless today. The conservative propaganda machine thoroughly destroyed it by conflating it with any and all culture war garbage.
childish gambino in his song “redbone” has a line in it that says “stay woke!”
I love interpreting they’re comments with the original definition because it’s so true. “Anti-woke” means they hate the idea of being aware of how the world works.
I once saw a blog post comment accusing the author of being woke, and then later in the rant he said the author needed to wake up
They didn’t publish the Communist Manifesto. They published a parody with the opposite meaning.
It doesn’t really prove anything.
Marx:
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies… Two things result from this fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
Lindsay:
A rising spirit is haunting America: the spirit of a true Christian Right. Moreover, all the existing powers of the American Regime since the end of the Second World War have aligned themselves against it and its re-emergence from the shadows of American civic life, politics, and religion—the Marxist Left and its neo-Marxist “Woke” descendant, the liberal establishment, the neoconservatives, and their police and intelligence apparatuses. There are two consequences of this unholy alliance. First, the Christian Right itself is recognized by all these forces to be a power and thus a threat. Second, it is time for this arranged order to end and for a New Christian Right to emerge and stake its rightful claim on twenty-first century American politics.
So if you play mad libs you come up with grammatically correct sentences, and if you change all the nouns to their opposites you get something people with the opposite opinions agree with. You’re right, it proves nothing.
First, the Christian Right itself is recognized by all these forces to be a power and thus a threat. Second, it is time for this arranged order to end and for a New Christian Right to emerge and stake its rightful claim on twenty-first century American politics.
Once again the “new christian right” is painting themselves as the oppressed when they themselves are the oppressors.
There’s no law preventing Christianity. There are no jackbooted thugs kicking in your door dragging people out saying “where are the christians?!”. The only opposition politically to christians is when those christians try to force non-christians to follow christian dogma. If you want to be a christian, go for it! We have the freedom to do that. However, your freedom stops when you try to force, by rule of law, others to be christians too.
painting themselves as the oppressed
I don’t think that’s what Marx meant, and by extension that’s not what this piece means either.
Marx’s opening lines roughly amount to “We’re taking over this place, the oldtimers know it and fear us, so it’s time to start making our demands known.” It’s a call to assume power, not a plea for sympathy.
Given any of the credit of Marx to Lindsay’s changes to it I think are misplaced. I don’t agree with Marx, but Marx’s message is coherent. Lindsay is attempting to ride on those coattails of coherence with the antithesis of Marx’s message.
Marx’s opening lines roughly amount to “We’re taking over this place, the oldtimers know it and fear us, so it’s time to start making our demands known.” It’s a call to assume power, not a plea for sympathy.
Marx’s is language also infused with a righteousness of the oppressed, by the oppressed. Modern day christian’s attempting to use the same rhetoric fall flat because christian’s aren’t oppressed.
Without the fnords, these people have no idea what they think. They can only perform loyalty to their ingroup. If it sounds plausible and the right person said it then it must be absolutely true… today. Tomorrow, who knows.
We keep asking what they really believe. It’s a category error. Conservatives do not believe things. Conservatives believe people.
You know if James Lindsey tried this shotgun method with mainstream publications too he might just find holes in publishing are just everywhere? It’s more of a statiatical norm.
Does he think people vetting articles just love their jobs and do them enthusiastically and well? No, sometimes they just wanna go home early so push things through.
When is this dumb ass gonna learn this basic fact of humanity.
You know if James Lindsey tried this shotgun method with mainstream publications too he might just find holes in publishing are just everywhere?
You should check into what he did back in 2018. 😉
Who gives a shit. He’s trained in mathematics and massage therapy. Dude should be working in a mall, and no one should be googling him ever.
They’re not so different, after all.
Um no, Tankies authoritarianism-based “Communism/Socialism” != Actual Communism/Socialism
I think their reply was about how the supporters of right wing politics hold community based beliefs, an untapped anarchy streak that is co-opted by right wing propaganda into “muh freedoms”.
