The (jaco)binfire that is the “left” – aka “extortation” (#ShoddyNeologism#094)

Climate change is bad, but for now I can cope (no kids, no expectations, no flooding where I am).

Fascism is bad, but for now I can cope, because it is at least another six months until Starmer and Cooper extend the proscription to include the words “genocide” and “Palestine.”

Technofeudalsim is bad, but for now Peter Thi….

Yeah, yeah, we all get the picture.

What is PISSING ME OFF is the number of scoldy articles from people who need – for personal/professional reasons – to Maintain Hope.

I won’t bother to name all the ones I have encountered because a) the apocalypse is almost upon us, from a geological perspective anyway and b) who cares.

One can do synecdoche duty. It’s this . It’s not entirely without amusement value/merit.

Since the decline of the postwar compact, liberals and progressives have trapped themselves in unceasing cycles of ’68, endlessly rehearsing the slogans and priorities of that cultural revolution over and over again. Periodic protests against racism and sexism burst out; ever-more discrete civil-rights-movements-for-our-time pop up. But little truly new takes shape. 

Though it was sung better by Frank Turner in Love Ire & Song.

Well it was bad enough the feeling, on the first time it hit,
When you realised that your parents had let the world all go to shit,
And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died
Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside.
But it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left,
And got let down again by some poor excuse for protest –
By idiot fucking hippies in fifty different factions
Who are locked inside some kind of Sixties battle re-enactment.
So I hung up my banner in disgust and I head for the door.

Here’s what I think.

If you want to dump on people who think it is “too late,” maybe

a) wonder if they maybe have been looking at some numbers/science that you aren’t, and legitimately drawing different conclusions and – this is the important bit.

b) EXPLAIN WHAT THE “LEFT” (“radicals” on their tod, “progressives” in ‘alliance’ with liberals, whatevs) HAS BEEN DOING WRONG THESE LAST FIVE DECADES OR SO

c) EXPLAIN WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS DO DIFFERENTLY, CONCRETELY, IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS TO TWO YEARS.

If you aren’t going to do even do b) (and c) is hard, I will grant you), then – and I type this in the most constructive and solidaristic tone possible, WILL YOU FOR THE LOVE OF GAIA JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Yes, am aware of the “tension” here (i.e. rank hypocrisy) in dunking on the dunkers. But a) absolutely nobody gives a shit what I say (not even me so much anymore) b) I have actually laid out plenty of times what we could do, but it would require the influential members of the smugotariat to – if not liquidate themselves – then at the very least transform their praxis…. what is the word I am looking for …. “radically”. And I’ve yet to meet one, even one, who was up for that. So c) THAT is why I a doomer (too idle/defeated to properly ‘prep’).

Now to the shoddy neologism.

All these exhortations to “maintain hope”, to not look at where all this is going, they are extortions and distortions. They extort your time and energy, they demand that you confess to WrongThink and FeelCrime, and stay with the program/grift/whatever.

I could have a little bit of respect for the people peddling EXTORTATIONS if they were able to do a) and b) and especially c) above. But I’ve yet to read one who was up for that.

PS I think AI Doctor Freud is trying to tell me something -recommended tags for this post included “Mental Health” and “Depression.”