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Shame of a Nation: Enablers of Anti-Intellectualism and Emerging Totalitarianism
“Enemies of the Party were not merely saboteurs, spies, and wreckers of industry, but doubters of the Party line, doubters of the society which awaited them.” – Child 44, Page 26
To call me a doubter of The Narrative (or, as above, the Party line) on any given day would be an understatement. I freely admit that I am an outright denier of each and every narrative pushed on us – no matter how carefully cultivated or raw, hot-off-the-presses the storyline is – until it has weathered at least 48 hours of scrutiny in the open marketplace of actual thinkers. Based on demonstrable past performance, I have no faith in either the ability or the intention of the major media outlets to provide an honest and accurate assessment of anything that happens in this world. Therefore, I default to Narrative Denier status until a story is exposed to proper scrutiny.
Aside from not endearing me to the “society which awaits” us (you can’t stop what’s coming!), being in that mindset all of the time tends to draw a lot of focus on just how deep we are into the Anti-Intellectual Era in America…as well as who the enablers are (particularly those inside our perimeter) and the methods they use to (attempt to) deceive. Today’s discussion is about an example of just plain brute force (or obtuse) anti-intellectualism and then another of supporting tyranny by ignoring the inconvenient. Then a bonus topic at the end.
Brute Force
This one actually saddens me more than just a little. As far back as 2004, I was a fan of Patterico’s Pontifications (well, at least its namesake) for its detailed coverage of the theft of the governorship of Washington state. That reputation did take a major hit during a short stint at RedState as part of the more rational NT contingent to offset the irrational rantings of a total dolt named Susan Wright who dominated there for the first year and a half of Trump. It has been all downhill since then.
This week back on the home site they have pushed the embarrassingly shallow propaganda of Liz Cheney and the equally embarrassing proceedings of the January 6 committee and have dug even deeper into incoherency by promoting the “Russian Hoax Hoax” narrative. Please go investigate as you wish but I point out this last one in order to poke again at one item from the list of grievances:
Trump publicly asked the Russians to illegally steal and dump Clinton documents, and Russian intelligence promptly did exactly that.
Now, just to be clear, if that resonates with you at all, please stop reading this post immediately and never click on anything I post ever again. That little nugget did not get past the 48-second mark of scrutiny more than five years ago, let alone the 48-hour requirement. To keep throwing that out as if a legitimate issue is an insult to actual thinking people everywhere. Maybe they know their audience over there but, in my book, that would fall under some corollary to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect and/or the Mollie Protocol.
This is the stuff that distracts us while on the way to “the society which awaits” us. It is an intentional distraction.
Ignoring the Inconvenient
This is probably the more harmful component of anti-intellectualism. This week’s example comes in the form of the pure un-American evil going on right under our noses to the great and shameful silence of a nation. I will point you to this for your own thorough review:
In a post last week I touched on the subject of “unseemliness” in another context with respect to our ruling elites. Clearly we no longer expect much from them…or those in positions of authority under them. Still, check out these tweets from Kathleen Landerkin, Deputy Warden of the District of Columbia Jail DC Gulag:
“F–k everyone who supports Trump.”
“Replying to @realDonaldTrump Give it a f–king break. White men are more dangerous than immigrants.”
“Replying to @realDonald Trump How many Americans have been killed by white American men? How about a story on alt-right killers and hate crimes? How did the idiots of this country fall for your bulls–t?”
“Replying to @GOP His [Trump’s] corrupt staff and family met with the Russians how many times before the election? How many times did they lie about a meeting with Russians? How many are in prison? Schiff is a hero.”
“Replying to @realDonaldTrump You’re a traitor. You don’t get to determine what’s patriotic. Leave the people [Antifa] engaging in a peaceful protest [Portland riots] alone. Why the hell are you involved in stirring a s–t pot for your deplorables? You’ll be in jail soon.”
“Every prison needs a MAGA wing.”
I can think of no better example of someone who should not be in any position of legal authority and is demonstrably unstable and not suited for intelligent, polite society. She is “unseemliness” personified. Yet, it seems clear, she is in her element and among peers in the halls of our ruling class. With that background, please go read the details of the visit.
Shame. Both the act and the ignoring of the act are unforgivingly shameful. Ignoring it is intentional. As is distracting us from it. It also enables (and quickens) “the society which awaits” us.
The Carefully Cultivated “State of Anguish”
Lastly, I wish to direct your attention to some additional important reading to shed some intelligent light on why we are headed toward this “society which awaits” us and who is responsible:
A look back: on desperately wanting to elect Joe Biden
Yesterday I happened across this article by Alex Wagner that appeared on March 24, 2020 in The Atlantic. It’s entitled “Stay Alive, Joe Biden,” and the subtitle is this revealing sentiment: “Democrats need little from the front-runner beyond his corporeal presence.”
Think about that – the idea of a figurehead president was fully envisioned and fully accepted, right around the time that Biden was finally seeming to be the nomination frontrunner. Nothing more was necessary; certainly not that certain something known as “leadership.” It was okay that Biden do nothing and be unable to do anything competently. The idea was apparently that (a) getting rid of Trump at the helm would magically solve all problems; and (b) the country could just about run itself after that, as long as Democrats were in control.
That’s not just hubris, that’s hubris squared.
[Emphasis added]
One of the two parties accepted and planned this path. They had lots of help. More…
[From Linked 2020 Article:] “…if you were on the campaign trail for the past three months, what struck you was not Biden’s organization (there was little), or his resources (there were few), or even the campaign messaging (Joe Biden has been—and forever will be—Joe Biden). What was striking was the sense of anguish and urgency articulated by everyone, everywhere, all the time. And that was before the pandemic.”
The “anguish and urgency” was indeed felt by most of the Democrats I know. Trump was so obviously terrible, so profoundly and distressingly evil and destructive, that anyone who could replace him was perfectly fine with them. Where did this anguish come from? Not from anything that was actually happening as a result of Trump – unless they bought the bizarre and evidence-free idea that if only Trump had not been president COVID wouldn’t have taken hold (obviously, since it took hold in most of the Western world, that could not possibly be true – and as Wagner rightly observes, this attitude of sheer desperation predated COVID).
The anguish was purposely drummed up by a combination of the MSM and the Democrats, and was fed and watered by a series of their egregious lies. …
[Emphasis added]
Egregious lies that were repeated endlessly by major media and comment section stoolies alike. Some true believers, others cynical liars. More…
That carefully-cultivated “state of anguish” – a sort of delusional hysteria – was not just important to a 2020 victory for the Democrats; it was necessary, and they knew it. For the rest of us, on the outside looking in, it was a lesson in how Orwell wasn’t far off when he described the Two Minutes Hate and its unifying effects, and how something somewhat similar could be employed to influence and guide a modern voting public, and people who consider themselves intelligent and sophisticated.
Whether or not you think Biden won fair and square in 2020 or because of fraud, it hardly matters to the point I’m attempting to make. The reality is that many millions of people, close to half the country if not over half the country, voted for a man who was clearly not up to the task, and rejected the man who was and who had been doing a rather good job by the usual objective measures.
[Emphasis added]
Those who fell into the delusional hysteria, as well as those who fostered and matured it, are all part of the anti-intellectual movement and enablers of the “society which awaits” us all. If you see that as anything less than a very dark abyss well inside our horizon, you just are not paying attention.
Good day.
(P.S. As I’ve noted in the past, I post mainly for myself. If you stuck with this to the end, I appreciate it and apologize for a bit of a ramble. For what it’s worth, this builds on thoughts previously inspired by Nohaaj a few days ago in What they think and a post of mine from last April called Their Own Reality…among other things.)
Published in General
I have just started through this book for a second time…aiming to complete the trilogy again. I highly recommend all three books. The story itself is worth the time but it is the peek inside a low trust society that drew me back to the book(s). It doesn’t take much reading between the lines or modest alterations/extrapolations to see elements of our future.
I have been red-pilled for decades and I concur with your “ramblings”. Many who disagree insist on the implausibility of elaborate conspiracies. However, an alignment of interests, does not require an elaborate conspiracy. All one needs to be red-pilled is to accept that actors are willing to be selfish and deceptive. Believing that those people do not exist, is a choice. Many do choose the blue-pill.
Some people say that police are racist in their actions and that some Blacks in some areas feel that police are an occupying force. People on the Right dismiss that quickly, because cops are “good people”. But anyone who is truly red-pilled will not readily dismiss, because even good people can be part of a bad system. Is it possible there is an alignment of interests or a set of conditions that manifests the situation?
It is worth repeating Sarah Hoyt’s comment at this Instapundit link:
But, of course, we all “know” some of them.
“saboteurs, spies, and wreckers of industry”…in Stalin’s Soviet Union, whenever anything went wrong, there was assumed to be a Wrecker behind it. If the Red Star Air Brake factory didn’t meet its output quota, it couldn’t possibly be something like raw materials not being delivered due to poor planning or bad weather conditions…no, the plant manager must be a wrecker, deserving to be shot.
There is an awful lot of that sort of thing emerging in America today. If gas prices or food prices are too high, it must be the fault of sinister and greedy forces–just ask Jen Psaki. If airline CEOs speak against mask requirements, it couldn’t possibly be that they know more about the subject that certain congresspeople, or even that there is legitimate disagreement…Senator Markey slammed any such suggestion as “immoral”.
As far as Ignoring The Inconvenient, which truly does involve the shame of pretending that no one was inconvenienced by the grand standing of Dem Leaders and Republican scum like Liz Cheney regarding the Jan 6th “insurrection, such pretense does shake me to the core.
On the page you linked to, this comment resonates:
Snip conservatives created the framework for them to do this. (My edit – that is the framework to imprison those individuals who have been left to rot inside the Fed cells on account of supposed insurrectionist activities.)
I warned my fellow conservatives 20 years ago that one day all these freedom-killing measures (dhs, tsa, etc) would eventually get used against conservatives by liberals. I was right, but conservatives wanted anyone defined as a “terrorist” to lose due process.
So, yes, conservatives who supported these freedom-killing measures are absolutely as responsible as the scum who are holding the prisoners. Conservatives who want to close their eyes and bury their head in the sand are f* word dead weight and enable the left more than they fight against them.
That’s like Obama arming the cartels and then saying the cartels are the only ones responsible when they use the guns for violence. Real genius logic there buddy.
#####
Not to worry. I’m sure that Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy will be coming together to demand the resignation of the Deputy Warden of the DC jail.
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I should have known that if the 1619 Project wasn’t working, something else would be tried.
https://news.yahoo.com/grim-long-hidden-truth-emerges-165822149.html
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Great Post, Philo.
The audacity and sheer brazen outrageousness of those pushing this Totalitarian agenda should be startling, but what is even more startling is how many Americans are buying this Totalitarian narrative nonsense. Anyone with an inquisitive mind is having their head explode because the monstrous lies spewing out of our government are so easy to counter and deny.
I do think that slowly the tide is turning against the narrative. Omircron was a great “Hail Mary” pass to even greater control and lockdowns and I think generally most people are not only not buying it; they are actually making fun of it. That said, I had a Christmas Party last night and invited some old High School classmates. I was astonished how many declined to come because of the threat of Omicron.
Those people are figuratively tattooing ” I am an illiterate idiot” on their foreheads and I think in the future there is a good chance that many of these same people will be mercilessly and rightly ridiculed for their inane foolishness.
Ok, if that’s really how she acts in her public life – is Twitter public? Then Trump changed the culture. Professional people, no matter what, never conduct themselves in such a way publicly. The new professional normal is strict side-taking and public rudeness. Got it. Racist Ignorance? Who cares, I’m on the right side.
I do not recognize this world.
One of the first to make sense of The Great Divide between people on The Left and people on The Right was Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert.
He explained the divide by explaining that individuals inside these groups were watching completely different movies.
Those who were encouraged to hate Trump had endless media people discussing the man’s shameless racism. He was a racist. Period. A White supremacist. I had late night phone calls from my friends in the LGBT crowd who said they could not entertain him being President as it was absolutely known he would spend his administration figuring out how to put them in camps.
Whereas those of us who actually listened in real time to his speeches & press conferences saw a man who spoke in measured tones about his plans to deliver a decent infrastructure plan to repair our highways and bridges. His plan would create jobs as well. About his desire to make the real middle class get a better shake at tax time. About how he worried about people in Hawaii whose homes could be incinerated by No Korea’s missiles.
About a real and pressing need to return jobs to the USA so that there would be less of a trade deficit. He even spoke at times about the dangers we faced if the supply chain from China and Pacific rim nations was ever broken.
I will hand it to the Left on one issue: that of being starry eyed idealists. There is no issue a person can come up with that they cannot shake around until persuading themselves that perfection is required. No program is a good one unless it is perfect. Plus all goals must be accomplished immediately. Since fracking is bad, so fracking should end immediately. If doing that means that some 93 yr old woman in Appalachia will freeze to death this winter, well, you have to break eggs to get an omelet.
All people of color must be treated as though they personally were mistreated slaves born & raised on Southern plantations, whipped daily for transgressions, ill housed and rarely fed.
Never mind that many African Americans have grown up in middle class homes, attended great schools & made a name for themselves. Facts are not important. Only the narrative matters. And the narrative being promoted did not have room to mention the fact that any time a white man and a black woman apply at the same corporation or government agency, if both individuals have the same education, same job background and experience, plus ability to handle tough interviews, etc, the black woman is 400% more likely to get the job.
Some of this explains yr statement: The reality is that many millions of people, close to half the country if not over half the country, voted for a man who was clearly not up to the task, and rejected the man who was and who had been doing a rather good job by the usual objective measures.