“If you want to make sense of the current political moment, and why electoral politics under capitalism can never, and will never, serve anyone but the wealthy capitalists, look no further than the most influential political theorist of the 20th century: Vladimir Lenin.
A thread.”
It’s the same dynamic when it comes to the adversaries of the empire. People who swear up and down that the government is corrupt and that the media lies about everything also believe everything the government and the media tell them about countries like China.
This one was hard for me to shake as well. It was common double-think to believe that most government institutions were corrupt, except for the ones run by Democrats. The dems were fine. The more dems the better. Blah, blah, blah.
And at some points in time I would see CNN or NPR say some stupid shit that was easily falsified. And I would “Give them a pass.” It was weird because I was even conscious of it, but my attitude was on the lines of “well, there isn’t anything better out there.”
It’s much easier for someone who is functionally just a centrist conservative to “reject” everything, tar them all with the same brush, and then do nothing but whatever self-soothing prepper crankery they like to do in their basement or on forums or whatever, without any attachment to a real political movement because all real alternatives are “just as bad”. It’s a very self-satisfied approach to things.
I think it’s kind of natural to want to believe that there is some forces of good within the system. Accepting that both parties are there to represent the oligarchs is a hard pill to swallow.
It’s the same dynamic when it comes to the adversaries of the empire. People who swear up and down that the government is corrupt and that the media lies about everything also believe everything the government and the media tell them about countries like China.
This one was hard for me to shake as well. It was common double-think to believe that most government institutions were corrupt, except for the ones run by Democrats. The dems were fine. The more dems the better. Blah, blah, blah.
And at some points in time I would see CNN or NPR say some stupid shit that was easily falsified. And I would “Give them a pass.” It was weird because I was even conscious of it, but my attitude was on the lines of “well, there isn’t anything better out there.”
Also the Gell-Mann amnesia effect comes to mind.
It’s much easier for someone who is functionally just a centrist conservative to “reject” everything, tar them all with the same brush, and then do nothing but whatever self-soothing prepper crankery they like to do in their basement or on forums or whatever, without any attachment to a real political movement because all real alternatives are “just as bad”. It’s a very self-satisfied approach to things.
pretty well describes what i was like in my early adult years
I think it’s kind of natural to want to believe that there is some forces of good within the system. Accepting that both parties are there to represent the oligarchs is a hard pill to swallow.