Bloomberg pundit Noah Smith had a very revealing interaction on Twitter the other day that I've been meaning to write about ever since. It began with Smith sharing a screenshot of an article by journalist Yasha Levine which condemns US imperialist escalations against China and ties them to the sudden spike in anti-Asian hate crimes we've been seeing. Smith shared his screenshot with the caption, "I hold by my prediction that the American Left is going to split into A) social democrats, and B) foreign-policy-obsessed pseudo-tankies."
So much progressive jargon has been appropriated and weaponized by establishment liberalism in defense of things that liberals traditionally opposed that we are entering a realm appropriately labeled crazytown.
I’m in agreement — to a point. I wish there was some kind of word or phrase like “reductive labelling” that described putting a person into a “don’t listen to them ever” box, but that still allowed us to use labels, which are as necessary as nouns and adjectives. The reason is that you have people taking “don’t label me!” to the other extreme, in which you can’t even label (or speak badly!) about a position. So under this narrative regime you can’t even identify a racist policy as racist, because you’re supposedly “weaponizing” a label.
I’ve dropped the use of conspiracy theorist (to apply to anyone believing in a conspiracy theory) because I get so much dismissal for using that phrase now, which isn’t that hard to work around, but I absolutely believe that there are common parameters to conspiracy theorizing and I see it as a shame (and a political move) that sober discussion about what “conspiracy theorizing” might entail (no matter what is being theorized about) isn’t even well received.
Thank you for this. It's interesting to witness the process by which state-supporting terms of abuse are created. Back in the sixties those who doubted the Warren Commission narrative or the official story of the King murder were labelled "conspiracy buffs". After 9/11, people who questioned the official conspiracy theory were called "Truthers." And during the Trump years the term "batshit crazy" suddenly appeared to describe anything Trump did, or anyone who doubted the MSM narrative. With the election of Biden, batshit craziness appears to have gone away.
Today I viewed a 5 month old interview of Rushan Abbas (Uyghur activist) by Daniel Dumbrill (a Canadian who lives in China and a "genocide denier.") He asked her for hard evidence of 3 million in internment camps. Her response was essentially that the lack of evidence didn't disprove the 3 million in internment camps. Rather, it proves that the CCP is covering up their crimes. Like with white fragility, if you say you're not racist, that's proof you are. You simply can't escape the matrix, no matter how many red pills you swallow.
They also lay the "blame" for any doubt of the US/Western Uigher Genocide narrative on supposed Chinese government narrative-control efforts. The whole history of US government, allied governments, and US media lies/distortions/omissions doesn't exist in their "report" .
Suppose such a thing was actually happening, or could possibly be happening. Honest people would point to evidence. They would then lay out the history of lies as the cause of doubt, and at least try to propose ways of overcoming the formidable, and justifiable, mountain of doubt.
Did they even mention any of it? Nope! That alone would tell me that it is bs, without knowing anything at all about the particulars.
So much progressive jargon has been appropriated and weaponized by establishment liberalism in defense of things that liberals traditionally opposed that we are entering a realm appropriately labeled crazytown.
I'd rather be a Tankie than a Think Tankie.
I’m in agreement — to a point. I wish there was some kind of word or phrase like “reductive labelling” that described putting a person into a “don’t listen to them ever” box, but that still allowed us to use labels, which are as necessary as nouns and adjectives. The reason is that you have people taking “don’t label me!” to the other extreme, in which you can’t even label (or speak badly!) about a position. So under this narrative regime you can’t even identify a racist policy as racist, because you’re supposedly “weaponizing” a label.
I’ve dropped the use of conspiracy theorist (to apply to anyone believing in a conspiracy theory) because I get so much dismissal for using that phrase now, which isn’t that hard to work around, but I absolutely believe that there are common parameters to conspiracy theorizing and I see it as a shame (and a political move) that sober discussion about what “conspiracy theorizing” might entail (no matter what is being theorized about) isn’t even well received.
Thank you for this. It's interesting to witness the process by which state-supporting terms of abuse are created. Back in the sixties those who doubted the Warren Commission narrative or the official story of the King murder were labelled "conspiracy buffs". After 9/11, people who questioned the official conspiracy theory were called "Truthers." And during the Trump years the term "batshit crazy" suddenly appeared to describe anything Trump did, or anyone who doubted the MSM narrative. With the election of Biden, batshit craziness appears to have gone away.
Today I viewed a 5 month old interview of Rushan Abbas (Uyghur activist) by Daniel Dumbrill (a Canadian who lives in China and a "genocide denier.") He asked her for hard evidence of 3 million in internment camps. Her response was essentially that the lack of evidence didn't disprove the 3 million in internment camps. Rather, it proves that the CCP is covering up their crimes. Like with white fragility, if you say you're not racist, that's proof you are. You simply can't escape the matrix, no matter how many red pills you swallow.
They also lay the "blame" for any doubt of the US/Western Uigher Genocide narrative on supposed Chinese government narrative-control efforts. The whole history of US government, allied governments, and US media lies/distortions/omissions doesn't exist in their "report" .
Suppose such a thing was actually happening, or could possibly be happening. Honest people would point to evidence. They would then lay out the history of lies as the cause of doubt, and at least try to propose ways of overcoming the formidable, and justifiable, mountain of doubt.
Did they even mention any of it? Nope! That alone would tell me that it is bs, without knowing anything at all about the particulars.
"I wrote against anti-imperialism for years" ... is this a "misnegation"? Do you mean you wrote against imperialism for years?