Whose Conspiracy is the Real Conspiracy?

 The Left and Conspiracy Theories, Knee-Jerk Thinking and Clichés

 If you’ve been around the Left for any length of time, you’ll find a certain repetition of factless conspiracy theories, simple-minded thinking and the repetition of left clichés – just like Right-wingers but not from the same angle.  I’ll give some examples from time in Left-Town a while ago and recently.

First was a discussion of the prevalence of violence against women in the U.S. and around the world.  I was told that ‘U.S. feminists say’ that 1/3^rd of all U.S. women are … killed?  raped?  abused?  harassed?  It was not clear, nor was this nugget meant to be clear.  When I told the speaker that women in other countries have it worse – more than 40-45% even if you take that U.S. stat for truth - she could not believe it.  I mentioned that the Pakistani military had just stopped ‘virginity tests” (digital!) for new female recruits. Or that in Somalia over 90% of the women have been gone through female genital mutilation, and nearly all of the older ones in the U.S. have too.  Or that in India nearly all rapists are getting away with the help of the police.  Or in Mexico, femicide is more common than the U.S.  Do we even need to discuss the Taliban’s attitude towards women?  Then I looked up 5 different websites on women’s worst conditions across the world and in only one did the U.S. show up, at 10^th.  I wasn’t soft-peddling femicide or other vicious attacks on women in the U.S., as she thought.  This ‘more radical than thou’ / ‘the U.S. is the worst place in the world’ attitude is a typical knee-jerk supposition you encounter frequently from so-called Leftists.  I was trying to show some countries have more nightmarish conditions for women. Ah, an internationalism which blunted national thinking.  Did it sink in?   I doubt it.  Goddamn facts.

Then an argument on the origins of the Covid 19 virus.  The speaker still thought it was from a Chinese lab after listening to a talk by Robb Wallace, a left-wing epidemiologist, who mentioned nothing of the kind.  In his book “Dead Epidemiologists,’ while considering the theory, Wallace’s indicates that the preponderance of evidence suggests it was from bats and pangolins in the jungle that had contact with humans; i.e. intrusion into nature.  Since then, more facts have come out against the ‘lab-leak’ theory, even by former supporters.  Was I convincing?  I doubt it.  Goddamn facts. 

Then a left-wing Muslim stated that he liked dogs, but if they licked him, he would have to wash before praying.  Now some people will wash their hands after being licked by a dog for health reasons, but what does it have to do with praying? Will Allah get infected?  It isn’t scientific.  More goddamn facts.

Then there is always that ‘guy’ who claims everything that happens is stage-managed, planned by an omnipotent bourgeoisie, they are all in cahoots, there are no material divisions within the ruling class, it’s just a shadow show put on for the boob-proletariat, everything is planned.  There are no accidents, no agency, no actors outside of the ruling class. As if capitalists never take advantage of a situation or flaw in the enemy, which is called normal opportunism in my book.  As if all of history is planned down to the smallest incident, like the bourgeoisie are fucking God.  When you ask him if he’s got any facts on his specific conspiracy or interpretation, he says ‘no’ - but it sure makes sense to him! This is ‘radicalism.’

In fact the more ‘radically’ suspect you sound, the more people think you are some kind of perceptive visionary and genius – when you’re just a motivated fool.  This has happened with the recent shooting at Trump.  The Republican loonies claim a ‘deep state’ plot to assassinate Trump.  The Democratic BlueAnon claim this is all a hoax and Trump set this up to help his campaign.  Some people think both scenarios are logical... Why either side would choose a poor, bullied, gun-crazy 20 year old loner to do the deed is ignored.  Incompetence is impossible in both scenarios, as mistakes are never made in a conspiracy theory. Again, proof?  Well… it just makes sense 'to me.'

Then there is the ‘left’ opinion that almost nothing in the corporate or bourgeois news is ever true, while everything from China, Cuba or Venezuela or …? is always true.  You see this on FB© or other sites.  Now on the face of it, that seems impossible.  But that does not stop simple-minded leftists from saying it.  We have to totally trust anything we hear from people we are defending from U.S. imperialism, and not believe anything said by the NYT, CBS, etc.  Now I get where they are coming from, as the U.S. lies frequently.  But so do other governments.  This reveals a total misunderstanding of what journalism is.  I seem to remember this same tripe about the USSR.  These people only sometimes call themselves ‘Marxists.’  Most of them are just post-Leftists and practice the anti-imperialism of fools.  Goddamn facts again.

Then there are the trolls and insulters.  People that post pictures of their leftist heroes, guillotines, hammers and sickles, red stars, AK-47s and make short, snotty and factless comments based on their opinions.  Like Twitter© or Facebook© is their version of Das Capital.  Signs = Signification = Not. Childish nonsense seems to be their forte.  Then the people who don’t understand subtleties, nuance and contradictions.  As if 1=1 all the time.  Infantile leftism is full of this.  Everyone to the right is ‘fascist’ just as everyone to the left of the Republicans is a Communist.  They are mirror images of each other.  And have I mentioned the guillotine was used to execute Vietnamese Viet Minh, while England, Germany and the Nazi’s used it on enemies too.

Or the guy that ignores the pedophiles in the Republican Party (their very own QAnon scandals) by pointing out that Biden squeezes women and sniffs their hair.  In Minnesota, the GOP has just melted down at the top because of a ‘sex trafficking’ scandal.  The hypocrisy is delicious.  Trump himself is a convicted rapist and an unconvicted 'pussy grabber.'  Right, but missing the point, using ‘whataboutism’ to ignore one party or the other. "But what about…?” could be used endlessly, as if hypocrisy is new.  Or the guy who thinks Nancy Pelosi is closest to the fascist movement in the U.S., not elements of the Republican Party.  And that the history of Germany, Italy and Spain, where the the corporations enabled the fascists, mean nothing to ‘modern’ hip fascism. As if Mussolini is the trusted expert on fascism.  Bah with your history and facts and theory!

Conspiracy thinking is a vain attempt at immediately understanding things that are not obvious, or sometimes too obvious and need to be twisted towards your political agenda. It is a 'secret knowledge' that makes the bearer feel smart or 'in the know.' Or course some conspiracies are real, but that requires an accumulation of facts. The problem with all of this is that outside ‘the choir’ this cheap thinking won’t play.  You are not going to convince non-leftist proletarians by relying on clichés, conspiracies, weird shit or simple-minded approaches. No matter how much you bellow. Unless you think people are clueless… which some are.   Please seek them out.

 A lot of these leftists get their information from the same 3 podcasts on You Tube© or some narrow platform.  Or they guess.  Rarely is it from a book by a leftist journalist, academic, historian or Marxist.  Sometime it is from an ‘anti-war’ hack parading as a leftist – I’m talking about you, Max Blumenthal – a guy who Aaron Mate could no longer work with.  Or triumphalist pro-Russian ‘military experts’ like Scott Ritter.  Or unfunny idiot Jimmy Dore hosting MAGA 'Communist' Jason Hinkle.  MAGA 'communism' is the U.S. equivalent of 'national socialism' by the way.  It's a new front for the Larouchies.  It is not entertaining to watch libertarian 'leftists' head to the right.

If this all reminds you of certain clueless Republicans, QAnon or fascistic people you might have run into, you’d be right.  Many times it is fueled by fear, paranoia and mistrust of everything.  Notice the isolated mental state of those promoting it.   Some organizations foster this kind of groupthink, sometimes it is just naïveté, lazy thinking or personal arrogance; sometimes it is pure bullshit and intended as such.  As if high school never ended. Well it has. 

Prior blog reviews on this issue, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms:  "conspiracy," "MAGA Communism," "QAnon," "3rd Position." 

Red Frog / July 23, 2024