Lest We Forget?! We Forgot. Now, Fascism Is Here, Once Again

When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds – Watch Out!

By J. Todd Ring

With virtually all of the “left” and the liberals either silent in the face of an undeniable and blatant shift towards authoritarianism, or actively cheering for it, it is clear that both the liberals and the left have lost their minds.

Which makes me think of two strange oddities of left publications’ chosen names: Jacobin and The Young Turks. The Young Turks were a historical movement of violent, fanatical extremists, heavily funded by the elite of the British Empire, to destabilize and ideally collapse the rival Ottoman Empire, which it did, with marvelous success. The Young Turks were an echo of the Jacobins, who were the violent, fanatical extremists who took over the French Revolution after it had succeeded (the Jacobins were in reality counter-revolutionaries, as well as authoritarian zealots), and proceeded to launch the infamous Reign of Terror – which was not only a spectacle of atrocities on a grand scale, but which also guillotined all of the libertarian and democratic republican leaders of the revolution. They were so successful in their purge of all libertarian, republican and democratic leaders among the revolutionaries, that a power vacuum arose, which the dictator and self-proclaimed “emperor” Napoleon was quick to seize.

Considering that two of the most prominent news and commentary websites on the left today are named Jacobin and The Young Turks, makes one wonder a few things.

1. Are the writers and other contributors to these journals utterly ignorant of history?!

2. Do the presumably billionaire-funded publishers want to discredit the left, by associating it with its gravest mistakes from history?

3. Do powerful players seek to utilize naïve leftist, “progressive” and liberal groups to foster division and destabilization, in a classic game of divide and conquer, to advance their imperial strategy?

The answer to all three would seem to be, yes. I would say, if you are politically left, or a liberal, the last thing you should want, is to be associated with violent, fanatical extremists, or the names Jacobin or The Young Turks, which are precisely two such groups! How is this not patently obvious?

Then again, you would think that the rise of the Nazis and the Soviet Union never happened, with the zealous eagerness of the liberals and the left to repeat those grave mistakes of history, by repeating the slide into authoritarianism, as we are gleefully doing now.

I guess that an utter ignorance of history is nearly universal – including among “intellectuals”, journalists and activists of the liberals and the left. How very, very tragic, and sad. We can do better; and we must.

I will add one further note, which I have said before. The real left, the thinking left, has always been anti-authoritarian. Having any trace of confusion or ambivalence in that most critical regard, means you are radically out of touch with reality, utterly ignorant of history, anthropology, sociology and political-economy, and a danger and menace to society – no better than the far right, and perhaps even worse, because you are so damned smug in your presumed self-righteousness!

Learn your history, people, or be doomed to repeat it. And yes, we are repeating it now. This is Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union rolled into one big ugly ball of totalitarian dog vomit, which we are witnessing take over the world as we speak.

Fight the fascists! Not one another! And throw off any authoritarian tendencies you might have, as you would throw off shackles and chains, for that is precisely what they are – to us all.

Liberals and the left come out of a tradition of political philosophy that seeks to improve the human social condition, and that is not inherently a problematic attitude to take, if it is approached with a measure of caution, and above all, humility. But occasionally, the liberals and/or the left, lose their minds, and fall into a frenzy of messianic zealotry. That’s where we are now. Hold onto your hats, because the liberals and the left are on a bender. Things are going to get broken. People are going to get hurt. This is going to be ugly.

The billionaires who meet annually at Davos, at the World Economic Forum, who the leading business journal of the Western hemisphere, the Financial Times calls “the de facto world government”, have decided that freedom, constitutional democracy, national sovereignty and human rights are quaint notions, to be rid of. And the liberals and the left are cheerleading for the “new normal” of global authoritarian rule. The have lost their minds.

And yes, it is Remembrance Day. “Lest we forget”? We forgot. Now, we are facing fascism, as a result, once again.

J. Todd Ring,
November 11, 2021

Proud anarchist, left libertarian, and above all, staunch advocate for freedom, human rights, and constitutional democracy. (And no, that is no contradiction, but an intelligent separation of long term ideals, and immediate and present foundations, which cannot be lost, lest we are driven back, quite literally, into the dark ages.) Originally published on Substack.