It was not so long ago, on the venerable pages of 1EyedEeel, that those of us unfortunate enough to have landed on the left of the political spectrum were scolded for apparently celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. No, we said, we are not celebrating that murder. Instead, our point was that the canonization of Kirk was a means to avoid frank discussion of his actual words. We would not participate in canonizing such a divisive figure. No matter said our critics. The issue was stated to be that ‘the left’ were responsible for the Kirk shooting. This ‘fact’ showed ‘the left’ are "loonies", "cancerous", they killed Kirk "because of his beliefs", they are "losing their grip on reality", "showing their true colours" and "cannot accept contrarian views". Yes, receipts available if memory does not serve. Some actually HOPED for "civil war" and that 'lefties' would be "carted off to work camps". Others opined that "far left violence is becoming a trend [and they will] definitely not like what comes next". Well, I guess that last remark was prescient?
Political irony is a gap between ideals and reality. With all this Kirk-inspired defence of free speech, and the deploring of political violence in response to "contrarian beliefs", we on the loony left were asked to ignore two obvious contradictions coming our way. One, our free speech to NOT fall into normative line was self-evidently denied. Apparently, we could not walk and chew gum. In this case, oppose murdering based on disagreement with beliefs but also have our own evaluation that said we oppose canonizing someone we regard as possessing many noxious beliefs. Two, apparently leftists were prone to political violence and deserved violent retribution because political violence was wrong. It is not even possible to parody that one, it is so comically contradictory.
Anyway, now we all watch as US ICE murders a soccer mom in her car and a male nurse trying to assist a woman who was being set upon by ICE agents. Senior US politicians from Trump down on through VP Vance and Congressman like R. Fine, plus Trump’s loyal protection squadron in his administration (Noem, Miller, Hegseth etc), have set about blaming the murder victims for their fate. The soccer mom was called a domestic terrorist trying to use her car as a weapon, when she was shot twice in the body and once in the head. The ICE agent is heard saying “f***en b***h” after murdering her. MAGA is saying the soccer mom deserved it, apparently because women should not be challenging men. The nurse is being accused of sedition and for deserving to be shot, because he was carrying a (licensed) hand-gun on his person (so much for gun rights?) when half a dozen ICE agents piled on top of him on an icy road and shot him multiple times at point-blank range. An ICE agent is on video dancing and clapping moments after the nurse was murdered. The US Republican leadership and their MAGA support base are literally celebrating the murders.
Political irony is a gap between ideals and reality. Is there really any kind of substance to the idea that there is some ideological debate going on here? If everything that was said in those Kirk blogs is true, that free speech extends to free political speech and political action, that political violence in response to political disagreement is wrong, that trends toward violent retribution are abhorrent, where are all the blogs calling for action against the Trump Regime. The Trump Regime that is quite literally terrorizing and violently suppressing its own citizens?
Is there not some common humanity, unfortunately too often hidden behind vicious and pointless trolling of people, usually based on their identity differences, that isn’t screaming out that there is potentially something terrible both germinating and unfolding in the USA at this present time? If political irony is a gap between ideals and reality, when does reality intervene to say stop pretending that free speech and abhorrence of political violence can just be memes launched by the right against the left or the left against the right, and that they actually should mean something, regardless of partisan identification? The US Government is celebrating the murder of its own citizens by its own agents. We are beyond hypotheticals. They’re celebrating murder, FYI.
Replies
"Any intelligent people will realise what is happening is wrong and reminiscent of so much in human history."...true. But what is it reminiscent of? Spell it out old man, because the dumb and the young don't know their history. They need your help.
What is occurring in USA is remeniscent of and has many similarities with pre-war Germany.
Make Germany Great Again
Gold Randy Gold. Apathy and commentary like that in the bold is part of the problem.....I see NO intelligence in that comment sorry Poppa....
Parra Greg, Randy's joke was fine but I'm gonna go easy on Poppa here. Poppa is surely right to suggest we can all see some troubling overlaps with Nazi Germany? But I guess we do have to ask, and here Poppa can clarify, but is this the best time for ideas like middle ground? Can there be a middle ground with fascist state action that doesn't by default grant too much legitimacy to it right off the bat?
Left vs right doesn't matter. You only need half a brain to understand the difference between what's right and plain dumb. That's the difference.
....S̶u̶d̶e̶n̶t̶e̶n̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ Greenland has entered the chat....
Lebensraum, Randy, that's the best term for Trump's foreign policy. Greenland, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico ... means "living space". Fairly, obviously, problematic.
Chiefy, I think that's on the right path. Partisanship pushed to extremes creates this competing bubble worlds where it is claimed left and right can look at videos of ICE shooting a soccer mom and a nurse and say the scene just is what their partisan views determine. Yet that was the very condition that writers like Arendt signaled as totalitarianism. See her 1951 book Origins of Totalitsrianism. No common ground is admitted. Indeed, a citizenry unable to think there is common ground, only partisan realities, is the ideal subject for a fascist.
There has to be some truth to "this ICE shit is just wrong" if we think we share a common world?
Wired: The Instant smear campaign against Alex Pretti
"Within minutes of the shooting, the Trump administration and right-wing influencers began disparaging the man shot by a federal immigration"
The government is supposed to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. ICE is a government agency, performing the government's work. They are using force, where necessary, to remove illegal residents from the country. Nobody in the US gets to decide they are illegitimate and then resist ICE's use of force with their own.
Hi Poppa, some fair remarks, though I differ from you in two places.
One, I'm not sure if we differ so I ask as clarification. Do you think this is a "both sides" issue? Both Trump/MAGA and US left are equally complicit in these ICE executions of political opponents. I disagree. The situation is asymmetric from a causal perspective.
Two, you suggest it would be good if I were "in the middle". I respect why calls to be objective and in the middle are useful in times of high social conflict. Good people should want escalation, a tone reset, and a winding down of hostility. Maybe the idea that some can arbitrate from the middle might help. But there is a risk there that we get a normalization of extremism by claiming a dispute has a middle point from which an arbitrator can ask each camp to head towards. The point chosen if between each extreme is thought best if equidistant might simply mean dragging a less vicious position toward the more vicious position. So I actually don't think the middle ground is the right one in this case.
The correct position with regard to looming fascism is very far from it, as far as one can go
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next