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Guy is, sadly, absolutely right about this. I have added my own reflections below.
Remember
When James Hansen was a Legitimate Scientist?
I
have some friends that I have known for at least 25 years. During
that time we have largely made common ground about neo-liberalism and
various (usually) Tory governments and the harm they have wreaked.
We
would get together, perhaps twice a year over coffee and brunch. In
recent years I would try to share what I knew about the oncoming
abrupt climate change train wreck. I can’t quite express it but the
group would heave a collective sigh of relief and change the subject
of conversation onto some “safe” subject (far from the robust
conversations of previous years).
Then
along came the 2016 US (and concurrent NZ) election and the Donald J.
Trump presidency and the subsequent Russiagate insanity (along with
everything that came, and comes along with it).
I
have always had a rather singular (and semi-Tolstoyan) view of Trump.
It has almost seemed that he was 'heaven-sent' (NOT “Kremlin-sent)
to bring about the collapse of the American empire and America, so
insane is everything in the American polity.
“If
Trump didn’t exist someone would have had to invent him”
The
person who comes closest to expressing this insanity (more so than
even the angry words of Paul Craig Roberts) is James Howard Kunstler
whose columns I enjoy reading.
But
this is too complicated for those that get their “information”
from the NZ media, BBC with the occasional “daring” dive into
al-Jazeera.
My
view means I am SUPPORTING the yellow-haired one.
In
the liberal mindset if you point out FACTS that are demonstrably
correct (such as, Trump originally wanted detente with Russia (which
is a sensible thing unless you are certifiably insane) or there is an
ongoing coup against Trump who, unless you buy into the Russiagate
insanity, was (whether you like it or not) fairly elected in a
country that has probably not had a free and fair election without
fraud since at least the year 2000.
Somehow
in the liberal viewpoint a piece of what Chomsky calls “institutional
analysis”, something that is eminently provable and even objective
is misread as support for the thing they fear most.
Getting
back to our friends, I should have read the signs. Every bit of news
would be met by one with a furrowing of the eyes, “that is
terrible” or (increasingly rarely) “that is good”.
I
am highly irritated by this extreme binary thinking in the political
and geopolitical arena.
I
endeavour to stay with the WHAT IS rather than WHAT SHOULD BE - that
much I have got from Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Those
erstwhile “reasonable” and broad-minded people are being rendered
insane by their attachment to binary thinking “WHAT SHOULD BE”
Their
“WHAT SHOULD BE” is being shattered with every day, with every
headline.
The
only way to avoiding this is to take refuge in the daily tosh that is
thrown up by RNZ and the likes.
There
are two possible responses - either retreat into anger against those
who upset comfortable beliefs.or
retreat into complete delusion.
Personally,
I think people have the right to be as deluded as they like and hold
whatever views they like so long as they don’t try and fob that
onto me, especially
if they have no evidence apart from what is going on in their head
and
most especially
if they are aggressively trying to persuade me of their delusions.
I
have something concrete in mind. If it did not bother me so
much I would not mention it. But I have to speak my mind and this is
my forum for doing so.
I
went to a meeting last weekend with our friends full of trepidation
of what might occur, even to the extent of bringing my own car keys
in the case of needing to make a quick getaway.
This
arose from the other friend, (Jim I will call him) without
provocation accused me of “colluding” with the Right Ring and
almost walked out of the meeting in a cafe.
This
was,I have to point out BEFORE the events of the March 15 shooting in
Christchurch and the whole new government agenda.
So,
having resolved to restrict my conversation to “safe” topics I
ended up with Bob (not his real name) one-on-one in an adjoining
dining room and the conversation seemed quite OK so I felt quite safe.
A
small alarm bell went off in the middle of all of this when I heard
“Putin is a fascist” (I certainly was not going to ask for
clarification!).
Quite
suddenly (or so it seems to me) the conversation took a slightly
strange turn. I was now being told that a lot of things were
happening in the world ( back-handed confirmation of what I had being
talking about, about abrupt climate change, economic collapse etc.)
I
was suddenly being told that NONE of this mattered (sic) and it did
not matter what happened to humanity. I was being told that the ONLY
thing that mattered was EMOTION and that the problem was “emotional
dysfunctron”
And
then, suddenly this all switched to the “emotional dysfunction”
of Trump and how Putin was a “fascist”. At the base of this, it
seems, was Putin’s objective assessment that liberalism in the West
had failed.
I
did not try to argue other than asking if he had read the interview
or listened to Putin in his own words. No, came the response because
he KNEW.
The
accusation was the “proof”
I
just said I thought it was a good idea to listen to the original
source.
I
also said that I really did not want to have this conversation and
sat for several minutes while this turned into a threatening (for me)
HARANGUE.
The
more I retreated into silence wondering where I could hide the more
aggressive it became.
Finally,I
made the excuse of needing a glass of water and fled to the kitchen
where the others were.
And
I would not return until there were others in the room.
***
To
me his
indicates a kind of “virus” that is affecting previously decent
people who were tolerant and reasonable who might have in the past
have said “I
disagree with you but I will defend your right to say it.. That
is behind us.
This
is what happens to people who have bought into some sort of ideal
image of what they would like to see that has more in common with
what is happening in their own heads than anything else.
When
the ideal world they have created in their own heads has collapsed
the “liberal” veneer of tolerance evaporates and they are
overtaken by a kind of insanity.
There
is a relatively small.number of people (and for some reason Stephen
Cohen comes to mind) who are neither Right nor Left but simply
objective observes but have been preposterously identified by the
liberal “Left” as Kremlin agents and the like.
They
are identified by the very people who are full of anger and hatred as
“purveyors of hate speech”.
This
has reached its most preposterous and illogical conclusion with
Facebook's new “community standards” where they have modified
their standards on “threats on people’s lives” to say it is
intolerable so
long as they’re
directed against “dangerous” individuals or organisations, or
someone accused (but not convicted) of a crime.
As
if to underline all this I have become privy to a story about how one
person betrayed the openness of one person's feeling about climate
change just to defend their own inner world they have created for
themselves.
Unfortunately,
we are going to see more and more of this and it is going to get
very ugly for those of us that uphold the truth as we see it.
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