Over the last 5 years I have increasingly found myself for the first time wanting to disassociate myself with the “left”. A myriad of reasons has caused this, but principal among them has been its association with the extreme “woke agenda”.
What I have now come to realize and indeed intend to fight for is the fact that wokeism and leftism are not at all the same, and socialists need to start fighting back.
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What is Wokesism?
Starting originally in the early 2010’’s its origins lay in the African-American community with its original meaning being “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. At some point it was then coopted by as Bill Bar puts it “hairy legged white ladies” to become the monster that it is today.
In essence it has morphed into the belief that almost anyone can claim some kind of victim status, whether real, or as is sadly the case invented and that nearly all the ills can be thrown at the door of white heterosexual males, who it is usually opined should pay some form of reparations.
Now, whilst some of these causes do indeed originate and are supported by socialism anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of politics will see that not only has wokeism overtly diverged from leftist socialism, but worse still it has diverged to such a degree that it is now an extremist ideology akin to fascism that needs to be destroyed.
Key tenets of Wokeism
While lacking a central authority, save perhaps the Democratic Party there are many key tenets that encompass the woke agenda. In no particular order these are identity politics, extreme racial nationalism through organizations such as Black Lives Matter, victimhood/blame culture and most recently and vehemently issues surrounding gender identity.
Each and every one of these flash points has either little, or nothing to do with actual social justice issues and perhaps more worryingly is being corrupted by what is essentially a warped corporate agenda.
Why identity politics has no place in leftist discourse
Identity politics are whereby groups based around gender, race, sexuality, or technically class band together to promote a political ideology. Doing this has produced many radical agendas that have been able to extol extreme pressure on national governments and world opinion under the guise of “the left”
True leftism though is not about separating people, but by uniting them regardless of race, color, creed or sexuality for the greater good of mankind. It is equality, not victimhood and one upsmanship based around “who has suffered the most”.
Amusingly at times this has almost caused a wokeist paradox whereby a white male, supposedly the root of all evil can self identify as a woman and thus lambast the “white male heterosexual patriarchy”. Yes, people can box themselves into a victim group in order to claim oppression, even when it does not exist, yet still manage to trump common sense.
Extreme racial nationalism
Extreme racial nationalism can come in many forms, but is usually based around the “oppressed” people of the United States, which can include anyone not white. Principal proponents of this ideology have been the Black Lives Matter group, an organization since embroiled in allegations of extreme financial irregularities.
BLM began because of the horrendous death of George Floyd an African American at the hands of white police officers. This rightly drew protest and criticism, but quickly turned into an almost black supremacist group. Yes there is racism within America, but to call is systematic or institutionalized in a country where many African-Americans do indeed succeed is frankly disinformation and misdirection.
From a left-wing perspective, or indeed a statistical, or intelligent one the most deaths within the black community are from black on black crime, often related to drugs and gangs, causes the left should be fighting tooth and nail to stop, rather than not talking about it for fear of “racism”. This is plain and simple a class issue.
Another cause often promoted by these groups has been reparations for the victims of slavery, with a key retort often being “who will pay and who will get the money”. Slavery was obviously abhorrent, but it was far from invented by white people, but was and many times still is part of global culture. The transatlantic slave trade sadly and inconveniently involved Europeans purchasing slaves from black Africans, not merely stealing them.
And from a class point of view this makes total sense, slavery has rarely been about race, but about business and the exploitation of the poor. Slaves in the US undoubtedly had it terribly, but the lives of the white people in the workhouses of the UK at the time were barely better.
Sadly this has driven people towards movements such as “All Lives Matter” which conversely have been coopted by white racist nationalist groups. Yet while these black nationalist groups are considered “of the left” and often supported by white woke folk, make no mistake they exist in the same spectrum as white groups that we rightly call fascist.
This further fuels into the victimhood and blame culture that means that “nothing is your fault and everything is someone else’s”. This ignores the core problems we have and that is class struggle, something the poor conveniently forget as we fight among ourselves for the scraps.
Wokeism and the transgender question
In recent years the biggest hot potato has been that of transgender rights, often lumped in with the never ending acronym that is LGBTQTS+, but in essence it is its own very strange and paradoxical issue.
Firstly it should be mentioned that the true left were and always will be among the biggest supporters of gay rights as it pertains to personal freedom and equality. It does not pertain to what is happening with the extreme trans agenda now.
Socialists tend to be atheist and followers of science. The science says that there have been two sexes since time began. This is not to say that people with gender dysphoria do not deserve our respect and support, nor that sexuality indeed exists on a broad spectrum, but science says there are two sexes.
Sadly being transgender has become not only “cool”, but the source of ultimate victimhood. Quite ironically, although few in the woke see it as such – predominantly white men identifying as women have been allowed to steal the thunder from women in business, sport and many other facets of society. This is stealing opportunity and for all intents destroying the hard fought women’s rights that the the true left were paramount in championing and achieving.
How can Miss Jenna win woman of the year and Dylan Mulvaney get the right to advertise women’s products when we have women who can do this? This is woman face akin to black face and has no place in any ideology that claims to be left-wing.
And as for the un-reversable butchering of children, this should have no place in any ideology anywhere on the spectrum. For good reason we do not allow children to have sex, drive, or do a multitude of things because they are not mature enough. Why then do we allow them to pick a gender and mutilate their bodies?
This is an explosion waiting to happen that will undauntedly bear fruit in the not too distant future. This woke pseudo-left needs to ready for some serious recompense.
The misdirection of Wokeism
Probably the most important element of this from a class conscious level is the serious misdirection that wokeism has and is causing between the left, as well as who is really controlling this narrative and why.
In all of the “issues” we have so far mentioned it should be noted that class, the needs of the poor (of all races) and almost every tenet that the left used to stand for is non-existent from wokeist ideology. There is no call to action, no centralized authority and key to all of this zero action. In fact things have almost become a laughing stock, as the following clip – almost Monty Pythonesque confirms. Sadly this is no longer the left that stood down racism, but the one that is scared of words.
And who is controlling this narrative and why? As the recent furore with Bud Light has taught us this is either no longer a grassroots movement, or in fact never was, but is an agenda promoted and controlled not just by corporations, but the global capitalist elite.
This agenda, with Bud Light as a prime example has specifically sought to hurt and demonize working class people, the very people who should be the vanguard of any left-wing movement.
And why are big business in their own words “trying to force change of behaviors”? The reasons are of course myriad, but can also largely be summed up in that it is the age old art of misdirection.
Quite simply while people are arguing about stuff as stupid as trans bathrooms and whether reparations should be paid for incidents that happened hundreds of years ago the key issues that actually matter are point blank being ignored. No one questions black on black crime, or gun control, no one asks about the slavery in the Congo that powers our smartphones, and wars that people would usually protest against are noe being cheered on as they finance the military industrial complex
Essentially whilst everyone fights over scraps the rich are allowed to get richer, the plight of the poor gets worse and no one notices as true left-wing issues are simply and plainly ignored.
And it is for these reasons that the left needs to not only deny this extremist ideology, but fight it in exactly the same way that we did racism and fascism back when being left-wing actually had some meaning.