Jonathan Cook Two camps

I like Jonathan Cook, and I hate seeing the unsurprising (Very British Coup) hatchet job being done on Corbyn. So this article rang two bells.

I like Jonathan Cook for his links with JfJfP, and because of my contact with them I resolved potential antisemitic issues by studying these 6 tenets - I spent a long time on those tenets and it made things clear. My worst tendency to resent Jews was the power of the Jewish bankers and people like Sheldon Adelson who I had thought was a Hollywood media mogul. But these people are 1% who also happen to be Jews.

Another issue was that of zionism, and it is the intentional obfuscation on this issue that is being used to damage Corbyn. Firstly I believe that Jews have a right to a homeland as do Kurds and others. Because of the holocaust and the desire to destabilise the Middle East as Arabia, history enabled the formation of Israel. Zionists are also a mixed bag but the more powerful and hawkish are those who are working for Eretz Israel; it is the influence of these Zionist Jews which ignores UN declarations and who are carrying out expansionist policies in Palestine. There are people within Israel and organisation like JfJfP who fight against this. Putting it simplistically a powerful Jewish elite are promoting the identity of Zionism with being Jewish, so that when the Israeli government is criticised for expansionism they are promoting the notion that this is antisemitic. These Jewish elite have so much influence within the UK that the media and right-wing Labour are creating sufficient smoke about Corbyn being antisemitic that it is affecting some of his voters.

I first noted Jonathan Cook over a blog he wrote concerning the American election. He was taking an anti-neoliberal position and so said there was little difference between supporting Clinton and Trump (my blog here). Whilst there is little difference I am fairly certain Clinton would not have moved the embassy to Jerusalem - I haven't seen a retraction, there might be one.

This article does not get into the Corbyn issue much but focusses on two camps - it was these I wanted to look at. In his terms there are those who trust against those who don't within the 99%. And he says these are different to left-right. There is a lot wrapped up in this. First of all let's examine the traditional right-wing supporters (excluding the deplorables whose voices have increased with Trump and Brexit). Numerically deplorables are not large, and do not make up the majority of right-wing support in the US or UK. The majority of the right in the past have been traditionalists, people who have accepted that Tory/Republican parties would provide more stable countries. My middle-class background contained many of these people. They were not politically well-informed, were not interested in political discussion, and associated change with young people and instability; therefore their mortgages would be threatened. I contend although I have no demographic analysis to substantiate this that such members of the middle-class outnumbered the deplorables as right-wing voters. I strongly believe that Tory voters had faith that the Tories would handle the economy in such a way that their lifestyles would not be affected - or affected minimally.

These people would be members of Jonathan's trusting camp, but I have never believed that these people trusted the Tory governments - only that such governments would enact policies that protected their lifestyles.

In terms of those who don't trust, they have traditionally been on the genuine left - the Marxist left. Marxism clearly analysed that our economy was designed for and benefitted the bourgeois, and the system has now morphed into neoliberalism that benefits the 1%. The genuine left attempted to mobilise a 99% of class unity (99% or proletariat), but fell far short of this. Their organisation produced a unity of the genuine left and liberals, most of who did not accept class analysis and did not accept that neoliberalism. Many of these "left voters" trusted in the system, thought it was a bit errant and hoped that with a few votes and people being a bit nicer things would get better. I tend to join in with the alt-right and call these people snowflakes - I know I shouldn't.

I don't know a lot about deplorables. They were always around and I had to run from them or I would get hit if they listened to me - when I was young and drinking. When I grew there was the National Front but their spokesperson was Enoch Powell and later Norman Tebitt - both right-wing Tories. Did these people trust the system? I don't know, and I never stopped to ask.

I left the UK in 1993 and did not keep up with politics until Occupy. When I first got into Occupy I was attracted to Alex Jones and libertarianism a little. Why? Because both of these approaches distrusted the system and questioned. Back in 2011 Alex Jones was loud and obnoxious enough that I rejected him but his views were not as extreme and crazy as they are now. I even tried to join Prison Planet to get into discussion but was not allowed - don't know why.

Distrust of the system is now prominent with many MAWPs, I don't know how that has happened. Again I have no analysis but I suspect there are more on the right who distrust than on what is now a Broad Left that is predominantly liberal. Aspects of the analysis of the Genuine Left has been appropriated by these right-wingers. The influence of the dark money network in promoting these right-wing positions has been successful to such an extent that some snowflakes would dismiss my positions. My positions are grounded in Marxism-Leninism whose appropriate term for liberals on the left is opportunists - prime example Tony Blair.

The real question is whether there is any mileage in terms of unity in adopting Cook's description of two camps. In the end I think there isn't but we must be flexible. The alt-right has taken this distrust and manipulated it into an attack on government per se. It does not see government as 1%-puppets but treats government as if it is making the decisions. It is a positive step to distrust government - even though it is voted for in our corrupted democracy, but it becomes negative if the puppetry is not recognised.

But the alt-right takes this distrust further because it is funded by the dark money network. It focusses on egos - MAWPs. It focusses on a limited concept of freedom that appeals to these egos, and ignores the compassion that has all humanity as its focus. If there is no context of ending suffering for all, then this distrust just leads to egos turning in on themselves entrenching their egotism. Blind faith in a corrupted system is dangerous, distrust opens up potential but if that potential is diverted into negative egotism it is not a step forward.

These egos refuse to accept that they have been conditioned. Trust is clearly a conditioned response as it just benefits the 1%; distrust when it is focussed on government and fails to see the way the economic system is setup is equally conditioned. We need to move beyond conditioned mindsets, distrust can help start this. We need to move beyond ego, but on the alt-right the pandering to this ego is unlikely to achieve such a movement. However distrust is a step beyond blind faith.

Again the political is pointing to the personal. Distrust can be the beginning of a deep enquiry that can become pathtivism if compassion can take us beyond ego - especially the ego of the MAWPs on the alt-right whose dark money investment only promotes the 1%. But to seek an alliance based on distrust is not a way forward because the dark money focusses that distrust on government and not on the 1% and compassion.

Distrust might be a beginning but only if it can be guided in the right direction. Seek compassion first, Jonathan, then pathtivism can begin.