Saturday, December 5, 2020

THE CULT OF THE VICTIM

 

On March 15, 2019 a gunman opened fire on worshipers at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, killing 50 and wounding around as many. Survivors of gunshot wounds often have traumatic injuries that require multiple surgeries and leave them severely disabled for life. Before embarking on his rampage, the alleged gunman broadcast over the internet a "manifesto" outlining the motive for his deed.

In his manifesto, the alleged perpetrator claimed to have had "brief contact" with "Knight Justiciar" Anders Breivik, the convicted Norwegian mass murderer, and to have taken "true inspiration" from Breivik's "2083" manifesto. Indeed, the Christchurch massacre would fit the definition of a copycat crime in terms of motive, manifesto and mass murder.

Breivik plagiarized approximately 15,000 words of his manifesto from a pamphlet on "Political Correctness" by William S. Lind. In turn, the alleged Christchurch killer "plagiarized" his deed from Breivik. On his March 17 traditionalRIGHT webcast, Lind spent a little over 16 minutes talking about the Christchurch rampage. Not surprisingly, neither he nor his interlocutors mentioned the Oslo precedent.

So what did Lind say about the Christchurch terror attack?  Did Lind take moral responsibility for the consequences -- even unintended -- of his words?

Lind's first observation was to caution that there was much that remained unknown about the attack. He then criticized "the establishment media rushing to judgment" by reporting that it was a right-wing hate crime. Then he launched into speculation -- "I only say possible no idea at this point" -- that the alleged attacker had been converted to Sunni Islam during his travels in Pakistan and that the attack on the mosques was "actually part of the Sunni-Shiite war" and that "it would make sense in many ways for him to try to blame this on the right because of course who's leading the opposition to Islam in the Western countries?"

It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

The "second thing that immediately jumped out" at Lind was "why in the Hell are there mosques in New Zealand to begin with?" This remark evoked appreciative laughter from his co-hosts, Brent and John. The real problem, according to Lind, was allowing Muslims to come to Western countries, or, if they are allowed to come, allowing them to build mosques.

Lind then expounded for three minutes on the unrelenting persecution of Christians in Islamic countries and the disregard of the establishment media toward "church bombings and mass murders -- those get a paragraph or two in the same papers that splash this [Christchurch] across the headlines on the front page with the biggest type." 

According to Lind, these atrocities are "happening all the time in Africa":
We have had Christians worshiping on a Sunday morning suddenly the doors of their church are barred and it's set on fire by Muslims. These don't even make the New York Times. Remember the Times's real slogan is "all the news that fits we print." So this [Christchurch shootings] fit their narrative of evil Christianity -- evil white males, evil right-wing etc. The mass murder of Christians by Islamics doesn't fit the narrative so, okay, doesn't exist and this by the way is exactly what the President and his supporters means by fake news.
So the murder of 50 people by a gunman in New Zealand was "fake news" because it fit a supposed MSM "narrative." After discounting media coverage of the Christchurch attack, conjecturing about an alternative scenario and objecting to Muslim presence in Western countries and lack of media coverage of atrocities committed against Christians, Lind turned his attention to the strategic disaster of the attack. 

For this analysis, he assumed the "current narrative" of a right-wing, anti-Islamic attack. From that perspective, Lind expressed sympathy for the killer's alleged motivation, "from what we're being told now were inspired by this guy's reaction to seeing Islamics all over France -- well, that's an understandable reaction [laughter]." Let's unpack that logic: according to Lind, it is an "understandable reaction" for someone to commit mass murder because he didn't like seeing so many Muslims in France. 

Nevertheless, Lind was eager to advise "our colleagues on the right [that] it's important to understand why actions like this actually work against us." 

In other words, the "understandable reaction" of mass murder is a public relations mistake.

Lind's analysis of the strategic inaptness of this particular kind of "leaderless resistance" action relies on his theory of "fourth generation warfare" and with the "cult of the victim" that he attributes to Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs, "what we know as cultural Marxism or political correctness":
All Marxism is loser worship. It's if you're successful, if you're a builder, if you're a producer, if you're out there doing great things, you're evil, you're a capitalist, you're a member of the bourgeoisie, you're an exploiter, you're a landlord etc., you deserve a firing squad or the gulag. If you're a complete loser who produces nothing you know you're only a taker, you're, you're always defeated, then you're a moral hero and in the climate that we now live in where cultural Marxism sets the tone throughout much of the world the highest status you can achieve is victim.
Why "loser worship" makes this kind of "leaderless resistance" violence strategically disastrous for the right is left unspoken by Lind. My interpretation of what Lind is getting at here but not clearly articulating is that the attacks will evoke sympathy for the victims and thus elevate their status. 

But the real victims here, according to Lind and his colleagues, are the young, white heterosexual Christian men -- such as Breivik and the Christchurch terrorist -- driven to violence by the pervasive cultural Marxist oppression:
...so many lost young men that feel like they have no future we're not allowed to have our own spaces anymore as like white Christian European people without having to have without foreigners coming in here...  
...we can't speak out against any of this without censorship or losing your job or something and it's driving people mad...   
...this feeling of oppression where you can't say what you think about anything because because certain viewpoints have effectively been outlawed... 
...more and more men young men particularly -- and this by the way, Brent, is happening in many parts of the world -- are finding themselves with no prospects if in this country they're white Christian men, heterosexual. They are considered somehow evil. Again they're the old equivalent of the capitalists and landlords under the old economic Marxism. They're inherently evil and they can't do anything without women but they can't do anything with women because if they displeased a woman she could immediately claim sexual harassment and he's guilty until proven innocent and the rage is just building and building and building and because of the way the internet fosters leaderless resistance I'm afraid you're right, Brent, we are going to see more of this but on our side we need to understand it is strategically disastrous.
Does your head hurt trying to follow Lind's "logic"? That is the point. It is not logic but a propaganda technique that relies on the listener/reader's conditioning to assume that what they are hearing/reading and trying to follow is a logical argument. Jacques Ellul gave a concise description of the technique Lind employs:
Propaganda by its very nature is an enterprise for perverting the significance of events and of insinuating false intentions. There are two salient aspects of this fact. First of all, the propagandist must insist on the purity of his own intentions and at the same time, hurl accusations at his enemy. But the accusation is never made haphazardly or groundlessly.* The propagandist will not accuse the enemy of just any misdeed, he will accuse him of the very intention that he himself has and of trying to commit the very crime that he himself is about to commit. He who wants to provoke a war not only proclaims his own peaceful intentions but also accuses the other party of provocation. He who uses concentration camps accuses his neighbor of doing so. He who intends to establish a dictatorship always insists that his adversaries are bent on dictatorship. The accusation aimed at the other's intention clearly reveals the intention of the accuser.
*Because political problems are difficult and often confusing, and their import not obvious. the propagandist can easily present them in moral language -- and here we leave the realm of fact, to enter that of passion. Facts, then, come to be discussed in the language of indignation, a tone which is always the mark of propaganda. 
Lind's cult of the victim enlists young, white, heterosexual Christian men driven mad by having their future -- their rightful prospects as successful builders, producers, capitalists, landlords and doers of great things -- stolen from them by losers. They just can't catch a break! Even when they go out a shoot a bunch of those losers, it is the losers who get elevated as high-status victims in today's cultural Marxist climate instead of the real victims, those meritorious young, white, heterosexual Christian, dispossessed males who deserve to be successful but have been cheated out of their victory because the system has been rigged by those inferiors who deserve to lose.

"We're all victims. Everybody here. All these thousands of people here tonight. They're all victims. Every one of you." -- Trump

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this insightful post. Many in the U.S. used to ask how did the Germans fall under the spell of Hitler and wonder why, but now 52% of us we see how a populist leader that promises a resurgence and promotes the people as a victim based on fear of the other can impact us here too. The election was a victory - barely, but much damage has been done and we must remain vigilant and steadfast in defense of our wonderful country even while we work to improve it and strive to live up to its finest ideals.

reason said...

We seem to be living in a post-rationality age.

I think in a way global warming is to blame. People grew up with a belief in material advance that now is being seen, not just as unattainable, but in many way undesirable. People are in a deep denial stage of grieving. In many parts of the world.

Sandwichman said...

reason,

And not only global warming. It is is now easier to imagine the end of [any good thing] than to imagine the end of [any bad thing].

Anonymous said...

Are you employed/paid by them, or do CCP operators have something on you/extortion?

Reader said...

I began to read this essay then looked up "cultural Marxism" because I had no idea what such an expression could mean. At this point I stopped reading. I do not think 1 in 1,000 people could explain the expression, and I wish I had never noticed it. Anti-Semitism is horrible, horrible, horrible but fortunately I have never known any such person. I can not relate to such awful madness.

Sandwichman said...

Reader,

I can guarantee that you have known anti-semites, although you may not have known they were anti-semites. You seem to be offended by the fact this posts criticizes something that offends you. Sorry, can't help that.

Anonymous, the second,

The CCP offered half a billion but I held out for $500,000,001.49 because it was dollar-forty-nine day. Needless to say, they walked away. So are you a fan of the Oslo terrorist or of the Christchurch terrorist? Asking for a friend.

Reader said...

Sandwichman,

You are right and I am too sensitive and wrong. I read the entire post and learned much. Anti-Semitism is very, very frightening and troubling to me and I do not know even how to study it.

Thank you for this post and response.

Reader said...

Sandwichman,

I am sorry you are being bashed by the above bashers. This post was important, even though difficult for me.

Reader said...

Thanks for deleting the malicious "comments."

I learned much from the post, even though I found the post frightening.

Fred C. Dobbs said...

White House Offers $916 Billion Stimulus Proposal, Cutting Jobless Benefits

NY Times - December 8

WASHINGTON — Jump-starting negotiations with days to spare, the White House on Tuesday offered Democrats a $916 billion pandemic stimulus proposal that would meet their demand to provide some relief to state and local governments and include liability protections for businesses that have been a top priority of Republicans.

The offer from Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, to Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the first time since November’s elections that the Trump administration has engaged directly in talks on Capitol Hill about how to prop up the nation’s flagging economy. It came as lawmakers raced to reach a deal on another round of coronavirus relief before they conclude this year’s session, now expected to happen next week.

The plan does not include a proposed revival of $300 weekly enhanced unemployment benefits, though it would extend other federal unemployment programs set to expire in the coming weeks. Instead, it would include another, smaller round of direct payments to Americans, amounting to $600 per person.

The original $2.2 trillion stimulus law enacted in March distributed a round of $1,200 stimulus checks and established the enhanced unemployment benefits at $600 a week through July, which President Trump later extended at $300 a week for most workers. The proposal put forward by Mr. Mnuchin would not address the lapsed benefit and would halve the one-time payment. ...

---

Here’s why economists support more stimulus

NY Times - David Leonhardt - December 3

Independent economists overwhelmingly favor the passage of more stimulus money before the end of the year — and the prospects for such a bill seem to be improving.

Democratic leaders in Congress yesterday signaled their openness to a bipartisan $908 billion stimulus package. Democrats would prefer a bigger package, like the $3 trillion bill that the House passed in May. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, released a statement saying that the bipartisan plan should become “the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.”

The next move is up to Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans, some of whom have previously supported a $500 billion bill. There are political reasons that both sides want to appear responsive to Americans’ economic pain: The Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5 will determine which party controls the Senate.

The economy already seems to have slowed in recent weeks, as virus caseloads have risen. And the situation will probably worsen if Congress does not pass another stimulus. Many provisions enacted since the spring are set to end on Dec. 31. ...

Fred C. Dobbs said...

NYT: ... In a statement issued after his conversation with the speaker on Tuesday, Mr. Mnuchin offered little detail other than his intent to offset the cost of the package in part by repurposing $429 billion in funds from earlier legislation and using unspent funds from a popular federal program for small businesses that lapsed this year.

The proposal emerged as a bipartisan group of moderate lawmakers was meeting virtually to work toward an agreement on the details of its $908 billion compromise plan. It was unclear how Mr. Mnuchin’s proposal would affect discussions on that package, which Democratic leaders on Tuesday said “are the best hope for a bipartisan solution.”

The two provisions Mr. Mnuchin singled out as part of his offer — what he called “robust” liability protections for businesses, schools and hospitals, and funds for state and local governments — have been the largest sticking points in efforts to reach a compromise.

The administration’s proposal also included funds for vaccine distribution and the revival of the Paycheck Protection Program, the small-business loan program. ...

Fred C. Dobbs said...

As Trump Rails Against Loss, His Supporters Become More Threatening

NY Times - December 8

With a key deadline passing Tuesday that all but ends his legal challenges to the election, President Trump’s frenzied campaign to overturn the results has reached an inflection point: Certified slates of electors to the Electoral College are now protected by law, and any chance that a state might appoint a different slate that is favorable to Mr. Trump is essentially gone.

Despite his clear loss, Mr. Trump has shown no intention of stopping his sustained assault on the American electoral process. But his baseless conspiracy theories about voting fraud have devolved into an exercise in delegitimizing the election results, and the rhetoric is accelerating among his most fervent allies. This has prompted outrage among Trump loyalists and led to behavior that Democrats and even some Republicans say has become dangerous.

Supporters of the president, some of them armed, gathered outside the home of the Michigan secretary of state Saturday night. Racist death threats filled the voice mail of Cynthia A. Johnson, a Michigan state representative. Georgia election officials, mostly Republicans, say they have received threats of violence. The Republican Party of Arizona, on Twitter, twice called for supporters to be willing to “die for something” or “give my life for this fight.”

“People on Twitter have posted photographs of my house,” said Ann Jacobs, the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, who alerted her neighbors and the police about the constant threats. She said another message mentioned her children and said, “I’ve heard you’ll have quite a crowd of patriots showing up at your door.”

Mr. Trump himself has contacted numerous Republican state officials, pressing them to help him overturn the election he clearly lost. He has subjected others to repeated public shamings, lambasting governors to take action they are not legally allowed to take to keep Mr. Trump in power.

But absent a single significant victory in his dozens of lawsuits — and with a key defeat delivered by the Supreme Court on Tuesday — the president’s crusade is now as much a battle against the electoral process itself, as he seeks to cast doubt on free and fair elections and undermine Joseph R. Biden Jr. before he takes the oath of office.

“There is long-term damage when this kind of behavior is normalized,” Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona, said on Twitter. “It is not normal, and elected Republicans need to speak out against it.” ...

Sandwichman said...

Fred,

Is it too much to ask that you even attach a few words at the beginning of your cut and pastes to indicate why you think posting them here is relevant even though they are utterly off topic?

Fred C. Dobbs said...

If you find it irrelevant, feel
free to delete it forthwith.

Your idea of relevance is no
doubt much better than mine.

Sandwichman said...

If you leave it to me to delete, I will just have to delete them all without regard to whether they are relevant.

Fred C. Dobbs said...

You are too much of a control freak
to be dictating relevancy, as far
as I am concerned. I'll try to
avoid posting on your threads.

Anonymous said...

https://twitter.com/SerkanTheWriter/status/1336416695779389440

Serkan Öztürk aka Steve Stönersön @SerkanTheWriter

Will the rejects at @SkyNewsAust be broadcasting the news the official NZ Govt royal commission report into the Christchurch Massacre has found that White Supremacist Sky News host Lauren Southern played a leading role in radicalising terrorist Brenton Tarrant???

Of course not

4:05 PM · Dec 8, 2020

Anonymous said...

Sandwichman:

I accidently found this tweet and assumed you would think it important:

https://twitter.com/SerkanTheWriter/status/1336416695779389440

Serkan Öztürk aka Steve Stönersön @SerkanTheWriter

Will the rejects at @SkyNewsAust be broadcasting the news the official NZ Govt royal commission report into the Christchurch Massacre has found that White Supremacist Sky News host Lauren Southern played a leading role in radicalising terrorist Brenton Tarrant???

Of course not

4:05 PM · Dec 8, 2020

Anonymous said...

Sandwichman,

Hopefully, you will find the tweet I posted.

Sandwichman said...

Anonymous,

I didn't find a reference to Lauren Southern in the report.

https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/download-report/download-the-report/