That's a lot to digest, but I will. I liked your post not necessarily because I agree with it (I have to "digest " it first) but because it's a reasoned response that lays out an intellectual framework that helps me understand the Right better.
Class and identity are frequent themes for you. Were you a Marxist at one time? That's a sincere question. With your talk of narratives, class, movements and identity, your thought and writing remind me of what I used to read many years ago in Dissent, the democratic socialist journal, but with the polarities flipped. I eventually stopped reading it because the theoretical constructs that the far-left employed seemed artificial, outdated and detached from reality.
I have never been a marxist. I was raised in Venezuela and lived 14 years under Chavez regime. I saw a country that I loved disintegrate
because of Chavez and his leftist politics. A population that was unified in spite of the differences, in which poor people and wealthy people identified with each other because they all felt Venezuelans in spite of the differences, a country with incredible abundance of resources and good spirit broke down and became literally hell. All thanks to the discourse of divisiveness of Chavez.
Chavez explained that Venezuela was divided in 2. On one side was "the People", his supporters. Poor, mixed people who lived in the favelas. On the other side was anyone that seemed white, or who didnt live in a favela. He called them oligarchs. Escualids. Yankee lovers. According to him "The People" were poor and miserable because of the Escualids. The Escualids were robbing them of their wealth. Chavez would defeat the Escualids and save "The People".
The definition of who was considered "The People" changed with time from the poor to Chavez supporters. It was no longer useful to identify them with the poor because Chavez supporters became incredibly rich overnight. So now "The People" were only the ones who were with him, the ones who supported him.
He made people turn against one another as a means of control. The story is way too long for me to tell it here but in the end took away everything valuable from everyone, chavista or not. Families are divided and don't speak to one another just because some of them are chavistas and the others are not. He expropriated people's businesses and factories and shut them down. There is no food in Venezuela, once the most rich country in South America. There is no food. Or electricity. Or water. This is what socialism brings. And it was all a scam for Chavez and his close ones to rob the country blind and use it as a platform for drug trafficking. All backed by Castro.
Meanwhile, the left and the rest of the world kept applauding him and lauding him as a hero, including CNN, The Guardian, swedish media, socialist-chic celebrities like Naomi Campbell, Danny Glover and Sean Penn, and pretty much every socialist out there. Chavez was a hero who suppressed poverty, turned the country around, and brought justice to the people. The cynicism was at an all time high, but the media doesn't care about the truth. They care about ratings and their own political agenda. So pushing the image that Chavez was a savior was convenient to them at the time. I am guessing Chavez was paying top money for the PR campaign.
My life is completely different thanks to Chavez. My entire family is divided, not because some are chavistas and some aren't. None of us are. But we all had to flee to different countries. I haven't seen my parents in 6 years. I escaped Venezuela with $900 in my pocket, dollars that my uncle managed to smuggle into the country after the ban on currency exchanges was put in place. It was all my savings, 2 years saving every penny of my salary working at a TV station went into those $900 that I used to get out. And here I am.
Someone like me, someone who has been deeply affected by the Left, who has lived in their hellholes for 14 years, knows their tricks, their mindset, and how they work. I could spot them from 1000 miles. There is another model on this forum from Romania, she too suffered communism and she and I see eye to eye on these subjects. She knows them as well as I do.
Since I am a journalist I read a lot about this. I have read everything under the moon from Marx and Engels to Gramsci to the Frankfurt School to everything that came after. I have read about Fidel Castro and his political project, all the damage he has done to South America and how he operates. I keep seeing trends and patterns and I know why they do the things they do. I have lived through it.
I think you're attributing to "the left" much more unity, coordination and influence than in fact exists, or has existed since the 70s. For example, you say "...the left decided to further fracture these blocks into even smaller divides..." as if they decided to do this at one of their Central Committee meetings where the rubber-stamp vote was unanimous.
When I speak about "the left" I am talking about its ideological leaders, not the supporters. I am talking about the Frankfurt School and their Critical Theory which has taken over universities in Europe and in the US. If you read their texts, it isn't a secret. They had a project and they carried it out brilliantly. It is what the left calls "the long march through the Institutions" to subvert them ideologically and win from within. They did this. They took over faculties, started teaching their ideas to new generations of students, and these students became professors themselves, and continue to teach this worldview. They no longer have control over the direction this ideological subversion is taking, but those who raise to the top, those who know very well what the Left is seeking like Assata Shakur, for example, can continue to carry out the plan. The supporters, the students, the tumblrinas don't even realize what they are doing it or why, they are useful idiots. But there was someone behind the project all along. There was a lot of money poured into this from the URSS back in the day. I am sure I have posted this before on these forums but I will post it again because it is useful to understand where this is coming from.
There are many videos of Yuri Bezmenov and if you are interested you can look them up on Youtube. I would post the full interview but it is 1 hour long and I was already told nobody cares about this so much to spend 1 hour of their time watching a video so you will have to look it up yourself.
