I have also wondered if the occasional revelations of Israeli mutilations are a deliberate partial lifting of the mask to deliver a surreptitious threat to the Western populations as if to say, “Look at what we can do! So don’t get any ideas or you will be next!”
That female IDF soldiers are involved here compliments some of the more bizarre X tweets featuring what look like soft porn models dressed – partially i.e. semi-nude – in military gear accompanying juvenile bragging about the “Power of Israel”.
Re: Sheanah’s comment about media presentation of psychopaths, I would have said that the idolisation of psychopathy has been a recent thing but, considering the lineage of gangster movies, this worship of thugs goes back a long way. What might be significant is the new “normalisation” of psychopathy via e.g. the Dexter series. Back in the Cagney days the psycho was the rare exception but Dexter has the psycho as secret killer/“boy next door”. (Even an obvious predecessor like the Bloch/Hitchcock “Psycho” has a killer “boy next door” in an odd backwater location – and of course the blatant admission of psychopathy in the very title.) With Dexter the killer has truly moved next door. Even more to the point, the script and the direction are clearly aiming at causing the audience to sympathise with the central character. This is one of those cases where a common social awkwardness that everyone feels is easily aligned with murderous actions.
Re: the “communist” label being applied to the covid “response”, this was marketed as a selling point in the UK where there was a big implication that some kind of revolution had taken place and we were all now “Left”. I realise that this wouldn’t happen in the US – or at least not to the same degree. But it was precisely that “Leftist” spin on this “fight against covid” that seduced so many on the Left. Which is why those who opposed the covid narrative were branded “Rightists”, this being emphasised by the fact that the media cunningly allowed a certain (limited) amount of covid scepticism to be expressed openly on Right Wing channels. This shrewd manoeuvre was predictably seized on with glee by the new “Covid Left” who happily trumpeted the meme of “strange bedfellows” when anyone on the Left allied themselves with the aforementioned Right Wing channels. This led to a few sad naïve cases of a dissident happily “converting to the Right” by embracing some of the Rightist rhetoric e.g. Naomi Wolf.
The anti-communism rhetoric becomes so dispiriting that it’s easy to feel demoralised with the “anti-Covid” dissident sites. And this is where I noticed an odd phenomenon: every so often I would encounter a commenter who really did seem knowledgeable and perceptive and often very articulate and eloquent. But these commenters never lasted long. And I reckon they were intelligent enough to realise that there was no point in continuing their discourse amongst channels that were so inadequate in their perception.
And “inadequacy” is an inadequate word. I recently had an encounter on an Off-Guardian comment thread that was utterly appalling in the callous flippant sadism shown towards the Palestinians. After which I myself felt like adopting the withdrawal method. But this is what happens when you are having an exchange, which process shows that you implicitly show empathy for your interlocutor ... and then he says something so vile that you realise further debate would not be worthwhile. This fits in with John’s point about the appalling sadistic gloating over personal tragedies (cf. Dugin’s daughter) and the utter spiritual vacuum this illustrates.
One curious development is that the Right Wing view of the “demonization” of the world has a lot of resonance now considering the list of unbelievable psychotic sentiments now being uttered openly (cf. “It’s OK to rape children”). More and more I’m coming to realise the relevance of that Adorno quote (he was actually talking about psychoanalysis but it seems to be spilling over into external reality): “Only the exaggerations are true”.
I have also wondered if the occasional revelations of Israeli mutilations are a deliberate partial lifting of the mask to deliver a surreptitious threat to the Western populations as if to say, “Look at what we can do! So don’t get any ideas or you will be next!”
That female IDF soldiers are involved here compliments some of the more bizarre X tweets featuring what look like soft porn models dressed – partially i.e. semi-nude – in military gear accompanying juvenile bragging about the “Power of Israel”.
Re: Sheanah’s comment about media presentation of psychopaths, I would have said that the idolisation of psychopathy has been a recent thing but, considering the lineage of gangster movies, this worship of thugs goes back a long way. What might be significant is the new “normalisation” of psychopathy via e.g. the Dexter series. Back in the Cagney days the psycho was the rare exception but Dexter has the psycho as secret killer/“boy next door”. (Even an obvious predecessor like the Bloch/Hitchcock “Psycho” has a killer “boy next door” in an odd backwater location – and of course the blatant admission of psychopathy in the very title.) With Dexter the killer has truly moved next door. Even more to the point, the script and the direction are clearly aiming at causing the audience to sympathise with the central character. This is one of those cases where a common social awkwardness that everyone feels is easily aligned with murderous actions.
Re: the “communist” label being applied to the covid “response”, this was marketed as a selling point in the UK where there was a big implication that some kind of revolution had taken place and we were all now “Left”. I realise that this wouldn’t happen in the US – or at least not to the same degree. But it was precisely that “Leftist” spin on this “fight against covid” that seduced so many on the Left. Which is why those who opposed the covid narrative were branded “Rightists”, this being emphasised by the fact that the media cunningly allowed a certain (limited) amount of covid scepticism to be expressed openly on Right Wing channels. This shrewd manoeuvre was predictably seized on with glee by the new “Covid Left” who happily trumpeted the meme of “strange bedfellows” when anyone on the Left allied themselves with the aforementioned Right Wing channels. This led to a few sad naïve cases of a dissident happily “converting to the Right” by embracing some of the Rightist rhetoric e.g. Naomi Wolf.
The anti-communism rhetoric becomes so dispiriting that it’s easy to feel demoralised with the “anti-Covid” dissident sites. And this is where I noticed an odd phenomenon: every so often I would encounter a commenter who really did seem knowledgeable and perceptive and often very articulate and eloquent. But these commenters never lasted long. And I reckon they were intelligent enough to realise that there was no point in continuing their discourse amongst channels that were so inadequate in their perception.
And “inadequacy” is an inadequate word. I recently had an encounter on an Off-Guardian comment thread that was utterly appalling in the callous flippant sadism shown towards the Palestinians. After which I myself felt like adopting the withdrawal method. But this is what happens when you are having an exchange, which process shows that you implicitly show empathy for your interlocutor ... and then he says something so vile that you realise further debate would not be worthwhile. This fits in with John’s point about the appalling sadistic gloating over personal tragedies (cf. Dugin’s daughter) and the utter spiritual vacuum this illustrates.
One curious development is that the Right Wing view of the “demonization” of the world has a lot of resonance now considering the list of unbelievable psychotic sentiments now being uttered openly (cf. “It’s OK to rape children”). More and more I’m coming to realise the relevance of that Adorno quote (he was actually talking about psychoanalysis but it seems to be spilling over into external reality): “Only the exaggerations are true”.