I was perusing interesting articles this morning, as I usually do, when I began reading an article by John Feffer posted in Mint Press News and re-posted in The Greanville Post, both websites of which I support as sources of very perceptive articles on current issues. However, I was seriously dismayed and discouraged by reading Feffer's article. Thus I have refused to give its title and posting it, as I usually do, as an article because I don't want to give it any prominence.
Feffer's thinking in this article illustrates a number of shortcomings of educated people today in the US and probably in the rest of Western capitalist countries as well. Such thinking is the product of a capitalist oriented education that serves to exclude any social-economic class analysis about social and political issues. I view the way subjects are taught such as history, sociology, so-called political science, and even psychology as a necessary form of indoctrination under capitalist rule. This exclusion of any significant class analysis, of course, is another type of censorship so necessary to hide the ongoing criminal sins (exploitation, gross inequality, devastating wars, assaults on the environment, etc) perpetrated by capitalist ruling classes over the last few centuries. I see many signs of this thinking in Feffer's article. Let me explain.
The first sign of this false thinking was revealed in his conflating the issues of ethnocentrism of Kurdish independence along with the movements for independence in Catalonia and Scotland. They are vastly different. A Kurdish state, and other such states, would promote a rule by ethnic groups to the disadvantage of other ethnicities. This is a favorite technique used by all empires: it's called divide and conquer. It has been famously applied by the British Empire to divide up India after granting them independence into Hindu and Muslim states, India and Pakistan. This form of state is represented by Israel to the exclusion of Arab Palestinians as second class citizens at best. The US and its "coalition partners" used this in Iraq to divide the country into Shia versus Sunnis versus Kurds. You may not remember how this was started; but soon after Iraq was conquered, mysterious bombings of Shia and Sunni mosques and death squads started happening. Reports soon started leaking out that British agents were caught by Iraqi authorities dressing up in Arab costumes and carrying explosives.
Another source of Feffer's thinking is about the origins of states. It's true when he says that "Contrary to various founding myths, the nation didn’t exist from time immemorial. It had to be conjured into existence — and for a reason." And he follows with what he erroneously thinks was a reason. "The nineteenth century witnessed the first great modern shattering as people weaponized the new concept of “nation” and companion notions of ethnic solidarity and popular sovereignty in their struggles against empires." Yes, "people" decided to fight against empires so they created states to do this! Balderdash! It was capitalist classes that formed states after they overthrew feudal empires consisting of monarchs and aristocrats.
Then he illustrates more confusion about the significance of the Cold War and its end with the "shattering" of "ideological structures" and the rise of more so-called "independent states". He continues on with a description of recent events which are not explained by his "shattering" thesis. He only refers very tangentially and vaguely to classes in references to the right, middle, and left when he writes:
Given the polarizing impact of economic and technological globalization, it’s no surprise that the politics of the middle has either disappeared or, because of a weak left, drifted further to the right. Donald Trump is the supreme expression of this stunning loss of faith in centrist politicians as well as such pillars of the institutional center as the mainstream media.In an effort to appear to be profound, his analysis explains nothing. It only adds to the confused thinking that so many Americans are infected with about so many issues.
