BulletPointIdeas

Category: America

  • The Mirror World is Our New Reality – Review of Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

    The Mirror World is Our New Reality – Review of Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

    This review of Doppelganger by Naomi Klein was originally published by The Fantasy Review.

    The lovely Naomi Klein is often mistaken for Naomi Wolf. An unfortunate similarity in names and jobs in the media, perhaps, but quite the concept for Klein’s brilliant memoir, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World.

    Doppelganger explores Klein’s deep-dive into the cesspool of Bannon and his ilk, weaving their conspiratorial reflection of reality through a narrative exposing a hidden and ignored (mostly online) group of people.

    the mirror world is our new reality - review of doppelganger by naomi klein

    The manosphere might call these forgotten people – a large chunk of their audience – “the silent majority” and they are not wrong. Those who look at our political systems and see nothing for them on the ballot can be forgiven for turning from the propaganda machine of the mainstream media towards alternative sources.

    Many, however, end up in the alt-right spaces online with presenters who cheerlead for turning our western countries into worse versions of their 1950s selves.

    Why This Book is Important

    I read Doppelganger on its release, but didn’t have much to say about it. Now that Trump has been re-elected, this mirror world Klein talked about has become reality, with the old order fading into the background.

    Klein writes:

    “I quickly learned that my identity crisis was likely unavoidable: the appearance of one’s doppelganger is almost always chaotic, stressful, and paranoid-inducing, and the person encountering their double is invariably pushed to their limits by the frustration and uncanniness of it all.”

    For everyone on the Left, who is not a neoliberal and didn’t see Biden or Harris as great leaders for the change America needed, these words might hit home pretty hard right about now.

    Because if Trump is anything, it’s the mirror of who the Left wants and needs for a sizable progressive shift. We need an anti-neoliberal, socialist Trump.

    Trump’s win might not have been a surprise, but it is certainly frustrating for those of us on the left who knew that these centrist morons with no understanding of what normal people want or need were not going to beat the far-right nutters. 

    I feel this particularly strongly in the UK, where I live. Reform UK is going to perform even better in the next election. I can feel it in my bones. They might even cause the Conservative party to collapse under its own hubris.

    That’s the Left’s fault. I’m a Green Party member, but I can understand why the majority of people on the left want to unite under Labour. The issue is that Labour are not left-wing. They are centrists. Sure, they offer some progressive ideas, certainly more than the recent Conservative leaders, but nothing that will significantly change that “silent majority’s” lives for the better.

    One of the most important things we can learn from Bernie Sanders’s popularity among Trump voters (you read that right) is that the Left can attract the dispossessed. We just need to have the vision. Right now, those with the vision are alt-right lunatics and they’ve taken power in the U.S. and they are inching ever closer to power across Europe.

    Why You Should Read Doppelganger

    From popular conspiracy theories to anti-vaxxers and more, Doppelganger is an in-depth analysis of the mirror world we are all experiencing as our reality right now. If you want to know why Trump won and Harris lost, this is the only book you need. 

    I connected with Klein’s obsession with this world. I’ve spent my fair share of hours watching in horrified interest the latest Ben Shapiro drivel or Lawrence Fox’s unintelligible podcast on YouTube.

    I can’t help myself. I want to understand what they are thinking and why. For the most part, these guys are grifters. But there are some who seem sincere. I don’t know which is worse. 

    The part that terrifies me is that people like Steve Bannon sometimes have the same talking points you might hear on Novara Media, or on Owen Jones’ YouTube channel. For example, the “Big Tech” conversation has recently turned into a conversation about technofeudalism.

    Yanis Varoufakis – very much on the left – wrote a book on this topic and the Left, except for some quibbles, see the potential truth in the theory, and the issues his conclusion reveals.

    Bannon sees this issue too, and understands that he can use these facts, flip the solutions on their head, and create a mirror world version of the arguments against Big Tech.

    It is terrifying. But Klein couldn’t stop watching, and can’t either.

    Pick up Doppelganger and take a trip into the mirror world, because one day very soon, you’re going to be living in it, whether you want to or not. And you need to understand an issue to fight back against it.

  • George Monbiot on Why the UK Should Leave the American Empire

    George Monbiot on Why the UK Should Leave the American Empire

    This is the beginning of the end for the American Empire.

    For this generation, the U.S-backed genocide in Gaza has been a wake up call. In the UK, we watched in horror while our politicians called the bombing of children and hospitals, and the collective punishment of a poulation a “right” for “Israel to defend itself.”

    Since the catastrophic failure which was the Vietnam War, there has never been such a widespread protest against the UK’s foreign policy (except, perhaps, it’s participation in the War in Afghanistan). The rise of social media has given the people of Palestine a louder voice than they have had before, though, and many independent media outlets have been covering the events in-depth, leading to a much wider spread of knowledge.

    In an article for the Guardian, George Monbiot argues that the UK should seek to distance itself from the U.S, especially in the event of a Trump win (which came to pass). Describing the President-elect of the United States as “convicted felon, coup plotter, sex assaulter, liar, fraud and wannabe dictator,” Monbiot offers no comfort to the U.S. population, but it should inspire our current government to rethink that “special relationship” everyone seems to love so much.

    Or, as Monbiot puts it, “this should bring an end to our abiding fantasies about a special relationship.”

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    American Empire and the “Special Relationship”

    Monbiot goes on to describe that special relationship as an “illusion” as the UK is merely an “instrument of policy,” a tool or weapon to be weilded at will, in return for security from the U.S.

    Some of the imperialist projects we have taken part in, doing the bidding of the U.S, are listed in the article, but the one that “sounded the death knell of the empire” (Chris Hedges, Declassified UK) was the 20-year war in Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq war.

    The U.S. and UK opted for a “shock and awe” approach to their military project which was met with far more resistance than they realised (due to severely underestimating their opponents).

    Their goal? American hegemony. Global dominance. And it failed spectacuarly. After their defeat, the U.S. have been quieter with their foreign policy, but do not think for a second that it has put them off getting involved in a new conflict in order to keep a hold of their dominance and hegemony.

    Putin’s Lapdog in the White House

    The impact of Trump’s next term in the White House will be giving Starmer’s government a massive headache.

    The choice for Labour, right now, is do they kiss the ring of Trump and bow down further to their masters, the United States of America, or do they finally seek independence from the American Empire and pursue stronger relationships elsewhere – like our allied neighbours in Europe.

    George Monbiot argues that Trump’s special relationship is not with the UK “but with Vladimir Putin, to whom he defers as the iron dictator he would like to be.” With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ongoing (and not looking good for Ukraine right now), we in Europe are facing the very real threat of Putin’s overflowing insanity.

    What we need now is to come together, as we are doing, and force the U.S. to continue to support Ukraine too. What pro-Putin Americans tend to forget is that their Empire is only as strong as their colonies, and China is not the military threat they need to focus on right now (if ever).

    I feel emotional reading Monbiot’s potential u-turn on nuclear disarmament. Once a fierce advocater for getting rid of our nuclear weapons, due to the “highly unlikely” event of us ever needing them, he now believes we must keep them to better defend our allies and even ourselves.

    However, he does go on to reveal to readers that our “independent” nuclear weapons are not independent from the American Empire. The UK cannot use them without the consent of the US government. With a pro-Putin lackey in the White House, it seems our deterrent is nothing more than “a £172bn heap of bricks.”

    Keep Reading!

    Some of the topics covered in this article include American imperialism, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the European Union.

    If you want to learn more about American imperialism, check out Declassified UK, or Empire Files. If you’re looking for reading material,The Racket by Matt Kennard and Noam Chomsky’s Turning the Tide or Making the Future will give you plenty of historical context that relate to the current situation.

    To understand how insane the European Union is, you only need to watch In the Eye of the Storm. Otherwise, read Byline Times for some great arguments for reversing some of the BREXIT mishaps.

    Russia and Ukraine can only be understood by reading the history books. Mark Galeotti’s A Short History of Russia and We Need to Talk About Putin are a good start. Philip Short wrote a biography called Putin which is facinating.

    And finally, Jacob Mikanowski’s Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land is a fantastic analysis of the context in which this war is taking place.

    For the latest news and analysis on Gaza, The Electronic Intifada, Novara Media, Double Down News, Middle East Eye, and so many more amazing independent media outlets are doing a great job, so check them out.

    The documentary film, Gaza Fights for Freedom by Empire Files is free on YouTube, directed by Abby Martin. This is well worth watching for people unsure of what is happening and how it came to be.

    For books on Palestine, I would suggest beginning with Ilan Pappé‘s work and going from there. In Pappé and Chomsky’s joint book, On Palestine, you can begin to see some difference of opinion within supporters of the Palestinians.

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    George Monbiot on Why the UK Should Leave the American Empire