The Jacobin Impulse

When Leftists Devour Each Other

by Armando Simón (February 2023)

Untitled, Heinrich Campendonk

 

The irony today is that Americans keep bragging about their land of the free, yet cannot tell a joke, paint their face, whistle at a pretty girl, or even worship an ancestor without losing their careers and livelihoods. PC tyranny rules supreme; media, Hollywood, Big Tech, and academia follow strict orders; and foolish Americans pretend that they’re free. —Taki

 

In years past, I have repeatedly sounded the alarm in various sites that a Marxist totalitarian movement whose end goal is the destruction of this country, its history, its culture and its democratic traditions was almost upon us. This has been echoed by others who, like myself, lived in totalitarian countries. In the early stages of this movement, I was told by some editors that I was an alarmist, that I was exaggerating. Now, with rampant censorship in all venues, indoctrination in schools and businesses, the economy tottering, the perversion of science, the obsession with equity, and the FBI in its embryonic transformation into a KGB/Stasi, I do not appear alarmist at all.

On the other hand, there is one familiar manifestation of this totalitarian drive which I confess brings great joy to my heart. I call it The Jacobin Impulse and its manifestation is similar to when the Mafiosi take out their fellow Mafiosi.

If one studies nascent Communist parties in Europe prior to obtaining power, one sees the tendency for infighting, often splitting into rival parties damning the other heretical group. We see something similar when they do obtain power.

The early 1790s was the beginning of the French Revolution and members of the National Convention slowly coalesced into two groups, nicknamed Girondists (prominent members were from Gironde) and Jacobins (members of Jacobin Club). The Jacobins were the more intractable and bloodthirsty. Arguments between the two groups escalated into a power struggle which culminated when Marat, the Keith Olbermann of the French Revolution, agitated the Parisian scum of the earth to rise up. The Girondists were hunted down and guillotined (Thomas Carlyle’s likened the French Revolution to Saturn’s devouring of his own children). The Reign of Terror began.

Over 10,000 people were executed.

During the 1930s, the most dangerous place in the world for a Communist to live was the USSR. Tens of thousands of Communists who earlier had their arms covered with the blood of their victims now found themselves either executed or sent to the Gulag. What is most satisfying of all was the brutal, semiliterate thugs of the Cheka/NKVD often became the targets of subsequent purges, from the top (Yagoda, Yezhov) down to the rats. And, of course, we must not forget the commissars themselves (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin, etc.). The persecutions were accompanied by the customary barrage of insults in the media.

Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of apolitical, innocent civilians suffered the same fate.

The same process took place when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. After the enemies of the Communists were killed, along with any civilian who was known to have any kind of education in any field, the Communists began to turn on each other and, again, the executions swept up both the higher up cadres and the rank and file, the same individuals who were drenched in the blood of their previous victims.

Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of apolitical, innocent civilians suffered the same fate.

And now, we see the same pattern occurring in America and in other countries that have embraced the latest, and most bizarre, version of Marxism. The Khmer Rouge imposed a bizarre version of Communism when they essentially turned the clock back several centuries to eradicate civilization; they executed anyone who had gone to school, emptied out all the cities and turned the entire population into peasants, with the Communists as sadistic feudal lords.

The present-day uber-bizarre version of Communism glorifies transgenders, homosexuals and blacks as the “oppressed” and “marginalized” proletariat.

Here are some delicious examples of the Jacobin Impulse. Enjoy!

Craig McCann, who worked in cranking out propaganda for the UK-based Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR), expressed concern over violence by leftists, at which point he was subjected to attacks from leftists and kicked out of CARR.

Anne Nichols, an “anti-racist” McFarland High School Associate Principal, had to resign when she accidentally used the dreaded “N-word” whose effect on blacks, as we all know. is similar in the UK to saying “I don’t believe in fairies.” The same happened to one Donald McNeil at The New York Pravda.

Leftist bureaucrats at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School decided to remove the name of the third US president and replace it with Barak Obama, but leftist Hispanics opposed the move because Obama deported so many illegal aliens.

Progress America called for the ouster of California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein from the Senate Judiciary Committee because Feinstein was not rude to Amy Coney Barrett during the confirmation hearings.

Leftists initially applauded the leftist bureaucrats of the city of Seattle, but turned against them when they were found to be not as radical as they had hoped. The same happened next door in Portland; ironically Mayor Wheeler, who did so much to lay the groundwork for the ever-increasing demands of Antifa, received a death threat from them.

Karma’s a bitch.

Liberal Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, whose anti-men novel The Handmaid’s Tale provided a costume for rabid feminists posing as victims, was showered with abuse because she said another novelist who was falsely accused of rape (Steven Galloway) should have received due process. This, of course, goes against feminist doctrine which states that, basically, women never lie.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is known for his play Hamilton, a musical cultural appropriation of American history where all the Founding Fathers are black. He also made a boring film titled In the Heights. Apparently, he did not use enough blacks in the film and was damned for it.

Jennifer Sey helped to make Levis “woke.” When she persisted in contradicting the tenets of the covid fiasco regarding lockdowns, masks and the other idiocies, she was attacked and lost her upper-level job. Journalist Naomi Wolf had her Twitter account suspended and her YouTube channel frozen when she, too, questioned the covid farce and doubted the Great and Powerful Fauci.

James Cameron, director of Titanic, recently called testosterone a “toxin,” thereby endearing himself to castrating feminists everywhere. At about the same time, though, he came under attack because Avatar evidenced cultural appropriation since he employed white actors instead of nine foot blue aliens. Oh, yeah, and Avatar is also racist.

The best for last: J. K. Rowling joined the liberal herd by, among other things, declaring that one of the main characters in the Harry Potter series was homosexual, for which she was praised for helping homosexualize the culture. Her fall from leftist grace began when she defended British researcher Maya Forstater, who lost her job for tweeting that “men cannot change into women.” Rowling received an avalanche of hate and threats to beat her, rape her, and kill her with a pipe bomb. A school which was named after her was renamed. A Canadian removed Rowling’s name from the Harry Potter book (straight out of 1984). Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, actors who were rescued from obscurity by being in Potter movies, turned against her; the 20^th year reunion of the Harry Potter franchise excluded the creator herself. Undeterred, Rowling established a women’s shelter where women would be protected and men pretending to be women would not be admitted. The Guardian’s poll for “Person of the Year” was cancelled once Rowling took the lead (demonstrating what leftists do with elections). Incidentally, whereas those who have been targeted for opprobrium usually fold like a house of cards, grovel and issue serial apologies, Rowling has stood her ground.

The reader might justifiably object that the above instances pale in comparison to the cannibalism that took place in totalitarian regimes and that is true, but this points to yet another bizarre aspect of this totalitarian movement. In those regimes, executions took place because the fanatics had taken complete control of their societies. In the present instance, be it America, Britain, or Canada, the fanatics are trying to achieve total control but have not yet achieved it, so their retaliation is confined to losing employment and subjected to verbal harassment and temper tantrums, although there have also been instances of prosecution for saying the wrong thing or telling a joke, writing a book, and for praying or holding religious services.

But rest assured that with time, executions will take place along with profuse justifications in the media hivemind once the Communists consolidate and solidify their hold.

What is truly depressing is how widespread is the cowardliness and how absent is the bravery. During the Stalinist and National Socialist years, when defiance in those societies usually meant torture followed by either execution or sent to a camp in the Arctic Circle, those persons who disagreed with the governments’ policies just kept quiet and even carried out the policies. Nonetheless, there were a handful of brave men who had stainless steel backbones and refused to go along, and even openly objected, men like Iosef Rapoport, Otto Krayer, Dimitri Pryanishnikov, Hugh O’Flaherty, Vladimir Vernadsky and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Some died, some survived.

Yet, today, when it is substantially safe to defy and confront the totalitarians with their absurd and criminal demands and proclamations and temper tantrums, there is almost no one targeted who will either rearrange their faces or give them a well-deserved middle finger. All are cowards.

 

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Armando Simón is a trilingual native of Cuba, a retired psychologist, author of The Book of Many Books and Wichita Women.

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