Phil Butler is always a good read, and just now I have no hesitancy in showcasing his latest piece.
‘Musk Gets “Go Ahead” to Finally Shutter USAID’ – Phil Butler – New Eastern Outlook – Feb 10, 2025
Unless this had come earlier – like years ago – it could not have come at a better time for the world. I’m talking world freedom – national and individual, and to lift a load that has been weighing down humanity, and especially human dignity for centuries. Today the world is a better place because of Trump’s actions. It doesn’t mean he’s good value of course, or a fit President. He’s a madman who thinks some god has chosen him to free the world and M.A.G.A. What a chump! But even madmen occasionally get things right. Not that he is right about much. For instance, I hear he wants $500 Billion of what he terms ‘rare earths’ back from Ukraine in return for the $350 Billion they ‘borrowed’. His stated reason for that is to save the US from “looking stupid” (his words I believe). Well at least he retains enough nouse [common sense – just to be clear] to realise that money is gone forever – never to return. In fact the entity ‘borrowing’ it may soon cease to exist and/or be merged into something else or several something elses. And Russia, since most of the stuff Trump wants is already on Russian territory, is never going to agree to part with it – especially to the US. The same goes for all the newly acquired land holdings sold to Blackrock and other large US corporates. I guess they are all going to have to just get used to ‘looking stupid’.
But, back to the ‘Marxism’ thing. For me, ‘Marxism’ is just as qualified, and perhaps even more so, as a way of life, or thinking about life, as is ‘Democracy’ in its most abstract form – there being no workable example anywhere in the world. The operative phrase there being ‘way of life’ since the two concepts have no other relatable basis. But I guess that is not how everyone sees it. Shall we try to define this – because I’m sure I cannot be the only one somewhat confused over the matter? Umm… no.
Marxism is a body of thought which is beyond simple definition, as the millions of words and numerous commentators who have tried to do so attests. While Democracy has been so twisted, mauled and misused throughout its existence – mostly in an age of capitalist imperialism – as to have retained no clear definition or even a universally accepted meaning. Or maybe it is just beyond my capability to digest all that stuff. I like things to be simple. So I am not going to allow myself to become embroiled in such a discussion as that might turn out to become. Once upon a time I might have – [who am I kidding?] – but not now.
Anyway, I don’t want to make a big thing out of this. Just through the process of writing about it, I declare that I am happy now with my own thoughts on it (whether complete or not), and will not engage in any protracted argument on the subject. The reader is free to think whatever they like.
But what is all that to do with comparing Marxist thought with Leftist US Radicalism? I raise the point simply because such is implied within one section of Phil’s linked essay, which rightly stands, as it should, as a basis of thought on an entirely different subject of equal importance – both of which are caught up in the colours and flavour of this mixed up world of which we are all part. Marxism, as a basis for Communism, is as polar an opposite to US Leftist Radicalism – which is really just a basis for National Socialism (boiling down to ‘Nazism’) – as it is possible to get. Am I wrong? Where?
Personally, I would prefer it if the world could dump all the categories associated with what has become an ingrained millstone around the necks of human society (I’m talking about political and social issues) and which make up and take up far more discussion time among humans than they actually merit. Pointless discussion. Divisive discussion. Discussion based mainly on motivated self-beneficence and personal power. Such things are not what life is meant to be about. If, that is, life is meant to have any meaning at all. And if it is, is the messy, dangerous, and unscrupulously unfair world we live in, an example of how that is meant to turn out? It seems to me that what we live in now could be taken as being the direct result of life having no meaning at all. Do we need to start over?
But, while you are thinking about that, don’t forget to read Phil’s fine piece.
Not Something Else 
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