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Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

I have commented in the past favourably on Putin’s condemnation of leftist woke culture in the West and I am not particularly right wing. Indeed he seemed a lot more sensible than many of the woke mob.
There is nothing I would unsay but as is often the case I had misjudged him and had not taken into account the full depth of his aggressive authoritarian character – as a consequence I have no difficulty holding to the position that he has said some sensible things about the lunacy of the woke in the past but that his invasion of Ukraine puts him into the box of authoritarians who should be unequivocally opposed.
Not to be able to see the logic of this this is, as the author points out, merely to engage in leftist political posturing.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Completely agree, thanks for setting it out so clearly.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

It simply shows you have a brain, and are able to form your own opinions rather than blindly following a chosen side. Unfortunately for too many politics is simply a tribal affair similar to following the football

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

I agree with these sentiments entirely. His views are acceptable to me. His actions are not. It’s a terrible thing that the usual suspects are seeking to tar all with his brush in an ideologically nonsensical way.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Quite right.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

That is fair enough, but it should always have been entirely clear that Putin, an ex-KGB agent for God’s sake, is not fighting for ‘Christian civilisation’ or any such thing, has always been an utterly brutal leader, and and any comments he makes on issues such as identity politics are entirely transactional and opportunistic. They serve him only as (yet) another way to try and divide the West and reduce any resistance to his authoritarian aggression.
We don’t need to cite Putin to combat identity politics, and indeed as current events are showing, this guilt by association ends up weakening that cause in the West itself.

Laura Creighton
Laura Creighton
1 year ago

The ruling left immediately labels anything that isn’t internationalist and globalist (since that is what they are promoting this year) as ‘far right’, whether that makes sense or not. (We’re the left. Our opponents are the right. Because we say so, and we’re the left! Never mind that we have completely flip-flopped on practically every issue, where we are now doing the things we used to decry and decrying the things we used to stand for. ‘Free Trade’ used to be right-wing, and “trade-protectionism” left. More generally, the left saw itself as restraining the over-reach of corporate power. How things have changed!)
In the Swedish press, when Jimmie Åkkeson was starting his political career, he was first mocked for being the leader of the ‘backwards-looking nostalgia’ party, because repeatedly got up and said that the Social Democrats had lost their way, and have become the party of the corporations and the rich, which is why he wanted to go back to the policies of the Social Democrats of the late 20th century. This badly backfired on them, as a lot of people scratched their heads and said, “hmm, you know, I wouldn’t mind some of that myself”. But at that point the script was worked out. The way to debate policy direction with people who don’t like your policies is to call them all N a z i s and far right extremists.
There is only so much milage you can get out of ‘right-wing bad, left-wing good’ sloganeering, unless you are trapped in a 2 party state. Then ‘their guys bad, my guys good’ means that you can run this slogan no matter what the left and the right are supposed to be believing and doing this week, forever.

Last edited 1 year ago by Laura Creighton
Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

The label ‘right-wing’ is a tactic often used against the psychological susceptible to override rational thought processes and instigate a negative knee-jerk reaction toward any opinion or thought the Establishment disapproves of.

Russ W
Russ W
1 year ago

The post-modern, social constructionist left, or “the woke,” is led by a wealthy “western” elite.

This group is illiberal but “identifies” as liberal. I suspect that frequently accusations of “far right, fascist” are distortions designed to smear and project their own intentions onto their political opponents.

Western is in quotes as the woke hate their history, culture, and institutions and prefer an authoritarian model which is under their “control.”

It seems likely that the money at the top wants Xi like authoritarian power and justifies that by rationalizing it as avoidance of WWIII and “saving the planet” from climate change.

This illiberal strategy relies on division, deception, and confusion to destabilize institutions and individuals. It’s solution is the reverse: unity, honesty, and clarity to stabilize ourselves and our institutions. The time is now. We have multiple geopolitical actors seeking global hegemony by bringing down the Western world order.

We must become awake, not woke.

Last edited 1 year ago by Russ W
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I honestly believe that a significant majority of the electorate consider free speech and freedom of expression one of the most important issues of modern life, which, ergo, means that people must be free to criticise LBGT Q, racial issues, global warming zealots, and other issues that are becoming ” off limits”- They also believe in fair imposition of law and order, and free and unprejudiced trials and systems of justice, which includes holding Police to account. Does this make this majority ” Far Right”, ” Liberal” or ” Libertarian”?…. or indeed ” Leftist”?…. The great Richard Ingrams, fonder of Private Eye once described his political affiliation as ” Whig Anarchist”, and I identify with that- Britain needs a new form of “Whig” party, and if certain MPs of all hues had the courage, one could be formed and it would win its first election.

M. Gatt
M. Gatt
1 year ago

Geo politics is about balance of power. Geo politics is neither right or left. If has no morals or ethiics. The Russian- Ukraine war has NO good guys. If you do not accept realpolitk then you are like an adult who see’s the world as a 10 year old would. Grow up. And stop supporting escalation.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  M. Gatt

This sort of ‘realpolitik’ (supposedly…) is fine as far as it goes – but why is it ‘the West’ that is only ever accused by some of you of ‘supporting escalation’? The Russians, or more to the point, the Putin clique, ARE the ‘bad guys’ here, unless ‘good’ and ‘bad’ have absolutely no meaning at all. This was an all-out invasion, without any warning at all, or even an ultimatum given. Was Japan justified in attacking Pearl Harbour? Was Hitler a ‘bad guy’ in the 1930s? He had plenty of excuses and grievances as well. In your world perhaps, simply give in to his endless demands? That wouldn’t, I’d hope we might all agree on this, have produced a better world, although at least we – were we alive – wouldn’t have to worry ourselves about writing comments on UnHerd!
As far as I can see, the West on the whole with all its flaws (and it isn’t a monolith) is striving rather hard to support the Ukrainians while NOT escalating the situation. Some on the Right seem to have been totally discombobulated, not to say morally corrupted, by their equivocations on this issue (it is usually the ‘anyone but the West’ Left which is guilty of this). It is Putin who keeps threatening to use nuclear weapons, and you can’t get much more ‘escalation’ than that!

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Europe’s far right is Europe’s far left.

Edit Szegedi
Edit Szegedi
1 year ago

The Alliance for the Union of Romanians is considered a Russian-backed party.