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    Re: Off Guardian on spread of anti-BDS legistlation Archived Message

    Posted by dovetailjoint on December 27, 2018, 8:44 am, in reply to "Re: Off Guardian on spread of anti-BDS legistlation"

    I think we're living in a strange new era, which is many ways is really rather old, at the same time.

    Ideology, a set of broad ideas about life and living, how society is or could be... is on the retreat; instead, like walking through a supermarket, we pick and choose little bits of ideas from the shelves and fill our baskets with them in a jumble.

    It's the labels on the stuff that are important, more than the content. This applies to the left and the right.

    Assange's reputation can be destroyed, even among those who should be his closest allies, simply by linking his name, his brand, to the worst of all possible negative labels... rape and sexual harrassment.

    'Fake news' is another one. Pip that label on a text or information, and regardless of whether it's true or not, it's sullied and tainted, can be ignored.

    'Populism' is labeled at threat to 'democracy', which is a bit odd, if one thinks about it. That something that's popular with huge swathes of ordinary people is, a threat to democracy.

    'Feminism' didn't use to be particularly popular with the Establishment and in the media, at least when it was linked to issues like equal pay, but today the BBC embraces it as 'progressive' a sign of western superiority and our vanguard role in the world.

    'Progressive' is also another powerful label that people striv for, compared to the 'deplorables.'

    Language, of course, is another set of important labels that we pin on things and ideas, and they seem to be changing all the time, as words are seen as 'good' or 'bad.'

    I wonder where this all ends?

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