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general freedom ideological culture

Twitter Gulag?

An old Soviet-​phrase — “ne chital, no osuzhdayu” (“didn’t read, but disapprove”) — seems as apt now as ever. Why? Because Americans today have revived the “Soviet mentality,” according to Izabella Tabarovsky, writing at Tablet

Ms. Tabarovsky, a researcher with the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, explains that “[c]ollective demonizations of prominent cultural figures were an integral part of the Soviet culture of denunciation that pervaded every workplace and apartment building.”

Jobs lost, careers ruined, people socially disgraced — for “social media gaffes or old teenage behavior” — this is not just a Soviet mania, for Twitter mobs are on the rampage against those they deem “to be deplorable and unforgivable.” 

The difference between current mobbing and Soviet experience, though, is stark: the government does not seem to be in charge, and there are no real gulags to be sent to — as of yet.

Today’s mobbing behavior, on and off Twitter, appears spontaneous and “systemic,” not organizational — more Crucible-like than 1984-ish. 

Nevertheless, this is dangerous stuff. “The practice of collective condemnation feels like an assertion of a culture that ultimately tramples on the individual and creates an oppressive society,” Tabarovsky concludes, insisting that “the failure of institutions and individuals to stand up to mob rule is no longer an option we can afford.”

She’s right. Twitter-​mobbing may be ugly, but it is more than that: it is obviously backed by force — witness the current riots; look at the policy agendas of the “politically correct” — and, unless stopped culturally it will have to be stopped in the realm of (ugh) politics and government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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ideological culture

Revolutionaries for Bernie

It seems like just last week we were arguing about how it is not OK to go around “punching Nazis.” 

Now we have a Bernie Sanders campaign employee fuming about putting people he disagrees with into “re-​education camps.”

“The only thing that fascists understand is violence,” said a Field Manager in the campaign’s Iowa office, as caught on all-​too-​candid camera by Project Veritas. “So, the only way you can confront them is with violence.”

It is one thing to get called a “fascist!” or “Nazi!” by a leftist for disagreeing with a leftist, it is another thing to be sucker-​punched by a leftist for disagreeing with a leftist — and something far, far worse to be put into a concentration camp for expressing non-​leftist-​approved views.

His name is Kyle Jurek. Project Veritas has certainly not dubbed him a typical Bernie voter. His views are described as “extreme left-​wing fringe,” and the utility of the clandestine recordings, taken over months, said to lie in the insight they provide “into the mentality of many Sanders staffers and what they truly believe.”

Jurek’s beliefs include extra-​legal violence and Soviet Gulag revisionism, expressed with f‑bombs and mf-​barrages. “You want to fight against the revolution, you’re going to die for it, mother — ” Jurek lashes out at “fellow” Democrats … and MSNBC … and Trump voters. He talks about setting Milwaukee afire. And not rhetorically.

 We’ve long worried about the Vermont senator, who has defended horrific Soviet and Cuban rule throughout his long history of communist apologia.

I guess the real test is how Jurek’s comrades — er, fellow Sanders supporters — react to the revelations. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


N.B. As this commentary posts, the only official response has come from the Iowa state director for the Sanders campaign, Misty Rebik, who dismissed the video, saying, “The hundreds of thousands of Iowans we’ve talked to this caucus season don’t care about political gossip …” Jurek has not been dismissed. A search of the Washington Post and New York Times websites show neither paper has reported on the story.

The Babylon Bee made the obvious “democratic gulag” joke.

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Jurek, Bernie Sanders, gulags, USSR, Soviet Union, socialism,

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