The cult of the personality: who does it serve? – Cards Against AnarchysteemCreated with Sketch.

in fidelcastro •  8 years ago 

Fidel Castro died a few days ago and I have been seeing odes sung to him by people who remember him as someone who fought off American imperialism and then there are those that don’t remember him fondly. I have relatives who are staunch leftists and have even been on a “pilgrimage” to Cuba to visit where their heroes rest. I am not familiar with the details of their visit but the fact that they came back thinking it was the happiest place on earth waved all the red flags. So now they are mourning Castro’s passing while descendants of people who had to leave for exile are celebrating (although the dude had been retired for a while now, what difference is it going to make?). My relatives would probably point out that they were Cuban Americans and hence spoilt. Whatever. Castro-bots. Che-bots.


Image from The Anti-Media.

Don’t get me wrong – rooting for a movement that opposes oppression and such is fine, but when that movement turns into a tyrant, you have to re-evaluate and revise your stance. It is your moral obligation.


Watching the process of the U.S. election this year (while anarchist) we have seen formidable examples of personality and state worship. “I’m with her” and “Donald Trump is going to make America great again”… And while the election is over, we’re still hearing about the recount in three states and how the “alt-right” is screaming bloody treason because Trump will not be pursuing the jailing of Hillary, blah blah blah… Just when I thought we would be over with this, the headlines just keep getting stupider and stupider… I almost envy the dude who, as of a few days ago, still didn’t know what’s going on.

I call the die-hard Clinton supporters Clint-bots. I’m sure I picked it up from somewhere that I cannot recall at this time.

As for Trump supporters, their disappointments have only begun. We’ll just have to see what it takes for them to swallow their pride and admit it.

Yeah, identity politics is awful, and so is the personality cult. Here I am going to go off on a tangent.

Ayndroids… (I get that from here.) FFS…

First off – disclaimer – I have not read any of Ayn Rand’s works. I have watched the three-part movie for Atlas Shrugged. Obviously I cannot comment on how closely the movie follows the book, either. So an anarchist would in theory like the story of how government over-reaches cause problems for the economy and all that. The irony is that Ayn Rand’s fiction couldn’t be further from the truth as things come full circle: today there is a corporatocracy and corporations are exercising power over people through the apparatus of the state. Couldn’t see that coming, could you, Ayn Rand? Why??

Additionally, the person in the following two videos repulses me. See transcript for second video below, taken as-is from YouTube’s description section for the piece.

17:45 – Rands full answer with regards to the Indians:
But now as to the Indians, I don't even care to discuss that kind of alleged complaints that they have against this country. I do believe, with serious scientific reasons, the worst kind of movie that you have properly seen - worse from the Indian viewpoint - as to what they did to the white men. I do not think that they had any right to live in a country merely because they were born here and acted and lived like savages. Americans didn’t conquer, Americans did not conquer this country... Whoever is making sounds there, I think it's [unintelligible], he's right, but please be consistent, you are a racist if you object to that.
You are that because you believe that anything can be given to men by his biological birth or for biological reasons. If you are born in a magnificent country which you don’t know what to do with, you believe that that's a property right. It is not. And since the Indians did not have any property rights - they didn't have the concept of property - they didn't even have a settled society, they were predominantly nomadic tribes. They were a primitive tribal... culture, if you want to call it that.

If so, they didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights, which they had not conceived and were not using. It would be wrong to attack any country which does respect, or try for that matter, that respects individual rights. Because if they do, you are an aggressor and you are morally wrong if you attack them. But if a country does not protect rights, if a given tribe is the slave of its own tribal chief, why should you respect the right they do not have? Or any country which has a dictatorship. Government... the citizens still have individual rights, but the country does not have any rights, anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in this country; and neither you, nor a country nor anyone can have your cake and eat it too - in other words want respect for the rights of Indians, who incidentally, for most cases, of their tribal history, made agreements with the white man. And then when they had used up whichever they got through the agreement of giving, selling certain territory, then came back and broke the agreements and attacked white settlements.

I would go further, lets say this, lets suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages, which they certainly were not, what was it that they were fighting for? If they opposed white men on this continent. For their whish to continue a primitive existence? Their right to keep part of the earth untouched, unused, and not even have property but just keep everybody out, so that you have to live, practically like an animal or maybe a few caves above it? Any white person who brings the element of civilisation, has the right to take over this country. And it is great that some people did, and discovered here, what they couldn't do anywhere else in the world and what the Indians, if there are any racist Indians today, do not believe to this day: In respect for individual rights.

-o-

So, Ayndroids… The person whose name you evoke so frequently and to whom you credit with your so-called enlightenment is a despicable person who calls Arabs and Native Americans savages. That is all. Consider reading someone else. Seriously, I can’t tell who is more pathetic – Clintbots or Ayndroids?

As for the question as to what purpose it serves to be in any one of these cults, you already know that they can be used to pit people who have never met against each other. Divide and tyrannize.

Your cards for this post:

Clintbots.
Ayndroids.
Rothbots (also from the Emancipated Human video above).
The statist condition.
Being cursed with multiple citizenships and so having to worry about all their flags and anthems.
Ayn Rand's Monstrous Views on the Middle East (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/murray-n-rothbard/ayn-rands-monstrous-views-on-the-middle-east/).

I hope to play Cards Against Anarchy with you.

Love and laughs,
Cards Against Anarchy.

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