Bill Maher to the Progressive Left: You Think You Want A Revolution? Study What Happens When They “Spin Out of Control”
“Maher likened that situation to John Lennon’s song ‘Revolution,’ which called out people who carried pictures of Chairman Mao”
True liberal Bill Maher is really getting fed up with the radical progressive left. We’ve covered his previous observations here at LI, but this one is spot-on and Maher has outdone himself in conveying historical lessons that today’s wokesters conveniently ignore (or worse, emulate).
Watch the whole segment, you won’t be sorry.
If you're part of today's woke revolution, you need to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control. pic.twitter.com/IYNfDhtR0C
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) February 4, 2023
Maher turned serious during his New Rules editorial, noting how the woke are trying to reinvent the very nature of human beings. He talked about the Red Guard movement in China, where people would attack those accused of not toeing the ideological line, making them wear dunce caps and publicly shaming them.
Such tactics, Maher said, were an attempt to change things by screaming at it, a problem then — and now, again, becoming more and more a fact of life here in the US.
. . . . That was the modern version of what the Red Guard was doing. “If you can’t see the similarities between (Kilborn) and that, the person who needs reeducation is you,” Maher said.
He wrapped up his editorial by pointing out how Winston Marshall, the former banjo player of Mumord & Sons, was forced to step away from the band and issue a cringing apology for endorsing a controversial book.
“Pain from a book?” Maher asked. “Not unless he hit the drummer over the head with it.”
Maher likened that situation to John Lennon’s song “Revolution,” which called out people who carried pictures of Chairman Mao, and “ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.”
“There was a guy who understood how good intentions could turn,” Maher said.
After watching the Maher clip, I wanted to watch a video of the Beatles singing “Revolution,” and it’s not hard to hear their warning to the idealistic lefties of the ’60s not to turn into destructive self-righteous zealots trying to remake humanity with “minds that hate.”
You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all love to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead
(Shooby-doo-wah, oh, shooby-doo-wah)
[Pre-Chorus]
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Meanwhile, Joe “I am the Democratic Party” Biden has surrounded himself with Mao-worshiping advisors like Anita Dunn who was forced out of the Obama administration for fan-girling over the genocidal Chinese communist leader.
Progressives here in America have always been about perfecting human nature, about “progressing” toward a more perfect human and thus a more perfect world.
From prohibition to eugenics to abortion, the goal was to found/create and then nurture some superior human race, one with no unwanted basic human qualities like selfishness, jealousy, hate, drunkenness, or any number of “inferior” qualities of the many they noted and tried to eradicate.
Today’s progressives are emulating Mao’s Red Revolution in many undeniable ways, but the roots of their desire to improve on God’s creation of man can be traced further back and in our own nation’s history.
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Comments
Progressive leftists may end up uniting the country…. against them. There is a segment of Progressives that disown the wokesters… but it’s a small slice.
It’s nice to hear an actual liberal speak like one. We are a liberal western democracy after all. There are immovable bedrock Conservative truths supporting true liberalism. Without, a thousand years of true academia would never have happened.
It’s nice to hear Mahr sound like Paul Revere, but never forget: he is a principal in the group of media hacks who worked so hard to get us in the dire straits we’re in today.
He is a very left winged liberal, make no mistake, and he admits it even today
I prefer Rush’s “The Trees” in general… but agree that the Beatles fit better here.
Therein lies the problem. In order to really get to the heart of matters you have to be a genius percussionist who reads too much and the ponders deep thoughts on endless motorcycle rides.
And fills his motorcycles gas tank with diesel fuel.
Wrong verb tense….spun …not spin. The Milgram Experiment is underway.
I wonder if Professor Jacobson knows the U of Chicago law professor Maher talks about?
https://legalinsurrection.com/?s=kilborn
One of the insights you get from sociologists like Erving Goffman is uncovering stuff we do without knowing we do it, unspoken norms and rules everybody knows but can’t articulate, that everything depends on.
In congress they’d be called gentlemen’s agreements. We don’t have them anymore. They’re judged oppressive and patriarchical.
The elite objection to them is that they seem too accidental to rely on, too ordinary. You’d need something a priori to build a solid system on, like everybody’s the same and men are the same as women and moods should reign supreme especially with voters.
Yet the ordinary rules everything.
In the American Revolution, we got really lucky. With the French, the Russians, and the Chinese, well, they got a terribly different result. Worth thinking on.
And these days, it’s almost universal that revolutions will get co-opted to benefit the very people you need to revolt against. Think Ukraine, J6, Arab Spring.
The only revolutions I remember in my lifetime that achieved their desired results were Solidarnosc, Caucescu, and (so far) the Sri Lankan farmers. Though Caucescu wasn’t so much a revolution as was an internal collapse of the dictatorship.
Can’t agree more. As I remember from “The Anatomy of Revolution”, the new Revolutionary Broom sweeps clean, and sweeps out the old rascals, so as to let in the new rascals.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same…”
Arguing that the man who wrote “Revolution” “got it” is a tough sell, when it’s pointed out that the same man wrote “Imagine.” He didn’t oppose imposing the new socialist culture, he only wanted to do it non-violently. In fact, just the way it has been accomplished between then and now. But what he didn’t understand is that the violence has just been temporarily delayed. It’s still coming.
Me, I damn well love my “old culture,” and I intend to keep my “old culture.”
We don’t necessarily believe or identify with the songs we write … inspiration lobs an idea into our thoughts, we chase the muse and extract the song … if people like it, we get stuck singing it for half a lifetime. I’m blessed I never “made it” as a pro if only because I don’t want to be married to the songs I’ve written and forced to sing them as often as they’re requested.
I remember hearing James Taylor talk about complete strangers greeting him with an enthusiastic “James!” in the store and he was like “WTH are you?!?” Joking about people throwing money at him to sing Fire and Rain he parodied the lyrics with “I’ve seen fives and I’ve seen tens” …
Mark Knophler does a schtick about Sultans of King where while playing it he’s doing a reflection which to me conveys something like indifference or even disdain for the song – as often as people expect him to play it … funny his eyes when singing it sometimes – it’s like he’s a million miles away.
Glad I never pursued performing songwriting so hard as to become an organ-grinder money for money …
King = Swing – don’t know how that happened. Must be the Canadian Club.
It was inspired
“I’m blessed I never “made it” as a pro if only because I don’t want to be married to the songs I’ve written and forced to sing them as often as they’re requested.”
So if you don’t have any songs of your own, you get forced to play “Proud Mary,” “Winchester Cathedral,” and the “Chicken Dance” a thousand times in your lifetime.
I know which I’d rather do.
Still and all, it eventually feels like a parlor trick.
“If I only had a dollar, for every song I’ve sung
Every time I had to play while people sat there drunk”
Does ad Credence to your point
Rriigghhttt….
You mean write, right?
I wrote one about squirrels the other day, after a friend suggested any song that uses the word “girl” can substitute the word “squirrel” … it sent me on a lark writing about squirrels for a half hour, not a word of which is true, but it’s funny.
So do you write songs Gonzo that makes you enlightened to comment on songwriters?
Well, he was partially right. Imagine was a fairy tale that would be great if it actually worked that way, just like Revolution was a disillusionment that pointed out the inevitable: the fairy tale is exactly all it ever could be.
Steely Dan ripped on Lennon and ‘Imagine” in a song named “Only A Fool Would Say That.”
My lefty friend prides himself on being part of the 60s revolution. I hated to remind him that I have always been anti-establishment (anti-vax, loathed Obama, pro-life) and he is now The Establishment.
As Peter Noone, Herman of “Herman’s Hermits”, notes on occasion on Sirius XM 60s, he knew John Lennon, and John Lennon was usually driven to his next appointment in his Rolls Royce.
Lennon was sure he could have it both ways, as all Leftists do.
The one time he wasn’t he was shot in the head..
The violence is only deferred or delayed never eliminated. The progressives don’t want to acknowledge that part b/c it undermines their fantasy. I used a simple process to explain this point in college; just ask the question ‘then what?’. Eventually, after many fits and starts, they will reluctantly get around to the part where the progressives summon armed agents of the state to either kill or beat into submission those who won’t comply at all with utopian fantasy.
“And what else happens.” is fun the same way.
The instant, utopian schemes all use *one* result of the thing they’ll do, ignoring that doing a thing always has several effects, like regulatory capture.
I guess the UIC Black Law Students Association members don’t listen to contemporary black music … or hang around with groups of young black people … where they would hear those taboo words repeatedly.
One might think their outrage was nothing more than a power ploy.
Professor Jacobson should gather together all these professors being harassed out of academia by the Woke Red Guard and start some kind of association with gravitas which can make inroads into the news media.
Either that or start a punk band together.
They don’t even credit the difference between use and mention, so it’s hard to point out that there’s a hearty rogue sense of the n-word, a black living by his wits and defying The Man, that shows up in rap; and in speech a fond cozy use, for a friend who does something unusually stupid or self-defeating (“You’re such a n-word.”) Both common and available to black speakers.
The prohibition of the word to white speakers is all based on use and mention not being understood and a hardwired comment policy that prevents insisting on it by common mention.
Start a new university
Nothin spins out of control. It’s all control.
Maher is not a liberal, he is a leftist. He is just not as crazy as the Leftists to the left of him.
He’s a “fashion” leftist: because it’s “cool”. Friggin idiot.
Who made this no talent an oracle of anything? Irrelevant. X finity
An immutable law of human nature is that nobody gives a shit unless and until it affects them personally, essentially the Martin Niemöller explanation.
There was a great story that one typical Hollywood ditz, Cameron Diaz, visited Peru with a “Shining Path” handbag, the rage of Rodeo Drive.
Problem was, the peasants of Peru knew what murderous bastards “Shining Path” were, and physically assaulted Diaz in the streets.
She ditched the handbag.
The problem here is not enough of us peasants have the smarts of a typical Peruvian peasant.
The violence is only deferred or delayed never eliminated. The progressives don’t want to acknowledge that part b/c it undermines their fantasy.
_________________________________________________________
precisely–or else they deny the obvious genocidal paths that “revolutions” can take or dismiss the killing(s) as “necessary”–am old enough to remember many of the iconic “life magazine” covers from eisenstaedt and others of the “red guards” brutality/actions–and then there are those of che and castro–both murderers of epic proportions–yet the progressives are generally too naive to consider that THEY might die as a result of their “revolutions”
There can be no enemies on the left.
It’s the same with the folks like Erlich who think we need to get rid of some large percentage of the world’s population to save Mother Gaia. They never offer to be part of the purge themselves.
Thank you for posting this Fuzzy. The left is self-destructing because of the “sensible middle” increasingly stepping up to take advantage of their not being hermetically sealed out of the discussion like we have allowed ourselves to become. This would be a good time for us to leave our echo chambers too and get back into the big discussion breaking out everywhere.
“Conservatives” (whatever that is) have marginalized themselves with their insane obsession for ranting endlessly about how stupid liberals are while chasing everyone who may agree with us but interprets the situation differently disagrees out of the discussion. Have we finally arrived at who is the ONLY true “conservative” among us yet? You can’t win elections by throwing everyone out of the discussion. On that score, the “conservatives (whatever that is) are as dumb as the wokesters. All yelling and name calling. What are sensible people supposed to do when all sides are throwing hand grenades everywhere including in their own foxholes?
We could not be having this opportunity to destroy the Uniparty today had Trump not risked everything and stopped Hillary from winning in 2016. He is still leading in this fight so THANK YOU DONALD TRUMP!
So how did we go full circle to once again find ourselves defending the globalist neocons in this single-mindless obsession with stopping Trump? How easy was it again be fighting the 2016 primary again with the Uniparty using the same JEB! primary strategy? Hold your horses before you go running off the cliff again.
It’s time to take a really good look at where we are, how we got here, WHY we got here, and how we find ourselves right where we started. It’s time to get out of our personal echo chambers and realize that we have been running around in our own personal mazes for too long. We can win this thing if we drop our pig-headed blindness.
There are plenty of very wise people pushing very hard against what we have been fighting but you never see them here or on Hannity or the other “pure conservative” outlets. Even Bongoni and Leven are missing out on this.
Winning does NOT require being “conservative” (whatever that is). Plenty of patriots out there who have fought in the military and are not politically involved. And they are finding their voices. Let them in!
Sorry that was an up vote
You make a series of good points here. Lots of voices out there who don’t fit neatly into the ‘conservative’ box but nevertheless do fit into the broader box of supporting individual liberty, a civil society and basic capitalism.
It is unfortunate that these voices are sometimes rejected for being insufficiently ‘pure’. When some on the right demand that we must do X, support Y policy or Z politician to the exclusion of other choices and denigrate or dismiss those who disagree we reject potential allies. Even when a particular voice is only with us on a single issue we should accept their contribution to move the ball forward on that single issue.
Too often the demand for conformity results in rejection of allies who might transform from mere allies of convenience to a broader acceptance of our viewpoints when exposed to them without the insistence they must adopt all of them immediately. This results in powerful voices like Rogan, Musk and Maher being stiff armed by the right. The populist oriented d voters have far more in common with the populist right than the corporatist d/prog party but many on the right look askance at them instead of making common cause where we agree.
I am drawn back to this scene in the first season of “Fargo” more and more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jDNTWFKv1E
The Big Lie that is the foundation of all leftist movements is human nature is malleable. This simply underscores the brilliance of America’s Founders who wisely understood human nature is fixed, then proceeded to craft ways to mitigate man’s baser desires. Leftism is built on might makes right. Therefore, far from stamping out greed, jealousy, hatred, and all the other deadly sins; it rewards them—guaranteeing the most vicious and ruthless power grubbers and looters will rise to the top.
Leftism is built on might makes right. …—guaranteeing the most vicious and ruthless power grubbers and looters will rise to the top.
How The Road To Serfdom of you. Don’t you know Hayek has been un-personed?
I have yet to find a refutation even in the contemporaneous public “debate” w/ Keynes. Plenty of sputtering and straw men. “Yeah, grant that I’m a mean white man as you say; that doesn’t mean your besotted pseudo-approach makes any sense. Go break windows to improve the economy and see what happens. You’ll see what’s happened whenever that crap was tried — and it wasn’t mean old me doin it.”
Oh, wait. I flashed back to that Toronto “debate.” Stupid pro-pro-gressive team. Maybe you can make a case that Canadian Kermit-Hitler is a mean white man. But Stephen Fry? Don’t try The Politics of Personal Destruction when they have more charisma than you do. Even Clinton-The-Big-Dog knew this; though The Second of That Name demonstrably did not. Frakking charisma-vacuum that one.
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2023/01/the-unsustainable-left.html
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