Independent journalist Tom Peck compared Owen Jones to Adolf Hitler on 29 October. Following this, Jones and others owned Peck so badly that the sketch writer was left soul-searching.
Responding to the election of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s president, Jones said:
Socialism or barbarism: that's the choice now facing humanity. The world's fourth biggest democracy has been consumed by fascism and, if we don't fight back, what's happened to Brazil will happen to us all. https://t.co/ljjOXFCiTl
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) October 28, 2018
President-elect Bolsonaro is openly homophobic, pro-torture, and racist; has advocated abolishing democracy; and may well destroy the Amazon rainforest. Meanwhile, parties offering the status quo of free-market economics are in abject decline. So Jones is saying we need to offer people actual solutions to their problems, or the far right will continue to take power.
Then, the Independent‘s Peck waded in (since deleted):
“No history in school I take it”
First, people had to finish removing their jaws from the floor at the volume of moron involved in that statement.
Then they began taking it apart:
Wow. "Socialism or barbarism" was popularised by Polish leftist Rosa Luxemburg: ("Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism").
She was murdered by far-right Freikorps, who were proto-Nazis. Are you really this thick? https://t.co/tXAEuZGXNx
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) October 29, 2018
Luxemburg was a polish Marxist, writer, and revolutionary who opposed authoritarian Leninism.
Hi @Independent can you please explain the rationale in hiring a “political sketchwriter” who doesn’t know the difference between Rosa Luxemburg and Adolf Hitler? pic.twitter.com/JmzgSj95SR
— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) October 29, 2018
But it’s not just that Peck is mixing up anti-fascist Marxists with Adolf Hitler. He’s also suggesting that Hitler was a socialist, which amounts to Nazi propaganda.
As a history teacher pointed out:
https://twitter.com/jelmerevers/status/1056845253913862144
Just because the Nazis called themselves the ‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party’ doesn’t mean they were socialists. Likewise, the North Korean ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ is hardly democratic. In reality, the Nazis branded themselves as socialists to try and poach supporters from popular socialist and communist groups at the time.
In power, the Nazis turned Germany into a fascist country with a base of corporate cartels, concentrating more wealth at the top.
Soul-searching
At least Peck is now doing some soul-searching:
Wake up people
In 2018, the question ‘socialism or barbarism?’ points to the global decline of the free-market status quo. For example, France’s ‘centre-left’ party plummeted 22.2% between the 2012 and 2017 French elections. Its counterpart in the Netherlands fell 19.1%, and other mainstream centrist parties such as those in Spain, Germany, and Greece also bled support. From the UK to the US, people cast ‘anti-establishment’ votes for Brexit and Donald Trump.
By talking about ‘socialism or barbarism’, Jones is pointing to a power vacuum spreading across the world. 30 years of globally-imposed free-market economics has increased inequality, destroyed the environment, and left ordinary people “destitute“.
In short, many are turning against the status quo. And if they aren’t offered progressive solutions, the far right is waiting to take power – as we’ve seen in Hungary, the US, and now Brazil.
With mainstream journalists such as Peck manning the flow of information, no wonder we’re in such a state.
It’s down to us to sort this mess out.
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Featured image via The Independent/ YouTube and Owen Jones/ YouTube
