On Containment

Why do I talk so much about containment? What is it and why should we always be aware of it? In this article I’m going to do my best to answer these questions. I have generally borrowed the concept from the Renaissance scholar, Stephen Greenblatt, who coined it an essay called ‘Invisible Bullets’ in 1988.[1] The basic idea is that power can generate its own subversion to contain it. Perhaps the greatest example in modern living memory is the protest against the war in Iraq. On 15th February 2003, between six and ten million people marched against the Iraq war in sixty countries. One million people marched in London alone making it the largest protest in the city’s history.[2] Not only did the war in Iraq did not stop, but its two major figureheads, George W. Bush and The Dark Lord, Tony Blair, won re-election in 2004 and 2005 respectively. By allowing such massive protests, which on the face of it might look like a threat to their power and authority, Bush and Blair bolstered their case that they were leading the ‘free world’ of liberal democracies against an ‘axis of evil’. The likes of Saddam Hussein would have never allowed such large protests. The protestors had been allowed to vent, expended all their energy and felt like they’d had their say – the largest protest in London’s history must be some sort of win, right? – so now everyone could go home again proud of the fact that they’d spoken truth to power. In other words, the anti-war coalition had been successfully contained. The regime, ultimately, was strengthened.

That was a bunch of socialists and leftists being contained. Since then, they have been so thoroughly contained that they are now reduced to cheering on multi-national corporations such as Disney and – quite literally – cheering on the war effort in Ukraine. In fairness to Jeremy Corbyn, not him, but the left more generally is a sorry shell of itself. They are totally owned by the neoliberal order they once so despised. Rather than trying to bring down Wall Street, they are now kissing the boot of Mickey Mouse so long as he injects pro-gay messages into content intended for children. The left has been totally humiliated by Wall Street to the extent that they must now voice the belief that women are men and men are women. Leftists are now so wholly the useful idiots of Power that most people on the right mistake them for being in charge. They are not in charge but rather completely subordinate to the interests of international finance, which is a system that runs not for profit but for control. Why does international finance appear to hate straight white men? It is not because they are all ‘Cultural Marxists’ or Jews, as many seem to think, it is because it has been strategically useful to present themselves as the defenders of the poor and oppressed. Readers of Bertrand de Jouvenel will surely know this is the oldest trick in the book: the high-low middle mechanism in action.[3] In any case, as we shall see, overt anti-white sentiments may soon be coming to an end in the interests of containment the other way.

Subversion in a liberal democracy does not only come from the socialist left, however, but also from those bastions of being ‘on the wrong side of history’, the conservative right. However, unlike the left, which seldom if ever has genuine widespread support, conservativism is the de facto belief system of the majority of almost all populations. The fuss over Elon Musk buying Twitter is mostly about the extent to which that is true. The media’s greatest gaslight has always been to convince the person sitting at home that views held by one in ten people are held by nine in ten and vice versa. An open and unmoderated Twitter would expose this. Therefore, liberal democracy must contain the genuine opinions of the majority population through one of the most fraudulent entities ever imagined by man: the centre-right political party. Naturally, if you’re reading this you know already that the ‘right-wing party’ is and always has been a sham. Remember, it was the Tory Party, the greatest masters of containment in world history, who repealed the Corn Laws, expanded the franchise, and introduced gay marriage. The Tory Party has been promising to reduce immigration to the UK since Michael Howard ran against the Dark Lord, Tony Blair, in 2005. The Tories have been in power since 2010. For much of that time net immigration has been above the levels of the Blair years.

Whenever the Tories talk tough on immigration, it is little more than red meat flung to the rabid gammons who gobble it up every time. The Guardian will run headlines calling Boris Johnson or Priti Patel a Nazi and so on, but everyone knows deep down that any ‘action’ is only symbolic. And these symbolic actions may be enough in any given week to give the right the feeling of a win. In this tweet, by the abject Tory Boy, Gammon Easter Worshipper, we can see the entire point of containment in action:

Mark Collett is a British Nationalist, who used to be part of the British Nationalist Party (BNP) and who is now the leader of Patriotic Alternative. Whatever you think of Collett, there is little doubt that, if he were in power, he would reduce net immigration extremely quickly using policies outlined more than fifty years ago by Enoch Powell, then the most popular politician in the country, and now a despised by-word for racism. However, in the world of Gammon Easter Worshipper, ‘who needs Collett when you have Priti [Patel]’? Note that the Borders Bill applies only to Asylum Seekers and will not reduce net immigration whatsoever. It is legislation designed to contain elements in British society such as Collett who threaten the dominant order.

 Much the same could be said of Ron DeSantis’s recent ‘Stop WOKE Act’ in Florida, which attracted many headlines and was treated as a huge ‘win’ by many right-wingers online; it is – if you read it – one of the most politically correct and egalitarian documents you’ll ever witness, stuffed to the brim with Boomer Truth. Donald Trump, when in office, did nothing but give people largely empty symbolic wins that made them feel good while delivering almost nothing of substance. This is the essence of containment. I have said and will say again that a Trump or DeSantis victory in 2024 would be a huge win for the regime. Likewise, Musk buying Twitter – should he allow people to vent and dunk on shitlib celebrities and blue checkmarks again – is a win for the regime because people will treat meaningless ratios and dopamine hits as ‘wins’ while the ruling class remain in power entirely unscathed.

However, the regime does have a serious problem, which is that its previous containment project – which, as I said, wholly owned the left – has led to runaway progressivism. It needs, and quickly, to tame these progressives, clip their wings, and strip them of institutional power since the polarisation they have been causing threatens the social order. So sayeth the Dark Lord in his advice to the current Labour leader, Kier Starmer: ‘We should openly embrace liberal, tolerant but common sensical positions on the “culture” issues, and emphatically reject the “wokeism” of a small, though vocal, minority.’[4] Bear in mind that Blair is not simply the former Labour leader and former Prime Minister, but the Special Advisor for Global Affairs of the ADL,[5] a 1992 graduate of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow,[6] who has been to practically every Davos meeting since then, and is the head of a scarily influential Bill-Gates-backed global NGO.[7] Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, and major player in the World Economic Forum (he and Blair have shared a stage together on a few occasions), has also moved to distance himself from the ‘woke’ label this year.[8] This seems, at least in part, to be a response to demands from within the business community that Blackrock should stop pursuing what are perceived as activist investments,[9] but it also seems part of a wider reorientation among the true elites. For example, Jonathan Greenblatt, the President of the ADL, has walked back some of the excesses of progressivism recently as well. He must have felt his considerable power slipping last year when his call to have Tucker Carlson removed from air was not only rejected by Fox News but also soundly rebuked by 1,500 Rabbis.[10] Again, if the ADL are just being ignored, that’s a problem for the regime, and thus after the whole business with Whoopi Goldberg earlier this year, Jonathan Greenblatt had the ADL’s definition of racism changed. From July 2020 until February 2022, they had adopted the ‘woke’ definition:

The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.

But after the Goldberg controversy, and an excruciating letter by Greenblatt,[11] they changed the definition again to the much more Boomer Truth flavoured:

Racism occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.

Now let us go back to that ‘Stop WOKE Act’ Bill by Ron DeSantis. What specifically does it prohibit?

...that subjecting a person, as a condition of employment, membership, certification, licensing, credentialing, or passing an examination, to training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin under the Florida Civil Rights Act:

1. Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin.

2. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

3. An individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.

4. Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin.

5. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.

6. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.

7. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the individual played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.

8. Such virtues as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin.[12]

Strange that this Bill should pass around a month after the ADL officially changed its definition of racism, two months after Larry Fink distanced himself from ‘woke’ and five months after The Dark Lord, Tony Blair, urged Labour to drop all wokery. Notice, however, that the DeSantis Bill is framed as a ‘win’ for the right. It is a law that effectively bans all forms of discrimination that reads very similarly to the 2010 Equalities Act passed by Blair’s successor Gordon Brown here in the UK. I hope you see what I see. If the regime is clever, it will follow suit and allow the right – the most easily duped and pleased set of people ever to exist – to enjoy a few more of these ‘wins’.

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[1] Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Invisible Bullets’, in Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 21-65.

[2] See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2767761.stm.

[3] Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, trans. J.F. Huntington (1945; Minneapolis, MN: Liberty Fund, 1993).

[4] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/tony-blair-keir-starmer-woke/.

[5] https://www.adl.org/who-we-are/our-organization/our-board-of-directors.

[6] https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_A_Partner_in_Shaping_History.pdf, p. 131.

[7] https://institute.global/.

[8] https://www.ft.com/content/2ab11b21-9a5c-480a-acd5-097ea0bb1ff3.

[9] https://cei.org/blog/larry-fink-and-blackrock-pulling-back-on-woke-investing/.

[10] https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/fox-news-wont-fire-tucker-carlson-for-endorsing-white-supremacist-theory-664968.

[11] https://j0nathan-g.medium.com/getting-it-right-in-defining-racism-3c01a517bf9d.

[12] https://www.natlawreview.com/article/florida-s-stop-woke-act-limits-topics-employers-can-discuss-di-training.