Remaking the World: The Agenda of Protesters, Corporate and Cultural elites

Commentary: Carol King

Revolutions, historically speaking, bubble up from the most oppressed sections of society – workers, peasants etc, with only the leader coming from the top echelon. The revolutionary type activism occurring in America for the last two months is different - it is taking place on the street, in elite institutions, corporate enterprises and at the international level. Let’s look first at the Democrats’ plan to win in November from the strategy emerging on the streets.

Information Operation 

They say the long-term strategic objective is a more equitable society for all, but a key component of this would consist of denying the protection of certain norms and laws, all while subjecting you to norms and laws when it works to their benefit.  It is materializing as an information operation from activists at the societal level coupled with a soft power effort from elites and international actors.

While there have been some tragic casualties in the protests, so far there is no actual warfare, but the protests are continuing.  Mostly they are trying to affect perceptions, build a narrative, play on those perceptions and cause an action that will lead to the activists’/democrats' victory.

It is also a sustained 24/7 attack. There is media hype, bad journalism and false reporting. Movie and music stars releasing Public Service Announcements as to what they believe people should think.  Staged attacks are waged on statues, corporate enterprises declare solidarity with particular causes, social media cancelling of those who dissent, and in Washington, Democrats kneel to affirm they are in line.  It seems more pervasive because it is pushed by so many cultural influencers, and is fodder for media outlets who have found it lucrative to publish stories that get folks worked up.

So, take one important norm - free speech, has that been eroded?  Well, the perspective of Democrats and leftist activists’ is that you may speak freely as long as your free speech conforms to the establishment narrative.  This flies in the face of saying whatever you think freely and without restraint. They want you to feel that there will be consequences if you say that no, you do not support some goals of Black Lives Matter, whose goals are many, including abandoning the nuclear family, wealth redistribution and so on.  They want you to be afraid and intimidated, and incidences of people cancelled, harassed and fired from jobs or voluntarily resigning because of a previous offensive statement serve to illustrate that there will be a price to pay for failing to go along with the mob narrative.

Callously, the rush by companies and organizations to institute a virtuous zero-tolerance policy on racism has resulted in the mistreatment of innocent people too.  The case of Emmanuel Cafferty seems most definitely an unjustified reaction.  Emmanuel, who was driving home from work had his left hand casually hanging out the window following an unpleasant encounter with another driver at a red light. He was later told that somebody had seen him making a white-supremacist hand gesture, and posted photographic evidence on Twitter. (Unbeknownst to most Americans, the “okay” symbol was linked to white supremacy as some said it resembled the initials for “white power”; it became a bit of a meme, and this is the symbol Cafferty was accused of making when his hand was dangling out the truck.)

People called the company to demand Cafferty’s dismissal and he was immediately suspended without pay. By the following Monday, he was out of a job and left shaken. After releasing his side of the story, Cafferty said the man who posted a picture of the encounter on Twitter deleted his account and admitted to Priya Sridhar, a local news reporter, that he may have overreacted “and misinterpreted it.” Repeatedly asked whether they had evidence that Cafferty was a white supremacist, knew about the “inverted” okay symbol and whether they knew that he was actually of mixed-race heritage, his former employer San Diego Gas & Electric company refused to answer. Data analyst David Shor lost his job via social platform Twitter, because he tweeted research findings that showed nonviolent protests are more effective for Democrats electorally. People on Twitter demanded he be fired, and he was.

These cancelling tactics are designed to crush morale, convince people that they are powerless, that everyone supports the leftist agenda, and that Trump cannot win.

Soft Power

Now let's look at the use of soft power by the corporate/media/cultural elites to prop up and add heft to this movement. Consider the Natural History Museum of New York removing the statute of Theodore Roosevelt. According to the museum, it was problematic, because it depicted a native American and African flanking Theodore Roosevelt on his horse, a pose which gave superiority to the white Roosevelt compared with the minorities on the ground at his sides.

The decision makers here were the Museum’s Board of Trustees, a lot of whom come from elite institutions with democrat leanings like Tina Fey, producer of 30 Rock NBC who recently pulled a show that contained blackface and racial stereotypes; Tom Brokaw, NBC; Lorne Michaels, another from NBC, and Jackie Bezos, the mother of Washington Post owner and Amazon CEO - Jeff Bezos.  Other patrons include, Michael Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs, and also on the consulting team, Chirlane McCray, Bill deBlazio’s wife.  McCray is also part of a new commission on racial justice reconciliation which is considering the fate of other New York statues; those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Saint Frances Cabrini. This activism by elites means statues are attacked by protestors on the ground, as well as from within the institutions who placed them there in the first place.

The Great Reset

At the international level, the protests, unrest and Covid-19 pandemic have presented elites an opportunity to rally and promote their idea of a global “Great Reset”.  This is a problematic proposal that would supersede any democratic accountability, something the American people have with their leaders, and are watching quickly fade away.

The main thrust of this Great Reset is to alter the global economy through a massive shift away from capitalism. Its goals center around three main themes: (1) repair the global economic damage caused by the coronavirus; (2) stop a coming climate change catastrophe; and (3) using the above two “crises” as an opportunity to advance a global collectivist system, which would destroy capitalism and individual rights.

The idea was first floated at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in June between global leaders from the United Nations, United Kingdom, United States, International Monetary Fund and multi-national corporations including Microsoft.

Representing the U.K., Prince Charles, urged that “we have a golden opportunity to seize something good from this [COVID-19] crisis. Its unprecedented shock waves may well make people more receptive to big visions of change.”

World Economic Forum’s (WEF) founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab echoed this “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, sentiment saying from education to social contracts and working conditions.”  He stated that “every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed.” In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

Sharan Burrow, the Australian general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said we need to use the present crisis to help with the long-term goal of “re-balancing economies.”  She stressed designing policies to align with investment in people and the environment. Continuing, she said “we want to end the profit-at-all-costs mentality, because if we don’t build an economic future within a sustainable framework in which we are respectful of our planetary boundaries, and the need to change our energy and technology systems, then we will not have a living planet for human beings.” Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, compared the situation historically and said the world should use the current crisis to push “the reset button,” similar to what occurred after World War II, when “we set up a new world order.”

No specifics for the plan have been devised yet, but they are to be the focus of the WEF’s 2021 meeting in Davos.

The threat to the capitalism and individual liberty ingrained in America is in some respects amplified, because people in countries like the United Kingdom and United States are backing Great Reset ideas. Consider too, the phenomenon of a “horizontal revolution” where ideas of intersectionality, woke politics and identitarian ideology are lying dormant, embedded in younger Americans among organizations at all levels of society, ready to erupt and upend traditional norms in favor of the woke inter-sectional agenda at any time. In this scenario, universal access to information and platforms means action can be coordinated with remarkable ease across boundaries, but with disregard for the prevailing local norms. For example, Black Life Matters activists in England recently spray-painted BLM on an English Civil War memorial apparently not aware that the English Civil War was fought (and won) by the people and parliament to take power from the ruling King.  There were no Black people involved. Indeed, Black Lives Matters is now a global cause, when originally it formed as a response to the Trayvon Martin shooting in America.

At the WEF Davos 2021, collaborative meetings and planning sessions are scheduled for a vast network of youth activists in the Global Shapers Community - a non-profit based in Switzerland with over 7,000 members in 400 cities around the world.  The Global Shapers Community includes the far-left Climate Reality Project (CRP) co-founded  by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and aims “to train inspiring individuals to connect climate issues with key fights like hunger and social justice.”

Their previous campaigns include ones to shift “towns to 100 percent renewable electricity, fight pipeline developments in front-line communities” and “organize climate strikes bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets.” As reporter and YouTube commentator, Tim Pool has noted from his previous reporting at protests like occupy Wall St, he would encounter activists in multiple locations and across multiple countries. He nicknamed them “the tourists” as they would travel across borders in support of their issues.

Such a sweeping global change as that envisioned by the Great Reset would have a huge impact on America economically and in communities who rely on oil, gas and manufacturing industries.  At the same time activists in the streets are rolling out their information operation to shut down dissent.  As observers' look on at statues being torn down, unrest and protest in the streets, it is worth bearing in mind that this is not a typical revolution from below, it is a horizontal three-line attack, from the streets, elite institutions and corporations, and leaders of international organizations.