In our wildest imaginings anyone growing up in the West, would never have thought or believed possible, amidst that magnificent, post WW2 period of opportunity, that we would find ourselves in the early 21st century, mimicking the communist China’s cultural revolution of that same, mid 1960’s to the mid 70’s period where recalcitrants and holdouts that didn’t subscribe to the correct thinking and admit to the mob how bad they were and admit their various transgressions and impure thoughts, were subjected to what became known as “struggle sessions”.
Struggle sessions during the Chinese cultural revolution were defined as:
“..a form of public humiliation and torture that was used by the Communist Party of China during the Cultural Revolution. The aim of a struggle session was to shape public opinion and humiliate, persecute, or even execute political rivals and those deemed class enemies. The victim of a struggle session was forced to admit various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed. Struggle sessions were often held at the workplace of the accused, but they were sometimes conducted in sports stadiums where large crowds would gather if the target was well-known..”
Amidst what has been described as “cancel culture” this is exactly what is happening right now, in plain sight, in America.
Can Australia be far behind?
A month or so ago, the far left rank and file foot soldier mob/staff of the New York Times in what could only be described as a cultural revolution, forced the opinion editor, James Bennet to resign after allowing the publication on the opinion pages of a column written by Republican Senator, Tom Cotton, called “Send in the Troops” about the damage to buildings and infrastructure being done by the 24/7, rolling rioting and looting. The Times management effectively surrendered to the woke child mob from the newsroom who said Cotton’s column made them feel unsafe.
This is the cotton wool snowflake generation that are “triggered” if they read or hear any opinion contrary to their own.
In an illustration of how a struggle session works, Bennett was forced to apologise to the entire staff.
It’s pure Maoism. Pure totalitarianism.
Only a matter of weeks later these same radical, totalitarian revolutionaries allowed for the publication of a pure propaganda article by a Chinese communist attacking the United States.
The same thing has happened at the Philadelphia Inquirer where the editor of ten tears, Stan Wischnowski was forced out by the mob for running a headline, “Buildings Matter Too” about the cost of damage to buildings as a result of the riots.
Again, staff were triggered and outraged and performed a ‘sickout’ where they all effectively went on strike using their sick leave. The paper then undertook their own ‘struggle session’ and ran a grovelling public apology begging for forgiveness for being so offensive and insensitive.
Andrew Sullivan of the New York Magazine and of the left, suffered a similar fate. He was forced out simply because he wasn’t left or radical enough and wasn’t willing to do what he was told and write what he was told by the child foot soldier mob.
This is being replicated in mainstream media newsrooms across the US where the child soldiers of the totalitarian, barbarian left, are no longer at the gate, but inside the gate and through intimidation have seized the high ground of the newsrooms and are now dictating what is allowed to be thought, said, published and disseminated.
This cancel culture, safe spaces and triggering and the associated ‘struggle sessions’, which used to be restricted to the university campus, or the Chinese cultural revolution, has now gone totally mainstream infecting not just the corporate HR departments but also the woke sporting world where you can be fired for expressing, publishing, or as an individual, tweeting or posting on Facebook a thought that runs counter to the aims of the revolution.
The closest comparison with what’s going on at the moment would be the Salem witch trials of 1692.