The Oxymorons of Woke Capitalism

by Armando Simón

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
—Charles Bukowski

Many years ago, I would watch movies and become irritated at occasional films which had an anti-rich, or if you will anti-capitalist, element. I lived in Cuba and have always been on the lookout for Marxist tropes that occasionally saturate American culture. Knowing of Communist influence in Hollywood, and having a libertarian outlook, I was particularly irritated at the absurd caricatures, particularly when the rich person in films would engage in obviously self-destructive actions. Two instantly pop into my head, The Fifth Element and the Alien franchise, among others; in both, a capitalist or a company actively tries to enable an alien species come to Earth which will result in the destruction of life on the planet. Totally absurd premise. Such decisions, I felt, were stupidly unrealistic and done for the sake of besmirching capitalism—a caricature that I have typically come across in Marxist writings and stage plays from the former Soviet Union.

Now, I am not so sure.

Take, for instance, capitalists who are/were Communists. Capitalist-Communists are the consummate oxymoron. Example: Ted Turner the creator of the Central News Network (CNN) and husband of Hanoi Jane was a great admirer of Fidel Castro and often boasted of having met him. He visited North Korea and found nothing out of the ordinary there. Klaus Schwab (“You will own nothing and be happy”), George Soros and Armand Hammer also come to mind, among others.

Most everyone agrees that contemporary American society has become toxic because of relentless fanatics who call themselves “woke,” “social justice warriors,” “activists,” “anti-fascists,” etc., such terms simply being euphemisms for “Communists” by their opponents who are too timid to use the C-word, or by Communists themselves.

America is disintegrating before our eyes due to the activities of these fanatics and the lack of effective response from the rest of the population. A considerable force in this disintegration are capitalists and companies that have become “woke.”

For example, you will find many businesses—such as Kellog’s—that are run by whites giving 80 million dollars to Black Lives Matter (BLM is also known as Buy Large Mansions). Or that—like Coca–Cola—will urge its customers and employees to “be less white.” Or that companies—like Verizon, Walmart—will have mandatory Critical Race Theory (CRT) and/or Diversity Inclusion Equity (DIE) indoctrination sessions where whites will be insulted by either black supremacists or by white Judas Goats, where employees will be told that white people are responsible for every evil in the world while blacks are like gods walking among mere mortals. Best Buy has a management training program available open to everyone—except whites. In all these instances of corporate-sponsored racism some whites are being convinced how enlightened and humanitarian and intellectual white people could be if they would only agree to cut their own throats. Dove recently gave money to a pro-BLM black hippopotamus who carried out a hate hoax against a skinny white student.

Or companies that will hire men pretending to be women—instead of hiring real women—to sell products to women, thereby insulting and infuriating its customers and losing revenue as a result (think Gillette, think Bud Lite, think Adidas). Or company executives who will just be downright moronic. Even though these companies are in business to sell a product, i. e., to make money, they insist on continuing to insult their customers with “inclusivity,” a buzz word which includes promoting freakish looking perverts, even though they are losing money in doing so, which is the acme of fanaticism.

And then there are the banks and lending agencies. Paypal decided to team up with ultra-hate groups ADL and SPLC to persecute those people or organizations whose views are guilty of wrongthink (which is why I opted to default on my Paypal loan, my credit rating be damned). Several banks have decided that they will deny services to individuals whose viewpoints oppose the totalitarian ideology. Two banks, Minnesota Bank & Trust and Heartland Financial USA closed Mike Lindell’s accounts (his products were also removed by woke companies). Chase Bank closed the personal accounts and credit cards of Retired US General Michael Flynn. Gofundme shut down a fundraiser for a teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, who had the unforgivable crime of defending himself from three leftists trying to kill him. Florida’s Banks United, Professional Bank, Signature Bank in New York, and Deutsche Bank have closed the accounts of who the left consider the devil himself, President Donald Trump (as one commenter put it, “ Why in the world would Trump’s 74,216,722 voters entrust their money to any of those banks?” Good question).

Kind of makes you wonder if conspiracy theories should not be automatically discounted.

Unfortunately, the totalitarian virus has spread overseas and we see that Metro Bank refused to give an account to an organization that opposes the mutilation of children, while Nigel Farage—who was the architect of Brexit—had his account closed by Coutts Bank (which is owned by National Westminster Bank). He is not the only one in the UK who has been victimized. In Australia ING Bank has closed the accounts of independent journalists who are not a cog in the media hivemind. The Royal Bank of Canada has denied mortgages based on lenders’ politics. Gofundme in Scotland shut down a fundraiser for a teenager who was expelled from school for having the audacity to insist that there were only two genders.

And, of course, there is the constant censorship practiced by Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon and other websites to keep out facts and viewpoints the totalitarians deem to be anathema (Twitter no longer censors wrongthink ever since Elon Musk acquired the company and purged it of totalitarians, revealing in the process the vast censorship Twitter had imposed).

What is ironic and underlines the oxymoronic element to all these policies is that the people facilitating the leftist totalitarian policies will be some of the first to be put up against the wall and shot by future commissars. Which would be poetic justice except that the rest of us will be right there next to them.

Traditionally, the Republican Party has been seen—rightly or wrongly—as the party that is business oriented while the Democratic Party has been seen as the advocate of blue-collar workers (unfortunately, part of the problem is that Republicans have never come to grips with the fact that many CEOs, CFOs and CIOs are SOBs). Considering how much contempt the liberals have recently demonstrated for the common man and how much businesses have become woke and the elites are intent on shoving leftist ideology down their workers’ throats, it is time to realign interests. The reader may remember that at one time leftists used to fulminate against rich donors. Now, with the kind of twisted logic typical of Marxists, one Jonah Goldberg claims that small donors are a threat to democracy

But since the Republican Party is rightly known as being the Stupid Party, I am doubtful it will do so.

Armando Simón is originally from Cuba, is a retired psychologist and author of Fables from the Americas The Book of Many Books, and This That and the Other.