From Flatland to Reality: Escaping the Political Pendulum
by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
February 23, 2025
As we saw in Back and to the Right: The Pendulum Swings Again, the political pendulum has shifted once again in recent years. Now, right-wing parties and populist movements are sweeping to power across the globe, toppling the entrenched left-wing establishment and its ESG-supporting, DEI-promoting, AGW-fearing, 2SLGBTQ+-rainbow-flag-waving orthodoxy.
But now that the pendulum is clearly swinging toward the right, what are these "populist politicians" and "anti-establishment radicals" actually accomplishing? Are we seeing a real revolution, or just more of the same?
Well, let's take a look at how the populist slogans compare to reality, shall we?
Globalism is out! . . . But suddenly the self-same people who were protesting the encroaching North American Union 20 years ago are now its most fervent cheerleaders, and the old globalist dream of an EU army is finally becoming a reality.
Technocracy is kaput! . . . But suddenly the people who were decrying AI, technocracy and the Big Tech censors are the loudest supporters of Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Palmer Luckey, Elon Musk and the rest of the gaggle of PayPal Mafia / Thielverse / government contractors / NSA enthusiasts and next-gen AI-weapons system manufacturers.
War is over! . . . Unless you're talking about trade wars and threats against erstwhile allies. Or unless you're talking about the never-ending Zionist war of aggression in the Middle East, in which case every single one of the "populist" politicians who have been swept to power is an arch supporter of that war.
Inflation is a thing of the past! . . . Unless you mean price inflation. Cuz prices are still rising—and egg prices in particular are setting all-time records.
The Great Reset is DOA, and so is Davos' pathetic attempt at "Rebuilding Trust in Government"! . . . But President Musk is performing a great reset and DOGE is rebuilding trust in government!
So, what's happening here? Why is it that the DEI window dressing is being taken down but the agenda is marching on as usual?
Is the pendulum an illusion? Is there something bigger going on here that we're not aware of?
Why, yes. Yes, there is something bigger going on here. And I'm going to explain it to you. Are you ready?
WELCOME TO FLATLAND
Back in the '60s, the hippies protested the establishment of their day, and all they ended up with was more of the wars, financial manipulations and authoritarianism they had been protesting against.
Here in the 2020s, the populists are protesting the establishment of our day, and so far all they've ended up with is more of the wars, financial manipulations and authoritarianism they have been protesting against.
Again, what's happening here? Why—despite the pendulum swing that is so obviously taking place—do the core New World Order agenda points never really change? Why are so many populists seemingly placated by the DEI window dressing and are now cheering on the very AI algocracy-pushers and brain-chippers and deep state minions they were supposedly so mad at?
People have pushed the pendulum to the left and gotten more authoritarianism in return.
They have pushed the pendulum to the right and gotten more authoritarianism in return.
That's all the options, right? There is nothing else in the political universe than the left and right of the political spectrum, is there?
The truth is that the "political spectrum" is a trick. In fact, it's a trick that is so embarrassingly simple that, once you realize how simple it is, you will never believe you fell for it in the first place. But, as Mark Twain famously (didn't) observe: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
So, let's start by not approaching it as a political problem. Let's think of it as a question about physics. How could it be possible that someone goes either to the left or to the right and ends up at the same spot?
Well, this short video should give you a clue to what is happening here:
In short, for the flatlanders who believe that their 2D reality is all that exists, moves in the 3rd dimension are not only surprising, but incomprehensible. How can the poor flatlander possibly even conceive of the 3-dimensional apple, let alone understand what it is when he sees its cross-sectional interaction with flatland?
But what does this have to do with politics? Well, let's try a different approach.
This time, let's look at a brief passage from "Up/Down Politics," one of the 20 essays in REPORTAGE: Essays on the New World Order, which, in case you hadn't heard, is my BRAND NEW BOOK THAT IS AVAILABLE NOW! from ReportageBook.com.
The essay opens with a parable that helps to explain, in greater detail, the strange political situation in which we find ourselves. And that parable is entitled . . .
THE PARABLE OF THE ANTS
Once upon a time there was a colony of ants living on a loop of string. The string was so thin that the ants could move in only two directions, forward and backward. With little else to do on their narrow trail, the ants spent most of their time arguing about which direction to head in their daily travels. When these spats broke out, the ants took sides.
One group of ants, who called themselves “forwardists,” contended that to move forward was to make progress. And since progress was, in the forwardists’ estimation, the key to happiness, they believed all the ants should move forward all the time.
Another group, known as “backwardists,” disagreed. They chastised their forwardist friends for confusing progress with happiness. True happiness, the backwardists preached, lies in knowing where you came from, not in dreaming of where you had never been.
For a while the forwardists and the backwardists lived and worked together happily enough, despite their differences. One day, though, a fast-moving backwardist inadvertently ran into an inattentive forwardist coming the other way, knocking him off the string. Recriminations followed. Angry forwardists and spiteful backwardists started to separate and form competing camps. Ants who had never had a strong opinion on the matter—the ones who moved forward on some days and backward on others—were forced to pick sides. As a result, children were separated from their parents, spouses divorced, siblings split up, friendships dissolved.
At first, there was nothing more than an imaginary dividing line between the two encampments. Soon enough, though, the ants, industrious and ornery as only ants can be, erected a barbed wire fence between them. Then, as battle lines hardened, they replaced the fence with a brick wall. Before long, guards were stationed on either side of the wall to make sure no one breached it. The ant opponents stopped speaking to each other, except to hurl the occasional taunt or insult across the divide.
Within a generation, no one even remembered what the wall meant anymore or what the whole argument was about. The philosophies became muddled. So muddled, in fact, that some forwardists began walking backward and some backwardists walked forward.
Despite the confusion, the ants remained determined to pass their traditions down through the generations. Forwardists told their children scary stories about the monstrous backwards ants who ate forwardists’ children for breakfast, and the backwardist children were likewise taught that forwardists were ravenous beasts who preyed on all but their own kind.
The fearmongering intensified until, inevitably, skirmishes broke out along the dividing wall. The skirmishes became battles. The battles, wars. One side would beat back the other. The losers would regroup and mount their own offensive, forcing their aggressors to retreat. And so it went, back and forth, with no clear victor.
The constant conflict began to take its toll on the ants. Finally, exhausted, forwardists and backwardists called for a truce. Both sides agreed to go their separate ways, never to reunite. Early one morning, the sides struck camp and began their great journey, heading in opposite directions.
The forwardists, wary of their backwardist foes, peeked over their shoulders as they marched off, making sure their old enemies really were leaving them forever. The backwardists, knowing full well that forwardists could never be trusted to keep their word, also glanced behind them to be certain their rivals were disappearing into the distance. Each side was satisfied that the other was indeed slipping farther and farther away.
Naturally, the ants in each group were relieved to be rid of their nemeses at long last. They all figured they would find virgin territory on the string in which they could settle peacefully.
But then, a most remarkable thing happened.
Off in the distance, each ant leader saw something approaching. As the two leaders drew nearer, they discerned not a single form ahead of them, but many forms. A long line of moving forms, marching single file. They looked tiny. They looked black.
At last, the objects were close enough for the leaders to recognize individual shapes. Ants. And not just any ants, but the very ants they had sworn to never see again.
Suddenly, all the ants in each long line realized, to their horror, that the unthinkable had occurred. Forwardists and backwardists, who had set out in opposite directions and had travelled without changing course, were now heading toward each other. What they believed to be a permanent split from the other camp of ants had in fact been the reverse. Halfway around the string, the old enemies were converging.
PURCHASE THE BOOK TO CONTINUE READING “UP/DOWN POLITICS”
ESCAPING FLATLAND
Atlante by AlessandroDIDDI
Now, if you want to read that parable in its context, discover what it has to do with "Up/Down Politics" and (BONUS!) make sense of this otherwise inscrutable comment from Corbett Report member CogInTheGears, what can I say? You'll have to buy (and, more importantly, read) the book.
But the point is that from our 3D perspective, it isn't hard to see what has happened to our poor, confused, 2D ant colony. Not realizing that the string they're living on is one big loop, they've simply walked in a circle. From their one-dimensional perspective, they were travelling in a “straight” line in “different” directions. From our 3D perspective, we see that their straight line is not straight at all, but curved. And although they're moving “apart” in one dimension, they're actually “reuniting” in a second dimension. Their different paths brought them to the same spot, the way two ships setting sail from the same place, one headed east, the other west, meet on the other side of the globe.
I trust the relevance of this parable is not lost on my more-than-capable readers but let me spell it out anyway.
Just as the ants can march "forward" or "backward" on their loop of string and still arrive at the same spot, so, too, can the masses lead populist revolutions pushing the political pendulum to the "left" or to the "right" and still arrive at the same spot. Regardless of the best intentions of the populist protesters of the 1960s or the populist movement of the 2020s, the banksters continue to run world affairs, the military-industrial complex continues to expand, and the rich and powerful continue to amass riches and power.
Armed with the knowledge we've gained from examining The Parable of the Ants, it's obvious what's happening here. In the exact same way the flatlanders are baffled by the apple or the ants are perplexed by their loop of string, so, too, are the masses unable to understand their political reality because they aren't observing it in all its dimensions. And, just as the introduction of the third dimension suddenly makes sense of the apple or the loop of string, so will the addition of another political dimension make sense of our political conundrum.
Think of it: all our lives we have been told that "the political spectrum" defines our political reality. There is the left. There is the right. There is even a center. But that's it. Plotting someone's position on this one-dimensional line is, we are told, the only way to make sense of their political positions.
Well, brace yourselves, dear Corbetteers! Today, I present to you . . .
. . . drum roll, please . . .
the second political dimension! Behold it in all its glory!
I know, I know, you no doubt need a moment to catch your breath. The discovery of another dimension is always a disorienting and bewildering experience, so take all the time you need to familiarize yourself with this new map of reality.
. . . OK, that should do it.
And now you see exactly what is happening. Authoritarians have convinced the public that there are only two political dimensions: left and right. This deliberate obfuscation has successfully allowed government after government, establishment after establishment, regime after regime, to constantly move the public in the other political dimension, namely "upwards" toward authoritarianism (and thus away from "downwards" libertarianism). The public, distracted by the left-to-right motion of the pendulum and bamboozled by the "political spectrum," completely fail to notice this movement.
For those of us who do see this extra dimension of the political landscape, it is beyond frustrating to watch our fellow human beings of all political stripes being suckered by such a basic deceit.
How can otherwise rational people be duped into believing that some "populist" authoritarian is going to make things better by being even more authoritarian than the authoritarians he is replacing?
How can those who rightfully scorn Bill Gates for his mRNA manipulations not recognize the exact same manipulation at play when Trump promotes Larry Ellison's idea of using AI to help develop mRNA "vaccines" for cancer . . . or when the self-described "father of the COVID vaccine" himself shares Bill Gates' enthusiasm for an mRNA vaccine to "cure HIV"?
How can the very same populists who smell the stench of globaloney clinging to Klaus Schwab and Yuval Noah Harari when they speak of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and promote "algorithmic governance" fail to notice the exact same stench emanating from Elon Musk when he promotes his "AI-first" approach to "transforming governance"?
How can people who were finally waking up to the truth about the War of Terror fairy tale be excited about the "Pentagon Purge" that's supposedly just taken place? How have they been convinced that the problem isn't the existence of the military-industrial complex itself but merely that the "wrong" person was in charge of that military-industrial complex? (Don't worry, everyone, we've gotten rid of that evil, woke Charles Q. Brown Jr. and replaced him with the fearsome gigachad Dan "Razin" Cain, who, in addition to having a kickass nickname, also (according to Trump himself) "was instrumental in the complete annihilation of the ISIS caliphate," which apparently wasn't the creation of the Western intelligence agencies but a totally real bogeyman you should absolutely be scared of!)
It's because, stuck in the 1-dimensional construct of the "political spectrum," these otherwise well-meaning and discerning people have been rendered incapable of understanding that Schwab and Musk and Gates and Trump and Cain and Brown and all the other players in this game are all—despite occupying different spots on the left/right portion of the spectrum—firmly situated in the same upper half of the 2-dimensional political grid. The populist protesters are like flatlanders suddenly encountering a 3-dimensional apple or ants marching around the loop of string, believing they are escaping from their enemy when in fact they are uniting with them.
Until we recognize the authoritarian/libertarian dimension of our political reality, we will forever be fooled into wasting our political energies squabbling with our fellow downist allies and supporting our uppist enemies.
Why does the political pendulum continuously swing from one extreme to another but always leave us in the same spot? Because the pendulum is a psyop designed by the oligarchs to keep us forever fighting over window dressing and rainbow flags and forever cheering on greater and greater authoritarianism.
But just as the Q anonsense of the last decade—with its comforting call to "trust the plan" and "enjoy the show"—proved too enticing for some members of the truth community to resist, so will this latest fix of hopium—with its DOGE theatrics and "vanquishing" of the old establishment—likewise suck many erstwhile freedom fighters back into the left/right psyop. Having made up their mind that these autocrats are ruling by executive fiat for the right reasons, that these technocrats are using technology in the right way, that these mRNA "vaccine" pushers don't really mean what they say, that these transhumanists are ushering in their brain chips and AI stargates and drone armies out of love for humanity, the victims of this psyop will follow their authoritarian leaders around the loop of string until they find themselves back where they started.
What differentiates the Q hopium from the DOGE hopium is that, given that AI is advancing rapidly and the drone armies and transhuman technologies are closer than ever to implementation, there might not be time to wait for another swing of the pendulum. Having successfully marched the masses around the loop of string once more, the technocrats and authoritarians may be preparing to throw us off the string altogether.
In the final analysis, those who cheer on the swinging of the pendulum from left to right (or from right to left) without addressing the up/down dimension of politics are no better than cheerleaders for authoritarianism. They feel empowered because they can help (or feel like they help) in steering the direction of politics itself, but in reality their revolution accomplishes nothing of substance. They are merely "choosing" whether they want to be ruled by left-wing authoritarians or right-wing authoritarians.
Won't you join me and CogInTheGears, then, in the ranks of the Downists, as we push forward the only revolution that matters? I hope to see you on the battlefield . . . but I'm afraid you won't find it by going left or right.
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