by Bob Avakian
July 17, 2023
As part of the overall challenges I have issued to people to face up to the real nature and history of this country, and the system that rules in this country and dominates the world—the system of capitalism-imperialism—I issued this challenge to Bill Maher:
HEY, BILL MAHER—HERE’S A “POLITICALLY INCORRECT” TRUTH THAT CAN’T BE “CANCELLED”: AMERICA IS NOT, AND NEVER HAS BEEN, GREAT—EXCEPT IN ONE WAY—IT IS THE WORLD’S GREATEST OPPRESSOR AND DESTROYER OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Do You Dare to Take Up the Challenge of Trying to Refute This?*
But, in the time since this challenge was issued, things have only gone from bad to worse with Bill Maher.
Maher is someone who, in the recent past at least, has tried to pose as “cool” and played to an audience that considers itself progressive, in a general sense. But as things have continued to sharpen up in this country, and in the world overall, Maher has more and more revealed himself to be what he actually is and where he is actually heading. While he raises criticism of “cancel culture”—and he cannot help but have a few correct points in going after this increasingly unhinged and harmful phenomenon—his criticism remains firmly on the terms of this system of capitalism-imperialism, which itself needs to be “cancelled” at the earliest possible time.
Maher is not only a shameless and aggressive advocate for the monstrously criminal U.S. imperialism, he is also increasingly finding himself in the same place as outright fascists and other proponents of lunacy, for example in opposition to (or “raising serious questions about”) vaccines which have been proven safe, effective, and crucial in preventing or significantly limiting the devastating effects of diseases and pandemics.
Like some self-proclaimed “libertarians,” Maher seems to be a proponent of a kind of absolute “individual freedom”—for example, the “freedom” not to be vaccinated against serious disease—which ends up posing itself against the rights and well-being of others, and does real harm to society and ultimately humanity as a whole.
This is just another variation of the extreme individualism that is grounded in and “nurtured” by the parasitism of U.S. imperialism—feasting off the terrible exploitation, and super-exploitation, of literally billions of people throughout the world, including hundreds of millions of women and more than 150 million children, particularly in the Third World (Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia).
There is nothing that deserves to be admired, or preserved, in this parasitic individualism, regardless of how it dresses itself up and postures as some kind of right to “individual expression” and assertion of “individual liberty”—the “freedom” to help perpetuate and feast off horrific exploitation and oppression.
* The challenge to Bill Maher is available at thebobavakianinstitute.org. [back]