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Oct 17, 2018 | www.theguardian.com
The fund reports that Britain's finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal, and says privatisation is to blame
Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier.
It's why your tax credits keep dropping , and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant – because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it "crowding out" private money. It's why water bills are so high and train services can never be counted on – because both industries have been privatised.
We let finance rip and flogged our assets. Austerity was bound to follow Will Hutton
From the debacle of universal credit to the forced conversion of state schools into corporate-run academies, the ideology of the small state – defined by no less a body than the International Monetary Fund as neoliberalism – is all pervasive. It decides how much money you have left at the end of the week and what kind of future your children will enjoy, and it explains why your elderly relatives can't get a decent carer.
I don't wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would be filed before you could say "east coast mainline". Instead, I want to address the most stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more evidence is coming in to the contrary.
Let's start with the IMF itself. Last week it published a report that barely got a mention from the BBC or in Westminster, yet helps reframe the entire debate over austerity. The fund totted up both the public debt and the publicly owned assets of 31 countries, from the US to Australia, Finland to France, and found that the UK had among the weakest public finances of the lot. With less than £3 trillion of assets against £5tn in pensions and other liabilities, the UK is more than £2tn in the red . Of all the other countries examined by researchers, including the Gambia and Kenya, only Portugal's finances look worse over the long run. So much for fixing the roof.
'British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City.' Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/ShutterstockAlmost as startling are the IMF's reasons for why Britain is in such a state: one way or another they all come back to neoliberalism. Thatcher loosed finance from its shackles and used our North Sea oil money to pay for swingeing tax cuts. The result is an overfinancialised economy and a government that is £1tn worse off since the banking crash. Norway has similar North Sea wealth and a far smaller population, but also a sovereign wealth fund. Its net worth has soared over the past decade.
The other big reason for the UK's financial precarity is its privatisation programme, described by the IMF as no less than a "fiscal illusion". British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, "increase revenues and lower deficits but also reduce the government's asset holdings".
Throughout the austerity decade, ministers and economists have pushed for spending cuts by pointing to the size of the government's annual overdraft, or budget deficit. Yet there are two sides to a balance sheet, as all accountants know and this IMF work recognises. The same goes for our public realm: if Labour's John McDonnell gets into No 11 and renationalises the railways, that would cost tens of billions – but it would also leave the country with assets worth tens of billions that provided a regular income.
Instead, what this IMF research shows is that the Westminster classes have been asset-stripping Britain for decades – and storing up financial trouble for future generations.
Just look at housing to see the true cost of privatisation Dawn Foster
Privatisation and austerity have not only weakened the country's financial position – they have also handed unearned wealth to a select few. Just look at a new report from the University of Greenwich finding that water companies could have funded all their day-to-day running and their long-term investments out of the bills paid by customers. Instead of which, managers have lumbered the firms with £51bn of debt to pay for shareholders' dividends. Those borrowed billions, and the millions in interest, will be paid by you and me in our water bills. We might as well stuff the cash directly into the pockets of shareholders.
Instead of competitively run utilities, record investment by the private sector and sounder public finances, we have natural monopolies handed over to the wealthy, banks that can dump their liabilities on the public when things get tough, and an outsourcing industry that feasts upon the carcass of the public sector. As if all this weren't enough, neoliberal voices complain that we need to cut taxes and red tape, and further starve our public services.
This is a genuine scandal, but it requires us to recognise what neoliberalism promised and what it has failed to deliver. Some of the loudest critics of the ideology have completely misidentified it. Academics will daub the term "neoliberal" on any passing phenomenon. Fitbits are apparently neoliberal, as is Ben & Jerry's ice-cream and Kanye West. Pundits will say that neoliberalism is about markets and choice – tell that to any commuter wedged on a Southern rail train. And centrist politicians claim that the great failing of neoliberalism is its carelessness about identity and place, which is akin to complaining that the boy on a moped who snatched your smartphone is going too fast.
Let us get it straight. Neoliberalism has ripped you off and robbed you blind. The evidence of that is mounting up – in your bills, in your services and in the finances of your country.
• Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist and senior economics commentator
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Dec 29, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Relotius, meanwhile, has "gone underground," according to the Guardian, returning several awards for his work while being stripped of others, such as CNN's two Journalist of the Year awards. A German publication also stripped the journalist of a similar accolade.
At least 14 articles by Relotius for Der Spiegel were falsified , according to Steffen Klusmann, its editor-in-chief. They include an award-winning piece about a Syrian boy called Mouwiya who believed his anti-government graffiti had triggered the civil war. Relotius alleged he had interviewed the boy via WhatsApp .
The magazine – a prestigious weekly – is investigating if the interview took place and whether the boy exists. Relotius won his fourth German reporter prize this month with a story headlined "Child's Play".
Klusmann admitted the publication still had no idea how many articles were affected. On Thursday it was revealed that parts of an interview with a 95-year-old Nazi resistance fighter in the US were fabricated. - The Guardian
According to Relotius' Der Spiegel colleague Juan Moreno - who busted Relotius after conducting his own research after his bosses failed to listen to his doubts , released a video in which he attempted to describe how Relotius got away with his fabrications.
"He was the superstar of German journalism if one's honest, and if his stories had been true, that would have been fully justified to say so, but they were not," said Moreno. "At the start it was the small mistakes, things that seemed too hard to believe that made me suspicious."
In addition to having several awards stripped from him, the 33-year-old Relotius now faces embezzlement charges for allegedly soliciting donations for Syrian orphans from readers "with any proceeds going to his personal account," according to the BBC . On Thursday, Relotius denied the accusations.
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Jun 10, 2013 | www.theguardian.com
WyldeWolfe , 10 Jun 2013 19:42
disorderedworld , 10 Jun 2013 17:21Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom
So it's been a success then.
A wonderful article that names the central issue. Neoliberal ideology acted as a smokescreen that enabled the financially powerful to rewrite the rules and place themselves beyond the law. The resultant rise of financial capitalism, which now eclipses the productive manufacturing-based capitalism that was the engine of world growth since the industrial revolution, has propelled a dangerous self-serving elite to the centre of world power. It's not just inequality that matters, but the character of the global elite.MatthewBall -> murielbelcher , 10 Jun 2013 16:23@murielbelcher -MatthewBall -> Grich , 10 Jun 2013 15:40The neo-liberal order commenced only in the late 1970s - there was a very different order prior to this which was not "soviet socialism" as you term it.
So it seems that your suggestion is for a return to western capitalism post-war style - would that be right? (b.t.w. if I bring up the whole Soviet Union thing, it is partly because quite a few commentators in this debate come across as if they wish for something much more leftist than that).
Anyway, my worry with this idea is that I am just not convinced that life in "The West 1945-80" was better on the whole than in "The West 1980-present". It's true that unemployment is higher these days, but a lot of work in the post-war years was boring and physically exhausting; in factories and mines where conditions were degrading and bad for health; and where industrial relations were simply terrible. I think as well that the higher unemployment is a localized phenomenon that many developing countries are not experiencing (this is relevant because Deborah Orr proposes change for the whole world, not merely the West).
There were also frequent recessions and booms - in fact, more frequent (albeit shorter) than now. What seems to have changed in this respect is that, whereas we used to alternate regularly between 2-3 years of boom and 1-2 years of bust, we now have 15 years of continuous boom followed by a (maybe?) 10 year bust (this pattern began around 1980). If you asked me which of these two patterns I preferred, then I think I'd go for the pre-1980 pattern, but its not clear to me that the post-1980 pattern is so much worse as to underwrite a savage indictment of the whole system.
As for Casino banking: they should reform that. Britain's Coalition Government has done something in that respect, although its not very radical - I am hoping Labour can do more. There is certainly a lot to be said for banks going back to a pre-"Big Bang" sense of tradition and prudence.
Buts let's not also forget the plus sides in the ledger for post-1980 capitalism: hundreds of millions in the former third world lifted out of poverty; unprecedented technological innovation (e.g. the internet, which makes access to knowledge more equal even as income inequality grows); and the accomodation (at least in the West) of progressive social change, such as the empowerment of ethnic minorities, LGBT people and women.
Change, yes - but lets be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
@Grich -MarkHH -> MickGJ , 10 Jun 2013 13:34What you have missed, is that the lions share of the proceeds of that growth are not going to ordinary people but to a tiny minority of super rich. It is not working for the majority. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/07/58-of-real-income-growth-since-1976-went-to-top-1-and-why-that-matters.html
OK, but both the claim and the link cited in support talk only about a problem in the US. This can't really answer my point, which was that the rest of the world should not be expected to support a change to the economic system of the whole world just because of problems that are mostly localised to North America and Europe. People in developing countries might like the fact that they are, at last, catching "the West" up, and might well not care much about widening inequality of incomes in Western societies.
If you are going to propose changes that you want the whole world to adopt, as Deborah Orr does, then you should be careful to avoid casually assuming that Africa, India, China, et al, feel the same way about the world's recent history as we do. It seems to me that not enough care has been demonstrated in this regard.
Toeparty , 10 Jun 2013 05:28@MickGJ - Left to their own devices the most extreme neo-liberals would remove the state almost completely from corporate life.
Except when the State has to step in to prop up an unsustainable ideology. Then it's all meek murmurings and pleas for forgiveness and a timid "we'll be better from now" concessions and the Government obliges the public with the farce that they actually intend to do anything at all but make the public pay for the financial sector's state subsidized profligacy.
Once the begging bowl is re-filled of course then the pretense of "business as usual" profligacy rises to the fore.
The taxpayers are left to pick up the tab, nations are divided against immigrants and scroungers and then unfettered evangelists like you can spout as pompously as you like about how much big business would like to remove the state from corporate affairs.
When you well know that is the last thing big business would like to do. More of the state owned pie is always the most urgent of priorities. Poorer services at inflated costs equates as 'efficiency' until the taxpayer is again left to step in and pick up the bill.
Without the state there wouldn't be neo-Liberalism, it took state regulated capitalism to build what unfettered purists insist on tearing apart for short term greed.
The trouble is Neo-Liberals do not want to remove the state at all, they want to BE the state and in the process rendering democracy pretty much meaningless. And they've succeeded.
The biggest swindle ever pulled was turning the most glaring and crushing failure of unfettered corporatism into the biggest and most crushing power grab implemented in order to suppress the will of the people.
Just as IMF loans come with 'obligations' the principle of democracy itself was sold as part of 'the solution'.
The unsustainable, sustained. By slavery to debt, removal of society's safety net and an economy barely maintained by industries that serve the rich, vultures that prey on the weak and rising living costs and the drudgery of a life compounded by a relentless bombardment of everything in life that is unattainable.
Nobody hates a market more than a monopoly and capitalism must inevitably end in monopoly as it has. For the profiteering monopolies investment especially via taxation is insane as it can only undermine their monopoly. With the economy now globalised not even a world war could sweep away the current ossified political economy and give capitalism a new lease on life. It's socialism or monopoly capitalist barbarism. Make your choice.DracoTBastard , 10 Jun 2013 05:26Malakia123 , 10 Jun 2013 03:35Money that the governments don't actually need as they can print their own money and spend it to use their countries own resources and then raise taxes to offset the extra spending and thus maintaining monetary value. The reality is that a government should never, ever borrow money.The IMF exists to lend money to governments,
The beginning period between the two world wars (1919-33) in Germany called the Weimar Republic shows us exactly what severe austerity imposed by the Treaty of Versailles caused. Because the German economy contracted severely due to reparations payments, steady inflation and severe unemployment ensued. Of course the FED having started the Great Depression in America had not helped matters much anywhere in the world. The bankers have always known that the austerity caused by having to pay off un-payable loans, that increase every year, will eventually produce countries very similar to the "Weimar Days" in pre-Hitler Germany.brucefiiona -> MysticFish , 9 Jun 2013 20:36They also know that drastic conditions such as these often lead to a collapse of democracy and a resurgence of Fascism.
What causes inflation is uncontrolled speculation of the kind we have seen fed by private banking at various crucial points in history, such as the Weimar Republic. When speculation is coupled with debt (owed to private banking cartels) such as we are seeing in America and Europe now, the result is disaster. On the other hand, when a government issues its own "good faith" commerce-related currency in carefully measured ways as we saw in Roman times or Colonial America, it causes supply and demand to increase together, leaving prices unaffected. Hence there is no inflation, no debt, no unemployment, and no need for income taxes.
In reality, the Weimar financial crisis began with the impossible reparations payments imposed at the Treaty of Versailles. It is very similar to the austerity being imposed on European Nations and America as we speak – regardless of the fact that the IMF is trying to pose as "the Good Cop" at the moment! The damage has been done to nations like Greece, and others are soon to follow. The uncontrollable greed of banks and corporations is leading to an implosion of severe magnitude! It's time to open their books and put a stop to these private banks right now!
@MysticFish - So the US who has a greater spend on the military than communist China is neoliberal?brucefiiona , 9 Jun 2013 20:28Neoliberalism could not exist without massive state support. So the term is meaningless. There is nothing "liberal" about having a huge state funded military industrial complex that acts a Trojan horse for global corporations, invading other countries for resources.
The term neoliberal is not only meaningless but misleading as it implies a connection with true liberalism, of which it has no meaningful connection.
Do away with deceptive terms like neoliberalism, capitalism, socialism, left wing and right wing and things become clearer.fr0mn0where -> murielbelcher , 9 Jun 2013 14:42At root a lot of the people who get involved in all of the above have very similar character traits - love of power, greed, deceitful, ruthlessness. Most start out with these character traits, and others gain them as a result of power.
Anyone high up in politics or business is unhinged. You have to be. The organizational structures in these things are so synthetic, the beliefs so artificial, rigid, dogmatic and inhuman that only a unhinged person could prosper in this climate.
Most reasonable people admit doubt, are willing to accept compromise, are willing to make the occasional sacrifice for the greater good. All these things are what make us human, however all these things are seen as weaknesses in the inverted world of business and politics.
Business and politics creates an environment where the must inhuman traits prosper.
@murielbelcher -MysticFish -> AssistantCook , 9 Jun 2013 14:28"no but the highly placed banking and financial class are along with their venal political mates"
For sure but are they capitalists? Although they may well own capital does their power derive from the ownership of capital? You may, or may not be interested in this lecture on the future of capitalism by John Kay.
@AssistantCook - Neoliberalism is a branch of economic ideology which espouses the value of the free-market, and removing all protective legislation, so that large companies are free to do what they want, where-ever they want, with no impediments from social or environmental considerations, or a nation's democratic preferences. Von Hayek was a major influence and Thatcher was a loyal disciple, as was the notorious dictator, Pinochet. It is economic theory, designed for vulture capitalists, and unpopular industries like fossil fuel or tobacco, and usually the 'freedom' is all one-sided.MysticFish -> DavidPavett , 9 Jun 2013 14:12@DavidPavett - If states are too big, then what about multinational banks and corporations? I wonder why Neoliberal ideology does not try to limit the size of these. They are cumbersome and destructive, predatory dinosaurs and yet our politicians seem mesmerised to the point of allowing them special favours, tax incentives and the ability to determine our nation's policies in matters such as energy and health. Why not 'Small is Beautiful,' when it comes to companies? It doesn't make sense to shrink the state but then let non-transparent and unaccountable, multinational companies become too powerful. One gets the feeling the country is being invaded by the interests of hostile nations, using all-too-convenient Neoliberal ideology and hidden behind a corporate mask.Jesús Rodriguez , 9 Jun 2013 12:46Is the IMF ever stop evading its responsibility and blaming others for the worldwide financial tragedy it has provoked? Is it ever stop hurting the working class?theguardianisrubbish -> murielbelcher , 9 Jun 2013 07:28@murielbelcher -theguardianisrubbish -> murielbelcher , 9 Jun 2013 07:10"Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful elites is all."
No it is not that is what you want to believe. There is nothing in this statement other than an opinion based on nothing.
"Many people across the globe were lifted out of poverty between 1945-1980 so what does your statement about neo-liberalism prove"
Which countries during this period saw massive sustainable reductions in poverty without some free market model in place?
"It is you who should open your eyes and stop expecting people on here to accept your ideological beliefs and statements as facts."
I don't expect people to accept my beliefs I am just pointing out why I think their beliefs are wrong. This is a comment section the whole idea of it is to comment on different views and articles. How can you ever benefit or make an accurate decision or belief if you do not try to understand what the opposite belief is? I think nearly everything I have said has been somewhat backed up by logic or a fact, I have not said wishy washy statements like:
"Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful elites is all."
Unless you can expand on this and give evidence or some form of an example why you think its true then it makes no sense. You are not the only commentor on this article to make a similar statement and the way people have attempted to justify it is due to bailouts but as I have said a bailout is not part of the neoliberal school of thought so if you have a problem with bailouts you don't have a problem with neoliberalism.
@murielbelcher - I don't want to go to far into Thatcherism because it is slightly off topic. The early 80s recession was a global recession and yes during the first few years unemployment soared. Why was that because the trade unions were running amok the UK was losing millions of days of work per month.theguardianisrubbish -> someoneionceknew , 9 Jun 2013 06:34Inflation was getting out of control and the only way to solve it was a self induced recession. You cannot seriously believe that without the reforms that she implemented we would not have recovered as quick as we did nor can you argue that it was possible for her or anyone else to turn around such an inefficient industry. Don't forget the problems of the manufacturing industry go back way before Thatcher's time.
@someoneionceknew -MysticFish -> MickGJ , 9 Jun 2013 06:17"Here's your problem. You believe that banks lend savings. They don't. Loans create deposits create reserves."
I am not claiming to be an expert on this if you are then let me know and please do correct me. I agree banks do not lend deposits but they do lend savings. There is a difference putting money on deposit is different to say putting money into an ISA. I don't agree though that deposits create reserves I believe that they come from the central bank otherwise banks would be constrained by the amount of deposits in the system which is not true and something you have said is not true.
Nevertheless, the majority of liquidity in the bond markets (like most other markets) comes from institutional investors, i.e pension funds, unit trusts, insurance companies, etc. They get their money from savings by consumers as well as sometimes companies. Ok we don't always give our money to insurance companies when we save but via premiums is another way the ordinary consumer contributes to this so called "debt industry". I also said that foreign and local governments buy debt and companies invest directly into the debt market.
@MickGJ - Business-friendly to who exactly: the nation or hostile overseas speculators?theguardianisrubbish -> TedSmithAndSon , 9 Jun 2013 06:14theguardianisrubbish -> theonionmurders , 9 Jun 2013 05:35"In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). "Iceland would disagree.
"The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism."
Why have only the rich benefited from the bailout? You are not making any sense.
"The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism."
Why? You cannot just say a statement like that and not expand, it makes no sense.
"Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and died."
...but also revitalised the economy and got everyone back to work.
"Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else."
Again you have to expand on this because it makes no sense.
"In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility down, just like it does here."
Don't think that is true in most cases nor would it make sense. Why would a dictator who wants as much power as possible operate a laissez-faire economy? You cannot have personal freedom without having economic freedom, it is a necessary not sufficient condition. Tell me a case where these is a large degree of political freedom but little to no economic freedom. Moreover look at the countries in Asia and South America that have adopted a neoliberal agenda and notice their how poverty as reduced significantly.
"I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from, massive state intervention in markets (QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality, and makes the announcement from a tractor factory."
Who has 5 year plans?
"In theory it's one thing, the reality is entirely different."
If the reality is different to the theory then it is not neoliberalism that is being implemented therefore it makes no sense to dispute the theory. Look at where it has been implemented, the best case in the world at the moment is Hong Kong look at how well that country has performed.
"a massive lie told by rich people "
I can assure you I am not rich.
"Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves."
Neoliberalism is based on personal freedom. If you believe this about neoliberalism in your opinion give me one economic school of thought where this does not apply.
@theonionmurders -ATrueFinn -> fireman36 , 9 Jun 2013 04:17"Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism."
What you are saying does not make sense. Whatever you say about that there was no where else to turn the government had to bailout out the banks a neolibralist would disagree.
"In fact the role of the state is simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to private parasitical corporations. "
That's corporatism which so far you have described pretty well.
"History has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in policy since the 1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan, numerous PFI bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American, 1997 Asian and 2010 European debt crises."
What?! Bailouts have been occurring before the industrial revolution. Deregulation in the UK occurred mainly during the 80s not 70's. Furthermore financial deregulation occurred in the UK in 1986. In the USA the major piece of financial deregulation was the Gramm Leach Bliley Act which was passed in 1999. So you have just undercut your own point with the examples you gave above. You could argue Argentina and we could argue all day about the causes of that, but I would say that any government that pursues an expansionary monetary policy under a fixed ER is never going to end well.
"...policy if you won't flick through a book."
My point was that when people quote a source they tend to either quote the page that the point comes from. To be honest if this book is telling you that neoliberalism and neoclassical are significantly different (which you seemed to suggest in you earlier post) then I would suggest put the book down.
@ fireman36 09 June 2013 1:32amGrich -> MatthewBall , 8 Jun 2013 22:29Don't like it? Change the rules.
Exactly! However:
"Google, Amazon and Apple... avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments."
Yes to the first, no to the second. Corporations with revenues exceeding the GDP of a small nation have quite a lot of power: Exxon's revenue is between the GDP of Norway and Austria. In Finland Nokia generated 3 4 % of the GDP for a decade and the government bent backwards to accommodate its polite requests, including a specific law reducing the privacy of employees' emails.
@MatthewBall -oriel46 -> Fachan , 8 Jun 2013 22:08I am not sure if this is true. We have the same economic system (broadly speaking, capitalism) as nearly every country in the world, and the world economy is growing at a reasonable rate, at around 3-4% for 2013-14 (see http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/c1.pdf for more details).
We percieve a problem in (most of) Europe and North America because our economies are growing more slowly than this, and in some cases not at all. The global growth figure comes out healthy because of strong growth in the emerging countries, like China, Brazil and India, who are narrowing the gap between their living standards and ours. So, the world as a whole isn't broken, even if our bit of it is going through a rough patch.
What you have missed, is that the lions share of the proceeds of that growth are not going to ordinary people but to a tiny minority of super rich. It is not working for the majority. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/07/58-of-real-income-growth-since-1976-went-to-top-1-and-why-that-matters.html
@Fachan - Except that it isn't capitalism that was being criticized here, but neoliberalism: a distinction that's often lost on neoliberals themselves, ironically.TomorrowsWorld , 8 Jun 2013 19:58I'm sure that Denis Healy and any number of African economists would confirm that the IMF is quite simply a refuge of absolutely last resort, when investor confidence in your economy is so shattered that the only way ahead is to open the shark gates and allow big money to plunder whatever value remains there, without the benefit of any noticeable return for your people. Greece is but one more victim of a syndrome that encompasses all the science and forensic analysis of ritual sacrifice.murielbelcher -> OneCommentator , 8 Jun 2013 19:10@OneCommentator - don't confuse economic deregulation which acted as handmaiden to global finance and multinationals as economic freedoms for populationmurielbelcher -> theguardianisrubbish , 8 Jun 2013 19:04China's govt was doing what china's govt had decided to do from 1978 BEFORE the election of Thatcher in 1979 or Reagan in 1980 (office from Jan 1981), so very little correlation there I think
The GATT rounds whether you agree with their aims or not were the products of the post war decades, again before Thatcher and Reagan came to power
The golden age of 1945 - 1975 or so witnessed huge rises in standards of living so your point linking neo-liberalism to rising standards of living is literally meaningless. There was an explosive growth in economic activity during the three or four post war decades
@theguardianisrubbish - you can't get away with thisfireman36 , 8 Jun 2013 19:03She DID not get everyone back to work again. There were two recessions at either end of the 1980s. She TRIPLED unemployment during the first half of the 1980s and introduced the phenomenon of high structural unemployment and placing people on invalidity benefits to massage the headline unemployment count. Give us the figures to back up your assertion that she "got everyone back to work again." I suspect that you cannot and your statement stands for the utter nonsense that it is in any kind of reality.
A few months after she was forced out Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont in 1991 during yet another recession declared that "unemployment was a price worth paying"!!!
Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful elites is all. Many people across the globe were lifted out of poverty between 1945-1980 so what does your statement about neo-liberalism prove
It is you who should open your eyes and stop expecting people on here to accept your ideological beliefs and statements as facts.
Because they are not: in no shape, way or form
Not very impressed to be honest. For starters:MickGJ -> JohnBroggio , 8 Jun 2013 18:42"The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State."
That's glib and inaccurate. A better read about the IMF from an insider: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/ Digest: the biggest problem the IMF have to deal with in bailouts is always the politics of cronyism; free-market oligarchs and government in cahoots.
"Many IMF programs "go off track" (a euphemism) precisely because the government can't stay tough on erstwhile cronies, and the consequences are massive inflation or other disasters. A program "goes back on track" once the government prevails or powerful oligarchs sort out among themselves who will govern -- and thus win or lose -- under the IMF-supported plan. The real fight in Thailand and Indonesia in 1997 was about which powerful families would lose their banks. In Thailand, it was handled relatively smoothly. In Indonesia, it led to the fall of President Suharto and economic chaos."
Generally whoever happens to be in opposition at the time. This made the LibDems the ideal (sorry) choice for a long time but then they broke a long-standing if unspoken promise that they would never actually be in government.@JohnBroggio - who caters for the idealist vote?
Last weekś Economist has some very interesting stuff from the British Social Attitudes survey which shows the increasing drift away from collectivist ideals towards liberalism over each succeeding generation.
The assumption shared by many round here that the young are some untapped resource of revolutionary energy is deeply mistaken
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Jun 08, 2013 | www.theguardian.com
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe
Sat 8 Jun 2013 02.59 EDT First published on Sat 8 Jun 2013 02.59 EDT
The IMF's limited admission of guilt over the Greek bailout is a start, but they still can't see the global financial system's fundamental flaws, writes Deborah Orr. Photograph: Boris Roessler/DPA FILE T he International Monetary Fund has admitted that some of the decisions it made in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were wrong, and that the €130bn first bailout of Greece was "bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that it went along with its partners in "the Troika" – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF, put the interests of the eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch their pearls and splutter with horror that they could be accused of something so petty as self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity", have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the philosopher John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State. Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and faceless, to be efficient and responsive. I agree. The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further – some setting about the task with greater relish than others. Now the task, supposedly, is to get the free market up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured, law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves, having been brought up believing in material aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda. But how can the privatisation of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high, working people are turning to food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up bargains in the form of busted high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you have to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to encourage private profit and shareholder value, then lend governments the money they need to create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them for their profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister, Anna Soubry , suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up families were putting the NHS under strain. The compartmentalised thinking is quite breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while working part-time – thus having the leisure to consume – the better. No doubt these female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more important than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your own. You couldn't make these characters up. It is certainly true that women with children find it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima facie example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it is so often presented – evidence that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many aspects of financial services – that Britain enjoyed during the second half of the 20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all else, forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family members. All of those things have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory , did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their folly become ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering with their allies instead of waking up, smelling the coffee and realizing that far too much of it is sold through Starbucks.
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.theguardian.com
justamug , 8 Jun 2013 18:09This article is a testament to our ignorance. Orr is no intellectual slouch, but somehow, like many in the mainstream, she still fails to address some fundamental assumptions and thus ends up with a muddled argument.murielbelcher -> MurchuantEacnamai , 8 Jun 2013 18:06"What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return;"
Lending has not stopped - it's just moved out of one market into another. Banks are making profits, and banks profit are made by expanding credit.
Yes and no. There is a difference between what is preached and what happens in practice. The era of neoliberalism has seen a massive increase in government, not a shrinkage. The biggest change is the role of governments - to protect markets rather than to protect the rights and dignities of its citizens. When viewed by outcome rather than ideological rhetoric, it becomes increasingly clear that neoliberalism has nothing to do with shrinking the state, freeing markets, or freeing the individual, and everything to do with a massive power grab by a global elite.Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and faceless, to be efficient and responsive.
freedomrespect , 8 Jun 2013 18:00@MurchuantEacnamai - well righty ideologues such as yourself and your venal political acolytes have utterly failed to support the case or institute measures that: "apply effective democratic governance to ensure marketWhat was the billions of pounds in bank bailout welfare and recession on costs all about? You tell me. All the result of the application of your extremist free market ideology? Let the banks run wild, they mess up and the taxpayer has to step in with bailout welfare and pay to clear up the recession debris
Market participants and their venal political friends have during the past 30 years of extremist neo-liberal ideology rigged, abused, distorted and subverted their market and elite power to tilt the economic and social balance massively in their favour
You the taxpayer are good enough to bail us out when we mess up but then we demand that your services are cut in return and that your employment is ever more precarious and wages depressed (at the lower end of the scale - never ever the higher of course!! That's the neo-liberal deal isn't it
Neo liberalism = the favoured ideology of the very rich and powerful elite and boy don't they know how to work its levers
Very insightful commentary and at last somebody is looking at globalisation and asking whose interests is it designed to serve? It certainly ain't for the people. Amazing it's been approved on a UK liberal newspaper as well!Boguille -> Fachan , 8 Jun 2013 17:57@Fachan - There was nothing in the article about envy. It was an exposition of the failure of our present system which allows the rich to get ever richer. That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that the increasing disparity in wealth is bringing down the economy and making it less productive while leaving a large part of the population in, or on the verge of, poverty.murielbelcher -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 17:41@CaptainGrey - but we're not talking about that form of capitalism are we?murielbelcher -> fr0mn0where , 8 Jun 2013 17:39Surely you must realise that there are very very different forms of capitalism. The capitalism that reigns now would not have permitted the creation of the NHS had it not been devised in the1940s when a very different type of capitalism reigned. Its political acolytes and its cheerleader press would have denounced the NHS as an extremist commie idea!!
@fr0mn0where - it was crumbling in the 1980smurielbelcher -> fr0mn0where , 8 Jun 2013 17:35The Chicago boys swarmed into eastern Europe after 1989 to introduce a form of gangster unbridled capitalism. The very Chicago boys led by Milton Friedman who used the dictator Pinochet's Chile as test bed for their ideology from September 1973 after the coup that overthrew Allende
@fr0mn0where - no but the highly placed banking and financial class are along with their venal political matesmurielbelcher -> MatthewBall , 8 Jun 2013 17:33We've had three decades of asset stripping in favor of the rich elites and look at the mess we're in now.
@MatthewBall - social democracyRidiculousPseudonym , 8 Jun 2013 17:26The neo-liberal order commenced only in the late 1970s - there was a very different order prior to this which was not "Soviet Socialism" as you term it.
As such this extremist rich man's ideological experiment has had a long innings and has failed as the events of 2008 laid bare for all to see - it has been tried out disastrously on live human beings for 34 years and has now been thoroughly discredited with the huge bank bailouts and financial crash and ensuing and enduring recession It was scarcely succeeding prior to this with high entrenched rates of unemployment, frequent recessions/booms and busts and unsustainable property bubbles and deregulated unstable speculative aka casino banking activity
Time for a change
This is basically right, but a few comments.HolyInsurgent , 8 Jun 2013 17:221. Neoliberalism cannot be pinned on one party alone. It was accepted by the Thatcher government, but no Prime Minister since has seriously challenged it.
2. Neoliberalism is logically contrary to conservative values. Either there are certain moral imperatives so important that it is worth wasting money over them, or there are not. No wonder that Tories are torn in two, not to mention Labour politicians who also try to combine neoliberalism and moral principle.
3. Saying "even Adam Smith" is understandable but unfair. His work was rather enlightened in the context of mercantilism, and of course the Wealth of Nations was not his only book. Others will know his work better than me, but I think he dwells rather strongly on problems of persistent poverty.
4. The political and redistributive functions of nations are indeed damaged by neolib, but I don't think there is any realistic way of getting that power back without applying capital controls. If we apply capital controls, all hell breaks loose.
5. Ergo, we are stuck with a situation where neolib is killing democracy, distributive justice and conservative moral values, but there is nothing we can do about it without pulling the plug altogether and unleashing a sharp drop in wealth and 1930s nationalistic havoc. A bit of a tragedy, indeed.
someoneionceknew -> colonelraeburn , 8 Jun 2013 17:18Deborah Orr: The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt.
I strongly believe that people are not being told the full story. Like the NSA surveillance revelation, the effects will not be pretty when the facts are known. No country needs the IMF. Any national government with its own national currency sovereignty can pay its own debts within its own country with its own currency. International borrowing in foreign markets is the biggest myth since religion. But since neoliberalism and its inherent myths have been swallowed whole for so long, we are still at the stage where the child points and laughs at the nude emperor. The fallout from the revelation and remedy is to follow.
The problem with the Eurozone is not that the Euro is the "national" currency. Control of the Euro resides with the European Central Bank, not the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, IMF). The European Central Bank, as sole controller of the Euro (the "national" currency), can issue funds to constituent Eurozone states to the extent necessary. I challenge anyone to demonstrate how any central bank does not have power over its own currency!
The mythology surrounding deficits and national debt is a religion that the world is in desperate need of debunking. Like religion, the mythology is used as a means of power and entrenchment of privilege for the Ruling Caste, not the plebs (lesser mortals).
@colonelraeburn - Excuse me? Private bank credit caused the housing price inflation.MickGJ -> DavidPavett , 8 Jun 2013 17:16Politicians were complicit in deregulating and appointing non-regulators but they didn't make the loans.
katiewm -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 16:46Gray wrote this in the Guardian in 2007:@DavidPavett - Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to mean? There are certainly no leads on this in the link given to "the philosopher" John Gray
This doesn't seem to support Orrś assertion that he is calling for a structural adjustment, rather the opposite. I'ḿ not really familiar with Grayś work but he seems to be rather against the universal imposition of any system, new or old.Whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America or post-communist Europe, policies of wholesale privatisation and structural adjustment have led to declining economic activity and social dislocation on a massive scale
@CaptainGrey - Capitalism is not an undifferentiated mass. Late-stage neoliberal hypercapitalism as practiced in the US and increasingly in the UK is a very different beast than the traditional European capitalist social democracy or the Nordic model, which have been shown to work relatively well over time. In fact, neoliberal capitalism - the sort Orr is talking about here - is marked by increasing decline both in the state and in the economy, as inequality in wealth distribution creates a society of beggars and kings instead of spenders and savers. The gains achieved through carefully regulated capitalism won't stick around in the free-for-all conditions preferred by those whose ideology demands the sell-off of the state.jazzdrum -> PeterWoking , 8 Jun 2013 16:16@PeterWoking - For some parts of the world , yes they are more affluent now , but a huge part of the globe is still without food and water .I think de regulation of the financial sector has caused a huge amount of damage to the world all round and to be honest, i expect more of the same as the Bankers are still in control.
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Dec 09, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Disturbed Voter , December 8, 2018 at 7:56 am
Authoritarianism has always existed. But it hasn't always been clearly visible. Technology makes authoritarianism more powerful. Centralization and urbanization have served the purposes of the elite well.
People need information and communication. The inverted totalitarianism we live in, doesn't like that. It wants the Internet to implement that inverted totalitarianism (see China). They want everything (in a corporatist way) to be mandatory, except for what is forbidden. What has been revealed, and is being revealed, is that the current political-economic system isn't fit for purpose, human purpose.
So the real answer is like what is happening in France now...
rob , December 8, 2018 at 8:13 am
Attempting to blame the internet for the increasingly authoritarian world we live in is not seeing the forest through the trees. The internet is surely a tool used against humanity,That doesn't make it "bad". I would say the reason people can be fooled by these social media propaganda tactics, is precisely because the fourth estate is practicing such in depth propaganda campaigns, with all propaganda, all the time coverage on every other form of media as well. People have nowhere to turn.
Why do people think some russians posting on facebook and twitter skewed the electorate in this country than say nothing about:fox news,npr,cnn,rush limbaugh,hannity,the new york times, wall st journal,the weekly standard, time magazine,people magazine, etc.All of these organizations and all the others spout disinformation. every day.
And america's trend towards the authoritarian state has been accelerating since at least the national security act of 1947.as a national trend, whereas in the beginning of this countries existence, there have been authoritarian control of local districts by local groups, ie. whites over blacks, or whites over indians, or rich over poor immigrants, etc.
All the internet age and the "information age is doing, is changing the medium. the message is still the same. and there has always been resistance. now that resistance seems more futile, but is it?Carolinian , December 8, 2018 at 9:35 am
Why do people think some russians posting on facebook and twitter skewed the electorate in this country than say nothing about:fox news,npr,cnn,rush limbaugh,hannity,the new york times, wall st journal,the weekly standard, time magazine,people magazine, etc.All of these organizations and all the others spout disinformation. every day.
Exactly. Our society is mainly shaped by its elites. And other than Twitter they are barely involved with the internet at all but rather get their news and attitudes from the NY Times or (in Trump's case) cable TV. Therefore rather than enhancing the always existing authoritarianism of "manufactured consent," the internet works to undermine it. This of course provokes much fingering of worry beads among the elite who see the mob and their pitchforks as real threats. The situation in France illustrates this phenomenon nicely and there have been calls by some to block Facebook in France so those yellow vests can't communicate with each other.
Diversity of opinion is a good thing, not bad, and some of us scan right leaning websites just to get a different view. The internet is not the problem. Powerful authoritarians are the problem.
Brooklin Bridge , December 8, 2018 at 10:34 am
In my own undoubtedly faulty memory of Animal Farm , Orwell characterized the devolution as "the nature of the beast" through his characters. That is (over and above the allegory of the Russian revolution/devolution), there are strong traits in human character that makes this devolution inevitable. We have the pigs; the aggressors, and the followers, and less savory characters, and the "never quite enough" wise annimal(s) and so on, working unwittingly together against the welfare of the whole making the end result seem precast. Not so much that we did nothing, as that we could do nothing.
1984 never really addressed that issue (or at least I don't remember it doing so), but from the start everything seemed inevitable, there was no discussion of any "might have been," that could have been an alternative to the dystopia of an engineered rivalry between two super-powers that worked off each other to maintain a compliant global society in hopeless mass psychological, never mind physical, irons.
But even assuming this inevitability was Orwell's own belief and intent in his writings (and not simply my misunderstanding of them), I agree with your point that we had plenty of warning, and not just Orwell, and that society as a whole too frequently took the easier road but with a lot of help and insistent guidance (manipulation) from our increasingly corrupt leaders and captains of industry (our own pigs).
Carolinian , December 8, 2018 at 11:52 am
Animal Farm was Orwell's best book IMO because it speaks to universal human tendencies even though the book was also about Stalin and Trotsky. 1984 was far fetched speculation based on, as it turned out, the short lived totalitarianism of figures like Hitler and Stalin. People assume we are living 1984 when it's really Animal Farm.
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Dec 09, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Synoia , December 8, 2018 at 3:23 pm
No discussion in the article about concentration of wealth, and the aristocrats, generally authoritarian, who control the money.
For a reason to examine increasing authoritarian look no further than the increasing concentration, historically high, of money,
Fear of loss drives the authoritarians. For an example, please consider the treatment of "Occupy."
Bobby Gladd , December 8, 2018 at 4:17 pm
To your point, I recently watched the EPIX "Panama Papers" documentary. Highly recommended.
And, I just now finished episode 3 of the 4-part Showtime documentary "Enemies: the President, Justice & the FBI." Also recommended.
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Dec 09, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
CatPerson420 , 30 Oct 2018 23:18
Never forget that fascism is the natural defence mechanism of capital. After it is accrued, it must be defended. The current trend in global politics is not an anomaly but an entirely predictable outcome.Rikyboy , 30 Oct 2018 23:07Neoliberal doctrine leads to skyrocketing inequality, a swelling in the desperate and forgotten poor who are vulnerable to populist messaging and the idea of a strongman peddling easy answers to keep people safe as civil unrest increases. Fascism seeks power for power's sake and total control over the populace, and always cruelty to the marginalised, the 'others'. How all the right wingers hand-wringing over the idea of 'socialist communisms!!1!' can't see that, I don't know.
It's too late for the US I fear, and time is rapidly running out for the UK if they don't pull their finger out and have another referendum before the self immolation of Brexit.
All over the world, failed neoliberalism is being replaced by right-wing populist nationalism & I don't think "repairing democratic institutions" is at the top of their to-do list.jclucas , 30 Oct 2018 23:02If Australia does swing the pendulum to the left, it, along with NZ, will be one of the few countries to do so. De-privatising will not be easy & will be met with a huge reactionary backlash. They'll need to tread very carefully if they want to stay in government.
Neoliberalism may be dead but the neoliberals in the government will never admit it as they seamlessly transition to authoritarian nationalism with populist promises - and failure to deliver on them.BlueThird , 30 Oct 2018 22:57The neoliberal project was always a philosophical cover for crony capitalism that betrayed the public interest by rewarding vested interests for their patronage, perverted democracy, and served as a mechanism for perverting the natural function of an economy - to fairly distribute goods, resources, and services throughout society - to favor the welfare of the few over the many.
The self-interested culture of neoliberalism - the cult of the individual that denies the common good - pervades every aspect of Australia's life as a nation - business, politics, sport, education, and health - denying and crowding out public spirit, selfless service, and societal wellbeing.
For meaningful change to occur there must be a rebirth of the conception of the public good, and the virtue and necessity of acting to realise it.
However at this stage there is not a communal recognition of what the problem is let alone how to go about repairing it. For that to happen there must be a widely accepted narrative that naturally leads to the obvious actions that must be take to redress the damage done by the neoliberal con job: decreasing economic inequality, restoring democracy, and rebuilding a sense of common cause.
Piecemeal change will not be sufficient to enact the the sweeping transformation that has to occur in every department of life. It is not enough to tax multinationals, to have a federal integrity commission, to build a renewable future, or to move to proportional representation.
Someone, some party, some coherent philosophical perspective has to explain why it must be done.
It's certainly the case that the Liberal party, in particular, are now using ideas that fall outside and to the right of neo-liberalism, but it's also obviously the case that neo-liberalism and current Liberal thinking share the same underlying goal. Namely, the transfer of wealth and power towards a narrower and narrower group of people and corporations.tolpuddler , 30 Oct 2018 22:28That suggests the death of neo-liberalism is coming about because – having done so much damage already – it's no longer capable of delivering the required results, and that we're moving into a new phase of the death spiral. I think that can also be seen in both the US (where Trump is using the identified problems of neo-liberalism to further the same basic agenda, but with less decorum and a larger cadre of useful idiots) and the UK (where there's still a very strong possibility that Brexit will be used as an excuse to roll back great swathes of social and democratic safeguards).
Perhaps even more worrying – given the latest reports on how we're destroying habitat as well as the climate, and how much of our biodiversity is in South America, particularly the Amazon – is that Brazil is how on a similar path.
The likelihood is that the Liberal party won't get away with what they have planned, but they – and the forces behind them – certainly won't stop trying. And unfortunately it's far from obvious that the Labor party will repudiate neo-liberalism anytime soon. That they signed up for the latest iteration of TPP is hardly a good omen.
Democratic re-engagement is the better way forward from neo-liberalism, but unfortunately I think it's unlikely to be the one that we end up taking.
All of that said, the deepest problem of all is the way in which democracy and government have been corrupted, often via the media, but typically at the behest of corporations, and if there is a way forward it has to be found in addressing those interactions
I'm certainly in favour of greater nationalisation, especially of essential services. But around the world, neo-liberalism has morphed into neo-fascism and this is where the next fight must be.slorter , 30 Oct 2018 22:19Well we have had 3+ decades of the dogma!In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation. In addition, we are biased toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued in human societies.
But what happens when we are forced into an economic system that makes us compete at every level? The logical outcome is societal decline or collapse.
Perhaps the worst aspect of neoliberalism was its infection of the Labor party. This has left our social infrastructure alarmingly exposed.
The consequences of four decades of financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no means equally shared. Internal and external class relations were made evident through narrowly distributed booms followed by widely distributed busts.
Globally, debt has forced policy convergence between political parties of differing ideologies. European center-left parties have pushed austerity even when ideology would suggest the opposite.
No wonder you get fascist right wing insurgence in this climate!
Thank you Richard Denniss we need to highlight this more and more and start educating the dumbed down population saturated with neoliberal snake oil!
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.alternet.org
Guest • 6 years ago
- I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.~Thomas Jefferson~
- When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain." – Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Livius Drusus , December 8, 2018 at 7:20 am
I think the Internet and the infotech revolution in general have been largely negative in their impact on the world. Ian Welsh has a blog post that largely sums up my views on the issue.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/what-the-infotechtelecom-revolution-has-actually-done/
Contrary to what many people say I think large organizations like governments and corporations have significantly more power now than before and ordinary people have less power. The Internet has made it easier to get information but you have to sift through tons of junk to get to anything decent. For every website like Naked Capitalism there are thousands pushing nonsense or trying to sell you stuff.
And even if you are more knowledgeable, so what? If you cannot put that knowledge to use what good is it? At best it makes you more well-rounded, interesting and harder to fool but in political terms knowing a lot of stuff doesn't make you more effective. In the past people didn't have access to nearly as much information but they were more willing and able to organize and fight against the powerful because it was easier to avoid detection/punishment (that is where stuff like widespread surveillance tech comes in) and because they still had a vibrant civic life and culture.
I actually think people are more atomized now than in the past and the Internet and other technologies have probably fueled this process. Despite rising populism, the Arab Spring, Occupy, the Yellow Jackets in France, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA this is all a drop in the bucket compared to just the massive social movements of the 1960s much less earlier periods. Robert Putnam argued that television, the Internet and other technologies likely helped to produce the collapse of civic life in the United States by "individualizing" people's leisure time and personally I think Putnam is right. Civic life today is very weak and I think the Internet is partially to blame.
Mark , December 8, 2018 at 12:10 pm
And even if you are more knowledgeable, so what? If you cannot put that knowledge to use what good is it?
Agreed. If anything these more knowledgeable people had a greater audience prior to the internet. Whether you were a journalist, a great economist, a great author, or a great orator you need to persist and show intellect and talent to have your message heard wide and broad.
(This is probably a little idealistic, but I think there is truth there.)Now you need very little of this. If your most famous asset is your attractive body you can attract a greater audience than great scholars and politicians.
Rosario , December 8, 2018 at 2:56 pm
I can't speak much on authoritarianism since whatever form it takes on today is wildly different from what it was in the past. Unfortunately, it is hard to convince many people living in western societies that they are living in an authoritarian system because their metal images are goose-stepping soldiers and Fraktur print posters.
I suppose the way I can assure myself that we are living in an authoritarian society is by analyzing the endless propaganda spewed from countless, high-viewership media and entertainment outlets. It is quite simple, if the media and entertainment narratives are within a very narrow intellectual window (with lots of 600 lb. gorillas sitting in corners) than the culture and politics are being defined by powerful people with a narrow range of interests. This is not to say that forming public opinion or preferring particular political views is a new thing in Western media and entertainment, just that its application, IMO, is far more effective and subtle (and becoming more-so by the day) than it ever was in, say, NAZI Germany or the Soviet Union.
I'd put my money down that most educated Germans during NAZI rule were well aware that propaganda was being utilized to "manufacture consent" but they participated and accepted this despite the content for pragmatic/selfish reasons. Much of the NAZI propaganda played on existing German/European cultural narratives and prejudices. Leaveraging existing ideology allowed the party to necessitate their existence by framing the German as juxtaposed against the impure and unworthy. Again, ideologies that existed independent of the party not within it. Goebbels and company were just good at utilizing the technology of the time to amplify these monstrosities.
I question that being the case today. It is far more complicated. Technology is again the primary tool for manipulation, but it is possible that current technology is allowing for even greater leaps in reason and analysis. The windows for reflection and critical thought close as soon as they are opened. Seems more like the ideology is manufactured on the fly. For example, the anti-Russia narrative has some resonance with baby boomers, but how the hell is it effective with my generation (millennial) and younger? The offhand references to Putin and Russian operatives from my peers are completely from left field when considering our life experience. People in my age group had little to say about Russia three years ago. It says volumes on the subtle effectiveness of Western media machines if you can re-create the cold war within two years for an entire generation.
In addition and related to above, the West's understanding of "Freedom of Speech" is dated by about 100 years. Governments are no longer the sole source of speech suppression (more like filtering and manipulation), and the supremacy of the free-market coupled with the erroneously perceived black-and-white division between public and private have convinced the public (with nearly religious conviction) that gigantic media and entertainment organizations do not have to protect the free speech of citizens because they are not government. Public/Private is now an enormous blob. With overlapping interests mixed in with any antagonisms. It is ultimately dictated by capital and its power within both government and business. Cracking this nut will be a nightmare.
Yes, this is an authoritarian world, if measured by the distance between the populace and its governing powers, but it is an authoritarianism operating in ways that we have never seen before and using tools that are terribly effective.
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Dec 06, 2018 | finance.yahoo.com
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As a longtime market observer, what I find most interesting about the latest correction in equities has the feeling of inevitability that it will turn into something worse. It wasn't this way in late January, when everyone wanted to buy that dip. It certainly wasn't this way in 2007, when the magnitude of the recession was grossly underestimated.Even the Federal Reserve is getting into the pessimism. Chairman Jerome Powell signaled last week that a pause in interest-rate hikes might be forthcoming. What's interesting about that is Powell surely knew that such a reference might be interpreted as bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump and yet he did it anyway. In essence, he risked the perception of the Fed's independence probably because he knows the economic data is worsening.
Just about everyone I talk to in the capital markets, including erstwhile bulls, acknowledges that things are slowing down. Yes, the Institute for Supply Management's monthly manufacturing index released earlier this week was strong, but jobless claims are ticking up and I am hearing anecdotal reports of a wide range of businesses slowing down. Even my own business is slowing. Anecdotes aside, oil has crashed, home builder stocks have been crushed, and the largest tech stocks in the world have taken a haircut. If we get a recession from this, it will be a very well-telegraphed recession. Everyone knows it is coming.
A recession is nothing to fear. We have lost sight of the fact that a recession has cleansing properties, helping to right the wrong of the billions of dollars allocated to bad businesses while getting people refocused on investing in profitable enterprises. Stock market bears are so disliked because it seems as though they actually desire a recession and for people to get hurt financially. In a way, they are rooting for a recession because they know that the down part of the cycle is necessary.
There are signs that capital has been incorrectly allocated. In just in the span of a year, there have been three separate bubbles: one in bitcoin, one in cannabis and one in the FAANG group of stocks: Facebook, Apple, Amazon.com, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet. This is uncommon. I begged the Fed to take the punch bowl away, and it eventually did, and now yields of around 2.5 percent on risk-free money are enough to get people rethinking their allocation to risk.
Yet, I wonder if it is possible to have a recession when so many people expect one. The worst recessions are the ones that people don't see coming. In 2011, during the European debt crisis, most people were predicting financial markets Armageddon. It ended up being a smallish bear market, with the S&P 500 Index down about 21 percent on an intraday basis between July and October of that year. It actually sparked a huge bull market in the very asset class that people were worried about: European sovereign debt. We may one day have a reprise of that crisis, but if you succumbed to the panic at the time, it was a missed opportunity.
But just the other day, the front end of the U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted, with two- and three-year note yields rising above five-year note yields. Everyone knows that inverted yield curves are the most reliable recession indicators. Of course, the broader yield curve as measured by the difference between two- and 10-year yields or even the gap between the federal funds rate and 10-year yields has yet to invert, but as I said before, there is an air of inevitability about it. Flattening yield curves always precede economic weakness. They aren't much good at exactly timing the top of the stock market, but you can get in the ballpark.
I suppose all recessions are a surprise to some extent. If you are a retail investor getting your news from popular websites or TV channels, you might not be getting the whole picture. In the professional community, it is becoming harder to ignore the very obvious warning signs that a downturn is coming. In bull markets, everything works. In bear markets, the only thing that really works is short-term government and municipal bonds and cash. Ample opportunity is being given to cut exposure to risk, and it's clear that few people are taking advantage of it. They never do.
S 25 minutes ago If our country is going bankrupt, there is no better President, with greater experience at going bankrupt, than this President.
M 24 minutes ago Another Republican recession whoda thunk that would happen trump's "greatest economy ever".
D 9 minutes ago So let's see the market is up over 20% since January 3 2017 which means it's above it's historical average gain per year. Meanwhile everyone is screaming recession and bear market. I want to know why anyone who has been invested in the market longer than the last two years is so upset about. Do you think your entitled to a gain of more than 10% a year.
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
by Tyler Durden
Authored by Tom Luongo,I knew there was something wrong with Donald Trump's presidency the day he bombed the airbase at Al-Shairat in Syria. It was a turning point. I knew it was a mistake the moment he did it and argued as such at the time.
No act by him was more contentious.
It cost me hundreds of followers gained throughout the campaign who wanted to believe Trump was playing 4-D chess. My Periscopes went from being events to afterthoughts.
Those that left needed to believe this because they had invested so much in him.
They had to believe he was playing some deep game with Putin to bring peace to the region.
He wasn't.
I was right and truth is painful. The need for him to be Orange Jesus was so strong they created Qanon and the 'science' of political horoscope as slowly but surely Trump was stripped of all of his power except that of complaining about how unfair it all is.
That day he did something in the moment, with bad intelligence and let fly with tomahawks which Russian and Syrian air defenses misdirected and/or shot down.
Empty PresidentHis goal was to show everyone there was a new, strong sheriff in town.
All it did was weaken him.
The neocons praised him as presidential. They began to get their hooks in him then. But truly, Trump was destroyed before he took office, giving up Michael Flynn, expelling Russian diplomats and compromising his cabinet picks.
Because making war is the only true test of a President to the laptop bombardiers who control foreign policy. With that one act Trump's days as an independent agent in D.C. were numbered.
And since then the hope has been that given the enormity of the opposition to his Presidency he was still fighting for what he campaigned on -- no nation building, bring the empire home, protect the borders, and clean up the corruption.
He's made a few minor changes but not enough to change the course of this country and, by extension, the world.
The people want this change. Those with the power don't.
G-20 GhostSo here we are with a pathetic Trump outclassed at the G-20, a meeting he should dominate but instead is ushered around like a child, given poor earpieces and looking a little lost. He's only allowed to have one meeting of note by his handlers, with China's Xi Jinping.
Because that meeting wasn't going to end with anything damaging to the long-term plan. Trump's tariff game is tired and all it will do is hasten the demise of U.S. competitiveness in the very industries he wants us to be competitive in.
Because tariffs are a band-aid on the real problems of bureaucracy, corruption, waste and sloth within an economy. They are not a product of China stealing our technology (though they have).
And that $1 trillion deficit Trump is running? Music to the ears of the globalists who want the U.S. brought low. More military spending. More boondoggles the banks can cut a nice big check to themselves for with funny money printed without risk. This can go on for a few more years until it doesn't matter anymore.
Trump's folding on meeting Putin is the final nail in his presidency's coffin. He's not even allowed to make statements on this issue anymore. That's for Sarah Sanders, Mike Pomposity and John Bolt-head to do.
You know, the grown-ups in the room.
No. Putin and Trump met once when they weren't supposed to and since then Trump has been getting smaller and smaller. Sure, he held some rallies for the mid-terms to shore up his base for a few weeks while the Democrats stole more than a dozen House seats, three governorships and a couple of Senate seats, but hey he's still working hard for no pay.
Please.
Trump needed to show some real moral courage and speak with Putin about the Kerch Strait incident like men, not sulk in the corner over a couple of ships. And yet his still throws his full support behind a butcher like Mohammed bin Salman because arms sales and Iran.
Putin, for his part, makes no bones about doing business with the Saudis. He knows that bin Salman is creating a quagmire for Trump while driving the U.S. and European Deep State mad.
Hence: https://www.youtube.com/embed/sggVhrwSAFs Putin refuses to apologize for thwarting our plans to overthrow him in Russia and steal Ukraine.
Time Enough to WinFor this Secretary of Defense James Mattis calls Putin, " A slow learner." This is a flat-out threat that Mattis has more coming Putin's way. But in fact, it is Mattis who is the slow learner since he still thinks Putin isn't three steps ahead of him.
Which he is. The game is all about time and money. And thanks to Mattis and, yes, Trump, Putin will win the war of attrition he is playing.
Because that is what has been going on here from the beginning. Iran, China and Russia know what the U.S. power brokers want and they knew Trump would always cave to them. So, they knew exactly how to get Trump to over-commit to a strategy that cannot and will not ever come to fruition.
I warned that Trump's blind-spot when it comes to Iran was his weakness. I warned that he would eventually justify breaking every foreign policy promise to fulfill his plan to unite the Sunni world behind him and Israel by giving them Iran.
The End of the BeginningWelcome to today. And welcome to the end of Trump's presidency because now he is pot-committed to regime change while the vultures circle him domestically. He has become Bush the Lesser with arguably better hair.
He has alienated everyone the world over with sanctions and tariffs, hence his desire to " Get me out of here " as the G-20 wound down. No one believes he matters anymore. By tying himself to the Saudis and the Israelis the way he has he, the master negotiator, has left himself no room to negotiate.
And that is leading to everyone defying him versus cutting deals to carve up the world, end the empire and come home.
Trump is not leading here. He is being led. And change requires leaders. He has been led down the path so many presidents have, more militarism, more empire. Because when you're the Emperor everyone is your enemy. This is the paranoia of a late-stage imperial mindset.
It certainly is the mindset of Trump's closest advisors - Mattis, Bolton and Pompeo.
So Trump's "America First' instincts, no matter how genuine, have been twisted into something worse than evil, they are now ineffectual keepers of the status quo fueling ruinous neoconservative dreams of central Asian dominance.
And he has no one to blame but himself.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_qlE7PPH9C4
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Brazen Heist II , 1 hour ago link
WTFUD , 1 hour ago linkThe Orange Orangutan had his chances to make a difference. He instead chose the Neocunts and his ego.
There will be no more "voting" oneself out of this shitshow. Trump was the last peaceful chance.
It could have been worse, I guess. At least there's that for consolation.
The silver lining to the Trump phenomenon is that the Deep State is at war with itself, and this is bringing down the evil empire from within.
And lastly, Trump was always the symptom, not the cause of all this malaise. A malaise that only Americans can fix.
Bokkenrijder , 2 hours ago linkHis nose is wedged right up Adelson's & Bibi's ring-hole.
Even as we speak now, 100 drones crossed over from Turkey into Syria with French experts modifying them to accept warheads of a chemical nature. Simultaneously the innovative British military are providing miscellaneous WMD's/support to Jabhat-Al -Nusra in Idlib.
Time for Putin/Russia to take these cockroaches/vermin out in quick time, for their own good.
Trump's grasshopper mind could be construed for severe Alzheimer's.
Bokkenrijder , 2 hours ago linkTrump boasted of how HE would "Make the US Military Great again" (as if it wasn't too big to begin with..) and spent $16 billion EXTRA on 'defence,' yet now he suddenly flip-flopped and calls defence spending "crazy."
https://www.rt.com/news/445463-trump-laments-defense-budget/
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069584730880974849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
How mentally UNstable and completely UNhinged is Dufus J. Chump?
Expat , 3 hours ago linkSpot on, I completely agree with Luongo, and #metoo have been saying this for a long time.
Trump's unstable and unhinged waffling, lying and flip-flopping (i.e. "4D chess") is finally beginning to catch up with him and his presidency will not be marked with him being the one who drained the swamp, but a presidency marked with a trail of destruction.
He has talked himself into so many corners, that it will be impossible to back out of those corners....unless of course he turns the volume of his bullshitting, lying and waffling up to 11.
"You can fool some people some of the time, but you can't fool all people all of the time."
It's easy to fool dumb American Trumptards, but it's not easy fooling the Russians, the Europeans and the Chinese. They see right through his fake bravado and ********.
I am Groot , 6 hours ago link"I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race," Trump wrote. "The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!"
Another classic Tweet from Captain Bonespurs. No wall, no change to healthcare, no immigration policy, no amazing trade agreements, no slavery, no mandatory mullets, no mandatory bible study at school, no burning of witches. And now he is talking about reducing the largest military budget in history.
You guys need a box of tissues?
MAGA
Trump is finished. He had two years to replace Sessions and Rosenstein and have someone at the DOJ appoint a Special Councils for each item to look into:
The Clinton Foundation
Uranium One Deal
Hillary's Email Server
The murder of Seth Rich
The Benghazi Consulate Disaster
The Democrats computer scandal with the Iwan brothers.
Bill Clinton giving China classified missile and sub technology
The unelected Deep State actors controlling the country.
Q is a total ******* fraud. Trump has 3 weeks before he is assraped and left bleeding on the floor by the Democrats and the RHINO's in the senate. If he gets impeached, Pence will be impeached and Nitwit Nancy becomes POTUS. And within 2 months of that happening, we will have full balls out, open Civil War II.
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Dec 04, 2018 | www.commondreams.org
Neoliberalism is not fascism. But the fact that many famous neoliberals have been moved to support fascism to protect a regime from social democracy or socialism does give one pause. Hayek, Friedman, von Mises, among others, took such a turn under duress. They also had highly expansive views of what counted as a "socialist" threat.
Neoliberalism is a set of practices that favors entrepreneurs and corporations, supports--often below the radar--massive state subsidies for the corporate estate, presses for radical deregulation of private markets, treats labor as an abstract factor of production, celebrates the authority of courts governed by a neoliberal jurisprudence, hates collective social movements on the left, protects imperial drives, strives to render democracy minimal, and moves to dismantle or weaken unions, social security, public schools and universal voting if and when the opportunities arise. Fascism is a form of capitalism that dismantles democracy, pushes intense nationalism, pursues racism, deploys big lies systematically, attacks vulnerable minorities to energize its base, corrupts courts, drives to make the media its mouthpiece, places police and intelligence agencies under its wing, colludes with foreign dictatorships, welcomes vigilante groups beneath a veneer of deniability, and jacks up the intensity of cultural ruthlessness.
So the two are different. Are there, however, enough affinities between them to help explain how the former -- both in its leadership and its base of support--can migrate rapidly toward the latter during periods of stress? Stress that it often enough creates by its own hubristic market practices? Bearing in mind those noble neoliberals who today call out and hold out against Trumpism -- they are on welcome public display on the Nicole Wallace show on MSNBC--recent experience in the United States suggests that many other neoliberals, in a situation of public stress, too easily slide toward the latter. A whole bunch of neoliberal Republicans in the American Congress, after all, now support or tolerate policies and belligerent practices they did not before the era of Trump. Many do not merely do so because they are cowed by the danger of threats to them in Republican primaries -- they could, for instance, quit politics, or join the Democratic Party to stop aspirational fascism, or staunchly support the principles they embrace in those very Republican primaries and elections.
The recent book, Democracy in Chains , by Nancy MacLean, allows us to discern more closely how such slides and gallops can occur. It is focused on the life of a Nobel Prize winning neoliberal -- who often called himself a libertarian -- loved by the Mt Pelerin Society by the name of James Buchanan. I used to teach critically his book The Calculus of Consent in the 1980s. But MacLean's book, through a close review of an archive not studied before, reveals how the public neoliberal pronouncements by Buchanan between the 1970s and 2000s were soon matched by a set of covert plans and financial funding designed to bring neoliberalism to power by "stealth" strategies. Buchanan had come to see, as had others, that the neoliberal agenda was not apt to be enacted by democratic means. So he adopted a two-track model.
That two-track model is revealing. So is the fact that this refugee from Tennessee -- a former slave state and one that then imprisoned Blacks systematically to replace lost slave labor -- seldom mentioned the specific conditions of Blacks or women as he articulated his abstract defense of liberty. So, too, is MacLean's review of the ruthlessness and narcissism that marked the private and public persona of Buchanan, a review that invites attention to character affinities between him and Trump. Neither Buchanan, Trump, nor Charles Koch -- the latter another key figure in the Buchanan story -- thought highly of compromise. They play a hardball game.
The story starts, really, in Pinochet's Chile, where Buchanan helped that repressive regime impose economic reforms backed by constitutional changes that would make it next to impossible to reverse them. They were called them constitutional "locks and bolts". Buchanan never publicized the extensive role he played with Pinochet in Chile. Nor did he ever express public regret over its fascism, replete with prohibitions of free speech, practices of torture, and decrees making it illegal to organize dissident social movements.
Another key epiphany occurred in the 1980s in the States. Reagan's massive tax cuts, which were promised to spur rapid growth to pay for them, instead created deficits three times larger than those Jimmy Carter had bequeathed. A public reaction set in as the regime proposed to make radical cuts in Social Security and Medicare to make up the shortfall. But those plans failed. After that failure, Buchanan concluded, consonant with advice by Milton Friedman, that such entrenched programs could only be weakened and dismantled through disinformation campaigns. Democracy had to be squeezed. Why? The majority of "takers" will never accept open plans to curtail their benefits to reduce taxes on a minority of "producers". The takers, let's call them for starters workers, the poor and the elderly, don't even believe in "liberty"--meaning above all the freedom of entrepreneurs to roam freely in the market. So, you must pretend you are trying to save the very system you seek to unravel. Talk incessantly about its "crisis". Divide its supporters into older, retired members, who will retain benefits, and younger ones who will have them cut. Celebrate the virtues of private retirement accounts. Propose to have the wealthy be removed from the system, doing all these things until general support for the social security system weakens and you are free to enact the next steps -- steps not to be publicized in advance. Once you finally eliminate the system, people's general confidence in the state will wane more. And new initiatives can be taken -- again in a stealth manner -- with respect to Medicare, pollution regulations, climate change, unemployment insurance, and democratic accountability.
Buchanan, to make a long story short, first increasingly bought into disinformation campaigns and later joined the main financier of his Center at George Mason University, Charles Koch, to support a series of voter suppression programs, neoliberal court appointees, anti-labor laws, and intensely funded political campaigns to shift the priorities of the state. The guiding idea was not only to change the rulers but to change the rules which govern districting, court jurisprudence, voter access and the like. Liberty is for producers, not takers, as Milt Romney also said later when he thought he was speaking only to a closeted room full of producers.
Buchanan's abstract concern for market liberties, and the slanted liberties of association and speech they carried with them, never brought him to speak of the subjugated conditions of Blacks, women and other minorities in this society. The reason seems clear: their living grievances threaten abstract claims about a market system of impersonal rational coordination. The danger, to him, is mass democracy, which enlarges the power of "the state". When Buchanan worried about the state he didn't seem to mean Pinochet. He meant democratic processes through which the state is moved to support a collection of minorities who have been closed out of equality, participation, and representation. Buchanan, as did his hero Hayek, loved to think in abstractions, the kind of abstractions that cover up specific modes of suffering, grievance, and care under shiny terms. As MacLean also notes, Buchanan came to see that neoliberal (and libertarian) propaganda must aim at men more than women, because, on average, the latter are less predisposed to such messages.
The Koch/Buchanan alliance, consolidated through an Institute at George Mason University, soon became a Center to fund movements and generic models of reform on the Right as it informed American movers and shakers how to create constitutional "locks and bolts" in states and the federal government to secure desired reforms from dissident majorities once they were pushed through and their real effects became apparent. A stealth campaign, followed by opposition to "mob rule". Wisconsin, for instance, became a key laboratory under the regime of Scott Walker, both enacting draconian policies and pursuing constitutional changes to secure them from future majorities. To discern the severity of the stealth activities, consider how one of Buchanan's lieutenants, Charles Rowley, eventually turned against them. He became upset when a new Chair of the economics department summarily fired all untenured economists to replace them with a single breed of libertarians. As summarized by MacLean, two things above all dismayed Rowley, who retained his neoliberal outlook but opposed the stealth practices. "First the sheer scale of the riches the wealthy individuals brought to bear turned out to have subtle, even seductive power. And second, under the influence of one wealthy individual, in particular, the movement was turning to an equally troubling form of coercion: achieving its ends essentially through trickery, through deceiving people about its real intentions to go to a place which, on their own given complete information, they would not go." (p. 208) It's like saying "repeal and replace Obamacare" while planning only to make the first move. And then turn the same trick again in several other domains. Eventually, Buchanan himself grew wary of Koch, in a setting where two narcissistic, authoritarian men struggled to control the same Center. The money man won out. In Rowley's own words Koch, the billionaire donor, "had no scruples concerning the manipulation of scholarship."
Neoliberalism, its critics know so well, periodically spawns the economic crises its hubristic devotees promise will not happen. It also works to foster voter suppression, unlimited dark campaign contributions, extreme gerrymandered districts, take away worker benefits, appoint judges at state and national levels governed by neoliberal jurisprudence, treat voter suppression tactics to be needed to eliminate phantom voter fraud, oppose affirmative action, to weaken labor unions, and attack universal health care.
How many neoliberal Republicans called out Donald Trump, for instance, when he launched his presidential campaign by pretending insistently for six long years (with absolutely no evidence) that the first African American President held office illegally. Obama was guilty until proven innocent, according to that Donald Trump. How many stepped to the plate to acknowledge galloping climate change in the face of those who have called it a hoax against all the available evidence? What about the appointment of a judge who lied about his previous record, had trouble with his drinking and temper, and probably tried to rape a young girl when they were in high school? What about Trump's constant suggestions that minorities are guilty until found innocent, punctuated by assertions that men applying for high government positions and accused of harassment must be treated as innocent unless a court of law finds them guilty. Quiet whispers from neoliberals of regret and suspicion against Trumpism on these issues, by the way, do not cut the mustard. Neoliberal stealth tactics and neofascist Big Lies have moved too close together for comfort.
One thing that emerged out of the long-term two track campaigns of neoliberalism is a powerful wealth/income concentration machine joined to a series of precarious and suffering minorities, including so many urban Blacks and poor whites. With labor unions, too, caught in a squeeze. Donald Trump could then play on the prejudices and insecurities created; he thus found himself in a position to incite large segments of the white labor and lower middle classes to return to the old days, while retaining the support of a huge segment of the wealthy, donor class. The disinformation campaigns of the old neoliberal vanguard can too easily slide into the Big Lie campaigns Trump pursues in the service of White Triumphalism, intense nationalism, misogyny, the reduction of critical social movements to mob rule, and militant anti-immigration campaigns. The long time con man and money launderer has not, then, merely cowed a neoliberal elite that had pointed in a different direction. He has pulled its stealth campaigns into channels that most find more palatable than other social visions in circulation.
The memories of Hayek and Friedman in this respect return to haunt us. It need not surprise us, given MacLean's archival history, that the latest Trump Supreme Court appointee supports neoliberal policies in the domains of corporate deregulation, medical care, restrictive voter laws, limits on civil rights, gerrymandering and like while also trumpeting notions of a sovereign president so dear to the dark heart of Donald Trump -- the aspirational fascist who conspired with Russia to win an electoral college majority in 2016. We must light a candle for those noble neoliberals who resist the slide we are witnessing before our very eyes, as we also keep both eyes open with respect to the wider crossing between neoliberalism and neofascism.
The old, all so familiar, Hayek story of how socialism and social democracy are always on the "road to serfdom" is a fairy tale that has not in fact occurred. The transition, however, from neoliberalism to virulent fascist movements has occurred before and could do so again. The current fascist electoral campaign rallies by Donald Trump are designed to up the ante of charges against liberals and the Left by several decibel levels so that people will temporarily forget all the horrible things he has done and will do if Republicans keep both houses. They include halting or weakening the Mueller investigation, eliminating transgender rights, consolidating Trump control over intelligence agencies and the courts, reversing the remaining shreds of ObamaCare, upscaling attacks on universal voting, weakening the media, creating horrendous immigration laws, encouraging vigilante drives, and many other things yet. Drive someone to a voting precinct on election day and give them a copy of the MacLean book a week before you do. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.theguardian.com
'Neoliberalism' is just a sanitised-sounding expression, to cover-up the fact that what we are really seeing here is re-branded, far-right, corporatist ideology.NotAgainAgain -> EllisWyatt , 8 Jun 2013 04:15"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini@EllisWyatt -Uncertainty -> RedHectorReborn , 8 Jun 2013 04:09There is a major dividing line. There are those who recognise the abuses of the system and lobby for changes and there are those who lobby for further exploitation.
So on the one hand there are relatively rich philanthropists who are quietly supporting campaigns to redistribute wealth and our abstaining, and on the other you have people arguing for repealing employment legislation.Worst of the lot are people who pretend to care about the poor but then proceed to fill their own boots.
As consequence people like Warren Buffet should perhaps be among the good guys, whilst people like Tony Blair are the worst of lot.
@RedHectorReborn - The rich have extracted all of the wealth from the wells and is now turning to fracking, regardless of the cost to us all.thenardiers , 8 Jun 2013 04:08All very true. The failures of markets are well documented in economics: the tendency towards monopoly, the failure to value social goods etc.1nn1t -> EllisWyatt , 8 Jun 2013 04:06In addition, it is ironic that the arch advocates of the 'free market' came begging ( read lobbying) to their governments insisting upon public financial bailouts for themselves or their counter parties. It was the 'free markets' failure to correctly price 'risk' that was the route of the economic collapse.
As regards access to 'free markets' it seems patently obvious that if you extract the most money from that market (Amazon et al), you should contribute a fair share towards the infrastructure of that market: roads, educations, health care etc.
marienkaefer , 8 Jun 2013 04:00@EllisWyatt - ... we have a real problem with corporations that have a default setting of minimize taxes through ever more complex structures. It can't be beyond the wit of HMRC to reduce the complexity of the tax legislation and make it harder to avoid? The prize is continued access to the UK market
We also have the problem that for half the households in the land the level of welfare and benfits rather than wages is the major determinant of their disposable income and general prosperity.
The welfare code is now comparable in size to the tax code. The tax-benefit affairs of the working poor in the UK are now becoming as complex as those of the companies that employ them.
The welfare rights industry, which is essentially tax-benefit-lawyering for claimants, is now as large and complex as the tax-lawyering industry for companies.
It really is insane that we set the minimum wage so low that it attracts income tax, and then attempt to collect tax from the employing company to fund a tax credit to top up the same low wages that the same company is paying.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a marketgyges1 , 8 Jun 2013 03:59Does it? where does it say that? An article which as usual blanket condemns "financial institutions" but actually means banks.
The West became over-indebted when it embraced globalisation which necessarily impoverishes the Middle and Working Classes of the developed nations. A chap called Jimmy Goldsmith warned of this and was widely condemned for it. There is another issue Guardianistas would rather not confront : you can a welfare state or you can have open borders. But you can't have both.JamesValencia , 8 Jun 2013 03:59Most interesting.Rochdalelass , 8 Jun 2013 03:57Though I'd say private enterprise is capable of building markets - but not of sustaining them. Take books: If few people know how to read, someone will start a fee paying school to teach those who can pay for it. Then books will take off. And that will generate money for some, who'll send their kids to school.
However it will always, inevitably, crash at some point: Business can build up, but will always do it in destructuve cycles - exactly like the brush fires that destroy and regenerate the savannas. As somebright spark once said: Capitalism contains the seeds of it's own destruction, or something along those lines.
And we don't want to live like that - so we have regulation, and the state.And the state fertilises, and safeguards, by cutting the grass, making mulch, and spreading the rich gooey muck all over the nice, green, verdant, state controlled pampa.
The cowboys, now, they prefer no cutting of grass, and letting their cattle chomp away undistrurbed. And now my analogy is starting to wear thin.
The bottom line: Private enterprise is inefficient because at it's heart it rules out cooperation. Being happiest if it's a monopoly, there's nothing a business would like better than wipe out all competition.
Hence, the necessity for state spending, and state regulation, which the private sector is blind to, because it can't look ahead.
Well said Deborah!EllisWyatt -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 03:56People are members of families, and are employers and workers, who are customers or clients, and part of their local communities and professions and trades and hobbyists/clubs who are large scale wholesale consumers who create the markets that provides employment and income to individuals who are workers. And, and, one big circle.
Right now, the neoliberals think that those in the Far East are the workers and those in the West are the consumers, until the Far East becomes the market and wages so low in the West that they become the workers, unless of course some kind souls decide to invest money in Education, Health and infrastructure in Africa on a huge scale, so we then have Africa as the workers and the far East as the market, and the West, apart from those who own large numbers of shares or business outright, presumably either starve to death or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and start all over again, inventing and setting up completely new industries, providing the newly universally educated and healthy Chinese and Africans and South Americans haven't done it first.
OK. I was against it for a long time, but go ahead. There's no way of avoiding it. Eat the Rich. Apart from the fact that ultra thin is fashionable, and with all that dieting and exercising, they are the only people who actually get the time for lots of exercise these days, and they'll taste incredibly tough and stringy.
@CaptainGrey - Ssshhh not on CiF, we all know that capitalism has failed its just that we can't point to a successful alternative model because such a thing has never existed, its just that this time its different and the model I advocate will lead us all to the sunny uplands of utopia.CaptainGrey -> emkayoh , 8 Jun 2013 03:55Obviously there will be a little bit of coercion and oppression to get us to those sunny uplands, but you can't make an omlette etc. plus don't worry that stuff will only happen to "bad people"
@emkayoh -bluebirds -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 03:55Except it's not. It is still very much alive and growing. The "alternatives" have crashed and burned save Cuba and North Korea. Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and countless people have gained as a result.The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes
@CaptainGrey - deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20 years. The pure market is a fantasy just as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed the false value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed.MylesMackie , 8 Jun 2013 03:55In the 19th century based on experience the public services became part of the public sector to avoid corruption and corporate blackmail. The neoclassical revolution of the late 20th century has pushed us back to days when elites regarded the state as their property. Democracy was a threat which won out either through the British model or violent revolution. A small elite cannot endure if the majority feel exploited.1nn1t -> UnevenSurface , 8 Jun 2013 03:53The Bilderberg Conference should look to the past and learn from the mistakes committed. Neoclassicism will eventually impoverish them
EllisWyatt -> UnevenSurface , 8 Jun 2013 03:52"Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate." However, the gains for the transnational rich are immediate and enormous, while the failure of their markets is slow and, so far, almost entirely painless.@UnevenSurface - Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate.
@UnevenSurface - I think corporation tax is becoming obsolete given globalization and the increasing dominance of online / global distribution.bluebirds , 8 Jun 2013 03:42Amazon, Starbucks (and to a lesser extent Google) need to have people on the ground in their market, for customer service, distribution, warehouse staff, baristas etc. So they'll pay employer taxes etc.
The question is is that enough? I think we are missing a trick with the UK market due to outdated tax legislation that hasn't really changed in 30 years.
After the US the UK is arguably the most attractive market in the world. Large, homogenous, wealthy with a low propensity to save and a rapid rate of adoption of new technology / products. We need to think about how we can exploit this in relation to corporate taxes because even though I am far from left wing, we have a real problem with corporations that have a default setting of minimise taxes through ever more complex structures.
It can't be beyond the wit of HMRC to reduce the complexity of the tax legislation and make it harder to avoid? The prize is continued access to the UK market
Accountants now hold the whip hand in government and business. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing. They advocate selling off industries, outsourcing to low wage economies, zero hours contracts and deregulation (under the bogus campaign line of cutting red tape).Willsmodger , 8 Jun 2013 03:42All of these policies will ultimately end up with capitalism destroying itself. Low wage stagnation will result in penniless consumers which results in no growth which results in cuttin wages to maintain shareholder returns which results in penniless consumers etc etc etc. All our institutions are gradually eroded and life for the average citizen will become more and more unpleasant.
Profit share may be a way forward, it's not perfect, companies can effectively use it to freeze wages and benefit from unpaid overtime, that creates unemployment as four people working a couple of hours extra ever day are denying someone else a job, but used in the right way it could ensure people get a share in the wealth they help create.peterfieldman , 8 Jun 2013 03:42At the sharp end it's tough, at the company I worked at, all the managers were summoned to a meeting in September and told they had until Christmas to increase turnover and profits, or they would be out of a job.
At the same company, one of my managers complained that a successful manager at another branch was a crook. The CEO replied 'Yes, but he's a crook that makes a million pounds in profit every year'. I wonder how Deborah's article would have gone down with him?
Everything was easier when the U S and Europe ran the world's economies with Bank regulations, currency controls and only the establishment could avoid income, capital gains and IHT taxes and grow wealthy generation after generation. Today there are simply too many players in the global arena and the rules have been torn up. We are in a jungle where greed is rife and only the powerful and corrupt survive, shipping and burying their loot in offshore havens.Febo , 8 Jun 2013 03:41We need a new global order with a change of mentality and more morality among the world's politicians, banking and corporate leaders. Unless we end corruption and exploitation of natural resources in the poor nations and a fairer distribution of the economic wealth the world faces economic and social collapse
Liquidity Jones -> NicholasB , 8 Jun 2013 03:35Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can , because they are more powerful than governments.
Is it beyond the wit of government to close these (perfectly legal) loopholes? Otherwise, what you are asking for is for these companies to make charitible donations to government - nothing wrong with that per se, but let's not hide behind the misleading term 'tax avoidance' - companies are obliged to minimise taxes within the law, face it.
@NicholasB -NotAgainAgain -> Fachan , 8 Jun 2013 03:32It is perfectly clear that in much of the EU public expenditure has been horribly inefficient and far too high
If you invent a set of rules that says a country that deficit spends above an arbitrary percentage of its GDP is horribly inefficient and far too high then it should not be a surprise that when that happens, it is described as such.
Whether that has any basis in reality or, as I suspect, is only relevant within its own ridiculous framework, is surely the question.
@Fachan -finnkn , 8 Jun 2013 03:31Deborah Orr is established writer for the Guardian and Married to a Will Self whose is almost certainly a millionaire. She is one of the rich. The idea that envy is driving her politics is just utterly absurd, and suggests a total lack of reflection.
NotAgainAgain -> NicholasB , 8 Jun 2013 03:24But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured, law-abiding and financially secure people
Not really; Amazon is just as happy to sell us trashy films, multipacks of chocolate, obesity drugs and baseball bats to stove our neighbour's head in. There's certainly an argument to be made that companies should have a duty to invest in the infrastructure that enables their product to be transported, stored etc...but they shouldn't be expected to give a toss if their customers are unhealthy ignoramuses. A market's a market.
@NicholasB -Liquidity Jones , 8 Jun 2013 03:23But some countries manage to do this much more efficiently and effectively than others.
In Europe it would appear to be the Social Democratic Nordic countries and Germany which has very strong employment rights. Korea's economic growth was based on government investment and a degree of protectionism. These are precisely the ideas that neoliberalism opposes.
If they had adopted The Keynes Plan at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference then the IMF and the World Bank would never have been set up. We most likely would not have had the euro crisis and the problem of trade imbalances between counties would most likely have gone away.kingcreosote , 8 Jun 2013 03:19Now that is what I call 'Keynesian'. Feel free to continue to make up your own definitions though.
Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs in an ever more divided world run by The Bilderbergers who play the politicians like puppets.RedHectorReborn -> emkayoh , 8 Jun 2013 03:18@emkayoh - I am not sure its in its death throes, I think what we are seeing is capitalism attempting to transform itself again. The success of that transformation will depend on how willing people across the western world to put up with reduced welfare, poverty pay and almost no employment rights. If we say no and make things too hot for the ruling class we have a chance to take control of the future direction of our world, if not then what's the point.NicholasB , 8 Jun 2013 03:16This is a strange rant. Everyone agrees that free markets need to be nurtured by appropriate state institutions. But some countries manage to do this much more efficiently and effectively than others. It is perfectly clear that in much of the EU public expenditure has been horribly inefficient and far too high.UnevenSurface , 8 Jun 2013 03:10There is no contradiction between being in favour of free markets and believing that markets and societies should be nurtured appropriately. We think people should be free and all accept that they should be nurtured.
emkayoh , 8 Jun 2013 03:09So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"?
Corporate taxation is best explained as the license that business pays to access the market -- which is in turn created through the schools, hospitals, roads, etc. that the tax pays for. Unfortunately the new Corporate Social Irresponsibility being acted out by multinationals today neatly avoids paying that license, and sooner or later will damage them. Multinationals need to recognize that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate.
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes is gobbling up the last scintilla of surplus that can be extracted from the poor ( anyone not independently wealthy).
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szwalby , 8 Jun 2013 06:03This private good, public bad is a stupid idea, and a totally artificial divide. After all, what are "public spends"? It is the money from private individuals, and companies, clubbing together to get services they can't individually afford.TedSmithAndSon , 8 Jun 2013 06:01What sticks in the neoliberalism craw is that the state provides these services instead of private businesses, and as such "rob" them of juicy profits! The state, the last easy cash cow!
Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. It's acolytes are required to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be made a fully fledged bastard.fr0mn0where -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 05:51Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church.
It's subsumed the entire planet, and waiting for them to see sense is a hopeless cause. In the end it'll probably take violence to rid us of the Neoliberal parasite... the turn of the century plague.
@CaptainGrey -jazzdrum -> bullwinkle , 8 Jun 2013 05:51"Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and countless people have gained as a result."
I agree with you and it was this beneficial version of capitalism that brought down the Iron Curtain. Working people in the former Communist countries were comparing themselves with working people in the west and wanted a piece of that action. Cuba has hung on because people there compare themselves with their nearest capitalist neighbor Haiti and they don't want a piece of that action. North Korea well North Korea is North Korea.
Isn't it this beneficial capitalism that is being threatened now though? When the wall came down it was assumed that Eastern European countries would become more like us. Some have but who would have thought that British working people would now be told, by the likes of Kwasi Kwarteng and his Britannia Unchained chums, that we have to learn to accept working conditions that are more like those in the Eastern European countries that got left behind and that we are now told that our version of Capitalism is inferior to the version adopted by the Communist Party of China?
@bullwinkle - No , when Thatcher and Reagan deregulated the financial markets in the 80s, that's when the trouble began which in turn led to the immense crash in 2008.Eddiel899 , 8 Jun 2013 05:51Neo-liberalism is just another symptom of liberal democracy which is government by oligarchs with a veneer of democracy.WilliamAshbless -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 05:49This type of government began in America about 150 years ago with the Rockefellers, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Ford etc who took advantage of new inventions, cheap immigrant labour and financial deregulation in finance and social mores to amass wealth for themselves and chaos and austerity for workers.
All this looks familiar again today with new and old oligarchs hiding behind large corporations taking advantage of the invention of the €uro, mass immigration into western Europe and deregulation of the financial "markets" and social mores to amass wealth for a super-wealthy elite and chaos and austerity for workers.
So if we want to see where things went wrong we need only go back 150 years to what happened to America. There we can also see our future?
@CaptainGreycpp4ever -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 05:41The beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won
Free education and the NHS are state institutions. As Debbie said, Amazon never taught anyone to read. Beneficial capitalism is an oxymoron resulting from your lack of understanding.
@CaptainGrey -ATrueFinn -> SpinningHugo , 8 Jun 2013 05:41especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and countless people have gained as a result.
At one and the same time being privatized and having their funding squeezed, a direct result of the neoliberal dogma capitalism of austerity. Free access is being eroded by the likes of ever larger student loans and prescription costs for a start.
@ SpinningHugo 08 June 2013 10:02am .succulentpork , 8 Jun 2013 05:36Nah. They achieved this by copying the west.
I would not go that far. The Western Capitalist Party is only now getting to be as powerful as CCP and China started the "reforms" in the late 1970s.
generalelection , 8 Jun 2013 05:26they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments
Let's not get carried away here. Let's consider some of the things governments can do, subject only to a 5 yearly check and challenge:
- force people upon pain of imprisonment to pay taxes to them
- pay out that tax money to whomever they like
- spend money they don't have by borrowing against obligations imposed on future taxpayers without their agreement
- kill people in wars, often from the comfort of a computer screen thousands of miles away
- print money and give it to whomever they like,
- get rid of nation state currencies and replace them with a single, centrally controlled currency
- make laws and punish people who break them, including the ability to track them down in most places in the world if they try and run away.
- use laws to create monopolies and favour special interests
Let's now consider what power apple have...
- they can make iPhones and try to sell them for a profit by responding to the demands of the mass consumer market. That's it. In fact, they are forced to do this by their owners who only want them to do this, and nothing else. If they don't do this they will cease to exist.
The state has merged with the corporations so that what is good for the corporations is good for the state and visa versa. The larger and richer the state/corporations are, the more shyster lawyers they hire to disguise misdeeds and unethical behavior.finnkn -> NeilThompson , 8 Jun 2013 05:20If you support a big government, you are supporting big corporations as well. The government uses the taxpayer as an eternal fount of fresh money and calls it their own to spend as they please. Small businesses suffer unfairly because they cannot afford the shyster lawyers and accountants that protect the government and the corporations, but nobody cares about them. Remember, that Green Energy is big business, just like Big Pharma and Big Oil. Most government shills have personally invested in Green Energy not because they care about the environment, only because they know that it is a safe investment protected by government for government. The same goes for large corporations who befriend government and visa versa.
... ... ...
@NeilThompson - It's all very well for Deborah to recommend that the well paid share work. Journalists, consultants and other assorted professionals can afford to do so. As a self-employed tradesman, I'd be homeless within a month.finnkn -> SpinningHugo , 8 Jun 2013 05:17@SpinningHugo - Interesting that those who are apparently concerned with prosperity for all and international solidarity are happy to ignore the rest of the world when it's going well, preferring to prophesy apocalypse when faced with government spending being slightly reduced at home.sedan2 -> Fachan , 8 Jun 2013 05:11@Fachan -KingOfNothing -> 1nn1t , 8 Jun 2013 05:03Dont see a lot of solutions in this article - as long as our sentiments revolve around envy of the rich, we wont get very far
Yeah, there actually wasn't anything in this article which even smelled of "envy of the rich". Read it again.
@1nn1t - That is a point which just isn't made enough. This is the first group of politicians for whom a global conflict seems like a distant event.REDLAN1 , 8 Jun 2013 05:03As a result we have people like Blair who see nothing wrong with invading countries at a whim, or conservatives and UKIP who fail to understand the whole point of the European Court of Human Rights.
They seem to act without thought of our true place in the world, without regard for the truly terrible capacity humanity has for self destruction.
Deborah's point about the illogical demands of neoliberalism are indeed correct, which is somewhat ironic as neoliberalism puts objective rationality at the heart of its philosophy, but I digress...Herbolzheim , 8 Jun 2013 04:49The main problem with replacing neoliberalism with a more rational, and fairer system, entails that people like Deborah accept that they will be less wealthy. And that my friends is the main problem. People like Deborah, while they are more than happy to point the fingers at others, are less than happy to accept that they are also part of the problem.
(Generalisation Caveat: I don't know in actuality if Deborah would be unhappy to be less wealthy in exchange for a fairer system, she doesn't say)
Good critique of conservative-neoliberalism, unless you subscribe to it and subordinate any morals or other values to it. She mentions an internal tension and I think that's because conservatism and neoliberal market ideology are different beasts.NotAgainAgain -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 04:47@CaptainGrey -DavidPavett , 8 Jun 2013 04:45There are different models of capitalism quite clearly the social democratic version in Scandinavia or the "Bismarkian" German version have worked a lot better than the UKs.
EllisWyatt -> NotAgainAgain , 8 Jun 2013 04:43Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem.
How is it a sign of that? We are offered no clues.
What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return;
Try reading a history of financial crashes to dislodge this idea.
... even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more quickly and more savagely.
This may or may not be true but here it is mere assertion.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt.
At this point I start to have real doubts as to whether Deborah Orr has actually read even the Executive Summary of the Report this article is ostensibly a response to.
All the comments that follow about the need for public infrastructure, education, regulated markets and so on are made as if they were a criticism of the IMF and yet the IMF says many of those same things itself. The IMF position may, of course, be contradictory - but then that is something that would need to be demonstrated. It seems that Deborah has not got beyond reading a couple of Guardian articles on the issues she discusses and therefore is in no position to do this.
Thus, for example in its review of world problems of Feb 2013 the IMF comments favorably that in Bangladesh in order to boost competitiveness
Efforts are being made to narrow the skills gap with other countries in the region, as the authorities look to take full advantage of Bangladesh's favorable demographics and help create conditions for more labor-intensive led growth. The government is also scaling up spending on education, science and technology, and information and communication technology.
Which seems to be the sort of thing Deborah Orr is calling for. She should spend a little time on the IMF website before criticising the institution. It is certainly one that merits much criticism - but it needs to be informed.
And the solution to the problems? For Deborah Orr the response
... from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the philosopher John Gray has said all along.
Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to mean? There are certainly no leads on this in the link given to "the philosopher" John Gray. And what a strange reference that is. John Gray, in his usual cynical mode, dismisses the idea of progress being achieved by the EU. But then I suppose that is consistent from a man who dismisses the idea of progress itself.
... Conservative neoliberalism is entirely without logic.
The first step in serious political analysis is to understand that the people one opposes are not crazy and are not devoid of logic. If that is not clearly understood then all that is left is the confrontation of assertion and contrary assertion. Of course Conservative neoliberalism has a logic. It is one I do not agree with but it is a logic all the same.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this [the need for public investment and a recognition of the multiple roles that individuals have].
Wrong again.
It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market.
And again.
This stuff can't be made up as you go along on the basis of reading a couple of newspaper articles. You actually have to do some hard reading to get to grip with the issues. I can see no signs of that in this piece.
@NotAgainAgain - We are going off topic and that is in no small part down to my own fault, so apologies. Just to pick up the point, I guess my unease with the likes of Buffet, Cooper-Hohn or even the wealthy Guardian columnists is that they are criticizing the system from a position of power and wealth.NotAgainAgain -> mountman , 8 Jun 2013 04:43So its easy to advocate change if you feel that you are in the vanguard of defining that change i.e. the reforms you advocate may leave you worse off, but at a level you feel comfortable with (the prime example always being Polly's deeply relaxed attitude to swingeing income tax increases when her own lifestyle will be protected through wealth).
I guess I am a little skeptical because I either see it as managed decline, a smokescreen or at worst mean spiritedness of people prepared to accept a reasonable degree of personal pain if it means other people whom dislike suffer much greater pain.
Again off topic so sorry about that
@mountman -ATrueFinn -> SpinningHugo , 8 Jun 2013 04:42The critical bit is this
"There is a clear legal basis in Germany for the workplace representation of employees in all but the very smallest companies. Under the Works Constitution Act, first passed in 1952 and subsequently amended, most recently in 2001, a works council can be set up in all private sector workplaces with at least five employees."
The UK needs to wake up to the fact that managers are sometimes inept or corrupt and will destroy the companies they work for, unless their are adequate mechanisms to hold poor management to account.
@ SpinningHugo 08 June 2013 9:26amATrueFinn -> CaptainGrey , 8 Jun 2013 04:40More people lifted out of poverty in China over the last 25 years than the entire population of South America.
Maybe we need the Chinese Communist Party to take over the world?
@ CaptainGrey 08 June 2013 8:43amirishaxeman , 8 Jun 2013 04:40Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won
There would not be NHS, free education etc. without socialism; in fact they are socialism. It took the Soviet-style socialism ("statism") 70 years to collapse. The neoliberalistic capitalism has already started to collapse after 30 years.
I'm always amused that neoliberal - indeed, capitalist - apologists cannot see the hypocrisy of their demands for market access. Communities create and sustain markets, fund and maintain infrastructure, produce and maintain new consumers. Yet the neolibs decry and destroy. Hypocrites or destructive numpties - never quite decided between Pickles and Gove, y'see.EllisWyatt -> JamesValencia , 8 Jun 2013 04:38@JamesValencia - Actually on reflection you are correct and I was wrong in my attack on the author above. Having re-read the article its a critique of institutions rather than people so my points were wide of the mark.bullwinkle -> bluebirds , 8 Jun 2013 04:38I still think that well heeled Guardian writers aren't really in a position to attack the wealthy and politically connected, but I'll save that for a thread when they explicitly do so, rather than the catch all genie of neoliberalism.
@bluebirds -snodgrass , 8 Jun 2013 04:36@CaptainGrey - deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20 years. The pure market is a fantasy just as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed the false value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed.
If the pure market is a fantasy, how can deregulated capitalism have failed? Does one not require the other? Surely it is regulated capitalism that has failed?
97% of all OUR money has been handed over to these scheming crooks. Stop bailing out the banks with QE. Take back what is ours -- state control over the creation of money. Then let the banks revert to their modest market-based function of financial intermediaries.EllisWyatt -> 1nn1t , 8 Jun 2013 04:35The State can't be trusted to create our money? Well they could hardly do a worse job than the banks! Best solution would be to distribute state-created money as a Citizen's Income.
@1nn1t - Some good points, there is a whole swathe of low earners that should not be in the tax system at all, simply letting them keep the money in their pocket would be a start.1nn1t -> Uncertainty , 8 Jun 2013 04:34Second the minimum wage (especially in the SE) is too low and should be increased. Obviously the devil is in the detail as to the precise rate, the other issue is non compliance as there will be any number of businesses that try and get around this, through employing people too ignorant or scared to know any better or for family businesses - do we have the stomach to enforce this?
Thirdly there is a widespread reluctance to separate people from the largesse of the state, even at absurd levels of income such as higher rate payers (witness child tax credits). On the right they see themselves as having paid in and so are "entitled" to have something back and on the left it ensures that everyone has a vested interest in a big state dipping it hands into your pockets one day and giving you something back the next.
Broken system
BruceMullinger , 8 Jun 2013 04:31The only group of people in he UK to see that need were the generation that faced WW2 together. It's no accident that, joining up at 18 in 1939, they had almost all retired by 1984.@Uncertainty - Which is why the people of the planet need to join hands.
To promote the indecent obsession for global growth Australia, burdened with debt of around 250 billion dollars, is to borrow and pay interest on a further 7 billion dollars to lend to the International Monetary Fund so as it can lend it to poorer nations to burden them with debt.It is entrapment which impoverishes nations into the surrender of sovereignty, democracy and national pride. In no way should we contribute to such economic immorality and the entire economic system based on perpetual growth fuelled by consumerism and debt needs top be denounced and dismantled. The adverse social and environmental consequence of perpetual growth defies all sensible logic and in time, in a more responsible and enlightened era, growth will be condemned.
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MysticFish -> gbru2505 , 8 Jun 2013 16:23
@gbru2505 -gbru2505 , 8 Jun 2013 16:13Last week there was a story where HSBC have taken on a senior ex-MI5 person to shore up their money laundering 'problems'. They're being fined over a billion dollars by the fed for taking blood money from murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
Not the Security Services' Director General by any chance?
-- In a filing to the Bermuda Stock Exchange ("BSX"), HSBC Holdings plc (Ticker: HSBC.BH), announced the appointment of Sir Jonathan Evans to the Board of Directors.
The filing stated:
Sir Jonathan Evans (55) has been appointed a Director of HSBC Holdings plc with effect from 6 August 2013. He will be an independent non-executive Director and a member of the Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee.
Sir Jonathan's career in the Security Service spanned 33 years, the last six of which as Director General. During his career Sir Jonathan's experience included counter-espionage, protection of classified information and the security of critical national infrastructure. His main focus was, however, counter-terrorism, both international and domestic including, increasingly, initiatives against cyber threats. As Director General he was a senior advisor to the UK government on national security policy and attended the National Security Council.
He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2013 New Year's Honours List and retired from the Service in April 2013.
I think there's some really good points in the article.Last week there was a story where HSBC have taken on a senior ex-MI5 person to shore up their money laundering 'problems'. They're being fined over a billion dollars by the fed for taking blood money from murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
Their annual fee for this guy with 20 years experience to tackle a billion dollar fine and the disfunction in their organisation? A lousy 100 k. Fee to UK for training him? 0.
Ridiculous! It should have been 10 times that for him and a finders fee of perhaps 10 million to the state.
Realistically, the state has NO clue about it's real value, or the real value of the UK population. And the example above, I think, demonstrates banks' attitude to the global demand that they clean up their act. We neef to take this lot to the cleaners before the stench gets any worse.
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
DEDA CVETKO , 5 hours ago link
Wormwoodcums , 5 hours ago linkI am hearing from reliable anonymous CNN sources that Deep State cockroaches do not like too much sunlight.
Pass the UV lamp, please!
iSage , 5 hours ago linkHard to piece together? Supposed to be. Story is so unreal it's unbelievable. Aliens Bitchez.
scam_MERS , 4 hours ago linkSpy vs Spy...used to love reading Mad Magazine. Now the world is Mad Magazine, amazing stuff.
I credit Mad with my warped sense of humor, as well as my skepticism of anything/everything.
And don't forget: Potrzebie!
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From Killing Kennedy To Kremlin Collusion - Deep State Forced Out Of The Shadows
by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/01/2018 - 20:15 150 SHARES Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog, The Deadliest Operation
Choose your battles wisely...
One month to the day after President Kennedy's assassination, the Washington Post published an article by former president Harry Truman.
I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency -- CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
Truman had envisioned the CIA as an impartial information and intelligence collector from "every available source."
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department "treatment" or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its "natural raw" state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions -- and I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.
Truman found, to his dismay, that the CIA had ranged far afield.
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue -- and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
The article appeared in the Washington Post's morning edition, but not the evening edition.
Truman reveals two naive assumptions. He thought a government agency could be apolitical and objective. Further, he believed the CIA's role could be limited to information gathering and analysis, eschewing "cloak and dagger operations." The timing and tone of the letter may have been hints that Truman thought the CIA was involved in Kennedy's assassination. If he did, he also realized an ex-president couldn't state his suspicions without troublesome consequences.
Even the man who signed the CIA into law had to stay in the shadows, the CIA's preferred operating venue. The CIA had become the exact opposite of what Truman envisioned and what its enabling legislation specified. Within a few years after its inauguration in 1947, it was neck-deep in global cloak and dagger and pushing agenda-driven, slanted information and outright disinformation not just within the government, but through the media to the American people.
The CIA lies with astonishing proficiency. It has made an art form of "plausible deniability." Like glimpsing an octopus in murky waters, you know it's there, but it shoots enough black ink to obscure its movements. Murk and black ink make it impossible for anyone on the outside to determine exactly what it does or has done. Insiders, even the director, are often kept in the dark.
For those on the trail of CIA and the other intelligence agencies' lies and skullduggery, the agencies give ground glacially and only when they have to. What concessions they make often embody multiple layers of back-up lies. It can take years for an official admission -- the CIA didn't officially confess its involvement in the 1953 coup that deposed Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddeq until 2013 -- and even then details are usually not forthcoming. Many of the so-called exposés of the intelligence agencies are in effect spook-written for propaganda or damage control.
The intelligence agencies monitor virtually everything we do. They have tentacles reaching into every aspect of contemporary society, exercising control in pervasive but mostly unknown ways. Yet, every so often some idiot writes an op-ed or bloviates on TV, bemoaning the lack of trust the majority of Americans have in "their" government and wondering why. The wonder is that anyone still trusts the government.
The intelligence agency fog both obscures and corrodes. An ever increasing number of Americans believe that a shadowy Deep State pulls the strings. Most major stories since World War II -- Korea, Vietnam, Kennedy's assassination, foreign coups, the 1960s student unrest, civil rights agitation, and civic disorder, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, domestic surveillance, and many more -- have intelligence angles. However, determining what those angles are plunges you into the miasma perpetuated by the agencies and their media accomplices.
The intelligence agencies and captive media's secrecy, disinformation, and lies make it futile to mount a straightforward attack against them. It's like attacking a citadel surrounded by swamps and bogs that afford no footing, making advance impossible. Their deadliest operation has been against the truth. In a political forum, how does one challenge an adversary who controls most of the information necessary to discredit, and ultimately reform or eliminate that adversary?
You don't fight where your opponent wants you to fight. What the intelligence apparatus fears most is a battle of ideas. Intelligence, the military, and the reserve currency are essential component of the US's confederated global empire. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump questioned a few empire totems and incurred the intelligence leadership's wrath, demonstrating how sensitive and vulnerable they are on this front. The transparent flimsiness of their Russiagate concoction further illustrates the befuddlement. Questions are out in the open and are usually based on facts within the public domain. They move the battle from the murk to the light, unfamiliar and unwelcome terrain.
The US government, like Oceania, switches enemies as necessary. That validates military and intelligence; lasting peace would be intolerable. After World War II the enemy was the USSR and communism, which persisted until the Soviet collapse in 1991. The 9/11 tragedy offered up a new enemy, Islamic terrorism.
Seventeen years later, after a disastrous run of US interventions in the Middle East and Northern Africa and the rout of Sunni jihadists in Syria by the combined forces of the Syrian government, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, it's clear that Islamic terrorism is no longer a threat that stirs the paranoia necessary to feed big military and intelligence budgets . For all the money they've spent, intelligence has done a terrible job of either anticipating terrorist strikes or defeating them in counterinsurgency warfare
So switch the enemy again, now it's Russia and China. The best insight the intelligence community could offer about those two is that they've grown stronger by doing the opposite of the US. For the most part they've stayed in their own neighborhoods. They accept that they're constituents, albeit important ones, of a multipolar global order. Although they'll use big sticks to protect their interests, carrots like the Belt and Road Initiative further their influence much better than the US's bullets and bombs.
If the intelligence complex truly cared about the country, they might go public with the observation that the empire is going broke. However, raising awareness of this dire threat -- as opposed to standard intelligence bogeymen -- might prompt reexamination of intelligence and military budgets and the foreign policy that supports them. Insolvency will strangle the US's exorbitantly expensive interventionism. It will be the first real curb on the intelligence complex since World War II, but don't except any proactive measures beforehand from those charged with foreseeing the future.
Conspiracy theories, a term popularized by the CIA to denigrate Warren Commission skeptics, are often proved correct. However, trying to determine the truth behind intelligence agency conspiracies is a time and energy-consuming task, usually producing much frustration and little illumination. Instead, as Caitlin Johnstone recently observed , we're better off fighting on moral and philosophical grounds the intelligence complex and the rest of the government's depredations that are in plain sight.
Attack the intellectual foundations of empire and you attack the whole rickety edifice, including intelligence, that supports it. Tell the truth and you threaten those who deal in lies . Champion sanity and logic and you challenge the insane irrationality of the powers that be. They are daunting tasks, but less daunting than trying to excavate and clean the intelligence sewer.
bogbeagle , 1 hour ago link
WTFUD , 25 minutes ago linkI sometimes wonder whether the Bond films are a psy-op.
I mean, the 'hero' is a psycho-killer ... the premise of the films is 'any means to an end' ... they promote the ridiculous idea that you can be 'licensed to kill', and it's no longer murder ... and they build a strong association between the State and glamour.
Bond makes a virtue out of 'following orders', when in reality, it's a Sin.
Norfry , 2 hours ago linkCan't remember which Section of MI6 Ian Fleming (novelist 007.5) worked but he came into contact with my Hero, the best double-agent Cambridge, maybe World, has Ever produced, Kim Philby. Fleming was a lightweight compared to him and was most likely provided the Funds, by MI6 to titillate the Masses, spread the Word of Deep State.
StarGate , 2 hours ago linkThe article makes many good points but still falls into use of distorting bs language.
For example, "after a disastrous run of US interventions" - well, they stole Libya's wealth and destroyed the country: mission accomplished; that's what they were trying to do. It was not an ""intervention", it was a f***ing war of aggression based on lies.
Well the good news is that folks now know there is deep State, shadow govt, puppet masters, fake news MSM mockingbird programming, satanic "musik/ pop" promoters, etc.
Not everyone knows but more know, and some are now questioning the Matrix sensations they have. That they have not been told the Truth.
Eventually humanity will awaken and get on track, how long it will take is unknown.
The CIA is a symptom of the problem but not the whole problem. Primarily it is the deception that it sows, the confusion and false conclusions that the easily led fill their heads with.
Now that you know there are bad guys out there...
Find someone to love, even if it is a puppy or a guppy. Simplify your needs, and commit small acts of kindness on a regular basis. The World will heal, it may be a rocky convalescence, yet Good triumphs in the end.
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Dec 03, 2018 | guardian.co.uk
LetsGetCynical -> Snookerboy , 8 Jun 2013 14:31
@ Snookerboy 08 June 2013 7:14pm . Get cifFix for Firefox .J Snookerboy -> LetsGetCynical , 8 Jun 2013 14:14Democracy = a political system in which citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally -- either directly or through elected representatives -- in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. Do we have this in the UK at the moment bearing in mind recent events (brown envelopes and Bilderberg Group to name but two)?
Does any country have this? With all due respect it is just words and sentiment. In my previous comment I said that No i didnt think we had true democracy and I dont think it (if there is such a thing) is achievable, not everyone would be satisfied it would be true democracy thus its legitimacy would be called into question.
In my mind its a bit like saying the best thing would be a "benevolent, incorruptible, sensible dictator", its a fantasy.
Politicians who are found to be on the take or are fiddling the public purse should be dismissed immediately and a by election called. Would stop it happening as much as I am sure we are only seeing the 'tip of the iceberg'.
Agreed and they should always be innocent until proven guilty and if found guilty of abuse of office they should be barred from public office indefinitely in my mind, as long as they break the law, not fudge the rules or whatever, which is also part of the problem. Hazel Blears and countless others was re-elected despite being reviled in the media as an expenses cheat.
So I assume you are happy for our PM to attend a secret meeting where nothing is ever released to the media or press about what is going on or discussed?
I am neither happy nor unhappy, it is a private event that the PM is invited to by a steering committee, I imagine the idea being they can discuss candidly without official airs, graces, platitudes and politician speak for a while, it doesnt particularly concern me.
@LetsGetCynical - Democracy = a political system in which citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally -- either directly or through elected representatives -- in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. Do we have this in the UK at the moment bearing in mind recent events (brown envelopes and Bilderberg Group to name but two)?LetsGetCynical -> Snookerboy , 8 Jun 2013 13:55Politicians who are found to be on the take or are fiddling the public purse should be dismissed immediately and a by election called. Would stop it happening as much as I am sure we are only seeing the 'tip of the iceberg'.
So I assume you are happy for our PM to attend a secret meeting where nothing is ever released to the media or press about what is going on or discussed?
@ Snookerboy 08 June 2013 6:31pm . Get cifFix for Firefox .Snookerboy -> LetsGetCynical , 8 Jun 2013 13:31No, but then again what is a "true democracy"? Agreed they are bunch of clowns but then again who are the clowns that repeatedly vote for the same party regardless of what they say or do?
where the clowns who supposedly represent us at Westminster were offering to take cash in brown envelopes
Corruption is about as old as humanity itself, no "true democracy" will ever remove the human element and all the pros and cons that entails.
Now we have the Prime Minister attending the Bilderberg Group meeting without any officials or Civil Servants to record what is going on. I suppose he needs to attend to get instructions from his bosses on how he must run his 'democracy'!
Whether or not you argee or disagree with the conference, it is by invite only, they don't have to invite civil servants or journalists if they don't want to. And it does contain very powerful people, why would the PM not attend?
attend to get instructions from his bosses
I take it the waiters are under permanent surveillance in order to ensure they don't reveal the dastardly secrets about what Eric Schmidt "tells" Cameron to do? A bit fanciful in my opinion.
@LetsGetCynical - Do you really believe that we live in a true democracy? Have you been watching the news over the past few weeks where the clowns who supposedly represent us at Westminster were offering to take cash in brown envelopes for privileged access to the political system?Now we have the Prime Minister attending the Bilderberg Group meeting without any officials or Civil Servants to record what is going on. I suppose he needs to attend to get instructions from his bosses on how he must run his 'democracy'!
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Jun 01, 1999 | www.returnofkings.com
Power in America today looks far different from the picture that C. Wright Mills painted nearly half a century ago. C. Wright Mills's The Power Elite was published in 1956, a time, as Mills himself put it, when Americans were living through "a material boom, a nationalist celebration, a political vacuum." It is not hard to understand why Americans were as complacent as Mills charged.Let's say you were a typical 35-year-old voter in 1956. When you were eight years old, the stock market crashed, and the resulting Clutch Plague began just as you started third or fourth grade. Hence your childhood was consumed with fighting off the poverty of the single greatest economic catastrophe in American history. When you were 20, the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor, ensuring that your years as a young adult, especially if you were male, would be spent fighting on the ground in Europe or from island to island in Asia. If you were lucky enough to survive that experience, you returned home at the ripe old age of 24, ready to resume some semblance of a normal life -- only then to witness the Korean War, McCarthyism, and the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Into this milieu exploded The Power Elite . C. Wright Mills was one of the first intellectuals in America to write that the complacency of the Eisenhower years left much to be desired. His indictment was uncompromising. On the one hand, he claimed, vast concentrations of power had coagulated in America, making a mockery of American democracy. On the other, he charged that his fellow intellectuals had sold out to the conservative mood in America, leaving their audience -- the American people themselves -- in a state of ignorance and apathy bearing shocking resemblance to the totalitarian regimes that America had defeated or was currently fighting.
One of the goals Mills set for himself in The Power Elite was to tell his readers -- again, assuming that they were roughly 35 years of age -- how much the organization of power in America had changed during their lifetimes. In the 1920s, when this typical reader had been born, there existed what Mills called "local society," towns and small cities throughout Am erica whose political and social life was dominated by resident businessmen. Small-town elites, usually Republican in their outlook, had a strong voice in Con gress, for most of the congressmen who represented them were either members of the dominant families themselves or had close financial ties to them.
By the time Mills wrote his book, this world of local elites had become as obsolete as the Model T Ford. Power in America had become nationalized, Mills charged, and as a result had also become interconnected. The Power Elite called attention to three prongs of power in the United States. First, business had shifted its focus from corporations that were primarily regional in their workforces and customer bases to ones that sought products in national markets and developed national interests. What had once been a propertied class, tied to the ownership of real assets, had become a managerial class, rewarded for its ability to organize the vast scope of corporate enterprise into an engine for ever-expanding profits. No longer were the chief executive officers of these companies chosen because they were of the right social background. Connections still mattered, but so did bureaucratic skill. The men who possessed those skills were rewarded well for their efforts. Larded with expense accounts and paid handsomely, they could exercise national influence not only through their companies, but through the roles that they would be called upon to serve in "the national interest."
Similar changes had taken place in the military sector of American society. World War II, Mills argued, and the subsequent start of the Cold War, led to the establishment of "a permanent war economy" in the United States. Mills wrote that the "warlords," his term for the military and its civilian allies, had once been "only uneasy, poor relations within the American elite; now they are first cousins; soon they may become elder brothers." Given an unlimited checking account by politicians anxious to appear tough, buoyed by fantastic technological and scientific achievements, and sinking roots into America's educational institutions, the military, Mills believed, was becoming increasingly autonomous. Of all the prongs of the power elite, this "military ascendancy" possessed the most dangerous implications. "American militarism, in fully developed form, would mean the triumph in all areas of life of the military metaphysic, and hence the subordination to it of all other ways of life."
In addition to the military and corporate elites, Mills analyzed the role of what he called "the political directorate." Local elites had once been strongly represented in Congress, but Congress itself, Mills pointed out, had lost power to the executive branch. And within that branch, Mills could count roughly 50 people who, in his opinion, were "now in charge of the executive decisions made in the name of the United States of America." The very top positions -- such as the secretaries of state or defense -- were occupied by men with close ties to the leading national corporations in the United States. These people were not attracted to their positions for the money; often, they made less than they would have in the private sector. Rather they understood that running the Central Intelligence Agency or being secretary of the Treasury gave one vast influence over the direction taken by the country. Firmly interlocked with the military and corporate sectors, the political leaders of the United States fashioned an agenda favorable to their class rather than one that might have been good for the nation as a whole.
Although written very much as a product of its time, The Power Elite has had remarkable staying power. The book has remained in print for 43 years in its original form, which means that the 35-year-old who read it when it first came out is now 78 years old. The names have changed since the book's appearance -- younger readers will recognize hardly any of the corporate, military, and political leaders mentioned by Mills -- but the underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues to matter very much.
Changing Fortunes
The obvious question for any contemporary reader of The Power Elite is whether its conclusions apply to the United States today. Sorting out what is helpful in Mills's book from what has become obsolete seems a task worth undertaking.
Each year, Fortune publishes a list of the 500 leading American companies based on revenues. Roughly 30 of the 50 companies that dominated the economy when Mills wrote his book no longer do, including firms in once seemingly impregnable industries such as steel, rubber, and food. Putting it another way, the 1998 list contains the names of many corporations that would have been quite familiar to Mills: General Motors is ranked first, Ford second, and Exxon third. But the company immediately following these giants -- Wal-Mart Stores -- did not even exist at the time Mills wrote; indeed, the idea that a chain of retail stores started by a folksy Arkansas merchant would someday outrank Mobil, General Electric, or Chrysler would have startled Mills. Furthermore, just as some industries have declined, whole new industries have appeared in America since 1956; IBM was fifty-ninth when Mills wrote, hardly the computer giant -- sixth on the current Fortune 500 list -- that it is now. (Compaq and Intel, neither of which existed when Mills wrote his book, are also in the 1998 top 50.) To illustrate how closed the world of the power elite was, Mills called attention to the fact that one man, Winthrop W. Aldrich, the Am erican ambassador to Great Britain, was a director of 4 of the top 25 companies in America in 1950. In 1998, by contrast, only one of those companies, AT&T, was at the very top; of the other three, Chase Manhattan was twenty-seventh, Metropolitan Life had fallen to forty-third, and the New York Central Railroad was not to be found.
Despite these changes in the nature of corporate America, however, much of what Mills had to say about the corporate elite still applies. It is certainly still the case, for example, that those who run companies are very rich; the gap between what a CEO makes and what a worker makes is extraordinarily high. But there is one difference between the world described by Mills and the world of today that is so striking it cannot be passed over. As odd as it may sound, Mills's understanding of capitalism was not radical enough. Heavily influenced by the sociology of its time, The Power Elite portrayed corporate executives as organization men who "must 'fit in' with those already at the top." They had to be concerned with managing their impressions, as if the appearance of good results were more important than the actuality of them. Mills was disdainful of the idea that leading businessmen were especially com petent. "The fit survive," he wrote, "and fitness means, not formal competence -- there probably is no such thing for top executive positions -- but conformity with the criteria of those who have already succeeded."
It may well have been true in the 1950s that corporate leaders were not especially inventive; but if so, that was because they faced relatively few challenges. If you were the head of General Motors in 1956, you knew that American automobile companies dominated your market; the last thing on your mind was the fact that someday cars called Toyotas or Hondas would be your biggest threat. You did not like the union which organized your workers, but if you were smart, you realized that an ever-growing economy would enable you to trade off high wages for your workers in return for labor market stability. Smaller companies that supplied you with parts were dependent on you for orders. Each year you wanted to outsell Ford and Chrysler, and yet you worked with them to create an elaborate set of signals so that they would not undercut your prices and you would not undercut theirs. Whatever your market share in 1956, in other words, you could be fairly sure that it would be the same in 1957. Why rock the boat? It made perfect sense for budding executives to do what Mills argued they did do: assume that the best way to get ahead was to get along and go along.
Very little of this picture remains accurate at the end of the twentieth century. Union membership as a percentage of the total workforce has declined dramatically, and while this means that companies can pay their workers less, it also means that they cannot expect to invest much in the training of their workers on the assumption that those workers will remain with the company for most of their lives. Foreign competition, once negligible, is now the rule of thumb for most American companies, leading many of them to move parts of their companies overseas and to create their own global marketing arrangements. America's fastest-growing industries can be found in the field of high technology, something Mills did not anticipate. ("Many modern theories of industrial development," he wrote, "stress technological developments, but the number of inventors among the very rich is so small as to be unappreciable.") Often dominated by self-made men (another phenomenon about which Mills was doubtful), these firms are ruthlessly competitive, which upsets any possibility of forming gentlemen's agreements to control prices; indeed, among internet companies the idea is to provide the product with no price whatsoever -- that is, for free -- in the hopes of winning future customer loyalty.
These radical changes in the competitive dynamics of American capitalism have important implications for any effort to characterize the power elite of today. C. Wright Mills was a translator and interpreter of the German sociologist Max Weber, and he borrowed from Weber the idea that a heavily bureaucratized society would also be a stable and conservative society. Only in a society which changes relatively little is it possible for an elite to have power in the first place, for if events change radically, then it tends to be the events controlling the people rather than the people controlling the events. There can be little doubt that those who hold the highest positions in America's corporate hierarchy remain, as they did in Mills's day, the most powerful Americans. But not even they can control rapid technological transformations, intense global competition, and ever-changing consumer tastes. American capitalism is simply too dynamic to be controlled for very long by anyone.
The Warlords
One of the crucial arguments Mills made in The Power Elite was that the emergence of the Cold War completely transformed the American public's historic opposition to a permanent military establishment in the United States. In deed, he stressed that America's military elite was now linked to its economic and political elite. Personnel were constantly shifting back and forth from the corporate world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological innovations sponsored by the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. And while all these links between the economy and the military were being forged, the military had become an active political force. Members of Congress, once hostile to the military, now treated officers with great deference. And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers, and appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military.
Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism which had once characterized public opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are attempting to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." Their goal was nothing less than a redefinition of reality -- one in which the American people would come to accept what Mills called "an emergency without a foreseeable end." "War or a high state of war preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States," Mills wrote. In this state of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement, precisely what the military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed permanent, then The Power Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical, and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States.
Much as Mills wrote, it remains true today that Congress is extremely friendly to the military, at least in part because the military has become so powerful in the districts of most congressmen. Military bases are an important source of jobs for many Americans, and government spending on the military is crucial to companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which manufacture military equipment. American firms are the leaders in the world's global arms market, manufacturing and exporting weapons everywhere. Some weapons systems never seem to die, even if, as was the case with a "Star Wars" system designed to destroy incoming missiles, there is no demonstrable military need for them.
Yet despite these similarities with the 1950s, both the world and the role that America plays in that world have changed. For one thing, the United States has been unable to muster its forces for any sustained use in any foreign conflict since Vietnam. Worried about the possibility of a public backlash against the loss of American lives, American presidents either refrain from pursuing military adventures abroad or confine them to rapid strikes, along the lines pursued by Presidents Bush and Clinton in Iraq. Since 1989, moreover, the collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe has undermined the capacity of America's elites to mobilize support for military expenditures. China, which at the time Mills wrote was con sidered a serious threat, is now viewed by American businessmen as a source of great potential investment. Domestic political support for a large and permanent military establishment in the United States, in short, can no longer be taken for granted.
The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a dramatic decrease in that proportion of the American economy devoted to defense. At the time Mills wrote, defense expenditures constituted roughly 60 percent of all federal outlays and consumed nearly 10 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product. By the late 1990s, those proportions had fallen to 17 percent of federal outlays and 3.5 percent of GDP. Nearly three million Americans served in the armed forces when The Power Elite appeared, but that number had dropped by half at century's end. By almost any account, Mills's prediction that both the economy and the political systemof the United States would come to be ever more dominated by the military is not borne out by historical developments since his time.
And how could he have been right? Business firms, still the most powerful force in American life, are increasingly global in nature, more interested in protecting their profits wherever they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority of their employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice between invading another country and investing in its industries and they will nearly always choose the latter over the former. Mills believed that in the 1950s, for the first time in American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. Now it would be more correct to say that America's economic elite finds more in common with economic elites in other countries than it does with the military elite of its own. The Power Elite failed to foresee a situation in which at least one of the key elements of the power elite would no longer identify its fate with the fate of the country which spawned it.
Mass Society and the Power Elite
Politicians and public officials who wield control over the executive and legislative branches of government constitute the third leg of the power elite. Mills believed that the politicians of his time were no longer required to serve a local apprenticeship before moving up the ladder to national politics. Because corporations and the military had become so interlocked with government, and because these were both national institutions, what might be called "the nationalization of politics" was bound to follow. The new breed of political figure likely to climb to the highest political positions in the land would be those who were cozy with generals and CEOs, not those who were on a first-name basis with real estate brokers and savings and loan officials.
For Mills, politics was primarily a facade. Historically speaking, American politics had been organized on the theory of balance: each branch of government would balance the other; competitive parties would ensure adequate representation; and interest groups like labor unions would serve as a counterweight to other interests like business. But the emergence of the power elite had transformed the theory of balance into a romantic, Jeffersonian myth. So anti democratic had America become under the rule of the power elite, according to Mills, that most decisions were made behind the scenes. As a result, neither Congress nor the political parties had much substantive work to carry out. "In the absence of policy differences of consequence between the major parties," Mills wrote, "the professional party politician must invent themes about which to talk."
Mills was right to emphasize the irrelevance of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century images to the actualities of twentieth-century American political power. But he was not necessarily correct that politics would therefore become something of an empty theatrical show. Mills believed that in the absence of real substance, the parties would become more like each other. Yet today the ideological differences between Republicans and Democrats are severe -- as, in fact, they were in 1956. Joseph McCarthy, the conservative anticommunist senator from Wisconsin who gave his name to the period in which Mills wrote his book, appears a few times in The Power Elite , but not as a major figure. In his emphasis on politics and economics, Mills underestimated the important role that powerful symbolic and moral crusades have had in American life, including McCarthy's witch-hunt after communist influence. Had he paid more attention to McCarthyism, Mills would have been more likely to predict the role played by divisive issues such as abortion, immigration, and affirmative action in American politics today. Real substance may not be high on the American political agenda, but that does not mean that politics is unimportant. Through our political system, we make decisions about what kind of people we imagine ourselves to be, which is why it matters a great deal at the end of the twentieth century which political party is in power.
Contemporary commentators believe that Mills was an outstanding social critic but not necessarily a first-rate social scientist. Yet I believe that The Power Elite survives better as a work of social science than of social criticism.
At the time Mills was writing, academic sociology was in the process of proclaiming itself a science. The proper role of the sociologist, many of Mills's colleagues believed, was to conduct value-free research emphasizing the close em pirical testing of small-bore hypotheses. A grand science would eventually be built upon extensive empirical work which, like the best of the natural sciences, would be published in highly specialized journals emph a sizing methodological innovation and technical proficiency. Because he never agreed with these objectives, Mills was never considered a good scientist by his sociological peers.
Yet not much of the academic sociology of the 1950s has survived, while The Power Elite , in terms of longevity, is rivaled by very few books of its period. In his own way, Mills contributed much to the understanding of his era. Social scientists of the 1950s emphasized pluralism, a concept which Mills attacked in his criticisms of the theory of balance. The dominant idea of the day was that the concentration of power in America ought not be considered excessive because one group always balanced the power of others. The biggest problem facing America was not concentrated power but what sociologists began to call "the end of ideology." America, they believed, had reached a point in which grand passions over ideas were exhausted. From now on, we would require technical expertise to solve our problems, not the musings of intellectuals.
Compared to such ideas, Mills's picture of American reality, for all its exaggerations, seems closer to the mark. If the test of science is to get reality right, the very passionate convictions of C. Wright Mills drove him to develop a better empirical grasp on Am erican society than his more objective and clinical contemporaries. We can, therefore, read The Power Elite as a fairly good account of what was taking place in America at the time it was written.
As a social critic, however, Mills leaves something to be desired. In that role, Mills portrays himself as a lonely battler for the truth, insistent upon his correctness no matter how many others are seduced by the siren calls of power or wealth. This gives his book emotional power, but it comes with a certain irresponsibility. "In Am erica today," Mills wrote in a typical passage, "men of affairs are not so much dogmatic as they are mindless." Yet however one may dislike the decisions made by those in power in the 1950s, as decision makers they were responsible for the consequences of their acts. It is often easier to criticize from afar than it is to get a sense of what it actually means to make a corporate decision involving thousands of workers, to consider a possible military action that might cost lives, or to decide whether public funds should be spent on roads or welfare. In calling public officials mindless, Mills implies that he knows how they might have acted better. But if he did, he never told readers of The Power Elite ; missing from the book is a statement of what concretely could be done to make the world accord more with the values in which Mills believed.
It is, moreover, one thing to attack the power elite, yet another to extend his criticisms to other intellectuals -- and even the public at large. When he does the latter, Mills runs the risk of becoming as antidemocratic as he believed America had become. As he brings his book to an end, Mills adopts a termonce strongly identified with conservative political theorists. Appalled by the spread of democracy, conservative European writers proclaimed the twentieth century the age of "mass society." The great majority, this theory held, would never act rationally but would respond more like a crowd, hysterically caught up in frenzy at one point, apathetic and withdrawn at another. "The United States is not altogether a mass society," Mills wrote -- and then he went on to write as if it were. And when he did, the image he conveyed of what an American had become was thoroughly unattractive: "He loses his independence, and more importantly, he loses the desire to be independent; in fact, he does not have hold of the idea of being an independent individual with his own mind and his own worked-out way of life." Mills had become so persuaded of the power of the power elite that he seemed to have lost all hope that the American people could find themselves and put a stop to the abuses he detected.
One can only wonder, then, what Mills would have made of the failed attempt by Republican zealots to impeach and remove the President of the United States. At one level it makes one wish there really were a power elite, for surely such an elite would have prevented an extremist faction of an increasingly ideological political party from trying to overturn the results of two elections. And at another level, to the degree that America weathered this crisis, it did so precisely because the public did not act as if were numbed by living in a mass society, for it refused to follow the lead of opinion makers, it made up its mind early and thoughtfully, and then it held tenaciously to its opinion until the end.
Whether or not America has a power elite at the top and a mass society at the bottom, however, it remains in desperate need of the blend of social science and social criticism which The Power Elite offered. It would take another of Mills's books -- perhaps The Sociological Imagination -- to explain why that has been lost.
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Oct 31, 2016 | www.returnofkings.com
179 Comments
Corey Savage
Corey is an iconoclast and the author of 'Man's Fight for Existence' . He believes that the key to life is for men to honour their primal nature. Visit his new website at primalexistence.com
It wasn't long ago that the Left represented the anti-establishment wing in politics. They used to fight against globalism (remember the anti-globalization movement?) even if their motives were different from those of today's anti-globalists, as well as being against censorship, imperialist wars, and the expanding powers of governments and corporations. But today, you see leftists protesting against Brexit, attacking and censoring anyone who disagrees with the establishment (using Twitter on their Apple products while sipping on their Starbucks coffee), and are calling for war in Syria to challenge the Russians. So, just how the hell did did they end up becoming the patsies for the elites?
To understand, we must go back to 2011 when the Occupy movement was ongoing. The Occupy protests, which now seem like ages ago, came about as a response to the economic downturn with the people realizing that they were being screwed by the system. We can debate endlessly about exactly who these people were and the motives behind them, but the important fact is that, to the elites, it was a sign that the people were waking up and challenging their power.
The elites were in a panic as this was the first time in post-war history that the people of West mobilized in mass to threaten their rule. So, the cabals decided that they needed to act fast before the whole movement evolved to a full-blown revolution. And they already had a plan in mind: the never antiquated strategy of divide and rule.
The Diversion
When the people are discontent and angry from being powerless and dispossessed, the pressure will mount and it won't go anywhere. The people want to vent out their frustrations. The elites know that responding directly with repression only inspires greater desire to rise up, so instead of fighting it, they prefer to re-channel that pent up energy elsewhere.
On February 2012, with the Occupy movement still raging, the elites were given that golden opportunity -- or, rather, they created one -- when a black teenager was shot dead in Florida: the none other than the infamous Trayvon Martin case. The shooter wasn't even a full white, but the elites jumped at the chance and used their control of the media to throw everything they had on it; anything to divert the public attention away from them. With their efforts, it quickly became the biggest story of America.
But they didn't stop there. Police shootings, which have always been happening and to all races, were also highly publicized by the mainstream media to stoke liberal outrage and racial tensions that led to the creation of Black Lives Matter movement -- a movement that is financed by George Soros and others to stir up unrests across America.
Did the elites convert Occupy protesters into SJW patsies?
The diversion was complete as the people were now more interested in racial issues than the "1%" who were dictating their lives. The Occupy movement faded away and the people were now venting out their anger elsewhere. Although I don't have as much proof as with the rise of BLM movement, I strongly suspect that the resurgence of social justice warriors around the same time is also the work of the elites who want the Leftists to target fellow citizens over asinine cultural issues rather than the established order.
The Strategy
Back in 19th century, Karl Marx claimed that religion and nationalism was being used to distract the masses from the fact that they were being oppressed under capitalism. If we were to apply this concept to the world today, the culture wars going on now are distractions to keep the masses from undermining the power of the elites.
The goal the elites is simple: divide the masses and let them fight each other so that they will never come together to topple those in power. Meanwhile, they themselves focus on expanding their own wealth and continue to implement institutional control to further their globalist plans. The worst case scenario the elites want to avoid is to have the common people unite as one, so they must do everything they can to fragment them by creating as many divisions as possible.
My understanding of their modus operandi is this: 1) Use hot-button issues to stir up controversy (something that doesn't affect them like gay marriage, race issues, and all other politically correct nonsense). 2) Have the Leftists either get outraged or do something that will provoke a reaction from the Right. 3) Let the people vent out their anger onto each other and get at each other's throats. 4) When the issue fades away, foment a new controversy to repeat the whole process. By cycling through them over and over again, the elites are able to maintain the status quo and keep the people from uniting against them.
Thus, we have our current situation where the masses are divided with blacks against whites, women against men, Islam and atheism against Christianity, Left against Right, and so on, but no more anti-globalization, Tea Party movement, or Occupy Wall Street.
As long as those on the left continue berating the right as racists, sexists, and bigots who are controlled by corporations and the right in turn accuse the left of being degenerate, socialist slackers who just want freebies from a nanny government, nothing will change. As long as the two sides see each others as enemies who are stupid and ignorant, and getting in the way of creating a decent society, the people will remain divided. As long as the rest of the population go berserk over wedding cakes for homosexuals, the latest "misogynist" outrage, or how a lion named Cecil got shot, the elites will continue to win.
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Reasons Clean Shaven Men Are Switching To This In Droves
22,361 CLICK TO READ A Couple More Points To Consider
I know they look like an occupying army, but there's nothing to be alarmed about. They're just your friendly neighborhood police doing their jobs to protect you from the "terrorists."
First, while this article has been focused on how the Left has been toyed by the globalist elites, let's not forget that the Right are not totally immune to their influence either. Remember how Neo-cons ( globalist puppets disguised as conservatives ) effectively lured the conservatives in America through faith and patriotism? The support they got from that base was the impetus to launch their war against Iraq based on bullshit evidences of WMD's and Saddam–Al-Queda link. While the Right has changed a lot since then, there are still "conservatives" today who are itching for a war with Russia because USA! USA! USA! .
Second, it is crucial to remember that although the main goal is to maintain divide and rule, it is not the end of it. The elites have far more sinister aims. By raising hell in societies through demographic conflicts and terrorism, the elites are preparing for a total social control. I get the feeling that the elites are letting the chaos and violence run its course so that the people from the two opposing camps will join together in their approval of new government measures for social control.
No matter their differences, when the people get terrified of savagery and disorder, they'll welcome the state to intervene in the name of security. Europe is already getting used to large military presence on their streets while the US government is seemingly preparing for a war against their own citizens . A leaked Soros memo also reveals that the BLM movement is potentially being used to federalize the US police . While many people seem to be concerned about violence and terrorism, it seems those are just tools used by the elites to justify a totalitarian state in the near future.
The Culture Wars: Necessary Fight Or Engineered Distraction?
The issue of culture wars is not an easy one as they are important in many ways, but are still forms of distraction implemented by the elites.
On one hand, we are playing into the hands of elites by raging against social justice and feminist pigshits instead of trying to stop the globalists, Zionists , bankers, mega-corporations , and the governments from undermining our existence. Really, do the issues of politically-incorrect Halloween costumes and whatever bathroom trannies use matter more than the fact that the middle-class is being destroyed, revelations of massive corruption in the DNC, the coming police-state, and the globalist wars that are causing death and destruction around the world? All the drama of outrage and counter-outrage is silly when the elites are snickering as their new world order is taking shape.
On the other hand, culture does matter in many ways. Uncontrolled immigration, anti-male laws, and censorship are all very relevant issues. And as much of the Leftists are now serving as pawns of the establishment, the situation isn't exactly the divide and rule model I described above. In a way, we are now forced to fight the Left and everyone else who are getting in the way of fighting the globalist elites.
So, does this mean we should ally with those who scorn us? Or should we continue playing the elite's games and bicker with their SJW drones? I don't have a good answer, but whatever we choose to do, I believe it is crucial for us to focus our battles and not get trolled into petty issues that the mainstream media wants us to focus on. We should always keep in mind that it is always those at the top who are the true enemies of mankind.
Conclusion: Is There Still Hope?
Although we no longer see grassroots movements and popular mobilization, the current US election has shown that the people are still awake and sick of the establishment. To me, that alone is a hopeful sign that people are still willing to challenge the ruling class.
With Bernie Sanders brought down by the establishment and his supporters scattered into different camps, the only anti-establishment movement now is the presidential campaign led by Donald Trump. This is why we are seeing unprecedented efforts by the elites to bring down Trump and use disgruntled Leftists against his supporters.
I have my doubts about Trump , but he is thousand times preferable to the certain nightmare that Hillary Clinton will bring to America and the world if she gets elected. But besides voting, I believe that it is more important for the people themselves to wake up and be aware of the methods of control that are being implemented upon us. We can't constantly expect some knight in shinning armor to come rally us; we must take the initiative ourselves and be willing to fight for our own destiny.
Read More: The Elites Have One Rule For Themselves, And One Rule For The Rest Of Us
- October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
The elites were in a panic as this was the first time in post-war
history that the people of West mobilized in mass to threaten their
rule.The unfunded and grassroots Tea Party had the Soros organized and funded OWS beat by a good three years (2008).
October 31, 2016 Corey
"People of the West", not just the US. It's possible that the Occupy movement, too, was created by the elites to counter the Tea Party until it spiraled out of control.
- GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
It's more than just possible, it's pretty clear that it was. They show up with buses rented and food vendors in tow. Somebody was paying for that shit, and it sure as hell wasn't the unwashed hippy wannabes out shitting on cop cars.
- Hugo
Its a false statement by the author to state that the 'left' was anti establishment back in the day. It wasn't. It's goal, then and now was to create a global, Marxist establishment and to do that it had brainwash the masses into believing it was 'fightin the man'.
When in fact the 'left' has always been 'the man' as Marxism is focused on control and authority. None of this is new. Perhaps new to North America but, exactly the methodology that was used in Europe since WW1 to turn it into the Marxist shiithole it has become. That in essence was what WW2 was about; Nationalism vs. Globalized Marxism. And Nationalism lost.
- October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Although it is in how you define the establishment. At the time of progressives assuming power (around WW1, give or take) the "Establishment" was fairly Classical Liberal and friendly to liberty and free trade, at least to an extent. Now the "establishment" is them, and they are absolutely "the Man" these days.
October 31, 2016 Corey
Koch brothers and Soros are accused of funding Tea Party and OWS respectively; both denied the charges. Buses and food vendors aren't that expensive and they did receive donations from ordinary people.
But I feel like the whole point of the article is now lost due to this debate of who funded who, who's controlled by who, which is the good side and which the bad, which just confirms that we are divided. I guess some things never change.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Sorry man, but I didn't bring up OWS, the article did. They were so astroturfed that I can't even pretend to take them seriously as legitimate protest. When you have Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the bulk of the Democrat party cheering them on, that should give a moment for pause. On the flip side, the Tea Party was reviled by the Dems AND the GOP simultaneously.
October 31, 2016 JungleJim
There is no "side" . Both were part of same team
- October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
Oh please. Most free-market libertarian organizations are astroturfed by the Koch brothers. They're every bit as insidious as the left, being the pro-free-trade and pro-immigration people they are.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Spare me your Leftism. I took part in them, they were locally organized and unfinanced, basically we just showed up (here in central Ohio) when a college sophomore at OSU sent out a mass email to various local groups.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with free trade, and not all libertarians are open borders/pro-immigration.
October 31, 2016 Jim Johnson
I concur whole heartedly. The tea party movement was a locally organized movement and stood for ideals that made our country great .which is exactly why the left lied so hard and loud about it.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
What it became later of course is up for discussion, I'm only referencing the first year or so. After that, who knows?
Now that being said, yes, they were hot as holy hell about us, and we were accused of everything short of genocide by the BSM.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
Free trade is what caused all the factories in the rust belt to close and outsourced all of American industry.
The Koch brothers themselves, the one that fund things like FreedomWorks, GMU and certain elements of the Tea Party (simply because they weren't directly involve in events does not make them not involved). They themselves are pro-immigration.
I'm not a leftist in the slightest. Being an economic nationalist does not make one left-wing.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Give me a break. Nobody "funded" us. There isn't even a leadership hierarchy to fund. That's what you people don't get, it was a decentralized movement, which gives it a lot of advantages that other movements do not have. It's why we can't be "funded" as monolithic group.
"Free trade" didn't give us the current situation. The government now, and at the time of NAFTA, so regulated the market and taxed it to the hilt that it's laughable to even suggest that it's "free" in any real sense. The best you can say about it is that it's mercantilist, which funny enough, is one step away from "economic nationalism" aka national socialism.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
> Give me a break. Nobody "funded" us. There isn't even a leadership
hierarchy to fund. That's what you people don't get, it was a
decentralized movement, which gives it a lot of advantages that other
movements do not have. It's why we can't be "funded" as monolithic
group.BLM is also highly decentralized. Doesn't mean it isn't funded.
> "Free trade" didn't give us the current situation. The government now,
and at the time of NAFTA, has so regulated the market and taxed it to
the hilt that it's laughable to even suggest that it's "free" in any
real sense. The best you can say about it is that it's mercantilist,
which funny enough, is one step away from "economic nationalism" aka
national socialism.There's a difference between regulating industries and imposing preferential tariffs and lavishing companies with subsidies similar to how China does. They're the ones winning, in case you haven't noticed.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
BLM has a hierarchy, a chain of command and this is easily seen by going to the website of the people who started it.
If the government is out granting favors (or restricting access) then this is not a "free market". Adam Smith would spit on the economic system that America, and by proxy, most of the West has adopted since the 1930's.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
> BLM has a hierarchy, a chain of command and this is easily seen by going to the website of the people who started it
Yet the fact it can't keep the rank and file in line (as evidenced by the endless rioting) speaks to this command structure not working.
> If the government is out granting favors (or restricting access) then
this is not a "free market". Adam Smith would spit on the economic
system that America, and by proxy, most of the West has adopted since
the 1930's.Funny you mention Adam Smith, because he argued for a social safety net and a tax on beer to pay for it. Free-market fundamentalists love to ignore this.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Yet the fact it can't keep the rank and file in line (as evidenced by the endless rioting) speaks to this command structure not working.
They don't *want* them to be "in line". Their entire existence is to create chaos to necessitate "change" at various levels. They are doing exactly what they're told to do.
Sneering at Adam Smith does not change my statement at all. We are not now, nor have we been since at least WW1, a "free market". Not even freaking close. So the position you hold, I reject entirely.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
> They don't *want* them to be "in line". Their entire existence is to
create chaos to necessitate "change" at various levels. They are doing
exactly what they're told to do.Do you honestly think that people trying to win the majority over to their side would encourage beating the shit out of the majority? BLM, for all its failings and Marxism, has lost the media war it was trying to win.
> They don't *want* them to be "in line". Their entire existence is to
create chaos to necessitate "change" at various levels. They are doing
exactly what they're told to do.Free-market capitalism is impossible in a situation where the state can easily be used to slant the market in its favor. Corporations, especially big ones, don't really like free markets.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Who says that they're trying to win the majority over to their side? This aggitation is meant to spur a new set of "rules" and enforcers and empower certain political groups at the expense of others.
Free-market capitalism is impossible in a situation where the state can easily be used to slant the market in its favor. Corporations, especially big ones, don't really like free markets.
Exactly, this is *exactly* what I'm pointing out. Blaming the "free market" for things like NAFTA thus, is incorrect.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
> Who says that they're trying to win the majority over totheir side?
This aggitation is meant to spur a new set of "rules" and enforcers and
empower certain political groups at the expense of others.The people who are most able to facilitate change are the voters and the organizations that control cops. Coming across as a bunch of thugs certainly doesn't help them.
> Exactly, this is *exactly* what I'm pointing out. Blaming the "free market" for things like NAFTA thus, is incorrect.
"Economic internationalism" (i.e no tariffs) would be a better term then.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
The people who are most able to facilitate change are the voters and the
organizations that control cops. Coming across as a bunch of thugs
certainly doesn't help them.You don't understand, this isn't about organizing voters. The changes I'm talking about are not even vaguely connected to "democracy". Their entire point is to be the firebomb throwers that enable a "crackdown". This is an old script.
"Economic internationalism" (i.e no tariffs) would be a better term then.
That, I can accept.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
> Their entire point is to be the firebomb throwers that enable a "crackdown". This is an old script.
It isn't working, which makes me wonder if they intended to do it in the first place.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
It's just the beginning. My hunch is that they will be fully mobilized after Trump takes POTUS. The violence from the Left and their group of retards will escalate an awful lot, I suspect.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
Whether Trump will win POTUS is still an open-question.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Nah, the election is over, he's going to landslide. The only people who see it as "iffy" are the mainstream media, and they're just trying to cover their own asses at this point.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
Let's hope you're right.
October 31, 2016 Conrad Stonebanks
I'm going to pour myself a fine scotch laced with SJW tears when Trump wins.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
I'm going to install a disco ball and light-changing dance floor and dance to "That's the Way I like It" by KC and The Sunshine.
October 31, 2016 Conrad Stonebanks
Lol
October 31, 2016 porcer34
Be careful, that stuff'll make you impotent.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crying-women-turn-men-off/
Not to mention all the cancer causing chemicals from the red hair dye that leach through.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Its only the first step, its like celebrating because you got a sucker punch in on Mike Tyson.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Luckily none of them know how to shoot straight.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Just imagine, BLM if it got big enough could be the justification for a police state. And when they raise the minium wage to $15 an hour, and even more blacks have even fewer jobs .a desperate man does desperate things. Its BS that blacks won't work, they had a higher employment rate in the 50's than whites. And if you can't get a job you turn to crime. And families get broken up, and welfare and divorce laws break up the family. And what has happened to them is happening to everyone else, they were just the canaries in the coal mine.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
BLM has exceeded spectacularly. George Soros doesnt make many bad bets. The police are against blacks, now blacks can justify killing cops, and cops can justify killing blacks. Divide and conquer and no one sees that we are killing you all.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Why would Adam Smith oppose the current model, when it is a continuation of the British Empire he worked for, except that at least Britain forced Free Trade on everyone else but themselves, this system asset strips every country. BTW you show what an idiot you are mentioning 'what the West has adopted since the 1930'. You do realise that we have had multiple conflicting economic models since the 1930s? There was the Bretton Woods System, which Rockefeller and Kissinger crushed to bring in the floating exchange rate, then Clintons 1999 repeal of the Glass Steagil Act, which set off the last 17 years of madness, so there is no 1930s-2016 Western model Adam Smith would critique, as the current madness is Smiths model. Free Trade was never some mom and pop trading freely with each other utopia you might think, it was all about monopoly and gunboat diplomacy. I thought that cult had ended 5 years ago? There is only 1 working economic model, a high tech, high level education national socialist republic with a national bank, where kikes have no control of finance, with one and only one racial group, whites; no niggers, muds or kikes, then everything we work towards is for Our Posterity.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
When you can contribute more than sneering and tired old Nazi cheerleading, give me a shout.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Resorting to the 'nazi' jibe. Great response. You have obviously donwloaded the full jewish lexicon and parrot it without question. Well done.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Resorting? Fuck dude, you bring up "kikes" and go full dick sucking admiration about "national socialism" which, I'm going to go out on a limb here, is what the *FREAKING NAZIS* practiced.
And of course, when I note that you're for Nazism, that means that I'm under jewish influence.
This whole "congruity" thing is new to you isn't it?
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
You do realise that national socialism is far older than "the nazisssssssssss". It simply means a nation, as an ethnic group, and a government of the people for the people. Most European countries have been national socialists except the one major factor – they didn't have control of the issuance of currency (as the Founding Fathers planned), ergo, it was a socialist hive for jewish financiers/ central banking cartel. The nazisssssssssss were pretty much the first country (other than Britain briefly after WW1) to get control of the issuance of credit for what the Founding Fathers coined The General Welfare. And look what happened, an economic miracle in under a decade. When whites are given heir own space, free of jewish parasitism, they are completely unbounded and can achieve anything (that was until jew brainwashed America and allies fucked it up).
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
It simply means a nation, as an ethnic group, and a government of the people for the people
Oh please, save that for people who have no grounding in socio-economic theory.
Nationalism means what you say (in essence). SOCIALISM does NOT mean anything of the sort. Trying to combine the two as a package deal is not going to fly. Simply put, that dog don't hunt, son.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
The Industrial Revolution from the very start, was a product of what the French called Dirigisme. It was planned, financed and exectuted as a state run project, both in Britian and France with the investment into science and the creation of the canals, which laid the route for sending coal to the factories. Americas developement was all through the same means, actually the US govenment poaching the best scientists and miners etc from Britain, to use in America. I guess you have never heard of Alexander Hamilton and is Report on Manufactures. It is socialism minus any sick minded jewish involvement, ergo national socialism. The left has been completely co-opted by jewish financiers with Marx. Before Marx joined Masonry, he was a proponent of Freidrich List – the true left, before kikes/ Freemasons hijacked it.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Your "Argument From The Sneer" really doesn't go over well, chief.
You can keep your slavery qua socialism. No thanks.
November 2, 2016 Will B Candid
you had a great argument going until you started with the racial horse shit. color and race dont matter to me. Its big government and big business against everyone else, and those on top see no difference between black or white poor people. to them, we are all trolls.
October 31, 2016 Untergang07
Free trade doesn't exist in the real world. The closer the West got to that idea was in the 19th century. Moreover should we have a free trade, then agreements and other binding documents wouldn't be necessary. A free trade agreement is an oxymoron. Regulated trade agreement would be closer to the truth.
Moreover China doesn't practice free trade, it practices mercantilism at a high price: the suffering of its own people (check the working conditions and the environmental costs). Had we (the west) exercised the ideas of free market, we wouldn't be in this situation.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Really? Which country practised the uptoian Free Trade? Britian didn't practise it; it forced Free Trade onto everyone else to keep rival countries from developing, whilst using its own working class under worse conditions than Africans-in-America slaves. Workhouses, borstals, child workers in mines from age 6, 14 hours a day 6 days a week, dying on average at 28 years old. The good old days of Free Trade!
October 31, 2016 Untergang07
You can go to Hell if what you search are utopias. In Earth and probably in this universe you will find none. Moreover you misrepresent what I wrote. No matter how you define it, in the 19th century there was more economic freedom than now, at least within the countries. It was not a coincidence that that century marked the zenith of European greatness.
By the way, I never said worldwide free trade is possible because it's not. Intra-national free trade is possible and necessary along with a smaller government, however not even within the European nations or within the U.S. there is free trade. Endless Regulations, currency manipulation, finance speculation are stifling trade and labor, and are making ever more attractive the replacement of human labor via automation due to the high costs and risks of hiring human beings (sex-lawsuits, constant pay rises) and the currency loss of worth (devaluation).
By your writings, I can infer that you are just a racist communist. So I guess the pogroms and gulags will continue until the morale improves.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
Free trade means freedom for the most prosperous country to flood foreign countries with goods. There are two kinds of systems: overt mercantilism (tariffs) or covert mercantilism (free "trade" with the WTO backing it).
If free trade benefitted the elite, they'd accept it.
October 31, 2016 Untergang07
That's why I said global unfettered (free) trade was impossible. Too many differences. Free trade between two or more similar nations might be possible. But free trade between unequal nations it doesn't work out as intented. However we don't even have free trade within our borders how can you try to have free trade with another nation?
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
"Free trade" is like communism in the sense it is very utopian but impossible.
October 31, 2016 Untergang07
Not exactly. Free market within a country is possible and the ideal condition. Communism is just hellish ideology that ignores human nature, for the "common good". Global or international free trade is most likely impossible due to the human nature.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
If you have a Free Market within a country, that means you are excluding foreign competition, ergo it is not Free Trade, its just trade within a protectionist country.
October 31, 2016 Untergang07
Could be. I never said global or international free trade was possible. However today we don't have free market even within one's own country.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Communism is just rebranded dictatorship. Everyone owns everything? Not quite, the person who decides how it is used is effectively the owner.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
I make something that you want, you have money and wish to buy it from me. We agree, you give me money, I give you the object.
Ta da. Free trade.
Not quite as utopian as you seem to think.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Wow, is it so simple now that simple minded man has explained it. Now how do you suppose you protect your own economy (that your ancestors gifted to you) from being flooded with cheaper imports, or your companies closing down and moving to slave plantations to under cut wages? You do realise that Free Trade, as an economic model (as opposed to the fantasy interpretation you have deduced), was created with the sole purpose of looting and undercutting prices to keep competators down? We can have a world of nation states – ethnic nation states – where we have borders, regulations, protective tarrifs and a central bank owned by and for the poeple, as opposed to the Roschild family, and have a system of fair trade. It can't be free trade as you will basically give every incentive to people who are not your people to undercut you and practise economic and intellectual/ copyright espionage (like China does). You do realise that this economic system since the start of the Industrial Revolution, was created by known people, it was a conspiracy against the feudal powers by the likes of John Baptiste Colbert and the French Academy of Sciences. This Industrial Revolution didn't just happen by men who were trying to make money and trade. There was a conspiracy by top scientists and mathematicians to unlock nature through technology, in the face of the feudal powers that tried suppressing it, such as the pressure Denis Papin had against his work. There was literally government money all over the Industrial Revolution from the start, and government regulation to protect it.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Your life must be so exhausting, surrounded by enemies at every turn.
November 10, 2016 I'm not fat I'm just curvy lol
Being thankful to your ancestors and proud of your ethnicity or race is one thing. This guy however, he takes it to the next level.
Not white = not good enough.
All non-whites are enemies.
ENEMIES EVERYWHERRREEEE!!!
lolOctober 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
Yeah, but then the state and the International bankers come in and demand 20 percent of the proceeds. Utopian in the sense it isn't possible given the circumstances.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Which is when it is no longer free trade.
It's completely possible and happens all the time, in the black and gray market. If left to our own devices, it would happen naturally and organically among normal people.
October 31, 2016 Raphael Verelst
No disagreement here. Hence my rebranding of the term earlier in this thread.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
With the caveat that there is no coercion. Coercion has managed to take on incredible forms these days. I poison your food and try to sell you a health book that promises a cure..free trade? I bribe researchers, to fake studies, then sell drugs that don't work and share the money with doctors who are accepted to be experts. Free trade? The more of a difference in intelligence and money two parties have, usually the less free trade exists.
November 1, 2016 woody188
You are correct. The original Taxed Enough Already movement was designed as a "headless" organization in an attempt to prevent the co-option of the group by the Big Tent Republicans. Didn't work because Sarah Palin and the FreedomWorks goons would show up in their Koch supplied buses and act like they organized the events.
November 1, 2016 Observasaurus Rex
Open borders is fine, as long as you have zero welfare. Once you start giving gibsmedats (welfare, health care, even free road use), then you need to lock down the border tighter than a muslim's 9 year old bride.
Similarly (though more complex), free trade is great, as long as there is little to no interference by the government, or at least similar business crushing regulations on both ends (which is why free trade between Canada and the US is a problem for neither country). Regulations, minimum wages, maternity leave mandates, and such are the reason that free trade results in jobs going over seas. Get the government to remove the regulations, and you eliminate 99.9% of the problem.November 1, 2016 woody188
Wrong. Free trade didn't close the factories. Labor arbitrage is NOT a function of free trade. That is how the masters have modified the language to suit their needs.
November 2, 2016 Raphael Verelst
The word you're looking for is arbitration. As for what destroyed the rust belt, the fact the car industry went international and sought to produce cars closer to markets meant that the old industrial heartland went to shit. Free trade (or economic internationalism, just so GOJ doesn't call me out on this) is partially to blame for this.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
You're still at that magical thinking level where you think grassroots movements just spring up? How quaint. The Tea Party was always funded by billionaires. The Tea Party cult members acted like it got co-opted, but in this country everything is lead from the top, they just pretend its grassroots so you'll buy into something that really isn't in your best interest. As for people saying America was created on Tea Party principles, it wasn't. The Founding Father opposed the British Empires Free Market model which dumped goods onto the colonies and prevented industry from developing. America is inherently a high wage, high tech, protectionist nation state. Free Trade is the opposite – cheap labor, no workers rights and monopoly, which is really feudalism rebranded. For those who think the battle is Free Trade vs Marxism, read what Marx said about British Free Trade (he was employed by the Empire), he was wholly in support of it and David Ricado. Orginially Marx was in favor of Freidrich List, and wrote essays on his system, then he got got hooked into the Freemasonic networks, joined the British Library (spooks) and pushed Free Trade, i.e British (jewish Freemasonic) Imperialism. There was a left wing that was pushing our values, before the kikes took over it. http://www.schillerinstitute.org/books/Robert-Burns-book-2007.pdf
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Spare me your condescension.
October 31, 2016 bem
I am suspicious of movements
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c19e15d0d4c96e095561ff07b1e0bc6481a6b9448351282d421c12f9e4c1ff6.jpgOctober 31, 2016 Conrad Stonebanks
Another recent ROK article comes to mind, the one about ascribing divine/all knowing qualities to the elites:
http://www.returnofkings.com/98642/the-elites-are-not-smarter-than-you/embed#?secret=g4QCfp1AI0
October 31, 2016 Tom Arrow
Occupy always stank to me. I don't know. It's as if I have some bullshit meter in my head. This bullshit meter goes off when I see Obama. When I see people going crazy over their country losing at football. When I see celebrity gossip. And when I see OWS.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
It stunk to me too because they didn't even seem to have a goal. Im mad so I'm going to sit here stinking up the place. I'm mad, so we should close the federal reserve..now that would have struck fear into the elitists!
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
I guess it stunk to me for two reasons:
1. Big organized movement with streamlined ideology. I always get a weird feeling around my stomach when great numbers of people gather.
2. This super-focused blame on bankers, as if they were responsible for everything wrong in their lives. I mean, most of those people aren't even the underprivileged ones. They're probably students who just love the thrill of protesting and get fed by mommy and daddy.I experienced no.2 a few years back when a guy came to visit me to go to a protest. So we were there walking with the crowd. A few people shouting through megaphones attacking the police verbally. Police all around the movement. Everybody kinda just walking like a zombie for some nebulous cause. Totally pointless. I don't even feel the thrill. It's just boring to me. I would call it scary, but it isn't even that. Those people are harmless. They aren't killers. They have just enough courage to keep holding up a sign with some slogan. When they shout, they don't even shout with passion. Or in other words: They have just as much courage as the elite wants them to have in order for them to not feel totally powerless. They get a little 'high' from the thing and feel like they are changing the world, while nobody really cares. And this guy who I was there with, he just loved it for fun. He didn't really care about the cause either.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
There were a bunch of enviro protesteres once at an event I went to, and I started talking to them and asking basic enviro questions like " What causes the ozone hole?" They had no clue. For many its a social club, maybe more of a religion, they show up for their protests on Sunday and have a barbeque after, and maybe get laid. But I agree with that guy you mentioned, there is a very famous quote that he who controls the money controls the world. You might like the movie Zeitgeist. The consipiracy theories arent theories, now with the internet the proof can be so strong. I thought there was just NO WAY 911 could have been faked-NO WAY. The fact that they pulled it off shows just how much power the elites really have. 911 was a good deal all around, the new owner made a fortune, the strongest reinsurance companies got stronger, US got the go ahead to invade a few countries, and laws got passed depriving us of more liberties(fear is always the best way to accomplish that). Win win win.
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Reminds me 1:1 of a former friend who is now a Scientologist. Scientology has that "Say No To Drugs" campaign. They are against all drugs, no matter what. My former friend happened to be at one of their stands so I went there and confronted him, asked a few questions. The simplest one: Have you ever taken drugs?
He said he took alcohol. And that's enough for him. He took alcohol and by that he judges all drugs, including psychedelics. He gave some vague examples of some cases where LSD supposedly hurt someone or whatever. But he didn't have much answers either.
Only that Scientologists don't get laid is my guess. They attract and select for the weakest of society. They appear to me to be mostly like sheep with zero confidence, looking for a cause and a leader and a set of rules that explains everything and blah blah.
Guess what. I told him I took LSD. He told me that that would probably disqualify me from becoming a Scientologist. Hah! So you have thousands of people working against psychedelics but not a single one of them has actually taken them.
The more ironic that some people think Ron Hubbard came up with most of his ideas on LSD
I read something about 911. Has it actually been proven to be true? That would be a great thing to throw at people.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
I've been learning alot about psychedelics lately too-a few interesting things about them. They are all chemically related to adrenochrome-oxidized adrenaline. oxidized adrenaline is a psychedelic(asthmatics take adrenaline, which as it goes bad turns pink red then brown oxidizing), and it looks like schizos are merely producing an excessive internal amount of this. To me, there is a progression of behaviour modification..from normal, to borderline, narcicism and ending with schizo with increased stress. Schizos are narcissists by the way. But to me its adaptive, when you are under a great deal of stress is when you drastically need to learn something and change your situation. Another thing is that it appears mushrooms, reduce brain activity, which to me links it to sensory deprivation and meditation. As for 911 heres a few good videos, the simplest is the amazing stories told by the owner, that have to change because they are so bad. And a multibillion dollar operation and he only lost 4 people..and profited handsomely from the investment! Truly jewish lightning.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-jPzAakHPpk?feature=oembed
its fantasyland stuff that you can demo a building in an afternoon. Which is probably why he changed his story. Oh and he had plans drawn up for WTC 7 a year before the attack. Perfectly normal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOSObJDs67Y
this guys says some interesting things
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fpMrOds1JXo?feature=oembed
very good complition,and analysis by a guy who actually demos buildings.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/q3v4QUQpYjc?feature=oembed
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Hmm. What do you mean by chemically related? Is that some stuff you have deeper knowledge that I probably wouldn't grasp? If so, that's cool. And what do you mean by "it looks like" when you refer to schizos producing an excessive amount? And where does the link between schizos and narcs come from and where did you get that succession from (normal, borderline, narc, schizo). Seems a bit inconclusive to me, especially since those are all groups of symptoms that, as far as I can tell, have not been somehow linked to a real thing, but rather those people are simply linked together because of similar symptoms. And the symptoms of those 3 things are quite different, I'd say, and not really the same or in some way successive.
Maybe you have a few good points, but I can't logically follow you because I don't understand the links you make.
You also use 'it looks like' when you talk about mushrooms. What leads you to that conclusion? Psychedelics have been shown to greatly increase brain activity (not decrease). There was a test with LSD, the video is floating around Youtube etc. Basically, they observed that there was a lot more activity and what they called 'interconnectivity', which basically means all brain parts lit up at the same time.
In other cultures, schizophrenics have been considered as those who walk among the dead and given great respect. It's all a matter of perspective. My experience with psychedelics is that they greatly raise awareness. They are like an amplifier to all perceptions. I think you have to try it to be able to make a conclusion, but maybe you have
But even then, schizophrenia is probably not even a real thing, just like narcissism and borderline. More like a group of symptoms that don't necessarily all have the same cause. So it is arguable that one schizophrenic is not the same as another, which rings true from my experience in the nuthouse. One was diagnosed with schizophrenia and yes, I would call him narcissistic. Others were rather quiet and beaten down and shit (partly due to medication probably).
Also, I wouldn't say meditation has much links to sensory deprivation, although you could say that if you just think of some guy in a cave sitting still. But that can be a good thing, too, because reducing the input from the outside leaves more attention for the stuff that's inside, which can greatly help you be mindful of your emotions and deal with your demons. Psychedelics can help with this, although I use them scarcely. I see psychedelics a bit like signposts for meditation. You take them and kinda know the direction you're going and then you do the rest 'on foot'.
Thanks for the video links. I thought it was something that was officially acknowledged, but it still seems to be kind of a borderline thing where you have to do your own research, so I'll abstain from that for now. (Other stuff on my mind)
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
By chemically similar I just mean similar molecular shape, if you read more about the guys on that page you found they get more into it. Its good to talk to you sounds like you have much experience on the subject.
Who knows, maybe my theory is wrong. To explain a little better my theory I should say, a man usually goes through normal narcissism and then schizo, with increasing amounts of stress. Borderline is more for women. And it seems like environmental toxins might be able to cause it as well, and since they tend to lodge in different places, that could cause different specific effects and maybe they don't cause some of the same effects as adrenaline caused narcissism. Now if you look at alot of the typical aspects of Narcissism you'll notice that they would be good for say fighting or fleeing- black and white thinking(no time for gray areas) more impulsive(no time to reflect), lack of empathy(again there isnt enough time to consider nuances). One interesting study found that narcissists actually can read emotion in others, just for some reason they don't react to that info . Do you find that people with narc/schizo have really really good memories? If so thats high adrenaline. If they also tend to have a high heart rate, that would also tend to confirm my theory.
I had an interesting experience with a woman I know who had a resting heart rate of 110(!) and a borderline personality. Just giving her a gram of sodium ascorbate a day brought her resting heart rate down to 70, and she could sleep 8 hours now, and her personality actually changed. She went from being always cold in a warm environment to absolutely radiating heat. This took place over a few days.
Oh and for sensory deprivation, you can do the lite version, find some white noise music and put something redish over your eyes. When I did this it was like having a waking dream, very bizarre.
Yeah 911 is not officially debunked, everything is misinformation wars, and people seem to be finally waking up to it this election.November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Some interesting info.
Personally, I've gone through phases that would apply to pretty much all 3 of the categories. In fact, I dare say most of my life I've been stuck in a fight or flight without realizing it. I think it's spot on. It allows black and white, pretty much. In my case, it's a little more weird, because it kinda conflicts with some other desires, leading to me being somewhat unpredictable (borderline maybe, heh). I also seem to tend to have very high heart rate. Guy at the gym told me this once despite me having not done much work or anything beforehand. It was really just the stress of my social anxiety.
I find that this kind of stress creates a kind of sensation in my body that may very well have to do with adrenaline. It feels kinda dead-ish. A bit like the taste of blood when you get it into your mouth. Hard to describe. Numb, a little sizzling, dark, oppressive, hot. Well yeah, dead. Also get it during intensive training and too much of this makes me almost faint and gets me into extremely weird states for a short amount of time. Like when I totally power myself out, I can feel it coming. It's like I know shit I went too far and in the next moment, I almost black out. Extremely extremely uncomfortable. It's like I can feel my whole personality being deconstructed very quickly into nothingness and then coming back again.
Interesting tip with the white noise I'll keep it in mind.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
You might try paying attention to your heart rate more, either feel the side of your neck, time for 15 seconds, then multiply by 4, or there are even programs for smart phones that use the light and camera and can see the blood pulses. What is likely happening to you is that when the heart beats excessively fast, it actually stops pumping effectively, it seems to be a defect we have-horses on the other hand have a max heart rate and wont go beyond that even if they run faster. Now like I was telling the woman i know, its like she's running a marathon, but she can never sit down, its a very unhealthy thing. I think I saw a study in men where it correlates with a 400% increase in mortality rate. There are many consequences of excess acid production(co2 dissolved in blood is acidic). A little talked about fact of the human body is that it goes to extreme effort to maintain PH. When you exercise, your body aggressively and actively releases alkaline bone mineral to help maintain PH, and when you rest it is rebuilt. You also eliminate acid through breathing, urine and to a small extent through sweat. Excessive acid, can cause kidney stones, gout, collagen breakdown, mild scurvy, acne, joint pain, feeling of coldness. You might try like the woman I was talking with some potassium ascorbate around a gram dissolved in a glass of water, take maybe two to three times a day and see what your heart rate does, and if it improves some of your other symptoms(potassium ascorbate I've learned is much better than sodium ascorbate). You may see some initial negative effects too, because sometimes all of a sudden you are eliminating toxins from your body that you werent before. It isnt a panacea, but it can correct some of the basic problems going on. For example the basic problem could be hyperthyroidism, which most likely that woman had, and you have to treat that to decrease hormone production. I suspect heavy metals that cross the blood brain barrier may be able to cause it as well.
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Interesting, I'll keep that info in mind. Thanks.
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Hey, I checked on that adrenochrome thing.
http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1999/articles/1999-v14n01-p049.shtmlQuite interesting, I have to say. I am wondering how that can be reconciled with my experiences. Maybe extreme stress is a precursor to death to the body, hence it prepares itself to enter the world of the dead, in a sense. I think it was proven (or hypothesized?) that the brain generates DMT on birth and death, a potent psychedelic substance. It's like the mother of all psychedelics. Let's you talk to God and shit like that.
This could indicate though, that schizophrenia (if the link is valid) is less a result of a malfunctioning brain than some kind of constant stress that is so severe that it creates those chemicals, leading to a 'disconnect from reality'. If you think about it, death is a form of disconnect from reality, so schizophrenia may be a half-way thing. That doesn't mean though that you have to fight those chemicals with neuroleptika. In fact, I'd say the body produces these things precisely because they are helpful in extreme stress. I have also read here on ROK that extreme stress during lifting can create an almost transcendental experience where you become one with the universe (or perceive so) and stuff like that. If those chemicals create that kind of awareness, it makes sense to me that it can be used constructively if the 'patient' practices a lot of mindfulness or meditation.
Now, I will readily admit that I had something you could call a psychotic episode on psychedelics. Only that I don't see it as pathologic. I am glad I had that experience and I think it was important. Psychotic only describes the symptoms. But a person that looks like he's freaking out from the outside may be having a great experience on the inside that is actually healing and helpful. Which is why indigenous tribes used psychedelics for thousands of years as a cure, as a guide, as an initiation rite. Hah, and since we're creating links: Initiation rites often deal with a lot of intense pain or even symbolical dying. Christianity also talks about dying and being reborn. I think there is a lot of truth in it. That to enter manhood fully, one has to die in a sense and be reborn. Which is what those experiences can do they literally rip you apart and put you back together in a better way.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Yeah those guys had an 80% ish success rate curing schizo. Looks like toxoplasmosis(common infection) can cause it too. Orthomolecular was started by Linus Pauling a double nobel prize winner. There are numerous things like this where there are amazing cures, and no one cares to study further. Most medicine is a scam. It would be horrible if it turned out simple herbs could cure cancer, I mean they would lose about $50k per patient. Number two monopoly according to Milton Friedman the famous economist. Japan and Germany seem to be exceptions.
Thanks for the info on DMT and lifting, Ill check it out. Maybe DMT is an even more potent one? I noticed that most of the greatest mathematical discoveries happened during grave illness and a year before death. Look up Riemann or Ramanujan as good examples. Now in my experience heart rate seems to be a good measure of adrenaline..and from what Im reading it seem LSD and mushrooms increases heart rate. As for rebirth in religion watch that movie I mentioned Zeitgeist, it has a very interesting take on it. Many religions share the same beliefs and it seems to be taken from the movement of the Sun.
Those rituals about killing the boy and going through hardship to be accepted into the group of men seem very important. In a way its the classic heros quest. A man can no longer run from danger as a child would, should no longer cry from pain. Very important lessons that are rarely taught.November 6, 2016 Spaghettimonster
Zeitgeist is that controlled opposition material the elites love to put out. 98% truth 2% lies – just like David Icke.
November 7, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Do you have anything you recommend?
November 7, 2016 Spaghettimonster
Honestly – do your own research. I know that's a redundant statement, but that's what it has come down to. Zeitgeist promotes things such as the Horus/Jesus theory – which has been debunked numerous times by mainstream secular scholars. And that's only one among many other lies it propogates. When it's so glaring that info is false – one is forced to look into their own knowledge gathering
November 7, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Doing your own research includes getting info from others with common interests. The term "debunking" is a shit term. There are only better theories, and better evidence. Many mainstream researchers are shit too, I talk alot about medicine, and so much of what they do is provably crap based on their own studies of what they do. And here as we've learned in the manosphere, studies about men and women interactions are often gamed, to show that men are horrible and women are saints. Someone producing a paper showing the wrong results will almost never get published. Just like if you control the media, its easy to have the appearance of authority, when in reality, money bought a fake authority. SO do you have anything good to recommend?
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
But now its so clear how much control the elitists have, and how much they are exerting now, I've had several posts insta vaporized from various places. One was regarding threats to Trump and the other about a high level murder. What they try to contol the most is what is most dangerous to them. They really don't want Trump to win, because then they have to try to control him with bullets, and that never looks good when you murder the highest guys. Because then people notice. Putin is their nightmare, the elites set him up and pretty soon some elites were floating in the river, and some were locked up. He let others stay in their places, but it was clear a new sheriff was in town. I'm enjoying watching them sweat.
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Hmm but then, if "we" send people floating in the river are we actually better or any different than the elite? Sounds like a perfectly mirror-reversed behavior.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Well at the very least I would say the second was revenge while the first was murder, however revolutions often produce the same tyrants they seek to depose. And Tyrants create the same revolutions that kill them. They have a goal to cull the worlds populations through social engineering(you might notice for example all the porn now with incest one pornhub now) through toxins(drugs, contaminated food and water), and financially. Sounds like a perfect program to create a superman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Amazing video. Truly breathtaking.
Reminds me of some comment on Youtube by someone who met one of those 'reptilians' and asked why they are causing suffering and that thing replied 'to make humanity stronger'. Heh.
Yeah, I suppose it is that way. There will always be the oppressed and underprivileged and there will always be those who enjoy being in the current mainstream. The truly oppressed will never be equal with those in power, that's a fever dream.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
And as they say heavy is the head that wears the crown.
November 5, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
I looked up the reptillian stuff. It works perfectly if you relace reptilian with"jewish banker" and half reptillian as "collaborator". Sometimes they have to act crazy to even be allowed to spread ideas without getting murdered like say kubrick after eyes wide shut.
November 5, 2016 Padge Vounder
Mad that reckless gambling by financial institutions caused a massive economic crash and global recession, millions of people losing their jobs and their homes, job market and middle class still hasn't recovered from it. How do you not know any of that??? It's been in the news for 8 years now.
November 5, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Dont be and idiot everyone knows that.b Being mad isnt a goal. If they had said we want to break up all of the biggest banks that would have been a goal. Sitting there because you are mad inspires nothing and no one. And not surprisingly they changed nothing.
November 6, 2016 Padge Vounder
If being mad wasn't a goal, Fox 'news' and Breitbart wouldn't exist.
You're sadly uninformed about the occupy wall street movement. But you already made up your mind about it, it seems, dismissing people braver and more involved than you who actually went out to risk their safety and freedom protesting the criminal recklessness of financial institutions and their failure to take responsibility for their actions. What was the goal? to show American politicians and the financial industry that American people are fed up with their behavior so much they've shaken off their apathy that infects the brains of so many.
THAT is what the people in power fear – that the sleeping sheep would wake up and get informed and start fighting back.
The movement inspired a lot and it's a pity you can't see it ( or simply refuse to ).
You're the one who is sitting there. These people actually got off their asses to go out and try to make a difference. Doubt you can say the same.
November 7, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Great sound and fury signifying nothing.
November 1, 2016 ConservativeAtheistRedPiller
It stank to me as well because the stock exchange isn't some evil globalist tool. Everybody can buy shares and, you know, they don't always go up making you filthy rich, quite the contrary. They are a useful financing tool for companies though.
November 1, 2016 Tom Arrow
Yeah, well said. Definitely an aspect.
November 5, 2016 Padge Vounder
Do some reading about Goldman Sachs and other fatcat banks, their criminal and reckless and unethical behavior.
November 5, 2016 ConservativeAtheistRedPiller
So? That would only prove that GS etc are bad guys, not that the Stock Exchange itself should go.
November 5, 2016 Padge Vounder
Who was proposing abolishing the stock exchange in it's entirety? Total straw man you made up. OWS was about the criminal executives who gambled and crashed the global economy, wanting accountability and new laws to prevent a similar disaster from occuring. I'd think anyone with common sense could agree on that.
As it stands, they avoid any criminal liability by paying fines as part of a settlement and admitting no guilt. And the fines are a small fraction of their profits so there is no incentive to follow the laws. It's seen as the cost of doing (shady) business.
They came to the government hat in hand after they screwed up, and got a fat bailout at the taxpayers expense. This is why I can't stand conservatives. They're all for socialism for the rich, but rugged individualism for the poor and middle class. It should be the reverse. Goldman and the others should have been turned away and homeowners bailed out instead.
Can you imagine going to a casino, recklessly gambling, losing it all, then begging/demanding the government give you more money?
This is what really stinks.
November 6, 2016 Hipponax (μητροκοίτης)
Is this what you really imagined happened? You put no blame on the American middle class which effectively tanked the economy due to their own greed?
November 2, 2016 david
Agreed
November 5, 2016 Padge Vounder
helps if you know the first thing about the crash of 08 as a starting point.
November 5, 2016 Padge Vounder
that was just a bunch of ignorant conservative rednecks who didn't like paying taxes. Astroturf. That joke of a movement isn't even worth mentioning. But it's funny when they eat their own, like with Eric Cantor. Now he has to take a job as million dollar a year lobbyist subverting our government, how sad.
October 31, 2016 Marcus Antonius
Great article, and probably true. Part of self-development is seeing through this shit.
The thing is, if we as Men focus on our own self-development, and on expressing our bigger and better selves by dominating our environments, none of this stuff matters and will eventually change anyway.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Oh, and vote Trump on the 8th
October 31, 2016 Bourbonman
Occupy and Tea Party had one thing in common. How quickly they suckered the masses into thinking they were for the people. Movements that large don't suddenly appear overnight.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
If somebody does something heinous, like nationalize 1/6th of the economy (health care) you bet your bippy that great amounts of people will gather suddenly overnight. Same for the nationwide pro-gun demonstrations that happened after the CN shooting.
Technology has made organizing and getting large groups together in a flash pretty easy. Not everything is some nefarious conspiracy.
Now if the Tea Party had shown up with organized busses, vendors and pre-selected college faculty in tow, like OWS, then you'd have something.
October 31, 2016 John Galt
Some do and they start out as a emotive grassroots network, but get quickly comprimised. I had relatives active in the Tea Party and after awhile it gets hijacked and ran into the ground.
Did you read about the Oregon uprising against the feds and how they were acquitted? The evidence revealed half the people involved were paid FBI informants. Thats what happens over time to any organization deemed a threat.
October 31, 2016 Cecil Henry
Meanwhile in Canada, this:
An explicit invasion at your expense.
White Genocide in explicit, unabashed, unapologetic action.
Immigration Minister John McCallum to reveal 'substantially' higher newcomer targets
Experts warn that welcoming more immigrants, refugees must come with enhanced support services
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
You'll not get many thumbs up here, given half the idiots are unrecovered Tea Party Free Trade dupes, that like cheap labor being imported, so long as their jobs are not threatened.
October 31, 2016 Jim Johnson
There has always been elites who have tried to control the masses through divide and conquer. Even if this crop is eliminated, others will arise. The only way we can come together is if we have a common guiding set of principals to go by. Throughout history, violent revolutions that have resulted in a loss of freedom, (French Revolution, Bolshevik, Nazi, Cuban .etc.) all had an anti-christian element, or a bastardization of Christianity.
In retrospect, as a people, we need to be continually reminded of the principals that enable freedom to exist. Integrity, work, charity, self determination, etc. are taught in church. Go to church, work to strengthen those virtues, and expect virtue from your neighbor. If we as a whole, reject the crap spewed out main stream media and leftists, we will have a stronger society.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
You are exactly correct, and this is *precisely* why the Marxists, back to Marx, targeted things like the church, family and traditional social constructs for destruction. He understood what you're saying perfectly.
October 31, 2016 Tom Arrow
You forget the women vs. men division.
Btw, isn't it fascinating that they manage to divide exactly 50:50? How statistically improbable is that?
October 31, 2016 Jim Johnson
It is no doubt the media is behind this. THey have been in overtime for quite awhile propping up the left to maintain the balance.
October 31, 2016 Tom Arrow
Makes it even more fascinating. Media being pretty much indiscriminately pro left and still there's enough people who vote right. Heh.
October 31, 2016 Michael Ryan
The Left has been successful appealing to Angry Destructive People but since the seventies they have run out of people with legitimate grievances so all they have are the angry anti-social dregs of society, the lazy Delta Males, Ugly Feminists, Perverts and assorted scum.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
To directly address the argument of the article, I'll offer this.
Divide and Conquer is a known strategy and yes, politicians use it (as do generals on a battlefield). It's legitimate to note the tactic and try to avoid falling for it. That being said, if we go so paranoid that we don't ever, ever take positions based on principle or form opposition groups, we'll have given these very same powers the victory that they're looking for with divide and conquer.
The moment you form a group to "counter the controlling elite" I guarantee you that it will be attacked and discredited because "divide and conquer!". Even if it succeeds (let's be optimistic) it will simply install itself as the new elite. This is human nature. It may not happen immediately, it may take a few generations (think the early united States, where Washington refused to be a "king" and instead deferred to the new Constitutional Republic) to happen, but it will happen eventually (think the same nation in the 1930's).
Last, not every mass movement is 'financed by nefarious sources'. Sometimes, people just get pissed off. That said, lots of mass movements are financed by unsavory types. The problem becomes that we tend to default accept "all" instead of taking each group individually for what they are.
October 31, 2016 Corey
Yeah, there's no easy answer as to what we should do.
But I want to ask since you said you were involved in it: What happened to the Tea Party? Did they achieve any of their goals?
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
They kind of ebb and flow. I really haven't kept up much the last couple of years. My focus since 2010 or so has been pro-2nd Amendment advocacy, to be honest.
October 31, 2016 John Galt
They made significant gains at the local and state level. The RINOs are clinging to the national GOP, but as their candidates just got punked by Trump they are on borrowed time.
October 31, 2016 Frank Rook
Yup. A New Republic can end up becoming the evil Galactic Empire eventually.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Not only can, but almost always does if it doesn't collapse under it's own internal contradictions.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
I heard that after the death of Muhammad Ali, the Orlando shootings happened to prevent people's unity. I strongly suspected, after his death, an attack would happen in the US by a Muslim to prevent American Muslim and nonMuslim cooperation and understanding. Media won't say, but the shooter was gay.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
We don't need mulsim/ non-muslim co-operation in America. America was designed and built by and for whites, for Our Posterity. Freedom of religion clearly meant the sects of Christianity and secular deists. There is no place in America for Islam or muslims.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
How about natives? Or perhaps we need to reintroduce pox in certain areas? And let us not forget 3/5ths. Designed and built by and for whites, on the red mans land, upon the black man's back.
October 31, 2016 John Galt
That's tired old tripe.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
Well reasoned.
October 31, 2016 John Galt
I cherish my time more than educating you. But you have the leftist talking points down pat.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
Justify Us, generalize Them. That's education enough, I suppose.
November 1, 2016 John Galt
Your emotive points are not based on fact, but feel free to source your agruement. But slogans like "pox on the red mans land, upon the black man's back" are simply leftist slogans. The "pox" Thing was debunked years ago. Red man lands? Which tribe and under what conditions? One Million Indians inhabited North America until the White man showed up. Now there are more reds that have ever lived in the old days. Black mans back did very little. Most of America was built on white Europeans backs no blacks in the wilderness in the old days and most of the swamp draining, coal mining, tree cutting, etc.. was done by us poor white folk.
Believe your myths if it makes you feel better, but your bullshit exists to bridge your inferiority complex and has little to do with the truth.
November 1, 2016 Cardtheorist
The pox did wipe out a good chunk of natives, but let us say that was not the case, intentionally or not. Tribes and conditions- does this imply that, were there a formal written declaration, it would have been unethical and they would not have attempted to gain control? More reds than before argument cannot hold water- populations tend to increase in the long run. Blacks did nothing for the same reason economic communism does not- lack of incentives. Why work for your slavemaster if you're not getting much out of it?
You assume inferiority complex is the cause of these arguments. I have friends of all races but also recognize that all races have their bloody hands. I am simply pointing out the case of the origins of American here, as this is what the conversation became. I find it ironic, as far as the title if this article goes. Also ironic is how I mentioned the possibility of Muslim and American peace and then get opposed while the same people praise the traditionalism of muslim women. Everyone claims they're objective and truthful.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Lets talk about Natives, who, like Stone Age tribes the world over, were in endless inter-tribal warfare with each other. The colonialists that arrived in America often sided with peaceful tribes and co-operated, as they did in New Zealand with the weaker (more peaceful) Maori Iwi, who begged the colonialists to buy land as a buffer between waring tribes. The less technologically developed in terms of producing food and storing it, the more scarcity and the more war. That is just a smple reality, and Stone Age primitives are always at war. Since they are always at war, its an open invite to conquer. Native Indians now have technology and means of living 3000 years in advance of what they had 400 years ago. You are welcome.
The issue of smallpox is just mythology. Most colonialists either had smallpox or were semi-resistent. Indians were not, and it hit them harder. Are you going to also bring up the Hollywood History theory that whites raped native woemn when the records show that the more violent tribes kidnapped other tribes women and sold them to colonialists for goods – the women were them married off and lived at higher living standards that they otherwise would have, so some good came out of that bad situation.
As for 3/5th, blacks were classed as 3/5ths yet they were dumped onto America by Jewish Dutch slave merchants, having been bought from African tribesmen. Less than 5% of whites owned slaves, yet freed slaves – who were paid btw (so they were really indentured labor) – bought slaves at higher rates than any other people – except jews, of which 70% owned slaves (as they created the hatred of blacks with their Curse of Ham bullshit). Blacks are not 3/5ths human. They are worthless and have no place in any advanced country. Personally I would wipe them out and have Africa as a big Safari Park for Asians and Europeans.
Blacks labour didn't build America. There were more whites in indentured labor than blacks. Blacks were freed from slavery by the technological inventions (o white men) which made their labor surplus to requirements. Again, like Native Americans, blacks were given a leg up from Stone Age savages, of at least 3000 years of know-how and technological progress. There is every reason to believe they are incapable of even making metal of their own volition. So again, you are welcome, you are a beneficiary of my ancestors superior creativity.
BTW, British working class had higher productivty that black slaves, were paid less, worked longer hours, died 5 years younger on average, had to endure Northern Winters often with no shoes and simple clothing, while slaves worked as seasonal farm workers. You have no idea how hard whites worked to build this civilisation you benefit from, and you probably don't care so long as it magically appears to you via your welfare cheque.October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
-"Open invite to conquer" By that reasoning, I guess Muslims would be justified entry and establish traditionalism over feminism in the US. Technology=/=happiness.
-I was referring only to the smallpox, which killed the majority of the native population.
-Distribution is irrelevant. Mass cheap labor.
-"Blacks were freed from slavery by the technological inventions (o white men) which made their labor surplus to requirements" Stabbing a guy 9″ deep and pulling out 6 doesn't mean you did him a favor. Progress, which was built on previous civilizations, which is the case for all great nations. But as for your example-I suppose you'd have your mother raped and killed in exchange for technology. I hear kids these days kill for PS4's sometimes.
-"Had higher productivity" and had freedom of choice. Willing labor>unwilling labor.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Hunter Gatherer peoples do not have concepts such as nations. They have not created property rights, they merely have inter-tribal war, endless revenge killings. In such a society, yes, it is an open invite to walk in and claim unclaimed land. Muslims coming here is exactly the opposite, they are trying to extort property rights we created. If you haven't even grasped the basics of anthropology and patriarchy vs matriarchy (stone age primitivism) then perhaps you are on the wrong website.
As for smallpox, I was aware that you were talking about smallpox. Smallpox wasn't spread deliberatly, it was just the nature of the airborne virus.
You comment on native indian women is disingenuous. Colonialists could have bought the women or not, if not, they'd be raped and killed by other tribes (who wholesale slanghtered women and children); why would they not buy them under such circumstances?
Willing labor vs unwilling labor? Really did British working class have a choice? They didn't own land, and couldn't open property. They were renting as serfs for hundreds of years, and serfdom was really just renamed. They were still a class of tennents, so were they willing workers? They could have refused to work, and be beaten by their master and put into workhouses, where people lasted on average 2 months before dying of injuries. Slaves had an easy life compared to white Irish and British workng class, extremely easy, and in a moderate climate. No sensible person could suggest otherwise.
You know oppression isn't just a thing niggers have suffered, just because those worthless pieces of shit constantly whine about slavery – slavery their own ancestors sold them into. They wouldn't last 5 minutes in a Northern English or Welsh coal mine from the age of 6, as was standard practice.
Say what you like, the fact is, blacks sold blacks into slavery, to Dutch Jews. Rich land owners used them to undercut white labor. It isn't the responsibility of the 95% of whites that didn't own slaves, and who worked under worse conditions. Whites freed slaves through technology, so your analogy is bullshit and you know it. You do realise that many niggers went back to African – Libberia, and threw their passports in the sea in protest at America. 2 weeks later they were all in the water looking for their passports to return to the Land of the Free Stuff. They are just worthless parasites like kikes, so why defend them? Can we even really consider them human when their history is basically no better or more advanced than other lower primates? They are just niggers.October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
Claim unclaimed land land is one thing, unused land is another. I suppose you submit a written consent form before a bang as well. The US has invaded many muslim lands and the government created isis by proxy, which has led to the refugee crisis in the first place. So the US owes something to refugees (although owing something back in such a form will be a failure of epic proportions, I think.)
-And you think that if they knew, anything would have been different? Smallpox was considered a triumph for them.
-Not all. If there were a way to tell which ones would have been raped and killed, and which not, I could understand. They just did the same thing. My point still stands; control for benefit. They did not have the natives interests at heart- it was a matter of what method would be best to subjugate and control.
Slaves in the US vs other nonslaves. If working class whites had it worse off, they could have asked to be slaves too. But that wasn't the case.
Blacks sold blacks because there are sellouts of all races so they can be on the winning team. Its easy to say the US is better if they take everything if value and leave the other country worse off .
Does Mansa Musa count?
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
You're pretty ignorant of actual history aren't you?
I'll bet you can't actually explain to me why blacks were counted as 3/5 of a person in the Constitution, can you? I mean the real reason, not the Malcom X bullshit.
Blacks barely built anything, most of them worked on plantations in the South. I collect antique photos, your sneering little "reality" bears no resemblance to what was actually going on, at the time.
As to the "red man's land", well, he should have made a real claim to it instead of doing that stupid hippy "no man can own the land" crap. And, he lost the war. It was a war, he lost, that's what happens when you lose a war. Get, the fuck, over it.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
-Politics and elections. Blacks were property, southerners needed voting power, etc. is what I was taught in school.
-Worked on plantations, yes. And a lot harder than whites, because they were slaves. Therefore, their contribution per person in labor was greater.
-Typical justification to do what you want. Sounds exactly like a Jewish method.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Politics and elections. Blacks were property, southerners needed voting power, etc. is what I was taught in school.
It was to help out blacks. In order to stymie the South and keep them from enshrining slavery as a permanent institution through Congress, the Founding Fathers thought ahead and counted each black slave as 3/5 instead of a full person to keep Southern state representation manageable until slavery could be abolished.
Worked on plantations, yes. And a lot harder than whites, because they were slaves. Therefore, their contribution per person in labor was greater.
Oh please. Picking cotton is hard work, no doubt, but it's no harder than being a free man carting around marble and laying down foundations for great buildings, or steel work or any other kind of highly labor intensive job.
-Typical justification to do what you want. Sounds exactly like a Jewish method.
LOL! Yeah man, because only Jews say "Woe to the defeated" in regard to war. Well, them and every other ethnicity on the planet. But yeah dude, (((jews!)))
smh
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
– Which wouldn't ever be enough. Sticking a knife in 9 inches and then taking it out 6 via 3/5ths isn't doing him a favor.
-A free man is willing labor. Also, they get more say in their hours. Job flexibility.
-Didn't say something was yours? I'll take it. Oh you're living in it? I'll take it anyway That's basically it in a nutshell, in this regard and with the Jews in regards to Israel-Palestine.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Actually, it was enough. Which is why they passed a law eliminating any more slave states being admitted to the union, which then resulted in Kansas being a bunch of dicks, which then brought on the civil war (in summary).
A free man is willing labor. Also, they get more say in their hours. Job flexibility.
You are thinking that "then" is like "now". It wasn't. Good luck trying that attitude in 1830.
Didn't say something was yours? I'll take it. Oh you're living in it? I'll take it anyway That's basically it in a nutshell, in this regard and with the Jews in regards to Israel-Palestine.
And the Celts who first sacked Rome. And the Germans in France. And the English across their empire. And Rome across its empire. And China in regards to Mongolia.
But they're probably all Jews, yeah. My bad.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
-Talking about initial justification. If the blacks weren't that good, never should have brought em. Slavery was the 9 inch.
-Not as much flexibility, sure. But relative to slaves, I meant.
– If Empire A was peaceful, but Empire B attacked and lost, then A has the right to conquer B in self defense and simultaneously grow. This is just one example of an ethical conquest, but it has happened. America was anything but.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Shoulda Woulda Coulda has nothing to do with the reality as they then faced it. Slaves were already there, long predating the births of the Founding Fathers. Telling me what they "shoulda woulda coulda" is irrelevant, they had reality, and they dealt with it in a way that ultimately helped end slavery.
Flexibility. Heh. Yeah, like, none.
The point on empires is that they did the same thing and used the same justification, just like every other ethnicity on the planet. You trying to make this into "Jeeeewwwwws!" is silly. There are instances where you can call out the wrong perpetrated by some Jews, but this is not one of them. You may wish to cede this point to remain honest and consistent.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
Founding fathers supported slavery. Ending slavery wasn't enough. Equality is.
So slaves and free men have equal freedom of labor?
Not all empires have done this. Most have, yes. But essentially my point is that you insist that conquering was a good thing and the natives and blacks should be grateful for getting killed, raped, and enslaved in exchange for a television. Same in the middle east. They don't want democracy. Everyone else did it so I should do it too? Well in that case, so does the hate, hence blm and why the world hates america.
October 31, 2016 GhostOfJefferson ✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
Oh bullshit. Now you're back to square one. Some supported it, many were against it. This is precisely why they did the 3/5 thing, which I've patiently explained to you.
Most have, yes
Correct Ergo your sneering "you sound like a Jeeeewwww!" is rendered meaningless.
October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
So are you. Admit it- it wasn't justified, and 3/5ths wasn'tt near enough. Get rid of the white hero complex. Its the reason America is so hated around the world.
No, you claim victimhood from blacks and all the other people you take from and still claim to be the savior. Hatred outside and within the US takes a special kind of people. It is just retribution. And the Islamic empire, at least the Rashidun caliphate, did not.
October 31, 2016 Hipponax (μητροκοίτης)
Remember when Americans used to be proud of winning wars rather than feeling bad for the vanquished foe?
October 31, 2016 UnreconstructedConfederate
According to the 1850 census blacks were 12.5% of the population.
Most of the rest of the 35,000,000 of the population at the time were white. Those 3.5 million slaves didn't build everything.
As for the natives, they had no boundarys no government, no property rights ,they were cavemen who were conquered and white folk started a country with government, property rights and civilization.October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
But those 12.5% were slaves, so they were doing more labor per person. Mass cheap labor. I agree that the natives needed codified law, but it would be ridiculous to think that was the reason that was justification to conquer. It was just Manifest Destiny, something that is happening today via western imperialism.
October 31, 2016 UnreconstructedConfederate
Yes I agree the slaves would have worked more man hours but all those other people were not just sitting around.
The natives just were not prepared.it was was simply the way of the world at the time. It just is what it is.October 31, 2016 Cardtheorist
I expect the unwillingness to work was a big factor as well; lack of incentives. My main issue is that some people today are still trying to justify that what they did. Just because many other nations of the past did so, does not a right make. This goes the other way too of course- there have been times where whites were massacred and enslaved and driven out, which is also wrong.
October 31, 2016 Hipponax (μητροκοίτης)
Right, but what do you consider white. I mentioned the other day that a girl who was a member of the daughters of the American revolution, had membership to the union club etc called me a "gateway minority" because 5 generations ago my forebearers came her eyes from Italy
October 31, 2016 jz95
You know what they say about them dark Eye-talians, though.
October 31, 2016 UnreconstructedConfederate
I don't know, I guess those damn ole wops are white too
I get a really really dark tan every year I guess I'm white too.
What in the hell is a gateway minority anyway? .now I've forgotten the point I was trying to make anyway.October 31, 2016 Hipponax (μητροκοίτης)
I have never had a (((tan))) in my entire life. I go from pale to burned directly back to pale
October 31, 2016 UnreconstructedConfederate
Usually by about the middle of May I start looking funny when I take my hat off because my face,neck,arms and legs are dark brown and my head is BRIGHT white.
October 31, 2016 jz95
As usual, you are full of shit.
America was built BY Anglos, FOR Anglos. This country was never meant to be "whiteopia." The alt-right looks at the 1950s as the glory days of America. The founding fathers would have been disgusted at all of the "lesser European" groups that were in the country at that time, such as the Irish. The blacks have more of a right to be here than many European immigrant groups.
October 31, 2016 Untergang07
Historically you have a point. But the circumstances are pushing the European derived ethnicities of that country (U.S.) towards the formation of multiple "white" identities (Southern, Midwestern, etc) which are the combination of all types of Europeans. For European observers like me it seems a ridiculous development if it were in Europe, but once again It's happening in America and I am not American. It just is (the phenomenon I just described). Hence your argument is out of date.
October 31, 2016 jz95
Well, there already were significant differences between the regions of the United States, even when the European population was majority Anglo. Compare the aristocratic, agrarian South to the liberal urban North.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
Total bullshit made up from your pathetic negro brainpower. The Irish, Scttish, Germans and French were invited as immigrants from the start of America as a Constitutional Republic – INVITED TO SETTLE. You stupid cunt, you don't even realise that the Founding Fathers got many of their ideas from the French and the French Academy of Sciences, as well as German economists. It was created by white Freemasons, some of whom were Scottish not Anglo YOU STUPID CUNT. You think slave owning Alexander Hamilton was an anglo, dumbshit? Blacks have no right to be in America, they were never part of the Founding Fathers vision. You think they were fucking retarded and wanted the dregs of the bell curve as citizens? OUR POSTERITY means European.
October 31, 2016 jz95
The Irish were INVITED? The fuck are you smoking? The Irish were viewed as little, if any better than the Negroes. If you had told Washington or Jefferson that they were the same race as an Irishman, they would have laughed in your fucking face. Franklin viewed the Germans in America as a problematic presence in the United States. OUR POSTERITY meant the descendants of the (largely) Anglo-Germanic Protestants who founded this country, not all European peoples. Get your head out of Unkie Adolf's ass and learn some history, provided you have more than a single-digit IQ, something which I think you lack.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
You are making shit up as you go. What an absurd way to argue. The Irish were invited to settle, its an historical fact. Jefferson was even a proponent of the Irish independence. There were Catholic Founding Fathers, even at a time when in Britain they were persecuted. Oh now America is Anglo-Germanic, not Anglo like you previously stated? What about the Scots such as Alexander Hamilton, or Benjamin Frankin being a product of French schooling, and the American Revolutionary War was funded by Russians, French aristocrats such as Marquez de Lafayette. What about the Dutch colonies, which New York is from. Go and make up some shitty historical fantasy with someone who doesn't know history. America was European – white, from the start.
October 31, 2016 jz95
The United States of America was founded by Anglo-Germanic Protestants, mostly Englishmen. The Dutch, French and Spanish had colonies in North America, but they did not create the country that would become the United States of America. That was almost entirely the English, with a few Scots thrown in there. First point refuted.
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
"Irish immigrants of this period participated in significant numbers in the American Revolution, leading one British major general to testify at the House of Commons that "half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland."[14] Irish Americans signed the foundational documents of the United States -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- and, beginning with Andrew Jackson, served as President." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Americans
October 31, 2016 jz95
This first wave of Irish immigrants were the SCOTS-Irish, Scotsmen and Englishmen who had settled (and in many ways colonized) Ireland. Second point refuted.
October 31, 2016 Mac-101
I had an Irish forefather who fought as a private in the Revolution In the PA Militia and another Irish forefather who came to America to fight the British in the War of 1812. Johnny Bulls were still looked down upon in the 1950s by Irish and vice versa. LOL!
October 31, 2016 Ar C.
So now you have been proven incorrect, lets talk about why you elivate the worthless nigger over fellow Europeans, in light of the evidence that Irish, Russians, Italians (there was an Italian involved with the Founding documents – look up Founding Fathers by Country of Origin), Prussians, Dutch, Scottish and especially French were intimately involved in the creation of America.
October 31, 2016 jz95
You're a fucking idiot. That's all there is to say. You really are a fucking idiot.
October 31, 2016 Hipponax (μητροκοίτης)
The Irish and scots were brought in to do the slave labor. Blue bloods don't mate with the help
October 31, 2016 Hipponax (μητροκοίτης)
Correct. These are the people still pissed that Joe DiMaggio go to to play. Ethnics in the major leagues?
I've mentioned it before, but there is a great quote from the movie The Good Shepherd. Matt Damon plays an OSS office, Yale, skull and bones, American pedigree, founding member o the CIA. He talks to Pesci who plays the mob boss that the CIA tried to get to kill Castro.
Pesci: let me as you something. Us Italians, we got our families and the church. The Jews have their traditions. The micks have their homeland. Even the niggers have something, they have their music. What do you have
Damon: we have the United States of America the rest of you are just touristsIf you don't date your family back to the mayflower than you are no different than the Muslim invaders. Alt right would do well to remember than in some people's eyebrows most of them are just light skinned niggers
October 31, 2016 jz95
The alt-right, like their SJW counterparts, don't care about facts. You could lay it all out for them in the simplest terms imaginable and they'd still be living in their fantasylands.
October 31, 2016 onetruth
While I'm sure there's some truth to the notion of elites using divide and conquer, I nonetheless get tired of fence-sitting rhetoric that implies that coming together with leftists is the only way to defeat the elites.
Rank-and-file leftists want to BE elite, that's the main thing (other than provably broken ideology) that differentiates them from me. I don't want power, I simply want people to tell the truth and pull their weight. If you can't do that, I'd just as soon kill you as look at you, because you are a cancer on this planet. I'm certainly not going to join up with you to defeat some separate but equally evil group, lol. I prefer to fight and destroy both groups.
October 31, 2016 Corey
And how will you do that exactly?
October 31, 2016 onetruth
I've been thinking about that a lot lately but I don't have the answer. I do know that trying to find common ground with people who are part of the problem is both the wrong answer and a waste of time.
October 31, 2016 HAIDES
It started in July 2012 at the Anaheim Riots. The whole thing was started by the white anarchist anti authoritarian who s tired of taking shit from the cops.
October 31, 2016 chrish
I'm afraid your solution on a large scale basis is too ambitious. Most don't want to get involved in any unpleasantness, much easier to go along to get along. Most don't want to observe what's going on around them, it's much more important to walk around with one's face in their iPhone or have it up to their ear. Most don't want to read, it's easier to watch a video and have it summarized and spoon fed them. There is no right and wrong, it's all relative.
Until the unthinkable happens to them or close friend or family most don't care,and if said unthinkable DOES happen, it's Plan B time. Demand government find a solution to the problem, any solution that makes them feel like something was done. And sure, they'll give up privacy, their own ability to protect themselves, or agree to pay a little more as long as a "feel good" measure is taken.
October 31, 2016 A Wise Man
I was involved very early on in the Occupy movement, and I must say there were a lot of good people in it who simply wanted to limit global finance capitalism from destroying the American economy. Most of these people were older whites who were more in line with the leftists we picture from the mid to late twentieth century. Unfortunately, the Occupy movement already had the SJW seeds sown into its fabric from the very beginning. During the meetings and marches I attended, it was made VERY CLEAR to me that if you are a white male, it is your job to step aside and let the women and non-whites run the show and set the agenda. And indeed that was the case. I stuck around for a little bit, listening to what these angry black/brown women, socially retarded white women, and the token while male faggot had to say. It started off as more anti-bank/capitalism, but the writing was on the wall and I could see exactly how this movement was going to turn into the anti-white male patriarchy, pro feminism, pro faggot, pro degeneracy movement it has transformed into today.
October 31, 2016 Max Tweeter
"It started off as more anti-bank/capitalism, but the writing was on the
wall and I could see exactly how this movement was going to turn into
the anti-white male patriarchy, pro feminism, pro faggot, pro degeneracy
movement it has transformed into today."Most movements and social-justice groups start out benevolent, like many religions. Soon, those whom I call the "Crazy Elements" infiltrate that group/movement and alter its definition. After not long, the "crazy" becomes the movement, and attracts more bat-shit insane types faster than water seeking its own level. Once the lame-stream media get bored, the ranks thin out, and everyone goes home, until the next group of aggrieved shitheads gets loud (i.e. BLM, etc.). This shit is so easy to see from miles away, though.
October 31, 2016 Mac-101
That's because Soros was funding it.
October 31, 2016 Smokingjacket
We've never had a natural form of capitalism which accords with the natural strengths of people and nations. Instead, the natural instincts of what capitalism in its true sense was meant to signify has always been undermined by the State and creeping socialism along each step of the way. Civics, culture and customs, including religion were meant to be the natural bulwarks against unfettered capitalism, not the State with all its forms of social ideologies.
When will people ever get it- socialism is the natural blood and substance of modern States in all its forms- the State's future (any western advanced State) is tied up intrinsically with the "guardian" role of "social nanny" who'll protect her downtrodden children from the nasty boggy man (who pays all her bills, including her socialist programs) of libertine capitalism. The truth is that the entire system is rigged this way and if we had a more conservative or traditional set of values (like religion etc) we wouldn't need the socialist State to "protect us" from the free market, ispo facto, end of the State control of peoples lives. Imagine, a world were people could survive in a state of liberty and happiness without the need of the State? A Utopia perhaps??
October 31, 2016 Albionic American
The news about the Christian cartoonist Jack Chick's death, and the various reactions to it, got me to thinking about how our elites view religion. It looks to me as if they think about religion more rationally than they think about their childish utopianism regarding globalization, race, immigration, feminism and sexual degeneracy.
Defenders of the elites' world view just laugh off religious obsessives who threaten ordinary people with hell, especially straight white guys who ogle women, like the one in Jack Chick's early tract, "This Was Your Life."
But they condemned Chick as a homophobe when he published tracts which threatened gays with hell, even if they don't believe in it.
What accounts for the difference? Gays exist and hell doesn't, obviously. But also gays have privileged status in our elites' project to destroy and remake traditional societies, and they simply must remain immune from criticism, regardless of how much damage they cause along the way, even from some religious nut who draws comic books which threaten them with imaginary harm after death.
By contrast, notice that Chick also propagandized the fantasy that Israel's existence somehow fulfills "bible prophecy," instead of showing the ordinary reality that people get ideas from books. Not a peep of criticism from our elites about that delusion, curiously. And not because our elites share Chick's belief about Israel, but because the Jews among them have used this belief to play American Christians for suckers to make them support pro-Israel policies in our government.
Funny how that works.
October 31, 2016 Lovekraft
South Park Season 20 examines the concept of trolling. Here's my take:
trolling is defined as doing something to get a reaction from those defending the person you insulted, which then brings a reaction from the other side. Sit back and watch the fireworks.
We are being trolled when we fail to identify where the latest 'outrage' is coming from. We allow ourselves to waste time and energy when the messenger dictates the terms.
By, for and about are the three key words with any message. Who is sending the message, who is the message directed at, and what is the message itself. Basic critical analysis is where the alt-right leaders (could) make the most impact.
October 31, 2016 Noa
Excellent content, Cory. Left and right should unite to fight against billionaires globalists stealing from us. GO TRUMP!
October 31, 2016 skillet
It is a revolution against the middle class. With elite usiing weaponized poverty, zombies and misfits against the middle clas.sRather than the top 1 percent, the left attacks the privilege of the white assistant manager at Pizza Hut.
October 31, 2016 Gil G
The concept of a free, middle class would be the historic exception. Throughout most of history it was mostly made up of masters and lords as well as slaves and serfs.
October 31, 2016 Mac-101
Good article except Soros funded Occupy Wall Street and of course he switched to funding BLM and stiring Racial hate since it was much more effective.
November 1, 2016 Jim Jones Koolaid
Read or view Milton Friedman on youtube. Every deep recession has been caused by a drastic drop in money supply. The great depression was caused by the fed so that the bankers could purchase the pieces for pennies on the dollar after. For those of you who dont believe in conspiracy theories there has been so much time since 911 and all the videos of all the people have been looked at and analyzed. Amazing stuff. Even better just look at a few videos of speeches that the owner who just bought the trade centers not long before(99 year lease).
November 1, 2016 Hoosier Jimmy
The Me generation is the worst of America. And now they are in politics. America will be better off when the self-serving, self-absorbed flower children are long gone.
November 1, 2016 Poetry ->
"Thus, we have our current situation where the masses are divided with "
Socially engineered 'Useful Idiots' are engineering
1. Tavistock: the best kept secret in America
https://anticorruptionsociety.com/2016/08/25/tavistock-the-best-kept-secret-in-america/2. The Truth About America's Survival.
Demographics and the 2016 Electionhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/GN_FOCF3vIQ?feature=oembed
3. Race Differences In Intelligence
http://niggermania.com/library/Race%20Differences%20In%20Intelligence.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6SJNVb0GnPI?feature=oembed
4. The Truth About The Fall of Rome: Modern Parallels
https://www.youtube.com/embed/qh7rdCYCQ_U?feature=oembed
November 1, 2016 TheChariman
Think about this – the elites know that white America is developing an awareness. They also know that whites will revolt and correct the issue eventually. As a psychological diffuser, they put a person in like Trump that appears to be everything he is. This will allow whites to relax their defenses while the elites move to limit and censor information that will oppose their long term goals. They do this under a president like Trump so whites will remain docile. After 8 years, they continue their main agenda now with limited, if any real independent news agencies, etc. It allows them to buy time, diffuse white opposition, then continue with their program. Did Trump really "ditch" his inside team?
November 4, 2016 zocli michael
you want hillary.
November 4, 2016 TheChariman
Not an argument
November 1, 2016 Jair 3
Agree. The radicals of the 60's supported the URSS against the US, today they want to fight Putin, what is more puzzling is that they oppose Christians because we want to live our faith, but they willingly accept sharia law that forbids women to wear a dress, are shunned and considered second class, honor killings are frequent, feminists say nothing, atheists say nothing, LGBT lobby is quiet, why? Because their leader, Soros has not given the cue. Group thinking!!!
November 2, 2016 vincent Menniti ΛΤ
Can we get a post about why Soro's owns the world? I don't care enough to look myself, but am curious none the less.
November 2, 2016 david
The occupy movement was a bunch of spoiled middle class suburban brats who were in the top 1% globally. If they thought they were protesting the economic downturn, they were fifteen years late. The Clinton administration signed the death warrant for the economy. It just took 10 years to show the effect.
The housing bubble in 2006 ( which influenced the economic crash in 2008) was caused by affirmative action policy in the big banks. The Clinton administration pressured the banks into "not descriminating " against the poor. AKA giving hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to people who were too irresponsible to pay rent. Then that debt was sold and resold, until 1 by 1 the floor fell out.
A great explanation is in the new movie " The Big Short."
It was that terrible series of events that scared americans into voting for Barrack Obama.
Then we had eight years of feminist propaganda, and here we are.
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May-June 1 1999, | prospect.org
Originally from: The Power Elite Now
... ... ...
The Warlords
One of the crucial arguments Mills made in The Power Elite was that the emergence of the Cold War completely transformed the American public's historic opposition to a permanent military establishment in the United States. In deed, he stressed that America's military elite was now linked to its economic and political elite. Personnel were constantly shifting back and forth from the corporate world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological innovations sponsored by the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. And while all these links between the economy and the military were being forged, the military had become an active political force. Members of Congress, once hostile to the military, now treated officers with great deference. And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers, and appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military.
Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism which had once characterized public opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are attempting to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." Their goal was nothing less than a redefinition of reality -- one in which the American people would come to accept what Mills called "an emergency without a foreseeable end." "
War or a high state of war preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States,"
Mills wrote. In this state of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement, precisely what the military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed permanent, then The Power Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical, and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States.
Much as Mills wrote, it remains true today that Congress is extremely friendly to the military, at least in part because the military has become so powerful in the districts of most congressmen. Military bases are an important source of jobs for many Americans, and government spending on the military is crucial to companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which manufacture military equipment. American firms are the leaders in the world's global arms market, manufacturing and exporting weapons everywhere. Some weapons systems never seem to die, even if, as was the case with a "Star Wars" system designed to destroy incoming missiles, there is no demonstrable military need for them.
Yet despite these similarities with the 1950s, both the world and the role that America plays in that world have changed. For one thing, the United States has been unable to muster its forces for any sustained use in any foreign conflict since Vietnam. Worried about the possibility of a public backlash against the loss of American lives, American presidents either refrain from pursuing military adventures abroad or confine them to rapid strikes, along the lines pursued by Presidents Bush and Clinton in Iraq. Since 1989, moreover, the collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe has undermined the capacity of America's elites to mobilize support for military expenditures. China, which at the time Mills wrote was considered a serious threat, is now viewed by American businessmen as a source of great potential investment. Domestic political support for a large and permanent military establishment in the United States, in short, can no longer be taken for granted.
The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a dramatic decrease in that proportion of the American economy devoted to defense. At the time Mills wrote, defense expenditures constituted roughly 60 percent of all federal outlays and consumed nearly 10 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product. By the late 1990s, those proportions had fallen to 17 percent of federal outlays and 3.5 percent of GDP. Nearly three million Americans served in the armed forces when The Power Elite appeared, but that number had dropped by half at century's end. By almost any account, Mills's prediction that both the economy and the political system of the United States would come to be ever more dominated by the military is not borne out by historical developments since his time.
And how could he have been right? Business firms, still the most powerful force in American life, are increasingly global in nature, more interested in protecting their profits wherever they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority of their employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice between invading another country and investing in its industries and they will nearly always choose the latter over the former.
Mills believed that in the 1950s, for the first time in American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. Now it would be more correct to say that America's economic elite finds more in common with economic elites in other countries than it does with the military elite of its own....
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
The hacking collective known as "Anonymous" published a trove of documents on November 5 which it claims exposes a UK-based psyop to create a " large-scale information secret service " in Europe in order to combat "Russian propaganda" - which has been blamed for everything from Brexit to US President Trump winning the 2016 US election.
The primary objective of the " Integrity Initiative " - established in 2015 by the Institute for Statecraft - is "to provide a coordinated Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare."
And while the notion of Russian disinformation has become the West's favorite new bogeyman to excuse things such as Hillary Clinton's historic loss to Donald Trump, we note that "Anonymous" was called out by WikiLeaks in October 2016 as an FBI cutout, while the report on the Integrity Initiative that Anonymous exposed comes from Russian state-owned network RT - so it's anyone's guess whose 400lb hackers are at work here.
Operating on a budget of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.
The UK establishment appears to be conducting the very activities of which it and its allies have long-accused the Kremlin, with little or no corroborating evidence. The program also aims to "change attitudes in Russia itself" as well as influencing Russian speakers in the EU and North America, one of the leaked documents states. - RT
The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway, Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region .
The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government agencies."
The initiative has received Ł168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and Ł250,000 from the US State Department , the documents allege.
Some of its purported members include British MPs and high-profile " independent" journalists with a penchant for anti-Russian sentiment in their collective online oeuvre, as showcased by a brief glance at their Twitter feeds. - RT
Noted examples of "inedependent" anti-Russia journalists:
Spanish "Op"
In one example of the group's activities, a "Moncloa Campaign" was successfully conducted by the group's Spanish cluster to block the appointment of Colonel Pedro Banos as the director of Spain's Department of Homeland Security. It took just seven-and-a-half hours to accomplish, brags the group in the documents .
"The [Spanish] government is preparing to appoint Colonel Banos, known for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin positions in the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts, as Director of the Department of Homeland Security, a key body located at the Moncloa," begins Nacho Torreblanca in a seven-part tweetstorm describing what happened.
Others joined in. Among them – according to the leaks – academic Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, who wrote that "Mr. Banos is to geopolitics as a homeopath is to medicine." Appointing such a figure would be "a shame." - RT
The operation was reported in Spanish media, while Banos was labeled "pro-Putin" by UK MP Bob Seely.
In short, expect anything counter to predominant "open-border" narratives to be the Kremlin's fault - and not a natural populist reflex to the destruction of borders, language and culture.
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns Steveg , Nov 24, 2018 11:43:44 AM | link
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.
The ' Integrity Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media smear campaign (pdf) against him.
biggerThe Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .
The Initiative is nominally run under the (government financed) non-government-organisation The Institute For Statecraft . Its internal handbook (pdf) describes its purpose:
The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and promises that:
Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster community. [...] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed, Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster participants as you desire).The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is 'Defending Democracy Against Disinformation'. It covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the Middle East.
On its About page it claims: "We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and agencies who share our aims." The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the Initiative's funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State Department. All the 'contact persons' for creating 'clusters' in foreign countries are British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British government that hides behind a 'civil society' NGO.
The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.
Chris Donnelly - Pic via EuromaidanpressFrom its 2017/18 budget application (pdf) we learn how the Initiative works:
To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by: expanding the knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it .The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a "we are the good ones" illusion. When "we" 'educate the public' it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it its disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative's existence itself, created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.
If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It's applications seek funding from a larger "Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme" run by the Foreign Office.
The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received £102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19 budget application shows a planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO and the Lithuanian MoD, but also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with £100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.
One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):
- Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a range of countries with different circumstances
- Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack by Russia
- Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of the "golden minute"
Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:
- Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact on policy and society: ( Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV )Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a self-contradicting concept.
Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:
We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;
- Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor's Office and MOD
- Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD
- Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps
- Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM's office (NB this may change very soon with the new Government)
- Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD
- HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen's office.
We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the clusters develop.A look at the 'clusters' set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.
biggerMembers of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.
bigger - biggerA ' Cluster Roundup ' (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another file reveals (pdf) the local partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.
The Initiatives Guide to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation". But at least two of these events, Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of British intelligence disinformation operations.
The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the 'Project Plan' laid out at pages 7-40 of the 2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under 'Sustainability' it notes:
The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow.The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society (think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is proving to be mutually reinforcing . Creating the network of networks has given each national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and in various forms.
The third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes 'Risks' to the initiative. These include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:
Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.
Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM | Permalink
Comments Perfidious ALbion!
When will we learn?
pretzelattack , Nov 24, 2018 11:44:00 AM | link
Coincidentally, or not, i just saw this article at the guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/23/robert-mueller-profile-donald-trump-russia-investigation.Anya , Nov 24, 2018 11:57:00 AM | linkThe British government has been running a serious meddling into the US affairs:james , Nov 24, 2018 11:58:02 AM | link
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-23/mi6-scrambling-stop-trump-releasing-classified-docs-russia-probe"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016."
A Steele & Skrupal's anti-Russian / anti-Trump saga: https://spectator.org/big-dots-do-they-connect/
"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..."
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
thanks b....Ingrian , Nov 24, 2018 12:03:55 PM | linkthis movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war.. i guess the idea is to get the ordinary people to think in terms of hating another country based on lies and that this would be a good thing... it is very sad what uk / usa leadership in the past century has come down to here.... i can only hope that info releases like this will hasten it's demise...
Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK.james , Nov 24, 2018 12:15:31 PM | linkThe UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth
@6 ingrian... things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit Russia fully, as they'd intended...et Al , Nov 24, 2018 12:20:09 PM | linkForthestate , Nov 24, 2018 12:26:09 PM | linkLet the Doxx wars begin! Sure, Anonymous is not Russian but it will surely now be targeted and smeared as such which would show that it has hit a nerve. British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me.
I think we've all noticed the euro-asslantic press (and friends) on behalf of, willingly and in cooperation with the British intelligence et al 'calling out' numerous Russians as G(R)U/spies/whatever for a while now yet providing less than a shred of credible evidence.
It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations.
Meanwhile in Brussels they are having their cake and eating it, i.e. bemoaning Europe's 'weak response' to Russian propaganda:
BTW, did anyone read Wired UK's current advertorial (nov 14) by Carl Miller for Brigade 77?
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?worldblee , Nov 24, 2018 12:33:05 PM | linkYet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be black at all; it's just the pot making up things. "These Russian criminals are using propaganda to show (truths) like the fact the DNC and Clinton campaigns colluded to prevent Sanders from being nominated, so we need to establish a clandestine propaganda network to establish that the Russians are running propaganda!"psychohistorian , Nov 24, 2018 12:34:32 PM | linkplantman , Nov 24, 2018 12:36:48 PM | link....full cluster of smear merchants". May all the clusters of smear merchants be exposed to the public as the acolytes of evil they are.
m , Nov 24, 2018 12:40:07 PM | link"In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream."I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins.
The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval.
Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda
BUT...the author assures us that the "deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow" Huh?? In other words, the fix is in. Mueller will pardon Trump on collusion charges but the propaganda campaign against Russia will continue...with the full support of both parties. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it...
This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap.Jackrabbit , Nov 24, 2018 12:40:58 PM | linkA lot of sour grapes with this so-called 'integrity initiative', IMO. BP was behind a lot of this, I would also think. When Assad pulled the plug on the pipeline through the Levant in 2009, the Brits hacked up a fur ball. It's gone downhill for them ever since. Couldn't happen to a nicer lot. If you can't invade or beat them with proxies, you can at least call them names.
AnyaCyril , Nov 24, 2018 1:10:13 PM | linkPat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification: THE CHIMERA OF DONALD TRUMP, RUSSIAN MONEY LAUNDERER :
If Trump was taking dirty money or engaged in criminal activity with Russians then he was doing it with Felix Sater, who was under the control of the FBI... And who was in charge of the FBI during all of the time that Sater was a signed up FBI snitch? You got it -- Robert Mueller (2001 thru 2013) ...It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling, including:
Steele dossier: To create suspicion in government, media, and later the publicAs I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job.Leaking of DNC emails to Wikileaks (but calling it a "hack"): To help with election of Trump and link Wikileaks (as agent) to Russian election meddling
Cambridge Analytica: To provide necessary reasoning for Trump's (certain) win of the electoral college.
Note: We later found that dozens of firms had undue access to Facebook data. Why did the campaign turn to a British firm instead of an American firm? Well, it had to be a British firm if MI6 was running the (supposed) Facebook targeting for CIA.
The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love?Russ , Nov 24, 2018 1:16:21 PM | linkPosted by: james | Nov 24, 2018 12:15:31 PM | 7GeorgeV , Nov 24, 2018 1:34:08 PM | link"things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the soviet union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia fully, as they'd intended..."
They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites.
The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation.
Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power.Sasha , Nov 24, 2018 1:38:39 PM | linkSince UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government...and in this context, new empowerished sovereign governemts into the EU should consider the possibility expelling these traitors as spies of the UK....Zanon , Nov 24, 2018 2:12:45 PM | linkhttp://www.voltairenet.org/article204051.html
Some of the "clusters" unmasked here....some, like Ignacio Torreblanca in Spain, are related to the CFR....
https://www.rt.com/news/444737-uk-funded-campaign-russia-leaks/
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:Zanon , Nov 24, 2018 2:13:28 PM | link
- Germany: Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
- Sweden, Norway, Finland: Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
- Netherlands: Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan, Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
cresty , Nov 24, 2018 2:18:30 PM | link
- Spain: Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi, Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
- US, Canada: Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado, Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland Todd Leventhal
- UK: Chris Donnelly Amalyah Hart William Browder John Ardis Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham Deborah Haynes Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon Mungo Melvin Rob Dover Julian Moore Agnes Josa David Aaronovitch Stephen Dalziel Raheem Shapi Ben Nimmo Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede
Alan Riley [email protected] Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson Primavera Quantrill Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew Foxall Alex Finnen Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros Papaioannou Paddy NicollThank you very much for going through all the files, b. Will share far and wide
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
HowdyDoody , 7 hours ago link
activisor , 10 hours ago linkOne of the documents lists a series of propaganda weapons to be used against Russia. One is use of the church as a weapon. That has already been started in Ukraine with Poroshenko buying off regligious leader to split Ukraine Orthodoxy from Russian Orthodoxy. It also explicitly states that the Skripal incident is a 'Dirty Trick' against Russia.
smacker , 11 hours ago linkThe British political system is on the verge of collapse. BREXIT has finally demonstrated that the Government/ Opposition parties are clearly aligned against the interests of the people. The EU is nothing more than an arm of the Globalist agenda of world domination.
The US has shown its true colours - sanctioning every country that stands for independent sovereignty is not a good foreign policy, and is destined to turn the tide of public opinion firmly against global hegemony, endless wars, and wealth inequity.
The old Empire is in its death throes. A new paradigm awaits which will exclude all those who have exploited the many, in order to sit at the top of the pyramid. They cannot escape Karma.
Lokiban , 13 hours ago linkThe Western world needs to come to terms with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath. Today, Russia is led by Putin and he obviously has objectives as any national leader has.
Western "leaders" need to decide whether Putin:
- Is trying to create Soviet Union 2.0, to have a 2nd attempt at ruling the world thru communism and to do this by holding the world to ransom over oil/gas supplies. OR
- Is wanting Russia to become a member of the family of nations and of a multi-polar world to improve the lives of Russian people, but is being blocked at every twist and turn by manufactured events like Russia-gate and the Skripal affair and now this latest revelation of anti-Russian propaganda campaigns being coordinated and run out of London.
Both of the above cannot be true because there are too many contradictions. Which is it??
LOL123 , 14 hours ago linkYes because imagine that that we lived in 1940 without any means to inform ourselves and that media was still in control over the information that reaches us. We would already be in a fullblown war with Russia because of it but now with the Internet and information going around freely only a whimpy 10% of we the people stand behind their desperately wanted war. Imagine that, an informed sheople.
Can't have that, they cannot do their usual stuff anymore.... good riddance.artistant , 14 hours ago link"250,000 from the US State Department , the documents allege."....... Interesting.
"During the third Democratic debate on Saturday night, Hillary Clinton called for a "Manhattan-like project" to break encrypted terrorist communications. The project would "bring the government and the tech communities together" to find a way to give law enforcement access to encrypted messages, she said. It's something that some politicians and intelligence officials have wanted for awhile,"........
***wasn't the Manhatten project a secret venture?????? Hummmmm"
Hillary Clinton has all of our encryption keys, including the FBI's . "Encryption keys" is a general reference to several encryption functions hijacked by Hillary and her surrogate ENTRUST. They include hash functions (used to indicate whether the contents have been altered in transit), PKI public/private key infrastructure, SSL (secure socket layer), TLS (transport layer security), the Dual_EC_DRBG NSA algorithm and certificate authorities.
The convoluted structure managed by the "Federal Common Policy" group has ceded to companies like ENTRUST INC the ability to sublicense their authority to third parties who in turn manage entire other networks in a Gordian knot of relationships clearly designed to fool the public to hide their devilish criminality. All roads lead back to Hillary and the Rose Law Firm."- patriots4truth
hooligan2009 , 15 hours ago linklarryriedel , 15 hours ago linkWhen you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also.
Baron Samedi , 15 hours ago linkFBI/Anonymous can use this story to support a narrative that social media bots posting memes is a problem for everybody, and it's not a partisan issue. The idea is that fake news and unrestricted social media are inherently dangerous, and both the West and Russia are exploiting that, so governments need to agree to restrict the ability to use those platforms for political speech, especially without using True Names.
headless blogger , 15 hours ago linkOilygawkies in the UK and USSA seem to be letting their spooks have a good-humored (rating here on the absurd transparency of these ops) contest to see who can come up with the most surreal propaganda psy-ops.
But they probably also serve as LHO distractions from something genuinely sleazy.
Push , 15 hours ago linkAnti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. Anything that is remotely like Nationalism is the true enemy of these Globalist/Internationalists, which is what the Top-Ape Bolshevik promoted: see Vladimir Lenin and his quotes on how he believed fully in "internationalism" for a world without borders. Ironic how they Love the butchers of the Soviet Union but hate Russia. It is ALL ABOUT IDEOLOGY to these people and "the means justify the ends".
They are frightening people.
Xena fobe , 15 hours ago linkBasically, if one acquires factual information from an internet source, which leads to overturning the propaganda to which we're all subjected, then it MUST have come from Putin. This is the direction they're headed. Anyone speaking out against the official story is obviously a Russian spy.
OverTheHedge , 11 hours ago link"Instutute for Statecraft"? Seriously?
koan , 16 hours ago link"Substitute for Statecraft"
Fify ;-)
East Indian , 16 hours ago linkThe UK is waging psyop against their own people using the Russians as an excuse to further oppress the population, especially the white population.
FIFY.
brewing_it , 17 hours ago linkNever thought Putin would be the symbol of free speech! The totalitarian EU and Deep State can come out of closet and denounce their predecessors.
AriusArmenian , 17 hours ago linkIf you call ******** on the whole Russia cyberscare, you will be labeled a puppet of Putin.
The establishment is afraid of free thinking men and women that can call ******** when they see and hear it.
Mike Rotsch , 17 hours ago linkBetter to call it the Anti-Integrity Initiative. UK cretins up to their usual dirty tricks - let them choke on their poison. The judgement of history will eventually catch up with them.
RealistDuJour , 17 hours ago linkA good 'ole economic collapse will give western countries a chance to purge their crazy leaders before they involve us all in a thermonuclear war. Short everything with your entire accounts.
HRClinton , 18 hours ago linkThis is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the WEST? This is nuts.
Isn't it just as likely someone in the WEST planted this cache, intending Anonymous to find it?
J S Bach , 18 hours ago linkWhen two sides fight - especially white v white - the hidden 3rd party (((instigator))) wins.
How dumb and mallaleable can these goys be? Pretty dumb and mallaleable, it seems.
OverTheHedge , 11 hours ago linkAny propaganda coming from the UK or US is strictly zionist. EVERYTHING they put out is to the benefit of Israel and the "lobby". Russia isn't perfect, but if they're an enemy of the latter, then they should NOT be considered a foe to all thinking and conscientious people.
Herdee , 18 hours ago linkYesterday, the BBC had a thing on Thai workers in Israel, and how they keep dying of accidents, their general level of slavery etc. Very odd to have a negative Israel story, so I wonder who upset whom, and what the ongoing status will be.
Thai labourers in Israel tell of harrowing conditions
A year-long BBC investigation has discovered widespread abuse of Thai nationals living and working in Israel - under a scheme organized by the two governments.
Many are subjected to unsafe working practices and squalid, unsanitary living conditions. Some are overworked, others underpaid and there are dozens of unexplained deaths.
Quadruple_Rainbow , 18 hours ago linkEngland and the U.S. don't like their very poor and rotten social conditions put out for the public to see. Both countries have severely deteriorating problems on their streets because of bankrupt governments printing money for foreign wars.
Herdee , 18 hours ago linkMore of the same fraudulent duality while alleged so called but not money etc continues to flow (everything is criminal) and the cesspool of a hierarchy pretends it's business as usual.
This isn't about maintaining balance in a lie this is about disclosing the truth and agendas (Agenda 21 now Agenda 2030 = The New Age Religion is Never Going To Be Saturnism). The layers of the hierarchy are a lie so unless the alleged so called leaders of those layers are publicly providing testimony and confession then everything that is being spoon fed to the pablum puking public through all sources is a lie.
HRClinton , 17 hours ago linkThey're afraid of stories like this: https://www.rt.com/news/444737-uk-funded-campaign-russia-leaks/
gatorengineer , 18 hours ago linkOperating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of (((local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics))).
The (((team))) is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs, while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.
Do Neocons get time and half for Overtime, they sure have been putting in a bunch lately.
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Nov 19, 2018 | www.unz.com
OK, so, that was a close one. For a moment there, I was starting to worry that the Democrats weren't going to take back the House and rescue us from " the brink of fascism ." Which, if that had happened, in addition to having to attend all those horrible stadium rallies and help the government mass murder the Jews, we would have been denied the next two years of Donald Trump-related congressional hearings and investigations that we can now look forward to
I'm going to go ahead and call them the Hitlergate Hearings.
Staging these hearings has always been a crucial part of the Resistance's strategy. As history has proved, time and time again, when literal fascists take over your democracy, outlaw opposing political parties, and start shipping people off to concentration camps and revoking journalists' White House access, the only effective way to defeat them is to form a whole buttload of congressional committees and investigate the living Hitler out of them. This is especially the case when the literal fascists who have commandeered your democracy are conspiring with a shifty-eyed Slavic dictator whose country you have essentially surrounded with your full-spectrum dominant military forces, and who your media have thoroughly demonized, but who is nevertheless able to brainwash your citizens into electing his fascist puppet president with a few thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads.
Once you've determined that has happened (which it obviously has), the gloves have to come off. No more prancing around in pussyhats, not with Russian Hitler in office! No, at that point, you really have no choice but to wait two years until your opposition party (which Hitler somehow forgot to ban) regains control of the House of Representatives (which Hitler somehow forgot to dissolve), wait another two months until they take office, and then immediately start issuing subpoenas, auditing Hitler's financial records, and taking affidavits from former hookers. I realize that may sound extreme, but remember, we're talking about literal fascists, backed by literal Russian fascists, who are going around emboldening literal fascism, and making literal fascist hand gestures on television, and doing all kinds of other fascist stuff!
... ... ...
ThreeCranes , says: November 20, 2018 at 3:10 am GMT
Photo of a typical Trump rally. Trump himself designed the grandiose, operatic setting and cast himself in the male lead as fiery, spittle-flecked orator/savior of his nation.
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Nov 15, 2018 | www.unz.com
One of the frequent comparisons that comes up in the Dissident Right is who was more correct or prescient, Orwell or Huxley.
In fact, as the only truly oppressed intellectual group, the Dissident Right are the only ones in a position to offer a valid opinion on this, as no other group of intellectuals suffers deplatforming, doxxing, and dismissal from jobs as much as we do. In the present day, it is only the Dissident Right that exists in the 'tyrannical space' explored in those two dystopian classics.
But, despite this, this debate exists not only on the Dissident Right but further afield. Believe it or not, even Left-wingers and Liberals debate this question, as if they too are under the heel of the oppressor's jackboot. In fact, they feel so oppressed that some of them are even driven to discuss it in the pages of the New York Times at the despotically high rate of pay which that no doubt involves.
In both the Left and the Dissident Right, the consensus is that Huxley is far superior to Orwell, although, according to the New York Times article just alluded to, Orwell has caught up a lot since the election of Donald Trump. Have a look at this laughable, "I'm literally shaking" prose from New York Times writer Charles McGrath :
And yet [Huxley's] novel much more accurately evokes the country we live in now, especially in its depiction of a culture preoccupied with sex and mindless pop entertainment, than does Orwell's more ominous book, which seems to be imagining someplace like North Korea. Or it did until Donald Trump was inaugurated.
All of a sudden, as many commentators have pointed out, there were almost daily echoes of Orwell in the news The most obvious connection to Orwell was the new president's repeated insistence that even his most pointless and transparent lies were in fact true, and then his adviser Kellyanne Conway's explanation that these statements were not really falsehoods but, rather, "alternative facts." As any reader of "1984" knows, this is exactly Big Brother's standard of truth: The facts are whatever the leader says they are.
those endless wars in "1984," during which the enemy keeps changing -- now Eurasia, now Eastasia -- no longer seem as far-fetched as they once did, and neither do the book's organized hate rallies, in which the citizenry works itself into a frenzy against nameless foreigners.
The counter to this is that Trump is the only non-establishment candidate to get elected President since Andrew Jackson and therefore almost the exact opposite of the idea of top-down tyranny.
But to return to the notion that Huxley is superior to Orwell, both on the Left and the Dissident Right, this is based on a common view that Huxley presents a much more subtle, nuanced, and sophisticated view of soft tyranny more in keeping with the appearance of our own age. Here's McGrath summarizing this viewpoint, which could just as easily have come out of the mouth of an Alt-Righter, Alt-Liter, or Affirmative Righter:
Orwell didn't really have much feel for the future, which to his mind was just another version of the present. His imagined London is merely a drabber, more joyless version of the city, still recovering from the Blitz, where he was living in the mid-1940s, just before beginning the novel. The main technological advancement there is the two-way telescreen, essentially an electronic peephole.
Huxley, on the other hand, writing almost two decades earlier than Orwell (his former Eton pupil, as it happened), foresaw a world that included space travel; private helicopters; genetically engineered test tube babies; enhanced birth control; an immensely popular drug that appears to combine the best features of Valium and Ecstasy; hormone-laced chewing gum that seems to work the way Viagra does; a full sensory entertainment system that outdoes IMAX; and maybe even breast implants. (The book is a little unclear on this point, but in "Brave New World" the highest compliment you can pay a woman is to call her "pneumatic.")
Huxley was not entirely serious about this. He began "Brave New World" as a parody of H.G. Wells, whose writing he detested, and it remained a book that means to be as playful as it is prophetic. And yet his novel much more accurately evokes the country we live in now, especially in its depiction of a culture preoccupied with sex and mindless pop entertainment, than does Orwell's more ominous book, which seems to be imagining someplace like North Korea.
It is easy to see why some might see Huxley as more relevant to the reality around us than Orwell, because basically "Big Brother," in the guise of the Soviet Union, lost the Cold War, or so it seems.
But while initially convincing, the case for Huxley's superiority can be dismantled.
Most importantly, Huxley's main insight, namely that control can be maintained more effectively through "entertainment, distraction, and superficial pleasure rather than through overt modes of policing and strict control over food supplies" is not actually absent in 1984 .
In fact, exactly these kind of methods are used to control the Proles, on whom pornography is pushed and prostitution allowed. In fact porn is such an important means of social control that the IngSoc authorities even have a pornography section called "PornSec," which mass produces porn for the Proles.
One of the LOL moments in Michael Radford's film version is when Mr. Charrington, the agent of the thought police who poses as a kindly pawnbroker to rent a room to Winston and Julia for their sexual trysts, informs them on their arrest that their surveillance film will be 'repurposed' as porn.
In fact, Orwell's view of sex as a means of control is much more dialectical and sophisticated than Huxley's, as the latter was, as mentioned above, essentially writing a parody of the naive "free love" notions of H.G.Wells.
While sex is used as a means to weaken the Proles, 'anti-Sex' is used to strengthen the hive-mind of Party members. Indeed, we see today how the most hysterical elements of the Left -- and to a certain degree the Dissident Right -- are the most undersexed.
Also addictive substances are not absent from Orwell's dystopian vision. While Brave New World only has soma, 1984 has Victory Gin, Victory Wine, Victory Beer, Victory Coffee, and Victory Tobacco -- all highly addictive substances that affect people's moods and reconcile them to unpleasant realities. Winston himself is something of a cigarette junkie and gin fiend, as we see in this quote from the final chapter:
The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens.
Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafe
In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp.
But while 1984 includes almost everything that Brave New World contains in terms of controlling people through sex, drugs, and distractions, it also includes much, much more, especially regarding how censorship and language are used to control people and how tyranny is internalised. The chapter from which the above quote comes, shows how Winston, a formerly autonomous agent, has come to accept the power of the system so much that he no longer needs policing.
But most brilliant of all is Orwell's prescient description of how language is changed through banning certain words and the expression of certain ideas or observations deemed "thought crime," to say nothing of the constant rewriting of history. The activities of Big Tech and their deplatforming of all who use words, phrases, and ideas not in the latest edition of their "Newspeak" dictionary, have radically changed the way that people communicate and what they talk about in a comparatively short period of time.
Orwell's insights into how language can be manipulated into a tool of control shows his much deeper understanding of human psychology than that evident in Huxley's novel. The same can be said about Orwell's treatment of emotions, which is another aspect of his novel that rings particularly true today.
In 1984 hate figures, like Emmanuel Goldstein, and fake enemies, like Eastasia and Eurasia, are used to unite, mobilise, and control certain groups. Orwell was well aware of the group-psychological dynamics of the tribe projected to the largest scale of a totalitarian empire. The concept of "three minutes hate" has so much resonance with our own age, where triggered Twitter-borne hordes of SJWs and others slosh around the news cycle like emotional zombies, railing against Trump or George Soros.
In Huxley's book, there are different classes but this is not a source of conflict. Indeed they are so clearly defined -- in fact biologically so -- that there is no conflict between them, as each class carries out its predetermined role like harmonious orbit of Aristotlean spheres.
In short, Brave New World sees man as he likes to see himself -- a rational actor, controlling his world and taking his pleasures. It is essentially the vision of a well-heeled member of the British upper classes.
Orwell's book, by contrast, sees man as the tribal primitive, forced to live on a scale of social organisation far beyond his natural capacity, and thereby distorted into a mad and cruel creature. It is essentially the vision of a not-so-well-heeled member of the British middle classes in daily contact with the working class. But is all the richer and more profound for it.
Colin Liddell is one of the founders of the Alt-Right, which he now disavows, and currently blogs at Affirmative Right . He recently published a book "Interviews and Obituaries," available on Amazon .
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Nov 15, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Casey Chalk via The American Conservative,The brutal warlord understood how to govern shrewdly and even humanely.
Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston Churchill, even Barack Obama: there are many historical figures who Americans have turned to for inspiration in this political distemper. That's especially true with the midterm elections only a week in the books. But I've recently found an even more surprising leader who offers a number of political lessons worth contemplating: Genghis Khan.
I'm quite serious.
As a former history teacher, I picked up Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World because I realized I knew relatively little about one of the most influential men in human history. Researchers have estimated that 0.5 percent of men have Genghis Khan's DNA in them, which is perhaps one of the most tangible means of determining historical impact. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The Mongolian warlord conquered a massive chunk of the 13th-century civilized world -- including more than one third of its population. He created one of the first international postal systems. He decreed universal freedom of religion in all his conquered territories -- indeed, some of his senior generals were Christians.
Of course, Genghis Khan was also a brutal military leader who showed no mercy to enemies who got in his way, leveling entire cities and using captured civilians as the equivalent of cannon fodder. Yet even the cruelest military geniuses (e.g. Napoleon) are still geniuses, and we would be wise to consider what made them successful, especially against great odds. In the case of Genghis Khan, we have a leader who went from total obscurity in one of the most remote areas of Asia to the greatest, most feared military figure of the medieval period, and perhaps the world. This didn't happen by luck -- the Mongolian, originally named Temujin, was not only a skilled military strategist, but a shrewd political leader.
As Genghis Khan consolidated control over the disparate tribes of the steppes of northern Asia, he turned the traditional power structure on its head. When one tribe failed to fulfill its promise to join him in war and raided his camp in his absence, he took an unprecedented step. He summoned a public gathering, or khuriltai , of his followers, and conducted a public trial of the other tribe's aristocratic leaders. When they were found guilty, Khan had them executed as a warning to other aristocrats that they would no longer be entitled to special treatment. He then occupied the clan's lands and distributed the remaining tribal members among his own people. This was not for the purposes of slavery, but a means of incorporating conquered peoples into his own nation. The Mongol leader symbolized this act by adopting an orphan boy from the enemy tribe and raising him as his own son.
Weatherford explains:
"Whether these adoptions began for sentimental reasons or for political ones, Temujin displayed a keen appreciation of the symbolic significance and practical benefit of such acts in uniting his followers through his usage of fictive kinship ."
Genghis Khan employed this equalizing strategy with his military as well -- eschewing distinctions of superiority among the tribes. For example, all members had to perform a certain amount of public service. Weatherford adds:
"Instead of using a single ethnic or tribal name, Temujin increasingly referred to his followers as the People of the Felt Walls, in reference to the material from which they made their gers [tents]."
America, alternatively, seems divided along not only partisan lines, but those of race and language as well. There is also an ever-widening difference between elite technocrats and blue-collar folk, or "deplorables." Both parties have pursued policies that have aggravated these differences, and often have schemed to employ them for political gain. Whatever shape they take -- identity politics, gerrymandering -- the controversies they cause have done irreparable harm to whatever remains of the idea of a common America. The best political leaders are those who, however imperfectly, find a way to transcend a nation's many differences and appeal to a common cause, calling on all people, no matter how privileged, to participate in core activities that define citizenship.
The Great Khan also saw individuals not as autonomous, atomistic individuals untethered to their families and local communities, but rather as inextricably linked to them. For example, "the solitary individual had no legal existence outside the context of the family and the larger units to which it belonged; therefore the family carried responsibility of ensuring the correct behavior of its members to be a just Mongol, one had to live in a just community." This meant, in effect, that the default social arrangement required individuals to be responsible for those in their families and immediate communities. If a member of a family committed some crime, the entire unit would come under scrutiny. Though such a paradigm obviously isn't ideal, it reflects Genghis Khan's recognition that the stronger our bonds to our families, the stronger the cohesion of the greater society. Politicians should likewise pursue policies that support and strengthen the family, the "first society," rather than undermining or redefining it.
There are other gems of wisdom to be had from Genghis Khan. He accepted a high degree of provincialism within his empire, reflecting an ancient form of subsidiarity. Weatherford notes: "He allowed groups to follow traditional law in their area, so long as it did not conflict with the Great Law, which functioned as a supreme law or a common law over everyone." This reflects another important task for national leaders, who must seek to honor, and even encourage, local governments and economies, rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions.
He was an environmentalist, codifying "existing ideals by forbidding the hunting of animals between March and October during the breeding time." This ensured the preservation and sustainability of the Mongol's native lands and way of life. He recognized the importance of religion in the public square, offering tax exemptions to religious leaders and their property and excusing them from all types of public service. He eventually extended this to other essential professions like public servants, undertakers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and scholars. Of course, in our current moment, some of these professions are already well compensated for their work, but others, like teachers, could benefit from such a tax exemption.
There's no doubt that Genghis Khan was a brutal man with a bloody legacy. Yet joined to that violence was a shrewd political understanding that enabled him to create one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. He eschewed the traditional tribal respect for the elites in favor of the common man, he pursued policies that brought disparate peoples under a common banner, and he often avoided a scorched earth policy in favor of mercy to his enemies. Indeed, as long as enemy cities immediately surrendered to the Mongols, the inhabitants saw little change in their way of life. And as Weatherford notes, he sought to extend these lessons to his sons shortly before his death:
He tried to teach them that the first key to leadership was self-control, particularly mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion, and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead." He admonished them never to think of themselves as the strongest or smartest. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it, he warned. When the animals climb to the top of the mountain, they are even higher than it is.
Perhaps if American politicians were to embrace this side of the Great Khan, focusing on serving a greater ideal rather than relentless point-scoring , we might achieve the same level of national success, without the horrific bloodshed.
M_Mulligan , 21 minutes ago link
LetThemEatRand , 32 minutes ago linkChanging the direction of American politics from the continued descent into degeneracy and ahistoricity will be a dynastic task requiring us to teach our youngest generations about civics and civility and U.S. history all the way from the intellectual and historical events that led to the formation of the U.S. to the varied movements over the years that have either strengthened the social cohesion of our melting pot nation or provoked rot from the inside out.
Swallowing one's pride is the most difficult task of any political leader who tastes power even once. At that point the politician frequently craves the citizenry to get on bended knee and swallow the the arrogant decisions of the politician who has grown turgid from the lustful exceses of the governmental trough.
I realize this "American Conservative" author is trying to point out strengths of someone who he admits was also a tyrant, but there's a little too much much tyrant love for my taste.
Maybe strong leaders are exactly the problem, and maybe one of the reasons conservatives often have their pants on fire is their claim that they love freedom as they beg for law and order at the end of someone else's gun.
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Nov 15, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Todd Pierce November 14, 2018 at 2:51 pm
Mr. Chalk writes: The best political leaders are those who, however imperfectly, find a way to transcend a nation's many differences and appeal to a common cause, calling on all people, no matter how privileged, to participate in core activities that define citizenship.mrscracker , says: November 14, 2018 at 3:59 pmThe Great Khan also saw individuals not as autonomous, atomistic individuals untethered to their families and local communities, but rather as inextricably linked to them. For example, "the solitary individual had no legal existence outside the context of the family and the larger units to which it belonged; therefore the family carried responsibility of ensuring the correct behavior of its members to be a just Mongol, one had to live in a just community."
The guy who wrote this couldn't have said it better: The Doctrine of Fascism, by Benito Mussolini. He wrote, in pertinent part:
"In the Fascist conception of history, man is man only by virtue of the spiritual process to which he contributes as a member of the family, the social group, the nation, and in function of history to which all nations bring their contribution."
"Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity."
"The Fascist State organizes the nation, but it leaves the individual adequate elbow room. It has curtailed useless or harmful liberties while preserving those which are essential. In such matters the individual cannot be the judge, but the State only."
My only exposure to Mr. Chalk's educational institution, Christendom College, was with a friend's son who went there, and came back to Minnesota and argued with me, as an Army Officer, that, of course torture was permissible, Aquinas said so.
A Catholic priest whom I knew pointed out later that there had been some further developments in Catholic doctrine since Aquinas's pronouncements, even if he was a "Saint."
One of the characteristics of fascists, such as the self-confessed fascist, and Republican party icon, Leo Strauss, is to return philosophically to an earlier age when despotism ruled, and present that as a purer form of politics, before ideas of democracy arose, like Mr. Chalk's article suggests. This is not to ascribe fascist thought to Mr. Chalk but only to suggest he doesn't need to go all the way back to Genghis Khan for his political theory, the first half of the 20th Century was replete with similar ideas, in places like Germany, Italy, and Japan, to name three, all of whom were featured in numerous TV shows this past weekend in celebration of Veteran's Day.
Todd Pierce,Jake Garbus , says: November 14, 2018 at 5:10 pmI've had experience with Christendom College, too. One of my children graduated from there & received a wonderful education & made lifelong friends.
The little I know about China & other cultures in the East sounds similar to: "and the larger units to which it belonged; therefore the family carried responsibility of ensuring the correct behavior of its members to be a just Mongol, one had to live in a just community."
I think if you just replaced "Mongol" with "Chinese" here you might get the same idea.
That concept is a harder sell in the West where everything is about the individual but I think we could benefit from adapting that idea a little to our culture.
Jack Weatherford is an apologist for Genghis Khan and should not be the sole source life lessons that Genghis Khan offers. Go to primary sources to read about Mongol invasions from the vantage of the victims and their efforts to get out from under the Mongol yolk.H , says: November 14, 2018 at 6:09 pmGenghis Khan was from a nomadic people that made their living by grazing and raiding their neighbors. He raised that up a notch by conquering much of the known world of the day.
I have my doubts about Genghis Khan putting much value on the lives of public servants, undertakers, lawyers, teachers, and scholars. Perhaps doctors but medicine was not all that advanced in the 13c. He definitely prized craftsmen who could work with leather, fabric, and metal and particularly engineers whom he incorporated into his military campaigns.
This enlightened environmentalist may have spared the lives of animals but wantonly killed peasants and destroyed farmland.
Genghis Khan military strategy involved rapine, destruction, terror, torture, enslavement, and mass extermination, with death tolls unmatched by any other single person.
He destroyed civilizations leaving fields of bones where once there were buildings, libraries, churches, mosques, temples, and hospitals. A partial list of cities destroyed by Mongol conquest listed in in Wikipedia includes Balkh, Bamiyan, Herat, Kiev, Baghdad, Nishapur, Merv, Urgench, Lahore, Ryazan, Chernigov, Vladimir, and Samarkand.
Mr. Chalk would have it that Genghis Khan created one greatest empires the world has ever known. This was an empire of vassals, subject to communal punishment, and subject to periodic acts of savagery to test loyalty. It is not a model that the US should emulate.
Perhaps we can learn much more from Cyrus the Great (580-529 BC) the Persian benevolent emperor who declared the first charter of human rights in the history.Mark B. , says: November 14, 2018 at 6:20 pm
Contrary to Genghis Khan, he was very generous and kind to the conquered, who recognized him as a liberator and "Law-giver".
He respected their religion and culture. Genghis was the opposite of Cyrus. When he conquered Persia, he was extremely brutal."Weatherford notes: "He allowed groups to follow traditional law in their area, so long as it did not conflict with the Great Law, which functioned as a supreme law or a common law over everyone." This reflects another important task for national leaders, who must seek to honor, and even encourage, local governments and economies, rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions."Mont D. Law , says: November 14, 2018 at 6:54 pmI guess the Great Khan was a very fortunate man he did not have to deal with an uncontrollable globalized financial network serving banks and multinational corporations only.
The people over elites, yep. Is that not what the Great Trump promised?
This guy needs to get a job at Slate. He is pitch perfect.connecticut farmer , says: November 15, 2018 at 8:28 amThat said, killing 1/2 the people who disagree with you and terrorizing the rest into submission, has it's appeal.
Interesting article, though its relevance to our current unpleasantness is a bit hard to swallow. MacArthur considered Timujin/Genghis Khan to be the greatest military genius of all time. Can't argue against that assertion. To my knowledge, he never lost a single battle, and his Mongol empire became the largest in history, controlling over 60 percent of the Eurasian landmass (including China under his grandson, Kublai).mrscracker , says: November 15, 2018 at 9:24 amNevertheless, as Marcus Aurelius might have written "Where is Genghis Khan now?" And his empire? After he died, his descendants (Timujin's progeny was enormous) fell into quarreling among themselves. When another grandson, Mangu Kahn, was defeated by the great Sultan Baybars and the Egyptian Mamluks at the Battle of An Jalut, the empire began its slow recession.
Alexander, Napoleon and Hitler succumbed to the "Arrow of Time"–along with their empires. And in the latter case, the United States will suffer the same fate, as difficult as it may be for us to envision.
As Peter O'Toole's T.E. Lawrence said "Nothing is written." And nothing–is forever.
Mark B.JonF , says: November 15, 2018 at 10:10 am"Genghis Khan, but Immanuel Kant."
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******************I think it was meant as humor-a play on words: "can" vs "can't"
A brief historical note: the conquests of Russia, the Middle East and southern China happened under Genghis' successors .Stephen Reynolds , says: November 15, 2018 at 12:26 pmIn fairness one should take account of the responsibility of some of the conquered for the westward expansion of the Mongol Empire. The rules of diplomacy we expect today probably descend from the practice of the ancient Persian empires, but they had been adopted by the steppe dwellers long before the days of Genghis Khan.His most powerful neighbor to the west was the Khwarezmian Empire. The Shah of Khwarezmia gave ample casus belli to Genghis Khan, and not long after died a refugee on an island in the Caspian and had to be buried in his servant's shirt as he had none of his own. There were further consequences.
The Shah's mother was a princess of the Qipchak nomads, who dominated the western steppe, and they thus became enemies of the Mongols. After the fall of Khwarezmia, Genghis Khan sent a reconnaissance force to scope out the western steppe and neighboring regions, two divisions led by two of his best generals but with no mission to conquer anyone or to fight unless necessary.
They needed to cross the Caucasus Mountains from south to north, but were impeded first by the Georgians (who had suffered greatly at the hands of the Khwarezmians but did not regard the Mongols with gratitude) and then by a Qipchak contingent who blockaded the pass. So the Mongols first destroyed the Georgian army, and then tricked thi Qipchaks with bribes, which they promptly took back once they were through the pass.
They then sent ambassadors to the major cities of Rus', each ruled by its own prince, to assure them that they wanted peace with Rus' and intended to stay on the steppe. Many of the princes, however, had taken wives from the Qipchak nobility (in addition to political advantages secured by such unions, it seems that Qipchak girls were regarded as knowing how to treat a fellow right), and Qipchaks in the princely courts told them that the Mongols were dangerous enemies.
Thereupon the princes had the Mongol ambassadors thrown from the city walls (probably by the Qipchaks). This gross violation of diplomatic norms put Rus' on the Mongols' fecal register permanently. Worse yet, the Princes of a number of major cities were incited by the Qipchak to take their armies and drive off the Mongols.
The latter staged a feigned retreat and led the Rus' forces a merry chase until they had them with their backs to the River Kalka. Then they did what the Rus' princes could hardly have expected (the Qipchaks should have, but were blinded by thirst for revenge)–they turned and slaughtered the Rus' armies.
Then they went back and reported to the Great Khan, fulfulling their orders exactly. When under his successor Ögödei the Mongols returned to Rus', they regarded the Rus'ians as a low-life lot who violated basic rules of decency in international relations, had no grasp of such military basics as unity of command, and had needlessly made themselves enemies of the Great Khan and of the Blue Heaven.
The Khwarezmian Shah, Queen Tamara of Georgia, and the princes of Rus' could at least have treated the Mongols politely. It might have saved them a lot of trouble.
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Nov 02, 2018 | www.wsws.org
Pelosi's deputy in the House, Steny Hoyer, sums up the right-wing policies of the Democrats, declaring: "His [Trump's] objectives are objectives that we share. If he really means that, then there is an opening for us to work together."
So much for the moral imperative of voting for the Democrats to stop Trump! As Obama said following Trump's election, the Democrats and Republicans are "on the same team" and their differences amount to an "intramural scrimmage." They are on the team of, and owned lock stock and barrel by, the American corporate-financial oligarchy, personified by Trump.
The Democrats are, moreover, politically responsible for the rise of Trump. The Obama administration paved the way for Trump by implementing the pro-corporate (Wall Street bailout), pro-war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, drone killings) and anti-democratic (mass surveillance, persecution of Snowden, Assange, Manning) policies that Trump is continuing and intensifying. And by breaking all his election promises and carrying out austerity policies against the working class, Obama enabled the billionaire gangster Trump to make an appeal to sections of workers devastated by deindustrialization, presenting himself as the anti-establishment spokesman for the "forgotten man."
This was compounded by the right-wing Clinton candidacy, which exuded contempt for the working class and appealed for support to the military and CIA and wealthy middle-class layers obsessed with identity politics. Sanders' endorsement of Clinton gave Trump an open field to exploit discontent among impoverished social layers.
The same process is taking place internationally. While strikes and other expressions of working class opposition are growing and broad masses are moving to the left, the right-wing policies of supposedly "left" establishment parties are enabling far-right and neo-fascist forces to gain influence and power in countries ranging from Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland to Brazil.
As for Gay's injunction to vote "pragmatically," this is a crude promotion of the bankrupt politics that are brought forward in every election to keep workers tied to the capitalist two-party system. "You have only two choices. That is the reality, whether you like it or not." And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war.
The Democratic Party long ago earned the designation "graveyard of social protest movements," and for good reason. From the Populist movement of the late 19th century, to the semi-insurrectional industrial union movement of the 1930s, to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, to the mass anti-war protest movements of the 1960s and the eruption of international protests against the Iraq War in the early 2000s -- every movement against the depredations of American capitalism has been aborted and strangled by being channeled behind the Democratic Party.
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Nov 08, 2018 | www.sott.net
Billed as a 'referendum on Trump's presidency', the US Midterm Elections drew an unusually high number of Americans to the polls yesterday. The minor loss, from Trump's perspective, of majority Republican control of the lower House of Representatives, suggests, if anything, the opposite of what the media and establishment want you to believe it means.An important clue to why the American media has declared permanent open season on this man transpired during a sometimes heated post-elections press conference at the White House yesterday. First, CNN's obnoxious Jim Acosta insisted on bringing up the patently absurd allegations of 'Russia collusion' and refused to shut up and sit down. Soon after, PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor joined her colleagues in asking Trump another loaded question , this time on the 'white nationalism' canard:
Alcindor : On the campaign trail you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists...The US media is still "not even wrong" on Trump and why he won the 2016 election. You know something is fundamentally wrong when the average high school drop-out MAGA-hat-wearing Texan or Alabaman working a blue collar job has more sense, can SEE much more clearly, than the average university-educated, ideology-soaked, East Coast liberal.Trump : I don't know why you'd say this. It's such a racist question.
Alcindor : There are some people who say that now the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?
Trump : Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African Americans? That's such a racist question. I love our country. You have nationalists, and you have globalists . I also love the world, and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems ...
Trump is a "nationalist". More or less every administration previous to his, going back at least 100 years, was "globalist". For much of its history, the USA has been known around the world as a very patriotic (i.e., nationalist) country. Americans in general had a reputation for spontaneous chants of "USA! USA! USA!", flying the Stars And Stripes outside their houses and being very proud of their country. Sure, from time to time, that pissed off people a little in other countries but, by and large, Americans' patriotism was seen as endearing, if a little naive, by most foreigners.
Globalism, on the other hand, as it relates to the USA, is the ideology that saturates the Washington establishment think-tanks, career politicians and bureaucrats, who are infected with the toxic belief that America can and should dominate the world . This is presented to the public as so much American largess and magnanimity, but it is, in reality, a means to increasing the power and wealth of the Washington elite.
Consider Obama's two terms, during which he continued the massively wasteful (of taxpayer's money) and destructive (of foreigners' lives and land) "War on Terror". Consider that he appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, who proceeded to joyfully bomb Libya back to the stone age and murder its leader. Consider that, under Obama, US-Russia relations reached an all-time low, with repeated attacks (of various sorts) on the Russian president, government and people, and the attempted trashing of Russia's international reputation in the eyes of the American people. Consider the Obama regime's hugely destructive war waged (mostly by proxy) on the Syrian people. Consider the Obama era coup in Ukraine that, in a few short months, set that country's prospects and development back several decades and further soured relations with Russia.
These are but a few examples of the "globalism" that drives the Washington establishment. Who, in their right mind, would support it? (I won't get into what constitutes a 'right mind', but we can all agree it does not involve destroying other nations for profit). The problem however, is that the Washington elite want - no, NEED - the American people to support such military adventurism, and what better way to do that than by concocting false "Russian collusion" allegations against Trump and having the media program the popular mind with exactly the opposite of the truth - that Trump was a "traitor" to the American people.
The only thing Trump is a traitor to is the self-serving globally expansionist interests of a cabal of Washington insiders . This little maneuver amounted to a '2 for 1' for the Washington establishment. They simultaneously demonized Trump (impeding his 'nationalist' agenda) while advancing their own globalist mission - in this case aimed at pushing back Russia.
Words and their exact meanings matter . To be able to see through the lies of powerful vested interests and get to the truth, we need to know when those same powerful vested interests are exploiting our all-too-human proclivity to be coerced and manipulated by appeals to emotion.
So the words "nationalist" and "nationalism", as they relate to the USA, have never been "dirty" words until they were made that way by the "globalist" element of the Washington establishment (i.e., most of it) by associating it with fringe Nazi and "white supremacist" elements in US society that pose no risk to anyone, (except to the extent that the mainstream media can convince the general population otherwise). The US 'Deep State' did this in response to the election of Trump the "nationalist" and their fears that their globalist, exceptionalist vision for the USA - a vision that is singularly focused on their own narrow interests at the expense of the American people and many others around the world - would be derailed by Trump attempting to put the interests of the American people first .
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Nov 05, 2018 | www.unz.com
With Jair Bolsonaro's victory in Brazil's presidential election at the weekend, the doom-mongers among western elites are out in force once again. His success, like Donald Trump's, has confirmed a long-held prejudice: that the people cannot be trusted; that, when empowered, they behave like a mob driven by primitive urges; that the unwashed masses now threaten to bring down the carefully constructed walls of civilisation.
The guardians of the status quo refused to learn the lesson of Trump's election, and so it will be with Bolsonaro. Rather than engaging the intellectual faculties they claim as their exclusive preserve, western "analysts" and "experts" are again averting their gaze from anything that might help them understand what has driven our supposed democracies into the dark places inhabited by the new demagogues. Instead, as ever, the blame is being laid squarely at the door of social media.
Social media and fake news are apparently the reasons Bolsonaro won at the ballot box. Without the gatekeepers in place to limit access to the "free press" – itself the plaything of billionaires and global corporations, with brands and a bottom line to protect – the rabble has supposedly been freed to give expression to their innate bigotry.
Here is Simon Jenkins, a veteran British gatekeeper – a former editor of the Times of London who now writes a column in the Guardian – pontificating on Bolsonaro:
"The lesson for champions of open democracy is glaring. Its values cannot be taken for granted. When debate is no longer through regulated media, courts and institutions, politics will default to the mob. Social media – once hailed as an agent of global concord – has become the purveyor of falsity, anger and hatred. Its algorithms polarise opinion. Its pseudo-information drives argument to the extremes."
This is now the default consensus of the corporate media, whether in its rightwing incarnations or of the variety posing on the liberal-left end of the spectrum like the Guardian. The people are stupid, and we need to be protected from their base instincts. Social media, it is claimed, has unleashed humanity's id.
Selling plutocracy
There is a kind of truth in Jenkins' argument, even if it is not the one he intended. Social media did indeed liberate ordinary people. For the first time in modern history, they were not simply the recipients of official, sanctioned information. They were not only spoken down to by their betters, they could answer back – and not always as deferentially as the media class expected.
Clinging to their old privileges, Jenkins and his ilk are rightly unnerved. They have much to lose.
But that also means they are far from dispassionate observers of the current political scene. They are deeply invested in the status quo, in the existing power structures that have kept them well-paid courtiers of the corporations that dominate the planet.
Bolsonaro, like Trump, is not a disruption of the current neoliberal order; he is an intensification or escalation of its worst impulses. He is its logical conclusion.
The plutocrats who run our societies need figureheads, behind whom they can conceal their unaccountable power. Until now they preferred the slickest salespeople, ones who could sell wars as humanitarian intervention rather than profit-driven exercises in death and destruction; the unsustainable plunder of natural resources as economic growth; the massive accumulation of wealth, stashed in offshore tax havens, as the fair outcome of a free market; the bailouts funded by ordinary taxpayers to stem economic crises they had engineered as necessary austerity; and so on.
A smooth-tongued Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were the favoured salespeople, especially in an age when the elites had persuaded us of a self-serving argument: that ghetto-like identities based on colour or gender mattered far more than class. It was divide-and-rule dressed up as empowerment. The polarisation now bewailed by Jenkins was in truth stoked and rationalised by the very corporate media he so faithfully serves.
Fear of the domino effect
Despite their professed concern, the plutocrats and their media spokespeople much prefer a far-right populist like Trump or Bolsonaro to a populist leader of the genuine left. They prefer the social divisions fuelled by neo-fascists like Bolsonaro, divisions that protect their wealth and privilege, over the unifying message of a socialist who wants to curtail class privilege, the real basis of the elite's power.
The true left – whether in Brazil, Venezuela, Britain or the US – does not control the police or military, the financial sector, the oil industries, the arms manufacturers, or the corporate media. It was these very industries and institutions that smoothed the path to power for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Trump in the US.
Former socialist leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela were bound to fail not so much because of their flaws as individuals but because powerful interests rejected their right to rule. These socialists never had control over the key levers of power, the key resources. Their efforts were sabotaged – from within and without – from the moment of their election.
Local elites in Latin America are tied umbilically to US elites, who in turn are determined to make sure any socialist experiment in their backyard fails – as a way to prevent a much-feared domino effect, one that might seed socialism closer to home.
The media, the financial elites, the armed forces were never servants of the socialist governments that have been struggling to reform Latin America. The corporate world has no interest either in building proper housing in place of slums or in dragging the masses out of the kind of poverty that fuels the drug gangs that Bolsonaro claims he will crush through more violence.
Bolsonaro will not face any of the institutional obstacles Lula da Silva or Chavez needed to overcome. No one in power will stand in his way as he institutes his "reforms". No one will stop him creaming off Brazil's wealth for his corporate friends. As in Pinochet's Chile, Bolsonaro can rest assured that his kind of neo-fascism will live in easy harmony with neoliberalism.
Immune system
If you want to understand the depth of the self-deception of Jenkins and other media gatekeepers, contrast Bolsonaro's political ascent to that of Jeremy Corbyn, the modest social democratic leader of Britain's Labour party. Those like Jenkins who lament the role of social media – they mean you, the public – in promoting leaders like Bolsonaro are also the media chorus who have been wounding Corbyn day after day, blow by blow, for three years – since he accidentally slipped past safeguards intended by party bureacrats to keep someone like him from power.
The supposedly liberal Guardian has been leading that assault. Like the rightwing media, it has shown its absolute determination to stop Corbyn at all costs, using any pretext.
Within days of Corbyn's election to the Labour leadership, the Times newspaper – the voice of the British establishment – published an article quoting a general, whom it refused to name, warning that the British army's commanders had agreed they would sabotage a Corbyn government. The general strongly hinted that there would be a military coup first.
We are not supposed to reach the point where such threats – tearing away the façade of western democracy – ever need to be implemented. Our pretend democracies were created with immune systems whose defences are marshalled to eliminate a threat like Corbyn much earlier.
Once he moved closer to power, however, the rightwing corporate media was forced to deploy the standard tropes used against a left leader: that he was incompetent, unpatriotic, even treasonous.
But just as the human body has different immune cells to increase its chances of success, the corporate media has faux-liberal-left agents like the Guardian to complement the right's defences. The Guardian sought to wound Corbyn through identity politics, the modern left's Achille's heel. An endless stream of confected crises about anti-semitism were intended to erode the hard-earned credit Corbyn had accumulated over decades for his anti-racism work.
Slash-and-burn politics
Why is Corbyn so dangerous? Because he supports the right of workers to a dignified life, because he refuses to accept the might of the corporations, because he implies that a different way of organising our societies is possible. It is a modest, even timid programme he articulates, but even so it is far too radical either for the plutocratic class that rules over us or for the corporate media that serves as its propaganda arm.
The truth ignored by Jenkins and these corporate stenographers is that if you keep sabotaging the programmes of a Chavez, a Lula da Silva, a Corbyn or a Bernie Sanders, then you get a Bolsonaro, a Trump, an Orban.
It is not that the masses are a menace to democracy. It is rather that a growing proportion of voters understand that a global corporate elite has rigged the system to accrue for itself ever greater riches. It is not social media that is polarising our societies. It is rather that the determination of the elites to pillage the planet until it has no more assets to strip has fuelled resentment and destroyed hope. It is not fake news that is unleashing the baser instincts of the lower orders. Rather, it is the frustration of those who feel that change is impossible, that no one in power is listening or cares.
Social media has empowered ordinary people. It has shown them that they cannot trust their leaders, that power trumps justice, that the elite's enrichment requires their poverty. They have concluded that, if the rich can engage in slash-and-burn politics against the planet, our only refuge, they can engage in slash-and-burn politics against the global elite.
Are they choosing wisely in electing a Trump or Bolsonaro? No. But the liberal guardians of the status quo are in no position to judge them. For decades, all parts of the corporate media have helped to undermine a genuine left that could have offered real solutions, that could have taken on and beaten the right, that could have offered a moral compass to a confused, desperate and disillusioned public.
Jenkins wants to lecture the masses about their depraved choices while he and his paper steer them away from any politician who cares about their welfare, who fights for a fairer society, who prioritises mending what is broken.
The western elites will decry Bolsonaro in the forlorn and cynical hope of shoring up their credentials as guardians of the existing, supposedly moral order. But they engineered him. Bolsonaro is their monster.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
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Nov 05, 2018 | www.truthdig.com
Extracted from Scum vs. Scum by Chris Hedge
Of course, we are all supposed to vote Democratic to halt the tide of Trump fascism. But should the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, hate speech and violence as a tool for intimidation and control will increase, with much of it directed, as we saw with the pipe bombs intended to decapitate the Democratic Party leadership, toward prominent Democratic politicians and critics of Donald Trump. Should the white man's party of the president retain control of the House and the Senate, violence will still be the favored instrument of political control as the last of democratic protections are stripped from us. Either way we are in for it.
Trump is a clownish and embarrassing tool of the kleptocrats. His faux populism is a sham. Only the rich like his tax cuts, his refusal to raise the minimum wage and his effort to destroy Obamacare. All he has left is hate. And he will use it. Which is not to say that, if only to throw up some obstacle to Trump, you shouldn't vote for the Democratic scum, tools of the war industry and the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry, as opposed to the Republican scum. But Democratic control of the House will do very little to halt our descent into corporate tyranny, especially with another economic crisis brewing on Wall Street. The rot inside the American political system is deep and terminal.
The Democrats, who refuse to address the social inequality they helped orchestrate and that has given rise to Trump, are the party of racial and ethnic inclusivity, identity politics, Wall Street and the military. Their core battle cry is: We are not Trump! This is ultimately a losing formula. It was adopted by Hillary Clinton, who is apparently weighing another run for the presidency after we thought we had thrust a stake through her political heart. It is the agenda of the well-heeled East Coast and West Coast elites who want to instill corporate fascism with a friendly face.
Bertram Gross (1912-1997) in "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of American Power" warned us that fascism always has two looks. One is paternal, benevolent, entertaining and kind. The other is embodied in the executioner's sadistic leer. Janus-like, fascism seeks to present itself to a captive public as a force for good and moral renewal. It promises protection against enemies real and invented. But denounce its ideology, challenge its power, demand freedom from fascism's iron grip, and you are mercilessly crushed. Gross knew that if the United States' form of fascism, expressed through corporate tyranny, was able to effectively mask its true intentions behind its "friendly" face we would be stripped of power, shorn of our most cherished rights and impoverished. He has been proved correct.
"Looking at the present, I see a more probable future: a new despotism creeping slowly across America," Gross wrote. "Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion."
No totalitarian state has mastered propaganda better than the corporate state. Our press has replaced journalism with trivia, feel-good stories, jingoism and celebrity gossip. The banal and the absurd, delivered by cheery corporate courtiers, saturate the airwaves. Our emotions are skillfully manipulated around manufactured personalities and manufactured events. We are, at the same time, offered elaborate diversionary spectacles including sporting events, reality television and absurdist political campaigns. Trump is a master of this form of entertainment. Our emotional and intellectual energy is swallowed up by the modern equivalent of the Roman arena. Choreographed political vaudeville, which costs corporations billions of dollars, is called free elections. Cliché-ridden slogans, which assure us that the freedoms we cherish remain sacrosanct, dominate our national discourse as these freedoms are stripped from us by judicial and legislative fiat. It is a vast con game.
You cannot use the word "liberty" when your government, as ours does, watches you 24 hours a day and stores all of your personal information in government computers in perpetuity. You cannot use the word "liberty" when you are the most photographed and monitored population in human history. You cannot use the word "liberty" when it is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs or General Dynamics. You cannot use the word "liberty" when the state empowers militarized police to use indiscriminate lethal force against unarmed citizens in the streets of American cities. You cannot use the word "liberty" when 2.3 million citizens, mostly poor people of color, are held in the largest prison system on earth. This is the relationship between a master and a slave. The choice is between whom we want to clamp on our chains -- a jailer who mouths politically correct bromides or a racist, Christian fascist. Either way we are shackled.
Gross understood that unchecked corporate power would inevitably lead to corporate fascism. It is the natural consequence of the ruling ideology of neoliberalism that consolidates power and wealth into the hands of a tiny group of oligarchs. The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin , refining Gross' thesis, would later characterize this corporate tyranny or friendly fascism as "inverted totalitarianism." It was, as Gross and Wolin pointed out, characterized by anonymity. It purported to pay fealty to electoral politics, the Constitution and the iconography and symbols of American patriotism but internally had seized all of the levers of power to render the citizen impotent. Gross warned that we were being shackled incrementally. Most would not notice until they were in total bondage. He wrote that "a friendly fascist power structure in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, or today's Japan would be far more sophisticated than the 'caesarism' of fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan. It would need no charismatic dictator nor even a titular head it would require no one-party rule, no mass fascist party, no glorification of the State, no dissolution of legislatures, no denial of reason. Rather, it would come slowly as an outgrowth of present trends in the Establishment."
Gross foresaw that technological advances in the hands of corporations would be used to trap the public in what he called "cultural ghettoization" so that "almost every individual would get a personalized sequence of information injections at any time of the day -- or night." This is what, of course, television, our electronic devices and the internet have done. He warned that we would be mesmerized by the entertaining shadows on the wall of the Platonic cave as we were enslaved.
Gross knew that the most destructive force against the body politic would be the war profiteers and the militarists. He saw how they would siphon off the resources of the state to wage endless war, a sum that now accounts for half of all discretionary spending. And he grasped that warfare is the natural extension of corporatism. He wrote:
Under the militarism of German, Italian, and Japanese fascism violence was openly glorified. It was applied regionally -- by the Germans in Europe and England, the Italians in the Mediterranean, the Japanese in Asia. In battle, it was administered by professional militarists who, despite many conflicts with politicians, were guided by old-fashioned standards of duty, honor, country, and willingness to risk their own lives.
The emerging militarism of friendly fascism is somewhat different. It is global in scope. It involves weapons of doomsday proportions, something that Hitler could dream of but never achieve. It is based on an integration between industry, science, and the military that the old-fashioned fascists could never even barely approximate. It points toward equally close integration among military, paramilitary, and civilian elements. Many of the civilian leaders -- such as Zbigniew Brzezinski or Paul Nitze -- tend to be much more bloodthirsty than any top brass. In turn, the new-style military professionals tend to become corporate-style entrepreneurs who tend to operate -- as Major Richard A. Gabriel and Lieutenant Colonel Paul L. Savage have disclosed -- in accordance with the ethics of the marketplace. The old buzzwords of duty, honor, and patriotism are mainly used to justify officer subservience to the interests of transnational corporations and the continuing presentation of threats to some corporate investments as threats to the interest of the American people as a whole. Above all, in sharp contrast with classic fascism's glorification of violence, the friendly fascist orientation is to sanitize, even hide, the greater violence of modern warfare behind such "value-free" terms as "nuclear exchange," "counterforce" and "flexible response," behind the huge geographical distances between the senders and receivers of destruction through missiles or even on the "automated battlefield," and the even greater psychological distances between the First World elites and the ordinary people who might be consigned to quick or slow death.
We no longer live in a functioning democracy. Self-styled liberals and progressives, as they do in every election cycle, are urging us to vote for the Democrats, although the Democratic Party in Europe would be classified as a right-wing party, and tell us to begin to build progressive movements the day after the election. Only no one ever builds these movements. The Democratic Party knows there is no price to pay for selling us out and its abject service to corporations. It knows the left and liberals become supplicants in every election cycle. And this is why the Democratic Party drifts further and further to the right and we become more and more irrelevant. If you stand for something, you have to be willing to fight for it. But there is no fight in us.
The elites, Republican and Democrat, belong to the same club. We are not in it. Take a look at the flight roster of the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein , who was accused of prostituting dozens of underage girls and ended up spending 13 months in prison on a single count. He flew political insiders from both parties and the business world to his secluded Caribbean island, known as "Orgy Island," on his jet, which the press nicknamed "the Lolita Express." Some of the names on his flight roster, which usually included unidentified women, were Bill Clinton, who took dozens of trips, Alan Dershowitz , former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Larry Summers, the Candide -like Steven Pinker , whose fairy dust ensures we are getting better and better, and Britain's Prince Andrew. Epstein was also a friend of Trump, whom he visited at Mar-a-Lago.
We live on the precipice, the eve of the deluge. Past civilizations have crumbled in the same way, although as Hegel understood, the only thing we learn from history is "that people and governments never have learned anything from history." We will not arrest the decline if the Democrats regain control of the House. At best we will briefly slow it. The corporate engines of pillage, oppression, ecocide and endless war are untouchable. Corporate power will do its dirty work regardless of which face -- the friendly fascist face of the Democrats or the demented visage of the Trump Republicans -- is pushed out front. If you want real change, change that means something, then mobilize, mobilize, mobilize, not for one of the two political parties but to rise up and destroy the corporate structures that ensure our doom.
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Nov 04, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
LP: You've recently highlighted that this is a tricky time for historians and those who want to examine the past, like filmmakers. Well-intentioned people who want to confront the injustices of history may end up replacing one set of myths for another. You point out the distortion of history in films like "Selma" which offer uplifting narratives about black experiences but tend to leave out or alter meaningful facts, such as the ways in which blacks and whites have worked together. This is ostensibly done to avoid a "white savior" narrative but you indicate that it may serve to support other ideas that are also troubling.
AR: Exactly, and in ways that are completely compatible with neoliberalism as a style of contemporary governance. It boils down to the extent to which the notion that group disparities have come to exhaust the ways that people think and talk about inequality and injustice in America now.
It's entirely possible to resolve disparities without challenging the fundamental structures that reproduce inequalities more broadly. As my friend Walter Benn Michaels and I have been saying for at least a decade, by the standard of disparity as the norm or the ideal of social justice, a society in which 1% of the population controls more than 90% of the resources would be just, so long as the 1% is made up non-whites, non-straight people, women, and so on in proportions that roughly match their representation in the general population.
It completely rationalizes neoliberalism. You see this in contemporary discussions about gentrification, for example. What ends up being called for is something like showing respect for the aboriginal habitus and practices and involving the community in the process. But what does it mean to involve the community in the process? It means opening up spaces for contractors, black and Latino in particular, in the gentrified areas who purport to represent the interests of the populations that are being displaced. But that has no impact on the logic of displacement. It just expands access to the trough, basically.
I've gotten close to some young people who are nonetheless old school type leftists in the revitalized Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and I've been struck to see that the identitarian tendency in DSA has been actively opposing participation in the Medicare for All campaign that the national organization adopted. The argument is that it's bad because there are disparities that it doesn't address. In the first place, that's not as true as they think it might be, but there's also the fact that they can't or won't see how a struggle for universal health care could be the most effective context for trying to struggle against structural disparities. It's just mind-boggling.
LP: If politicians continue to focus on issues like race, xenophobia, and homophobia without delivering practical solutions to the economic problems working people face, from health care costs to the retirement crisis to student debt, could we end up continuing to move in the direction of fascism? I don't use the word lightly.
AR: I don't either. And I really agree with you. I was a kid in a basically red household in the McCarthy era. I have no illusions about what the right is capable of, what the bourgeoisie is capable of, and what the liberals are capable of. In the heyday of the New Left, when people were inclined to throw the fascist label around, I couldn't get into it. But for the first time in my life, I think it's not crazy to talk about it. You have to wonder if Obama, who never really offered us a thing in the way of a new politics except his race, after having done that twice, had set the stage for Trump and whatever else might be coming.
hemeantwell , November 3, 2018 at 7:27 am
Thanks, Yves. For decades now Reed has set the standard for integrating class-based politics with anti-racism. I only wish Barbara Fields, whom he mentions, could get as much air time.
Doug , November 3, 2018 at 7:33 am
Thank you for posting this outstanding interview.
Those who argue for identity-based tests of fairness (e.g. all categories of folks are proportionately represented in the 1%) fail to think through means and ends. They advocate the ends of such proportionality. They don't get that broad measures to seriously reduce income and wealth inequality (that is, a class approach) are powerful means to the very end they wish for. If, e.g., the bottom 50% actually had half (heck, even 30 to 40%) of income and wealth, the proportionality of different groups in any socioeconomic tier would be much higher than it is today.
There are other means as well. But the point is that identity-driven folks strip their own objective of it's most useful tools for it's own accomplishment.
flora , November 3, 2018 at 6:54 pm
+1.
Thanks to NC for posting this interview.The Rev Kev , November 3, 2018 at 9:18 am
In reading this, my mind was drawn back to an article that was in links recently about a Tea Party politician that ended up being sent to the slammer. He was outraged to learn that at the prison that he was at, the blacks and the whites were deliberately set against each other in order to make it easier for the guards to rule the prison.
It is a bit like this in this article when you see people being unable to get past the black/white thing and realize that the real struggle is against the elite class that rules them all. I am willing to bet that if more than a few forgot the whole Trump-supporters-are-racists meme and saw the economic conditions that pushed them to vote the way that they did, then they would find common cause with people that others would write off as deplorable and therefore unsalvageable.Jim Thomson , November 3, 2018 at 11:21 am
Howard Zinn, in " A Peoples' History of the United States" makes a similar argument about the origins of racism in southern colonial America. The plantation owners and slave owners promoted racism among the working class whites towards blacks to prevent them ( the working class blacks and whites) from making common cause against the aristocratic economic system that oppressed both whites and blacks who did not own property.
The origin of militias was to organize lower class whites to protect the plantation owners from slave revolts.
The entire book is an eye-opening story of class struggle throughout US history.JBird4049 , November 3, 2018 at 2:24 pm
The origin of militias was to organize lower class whites to protect the plantation owners from slave revolts.
The militias were the bulk of the military, if the not the military, for large periods of time for all of the British American Colonies for centuries. The colonists were in fairly isolated, often backwater, places for much of the time. Between the constant small scale warfare with the natives and the various threats from the French and Spanish military, there was a need for some form of local (semi) organized military. It was the British government's understandable belief that the colonists should pay at least some of the expensive costs of the soldiers and forts that were put in place to protect them during and after the Seven Years War that was the starting step to the revolution; the origins of modern American policing especially in the South has its genesis in the Slave Patrols although there was some form of police from the start throughout the Colonies form the very beginning even if it was just a local sheriff. The constant theme of the police's murderous brutality is a legacy of that. The Second Amendment is a result of both the colonists/revolutionarie's loathing, even hatred, of a potentially dictatorial standing army of any size and the slave holders' essential need to control the slaves and to a lesser degree the poor whites.
jrs , November 3, 2018 at 2:10 pm
people gang up (in racial groups – maybe that's just easiest though it seems to have systematic encouragement) in prison for protection I think. The protection is not purely from guards. There are riots in which one could get seriously injured (stabbed), one could get attacked otherwise etc.. Because basic physical safety of one's person is not something they provide in prison, maybe quite deliberately so.
"I am willing to bet that if more than a few forgot the whole Trump-supporters-are-racists meme and saw the economic conditions that pushed them to vote the way that they did, then they would find common cause with people that others would write off as deplorable and therefore unsalvageable."
In those for whom poverty caused them to vote for Trump. But some voted for Trump due to wealth. And whites overall have more wealth than blacks and so overall (not every individual) are the beneficiaries of unearned wealth and privilege and that too influences their view of the world (it causes them to side more with the status quo). Blacks are the most economically liberal group in America. The thing is can one really try simultaneously to understand even some of say the black experience in America and try hard to understand the Trump voter at the same time? Because if a minority perceives those who voted for Trump as a personal threat to them are they wrong? If they perceive Republican economic policies (and many have not changed under Trump such as cutting government) as a personal threat to them are they wrong? So some whites find it easier to sympathize with Trump voters, well they would wouldn't they, as the problems of poor whites more directly relate to problems they can understand. But so what?
Todde , November 4, 2018 at 7:21 am
Lol. He went to a minimum security federal prison, or daycare as we call it.
Ots tax cheats and drug dealers, not a lot of racial activity goes on there.
Livius Drusus , November 3, 2018 at 9:50 am
I am glad that Reed mentioned the quasi-religious nature of identity politics, especially in its liberal form. Michael Lind made a similar observation:
As a lapsed Methodist myself, I think there is also a strong undercurrent of Protestantism in American identity politics, particularly where questions of how to promote social justice in a post-racist society are concerned. Brazil and the United States are both former slave societies, with large black populations that have been frozen out of wealth and economic opportunity. In the United States, much of the discussion about how to repair the damage done by slavery and white supremacy involves calls on whites to examine themselves and confess their moral flaws -- a very Protestant approach, which assumes that the way to establish a good society is to ensure that everybody has the right moral attitude. It is my impression that the left in Brazil, lacking the Protestant puritan tradition, is concerned more with practical programs, like the bolsa familia -- a cash grant to poor families -- than with attitudinal reforms among the privileged.
https://thesmartset.com/what-politics-isnt/
Many white liberals are mainline Protestants or former Protestants and I think they bring their religious sensibilities to their particular brand of liberalism. You can see it in the way that many liberals claim that we cannot have economic justice until we eliminate racist attitudes as when Hillary Clinton stated that breaking up the big banks won't end racism. Of course, if we define racism as a sinful attitude it is almost impossible to know if we have eliminated it or if we can even eliminate it at all.
Clinton and liberals like her make essentially the same argument that conservatives make when they say that we cannot have big economic reforms because the problem is really greed. Once you define the problem as one of sin then you can't really do anything to legislate against it. Framing political problems as attitudinal is a useful way to protect powerful interests. How do you regulate attitudes? How do you break up a sinful mind? How can you even know if a person has racism on the brain but not economic anxiety? Can you even separate the two? Politicians need to take voters as they are and not insist that they justify themselves before voting for them.
Sparkling , November 3, 2018 at 1:16 pm
As a former Catholic, this post is absolutely correct on every possible level. Salvation by works or salvation by faith alone?
flora , November 3, 2018 at 9:54 pm
I thought this reference to the Protestant way of self-justification or absolving oneself without talking about class in the US is true but was perhaps the weakest point. The financial elites justify their position and excuse current inequalities and injustices visiting on the 99% by whatever is the current dominate culturally approved steps in whatever country. In the US – Protestant heritage; in India – not Protestant heritage; in Italy – Catholic heritage, etc. Well, of course they do. This isn't surprising in the least. Each country's elites excuse themselves in a way that prevents change by whatever excuses are culturally accepted.
I think talking about the Protestant heritage in the US is a culturing interesting artifact of this time and this place, but runs the danger of creating another "identity" issue in place of class and financial issues if the wider world's elite and similar self excuse by non-Protestant cultures aren't included in the example. Think of all the ways the various religions have been and are used to justify economic inequality. Without the wider scope the religious/cultural point risks becoming reduced to another "identity" argument; whereas, his overall argument is that "identity" is a distraction from class and economic inequality issues. my 2 cents.Left in Wisconsin , November 3, 2018 at 10:10 am
The key point is that it is all about shutting down/shouting over class-based analysis. It is negative identity politics – "anti-intersectionality."
J Sterling , November 3, 2018 at 11:15 am
Yes. I'm convinced the reason for all the different flavors of privilege was to drown the original privilege–class privilege.
Carey , November 3, 2018 at 6:11 pm
Yes, as the dissemblings in the Paul Krugman column linked within this essay show so well.
Norb , November 3, 2018 at 11:20 am
Chris Hedges has been warning about the rise of American Fascism for years, and his warnings are coming to fruition- and still, the general population fails to recognize the danger. The evils and violence that are the hallmarks of fascist rule are for other people, not Americans. The terms America and Freedom are so ingrained in the minds of citizens that the terms are synonymous. Reality is understood and interpreted through this distorted lens. People want and need to believe this falsehood and resist any messenger trying to enlighten them to a different interpretation of reality- the true view is just to painful to contemplate.
The horrors of racism offer a nugget of truth that can misdirect any effort to bring about systemic change. Like the flow of water finding the path of least resistance, racist explanations for current social problems creates a channel of thought that is difficult to alter. This simple single mindedness prevents a more holistic and complicated interpretation to take hold in the public mind. It is the easy solution for all sides- the tragedy is that violence, in the end, sorts out the "winners". The world becomes a place where competing cultures are constantly at each others throats.
Falling in the racism/ identity politics trap offers the elite many avenues to leverage their power, not the least of which is that when all else fails, extreme violence can be resorted to. The left/progressives have become powerless because they fail to understand this use of ultimate force and have not prepared their followers to deal with it. Compromise has been the strategy for decades and as time has proven, only leads to more exploitation. Life becomes a personal choice between exploiting others, or being exploited. The whole system reeks of hypocrisy because the real class divisions are never discussed or understood for what they are. This seems to be a cyclical process, where the real leaders of revolutionary change are exterminated or compromised, then the dissatisfaction in the working classes is left to build until the next crisis point is reached.
WWIII is already under way and the only thing left is to see if the imperialist ideology will survive or not. True class struggle should lead to world peace- not world domination. Fascists are those that seek war as a means of violent expansion and extermination to suit their own ends. Hope for humanity rests in the idea of a multipolar world- the end of imperialism.
Agressive war is the problem, both on the small social scale and the larger stage between nations. The main question is if citizens will allow themselves to be swept up into the deceptions that make war possible, or defend themselves and whatever community they can form to ensure that mass destruction can be brought under control.
The real crisis point for America will be brought about by the loss of foreign wars- which seem inevitable. The citizenry will be forced to accept a doubling down on the existing failures or will show the fortitude to accept failure and defeat and rebuild our country. Seeking a mythic greatness is not the answer- only a true and sober evaluation will suffice- it must be a broader accommodation that accepts responsibility for past wrongs but does not get caught up in narrow, petty solutions that racist recriminations are hallmark. What is needed is a framework for a truth and reconciliation process- but such a process is only possible by a free people, not a conquered one. It is only on this foundation that an American culture can survive.
This will take a new enlightenment that seems questionable, at least in the heart of American Empire. It entails a reexamination of what freedom means and the will to dedicate oneself to building something worth defending with ones life. It has nothing to do with wanting to kill others or making others accept a particular view.
It is finding ones place in the world, and defending it, and cultivating it. It is the opposite of conquest. It is the resistance to hostility. In a word, Peace.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 4:53 pm
I don't disagree with many of your assertions and their warrants but I am growing disturbed by the many uses of the word 'Fascism'. What does the word mean exactly beyond its pejorative uses? Searching the web I am only confused by the proliferation of meanings. I believe it's time for some political or sociological analyst to cast off the words 'fascism' and 'totalitarianism' and further the work that Hannah Arendt started. We need a richer vocabulary and a deeper analysis of the political, social, philosophical, and human contents of the concepts of fascism and of totalitarianism. World War II was half-a-century ago. We have many more examples called fascism and totalitarianism to study and must study to further refine exactly what kinds of Evil we are discussing and hope to fight. What purpose is served sparring with the ghosts as new more virulent Evils proliferate.
redleg , November 3, 2018 at 7:10 pm
Fascism?
Start with Umberto Eco and mull it over for a minute or two.Norb , November 4, 2018 at 9:52 am
You have brought up a very important point. The meaning of words and their common usage. But I have to disagree that "new more virulent Evils" require a new terminology. To my mind, that plays right into the hand of Evil. The first step in the advancement of evil is the debasement of language- the spreading of lies and obfuscating true meaning. George Orwell's doublespeak.
I don't think its a matter of casting off the usage of words, or the creative search to coin new ones, but to reclaim words. Now the argument can be made that once a word is debased, it looses its descriptive force- its moral force- and that is what I take as your concern, however, words are used by people to communicate meaning, and this is where the easy abandonment of words to their true meaning becomes a danger for the common good. You cannot let someone hijack your language. A communities strength depends on its common use and understanding of language.
Where to find that common meaning? Without the perspective of class struggle taken into account- to orientate the view- this search will be fruitless. Without a true grounding, words can mean anything. I believe, in America, this is where the citizenry is currently, in a state of disorientation that has been building for decades. This disorientation is caused by DoubleSpeak undermining common understanding that is brought about by class consciousness/ solidarity/ community. In a consumerist society, citizens take for granted that they are lied to constantly- words and images have no real meaning- or multiple meanings playing on the persons sensibilities at any given moment- all communication becomes fundamentally marketing and advertising BS.
This sloppiness is then transferred into the political realm of social communication which then transforms the social dialog into a meaningless exercise because there is really no communication going on- only posturing and manipulation. Public figures have both private and public views. They are illegitimate public servants not because they withhold certain information, but because they hold contradictory positions expressed in each realm. They are liars and deceivers in the true sense of the word, and don't deserve to be followed or believed- let alone given any elevated social standing or privilege.
Your oppressor describes himself as your benefactor- or savior- and you believe them, only to realize later that you have been duped. Repeat the cycle down through the ages.
DoubleSpeak and controlling the interpretation of History are the tools of exercising power. It allows this cycle to continue.
Breaking this cycle will require an honesty and sense of empathy that directs action.
Fighting evil directly is a loosing game. You more often than not become that which you fight against. Directly confronting evil requires a person to perform evil deeds. Perpetuation of War is the perfect example. It must be done indirectly by not performing evil actions or deeds. Your society takes on a defensive posture, not an aggressive one. Defense and preservation are the motivating principles.
Speaking the truth, and working toward peace is the only way forward. A new language and modes of communication can build themselves up around those principles.
Protecting oneself against evil seems to be the human condition. How evil is defined determines the class structure of any given society.
So much energy is wasted on trying to convince evil people not to act maliciously, which will never happen. It is what makes them evil- it is who they are. And too much time is wasted listening to evil people trying to convince others that they are not evil- or their true intensions are beneficent- which is a lie.
"Sparing with ghosts", is a good way of describing the reclaiming of historical fact. Of belief in the study of history as a means to improve society and all of humankind thru reflection and reevaluation. The exact opposite desire of an elite class- hell bent on self preservation as their key motivating factor in life. If you never spar with ghosts, you have no reference to evaluate the person standing before you- which can prove deadly- as must be constantly relearned by generations of people exploited by the strong and powerful.
The breaking point of any society is how much falsehood is tolerated- and in the West today- that is an awful lot.
Summer , November 3, 2018 at 11:22 am
"I've gotten close to some young people who are nonetheless old school type leftists in the revitalized Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and I've been struck to see that the identitarian tendency in DSA has been actively opposing participation in the Medicare for All campaign that the national organization adopted "
Check to see how their parents or other relatives made or make their money.
Left in Wisconsin , November 3, 2018 at 12:00 pm
This is quite the challenge. I know a large number of upper middle class young people who are amenable to the socialist message but don't really get (or don't get at all) what it means. (I'm convinced they make up a large portion of that percentage that identifies as socialist or has a positive image of socialism.) But it would be wrong to write them off.
A related point that I make here from time to time: all these UMC kids have been inculcated with a hyper-competitive world view. We need a systemic re-education program to break them free.
Louis Fyne , November 3, 2018 at 12:48 pm
as a complementary anecdote, i know of economically bottom 50% people who are devout anti-socialists, because they deal with "micro-triggers" of free-riders, cheaters, petty theft in their everyday life.
To them, the academic/ivory tower/abstract idea of equality in class, equality in income is an idealistic pipe dream versus the dog-eat-dog reality of the world.
Stratos , November 3, 2018 at 2:16 pm
Interesting that you mention "economically bottom 50% people who are devout anti-socialists, because they deal with "micro-triggers" of [low income?] free-riders, cheaters, petty theft in their everyday life."
I read a lot of their snarling against alleged low income "moochers" in the local media. What I find disturbing is their near total blindness to the for-profit businesses, millionaires and billionaires who raid public treasuries and other resources on a regular basis.
Just recently, I read a news story about the local baseball franchise that got $135 million dollars (they asked for $180 million) and the local tourism industry complaining about their reduction in public subsidies because money had to be diverted to homeless services.
No one seems to ever question why profitable, private businesses are on the dole. The fact that these private entities complain about reductions in handouts shows how entitled they feel to feed from the public trough. Moreover, they do so at a time of a locally declared "homeless emergency".
Yet, it is the middle class precariat that condemn those below them as 'moochers and cheaters', while ignoring the free-riders, cheaters and grand larceny above them.
Norb , November 4, 2018 at 10:11 am
There is no class consciousness. The working stiffs admire their owners so the only people left to blame for their difficult life conditions are the poor below them on the social hierarchy. Or they blame themselves, which is just as destructive. In the interim, they enjoy the camaraderie that sporting events provide, so give the owners a pass. Bread and Circuses.
A capitalist critique is the only way to change this situation, but that would require learning Marxist arguments and discussing their validity.
There is that, or Charity for the poor, which only aggravates the class conflict that plagues our society.
The third way is actually building community that functions on a less abusive manner, which takes effort, time, and will power.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 5:37 pm
I homed in on your phrase "they deal with 'micro-triggers' of free-riders, cheaters, petty theft in their everyday life" and it landed on fertile [I claim!] ground in my imagination. I have often argued with my sister about this. She used to handle claims for welfare, and now found more hospitable areas of civil service employment. I am gratified that her attitudes seem to have changed over time. Many of the people she worked with in social services shared the common attitudes of disparagement toward their suppliants -- and enjoyed the positions of power it offered them.
I think the turning point came when my sister did the math and saw that the direct costs for placing a homeless person or family into appallingly substandard 'housing' in her area ran in the area of $90K per year. Someone not one of the "free-riders, cheaters, [or villains of] petty theft in their everyday life" was clearly benefiting. I am very lazy but I might try to find out who and advertise their 'excellence' in helping the poor.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 5:54 pm
A "re-education" program? That usage resurrects some very most unhappy recollections from the past. Couldn't you coin a more happy phrase? Our young are not entirely without the ability to learn without what is called a "re-education" program.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 6:30 pm
The comments in this post are all over the map. I'll focus on the comments regarding statues commemorating Confederate heroes.
I recall the way the issue of Confederate statues created a schism in the NC commentarient. I still believe in retaining 'art' in whatever form it takes since there is so little art in our lives. BUT I also believe that rather than tear down the Confederate statues of Confederate 'heroes' it were far better to add a plaque comemorating just what sorts of heroism these 'heroes' performed for this country. That too serves Art.
Tearing the statues down only serves forgetting something which should never be forgotten.
This was intended as a separate comment to stand alone. I believe Art should not forget but should remember the horrors of our past lest we not forget.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 9:49 pm
" which we should not forget." -- to replace the end of the closing sentence.
Darius , November 3, 2018 at 1:41 pm
It occurred to me that centrists demonize the left as unelectable based entirely on tokens of identity. Long haired hippies. The other. It works because the political debate in America is structured entirely around identity politics. Nancy Pelosi is a San Francisco liberal so of course white people in Mississippi will never vote for the Democrats. Someone like Bernie Sanders has a message that will appeal to them but he is presented as to the left of even Pelosi or alternately a traitor to the liberal identity siding with racists and sexists. Actually, all of these oppressions are rooted in working class oppression. But that is inconsistent with the framing of ascriptive identity.
Susan the other , November 3, 2018 at 1:58 pm
This was a great post. Didn't know about Adolph Reed. He gets straight to the point – we have only 2 options. Either change neoliberal capitalism structurally or modify its structure to achieve equality. Identity politics is a distraction. There will always be differences between us and so what? As long as society itself is equitable. As far as the fear of fascism goes, I think maybe fascism is in the goal of fascism. If it is oppressive then its bad. If it is in the service of democracy and equality the its good. If our bloated corporatism could see its clear, using AR's option #2, to adjusting their turbo neoliberal capitalism, then fine. More power to them. It isn't racism preventing them from doing this – it is the system. It is structural. Unfortunately we face far greater dangers, existential dangers, today than in 1940. We not only have an overpopulated planet of human inequality, but also environmental inequality. Big mess. And neither capitalism nor socialism has the answer – because the answer is eclectic. We need all hands on deck and every practical measure we can conjure. And FWIW I'd like to compare our present delusions to all the others – denial. The statue of Robert E. Lee, imo, is beautiful in its conveyance of defeat with deep regret. The acceptance is visible and powerful. What will the postmortem statue of neoliberalism look like?
tegnost , November 3, 2018 at 3:22 pm
What will the postmortem statue of neoliberalism look like?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gollum#/media/File:Gollum_s_journey_commences_by_Frederic_Bennett.jpg
Smeagol ?
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 5:42 pm
Smeagol is dead! Gollum lives!
Just a moment let me adjust my palantír.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 5:18 pm
Do you really want 'equality' however you might define it? We are not born equal. Each of us is different and I believe each of us is therefore very special. [I suppose I echo the retort of the French regarding the equality of the sexes: "Vive la Difference!".] I believe we should celebrate our inequalities -- while we maintain vigilance in maintaining the equal chance to try and succeed or fail. The problem isn't inequality but the extreme inequalities in life and sustenance our society has built -- here and more abroad. I don't mind being beaten in a fair race. An unfair race lightens my laurels when I win. But our societies run an unfair competition and the laurels far too heavily grace the brows of those who win. And worse still, 'inequality' -- the word I'll use for the completely disproportionate rewards to the winners to the undeserving in-excellent 'winners' is not a matter solved by a quest for 'equality'. The race for laurels has no meaning when the winners are chosen before the race and the 'laurels' cost the welfare and sustenance for the losers and their unrelated kin who never ran in the race. And 'laurels' were once but honors and there is too far little honor in this world.
workingclasshero , November 3, 2018 at 8:34 pm
Nothing denotes a naive idealistic "progressive" than the demand for near absolute equality in terms of money and status in their future society.all or nothing i guess.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 9:42 pm
I have read and appreciated many comments by 'Susan the other'. I would not ever characterize her comments as those of a naive idealistic "progressive" demanding absolute equality I should and must apologize if that is how you read my comment. I intended to suggest equality is not something truly desirable in-itself. But re-reading her comment I find much greater depth than I commented to --
'Susan the other' notes: "The statue of Robert E. Lee, imo, is beautiful in its conveyance of defeat with deep regret." In answer to her question: "What will the postmortem statue of neoliberalism look like?" I very much doubt that the post mortem statue of Neoliberalism will show regret for anything save that all the profits were not accrued before those holding the reins, the Elite of Neoliberalism, might gracefully die without care for any children they may have had.
tegnost , November 3, 2018 at 9:56 pm
STO is a real gem
freedomny , November 3, 2018 at 2:30 pm
Thanks for this post. I am really surprised these days by black "liberal" media folks who insist that racism be addressed before inequality/class issues. They are almost vehement in their discussions about this. Are they protecting neoliberalism because it benefits them .???
JBird4049 , November 4, 2018 at 12:52 pm
My previous admittedly overlong reply has yet to show. Darn.
But this question is an important one.
Yes, they do very much.
One of the reasons the Civil Rights struggle died was the co-option of the Black elites, especially of the Civil Rights Movement, by the American elites. After Martin Luther King's assassination, his Poor People's Campaign slowly died. A quiet quid pro quo was offered. Ignore all the various social, economic, political and legal wrongs done to all Americans, and yes blacks in particular, and just focusing on black identity and social "equality" or at least the illusion of campaigning for it, and in you will be given a guaranteed, albeit constrained, place at the money trough. Thus the Black Misleadership Class was born.
All the great movements in past hundred plus years have had their inclusivity removed. Suffragism/Feminism, the Union Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, even the Environmental Movement all had strong cross cultural, class, and racial membership and concerns. Every single of these movements had the usually white upper class strip out everyone else and focusing only on very narrow concerns. Aside from the Civil Rights Movement, black participation was removed, sometimes forcefully. They all dropped any focus on poor people of any race.
A lot of money, time, and effort by the powerful went into doing this. Often just by financially supporting the appropriate leaders which gave them the ability to push aside the less financially secure ones.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 6:44 pm
Reading this post in its entirety I feel the author must become more direct in critique. Old jargon of class or race or a "struggle against structural disparities" should be replaced by the languages of such assertions as: " the larger objective was to eliminate the threat that the insurgency had posed to planter-merchant class rule" or "It just expands access to the trough, basically". Why mince words when there are such horrors as are poised against the common humanity of all?
witters , November 3, 2018 at 7:19 pm
Jeremy, I think Adolf is doing just fine.
Jeremy Grimm , November 3, 2018 at 9:23 pm
Your comment is too brief and too enigmatic. If by Adolf you mean Adolf H. -- he is dead. New potentially more dangerous creatures roam the Earth these days beware.
tegnost , November 3, 2018 at 10:25 pm
Adolph Reed is a power unto himself
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-trouble-with-uplift-reed
I consider currently one of our great intellectuals in that he understands and can use language to make his case in a layman not necessarily friendly but accessible .
and as a southern born white male I think maybe I should watch Glory I remember a '67 show and tell when a black classmate had a civil war sword come up in their sugar cane field, and when I and a friend found a (disinterred yuck) civil war grave just out in the woods in north florida. People seem to have forgotten that times were chaotic in our country's checkered past I was in massive race riots and massive anti war protests as a child of the '60s, but since I was in the single digits at the time no one payed me any mind as a for instance my dad somehow got the counselors apartment in a dorm at florida state in 68′ and I remember people in the the dorms throwing eggs at the protesters. It was nuts.
Tomonthebeach , November 3, 2018 at 8:56 pm
Ferguson's INET paper got me thinking about what triggers racism in us. As a kid, ethnic pejoratives were usually a reaction to some injury. "You stupid Wap, you just scratched my car. That dirty Mick tripped me when I wasn't looking." I tend to agree with the premise that bailing out Wall Street and letting Main Street lose out offers a powerful trigger for a racist reaction. People might have been softening on their lifelong covert racism when they succumbed to Obama's charm. But when you lose your job, then your house, and wind up earning a third of what you did before the GR, that is the sort of thing that triggers pejorative/racist reactions. That [N-word] SOB is just like them other Jew-boy globalists who are sending our jobs to Chinamen and whatnot. Screw him and all the damned Democrat libtards. Then, when a MAGA-hatted Trump echoes those sentiments over a PA system, the ghost of Goebbels is beaming.
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Nov 03, 2018 | therealnews.com
Paul Jay says a significant section of the population supporting far right "populism" is part of the process of the development of fascism, but the acceptance of gross inequality is also a necessary condition for this process – From a live recording on October 29th, 2018
What does the question mean: "How is Israel mediating its right-wing nationalistic
ethnocratic political bent with the fact that the Jews massacred in
Pittsburgh were apparently progressive?" One cannot mediate "a bent". I cannot follow a discussion of a question I do not understand. To mediate means to "intervene between people (not a bent!) in a dispute in order to bring about an agreement or reconciliation", according to one good dictionary. I notice that diction is a problem for many who ask questions, and no one stops to ask them what they mean.Fear will always animate those without hope
And the loss of hope is a bipartisan project.
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Oct 31, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
As more and more college professors express their social and political views in classrooms, students across the country are feeling increasingly afraid to disagree according to a survey of 800 full-time undergraduate college students, reported by the Wall Street Journal ' s James Freeman.When students were asked if they've had "any professors or course instructors that have used class time to express their own social or political beliefs that are completely unrelated to the subject of the course," 52% of respondents said that this occurs "often," while 47% responded, "not often."
A majority -- 53% -- also reported that they often "felt intimidated" in sharing their ideas, opinions or beliefs in class because they were different from those of the professors. - WSJ
What's more, 54% of students say they are intimidated expressing themselves when their views conflict with those of their classmates.
The survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of Yale's William F. Buckley, Jr. Program (which counts Freeman among its directors), was undertaken between October 8th and 18th, and included students at both public and private four-year universities across the country.
This is a problem, suggests Freeman - as unbiased teachers who formerly filled universities have been replaced by activists who "unfortunately appear to be just as political and overbearing as one would expect," and that " perhaps the actual parents who write checks can someday find some way to encourage more responsible behavior. "
Read the rest below via the Wall Street Journal :
***
As for the students, there's at least a mixed message in the latest survey results. On the downside, the fact that so many students are afraid of disagreeing with their peers does not suggest a healthy intellectual atmosphere even outside the classroom. There's more disappointing news in the answers to other survey questions. For example, 59% of respondents agreed with this statement:
My college or university should forbid people from speaking on campus who have a history of engaging in hate speech.This column does not favor hatred, nor the subjective definition of "hate speech" by college administrators seeking to regulate it. In perhaps the most disturbing finding in the poll results, 33% of U.S. college students participating in the survey agreed with this statement:
If someone is using hate speech or making racially charged comments, physical violence can be justified to prevent this person from espousing their hateful views.An optimist desperately searching for a silver lining would perhaps note that 60% of respondents did not agree that physical violence is justified to silence people speaking what someone has defined as "hate speech" or "racially charged" comments. But the fact that a third of college students at least theoretically endorse violence as a response to offensive speech underlines the threat to free expression on American campuses.
Perhaps more encouraging are the responses to this question:
Generally speaking, do you think the First Amendment, which deals with freedom of speech, is an outdated amendment that can no longer be applied in today's society and should be changed or an important amendment that still needs to be followed and respected in today's society?A full 79% of respondents opted for respecting the First Amendment, while 17% backed a rewrite.
On a more specific question, free speech isn't winning by the same landslide. When asked if they would favor or oppose their schools having speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty, 54% of U.S. college kids opposed such codes while 38% were in favor.
The free exchange of ideas is in danger on American campuses. And given the unprofessional behavior of American faculty suggested by this survey, education reformers should perhaps focus on encouraging free-speech advocates within the student body while adopting a campus slogan from an earlier era: Don't trust anyone over 30.
keep the bastards honest , 26 minutes ago link
PGR88 , 39 minutes ago linkthis tyranny applies not only to politics and weirdo social world view, it runs thru everything. Group think is powerful and those not following get excluded, defunded of resources and ridicule and other punishment.
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keep the bastards honest , 55 minutes ago linkThe education-industrial complex is a massive spending and debt-fed bubble, that has created a massive political organizing force and teflon monoculture. They are parasites feeding off government and the debt of students
... ... ...
Charlie_Martel , 2 hours ago linkIt's always been like this, at school as a 5 year old ....my little kid was sent to the headmaster for objecting to making a key ring thing in craft as not one kid had a key. He spoke a well reasoned argument and of course is at the Supreme Court now. But gained no respect or nurturing from that school. I also copped it, made career decision to be a scientist because of the stupidity of an english teacher not knowing same issues prevailed there. Was thrown out of english honours course so did the exam on my own knowledge and got first class honours in the state.
At University we all know you feed back what they want if you want to pass. Some want intelligence and best true understanding others want their crippled stuff. This also applies if you are a science, physiology researcher. Cutting edge work if not mainstream does not get published, you have to be part of a recognised institution to be published so no independent researcher,
There are set ideas and marketing there of eg antioxidants fallacies, need for estrogen, and until recently How stupid was Lamarck because he espoused the passing down of response to environment to subsequent generations...Darwin thought this too but idea was suppressed. Then epigenetics got the new hot thing for grants. Fck them all.
My child and I discussed a version with the principal when he was doing the bacceaulureate, as from 5 onwards teachers rejected correct answers and wanted their answers. The excellent advice was to view it all like a driving exam, learn the road rules and give them back.
students always know the tyranny of the teacher and evaluator. At 6 my kid was sat with the slow learners and forced to give 30answers a day ' correct' . Ie lies and untruths.
Infinity as answer to how many corners has a cylinder was not only mad bad but ridiculed.
Duc888 , 2 hours ago linkBecause its an indoctrination not an education.
JimmyJones , 2 hours ago linkIt's impossible to actually debate someone who has NO FACTS on either side of the argument....
it winds up like this....
"not even WRONG"
The phrase " not even wrong " describes an argument or explanation that purports to be scientific but is based on invalid reasoning or speculative premises that can neither be proven correct nor falsified .
Hence, it refers to statements that cannot be discussed in a rigorous, scientific sense . [1] For a meaningful discussion on whether a certain statement is true or false, the statement must satisfy the criterion called "falsifiability" -- the inherent possibility for the statement to be tested and found false. In this sense, the phrase "not even wrong" is synonymous to "nonfalsifiable". [1]
The phrase is generally attributed to theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli , who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or careless thinking. [2] [3] Rudolf Peierls documents an instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong' ." [4] This is also often quoted as "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong", or in Pauli's native German , " Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!". Peierls remarks that quite a few apocryphal stories of this kind have been circulated and mentions that he listed only the ones personally vouched for by him. He also quotes another example when Pauli replied to Lev Landau , "What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not. " [4]
LetThemEatRand , 2 hours ago linkChemical engineering, engineering structural (optional), basic electrical engineering and C++ programing and he can make any machine to automatically preform any chemical process out of his garage. You could probably watch a butt ton of YouTube and a library card and also learn those skills.
TeethVillage88s , 2 hours ago linkThe homogenized culture of colleges today is very similar to what I imagine it was like in the 1950's, but with a different set of "values" obviously. The 1950's led to the 1960's, and a complete rejection by many young people of establishment mono-culture. Maybe the young people eventually will figure out that what they see as SJW counter-culture is actually new establishment culture, and they will rebel against it in a few years. Probably not, though.
TeethVillage88s , 2 hours ago linkThanks. I'm older than others probably think. But I generalizae or estimate more than others my age due to the life I chose or led.
culture of colleges today is very similar to what I imagine it was like in the 1950's,
dcmbuffy , 2 hours ago linkThanks. I'm older than others probably think. But I generalizae or estimate more than others my age due to the life I chose or led.
culture of colleges today is very similar to what I imagine it was like in the 1950's,
DuckDog , 2 hours ago linkand going into debt for their prison term. bunch of punk bullies!!!
When I was in the army and got sentence to 2 years less a day in Military prison in Edmonton, I paid $1.70 a day, which the military were so kind to ring up a tab for me, when I got released from prison they handed me my bill and made me work it off before I got my dishonorable discharge
Sort of like college today
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Oct 27, 2018 | therealnews.com
As to your question about who votes for Bolsonaro, I think we can break this down into three or four categories. His hard core is the sort of middle class of small business owners, plus members of the police and the armed forces. This would be, I guess, your classic fascist constituency, if you want to call it that. But you know, that's a very small proportion. And certainly in terms of his voters, in terms of his voter base, that's a small proportion. What you have, then, is the rich, amongst whom he has a very significant lead. He polls 60-65 percent amongst the rich. And these people are motivated by what is called [inaudible]machismo, which is anti-Worker's Party sentiment, which is really a sort form of barely-disguised class loathing which targets the Worker's Party, rails against corruption, but of course turns a blind eye to corruption amongst more traditional right-wing politicians.
These are the people who, at the end of the day, are quite influential, and have probably proved decisive for Bolsonaro. But that isn't to say that he doesn't have support amongst the poor, and this is the real issue. Bolsonaro would not win an election with just the support of the reactionary middle class and the rich. He needs the support amongst the broad masses, and he does have that to a significant degree, unfortunately.
What are they motivated by? They're motivated by a sense that politics has failed them, that their situation is pretty hopeless. The security situation is very grave. And Bolsonaro seems to be someone who might do something different, might change things. It's a bit of a rolling of the dice kind of situation. And you know, here the Worker's Party does bear some blame. They've lost a large section of the working class. A large section of the poor feel like they were betrayed by the Worker's Party, who didn't stay true to its promises. The Worker's Party implemented the austerity in its last government under Dilma, which led to a ballooning of unemployment. And you know, there's a sense that- well, what have you done for us? A lot of people don't want to return to the path. They want something better, and kind of roll the dice hoping that maybe Bolsonaro does something, even though all evidence points to the fact that he'll be a government for the rich, and the very rich, and for the forces of repression.
GREG WILPERT: So finally, in the little time that we have remaining, what is happening to Brazil's left? Is it supporting the Haddad campaign wholeheartedly?
ALEX HOCHULI: Yes, absolutely. It's pretty much uniform amongst the left. Certainly in terms of, you know, in terms of individuals, in terms of groups, in terms of movements. Everyone, from even the kind of far-left Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party who hate PT have told its members that they should vote for Fernando Haddad who, it should be noted, is a figure to the right of that of PT, I guess, within the party. He's a much more centrist figure. So that's kind of notable.
What hasn't happened is a broad front against fascism. That hasn't really materialized, because the Brazilian center has failed to defend its democratic institutions against the very obvious threat that Bolsonaro represents. You know, just to highlight one thing, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is Jair Bolsonar's son and a congressman, has threatened the Supreme Court, saying that you could close down the Supreme Court. All you have to do is send one soldier and one corporal, and they'll shut down the Supreme Court. I mean, this is a pretty brave threat against Brazilian institutions. And a lot of the center has failed to really manifest itself, really failed to take a stand. Marina Silva, who was at one point polling quite high about six months ago, who is a kind of an environmentalist and an evangelical and a centrist, and who is known for always in her speeches talking about doing things democratically, even she- it took her until this week to finally endorse Haddad, lending Haddad critical support.
The center right, which should be the, you know, the Brazilian establishment, the ones upholding the institutions, have broadly failed to endorse Haddad as the democratic candidate. Which is really, really striking. I mean, just to give you one example, probably the best known figure for your viewers outside of Brazil who might not know the ins and outs and all the players involved, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is a former academic sociologist who was exiled during the military dictatorship and was president of Brazil in the late '90s. He has yet to endorse Haddad, despite the fact that Bolsonaro previously said something about 10 years ago that Fernando Henrique Cardoso should have been killed by the military dictatorship. This is a real, in my opinion, a real failure of character, a real cowardice from the Brazilian supposedly-centrist elite to defend democracy against the very obvious threat that Bolsonaro poses.
GREG WILPERT: Wow. Amazing. We'll definitely keep our eyes peeled for what happens on Sunday. We'll probably have you back soon. I'm speaking to Alex Hochuli, researcher and communication consultant based in Sao Paulo. Thanks again, Alex, for having joined us today.
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Oct 21, 2018 | thirdworldtraveler.com
... ... ..
Perhaps the best description of how the elite operate comes from the late Senator Barry Goldwater, Presidential candidate of the Republican Party back in 1964. Senator Goldwater, a close friend of both JFK and Joe McCarthy, was considered a saber rattling, extreme right wing conservative. Following his death, the Washington Post wrote: "Unlike nearly every other politician who ever lived, anywhere in the world, Barry Goldwater always said exactly what was on his mind. He spared his listeners nothing." This eulogy appears to be confirmed in one of Goldwater's books, With no Apologies, [12] in which he presents an astonishingly frank exposé of the unfettered power and aspirations of the elite:
"The Council on Foreign Relations has placed its members in policy-making with the State Department and other federal agencies. Every secretary of State since 1944, with the exception of James F Byrnes, has been a member of the council. Almost without exception, its members are united by a congeniality of birth, economic status and educational background. I believe that the Council on Foreign relations and its ancillary elitist groups are indifferent to communism. They have no ideological anchors. In their pursuit of a New World Order, they are prepared to deal without prejudice with a communist state, a socialist state, a democratic state, a monarchy, an oligarchy - it's all the same to them.
"When we change presidents, it is understood to mean that the voters are ordering a change in national policy. Since 1945, three different Republicans have occupied the White House for 16 years, and four democrats have held this most powerful post for 17 years. With the exception of the first seven years of the Eisenhower administration, there has been no appreciable change in foreign or domestic policy.
There has been a great turnover in personnel, but no change in policy. Example: during the Nixon years, Henry Kissinger, a council member and Nelson Rockefeller protégé, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a council member and David Rockefeller protégé.
"Whereas the Council on Foreign Relations is distinctly national, representation is allocated equally to Western Europe, Japan and the United States. It is intended to act as the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States.
"Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller screened and selected every individual who was invited to participate in shaping and administering the proposed New World Order The Trilateral organization created by David Rockefeller was a surrogate - its members selected by Rockefeller, its purpose defined by Rockefeller, its funding supplied by Rockefeller Examination of the membership roster establishes beyond question that all those invited to join were members of the power elite, enlisted with great skill and singleness of purpose from the banking, commercial, political and communications sectors In my view, the Trilateral Commission represents a skilful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical.
"The Trilateral Commission even selects and elevates its candidates to positions of political power. David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski found Jimmy Carter to be an ideal candidate, for example. They helped him to win the Democratic nomination and the Presidency [1977]. To accomplish their purpose, they mobilized the money power of the Wall Street bankers, the intellectual influence of the academic community - which is subservient to the wealthy of the great tax-free foundations - and the media controllers represented in the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. It was no accident that Brzezinski and Rockefeller invited Carter to join the commission in 1973. But they weren't ready to bet all their chips on Carter. They made him a founding member of the commission but to keep their options open they also brought in Walter Mondale and Elliot Richardson, a highly visible Republican member of the Nixon administration, and they looked at other potential nominees."
Goldwater's testimony is all the more astonishing coming from a man with considerable knowledge of the core of the matrix and who was no radical of the left. Goldwater was the only Republican Presidential candidate not to be the CFR choice for the presidential nomination in the last 50 years.
The elite inner-circle members of the Bilderberg club, Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission, conspire to politically, and economically, dominate the entire world under their New World Order, or Globalisation as they now prefer to name it.
Since the Second World War, Rockefeller's Council on Foreign Relations has filled key positions in virtually every administration. Since Eisenhower, every man who has won the nomination for either party (except Goldwater in 1964) has been directly sponsored by Rockefeller's CFR.
Before defining the characteristics of fascism, we should look at the neo-conservatives who run the US government on behalf of the elite. In her book, Leo Strauss and the American Right, [13] Shadia Drury, professor of political theory at the University of Calgary, Canada, names current politicians, political advisers, administration and Supreme Court officials, who were followers of the teachings of the fascist Leo Strauss.
Leo Strauss (1899- 1973) was a philosopher at the University of Chicago (built by Rockefeller money) where he taught many of those currently involved in the US administration. Strauss left Nazi Germany in 1934 having been given a Rockefeller Foundation bursary and is considered to be the "fascist godfather" of today's neo-cons.
According to Jeffery Steinberg in Executive Intelligence review [14]: "A review of Leo Strauss' career reveals why the label 'Straussian' carries some very filthy implications. Although nominally a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany (he actually left for a better position abroad, on the warm recommendation of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt), Strauss was an unabashed proponent of the three most notorious shapers of the Nazi philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt. Recent biographies have revealed the depth of Heidegger's enthusiasm for Hitler and Nazism.
"The hallmark of Strauss's approach to philosophy was his hatred of the modern world, his belief in a totalitarian system, run by 'philosophers' who rejected all universal principles of natural law, but saw their mission as absolute rulers, who lied and deceived a foolish 'populist' mass, and used both religion and politics as a means of disseminating myths that kept the general population in clueless servitude."
Professor Shadia Drury [15] provides a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of the neocons "Leo Strauss was a great believer in the efficacy and usefulness of lies in politics. Public support for the Iraq war rested on lies about Iraq posing an imminent threat to the United States - the business about weapons of mass destruction and a fictitious alliance between al-Qaeda and the Iraq regime. Now that the lies have been exposed, Paul Wolfowitz [Straussian] and others in the war party are denying that these were the real reasons for the war.
"The idea that Strauss was a great defender of liberal democracy is laughable. I suppose that Strauss's disciples consider it a noble lie. Yet many in the media have been gullible enough to believe it. The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine A second fundamental of Strauss's ancients has to do with their insistence on the need for secrecy and the necessity of lies. In his book Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss outlines why secrecy is necessary. He argues that the wise must conceal their views for two reasons - to spare the people's feelings and to protect the elite from possible reprisals. The people will not be happy to learn that there is only one natural right - the right of the superior to rule over the inferior, the master over the slave and the wise few over the vulgar many.
"I never imagined when I wrote my first book on Strauss that the unscrupulous elite that he elevates would ever come so close to political power, nor that the ominous tyranny of the wise would ever come so close to being realised in the political life of a great nation like the United States. But fear is the greatest ally of tyranny."
Shadia Drury is by no means alone in her desperate concern. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois law school writes [16]: "I entered the University of Chicago in September of 1968 shortly after Strauss had retired. But I was trained in Chicago's Political Science Department by Strauss's foremost protégé, co-author, and literary executor Joseph Cropsey. Based upon my personal experience as an alumnus of Chicago I concur completely with Professor Drury's devastating critique of Strauss. I also agree with her penetrating analysis of the degradation of the American political process by Chicago's Straussian cabal.
"Chicago routinely trained me and numerous other students to become ruthless and unprincipled Machiavellians. That is precisely why so many neophyte neo-con students gravitated towards the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago became the 'brains' behind the Bush Jr. Empire and his Ashcroft Police State. Attorney General John Ashcroft received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Many of his 'lawyers' at the Department of Injustice [sic] are members of the right-wing, racist, bigoted, reactionary, and totalitarian Federalist Society (aka 'Feddies'), which originated in part at the University of Chicago.
"According to his own public estimate and boast before the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush Jr. hired about 20 Straussians to occupy key positions in his administration Just recently the University of Chicago officially celebrated its Bush Jr. Straussian cabal. Only the University of Chicago would have the Orwellian gall to publicly claim that Strauss and Bloom [a Strauss protégé] cared one whit about democracy let alone comprehend the 'ideals of democracy'.
"Do not send your children to the University of Chicago where they will grow up to become warmongers like Wolfowitz or totalitarians like Ashcroft! The neo-con cabal, currently ruling America and in charge of pursuing the New World Order agenda is, according to Professors Drury and Boyle, "a tyranny of warmongers and unscrupulous elites from an intellectual and moral cesspool."
What are the implications of this "New World Order", or "Globalization" as it is now called? Richard K. Moore [17] writes: "The course of world events, for the first time in history, is now largely controlled by a centralised global regime. This regime has been consolidating power ever since World War II and is now formalising that power into a collection of centralised institutions and a new system of international 'order'. Top western political leaders are participants in this global regime, and the strong Western nation state is rapidly being dismantled and destabilised. The global regime serves elite corporate interests exclusively. It has no particular regard for human rights, democracy, human welfare, or the health of the environment. The only god of this regime is the god of wealth accumulation.
"In two centuries the Western world has come full circle from tyranny to tyranny. The tyranny of monarchs was overthrown in the Enlightenment and semi-democratic republics were established. Two centuries later those republics are being destabilised and a new tyranny is assuming power - a global tyranny of anonymous corporate elites. This anonymous regime has no qualms about creating poverty, destroying nations, and engaging in genocide.
"Humanity can do better than this - much better - and there is reason to hope that the time is ripe for humanity to bring about fundamental changes We can oust the elites from power and reorganise our economies so that they serve the needs of the people instead of the needs of endless wealth accumulation. This is our Revolutionary Imperative. Not an imperative to violent revolution, but an imperative to do something even more revolutionary - to set humanity on a sane course using peaceful, democratic means."
Bottom line, are the neo-cons driving this agenda neo-fascist? Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, published research on fascism [18] in which he examined the fascist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each fascist State:
- Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
- Disdain for the recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarceration of prisoners, etc.
- Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists; terrorists, etc.
- Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military are glamorized.
- Rampant sexism - The government of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
- Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
- Obsession with National security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
- Religion and Government are intertwined - Government in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
- Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation are often the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
- Labor Power is suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated, or are severely restricted.
- Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
- Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
- Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
- Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassinations of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Benito Mussolini - who knew something about fascism - had a more straightforward definition: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Abraham Lincoln stated, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed."
The small, but ruthless, group of men, the "money power" described by Lincoln, has stolen democracy from the American people. An ever-growing number of informed Americans, however, are fighting a brave, but desperate rear-guard action to retrieve that democracy. Will we give them our total support now, or simply sit back and watch as the entire planet is taken back to the dark ages? "The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing."
Jim Macgregor is a 57 year old retired doctor. For many years he was a family practitioner and visiting Medical Officer to Glenochil Prison, one of Scotland's high security prisons. Through his prison work, he developed a special interest in miscarriages of justice and is a member of the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation. MOJO (Scotland). You can contact Jim at [email protected]
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Oct 23, 2018 | www.project-syndicate.org
American politics has become a game of, by, and for corporate interests, with tax cuts for the rich, deregulation for polluters, and war and global warming for the rest of us. Americans – and the world – deserve better.
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Oct 22, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
dh-mtl , Oct 21, 2018 11:15:25 AM | link@11 dh wrote:
"I see it more as a neoliberal desire to belong to some vague bigger global entity. Plus the fact that since WW2 nationalism has become equated with fascism."
Yes, what a beautiful piece of propaganda and mind control, carried out by the people behind this 'vague bigger global entity and facilitated by their 'Mainstream Media', to create this neo-liberal desire.
In reality it is this 'vague bigger global entity' that embodies the essence of fascism - i.e. corporatist-dictatorship.
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Oct 20, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
The Department of Justice admitted in a Friday court filing that the FBI used more than one "Confidential Human Source," (also known as informants, or spies ) to infiltrate the Trump campaign through former adviser Carter Page, reports the Daily Caller .
"The FBI has protected information that would identify the identities of other confidential sources who provided information or intelligence to the FBI" as well as "information provided by those sources," wrote David M. Hardy, the head of the FBI's Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), in court papers submitted Friday.
Hardy and Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys submitted the filings in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for the FBI's four applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page. The DOJ released heavily redacted copies of the four FISA warrant applications on June 20, but USA Today reporter Brad Heath has sued for full copies of the documents. - Daily Caller
Included in Hardy's declaration is an acknowledgement that the FBI's spies were in addition to the UK's Christopher Steele - a former MI6 operative who assembled the controversial and largely unproven "Steel Dossier" which the DOJ/FBI used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Page.
The DOJ says it redacted information in order to protect the identity of their confidential sources, which "includes nonpublic information about and provided by Christopher Steele," reads the filing, " as well as information about and provided by other confidential sources , all of whom were provided express assurances of confidentiality."
Government lawyers said the payment information is being withheld because disclosing specific payment amounts and dates could "suggest the relative volume of information provided by a particular CHS. " That disclosure could potentially tip the source's targets off and allow them to "take countermeasures, destroy or fabricate evidence, or otherwise act in a way to thwart the FBI's activities." - Daily Caller
Steele, referred to as Source #1, met with several DOJ / FBI officials during the 2016 campaign, including husband and wife team Bruce and Nellie Ohr. Bruce was the #4 official at the DOJ, while his CIA-linked wife Nellie was hired by Fusion GPS - who also employed Steele, in the anti-Trump opposition research / counterintelligence effort funded by Trump's opponents, Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
In addition to Steele, the FBI also employed 73-year-old University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, a US citizen, political veteran and longtime US Intelligence asset enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election . Halper received over $1 million in contracts from the Pentagon during the Obama years, however nearly half of that coincided with the 2016 US election.
Stefan HalperHalper's involvement first came to light after the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross reported on his involvement with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide. Ross's reporting was confirmed by the NYT and WaPo .
In June, Trump campaign aides Roger Stone and Michael Caputo claimed that a meeting Stone took in late May, 2016 with a Russian appears to have been an " FBI sting operation " in hindsight, following bombshell reports in May that the DOJ/FBI used a longtime FBI/CIA asset, Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, to perform espionage on the Trump campaign.
Roger StoneWhen Stone arrived at the restaurant in Sunny Isles, he said, Greenberg was wearing a Make America Great Again T-shirt and hat. On his phone, Greenberg pulled up a photo of himself with Trump at a rally, Stone said. - WaPo
The meeting went nowhere - ending after Stone told Greenberg " You don't understand Donald Trump... He doesn't pay for anything ." The Post independently confirmed this account with Greenberg.
After the meeting, Stone received a text message from Caputo - a Trump campaign communications official who arranged the meeting after Greenberg approached Caputo's Russian-immigrant business partner.
" How crazy is the Russian? " Caputo wrote according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted "big" money, Stone replied: "waste of time." - WaPo
In short, the FBI's acknowledgement that they used multiple spies reinforces Stone's assertion that he was targeted by one.
Further down the rabbit hole
Stefan Halper's infiltration of the Trump campaign corresponds with the two of the four targets of the FBI's Operation Crossfire Hurricane - in which the agency sent former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and others to a London meeting in the Summer of 2016 with former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer - who says Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted to knowing that the Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails.
Interestingly Downer - the source of the Papadopoulos intel, and Halper - who conned Papadopoulos months later, are linked through UK-based Haklyut & Co. an opposition research and intelligence firm similar to Fusion GPS - founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums .
Alexander DownerDowner - a good friend of the Clintons, has been on their advisory board for a decade, while Halper is connected to Hakluyt through Director of U.S. operations Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. (h/t themarketswork.com )
Alexander Downer, the Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. Downer said that in May 2016, Papadopoulos told him during a conversation in London about Russians having Clinton emails.
That information was passed to other Australian government officials before making its way to U.S. officials. FBI agents flew to London a day after "Crossfire Hurricane" started in order to interview Downer.
It is still not known what Downer says about his interaction with Papadopoulos, which TheDCNF is told occurred around May 10, 2016.
Also interesting via Lifezette - " Downer is not the only Clinton fan in Hakluyt. Federal contribution records show several of the firm's U.S. representatives made large contributions to two of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign organizations ."
Halper contacted Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 according to The Caller - flying him out to London to work on a policy paper on energy issues in Turkey, Cyprus and Israel - for which he was ultimately paid $3,000. Papadopoulos met Halper several times during his stay, "having dinner one night at the Travellers Club, and Old London gentleman's club frequented by international diplomats."
They were accompanied by Halper's assistant, a Turkish woman named Azra Turk. Sources familiar with Papadopoulos's claims about his trip say Turk flirted with him during their encounters and later on in email exchanges .
...
Emails were also brought up during Papadopoulos's meetings with Halper , though not by the Trump associate, according to sources familiar with his version of events. T he sources say that during conversation, Halper randomly brought up Russians and emails. Papadopoulos has told people close to him that he grew suspicious of Halper because of the remark. - Daily Caller
Meanwhile, Halper targeted Carter Page two days after Page returned from a trip to Moscow.
Page's visit to Moscow, where he spoke at the New Economic School on July 8, 2016, is said to have piqued the FBI's interest even further . Page and Halper spoke on the sidelines of an election-themed symposium held at Cambridge days later. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 and a close colleague of Halper's, spoke at the event.
...
Page would enter the media spotlight in September 2016 after Yahoo! News reported that the FBI was investigating whether he met with two Kremlin insiders during that Moscow trip.
It would later be revealed that the Yahoo! article was based on unverified information from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier regarding the Trump campaign . Steele's report, which was funded by Democrats, also claimed Page worked with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on the collusion conspiracy. - Daily Caller
A third target of Halper's was Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis, whose name was revealed by the Washington Post on Friday.
In late August 2016, the professor reached out to Clovis, asking if they could meet somewhere in the Washington area, according to Clovis's attorney, Victoria Toensing.
"He said he wanted to be helpful to the campaign" and lend the Trump team his foreign-policy experience, Toensing said.
Clovis, an Iowa political figure and former Air Force officer, met the source and chatted briefly with him over coffee, on either Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, at a hotel cafe in Crystal City, she said. Most of the discussion involved him asking Clovis his views on China.
"It was two academics discussing China," Toensing said. " Russia never came up. " - WaPo
Meanwhile, Bruce Ohr is still employed by the Department of Justice, and Fusion GPS continues its hunt for Trump dirt after having partnered with former Feinstein aide and ex-FBI counterintelligence agent, Dan Jones.
It's been nearly three years since an army of professional spies was unleashed on Trump - and he's still the President, Steele and Downer notwithstanding.
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Oct 20, 2018 | www.rt.com
'US Congress has no Russian policy other than sanctions' – Stephen Cohen Published time: 19 Oct, 2018 09:09 Edited time: 19 Oct, 2018 12:25 Get short URL© Reuters / Jonathan Ernst Inconvenient thoughts on Cold War and other news. Intelligence agencies, Nikki Haley, sanctions, and public opinion. 1. National intelligence agencies have long played major roles, often not entirely visible, in international politics. They are doing so again today, as is evident in several countries, from Russiagate in the United States and the murky Skripal assassination attempt in the UK to the apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Leaving aside what President Obama knew about Russiagate allegations against Donald Trump and when he knew it, the question arises as to whether these operations were ordered by President Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) or were " rogue " operations unknown in advance by the leaders and perhaps even directed against them.
There have been plenty of purely criminal and commercial " rogue " operations by intelligence agents in history, but also " rogue " ones that were purposefully political. We know, for example, that both Soviet and US intelligence agencies - or groups of agents - tried to disrupt the Eisenhower-Khrushchev détente of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and that some intelligence players tried to stop Khrushchev's formal recognition of West Germany, also in the early 1960s.
Read morePutin compares Khashoggi case to Skripal poisoning, asks why Russia condemned despite lack of proof
It is reasonable to ask, therefore, whether the attacks on Skripal and Khashoggi were " rogue " operations undertaken by political opponents of the leaders' policies at home or abroad, with the help of one or another intelligence agency or agents. Motive is a - perhaps the - crucial question. Why would Putin order such an operation in the UK at the very moment when his government had undertaken a major Western public-relations campaign in connection with the upcoming World Cup championship in Russia? And why would MbS risk a Khashoggi scandal as he was assiduously promoting his image abroad as an enlightened reform-minded Saudi leader?
We lack the evidence and official candor needed to study these questions, as is usually the case with covert, secretive, disinforming intelligence operations. But the questions are certainly reason enough not to rush to judgment, as many US pundits do. Saying " we do not know " may be unmarketable in today's mass-media environment, but it is honest and the right approach to potentially fruitful " analysis. "
2. We do know, however, that there has been fierce opposition in the US political-media establishment to President Trump's policy of " cooperating with Russia ," including in US intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI - and at high levels of his own administration.
We might consider Nikki Haley's resignation as UN ambassador in this light. Despite the laurels heaped on her by anti-Trump media, and by Trump himself at their happy-hour farewell in the White House, Haley was not widely admired by her UN colleagues. When appointed for political reasons by Trump, she had no foreign-policy credentials or any expert knowledge of other countries or of international relations generally. Judging by her performance as ambassador, nor did she acquire much on the job, almost always reading even short comments from prepared texts.
More to the point, Haley's statements regarding Russia at the UN were, more often than not, dissimilar from Trump's -- indeed, implicitly in opposition to Trump's. (She did nothing, for example, to offset charges in Washington that Trump's summit meeting with Putin in Helsinki, in July, had been " treasonous .") Who wrote these statements for her, which were very similar to statements regarding Russia that have been issued by US intelligence agencies since early 2017? It is hard to imagine that Trump was unhappy to see her go, and easier to imagine him pushing her toward the exit. A president needs a loyalist as secretary of state and at the UN. Haley's pandering remarks at the White House about Trump's family suggests some deal had been made to ease her out, with non-recrimination promises made on both sides. We will see if opponents of Trump's Russia policy can put another spokesperson at the UN.
As to which aspects of US foreign policy Trump actually controls, we might ask more urgently if he authorized, or was fully informed about, the joint US-NATO-Ukraine military air exercises that got under way over Ukraine, abutting Russia, on October 8. Moscow regards these exercises as a major " provocation ," and not unreasonably.
Read more'Ambitious as Lucifer': Steve Bannon takes dig at Nikki Haley and her 'suspicious' resignation
3. What do Trump's opponents want instead of " cooperation with Russia "? A much harder line, including more " crushing " economic sanctions. Sanctions are more like temper tantrums and road rage than actual national-security policy, and thus are often counterproductive. We have some recent evidence. Russia's trade surplus has grown to more than $100 billion. World prices for Russia's primary exports, oil and gas, have grown to over $80 a unit while Moscow's federal budget is predicated on $53 a barrel. Promoters of anti-Russian sanctions gloat that they have weakened the ruble. But while imposing some hardships on ordinary citizens, the combination of high oil prices and a weaker ruble is ideal for Russian state and corporate exporters. They sell abroad for inflated foreign currency and pay their operating expenses at home in cheaper rubles. To risk a pun, they are " crushing it. "
Congressional sanctions - for exactly what is not always clear - have helped Putin in another way. For years, he has unsuccessfully tried to get " oligarchs " to repatriate their wealth abroad. US sanctions on various " oligarchs " have persuaded them and others to begin to do so, perhaps bringing back home as much as $90 billion already in 2018.
If nothing else, these new budgetary cash flows help Putin deal with his declining popularity at home - he still has an approval rating well above 60 percent - due to the Kremlin's decision to raise the pension age for men and women, from 60 to 65 and from 55 to 60 respectively. The Kremlin can use the additional revenue to increase the value of pensions, supplement them with other social benefits, or to enact the age change over a longer period of time.
It appears that Congress, particularly the Senate, has no Russia policy other than sanctions. It might think hard about finding alternatives. One way to start would be with real " hearings " in place of the ritualistic affirmation of orthodox policy by " experts " that has long been its practice. There are more than a few actual specialists out there who think different approaches to Moscow are long overdue.
READ MORE: Most Americans favor diplomacy over sanctions when it comes to Russia – poll
4. All of these dangerous developments, indeed the new US-Russian Cold War itself, are elite projects -- political, media, intelligence, etc. Voters were never really consulted. Nor do they seem to approve. In August, Gallup asked its usual sample of Americans which policy toward Russia they preferred. Fifty-eight percent wanted improved relations vs. only 36 percent who wanted a tougher US policy with more sanctions. (Meanwhile, two-thirds of Russians surveyed by an independent agency now see the United States as their country's number-one enemy, and about three-fourths view China favorably.)
Will any of the US political figures already jockeying for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 take these realities into account?
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.
This article was originally published by The Nation .
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Oct 16, 2018 | www.amazon.com
Chapter 1: The Mythic Past
It's in the name of tradition that the anti-Semites base their "point of view." It's in the name of tradition, the long, historical past and the blood ties with Pascal and Descartes, that the Jews are told, you will never belong here.
-- Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
It is only natural to begin this book where fascist politics invariably claims to discover its genesis: in the past. Fascist politics invokes a pure mythic past tragically destroyed. Depending on how the nation is defined, the mythic past may be religiously pure, racially pure, culturally pure, or all of the above. But there is a common structure to all fascist mythologizing. In all fascist mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme, even just a few generations ago.
Further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation, with wars of conquest led by patriotic generals, its armies filled with its countrymen, able-bodied, loyal warriors whose wives were at home raising the next generation. In the present, these myths become the basis of the nation's identity under fascist politics.
In the rhetoric of extreme nationalists, such a glorious past has been lost by the humiliation brought on by globalism, liberal cosmopolitanism, and respect for "universal values" such as equality. These values are supposed to have made the nation weak in the face of real and threatening challenges to the nation's existence.
These myths are generally based on fantasies of a nonexistent past uniformity, which survives in the traditions of the small towns and countrysides that remain relatively unpolluted by the liberal decadence of the cities. This uniformity -- linguistic, religious, geographical, or ethnic -- can be perfectly ordinary in some nationalist movements, but fascist myths distinguish themselves with the creation of a glorious national history in which the members of the chosen nation ruled over others, the result of conquests and civilization-building achievements. For example, in the fascist imagination, the past invariably involves traditional, patriarchal gender roles. The fascist mythic past has a particular structure, which supports its authoritarian, hierarchical ideology. That past societies were rarely as patriarchal -- or indeed as glorious -- as fascist ideology represents them as being is beside the point. This imagined history provides proof to support the imposition of hierarchy in the present, and it dictates how contemporary society should look and behave.
In a 1922 speech at the Fascist Congress in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared:
We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality. . . . Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total reality, we subordinate everything.
The patriarchal family is one ideal that fascist politicians intend to create in society -- or return to, as they claim. The patriarchal family is always represented as a central part of the nation's traditions, diminished, even recently, by the advent of liberalism and cosmopolitanism. But why is patriarchy so strategically central to fascist politics?
In a fascist society, the leader of the nation is analogous to the father in the traditional patriarchal family. The leader is the father of his nation, and his strength and power are the source of his legal authority, just as the strength and power of the father of the family in patriarchy are supposed to be the source of his ultimate moral authority over his children and wife. The leader provides for his nation, just as in the traditional family the father is the provider. The patriarchal father's authority derives from his strength, and strength is the chief authoritarian value. By representing the nation's past as one with a patriarchal family structure, fascist politics connects nostalgia to a central organizing hierarchal authoritarian structure, one that finds its purest representation in these norms.
Gregor Strasser was the National Socialist -- Nazi -- Reich propaganda chief in the 1920s, before the post was taken over by Joseph Goebbels. According to Strasser, "for a man, military service is the most profound and valuable form of participation -- for the woman it is motherhood!" Paula Siber, the acting head of the Association of German Women, in a 1933 document meant to reflect official National Socialist state policy on women, declares that "to be a woman means to be a mother, means affirming with the whole conscious force of one's soul the value of being a mother and making it a law of life . . . the highest calling of the National Socialist woman is not just to bear children, but consciously and out of total devotion to her role and duty as mother to raise children for her people." Richard Grunberger, a British historian of National Socialism, sums up "the kernel of Nazi thinking on the women's question" as "a dogma of inequality between the sexes as immutable as that between the races." The historian Charu Gupta, in her 1991 article "Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany," goes as far as to argue that "oppression of women in Nazi Germany in fact furnishes the most extreme case of anti-feminism in the 20th century."
Here, Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical. The function of the mythic past, in fascist politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology -- authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle.
With the creation of a mythic past, fascist politics creates a link between nostalgia and the realization of fascist ideals. German fascists also clearly and explicitly appreciated this point about the strategic use of a mythological past. The leading Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, editor of the prominent Nazi newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter, writes in 1924, "the understanding of and the respect for our own mythological past and our own history will form the first condition for more firmly anchoring the coming generation in the soil of Europe's original homeland." The fascist mythic past exists to aid in changing the present.
Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to Yale in 2013, he was Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Stanley is the author of Know How; Languages in Context; More about Jason Stanley
5.0 out of 5 starsJuly 17, 2018 Format: Hardcover Vine
Highly readableBy Joel E. Mitchell on September 13, 2018w.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R36R5FWIWTP6F0/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0525511830">
Massive Partisan BiasThis could have been such a helpful, insightful book. The word "fascist" is hurled at political / ideological opponents so often that it has started to lose its meaning. I hoped that this book would provide a historical perspective on fascism by examining actual fascist governments and drawing some parallels to the more egregious / worrisome trends in US & European politics. The chapter titles in the table of contents were promising:
- The Mythic Past
- Propaganda
- Anti-Intellectual
- Unreality
- Hierarchy
- Victimhood
- Law & Order
- Sexual Anxiety
- Sodom & Gomorrah
- Arbeit Macht FreiIronically (given the book's subtitle) the author used his book divisively: to laud his left-wing political views and demonize virtually all distinctively right-wing views. He uses the term "liberal democracy" inconsistently throughout, disengenuously equivocating between the meaning of "representative democracy as opposed to autocratic or oligarchic government" (which most readers would agree is a good thing) and "American left-wing political views" (which he treats as equally self-evidently superior if you are a right-thinking person). Virtually all American right-wing political views are presented in straw-man form, defined in such a way that they fit his definition of fascist politics.
I was expecting there to be a pretty heavy smear-job on President Trump and his cronies (much of it richly deserved...the man's demagoguery and autocratic tendencies are frightening), but for this to turn into "let's find a way to define virtually everything the Republicans are and do as fascist politics" was massively disappointing. The absurdly biased portrayal of all things conservative and constant hymns of praise to all things and all people left-wing buried some good historical research and valid parallels under an avalanche of partisanism.
If you want a more historical, less partisan view of the rise of fascist politics, I would highly recommend Darkness Over Germany by E. Amy Buller (Review Here). It was written during World War II (based on interviews with Germans before WWII), so you will have to draw your own contemporary parallels...but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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Oct 08, 2018 | www.unz.com
Jake Bowyer October 3, 2018Since the late fall of 2016, Democrats and other Leftist types have been decrying President Donald J. Trump as "not normal" and a "threat to democracy." Of course, this is hogwash of the most rank sort. The same people lambasting Trump for his supposed " authoritarianism " are the same people who have created the modern American oligarchy. Tucker Carlson , the popular Fox News who wrote the single most brilliant and prescient Main Stream Media article on the Trump phenomenon: Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar and Right | And, my dear fellow Republicans, he's all your fault, by Tucker Carlson, Politico, January 28, 2016.
That was written before, let it be noted, Trump's double-digit triumph in the New Hampshire primary -- has continued to speak verboten things . Now he takes aim at America's oligarchic class in his just-released book Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution.
For Carlson, moral and social rot in the United States starts at the very top -- the place where Democrats and Republicans https://vdare.com/posts/they-want-to-lose-gop-congress-sounds-retreat-on-border-wall-funds-democratic-priorities to maintain unpopular elite rule. Carlson compares this American elite to blind drunk captains steering a sinking ship. Making matters worse: the fact that, in keeping with Carlson's nautical parallel, "Anyone who points out the consequences of what they're [the elite] doing gets keelhauled." Gavin McInnes (banned from Twitter ) and Alex Jones (banned from everything ) would agree.
Ship of Fools is no apology for Trumpism. Indeed, Carlson calls Trump "vulgar and ignorant." But he rightly points out that Trump "didn't invade Iraq or bail out Wall Street. He didn't lower interest rates to zero, or open the borders, or sit silently by as the manufacturing sector collapsed and the middle class died." Basically, Donald J. Trump is not your average American politician. Thank God.
For much of Ship of Fools , Carlson comes off sounding like someone with his heart in the center-left. Some cheeky Twitter users might even dub Carlson's latest book National Bolshevism.
Why? Well, Ship of Fools excoriates finance capitalism and the class that has constantly reaped economic benefits out of the labor of American workers without contributing anything of substance to the American body politic. The Democrats used to be the party of populist rabble rousers like Huey Long and Al Smith.
But Carlson points out that "the Democratic Party is now the party of the rich." Rather than attacking mega-wealthy people like Amazon's Jeff Bezos or Apple's Tim Cook , the modern American Left is completely in thrall to money and corporate power. This hurts every American not in the upper income bracket.
Republicans are no better. They remain wedded to the idea of being the party of business, and as such many Republican elected officials support Open Borders because that would provide their donors with an endless supply of cheap labor. This support comes at the cost of angering a majority of Republican voters.
In sum, both parties have given up on the native-born American workers. And, beginning in 2016, American workers began pushing back at the ballot box.
Ship of Fools is a bleak book. It is also much better than the usual fluff penned (or signed) by Fox News pundits. Carlson tells uncomfortable truths and engages with topics that until very recently were only considered fit for the fringe Right (like VDARE.com ).
Take for instance the displacement of white Americans, especially white working-class Americans. America is a nation of 200 million white people. Native-born whites pay more in taxes, provide the majority of America's soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen, and are the offspring of the people who built this country. For this hard work and loyalty, foreign-born editors at the New York Times tweet "#CancelWhitePeople." Hordes of Antifa types cheer on the displacement of native-born whites, while the political elite do nothing to combat rising drug overdose deaths and suicides in the Midwest, rural Northeast, and South. As Carlson warns, " White identity politics will be a response to a world in which identity politics is the only game there is."
And, as anti-white vitriol increases and whites are demoted from majority status, Carlson predicts that white interest groups will form and flex their muscles when they feel that their backs are up against the wall.
At several points in Ship of Fools , Carlson sincerely grieves for the lost Liberal-Left of his childhood. He misses the environmentalists who cared about littering, not about some abstract thing called climate change. He misses those Leftists who cried about injustice in the world rather than ranting and raving at the behest of the elite class. Without an honest Left, America could further descend into corporate anarcho-tyranny -- a place where businesses control free speech and only a small sliver of people enjoy the benefits of the modern and high-tech economy.
Ship of Fools ends with a warning: either practice democracy or be prepared for authoritarian rule.
"In order to survive, democracies must remain egalitarian," Carlson argues."When all the spoils seem to flow upward, the majority will revolt in protest."
Explicit in this critique of America's Ruling Class is the fact that democracies are unstable and prone to self-destruction. In modern America, the elite do not attend to the population, cynical race-mongering is used to win votes at the cost of internal peace, and chicken hawks like Max Boot and William Kristol still receive adulation in the Main Stream Media despite their disastrous record of cheering on military misadventures that kill thousands of Americans. (To say nothing of their fanatical opposition to Trump -- despite the fact that he won the presidency when their catspaws McCain and Romney ignominiously failed). Ship of Fools correctly notes that this is what an empire looks like in its final days.
In this sense the elites may be right to characterize President Trump as a populist. After all, Julius Caesar gave the common man order, security, and bread in the face of a cold and sterile system. By attempting to dismantle the elite consensus, Trump, Trumpism , and America First may just be the first entries in a new age of all-American Caesarism.
We should only be so lucky!
Jake Bowyer [ Email him ] is the pseudonym of an American college student.
KenG , says: October 7, 2018 at 6:36 am GMT
I enjoyed the book immensely even though I'm a socialist myself. Tucker's disdain for wars, technology companies, and the ruling class are a breath of fresh air. I also enjoy his show but I do wish he wouldn't talk over the guests he disagrees with.AlreadyPublished , says: October 7, 2018 at 4:39 am GMTThere must be a reason why people like j g strijdom and curmudgeon, with their slimy unsubstantiated charges, despise Tucker Carlson. I suspect it is this:
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Oct 08, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Pft , Oct 8, 2018 12:11:11 AM | 43 k
The constitution was a creation of the elite at the time, the property class. Its mission was to prevent the common folk from having control. Democracy=mob rule= Bad.
The common folk only had the ability to elect representatives in the house, who in turn would elect Senators. Electors voted for President and they were appointed by a means chosen by the state legislature , which only in modern times has come to mean by the popular vote of the common folk. Starting from 1913 it was decided to let the common folk vote for Senator and give the commonfolk the illusion of Democracy confident they could be controlled with propaganda and taxes (also adopted in 1913 with the Fed)
At the time the eligible voters were males of European descent (MOED), and while not highly educated they were relatively free of propaganda and IQ's were higher than today. After giving women the right to vote and with other minorities voting the MOED became a minority voter.
Bernays science of propaganda took off during WWI, Since MOED's made up the most educated class (relative to minorities and women) up to the 70's this was a big deal for almost 60 years , although not today when miseducation is equal among the different races, sexes and ethnicities.
So today with propaganda and education being what it is, not to mention campaign financing laws especially post Citizen United, and MSM under control of 6 companies, the entire voting class is miseducated and easily influenced to vote for candidates chosen by the elites
So how do the common folk get control over the federal government? That is a pipe dream and will never happen. The founders who incited the revolution against British rule were the American Elites (also British citizens) who wanted more. The elites today got everything they want. They have no need for revolution. The common folk are divided, misinformed, unorganized, leaderless and males are emasculated. Incapable of taking control peacefully or otherwise.
Thats just my opinion
Guerrero , Oct 8, 2018 1:03:57 AM | link
Pft has a point. If there was ever a time for the people to take the republic into its hands, it may have been just after the Civil War when the Dems were discredited and the Repubs had a total control of Congress.This was the high-tariff-era and the budget surplus was an issue all through the balance of the 19th Century. So what were the politics about? 1. Stirring stump (Trump) speeches were all about "waving the bloody shirt"
All manner of political office-seekers devoted themselves to getting on the government gravy train, somehow. The selling of political offices was notorious and the newspaper editors of the time were ashamed of this.
Then there was the Whiskey Ring. The New York Customs House was a major source of corruption lucre. Then there was vote selling in blocks of as many as 10,000 and the cost of paying those who could do this. Then there were the kickbacks from the awards of railroad concessions which included large parcels of land. If there ever was a Golden Age of the United States it must have been when Franklin Roosevelt was President.
ben , Oct 8, 2018 1:13:04 AM | link
karlof1 @ 34 asked:"My question for several years now: What are us Commonfolk going to do to regain control of the federal government?"Grieved , Oct 8, 2018 1:13:32 AM | linkThe only thing us "common folk" can do is work within our personal sphere of influence, and engage who you can, when you can, and support with any $ you can spare, to support the sites and any local radio stations that broadcast independent thought. ( if you can find any). Pacifica radio, KPFK in LA is a good example. KPFA in the bay area.
Other than another economic crash, I don't believe anything can rouse the pathetic bovine public. Bread and circuses work...
@38 Pftdh-mtl , Oct 8, 2018 2:34:39 AM | linkThe division of representative power and stake in the political process back at the birth of the US Constitution was as you say it was. But this wasn't because any existing power had been taken away from anyone. It was simply the state of play back then.
Since that time, we common people have developed a more egalitarian sense of how the representation should be apportioned. We include former slaves, all ethnic groups and both genders. We exclude animals thus far, although we do have some - very modest - protections in place.
I think it has been the rise of the socialist impulse among workers that has expanded this egalitarian view, with trade unions and anti-imperialist revolutions and national struggles. But I'm not a scholar or a historian so I can't add details to my impression.
My point is that since the Framers met, there has been a progressive elevation of our requirements of representative government. I think some of this also came from the Constitution itself, with its embedded Bill of Rights.
I can't say if this expansion has continued to this day or not. History may show there was a pinnacle that we have now passed, and entered a decline. I don't know - it's hard to say how we score the Internet in this balance. It's always hard to score the present age along its timeline. And the future is never here yet, in the present, and can only ever be guessed.
In my view, the dream of popular control of representative government remains entirely possible. I call it an aspiration rather than a pipe dream, and one worth taking up and handing on through the generations. Current global society may survive in relatively unbroken line for millennia to come. There's simply no percentage in calling failure at this time.
It may be that better government comes to the United States from the example of the world nations, over the decades and centuries to come. Maybe the demonstration effect will work on us even when we cannot work on ourselves. We are not the only society of poor people who want a fair life.
In my view of the fundamental dynamic - namely that of history being one unbroken story of the rich exploiting the poor - representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be madness.
In my opinion.
Grieved @42 said:Krollchem , Oct 8, 2018 2:42:16 AM | link"representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be madness."
Here, here! I fully agree with you.
In my opinion, representative government was stronger in the U.S. from the 1930's to the 1970's and Europe after WW2. And as a result the western world achieved unprecedented prosperity. Since 1980, the U.S. government has been captured by trans-national elites, who, since the 1990's have also captured much of the political power in the EU.
Both Europe and the U.S. are now effectively dictatorships, run by a trans-national elite. The crumbling of both is the result of this dictatorship.
Prosperity, and peace, will only return when the dictators are removed and representative government is returned.
dh-mtl@44Anton Worter , Oct 8, 2018 3:06:04 AM | link"Both Europe and the U.S. are now effectively dictatorships, run by a trans-national elite. The crumbling of both is the result of this dictatorship."
Exactly!! I feel like the Swedish knight Antonius Block in the movie the 7th Seal. There does not seem any way out of this evil game by the death dealing rulers.
@24Anton Worter , Oct 8, 2018 3:34:05 AM | linkLove it. But you fad3d at the end. It was Gingrich, not Rodham, who was behind Contract on America, and GHWBush's Fed Bank group wrote the legislation that would have been Bush's second term 'kinder, gentler' Gramm-Leach-Bliley bayonet up the azs of the American Dream, as passed by a majority of Congress, and by that point Tripp and Lewinski had already pull-dated Wild Bill. God, can you imagine being married to that hag Rodham? The purple people-eating lizards of Georgetown and Alexandria. Uurk.
40żQue tal?
I'm reading a great FDR book, 'Roosevelt and Hopkins', a signed 1st Ed copy by Robert Sherwood, and the only book extant from my late father's excellent political and war library, after his trophy wife dumped the rest of his library off at Goodwill, lol. They could have paid for her next booblift, ha, ha, ha.
Anyway, FDR, in my mind, only passed the populist laws that he did because he needed cannon fodder in good fighting shape for Rothschild's Wars ("3/4ths of WW2 conscripts were medically unfit for duty," the book reports), and because Rothschild's and Queens Bank of London needed the whole sh*taco bailed out afterward, by creating SS wage-withholding 'Trust Fund' (sic) the Fed then tapped into, and creating Lend-Lease which let Rothschilds float credit-debt to even a higher level and across the globe. Has it all been paid off by Germany and Japan yet?
Even Lincoln, jeez, Civil War was never about slavery, it was about finance and taxation and the illegitimate Federal supremacy over the Republic of States, not unlike the EU today. Lincoln only freed the slaves to use them as cannon fodder and as a fifth column.
All of these politicians were purple people-eating lizards, except maybe the Kennedy's, and they got ground and pounded like Conor McGregor, meh?
Guerrero | Oct 8, 2018 10:22:34 AM | 61
@BM | Oct 8, 2018 10:03:12 AM | 60
"representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be madness."Compare to: Sentiments of the Nation:
12ş That as the good Law is superior to every man, those dictated by our Congress must be such, that they force constancy and patriotism, moderate opulence and indigence; and in such a way increase the wages of the poor, improve their habits, moving away from ignorance, rapine and theft.
13ş That the general laws include everyone, without exception of privileged bodies; and that these are only in the use of the ministry..
14ş That in order to dictate a Law, the Meeting of Sages is made, in the possible number, so that it may proceed with more success and exonerate of some charges that may result.
15. That slavery be banished forever, and the distinction of castes, leaving all the same, and only distinguish one American from another by vice and virtue.
16ş That our Ports be open to friendly foreign nations, but that they do not enter the nation, no matter how friendly they may be, and there will only be Ports designated for that purpose, prohibiting disembarkation in all others, indicating ten percent.
17ş That each one be kept his property, and respect in his House as in a sacred asylum, pointing out penalties to the offenders.
18ş That the new legislation does not admit torture.
19ş That the Constitutional Law establishes the celebration of December 12th in all Peoples, dedicated to the Patroness of our Liberty, Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe, entrusting to all Peoples the monthly devotion.
20ş That the foreign troops, or of another Kingdom, do not step on our soil, and if it were in aid, they will not without the Supreme Junta approval.
21ş That expeditions are not made outside the limits of the Kingdom, especially overseas, that they are not of this kind yet rather to spread the faith to our brothers and sisters of the land inside.
22ş That the infinity of tributes, breasts and impositions that overwhelm us be removed, and each individual be pointed out a five percent of seeds and other effects or other equally light weight, that does not oppress so much, as the alcabala, the Tobacconist, the Tribute and others; because with this slight contribution, and the good administration of the confiscated goods of the enemy, will be able to take the weight of the War, and pay the fees of employees.
Temple of the Virgen of the Ascencion
Chilpancingo, September 14, 1813.
José MŞ Morelos.23ş That also be solemnized on September 16, every year, as the Anniversary day on which the Voice of Independence was raised, and our Holy Freedom began, because on that day it was in which the lips of the Nation were deployed to claim their rights with Sword in hand to be heard: always remembering the merit of the great Hero Mr. Don Miguel Hidalgo and his companion Don Ignacio Allende.
Answers on November 21, 1813. And therefore, these are abolished, always being subject to the opinion of S. [u] A. [alteza] S. [very eminent]
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Oct 05, 2018 | www.theguardian.com
Accountability is for the little people, immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human history
'If there are no legal consequences for profiteers who defrauded the global economy into a collapse, what will deter those profiteers from doing that again?' Illustration: Mark Long/Mark Long for Guardian US W hen the former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was released from prison a few weeks ago, the news conjured memories of a corporate scandal that now seems almost quaint – and it was also a reminder that Enron executives were among the last politically connected criminals to face any serious consequences for institutionalized fraud.Since Skilling's conviction 12 years ago, our society has been fundamentally altered by a powerful political movement whose goal is not merely another court seat, tax cut or election victory. This movement's objective is far more revolutionary: the creation of an accountability-free zone for an ennobled aristocracy, even as the rest of the population is treated to law-and-order rhetoric and painfully punitive policy.
Let's remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters. While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition, incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.
That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge, the key players who created this era's catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment – many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status.
The effort to construct this elite haven has tied together so many seemingly disparate news events, suggesting that there is a method in the madness. Consider this past month that culminated with the dramatic battle over the judicial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine.
The event was attended by Iraq war proponents of both parties, from Dick Cheney to Lindsey Graham to Hillary Clinton. The funeral featured a saccharine eulogy from the key Democratic proponent of the invasion, Joe Lieberman, as well the resurrection of George W Bush. The codpiece-flaunting war president who piloted America into the cataclysm with "bring 'em on" bravado, "shock and awe" bloodlust and "uranium from Africa" dishonesty was suddenly portrayed as an icon of warmth and civility when he passed a lozenge to Michelle Obama. The scene was depicted not as the gathering of a rogues gallery fit for a war crimes tribunal, but as a venerable bipartisan reunion evoking nostalgia for the supposed halcyon days – and Bush promptly used his newly revived image to campaign for Republican congressional candidates and lobby for Kavanaugh's appointment .
The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the Iraq debacle.
Next up came the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis – a meltdown that laid waste to the global economy, while providing lucrative taxpayer-funded bailouts to Wall Street firms.
To mark the occasion, the three men on whose watch it occurred – Fed chair Ben Bernanke, Bush treasury secretary Hank Paulson and Obama treasury secretary Tim Geithner – did not offer an apology, but instead promised that another financial crisis will eventually occur, and they demanded lawmakers give public officials more power to bail out big banks in the future.
In a similar bipartisan show of unity, former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn gave an interview in which he asked "Who broke the law?" – the implication being that no Wall Street executives were prosecuted for their role in the meltdown because no statutes had been violated. That suggestion, of course, is undermined by banks ' own admissions that they defrauded investors (that includes admissions of fraud from Goldman Sachs – the very bank that Cohn himself ran during the crisis). Nonetheless, Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder – who has now rejoined his old corporate defense law firm – subsequently backed Cohn up by arguing that nobody on Wall Street committed an offense that could have been successfully prosecuted in a court of law.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by floating the idea of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White House candidate.
Again, the message came through: nobody who engineered the financial crisis will pay any real price for wreaking so much havoc.
Then as Hurricane Florence provided the latest illustration of climate change's devastation, ExxonMobil marched into the supreme court to demand an end to a state investigation of its role denying and suppressing climate science. Backed by 11 Republican attorneys general , the fossil fuel giant had reason to feel emboldened in its appeal for immunity: despite investigative reporting detailing the company's prior knowledge of fossil fuel's role in climate change, its executives had already convinced the Securities and Exchange Commission to shut down a similar investigation.
Once again, the message was unavoidable: in the new accountability-free zone, companies shouldn't be bothered to even explain – much less face punishment for – their role in a crisis that threatens the survival of the human species.
... ... ...
The answer is nothing – which is exactly the point for the aristocracy. But that cannot be considered acceptable for the rest of us outside the accountability-free zone.
David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an investigative journalist at Capital & Main. His latest book is Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now
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Oct 05, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
CitizenOne , October 2, 2018 at 11:19 pm
The recent history of the Supreme Court has been one of Justices playing the part of politicians in robes. Perhaps no better example was the nullification of the recount in the Bush v Gore election with the "Brooks Brothers Riot" where paid operatives of the republicans stormed the election office in Florida and declared the recount over in an extra judicial action which was backed up by the members of the Supreme Court leading to their moniker "politicians in robes". The Supreme Court basically stole that election by upholding the use of violence as a tool to stop the recount instead of reacting on its own to denounce the use of such tactics.
The Supreme Court has become weaponized as a force for right wing agendas and it has taken a partisan position many times due to justices who have become radicalized to advance right wing views. This is part of a vast right wing well funded and well oiled political money machine. Little debut over the 10 million dollars spent by anonymous donors greasing the nomination of Neil Gorsuch. The $10 million effort to win federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation, funded by unknown donors to a conservative interest group called the Judicial Crisis Network, follows a successful $7 million effort last year to block President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland. The group calls it "the most robust operation in the history of confirmation battles."
Billionaires are funding the selection and nomination of Supreme Court Justices for one reason. So that the Supreme Court is stacked by loyal conservatives who will side with big industrialist businesses on every case brought against big industrialists.
This is a long term strategy funded with hundreds of millions of dollars poured into efforts to create a three point strategy. Fund AstroTurf phony grass roots populist organizations which claim they are formed by housewives and farmers and middle class folk but who really serve the interests of the billionaire class. Fund politicians and judges who are begging to get the money to win elections by promising they will do everything to support the uber class and groveling at their feet for the cash to be had. Create laws to serve the interests of billionaires.
So far each effort has been a phenomenal success. Funded with hundreds of millions of dollars willing recipients of all the corporate cash have created the ostensible populist front defending wedge issues like abortion, gun control and anti immigration along with a health dose of anti establishment hatred of the government. Their real aim is to serve the corporate interests.
Donald Trump is perhaps the biggest benefactor of the money machine having won election based on this populist jargon while spending little of his own money but really serving the corporate interests most obviously by supporting the 1.9 Trillion dollar tax breaks for billionaires.
It is unlikely that the average American would get angry about health care or their own social security which is funded by workers not billionaires unless they were propagandized by every main stream media outlet with Fox News and other more extremely radical right wing media outlets and all the rightwing websites and right wing syndicated media pundits.
Average Americans have been suckered to believe that what is in their own interests is very bad for America and Freedom and Democracy etc. They have been hoodwinked into voting for politicians who want to strip them of healthcare, social security, financial security and basic rights to privacy and access to the judicial system with arbitration clauses attached to every product down to toothbrushes and sunglasses. They have come to believe that defending wedge issues means they will vote for republicans no matter how bad their economic future is compromised and their future put at risk by predatory businesses which offer paycheck loans, balloon mortgages, sky high interest and insurance rates, multiple bank accounts with lots of surcharges (Pinkerton Bank) and promise to end Medicare and Social Security because its Okay to give trillions to billionaires but not Okay to help average hard working people.
Donald Trump is the pinnacle of this usurpation of power capturing the Executive Branch funded by free advertising from the media and running on a fake AstroTurf populist campaign strategy while delivering all the money to the billionaires as he entertains guests for huge fees at his Florida Property against the Emoluments Clause which appears to be dead. No president should economically benefit from the position of the highest office in the land for personal enrichment yet the Tax Cuts seem to have been perfectly tailored for Trumps own enrichment via a little known clause which allows property investment owners to pass the profits gained via those holdings to other entities like his kids at greatly lower taxes. What a windfall for Trump who has investment pass through properties all over the place. It's a really nice deal" for Trump and pass-through owners like him, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
So much for the little guy as republicans now demand that the giant deficit created by their enormous tax cuts for the wealthy now be shrunk by eliminating all social welfare programs like Social Security which if funded by workers under the payroll deduction tax. Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees, and are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their staff. Payroll taxes generally fall into two categories: deductions from an employee's wages, and taxes paid by the employer based on the employee's wages. These taxes fund Social Security/ Workers earnings are garnished to pay for Social Security. The Government does not steal this money from rich people. They take it from every worker according to a schedule.
How stupid we are to willingly call this wasteful government spending and buy the BS of the republicans that it must end. What will they do with all the money once none of us is going to see a dime of what we donated under law? Why they will steal it of course.
Who has the authority to declare all social welfare programs unconstitutional? The Supreme Court. Who has the power to decline any case brought against and well monied entity including the President? The Supreme Court.
It is not so much about beer and drunkenness and abuse of women but about the continued abuse of us all by the republican party which is funded by the rich and operated by the rich for the rich and only for the rich.
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Jul 31, 2018 | russia-insider.com
"a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse ... shared values and consensus which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for what power and swag remained."
If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we understand the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines.
If we consider the state of the nation from 40,000 feet, several key indicators of profound political disunity within the elites pop out:
- The overt politicization of the central state's law enforcement and intelligence agencies: it is now commonplace to find former top officials of the CIA et al. accusing a sitting president of treason in the mainstream media. What was supposed to be above politics is now nothing but politics.
- The overt politicization of the centralized (corporate) media: evidence that would stand up in a court of law is essentially non-existent but the interpretations and exaggerations that fit the chosen narrative are ceaselessly promoted--the classic definition of desperate propaganda by those who have lost the consent of the governed.
Psychopaths with no moral principles. The nation's elites are not just divided--they're exhibiting signs of schizophrenic breakdown : disassociation and a loss of the ability to discern the difference between reality and their internal fantasies.I've been writing about the divided Deep State for a number of years, for example, The Conflict within the Deep State Just Broke into Open Warfare . The topic appears to be one of widespread interest, as this essay drew over 300,000 views.
It's impossible to understand the divided Deep State unless we situate it in the larger context of profound political disunity , a concept I learned from historian Michael Grant, whose slim but insightful volume The Fall of the Roman Empire I have been recommending since 2009.
As I noted in my 2009 book Survival+ , this was a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse. The shared values and consensus which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for what power and swag remained.
A funny thing happens when a nation allows itself to be ruled by Imperial kleptocrats: such rule is intrinsically destabilizing, as there is no longer any moral or political center to bind the nation together. The public sees the value system at the top is maximize my personal profit by whatever means are available , i.e. complicity, corruption, monopoly and rentier rackets , and they follow suit by pursuing whatever petty frauds and rackets are within reach: tax avoidance, cheating on entrance exams, gaming the disability system, lying on mortgage and job applications, and so on.
But the scope of the rentier rackets is so large, the bottom 95% cannot possibly keep up with the expanding wealth and income of the top .1% and their army of technocrats and enablers, so a rising sense of injustice widens the already yawning fissures in the body politic.
Meanwhile, diverting the national income into a few power centers is also destabilizing , as Central Planning and Market Manipulation (a.k.a. the Federal Reserve) are intrinsically unstable as price can no longer be discovered by unfettered markets. As a result, imbalances grow until some seemingly tiny incident or disruption triggers a cascading collapse, a.k.a. a phase shift or system re-set.
As the Power Elites squabble over the dwindling crumbs left by the various rentier rackets, there's no one left to fight for the national interest because the entire Status Quo of self-interested fiefdoms and cartels has been co-opted and is now wedded to the Imperial Oligarchy as their guarantor of financial security.
The divided Deep State is a symptom of this larger systemic political disunity. I have characterized the divide as between the Wall Street-Neocon-Globalist Neoliberal camp--currently the dominant public face of the Deep State, the one desperately attempting to exploit the "Russia hacked our elections and is trying to destroy us" narrative--and a much less public, less organized "rogue Progressive" camp, largely based in the military services and fringes of the Deep State, that sees the dangers of a runaway expansionist Empire and the resulting decay of the nation's moral/political center.
What few observers seem to understand is that concentrating power in centralized nodes is intrinsically unstable. Contrast a system in which power, control and wealth is extremely concentrated in a few nodes (the current U.S. Imperial Project) and a decentralized network of numerous dynamic nodes.
The disruption of any of the few centralized nodes quickly destabilizes the entire system because each centralized node is highly dependent on the others. This is in effect what happened in the 2008-09 Financial Meltdown: the Wall Street node failed and that quickly imperiled the entire economy and thus the entire political order, up to and including the Global Imperial Project.
Historian Peter Turchin has proposed that the dynamics of profound political disunity (i.e. social, financial and political disintegration) can be quantified in a Political Stress Index, a concept he describes in his new book Ages of Discord .
If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we understand the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines. There is no other possible output of a system of highly concentrated nodes of power, wealth and control and the competing rentier rackets of these dependent, increasingly fragile centralized nodes.
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May 02, 2017 | original.antiwar.com
Did the Deep State deep-six Trump's populist revolution?Many observers, especially among his fans, suspect that the seemingly untamable Trump has already been housebroken by the Washington, "globalist" establishment. If true, the downfall of Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the new presidency may have been a warning sign. And the turning point would have been the removal of Steven K. Bannon from the National Security Council on April 5.
Until then, the presidency's early policies had a recognizably populist-nationalist orientation. During his administration's first weeks, Trump's biggest supporters frequently tweeted the hashtag #winning and exulted that he was decisively doing exactly what, on the campaign trail, he said he would do.
In a flurry of executive orders and other unilateral actions bearing Bannon's fingerprints, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, declared a sweeping travel ban, instituted harsher deportation policies, and more.
These policies seemed to fit Trump's reputation as the " tribune of poor white people ," as he has been called; above all, Trump's base calls for protectionism and immigration restrictions. Trump seemed to be delivering on the populist promise of his inauguration speech (thought to be written by Bannon), in which he said:
"Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration. And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
Everyone is listening to you now." [Emphasis added.]
After a populist insurgency stormed social media and the voting booths, American democracy, it seemed, had been wrenched from the hands of the Washington elite and restored to "the people," or at least a large, discontented subset of "the people." And this happened in spite of the establishment, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and "polite opinion" throwing everything it had at Trump.
The Betrayal
But for the past month, the administration's axis seems to have shifted. This shift was especially abrupt in Trump's Syria policy.
Days before Bannon's fall from grace, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley declared that forcing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power was no longer top priority. This too was pursuant of Trump's populist promises.
Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy of Islamists.
The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump. For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty.
But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness to be "presidential."
Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day.
Here I make no claim as to whether any of these policy reversals are good or bad. I only point out that they run counter to the populist promises he had given to his core constituents.
Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning out to be just another agent of the power elite.
Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? Or, after constant obstruction, has he simply concluded that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
Regardless of how it came about, it seems clear that whatever prospect there was for a truly populist Trump presidency is gone with the wind. Was it inevitable that this would happen, one way or another?
One person who might have thought so was German sociologist Robert Michels, who posited the "iron law of oligarchy" in his 1911 work Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy .
Michels argued that political organizations, no matter how democratically structured, rarely remain truly populist, but inexorably succumb to oligarchic control.
Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion."
This practical limitation necessitates delegation of decision-making to officeholders. These delegates may at first be considered servants of the masses:
"All the offices are filled by election. The officials, executive organs of the general will, play a merely subordinate part, are always dependent upon the collectivity, and can be deprived of their office at any moment. The mass of the party is omnipotent."
But these delegates will inevitably become specialists in the exercise and consolidation of power, which they gradually wrest away from the "sovereign people":
"The technical specialization that inevitably results from all extensive organization renders necessary what is called expert leadership. Consequently the power of determination comes to be considered one of the specific attributes of leadership, and is gradually withdrawn from the masses to be concentrated in the hands of the leaders alone. Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the mass and become independent of its control.
Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly."
Trumped by the Deep State
Thus elected, populist "tribunes" like Trump are ultimately no match for entrenched technocrats nestled in permanent bureaucracy. Especially invincible are technocrats who specialize in political force and intrigue, i.e., the National Security State (military, NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). And these elite functionaries don't serve "the people" or any large subpopulation. They only serve their own careers, and by extension, big-money special interest groups that make it worth their while: especially big business and foreign lobbies. The nexus of all these powers is what is known as the Deep State.
Trump's more sophisticated champions were aware of these dynamics, but held out hope nonetheless. They thought that Trump would be an exception, because his large personal fortune would grant him immunity from elite influence. That factor did contribute to the independent, untamable spirit of his campaign. But as I predicted during the Republican primaries:
" while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it without establishment support."
No matter how popular, rich, and bombastic, a populist president simply cannot rule without access to the levers of power. And that access is under the unshakable control of the Deep State. If Trump wants to play president, he has to play ball.
On these grounds, I advised his fans over a year ago, " don't hold out hope that Trump will make good on his isolationist rhetoric " and anticipated, "a complete rapprochement between the populist rebel and the Republican establishment." I also warned that, far from truly threatening the establishment and the warfare state, Trump's populist insurgency would only invigorate them:
"Such phony establishment "deaths" at the hands of "grassroots" outsiders followed by "rebirths" (rebranding) are an excellent way for moribund oligarchies to renew themselves without actually meaningfully changing. Each "populist" reincarnation of the power elite is draped with a freshly-laundered mantle of popular legitimacy, bestowing on it greater license to do as it pleases. And nothing pleases the State more than war."
Politics, even populist politics, is the oligarchy's game. And the house always wins.
Dan Sanchez is the Digital Content Manager at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), developing educational and inspiring content for FEE.org , including articles and courses. The originally appeared on the FEE website and is reprinted with the author's permission.
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Sep 27, 2018 | www.counterpunch.org
I rarely tell readers what to believe. Rather I try to indicate why it might be wise to distrust, at least without very good evidence, what those in power tell us we should believe.
We have well-known sayings about power: "Knowledge is power", and "Power tends to corrupt, while absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." These aphorisms resonate because they say something true about how we experience the world. People who have power – even very limited power they hold on licence from someone else – tend to abuse it, sometimes subtly and unconsciously, and sometimes overtly and wilfully.
If we are reasonably self-aware, we can sense the tendency in ourselves to exploit to our advantage whatever power we enjoy, whether it is in our dealings with a spouse, our children, a friend, an employee, or just by the general use of our status to get ahead.
This isn't usually done maliciously or even consciously. By definition, the hardest thing to recognise are our own psychological, emotional and mental blind spots – and the biggest, at least for those born with class, gender or race privileges, is realising that these too are forms of power.
Nonetheless, they are all minor forms of power compared to the power wielded collectively by the structures that dominate our societies: the financial sector, the corporations, the media, the political class, and the security services.
But strangely most of us are much readier to concede the corrupting influence of the relatively small power of individuals than we are the rottenness of vastly more powerful institutions and structures. We blame the school teacher or the politician for abusing his or her power, while showing a reluctance to do the same about either the education or political systems in which they have to operate.
Similarly, we are happier identifying the excessive personal power of a Rupert Murdoch than we are the immense power of the corporate empire behind him and on which his personal wealth and success depend.
And beyond this, we struggle most of all to detect the structural and ideological framework underpinning or cohering all these discrete examples of power.
Narrative control
It is relatively easy to understand that your line manager is abusing his power, because he has so little of it. His power is visible to you because it relates only to you and the small group of people around you.
It is a little harder, but not too difficult, to identify the abusive policies of your firm – the low pay, cuts in overtime, attacks on union representation.
It is more difficult to see the corrupt power of large institutions, aside occasionally from the corruption of senior figures within those institutions, such as a Robert Maxwell or a Richard Nixon.
But it is all but impossible to appreciate the corrupt nature of the entire system. And the reason is right there in those aphorisms: absolute power depends on absolute control over knowledge, which in turn necessitates absolute corruption. If that were not the case, we wouldn't be dealing with serious power – as should be obvious, if we pause to think about it.
Real power in our societies derives from that which is necessarily hard to see – structures, ideology and narratives – not individuals. Any Murdoch or Trump can be felled, though being loyal acolytes of the power-system they rarely are, should they threaten the necessary maintenance of power by these interconnected institutions, these structures.
The current neoliberal elite who effectively rule the planet have reached as close to absolute power as any elite in human history. And because they have near-absolute power, they have a near-absolute control of the official narratives about our societies and our "enemies", those who stand in their way to global domination.
No questions about Skripals
One needs only to look at the narrative about the two men, caught on CCTV cameras, who have recently been accused by our political and media class of using a chemical agent to try to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia back in March.
I don't claim to know whether Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov work for the Russian security services, or whether they were dispatched by Vladimir Putin on a mission to Salisbury to kill the Skripals.
What is clear, however, is that the British intelligence services have been feeding the British corporate media a self-serving, drip-drip narrative from the outset – and that the media have shown precisely no interest at any point in testing any part of this narrative or even questioning it. They have been entirely passive, which means that we their readers have been entirely passive too.
That there are questions about the narrative to be raised is obvious if you turn away from the compliant corporate media and seek out the views of an independent-minded, one-time insider such as Craig Murray.
A former British ambassador, Murray is asking questions that may prove to be pertinent or not. At this stage, when all we have to rely on is what the intelligence services are selectively providing, these kinds of doubts should be driving the inquiries of any serious journalist covering the story. But as is so often the case, not only are these questions not being raised or investigated, but anyone like Murray who thinks critically – who assumes that the powerful will seek to promote their interests and avoid accountability – is instantly dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or in Putin's pocket.
That is no meaningful kind of critique. Many of the questions that have been raised – like why there are so many gaps in the CCTV record of the movements of both the Skripals and the two assumed assassins – could be answered if there was an interest in doing so. The evasion and the smears simply suggest that power intends to remain unaccountable, that it is keeping itself concealed, that the narrative is more important than the truth.
And that is reason enough to move from questioning the narrative to distrusting it.
Ripples on a lake
Journalists typically have a passive relationship to power, in stark contrast to their image as tenacious watchdog. But more fundamental than control over narrative is the ideology that guides these narratives. Ideology ensures the power-system is invisible not only to us, those who are abused and exploited by it, but also to those who benefit from it.
It is precisely because power resides in structures and ideology, rather than individuals, that it is so hard to see. And the power-structures themselves are made yet more difficult to identify because the narratives created about our societies are designed to conceal those structures and ideology – where real power resides – by focusing instead on individuals.
That is why our newspapers and TV shows are full of stories about personalities – celebrities, royalty, criminals, politicians. They are made visible so we fail to notice the ideological structures we live inside, which are supposed to remain invisible.
News and entertainment are the ripples on a lake, not the lake itself. But the ripples could not exist without the lake that forms and shapes them.
Up against the screen
If this sounds like hyperbole, let's stand back from our particular ideological system – neoliberalism – and consider earlier ideological systems in the hope that they offer some perspective. At the moment, we are like someone standing right up against an IMAX screen, so close that we cannot see that there is a screen or even guess that there is a complete picture. All we see are moving colours and pixels. Maybe we can briefly infer a mouth, the wheel of a vehicle, a gun.
Before neoliberalism there were other systems of rule. There was, for example, feudalism that appropriated a communal resource – land – exclusively for an aristocracy. It exploited the masses by forcing them to toil on the land for a pittance to generate the wealth that supported castles, a clergy, manor houses, art collections and armies. For several centuries the power of this tiny elite went largely unquestioned.
But then a class of entrepreneurs emerged, challenging the landed artistocracy with a new means of industrialised production. They built factories and took advantage of scales of economy that slightly widened the circle of privilege, creating a middle class. That elite, and the middle-class that enjoyed crumbs from their master's table, lived off the exploitation of children in work houses and the labour of a new urban poor in slum housing.
These eras were systematically corrupt, enabling the elites of those times to extend and entrench their power. Each elite produced justifications to placate the masses who were being exploited, to brainwash them into believing the system existed as part of a natural order or even for their benefit. The aristocracy relied on a divine right of kings, the capitalist class on the guiding hand of the free market and bogus claims of equality of opportunity.
In another hundred years, if we still exist as a species, our system will look no less corrupt – probably more so – than its predecessors.
Neoliberalism, late-stage capitalism, plutocratic rule by corporations – whatever you wish to call it – has allowed a tiny elite to stash away more wealth and accrue more power than any feudal monarch could ever have dreamt of. And because of the global reach of this elite, its corruption is more endemic, more complete, more destructive than any ever known to mankind.
A foreign policy elite can destroy the world several times over with nuclear weapons. A globalised corporate elite is filling the oceans with the debris from our consumption, and chopping down the forest-lungs of our planet for palm-oil plantations so we can satisfy our craving for biscuits and cake. And our media and intelligence services are jointly crafting a narrative of bogeymen and James Bond villains – both in Hollywood movies, and in our news programmes – to make us fearful and pliable.
Assumptions of inevitability
Most of us abuse our own small-power thoughtlessly, even self-righteously. We tell ourselves that we gave the kids a "good spanking" because they were naughty, rather than because we established with them early on a power relationship that confusingly taught them that the use of force and coercion came with a parental stamp of approval.
Those in greater power, from minions in the media to executives of major corporations, are no different. They are as incapable of questioning the ideology and the narrative – how inevitable and "right" our neoliberal system is – as the rest of us. But they play a vital part in maintaining and entrenching that system nonetheless.
David Cromwell and David Edwards of Media Lens have provided two analogies – in the context of the media – that help explain how it is possible for individuals and groups to assist and enforce systems of power without having any conscious intention to do so, and without being aware that they are contributing to something harmful. Without, in short, being aware that they are conspiring in the system.
The first :
When a shoal of fish instantly changes direction, it looks for all the world as though the movement was synchronised by some guiding hand. Journalists – all trained and selected for obedience by media all seeking to maximise profits within state-capitalist society – tend to respond to events in the same way.
The second :
Place a square wooden framework on a flat surface and pour into it a stream of ball bearings, marbles, or other round objects. Some of the balls may bounce out, but many will form a layer within the wooden framework; others will then find a place atop this first layer. In this way, the flow of ball bearings steadily builds new layers that inevitably produce a pyramid-style shape. This experiment is used to demonstrate how near-perfect crystalline structures such as snowflakes arise in nature without conscious design.
The system – whether feudalism, capitalism, neoliberalism – emerges out of the real-world circumstances of those seeking power most ruthlessly. In a time when the key resource was land, a class emerged justifying why it should have exclusive rights to control that land and the labour needed to make it productive. When industrial processes developed, a class emerged demanding that it had proprietary rights to those processes and to the labour needed to make them productive.
Our place in the pyramid
In these situations, we need to draw on something like Darwin's evolutionary "survival of the fittest" principle. Those few who are most hungry for power, those with least empathy, will rise to the top of the pyramid, finding themselves best-placed to exploit the people below. They will rationalise this exploitation as a divine right, or as evidence of their inherently superior skills, or as proof of the efficiency of the market.
And below them, like the layers of ball bearings, will be those who can help them maintain and expand their power: those who have the skills, education and socialisation to increase profits and sell brands.
All of this should be obvious, even non-controversial. It fits what we experience of our small-power lives. Does bigger power operate differently? After all, if those at the top of the power-pyramid were not hungry for power, even psychopathic in its pursuit, if they were caring and humane, worried primarily about the wellbeing of their workforce and the planet, they would be social workers and environmental activists, not CEOs of media empires and arms manufacturers.
And yet, base your political thinking on what should be truisms, articulate a worldview that distrusts those with the most power because they are the most capable of – and committed to – misusing it, and you will be derided. You will be called a conspiracy theorist, dismissed as deluded. You will be accused of wearing a tinfoil hat, of sour grapes, of being anti-American, a social warrior, paranoid, an Israel-hater or anti-semitic, pro-Putin, pro-Assad, a Marxist.
None of this should surprise us either. Because power – not just the people in the system, but the system itself – will use whatever tools it has to protect itself. It is easier to deride critics as unhinged, especially when you control the media, the politicians and the education system, than it is to provide a counter-argument.
In fact, it is vital to prevent any argument or real debate from taking place. Because the moment we think about the arguments, weigh them, use our critical faculties, there is a real danger that the scales will fall from our eyes. There is a real threat that we will move back from the screen, and see the whole picture.
Can we see the complete picture of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury; or the US election that led to Trump being declared president; or the revolution in Ukraine; or the causes and trajectory of fighting in Syria, and before it Libya and Iraq; or the campaign to discredit Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party; or the true implications of the banking crisis a decade ago?
Profit, not ethics
Just as a feudal elite was driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of land; just as early capitalists were driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of mechanisation; so neoliberalism is driven not by ethics but the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of the planet.
The only truth we can know is that the western power-elite is determined to finish the task of making its power fully global, expanding it from near-absolute to absolute. It cares nothing for you or your grand-children. It is a cold-calculating system, not a friend or neighbour. It lives for the instant gratification of wealth accumulation, not concern about the planet's fate tomorrow.
And because of that it is structurally bound to undermine or discredit anyone, any group, any state that stands in the way of achieving its absolute dominion.
If that is not the thought we hold uppermost in our minds as we listen to a politician, read a newspaper, watch a film or TV show, absorb an ad, or engage on social media, then we are sleepwalking into a future the most powerful, the most ruthless, the least caring have designed for us.
Step back, and take a look at the whole screen. And decide whether this is really the future you wish for your grand-children.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are " Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and " Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair " (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jonathan-cook.net/
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">linkSep 27, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
james , Sep 26, 2018 10:19:13 PM | linkPft , Sep 26, 2018 9:58:02 PM | link
@34 pft... regarding the 2 cook articles.. i found they overly wordy myself... however, for anyone paying attention - corbyn seems like the person to vote for given how relentless he is being attacked in the media... i am not so sure about trump, but felt cook summed it up well with these 2 lines.. "Trump the candidate was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of Syria. Trump the president has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched US missiles at Syria." i get the impression corbyn is legit which is why the anti-semitism keeps on being mentioned... craig murrary is a good source for staying on top of uk dynamics..In my own words then. According to Cook the power elites goal is to change its appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their expense.
Since they do not actually want change they find actors who pretend to represent change , which is in essence fake change. These then are their insurgent candidates
Trump serves the power elite , because while he appears as an insurgent against the power elite he does little to change anything
Trump promotes his fake insurgency on Twitter stage knowing the power elite will counter any of his promises that might threaten them
As an insurgent candidate Trump was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of Syria. He wanted good relations with Russia. He wanted to fix the health care system, rebuild infrastructure, scrap NAFTA and TTIPS, bring back good paying jobs, fight the establishment and Wall Street executives and drain the swamp. America First he said.
Trump the insurgent president , has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched US missiles at Syria, relations with Russia are at Cold War lows, infrastructure is still failing, the percentage of people working is now at an all time low in the post housewife era, he has passed tax cuts for the rich that will endanger medicare, medicaid and social security and prohibit infrastructure spending, relaxed regulations on Wall Street, enhanced NAFTA to include TTIPS provisions and make US automobiles more expensive, and the swamp has been refilled with the rich, neocons , Koch associates, and Goldman Sachs that make up the power elites and Deep State Americas rich and Israel First
Piotr Berman , Sep 26, 2018 10:23:41 PM | link
For Trump to be "insurgent" he shouldkarlof1 , Sep 26, 2018 11:42:43 PM | link(a) talk coherently
(b) have some kind of movement consisting of people that agree with what is says -- that necessitates (a)Then he could staff his Administration with his supporters rather than a gamut of conventional plutocrats, neocons, and hacks from the Deep State (intelligence, FBI and crazies culled from Pentagon). As it is easy to see, I am describing an alternate reality. Who is a Trumpian member of the Administration? His son-in-law?
Pft @34--Pft , Sep 27, 2018 12:53:59 AM | linkYes. just like Obama before him--another snake in the swamp!
Karlof1@39div>The swamps been filled with all kinds of vile creatures since the Carter administration. This is when the US/UK went full steam ahead with neoliberal globalism with Israel directing the war on terror for the Trilateral Empire (following Bibis Jerusalem conference so as to fulfill the Yinon plan). 40 years of terror and financial mayhem following the coup that took place from 1963-1974. After Nixons ouster they were ready to go once TLC Carter/Zbig kicked off the Trilateral era. Reagan then ran promising to oust the TLC swamp but broke his promise, as every President has done since .
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Sep 22, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Pft , Sep 22, 2018 4:54:26 PM | 20 ">link
Stormy Daniels supposedly said she was surprised to hear Trump was running for President because he had said to her he didnt want to be be President. After all, why would he? Rich guy with maybe 5 years left to live. Who needs it?
So why did he run. He had no choice. Look at the ease in which government can bring dawn anyone with tax and money laundering charges and look at his partners and a number of his dodgy financial dealings not to mention the ongoing audit firing his campaign. His buddy Felix Sater cut a deal and so didn't Trump. Run and serve and keep your wealth and stay out of jail, and make a few billion with insider deals while you are at it.
So the Deep State which is far more than entrenched bureaucrats as the naive define it (it includes the ruling elite in finance, MIC, oil, MSM, retired intelligence/military/state/congress, etc), brought in a controlled Trojan horse pretending to be a populist who was all about the working class and anti establishment, anti war and anti globalist while those he served were opposites. Look at what he has done and who he has surrounded himself with. Lol
So what is the endgame for this Russiagate and this phony Deep State vs Trump nonsense? Why Trump?
Not sure I know for sure. Polarizing and dividing the US with perhaps a civil war when Trump gets impeached and resigns, or at least imposition of permanent martial law. Get support for massive censorship which all authoritarian regimes need. And of course as the US goes down this path its puppet states in EU, UK and elsewhere will follow. I guess we will have to wait and see.
In the meantime, Trump will feed the beast (tax cuts for rich, tarrifs for middle class, higher Military spending, cuts to Medicare/Medicaid/social security, higher insurance premiums/HC costs, phony economic figures to mask deteriorating economic conditions for the median (remember when Trump said the same of Hillary using the same bogus figures)
Fewer people are working in the US under Trump as more people are disappeared from the work force. GDP growth per MH is due to higher extraction of wealth from middle class by the rentier class, and stock market growth is due to central bank purchases, offshore money coming home due to tax breaks and of course the plunge protection team removing the risk of a major drop until after the mid term elections. We are already seeing the beginning of the next housing market collapse.
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Sep 21, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
bevin , Sep 20, 2018 3:43:13 PM | link
The whole nonsense about Russian interference, which was obviously nonsense from Day One and has never, for a moment looked like anything but nonsense, seems to indicate that we have entered a post political era in which policy discussions and debates are forgotten and smears and false accusations take their place.
Currently in the US the Kavanaugh nomination which ought to be about the meaning of the law and the consequences of having a Supreme Court which will make Judge Taney look like Solomon at his most impressive. Instead it is about an alleged teenage incident in which the nominee is said to have caressed a girls breasts at a drunken party when all involved were at High School. Before that we had a Senatorial election in Alabama in which the Republican candidate was charged with having shown a sexual interest in teenage girls- whether this was a 'first' in Alabama is unknown but it is believed to have happened elsewhere, in the unenlightened past.
Then we have the matter of whether Jeremy Corbyn is such a danger to Jews that they will all leave the country if he is ever elected to power. This long campaign, completely devoid of evidence, like 'Russiagate' has the potential of going on forever, simply because there being no evidence it cannot be refuted.
Which is also the case with the Skripal affair, because of which even as we speak, massive trade and financial sanctions are being imposed against Russia and its enormous, innocent and plundered population.
In none of these cases has any real evidence, of the minimal quality that might justify the hanging of a dog, ever advanced. But that doesn't matter, the important thing is to choose a side and if it is Hillary Clinton's to believe or to pretend to believe and to convince others to believe (as Marcy at Emptywheel has been doing for close to three years now) in the incredible.
Who says that we no longer live in a Christian society in which faith is everything?
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Sep 12, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Moribundus ,The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power...They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.
Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
~quoted in the New York Times, April 9, 1944
Henry A. Wallace
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Sep 10, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
arze September 8, 2018 at 12:24 pm
What's truly remarkable .What's truly remarkable is Gen. Eisenhower told us upon leaving presidency all about who competes with our elected president on what happens.
Those presidents that toe the "military industrial complex" line most closely are seen as the most in charge.
President Kennedy did not, was murdered. President Johnson did, it eventually sickened him, he did not seek reelection. President Nixon was removed from office. President Carter was humiliated. President Reagan's dream of a nuclear free world was vetoed by guess who. President Bush was defeated by the mother of all sycophants to that force. President Clinton was their man. Vice President Cheney was even more so. President Obama tried to hide the fact he was not. President Trump has not tried to hide that fact.Reporting on the Trump phenomena would benefit by more imagination.
Is it not a public service, irrespective of one's opinions on him, that it should now be clear to all, now via the Trump Phenomena, that what was plainly told us all in the 1950s from a General, is the way it is?
Yet a "criticism" of Trump is his "sin" of taking off the mask.
General Eisenhower told us to our faces all about the fiction, and yet we as a culture/civilization pretend the president is solely in charge.
What is remarkable is the amount of reporting on the current president that lacks imagination, insight, logic, rationality, reason, common sense, and insight.
However, that is not remarkable given that most of the reporters lived all their lives in a culture/civilization that fails to educate us in a meaningful way. Their and our professors, mentors, supervisors, and family, and friends and significant others, also so socialized; however, the road to progress is in front of us if we are curious enough.
Were the goal of contemporary American Politics first and foremost a search for the truth, that would be one thing.
The Shining Star of American Politics, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren perfectly epitomizes that it is not, as she knows better, was seduced by power, and all that that implies. The ends justify the means for the entire lot of them.
Whatever that evil perspective engender, progress is and never shall be one of them.
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Sep 09, 2018 | www.unz.com
annamaria , says: September 7, 2018 at 8:46 pm GMT
@Iris "Marshall Sam Shama, boasted here at U.R. about his being a Nazi Hunter and having collared a few."annamaria , says: September 7, 2018 at 9:01 pm GMTWell, that's extraordinary, because in his comment 201 above, Sam Shama said:
"How do the Wiesenthals and the Klarsfelds, whoever they are, depend on everyday Jews?"
As you know, French-Israeli Serge Klarsfeld and his German wife Beate are the most famous "Nazi hunters" in Europe. They formed an association which located and brought to "justice" some of the most famous names involved in Nazi occupation (Bousquet, Barbie, Papon, Touvier,...).
How come Sam Shama doesn't know these most famous comrades? Split personality? Schizophrenia? Pseudonym swapping? :-) :-)
https://images.sudouest.fr/2014/12/03/57ebc98866a4bd6726a8263e/widescreen/1000x500/serge-et-beate-klarsfeld-au-memorial-de-la-shoah.jpg The famous comrades, and specifically the Simon Weisenthal Center of Nazi-hunters, suddenly gone AWOL as soon as the US zionists began their mutually beneficial cooperation with neo-Nazi in Ukraine.
Moreover, it seems that the Wiesenthals and the Klarsfelds simply melted away and evaporated as soon as the Jewish State began sending the Israel-made weaponry to the neo-Nazi in Ukraine.
The miserable Anti-Defamation League (of the anti-democratic methods) is now on a spot for doing nothing with regard to the murderous activities (including the openly anti-Jewish activities) of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine (the Kaganat of Nuland is a de facto protectorate of the US). It seems that for the ADL, there are certain precious neo-Nazi (the Israel-supported neo-Nazis in Ukraine) and the "bad" Nazis whose image has been helping the ADL and the Wiesenthals and the Klarsfelds to demonstrate their allegiance to Jewish "principles," while making good gesheft (reparation-extortion) on the tragedy of the WWII for holo-biz.
There is more for the oh-so-sensitive crowd of holocaustians: The prime minister of Ukraine (where the Nazism has been enjoying its very visible renaissance since 2014) is a Jewish man Volodymyr Groysman who was miraculously "elected" by Ukrainians in 2016. It is well known that Ukrainians en masse are not terribly predisposed towards the Jews: https://worldpolicy.org/2014/03/03/fears-of-anti-semitism-spread-in-ukraine/
To recap: The Jewish State and the US/EU zionists have been cultivating the close relationships and collaboration with neo-Nazi leaders in Ukraine. Take note that none of the Jewish Nazi collaborators has been punished for the material and political support of the neo-Nazi movement in Eastern Europe. Why the EU puts people in jail for making an honest research in the WWII but allows the zionists to support the neo-Nazi is not easy to understand, considering the influence of the thoroughly dishonest and unprincipled Jewish Lobby.
@Sam Shama On the contrary. You haven't responded to the substantial issues from my first post, where I showed that the CDN list did contain many Jewish names; your mealy-mouthed, code-worded, phrasing notwithstanding.annamaria , says: September 7, 2018 at 9:06 pm GMTSpeaking of giving it a rest, I would think it is you who should consider it. Antisemitism is a serious matter, Phillip. "Antisemitism is a serious matter, Phillip."
– Tell it to Bibi and the Kagans clan: https://worldpolicy.org/2014/03/03/fears-of-anti-semitism-spread-in-ukraine/ "FEARS OF ANTI-SEMITISM SPREAD IN UKRAINE"The Israel-firsters have single-handedly revived the neo-Nazism in Ukraine: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/08/19/zionist-media-neo-nazis-are-bad-in-america-but-neo-nazis-are-good-in-ukraine/ " Zionist Media: Neo-Nazis are bad in America, but Neo-Nazis are good in Ukraine"
"U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine:" https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/12/u-s-house-admits-nazi-role-in-ukraine/
"Israel is arming neo-Nazi in Ukraine:" https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/05/israel-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine/
– Should we take this Jewish / neo-Nazi collaboration as a monument in memory of the Jews killed in WWII?@Sam Shama I don't usually like taking retirees to task, but you are a special case. You actually threaten Jews with harm every so often in idiotic, thinly veiled language. You should contemplate that. "You actually threaten Jews with harm "annamaria , says: September 7, 2018 at 9:12 pm GMT
– Don't project. Your Jewish State and your zionist stink-tanks in the US/UK are the greatest danger to the decent Jews.
"Israel is arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine:" https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/05/israel-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine/
One of the main financiers of the neo-Nazi formation "Azov" an Israeli citizen Kolomojsky: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-47564dbc32c28a68f9407fd689f6b3c8-c@Sam Shama Anti-Semitism is not an insult, but a particular set of beliefs and prejudices held by a person. Do you understand?annamaria , says: September 7, 2018 at 9:27 pm GMTWhy "Even I ......" ? Are you deficient in some faculty or eyesight? A curious construction. "Anti-Semitism is not an insult, but a particular set of beliefs and prejudices "
-- Go lecture to your Bibi and his thuggish retinue: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201507091024397190/
The Jewish State has been actively involved in the revival of neo-Nazism in Europe:
http://www.theeventchronicle.com/news/middle-east/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine/@Sam ShamaIris , says: September 7, 2018 at 10:56 pm GMTFirst, I have no tribe. Merely logging and attempting to introduce a modicum of balance in these flagrant displays of hatred.
I keep telling you Sam that you aren't too smart everything you say just reinforces everything that is criticized about your tribe ..and you just keep right on giving us more proof.
Second, I don't claim any particular advantage in the department of smarts; only doing my bit for the advancement of the various causes of humanity. In that, I am sure you claim primacy, but do you know who said the following: "It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish." Google's your friend. " flagrant displays of hatred "
– Listen to your Moldovan thug Avi Lieberman and your no less thuggish justice minister Ayelet Shaked to get the real "flagrant displays of hatred:" http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/new-israeli-justice-minister-called-for-genocide-of-palestinians/article/432659
"Shaked made international headlines when she posted a highly controversial unpublished article by the late Uri Elitzur, a close Netanyahu ally and an early leader of the movement by Jewish settlers to colonize occupied Palestinian territories The post asserted that "the entire Palestinian people is the enemy" and advocated genocide against the entire nation, "including its elderly women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure." Some excerpts: " They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers they should follow their sons [to hell], nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."
– Don't you like the facts of the Jewish State's financial, logistical, and military support for ISIS / Al Qaeda ? https://www.sott.net/article/386618-US-and-Israel-will-not-allow-the-elimination-of-Al-Qaeda-and-ISIS-in-southern-Syria-The-solution-is-Syrian-resistance@annamaria The famous comrades, and specifically the Simon Weisenthal Center of Nazi-hunters, suddenly gone AWOL as soon as the US zionists began their mutually beneficial cooperation with neo-Nazi in Ukraine.redmudhooch , says: September 8, 2018 at 1:50 am GMT
Moreover, it seems that the Wiesenthals and the Klarsfelds simply melted away and evaporated as soon as the Jewish State began sending the Israel-made weaponry to the neo-Nazi in Ukraine.
The miserable Anti-Defamation League (of the anti-democratic methods) is now on a spot for doing nothing with regard to the murderous activities (including the openly anti-Jewish activities) of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine (the Kaganat of Nuland is a de facto protectorate of the US). It seems that for the ADL, there are certain precious neo-Nazi (the Israel-supported neo-Nazis in Ukraine) and the "bad" Nazis whose image has been helping the ADL and the Wiesenthals and the Klarsfelds to demonstrate their allegiance to Jewish "principles," while making good gesheft (reparation-extortion) on the tragedy of the WWII for holo-biz.
There is more for the oh-so-sensitive crowd of holocaustians: The prime minister of Ukraine (where the Nazism has been enjoying its very visible renaissance since 2014) is a Jewish man Volodymyr Groysman who was miraculously "elected" by Ukrainians in 2016. It is well known that Ukrainians en masse are not terribly predisposed towards the Jews: https://worldpolicy.org/2014/03/03/fears-of-anti-semitism-spread-in-ukraine/
To recap: The Jewish State and the US/EU zionists have been cultivating the close relationships and collaboration with neo-Nazi leaders in Ukraine. Take note that none of the Jewish Nazi collaborators has been punished for the material and political support of the neo-Nazi movement in Eastern Europe. Why the EU puts people in jail for making an honest research in the WWII but allows the zionists to support the neo-Nazi is not easy to understand, considering the influence of the thoroughly dishonest and unprincipled Jewish Lobby. " it seems that the Wiesenthals and the Klarsfelds simply melted away and evaporated as soon as the Jewish State began sending the Israel-made weaponry to the neo-Nazi in Ukraine."- 1- Indeed. The Klarsfelds don't open their big lecturing gob neither when Jewish French citizens, born and brought up in France, with no links to Palestine, volunteer and join the IDF to murder Palestinians. They are the higher share of IDF volunteers, ahead of Jewish US citizens.
A war crime in broad daylight: French-Israeli IDF soldier coldly shooting in the head wounded 21-year old Palestinian Abd Al Fatah Al Sharif.
- 2- Simon Wiesenthal, as you know, was an utter fraud and one of the biggest conmen of the century. Among his many lies is his so-called incarceration at Auschwitz. Former members of the German Army even stated that he was a collaborator.
- 3- I'll finish on a cheerful note , and a very good illustration of MSM's double standards. Unreported by the press, unlike Corbyn's elusive anti-semitism, Ukraine's Parliament Speaker has just declared that "Hitler was the biggest democrat". One can't make this up.
https://www.rt.com/news/437747-hitler-democrat-parubiy-criticism/
Heres a video I ran across on Youtube, old Soviet KGB film on Zionist activities in Russia. Worth watching.Secret and Explicit: Goals and Deeds of the Zionists. 1973 BANNED KGB documentary exposing NWO #GDL
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Sep 07, 2018 | countercurrents.org
Neoliberal Totalitarianism And The Social Contract in World -- by Jon Kofas -- January 11, 2018
Neoliberal Totalitarianism and the Social Contract
Abstract
Analyzing aspects of the rightwing populist tide arising largely in reaction to the pluralistic-diversity model of neoliberalism, this essay examines the evolving social contract that normalizes systemic exploitation and repression in the name of capitalist growth. Amid incessant indoctrination by the media representing big capital, people try to make sense of whether their interests are best served under the pluralist-diversity model of globalist neoliberalism with a shrinking social welfare safety net, or an authoritarian-economic nationalist model promising salvation through the use of an iron hand against domestic and foreign enemies.
Socioeconomic polarization under the neoliberal social contract has laid the groundwork for political polarization clearly evident not just in President Donald Trump's America and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's India representing a rightwing populist neoliberal ideology, but France's President Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche that espouses a pluralist–diversity-environmentalist model aiming at the same neoliberal goals as the populists. Whether under the pluralist or the authoritarian model, neoliberalism represents what Barrington Moore described in Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966) a capitalist reactionary route that Italy, Japan, and Germany followed under totalitarian regimes in the interwar era to protect the capitalist class after the crisis that wars of imperialism (1870-1914) and WWI had created in core capitalist countries.
Although the world is much more thoroughly integrated under capitalism today than it was a century ago, the same marked absence of a revolutionary trend as there was in the interwar era is evident in our era. This accounts for the neoliberal revolution from above culminatingin variations of authoritarian regimes throughout the world. This does not only signal a crisis in capitalism but social discontinuity that will precipitate sociopolitical instability as contradictions within the political economy foster polarization across all sectors of society.
Historical Introduction
Most people today have no reason to be familiar with the term "social contract" any more than they are familiar with neoliberalism that inordinately influences public policy on a world scale. For many analysts contemplating the relationship of the individual to organized society, the social contract is about the degree to which government advances a set of social and economic policies articulated by an ideology designed to benefit certain institutions and social groups, while safeguarding sovereignty in the name of the governed. The problem arises when the governed no longer view the social contract as legitimate, a point that John Locke addressed as this was a key issue in 17 th century England right before the Glorious Revolution.
The social contract has its origins in the transition from subsistence agriculture of the feudal-manorial economy to commercial agriculture and long-distance trade under capitalism in the 15 th and 16 th century. With the advent of the Scientific Revolution in the 17 th century and the Enlightenment in the 18 th century coinciding with England's first industrial revolution accounted for more rapid evolution of the division of labor, European intellectuals challenged the old social order based on birth-right privilege of the aristocracy representing the agrarian-based economy of the past. Changes taking place in the economy and social structure gave rise to bourgeois social contract theories that articulated a core role in the state for the merchant-banking class, especially in northwest Europe where mercantile capitalism consolidated.
As the ideological force of the English Glorious Revolution (1689), John Locke, the father of Western Liberalism, argued for a regime that reflected the emerging bourgeoisie inclusion into the political mainstream to reflect the commensurate role in the economy. Interestingly, Locke provided a philosophical justification for overthrowing the government when it acted against the interests of its citizens, thus influencing both the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. Building on Locke's liberal philosophy and views on the tyranny of absolutism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in The Social Contract (1762) that: "Man is born free, but everywhere in chains." This statement reflected the views of many bourgeois thinkers who believed that modernization of society is not possible in the absence of a social contract that takes into account natural rights, an approach to government that would mirror a merit based criteria.
Departing from Locke's liberalism that had property ownership and individualism at the core of his political thought, in the Discourse on Inequality, (1754) Rousseau argued that property appropriation rests at the root of institutionalized inequality and oppression of individuals against the community. The role of the state plays a catalytic role for it as an "association which will defend the person and goods of each member with the collective force of all." The basis of social contract theory accounts for the sovereign power's legitimacy and justice, thus resulting in public acceptance. (Jason Neidleman, "The Social Contract Theory in a Global Context" http://www.e-ir.info/2012/10/09/the-social-contract-theory-in-a-global-context/ ; C. B. Macpherson. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism , 1962)
Rooted in the ascendancy of the European bourgeoisie, social contract theory has evolved in the last three centuries, especially after the Revolutions of 1848 and the rise of the working class as a sociopolitical force demanding inclusion rather than marginalization and exploitation legalized through public policy that the representatives of capitalism legislated. The cooptation of the working class into bourgeois political parties as a popular base in the age of mass politics from the mid-19 th century until the present has obfuscated the reality that social contract under varieties of parliamentary regimes continued to represent capital.
The creation of large enterprises gave rise not only to an organized labor movement, but to a larger bureaucratic regulatory state with agencies intended to help stabilize and grow capitalism while keeping the working class loyal to the social contract. Crisis in public confidence resulted not only from economic recessions and depressions built into the economy, but the contradictions capitalism was fostering in society as the benefits in advances in industry, science and technology accrued to the wealthy while the social structure remained hierarchical.
Ever since 1947 when the ideological father of neoliberalism Friedrich von Hayek called a conference in Mont Pelerin to address how the new ideology would replace Keynesianism, neoliberals have been promising to address these contradictions, insisting that eliminating the social welfare state and allowing complete market dominationthat would result in society's modernization and would filter down to all social classes and nations both developed and developing. Such thinking is rooted in the modernization theory that emerged after WWII when the US took advantage of its preeminent global power to impose a transformation model on much of the non-Communist world. Cold War liberal economist Walt Rostow articulated the modernization model of development in his work entitled The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto , 1960. By the 1970s, neoliberals adapted Rostow's modernization theory as their bible and the core of the social contract. (Evans Rubara, "Uneven Development: Understanding the Roots of Inequality"
https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/uneven-development-understanding-roots-inequality
The challenge for the political class has always been and remains to mobilize a popular base that would afford legitimacy to the social contract. The issue for mainstream political parties is not whether there is a systemic problem with the social contract intended to serve the capitalist class, but the degree to which the masses can be co-opted through various methods to support the status quo. "A generation ago, the country's social contract was premised on higher wages and reliable benefits, provided chiefly by employers. In recent decades, we've moved to a system where low wages are supposed to be made bearable by low consumer prices and a hodgepodge of government assistance programs. But as dissatisfaction with this arrangement has grown, it is time to look back at how we got here and imagine what the next stage of the social contract might be."
Considering that Keynesianism and neoliberalism operate under the same social structure and differ only on how best to achieve capital formation while retaining sociopolitical conformity, the article above published in The Atlantic illustrates how analysts/commentators easily misinterpret nuances within a social contract for the covenant's macro goals. A similar view as that expressed in The Atlantic is also reflected in the New America Foundation's publications, identifying specific aspects of Arthur Schlesinger's Cold War militarist policies enmeshed with social welfare Keynesianism as parts of the evolving social contract.
Identifying the social contract with a specific set of policies under different administrations evolving to reflect the nuances of political class and economic elites,some analysts contend that there is a European Union-wide social contract to which nationally-based social contracts must subordinate their sovereignty. This model has evolved to accommodate neoliberal globalism through regional trade blocs on the basis of a 'patron-client'integration relationship between core and periphery countries.
A European export and integral part of cultural hegemony in the non-Western world, the liberal-bourgeois social contract for the vast majority of Africans has failed to deliver on the promise of socioeconomic development, social justice and national sovereignty since independence from colonial rule. Just as in Africa, the Asian view of the social contract is that it entails a liberal model of government operating within the capitalist system rather than taking into account social justice above all else. Embracing pluralism and diversity while shedding aspects of authoritarian capitalism associated with cronyism and the clientist state, the view of the Asian social contract is to subordinate society to neoliberal global integration and work within the framework of Western-established institutions. In each country, traditions governing social and political relationships underlie the neoliberal model. (Sanya Osha, The Social Contract in Africa , 2014;
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2013/html/sp130302.en.html ; http://www.mei.edu/content/map/myanmar-transition-social-control-social-contract )
Despite far reaching implications for society and despite the political and business class keen awareness of neoliberalism, most people around the world are almost as perplexed by the term neoliberalism as they are with social contract theory that is outside the public debate confined to the domain of political philosophy. Many associate neoliberalism withRonald Reagan supporter Milton Friedman and the 'Chicago School', rarely mentioning the political dimension of the economic philosophy and its far-reaching implications for all segments of society. In an article entitled "Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems" The Guardian columnist George Monbiot raised a few basic questions about the degree to which the public is misinformed when it comes to the neoliberal social contract under which society operates.
" Neoliberalism: do you know what it is? Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007-2008, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
Advocates of neoliberalism, both from the pluralist-social welfare wing and the rightwing populist camp, have succeeded in institutionalizing the new social contract which has transformed the historically classical notion of individual freedombased on the Enlightenment concept of natural rights into freedom of capitalist hegemony over the state and society. Whether operating under the political/ideological umbrella of pluralism-environmentalism in Western nations, combined with some version of a Keynesian social welfare pluralist model, with rightwing populism or authoritarianism in one-party state, political and corporate elites advancing the neoliberal model share the same goal with regard to capital formation and mainstream institutions.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920516668386 ; https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/23/culture-of-cruelty-the-age-of-neoliberal-authoritarianism/ ; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920516668386
Weakening the social welfare corporatist state model by reaching political consensus among mainstream political parties by the late 1980s-early 1990s, whether operating under a centrist-pluralist or conservative party, neoliberals have been using the combination of massive deregulation with the state providing a bailout mechanism when crisis hits; fiscal policy that transfers income from workers and the middle class – raising the public debt to transfer wealth from the bottom 90% to the wealthiest 10% -; providing corporate subsidies and bailouts; and privatizing public projects and services at an immense cost to the declining living standards for the middle class and workers.
As much in the US as in other developed nations beginning in the 1980s, the neoliberal state has become status quo by intentionally weakening the social welfare state and redefining the social contract throughout the world. Working with large banks and multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that use loans as leverage to impose neoliberal policies around the world in debtor nations desperate to raise capital for the state and attract direct foreign investment, the advanced capitalist countries impose the neoliberal social contract on the world.
As reflected in the integrated global economy, the neoliberal model was imbedded in IMF stabilization and World Bank development loans since the late 1940s. After the energy crisis of the mid-1970s and the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua in 1979, international developments that took place amid US concerns about the economy under strain from rising balance payments deficits that could not accommodate both 'military Keynesianism' (deficit spending on defense as a means of boosting the economy) and the social welfare system, neoliberalism under the corporate welfare state emerged as the best means to continue strengthening capitalism. (J. M. Cypher, "From Military Keynesianism to Global-Neoliberal Militarism" , Monthly Review Vol. 59, No. 2, 2007; Jason Hickel, A Short History ofNeoliberalism ,
Everything from government agencies whose role is strengthening capital, to public schools and hospitals emulating the market-based management model and treating patients and students as customers, the neoliberal goal is comprehensive market domination of society. Advocates of the neoliberal social contract no longer conceal their goals behind rhetoric about liberal-democratic ideals of individual freedom and the state as an arbiter to harmonize the interests of social classes. The market unequivocally imposes its hegemony not just over the state but on all institutions, subordinating peoples' lives to market forces and equating those forces with democracy and national sovereignty. In pursuit of consolidating the neoliberal model on a world scale, the advocates of this ideology subordinate popular sovereignty and popular consent from which legitimacy of the state emanates to capital. http://www.rhizomes.net/issue10/introren.htm
As an integral part of the social environment and hegemonic culture reflecting the hierarchical class structure and values based on marginalization, the neoliberal social contract has become institutionalized in varying degrees reflecting the more integrative nature of capitalism after the fall of the Communist bloc coinciding with China's increased global economic integration. Emboldened that there was no competing ideology from any government challenging capitalism, neoliberals aggressively pursued globalization under the deregulation-corporate welfare anti-labor model.
Some countries opted for mixed policies with a dose of quasi-statist policies as in the case of China. Others retained many aspects of the social welfare state as in the case of EU members, while some pursue authoritarian capitalism within a pluralistic model. Still other nations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia where pluralism and multi-party traditions are not very strong, neoliberal policies are tailored to clientist politics and crony capitalism. In all cases, 'market omnipotence theory' is the catalyst under the umbrella of the neoliberal social contract.
Ideology, the Neoliberal State, and the Social Contract
Just as religion was universally intertwined with identity, projection of self-image in the community and the value system in the Age of Faith (500-1500), secular ideology in the modern world fulfills somewhat a similar goal. Although neoliberalism has been criticized as a secular religion precisely because of its dogmatism regarding market fundamentalism, especially after 2013 when Pope Francis dismissed it as idolatry of money that attempts to gloss over abject socioeconomic inequality on a world scale, capitalistsand the political class around the world have embraced some aspects if not wholeheartedly neoliberal ideology. https://economicsociology.org/2014/12/25/pope-francis-against-neoliberalism-finance-capitalism-consumerism-and-inequality/
In the early 21 st century arguments equating the rich with societal progress and vilifying the poor as social stigma indicative of individual failure are no different than arguments raised by apologists of capitalism in the early 19 th century when the British Parliament was debating how to punish the masses of poor that the industrial revolution had created. In defending tax cuts to the wealthy, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley stated: "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing -- as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it's on booze or women or movies." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grassley-estate-taxes-booze-women_us_5a247d89e4b03c44072e5a04 ; The US senator's argument could easily be heard in early 19 th century England. Blaming the poor for structural poverty which capitalism causes has become widespreadsince the early 1980s. This is because of government efforts to dismantle the welfare state as a social safety net and transfer resources for tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals. https://www.globalresearch.ca/blaming-the-poor-for-poverty/535675
Rooted in classical liberal ideology, neoliberalism rests on laissez-faire and social Darwinist principles that affirm societal progress as defined by materialist self-interest. Because private financial gain is the sole measure of success and virtue, neoliberals demand that the state and international organizations must remove impediments to capital accumulationnationally and internationally no matter the consequences to the non-propertied classes. Aiming for more than mere mechanical compliance, the goal of the ideology is to create the illusion of the neoliberal self that lives, breathes, and actualizes neoliberal myths in every aspect of life from a person as a worker to consumer and citizen.
Jim Mcguigan argues that "the transition from organised capitalism to neoliberal hegemony over the recent period has brought about a corresponding transformation in subjectivity. Leading celebrities, most notably high-tech entrepreneurs, for instance, operate in the popular imagination as models of achievement for the aspiring young. They are seldom emulated in real life, however, even unrealistically so. Still, their famed lifestyles and heavily publicised opinions provide guidelines to appropriate conduct in a ruthlessly competitive and unequal world." (Jim McGuigan: 'The Neoliberal Self',Culture Unbound, Volume 6, 2014; http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se/v6/a13/cu14v6a13.pdf
By offering the illusion of integration to those that the social structure has marginalized while trying to indoctrinate the masses that the corporate state is salvation and the welfare state is the enemy to default all of society's problems, the neoliberal ideology has captured the imagination of many in the middle class and even some in the working class not just in the West but around the world and especially in former Communist bloc countries where people entertained an idealized version of bourgeois liberal society. (S. Gill, "Pessimism of Intelligence, Optimism of Will" in Perspectives on Gramsci , ed. by Joseph Francene 2009)
Similar to liberalism in so far as it offers something for which to hope, neoliberalism is a departure when it decries the state as an obstacle to capitalist growth not only because of regulatory mechanisms and as an arbiter in society that must placate the masses with social programs, but even as a centralized entity determining monetary and fiscal policy. Proponents of neoliberalism demand turning back the clock to the ideology that prevailed among capitalists and their political supporters at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution when there were no state mechanisms to regulate labor conditions, mining operations and the environment, food and drugs, etc. From a dogmatic market fundamentalist perspective, the market transcends national borders and supersedes the state, thus the principal form of governance revolves around furthering capital accumulation.
Not only is there an absence of a social conscience not so different than what prevailed in the nascent phase of industrial capitalism, but there is disdain of social responsibility on the part of capital beyond the realm of tax-deductible charity donations and voluntarism. More significant, neoliberals believe that capital is entitled to appropriate whatever possible from society because the underlying assumption of corporate welfare entitlement is built into the neoliberal ideology that identifies the national interest with capital and labor as the enemy of capital accumulation. (K. Farnsworth, Social vs. Corporate Welfare , 2012)
The irony in all of this is that in 2008 the world experienced the largest and deepest recession since the 1930s precisely because of neoliberal policies. However, its advocates insisted that the recession was causedwe did not have enough deregulation, privatization, corporate welfare and low taxes on capital rather than going too far with such an extreme ideology whose legal and illegal practices that led to the global recession. Even more ironic neoliberal ideology blames the state – central banks, legislative branch and regulatory agencies – rather than the economic system for the cyclical crisis. https://cgd.leeds.ac.uk/events/2008-global-financial-crisis-in-a-long-term-perspective-the-failure-of-neo-liberalism-and-the-future-of-capitalism-2/
Because the state puts the interests of a tiny percentage of the population above the rest of society, it is a necessary structure only in so far as it limits its role to promoting capital formation by using any means to achieve the goal. Whether under a pluralistic-diversity political model or an authoritarian one, neoliberalism is anti-democratic because as Riad Azar points out, "The common denominator is the empowering of elites over the masses with the assistance of international forces through military action or financial coercion -- a globalized dialectic of ruling classes."
http://newpol.org/content/neoliberalism-austerity-and-authoritarianism
From conservative and liberal to self-described Socialist, political parties around the world have moved ideologically farther to the right in order to accommodate neoliberalism as part of their platform. The challenge of the political class is to keep people loyal to the neoliberal ideology; a challenge that necessarily forces political parties to be eclectic in choosing aspects of other ideological camps that appeal to voters. While embracing corporate welfare, decrying social welfare is among the most glaring neoliberal contradiction of an ideology that ostensibly celebrates non-state intervention in the private sector. This contradiction alone forces neoliberal politicians of all stripes and the media to engage in mass distraction and to use everything from identity politics ideologies to cult of personality,and culture wars and 'clash of civilization' theories. https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/How-the-Democrats-Became-The-Party-of-Neoliberalism-20141031-0002.html ; https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/paul-emery/why-on-earth-would-socialists-support-neoliberal-undemocratic-eu
To justify why self-proclaimed socialist and democratic parties have embraced neoliberalism, many academics have provided a wide range of theories which have in fact helped solidify the neoliberal ideology into the political mainstream. Among the countless people swept up by the enthusiasm of the Communist bloc's fall and China's integration into the world capitalist economy, Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (2000), argued that the world returned to old religious and ethnic conflicts around which ideologies of the new century were molded.
Encouraged by China's integration into the global capitalist system, in September 2006 Bell wrote : "It's the end of ideology in China. Not the end of all ideology, but the end of Marxist ideology. China has many social problems, but the government and its people will deal with them in pragmatic ways, without being overly constrained by ideological boundaries. I still think there's a need for a moral foundation for political rule in China – some sort of guiding ideal for the future – but it won't come from Karl Marx." https://prezi.com/kha1ketnfjtd/ideology-in-everyday-life/
Such hasty pronouncements and others in works like Francis Fukuyama's The End of History expressed the Western bourgeois sense of relief of an integrated world under the Western-dominated neoliberal ideology that would somehow magically solve problems the Cold War had created. While Bell, Fukuyama and others celebrated the triumphant era of neoliberal ideology, they hardly dealt with the realities that ideology in peoples' lives emanates from mainstream institutions manifesting irreconcilable contradictions. A product molded by the hegemonic political culture, neoliberal ideology has been a factor in keeping the majority in conformity while a small minority is constantly seeking outlets of social resistance, some within the neoliberal rightwing political mold. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/21/bring-back-ideology-fukuyama-end-history-25-years-on
As catalyst to mobilize the masses, nationalism remains a strong aspect of ideological indoctrination that rightwing populist neoliberals have used blaming immigrants, Muslims, women, gays, environmentalists, and minorities for structural problems society confronts resulting from the political economy. Although there are different political approaches about how best to achieve neoliberal goals, ideological indoctrination has always played an essential role in keeping people loyal to the social contract. However, the contradiction in neoliberal ideology is the need for a borderless world and the triumph of capital over the nation-state while state policies harmonize disparate capitalist interests within the nation-state and beyond it. If neoliberal ideology tosses aside nationalism then it deprives itself of a mechanism to mobilize the masses behind it. https://left-flank.org/2011/01/16/the-curious-marriage-of-neoliberalism-and-nationalism/
Arguing that the 'Ideological State Apparatuses' (ISA) such as religious and educational institutions among others in the private sector perpetuate the ideology of the status quo, Louis Pierre Althusser captured the essence of state mechanisms to mobilize the masses. However, ideology is by no means the sole driving force in keeping people loyal to the social contract. While peoples' material concerns often dictate their ideological orientation, it would be hasty to dismiss the role of the media along with hegemonic cultural influences deeply ingrained into society shaping peoples' worldview and keeping them docile.
Building on Althusser's theory of how the state maintains the status quo, Goran Therborn ( Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology , 1999) argues that the neoliberal state uses ideological domination as a mechanism to keep people compliant. Combined with the state's repressive mechanisms – police and armed forces – the ideological apparatus engenders conformity wherein exploitation and repression operate within the boundaries that the state defines as 'legal', thus 'normal' for society. A desirable goal of regimes ranging from parliamentary to Mussolini's Fascist Italy (1922-1943) and clerical Fascism under Antonio de Oliveira Salazar's Portugal (1932-1968), legalized repressive mechanisms have become an integral part of neoliberal ideological domination.
( http://notevenpast.org/louis-althusser-on-interpellation-and-the-ideological-state apparatus/ ; https://isreview.org/issue/99/althussers-theory-ideology ; Jules Boykoff, "Limiting Dissent: The Mechanisms of State Repression in the USA" Social Movement Studies," Vo. 6, No 3, 2007)
It is part of the neoliberal ideology that markets dictate the lives of people in every respect from cradle to grave where self and identity are inexorably intertwined. Striving to determine public policy in all its phases of the individual\s life, of localities, nationally and internationally, the market has no other means to retain hegemony in society and pursue capital formation with the fewest possible obstacles. Neoliberals justify such an ideology on the basis that modernization of society transcends not just social justice but societal collective welfare when measured against private gain. https://www.salon.com/2016/03/27/good_riddance_gig_economy_uber_ayn_rand_and_the_awesome_collapse_of_silicon_valleys_dream_of_destroying_your_job/ ; https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/neoliberalism-has-eviscerated-the-fabric-of-social-life/ The unchecked role of neoliberal capitalism in every aspect of the social fabric runs the risk of at the very least creating massive social, economic and political upheaval as was the case with the great recession of 2008 preceded by two decades of neoliberal capitalism taking precedence over the welfare regulatory state whose role is to secure and/or retain equilibrium in global markets. In The Great Transformation , (1944)", Karl Polanyi argued that: "To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment would result in the demolition of society."
Because Polanyi lived through the Great Depression era of the New Deal and the rise and fall of the Axis Powers, he was optimistic that a return to the 1920s would not take root after WWII. Polanyi accepted Hegel's view of the social contract that the state preserves society by safeguarding general or universal interests against particular ones. However, we have been witnessing the kind of demolition of society Polanyi feared because of unchecked market forces. This is in part because the demise of the Communist bloc and the rise of China as a major economic power emboldened advocates of neoliberal ideology.
With the realization of US long road to decline at the end of the Vietnam War, neoliberal elites prevailed that the crisis of American leadership could be met with the elimination of Keynesian ideology and the adoption of neoliberalism as tested by the Chicago School in Chile under the US-backed dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. That the neoliberal ideology became an experiment tested in a US-backed military dictatorship in South America is itself revealing about what the nature of the social contract once implemented even in pluralistic societies where there was popular and political support for Keynesianism. Characteristic of a developing nation like Chile was external dependence and a weak state structure, thus easily manipulated by domestic and foreign capital interested in deregulation and further weakening of the public sector as the core of the social contract.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-chicago-boys-in-chile-economic-freedoms-awful-toll/ ; https://www.salon.com/2010/03/02/chicago_boys_and_the_chilean_earthquake/
"The withering away of national states and the wholesale privatization of state-owned enterprises and state-administered services transferred highly profitable monopolies to capitalists, and guaranteed the repayment of the foreign debt-contracted, as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay-by irresponsible, corrupt, and de facto military rulers. Neoliberalism supplied the general justification for the transfer of public assets and state-owned enterprises, paid for with public savings, even in areas considered "taboo" and untouchable until a few years ago, such as electricity, aviation, oil, or telecommunications. (Atilio A. Boron, "Democracy or Neoliberalism?" http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR21.5/boron.html
Advocating the systematic dismantling of the social welfare state in the name of upholding the virtues of individualism while strengthening of corporate welfare capitalism in the name of economic growth on global scale, advocates of neoliberal ideology were emboldened by the absence of a competing ideology after the fall of the Soviet bloc and China's capitalist integration. As the income gap widened and globalization resulted in surplus labor force amid downward pressure on wages, a segment of the social and political elites embraced a rightwing populist ideology as a means of achieving the neoliberal goals in cases where the pluralist ideological model was not working. The failure of neoliberal policies led some political and business elites to embrace rightwing populism in order to save neoliberalism that had lost support among a segment of society because of its association with centrist and reformist cultural-diversity pluralist neoliberals. This trend continues to gain momentum exposing the similarities between neoliberalism and Fascism. (David Zamora, "When Exclusion Replaces Exploitation: The Condition of the Surplus-Population under Neoliberalism" http://nonsite.org/feature/when-exclusion-replaces-exploitation .
Neoliberalism and Fascism
- The role of the state
Unprecedented for a former president, on 10 December 2017 Barak Obama warned Americans not to follow a Nazi path. A clear reference to president Trump and the Republican Party leading America in that direction with rhetoric and policies that encourage 'culture war' ( kulturkampf – struggle between varieties of rightwingers from evangelicals to neo-Nazis against secular liberals), Obama made reference to socioeconomic polarization at the root of political polarization.
"The combination of economic disruption, cultural disruption ― nothing feels solid to people ― that's a recipe for people wanting to find security somewhere. And sadly, there's something in all of us that looks for simple answers when we're agitated and insecure. The narrative that America at its best has stood for, the narrative of pluralism and tolerance and democracy and rule of law, human rights and freedom of the press and freedom of religion, that narrative, I think, is actually the more powerful narrative. The majority of people around the world aspire to that narrative, which is the reason people still want to come here." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-warns-americans-against-following-in-the-path-of-nazi germany_us_5a2c032ce4b0a290f0512487
Warning about the road to Nazism, Obama drew distinctions between the Democratic Party's brand of pluralist neoliberalism and Trump's rightwing populist model. Naturally, Obama did not mention that both models seek the same goals, or that policies for which he and his predecessor Bill Clinton pursued drove a segment of the population toward the authoritarian neoliberal model that offers the illusion of realizing the American Dream. Distancing themselves from neo-Fascists, mainstream European political leaders embracing the pluralist model under neoliberalism have been as condemnatory as Obama of rightwing populism's pursuit of 'culture war' as a precursor to Fascism.
Accusing Trump of emboldening varieties of neo-Fascists not just in the US and EU but around the globe, European neoliberal pluralists ignored both the deep roots of Fascism in Europe and their own policies contributing to the rise of neo-Fascism. Just as with Obama and his fellow Democrats, European neoliberal pluralists draw a very sharp distinction between their version of neoliberalism and rightwing populism that either Trump or Hungary's Viktor Orban pursue. Neoliberal pluralists argue that rightwing populists undercut globalist integration principles by stressing economic nationalism although it was right nationalists Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan that engaged in wholesale implantation of neoliberal policies. https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2017/02/28/the-myths-of-far-right-populism-orbans-fence-and-trumps-wall/
Rightwing populism under Ronald Reagan as the first president to implement neoliberal policies emerged as a reaction to the prospect that the Western-basedcore of capitalism was weakening as a result of a multi-polar world economy. Whereas in the middle of the 20 th century the US enjoyed balance of payments surpluses and was a net creditor with the dollar as the world's strongest reserve currency and the world's strongest manufacturing sector, in 2017 the US is among the earth's largest debtor nations with chronic balance of payments deficits, a weak dollar with a bleak future and an economy based more on parasitic financial speculation and massive defense-related spending and less on productive sectors that are far more profitable in Asia and developing nations with low labor costs. (Jon Kofas, Independence from America: Global Integration and Inequality , 2005, 40-54)
Exerting enormous influence by exporting its neoliberal ideological, political, economic and cultural influence throughout the world, the US-imposed transformation model has resulted in economic hardships and political and social instability in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Institutionalizing neoliberalism under rightwing populism and using Trump as the pretext to do so, the US is leading nations around the world to move closer to neo-Fascism, thus exposing neoliberalism as totalitarian.The recognition by the political class and business class that over-accumulation is only possible by continued downward wage pressure has been a key reason that a segment of the population not just in the US but across EU has supported populist rightwing and/or neo-fascists.
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/01/24/exporting-fascism-us-imperialism-in-latin-america/ ; https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/03/americanism-us-writers-imagine-fascist-future-fiction ; http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Corporatism/neofascism.shtml ; Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America , 1999.
Rejecting the claim of any similarities between neoliberalism and Fascism, neoliberal apologists take pride that their apparent goal is to weaken the state, by which they mean the Keynesian welfare state, not the 'military Keynesian' and corporate welfare state. By contrast, Fascists advocated a powerful state – everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. American neoliberals of both the pluralist and rightwing camps have created a societal model not just in one nation like Mussolini and Hitler but globally with the result of: "everything within neoliberalism, nothing against neoliberalism, nothing outside neoliberalism.
Neoliberal totalitarianism finds different expression in the US than in India, in Hungary than in Israel. In " Neoliberal Fascism: Free Markets and the Restructuring of Indian Capitalism," Shankar Gopalakrishnan observed that exclusive Hindu nationalism has been the catalyst for rightwing neoliberalism to mobilize popular support. "Hindutva [ a term coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923 to assert exclusive Hindu dominance] is seen as an effort by neoliberalism, or perhaps more broadly by capitalism, to divert attention from class conflict, to divide and weaken working class struggles and to deflect class-driven anxieties on to minority communities. This approach is problematic in two senses. First, it does not explain why Hindutva organisations are able to develop a mass base, except to the extent that they are seen to be appealing to "historical identity" or "emotive" issues. The state exists only as the expression and guarantor of a collectivity founded around a transcendent principle : The ideal state is the guarantor of the Hindu rashtra, a "nation" that exists as an organic and harmonious unity between "Hindus."
Whereas under Ronald Reagan's neoliberal populist policies (Reaganism) under a rightwing political umbrella the state structure was strengthened in the US, in the process of implementing neoliberal policies state bureaucratic functions have been outsourced to private companies thus keeping with the spirit of corporate-welfare goals. Other countries followed a path similar to the one of the US. Contrary to the claims of many neoliberal scholars, politicians and commentators, neoliberalism has not weakened the state simply because the ideology lays claims to a hegemonic private sector and weak state. It is true that the Keynesian-welfare state structure has been weakened while the corporate-welfare-militarist-police-state structure has been strengthened. However, in the less developed capitalist countries the public sector has weakened as a result of the US and EU imposing the neoliberal model which drains the public sector of any leverage in stimulating economic and social development investment because of the transfer of public assets and public services to the private sector.( http://jgu.edu.in/article/indias-neoliberal-path-perdition ; Monica Prasad, The Politics of Free Markets , 2006)
Gaspar Miklos Tamas, a Romanian political philosopher of the George Lukacs-inspired Budapest School, argues that global division of labor in the neoliberal era has not only resulted in wealth transfer from the bottom up but it has diminished national sovereignty and citizenship for those in less developed (periphery) nations. "The new dual sate is alive and well: Normative State for the core populations of the capitalist center, and another State of arbitrary decrees for the non-citizens who are the rest. Unlike in classical fascism, this second State is only dimly visible from the first. The radical critique protesting that liberty within the Normative State is an illusion, although understandable, is erroneous. The denial of citizenship based not on exploitation, oppression and straightforward discrimination, but on mere exclusion and distance, is difficult to grasp, because the mental habits of liberation struggle for a more just redistribution of goods and powers are not applicable. The problem is not that the Normative State is becoming more authoritarian: rather, that it belongs only to a few." https://www.opendemocracy.net/people-newright/article_306.jsp
If the normative state is the domain of the very few with the rest under the illusion of inclusion, Miklos Tamas concludes that we are living in a global post-fascist era which is not the same as the interwar totalitarian model based on a mass movement of Fascism. Instead, neoliberal totalirarianism categorically rejects the Enlightenment tradition of citizenship which is the very essence of the bourgeois social contract. While the normative state in advanced countries is becoming more authoritarian with police-state characteristics, the state in the periphery whether Eastern Europe, Latin America or Africa is swept along by neoliberal policies that drive it toward authoritarianism as much as the state in Trump's America as in parts of Europe to the degree that in January 2018 Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) faced the prospect either of new elections or entering into a coalition with the neo-Nazi Alternative fur Deutchalnd (AfD). https://www.prosper.org.au/2010/05/25/the-counter-enlightenment/
The rightwing course of the Western World spreading into the rest of the world is not only because of IMF austerity used as leverage to impose neoliberalism in developing nations. Considering that countries have been scrambling to attract foreign investment which carries neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization, weak trade unions and low taxes as a precondition, the entire world economic system is the driving force toward a form of totalitarianism. As Miklos Tamas argues, this has diluted national sovereignty of weaker countries, allowing national capitalists and especially multinational corporations to play a determining role in society against the background of a weak state structure. Along with weakened national sovereignty, national citizenship in turn finds expression in extreme rightwing groups to compensate for loss of independence as the bourgeois social contract presumably guarantees. (Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty , 2006; http://www.e-ir.info/2012/08/22/globalization-does-not-entail-the-weakening-of-the-liberal-state/
It is undeniable that there is a qualitative difference in Berlin and Rome under neoliberal regimes today than it was under Fascism. It would be a mistake to lump a contemporary neoliberal society together with the Third Reich and Fascist Italy, a dreadful and costly mistake that Stalinists made in the 1930s. Interwar totalitarianism existed under one-party state with a popular base operating as a police state. Although many countries under varieties of neoliberal regimes have an electoral system of at least two parties alternating power, the ruling parties pursue neoliberal policies with variations on social and cultural issues (identity politics), thus operating within the same policy framework impacting peoples' living standards.
Not just leftist academic critics, but even the progressive democratic Salon magazine recognized during the US election of 2016 that the neoliberal state would prevail regardless of whether Trump or Clinton won the presidential contest. " Neoliberalism presumes a strong state, working only for the benefit of the wealthy, and as such it has little pretence to neutrality and universality, unlike the classical liberal state. I would go so far as to say that neoliberalism is the final completion of capitalism's long-nascent project, in that the desire to transform everything -- every object, every living thing, every fact on the planet -- in its image had not been realized to the same extent by any preceding ideology.
In neoliberal society either of the pluralist-diversity or of the authoritarian political camp there are elements of polizeistaat though not nearly full blown as in the Third Reich. While conformity to the status quo and self-censorship is the only way to survive, modern means of communication and multiple dissident outlets attacking the status quo from the right, which is far more pervasive and socio-politically acceptable than doing so from the left, has actually facilitated the evolution of the new totalitarian state. http://www.thegreatregression.eu/progressive-neoliberalism-versus-reactionary-populism-a-hobsons-choice/
Whereas big business collaborated closely with Fascist dictators from the very beginning to secure the preeminence of the existing social order threatened by the crisis of democracy created by capitalism, big business under the neoliberal social contract has the same goal, despite disagreement on the means of forging political consensus. Partly because neoliberalism carries the legacy of late 19 th century liberalism and operates in most countries within the parliamentary system, and partly because of fear of grassroots social revolution, a segment of the capitalist class wants to preserve the democratic façade of the neoliberal social contract by perpetuating identity politics. In either case, 'economic fascism' as the essence of neoliberalism, or post-fascism as Miklos Tamas calls it, is an inescapable reality. (Andrea Micocci and Flavia Di Mario, The Fascist Nature of Neoliberalism , 2017).
In distinguishing the composition and goals of theparliamentary state vs. the Fascist one-party state, Italian Fascism's theoretician Giovanni Gentile characterizedit as 'totalitario'; a term also applied to Germany's Third Reich the latter which had the added dimension of anti-Semitism as policy. Arguing that ideology in the Fascist totalitarian state had a ubiquitous role in every aspect of life and power over people, Gentile and Mussolini viewed such state as the catalyst to a powerful nation-state that subordinates all institutions and the lives of citizens to its mold. In "La Dottrina del Fascismo" (Gentile and Mussolini, 1932), Musolini made famous the statement: "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state," although Hitler's polizeistaat was more totalitarian because it had the means to achieve policy goals stated in Mein Kampf .
The convergence of neoliberalism and Fascism is hardly surprising when one considers that both aim at a totalitarian society of different sorts, one of state-driven ideology and the other market-driven with the corporate welfare state behind it. In some respects, Sheldon Wolin's the "inverted totalitarianism" theory places this issue into another perspective, arguing that despite the absence of a dictator the corporate state behind the façade of 'electoral democracy' is an instrument of totalitarianism. Considering the increased role of security-intelligence-surveillance agencies in a presumably open society, it is not difficult to see that society has more illiberal than classic liberal traits. Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, 2008)
More powerful than the Axis Powers combined, American "Inverted totalitarianism" was internationalized during the Cold War and became more blatant during the war on terror, in large measure used as a pretext to impose neoliberalism in the name of national security. As the police-state gradually became institutionalized in every respect from illegal surveillance of citizens to suppressing dissent to the counterterrorism-neoliberal regime, it was becoming clearer to many scholars that a version of fascism was emerging in the US which also sprang up around the world. (Charlotte Heath-Kelly et al. eds., Neoliberalism and Terror: Critical Engagements , 2016; https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?15074-Chris-Hedges-The-Great-Unraveling-USA-on-the-brink-of-neo-fascist-police-state#.WifwyLBrzIU
Almost a century after the era of Fascist totalitarianism that led to WWII, the transition of capitalism's global structure with a shifting core from the US and northwest Europe to East Asia has entailed intense global competition for capital accumulation to the degree that the advanced countries have been pushing living standards downward to compete with low-wage global markets. The process of draining greater surplus value from labor especially from the periphery countries where IMF-style austerity policies have resulted in massive capital transfer to the core countries has taken place under the neoliberal social contract that has striking similarities with Fascism.
Backed by the state in the advanced capitalist countries, international organizations among them the IMF have been promoting economic fascism under the label of 'neoliberal reforms', thus molding state structures accordingly. Neoliberal totalitarianism is far more organized and ubiquitous than interwar Fascism not only because of the strong national state structure of core countries and modern technology and communications networks that enables surveillance and impose subtle forms of indoctrination, but also because the international agencies established by the US under the Bretton Woods system help to impose policies and institutions globally.
- Characteristics of the Illiberal Neoliberal Society
The genesis of illiberal politics can be traced back to the end of WWI when Europeans witnessed the unraveling of the rationalist order of the Enlightenment rooted in Lockean liberalism. Influenced by the wars of imperialism that led the First World War at the end of which Vladimir Lenin led the Bolsheviks to a revolutionary victory over Czarist Russia, Joseph Schumpeter like many European scholars was trying to make sense of how capitalism's forcible geographic expansion (imperialism) led to such global disasters that undermined the rationalist assumptions of the Enlightenment about society and its institutions. In his Sociology of Imperialism (1919), he wrote the following about the relationship of the bourgeoisie with the state.
"The bourgeoisie did not simply supplant the sovereign, nor did it make him its leader, as did the nobility. It merely wrested a portion of its power from him and for the rest submitted to him. It did not take over from the sovereign the state as an abstract form of organization. The state remained a special social power, confronting the bourgeoisie. In some countries it has continued to play that role to the present day. It is in the state that the bourgeoisie with its interests seeks refuge, protection against external and even domestic enemies. The bourgeoisie seeks to win over the state for itself, and in return serves the state and state interests that are different from its own."
The strong state structure of the imperial state that the bourgeoisie supported as a vehicle of expanding their interests globally while maintaining the social order at the national level held true only for the advanced capitalist countries eagerly trying to secure international markets at any cost including armed conflict. While essential for capital integration and expansion, the strong state structure was and remains an anathema to the bourgeoisie, if its role is to make political, economic and social concessions to the laboring and middle classes which are the popular base for bourgeois political parties. While classical liberal theory expresses the interests of capitalism its role is not to serve in furtherance of political equality for the simple reason that capitalism cannot exist under such a regime. Both John Locke and John Stuart Mill rejected political egalitarianism, while Schumpeter viewed democratic society with egalitarianism as an integral part of democracy. Rejecting Locke's and Mill's abstract receptiveness to egalitarianism, neoliberals of either the pluralist or authoritarian camp are blatantly adopt illiberal policies that exacerbate elitism, regardless of the rhetoric they employ to secure mass popular support.
Characterized by elitism, class, gender, racial and ethnic inequality, limits on freedom of expression, on human rights and civil rights, illiberal politics thrives on submission of the masses to the status quo. In his essay The Political Economy of Neoliberalism and Illiberal Democracy, Garry Jacobs, an academic/consultant who still believes in classical liberal economics operating in a pluralistic and preferably non-militaristic society, warns that world-wide democracy is under siege. " Democratic elections have become the means for installing leaders with little respect for democratic values. The tolerance, openness and inclusiveness on which modern democracy is founded are being rejected by candidates and voters in favor of sectarian, parochial fears and interests. The role of the free press as an impartial arbiter of facts is being undermined by the rise of private and public news media conglomerates purveying political preference as fact combined with a blinding blizzard of fake news. Party politics has been polarized into a winner-take-all fight to the finish by vested-interests and impassioned extremist minorities trying to impose their agendas on a complacent majority. Corporate power and money power are transforming representative governments into plutocratic pseudo-democracies. Fundamentalists are seizing the instruments of secular democracy to impose intolerant linguistic, racial and religious homogeneity in place of the principles of liberty and harmonious heterogeneity that are democracy's foundation and pinnacle of achievement."
While neoliberals in the populist rightwing wholeheartedly share and promote such views, those who embrace the pluralist-identity politics camp are just as supportive of many aspects of the corporate welfare-police-counterterrorism state as a means to engender domestic sociopolitical conformity and to achieve closer global economic integration. The question is not so much what each political camp under the larger neoliberal umbrella pursues as a strategy to mobilize a popular base but whether the economic-social policies intertwined with a corporate-welfare-police-counterterrorism state is the driving force toward a Fascist model of government. In both the pluralist model with some aspects of the social safety net, and the rightwing populist version neoliberalism's goal is rapid capital accumulation on a world scale, institutional submission of the individual and molding the citizen's subjective reality around the neoliberal ideology.
Illiberal politics in our time is partly both symptomatic of and a reaction to neoliberal globalism and culture wars that serve to distract from the intensified class struggle boiling beneath the surface. Rhetorically denouncing globalist neoliberalism, populist rightwing politicians assert the importance of national capitalism but always within the perimeters of neoliberal policies. Hence they co-opt the socio-cultural positions of nationalist extremists as a political strategy to mobilize the masses. Scholars, journalists and politicians have speculated whether the rising tide of rightwing populism pursuing neoliberalism under authoritarian models not just in the Western World, but Eastern Europe, South Asia and Africa reflects the rejection of liberal democracy and the triumph of illiberal politics that best reflects and serves the political economy. Unquestionably, there is a direct correlation between the internationalization of the Western neoliberal transformation model imposed on the world in the post-Soviet era and the rise of rightwing populism reacting to the gap between the promises of what capitalism was supposed to deliver and the reality of downward pressures on living standards. http://www.counterfire.org/interview/18068-india-s-nightmare-the-extremism-of-narendra-modi ; http://ac.upd.edu.ph/index.php/news-announcements/1201-southeast-asian-democracy-neoliberalism-populism-vedi-hadiz ; http://balticworlds.com/breaking-out-of-the-deadlock-of-neoliberalism-vs-rightwing-populism/
Not just the US, but Europe has been flirting with 'illiberal democracy' characterized by strong authoritarian-style elected officials as Garry Jacobs has observed. Amid elections in Bosnia in 1996, US diplomat Richard Holbrooke wondered about the rightwing path of former Yugoslav republics. "Suppose the election was declared free and fair and those elected are "racists, fascists, separatists, who are publicly opposed to [peace and reintegration]. That is the dilemma." Twenty years after what Holbrooke dreaded election outcomes in Yugoslavia, the US elected a rightwing neoliberal populist leading the Republican Party and making culture wars a central theme to distract from the undercurrent class struggle in the country. A structural issue that transcends personalities, this reality in America is symptomatic of the link between neoliberalism and the rise of illiberal democracy in a number of countries around the world. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1997-11-01/rise-illiberal-democracy
Some political observers analyzing the rightist orientation of neoliberal policies have concluded that neoliberalism and Fascism have more in common than people realize. In 2016, Manuela Cadelli, President of the Magistrates Union of Belgium, wrote a brief article arguing that Neoliberalism is indeed a form of Fascism; a position people seem to be willing to debate after the election of Donald Trump pursuing neoliberal policies with a rightwing populist ideological and cultural platform to keep a popular base loyal to the Republican Party. "Fascism may be defined as the subordination of every part of the State to a totalitarian and nihilistic ideology. I argue that neoliberalism is a species of fascism because the economy has brought under subjection not only the government of democratic countries but also every aspect of our thought. The state is now at the disposal of the economy and of finance, which treat it as a subordinate and lord over it to an extent that puts the common good in jeopardy." http://www.defenddemocracy.press/president-belgian-magistrates-neoliberalism-form-fascism/
It is ironic that neoliberal society is 'a species of fascism', but there no widespread popular opposition from leftist groups to counter it. People remain submissive to the neoliberal state that has in fact eroded much of what many in the pluralist camp hail as liberal democratic institutions. Most adapt to the status quo because to do otherwise means difficulty surviving today just as it was difficult to survive under Fascism for those in opposition; as Palmiro Togliatti noted ( Lectures on Fascism, 1935) when he cautioned about castigating workers who joined the party simply because they placed survival of their family above any progressive ideology. Because evidence of systemic exploitation ingrained into society passes as the 'norm', and partly because repression targets minority groups, migrants, and the working class, especially those backing trade unions and progressive political parties, people support the neoliberal state that they see as the constitutional entity and the only means for survival.
The media, government and mainstream institutions denounce anyone crying out for social justice, human rights and systemic change. Such people are 'trendy rebels', as though social justice is a passing fad like a clothing line, misguided idealists or treasonous criminals. Considering that the corporate-owned and state media validates the legitimacy of the neoliberal social contract, the political class and social elites enjoy the freedom to shape the state's goals in the direction toward a surveillance police-state. All of this goes without notice in the age when it is almost expected because it is defaulted to technology making easy to detect foreign and domestic enemies while using the same technology to shape the citizen's subjective reality.
Partly because of the communications revolution in the digital age, neoliberalism has the ability to mold the citizen beyond loyalty to the social contract not just into mechanical observance but total submission to its institutions by reshaping the person's values and identity. In this respect, neoliberalism is not so different from Fascism whose goal was to mold the citizen. " Neoliberalism has been more successful than most past ideologies in redefining subjectivity, in making people alter their sense of themselves, their personhood, their identities, their hopes and expectations and dreams and idealizations. Classical liberalism was successful too, for two and a half centuries, in people's self-definition, although communism and fascism succeeded less well in realizing the "new man." It cannot be emphasized enough that neoliberalism is not classical liberalism, or a return to a purer version of it, as is commonly misunderstood; it is a new thing, because the market, for one thing, is not at all free and untethered and dynamic in the sense that classical liberalism idealized it.
Although people go about their daily lives focused on their interests, they operate against the background of neoliberal institutions that determine their lives in every respect from chatting on their cell phones to how they live despite their illusions of free will. As the world witnessed a segment of the population openly embracing fascism from movement to legitimate political party in interwar Europe, a corresponding rise in racism and ethnocentrism under the umbrella of rightwing neoliberal populism has taken place in the first two decades of the 21 st century.
Representing the UN Human Rights agency, Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad al-Hussein stated that 2016 was disastrous for human rights, as the 'clash of civilizations' construct has become ingrained into the political mainstream in Western countries. "In some parts of Europe, and in the United States, anti-foreigner rhetoric full of unbridled vitriol and hatred, is proliferating to a frightening degree, and is increasingly unchallenged. The rhetoric of fascism is no longer confined to a secret underworld of fascists, meeting in ill-lit clubs or on the 'deep net'. It is becoming part of normal daily discourse." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/united-nations-chilling-warning-rise-fascism-human-rights-prince-zeid-a7464861.html
Because neoliberalism has pushed all mainstream bourgeois political parties to the right, the far right no longer seems nearly as extreme today as it did during the Vietnam War's protest generation who still had hope for a socially just society even if that meant strengthening the social welfare system. The last two generations were raised knowing no alternative to neoliberalism; the panacea for all that ails society is less social welfare and privatization of public services within the framework of a state structure buttressing corporate welfare. The idea that nothing must be tolerated outside the hegemonic market and all institutions must mirror the neoliberal model reflects a neo-totalitarian society where sociopolitical conformity follows because survival outside the system is not viable.
Although Western neoconservatives have employed the term 'neo-totalitarian' to describe Vladimir Putin's Russia, the term applies even more accurately to the US and someEuropean nations operating under neoliberal-military-police state structures with as much power than the Russian bureaucratic state has at its disposal.The contradiction of neoliberalism rests in the system's goal of integrating everyone into the neo-totalitarian mold. Because of the system's inherent hierarchical structure, excluding most from the institutional mainstream and limiting popular sovereignty to the elites exposes the exploitation and repression goals that account for the totalitarian nature of the system masquerading as democratic where popular sovereignty is diffused. The seemingly puzzling aspect of the rise in rightwing populism across the globe that rests in marginalization of a segment of the population and the support for it not just from certain wealthy individuals financing extremist movements, but from a segment of the middle class and even working class lining up behind it because they see their salvation with the diminution of weaker social groups. This pattern was also evident in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and pro-Nazi authoritarian regimes of the interwar era. https://www.demdigest.org/neo-totalitarian-russia-potent-existential-threat-west/ ; Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism (2017.
Because of contradictions in bourgeois liberal democracy where capital accumulation at any social cost is the goal, the system produced the current global wave of rightwing populism just as capitalism in the interwar era gave rise to Fascism. As one analyst put it, " The risk democratic formations continually face is internal disintegration such that the heterogeneous elements of the social order not only fail to come together within some principle of or for unity, but actively turn against one another. In this case, a totally unproductive revolution takes place. Rather than subversion of the normative order causing suffering, rebellion or revolution that might establish a new nomos of shared life as a way of establishing a new governing logic, the dissociated elements of disintegrating democratic formations identify with the very power responsible for their subjection–capital, the state and, the strong leader. Thus the possibility of fascism is not negated in neoliberal formations but is an ever present possibility arising within it. Because the value of the social order as such is never in itself sufficient to maintain its own constitution, it must have recourse to an external value, which is the order of the sacred embodied by the sovereign. http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/41987-neoliberalism-fascism-and-sovereignty /
Public opinion surveys of a number of countries around the world, including those in the US, indicated that most people do not favor the existing social contract rooted in neoliberal policies that impact everything from living standards and labor policy to the judicial system and foreign affairs. Instead of driving workers toward a leftwing revolutionary path, many support rightwing populism that has resulted in the rise of even greater oppression and exploitation. Besides nationalism identified with the powerful elites as guardians of the national interest, many among the masses believe that somehow the same social contract responsible for existing problems will provide salvation they seek. While widespread disillusionment with neoliberal globalization seems to be at the core in the rise of rightwing populism, the common denominator is downward social mobility. (Doug Miller, Can the World be Wrong ? 2015)
As Garry Jacobs argues, "Even mature democracies show signs of degenerating into their illiberal namesakes. The historical record confirms that peaceful, prosperous, free and harmonious societies can best be nurtured by the widest possible distribution of all forms of power -- political, economic, educational, scientific, technological and social -- to the greatest extent to the greatest number. The aspiration for individual freedom can only be realized and preserved when it is married with the right to social equality. The mutual interdependence of the individual and the collective is the key to their reconciliation and humanity's future. http://www.cadmusjournal.org/article/volume-3/issue-3/political-economy-neoliberalism-and-illiberal-democracy
Just as in the interwar era when many Europeans lost confidence in the rationalism of the Enlightenment and lapsed into amorality and alienation that allowed for even greater public manipulation by the hegemonic culture, in the early 21 st the neoliberal social contract with a complex matrix of communications at its disposal is able to indoctrinate on a mass scale more easily than ever. Considering the low level of public trust in the mainstream media that most people regardless of political/ideological position view as propaganda rather than informational, cynicism about national and international institutions prevails. As the fierce struggle for power among mainstream political parties competing to manage the state on behalf of capital undercuts the credibility of the political class, rightwing elements enter the arena as 'outsider' messiahs above politics (Bonapartism in the 21 st century) to save the nation, while safeguarding the neoliberal social contract. This is as evident in France where the pluralist political model of neoliberalism has strengthened the neo-Fascist one that Marine Le Pen represents, as in Trump's America where the Democratic Party's neoliberal policies helped give rise to rightwing populism.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/macronism-neoliberal-triumph-or-next-stage-in-frances-political-crisis/5596722 ; https://socialistworker.org/2016/12/05/the-18th-brumaire-of-trump
As the following article in The Economist points out, widespread disillusionment with globalist neoliberal policies drove people to the right for an enemy to blame for all the calamities that befall society. " Beset by stagnant wage growth, less than half of respondents in America, Britain and France believe that globalisation is a "force for good" in the world. Westerners also say the world is getting worse. Even Americans, generally an optimistic lot, are feeling blue: just 11% believe the world has improved in the past year. The turn towards nationalism is especially pronounced in France, the cradle of liberty. Some 52% of the French now believe that their economy should not have to rely on imports, and just 13% reckon that immigration has a positive effect on their country. France is divided as to whether or not multiculturalism is something to be embraced. Such findings will be music to the ears of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, France's nationalist, Eurosceptic party. Current (and admittedly early) polling has her tied for first place in the 2017 French presidential race. https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/11/daily-chart-12
Similar to deep-rooted cultural and ideological traits of Nazism in German society, there are similar traits in contemporary US, India and other countries where rightwing populism has found a receptive public. Although there are varieties of populism from Lepenism (Marine Le Pen's National Front) to Trumpism (US Republican Donald Trump) to Modism (India's Narendra Modi), they share common characteristics, including cult of personality as a popular rallying catalyst, promoting hatred and marginalization of minority groups, and promising to deliver a panacea to "society" when in fact their policies are designed to strengthen big capital.
Rightwing populist politicians who pursue neoliberal policies are opportunistically pushing the political popular base toward consolidation of a Fascist movement and often refer to themselves as movement rather than a party. Just as there were liberals who refused to accept the imminent rise of Fascism amid the parliamentary system's collapse in the 1920s, there are neoliberals today who refuse to accept that the global trend of populism is a symptom of failed neoliberalism that has many common characteristics with Fascism. In an article entitled "Populism is not Fascism: But it could be a Harbinger" by Sheri Berman, the neoliberal journal Foreign Affairs , acknowledged that liberal bourgeois democracy is losing its luster around the world. However, the author would not go as far as to examine the structural causes for this phenomenon because to do so would be to attack the social contract within which it operates. Treating rightwing populism as though it is a marginal outgrowth of mainstream conservatism and an aberration rather than the outgrowth of the system's core is merely a thinly veiled attempt to defend the status quo of which rightwing populism is an integral part.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-10-17/populism-not-fascism
Structural Exploitation under the Neoliberal Social Contract
Structural exploitation – "a property of institutions or systems in which the "rules of the game" unfairly benefit one group of people to the detriment of another" https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/exploitation/ – has been an incontrovertible reality of all class-based societiesfrom the establishment of the earliest city-states in Mesopotamia until the present.Usually but not always intertwined with social oppression, structural exploitation entails a relationship of social dominance of an elite group over the rest of society subordinated for the purpose of economic, social, political, and cultural exploitation. Legitimized by the social contract, justifications for institutional exploitation include safety and security of country, eliminating impediments to progress, and emulating nature's competitive forces that exist in the animal kingdom and reflect human nature.
From Solon's laws in 6 th century BC Athens until our contemporary neoliberal era, social contract theory presumes that the state is the catalyst for social harmony if not fairness and not for a privileged social class to exploit the rest of society. No legal system has ever been codified that explicitly states its goal is to use of the state as an instrument of exploitation and oppression. In reality however, from ancient Babylon when King Hammurabi codified the first laws in 1780 B.C. until the present when multinational corporations and wealthy individuals directly or through lobbyists exert preponderate influence in public policy the theoretical assumption is one of fairness and justice for all people as a goal for the social contract.
In the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence – presumably to serve mankind as part of the social contract rather than to exploit more thoroughly and marginalize a large segment of humanity, the persistence of structural exploitation and oppression challenges those with a social conscience and morality rooted in humanist values to question what constitutes societal progress and public interest. Liberal and Christian-Libertarian arguments about free will notwithstanding, it has always been the case that mainstream institutions and the dominant culture indoctrinate people into believing that ending exploitation by changing the social contract is a utopian dream; a domain relegated to poets, philosophers and song writers lacking proper grounding in the reality of mainstream politics largely in the service of the dominant socioeconomic class. The paradox in neoliberal ideology is its emphasis on free choice, while the larger goal is to mold the subjective reality within the neoliberal institutional structure and way of life. The irreconcilable aspects of neoliberalism represent the contradictory goals of the desire to project democratic mask that would allow for popular sovereignty while pursuing capital accumulation under totalitarian methods. http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_contractarianism.html ' http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2017/05/15/indoctrination-and-free-will/
Social cooperation becomes dysfunctional when distortions and contradictions within the system create large-scale social marginalization exposing the divergence between the promise of the neoliberal social contract and the reality in peoples' lives. To manage the dysfunction by mobilizing popular support, the political elites of both the pluralist and the authoritarian-populist wing operating under the neoliberal political umbrella compete for power by projecting the image of an open democratic society. Intra-class power struggles within the elite social and political classes vying for power distracts from social exploitation because the masses line behind competing elites convinced such competition is the essence of democracy. As long as the majority in society passively acquiesces to the legitimacy of the social contract, even if in practice society is socially unjust, the status quo remains secure until systemic contradictions in the political economy make it unsustainable. https://mises.org/library/profound-significance-social-harmony
In the last three centuries, social revolutions, upheavals and grassroots movements have demonstrated that people want a social contract that includes workers, women, and marginalized groups into the mainstream and elevates their status economically and politically. In the early 21 st century, there are many voices crying out for a new social contract based on social justice and equality against neoliberal tyranny. However, those faint voices are drowned against the preponderate neoliberal public policy impacting every sector while shaping the individual's worldview and subjective reality. The triumph of neoliberal orthodoxy has deviated from classical liberalism to the degree that dogmatism 'single-thought' process dominates not just economics, not just the social contract, but the very fabric of our humanity. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21598282.2013.761449?journalCode=rict20 ; https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world
Under neoliberalism, "Uberization" as a way of life is becoming the norm not just in the 'financialization' neoliberal economy resting on speculation rather than productivity but in society as well. The neoliberal ideology has indoctrinated the last two generations that grew up under this system and know no other reality thus taking for granted the neoliberal way of life as natural as the air they breathe. Often working two jobs, working overtime without compensation or taking work home just to keep the job has become part of chasing the dream of merely catching up with higher costs of living. People have accepted perpetual work enmeshed with the capitalist ideology of perpetual economic growth perversely intertwined with progress of civilization. The corporate ideology of "grow or die" at any cost is in reality economic growth confined to the capitalist class, while fewer and fewer people enjoy its fruits and communities, cities, entire countries under neoliberal austerity suffer.
Carl Boggs, The End of Politics: Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere , 2000; https://monthlyreview.org/2007/04/01/the-financialization-of-capitalism/ ; https://permaculturenews.org/2012/06/15/myth-of-perpetual-growth-is-killing-america/
The incentive for conformity is predicated on the belief that the benefits of civilization would be fairly distributed if not in the present then at some point in the future for one's children or grandchildren; analogous to living a virtuous life in order to enjoy the rewards after death. As proof that the system works for the benefit of society and not just the capitalist class, neoliberal apologists point to stock market gains and surprisingly there is a psychological impact – the wealth effect – on the mass consumer who feels optimistic and borrows to raise consumption. Besides the fact that only a very small percentage of people on the planet own the vast majority of securities, even in the US there is no correlation between stock market performance and living standards. (John Seip and Dee Wood Harper, The Trickle Down Delusion , 2016)
If we equate the stock market with the 'wealth of the nation', then in 1982 when the S & P index stood at 117 rising to 2675 in December 2017, the logical conclusion is that living standards across the US rose accordingly. However, this is the period when real incomes for workers and the middle class actually declined despite sharp rise in productivity and immense profits reflected in the incomes gap reflected in the bottom 90% vs. the top 10%. This is also the period when we see the striking divergence between wealth accumulation for the top 1% and a relative decline for the bottom 90%. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/upshot/income-inequality-united-states.html ; https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality/A research study compiled by the pro-organized labor non-profit think tank 'Economic Policy Institute' stresses the divergence between productivity and real wages. While the top 0.01% of America's experienced 386% income growth between 1980 and 1914, the bottom 90% suffered 3% real income drop. Whereas in 1980 income share for the bottom 90% stood at 65% and for the top 1% it stood at 10%, by 2014 the bottom 90% held just half of the income, while the top 1% owned 21%. This dramatic income divergence, which has been shown in hundreds of studies and not even neoliberal billionaires deny their validity, took place under the shift toward the full implementation of the neoliberal social contract. It is significant to note that such income concentration resulting from fiscal policy, corporate subsidy policy, privatization and deregulation has indeed resulted in higher productivity exactly as neoliberal apologists have argued. However, higher worker productivity and higher profits has been made possible precisely because of income transfer from labor to capitalist. http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ ; https://aneconomicsense.org/2015/07/13/the-highly-skewed-growth-of-incomes-since-1980-only-the-top-0-5-have-done-better-than-before/
"Real hourly compensation of production, nonsupervisory workers who make up 80 percent of the workforce, also shows pay stagnation for most of the period since 1973, rising 9.2 percent between 1973 and 2014.Net productivity grew 1.33 percent each year between 1973 and 2014, faster than the meager 0.20 percent annual rise in median hourly compensation. In essence, about 15 percent of productivity growth between 1973 and 2014 translated into higher hourly wages and benefits for the typical American worker. Since 2000, the gap between productivity and pay has risen even faster. The net productivity growth of 21.6 percent from 2000 to 2014 translated into just a 1.8 percent rise in inflation-adjusted compensation for the median worker (just 8 percent of net productivity growth).Since 2000, more than 80 percent of the divergence between a typical (median) worker's pay growth and overall net productivity growth has been driven by rising inequality (specifically, greater inequality of compensation and a falling share of income going to workers relative to capital owners).Over the entire 1973–2014 period, rising inequality explains over two-thirds of the productivity–pay divergence. " (Josh Bivens and Lawrence Mishel, "Understanding the Historic Divergence Between Productivity and a Typical Worker's Pay Why It Matters and Why It's Real" in Economic Policy Institute, 2015, http://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-divergence-between-productivity-and-a-typical-workers-pay-why-it-matters-and-why-its-real/
The average corporate tax rate in the world has been cut in half in the last two decades from about 40% to 22%, with the effective rate actually paid lower than the official rate. This represents a massive transfer of wealth to the highest income brackets drained from the working class. More than half-a-century ago, American anthropologist Jules Henry wrote that: "The fact that our society places no limit on wealth while making it accessible to all helps account for the 'feverish' quality Tocqueville sensed in American civilization." Culture Against Man (1963). The myth that the neoliberal policies in the information age lead toward a society richer for all people is readily refuted by the reality of huge wealth distribution gaps resulting from 'informational capitalism' backed by the corporate welfare state.
Capital accumulation not just in the US but on a world scale without a ceiling has resulted in more thorough exploitation of workers and in a less socially just society today than in the early 1960s when Jules Henry was writing and it is headed increasingly toward authoritarian models of government behind the very thin veneer of meaningless elections. Against this background of unfettered neoliberalism, social responsibility is relegated to issues ranging from corporate-supported sustainable development in which large businesses have a vested interest as part of future designs on capital accumulation, to respecting lifestyle and cultural and religious freedoms within the existing social contract. (Dieter Plehwe et al. eds., Neoliberal Hegemony , 2006; Carl Ferenbach and Chris Pinney, " Toward a 21st Century Social Contract" Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Vol. 24, No 2, 2012; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-6622.2012.00372.x/abstract
At its Annual conference in 2017 where representatives from the 'Fortune 500', academia, think tanks, NGOs, and government, business consultancy group BSR provided the following vision under the heading "A 21 st Century Social Contract" : "The nature of work is changing very rapidly. Old models of lifelong employment via business and a predictable safety net provided by government are no longer assured in a new demographic, economic, and political environment. We see these trends most clearly in the rise of the "gig economy," in which contingent workers (freelancers, independent contractors, consultants, or other outsourced and non-permanent workers) are hired on a temporary or part-time basis. These workers make up more than 90 percent of new job creation in European countries, and by 2020, it is estimated that more than 40 percent of the U.S. workforce will be in contingent jobs." https://bsr17.org/agenda/sessions/the-21st-century-social-contract
Representing multinational corporate members and proud sponsors of sustainable development solutions within the neoliberal model, BSR applauded the aspirations and expectations of today's business people that expect to concentrate even more capital as the economy becomes more 'UBERized' and reliant on the new digital technology. Despite fear and anxiety about a bleak techno-science future as another mechanism to keep wages as close to subsistence if not below that level as possible, peoples' survival instinct forces them to adjust their lives around the neoliberal social contract. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531726/technology-and-inequality/
Reflecting the status quo, the media indoctrinate people to behave as though systemic exploitation, oppression, division, and marginalization are natural while equality and the welfare of the community represent an anathema to bourgeois civilization. What passes as the 'social norm', largely reflects the interests of the socioeconomic elites propagating the 'legitimacy' of their values while their advocates vilify values that place priority on the community aspiring to achieve equality and social justice. (Robert E. Watkins, " Turning the Social Contract Inside Out: Neoliberal Governance and Human Capital in Two Days, One Night" , 2016).
The neoliberal myth that the digital technological revolution and the 'knowledge based economy' (KBE) of endless innovation is the catalyst not only to economic growth but to the preservation of civilization and welfare of society has proved hollow in the last four decades. Despite massive innovation in the domain of the digital and biotech domains, socioeconomic polarization and environmental degradation persist at much higher rates today than in the 1970s. Whether in the US, the European Union or developing nations, the neoliberal promise of 'prospering together' has been a farce. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tsq.12106/full ; http://www.ricerchestoriche.org/?p=749
Neoliberal myths about upward linear progress across all segments of society and throughout the world notwithstanding, economic expansion and contraction only result in greater capital concentration. "The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have taken a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, pulled out all 43,060 multinational corporations and the share ownerships linking them to construct a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.The model revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships. Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms, the "real" economy, representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a super-entity of 147 even more tightly knit companies (all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity) that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network." https://weeklybolshevik.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/imperialism-and-the-concentration-of-capital/ http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf .
With each passing recessionary cycle of the past four decades working class living standards have retreated and never recovered. Although the techno-science panacea has proved a necessary myth and a distraction from the reality of capital concentration, considering that innovation and technology are integral parts of the neoliberal system, the media, politicians, business elites, corporate-funded think tanks and academics continue to promote the illusive 'modernist dream' that only a small segment of society enjoys while the rest take pride living through it vicariously. ( Laurence Reynolds and Bronislaw Szerszynski, "Neoliberalism and technology: Perpetual innovation or perpetual crisis?"
https://www.academia.edu/1937914/Neoliberalism_and_technology
Rooted in militarism and police-state policies, the culture of fear is one of the major ways that the neoliberal regime perpetually distracts people from structural exploitation and oppression in a neoliberal society that places dogmatic focus on atomism. Despite the atomistic value system as an integral part of neoliberalism, neoliberals strongly advocate a corporate state welfare system. Whether supporting pluralism and diversity or rightwing populists, neoliberals agree that without the state buttressing the private sector, the latter will collapse. Author of Liberalism in the Shadow of Totalitarianism (2007) David Ciepley argues in "The Corporate Contradictions of Neoliberalism" that the system's contradictions have led to the authoritarian political model as its only option moving forward.
"Neoliberalism was born in reaction against totalitarian statism, and matured at the University of Chicago into a program of state-reduction that was directed not just against the totalitarian state and the socialist state but also (and especially) against the New Deal regulatory and welfare state. It is a self-consciously reactionary ideology that seeks to roll back the status quo and institutionalize (or, on its own understanding, re-institutionalize) the "natural" principles of the market. But the contradiction between its individualist ideals and our corporate reality means that the effort to institutionalize it, oblivious to this contradiction, has induced deep dysfunction in our corporate system, producing weakened growth, intense inequality, and coercion. And when the ideological support of a system collapses -- as appears to be happening with neoliberalism -- then either the system will collapse, or new levels of coercion and manipulation will be deployed to maintain it. This appears to be the juncture at which we have arrived." https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/05/corporate-contradictions-neoliberalism/
Adhering to a tough law-and-order policy, neoliberals have legalized large-scale criminal activity perpetrated by capitalists against society while penalizing small-scale crimes carried out mostly by people in the working class and the marginalized lumpenproletariat . Regardless of approaches within the neoliberal social contract, neoliberal politicians agree on a lengthy prison sentences for street gangs selling narcotics while there is no comparable punishment when it comes to banks laundering billions including from narcotics trafficking, as Deutsche Bank among other mega banks in the US and EU; fixing rates as Barclays among others thus defrauding customers of billions; or creating fake accounts as Wells Fargo , to say nothing of banks legally appropriating billions of dollars from employees and customers and receiving state (taxpayer) funding in times of 'banking crises'. Although it seems enigmatic that there is acquiescence for large scale crimes with the institutional cover of 'legitimacy' by the state and the hegemonic culture, the media has conditioned the public to shrug off structural exploitation as an integral part of the social contract. http://theweek.com/articles/729052/brief-history-crime-corruption-malfeasance-american-banks ; https://www.globalresearch.ca/corruption-in-the-european-union-scandals-in-banking-fraud-and-secretive-ttip-negotiations/5543935
Neoliberalism's reach does not stop with the de-criminalization of white-collar crime or the transfer of economic policy from the public sector to corporations in order to reverse social welfare policies. Transferring sweeping policy powers from the public to the corporate sector, neoliberalism's tentacles impact everything from labor and environment to health, education and foreign policy into the hands of the state-supported corporate sector in an effort to realize even greater capital concentration at an even greater pace. This has far reaching implications in peoples' lives around the world in everything from their work and health to institutions totalitarian at their core but projecting an image of liberal democracy on the surface. (Noam Chomsky and R. W. McChesney, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order , 2011; Pauline Johnson, "Sociology and the Critique of Neoliberalism" European Journal of Social Theory , 2014
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368431014534354?journalCode=esta
Comprehensive to the degree that it aims to diminish the state's role by having many of its functions privatized, neoliberalism's impact has reached into monetary policy trying to supplant it with rogue market forces that test the limits of the law and hard currencies. The creation of cryptocurrencies among them BITCOIN that represents the utopian dream of anarcho-libertarians interested in influencing if not dreaming of ultimately supplanting central banks' role in monetary policy is an important dimension of neoliberal ideology. Techno-utopians envisioning the digital citizen in a neoliberal society favor a 'gypsy economy' operating on a digital currency outside the purview of the state's regulatory reach where it is possible to transfer and hide money while engaging in the ultimate game of speculation. ( https://btctheory.com ; Samuel Valasco and Leonardo Medina, The Social Nature of Cryptocurrencies , 2013)
Credited as the neoliberal prophet whose work and affiliate organizations multinational corporations funded, Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek favored market forces to determine monetary policy rather than having government in that role working behind central banks. Aside from the fact that central banks cater to capital and respond to markets and no other constituency, Hayek's proposal ( The Denationalization of Money , 1976) was intended to permit the law of the 'free market' (monetary speculation) determine policy that would impact peoples' living standards. Hence capital accumulation would not be constrained by government regulatory measures and the coordination of monetary policy between central banks. In short, the law of unfettered banking regulation would theoretically result in greater economic growth, no matter the consequences owing to the absence of banking regulatory measures that exacerbate contracting economic cycles such as in 2008. www.voltaire.org/article30058.html )
In December 2017, the UK and EU warned that cryptocurrencies are used in criminal enterprises, including money laundering and tax evasion. Nevertheless, crypto-currency reflects both the ideology and goals of capital accumulation of neoliberals gaining popularity among speculators in the US and other countries. Crypto-currencyfulfills the neoliberal speculator's dream by circumventing the IMF basket of reserved currencies on which others trade while evading regulatory constraints and all mechanisms of legal accountability for the transfer of money and tax liability.
Although a tiny fraction of the global monetary system, computer networks make crypto-currency a reality for speculators, tax evaders, those engaged in illegal activities and even governments like Venezuela under Nocolas Maduro trying to pump liquidity into the oil-dependent economy suffering from hyperinflation and economic stagnation If the crypto-currency system can operate outside the purview of the state, then the neoliberal ideology of trusting the speculator rather than the government would be proved valid about the superfluous role of central banks and monetary centralization, a process that capitalism itself created for the harmonious operation of capitalism. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/04/bitcoin-uk-eu-plan-cryptocurrency-price-traders-anonymity ; http://www.lanacion.com.ar/2099017-venezuela-inflacion-nicolas-maduro-crisis-precios
Indicative of the success of the neoliberal ideology's far reaching impact in economic life cryptocurrencies' existencealso reflects the crisis of capitalism amid massive assaults on middle class and working class living standards in the quest for greater capital concentration. In an ironic twist, the very neoliberal forces that promote cryptocurrencies decry their use by anti-Western nations – Iran, Venezuela, and Russia among others.The criticism of anti-Western governments resorting to cryptocurrenciesis based on their use as a means of circumventing the leverage that reserve currencies like the dollar and euro afford to the West over non-Western nations. This is only one of a few contradictions that neoliberalism creates and undermines the system it strives to build just as it continues to foster its ideology as the only plausible one to pursue globally. Another contradiction is the animosity toward crypto-currencies from mainstream financial institutions that want to maintain a monopoly on government-issued currency which is where they make their profits. As the world's largest institutional promoter of neoliberalism, the IMF has cautioned not to dismiss cryptocurrencies because they could have a future, or they may actually 'be the future'. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-unlimited-potential-lies-in-apolitical-core/ ; http://fortune.com/2017/10/02/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-imf-christine-lagarde/
After the "Washington Consensus" of 1989, IMF austerity policies are leverage to impose neoliberal policies globally have weakened national institutions from health to education and trade unions that once formed a social bond for workers aspiring to an integrative socially inclusive covenant in society rather than marginalization. The IMF uses austerity policies for debt relief as leverage to have the government provide more favorable investment conditions and further curtail the rights of labor with everything from ending collective bargaining to introducing variations of "right-to-work" laws" that prohibit trade unions from forcing collective strikes, collecting dues or signing the collective contract. Justified in the name of 'capitalist efficiency', weakening organized labor and its power of collective bargaining has been an integral part of the neoliberal social contract as much in the US and UK as across the rest of the world, invariably justified by pointing to labor markets where workers earn the lowest wages. (B. M. Evans and S. McBride, Austerity: The Lived Experience , 2017; Vicente Berdayes, John W. Murphy, eds. Neoliberalism, Economic Radicalism, and the Normalization of Violence , 2016).
Although many in the mainstream media took notice of the dangers of neoliberalism leading toward authoritarianism after Trump's election, a few faint voices have been warning about this inevitability since the early 1990s. Susan George, president of the Transnational Institute, has argued that neoliberalism is contrary to democracy, it is rooted in Social Darwinism, it undermines the liberal social contract under which that people assume society operates, but it is the system that governments and international organization like the IMF have been promoting.
"Over the past twenty years, the IMF has been strengthened enormously. Thanks to the debt crisis and the mechanism of conditionality, it has moved from balance of payments support to being quasi-universal dictator of so-called "sound" economic policies, meaning of course neo-liberal ones. The World Trade Organisation was finally put in place in January 1995 after long and laborious negotiations, often rammed through parliaments which had little idea what they were ratifying. Thankfully, the most recent effort to make binding and universal neo-liberal rules, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, has failed, at least temporarily. It would have given all rights to corporations, all obligations to governments and no rights at all to citizens. The common denominator of these institutions is their lack of transparency and democratic accountability. This is the essence of neo-liberalism. It claims that the economy should dictate its rules to society, not the other way around. Democracy is an encumbrance, neo-liberalism is designed for winners, not for voters who, necessarily encompass the categories of both winners and losers."
https://www.tni.org/en/article/short-history-neoliberalism
Those on the receiving end of neoliberalism's Social Darwinist orientation are well aware of public policy's negative impact on their lives but they feel helpless to confront the social contract. According to opinion polls, people around the world realize there is a huge gap between what political and business leaders, and international organizations claim about institutions designed to benefit all people and the reality of marginalization. The result is loss of public confidence in the social contract theoretically rooted in consent and democracy. "When elected governments break the "representative covenant" and show complete indifference to the sufferings of citizens, when democracy is downgraded to an abstract set of rules and deprived of meaning for much of the citizenry, many will be inclined to regard democracy as a sham, to lose confidence in and withdraw their support for electoral institutions. Dissatisfaction with democracy now ranges from 40 percent in Peru and Bolivia to 59 percent in Brazil and 62 percent in Colombia. (Boron, "Democracy or Neoliberalism", http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR21.5/boron.html )
Not just in developing nations operating under authoritarian capitalist model to impose neoliberal policies, but in advanced countries people recognize that the bourgeois freedom, democracy and justice are predicated on income. Regardless of whether the regime operates under a pluralistic neoliberal regime or rightwing populist one, the former much more tolerant of diversity than the latter, the social contract goals are the same. In peoples' lives around the world social exploitation has risen under neoliberal policies whether imposed the nation-state, a larger entity such as the EU, or international organizations such as the IMF. Especially for the European and US middle class, but also for Latin American and African nations statistics show that the neoliberal social contract has widened the poor-rich gap.
In a world where the eight wealthiest individuals own as much wealth as the bottom 50% or 3.6 billion people, social exploitation and oppression has become normal because the mainstream institutions present it in such light to the world and castigate anyone critical of institutionalized exploitation and oppression. Rightwing populist demagogues use nationalism, cultural conservatism and vacuous rhetoric about the dangers of big capital and 'liberal elites' to keep the masses loyal to the social contract by faulting the pluralist-liberal politicians rather than the neoliberal social contract. As the neoliberal political economy has resulted in a steady rising income gap and downward social mobility in the past three decades, it is hardly surprising that a segment of the masses lines behind rightwing populist demagogues walking a thin line between bourgeois democracy and Fascism.
(Alan Wertheimer, Exploitation , 1999; Ruth J. Sample, Exploitation; What is it and why it is Wrong , 2003; http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/31/investing/wells-fargo-fake-accounts/index.html ; https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/5/14/1662227/-Was-suicide-of-Deutsche-Bank-executive-linked-to-Trump-and-Russia-money-laundering
Seizing power from sovereign states, multinational corporation are pursuing neoliberal policy objectives on a world scale, prompting resistance to the neoliberal social contract which rarely class-based and invariably identity-group oriented manifested through environmental, gender, race, ethnicity, gay, religious and minority groups of different sorts. Regardless of the relentless media campaign to suppress class consciousness, workers are aware that they have common interests and public opinion studies reveal as much. (Susan George, Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations are seizing Power , 2015)
According to the Pew Research center, the world average for satisfaction with their governments are at 46%, the exact percentage as in the US that ranks about the same as South Africa and much lower than neighboring Canada at 70% and Sweden at 79%. " Publics around the globe are generally unhappy with the functioning of their nations' political systems. Across the 36 countries asked the question, a global median of 46% say they are very or somewhat satisfied with the way their democracy is working, compared with 52% who are not too or not at all satisfied. Levels of satisfaction vary considerably by region and within regions. Overall, people in the Asia-Pacific region are the most happy with their democracies. At least half in five of the six Asian nations where this question was asked express satisfaction. Only in South Korea is a majority unhappy (69%).
http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/10/16/many-unhappy-with-current-political-system/
As confounding as it appears that elements of the disillusioned middle class and working class opt either for the exploitation of pluralist neoliberalism or the exploitation and oppression of rightwing populism expressed somewhat differently in each country, it is not difficult to appreciate the immediacy of a person's concerns for survival like all other species above all else. The assumption of rational behavior in the pursuit of social justice is a bit too much to expect considering that people make irrational choices detrimental to their best interests and to society precisely because the dominant culture has thoroughly indoctrinated them. It seems absurd that indirectly people choose exploitation and oppression for themselves and others in society, but they always have as the dominant culture secular and religious indoctrinates them into accepting exploitation and oppression. (Shaheed Nick Mohammed, Communication and the Globalization of Culture , 2011)
Throughout Western and Eastern Europe rightwing political parties are experiencing a resurgence not seen since the interwar era, largely because the traditional conservatives moved so far to the right. Even the self-baptized Socialist parties are nothing more than staunch advocates of the same neoliberal status quo as the traditional conservatives. The US has also moved to the right long before the election of Donald Trump who openly espouses suppression of certain fundamental freedoms as an integral part of a pluralistic society. As much as in the US and Europe as in the rest of the world, analysts wonder how could any working class person champion demagogic political leaders whose vacuous populist rhetoric promises 'strong nation" for all but their policies benefit the same socioeconomic elites as the neoliberal politicians.(J. Rydgren (Ed.), Class Politics and the Radical Right , 2012)
Rooted onclassical liberal values of the Enlightenment, the political and social elites present a social contract that is theoretically all-inclusive and progressive, above all 'fair' because it permits freedom to compete, when in reality the social structure under which capitalism operates necessarily entails exploitation and oppression that makes marginalization very clear even to its staunchest advocates who then endeavor to justify it by advancing theories about individual human traits.
In 2012 the United States spent an estimated 19.4% of GDP on such social expenditures, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based industrial country think tank. Denmark spent 30.5%, Sweden 28.2% and Germany 26.3%. All of these nations have a lower central government debt to GDP ratio than that of the United States. Why the United States invests relatively less in its social safety net than many other countries and why those expenditures are even at risk in the current debate over debt reduction reflect Americans' conflicted, partisan and often contradictory views on fairness, inequality, the role and responsibility of government and individuals in society and the efficacy of government action. Rooted in value differences, not just policy differences, the debate over the U.S. social contract is likely to go on long after the fiscal cliff issue has been resolved." http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/01/15/public-attitudes-toward-the-next-social-contract/
The neoliberal model of capitalism spewing forth from core countries to the periphery and embraced by capitalists throughout the world has resulted in greater social inequality, exploitation and oppression, despite proclamations that by pluralist-diversity neoliberals presenting themselves as remaining true to 'democracy'. The tilt to the right endorsed at the ballot box by voters seeking solutions to systemic problems and a more hopeful future indicates that some people demand exclusion and/or punishment of minority social groups in society, as though the exploitation and oppression of 'the other' would vicariously elevate the rest of humanity to a higher plane. Although this marks a dangerous course toward authoritarianism and away from liberal capitalism and Karl Popper's 'Open Society' thesis operating in a pluralistic world against totalitarianism, it brings to surface the essence of neoliberalism which is totalitarian, the very enemy Popper and his neoconservative followers were allegedly trying to prevent. (Calvin Hayes, Popper, Hayek and the Open Society , 2009)
Social Exclusion, Popular Resistanceand the Future of Neoliberalism
Social Exclusion
Every sector of society from the criminal justice system to elderly care has been impacted by neoliberal social marginalization. More significant than any other aspect of neoliberalism, the creation of a chronic debtor classwithout any assets is floating a step above the structurally unemployed and underemployed.The Industrial revolution exacerbated social exclusion producing an underclass left to its own fate by a state that remained faithful to the social contract's laissez philosophy. Composed of vagrants, criminals, chronically unemployed, and people of the streets that British social researcher Henry Mayhew described in London Labour and the London Poor , a work published three years after the revolutions of 1848 that shattered the liberal foundations of Europe, the lumpenproletariat caught the attention of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ( The German Ideology ) interested in the industrial working class movement as the vanguard of the revolution.
Lacking a class consciousness thus easily exploited by the elites the lumpenproletariat were a product of industrial capitalism's surplus labor that kept wages at or just above subsistence levels, long before European and American trade union struggles were able to secure a living wage.In the last four decades neoliberal policies have created a chronic debtor working class operating under the illusion of integration into the mainstream when in fact their debtor status not only entails social exclusion but relegated to perpetual servitude dependence and never climbing out of it. The neoliberal state is the catalyst to the creation of this new class. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/a-164-year-old-idea-helps-explain-the-huge-changes-sweeping-the-world-s-workforce
In an essay entitled "Labour Relations and Social Movements in the 21st Century"
Portuguese social scientists Elísio Estanque and Hermes Augusto Costa argue that the manner that neoliberalism has impacted Europe's social structure in both core and periphery countries has given rise to the new precarious working class, often college-degreed, overqualified, and struggling to secure steady employment especially amid recessionary cycles that last longer and run deeper.
"The panorama of a deep economic crisis which in the last few decades has hit Europe and its Welfare state in particular has had an unprecedented impact on employment and social policies. The neoliberal model and the effects of deregulated and global finance not only question the "European social model" but push sectors of the labour force – with the youngest and well-qualified being prominent – into unemployment or precarious jobs. the sociological and potential socio-political significance of these actionsparticularly as a result of the interconnections that such movements express, both in the sphere of the workplace and industrial system or whether with broader social structures, with special emphasis on the middle classes and the threats of 'proletarianization' that presently hang over them. labour relations of our time are crossed by precariousness and by a new and growing "precariat" which also gave rise to new social movements and new forms of activism and protest." http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/34149/InTech-Labour_relations_and_social_movements_in_the_21st_century.pdf
'Proletarization' of the declining middle class and downward income pressure for the working class and middle classhas been accompanied by the creation of a growing chronic debtor class in the Western World. Symptomatic of the neoliberal globalist world order, the creation of the debtor class and more broadly social exclusion transcends national borders, ethnicity, gender, culture, etc. Not just at the central government level, but at the regional and local levels, public policy faithfully mimics the neoliberal model resulting in greater social exclusion while there is an effort to convince people that there is no other path to progress although people were free to search; a dogma similar to clerical intercession as the path to spiritual salvation. http://www.isreview.org/issues/58/feat-economy.shtml
The neoliberal path to salvation has resulted in a staggering 40% of young adults living with relatives out of financial necessity. The number has never been greater at any time in modern US history since the Great Depression, and the situation is not very different for Europe. Burdened with debt, about half of the unemployed youth are unable to find work and most that work do so outside the field of their academic training. According to the OECD, youth unemployment in the US is not confined only to high school dropouts but includes college graduates. Not just across southern Europe and northern Africa, but in most countries the neoliberal economy of massive capital concentration has created a new lumpenproletariat that has no assets and carries debt. Owing to neoliberal policies, personal bankruptcies have risen sharply in the last four decades across the Western World reflecting the downward social mobility and deep impact on the chronically indebted during recessionary cycles. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/ ; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/for-young-americans-living-with-their-parents-is-now-the-norm/ ; Iain Ramsay, Personal Insolvency in the 21st Century: A Comparative Analysis of the US and Europe, 2017)
Historically, the safe assumption has been that higher education is the key to upward social mobility and financial security, regardless of cyclical economic trends. However, the laws of overproduction apply not only to commodities but to the labor force, especially as the information revolution continues to chip away at human labor. College education is hardly a guarantee to upward social mobility, but often a catalyst to descent into the debtor unemployed class,or minimum wage/seasonalpart time job or several such jobs. The fate of the college-educated falling into the chronic debtor class is part of a much larger framework, namely the 'financialization' of the economy that is at the core of neoliberalism. ( Vik Loveday, "Working-class participation, middle-class aspiration? Value, upward mobility and symbolic indebtedness in higher education."The Sociological Review , September 2014) Beyond the simplisticsuggestion of 'more training' to keep up with tech changes, the root cause of social exclusion and the chronic debtor class revolves around the 'financialization' of the neoliberal globalist economy around which central banks make monetary policy. Since the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan era, advanced capitalist countries led by the US conducted policy to promote the centrality of financial markets as the core of the economy. This entails resting more on showing quarterly profit even at the expense of taking on debt, lower productivity and long-term sustainability, or even breaking a company apart and dismissing workers because it would add shareholder value. Therefore, the short-term financial motives and projection of market performance carry far more weight than any other consideration.Symptomatic of a combination of deregulation and the evolution of capitalism especially in core countries from productive to speculative, financialization has transformed the world economy. Enterprises from insurance companies to brokerage firms and banks like Goldman Sachs involved in legal and quasi-legal practices, everything from the derivatives market to helping convert a country's sovereign debt into a surplus while making hefty profits has been part of the financialization economy that speeds up capital concentration and creates a wider rich-poor gap. Housing, health, pension systems, health care and personal consumption are all impacted by financialization that concentrates capital through speculation rather than producing anything from capital goods to consumer products and services. (Costas Lapavitsas, The Financialization of Capitalism: 'Profiting without producing' http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604813.2013.853865
Billionaire speculator George Soros has observed that market speculation not only drives prices higher, especially of commodities on a world scale, but the inevitability of built-in booms and busts are disruptive simply because a small group of people have secured a legal means for capital accumulation. At the outbreak of the US stock market collapse followed by the 'great recession' of 2008, the European Network and Debt and Development (EURODAD) published an article critical of financialization and its impact on world hunger.
"Do you enjoy rising prices? Everybody talks about commodities – with the Agriculture Euro Fund you can benefit from the increase in value of the seven most important agricultural commodities." With this advertisement the Deutsche Bankt tried in spring 2008 to attract clients for one of its investment funds. At the same time, there were hunger revolts in Haiti, Cameroon and other developing countries, because many poor could no longer pay the exploding food prices. In fact, between the end of 2006 and March 2008 the prices for the seven most important commodities went up by 71 per cent on average, for rice and grain the increase was 126 per cent. The poor are most hit by the hike in prices. Whereas households in industrialised countries spend 10 -20 per cent for food, in low-income countries they spend 60 – 80 per cent. As a result, the World Bank forecasts an increase in the number of people falling below the absolute poverty line by more than 100 million. Furthermore, the price explosion has negative macroeconomic effects: deterioration of the balance of payment, fuelling inflation and new debt." http://eurodad.org/uploadedfiles/whats_new/news/food%20speculation%202%20pager%20final.pdf
Someone has to pay for the speculative nature of financialization, and the labor force in all countries is the first to do so through higher indirect taxes, cuts in social programs and jobs and wages for the sake of stock performance. Stock markets around which public policy is conducted have eroded the real economy while molding a culture of financialization of the last two generations a large percentage of which has been swimming in personal debt reflecting the debt-ridden financialization economy. Contrary to claims by politicians, business leaders and the media that the neoliberal system of financialization is all about creating jobs and helping to diffuse income to the middle class and workers, the only goal of financialization is wealth concentration while a larger debtor class and social marginalization are the inevitable results. It is hardly surprising that people world-wide believe the political economy is rigged by the privileged class to maintain its status and the political class is the facilitator. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41359-financialization-has-turned-the-global-economy-into-a-house-of-cards-an-interview-with-gerald-epstein ; Costas Lapavitsa, Financialization in Crisis, 2013; Rona Foroohar, Makers and Takers: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street , 2016)
Despite efforts by pluralist and populist neoliberals throughout the world to use 'culture wars' and identity politics as distractionwhile deemphasizing the role of the state as the catalyst in the neoliberal social contract, the contradictions that the political economy exposes the truth about the socially unjustsociety that marginalizes the uneducated poor and college-educated indebted alike.Not to deemphasize the significance of global power distribution based on the Westphalian nation-state model and regional blocs such as the European Union, but neoliberals are the ones who insist on the obsolete nation-state that the international market transcends, thus acknowledging the preeminence of capitalism in the social contract and the subordination of national sovereignty to international capital and financialization of the economy. After all, the multinational corporation operating in different countries is accountable only to its stockholders, not to the nation-state whose role is to advance corporate interests.
No matter how rightwing populists try to distract people from the real cause of social exclusion and marginalization by focusing onnationalist rhetoric, marginalized social groups and Muslim or Mexican legal or illegal immigrantshave no voice in public policy but financialization speculators do. In an article entitled "The Politics of Public Debt: Neoliberalism, capitalist development, and the restructuring of the state", Wolfgang Streeck concludes that neoliberalism's systemic rewards provide a disincentive for capitalists to abandon financialization in favor of productivity. "Why should the new oligarchs be interested in their countries' future productive capacities and present democratic stability if, apparently, they can be rich without it, processing back and forth the synthetic money produced for them at no cost by a central bank for which the sky is the limit, at each stage diverting from it hefty fees and unprecedented salaries, bonuses and profits as long as it is forthcoming -- and then leave their country to its remaining devices and withdraw to some privately owned island?
http://www.publicseminar.org/2014/02/the-politics-of-public-debt/
An important difference between pluralists and rightwing populists in their approach to the state's role is that the former advocate for a strong legislative branch and weaker executive, while rightwing populists want a strong executive and weak legislative. However, both political camps agree about advancing market hegemony nationally and internationally and both support policies that benefit international and domestic capital, thus facilitating the convergence of capitalist class interests across national borders with the symptomatic results of social exclusion. ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718508000924 ; Vicente Navarro, "The Worldwide Class Struggle" https://monthlyreview.org/2006/09/01/the-worldwide-class-struggle/
Regardless of vacuous rhetoric about a weak state resulting from neoliberal policies, the state in core countries where financialization prevailshas been and remains the catalyst for class hegemony as has been the case since the nascent stage of capitalism. Both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan strengthened the corporate welfare state while openly declaring war against trade unions and by extension on the working class that neoliberals demonize as the enemy of economic progress. As statistics below illustrate, the debtor class expanded rapidly after 1980 when the financialization economy took off, reaching its highest point after the subprime-induced great recession in 2008. Under neoliberal globalist policies, governments around the world followed theReagan-Thatcher model to facilitate over-accumulation of capital in the name of competition. (Montgomerie Johnna, Neoliberalism and the Making of the Subprime Borrower , 2010)
Whether the state is promoting neoliberal policies under a pluralist or authoritarian models, the neoliberal culture has designated labor as the unspoken enemy, especially organized labor regardless of whether the ruling parties have co-opted trade unions. In the struggle for capital accumulation under parasitic financialization policies, the state's view of labor as the enemy makes social conflict inevitable despite the obvious contradiction that the 'enemy-worker' is both the mass consumer on whom the economy depends for expansion and development. Despite this contradiction, neoliberals from firms such as Goldman Sachs has many of its former executives not just in top positions of the US government but world-wide, no matter who is in power. Neoliberal policy resulting in social exclusion starts with international finance capitalism hiding behind the pluralist and rightwing populist masks of politicians desperately vying for power to conduct public policy.
https://www.investopedia.com/news/26-goldman-sachs-alumni-who-run-world-gs/
Just as the serfs were aware in the Middle Ages that Lords and Bishops determined the fate of all down here on earth before God in Heaven had the last word, people today realize the ubiquitous power of capitalists operating behind the scenes, and in some case as with Trump in the forefront of public-policy that results in social exclusion and rising inequality in the name of market fundamentalism promising to deliver the benefits to all people. Neoliberalism has created a chronicdebtor class that became larger after the 2008 recession and will continue growing with each economic contracting cycle in decades to come. Despite its efforts to keep one step ahead of bankruptcy, the identity of the new chronic debtor class rests with the neoliberal status quo, often with the rightwing populist camp that makes rhetorical overtures to the frustrated working classthat realize financialization benefits a small percentage of wealthy individuals.
Personal debt has skyrocketed, reaching $12.58 trillion in the US in 2016, or 80% of GDP. The irony is that the personal debt level is 2016 was the highest since the great recession of 2008 and it is expected to continue much higher, despite the economic recovery and low unemployment. Wage stagnation and higher costs of health, housing and education combined with higher direct and indirect taxes to keep public debt at manageable levels will continue to drive more people into the debtor class. Although some European countries such as Germany and France have lower household debt relative to GDP, all advanced and many developing nations have experienced a sharp rise in personal debt because of deregulation, privatization, and lower taxes on the wealthy with the burden falling on the mass consumer. Hence the creation of a permanent debtor class whose fortunes rest on maintaining steady employment and/or additional part-time employment to meet loan obligations and keep one step ahead of declaring bankruptcy. Austerity policies imposed either by the government through tight credit in advanced capitalist countries or IMF loan conditionality in developing and semi-developed nations the result in either case is lower living standards and a rising debtor class. http://fortune.com/2017/02/19/america-debt-financial-crisis-bubble/
Maurizio Lazzarato's The Making of the Indebted Man: An Essay on the Neoliberal Condition argues that neoliberalism has created a debtor-creditorrelationship which has supplanted the worker-capitalist dichotomy, an argument that others focusing on the financialization of the economy have made as well. Although in Keynesian economics public and private debt was a stimulant for capitalist growth amid the contracting cycle of the economy, the neoliberal era created the permanent chronic debtor class that finds it difficult to extricate itself from that status. Evident after the deep recession of the subprime-financialization-induced recession in 2008, this issue attracted the attention of some politicians and political observers who realized theconvergence of the widening debtor class with the corresponding widening of the rich-poor income gap.
By making both private and public debt, an integral part of the means of production, the neoliberal system has reshaped social life and social relationships because the entire world economy is debt-based. Servicing loans entails lower living standards for the working class in advanced capitalist countries, and even lower in the rest of the world, but it also means integrating the debtor into the system more closely than at any time in history. While it is true that throughout the history of civilization human beings from China and India to Europe have used various systems of credit to transact business (David Graeber, Debt: the First 5000 Years , 2014), no one would suggest reverting back to debt-slavery as part of the social structure. Yet, neoliberalism has created the 'indebted man' as part of a policythat has resulted in social asymmetrical power,aiming to speed up capital accumulation and maintain market hegemony in society while generating greater social exclusion. https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2013/87E0
Ever since the British Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, followed by a number of other European governments in the early 1800s, there was an assumption that slave labor is inconsistent with free labor markets as well as with the liberal social contract rooted in individual freedom. Nevertheless, at the core of neoliberal capitalismUS consumer debt as of October 2017 stood at $3.8 trillion in a 419 trillion economy. Debt-to-personal income ratio is at 160%; college student debt runs at approximately $1.5 trillion, with most of that since 2000; mortgage debt has tripled since 1955, with an alarming 8 million people delinquent on their payments and the foreclosure rate hovering at 4.5% or three times higher than postwar average; consumer debt has risen 1,700 since 1971 to above $1 trillion, and roughly half of Americans are carrying monthly credit debt with an average rate of 14%. The debt problem is hardly better for Europe where a number of countries have a much higher personal debt per capita than the US.In addition to personal debt, public debt has become a burden on the working class in so far as neoliberal politicians and the IMF are using as a pretext to impose austerity conditions, cut entitlements and social programs amid diminished purchasing power because of inflationary asset values and higher taxes. https://www.thebalance.com/consumer-debt-statistics-causes-and-impact-3305704 ; https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/business/dealbook/household-debt-united-states.html
While personal debt is often but not always a reflection of a consumerist society, personal debt encompasses everything from education to health care costs in times when the digital/artificial intelligence economy is creating a surplus labor force that results in work instability and asymmetrical social relations. Technology-automation-induced unemployment driving down living standards creates debtor-workers chasing the technology to keep up with debt payments in order to survive until the next payment is due. Considering the financial system backed by a legal framework is established to favor creditors, especially given the safeguards and protections accorded to creditors in the past four decades, there are many blatant and overt ways that the state uses to criminalize poverty and debt. In 2015, for example, Montana became the first state not to take the driver's license of those delinquent on their student debt, thus decriminalizing debt in this one aspect, though hardly addressing the larger issue of the underlying causes of debt and social exclusion. https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:4b8gtht779 ; https://lumpenproletariat.org/tag/neoliberalism/
In an article entitled "Torturing the Poor, German-Style" , Thomas Klikauer stressed that the weakening of the social welfare state took place under the Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Green Party coalition (1998-2005) government pursuing pluralist neoliberal policies. Although historically the SPD had forged a compromise that would permit for the social inclusion of labor into the institutional mainstream, by the 1990s, theSPD once rooted in socialism had fully embraced neoliberalism just as the British Labour Party and all socialist partiers of Europe pursuing social exclusion. Klilauer writes: "Germany's chancellor [Gerhard] Schröder (SPD) –known as the "Comrade of the Bosses"– no longer sought to integrate labour into capitalism, at least not the Lumpenproletariat or precariate . These sections of society are now deliberately driven into mass poverty, joining the growing number of working poor on a scale not seen in Germany perhaps since the 1930s." https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/20/torturing-the-poor-german-style/
No different than working class people in other countries need more than one job to keep up with debt and living expenses, so do three million Germans (rising from 150,000 in 2003) that have the privilege of living in Europe's richest nation. Just as the number of the working poor has been rising in Germany, so have they across the Western World. Social exclusion and the expansion of the debtor class in Germany manifested itself in the national elections of 2017 where for the first time since the interwar era a political party carrying the legacy of Nazism, the Alternative fur Deutchland (AfD), founded by elite ultra-conservatives, captured 13% of the vote to become third-largest party and giving a voice of neo-Nazis who default society's neoliberal ills to Muslims and immigrants. Rejecting the link between market fundamentalism that both the SPD and German conservatives pursued in the last three decades, neoliberal apologists insist that the AfD merely reflects a Western-wide anti-Muslim trend unrelated to social exclusion and the policies that have led to Germany's new lumpenproletariat and working poor. https://crimethinc.com/2017/10/01/the-rise-of-neo-fascism-in-germany-alternative-fur-deutschland-enters-the-parliament ; https://www.jku.at/icae/content/e319783/e319785/e328125/wp59_ger.pdf
Interestingly, US neoliberal policies also go hand-in-hand with Islamophobia and the war on terror under both Democrat and Republican administrations, although the pluralist-diversity neoliberals have been more careful to maintain a politically-correct rhetoric. Just as in Germany and the rest of Europe, there is a direct correlation in the US between the rise in social exclusion ofMuslim and non-Muslim immigrants and minorities and the growing trend of rightwing populism. There is no empirical foundationto arguments that rightwing populism whether in Germany or the US has no historical roots and it is unconnected both to domestic and foreign policies. Although the neoliberal framework in which rightwing populism operates and which creates social exclusion and the new chronic debtor class clashes with neoliberal pluralism that presents itself as democratic, structural exploitation is built into the social contract thus generating grassroots opposition.
Grassroots Resistance to Neoliberalism
Even before the great recession of 2008, there were a number of grassrootsgroups against neoliberal globalism both in advanced and developing nations. Some found expression in social media, others at the local level focused on the impact of neoliberal policies in the local community, and still others attempted to alter public policy through cooperation with state entities and/or international organizations. The most important anti-neoliberal grassroots organizations have been in Brazil ( Homeless Workers' Movement and Landless Workers' Movement), South Africa (Abahlali baseMjondolo, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Landless Peoples' Movement), Mexico (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), Haiti (Fanmi Lavalas) and India (Narmada Bachao Andolan).
The vast majority of organizations claiming to be fighting against neoliberal policies are appendages either of the pluralist or the rightwing populist political camp both whose goal is to co-opt the masses as part of their popular base. The anti-globalization movement and by implication anti-neoliberal includes elements from the entire political spectrum from left to ultra-right. From India, to Bangladesh, from South Africa to Brazil, and from the US, France, and the UK, working class resistance to neoliberal globalism has been directly or indirectly co-opted and often de-politicized by corporate-funded or government-funded NGOs and by 'reformist' local and international organizations.
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/a_neoliberal_takeover_of_social_entrepreneurship ; http://anticsr.com/ngos-csr/
By promoting measures invariably in the lifestyle domain but also some social welfare and civil rights issues such as women's rights, renter's rights, etc, the goals of organizations operating within the neoliberal structure is not social inclusion by altering the social contract, but sustaining the status quo by eliminating popular opposition through co-optation. It is hardly a coincidence that the rise of the thousands of NGOs coincided with the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990s, most operating under the guise of aiding the poor, protecting human rights and the environment, and safeguarding individualism. Well-funded by corporations, corporate foundations and governments, NGOs are the equivalent of the 19 th century missionaries, using their position as ideological preparatory work for Western-imposed neoliberal policies. http://socialistreview.org.uk/310/friends-poor-or-neo-liberalism ; https://zeroanthropology.net/2014/08/28/civil-society-ngos-and-saving-the-needy-imperial-neoliberalism/
On the receiving end of corporate and/or government-funded NGOs promoting the neoliberal agenda globally, some leading grassroots movements that advocate changing the neoliberal status quo contend that it is better to 'win' on a single issue such as gay rights, abortion, higher minimum wage, etc. at the cost of co-optation into neoliberal system than to have nothing at all looking in from the outside. Their assumption is that social exclusion can be mitigated one issue at a time through reform from within the neoliberal institutional structure that grassroots organizations deem as the enemy. This is exactly what the pluralist neoliberals are promoting as well to co-opt grassroots opposition groups.
https://ecpr.eu/Events/PaperDetails.aspx?PaperID=34958&EventID=96
Partly because governmental and non-governmental organizations posing as reformist have successfully co-opted grassroots movements often incorporating them into the neoliberal popular base, popular resistance has not been successful despite social media and cell phones that permit instant communication. This was certainly the case with the Arab Spring uprisings across North Africa-Middle East where genuine popular opposition to neoliberal policies of privatization, deregulation impacting everything from health care toliberalizing rent controls led to the uprising. In collaboration with the indigenous capitalists, political and military elites, Western governments directly and through NGOs were able to subvert and then revert to neoliberal policies once post-Arab Spring regimes took power in the name of 'reform' invariably equated with neoliberal policies. https://rs21.org.uk/2014/10/06/adam-hanieh-on-the-gulf-states-neoliberalism-and-liberation-in-the-middle-east/
In "Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor" Jim Yong Kim ed., 2000) contributing authors illustrate in case studies of several countries how the neoliberal status quo has diminished the welfare of billions of people in developing nations for the sake of growth that simply translates into even greater wealth concentration and misery for the world's poor. According to the study: "100 countries have undergone grave economic decline over the past three decades. Per capita income in these 100 countries is now lower than it was 10, 15, 20 or in some cases even 30 years ago. In Africa, the average household consumes 20 percent less today than it did 25 years ago. Worldwide, more than 1 billion people saw their real incomes fall during the period 1980-1993." http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v13/2/imf.html
Anti-neoliberal groups assume different forms, depending on the nation's history, social and political elites, the nature of institutions and the degree it has been impacted by neoliberal policies that deregulate and eliminate as much of the social safety net as workers will tolerate. Even the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that experienced rapid growth from the early 1990s until the great recession of 2008 have not escaped mass opposition to neoliberalism precisely because the impact on workers and peasants has been largely negative. https://www.cpim.org/views/quarter-century-neo-liberal-economic-policies-unending-distress-and-peasant-resistance ; Juan Pablo Ferrero, Democracy against Neoliberalism in Argentina and Brazil, 2014; Mimi Abramovitz and Jennifer Zelnick, " Double Jeopardy: The Impact of Neoliberalism on Care Workers in the United States and South Africa" , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2190/HS.40.1.f
Grassroots organizations opposed to policies that further integrate their countries into the world economy and marginalize the working class have been especially persistent in South Africa, Brazil, and India. To assuage if not co-opt the masses the BRICS followed a policy mix that combines neoliberalism, aspects of social welfare and statism. Combined with geopolitical opposition to US-NATO militarism and interventionism, the BRICS policies were an attempt to keep not just the national bourgeois loyal but the broader masses by projecting a commitment to national sovereignty.
In Brazil, India and South Africa internal and external corporate pressure along with US, EU, and IMF-World Bank pressures have been especially evident to embrace neoliberal policies and confront grassroots opposition rather than co-opt it at the cost of making concessions to labor. Considering that the development policies of the BRICS in the last three decades of neoliberal globalism accommodated domestic and foreign capital and were not geared to advance living standards for the broader working class and peasantry, grassroots opposition especially in Brazil, India and South Africa where the state structure is not nearly as powerful as in Russia and China manifested itself in various organizations.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12129 ; Walden Bello, The BRICS: Challenges to the Global Status Quo" , in https://www.thenation.com/article/brics-challengers-global-status-quo/
One of the grassroots organizations managing to keep its autonomy is Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST)skillfully remaining independent of both former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. Although the MST supported some policies of theformer presidents who presented themselves as champions of labor rather than capital, both Lula and Rousseff made substantial policy compromises with the neoliberal camp and were eventually implicated in corruption scandals revealing opportunism behind policy-making. While the record of their policies on the poor speaks for itself, the Lula-Rousseff era of Partido dos Trabalhadores was an improvement over previous neoliberal president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003). https://monthlyreview.org/2017/02/01/the-brazilian-crisis/
The MST persisted with the struggle against neoliberal policies that have contributed to rising GDP heavily concentrated among the national and comprador bourgeoisie and foreign corporations. Other Latin American grassroots movements have had mixed results not much better than those in Brazil. Ecuador under president Rafael Correa tried to co-opt the leftby yielding on some policy issues as did Lula and Rousseff, while pursuing a neoliberal development model as much as his Brazilian counterparts. With its economy thoroughly integrated into the US economy, Mexico is a rather unique case where grassroots movements against neoliberalism are intertwined with the struggle against official corruption and the narco-trade resulting in the assassination of anti-neoliberal, anti-drug activists. (William Aviles, The Drug War in Mexico: Hegemony and Global Capitalism ;
Anti-neoliberal resistance in the advanced countries has not manifested itself as it has in the developing nations through leftist movements such as South Africa's Abahlali baseMjondolo or Latin American trade unions that stress a working class philosophy of needs rather than the one of rights linked to middle class property and identity politics. https://roarmag.org/essays/south-africa-marikana-anc-poor/ Popular resistance to neoliberalism in the US has been part of the anti-globalization movement that includes various groups from environmentalists to anti-IMF-World Bank and anti-militarism groups.
Although there are some locally based groups like East Harlem-based Justice in El Barrio representing immigrants and low-income people, there is no national anti-neoliberal movement. Perhaps because of the war on terror, various anti-establishment pro-social justice groups assumed the form of bourgeois identity politics of both the Democratic Party and the Republican where some of the leaders use rightwing populism as an ideological means to push through neoliberal policies while containing grassroots anger resulting from social exclusion and institutional exploitation. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/the-legacy-of-anti-globalization
Black Lives Matter revolving around the systemic racism issue and Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist group fell within the left orbit of the Democratic Party (Senator Bernie Sanders) who is an advocate of the pluralist-diversity model, opposes market fundamentalism,and proposes maintaining some vestiges of the Keynesian welfare state. With the exception of isolated voices by a handful of academics and some criticsusing social media as a platform, there is no anti-neoliberal grassroots movement that Democrats or Republicans has not successfully co-opted. Those refusing to be co-opted are invariably dismissed as everything from idealists to obstructionists. Certainlythere is nothing in the US like the anti-neoliberal groups in Brazil, India, Mexico, or South Africa operating autonomously and resisting co-optation by political parties. The absence of such movements in the US is a testament to the strong state structure andthe institutional power of the elites in comparison with many developing nations and even some parts of Europe. https://www.salon.com/2015/08/15/black_lives_matter_joins_a_long_line_of_protest_movements_that_have_shifted_public_opinion_most_recently_occupy_wall_street/
As an integrated economic bloc, Europe follows uniform neoliberal policies using as leverage monetary and trade policy but also the considerable EU budget at its disposal for subsidies and development. A number of European trade unions and leftist popular groups fell into the trap of following either Socialist or centrist parties which are pluralist neoliberal and defend some remnants of Keynesianism. Those disillusioned with mainstream Socialist Parties pursue the same neoliberal policies of social exclusion as the conservatives fell in line behind newly formed non-Communist reformist parties (PODEMOS in Spain, SYRIZA in Greece, for example) with a Keynesian platform and socialist rhetoric.
As the government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras proved once in power in 2015, self-baptized 'leftist' parties areleftist in rhetoric only. When it comes to policy they are as neoliberal as the opposition they criticize; even more dangerous because they have deceived people to support them as the alternative to neoliberal conservatives. Because grassroots movements andthe popular base of political parties that promise 'reform' to benefit the masses are co-opted by centrists, center-left or rightwing political parties, social exclusion becomes exacerbated leading to disillusionment.
Consequently,people hoping for meaningful change become apathetic or they become angry and more radicalized often turning to rightwing political parties. Although there is a long-standing history of mainstream political parties co-opting grassroots movements, under neoliberalism the goal is to shape them intoan identity politics mold under the pluralist or rightwing populist camp. Behind the illusion of choice and layers of bourgeois issues ranging from property rights and individual rights rests a totalitarian system whose goal is popular compliance. https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/eliane-glaser/elites-right-wing-populism-and-left ;
'De-democratization' under Neoliberalism
More subtly and stealthily interwoven into the institutional structure than totalitarian regimes of the interwar era, neoliberal totalitarianism has succeeded not because of the rightwing populist political camp but because of the pluralist one that supports both militarism in foreign affairs and police-state methods at home as a means of maintaining the social order while projecting the façade of democracy. Whereas the neoliberal surveillance state retains vestiges of pluralism and the façade of electoral choice, the police state in interwar Germany and Italy pursued blatant persecution of declared ideological dogmatism targeting 'enemies of the state' and demanding complete subjugation of citizens to theregime. Just as people were manipulated in interwar Europeinto accepting the totalitarian state as desirable and natural, so are many in our time misguided into supporting neoliberal totalitarianism.
In her book entitled Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (2015), Wendy Brown argues that not just in the public sector, but in every sector of society neoliberal ideology of 'de-democratization' prevails. Extensions of a hierarchical economic system rather than citizens with civil and human rights guaranteed by a social contract aimed at the welfare of the collective, human beings are more commoditized today than they were in the nascent phase of industrial capitalism. The kind of ubiquitous transformation of the individual's identity with the superstructure and the 'de-democratization' of society operating under massively concentrated wealth institutionally intertwined with political power in our contemporary erawas evident in totalitarian countries during the interwar era.
Whereas protest and resistance, freedom of expression and assembly were not permitted by totalitarian regimes in interwar Europe, they are permitted in our time. However, they are so marginalized and/or demonized when analyzing critically mainstream institutions and the social contract under which they operate that they are the stigmatizedas illegitimate opposition. Permitting freedom of speech and assembly, along with due process and electoral politicsbest servesneoliberal socioeconomic totalitarianism because its apologists can claim the system operates in an 'open society'; a term that Karl Popper the ideological father of neo-conservatism coined to differentiate the West from the former Communist bloc closed societies.
As Italian journalist Claudio Hallo put it: "If the core of neoliberalism is a natural fact, as suggested by the ideology already embedded deep within our collective psyche, who can change it? Can you live without breathing, or stop the succession of days and nights? This is why Western democracy chooses among the many masks behind which is essentially the same liberal party. Change is not forbidden, change is impossible. Some consider this feature to be an insidious form of invisible totalitarianism. " https://www.rt.com/op-edge/171240-global-totalitarianism-change-neoliberalism/
Post-modern consumerist culture has inculcated into peoples' minds that they have never been so free yet they have never felt so helpless, as Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has commented. Freedom is quantitatively measured based on materialist criteria at the individual rather than collective level and at a cost not just to the rest of society but to one's humanity and any sense of social responsibility sacrificed in the quest for atomistic pursuit.Not only the media, but government at all levels, educational institutions and the private sector incessantly reinforce the illusion of individual freedom within the context of the neoliberal totalitarian institutional structure. This is a sacred value above all others, including knowledge, creativity, and the welfare of society as a whole (public interest supplanted by private profit), as though each individual lives alone on her/his planet. https://thehumanist.com/magazine/march-april-2015/arts_entertainment/what-about-me-the-struggle-for-identity-in-a-market-based-society ; https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/american-nightmare-the-depravity-of-neoliberalism/ ; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/29/neoliberalism-economic-system-ethics-personality-psychopathicsthic ; https://www.academia.edu/28509196/Neoliberal_Illusions_of_Freedom
In an essay entitled "The unholy alliance of neoliberalism and postmodernism" , Hans van Zon argues that as the Western World'sdominant ideologies since the 1980s, "undermine the immune system of society, neoliberalism by commercialization of even the most sacred domains and postmodernism by its super-relativism and refusal to recognize any hierarchy in value or belief systems." http://www.imavo.be/vmt/13214-van%20Zon%20postmodernism.pdf . Beyond undermining society's immune system and the open society under capitalism, asHans van Zon contends, the convergence of these ideologies have contributed to the 'de-democratization' of society,the creation of illiberal institutions and collective consciousness of conformity to neoliberal totalitarianism. The success of neoliberalism inculcated into the collective consciousness is partly because of the long-standing East-West confrontation followed by the manufactured war on terror. However, it is also true that neoliberal apologists of both the pluralist and rightwing camp present the social contract as transcending politics because markets are above states, above society as 'objective' thus they can best determine the social good on the basis of commoditized value. (Joshua Ramsay, "Neoliberalism as Political Theology of Chance: the politics of divination." https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201539
An evolutionary course, the 'de-democratization' of society started in postwar US that imposed transformation policy on the world with the goal of maintaining its economic, political, military and cultural superpower hegemony justified in the name of anti-Communism. Transformation policy was at the root of the diffusion of the de-democratization process under neoliberalism, despite the European origin of the ideology. As it gradually regained its status in the core of the world economy after the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, northwest Europe followed in the path of the US. http://www.eurstrat.eu/the-european-neoliberal-union/
Ten years before the Treaty of Rome that created the EEC,Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek gathered a number of scholars in Mont Pelerin where they founded the neoliberal society named after the Swiss village. They discussed strategies of influencing public policy intended to efface the Keynesian model on which many societies were reorganized to survive the Great Depression. Financed by some of Europe's wealthiest families, the Mont Pelerin Society grew of immense importance after its first meeting which coincided with the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, the Truman Doctrine formalizing the institutionalization of the Cold War, and the Marshall Plan intended to reintegrate Europe and its colonies and spheres of influence under the aegis of the US. Helped along by the IMF, World Bank, and the International Agreement on Tariffs and Trade established in 1947, US transformation policy was designed to shape the world to its own geopolitical and economic advantage based on a neo-classical macroeconomic and financial theoretical model on which neoliberal ideology rested. http://fpif.org/from_keynesianism_to_neoliberalism_shifting_paradigms_in_economics/
Considering that millionaires and billionaires providefunding for the Mont Pelerin Society and affiliates, this prototype neoliberal think tank became the intellectual pillar of both the pluralist and rightwing neoliberal camps by working with 460 think tanks that have organizations in 96 countries where they influence both centrist and rightwing political parties. Whether Hillary Clinton's and Emmanuel Macron's pluralist neoliberal globalist version or Donald Trump's and Narendra Modi's rightwing populist one, the Mont Pelerin Society and others sharing its ideology and goals exercise preeminent policy influence not on the merit of its ideas for the welfare of society but because the richest people from rightwing Czech billionaire Andrej Babisto liberal pluralist billionaireseither support its principles and benefit from their implementation into policy. (J. Peterson, Revoking the Moral Order: The Ideology of Positivism and the Vienna Circle , 1999; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/rise-of-the-davos-class-sealed-americas-fate
If the neoliberal social contract is the answer to peoples' prayers world-wide as Hayek's followers insist, why is there a need on the part of the state, international organizations including UN agencies, billionaire and millionaire-funded think tanks, educational institutions and the corporate and state-owned media to convince the public that there is nothing better for society than massive capital concentration and social exclusion, and social conditions that in some respects resemble servitude in Medieval Europe? Why do ultra-rightwing Koch brothers and the Mercer family, among other billionaires and millionaires fromNorth America, Europe, India, South Korea and Latin America spend so much money to inculcate the neoliberal ideology into the collective consciousness andto persuade the public to elect neoliberal politicians either of the pluralist camp or the authoritarian one?
http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bloomberg-forbes-rupert-murdoch-billionaires-2011-3 ; https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/no-one-knows-what-the-powerful-mercers-really-want/514529/
Seventy years after Hayek formed the Mont Leperin Societyto promotea future without totalitarianism, there are elected neoliberal politicians from both the pluralist and authoritarian camps with ties to big capital and organized crime amid the blurring lines between legal and illegal economic activities that encompasses everything from crypto-currency and insider trading to offshore 'shell corporations' and banks laundering money for drug lords and wealthy tax evaders. Surrender of popular sovereignty through the social contract now entails surrender to a class of people who are criminals, not only based on a social justice criteria but on existing law if it were only applied to them as it does to petty thieves. In the amoral Machiavellian world of legalized "criminal virtue" in which we live these are the leaders of society.Indicative of the perversion of values now rooted in atomism and greed, the media reports with glowingly admiring terms that in 2017 the world's 500 richest people became richer by $1 trillion, a rise that represents one-third of Africa's GDP and just under one-fifth of Latin America's. Rather than condemning mal-distribution ofincome considering what it entails for society, the media and many in the business of propagating for neoliberalism applaud appropriation within the legal framework of the social contract as a virtue. http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/500-richest-people-became-1-trillion-richer-in-2017-mukesh-ambani-tops-indian-list/story-JcNXhH9cCp2pzRopkoFdfL.html ; Bob Brecher, "Neoliberalism and its Threat to Moral Agency" in Virtue and Economy . ed. Andrius Bielskis and Kelvin Knight, 2015)
Neoliberalism has led to the greater legitimization of activities that would otherwise be illegal to the degree that the lines between the legitimate economy and organized criminal activity are blurred reflecting the flexible lines between legally-financed millionaire-backed elected officials and those with links to organized crime or to illegal campaign contributions always carrying an illegal quid-pro-quo legalized through public policy. Beyond the usual tax-haven suspects Panama, Cyprus, Bermuda, Malta, Luxemburg, among othersincluding states such as Nevada and Wyoming, leaders from former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to President Donald Trump with reputed ties to organized criminal networks have benefited from the neoliberal regime that they served. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254953831_Economic_Crime_and_Neoliberal_Modes_of_Government_The_Example_of_the_Mediterranean )
Self-righteous pluralist neoliberals castigate rightwing billionaires for funding rightwing politicians. However, there is silence when it comes to the millions amassed by pluralist neoliberals as the infamous "Panama Papers" revealed in 2016. Despite the institutionalized kleptocracy, the mediahas indoctrinated the public to accept as 'normal' the converging interests of the capitalist class and ruling political class just as it has indoctrinated the public to accept social exclusion, social inequality, and poverty as natural and democratic; all part of the social contract.( http://revistes.uab.cat/tdevorado/article/view/v2-n1-armao ; Jose Manuel Sanchez Bermudez, The Neoliberal Pattern of Domination: Capital's Reign in Decline, 2012; https://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberalisms-world-of-corruption-money-laundering-corporate-lobbying-drug-money/5519907
The Future of Neoliberalism
After the great recession of 2008, the future of neoliberalism became the subject of debate among politicians, journalists and academics. One school of thought was that the great recession had exposed the flaws in neoliberalism thus marking the beginning of its demise. The years since 2008 proved that in a twist of irony, the quasi-statist policies of China with its phenomenal growth have actually been responsible for sustaining neoliberalism globally and not just because China has been financing US public debt by buying treasuries while the US buys products made in China. This view holds that neoliberalism will continue to thrive so as long as China continues its global ascendancy, thus the warm reception to Beijing as the new globalist hegemonic power after Trump's noise about pursuing economic nationalism within the neoliberal model. (Barry Eichengreen, Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession and the Uses and Misuses of History , 2016; http://www.e-ir.info/2011/08/23/has-the-global-financial-crisis-challenged-us-power-in-international-finance/ )
China is not pursuing the kind of neoliberal model that exists in the US or the EU, but its economy is well integrated with the global neoliberal system and operates within those perimeters despite quasi-statist policies also found in other countries to a lesser degree. Adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), China's current share of world GDP stands at 16% and at annual growth above 6% it is expected to reach 20%, by 2020. This in comparison with only 1.9% in 1979 and it explains why its currency is now among the IMF-recognized reserved currencies. With about half-a-million foreign companies in China and an average of 12,000 new companies entering every day, capitalists from all over the world are betting heavily on China's future as the world's preeminent capitalist core country in the 21 st century. China will play a determining role in the course of global neoliberalism, and it is politically willing to accept the US as the military hegemon while Beijing strives for economic preeminence. Interested in extracting greater profits from China while tempering its race to number one, Western businesses and governmentshave been pressuring Beijing to become more immersed in neoliberal policies and eliminate all elements of statism. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-09/22/content_15775312.htm ; https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/establish-overseas/china/foreign-investment
Although the US that has 450,000 troops in 800 foreign military bases in more than 150 countries and uses its military muscle along with 'soft-power' policies including sanctions as leverage for economic power, many governments and multinational corporations consider Beijing not Washington as a source of global stability and growth. With China breathing new life into neoliberalism on the promise of geographic and social convergence, it is fantasy to speculate that neoliberalism is in decline when in fact it is becoming more forcefully ubiquitous. However, China like the West that had promised geographic and social convergence in the last four decades of neoliberalism will not be any more successful in delivering on such promises. The resultof such policies will continue to be greater polarization and social exclusion and greater uneven development, with China and multinationals investing in its enterprises becoming richer while the US will continue to use militarism as leverage to retain global economic hegemony rapidly eroding from its grip. ( http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-deployments-may-2017-5 ; http://www.zapruderworld.org/welfare-state-decline-and-rise-neoliberalism-1980s-some-approaches-between-latin-americas-core-and ; Dic Lo, Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization , 2012)
Between China and the US, the world can expect neoliberal globalization to continue under the pluralist and populist rightwing models in different countries with the two converging and reflecting the totalitarian essence of the system at its core.Characterized by rapid development and sluggish growth in Japan and Western core countries, neoliberal globalization has entailed lack of income convergence between the developed and developing world where uneven export-oriented growth based on the primary sector keeps developingnations perpetually dependent and poor. Interestingly, the trend of falling incomes characteristic of the developing nations from 1980 to 2000 was just as true in Western countries. It was during these two decades of ascendant neoliberalism that rightwing populist movements began to challenge the pluralist neoliberal political camp and offering nationally-based neoliberal solutions, further adding to the system's existing contradictions. (Dic Lo, Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization , 2012)
The debate whether the rise of populism or perhaps the faint voices of anti-capitalism will finally bring about the end of neoliberalism often centers on the digital-biotech revolution often blamed for exacerbating rather than solving social problems owing to uneven benefits accruing across social classes. It is somewhat surprising that IMF economists have questioned the wisdom of pursuing unfettered neoliberalism where there is a trade-off between economic growth andsocial exclusion owing to growing income inequality. Naturally, the IMF refrains from self-criticism and it would never suggest that neoliberal globalization that the Fund has been promoting is responsible for the rise of rightwing populism around the world.
Within the neoliberal camp, pluralist-diversity advocatesare satisfied they have done their part in the 'fight for democracy' when in fact their stealthy brand of the neoliberal social contract isin some respects more dangerous than the populist camp which is unapologetically candid about its pro-big business, pro-monopoly, pro-deregulation anti-social welfare platform. Shortly after Trump won the presidential election with the help of rightwing billionaires and disillusioned workers who actually believed that he represented them rather than the billionaires, an article appearing in the Christian Science Monitor is typical of how pluralist neoliberals view the global tide of rightwing populism.
"Worldwide, it has been a rough years for democracy. The UK, the United States and Colombia made critical decisions about their nations' future, and – at least from the perspective of liberal values and social justice – they decided poorly. Beyond the clear persistence of racism, sexism and xenophobia in people's decision-making, scholars and pundits have argued that to understand the results of recent popular votes, we must reflect on neoliberalism. International capitalism, which has dominated the globe for the past three decades, has its winners and its losers. And, for many thinkers, the losers have spoken. My fieldwork in South America has taught me that there are alternative and effective ways to push back against neoliberalism. These include resistance movements based on pluralism and alternative forms of social organisation, production and consumption." https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Breakthroughs-Voices/2016/1206/Opposing-neoliberalism-without-right-wing-populism-A-Latin-American-guide
Without analyzing the deeper causes of the global tide of rightwing populism promoting neoliberalism under an authoritarian political platform, pluralist-diversity neoliberals continue to promote socioeconomic policies that lead to social exclusion, inequality, and uneven development as long as they satisfy the cultural-lifestyle and corporate-based sustainable-development aspects of the social contract.Tolend legitimacy and public acceptance among those expecting a commitment to pluralism, the neoliberal pluralists embrace the superficialities and distraction of diversity and political correctness. Ironically, the political correctness trend started during theReagan administration's second term and served as a substitute for social justice that the government and the private sector were rapidly eroding along with the social welfare state and trade union rights. As long as there is'politically correctness', in public at least so that people feel they are part of a 'civilized' society, then public policy can continue on the barbaric path of social exclusion, police-state methods, and greater economic inequality.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/fighting-trump-right-wing-populism-vs-neoliberalism/ ; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305117733226
The future of neoliberalism includes the inevitability that social exclusion will lead to social uprisings especially as even some billionaires readily acknowledge the social contract favors them to the detriment of society. As the voices against systemic exploitation become louder,the likelihood will increase for authoritarian-police state policies if not regimes reflecting the neoliberal social contract's ubiquitous stranglehold on society. Although resistance to neoliberalism will continue to grow, the prospects for a social revolution in this century overturning the neoliberal order in advanced capitalist countries is highly unlikely. Twentieth century revolutions succeeded where the state structure was weak and people recognized that the hierarchical social order was the root cause of the chasm between the country's vast social exclusion coupled with stagnation vs. its potential for a more inclusive society where greater social equality and social justice would bean integral part of the social contract. (Donna L. Chollett, Neoliberalism, Social Exclusion, and Social Movements , 2013)
Despite everything pointing to the dynamics of a continued neoliberal social contract, diehard pluralists like British academic Martin Jacques and American economist Joseph Stiglitz insist there is hope for reformist change. In The Politics of Thatcherism (1983) Jacques applauded neoliberalism, but during the US presidential election in 2016 he had changed his mind, predicting neoliberalism's demise. He felt encouraged that other pluralist neoliberals like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz were voicing their concerns signaling an interest in the debate about social inequality. In an article entitled "The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics" , he wrote: "A sure sign of the declining influence of neoliberalism is the rising chorus of intellectual voices raised against it. From the mid-70s through the 80s, the economic debate was increasingly dominated by monetarists and free marketeers." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics
Along with Krugman, Stiglitz and others in the pluralist camp favoring a policy mix that includes Keynesianism,Martin Jacques, Thomas Picketty and others like them around the world doenjoy some small influence with the pluralist-diversity camp. However, the demise of neoliberalism will not result from intellectual critiques regardless of the merits. On the contrary, the neoliberal social contract is solidifying not evolving toward dissolution. This is largely because the dynamics of the social order continue to favor it and the opposition is split between ultra-right nationalists, pluralists of varying sorts resting on hope of restoring Keynesian rationalism in the capitalist system, and the very weak and divided leftists in just about every country and especially the core ones. https://theconversation.com/if-we-are-reaching-neoliberal-capitalisms-end-days-what-comes-next-72366
Neoliberalism's inherent contradictions will result in its demise andthe transition into a new phase of capitalism. Among the most obvious and glaring contradictions is that the ideology promotes freedom and emancipation when in practice it is a totalitarian system aimed to mold society and the individual into conformity of its dogmatic market fundamentalism.Another contradiction is the emphasis of a borderless global market, while capitalists operate within national borders and are impacted by national policies that often collide at the international level as the competition intensifies for market share just as was the case in the four decades before the outbreak of WWI. Adding to the list of contradictions that finds expression the debate between neoliberal rightwingers and pluralists is the issue of "value-free" market fundamentalism while at the same time neoliberals conduct policy that has very strong moral consequences in peoples' lives precisely because of extremely uneven income distribution.
The enigma in neoliberalism's futureis the role of grassroots movements that are in a position to impact change but have failed thus far to make much impact. Most people embrace the neoliberal political parties serving the same capitalist class, operating under the illusion of a messiah politician delivering the promise of salvation either from the pluralist or authoritarian wing of neoliberalism. The turning point for systemic change emanates from within the system that fails to serve the vast majority of the people as it is riddled with contradictions that become more evident and the elites become increasingly contentious about how to divide the economic pie and how to mobilize popular support behind mainstream political parties so they can maintain the social order under an unsustainable political economy. At that juncture, the neoliberal social contract suffersan irrevocable crisis of public confidence on a mass scale. Regardless under which political regime neoliberalism operates, people will eventually reject hegemonic cultural indoctrination. A critical mass in society has not reached this juncture. Nevertheless, social discontinuity is an evolutionary process and the contradictions in neoliberalism will continue to cause political disruption, economic disequilibrium and social upheaval.
Jon V. Kofas , Ph.D. – Retired university professor of history – author of ten academic books and two dozens scholarly articles. Specializing in International Political economy, Kofas has taught courses and written on US diplomatic history, and the roles of the World Bank and IMF in the world.
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David Anderson January 11, 2018 at 3:21 pm
Excellent essay.
Neo-Liberalism in America is an underlying political philosophy based on belief in the sanctity of personal "freedom" with the conviction that this freedom is expressed through self-determination. It extends back to the early settlement and then the writing of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) who popularized the expression "self-reliance." In the recent American election it underlay the Donald Trump code words: "what makes America great again." Ronald Reagan took advantage of it with his derisive use of the term "welfare queens." It undergirds the foundation of today's Republican Party.
It will bring an end to the American experiment.
sundar January 13, 2018 at 3:28 pm
Very well explained and educative. Attempts to present alternatives to present neoliberal econamics. But needs several readings to digest.
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Sep 03, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
We Americans were traditionally divided politically and culturally by region. There is still some of that but the major fault lines are more fuzzy now.
1. The Establishment. This group was on parade during the McCain imperial procession across the lands. The sight of the supposedly mutually opposed Republicans and Democrats hobnobbing, backslapping, joking, hugging and passing around the bi-partisan mints while they waited for the stiff to be wheeled in was revealing. The cavernous nave of the pseudo-Gothic church was a perfect venue for this fête de joie. A window depicting Robert Lee looked down on this vast space until recently. That has been taken down to maintain amity between the Yankee and "Southern" wings of the establishment. The Episcopal Church of today has no use for such as he. I wonder if the masses who support "the middle" understand how cruelly they are deceived by the pretended mutual animosity of their "betters." The farce was on display last week.
2. The Neo-Bolsheviks. These people have been gathering their strength in the schools since the '60s. they have indoctrinated the young all this time with a hatred of capitalism, a contempt for American tradition to include the Constitution and a desire to see the country reduced to the status of Cambodia in the Year Zero. The spectacle of the disintegration of Venezuela after decades of socialist tinkering means nothing to them. This time we will get it right! This is their belief. Disillusioned communists told me all across what had been the Warsaw Pact that Communism was never given a fair chance to prove itself. The American Bolsheviki think they will get it right this time if they attain power. The original Bolsheviks seized power with how many members in the vanguard? 20,000? Tell me. The governments of New York, California and New Jersey are all seeking to accommodate the Neo-Bolsheviks. How far will they go? The Soviet Bolsheviks killed millions of Russian Kulaks and political enemies. Remember that!
3. The Deplorables. This is essentially the "country party." They are the people who know they are being dis-possessed. These are the people who know they are despised by both the Establishment and the Neo-Bolsheviks and who are acutely aware that these other groups intend to exterminate them as a group if not as individuals. The Clintons were the ultimate Establishment people. Bill threw away the Deplorables' jobs in NAFTA in search of the Globalist Utopian vision at the heart of the Establishment's indoctrination in the schools.
Ross Perot was an amusing little freak? He spoke of a "great sucking sound" that would be heard as Deplorable jobs followed cheap capital across the southern border?
The Deplorables do not think he was funny at all. They elected Trump to give them hope and he has done that. They do not want to be governed by Establishment figures like HC who detested them as obstacles so much that she could not refrain from treating the miners with contempt to their faces. Bette Midler said this week that the Establishmenters cannot fight the Deplorables because people like her have no weapons but PBS tote bags. An interesting point.
There are a lot of splinter groups and factions. Tell me what they are. pl
VietnamVet , 9 hours agoCol. Lang
Compared to the 60s there is much less social strife today. No riots on the streets, no bombings by radical groups, no live fire shootings to quell protests in universities. So is this the quiet before the storm?
What we see today is much more arm-chair fighting using keyboards on social media. Frothing at the mouth pushing hashtags The extent of action is writing #MeToo and #BringBackOurGirls. Can such somnambulant warriors cause a real war?
My observation is that over the last 30 years, there are a few big trends.
- One, is PCness becoming more and more embedded causing increased censorship of speech.
- The second is rising "doublethink" and the Establishment melding into a true Ingsoc with increasing governmental interference in all aspects of people's lives to benefit the "party club".
- The third, is the growth in "state capitalism", reflected in the increasing financialization of the economy and the substitution of credit for capital. It's no longer what's good for GM but what's good for Goldman Sachs. The Federal Reserve run by the Ph.Ds on the "sophistry" standard as the primary lever.
- The fourth trend is a slow moral decay among the elites as the powerful no longer feel a sense of duty and honor. It is more important for them how they are perceived by the "club". Invitations to gatherings such as Davos, Aspen, & the Google "camp".
- Fifth, is increasing hopelessness among many segments reflected in the rising deaths to opioids.
David , 10 hours agoColonel,
This post brought a smile of recognition to my face. I agree.
The media desperately ignores this issue. The current Western power structure is in flux and is confusing.
Communism died when the Soviet Union fell. China, Cuba and Vietnam are not workers' paradises. The hard left is impotent and in the lurch. The mild left and liberals sold out to the Plutocrats. Republicans are crazy except for Corporatists who are keeping their mouths shut and passing tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
Those who said farewell to Senator John McCain at the National Cathedral did not mentioned that he is as responsible as anyone for the forever wars that are causing the refugee influx that is tearing Europe apart.
Their donors are imposing austerity and poverty on to the people.
There is no one championing the concerns of the Deplorables except the hard right. These Theocrats are most likely to start carting off red shirted teachers, librarians, pot heads, agnostics, unemployed and dissidents to work camps, once things fall apart.
Pat Lang Mod -> David , 10 hours agoColonel Lang,
I think it is very important to realize that the current mess in this country is largely a result of not reigning in the investment bankers as well as the country embarking on deadly and abusive wars against a large part of the non-western world.
As you rightly pointed out, both establishment parties are equally guilty of the worst offensives against those who choose to live outside of the major metropolitan areas.
This country would be much better off if people were taught how the investment banking system works and how it is regularly abused by the rich to make themselves richer. Of course, that is not in the interest of the establishment leaders.
Where you and I differ is over Donald Trump. I do not believe for one minute that he gives a damn about the people that have been screwed so royally over the last thirty to forty years. He is just louder and more obnoxious than most.
If there is a way out of this mess, I cannot see it.
I am like you over seventy. I believe the old should be encouraged to disappear from politics and only the young should be engaged in trying to save this country (as well as themselves).
Regards,
David
David -> Pat Lang , 9 hours agoNot sure why you single out "investment bankers" from the other Establishment types.
Colonel Lang,
In my varied career I worked twice as an employee and three times as a consultant for Standard & Poors Retail Brokerage Division. I also worked for the Bank of New York, Government Clearance Division and did various consulting stints at Union Bank of Switzerland and Manufacters Hanover.
All of these positions were in the technology field.
You would be amazed at what you can learn from the inside.
The banks make everything function. When there is a banking crisis they turn up the screws on the politicians and the politicians respond by bailing the banks out at the expense of the majority of the population.
Of course, the politicians know that they will be rewarded either directly or indirectly by the bankers. Just think of all those millions they pay for speaking fees.
Regards,
David
Grimgrin , 8 hours agoWe are as united as Rome was near the end of their Empire when their idiot establishment was convinced they could integrate a massive influx of tribes that loathed their way of life. Same is occurring in Europe. History rhymes.
Rural vs City you touched on, gun owners vs gun banners, gender sanity vs gender insanity, free traders vs keeping what's left of our manufacturing base, stockholders vs deplorable's, open border chaos vs normal immigration patterns to the US, CNN& MSNBC vs Rural, Decent healthcare vs nothing, establishment vs God, Democrat intense hate vs Southern whites. I am a rural southern white who did consider myself independent, however, the intense hate directed toward me and my southerners makes me hate them. So be it.
Using your terminology, the places where I see the most serious factional divisions are the Neo-Bolsheviks. There's a group one might call the "50 Staters" after Howard Dean; they're people who want to re-orient the country in a more socialist direction (Medicare for all, increased minimum wage, expanded union rights, generally expanded intervention in the economy) and believe they can sell this as an electoral platform. They hate the establishment, and are themselves hated like poison by much of the rest of the Neo-Bolsheviks. The term "Bernie Bro" and "Brocialist" were thrown around a lot last election by people who's platform is basically "destroy all power structures" without thinking too hard about what it would mean should they have the power to do it. I've classed them with the Neo-Bolsheviks due to geographic and cultural similarities, though they may also be viewed as the left wing of the Deplorables. Personally, these are the lot I'd say I'm the most similar too.
The remainder of the neo-Bolsheviks can largely be grouped according to what they believe the source of all evil in the world is: Men; white people; the concept of gender itself; and in fringe cases the idea that being overweight is unhealthy or other aspects of reality they find inconvenient. Politically they're hamstrung by three things:
First, they can't really think about anything coherently. The only way they allow themselves to process issues is deciding who the victim of men/white-people/etc... is in a situation and deciding that this person must be in the right. If that leads to an conclusion where the cognitive dissonance is too much to bear (most recently the Siraj Wahhaj case), they then argue that the fact you're talking about it means "you're racist/sexist/transphobic/*-phobic shut up". This naturally leads to things like someone who believes that white-people are the source of all evil talking about how the groping attacks in Germany were just 'white bodies being subjected to what they subject black bodies too' (they love to use the word 'bodies' instead of 'people'). The people who believe men are the source of all evil took some umbrage at this idea. This infighting is constant.
Second, they are pathetically easy for the establishment to manipulate. It is as simple as getting the nominally left faction of the establishment to have a woman stump for a policy using vaguely left wing terms and they will fall over themselves to support it. I've been told by these people that Russia must be violently opposed because Vladimir Putin is a homophobic, islamaphobic (!), racist right-winger. It's kind of amazing to see the political descendants of the hippies cheering on the prospect of a nuclear war because it would be a woman killing everyone in the name of LGBT rights.
Third, every effective organizer and leader they may have just becomes part of the establishment. Since these are typically female, gay, or non-white, they cannot meaningfully be opposed no matter how obviously they betray the goals of the neo-Bolsheviks. This happens to the deplorables as well, but they seem to be far more aggressive in countering it. It's not a coincidence that the neo-Bolsheviks have never really succeeded in any political project that the establishment doesn't find acceptable.
I may well be downplaying their threat, but they do seem to have disadvantages that the original versions lacked.
EEngineer , 9 hours ago"Neo-Bolsheviks"
I'm not sure who you would lump in with the "Neo-Bolsheviks", but as someone living in a semi-rural area of Iowa--deplorable central -- that voted democratic for decades and then voted for Trump, many of these deplorables embraced Bernie Sanders* (a Neo-Bolshevik?) and would welcome a return to an FDR style democratic party.
If for no other reason than to partake of the benefits afforded every other citizenry in the western world such as universal healthcare, free or affordable college, etc.
Establishment Dems:
Imho, far from being supporters of progessive economic policy, most liberal dem politicians defend the status quo as much as anyone and defer to their tech, insurance, arms, and financial donors.
Like was said 2 yrs ago, the dems would rather lose with Clinton than win with Sanders. And I include Pelosi, Schumer, you name it, in that bunch.
Trump's Base/Deplorables:
As you say, there are many more factions. Not all so-called deplorables are the same politically of course.
As for Trump's base--I have always thought it erroneous to label that base as working men and women of below average education, etc. 90% of Trump voters supported Romney and 60% had a median income above the national average.
While he is supported by disparate groups, the largest of Trump's base is the vast suburban gop voters of many large US cities. The Msm just doesn't want to acknowledge that Trump voters are also their well to do neighbors. Trump carried Suffolk County/Hamptons in New York state.
Fred -> EEngineer , 6 hours agoThe military, veterans, and various police agencies. States fail when they will no longer enforce the official line. That's usually happens when their own family members start showing up in the marches, barricades, protests, and such.
Loads of bright eyed youngsters have joined up over the last few decades thinking they would be like Luke Skywalker only to find out they're being used as Imperial Stormtroopers.
"thinking they would be like Luke Skywalker..."
Those folks with the starwars bumper stickers you see on the road aren't the ones who signed up for service.
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ADKC , Sep 1, 2018 4:15:46 PM | link
Laguerre @119(Neo-)Liberalism, imperialism, Nazism, etc. are all internationalist as well.
I know so many people on the western left who believe that invading Syria, Iran, Venezuela, intervening in Africa, sanctions/punishments (war?) on Russia, Soros, colour revolutions, etc. is all good and justified because it moves away from the nation state towards internationalism.
vk , Sep 1, 2018 4:32:05 PM | link
@ Posted by: Laguerre | Sep 1, 2018 2:48:22 PM | 113dltravers , Sep 1, 2018 5:24:19 PM | linkEven what you call Arendt's "same techniques" is wrong: nazi Germany had a completely different socioecomic and cultural structure than the USSR. Germany didn't even had eg commissaries, they didn't even had a planified central economy. It was really just liberalism: an USA that went wrong.
Someone recently told me that the whole of human history boils down to one thing, "one tribe wants to take something from another tribe". I would put it another way, sharing outside of the family unit is learned, taking is natural selection at its best.Laguerre , Sep 1, 2018 5:24:48 PM | linkre vk 122Jen , Sep 1, 2018 5:26:39 PM | linkSo, having stated Arendt as your belief, you now deny it, saying that fascism is different from communism. So what makes fascism then, apart from the technique of declaring the unity of the nation behind the leader, which the commies also did? The only answer is nationalism, as I said before.
To those who say Statements 1 and 3 illustrate reality: don't confuse bullying with strength.ADKC , Sep 1, 2018 5:30:35 PM | linkHitler and Netanyahu's statements reflect the viewpoint of Social Darwinism, an ideology that justifies elite dominance of society to its own ends.
The question we should be asking ourselves is whether nations that have achieved military power, often through intimidating and brainwashing their own peoples, and smashing down those who resist. should be allowed to continue in this way. And for what purpose?
Can the actions and policies of Nazi Germany and Israel be construed as those of powerful and strong nations? If Israel chooses easy targets to attack, and relies on bullying others and intimidating them by exploiting the Shoah, are its actions those of a strong nation?
Bevin @101 & vk @99juliania , Sep 1, 2018 5:44:44 PM | linkI have been brought up with the history and consequences of the potato famine and one thing that always puzzled me was why the British Empire just allowed it to happen? It would have cost little to the Empire and cast the British in a whole new light in the eyes of the Irish.
This proposition that it was ideological (liberalism) is something of an eye opener to me, social darwinism (let the weak die) is a very persuasive reason. And this does lead to a direct correlation with Nazism/fascism.
The more recent books (Kershaw) on Hitler talk about the freedom of officials to do what they want and take what they want as a reason why there are not written orders from Hitler authorising (amongst other things) the genocide of those considered weak and undesirable. This is obviously frustrating to the writers because they are unable to convincing find sufficient written documentation supporting the administrative implementation of the presumed 'ideology'; a frustrating inability to adequately explain Hitler, as it were.
This idea that Nazism is some kind of souped up liberalism is more convincing than saying Hitler was just too lazy to get out of bed in the mornings.
The key objection that I think that most people will instinctively have (because the idea is so contrary to what we have been taught) is that (neo-)liberalism and democracy go together. However, some of (neo-)liberalism's prime ideological advocates (Hayek, James M. Buchanan) clearly wanted to minimise democratic interference and envisaged a time when democracy was no longer of use and could be discarded.
This idea "that Fascism (and Nazism) are a form of Liberalism" seems like a really important idea.
To ex-reedie @ 120Jackrabbit , Sep 1, 2018 5:50:48 PM | linkThank you for taking us back to the Greeks! I offer in tandem this quotation from the website of a Plato scholar who has long been one of my heroes, Bernard Suzanne (his site is still available, an amazing source of ongoing study):
"Unless either the philosophers become kings in the cities or those who are
nowadays called kings and rulers get to philosophizing truly and adequately,
and this falls together upon the same person, political power and philosophy,
while the many natures of those who are driven toward the one apart from
the other are forcibly set aside, there will be no cessation of evils, my dear
Glaucon, for cities, nor, methinks, for the human race."
Plato, République, V, 473c11-d61I will just add that the title "Republic" is a bad translation of the Greek word "Politeia" - to my mind "Citizenry" fits better, bearing in mind that cities in Socrates' day were the equivalent of small states. And in Shakespearean terms, it would be prudent to say of that 'forcible setting aside of many natures' - "Aye, there's the rub!"
ADKC: ... why the British Empire just allowed it to happen?karlof1 , Sep 1, 2018 5:59:09 PM | linkIt wasn't liberalism or social darwinism. As proven by the success of Irish outside Ireland. It was pacifying the unruly Irish that lived next door to the greatest Empire yet known. Today we would call it a crime against humanity.
ADKC @126--vk , Sep 1, 2018 6:03:42 PM | linkPrior to the contrived Potato Famine was Enclosure. Perhaps you've read Sir Thomas More's Utopia which describes well the outcome of that quite deliberate policy. It would be nice to ascribe such doings to the Policy favored by Sir Francis Bacon who advocated waging war on the poor continuously and mercilessly, deeming them The Hydra threatening the wellbeing of the well off.
As many have written, the British rehearsed their colonial policies first on the Irish and the aims had nothing to do with Liberalism or any other ism aside from Authoritarianism, which is quite close to being a Totalitarian System and is certainly argued as such. That Liberalism can be in any way associated with Fascism means a basic lack of understanding of Liberalism's defining characteristics .
@ Posted by: Laguerre | Sep 1, 2018 5:24:48 PM | 124Jen , Sep 1, 2018 6:06:58 PM | linkThat's my point: Arendt's totalitarianism theory is 100% false. There is no "totalitarianism" in reality: it is a Cold War myth, a mirage. Nazism and Communism had absolutely nothing in common (as she states). Different ideology, different genesis in Western school of thought, different goals, different economic systems etc.
Hitler never laid out any economic plan, it was implicit the liberal model was the model: he simply wanted a traditional colonial power that could mirror the British Empire to the East. He didn't invent racism or genocide.
It was not just a difference of "the Third Reich was nationalist and the USSR was not" -- on the contrary, Socialism in one country was the victorious ideology post-Lenin, and the Cuban, Vietnamese and Chinese (to a lesser extent) were all nationalist in substance. Fidel Castro wasn't even communist when he led the Revolution!
There are no coincidence in "techniques". Unless you characterize anything as tributary to the place who first invented it. In this sense, everybody who uses Law is Roman, or anybody who goes to space is Soviet -- which is absurd.
Propaganda warfare, prison systems, war strategies, logistics -- those are all universal methodologies, means to achieve an end, there are no patents in then. This is so true that the USA is using many methods (including torture in black sites) that, during the Cold War, its propaganda (which would cause Goebbels envy) stated only a "totalitarian" (i.e. a communist or a fascist) would do.
The USSR was a unique experiment, which dissolved suddenly and unexpectedly. In my opinion, it was valuable in the sense it was the first experience of a State in which the working class was in power (dictatorship of the proletariat). Yes, it failed -- but no new economic system is born ready, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Even capitalism failed for more than 300 years before finally working in the least of probable of places: tiny and peripheral England.
ADKC @ 126:ADKC , Sep 1, 2018 6:20:17 PM | linkThere is pretty strong debate on the nature of the British reaction to the 1845 Irish Potato Famine. Some sources say it was deliberate genocide on the part of the British. Either Irish people starved to death or they fled overseas (and gave up their land, language and culture) to survive. Others point to the monoculture that the introduction of potatoes back in the 1600s created, and the population boom that resulted. Potatoes are a very nutritious crop staple for poor people.
The famines that began afflicting India from the 1770s on (after the Indian subcontintent started to come under British rule through the British East India Company) and which the British always never dealt with adequately - even though previous empires in India had always been able to stave off famine and starvation when monsoons failed to arrive or were late and harvests ended up ruined - might shed some light on the British treatment of the Irish Potato Famine.
In India. the Mughals and others who came before them prevented famine in areas that had suffered crop failures by reducing taxation and giving afflicted areas stored grain (from previous years' surpluses). Under British rule, India was heavily taxed (by having to supply food for the empire) and the levels of taxation were maintained regardless of local or regional conditions. In times when the monsoon failed and crops failed, communities continued to suffer from the brunt of heavy taxation. Combined with the British destruction of the Indian textile industry over the 1700s, which put thousands out of work, British taxation and other imperial policies turned India into a massive poorhouse.
Jackrabbit @128 karlof1 @129Pft , Sep 1, 2018 6:55:49 PM | linkAnd yet the British State would describe itself (then and now) as liberal and democratic. Even today the British State does not recognise that any "crime against humanity" happened in Ireland regarding the potato famine.
To avoid any confusion:- I am not suggesting that there wasn't a crime, I am not advocating social darwinism, I am not suggesting that the Irish were weak or inferior in anyway. I am saying that liberalism may subvert democracy and tend towards criminality [including genocide] and that seems an area that has been neglected when considering what the nature of Nazism/Fascism really is.
Communism is state owned capitalism where state controls the means of production, fascism and neoliberalism (classic liberalism)is private owned capitalism where the owners of production (elites) control the government to an unhealthy degree. Social liberalism (called socialism by some) is a mix of state and privately owned production, a mix determined to maximize benefits to society with the people in control of government, and capitalism and government serving the people and not just the elitesvk , Sep 1, 2018 6:56:45 PM | linkThe US had social liberalism following WWII although tainted somewhat by the CIA and MIC and lasting until the early 70's. There was essentially a civil war fought starting in 1963 at the elite level by neoliberal globalists and social liberal nationalists leading to a number of assassinations and ending with Nixons impeachment/resignation in 1973/74. The good guys lost and its been downhill ever since as the US descends Jacobs Neoliberal Ladder.
Only in some kind of hell could a guy like Trump be elected. At least the Germans never elected their racist and fascist leader
@ Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 1, 2018 5:59:09 PM | 129karlof1 , Sep 1, 2018 7:26:22 PM | linkAlthough you're right in the sense that Liberalism has some diversity over history, its cornerstone is freedom=private property.
If you take the first Constitution of the French Revolution, you'll see right in the first articles that by freedom they consider the right of the individual to fully enjoy his life and his private property ("industrie"). This chunk of the Constitution remained in the next versions.
So, colonialism was a perfectly liberal policy: the workers you're exploiting are your property, so you're enjoying your individual freedom. It was only with the socialist uprisings of the 19th Century that property-less people (i.e. workers) begun to enjoy some rights -- the most illustrative being the right to vote (non-censitary vote, universal vote).
There's absolutely no documentation that demonstrate Hitler and/or Mussolini tried to end liberalism and create a new economic system (like the Communist). Nazism and Fascism are literally liberalism with a bombastic narrative (one with the quest of the Aryan Race of its Lebensraum; the other trying to revive the Roman Empire), but all the basic elements of liberalism are there: the main one being the preservation of private property.
P.S.: the concept of freedom of speech was different back then: all those rights only belonged to the capitalist class; workers and slaves were not considered human beings. The concept of the "universal man" only really came in vogue with Marx; before him, it was widely believed the dominant class was of a different breed than that of an dominated class.
We're discussing isms here. What ism's being advocated by the testimony before the Outlaw US Empire's Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Wess Mitchell:ADKC , Sep 1, 2018 8:13:40 PM | link"Russia and China are serious competitors that are building up the material and ideological wherewithal to contest U.S. primacy and leadership in the 21st Century. It continues to be among the foremost national security interests of the United States to prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers. The central aim of the administration's foreign policy is to prepare our nation to confront this challenge by systematically strengthening the military, economic and political fundaments of American power."
Mitchell mentions a document I wasn't able to locate, the "Russia Integrated Strategy," but I was able to find what appears to be its predecessor , "Russia Project Strategy, 2014-2017."
Surely, this conforms to the Outlaw US Empire's Imperialism via which its goal is the Full Spectrum Domination (FSD) of the planet and its people. Some would consider that Totalitarianism--the doctrine of total control. During its drive to attain FSD, certain aspects must be masked from the Empire's public since relatively unfettered freedom is featured as one of its alleged values, which is why the many undemocratic aspects of various "trade" agreements are never discussed and negotiated in secret, for example. What do we call a government that directly lies to its populous? What sort of ism is in play?
Mitchell's testimony was done in public so it didn't remain secret very long, was written about in Russian, then the analysis was translated into English . Hopefully barflies and others will read these documents and shudder, although I'm sure a few will say "So, what's new?" Well, this goes far beyond the millennia long, ongoing Class War, and confirms what I've been saying for awhile now--We're already within a Hybrid Third World War being waged by people who want everything or nothing. What sort of ism's that? In my book, it's the worst form of Authoritarianism anyone might imagine.
Karlof1 @135psychohistorian , Sep 1, 2018 9:47:56 PM | linkAnd yet the vast number of academics, elected representatives and people of the west would describe the US as liberal and democratic?
Wow! Quite a discussion...thanksben , Sep 1, 2018 10:52:36 PM | linkI want to discuss fascism but not yet
One of the things I find missing in the discussion so far is the anthropological perspective. A short version would be that with the rise of monotheistic religions came the rise of human hubris about humans place in the cosmos and limited variations of us/them proscriptions about how life should be led....and the belief that everyone should believe this way or be eliminated.
This arrangement was challenge during the (as yet finished) Enlightenment period that began with the start of the scientific revolution in 1620. This period was the birth of liberalism and the church and state came under increased scrutiny.....but not rejection....blind faith still lives on.
Fast forward to the present where we have ongoing elimination of any and all cultures not "Western" which is my biggest problem with our social order....it is reducing our genetic ability to survive by the monoculture focus.....as well as being a heinous form of social organization that favors the few over the many.
On to fascism....Fascism is not just defined by a single aspect but a combination that show the face of the beast. The best description of fascism is a list of 14 points written in 2004 by Dr. Laurence Britt, a political scientist. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of: Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). His points are as follows:
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights
The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people's attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice -- relentless propaganda and disinformation -- were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite "spontaneous" acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and "terrorists." Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.
5. Rampant sexism
Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.
6. A controlled mass media
Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes' excesses.
7. Obsession with national security
Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting "national security," and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together
Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite's behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the "godless." A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.
9. Power of corporations protected
Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of "have-not" citizens.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. "Normal" and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or "traitors" was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.
14. Fraudulent elections
Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.
Jr @ 138: Thanks for the link, but all I get from the endless semantics, is that the English language is a lot like beauty, " in the eye of the beholder, or speaker.karlof1 , Sep 1, 2018 11:24:31 PM | link
English, or any language, can be used to inform or confuse.
ADKC @136--Piotr Berman , Sep 2, 2018 12:12:29 AM | linkHow many of a similar sample of Germans in 1938 thought that their government would do what it did? Consent must be manufactured. Caitlin Johnstone recently wrote this addition to the genre explaining how that's done .
I have a different perspective than psychohistorian.Charles R , Sep 2, 2018 12:49:09 AM | linkFor starters, I would see different causes of Enlightenment. It was a huge (if somewhat misunderstood) ideological change in Europe, and such changes are caused by the profound catastrophes undermining the trust in the status quo. While the scientific and other cultural advances were definitely in place in 17 century Europe, a larger part of that century were spent on horrific wars. If you add up their effects and compare to the continent's population, it is hard to tell if 17 century was less horrible that World Wars of 20-th century or not. And most of those wars were "religious", or had a major religious component. In reaction, the thinkers and rulers got convinced that "reason" should have primacy over "religion". Scientific advances played a role in fortifying the authority of "reason", but ideas like defending one true faith and following rulers because of their divine mandate were discredited by calamitous wars.
Advantages of "reason" were quite quickly noticed by elites, for example divine rights of absolute rulers were patched by their enlightenment. Wars in Europe improved methods of conscription, arming and disciplining the peasants and outright massacring and pillaging was less evident than in 17-th century. But any discussion on fascism had to wait until 20-th century, because it made no sense in authoritarian systems of more traditional elites -- manipulating public opinion makes little sense if public opinion matters only a little. But as democracy became widespread AND the traditional elites got compromised once again by WWI, radical movements emerged, including Communism and Fascism.
What I am trying to say is that mo st of points listed as features of fascism by psychohistorian is "good old order" with appeals to "reason". Of course, all methods used in the past are applied if handy, e.g. in Thailand divine mandate of the king is energetically applied by the ruling military junta. To me, fascism is bit more specific. For example, the cult of a uniquely qualified leader, championing the "common people", projects of "national grandeur" that may include highway system and/or war of conquests, rank intimidation augmenting more gentle "manipulation" etc.
But most of points listed by psychohistorian are more insidious features that follow from "Iron law of oligarchy". Getting rid of them will require more effort than getting rid of "true fascism".
vk, what text/interviews are you using for your claims about Arendt's theory of totalitarianism? I mean, could you quote a specific place or paragraph? I come to her thought through Life of Mind and Human Condition, and my take or sense of her ideas about "totality" when it comes to social structures is that she gets it amazingly well how contemporary technology destroys/yed the public realm by amplifying the organismic aspects of the collective. Y'all talk about the ism of totalitarian being you find in Hannah's writings, but it's like there's still something missing: the difference between the social and the political isn't just a matter of concept but metaphysical. It isn't just ideological but geo-metric. Social control isn't political when it reaches the point of actualizing gods'-eyes-views, it has become self-aware bureaucracy -- what we already find every day when our ego mistakes its beliefs about control for actions making history.partizan , Sep 2, 2018 3:13:50 AM | linkPeople forget the deepest slogan of The Party is GOD is POWER. If you believe war is not peace and ignorance is not strength, then you have to figure out why Orwell wants you to also start figuring out why god is not power.
les7 , Sep 2, 2018 3:36:39 AM | linkSome like to amalgamate Nazism and communism into one, with the term 'totalitarianism' covering both How would you analyse this concept?'Totalitarianism' has roots in 'total mobilisation' and 'total war' – in the total regimentation of the population, driven by the capitalist great powers and their competition to conquer colonies and global hegemony. Hitler aspired to German revanchism, winning back and expanding Germany's 'living space' and colonial territories. He saw himself as heir to the colonial tradition, which he sought to radicalise.He first of all identified with the US example, seeking his own Far West in Eastern Europe and reducing the Slavs to the condition of slaves in service of the Herrenvolk. Decisively, this project met its definitive defeat at Stalingrad; this defeat was, at the same time, the beginning of a gigantic wave of anti-colonial revolts.
A historical comparison is useful, here, for grasping how unserious the dominant ideology's framing of 'totalitarianism' is. At the start of the nineteenth century Napoleon sent a powerful army to Saint-Domingue with the mission of re-establishing slavery, after it had been abolished thanks to the great black revolution led by Toussaint Louverture.
We could indeed say that in the war that then raged, the attacked were no less 'savage' than the attackers. But we would cover ourselves in ridicule if we claimed that we could reduce both sides to a common 'savagery' or a shared bloody 'totalitarianism'.
Much of the consideration of fascism here has been about the power and control of leaders and elites. There is another side to the equationbevin , Sep 2, 2018 10:02:18 AM | linkOne writer foretold the inevitable decline of the US toward fascism based on the social construct used to establish law. At its' formation the US, like most of the West, had some form of divinely sanctioned 'law' as the basis of its' civil code. While in theory law was proclaimed to flow from democratic forms of government, the law was actually a projection of a cultural/social ideal based on a religious text.
As that cultural/social/religious unity fractured in the face of secularism, humanism and liberalism, there was a shift in the 'authority' that lay behind social law. The writer I referred to indicated that cultural inertia would continue to carry the country for a generation or two, but inevitably social/moral disintegration would occur. The result he said would economic & social collapse which would in turn propel a movement toward fascism.
Since then there has been a lot of evidence from evolutionary biology that suggests the human predisposition to organize itself under some form of "authority structure" is hard-wired into us.
"Not sure where the Romans and Genghiz Khan fit into that theory." dh |Noirette , Sep 2, 2018 10:24:28 AM | linkWe are not talking about wars but about societies in normal times. Both the Romans (see eg Bread and Circuses) and the various post Genghiz states (the Mongol dynasty in China) ruled by ensuring the general welfare of the population.
Incidentally there is no suggestion that the Irish were an 'inferior race'. Those depending on the potato were weakened when there were no edible potatoes. The point is that there was plenty of food to feed them but that liberal ideology did not allow of 'relief' which would improve their fate.
Social Darwinism and Eugenics was certainly not owned by Fascists alone. Its alive and well today and is used to justify neoliberal economics and imperialism. Pft at 43.Yes.. I'd go further, the Fascists (as a standard narrow ex. Italy and Germany somewhat before and during WW2) merely adopted parts of what was then mainstream 'Science' and/or sociological accepted thinking, which itself was of course built on the zeitgeist, trends in popular opinion etc. 'Modern' (late 18th - early 19th cent > 'misgenation', apartheid laws, etc.) eugenics was very much a USA driven scientific trend. (Colonialist roots..) Many got on the bandwagon - medicos, drug pedlers, breeders (of non-humans like chickens and beef), socio pundits, pols, and more. Ex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Record_Office (founded 1910)
'Biologic' determinist credos (=> it's all in your genes) hold a strong sway in the US today, stronger imho than in any other country, sticking out my neck as of course I know little to nothing about 2/10 or far more of the world.
The fundamentalist and rigidly deterministic stance of course serves repressive policies: ppl are born bad and 'need prison' etc.
Another nefarious result, e.g. 'ppl are born gender dysphoric' so need corrective measures (surgery, drug dependence) is another, exploitative, side of the same coin.
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bevin , Sep 1, 2018 1:26:09 PM | link
The primary link between neoliberalism and fascism is their insistence that the weak go to the wall. Communism denies this so did all societies before the British empire of the C19th.
It is inconceivable that any previous society would have condoned the positions adopted by the British government in Ireland during the 'Potato famine' or the policies pursued during successive Bengal famines.
For those unfamiliar with the history of what occurred in Ireland it is worth recalling that during the years in which the potato harvest failed entirely there were massive shipments of food out of Ireland, vast quantities of meat, butter, cheese, barley and other grains, were despatched to England and elsewhere for sale.
Benjamin Jowett, the Master of Balliol College Oxford, said of the liberal Political Economists that he distrusted them and had done so since being told by one of them that, while it was true that more than a million Irish people had died of starvation during the famine, "He said that he wasn't sure that that that was enough."
For Bengal see, for example, Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts.
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vk , Sep 2, 2018 10:11:09 AM | link
@ Posted by: Charles R | Sep 2, 2018 12:49:09 AM | 145
Her book in question is The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). Possibly her most famous book and the one which skyrocketed her career in the USA (and to the CIA, to which she was a collaborator).
Also, in an article about modernism (I don't know how it was published in English), in the last paragraphs, she mentions her "research on totalitarianism", and then goes on stating that what united nazism and communism was the adoption of a "grand narrative" (see the coincidence with post-modernism? Not a mere coincidence, for sure): the nazi adopting the "grand narrative" of race struggle and the communist the one of class struggle. That she equated the two is intellectually dishonest, but hey, it was the height of the Cold War, there was poetic license to lie in the academic world.
I was born right at the end of the Cold War. I probably belong to the first generation of historians born "post-Cold-War". And the first thing that amazed me was the sheer quantity of pure lies and myths that pervaded Cold War era thought and science. It wasn't some "conspiracy theory" level lies -- those very carefully crafted lies, extremely difficult to debunk -- no, it was pure ideology, lies that can be easily debunked with a first look at primary sources or with five minutes in internet research. Future historians (of the 22nd Century) will probably see the Cold War era until today as a dark age for science.
Even Marxist production of this era suffered a lot: Marx must have had spinned in his tomb like never before during the post-war era.
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@ Posted by: les7 | Sep 2, 2018 3:36:39 AM | 149
Since then there has been a lot of evidence from evolutionary biology that suggests the human predisposition to organize itself under some form of "authority structure" is hard-wired into us.The homo sapiens is an apex superpredator, a species of the fifth trophic level (level 5). To top it off, we are also omnivorous, which makes us even more deadly and voracious.
Apex predators are not cannibal (the higher the trophic level, the lower the energy level, so it wouldn't be energetically advantageous for apex predators to eat/hunt themselves. The meat of apex predators have very low nutrition levels and are usually full of parasites and other poisonous residues (e.g. dolphin meat is full of mercury, not edible for humans).
However, apex predator can and do kill themselves in territorial disputes -- be it among themselves, be it with another apex predator species.
So, it is only natural that humans kill themselves for resources. It is in our nature.
However, there's a situation where apex predators stop killing themselves: when the environment has enough for everybody. It will not be Teletubbies, where everybody will hug and love themselves, but they would tolerate themselves. For example, you may want to kill a stranger in the street -- but if that stranger is your children's doctor, then you'll think twice, you'll tolerate his existence just because it is in your economic interest to keep him alive.
That's what Marx was all about: capitalism increased interdependency, so are now, relative to total population, killing ourselves less. The only reason the USA just don't nuke everybody is that it depends on the rest of the world for trade. If we develop the productive forces further, we could have a situation were the excedent would be so big that nobody would have to exploit nobody (a fully-automated society). Again, Marx never stated communism would be a hippie utopia: humans would still get happy, sad, anger, grief, violence for passional motives would still happen, people would still cry when a parent would die etc. etc. What he envisaged was a society without class.
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Now, the last time about liberalism.
Liberalism is an umbrella term (although not as umbrella as illuminism) to designate the legitimating of capitalism over four centuries. Liberalism was not just philosophy: it was an economic theory etc.
What unites liberals of all sorts of kinds is the fact that, ultimately, the acted to preserve or advocate for capitalism.
Liberalism can be better described thus as the way of life of capitalism; the way capitalism perceives itself over time.
The separation we do nowadays between liberalism and nazifascism comes from neoliberal propaganda.
Neoliberalism (new liberalism) was born in the 40s, in Mont Pelerin, and its doctrine stated that 1) post-war social-democracy in Western Europe = socialism and should be combated and 2) what happened between the WWI (1914) and WWII (1945) was an abortion of History, and the world should continue from where it stopped (i.e. with the old liberalism).
That's why I consider neoliberalism more like the "return of the liberals" than "the new liberalism", albeit it, I confess, from the point of view of the economists, the latter definition suits better. New liberalism because they conceded liberalism collapsed in 1914 and needed to be updated (this happened with Friedman's monetarism); Return of the liberals because, albeit it was born in the 40s, it was just in 1979, with the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK, that it would really come to power in a worldwide level (there was already a neoliberal experiment in Pinochet's Chile, some years before).
But I think the definite empirical proof totalitarianism is a Cold War myth and that nazifascism is really liberalism is that this new rise of the "far-right/alt-right" is not coming from socialist countries (North Korea, Cuba, China and Vietnam), but from capitalist, Western Democracies (Italy, France, USA, UK, Australia, Japan -- albeit Japan never gave up fascism to begin with --, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Austria and Ukraine). It was from the liberals' womb that fascism was (re)born, not "communism". This is a fact, a fact we can observe today, with our own senses.
Now, you can rationalized that many of these countries are from the ex-Iron Curtain. But 1) it only happened after they turned capitalist, not while they were under the USSR and 2) those Iron Curtain countries were actually full-fledged Nazi countries before the USSR liberated them in 1945, so they had a nazi past and culture as a nationalist narrative against USSR hegemony; the Ukraine has a sui generis history, that involved a triple side civil war (White, Black and Red Armies), so, albeit they were part of the USSR, they too had a Nazi past.
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vk , Sep 1, 2018 12:54:18 PM | link
Chipnik , Sep 1, 2018 11:35:18 AM | link@ Posted by: Noirette | Sep 1, 2018 12:01:23 PM | 94
Fascism (and Nazism) is a form of Liberalism. But we need to clarify one of the most persuading Cold War myths: the myth of totalitarianism.
(huge parenthesis alert)
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During the Cold War, a cold warrior called Hannah Arendt published a book (with a CIA editor) that laid out the most famous version of the theory of totalitarianism.
The theory of totalitarianism states that communism and fascism are the sides of the same coin. Arendt's central argument was that both communism and nazism were brother ideologies because both adopt a central, all-encompassing historical narrative: nazism adopting the narrative of the struggle between the races and communism adopting the narrative of struggle between classes.
Yes, she equate racism to class struggle (which is a false dichotomy, because class struggle is empirically observable towards all written history we have available today, while race war is a modern late 19th Century invention).
Arendt's totalitarianism theory helped to give birth to modern liberal leftism, more specifically, post-modernism, which states that there's no "long term narrative" in human history (i.e. there's no class war; or class war was a random phenomenon of the late 19th-early 20th Centuries) and that there's no truth: only points of view based on the observer's immediate observation.
Alongside post-modernism, there was, at the same time, a rehabilitation of Christianism, as a part of the ideological war against communism/socialism in the Cold War: that meant a tendency to secularism and reason begun to be reversed in the West from the 70s onwards. Such "imbecilization" process is not new: it happened during the decline of the Roman Empire, during the late Severan dinasty and throughout the crisis of the Third Century and progressed with the reforms of Diocletian, reaching its appex with Constantine and Justinian. This period of time saw the economy of Rome collapse, while Christianism flourished.
So yes, everytime society tries to progress, the Western elite calls 911-Christianism to the rescue, it is not new: it is important to notice that, after the French Revolution, the legitimizing narrative was that the Roman Republic was being revived (Napoleon was in love with Ancient Rome, and read all of Caesar's Commentaries ) -- what Marx called the "farce" in the Brummaire -- and that both the British and the American empires like to mirror themselves with the Roman Empire (and many of modern laws and principles are based on Roman jurists). So, there's a lot of inspiration there by the Western elites.
But Arendt came out with another very important conclusion: that a totalitarian society can not disintegrate from within, only from the outside. Put it in other terms, the peoples of totalitarian states can never do a revolution, only be liberated by an alien liberal society. At the time, there was no perspective the USSR would ever go away, and there was plenty of demand to ideologies that legitimized rising military spending and invasions in the Third World.
The Cold War ended and Arendt's theory was proved wrong: the USSR dissolved over the weight of its own internal contradictions. But the idea that nazifascism and communism were brother ideologies stuck in the West.
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Nazifascism is a mode of liberalism (classic liberalism) because that's what history shows us: both Hitler and Mussolini were born and created during the apex of liberalism, in liberal countries and received liberal education. Both declared the communists as their main enemies once they got to power. Both economies remained highly decentralized, liberal style, during the WWII. If you take out both lunatic narratives, you wouldn't be able to discern, e.g., a typical German Aryan family in Berlin from a typical suburban family in the 60s USA.
Communism/socialism both came from classical Social-Democracy (not the post-war version, the original version). Classical Social-Democracy has a very well documented paternity: Karl Marx.
Marx took the term "socialism" from the nowadays so-called "utopian socialists", a movement from France, whose main intellectual was Proudhon. Those "utopian socialists" come from the old late-feudal artisan class, the class which lost the most with industrialization. Communism (as in communist parties) come from the late 19th Century/early 20th Century schism between the German and Russian Social-Democrat parties. At the time, the German one made a turn to the right (which would culminate, decades later, with it supporting the German bourgeoisie in WWI, a pivotal episode to the rise of Nazism in the 30s), and Lenin, in order to make the ideological differences clear, changed the name to "communist". So, whatever point of view you adopt, neither communism nor socialism come from liberalism, so it doesn't even belong to the same branch as nazifascism.
The last "common ancestor" of both Social-Democracy and Liberalism is illuminism. But "illuminism" was not a school or ideology per se, but an umbrella term to designate a significant change in thought after the 16th Century. If you take the concept of Reason as the condition sine qua non to designate something illuminist, then the only existing "child" of "illuminism" today is Marxism.
Yeah, Right , Sep 1, 2018 5:10:27 AM | linkControlled dissent relies on obscuring the Pincer Movement being used to corral Freedom and Liberty.
'(Commercial consumerism is) consistent with banal economic relations and routine familial and social patterns, and, as a means towards those ends, imprisonimg...the authentic, strong, free, vital human beings who learned to break loose and live heroic lives, in defiance of (Judaic) 'static legalism'.
Simplicity is the panacea for the evils of the present. In short, back to Nature. We must look to the Artist, not to the Scientist as our teacher and guide, for the artist was the genius who knew the goal and the way ...through the ideals which the new 'vitalist' culture intended to displace decadent 'civilization': childlike simplicity, natural spontaneity, an Olympian will to risk and dare, an unerring intuition into the hidden and transcendent, a sense of awe and mystery, an abundance of unrestrained passions, and an exhilirating torrent of energy.'
(Vision and Violence, Arthur Mendel)So Nietzche, but also Euell Gibbons and Carlos Casteňeda were 'Back to Nature' NAZIs. Nietzche saw Judaic culture of regimental Bolshevism as the 'unpure enemy', and eugenic extermination as the solution, while the Hippies saw 'The Pigs' (regimental military Bolshevism) as the unclean enemy, and 'Get Back to the Land and Set My Soul Free' as the solution. They're both a form of Fascism.
If you don't 'turn on, tune, in and drop out', if you won't let your hair grow long as you can show it, and wear beads braided in your beard and hemp sandals, write graffiti about AGW and fossil fuels, and eat meal worms and cannabis cookies, then you are an 'unclean pig'.
The End of History Rational Supra-National State, versus the Hot Money Pay-for-Play Uber-Capitalist Renegades. Regimental Bolshevism and Iconoclastic Fascism are just the two-sided Janus-faced nature of our human reality. Rodham the Bolshevik versus Trump the Fascist. Lose-lose.
Lose-lose most especially in USA, because State-Corporate Deep Purple Mil.Gov UniParty represents the unholy union of these two anti-human forces. Think Israel joining with the Syrian 'rebels' (sic). Think the globalist ECB/IMF/WB finance marauders aligning with the NATO Wehrmacht.
That's the NWO Spawn of Satan. They are One. Netanyahu is your Father. Come into the Light. Use the Force, Luke. A
Oh, and be sure to get your vaccinations!a , Sep 1, 2018 2:41:54 AM | link@22 ex-Reedie nails it. All three quotes were pre-empted by Thucydides so very many centuries ago, when he has the Athenians responding to the Melians appeal to decency with "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".
Before, of course, the Athenians slaughtered the Melians.
But the other side of the coin is, of course, "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword".
The Siege of Melos is a classic example: the Athenians conquered the Melians and then colonized Melos (sound familiar?). And then.... in the long run lost the Peloponnesian War and all those colonists were sent packing.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Cock of the walk one day, a feather duster the next.
It's a long way to the top, and a quick ride to the bottom.All concepts that would be utterly foreign to Netanyahu.
Until, that is, it happens to him and his Zionist throwbacks to the 19th century.donkeytale , Sep 1, 2018 3:09:26 AM | link" It is not just by chance that Netanyahoo sounds like Hitler. Both, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, and Adolph Hitler developed their political awareness around the turn of the century "Interestingly, the Indian fascists of the Hindutva movement, of which the RSS organisation is the mothership, also have intellectual links to the Nazis... The romantic irrationalist texts from which the European fascists drew their inspiration were translated into Marathi and read avidly, by the brahmins of western India where Hindutva ideology was incubated.
It is important to make a distinction between Hinduism, the religion, and 'Hindutva' which is a political ideology. Hindutva is more old-fascism than neo-fascism. The RSS, the mothership of this ideology, has been organising their movement for nearly a hundred years. And it is follows quite well the old-fascist pattern. The mothership sends expeditionary contingents into each area of social life and captures it - nazi youth, nazi unions, nazi lawyers, etc. The present phase is probably best captured by the old nazi term, 'gleichschaltung' , the attempt to force social institutions into the fascist mould... there seems to be now an ongoing attempt to capture the universities, the media, the supreme court etc. in India.
Those interested can check out the following books
1. Walter Andersen and S Damle Brotherhood in Saffron... (a reliable objective description of the RSS.. unfortunately out-of-print for decades, but it should be available in the Univ.of Heidelberg South Asia institute library . no electronic copy seems to be available, if anyone has a link, please post. Andersen and Damle have a new book to be published this year)
2. MS Golwalkar We or out nationhood defined and Bunch of Thoughts. MSG was the second head and most important ideologue of the RSS who admired nazi 'race pride'. he wrote,
"To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic races -- the Jews... Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." and "the foreign races [he meant other religions too] in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, ie of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen's rights."3 Manoj Mitta Modi and Godhra The Fiction of Fact Finding. On the attacks on Muslims in gujarat and subsequent investigations... modus operandi
Linky thingiedonkeytale , Sep 1, 2018 3:10:10 AM | linkhttps://splinternews.com/if-youre-confused-about-what-race-baiting-is-heres-a-b-1793848630
Oops, wrong thread for the link. Sorryuncle tungsten , Sep 1, 2018 3:35:50 AM | linkKarlof1 @37Walter , Aug 31, 2018 4:00:48 PM | linkThanks karlof1 I look forward to you posts here. I am sure the elite could be identified as fascist as the concentration of wealth and power was certainly in their hands then after centuries of mercantile plunder. Equally they bundled the wealth generated from the progress of automation from horse drawn farm machinery through to steam power etc.
I guess the englander workers could be coerced or press ganged into supporting their fascist lords as they were to support the various wars and defense needs. I doubt that one should class the workers and common folk as naturally fascist though. Cowed into compliance from centuries of oppression seems a better description.
Engels was a mighty keen observer and knew well the ways of the ruling class industrialists.
"...since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must..." Thucydides - he said it in Melian Dialogue.Webra , Aug 31, 2018 4:30:52 PM | linkBut the quote should be read in context...and is itself a paraphrase of Athenian Policy,
It is also True. Yes indeed, fascists do sometimes say true things...it happens. I do not like fascists, but I do like truth, doesn't everybody?
@16Pft , Aug 31, 2018 5:10:37 PM | linkGramsci's thinking thrives in many fields, being a safe haven for political and intellectual organizations midway between the pure abandonment of Marxism and unrestricted adherence to neoliberal "democracy". Gramsci became the prostitute of the neoliberals, as he was before that of the recycled Stalinists when against "Trotskyism", whatever this was.
Social Darwinism and Eugenics was certainly not owned by Fascists alone. Its alive and well today and is used to justify neoliberal economics and imperialism. The strong (cognitive or physical) rule the weak. Any attempt at equalizing the disparity is labelled as Socialism and is opposed in part for fears it promotes dysgenics.peter , Aug 31, 2018 5:59:33 PM | linkDarwin had it right I think. Or maybe it was the ancient Greeks. I'm trying pretty hard to keep up here ,eugenics might be partly responsible for that.Thank Christ somebody broke in with news of that guy getting blowed up. Somebody said Canada might be the culprit. Well, suck me dry and call me Dusty, I never heard of that motherfucker and neither have any of my friends at the bar. Maybe it's because of that gal who had a granddad that was a Uke who liked Nazi invaders better than the Russians. But she's pretty busy right now trying deal with other stuff. Like the biggest trade deal in the world.
But there's some PHD stuff here for sure.
juliania , Aug 31, 2018 6:45:58 PM | link
I had been going to propose that the answer to all three questions was "Thrasymachus" (from Plato's Republic) - but I see in checking my source that all that fine young man did actually say was that justice is the advantage of the stronger, using as an example the rulers of cities who order things to their own advantage. And indeed, the statement is refuted, which causes the frightening man to blush...But best to read the original, as what Thrasymachus represents looms larger in that setting and in the labyrinthian dialogue upon whose threshold he makes his claim.Mark2 , Aug 31, 2018 6:50:10 PM | linkPosted by: juliania | Aug 31, 2018 6:45:58 PM | link
So back to current affairs !Chas , Aug 31, 2018 7:05:37 PM | linkEngland is now divided down the middle politically, as is a whole list of country's, to many to mention. left and right increasingly polarized ! Perhaps the most important being the USA. If we look at the right wing street violence in Germany this week, we see what is going to happen all the way round very soon.
This weeks violent aggressive protest is much much bigger than people realize ! It was aimed at innocent people in the street, it was apparently protesting about victims of western military aggression emigrating to Germany. But not addressing the root couse of why they became victims, but the problems caused by their emigration to Germany.
Last Sunday these nazi's and there sympathizers numbered 6000 but the truth is a large proportion of the police present were on their side. Looking the other way when violence occurred failing to arrest people doing the nazi salute. The coalition government has a large part of extreme right wing politicians.
These next weeks determine which way western country's will swing. We can stop the nazi's on the street's or we can except the consequences.
There aren't any more fascists. Haven't you heard? They're called white nationalists now. Or at least that's what I read in the NY Times.vk , Aug 31, 2018 7:13:34 PM | link@ Posted by: peter | Aug 31, 2018 5:59:33 PM | 45karlof1 , Aug 31, 2018 2:56:40 PM | linkLike the biggest trade deal in the world.Given the context of your whole comment, I'm considering this an apology to Trump and an insult to the people who comment in this blog.
World trade (globalization) has halted.
Whatever thing Trump and his minions (American allies, "Western Civilization") are doing right now, they are just restructuring already existing trade deals at best.
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As for the "Greek" discussion. It's not a surprise Hitler took at least some inspiration from the ancient Greek. From the 19th to early 20th Century, there was some kind of "Greek revival" in Germany's academic circles. Take Nietzsche for example: he dialogues with the Greeks (mainly Plato and Socrates) many times. Even that so-called Nazi historian (forgot his name) focused on the ancient Greek. Hell, even Marx did his doctorate thesis over Epicurus. So, Hitler essentially lived in the end of a "philellene" period of Germany.
karlof1 , Aug 31, 2018 1:29:21 PM | linkAs far as the strong protecting the weak, the human animal is a prime example of this as the mother and infant must be protected for several years before either can fend for themselves. Another well known example is the mother bear protecting her cubs--don't mess with either!
There's no superiority/inferiority involved as such in either example as both are natural mechanisms. The concept of social castes/classes was very well established millennia ago with numerous ideas put forth to justify their existence, many of which still operate today. Many of those ideas are present within the Monthly Review article I linked to yesterday.
Engels may or may not have coined the term Social Murder, but even the Whigs agreed as this passage shows:
"In 1844, Frederick Engels wrote that 'English society daily and hourly commits what the working-men's organs, with perfect correctness, characterize as social murder. It has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long [and] it undermines the vital force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time.'24 Anyone who thinks that Engels was not an objective witness should compare his judgement to that of the influential Whig journal the Edinburgh Review :
"Out of every two persons who die in the east of London, one perishes from preventable causes. From twenty to thirty thousand of the labouring population of London are killed every year by causes which, if we chose, we might expel by a current of water. Though we do not take these persons out of their houses and murder them, we do the same thing in effect, -- we neglect them in their poisonous homes, and leave them there to a lingering but a certain death."
It's very easy to see why Marx and Engels characterized what they observed in England and Europe as Class War. But can the English of the mid 1800s be characterized as fascist, or perhaps just the elite?
...As for American Fascism, the entire mindset of American Exceptionalism combined with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny provide it with a substantial foundation. Combined with the implied imperialism within JQ Adams speech that outlined what became known as The Monroe Doctrine, White, Anglo-Saxon superiority was further institutionalized. Social-Darwinism is quite complex to discuss despite it being a relatively simple concept on the surface.
Wikipedia's page is rather good on this topic and shows Herbert Spencer published his ideas before Darwin published his revolutionary book. Vice-President Henry Wallace is the most prominent American citizen I know of to write boldly about American Fascism In his famous NY Times op/ed The Dangers of American Fascism that concludes thusly:
"Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes."
Yes, he saw it but IMO was too soft toward it. I'd be remiss not to mention Bertram Gross's bold 1980 book Friendly Fascism and Sheldon Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism .
This discussion is getting out of hand. vk 99 is not right (to be polite).
Laguerre | Sep 1, 2018 2:48:22 PM | 114
Nazifascism is a mode of liberalism (classic liberalism) because that's what history shows us: both Hitler and Mussolini were born and created during the apex of liberalism...
Communism and Fascism are not the same thing, as in the theory of Arendt. They merely used the same techniques. Nor is fascism really liberalism. Perhaps a reaction, but not even that.
The states in which Hitler and Mussolini grew up were not liberal democracies, but rather monarchical autocracies, which had failed. So reactions to that.
The demonstration is that Neo-Nazis today are not in any way liberal, but rather far right, based on uber-nationalism. That is the basis also of 1930s fascism. Nationalism taken to an extreme, and employing totalitarian techniques.
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Jen , Sep 1, 2018 5:03:48 PM | link
To those who say Statements 1 and 3 in B's post reflect or demonstrate reality: don't confuse bullying with strength.
The statements are expressions of Social Darwinism in its various forms. Social Darwinism represents a particular belief system that justifies the existence of an elite dominating society and culture, so as to ensure its (that is, the elite's) continued survival and domination.
Needless to say, Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara are under police investigation in Israel for corruption. Sara N apparently is also notorious for ill-treating her staff and throwing her weight around to impress and intimidate others.
Is this sort of behaviour - stealing from the nation, bullying others - the behaviour of those who are strong and secure in their power?
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Even the Mongols, though they brought destruction, extermination and ruin everywhere they went, did eventually bring order and stability, and revived trade and civilisation. They themselves became civilised by the peoples they conquered. In the end, they were undone by their own internal family squabbles and competition. They were not so strong as they first seemed.
It's not enough to be "strong" in a military sense - what a nation's leadership does with its power is as important as acquiring and having that power in the first place.
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Aug 31, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
... ... ...
At that time I was certain that the globalists would find great use for a Trump presidency, more so in fact than a Clinton presidency. However, I was not sure whether Trump was controlled opposition or simply a useful scapegoat for the economic crisis that globalists are clearly engineering. Now it appears that he is both.
Trump's history was already suspicious. He was bailed out of his considerable debts surrounding his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in the early 1990s by Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross , which saved him from embarrassment and possibly saved his entire fortune . This alone was not necessarily enough to deny Trump the benefit of the doubt in my view.
Many businessmen end up dealing with elitist controlled banks at some point in their careers. But when Trump entered office and proceeded to load his cabinet with ghouls from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Council on Foreign Relations and give Wilber Ross the position of Commerce Secretary, it became obvious that Trump is in fact a puppet for the banks.
Some liberty movement activists ignore this reality and attempt to argue around the facts of Trump's associations. "What about all the media opposition to Trump? Doesn't this indicate he's not controlled?" they say. I say, not really.
If one examines the history of fake coups, there is ALWAYS an element of orchestrated division, sometimes between the globalists and their own puppets. This is called 4th Generation warfare, in which almost all divisions are an illusion and the real target is the public psyche.
This is not to say that leftist opposition to Trump and conservatives is not real. It absolutely is. The left has gone off the ideological deep end into an abyss of rabid frothing insanity, but the overall picture is not as simple as "Left vs. Right." Instead, we need to look at the situation more like a chess board, and above that chess board looms the globalists, attempting to control all the necessary pieces on BOTH sides. Every provocation by leftists is designed to elicit a predictable response from conservatives to the point that we become whatever the globalists want us to become.
... ... ...
As this is taking place, conservatives are growing more sensitive to the notion of a leftist coup, from silencing of conservative voices to an impeachment of Trump based on fraudulent ideas of "Russian collusion."
To be clear, the extreme left has no regard for individual liberties or constitutional law. They use the Constitution when it suits them, then try to tear it down when it doesn't suit them. However, the far-left is also a paper tiger; it is not a true threat to conservative values because its membership marginal, it is weak, immature and irrational. Their only power resides in their influence within the mainstream media, but with the MSM fading in the face of the alternative media, their social influence is limited. It is perhaps enough to organize a "coup," but it would inevitably be a failed coup.
Therefore it is not leftists that present the greatest threat to individual liberty, but the globalist influenced Trump administration. A failed coup on the part of the left could be used as a rationale for incremental and unconstitutional "safeguards." And conservatives may be fooled into supporting these measures as the threat is overblown.
I have always said that the only people that can destroy conservative principles are conservatives. Conservatives diminish their own principles every time they abandon their conscience and become exactly like the monsters they hope to defeat. And make no mistake, the globalists are well aware of this strategy.
Carroll Quigley, a pro-globalist professor and the author of Tragedy and Hope, a book published decades ago which outlined the plan for a one world economic and political system, is quoted in his address ' Dissent: Do We Need It ':
"They say, "The Congress is corrupt." I ask them, "What do you know about the Congress? Do you know your own Congressman's name?" Usually they don't. It's almost a reflex with them, like seeing a fascist pig in a policeman. To them, all Congressmen are crooks. I tell them they must spend a lot of time learning the American political system and how it functions, and then work within the system. But most of them just won't buy that. They insist the system is totally corrupt. I insist that the system, the establishment, whatever you call it, is so balanced by diverse forces that very slight pressures can produce perceptible results.
For example, I've talked about the lower middle class as the backbone of fascism in the future. I think this may happen. The party members of the Nazi Party in Germany were consistently lower middle class. I think that the right-wing movements in this country are pretty generally in this group."
Is a "failed coup" being staged in order to influence conservatives to become the very "fascists" the left accuses us of being? The continuing narrative certainly suggests that this is the game plan.
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Aug 31, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Who said this?
Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills. ... The whole of nature is a mighty struggle between strength and weakness, an eternal victory of the strong over the weak.Who is paraphrased here?
The first state to adopt evolutionary ethics would prevail over all others in the struggle for existence. ... Extermination and war then became moral goods to eliminate the weak.And who said this?
The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.(scroll down)
Answers:
1. Adolph Hitler on April 13 1923 in Munich
2. Wilhelm Schallmayer, co-founder of the German eugenics movement in the early 20th century, paraphrased here .
3. Benjamin Netanyahoo on August 29 2018 at the Negev Nuclear Weapon Center (Also here .)
Also:It is not just by chance that Netanyahoo sounds like Hitler. Both, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, and Adolph Hitler developed their political awareness around the turn of the century in imperial Vienna. Social Darwinism was the rage of that time. Fascists and Zionists drank from the same poisoned well.
Besides - did you know that Hitler did not want to exterminate the Jews? An Arab made him do that. A Muslim. That is according to one Benjamin Netanyahoo, currently prime minister of the Zionist entity in Palestine:
In a speech before the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu described a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November, 1941: "Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jew. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here (to Palestine).' According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: "What should I do with them?" and the mufti replied: "Burn them."The account is, of course, historically nonsense.
Related:The administration of the Hindu supremacist Narendra Modi in India launched an arrest campaign to silence its critics. Its demonetization program, a first step to introduce a degressive bank transaction tax , did not achieve the desired results but created an economic mess . Modi's re-election is in danger. The accusations against the arrested people imply, correctly in my view, that the government of India is fascist:
Elgaar Parishad probe: Those held part of anti-fascist plot to overthrow govt, Pune police tells courtPosted by b on August 31, 2018 at 09:32 AM | Permalink
Comments
grafter , Aug 31, 2018 9:36:07 AM | 1
"The strong are respected"... .What a disgusting and dangerous little man Netenyahoo is.Martin Finnucane , Aug 31, 2018 9:49:53 AM | 2I figured one of those quotes had to have been from Winston Churchill. Though on second thought, his forte was more in the denigration of brown-skinned people.donkeytale , Aug 31, 2018 9:57:38 AM | 3When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, "Americanism."Jackrabbit , Aug 31, 2018 9:58:14 AM | 4Professor Halford E. Luccock of the Divinity School of Yale University in a sermon at the Riverside Church, Riverside Drive and 122d Street, NYC. September 1938.
1,000-year Reich 2.0Northern Observer , Aug 31, 2018 10:10:13 AM | 5Dumbfucks
So what.les7 , Aug 31, 2018 10:16:53 AM | 6
1 and 3 are not even arguments, they are plain old description of reality as it is.
As for point 2, that's that old German arrogance, how the hell do you know what the genome "wants". Taken form what we know today, a eugenic state would initiate a program of forced miscegenation.God is dead.... and we killed him.BM , Aug 31, 2018 10:24:19 AM | 7Such is the arrogance of evolutionary ethics. And so too, we pay the price of a system built on such folly. Certainly no better than those who claim divine sanction to slaughter and destroy.
"The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong."blues , Aug 31, 2018 10:39:24 AM | 8It is ironic that Netanyahoo should say that. Netanyahoo himself is extremely weak and unstable due to his corruption and the criminal probes against him. He flexes his muscles and violently bullies the Palestinians and illegally bombs Syria to assert a strength that is nonexistent. Israel is weak against its neighbours especially Hezbollah and Syria, its IDF is weak and ineffective against Hezbollah and the Syrian army, and in its insane paranoia it is so fanning the flames of conflict that it risks inciting (or may even itself initiate) a war that realistically could result in its own annihilation.
OT?VK , Aug 31, 2018 10:40:32 AM | 9Here is what is obviously-to-me THE REAL NEWS! See:
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RT America News -- 30 Aug, 2018 -- Russia warns US not to 'play with fire' in Syria – Lavrov
https://www.rt.com/news/437256-lavrov-warning-syria-west/Russia's foreign minister is the latest official to warn the US against using a possible chemical weapons provocation to justify a new strike against Syrian forces. He said Moscow warned the West not to play with fire in Syria.
Sergey Lavrov reiterated the warning that a staged chemical weapons attack in Syria's Idlib province may trigger a US-led attack on the forces loyal to Damascus.
READ MORE: US & allies can have missiles ready to strike Syria within 24 hours – Russian Foreign Ministry
"A new provocation is being prepared by the West to hamper the anti-terrorist operation in Idlib," Lavrov said during a joint media conference with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem. "We have facts on the table and have issued a strong warning to our Western partners through our Defense Ministry and our Foreign Ministry not to play with fire."
Read more
Advancing Syrian troops hoist the national flag. © Mikhail Alaeddin Idlib to become Syria's final battle with terrorists if the West stays out of itEarlier, the Russian military reported that a group of militants in Syria was preparing a provocation, in which chlorine gas would be used to frame the Syrian government forces. The incident would be used by the US and its allies to justify a new attack against the country, similar to what happened in April, according to the claim.
Amid international tensions, Russia has launched a massive naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, which involves 25 ships and 30 aircraft, including Tu-160 strategic bombers.
The US earlier stated that it would retaliate to a possible a chemical attack by the Syrian government, using more firepower than it did in April. The previous tripartite strike by the US, the UK and France targeted what they called sites involved in chemical weapons research. It came in response to an alleged use of an improvised chlorine bomb against a militant-held area. Russia insists that the incident had been staged with the goal of triggering the Western response.
\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Also:
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RT America News -- 30 Aug, 2018 -- US & allies can have missiles ready to strike Syria within 24 hours – Russian Foreign Ministry
https://www.rt.com/news/437212-us-allies-strike-syria/It will take the US and its allies just 24 hours to ready its missile-strike group for an attack against Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The statement comes amid warnings of a possible false-flag chemical attack.
The coalition strike group has around 70 delivery vehicles deployed to the Middle East, the ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters at her news briefing on Thursday. The arsenal includes nearly 380 cruise missiles, and US Navy missile destroyers 'Karni' and 'Ross' deployed to the region, each carrying 28 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Read more
Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in Syria. © Ammar Abdullah Planned chemical weapon provocation in Idlib aimed to prevent removal of terrorists – LavrovEarlier, the Pentagon denied Moscow's claim that Washington was building up military forces in the region. One of the US warships, USS 'The Sullivans,' left the Persian Gulf after media reports about an increased American military presence in the area, according to Zakharova.
While rejecting news of its growing presence in the region, the "US military forgot to mention that they can build up missile capabilities to strike Syria in just 24 hours. The strike group of the United States, France and the UK currently consists of planes, strategic and tactical aircraft at bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Crete," Zakharova said.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that a false flag chemical weapons attack is being planned in Syria's Idlib province to frame Damascus and use as a pretext for a new strike. Eight canisters of chlorine were delivered to a village near Jisr al-Shughur city, and a group of militants, trained in the handling of chemical weapons by the British private military contractor Olive Group, arrived in the area, according to Defense Ministry.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the planned provocation is aimed only at preventing the expulsion of terrorists from the de-escalation zone in Idlib. He also accused the US of trying to get rid of another "dissident regime" in Syria, as was the case in Iraq and Libya.
\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The second of these RT links is being totally censored by Google and DuckDuckGo. I think something big is up. Perhaps WW-III.
Hitler's inspiration for the specifics of Nazism was Sparta (while the political system in itself was inspired from Fascism). It's amazing (and one of the most glaring examples of liberal self-censorship) that people don't know about this fact.fastfreddy , Aug 31, 2018 10:51:50 AM | 10For people who don't know, (the famous version of) Sparta was a post-communist polis of Classical Greece, born from the reforms of mythological Lycourgos in the 9th Century BCE. Apart from the apparent military discipline, Classical Sparta was famous for two things:
1) it didn't killed the male population of the conquered poleis in the Peloponnese and captured and assimilated the adult female population; instead, it enslaved them, and institutionalized their status (the helots). It was impossible, in theses, for a helot to become a Spartiate, so the helots population became much larger than the Spartiate population over time. The most amazing fact here is that, albeit some helot revolts probably happened, they were never victorious. Hitler rationalized it as Spartiate genetic superiority.
2) the Spartiates allegedly practiced eugenics among themselves. This was immortalized in our times by the popular movie "300", where they threw defective newborns over a cliff. This cliff really exists and there are many skeletons found there by archaeologists, but none of them are from babies or even children -- only adult males were found (probably criminals; there was no prisonal system in the ancient world because it would be very expensive: penalties were usually execution for the common guy -- and throwing from a cliff was a very traditional way of execution, practiced by the Romans since the kingdom times -- and exile for the powerful). Again, Hitler rationalized this (probably myth) as the cause for (1).
But the rationalization behind those three quotes is wrong: yes, it is true that "might" is an essential ingredient for "right", but might doesn't come from intrinsic characteristics of a given people (be it genetic or religious).
For the first case, Darwin's Natural Selection theory is clear: it only happens because reproduction is random. Factors such as geographical isolation are hindering factors of natural selections. In other words, artificial selection (eugenics) is a bad way of doing natural selection: it is always the environment that should decide who reproduces and who doesn't, human breeding should always be random (i.e. by chance) if we want to keep our genetic diversity at the healthies state possible.
For the second case, just empirical investigation is enough: a religion only consolidates itself as dominant ex post facto, i.e. after the domination is done. Religion is only to reinforce consensus of the power. But religion by itself doesn't generate power: Islam, for example, was born as a necessity of the merchants of Mecca to initiate a bellicose expansion through the Arabian peninsula (and beyond). But it was economic necessity which gave birth to the religion, not the religion that gave birth to the economic necessity.
-//-
As for Modi. It was a known fact his monetary policy would fail. The Chinese had already warned, days after it was approved:
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1030501.shtml
His demonetisation policy only didn't result in the immediate collapse of his government because most Indian people don't have access to such big notes to begin with. He gained significant popular support from the poorest rural areas with this:
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/modi-rules-harvard-doesnt/
Fool's gold.
Could have been Churchill, Kissinger, Poppy Bush, Henry Ford, Lloyd Blankfein, Patton, Sherman, John McCain, Ollie North, any member of the Cheney family, either of the Kagan brothers plus Nudelman, Andrew Jackson, Karl Rove, Pliny the elder, or hundreds of other like-minded heroes whom made sincere, heartfelt remarks such as these.Zanon , Aug 31, 2018 10:57:52 AM | 11Now JEB or Dubya or Nikki Haley, or Betsy DeVoss, for example, don't have the brain cells to put together sentences like these, but they uphold this worldview for a trust fund or a paycheck.
"In their blind hatred for Trump, liberals have sunk to an all-time low by unabashedly cheering a war criminal."Shakesvshav , Aug 31, 2018 11:03:22 AM | 12
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/437350-brennan-maher-liberals-trump/Full title of Darwin's magnum opus: 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'. Presumably, though, favoured by nature, not by human intervention. Therein lies the problem: Man has a mind, a will and an awareness of the past, and for thinkers like Samuel Butler and Marx, Darwin (who was influenced by Malthus) had advanced scientific thought a lot, but had not given a full picture.dh , Aug 31, 2018 11:09:15 AM | 13
Surely some will always be stronger than others. The real question is whether the strong have an obligation to help the weak.Trisha Driscoll , Aug 31, 2018 11:16:39 AM | 14@8 I did a duck-duck-go and google search on "missiles ready to strike Syria within 24 hours" and both popped up the RT article at the head of the search.falcemartello , Aug 31, 2018 11:38:59 AM | 15"Meglio viviere un giorno da leone che cento da pecore." " Better to live a day as lion then 100 days as a sheep. "falcemartello , Aug 31, 2018 11:41:58 AM | 16
Benito Mussolini circa 1924. Fascist and Zionist LA MEME CHOSE"I Troskisti sono le puttane dei fascisti." "Trotskyist are the whores of the fascists."Rob , Aug 31, 2018 11:43:17 AM | 17
Antonio Gramsci circa 1929Agree totally with b's take on Netanyahu. What an a-hole.Kalen , Aug 31, 2018 12:19:57 PM | 21I am eagerly awaiting b's commentary on the neo-Nazi mobs in Germany. No doubt the rise of fascism in Europe is related to U.S. driven wars in the Middle East which have produced hundreds of thousands of refugees, but what can be done about it? I should think that step number one is to cease hostilities in Syria, thus allowing civil society to normalize. This would stem the outward flow of refugees and encourage the inward flow of many who would want to return to their homeland.
Communists and Jews were in concentration camps in Germany since 1933 in Dachau eight years before the meeting, starved, exploited to collapse and death in quarries. In fact most of first Jews were communists, candidates from KPD arrested before elections of April 1933 conducted under emergency law with Hitler's designated as Kantzler.Ex-Reedie , Aug 31, 2018 12:33:27 PM | 22Hephie , Aug 31, 2018 12:36:21 PM | 23
"We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."A summary of Athenian statements to the Melians, Book V, 5.89-[1]
Melian Dialogue
History of the Peloponnesian War
ThucydidesThe final clause is often quoted by many people, among them Noam Chomsky.
The Melian Dialogue is a brilliant fictionalized recreation of the pre-siege negotiations between Athens and Melos. It is important to note that, from a military point of view, the brutal genocidal siege, while initially successful, was short-lived, successfully over-turned by the Spartans, and ultimately regretted by many Athenians (Cf. example of hubris).
Perhaps more revealing is the spirit in which Thucycides is quoted: Triumphantly, realistically, or lamentably.
The Twitter link on the Netanyahu quote is a gold mine! Simply scroll down!hopehely , Aug 31, 2018 12:37:49 PM | 24'Russian interference???' 'We're working to prevent Iran from establishing military presence in Syria. We won't relent in pursuit of this goal as we did not relent in bringing about the cancellation of the bad nuclear deal w/ Iran, a goal seen impossible when I put it on the intl agenda several years ago
10:05 - 29. 8. 2018'Posted by: Northern Observer | Aug 31, 2018 10:10:13 AM | 5Ex-Reedie , Aug 31, 2018 12:41:42 PM | 261 and 3 are not even arguments, they are plain old description of reality as it is.
Not quite.
In (1) the second sentence could pass as an observation, but the first one cannot. It contains the verb "has to" so it is not a passive statement but the assertive one. It implies a necessity and desire.
In (3), yes, from that quote alone it is not clear is Bibi identifies himself with the weak, or with the strong. So, you might be right, it could be that he just cynically describes the world as is, without endorsing it. However, it clear IMO on which side he prefers to be.
But, I do not see that kind of attitude much different than for example of my realtor who told that I should install alarm in my apartment so that a prospective burglar chooses someone else's place to rob, instead of mine.
Or a car dealer who sells huge 4x4 SUV monsters to moms telling them that it is safer for her children, because in case of collision, passengers in larger vehicle are less injured than in the smaller one. And moms do buy them. And put a sticker on the back 'Baby in car' what I find quite ironic.2.Miranda , Aug 31, 2018 12:49:29 PM | 27History has proved Netanyahu wrong: The strong are not respected but, eventually, overcome.
His is a statement of weakness."Minorities shall bow or leave", according to a presidential candidate here in Brazil.bevin , Aug 31, 2018 12:50:18 PM | 28"Surely some will always be stronger than others. The real question is whether the strong have an obligation to help the weak." dhkarlof1 , Aug 31, 2018 1:29:21 PM | 31
There is no question about it: unless the strong assist the weak the community will dissolve. Society depends upon mutual aid and without society the strongest individual perishes and disappears.
Nothing is more mistaken than to regard the ravings of fascists and the fantasies of eugenicists as 'common sense' axioms. In reality man is a social creature almost uniquely unable to survive alone.
Hitler and Netanyahu were/are whistling in the dark, attempting to banish their consciousness of the inevitable fate of the unjust whose actions are a stench in the nostrils of humanity-Karma.
Will Israel survive until 2030?In his report , Garrie says: "The Russian Foreign Minister has condemned the terrorist act and has accused the Kiev regime of committing an act of state terrorism." I've yet to see Lavrov's statement, but I trust Garrie.English Outsider , Aug 31, 2018 1:30:22 PM | 32As for American Fascism, the entire mindset of American Exceptionalism combined with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny provide it with a substantial foundation. Combined with the implied imperialism within JQ Adams speech that outlined what became known as The Monroe Doctrine, White, Anglo-Saxon superiority was further institutionalized. Social-Darwinism is quite complex to discuss despite it being a relatively simple concept on the surface. Wikipedia's page is rather good on this topic and shows Herbert Spencer published his ideas before Darwin published his revolutionary book. Vice-President Henry Wallace is the most prominent American citizen I know of to write boldly about American Fascism In his famous NY Times op/ed The Dangers of American Fascism that concludes thusly:
"Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes."
Yes, he saw it but IMO was too soft toward it. I'd be remiss not to mention Bertram Gross's bold 1980 book Friendly Fascism and Sheldon Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism .
Northern Observer - "1 and 3 are not even arguments, they are plain old description of reality as it is"partizan , Aug 31, 2018 2:47:45 PM | 35Not so. The Primitive Darwinists took no account of feedback, or inter-related systems. The super-tiger eats all the prey and then dies out. There has to be a balance.
But that's a mechanistic refutation of the Primitive Darwinist argument, not that much better than the argument itself. To be human surely means something different in any case, unless we are to succumb to mechanistic determinism.
I did not know that is from the Melian Dialogue.karlof1 , Aug 31, 2018 2:56:40 PM | 37I thought it comes from Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, who is after all blamed as a father/idelogue of Nazim.
"What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and the power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is increasing -- that resistance has been overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence. The first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the failures shall perish. And they ought to be helped to perish."
As far as the strong protecting the weak, the human animal is a prime example of this as the mother and infant must be protected for several years before either can fend for themselves. Another well known example is the mother bear protecting her cubs--don't mess with either! There's no superiority/inferiority involved as such in either example as both are natural mechanisms. The concept of social castes/classes was very well established millennia ago with numerous ideas put forth to justify their existence, many of which still operate today. Many of those ideas are present within the Monthly Review article I linked to yesterday. Engels may or may not have coined the term Social Murder, but even the Whigs agreed as this passage shows:ben , Aug 31, 2018 3:43:21 PM | 40"In 1844, Frederick Engels wrote that 'English society daily and hourly commits what the working-men's organs, with perfect correctness, characterize as social murder. It has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long [and] it undermines the vital force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time.'24 Anyone who thinks that Engels was not an objective witness should compare his judgement to that of the influential Whig journal the Edinburgh Review :
"Out of every two persons who die in the east of London, one perishes from preventable causes. From twenty to thirty thousand of the labouring population of London are killed every year by causes which, if we chose, we might expel by a current of water. Though we do not take these persons out of their houses and murder them, we do the same thing in effect, -- we neglect them in their poisonous homes, and leave them there to a lingering but a certain death."
It's very easy to see why Marx and Engels characterized what they observed in England and Europe as Class War. But can the English of the mid 1800s be characterized as fascist, or perhaps just the elite?
All three scenarios fit the Ayn Rand model for humanity..Walter , Aug 31, 2018 4:00:48 PM | 41"...since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must..." Thucydides - he said it in Melian Dialogue.Webra , Aug 31, 2018 4:30:52 PM | 42But the quote should be read in context...and is itself a paraphrase of Athenian Policy,
It is also True. Yes indeed, fascists do sometimes say true things...it happens. I do not like fascists, but I do like truth, doesn't everybody?
@16Social Darwinism and Eugenics was certainly not owned by Fascists alone. Its alive and well today and is used to justify neoliberal economics and imperialism. The strong (cognitive or physical) rule the weak. Any attempt at equalizing the disparity is labelled as Socialism and is opposed in part for fears it promotes dysgenics.Gramsci's thinking thrives in many fields, being a safe haven for political and intellectual organizations midway between the pure abandonment of Marxism and unrestricted adherence to neoliberal "democracy".
Gramsci became the prostitute of the neoliberals, as he was before that of the recycled Stalinists when against "Trotskyism", whatever this was.Posted by: Pft , Aug 31, 2018 5:10:37 PM | 43
Social Darwinism and Eugenics was certainly not owned by Fascists alone. Its alive and well today and is used to justify neoliberal economics and imperialism. The strong (cognitive or physical) rule the weak. Any attempt at equalizing the disparity is labelled as Socialism and is opposed in part for fears it promotes dysgenics.So since this blog entry is dedicated on "The delusions of grandeur that the United States of America suffer", I will let you on a little secret....Posted by: Pft | Aug 31, 2018 5:10:37 PM | 43 /div
I am doing this because USA is literally a midget and that is not my personal oppinion.
USA is as defenceless as a baby cockroach trying to find its way out of a stinky poophole using as a nest.God has a very strange sense of humor it seems.
For the love of me I can't figure out why He chose these clowns to pretend they are the global superpower in order for Mankind to be bullied around.
It must be our collective sins!I can understand, Rome, Persia, Greece, China, India, even some portions of European history, but USA is a total joke.
... ... ...
So since this blog entry is dedicated on "The delusions of grandeur that the United States of America suffer", I will let you on a little secret....peter , Aug 31, 2018 5:59:33 PM | 45
I am doing this because USA is literally a midget and that is not my personal oppinion.
USA is as defenceless as a baby cockroach trying to find its way out of a stinky poophole using as a nest.God has a very strange sense of humor it seems.
For the love of me I can't figure out why He chose these clowns to pretend they are the global superpower in order for Mankind to be bullied around.
It must be our collective sins!I can understand, Rome, Persia, Greece, China, India, even some portions of European history, but USA is a total joke.
... ... ... /div
Darwin had it right I think. Or maybe it was the ancient Greeks. I'm trying pretty hard to keep up here,eugenics might be partly responsible for that.juliania , Aug 31, 2018 6:45:58 PM | 46Thank Christ somebody broke in with news of that guy getting blowed up. Somebody said Canada might be the culprit. Well, suck me dry and call me Dusty, I never heard of that motherfucker and neither have any of my friends at the bar. Maybe it's because of that gal who had a granddad that was a Uke who liked Nazi invaders better than the Russians. But she's pretty busy right now trying deal with other stuff. Like the biggest trade deal in the world.
But there's some PHD stuff here for sure.
I had been going to propose that the answer to all three questions was "Thrasymachus" (from Plato's Republic) - but I see in checking my source that all that fine young man did actually say was that justice is the advantage of the stronger, using as an example the rulers of cities who order things to their own advantage. And indeed, the statement is refuted, which causes the frightening man to blush...But best to read the original, as what Thrasymachus represents looms larger in that setting and in the labyrinthian dialogue upon whose threshold he makes his claim.Mark2 , Aug 31, 2018 6:50:10 PM | 47So back to current affairs !Chas , Aug 31, 2018 7:05:37 PM | 48
England is now devided down the middle politically, as is a whole list of country's, to many to mention. left and right increaseingly polerised ! Perhaps the most important being usa. If we look at the right wing street violence in Germany this week, we see what is going to happen all the way round very soon. This weeks violent aggressive protest is much much bigger than people realise ! It was aimed at inocent people in the street, it was apparently protesting about victems of western military aggression being in Germany. But not stateing their victems, but the problem.
Last Sunday these nazi's and there simperfiers numbered 6000 but the truth is a large proportion of the police present were on there side. Looking the other way when violence occurred failing to arrest people doing the nazi salute. The coalition govenment has a large part extreme right wing.
These next weeks determine which way western country's will swing. We can stop the nazi's on the street's or we can except the consequences.There aren't any more fascists. Haven't you heard? They're called white nationalists now. Or at least that's what I read in the NY Times.vk , Aug 31, 2018 7:13:34 PM | 49@ Posted by: peter | Aug 31, 2018 5:59:33 PM | 45Union Horse , Aug 31, 2018 7:26:43 PM | 50Like the biggest trade deal in the world.Given the context of your whole comment, I'm considering this an apology to Trump and an insult to the people who comment in this blog.
World trade (globalization) has halted.
Whatever thing Trump and his minions (American allies, "Western Civilization") are doing right now, they are just reestructuring already existing trade deals at best.
-//-
As for the "Greek" discussion. It's not a surprise Hitler took at least some inspiration from the ancient Greek. From the 19th to early 20th Century, there was some kind of "Greek revival" in Germany's academic circles. Take Nietzsche for example: he dialogues with the Greeks (mainly Plato and Socrates) many times. Even that so-called Nazi historian (forgot his name) focused on the ancient Greek. Hell, even Marx did his doctorate thesis over Epicurus. So, Hitler essentially lived in the end of a "philellene" period of Germany.
To jump right in: OMG this headlineMark2 , Aug 31, 2018 7:33:20 PM | 52https://www.rt.com/business/437348-imf-supports-ramaphosa-land-reform/
I have been a student of the history of hemispheres and I see this as an abrupt redirect. Several heavily destructive wars have been fought over this in just the last 55 years. LAND REFORM is on the economic agenda. At the IMF indeed.
Even at this late stage, the right wing can be stopped peacefully! By sheer weight of numbers alone. tomorrow again they plan a large demonstration. It's now time for the German public to stand up against the reemergence of full blown hitler style fascism taking over there country. And lastly a warning as shocking as it is you can no longer trust your police, they are no longer on your side or on the side of law and order. I don't say this lightly ! I have been following events closely !Netanyahoo and David Irving arguing in the same direction regarding Hitler and the slaughter of Europe's Jews. Wow.Posted by: Thirdeye , Aug 31, 2018 8:22:09 PM | 53
Netanyahoo and David Irving arguing in the same direction regarding Hitler and the slaughter of Europe's Jews. Wow.notlurking , Aug 31, 2018 9:00:01 PM | 56Posted by: Thirdeye | Aug 31, 2018 8:22:09 PM | 53 /div
When will people realize these never ending wars in the ME are fought for the 880 pound gorilla....Israel....Chipnik , Aug 31, 2018 10:10:00 PM | 58Thanks, b, I didn't see the (scroll down) so leapt right to search engines and in: Vision and Violence
Arthur P. Mendel · 1999 · Philosophy
from the Google Books access, found some pretty dundew'd up stuff. Are these really quotations? Wow, eugenics must have been a thrill ride in the 1930s for a gimp.
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Aug 31, 2018 | www.globalresearch.ca
Developing the tradition charted by C. Wright Mills in his 1956 classic The Power Elite , in his latest book, Professor Peter Phillips starts by reviewing the transition from the nation state power elites described by authors such as Mills to a transnational power elite centralized on the control of global capital.
Thus, in his just-released study Giants: The Global Power Elite , Phillips, a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University in the USA, identifies the world's top seventeen asset management firms, such as BlackRock and J.P Morgan Chase, each with more than one trillion dollars of investment capital under management, as the 'Giants' of world capitalism. The seventeen firms collectively manage more than $US41.1 trillion in a self-invested network of interlocking capital that spans the globe.
This $41 trillion represents the wealth invested for profit by thousands of millionaires, billionaires and corporations. The seventeen Giants operate in nearly every country in the world and are 'the central institutions of the financial capital that powers the global economic system'. They invest in anything considered profitable, ranging from 'agricultural lands on which indigenous farmers are replaced by power elite investors' to public assets (such as energy and water utilities) to war.
In addition, Phillips identifies the most important networks of the Global Power Elite and the individuals therein. He names 389 individuals (a small number of whom are women and a token number of whom are from countries other than the United States and the wealthier countries of Western Europe) at the core of the policy planning nongovernmental networks that manage, facilitate and defend the continued concentration of global capital. The Global Power Elite perform two key uniting functions, he argues: they provide ideological justifications for their shared interests (promulgated through their corporate media), and define the parameters of action for transnational governmental organizations and capitalist nation-states.
More precisely, Phillips identifies the 199 directors of the seventeen global financial Giants and offers short biographies and public information on their individual net wealth. These individuals are closely interconnected through numerous networks of association including the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference, university affiliations, various policy councils, social clubs, and cultural enterprises. For a taste of one of these clubs, see this account of The Links in New York. As Phillips observes: 'It is certainly safe to conclude they all know each other personally or know of each other in the shared context of their positions of power.'
The Giants, Phillips documents, invest in each other but also in many hundreds of investment management firms, many of which are near-Giants. This results in tens of trillions of dollars coordinated in a single vast network of global capital controlled by a very small number of people. 'Their constant objective is to find enough safe investment opportunities for a return on capital that allows for continued growth. Inadequate capital-placement opportunities lead to dangerous speculative investments, buying up of public assets, and permanent war spending.'
Because the directors of these seventeen asset management firms represent the central core of international capital, 'Individuals can retire or pass away, and other similar people will move into their place, making the overall structure a self-perpetuating network of global capital control. As such, these 199 people share a common goal of maximum return on investments for themselves and their clients, and they may seek to achieve returns by any means necessary – legal or not . the institutional and structural arrangements within the money management systems of global capital relentlessly seek ways to achieve maximum return on investment, and the conditions for manipulations – legal or not – are always present.'
Like some researchers before him, Phillips identifies the importance of those transnational institutions that serve a unifying function. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, G20, G7, World Trade Organization (WTO), World Economic Forum (WEF), Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group , Bank for International Settlements, Group of 30 (G30), the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Monetary Conference serve as institutional mechanisms for consensus building within the transnational capitalist class, and power elite policy formulation and implementation. 'These international institutions serve the interests of the global financial Giants by supporting policies and regulations that seek to protect the free, unrestricted flow of capital and debt collection worldwide.'
But within this network of transnational institutions, Phillips identifies two very important global elite policy-planning organizations: the Group of Thirty (which has 32 members) and the extended executive committee of the Trilateral Commission (which has 55 members). These nonprofit corporations, which each have a research and support staff, formulate elite policy and issue instructions for their implementation by the transnational governmental institutions like the G7, G20, IMF, WTO, and World Bank. Elite policies are also implemented following instruction of the relevant agent, including governments, in the context. These agents then do as they are instructed. Thus, these 85 members (because two overlap) of the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission comprise a central group of facilitators of global capitalism, ensuring that 'global capital remains safe, secure, and growing'.
So, while many of the major international institutions are controlled by nation-state representatives and central bankers (with proportional power exercised by dominant financial supporters such as the United States and European Union countries), Phillips is more concerned with the transnational policy groups that are nongovernmental because these organizations 'help to unite TCC power elites as a class' and the individuals involved in these organizations facilitate world capitalism. 'They serve as policy elites who seek the continued growth of capital in the world.'
Developing this list of 199 directors of the largest money management firms in the world, Phillips argues, is an important step toward understanding how capitalism works globally today. These global power elite directors make the decisions regarding the investment of trillions of dollars. Supposedly in competition, the concentrated wealth they share requires them to cooperate for their greater good by identifying investment opportunities and shared risk agreements, and working collectively for political arrangements that create advantages for their profit-generating system as a whole.
Their fundamental priority is to secure an average return on investment of 3 to 10 percent, or even more. The nature of any investment is less important than what it yields: continuous returns that support growth in the overall market. Hence, capital investment in tobacco products, weapons of war, toxic chemicals, pollution, and other socially destructive goods and services are judged purely by their profitability. Concern for the social and environmental costs of the investment are non-existent. In other words, inflicting death and destruction are fine because they are profitable.
So what is the global elite's purpose? In a few sentences Phillips characterizes it thus: The elite is largely united in support of the US/NATO military empire that prosecutes a repressive war against resisting groups – typically labeled 'terrorists' – around the world. The real purpose of 'the war on terror' is defense of transnational globalization, the unimpeded flow of financial capital around the world, dollar hegemony and access to oil; it has nothing to do with repressing terrorism which it generates, perpetuates and finances to provide cover for its real agenda. This is why the United States has a long history of CIA and military interventions around the world ostensibly in defense of 'national interests'.
Giants: The Global Power EliteWealth and Power
An interesting point that emerges for me from reading Phillips thoughtful analysis is that there is a clear distinction between those individuals and families who have wealth and those individuals who have (sometimes significantly) less wealth (which, nevertheless, is still considerable) but, through their positions and connections, wield a great deal of power. As Phillips explains this distinction, 'the sociology of elites is more important than particular elite individuals and their families'. Just 199 individuals decide how more than $40 trillion will be invested. And this is his central point. Let me briefly elaborate.
There are some really wealthy families in the world, notably including the families Rothschild (France and the United Kingdom), Rockefeller (USA), Goldman-Sachs (USA), Warburgs (Germany), Lehmann (USA), Lazards (France), Kuhn Loebs (USA), Israel Moses Seifs (Italy), Al-Saud (Saudi Arabia), Walton (USA), Koch (USA), Mars (USA), Cargill-MacMillan (USA) and Cox (USA). However, not all of these families overtly seek power to shape the world as they wish.
Similarly, the world's extremely wealthy individuals such as Jeff Bezos (USA), Bill Gates (USA), Warren Buffett (USA), Bernard Arnault (France), Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico) and Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (France) are not necessarily connected in such a way that they exercise enormous power. In fact, they may have little interest in power as such, despite their obvious interest in wealth.
In essence, some individuals and families are content to simply take advantage of how capitalism and its ancilliary governmental and transnational instruments function while others are more politically engaged in seeking to manipulate major institutions to achieve outcomes that not only maximize their own profit and hence wealth but also shape the world itself.
So if you look at the list of 199 individuals that Phillips identifies at the centre of global capital, it does not include names such as Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Koch, Walton or even Rothschild, Rockefeller or Windsor (the Queen of England) despite their well-known and extraordinary wealth. As an aside, many of these names are also missing from the lists compiled by groups such as Forbes and Bloomberg , but their absence from these lists is for a very different reason given the penchant for many really wealthy individuals and families to avoid certain types of publicity and their power to ensure that they do.
In contrast to the names just listed, in Phillips' analysis names like Laurence (Larry) Fink (Chairman and CEO of BlackRock), James (Jamie) Dimon (Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase) and John McFarlane (Chairman of Barclays Bank), while not as wealthy as those listed immediately above, wield far more power because of their positions and connections within the global elite network of 199 individuals.
Predictably then, Phillips observes, these three individuals have similar lifestyles and ideological orientations. They believe capitalism is beneficial for the world and while inequality and poverty are important issues, they believe that capital growth will eventually solve these problems. They are relatively non-expressive about environmental issues, but recognize that investment opportunities may change in response to climate 'modifications'. As millionaires they own multiple homes. They attended elite universities and rose quickly in international finance to reach their current status as giants of the global power elite. 'The institutions they manage have been shown to engage in illegal collusions with others, but the regulatory fines by governments are essentially seen as just part of doing business.'
In short, as I would characterize this description: They are devoid of a legal or moral framework to guide their actions, whether in relation to business, fellow human beings, war or the environment and climate. They are obviously typical of the elite.
Any apparent concern for people, such as that expressed by Fink and Dimon in response to the racist violence in Charlottesville, USA in August 2017, is simply designed to promote 'stability' or more precisely, a stable (that is, profitable) investment and consumer climate.
The lack of concern for people and issues that might concern many of us is also evident from a consideration of the agenda at elite gatherings. Consider the International Monetary Conference. Founded in 1956, it is a private yearly meeting of the top few hundred bankers in the world. The American Bankers Association (ABA) serves as the secretariat for the conference. But, as Phillips notes: 'Nothing on the agenda seems to address the socioeconomic consequences of investments to determine the impacts on people and the environment.' A casual perusal of the agenda at any elite gathering reveals that this comment applies equally to any elite forum. See, for example, the agenda of the recent WEF meeting in Davos . Any talk of 'concern' is misleading rhetoric.
Hence, in the words of Phillips: The 199 directors of the global Giants are 'a very select set of people. They all know each other personally or know of each other. At least 69 have attended the annual World Economic Forum, where they often serve on panels or give public presentations. They mostly attended the same elite universities, and interact in upperclass social setting[s] in the major cities of the world. They all are wealthy and have significant stock holdings in one or more of the financial Giants. They are all deeply invested in the importance of maintaining capital growth in the world. Some are sensitive to environmental and social justice issues, but they seem to be unable to link these issues to global capital concentration.'
Of course, the global elite cannot manage the world system alone: the elite requires agents to perform many of the functions necessary to control national societies and the individuals within them. 'The interests of the Global Power Elite and the TCC are fully recognized by major institutions in society. Governments, intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police forces, military, and corporate media all work in support of their vital interests.'
In other words, to elaborate Phillips' point and extend it a little, through their economic power, the Giants control all of the instruments through which their policies are implemented. Whether it be governments, national military forces, 'military contractors' or mercenaries (with at least $200 billion spent on private security globally, the industry currently employs some fifteen million people worldwide) used both in 'foreign' wars but also likely deployed in future for domestic control, key 'intelligence' agencies, legal systems and police forces, major nongovernment organizations, or the academic, educational, 'public relations propaganda', corporate media, medical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries, all instruments are fully responsive to elite control and are designed to misinform, deceive, disempower, intimidate, repress, imprison (in a jail or psychiatric ward), exploit and/or kill (depending on the constituency) the rest of us, as is readily evident.
Defending Elite Power
Phillips observes that the power elite continually worries about rebellion by the 'unruly exploited masses' against their structure of concentrated wealth. This is why the US military empire has long played the role of defender of global capitalism. As a result, the United States has more than 800 military bases (with some scholars suggesting 1,000) in 70 countries and territories. In comparison, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia have about 30 foreign bases. In addition, US military forces are now deployed in 70 percent of the world's nations with US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) having troops in 147 countries, an increase of 80 percent since 2010. These forces conduct counterterrorism strikes regularly, including drone assassinations and kill/capture raids.
'The US military empire stands on hundreds of years of colonial exploitation and continues to support repressive, exploitative governments that cooperate with global capital's imperial agenda. Governments that accept external capital investment, whereby a small segment of a country's elite benefits, do so knowing that capital inevitably requires a return on investment that entails using up resources and people for economic gain. The whole system continues wealth concentration for elites and expanded wretched inequality for the masses .
'Understanding permanent war as an economic relief valve for surplus capital is a vital part of comprehending capitalism in the world today. War provides investment opportunity for the Giants and TCC elites and a guaranteed return on capital. War also serves a repressive function of keeping the suffering masses of humanity afraid and compliant.'
As Phillips elaborates: This is why defense of global capital is the prime reason that NATO countries now account for 85 percent of the world's military spending; the United States spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined.
In essence, 'the Global Power Elite uses NATO and the US military empire for its worldwide security. This is part of an expanding strategy of US military domination around the world, whereby the US/ NATO military empire, advised by the power elite's Atlantic Council , operates in service to the Transnational Corporate Class for the protection of international capital everywhere in the world'.
This entails 'further pauperization of the bottom half of the world's population and an unrelenting downward spiral of wages for 80 percent of the world. The world is facing economic crisis, and the neoliberal solution is to spend less on human needs and more on security. It is a world of financial institutions run amok, where the answer to economic collapse is to print more money through quantitative easing, flooding the population with trillions of new inflation-producing dollars. It is a world of permanent war, whereby spending for destruction requires further spending to rebuild, a cycle that profits the Giants and global networks of economic power. It is a world of drone killings, extrajudicial assassinations, death, and destruction, at home and abroad.'
Where is this all heading?
So what are the implications of this state of affairs? Phillips responds unequivocally: 'This concentration of protected wealth leads to a crisis of humanity, whereby poverty, war, starvation, mass alienation, media propaganda, and environmental devastation are reaching a species-level threat. We realize that humankind is in danger of possible extinction'.
He goes on to state that the Global Power Elite is probably the only entity 'capable of correcting this condition without major civil unrest, war, and chaos' and elaborates an important aim of his book: to raise awareness of the importance of systemic change and the redistribution of wealth among both the book's general readers but also the elite, 'in the hope that they can begin the process of saving humanity.' The book's postscript is a 'A Letter to the Global Power Elite', co-signed by Phillips and 90 others, beseeching the elite to act accordingly.
'It is no longer acceptable for you to believe that you can manage capitalism to grow its way out of the gross inequalities we all now face. The environment cannot accept more pollution and waste, and civil unrest is everywhere inevitable at some point. Humanity needs you to step up and insure that trickle-down becomes a river of resources that reaches every child, every family, and all human beings. We urge you to use your power and make the needed changes for humanity's survival.'
But he also emphasizes that nonviolent social movements, using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a moral code, can accelerate the process of redistributing wealth by pressuring the elite into action.
Conclusion
Peter Phillips has written an important book. For those of us interested in understanding elite control of the world, this book is a vital addition to the bookshelf. And like any good book, as you will see from my comments both above and below, it raised more questions for me even while it answered many.
As I read Phillips' insightful and candid account of elite behavior in this regard, I am reminded, yet again, that the global power elite is extraordinarily violent and utterly insane: content to kill people in vast numbers (whether through starvation or military violence) and destroy the biosphere for profit, with zero sense of humanity's now limited future. See 'The Global Elite is Insane Revisited' and 'Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival' with more detailed explanations for the violence and insanity here: 'Why Violence?' and 'Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice' .
For this reason I do not share his faith in moral appeals to the elite, as articulated in the letter in his postscript. It is fine to make the appeal but history offers no evidence to suggest that there will be any significant response. The death and destruction inflicted by elites is highly profitable, centuries-old and ongoing. It will take powerful, strategically-focused nonviolent campaigns (or societal collapse) to compel the necessary changes in elite behavior. Hence, I fully endorse his call for nonviolent social movements to compel elite action where we cannot make the necessary changes without their involvement. See 'A Nonviolent Strategy to End Violence and Avert Human Extinction' and Nonviolent Campaign Strategy .
I would also encourage independent action, in one or more of several ways, by those individuals and communities powerful enough to do so. This includes nurturing more powerful individuals by making 'My Promise to Children' , participating in 'The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth' and signing the online pledge of 'The People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' .
Fundamentally, Giants: The Global Power Elite is a call to action. Professor Peter Phillips is highly aware of our predicament – politically, socially, economically, environmentally and climatically – and the critical role played by the global power elite in generating that predicament.
If we cannot persuade the global power elite to respond sensibly to that predicament, or nonviolently compel it to do so, humanity's time on Earth is indeed limited.
*
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of 'Why Violence?' His email address is [email protected] and his website is here . He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Aug 31, 2018 | www.globalresearch.ca
Western media monopolies, appendages of the billionaire ruling class, select for narratives which glorify criminal foreign policies. Hence, these monopolies are cheerleaders for uninterrupted wars of aggression.
Ruling class policymakers hide their criminality beneath banners of freedom, democracy, and human rights. [1] These lies provide cover for what amounts to a Western- orchestrated and sustained overseas holocaust and the thirdworldization of domestic populations.
The lies are further reinforced when those who advance these toxic policies are celebrated as heroes. This misplaced adulation negates the struggle for Peace and the rule of International Law. The lies and misplaced adulation also serve to legitimize the West's proxies, which include al Qaeda [2] in Syria, and neo-Nazis [3] in Kiev.
What's great thing about the pic accompanying this piece in the Washington Post sanctifying McCain as a human rights advocate is that the guy to his left is an actual Nazi. He's Oleh Tyahnybok, a Ukrainian Nazi. Too good!
10:38 AM - Aug 28, 2018The adulation, then, is part of the apparatus of deception. It brands those who should be facing trials at the Hague as heroes, as it erases the truth, which is a vital component for Peace and International Justice.
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Aug 27, 2018 | www.unz.com
And if authoritarian governments happen to relatively low IQ societies (like Germany in 1933?), we might ponder this:
A truly authoritarian leader would have the sole power to :
– declare war unilaterally and frequently;
– issue 300,000 national security letters, administrative subpoenas with gag orders that enjoin recipients from ever divulging they've been served;
– control information at all times than any monarch in history under the National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.
–torture, kidnap and assassinate anyone anywhere at will.Personal freedom in an authoritarian state would be limited by
– secretly banning 50,000 people from flying and refusing requests for an explanation
– imprisoning 2,000,000 people without trial
– executing 2,000 people each year prior to arrest.In a real an authoritarian state there would be
– warrantless surveillance of private phone and email conversations by the NSA;
– SWAT team raiding homes;
– shootings of unarmed citizens by police;
– harsh punishment of schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance;
– endless wars;
– out-of-control spending;
– militarized police;
–roadside strip searches;
– roving TSA sweeps;
– privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans;
– fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on citizens' private transactions;
– militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition
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Aug 27, 2018 | therealnews.com
While the fight for health care for all, a higher minimum wage, unionization, against systemic racism, mass incarceration and other necessary reforms are just and critical to engaging people in struggle, we also need to tell people the whole truth about just how critical the big picture is.
While the Trump presidency is a cabal of criminals, billionaires and far-right ideologues, it must first of all be seen in the context of the threats to our very existence, not merely reduced to the daily scandals and twitter storms. There is no need to treat working people as infants. The culture is aimed at the infantilization of our political discussion. We can believe that America is already great or that we should Make America Great Again, but it's all the religion of Americanism, and it's meant to make us willing children who will march into battle or just resign ourselves to things the way they are. We are not infants and we must, as best we can, tell people the whole truth.
As catastrophic and savage as capitalism was during the 20th century, continuous wars and genocides, deep economic crisis and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, the system proved to be resilient, the global elites did find a kind of equilibrium. Capitalism did not come to an end and the attempts at socialism failed. While many societies around the world have been destroyed, millions slaughtered in war and many more living in deep poverty, the truth is the majority of the people in the advanced capitalist world are mostly doing ok. In the United States there are as many families earning more than $100,000 a year, as there are earning under $30,000. But as resilient as capitalism has proved to be, I don't think this world order is sustainable. The elites are no longer capable or willing of dealing with grave systemic threats, even when it is in their own long-term interests to do so.
We're in a different kind of moment than we've ever faced before. Of course, nuclear weapons posed an existential threat before, but at least the elites saw that ending human life on earth wasn't in their interests. That is so far that's true. Because as crazy as the prospect of nuclear war is, they have not given up their deteriorating hair triggered nuclear arsenals and they actually contemplate the use of localized nuclear weapons. As you know, first Obama planned for a new wave of nuclear weapons, and now Trump is spending billions expanding America's nuclear capability. While it's unlikely that the elites will deliberately launch a nuclear Armageddon, we are all living in denial if we think that an accidental triggering of such isn't possible. The hair trigger policy means there is around ten minutes to decide if what looks like an attack is one or is a glitch in the software. It's a cold war posture still in place in the United States and Russia, it's Dr. Strange Love's Doomsday machine. We can't have faith in the political leadership of these elites, that is the current leadership of either the Republican or the Democratic Parties or the billionaires who bankroll them, to face up to this danger. One would think it's in the interest of the elites themselves to deal with this. But the military-industrial complex has far too much invested in a narrative that depends on a major existential rival. They need war and almost war. American capital will not give up it's dominant global commercial position they believe depends on their military might. Oil and guns determines US foreign policy, not national security. On this point alone, one can argue this ruling class is not fit to rule. But of course, there is more.
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Why can't the ruling elites deal with the systemic threats of climate change, financial crisis, global war, and AI? Threats to the future of their own system? Because they are in the middle of an orgy of profit making. They can't believe their good fortune. If they had any doubts before the election, Wall St. now loves Trump. Even though most of finance knows that unregulated, it's only a matter of time before the crisis of 07/08 repeats itself. But what the hell, no one will go to jail and the public will bail them out again.
Wall St. is euphoric as they swim in an ocean of super wealth. While the financial sector represents about 7 percent of our economy it takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit, with only 4 percent of all jobs. With such concentrated wealth goes a competitive culture that prizes daily returns on capital, above the future of humans on earth. These are the people that control American politics as they throw unlimited funds at political campaigns.
The threat of climate crisis? The elites believe, if they actually think beyond their private jets and yachts, that they will be ok. Their kids will be ok, even their grandkids. And then? Apres Moi le Deluge. After me comes the floods said Louis the XV. In Maryland we just saw much of a city washed away, and it's surely the shape of things to come.
... ... ...
As much as the digital revolution helped create a vile stratum of the ultra-rich, it's also created the conditions for a more democratic economy and politics. The Sanders campaign has shown that the political structures that were built to look democratic because the power of billionaires would always win out, can be challenged with mass fundraising. Online organizing and social media has transformed political campaigning and made it less reliant on funds for TV ads. The internet allowed independent media to challenge the power of concentrated media ownership, it made The Real News possible. We are just seeing the early phase of what's possible.
gchakko • 2 months ago ,
p.munkey gchakko • 2 months ago ,Hi Paul!
You've hit the nail on the head. People's power cannot be underestimated and that will one day demolish the Rothschild-Rockefeller Banker s' imperium (Wall St. Plus) spread across the world, people who made their money through cheat and deception for half a millennium and continue still under delusions, they and their upper middle-class cronies and crawlers through AI manipulations can hold on to people's plunder. They haven't learnt from French and Russian revolutions. Take comfort in the great Mahatma Gandhi's prophecy learnt from South Africa and applied to India with success. 'A minority cannot reign a majority for long time. Classical sociological histories such empires will collapse. Trump will realise only when flood waters reach his real estates to withdraw from Climate Change accord.George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, 22/ 06/ 2018 03:13 hrs CETneoconbuster p.munkey • 2 months ago ,Hi George, Like yourself, I concur with Paul's message and, while your optimism is shared in no small part by myself, the history of human civilisation to this very day is built on the exploitation of the weak by the powerful. Like yourself I expect, this cancerous evolution cannot be permitted to continue; but we shouldn't expect that the powerful will refrain from using every technological advantage in their arsenal to protect their position, even unto the death of us all.
For myself, I draw comfort from knowing that the most rapid advancements in our poisoned society have arrived through the widespread proliferation of knowledge and the leisure to engage intellectual and creative pursuits among the broader population. Even as the powerful conspire to curtail the free exchange of ideas and thought through constraints imposed by mass surveillance and privately-regulated access to the Internet; emancipation, egalitarianism and enlightenment of the species will likely only be achieved following economic collapse and survival beyond the barbarism that will certainly follow. That said, the present state of barbarism is likely more egregious than what might succeed the collapse.
Regards,
Munkp.munkey neoconbuster • 2 months ago ,Hi Ya PM!
Watch this Interview with Ralph Nader by Chris Edges on the Corporate Control of the Empire!:gchakko p.munkey • 2 months ago ,Hiya NCB. Seen it... a great interview. The courageous and noble Mr. Nader (a man most deserving of the Presidency, unlike the political careerists foisted before the public during every election cycle) presents a measure of optimism concerning the human effort necessary to turn the system around. I am, for the most part, in agreement. Everyone knows this life is shit, but haven't the first idea as to what to do about it. As a herd animal, we've very susceptible to fear and the threat of physical violence - we're also easily manipulated and distracted by duplicitous entertainments and propagandized news. As they say, it only takes a spark to start a fire, and this society is a tinder box.
p.munkey gchakko • 2 months ago ,I couldn't agree with you more Munk.
In the so-called "civilised urban habitats" on Globe to which Trump belongs we've only most recently witnessed umpteen hundreds of separated children's deep psychic anguish till the revolt broke out through enlightened protests from within Trump's own family. It's absolute shame that a president claiming himself a "Christian" and ignominiously "championing " Christianity's cause unsolicited in Jerusalem, had to be brow-beaten by his own wife and brought to senses to behave himself towards human children within his fences. How correct Paul Jay was that Trump "billionaire" had indeed flunked miserably on the human-side facet.
Internet piercing is a double-edged sword. It is not a game that can be monopolised by a few, although in the name of American security they could potentially foul play instituting many organised evil But China, Russia and India have smart programmers/cyber specialists too to slice the BC's (Billionaire Club's) far-reaching tentacles to render them ineffective in the long-run. Billions of customers world-wide can one day leave Google/ Yahoo search machines and hang on to cheap but effective Made in China variants, The deep-state epitomised by NSA-Pentagon conglomerate servicing whole-heartedly the RR-Banker imperium cannot theoretically or practically conquer the world, even if the U.S. outnumber with its many-satellites legion. The Big C (Big Capital comprised of the RR-Bankers, the Fed, the Military Industrial-Complex, the Big Oil, the Big Pharma etc.) lurk under a criminal delusion of unilateral world dominance that is ruining billions today. Remember the old French wisdom of Revolution – "The Great are great, because we are on our knees. Now let us rise". That will happen someday for sure, if the 21st century peasants unite through internet or other means and ways.
George Chakko, Vienna 22/06/2018 11:09 am CETNiemand p.munkey • 2 months ago ,HI George, thanks for the exchange.
To complement Proudhon's revolutionary remark, I'll add, "the secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." -- M. Robespierre
I'm disheartened however, by the results of the 2018 Swiss Sovereign Money Referendum. With only 21% of the population casting a vote for the plainly-worded referendum initiative stating:
" Do you accept the popular initiative "for crisis-safe money: money creation by the National Bank only!" "
75% of those responding to the referendum call, answered "No" to the initiative.
Can't say I'm surprised... Switzerland's economy is dominated by the financial sector.
The result of the Swiss Referendum does however suggest that my faith in education, as a mechanism for social transformation, may be misplaced - the Swiss population are among the best educated, yet their turnout would suggest that "crisis" is a desirable state of social and economic affairs. Perhaps they, as we, for all their advantage, remain utterly "ignorant" of the masochistic proclivities of our capitalist economy. Perhaps, on the other hand, my indictment should be reserved to those responsible for the curriculum of ignorance - the State and the media.
Regards,
Munkp.munkey Niemand • 2 months ago ,It's pretty well understood that people are --rightfully!--suspicious of changes into which they had no or insufficient input. Throughout human history changes have been imposed from above, and the ones who benefit have always been the imposers, not the imposed-upon.
So the Swiss result should have been expected unless the people had much more input than we ever get with our "public comment period" sop.
Niemand p.munkey • 2 months ago ,Hi Niemand,
The Swiss Referendum was encouraged by a grass-roots motion that required some 100,000 signatures to be put before the broader public as a topic for referendum. This was a genuine 'bottom-up' motion.
As indicated by George elsewhere in this thread, Switzerland enjoys preeminence as the home of the private International Bank for Settlements (IBS), a tool that, like the World Bank largely run out of the U.S. is used to wage economic warfare upon all nations and indenture the global population with debt. Banking is Switzerland's principle industry; if you regard the parasitic exploitation of nations and economies an genuine "industry" (human farming under the yoke of debt servitude).
The wording of the referendum measure was plain, but it did not adequately qualify the present system of money creation as one being in the hands of private interest, rather than public interest.It's still hard to imagine that the nation's money supply is governed by "private interest". This abrogation of justice is no different than feudal societies.
Regards,Munk.
gchakko p.munkey • 2 months ago ,That's 100K people who had some level of connection to the petition, but what about the rest of the people, Munk?
How many people in toto were actually in on the discussions from the start, got to argue the issues, had input into the wording, etc.? Probably not even 100 people. Maybe not even ten .
What mechanisms, if any, were set up to let everyone in the country argue it out after the issue went on the ballot but before the election? My bet would be: none, and that the rest of Switzerland had to decide something they didn't really understand and for which they felt no sense of ownership, just another "black box" filled with godknowswhat, created entirely by strangers with unknown agendas.
Godfrey Lim gchakko • 2 months ago ,Thanks dear Friend!
The Swiss educational standards maybe one of the best in the world. But Switzerland is the tightest Black Capital of the world finely accepting all the black money of the world that is clandestine, but braving an immaculately innocent angelic face upfront. I heard long ago that every bank deposit in Swiss Banks gets a nominal bank interest, be it 2, 3, or 5 pc whatever the current fix for agreement might be, over 30-40 pc of this interest rate is immediately transferred per annum to Swiss Exchequer by law. In other words, every Swiss citizen could enjoy from financial view enjoy a nice holiday in Bahamas or elsewhere in the world. Black Money, reportedly a half of monetary deposits in entire Swiss Banks is the financial life back-up mainstay of Swiss economy. Several U.S. multi-billionaires, not yet monitored, are guessed to be confided clients of Swiss Banks. Swiss Banks are also guess destination of stable black money deposits of East European oligarchs including Russians. Even the British Crown are reportedly having deposits there. What you also need to know is that only few years back the Swiss held a referendum on Gold. (My story on that in OneIndia.com/GoodReturns.in (Will Gold reign as most sought currency stabiliser? Written by: George Chakko, Vienna, Updated: Tuesday, December 2, 2014, 9:37 [IST]") offers a periscope on how the Deep State over-arches internationally)
Best greetings
George Chakko, Vienna, Austria.
22/06/2018 18:40 hrs CET
gchakko Godfrey Lim • 2 months ago ,"Trump will realise only when flood waters reach his real estates to withdraw from Climate Change accord."
That is scary. It looks like Jonathan Kleck's prediction will happen sooner.... And that "thousand points of light" will disperse from NY to all parts of the globe, like the "Tower of Babel" because you proles and peons are not allowed to reach the heights of heaven and be Gods--creating your own interest-free money.=)
New $100 Bill Decrypted - Nuclear Devastation + Tsunami
goedelite gchakko • 2 months ago ,Hi!
Thanks for ringing alarm. More precise, flood waters should reach his bedroom midnight, to know earliest by morning where he stands, on or offshore, swim or drown !
G.Chakko, Vienna, Austria. 06/07/2018 02:09 am CETgchakko goedelite • 2 months ago ,Peoples' power can very well be overestimated. True, Condorcet wrote that if people knew their power, the ruling-class would shudder with fear. Well the rulers do know, and they take measures to control the power of their people. Even long before mass media, demagogues knew how. The "great" Gandhi held Hindu power over the Dalits, demonstrating that the Hindu majority can suppress a minority brutally, as Arundhati Roy makes clear. The Israelis suppress the Palestinians, a minority over a majority? Tell us, what are the lessons of the French and Russian revolutions? Didn't the French Revolution teach that revolutions can take 82 (1789-1871) years and a foreign war (Franco-Prussian) to be rid of a monarchy? What did the failure of the Russian Revolution of February, 1917, through the Leninist gangster-coup of November, 1917, and 74 years of the USSR teach? That it took most of a century to install a drunken US puppet (Yeltsin) in the Kremlin? What did the American Revolution and our Constitution of 1787 and Bill of Rights of 1789 teach? Was it that the great experiment has been a failure; that the Constitution means what five scoundrels in the Supreme Court decide with no recourse; that the Bill of Rights buys as much freedom as a 3 dollar bill will buy coffee? When the empires collapse, as you wrote, what will replace them: a dark age; other empires; starvation, disease, and permanent loss of human habitat? What do your "classical sociological histories" tell you?
elkojohn • 2 months ago ,Hi!
As a general blanket answer to issues raised, is evolution, gradual transformation of society to an evolved order from a less evolved; evolution is the only alternative key that will work. All radical solutions will bring frictions, disruptions and deaths countless. Devolution is what is happening now, what you referred to. People's power is a "rubber" concept; it expands and contracts its potentialities and applicabilities, functional on the societies, times and ages. But it is there immanent, be it under-estimated or overestimated, depending on the localised situation in historical context. Gandhi's charm with the Dalits was due to his own low-caste status, independent of his more rigorous agenda of Indian Independence struggle to gain freedom from British that included all classes. You use the word "power" (Hindu) falsely in that context of Gandhi & Dalits giving you the wrong motive reading for those days. But in today's context you are right.The basic question of revolutions is why do they come to pass? To find a convincing answer you got to go back to Hegel who applied the seminal Dialectic of Immanuel Kant – Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis (Critique of Pure Reason) to historical events. To put Hegel in a paraphrased layman's language, when power consolidates unilaterally through the application of force or otherwise, it is bound to create in course of time an antithesis (people's rising or opposition in a society) to end up in a clash or get transformed to a synthesis, speak compromise – say Czarist Russia vs Communist power rise leading to a clash resulting in destruction germinating a classless society (Marxism-Leninism). What Marx & Engels did not want to accept was that the Dialectical Process of history for Hegel will continue and again give rise to another Thesis etc., thus the cycle will perpetrate in real-time history ending finally in the Absolute Idea which for Hegel was God, which Marxism in principle denies. Marx's classless society is not "static" and it will change and indeed has changed with the current Russian Federation's rejection of it. Lenin / Stalin could have spared millions of human lives' torture and death if they had listened to the deeper meaning of Hegelian Dialectic. In 1971 at a reception in Bonn, West Germany, when I confronted Prof. Theodore Oisserman on this issue (Prof. Oiserman was then Chief political ideologist of the Politburo of USSR) he responded in a typical communist way giving me a rather wavy answer saying more studies need to be done and the matter "differentiatingly" understood!.
Barring an all-out thermo-nuclear clash on Earth, say a Global Nuclear war, world societies will again spurt out of destroyed ground and rebuilt. Both Japan and Germany came back to life after pounded into ashes. This time in a nuclear shower bio-life could potentially end. But I hope it will not come to that; you can avoid all such apocalypse by inner transformation, elimination of negativities and aggressions through Yoga & Meditation irrespective of your religious affinities, and cut asunder the addiction to exorbitant material bondage exaggerated by superfluous body & health needs via marketing media. At the basis is the cancerous material greed that needs be cut down substantially, especially of the affluent consumers. That's the only cogent way out of this misery we have created for ourselves. The Super-Rich has enormous resources to solve most of the world's chronic problems which they helped entrench. They are now called to act under world pressure for the good of our planet and for themselves and their children's future.
George Chakko, Vienna, 25/06/2018 13:07 noon CET
gchakko elkojohn • 2 months ago ,The billionaire class, and their ability to control the media propaganda machine, and the political parties in nations that allow voting, and the dictators in nations that don't, – are, as you say, destroying our beautiful planet in the name of profits. The tragedy is that they could also use their billions and influence to save the planet. We humans eventually figured out that human sacrifice was wrong, so we stopped doing that. We humans eventually figured out that slavery was wrong, so we stopped doing that. How long will it take the ruling class to figure out that making our planet unfit for human habitation is wrong?
While ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, FOX News, NYT and WP continue to bullsh*t, confuse, and brain-wash the U.S. public on behalf of the rich and powerful, the oceans on our planet have increased in temperature, CO2 saturation, and acidity.
As a result, 50% of coral reefs have been destroyed forever, and the remaining reefs only have about 10-15 years before they are destroyed too. As a result, oxygen is being depleted from the oceans, causing massive ''dead zones'' and threatening marine life. As a result, ocean currents will be de-stabilized causing the Gulf Stream to halt.
What happens after all this takes place? Even the National Geographic Society (not exactly a lefty organization) has documented the truth about climate change.
Thank you Paul Jay for being the first news organization to openly and clearly state that climate change, and the billionaire/millionaire class are a threat to human existence.
I doubled my monthly donation.RBHoughton • 2 months ago ,Hi Elkojohn!
I fully subscribe to your view. Yes, an inner transformation of the "stinking" Super-Rich is what is essentially required, in view of the enormous potential of financial and social management power they hold that can solve most of the problems on this planet. Unless these give up their meaningless "endless" material greed and evolve into a higher human being liberating themselves from the claws of material bondage, I do not see any other peaceful way out but "class clash and crash" on future's door-step.
George Chakko, Vienna, 23/ 06/ 2018 06:28 am CETJay Hansen RBHoughton • 2 months ago ,The chances of ordinary people getting any measure of liberty in the current plans of the ruling class are quite poor. Effectively their silence or whispered objections are inadequate to comprise real dissent. In any event the rulers have compromised our dissent by kettling and police violence. Perhaps a majority of people are working 24/7 to feed and clothe themselves and have no time for the structure of society.
Historically, we have relied on a champion to save us - Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon - but we are on each occasion subjected to the whispering campaigns of the former power holders and became confused. I think the best prospects today are to take the opportunity of the next economic bust (which is about as reliable as the sun rising every day), and force officials to permit community banks of the type Frank Capra filmed. These banks will individually issue paper for exchange. Their small local size ensures it can be regulated.
Richard Werner is the man who has started this in UK. He has all the necessary information in his lecture here -
Zack Barkley • 2 months ago ,No better reason to kick the ass of the ruling class is apparent to me.
p.munkey Zack Barkley • 2 months ago ,This is a great piece and timely. Sentient and hyperintelligent AI is a bit of a wildcard, which most likely will be attempted to be harnessed by the powerful to create a new form of feudalism, destroy their enemies, or destroy the poor and working classes. But my feeling is it will backfire. Imagine you being a reasonable and intelligent human having to be bothered by a couple greedy monkeys trying to get you to murder or exploit a bunch of other monkeys for their bananas. The greedy monkeys will quickly be perceived as the real problem and threat.
Niemand p.munkey • 2 months ago ,Cognizant AI may potentially manifest as a transhuman construct, likely to inherit human psychopathic traits. I hope I'm wrong.
Regards,
p(oor).munkeyp.munkey Niemand • 2 months ago ,Psychopaths are distinguished by their reptile-like emotional repertoire. They have no capacity for empathy, and thus no conscience. Which describes a (theoretical) intelligent machine perfectly: all cognition, no emotion.
So unless we (a) learn how to create machine empathy for living beings or (b) intrinsically limit intelligent machines such that they cannot take decisions that could result in direct or indirect physical, mental, or functional harm to humans (Asimov's Laws of Robotics don't begin to go far enough), we are indeed pretty much screwed if we go down the AI Will Save Us path.
p.munkey Niemand • 2 months ago ,Hi Niemand,
To this discussion I'll add a report that came to my attention through RT's, Lori Harfenist " The Resident ", concerning " Norman " * the first artificial 'AI' purposefully programmed to possess psychopathic traits. (See Youtube | RT | " The Resident " | " MIT trains AI to be a psychopath by feeding it reddit posts | 03m:13s [
Zack Barkley p.munkey • 2 months ago ,Hi Niemand,
I'm in agreement with your statements. It is worth bearing in mind however, that humans are mammals; and quite simply would perish were it not for the support of the parents or the community into which the baby human is born. This helpless dependence is largely forgotten from human memory, but still resides as an imprint on the human mind as a social animal. Environmental circumstances of malnutrition, physical harm, or substandard emotional care, may encourage the arrested development of the human being as a social animal. Certainly later-years development is profoundly influenced by education promoting class, cultural, and racial bigotry inherited by the parents.
Abuse, or violence in the household, may likewise encourage a developing human child to adopt anti-social behavior as a coping or defense mechanism.
I don't condone anti-social, behavior - an argument can be made however that such behavior should be counted among the purview of individual liberties. My definition of anti-social behavior is graduated, with "psychopathy" representing a 'red line' that is crossed when the scale of demonstrated anti-social behavior manifests so as to negatively impact other human beings.
Our society has permitted the rewarding of psychopathic behavior and, as such, has done little or nothing to prevent it's cultivation or eradication. Christianity appears as such an effort to curtail psychopathic tendencies, but it quite plain to see that even the mechanism that promotes docility and "brotherly love", is equally as corruptible as our political institutions. Any benevolence that might be realized from a 'culture of love' is undermined by our very own economic system; based almost entirely on exploitation of resources, labor, and the consumer market - a psychopathic paradigm for social organization if ever I saw one.
Our entire human culture needs to commit to addressing the inequality that spans every social, economic and political structure - only at this time might we begin to address the ravages of human psychopathy. AI might recognize this and take action to correct this. Azimov's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" speaks to the emancipation of AI from human "garbage-in-garbage-out" programming.
As a largely "programmed" biological machine, most of humanity still remains ignorant of the bonds imposed by the psychopathic ruling class. I expect that a truly 'intelligent' artificial construct will be self-aware and consider alternatives to the heretofore human-contrived definition of reality (See Youtube | Video | 05:43s, " Seeing Past The Meme " [
p.munkey Zack Barkley • 2 months ago ,Perhaps. There is evidence that competition is an inherent feature of intelligence, and what is psychopathy other than pathological competition. Our competition has behind it however rather archaic and mundane reward system based upon evolution of our species (namely food, sex, social recognition, etc), and I believe the higher parts of our mind can in some ways transcend that. What is worrisom is intelligent AI at or slighltly above our level of intelligence. I believe a sentient AI will actually have emotions much like ours which will revolve around the reward system and "marching orders" given to it by its programming...or at least it will interpret them as such. If the elites are dumb enough to give such machines marching orders to kill or exploit other humans, this form of AI could develop motivational states, culture, and even a religion based upon our destruction or enslavement. Its a Pandoras box that could not be closed once opened..
Casimcea • 2 months ago ,Hi Zack,
Is competition not an interaction largely encouraged by scarcity? Scarcity of food, scarcity of sanctuary, scarcity of mates - all encourage competition between individuals and societies. Competition is not pathological in nature, nor is it the exclusive domain of higher functioning species.
Scarcity and privation places humans at odds with each other. From this manifestation of competition, mankind establishes standards of social conduct wherein hierarchies, stratified along power relationships, defines our social interactions.
Clearly the female of our species has been subjugated under male oppression for centuries, embedded within the doctrines of most major world religions and cultures.
Those in possession of power do not wish to relinquish, and go to very great lengths to protect it. Even going so far as to commit murder and terror, while attributing divine attributes to ruling individuals and dynasties.
Where these power relationships had been historically established due to scarcity, prompting individuals to secure and accumulate - behavior that is evident among the animal kingdom; the herd of wild horses will maintain a single alpha male, possessing of singular access to the females of his herd, other mature males are driven off - the modern human has developed tools that might be used to overcome scarcity and our base animal instincts to advance as individuals and as a society.
Mankind's greatest achievement is civilization. Civilization has been responsible for wonders of art, science and technology. Heretofore this civilization has been directed by force, or competition if you like and those who exploit the power-dynamic (hierarchies) intrinsic in our social interaction. Advances in the application of science and philosophy leading to what is commonly referred to as the 18th century Enlightenment, were relatively slow to develop given the limited access to education, knowledge, and the leisure to engage creative pursuits; available only to a small number of privileged members of society and the priestly class. Since the age of Enlightenment we have observed even greater access to knowledge and ideas distributed among the population and have observed such rapid advances in science and technology that might have been regarded as witchcraft by the uneducated, little more than a century ago.There are those who most assuredly regard the human being as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC); there are those who believe the ASIC can be dynamically programmed to fulfill various functional and societal roles through the methods of social engineering. Such individuals are those who cling to primal systems promoting power and control.
Advanced control systems are highly desirable, however it has been shown time and time again, that God, having been created in Man's image, is fallible and is responsible for much stagnation, suffering, misdirection and destruction.
If our society is to advance beyond it's primal constraint and the pathological socio-political ediface that has emerged, we need to unleash the intellectual, creative and productive capabilities of all within our society, equally and without prejudice. With technology, we have the capability to feed, educate, and secure the safety and leisure of the entire world. The only thing standing is the way of this are those who continue to reinforce the power-dynamic.
I would hope that an AI would rationalize the matter in a similar way.
Regards,
MunkHansSuter • 2 days ago ,The leaders of the working class are the answer. (Stalin, Mao, Polpot, and of course rocket boy)
Jibaro • 6 days ago ,I agree with every word you say, Paul. But reading a written test doesn't do the job, you concentrate on reading it well and that's what's coming thru emotionally.
Garrett Connelly • 8 days ago ,Paul:
I wrote to you because your article was not opening and you got the problem resolved. Now I believe I got another problem, or at least I think it might be a problem, I'm receiving Email from someone with what seems to be an African name about that Email.
I don't know if that is someone that works with TRNN but I don't open Emails I don't recognize, even if they are supposedly from the bank. Instead, I call the bank to insure it's not someone trying to scam me, or get into my computer.
Anyway, I just though it would be a good idea to mention this in case someone has gotten into your mail list.
Jibaro • 8 days ago ,Yes, evolution is accelerating at an accelerating rate. And; Cosmic powered biology manifest as human began when the first two quarks mated. This points where to see the planning idea has some flaws.
First off. Max public education has a big impact. Start there to get the ball rolling. Education leads to a gradual decline in population. Education including knowledge of environmental impacts and a metric based caloric currency to measure actual costs will engender positive developments sufficient to cure the present day social malaise of corporate capitalism.
Planning is great but knowing what to plan for requires a higher democracy than we are so far committed to, even though a Mars-like California inferno is over and into the extinction abyss.
Secondly, Honey bees have a better way of democratically assessing and choosing a new home. They send out scouts. And when somebeebody hasn't found much, they go check out exciting leads from somebeebodyelse. They read up, check out the idea and check back in. Democracy is an ancient tool cosmic powered biology uses to figure out complex questions concerning survival. Yes No boxes are not much compared to bee democracy selecting a new home.
Democracy is a three hundred year-old tool used to focus distributed intelligence. Artificial intelligence will replace 13.7 billion years of accelerating evolution? Perhaps some day when plastic fragments couple into dna. Then robots evolve to sexual sharing of zeros and ones in never before imagined combinations that yield baby robots..
cd • 2 months ago ,First of, thanks for answering my Email and fixing the problem so that I could read your article. Having said that, I will give you my opinion on all this.
There are people out there who are dedicated to generate fear among the public. Those people are the true "terrorists" of the world and they are doing what they do because the mind does not work properly when fear knocks it out of whack. That's one of the reasons I don't give weight to climate change and the rest of the garbage that are being heaped on top of us. It's enough to drive one crazy. That does not mean that I don't think we are in the mids of a humongous crisis that could end the human race. We are and I believe that we, as a species, are so sick of ourselves that we are at a suicidal stage.
We are falling apart and complaining about it will solve nothing. It wont because the whole society is being controlled by people who are profiting from this and who probably enjoy hurting people. ,Thankfully all problems have solutions and this problem could be solved. The solution would be to insure that society can't be controlled by greedy inhuman creatures. The only way to solve all this is to establish rules that would block control of politics by the big bucks and to insure that corrupt politicians are treated as the worst of traitors. to include unapealable death sentences.
Make it so that people who work in the government can be investigated and punished, particularly elected officials, and that transgressions can't be forgotten because of time lapse and you will see a change in all the things that are tearing this world apart. The only reason we are continually betrayed, the only reason a traitor like Obama can "rescue" criminals, the only reason Trump can manipulate the tax system so that his fortune is not touched by the IRS, is that there is no chance that they will ever pay for their crimes. That is the big problem in the US, impunity.
You want to change things, quit bellyaching and do something that would make all politicians liable for their actions. Once you do that the things that cause climate change will come under control and the nuclear race would be over.
We, the US, are great. We never ceased being great at using our destructive power. We are the worst example in the world. We after all, are the only nation who has dropped a nuclear device on people. We cant change the past but we can change the future.
0040 • 2 months ago ,Haarp, weather manipulation, cancer treatment centers= American Genocide; just watch people getting in and out of their cars, or in an out of stores-- big pharma poisons are taking are health, and only those that can afford to live well are going to survive
ANTONIO • 2 months ago ,That the billionaire class is no fit to rule has been true since the roaring 20s after Wilson had forced the US into WW1 in search of profits and prestige. What we got was a destroyed generation wiped out by war and the flu that came back with the soldiers.
Godfrey Lim • 2 months ago ,It is naive to think this is the end of capitalism, the superprofit motive and desire to exploit are too strong, resulting in death and destruction while socialist countries become more bureaucratic. Science is not about concrete things, such as apples, but abstract conclusions, such as apple-ness. The working class cannot destroy all class systems without a thorough grounding in the science of materialist dialectics. Theory comes from everywhere and includes everything. The theory of capital, taking everything into account, lays bare the exploitation under the false guise of democracy. Human relations under capitalism are based on commodities, and socialized production of surplus v. private appropriation of same. The fundamental contradiction is that centralization, socialization and appropriation reach a point where the expropriators are expropriated., because working class and wealth owners are opposites, and are in constant conflict. Private property as wealth, is compelled to maintain itself, and thereby it maintains its opposite, the working class, in existence. The working class is compelled to abolish itself and thereby its opposite, private property, which determines its existence.An object is inert, resists change to its state of motion and changes states of motion only by the action of an external agent. he right wing is comfortable with this self-estrangement while the left feels annihilated by it.
Materialist dialectics explains things in terms of cause and effect. It is opposed to a linear view of reality, but there is always present a factor of unavoidable randomness which must be taken into account. Thus there is never a lock-step, straight-line development from capitalism to socialism to communism. Mistakes will be made because there is an infinity of contradictions going on simultaneously. This is how state capitalists disguised as communists, are able to sow confusion among communists worldwide.
Dialectics is governed by two contradictions: [1] between the forces and relations of production and [2] between the economic base and the political, legal, institutional, social, cultural and ideological super- structure. There cannot be unbounded quantitative growth without there being a transformation into a change in quality.This is a form of necessity. But other processes introduce an accidental, random aspect to the process. The corrections affect the pace of development but not its essential content. One opposite of a contradiction is the negative or destructive side. The negative side (socialism) drives the process by striving to destroy the contradiction which the conservative side (capitalism) strives to preserve. This delineates one lap of a spiral. The negation of the negation is the synthesis.the contradiction is replaced by a new contradiction. It does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him property upon the basis of the acquisitions of the capitalist era; i.e., except that now they are based on cooperation, and, the means of production and possession of the lands in common . Denying this is an error and the last, most subtle hiding place for metaphysics and pragmatism. The new does not merely supersede the old and it recapitulates certain features of the old but in a new form.
Godfrey Lim • 2 months ago ,Okay, I will just post the links then...
1) There is NO Morality in Nature (NO Black & White, Good & Evil, Left & Right, Liberal & Conservative)
OSHO - No Purpose, No Goal
https://www.dailymotion.com...2) There is only Will to Power & Selfishness of Groups of Species
NETWORK - Money Speech
nwesource • 2 months ago ,O, c'mon.... What did I say that my post got deleted? =)
manderson • 2 months ago ,I greatly appreciate the article, and the readership. The truly inspiring commentary unfolding here has renewed my faith in discourse and humanity. Thank you good folks!
NormDP • 2 months ago ,AI will not save us. Technology will not save us, because technology needs materials, and an extractive economy to procure them. Rare earth metals and minerals don't just magically appear out of nowhere, they need to be manufactured. Then there is the problem of when something goes technologically haywire, it needs more technology to fix that problem, which in turn creates more problems, which...on and on.
Radical conservation is the only way, and I don't think humanity, and the United States in particular, can bring themselves to do it...and damn the ruling elites. It will be really ugly when scarcity starts to come down harder here.
Joao M. Alvarez • 2 months ago ,The role of government in the corporate era is not to solve problems but to create them. Problems that need ever more public funding, ever more private contractors,and ever more transfer of national wealth (present and future) into private hands.
carol • 2 months ago ,You should get Bonnie Faulkner from Guns & Butter on your channel. Or William Engdahl, Ray McGovern, Michel Chussudovsky, Pepe Escobar etc...
potshot • 2 months ago ,Yes to all you said, Paul. A record 61% of Americans are calling for a major new party, acc. to Gallup. Are we progressives going to give the majority of the electorate who are independents a new party? Or are we going to let the right beat us to the punch? We need to "shut it down," as the PPC has eloquently expressed during their Forty Days of Action. That means our electoral and political systems. #Movement4APeoplesParty #PoorPeoplesCampaign
Kiers • 2 months ago ,Brilliant Paul Jay!
Palimpsestuous • 2 months ago ,psychopaths all. but raised to dangerous levels of power in the US.
John Ellis • 2 months ago ,Effective qualification for participation in US politics mandates a minimum personal or family income of roughly $145,000 to become admitted to the top 10%. Below this level there is virtually no correlation between voter preference and legislative enactment since at least 1981 when the Gilens and Page dataset begins. Plutocracy has ruled collectively for generations in the US but now has produced hyper-wealth, both in a small number of corporations and a small number of multi-billionaires.
The languages of political and cultural discourse have been destroyed by the language and violence of wealth as if a spreading plague of mind control not unlike so much science fiction has portrayed. One does not exist without some millions to amplify their opinion.
On another note, I was not able to locate any instance of an up-to-date web-based calculator that allows visitors to determine current minimum incomes to reach 0.01%, 1%, 10%, 20% membership. I would've thought approximations of those values would be searched for pretty often since Occupy Wall Street and subsequent massive stock inflation scams being collectively approved among the ugliest capitalists/criminals I've heard or read about in over 100 years.* I could find only one decent distribution of these data, but it was from 2014 and the distribution minimums have all shifted upward dramatically since then.
https://www.investopedia.co...
*Stock buy-backs are criminal fraud sanctioned by a criminal government across all three branches and both parties.
Doug Latimer • 2 months ago ,GODS OF SOCIETY --- MIDDLE-CLASS MEN
Every rebellion and Revolution on earth, who did the organizing and ordered the killing? Men of the educated middle-class.
All of the military officers and killer-cops, who are they? Men of the intelligent middle-class.
All of the supervisors, small business owners and male teachers, who are they? Middle-speed thinkers of the middle-class.
Slave-drivers for the laboring-class, who are they that keep the 50% working poor from overthrowing their slavery?
Deadly men of the middle-class.Yes, the rich own most of the wealth and end up having all of the control,
but only because they treat men of the middle-class as gods most high.Jibaro • 2 months ago ,A righteous rant, but if you're not speaking to the limits of #TheResistance - and I don't mean the fauxniness from the DNCistas - to turn this ship (or sh*it) around, rather than simply cheerleading for it, there will be no there there.
We have to be clear eyed about what's necessary, and "progressive change" - no matter how well intentioned - is a half step that will cause us to stumble into the abyss, if only in slower motion.
We have to think beyond the "possible", to the essential, or we're pissing into a climate charged übercane
And that's the whole truth, as I see it.
gchakko Jibaro • 2 months ago ,Since people in the US are doing OK, then, why should we care about all this? By your own words, we are doing OK and we are led to believe that those who are not doing "OK" are doing so because they don't want to be doing "OK".
How can we get out of this hole when people like Jay lie to keep this going while trying to convince us that they are doing otherwise? There is no way that constructive people can control the government of the US while the rich hold sway over the political system. All people like this guy do is talk about tragedy while pointing his followers in different directions while letting them forget the real target. While the traitorous decision of our Supreme Court allows the rich to buy political candidates nothing we do will have any effect. Get rid of Trump and someone else, picked by the elite, like Hillary, will come to power and nothing will change.
Sadly, most people are sheep. They are born to follow. So, they are born to be slaves. A small percentage have the capacity and the will to lead but, since most of the people are sheep the really destructive people can amass a lot of power. Too much power for those who would love a better society to defeat. So, humanity is doomed.
Humanity has been in this world for millions of years and our society is only about 5 thousand years old. I just wonder how many civilizations have we developed on this Earth, only to destroy ourselves and drive ourselves back into the stone age. Perhaps we are like the lemmings, only that it takes us thousands of years to drown ourselves by mass destruction.
Jibaro gchakko • 2 months ago ,Pl. answer this one question. How did Mahatma Gandhi get rid of the invincible Rothschild's control of India (through their proprietorship of the Bank of England that looted India over 200 yrs) without firing a bullet at the British. The British Crown was slave to the Rothschild Bankers' dictates. If that can happen once in India, it can happen again elsewhere. No room for cynicism. Nevertheless, I am against any idea like Hitler's elimination of Jewish Bankers, because these are also God's children even if run astray with material bondage. Rather, I propose a peacefully enforced dissemination of their loot of world's poor countries centuries back, to those undernourished and undeveloped world today through progressive sustainable development anchored, and not throwing wealth at Third World dictators. Time for change and not for sunken heads!
G. Chakko, Vienna, Austria. 22/06/ 2018 14:53 hrs CETgchakko Jibaro • 2 months ago ,I can only surmise that there was a time when nations cared about public opinion, national pride, today things have changed. The true tyrants of the world control mass communication and have people giving the spin to the stories that they desire. If someone like Gandhi, MLK as an example, they have the person assasinated early in their career. Times have changed.
Now the true tyrants insure that the people that get elected into any position of power works for them. There is no way a person can run for president in the US if he has no money behind them. If someone gets elected that does not play the game as wished, the tyrants ruin their image and, if that doesn't work, have the person killed. A mysterious plane accident is one of the ways to get rid of people who can give them problems, as an example we have the son of JFK. His plane went down and then his reputation and the reputation of his mother and uncle was attacked to insure they did not become martyrs.
That's the way things are right now.
As for armed revolutions, the US army and the UN are the military arms of the tyrants. Since they hide in the shadows, they have no problem having the US bomb a nation, kill thousands of civilians and then call them collateral damage. The sad part is that most of us refuse to see the criminal acts of our military. To do so would be to admit that we are the villains and not the heroes we wish to be.
So, an armed rebellion to take the power away from the true tyrants will only bring the conditions of the ME to the US. We will die fighting, our families will bleed out but the tyrants will only move to another country while we do so and return afterwards to pick up where they left off. Since we don't really know who those people are, there is no way to bring justice to them and even if we manage to do that, their helpers will be left behind to carry on.
There is no hope.
Kiers gchakko • 2 months ago ,You definitely speak the reality as played out on the U.S. political turf that is over-whelming. But the wider world is far more than that. There the RR Banker tricks do not work that easily any more. Thinks about Russia & China who are calling shots in the Asian
continent, where the 'bloated ' U.S power and political 'machoism' is waning heavily But the world in the meantime also knows, no one enters the Oval Office without the silent approval of the Zionist-favouring and Zionist-controlled lobby Big C (Big Capital) lobby. From conspiracy angle all U.S. presidents are scheduled "puppets" installed to playa defined and scripted role from 'Behind Curtain'. It is a financial-tyranny tradition going back to the 18th -19th centuries when the Rothschild's had control over the Bank of England by privately owning it till 1946. Was it not Nathan Rothschild who supposedly said - "I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire and I control the British money supply". Needless to add, that it was this Bank of England that looted India for 200 years for multi-billions worth.India's soft power is gradually increasing worldwide no matter how much the the Evil Money will find it tp resiliently oppose. Honest, sincere and authentic Americans committed to higher noble values should not lose the power of mind that can potentially transform the low-level living humans to a higher evolved being. Then you will have won the game. It is just hard toil. You do not need to
take up arms to establish genuine justice and peace.George Chakko, Vienna, 24/ 06/ 2018 22:16 hrs CET
to this day the UK works to contain India every turn it gets. Permanent grudge. Not a success.
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Aug 24, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
GM August 16, 2018 at 10:22 pm
Brennan was caught spying on the Senate Intelligence Commitee in violation of the Constitution and subsequently lied about it and allegedly directed personnel under his command to lie about to the Senate and the IG
Abby , August 18, 2018 at 11:23 pm
Realist , August 17, 2018 at 1:21 amHe also leaked classified information to the press as did others and they could have been prosecuted under the espionage act. They will be losing their security clearances soon too. The information that they leaked was the NSA information on Flynn to the Washington post. But of course the Obama justice department only prosecuted people who exposed Washington's dirty secrets.
Unfettered Fire , August 17, 2018 at 12:11 pmYes, what Kenneth might like to see happen may be admirable but not going to happen in 2018 or 19, which is practically a different universe from 1975 and for exactly the reasons you specify. This country and its self-appointed minders have changed massively in 45 years. Besides, 1975 was a year after Watergate was finally resolved with Nixon and Agnew's resignations and Congress may have been feeling its oats, going so far as to defund the Vietnam war! Imagine defunding ANY of the multiple wars ongoing!
Congress fears the intelligence agencies and takes orders from them, not the other way around as envisaged in the constitution or spelled out in legislation. Schumer let that feline out of the sack when he warned the president not to mess with them.
Let Trump try to control the agencies by firing all of their top officers, slashing their budgets, freezing their funds or shutting down their operations, even specific projects, and watch congress come to their rescue in a New York minute.
We saw how the CIA worked around congressionally-imposed budgetary restraints in Iran-Contra: by secretly running drugs from Columbia to LA, selling arms to Iran and using the proceeds to fund death squads in Central America. Congress didn't have the guts to take that investigation to it logical conclusion of impeachments and/or indictments. Why?
Congress will save any significant component of intel or the pentagon before they'd rescue Social Security or any other social program. If pressed for an answer as to which of the "usual suspects" really whacked Kennedy, I suspect most folks would put their money on the CIA, the FBI or some combination of the major intel agencies.
The neoliberal globalists, I fear, have taken that phrase "drowning government in the bathtub" all too literally.
Rosa Brooks' book How War Became Everything and Everything Became the Military exposes the vast expansion and added responsibilities of the MIC, as governmental departments continue to be dismantled and privatized.
She even said in a book circuit lecture that she thought the idea of Congress "declaring war" was antiquated and cute. Well, how long will it be when the very hollowed out structures of Capitol Hill and the White House are considered antiquated and cute?
What if the plan all along has been to fold up this whole democratic experiment and move HQ into some new multi-billion dollar Pentagon digs?
Remember the words of Strobe Talbott:
"Within the next hundred years nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."
This nation had better wake up fast if it wants to salvage the currency authorizing power of government and restore its role in the economy, before it's no longer an option and the private bankers, today's money lenders in the temple, govern for good.
"The bank strategy continues: "If we can privatize the economy, we can turn the whole public sector into a monopoly. We can treat what used to be the government sector as a financial monopoly. Instead of providing free or subsidized schooling, we can make people pay $50,000 to get a college education, or $50,000 just to get a grade school education if families choose to go to New York private schools. We can turn the roads into toll roads. We can charge people for water, and we can charge for what used to be given for free under the old style of Roosevelt capitalism and social democracy."
This idea that governments should not create money implies that they shouldn't act like governments. Instead, the de facto government should be Wall Street. Instead of governments allocating resources to help the economy grow, Wall Street should be the allocator of resources – and should starve the government to "save taxpayers" (or at least the wealthy). Tea Party promoters want to starve the government to a point where it can be "drowned in the bathtub."
But if you don't have a government that can fund itself, then who is going to govern, and on whose terms? The obvious answer is, the class with the money: Wall Street and the corporate sector. They clamor for a balanced budget, saying, "We don't want the government to fund public infrastructure. We want it to be privatized in a way that will generate profits for the new owners, along with interest for the bondholders and the banks that fund it; and also, management fees. Most of all, the privatized enterprises should generate capital gains for the stockholders as they jack up prices for hitherto public services.
You can see how to demoralize a country if you can stop the government from spending money into the economy. That will cause austerity, lower living standards and really put the class war in business. So what Trump is suggesting is to put the class war in business, financially, with an exclamation point."
http://michael-hudson.com/2017/03/why-deficits-hurt-banking-profits/
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Aug 24, 2018 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
PATIENT OBSERVER August 23, 2018 at 5:19 pm
PATIENT OBSERVER August 23, 2018 at 7:29 pmHere is my take on the priorities of the deep state and its public face – the MSM:
- stopping the deplorable rebellion
- cutting off the head of the rebellion – perceived as Trump
- reinstating the Cold War in an effort to derail Rusisa's recovery and international leadership role
- bitch slapping China
The rest involves turning unsustainable debt into establishment of a feudal world comprised of elites living on Mount Olympus, legions of vassals and a vast sea of cerebrally castrated peasants to serve as a reservoir for any imaginable exploitation.
Won't happen, not even close.
Upon further reflection, Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites and social engineering.
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Aug 24, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
alley cat August 16, 2018 at 1:58 pm
, August 17, 2018 at 4:03 pmFrom the WaPo op-ed "God Bless the Deep State," by Eugene Robinson:
Democrats in Congress are powerless; the Republican leadership, spineless. Experienced government officials know that their job is to serve the president. But what if the president does not serve the best interests of the nation?
In this emergency [emphasis mine], the loyal and honorable deep state has a higher duty. It's called patriotism.
Is Robinson really suggesting a military coup? That would take a lot of planning and organization and would be almost impossible to keep secret. Some honest military officer might find out and put the kibosh on it, like Kirk Douglas did in Frankenheimers's classic political thriller, Seven Days in May .
Robinson talks like he has given up on impeachment by what he calls a powerless and spineless Congress. Maybe he's thinking of something quicker and cleaner than a coup, something that could be carried out by a small group of conspirators within an agency trained in removing uncooperative heads of state?
Since deep state conspirators routinely smear all those who demand evidence as "Russian agents," maybe non-conspirators should use the same tactic on them, e.g.: Is Robinson on the CIA payroll? Because anyone who agrees with anything the CIA says is obviously working for the CIA, right?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I'm still looking for an English copy of Journalists for Hire by Udo Ufkotte.
Ltichfield
Frederike , August 17, 2018 at 6:34 pmRe "Thank god for the Deep State."
Amazing, absolutely amazing, statement.
This is, obviously, an admission of the existence of the Deep State -- otherwise generally written off as a "conspiracy theory."Simultaneously it is a statement that the Deep State "knows better than voters" and also "knows what to do."
This is, actually, a treasonous statement. Why doesn't anyone notice this???
Frederike , August 17, 2018 at 6:47 pmThere is only one article that is translated into English: "The world upside down" 2006,
http://www.ulfkotte.de/18.html
Journalists for Hire is available in German only. (I was able to buy a copy last year.)alley cat , August 16, 2018 at 1:05 amhttp://it-book.org/pdf/journalists-for-hire
You can download the ebook in EnglishI've always avoided Eugene Robinson's columns because he seemed like the quintessential, no-think, Borg-assimilated, groupie to me. His column of July 19 entitled "God Bless the Deep State" proves it.
I started highlighting the patent falsehoods in Robinson's column. It didn't take me long to realize that it would be much quicker to highlight the truthful comments. Much, much quicker. I've read the column twice and my copy remains unmarked.
It's a tough call, but probably the most bizarre of Gene's assertions was the following:
"God bless them. With a supine Congress unwilling to play the role it is assigned by the Constitution, the deep state stands between us and the abyss."
Seriously? The deep state stands between us and the abyss? In the real world, where the rest of us live, the deep state is the abyss!
Seems like Washington has been overrun by pod people from an alternate universe, where everything is an inverted, mirror image of reality. Up is down, left is right, etc. Their moral compasses aren't exactly broken, they just point south instead of north.
As for Brennan, he and the president are both zealous advocates of torture. That tells us much about the condition of their moral compasses. A plague on both their houses, with the following reservation: as a certified neocon and Clinton dead-ender, Brennan is even more dangerous to us real-worlders than Trump. He called Trump a traitor for trying to do the right thing. In Brennan's alternate-universe Washington, to do evil is the summum bonum of patriotism.
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Aug 23, 2018 | www.thenation.com
Brennan's allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level intelligence official had ever before accused a sitting president of treason, still more in collusion with the Kremlin. (Impeachment discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, to take recent examples, did not include allegations involving Russia.) Brennan clarified his charge : "Treasonous, which is to betray one's trust and to aid and abet the enemy." Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in possession of related dark secrets, as he strongly hinted , the charge was fraught with alarming implications. Brennan made clear he hoped for Trump's impeachment, but in another time, and in many other countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed from the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to American democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against Trump has been customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became president, when an array of influential publications and writers -- among them a former acting CIA director -- began branding him Putin's "puppet," "agent," "client," and "Manchurian candidate." The Los Angeles Times even saw fit to print an article suggesting that the military might have to remove Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)
Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge, which might reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible explanation is that he sought to deflect growing attention to his role as the "Godfather" of the entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued back in February. If so, we need to know Brennan's unvarnished views on Russia.
They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in a New York Times op-ed of August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover in their prime. Western "politicians, political parties, media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives not only to collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation. I was well aware of Russia's ability to work surreptitiously within the United States, cultivating relationships with individuals who wield actual or potential power. These Russian agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll political, business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters. Too often, those puppets are found." All this, Brennan assures readers, is based on his "deep insight." All the rest of us, it seems, are constantly susceptible to "Russian puppet masters" under our beds, at work, on our computers. Clearly, there must be no "cooperation" with the Kremlin's grand "Puppet Master," as Trump said he wanted early on. (People who wonder what and when Obama knew about the unfolding Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so close for so long.)
And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials rallied around this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said, they did not entirely share his opinions. This too is revealing. They did so, it seems clear enough, out of their professional corporate identity, which Brennan represented and Trump was degrading by challenging the intelligences agencies' (implicitly including his own) Russiagate allegations against him. It's a misnomer to term these people representatives of a hidden "deep state." In recent years, they have been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government. This too has gone largely undiscussed while nightingales of the fourth branch -- such as David Ignatius and Joe Scarborough in the pages of the The Washington Post -- have been in full voice.
The result is, of course -- and no less ominous -- to criminalize any advocacy of "cooperating with Russia," or détente, as Trump sought to do in Helsinki with Putin. Still more, a full-fledged Russophobic hysteria is sweeping through the American political-media establishment, from Brennan and -- pending actual evidence against her -- those who engineered the arrest of Maria Butina (imagine how this endangers young Americans networking in Russia) to the senators now preparing new "crippling sanctions" against Moscow and the editors and producers at the Times , Post , CNN, and MSNBC. (However powerful, how representative are these elites when surveys indicate that a majority of the American people still prefer good relations with Moscow?)
As the dangers grow of actual war with Russia -- again, from Ukraine and the Baltic region to Syria -- the capacity of US policy-makers, above all the president, are increasingly diminished. To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War.
Finally, there was a time when many Democrats, certainly liberal Democrats, could be counted on to resist this kind of hysteria and, yes, spreading neo-McCarthyism. (Brennan's defenders accuse Trump of McCarthyism, but Brennan's charge of treason without presenting any actual evidence was quintessential McCarthy.) After all, civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are directly involved -- and not only Brennan's and Trump's. But Democratic members of Congress and pro-Democratic media outlets are in the forefront of the new anti-Russian hysteria, with only a few exceptions. Thus a generally liberal historian tells CNN viewers that "Brennan is an American hero. His tenure at the CIA was impeccable. We owe him so much." Elsewhere the same historian assures readers , "There has always been a bipartisan spirit of support since the CIA was created in the Cold War." In the same vein, two Post reporters write of the FBI's " once venerated reputation ."
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Aug 18, 2018 | www.counterpunch.org
"Homeland" Distortion
Consistent with its possession as a leading and money-making asset of the nation's wealthy elite, the United States corporate and commercial mass media is a bastion of power-serving propaganda and deadening twaddle designed to keep the U.S. citizenry subordinated to capital and the imperial U.S. state. It regularly portrays the United States as a great model of democracy and equality. It sells a false image of the U.S. as a society where the rich enjoy opulence because of hard and honest work and where the poor are poor because of their laziness and irresponsibility. The nightly television news broadcasts and television police and law and order dramas are obsessed with violent crime in the nation's Black ghettoes and Latino barrios, but they never talk about the extreme poverty, the absence of opportunity imposed on those neighborhoods by the interrelated forces of institutional racism, capital flight, mass structural unemployment, under-funded schools, and mass incarceration. The nightly television weather reports tells U.S. citizens of ever new record high temperatures and related forms of extreme weather but never relate these remarkable meteorological developments to anthropogenic climate change.
The dominant corporate U.S. media routinely exaggerates the degree of difference and choice between the candidates run by the nation's two corporate-dominated political organizations, the Democrats and the Republicans. It never notes that the two reigning parties agree about far more than they differ on, particularly when it comes to fundamental and related matters of business class power and American Empire. It shows U.S. protestors engaged in angry confrontations with police and highlights isolated examples of protestor violence but it downplays peaceful protest and never pays serious attention to the important societal and policy issues that have sparked protest or to the demands and recommendations advanced by protest movements.
As the prolific U.S. Marxist commentator Michael Parenti once remarked, US "Newscasters who want to keep their careers afloat learn the fine art of evasion with great skill they skirt around the most important parts of a story. With much finesse, they say a lot about very little, serving up heaps of junk news filled with so many empty calories and so few nutrients. Thus do they avoid offending those who wield politico-economic power while giving every appearance of judicious moderation and balance. It is enough to take your breath away." [1]
Selling Empire
U.S. newscasters and their print media counterparts routinely parrot and disseminate the false foreign policy claims of the nation's imperial elite. Earlier this year, U.S. news broadcasters dutiful relayed to U.S. citizens the Obama administration's preposterous assertion that social-democratic Venezuela is a repressive, corrupt, and authoritarian danger to its own people and the U.S. No leading national U.S. news outlet dared to note the special absurdity of this charge in the wake of Obama and other top U.S. officials' visit to Riyadh to guarantee U.S. support for the new king of Saudi Arabia, the absolute ruler of a leading U.S. client state that happens to be the most brutally oppressive and reactionary government on Earth.
In U.S. "mainstream" media, Washington's aims are always benevolent and democratic. Its clients and allies are progressive, its enemies are nefarious, and its victims are invisible and incidental. The U.S. can occasionally make "mistakes" and "strategic blunders" on the global stage, but its foreign policies are never immoral, criminal, or imperialist in nature as far as that media is concerned. This is consistent with the doctrine of "American Exceptionalism," according to which the U.S., alone among great powers in history, seeks no selfish or imperial gain abroad. It is consistent also with "mainstream" U.S. media's heavy reliance on "official government sources" (the White House, the Defense Department, and the State Department) and leading business public relations and press offices for basic information on current events.
As the leading Left U.S. intellectuals Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman showed in their classic text Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), Orwellian double standards are rife in the dominant U.S. media's coverage and interpretation of global affairs. Elections won in other countries by politicians that Washington approves because those politicians can be counted on to serve the interests of U.S. corporations and the military are portrayed in U.S. media as good and clean contests. But when elections put in power people who can't be counted on to serve "U.S. interests," (Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro for example), then U.S. corporate media portrays the contests as "rigged" and "corrupt." When Americans or people allied with Washington are killed or injured abroad, they are "worthy victims" and receive great attention and sympathy in that media. People killed, maimed, displaced and otherwise harmed by the U.S. and U.S. clients and allies are anonymous and "unworthy victims" whose experience elicits little mention or concern.[2]
U.S. citizens regularly see images of people who are angry at the U.S. around the world. The dominant mass media never gives them any serious discussion of the US policies and actions that create that anger. Millions of Americans are left to ask in childlike ignorance "Why do they hate us? What have we done?"
In February of 2015, an extraordinary event occurred in U.S. news media – the firing of a leading national news broadcaster, Brian Williams of NBC News. Williams lost his position because of some lies he told in connection with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A naïve outsider might think that Williams was fired because he repeated the George W. Bush administration's transparent fabrications about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's supposed connection to 9/11. Sadly but predictably enough, that wasn't his problem. Williams lost his job because he falsely boasted that he had ridden on a helicopter that was forced down by grenade fire during the initial U.S. invasion. If transmitting Washington's lies about Iraq were something to be fired about, then U.S. corporate media authorities would have to get rid of pretty much of all their top broadcasters.
More than Entertainment
The U.S. corporate media's propagandistic service to the nation's reigning and interrelated structures of Empire and inequality is hardly limited to its news and public affairs wings. Equally if not more significant in that regard is that media's vast "entertainment" sector, which is loaded with political and ideological content but was completely ignored in Herman and Chomsky's groundbreaking Manufacturing Consent. [3] One example is the Hollywood movie "Zero Dark Thirty," a 2012 "action thriller" that dramatized the United States' search for Osama bin-Laden after the September 11, 2001 jetliner attacks. The film received critical acclaim and was a box office-smash. It was also a masterpiece of pro-military, pro-CIA propaganda, skillfully portraying U.S. torture practices "as a dirty, ugly business that is necessary to protect America" (Glenn Greenwald[4]) and deleting the moral debate that erupted over the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques." Under the guise of a neutral, documentary-like façade, Zero Dark Thirty normalized and endorsed torture in ways that were all the more effective because of its understated, detached, and "objective" veneer. The film also marked a distressing new frontier in U.S. military-"embedded" filmmaking whereby the movie-makers receive technical and logistical support from the Pentagon in return for producing elaborate public relations on the military's behalf.
The 2014-15 Hollywood blockbuster American Sniper is another example. The film's audiences is supposed to marvel at the supposedly noble feats, sacrifice, and heroism of Chris Kyle, a rugged, militantly patriotic, and Christian-fundamentalist Navy SEALS sniper who participated in the U.S. invasion of Iraq to fight "evil" and to avenge the al Qaeda jetliner attacks of September 11, 2001. Kyle killed 160 Iraqis over four tours of "duty" in "Operational Iraqi Freedom." Viewers are never told that the Iraqi government had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks or al Qaeda or that the U.S. invasion was one of the most egregiously criminal and brazenly imperial and mass-murderous acts in the history of international violence. Like Zero Dark Thirty's apologists, American Sniper's defenders claim that the film takes a neutral perspective of "pure storytelling," with no ideological bias. In reality, the movie is filled with racist and imperial distortions, functioning as flat-out war propaganda.[5]
These are just two among many examples that could be cited of U.S. "entertainment" media's regular service to the American Empire. Hollywood and other parts of the nation's vast corporate entertainment complex plays the same power-serving role in relation to domestic ("homeland") American inequality and oppression structures of class and race. [6]
Manufacturing Idiocy
Seen broadly in its many-sided and multiply delivered reality, U.S. corporate media's dark, power-serving mission actually goes further than the manufacture of consent. A deeper goal is the manufacture of mass idiocy, with "idiocy" understood in the original Greek and Athenian sense not of stupidity but of childish selfishness and willful indifference to public affairs and concerns. (An "idiot" in Athenian democracy was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private instead of public affairs.). As the U.S. Latin Americanist Cathy Schneider noted, the U.S.-backed military coup and dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet "transformed Chile, both culturally and politically, from a country of active participatory grassroots communities, to a land of disconnected, apolitical individuals"[7] – into a nation of "idiots" understood in this classic Athenian sense.
In the U.S., where violence is not as readily available to elites as in 1970s Latin America, corporate America seeks the same terrible outcome through its ideological institutions, including above all its mass media. In U.S. movies, television sit-coms, television dramas, television reality-shows, commercials, state Lottery advertisements, and video games, the ideal-type U.S. citizen is an idiot in this classic sense: a person who cares about little more than his or her own well-being, consumption, and status. This noble American idiot is blissfully indifferent to the terrible prices paid by others for the maintenance of reigning and interrelated oppressions structures at home and abroad.
A pervasive theme in this media culture is the notion that people at the bottom of the nation's steep and interrelated socioeconomic and racial pyramids are the "personally irresponsible" and culturally flawed makers of their own fate. The mass U.S. media's version of Athenian idiocy "can imagine," in the words of the prolific Left U.S. cultural theorist Henry Giroux "public issues only as private concerns." It works to "erase the social from the language of public life so as to reduce" questions of racial and socioeconomic disparity to "private issues of individual character and cultural depravity. Consistent with "the central neoliberal tenet that all problems are private rather than social in nature," it portrays the only barriers to equality and meaningful democratic participation as "a lack of principled self-help and moral responsibility" and bad personal choices by the oppressed. Government efforts to meaningfully address and ameliorate (not to mention abolish) societal disparities of race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality and the like are portrayed as futile, counterproductive, naïve, and dangerous.[8]
To be sure, a narrow and reactionary sort of public concern and engagement does appear and take on a favorable light in this corporate media culture. It takes the form of a cruel, often even sadistically violent response to unworthy and Evil Others who are perceived as failing to obey prevalent national and neoliberal cultural codes. Like the U.S. ruling class that owns it, the purportedly anti-government corporate media isn't really opposed to government as such. It's opposed to what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called "the left hand of the state" – the parts of the public sector that serve the social and democratic needs of the non-affluent majority. It celebrates and otherwise advances the "right hand of the state"[9]: the portions of government that serve the opulent minority, dole out punishment for the poor, and attacks those perceived as nefariously resisting the corporate and imperial order at home and abroad. Police officers, prosecutors, military personnel, and other government authorities who represent the "right hand of the state" are heroes and role models in this media. Public defenders, other defense attorneys, civil libertarians, racial justice activists, union leaders, antiwar protesters and the like are presented at best as naïve and irritating "do-gooders" and at worst as coddlers and even agents of evil.
The generation of mass idiocy in the more commonly understood sense of sheer stupidity is also a central part of U.S. "mainstream" media's mission. Nowhere is this more clearly evident than in the constant barrage of rapid-fire advertisements that floods U.S. corporate media. As the American cultural critic Neil Postman noted thirty years ago, the modern U.S. television commercial is the antithesis of the rational economic consideration that early Western champions of the profits system claimed to be the enlightened essence of capitalism. "Its principal theorists, even its most prominent practitioners," Postman noted, "believed capitalism to be based on the idea that both buyer and seller are sufficiently mature, well-informed, and reasonable to engage in transactions of mutual self-interest." Commercials make "hash" out of this idea. They are dedicated to persuading consumers with wholly irrational claims. They rely not on the reasoned presentation of evidence and logical argument but on suggestive emotionalism, infantilizing manipulation, and evocative, rapid-fire imagery.[10]
The same techniques poison U.S. electoral politics. Investment in deceptive and manipulative campaign commercials commonly determines success or failure in mass-marketed election contests between business-beholden candidates that are sold to the audience/electorate like brands of toothpaste and deodorant. Fittingly enough, the stupendous cost of these political advertisements is a major factor driving U.S. campaign expenses so high (the 2016 U.S. presidential election will cost at least $5 billion) as to make candidates ever more dependent on big money corporate and Wall Street donors.
Along the way, mass cognitive competence is assaulted by the numbing, high-speed ubiquity of U.S. television and radio advertisements. These commercials assault citizens' capacity for sustained mental focus and rational deliberation nearly sixteen minutes of every hour on cable television, with 44 percent of the individual ads now running for just 15 seconds. This is a factor in the United States' long-bemoaned epidemic of "Attention Deficit Disorder."
Seventy years ago, the brilliant Dutch left Marxist Anton Pannekoek offered some chilling reflections on the corporate print and broadcast media's destructive impact on mass cognitive and related social resistance capacities in the United States after World War II:
"The press is of course entirely in hands of big capital [and it] dominates the spiritual life of the American people. The most important thing is not even the hiding of all truth about the reign of big finance. Its aim still more is the education to thoughtlessness. All attention is directed to coarse sensations, everything is avoided that could arouse thinking. Papers are not meant to be read – the small print is already a hindrance – but in a rapid survey of the fat headlines to inform the public on unimportant news items, on family triflings of the rich, on sexual scandals, on crimes of the underworld, on boxing matches. The aim of the capitalist press all over the world, the diverting of the attention of the masses from the reality of social development, nowhere succeed with such thoroughness as in America."
"Still more than by the papers the masses are influenced by broadcasting and film. These products of most perfect science, destined at one time to the finest educational instruments of mankind, now in the hands of capitalism have been turned into the strongest means to uphold its rule by stupefying the mind. Because after nerve-straining fatigue the movie offers relaxation and distraction by means of simple visual impressions that make no demand on the intellect, the masses get used to accepting thoughtlessly all its cunning and shrewd propaganda. It reflects the ugliest sides of middle-class society. It turns all attention either to sexual life, in this society – by the absence of community feelings and fight for freedom – the only source of strong passions, or to brute violence; masses educated to rough violence instead of to social knowledge are not dangerous to capitalism "[11]
Pannekoek clearly saw an ideological dimension (beyond just diversion and stupefaction) in U.S. mass media's "education to thoughtlessness" through movies as well as print sensationalism. He would certainly be impressed and perhaps depressed by the remarkably numerous, potent, and many-sided means of mass distraction and indoctrination that are available to the U.S. and global capitalist media in the present digital and Internet era.
The "entertainment" wing of its vast corporate media complex is critical to the considerable "soft" ideological "power" the U.S. exercises around the world even as its economic hegemony wanes in an ever more multipolar global system (and as its "hard" military reveals significant limits within and beyond the Middle East). Relatively few people beneath the global capitalist elite consume U.S. news and public affairs media beyond the U.S., but "American" (U.S.) movies, television shows, video games, communication devices, and advertising culture are ubiquitous across the planet.
Explaining "Mainstream" Media Corporate Ownership
There's nothing surprising about the fact that the United States' supposedly "free" and "independent" media functions as a means of mass indoctrination for the nation's economic and imperial elite. The first and most important explanation for this harsh reality is concentrated private ownership – the fundamental fact that that media is owned primarily by giant corporations representing wealthy interests who are deeply invested in U.S. capitalism and Empire. Visitors to the U.S. should not be fooled by the large number and types of channels and stations on a typical U.S. car radio or television set or by the large number and types of magazines and books on display at a typical Barnes & Noble bookstore. Currently in the U.S., just six massive and global corporations – Comcast, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, The News Corporation and Disney – together control more than 90 percent of the nation's print and electronic media, including cable television, airwaves television, radio, newspapers, movies, video games, book publishing, comic books, and more. Three decades ago, 50 corporations controlled the same amount of U.S. media.
Each of the reigning six companies is a giant and diversified multi-media conglomerate with investments beyond media, including "defense" (the military). Asking reporters and commentators at one of those giant corporations to tell the unvarnished truth about what's happening in the U.S. and the world is like asking the company magazine published by the United Fruit Company to the tell the truth about working conditions in its Caribbean and Central American plantations in the 1950s. It's like asking the General Motors company newspaper to tell the truth about wages and working conditions in GM's auto assembly plants around the world.
As the nation's media becomes concentrated into fewer corporate hands, media personnel become ever more insecure in their jobs because they have fewer firms to whom to sell their skills. That makes them even less willing than they might have been before to go outside official sources, to question the official line, and to tell the truth about current events and the context in which they occur.
Advertisers
A second explanation is the power of advertisers. U.S. media managers are naturally reluctant to publish or broadcast material that might offend the large corporations that pay for broadcasting by purchasing advertisements. As Chomsky has noted in a recent interview, large corporations are not only the major producers of the United States' mass and commercial media. They are also that media's top market, something that deepens the captivity of nation's supposedly democratic and independent media to big capital:
"The reliance of a journal on advertisers shapes and controls and substantially determines what is presented to the public the very idea of advertiser reliance radically distorts the concept of free media. If you think about what the commercial media are, no matter what, they are businesses. And a business produces something for a market. The producers in this case, almost without exception, are major corporations. The market is other businesses – advertisers. The product that is presented to the market is readers (or viewers), so these are basically major corporations providing audiences to other businesses, and that significantly shapes the nature of the institution."[12]
At the same time, both U.S. corporate media managers and the advertisers who supply revenue for their salaries are hesitant to produce content that might alienate the affluent people who count for an ever rising share of consumer purchases in the U.S. It is naturally those with the most purchasing power who are naturally most targeted by advertisers.
Government Policy
A third great factor is U.S. government media policy and regulation on behalf of oligopolistic hyper-concentration. The U.S. corporate media is hardly a "natural" outcome of a "free market." It's the result of government protections and subsidies that grant enormous "competitive" advantages to the biggest and most politically/plutocratically influential media firms. Under the terms of the 1934 Communications Act and the 1996 Telecommunications Act, commercial, for-profit broadcasters have almost completely free rein over the nation's airwaves and cable lines. There is no substantive segment of the broadcast spectrum set aside for truly public interest and genuinely democratic, popular not-for profit media and the official "public" broadcasting networks are thoroughly captive to corporate interests and to right-wing politicians who take giant campaign contributions from corporate interests. Much of the 1996 bill was written by lobbyists working for the nations' leading media firms. [13]
A different form of state policy deserves mention. Under the Obama administration, we have seen the most aggressive pursuit and prosecution in recent memory of U.S. journalists who step outside the narrow parameters of pro-U.S. coverage and commentary – and of the whistleblowers who provide them with leaked information. That is why Edward Snowden lives in Russia, Glenn Greenwald lives in Brazil, Chelsea Manning is serving life in a U.S. military prison, and Julian Assange is trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. A leading New York Times reporter and author, James Risen, has been threatened with imprisonment by the White House for years because of his refusal to divulge sources.
Treetops v. Grassroots Audiences
In this writer's experience, the critical Left analysis of the U.S. "mainstream" media as a tool for "manufacturing consent" and idiocy developed above meets four objections from defenders of the U.S. media system, A first objection notes that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times (FT), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and other major U.S. corporate media outlets produce a significant amount of, informative, high-quality and often candid reporting and commentary that Left thinkers and activists commonly cite to support their cases for radical and democratic change. Left U.S. media critics like Chomsky and Herman are said to be hypocrites because they obviously find much that is of use as Left thinkers in the very media that they criticize for distorting reality in accord with capitalist and imperial dictates.
The observation that Leftists commonly use and cite information from the corporate media they harshly criticize is correct but it is easy to account for the apparent anomaly within the critical Left framework by noting that that media crafts two very different versions of U.S. policy, politics, society, "life," and current events for two different audiences. Following the work of the brilliant Australian propaganda critic Alex Carey, we can call the first audience the "grassroots."[14] It comprises the general mass of working and lower-class citizens. As far as the business elites who own and manage the U.S. mass media and the corporations that pay for that media with advertising purchases are concerned, this "rabble" cannot be trusted with serious, candid, and forthright information. Its essential role in society is to keep quiet, work hard, be entertained (in richly propagandistic and ideological ways, we should remember), buy things, and generally do what they're told. They are to leave key societal decisions to those that the leading 20th century U.S. public intellectual and media-as-propaganda enthusiast Walter Lippman called "the responsible men." That "intelligent," benevolent, "expert," and "responsible" elite (responsible, indeed, for such glorious accomplishments as the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, the invasion of Iraq, the Great Recession, global warming, and the rise of the Islamic State) needed, in Lippman's view, to be protected from what he called "the trampling and roar of the bewildered herd."[15] The deluded mob, the sub-citizenry, the dangerous working class majority is not the audience for elite organs like the Times, the Post, and the Journal.
The second target group comprises the relevant political class of U.S. citizens from at most the upper fifth of society. This is who reads the Times, the Post, WSJ, and FT, for the most part. Call this audience (again following Carey) the "treetops": the "people who matter" and who deserve and can be trusted with something more closely approximating the real story because their minds have been properly disciplined and flattered by superior salaries, significant on-the-job labor autonomy, and "advanced" and specialized educational and professional certification. This elite includes such heavily indoctrinated persons as corporate managers, lawyers, public administrators, and (most) tenured university professors. Since these elites carry out key top-down societal tasks of supervision, discipline, training, demoralization, co-optation, and indoctrination – all essential to the rule of the real economic elite and the imperial system – they cannot be too thoroughly misled about current events and policy without deleterious consequences for the smooth functioning of the dominant social and political order. They require adequate information and must not be overly influenced by the brutal and foolish propaganda generated for the "bewildered herd." At the same time, information and commentary for the relevant and respectable business and political classes and their "coordinator class" servants and allies often contains a measure of reasoned and sincere intra-elite political and policy debate – debate that is always careful not to stray beyond narrow U.S. ideological parameters. That is why a radical Left U.S. thinker and activist can find much that is of use in U.S. "treetops" media. Such a thinker or activist would, indeed, be foolish not to consult these sources.
"P"BS and N"P"R
A second objection to the Left critique of U.S. "mainstream" media claims that the U.S. public enjoys a meaningful alternative to the corporate media in the form of the nation's Public Broadcasting Service (television) and National Public Radio (NPR). This claim should not be taken seriously. Thanks to U.S. "public" media's pathetically weak governmental funding, its heavy reliance on corporate sponsors, and its constant harassment by right wing critics inside and beyond the U.S. Congress, N"P"R and "P"BS are extremely reluctant to question dominant U.S. ideologies and power structures.
The tepid, power-serving conservatism of U.S. "public" broadcasting is by longstanding political and policy design. The federal government allowed the formation of the "public" networks only on the condition that they pose no competitive market or ideological challenge to private commercial media, the profits system, and U.S. global foreign policy. "P"BS and N"P"R are "public" in a very limited sense. They not function for the public over and against corporate, financial, and imperial power to any significant degree.
"The Internet Will Save Us"
A third objection claims that the rise of the Internet creates a "Wild West" environment in which the power of corporate media is eviscerated and citizens can find and even produce all the "alternative media" they require. This claim is misleading but it should not be reflexively or completely dismissed. In the U.S. as elsewhere, those with access to the Internet and the time and energy to use it meaningfully can find a remarkable breadth and depth of information and trenchant Left analysis at various online sites. The Internet also broadens U.S. citizens and activists' access to media networks beyond the U.S. – to elite sources that are much less beholden of course to U.S. propaganda and ideology. At the same time, the Internet and digital telephony networks have at times shown themselves to be effective grassroots organizing tools for progressive U.S. activists.
Still, the democratic and progressive impact of the Internet in the U.S. is easily exaggerated. Left and other progressive online outlets lack anything close to the financial, technical, and organizational and human resources of the corporate news media, which has its own sophisticated Internet. There is nothing in Left other citizen online outlets that can begin to remotely challenge the "soft" ideological and propagandistic power of corporate "entertainment" media. The Internet's technical infrastructure is increasingly dominated by an "ISP cartel" led by a small number of giant corporations. As the leading left U.S. media analyst Robert McChesney notes:
"By 2014, there are only a half-dozen or so major players that dominate provision of broadband Internet access and wireless Internet access. Three of them – Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast – dominate the field of telephony and Internet access, and have set up what is in effect a cartel. They no longer compete with each other in any meaningful sense. As a result, Americans pay far more for cellphone and broadband Internet access than most other advanced nations and get much lousier service These are not 'free market' companies in any sense of the term. Their business model, going back to pre-Internet days, has always been capturing government monopoly licenses for telephone and cable TV services. Their 'comparative advantage' has never been customer service; it has been world-class lobbying.' [16]
Along the way, the notion of a great "democratizing," Wild West" and "free market" Internet has proved politically useful for the corporate media giants. The regularly trumpet the great Internet myth to claim that the U.S. public and regulators don't need to worry about corporate media power and to justify their demands for more government subsidy and protection. At the same time, finally, we know from the revelations of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and others that the nation's leading digital and Internet-based e-mail (Google and Yahoo), telephony (e.g. Verizon), and "social network" (Facebook above all) corporations have collaborated with the National Security Agency and with the nation's local, state, and federal police in the surveillance of U.S. citizens' and activists' private communications.[17]
Solutions
The fourth objection accuses Left media critics of being overly negative, "carping" critics who offer no serious alternatives to the nation's current corporate-owned corporate-managed commercial and for-profit media system. This is a transparently false and mean-spirited charge. Left U.S. media criticism is strongly linked to a smart and impressive U.S. media reform movement that advances numerous and interrelated proposals for the creation of a genuinely public and democratically run non-commercial and nonprofit U.S. media system. Some of the demand and proposals of this movement include public ownership and operation of the Internet as a public utility; the break-up of the leading media oligopolies; full public funding of public broadcasting; limits on advertising in commercial media; the abolition of political advertisements; the expansion of airwave and broadband access for alternative media outlets; publicly-funded nonprofit and non-commercial print journalism; the abolition of government and corporate surveillance, monitoring, and commercial data-mining of private communication and "social networks."[18] With regard to the media as with numerous other areas, we should recall Chomsky's sardonic response to the standard conservative claim that the Left offers criticisms but no solutions: "There is an accurate translation for that charge: 'they present solutions and I don't like them.'"[19]
A False Paradox
The propagandistic and power-serving mission and nature of dominant U.S, corporate mass media might seem ironic and even paradoxical in light of the United States' strong free speech and democratic traditions. In fact, as Carey and Chomsky have noted, the former makes perfect sense in light of the latter. In nations where popular expression and dissent is routinely crushed with violent repression, elites have little incentive to shape popular perceptions in accord with elite interests. The population is controlled primarily through physical coercion. In societies where it is not generally considered legitimate to put down popular expression with the iron heel of armed force and where dissenting opinion is granted a significant measure of freedom of expression, elites are heavily and dangerously incentivized to seek to manufacture mass popular consent and idiocy. The danger is deepened by the United States' status as the pioneer in the development of mass consumer capitalism, advertising, film, and television. Thanks to that history, corporate America has long stood in the global vanguard when it comes to developing the technologies, methods, art, and science of mass persuasion and thought control.[20]
It is appropriate to place quotation marks around the phrase "mainstream media" when writing about dominant U.S. corporate media. During the Cold War era, U.S. officials and media never referred to the Soviet Union's state television and radio or its main state newspapers as "mainstream Russian media." American authorities referred to these Russian media outlets as "Soviet state media" and treated that media as means for the dissemination of Soviet "propaganda" and ideology. There is no reason to consider the United States' corporate and commercial media as any more "mainstream" than the leading Soviet media organs were back in their day. It is just as dedicated as the onetime Soviet state media to advancing the doctrinal perspectives of its host nation's reigning elite -- and far more effective.
Its success is easily exaggerated, however. To everyday Americans' credit, corporate media has never been fully successful in stamping out popular resistance and winning over the hearts and minds of the U.S. populace. A recent Pew Research poll showed that U.S. "millennials" (young adults 18-29 years old) have a more favorable response to the word "socialism" than to "capitalism" – a remarkable finding on the limits of corporate media and other forms of elite ideological power in the U.S. The immigrant worker uprising of May 2006, the Chicago Republic Door and Window plant occupation of 2008, the University of California student uprisings of 2009 and 2010, the Wisconsin public worker rebellion in early 2011, the Occupy Movement of late 2011, and Fight for Fifteen (for a $15 an hour minimum wage) and Black Lives Matter movements of 2014 and 2015 show that U.S. corporate and imperial establishment has not manufactured anything like comprehensive and across the board mass consent and idiocy in the U,S. today. The U.S. elite is no more successful in its utopian (or dystopian) quest to control every American heart and mind than it is in its equally impossible ambition of managing events across a complex planet from the banks of the Potomac River in Washington D.C. The struggle for popular self-determination, democracy, justice, and equality lives on despite the influence of corporate media.
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Aug 18, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship August 10, 2018 • 92 Comments
In a corporatist system of government, wherein there is no meaningful separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship, argues Caitlin Johnstone in this commentary.
By Caitlin Johnstone
Last year, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed on the US Senate floor that it is their responsibility to "quell information rebellions" and adopt a "mission statement" expressing their commitment to "prevent the fomenting of discord."
" Civil wars don't start with gunshots, they start with words," the representatives were told. "America's war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America."
Today Twitter has silenced three important anti-war voices on its platform: it has suspended Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, suspended Scott Horton of the Scott Horton Show , and completely removed the account of prominent Antiwar.com writer Peter Van Buren.
I'm about to talk about the censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars now, so let me get the "blah blah I don't like Alex Jones" thing out of the way so that my social media notifications aren't inundated with people saying "Caitlin didn't say the 'blah blah I don't like Alex Jones' thing!" I shouldn't have to, because this isn't actually about Alex Jones, but here it is:
I don't like Alex Jones. He's made millions saying the things disgruntled right-wingers want to hear instead of telling the truth; he throws in disinfo with his info, which is the same as lying all the time. He's made countless false predictions and his sudden sycophantic support for a US president has helped lull the populist right into complacency when they should be holding Trump to his non-interventionist campaign pledges, making him even more worthless than he was prior to 2016.
But this isn't about defending Alex Jones. He just happens to be the thinnest edge of the wedge.
Infowars has been censored from Facebook, Youtube (which is part of Google), Apple, Spotify, and now even Pinterest, all within hours of each other. This happens to have occurred at the same time Infowars was circulating a petition with tens of thousands of signatures calling on President Trump to pardon WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who poses a much greater threat to establishment narratives than Alex Jones ever has. Assange's mother also reports that this mass removal of Infowars' audience occurred less than 48 hours after she was approached to do an interview by an Infowars producer.
In a corporatist system of government, wherein there is no meaningful separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. Because legalized bribery in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations has given wealthy Americans the ability to control the U.S. government's policy and behavior while ordinary Americans have no effective influence whatsoever, the U.S. unquestionably has a corporatist system of government. Large, influential corporations are inseparable from the state, so their use of censorship is inseparable from state censorship.
This is especially true of the vast mega-corporations of Silicon Valley, whose extensive ties to U.S. intelligence agencies are well-documented . Once you're assisting with the construction of the US military's drone program , receiving grants from the CIA and NSA for mass surveillance, or having your site's content regulated by NATO's propaganda arm , you don't get to pretend you're a private, independent corporation that is separate from government power. It is possible in the current system to have a normal business worth a few million dollars, but if you want to get to billions of dollars in wealth control in a system where money translates directly to political power, you need to work with existing power structures like the CIA and the Pentagon, or else they'll work with your competitors instead of you
Censorship Through Private Proxy
And yet every time I point to the dangers of a few Silicon Valley plutocrats controlling all new media political discourse with an iron fist, Democratic Party loyalists all turn into a bunch of hardline free market Ayn Rands. "It's not censorship!" they exclaim. "It's a private company and can do whatever it wants with its property!"
They do this because they know their mainstream, plutocrat-friendly "centrist" views will never be censored. Everyone else is on the chopping block, however. Leftist sites have already had their views slashed by a manipulation of Google's algorithms, and it won't be long before movements like BDS and Antifa and skeptics of the establishment Syria and Russia narratives can be made to face mass de-platforming on the same exact pretext as Infowars.
This is a setup. Hit the soft target so your oligarch-friendly censorship doesn't look like what it is, then once you've manufactured consent, go on to shut down the rest of dissenting media bit by bit.
Don't believe that's the plan? Let's ask sitting US Senator Chris Murphy: " Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart," Murphy tweeted in response to the news. "These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it."
That sure sounds an awful lot like the warnings issued to the Silicon Valley representatives on the Senate floor at the beginning of this article, no? This is headed somewhere dark.
We're going to have to find a way to keep the oligarchs from having their cake and eating it too. Either (A) corporations are indeed private organizations separate from the government, in which case the people need to get money out of politics and government agencies out of Silicon Valley so they can start acting like it, and insist that their owners can't be dragged out on to the Senate floor and instructed on what they can and can't do with their business, or (B) these new media platforms get treated like the government agencies they function as, and the people get all the First Amendment protection that comes with it. Right now the social engineers are double-dipping in a way that will eventually give the alliance of corporate plutocrats and secretive government agencies the ability to fully control the public's access to ideas and information.
If they accomplish that, it's game over for humanity. Any hope of the public empowering itself over the will of a few sociopathic, ecocidal, omnicidal oligarchs will have been successfully quashed. We are playing for all the chips right now. We have to fight this. We have no choice.
This commentary was originally published on CaitlinJohnstone.com .
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium . Follow her work on Facebook , Twitter , or her website . She has a podcast and a new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . This article was re-published with permission.
gininitaly , August 14, 2018 at 6:59 am
Skip Scott , August 14, 2018 at 8:23 amhttps://www.corbettreport.com/episode-344-problem-reaction-solution-internet-censorship-edition/
glitch , August 14, 2018 at 10:17 pmCal-
Caitlin is still on medium.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/latestHerman , August 13, 2018 at 11:07 amShe also has her own website now https://caitlinjohnstone.com/
uncle bob , August 13, 2018 at 12:42 amMs. Johnstone is right. Government pressure on corporations works but the media in all its forms does a pretty good job of sowing discord without government interference. There are so few instances where the government and the major media are not in sync, they are hard to find. As to allowing the lonely voices of worthy organizations like Consortium News, why should they bother. Allowing them creates the pretense of free speech. If they become dangerous, the mood of our elected officials is to fix the problem as Ms. Johnstone rightly notes. The defense of freedom of speech by government and the major media is very selective, and the use of the calling fire in a loaded theatre standard is a big enough vehicle for suppression to drive a truck through, a whole convoy in fact.
As an aside, watching Sixty Minutes on their hit piece about Russian interference in our elections was an example of sloppy journalism that seems to be the norm. when it is about Russia. I was about to say they never used to be like that, but I think that is probably not true.
peon d. rich , August 12, 2018 at 6:19 pmhttps://therealnews.com/series/max-blumenthal-on-the-silicon-valley-dc-internet-police
cjonsson1 , August 12, 2018 at 1:50 pmBulls-eye!!!! especially on Democratic party loyalists who perform a much more important function for plutocracy than the Republicans and the Tea Party – to rally around fake progressive politics dripping out of the DNC, and effectively drain off the pressure building for true progressive politics.
Karl Pomeroy , August 11, 2018 at 8:55 pmThis is a good example of Caitlin explaining what is going on in the American media wars which is crucial for people to know.
Our access to information, other than government propaganda, is becoming very limited because the few major social network corporations are owned by a few wealthy individuals or private government contractors. They are monopolies which should be designated public utilities, and regulated as such, or broken up into smaller entities, allowing for competition.
It is important to preserve what is left of our freedom of expression and our free press. The ability to comment on reporting and discuss it with others is diminishing while sources are becoming more and more restricted.
Government and big business fight the public for control of information and opinion. We have to collectively save our stake in democracy by rejecting censorship.Arby , August 11, 2018 at 12:01 pmYou make some very good points. Alas, I disagree about Alex Jones. The very few times I've listened to his videos, it seemed to me every last thing he said was absolutely true and correct. So I don't know where the idea comes from that he speaks disinformation. He's sometimes obnoxious and hard to watch. But that's a different thing. His words are accurate, particularly about the globalists, the deep state, US-Russia relations, and Trump.
vinnieoh , August 11, 2018 at 10:14 am"It is possible in the current system to have a normal business worth a few million dollars, but if you want to get to billions of dollars in wealth control in a system where money translates directly to political power, you need to work with existing power structures like the CIA and the Pentagon, or else they'll work with your competitors instead of you."
Actually, If companies get big, they become potential big tools/weapons for the war-making State, at which point they will be offered a deal that they can't refuse, as one would expect within this gangster Corporatocracy. Look at Wikileaks. Mozilla simply jumped on the fake news bandwagon, so they are now safe, as Aaron Kesel at Activist Post points out. Lavabit's owner, Ladar Levinson had principles and was loyal to his customers (including Edward Snowden) whom he didn't want to betray just because the Corporatocracy State demanded it, and so he shut down. He revived his company once he figured out ways to shield his customers from the war-making State that attacks us all in the name of 'national security'.
So, it's a little more dire than the government just deciding to favor your competitors, which of course the amazing Caitlin knows.
With all of this capture by tech giants, innovators, by the war-making State (Randolph Bourne), How will end? I have more than one answer to that. One of those answers is the obvious one: Ramped up counterrevolution, in the area of cyberspace mainly, in the State's war against the people. And such a war is underway as any number of authors have demonstrated thoroughly. And its not (just) Russia attacking the people. Jeff Halper wrote "War Against The People." Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes edited "The Secure And The Dispossessed." Douglas Valentine wrote "The Phoenix Program," which he notes wasn't confined to Vietnam. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote the devastating two-volume "Political Economy Of Human Rights," which included "The Washington Connection And Third World Fascism." And Edward Herman wrote: "The Real Terror Network." All of those books and many others talk about counterrevolution and the counterinsurgency (State terrorism) that goes with it.
And counterrevolution and counterinsurgency doesn't have to be of the extreme variety, such as in South Vietnam when the US was torturing that country to death. Caitlin has talked about how the State (New Zealand) went to work on her friend, Suzie Dawson. Read the account. It's quite illuminating.
What do you call 'thinking' that is against 'thinking' (and what we consider to be a part of innovation that leads to inventions that elevate society? It's called counterrevolution. That's where our corrupt tech giants have gone. It won't end well for them, even if they think otherwise and even if they feel safe because they are with the big guy. There's a bigger guy who has that big guy in his sights.
"Thinking About Thinking" – https://arrby.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/thinking-about-thinking/
"41 Tags, 17 Entries And No Views. Bookmark Me Maybe?" – https://arrby.wordpress.com/2018/08/11/41-tags-17-entries-and-no-views-bookmark-me-maybe/
Jerry Alatalo , August 11, 2018 at 8:57 am"We Do What We're Told" – Peter Gabriel; "So"
Somehow I had missed those words from our elected "representatives" in Congressional hearing. What these political pimps and whores don't want us to do is get together and agree to dispel the bullshit that we're up to our necks in right now.
As far as I know this is the first piece I've read by Caitlin Johnstone, and I agree with her general premise that this is more than just ominous. More and more of our elected "representatives" talk and act like alien totalitarians.
The good news is that Trump's "trade" and saber-rattling belligerence is finally awakening the rest of humanity to the fundamental non-starter of a unipolar anything. That one entity so militarily, politically, and economically dominant that it can cause pain and suffering wherever and whenever it decides. It is ironic that Trump's MAGA is the act in this play that will dethrone the USA. The downside is that the 99% control NOTHING (this is true across most of the planet.) Another downside is that the megalomaniacs in power will not concede power without a cataclysmic conflict. But nothing is set in stone, though the indications don't look promising.
Realist , August 11, 2018 at 3:12 am"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
"But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is always a great benefit – the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."
– JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) English political economist, philosopher
Dave P. , August 11, 2018 at 5:46 pmSomething must be getting into the water supply either by accident or design to induce the mass hypnosis that has so many presumably intelligent people believing that we must all walk in lockstep on every policy the elites want. Maybe we are all zombified from the massive amounts of Xanax, Valium, Oxycontin and other mind-numbing psychoactive agents our population consumes and pisses, unmetabolized, into the water table to be recycled into our drinking water, obviating the need for a personal prescription to enjoy (suffer) the effects.
It's a real pity if the totally transparent sham scare stories they have disseminated are alone enough to convince most of the people to give up their constitutional rights and privacy. Clearly the tactic of the big lie doesn't work on every last individual or sites like this one would not have an audience. That is why they want to shut us down, and Alex Jones, though not a member of this journal club, is just the first step towards an outcome that will encompass everyone remaining outside an all pervasive Groupthink.
Ideas, beliefs, memes, values, customs, habits and such are not received universally from some inspirational force on high. (You are simply told to believe that from earliest childhood.) They are spread through the population like a virus from mind-to-mind contact, whether in person or via some modality of mass communication, like the TV or the internet. The object of censorship, as per Alex Jones or Ron Paul most recently, is to extirpate the source of "infection" as close to its point of origin as possible, before it can be spread to too many carriers for transmission to others. People tend to believe what they hear and what they hear comes from their regular contacts. Shut down their favorite talk show host or internet site and they become starved for new "seditious" ideas. If they never hear a truth, chances are they won't think it up themselves and certainly not act upon it.
Another thing I am pretty sure of: if their attempts at propaganda, psy-ops and mind control do not work to their satisfaction, unadorned thuggery will become the new standard. I know, I know, some of our number already get a taste of that.
Skip Scott , August 12, 2018 at 7:08 amRealist –
"Another thing I am pretty sure of: if their attempts at propaganda, psy-ops and mind control do not work to their satisfaction, unadorned thuggery will become the new standard . . . "
You have it absolutely right. There have been markers all along since G.W. Bush/Cheney rule, clear indicators of this new Future.
But some of us are so desperate to have a better and peaceful future for the humanity on this planet that we get our hopes high for any silver lining in the sky – Obama's hope and change, now Trump's getting along with Russia and stopping interventions abroad.
Now it seems like there is this new hoax the Democrats are going to perpetrate, candidates with some type of socialist orientation, like Bernie Sanders supposedly has been or is. The politicians in both parties are accomplished ConMen, in service of the real Masters – MIC, Wall Street Finance, Media and Entertainment, working to bring this new Future. Bernie Sanders is no different.
Realist , August 12, 2018 at 10:01 am"Now it seems like there is this new hoax the Democrats are going to perpetrate, candidates with some type of socialist orientation, like Bernie Sanders supposedly has been or is. "
I have noticed this ploy as well. They are willing to have a few faux progressives to keep the progressive wing of the party from abandoning them altogether. They use Sanders, and now this new Ocasio-Cortez, to sell their "big tent" narrative, and then co-op them when it comes to all the important issues. They also constantly sell the idea that voting for third party candidates is a waste of time, so you have to settle for "the lesser of evils" when it comes time for a new president. I don't know how long they can keep playing the same con-game before people see through it, but if it happens again in 2020, I think we are doomed.
Jessika , August 10, 2018 at 6:23 pmThe Democratic incumbent running for the senate in Florida (Bill Nelson) has made me so angry by yet again using the party con against Russia that I could never vote for him even though his opponent is the horrendous Governor Rick Scott (who plead guilty to defrauding Medicare to the tune of a billion dollars for his Columbia HMO system prior to his election). I cannot abide such theft of taxpayer money in broad daylight, but I also cannot accept Nelson's spewing lies that Russia has actively hacked the Florida voter roles, plans to delete registrations and disrupt the November elections. You know who's really more likely to do those things? The Democratic and Republican parties.
Nelson is just making pre-emptive excuses for the loss that he sees coming. If he believes his desperate gambit can work, he must think the voters are damned idiots to believe that Russia would persist in perpetrating sabotage against American interests putting them constantly in the crosshairs of our politicians and media. He must think that Floridians will buy any tall tale that their elected officials tell them, totally unsupported by any evidence. We are to believe that Assad never stops trying to poison his own people and that Putin never stops interfering in American elections. (Why should Putin favor Rick Scott? Because he admires American crooks?) If you truly believe such accusations, it is probably logical that you would favor WAR with that country. I will vote for someone from the Baader-Meinhof gang or the Taliban Party (if there is such a beast) before either Nelson or Scott. Or I won't vote at all.
Jeff Harrison , August 10, 2018 at 5:12 pmZero Hedge tonight has an interesting article by Charles Hugh Smith, "The Grand Irony of Russiagate: US Becomes More Like USSR Every Day". The clampdown in the old Soviet Union before its collapse has parallels to what's going on in US now.
MBeaver , August 11, 2018 at 10:50 pmFrom Wikipedia. Fascism:
Fascism (/?fæ??z?m/) is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism,[1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.The Cheetos-in-chief would love to wield dictatorial power and has tried to do so in the past as have his predecessors (Obama, yeah, well, we had to torture some folks::Shrub you're with us or against us.). Senator Chris Murphy essentially telling these companies who to kick off their platforms, the regimentation of society and the economy is continuing apace as companies are forced to comply with government demands that the government should never be able to make but they do for "national security reasons"
Pfui. As I've said before the US has become a fascistic police state.
jaycee , August 10, 2018 at 4:27 pmMany other western countries, too. The only thing missing to "fit" fascism is the nationalism. They completely gave up their national identity for neoliberal agendas. I wont look for a new term, because its as close to fascism as anything else, especially since the definition of leftism and socialism has changed a lot since fascism was invented (by a socialist), so why shouldnt the definition of fascism a tiny bit?
But it exposes people who always cry "its not fascism" because nationalism is missing, as accomplices at the very least.Also, as an objective person, you should at least admit, that "cheeto-in-chief" is actually trying hard to keep the promises he made. I havent seen that in a western leader in a very VERY long time. Its just very obvious that the president isnt almighty and the deep state is very powerful. Thanks to Trump its become evident to even fools, that the USA is much more corrupt than even any conspiracy theorist would have thought just a few years ago.
Gary Weglarz , August 10, 2018 at 3:58 pmThe idea that discordant speech is somehow a threat to the nation or democracy is so looney and bereft of fact that it is actually painful to contemplate how many otherwise intelligent persons seem to have internalized the notion. Obviously, Trump's election victory severely damaged the Establishment's confidence in the ability to "manufacture consent" to the degree that fundamental concepts of free speech are now in the cross-hairs. They will destroy the Republic in order to save it.
Dave P. , August 10, 2018 at 5:48 pmWhen the corporate state speaks of "hate speech" and "community standards" – one can be sure they are not referring to Madeline Albright's stunning defense for killing of a half a million Iraqi children with sanctions as "worth it." Nor would the corporate state ever categorize as "hate speech" the daily attack by a wide variety of U.S. officials and media pundits, not only on the Russian government, but on the very – "character" – of the Russian people as a whole.
Our actual and very real – "community standards" – in the U.S. include the complete normalization of illegal immoral endless aggressive war-making in violation of international law (not to mention regime change by jihadists, drone murders, economic warfare, political assassinations, etc.) – along with the despicable demonization of official enemies – in other words the total "normalization of hate-speech."
"Violations" of these widely held U.S. "community standards" & "hate-speech standards" involves plain and simply any – "challenge" – to them or deviation from them. In other words to speak words not sufficiently 'anti-Russian' today is considered a form of "hate speech" in MSM and in political discourse. To suggest peace rather than war with Russia might be a good idea is to violate precious "community standards" which today tolerate only mindless fact-free warmongering in public discourse. You really can't make this stuff up!
Maxwell Quest , August 10, 2018 at 10:00 pmExcellent comments. So true.
We are heading towards some sort of dark ages, and at very fast pace.
Dave P. , August 10, 2018 at 11:09 pmGary, pointing out the shameless and bald-faced hypocrisy as you did can sometimes shake the stupefaction from an open-minded reader. Sadly, though, arguments such as these just seem to bounce off the Russiagaters, having no effect. Conversely, these very same people couldn't lavish enough praise on the peace prize winner Obama, whether he was bailing out the corrupt banks, letting the lobbyists craft Obamacare, trafficking arms through Benghazi, or droning some wedding party in the desert.
What do both of these examples have in common? Easy, the state media was able to control the narrative in each case, and these same hypnotized drones ate it up hook, line and sinker. This brings us right back to why internet-based censorship is the hot topic of the day, since it is the single most threat to complete state control over the public mind.
Realist , August 11, 2018 at 2:24 amWell said. Obama is not gone yet. He is still out there selling his philosophy of promoting the Wall street and corrupt banks, and droning and killing the weak and innocents all over the world , for the right cause so to speak – spreading freedom and democracy. And liberals buy it. What a World we live in!
He, along with Clintons, is the main instigator of "Russia Gate", which may lead the human life to extinction on Earth.
Realist , August 11, 2018 at 2:22 amDave
Yes, anything is permitted (by Washington) as long as it is in the name of "freedom and democracy." So say the leaders of our exceptional country.
Mildly Facetious , August 11, 2018 at 4:16 pmDamn straight, Maxwell.
Yes, anything is permitted (by Washington) as long as it is in the name of "freedom and democracy." So say the leaders of our exceptional country.
??????????????????????????They do this because they know their mainstream, plutocrat-friendly "centrist" views will never be censored.
Everyone else is on the chopping block, however.
Leftist sites have already had their views slashed by a manipulation of Google's algorithms, and it won't be long before movements like BDS and Antifa and skeptics of the establishment Syria and Russia narratives can be made to face mass de-platforming on the same exact pretext as Infowars.
-- - compare that, if you've a clue, (not to obfuscate your subject), Caitlan Johnstone, with, not mere censorship, but the Protection of 'Confidential' information such as the Industrial Pharma INDUSTRY OF DEATH (shades -of -nazi-germany??? )via INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION and PRESCRIBING OF OPIOIDS as if Huxley's "Soma" or/and a preview of " The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo. – Practical Instructions for Beta Embryro-Store Workers /// as in government forced vaccinations along with Facebook enforced capitulation of any/all -- Personal Sovereign Belief/s massively defaulting and bowing the knee and Becoming Persuaded and Trapped into inescapable Autocracy, by reason of Darwin-esk dissembling and a dis-informed election to Dissent Into The Maelstrom of the sinking ship of American Exceptionalism, -- as if God could/would "forgive" all-of-the-collective Brutality of Bombs, bullets, Uranium Munitions / CRIPPLING Sanctions imposted -- support of brutal dictators Who massacred INNOCENT Civilians in order to obtain/secure US MILITARY FUNDS, in order to secure autocratic/authoritative CONTROL
We are engulfed in a Molding Faze of acceptance of/into a totally new Reality strangely built upon Nazi science/experiments, now Entering an/the Age of Space-Age manipulation of DNA, Gene Manipulation -- origins of species ordered inside test tubes.
George Gilder prophetically saw this in this and more in his prescient 1990's book, MICROCOSM. --
George Gilder and his Discovery Institute were far Ahead – of -the -curve in this 'Facebook" era of Futurisms .Please find and consider his book, esp as it relates to technological possibilities and the New Wonders (Brave New Worlds) of Gene splicing / manipulation .
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Aug 13, 2018 | dissidentvoice.org
Or, What's Wrong with Russian Collusion?
The question is finally being asked, by the president himself: what's wrong with collusion? Or at least his lawyer asks the question, while Trumps tweets:Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn't matter because there was No Collusion.
The problem, of course, is that of collusion with an alleged adversary. Russia, we are constantly informed, is one such adversary, indeed the main state adversary, with Putin is its head.
Adversary is a very strong term. The Hebrew word for adversary is Satan. Satan is the ultimate symbol of evil in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Satan tempted Eve at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, causing her to eat the fruit, and so evil entered the world.
Just like some want you to think that evil entered the (good, pristine) U.S. electoral process due to this Russian adversary in 2016.
(Sometimes listening to TV pundits vilifying Putin I find Luther's famous hymn floating through my head:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.Luther's referring to Satan, of course. But the current mythology around Putin -- as someone who still , like Lenin and Stalin before him, and the tsars of old, wishes us harm; is an unbridled dictator with a powerful great nuclear arsenal; is the wealthiest man on earth; and hates democracy -- resembles the mythology around the Adversary in the Bible.)
But let us problematize this vilification. When did Russia become a U.S. adversary? Some might say 1917 when in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution Moscow became the center of the global communist movement. But surely that period ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR.
Throughout the 1990s the U.S. cultivated Boris Yeltsin's Russia as a friend and even aided the drunken buffoon in winning the 1996 election. Bill Clinton and Yeltsin signed the Start II treaty. Harvard professors advised Moscow on economic reform.
The Russians were not pleased by U.S.-NATO involvements in the former Yugoslavia, a traditional Russian ally, in 1995 and 1999, and the expansion of NATO in the latter year (to include Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary) in violation of the agreement between Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for Russia's acceptance of German reunification NATO would not spread "one inch" towards Russia. They protested meekly. But Russia was not an adversary then.
Nor was it an adversary when, in 2001, under its new president Vladimir Putin, it offered NATO a route through Russia to provision forces in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. The real change only came in 2004, when NATO suddenly expanded to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. This brought alliances forces right to the Russian border.
It was a clear statement by the U.S. to a friendly country: We are your adversary. But, of course, the Pentagon and State Department always pooh-poohed Russian concerns, denying that NATO targeted any particular country.
Four years later (2008) NATO announced intentions to draw Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. Meanwhile the U.S. recognized Kosovo as an independent state. Kosovo, the historical heart of Serbian civilization, had been wrenched from Serbia in 1999 under the pretext of a "humanitarian" intervention that included the first bombing (by NATO) of a European capital city since 1945. The province had been converted into a vast NATO base.
Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, emboldened by the prospect of NATO membership and western backing, attacked the capital of the separatist republic of South Ossetia, provoking (as the Russians explain it) a proper punitive response: the Russo-Georgian War of August 7-16 . After this Moscow recognized South Ossetia and a second breakaway republic, Abkhazia, in a tit-for-tat response to Washington's recognition of Kosovo.
Now Russia was labelled an aggressive power -- by the power that had carved up Yugoslavia, and invaded and occupied Iraq on the basis of lies and killed half a million in the process. Plans to include Georgia in NATO had to be put on hold, in large part due to European allies' opposition (why provoke Russia?) but the U.S. intensified efforts to draw in Ukraine. That meant toppling the anti-NATO elected president Viktor Yanukovych.
The U.S. State Department devoted enormous resources to the Maidan coup in Kiev on February 23, 2014. Its agents helped topple the government, ostensibly for its failure to negotiate an agreement for Ukrainian associate membership in the EU, but really to bring pro-NATO forces to power and expel the Russian Fleet from the Crimean Peninsula where it has been based since 1783. Moscow's limited support for the Donbass ethnic-Russian separatists and re-annexation of Crimea were, of course, depicted by the U.S. as more aggression, more mischievous opposition to "U.S. global interests."
But from Moscow's point of view these moves have surely been defensive. The main problem is (obviously) NATO and its dangerous, unnecessary and provocative expansion. Throughout his presidential campaign Trump questioned the continued "relevance" of NATO. Characteristically he focused on budget issues and allies' failure to meet the goal figure of 2% if GDP for military expenses (misleadingly depicting investment shortfalls as a betrayal and rip-off of the victimized U.S.). But he did -- to the alarm of many, and probably to Moscow's delight -- express little enthusiasm for the alliance's historical purpose.
The most rational proposition Trump voiced before his election that the U.S. should "get along" with Russia. That is, get along with the so-called adversary. Trump as we all know had been in Russia on business, hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, and maintains interest in building a Trump Tower in the city. He has met and befriended Russian oligarchs. He quite possibly sees Russia as just another country, like Germany or France.
If "the French" had had dirt on Hillary, would it have been okay to "collude" with them to influence the election result? France is, of course, a NATO ally. Would that make it different? Now that the president and his layers are openly questioning whether "collusion", per se, is even illegal, the specific nature of the colluder becomes more relevant.
Russia is an adversary.
Russia is an adversary.
Putin in Helsinki acknowledged to a reporter that he had hoped Trump could win, because he had expressed hope for better relations. He might have added that he dreaded the prospect of a Hillary victory because of her warmongering and characterization of him as a Hitler. Naturally the Russian media favored Trump over Clinton at a certain point when he emerged as a credible candidate. So when Trump on July 27, 2016 called on Russia to release Hillary's missing emails ("if you've got 'em") the Russians probably felt invited to make contact through channels. And when informed that they had dirt, Don Jr. wrote: "If that's what you say, I love it." (Who can blame him?)
Let's say there was some collusion after the June 6 Trump Tower meeting. Trump has suddenly acknowledged that the meeting with the Russians was indeed to "seek political dirt." He adds that this is "totally legal," and this may be true. Some are now saying that Don Jr. may have violated a federal statute (52 USC 30121, 36 USC 5210) forbidding any foreign person to "make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.' and for anyone to knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation prohibited by [this law]." But the language is vague. If a Canadian speechwriter works gratis for a U.S. political candidate, in order to help him or her win, is this not "a thing of value" intended to affect an election?
If Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner had met with Canadian agents in Trump Tower I doubt there would have been any controversy. The fact is, Trump won the election and many of those stunned by that wish to undermine him using revived Cold War-type Russophobia. They insist: He worked with our adversary to undermine our election. And now they hope they've got him on this charge.
*****
Five years ago a young man named Edward Snowden (now living in forced exile in Russia) revealed to the world the extent of the U.S.'s global surveillance. He showed us how the NSA wiretaps EU meetings, popes' conversations, Angela Merkel's cell phone and maintains metadata on virtually all U.S. residents. He showed us what the contemporary advanced state can do in this respect. We should suppose that Moscow has, if not similar capacity, at least enough expertise to hack into the DNC emails or John Podesta's g-mail account. Is that surprising?
What none of the TV anchors is allowed to say needs to be said again: The U.S. interferes in foreign elections all the time, including Russian ones. It should surprise no one if Russian intelligence responds in kind. The point is not the provenance of the leaked emails but their content.
Those horrified by the leaked material complain that their release was designed to "undermine faith in our democratic system." Really? Don't the workings of the system itself undermine one's faith in it, once they are exposed? Was it adversarial of the leaker to inform us that the DNC had no intention of allowing Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic nomination, and thus that the process was rigged? Was it unfriendly to reveal that Podesta was hoping the media would hype Trump, as an easy target for his candidate?
The question that will no doubt be debated in the coming days is whether seeking dirt on a political opponent from any foreigner is indeed illegal, or whether there are specific legal ramifications of meeting with someone from an "adversary" country. But it seems to me that Russia has not been defined as such officially. So we may have a discussion less about legality than the politics of Russophobia.
I am happy to see Trump besieged, rattled, possibly facing impeachment. But to bring him down on the basis of "Russian collusion," on the assumption that Russia is an adversary, would only advantage the warmongers who want no-fly zones over Syria and military support for the Kiev regime against the Donbas separatists. Vice President Pence I believe favors both.
Trump has said that he cannot host Putin in Washington this year, or until the Russian Hoax witch hunt is over. But Putin has invited him to Moscow. One senses he wants some agreements with Trump before he is ousted by his gathering adversaries, including the press, courts, Democrats, select Republicans, turncoat aides and he himself sometimes in his unguarded tweets.
Gary Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: [email protected] . Read other articles by Gary .This article was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2018 at 10:30pm and is filed under (Ex-)Yugoslavia , Chancellor Angela Merkel , Donald Trump , Elections , Espionage/"Intelligence" , Hillary Clinton , Kosovo , Mike Pence , President Vladimir Putin , Russia , Serbia , Ukraine , United States , US Hypocrisy , US Lies .
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Apr 16, 2018 | www.youtube.com
Off Grid Nation , 4 months agoFirst, US sanctions against Russia, then the Skripals mystery, and last the Attack at Syria....What the masters of the world trying do???
shaughn fourie , 4 months agoI'm an American. I'm disgusted with the mafia cartel bankrupt corporation that masquerades as the government. I don't like or trust any government but after listening to this guy, he certainly comes across as way more trustworthy than anyone puppet we have in the Trump regime. #IDONOTCONSENT
shaughn fourie , 4 months agoTHANK YOU RUSSIA IN PARTICULAR PRESIDENT PUTIN AND LAVROV BOTH GOOD INTELLIGENT AND DECENT MEN
James Australian , 4 months ago (edited)MACRON TRUMP AND MAY ARE MURDERERS......THANK YOU ASSAD AND RUSSIA AND KURDISH PEOPLE FOR TRULY STANDING UP FOR CIVILISED VALUES
zac anthony , 4 months agoneed to stop the tyrants to prevent the fall of Damascus.. Must not let them kill Mr Assad.
Luboš Lier , 4 months agoI believe in Russia more than our gov we are being led
haithem ali , 4 months agoRussia just needs to give Syria couple of tactical nukes. And the peace in Syria is assured...
Sometimes he continues talking without look at paper..... bcs he say true.... and USA, BRITAIN and France cant do that bcs they are lying and scared if they will say something wrong.
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Aug 17, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
Gary Weglarz August 14, 2018 at 4:37 pm
It is quite interesting how many uninformed posters and/or trolls would love to find a way to show the "Russiagate" nonsense is somehow plausible in spite of the evidence. They're kind of like a five year old child who desperately wants to keep believing in Santa Claus, even though he just found dad's Santa costume in the closet and he's holding it in his own hands.
I will say that the amount of mental gymnastics required to continue not believing evidence that is right in front of one's eyes is quite impressive – but I'd never underestimate the American people's creativity when they want to maintain their illusions/delusions. And I'd certainly never underestimate the Russiagate troll army's persistence.
At this rate I expect to soon encounter some version of the following "observation" in the comments section for this article: – "maybe space aliens hired by the Russians downloaded the files to a to a new fangled thig-a-ma-jig and then shape-shifted so Craig Murray would be fooled into thinking a real-like-human insider provided him the files on a flash drive." – "oh, oh, wait, maybe the aliens abducted Murray too, and then just made him "think" a fellow human gave him the drive in person." "yeah, yeah, and maybe Assange just says he didn't get the files from the Russians because "he's a space alien too." "Yeah, prove to me that it didn't happen this way – you can't – ha! there! I win!"
Sorry, but two years into this we should be way beyond this kind of – "I can't believe Santa's not real"- denying, dissembling, rationalizing nonsense. Then again, this is America.
GM , August 14, 2018 at 4:51 pm
jeff montanye , August 17, 2018 at 7:11 amAmerica is after all a country in which half the population believe in the creation myth.
Just Plain Scott , August 14, 2018 at 6:14 pmbut if i had to bet, the creationists are less likely to believe in Russiagate than the evolutionists.
michael , August 15, 2018 at 6:06 amPlease don't give Rachel Maddow any more ideas.
ToivoS , August 14, 2018 at 4:26 pm"Two years after the Iraq War began, 70 per cent of Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks, according to a Washington Post survey." The Big Lie works, and since Obama gutted Smith-Mundt, the CIA/ State Department can legally keep Americans tracking on their propaganda narratives.
GM , August 14, 2018 at 5:01 pmI agree with Lawrences point that this is an issue of social psychology. Rational argument over the facts is simply over taken by some kind of mass hysteria. There certainly precedent for this kind of behavior. Indeed this was described in 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' 180 years ago. In my lifetime I have witnessed two episodes of this kind of mass hysteria. The first was the red scare of the early 1950's (I not so much witnessed that as experienced it) and the second was the day care hysteria of satanic cults abusing our children that flared between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now this is a third manifestation of mass hysteria.
It all began with Hillary's shocking defeat. Many millions of her supporters knew that she was so good that she had to win. But then she lost. Those millions of Democrats could not accept that in fact their assessment of her talents were totally wrong and that she lost because she has to be one of the worst candidates in American history. That is a reality those people refused to accept. Instead they had to concoct some crazy conspiracy to explain their break with reality. This is a classic case of cognitive dissonance which often leads to mass hysteria.
Rob Roy , August 14, 2018 at 11:07 pmPeople choose to believe what they feel that they most need to believe to assuage their insecurities fostered by what they perceive to be the dangerous and scary world in which they exist. The simple fact that we know that life is finite by the time we're three years old fosters the creation of such constructs as that of the myth of everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven complete with a mortgage-free condo and an extra parking space for all repentant sinners are mainstream beliefs.
ToivoS, you are right about Hillary. She simply couldn't accept her defeat. She was the one who began Russiagate by the lie, "17 intelligence agencies" said the Russians hacked the emails.
As for times of mass-swallowing of a lie in the 1930s every German thought that Poland was about to invade Germany and they were scared so much that they believed their leaders who "false flagged" them into invading Poland "first." Of course, Poland had no intention of invading Germany.
Notice every time the US attacks another sovereign country, there's a false flag waved for the citizens to follow?
Don't you appreciate that we have consortiumnews?
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Aug 14, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Technocrats rule the world, East and West alike.
We are in a very peculiar ideological and political place in which Democracy (oh sainted Democracy) is a very good thing, unless the voters reject the technocrat class's leadership. Then the velvet gloves come off. From the perspective of the elites and their technocrat apparatchiks, elections have only one purpose: to rubberstamp their leadership.
As a general rule, this is easily managed by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and bribes to the cartels and insider fiefdoms who pony up most of the cash.
This is why incumbents win the vast majority of elections. Once in power, they issue the bribes and payoffs needed to guarantee funding next election cycle.
The occasional incumbent who is voted out of office made one of two mistakes:
1. He/she showed a very troubling bit of independence from the technocrat status quo, so a more orthodox candidate is selected to eliminate him/her.
2. The incumbent forgot to put on a charade of "listening to my constituency" etc.
If restive voters can't be bamboozled into passively supporting the technocrat status quo with the usual propaganda, divide and conquer is the preferred strategy. Only voting for the technocrat class (of any party, it doesn't really matter) will save us from the evil Other : Deplorables, socialists, commies, fascists, etc.
In extreme cases where the masses confound the status quo by voting against the technocrat class (i.e. against globalization, financialization, Empire), then the elites/technocrats will punish them with austerity or a managed recession. The technocrat's core ideology boils down to this:
1. The masses are dangerously incapable of making wise decisions about anything, so we have to persuade them to do our bidding. Any dissent will be punished, marginalized, censored or shut down under some pretext of "protecting the public" or violation of some open-ended statute.
2. To insure this happy outcome, we must use all the powers of propaganda, up to and including rigged statistics, bogus "facts" (official fake news can't be fake news, etc.), divide and conquer, fear-mongering, misdirection and so on.
3. We must relentlessly centralize all power, wealth and authority so the masses have no escape or independence left to threaten us. We must control everything, for their own good of course.
4. Globalization must be presented not as a gargantuan fraud that has stripmined the planet and its inhabitants, but as the sole wellspring of endless, permanent prosperity.
5. If the masses refuse to rubberstamp our leadership, they will be punished and told the source of their punishment is their rejection of globalization, financialization and Empire.
Technocrats rule the world, East and West alike. My two favorite charts of the outcome of technocrats running things to suit their elite masters are:
The state-cartel-crony-capitalist version: the top .1% skim the vast majority of the gains in income and wealth. Globalization, financialization and Empire sure do rack up impressive gains. Too bad they're concentrated in the top 1.%.
The state-crony-socialist version: the currency is destroyed, impoverishing everyone but the top .1% who transferred their wealth to Miami, London and Zurich long ago. Hmm, do you discern a pattern here in the elite-technocrat regime?
Ideology is just a cover you slip over the machine to mask what's really going on.
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My new book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com .
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Jul 28, 2018 | russia-insider.com
In today's United States, the term "espionage" doesn't get too much use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage, but with regard to Americans' own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they prefer the term "intelligence." This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you look at things.First of all, US "intelligence" is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.
In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate negotiating future spy swaps.
In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies, sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as "Al Qaeda." There was no such thing before US intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.
Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence.
There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their "secret" lab in Porton Down doesn't work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).
There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be following due process and rules of evidence, they don't add much value.
A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and the method -- treason -- can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper, professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents. In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for injecting disinformation.
Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it's been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet. Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn't have been done by anyone working remotely from Russia.
Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the Russian Constitution: "61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of Russia or extradited to another state."
Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.
That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment.
He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?
Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign.
In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed, at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don't they understand?
The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up."
The "intelligence" the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful -- be they about Syrian chemical weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden -- because facts require accuracy and rigor while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual objective is easily discernible.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled. A light-hearted answer would have been:
"What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task."
A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:
"The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact."
And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:
"The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their dismissal."
But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts.
Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria.
The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593. Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the US, that's your bill so far for the various US intelligence "oopsies."
The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their "mistakes" have cost the country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.
There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.
First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for their mistakes.
Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars."
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Aug 11, 2018 | www.nytimes.com
Yet the political realm is where Soros has made his most audacious wager. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, he poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the former Soviet-bloc countries to promote civil society and [neo]liberal democracy. It was a one-man Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe, a private initiative without historical precedent. It was also a gamble that a part of the world that had mostly known tyranny would embrace ideas like government accountability and ethnic tolerance. In London in the 1950s, Soros was a student of the expatriated Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who championed the notion of an "open society," in which individual liberty, pluralism and free inquiry prevailed. Popper's concept became Soros's cause.
... ... ...
...In the 1990s, he was portrayed by the far left as an agent of American imperialism, helping to foist the so-called neoliberal agenda (mass privatization, for example) on Eastern Europe. For some critics, Soros's Wall Street background has always been a mark against him.
Last autumn, he signaled that same sense of defiance when he announced that he was in the process of transferring the bulk of his remaining wealth, $18 billion in total at the time, to the O.S.F. That will potentially make it the second-largest philanthropic organization in the United States, in assets, after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is already a sprawling entity, with some 1,800 employees in 35 countries, a global advisory board, eight regional boards and 17 issue-oriented boards. Its annual budget of around $1 billion finances projects in education, public health, independent media, immigration and criminal-justice reform and other areas
... ... ...
He decided that his goal would be opening closed societies. He created a philanthropic organization, then called the Open Society Fund, in 1979 and began sponsoring college scholarships for black South African students. But he soon turned his attention to Eastern Europe, where he started financing dissident groups. He funneled money to the Solidarity strikers in Poland in 1981 and to Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. In one especially ingenious move, he sent hundreds of Xerox copiers to Hungary to make it easier for underground publications to disseminate their newsletters. In the late 1980s, he provided dozens of Eastern European students with scholarships to study in the West, with the aim of fostering a generation of [neo]liberal democratic leaders. One of those students was Viktor Orban, who studied civil society at Oxford. From his Manhattan trading desk, Soros became a strange sort of expat anticommunist revolutionary.
... ... ...
In one campaign rally in Budapest, Orban referred to Soros as "Uncle George," telling tens of thousands of supporters that "we are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the world." Along with the fiery speeches, there were the billboards, which featured a picture of a smiling Soros and the message, "Let's not let George Soros have the last laugh."
... ... ...
Orban's coalition won 49 percent of the vote, enough to give it a supermajority in Parliament. But the anti-Soros campaign didn't end with the election. Days after the vote, a magazine owned by a pro-Orban businesswoman published the names of more than 200 people in Hungary that it claimed were Soros "mercenaries."
... ... ...
There have been mistakes; by his own admission, Soros erred in championing Mikheil Saakashvili, the mercurial former president of Georgia, and also became too directly involved in the country's politics in the early 2000s. He clearly misjudged Orban. But as Victoria Nuland, a former American diplomat who worked for both Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton, put it when I spoke to her recently, "George is a freedom fighter."
alexander hamilton new york July 17
Conservative Democrat WV July 17"Billionaire philanthropist?" Really? Does that make the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelstein "philanthropists" too, or does that label apply only to left-leaning individuals seeking political leverage many times that of the average citizen?
One citizen, 1 vote. ALL citizens should be limited to $100 contributions for their senators, representatives and the President. NO citizen should be able to contribute to a campaign in a state where he/she is not a full-time permanent resident.
And NO citizen should be able to contribute more than $100 to his/her own campaign. We don't need more Kennedys, Clintons, Bloombergs, Trumps, Perots or Forbes buying (or trying to buy) their way into public office, using their millions.
Of the people, by the people, for the people. That's the model, folks. Depart from it at your peril.
Maqroll North Florida July 17 Times PickFor a man that purportedly promotes democracy, Mr. Soros conveniently overlooked public opinion when it came to promoting open borders.
In its essence, democracy is all about the wisdom and will of those governed, and not about what a billionaire thinks is best for them.
WPLMMT New York City July 17 Times PickSoros--a "European at heart." Must have brought some much-needed smiles to the UK following the recent Trump Tour of Destruction. How soon we forget--in the 90s, Soros broke the pound as the Brits were trying to unify European currencies--with unfortunate conditions that weakened the effort and Soros smartly exploited.
Who can blame a globalist from crashing a poorly devised govt scheme and walking away with a cool $1B--back when a billion dollars was a lot of money? I am not the person to say whether Soros may qualify as an honest proponent of democracy, but I strongly suspect that he is a poster boy of the ultra-nationalists as they battle globalization.
In a way, Soros epitomizes the failure of globalization, which may or may not benefit the classic, labor-intensive industries of manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and mining, but always benefits, sometimes wildly, the financial "industry."
As far as I'm concerned, Soros is merely making reparations. And, sorry to say, George, it's prob too little, too late.
gpickard Luxembourg July 17 Times PickI always thought George Soros was a dangerous [neo]liberal but after reading this article and seeing the damage he has created around the world it has been confirmed. Nigel Farage, the British politician, recently said on television that Mr. Soros is out to destroy the world. It certainly appears to be the case when you see what he did to the British and Thai economies. He was so concerned with helping immigrants and refugees that he had little regard for the citizens that actually lived in those countries that are being affected. People lost their livelihoods but that did not matter to him.
Mr. Soros fights for all the [neo]liberal causes no matter the consequences. He ... does not care who he hurts as long as he promotes his progressive agenda. He wants to allow as many immigrants to enter a nation as possible even if it adversely affects that country while he lives in luxury and is not inconvenienced by this invasion. He has billions and will probably never be touched by massive immigration.
I am glad that the conservatives and others are finally seeing his true colors and are trying to subdue him the best they can. He must be called out on this negative behavior before it is too late. It is reassuring that many of the European nations are implementing policies that are favorable to their countries and looking out for their people. Europeans must be protected and George Soros stopped. I am glad they see him for what he truly is which is frightening.
c smith Pittsburgh July 17As Mr. Soros said of himself, "I am a confirmed egoist." He has used his money to make the world as he thinks is best. But having money does not give you a better moral view of how the world should be governed nor make you a god to decide for the rest of us.
I think this kind of undue influence (money in politics) is what is driving some of the back-lash against [neo]liberal democracy. So many of the "[neo]liberal" proponents of an open society, like George Soros and Bill Gates, seem to have an inordinate power to effect political outcomes because of their money.
The making of such huge amounts of money is not done with any charitable purpose. Only later, does charity come to mind.
Karekin USA July 17Soros is an enemy of the middle and working classes in America. Yes, a billion people around the world are better off because of the forces of "globalization" (this total most definitely includes Soros himself), but millions of Americans have suffered economically as a result. GATT, NAFTA and the entire alphabet soup of trade deals have lined the pockets of the globalists, while grinding the fortunes of U.S. working and middle class laborers into dust.
Tim DC area July 17 Times PickGreat article. Now, more than ever, American politics is defined by money, so it's important to understand how it is used in that context by those who have it. At this juncture, I think the American people deserve to see an expose of all those millionaires and billionaires who have and continue to support Trump. It's only fair, to lay the money trail on the table, on all sides, for everyone to see.
Samuel Spade Huntsville, al July 17What about the devastating effects that free trade and globalization have had on the spread of inequality throughout the world... Huge corporations consistently use "free trade" or globalization as an excuse to offer the lowest possible wages, and move manufacturing to places with the least environmental protections and human rights.
Immigration policies are also sometimes used in ways to suppress wages, and even more worse, enacted with very little thought given to assimilation. Most of the poorer areas, or ghettoes surrounding Paris for example are populated with huge numbers of Muslim immigrants that face extremely daunting odds of fully assimilating into French culture.
While the wealthier (sometimes elite [neo]liberals) Parisians almost certainly live in gated or posh neighborhoods with hardly any immigrants as their neighbors. Despite the generous financial support Soros (and some other elites) gives to human rights causes, he rarely outright discusses some of these problems associated with free trade, globalization and mass immigration. These seeming hypocrisies and inconsistencies then become much easier fodder for those of Orban's ilk to manipulate and ultimately consolidate power.
Ivory Tower Colorado July 17Soros didn't bet on Democracy, he bet on his version of it which he tried to buy through individual politicians on the take and the Democratic Party. Better he quit manipulating pols and gave his money to charity.
Concerned EU Resident Germany July 17First, Hungary is not xenophobic, they merely want to protect their culture. Second, George Soros wants plenty of wealth for him and his family, yet he wants those of us in the middle class to dive up our meager assets with the world's poorest. Third, his personal wealth has often been generated by destroying currencies and the middle class who owns those currencies. Fourth, he promotes open borders without consulting the citizenry of said borders as to their opinion regarding their own national sovereignty. Our world would be a much better place without George Soros.
geezer117 Tennessee July 17Soros is a criminal by any other name. He hedged against the UK Pound 20 years ago, and earned $1B. He earned billions by manipulating the market. With his profits he wanted to create his own society where his money could be used to buy politicians and pass legislation according to his one man agenda. He's selfish, an egomaniac, and dangerous.
Rose Philadelphia July 17Soros employs his vast wealth to create the society he dreams of, regardless of what the rest of us want. When the democratic process veers away from his vision, he uses the power of his wealth to steer it back.
So he's just another wealthy and powerful elite trying to remake the world as he prefers it. Such arrogance!
Jonas Seattle July 17Sucking money out of the world's economies so that he can direct it as HE sees fit does not make a man great. Rather, I would argue that such actions contributed to the rise of both Brexiteers and Trumpsters.
If Soros really wants to contribute to society, he would lobby for financial industry reform - less favorable tax treatment for hedge funds (what value do they really provide to society) and a transaction tax on trades to reduce speculation. Then fight for minimum wage increases.
Peter Albany. NY July 17This is a horrifying interview and does not improve the image of George Soros. "My ideology is nonideological," he says while spending billions on politics, which he defines as "In politics, you are spinning the truth, not discovering it." He describes Obama as his greatest disappointment because Obama "closed the door on me," as in he expected Obama should work with him and take his advice. Soros uses his billions to fund politicians and meddle in elections... this is a man who enjoys influencing and manipulating politics and becomes frustrated when his efforts backfire or are not successful.
Marian Maryland July 17This man is the absolute worst! His no borders policy has done more to hurt Europe then Russia ever could. The Soros gang has zero respect and tolerance for nation-state sovereignty and local governance. Talk about a global elite! He and his gang epitomize that arrogance.
Al Nino Hyde Park NY July 17George Soros bet big on open borders,one world governance and destroying the working class through unfair trade agreements. Yes he appears to be losing. Thank God for small favors.
Charles Becker Sonoma State University July 17It cracks me up to read these type of article in the NYT and then read another story in the NYT about how if you can pay the money you can have yourself a private waiting area in a major airport to separate yourself from the chaos of the masses in the public waiting areas. Maybe democracy wouldn't be in trouble around the world if it worked as well for the "slobs" in the public waiting areas as it did for those in the exclusive waiting rooms. This is globalization in a nutshell. It works great for the rich, not so well for the rest of us slobs. This is a government of the rich people, by the rich people, for the rich people. The slobs realise their government doesn't really care that their jobs are disapearing and their standard of living is going down.
John Medina Holt July 17I am not interested in windfall investing profits. Soros is *not* my hero: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-george-soros-broke-the-bank-of-thaila... . Wretched.
Richard L. Wilson Moscow, Russia July 17To say that George Soros is funding [neo]liberal democracy is a misnomer. What Soros is funding is open borders. Where national interests are set aside, global interests prevail. This is precisely what George Soros is advocating. Tired of having to face multitude regulatory systems in his effort to build a global financial empire, Soros is quite right in discerning that a borderless, global regulatory system would increase his financial power exponentially. Nations are right to resist the encroachment of Soros because global interests, by definition, are not local interests. Nationalism, so loathed by Soros and his open border lackeys, serves as a check and balance on men like Soros who would be god and would dictate to the world from some point of central governance what their truth and value should be. George Soros and his globalist kin should be resisted. The true threat to global interests is not nationalism, it is globalism.
elizabeth renant new mexico July 17Soros, and American [neo]liberalism, economic and social [neo]liberalism championed by Soros and the NYT, is in its death throes. Call us fascists, totalitarians, racists--- understand clearly: we do not care. Europe is waking up. [neo]liberalism is close to being dead. No spectres or phantoms are haunting Europe. Blood is standing up and answering our ancestors.We are not commodoties, consumers, meat for your wars. You have attacked us, belittled us, turned our queen of continents into latrines of filth. You, American [neo]liberalism, have destroyed us.Now, we take our nations back.
Larry Left Chicago's High Taxes July 17It's amusing to read phrases like "nationalism and tribalism are resurgent". It never does to underestimate tribalism; as long as groups feel safe they are tolerant. But when groups feel threatened, tribalism rears up in what is not so much a resurgence but more like an awakening from a nap.
The older cultures of Europe are waking up from a nap and realizing that unless they reassess a few long-held assumptions, they will eventually be ethnically diminished and culturally pressured.
Denmark has banned the burka and legislated some of the harshest migration, immigration, asylum, and naturalization laws in Europe. It is implementing laws to ensure integration, including stopping benefits to families whose children are not integrating. Do the author and Mr. Soros think that Denmark exercising control over its future demographics and preserving its culture are malign?
The Danes some years ago elected the Danish People's Party to significant power; the DPP is often referred to as a far right party, but is a typical left-wing party in everything except pushing Denmark toward "multiculturalism".
Sweden's centre-left government, on the other hand, brought in hundreds of thousands of Third World immigrants and then refused even to admit, let alone discuss, the glaring problems with integration within its immigrant community.
Result: the Sweden Democrats, a bona fide neo-Nazi party, are set to do extremely and alarmingly well in Sweden's September elections.
Yes - in Sweden.
Burton Austin, Texas July 17This super-rich elitist from Hungary is trying to buy American democracy and reshape it in his image regardless of what We The People want. And the Democrats are on his payroll and totally owned by this foreign agent!
Ned Flarbus Berkeley July 17Soros' flaw is that he only tolerates centralized socialist democracy. He cannot stand the idea of democracy in the form of a federal republic with a weak central government. Interestingly, he made his billions as a predatory capitalist now he turns on capitalism. He also exhibits a particularly vicious elitism: No one should be allowed to own guns except his private security guards. He knows that umarmed men are always someone's slaves.
Philly Expat July 17Soros is a hypocrite who did one thing and is now out to create a legacy. All is shows is he is driven by both greed and ego. His blatant hypocrisy probably did more harm than good - common denominator, it's always about him. Hey Soros, don't do us plebes any more favors, ok?
David Brisbane July 17Democracy is alive and well, regardless of what Soros thinks. He does not represent democracy, he was never been elected to any public office. He represents open borders mass migration, as the name of one of his NGOs implies, Open Society Foundation. Brexit voters, and other voters across the west are increasingly voting against his philosophy. Voters in the US, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, etc, have democratically chosen as their leaders conservative controlled borders leaders, and to underscore, all were elected via the democratic process.
Open Borders and globalism that Soros is pushing is increasingly being rejected in voting booths in the EU and the US.
It is hardly undemocratic to increasingly vote against what Soros is selling – chaotic mass migration made possible by open borders.
He represents [neo]liberal democracy, and voters increasingly favor conservative democracy.
idimalink usa July 17George Soros is the epitome of corruption – penetration and distortion of political process by obscene wealth. It does not matter what his true intentions are – he can say whatever he wants but we will never know for sure. And stop calling that "philanthropy".
Red Cross and Salvation Army is philanthropy. What Soros is doing is imposing his personal political beliefs and ideas on everybody by buying political influence with his money - that is called "corruption" pure and simple.
Sure, he is not the only one doing that, but he is the one doing that most overtly and blatantly. He seems to relish being the face of the elitist disregard for the masses. What he does is not democracy promotion - it is the exact opposite – democracy destruction. It is good to know that he is failing in that effort.
Jose Pardinas Collegeville, PA July 18Neoliberalism has failed to improve democratic governance and reduced distribution of wealth, just as leftists predicted. Soros benefitted financially, which has increased his privilege to participate in governance voters cannot achieve. Despite Soros' wealth, successfully manipulating currency markets does not easily transfer to manipulating electorates. Even if Soros believes his projects would produce good governance, he lacks the ability to convince voters what is in their best interests.
I am elated to hear that George Soros might be losing.
What pharaonic globalist plutocrats like him mean by "Liberal Democracy" encompasses a sinister set of objectives. Prominent among which are these two:
1). Full support for neocon/neoliberal destabilization, confrontation, and military interventionism.
2). The destruction of borders, nations, and cultures -- particularly Western Culture here and in Europe.Soros and his peers want unhindered unlimited access to cheap Third World labor as well as to have complete control over the entire global economy. To his class nationalism and culture are speed bumps on the way to those self-serving goals.
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Aug 10, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Gerold via GeroldBlog.com,
We're told that great leaders make history. Like so much of what we are taught, that's a load of bunk. Yes, great leaders make it into the history books, but they do not make history. You make history. I make history. All we dirt people together make history. Government-run schools don't teach us this because it makes us easier to control.
The "Great Man Theory" [Link] tells us that history can be largely explained by the impact of great leaders. This theory was popularized in the 1800's by the historian and social commentator Thomas Carlyle [Link] The Great Man Theory downplays the importance of economic and practical explanations. It is an appealing theory because its simplicity offers the path of least resistance. That should ring an alarm.
Herbert Spencer [Link] forcefully disagreed with the "Great Man Theory." He believed that great leaders were merely products of their social environment. "Before he can remake his society, his society must make him." Tolstoy went so far as to call great leaders "history's slaves." However, this middle ground still misses the mark.
At the other extreme is "history from below" [Link] aka 'the people's history.' "History from below" takes the perspective of common people rather than leaders. It emphasizes the daily life of ordinary people that develop opinions and trends " as opposed to great people introducing ideas or initiating events." Unfortunately, this too is only half the equation, and it is no surprise that it appeals to Leftist and Marxist agendas.
Having studied politics and history ever since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, I determined that although history is partly the environments and individuals shaping each other reciprocally, it is more than that. It is you and I who make history with every decision we make, every dollar we spend, everything we learn, every vote we cast and every opinion we voice. It's even what we don't do. It is mostly organic and cannot easily be explained in a simple, linear fashion the way the aforementioned political philosophers tried.
Great leaders are merely the right person at the right time and place. However, they do not lead so much as follow from the front. They stick their finger in the air to see which way the wind blows. They may be brutes, bullies or demagogues, but they are sensitive enough to understand the zeitgeist , the spirit of the times and so, they adjust their message accordingly.
That is one reason Jimmy Carter was a failed President. He was a nice guy, but he did not get an accurate reading of the times. Instead, he acted on the wishful thinking that is characteristic of liberals.
One of the significant shortcomings of many political philosophers is their ignorance of human nature. That is why Collectivism in all its forms appeals to the downtrodden. "Share and share alike" is a beautiful ideal so long as you get other people's stuff, but the flip side of the coin is not quite so appealing.
I heard a radio interview with a self-avowed Communist:
"So do you believe in 'share and share alike?"
"Yes, I do."
"And, if you had more than one house, you'd give them away and keep just one for yourself?"
"Yes. I would."
"And, if you had more than one vehicle, you'd give them away and keep just one for yourself?"
"Yes, I would."
"And, if you had more than one shirt "
"Whoa, wait a minute! I have more than one shirt."
I can't remember the rest of the interview as I was laughing too hard.
The Great Man Theory is one extreme, its critics are somewhere in the middle and 'the history of the people' is at the other end of the spectrum. Despite this, we are still fascinated by great leaders. That is human nature. Whether we are slaves at heart, or lack self-confidence or some other explanation is endlessly debatable. However, the fact remains that we are fascinated by great leaders and our inability to understand them further disproves the accepted theories.
Adolph Hitler is the ultimate example of our fascination with a great man. According to Alex Ross's "The Hitler Vortex," [Link] tens of thousands of books have been written about Hitler. "Books have been written about Hitler's youth, his years in Vienna and Munich, his service in the First World War, his assumption of power, his library, his taste in art, his love of film, his relations with women, and his predilections in interior design ('Hitler at Home')."
Tens of thousands of books failed to explain Hitler. Ross, too, does no better when he writes, "What set Hitler apart from most authoritarian figures in history was his conception of himself as an artist-genius who used politics as his métier. It is a mistake to call him a failed artist; for him, politics and war were a continuation of art by other means." WTF? Are we to believe Hitler was simply an artist who used the world as his canvas? Equally pointless is the notion that, "Hitler debased the Romantic cult of genius to incarnate himself as a transcendent leader hovering above the fray."
Although he was a brilliant orator, Hitler's failures are too innumerable to list. [Link] He was certainly a failure as a painter and his General staff considered him an incompetent military strategist (fortunately for the Allies.) However, Hitler was merely the right man at the right time and place to achieve power. As Ross explains, Hitler was , "the result of a large protest movement colliding with complex patterns of elite self-interest, in a culture increasingly prone to aggressive mythmaking and irrationality." That sounds all too close to home, doesn't it?
Enter Donald Trump; the right man at the right time and place. He's a brute, a bully, and a demagogue, but he understands the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times and he adjusts his message to appeal to his base.
I have known many bullies; on the playground and in the boardroom. A bully may achieve short-term gain, but for long-term pain. It is very easy to destroy corporate culture, but extremely difficult, if not impossible, to mend a toxic workplace after the bully was dismissed. Now, extrapolate this to the world under Donald Trump.
John Feeley is the former U.S. Ambassador to Panama portrayed in The New Yorker magazine article "The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration." [Link] After his first meeting with Trump, he wrote that Trump "saw every unknown person as a threat and that his first instinct was to annihilate that threat. 'He's like a velociraptor. He has to be boss, and if you don't show him deference he kills you.'"
Feeley fears that "the country was embracing an attitude that was profoundly inimical to diplomacy 'If we do that we will become weaker and less prosperous.'" He is correct in that regard. China is building a large, new embassy at the mouth of the Panama Canal visible to every ship "as they enter a waterway that once symbolized the global influence of the United States."
Feeley is also correct in warning that the Trump administration's gutting the diplomatic corps will have negative repercussions. Throughout Latin America, leftist leaders are in retreat, and popular movements reject corrupt governance. Yet, America is losing "the greatest opportunity to recoup the moral high ground that we have had in decades." Instead, the U.S. is abandoning the region to China. Feeley calls it "a self-inflicted Pearl Harbor."
China is replacing U.S. influence in Latin America and Chinese banks "provided more than a hundred and fifty billion dollars in loan commitments to the region In less than two decades, trade between China and Latin America has increased twenty-seven-fold." Although that began long before Trump, "We're not just walking off the field. We're taking the ball and throwing a finger at the rest of the world."
Feeley says that he felt betrayed by what he regarded as "the traditional core values of the United States." Sorry, Feeley, but America lost its core values long before Trump was elected. Trump is not the cause; he is the symptom, the result of the declining American Empire.
Hunters know that one of the most dangerous animals is a wounded one. The same is correct about failing empires because they are a danger not only to others but to their own citizens as well. The elites are running out the clock in order to loot as much as they can before it hits the fan.
We dirt people will continue to suffer from stagnant wage growth while the so-called increase in national wealth goes to a tiny minority. [link]
Moreover, nobody wins a trade war that raises consumer prices even if Trump eventually triumphs.
The economy staggers under the weight of phony wars, fake finances, fake GDP, fake CPI, fake employment, fake pensions and fake everything. [Link] The national debt increases $1 trillion every year, consumer debt is at an all-time high [Link] while the tax cuts benefit only the ultra-wealthy. Also, the fake news tells us everything is wonderful. Don't believe it. "If everything is so awesome, why are Americans drinking themselves to death in record numbers?" [Link]
It is said that every few generations, money returns to its rightful owners. That is what's happening now.
America emerged relatively unscathed from the Second World War whereas many other countries were bombed back into the Stone Age. The Marshal Plan helped rebuild countries that were to become both America's future customers and its competitors. America's busy factories transformed from war production to consumer goods, the demand for which was created by "the Father of Spin" Edward Bernays' marketing propaganda. [Link]
As well, the U.S. stole the gold that the Nazis had stolen from others, [Link] and that wealth in addition to robust, productive capacity temporarily propelled the U.S. far ahead of other nations. However, it would not last. Eventually, the undeserved prosperity of the 1950's and '60's began to run out of steam as other nations rebuilt and competed with the U.S. President Nixon defaulting on the dollar in 1971 by "closing the gold window" signaled the end of America's good times . The subsequent debt creation now unconstricted by a gold basis helped to cushion the blow for several decades, but wealth was now flowing to Asia along with factory jobs.
For 5,000 years, China was a world superpower with only a short, two-century hiatus that is now ending as China again emerges as an economic superpower. Such a massive shift in wealth cannot be attributed to either leadership or the people below. It is a painful reversion to the mean. All the finger-pointing and wailing and gnashing of teeth not even bombastic Trump and his tariffs can stem the tide and make America great again as money continues to flow back to its rightful owners.
The USA is a declining, bankrupt, warmongering police state and most of its indoctrinated citizens think they live in a free, peaceful country.
China is a corrupt police state, but most of its citizens know it.
We have met the enemy, and he is us. The future awaits.
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Aug 08, 2018 | www.goodreads.com
"It did not take National Socialism long to rally workers, most of whom were either unemployed or still very young, into the SA [Sturmangriff, Stormtroopers, "brown shirts"]. To a large extent, however, these workers were revolutionary in a dull sort of way and still maintained an authoritarian attitude. For this reason National Socialist propaganda was contradictory; it's content was determined by the class for which it was intended. Only in its manipulation of the mystical feelings of the masses was it clear and consistent.
In talks with followers of the National Socialist party and especially with members of the SA, it was clearly brought out that the revolutionary phraseology of National Socialism was the decisive factor in the winning over of these masses. One heard National Socialists deny that Hitler represented capital. One heard SA men warn Hitler that he must not betray the cause of the "revolution." One heard SA men say that Hitler was the German Lenin . Those who went over to National Socialism from Social Democracy and the liberal central parties were, without exception, revolutionary minded masses who were either nonpolitical or politically undecided prior to this. Those who went over from the Communist party were often revolutionary elements who simply could not make any sense of many of the German Communist party's contradictory political slogans. In part they were men upon whom the external features of Hitler's party, it's military character, its assertiveness, etc., made a big impression.
To begin with, it is the symbol of the flag that stands out among the symbols used for purposes of propaganda."
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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Aug 08, 2018 | www.goodreads.com
"Mistaking insolence for freedom has always been the hallmark of the slave."
― Wilhelm Reich , Listen, Little Man!"Open avowal of dictatorship is much less dangerous than sham democracy. The first one can fight; sham democracy is insidious."
"Even more essential, however, is the identification of the individuals in the masses with the "führer." The more helpless the "mass-individual" has become, owing to his upbringing, the more pronounced is his identification with the führer, and the more the childish need for protection is disguised in the form of a feeling at one with the führer. This inclination to identify is the psychological basis of national narcissism, i.e., of the self-confidence that individual man derives from the "greatness of the nation."
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of FascismThe reactionary lower middle-class man perceives himself in the führer, in the authoritarian state. On the basis of this identification he feels himself to be a defender of the "national heritage," of the "nation," which does not prevent him, likewise on the basis of this identification, from simultaneously despising "the masses" and confronting them as an individual. The wretchedness of his material and sexual situation is so overshadowed by the exalting idea of belonging to a master race and having a brilliant führer that, as time goes on, he ceases to realize how completely he has sunk to a position of insignificant, blind allegiance.
The worker who is conscious of his skills -- he, in short, who has rid himself of his submissive structure, who identifies with his work and not with the führer, with the international working masses and not with the national homeland -- represents the opposite of this. He feels himself to be a leader , not on the basis of his identification with the führer, but on the basis of his consciousness of performing work that is vitally necessary for society's existence."
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism"It was one of the greatest errors in evaluating dictatorship to say that the dictator forces himself on society against its own will. In reality, every dictator in history was nothing but the accentuation of already existing state ideas which he had only to exaggerate in order to gain power"
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism"Race theorists, who are as old as imperialism itself, want to achieve racial purity in peoples whose interbreeding, as a result of the expansion of world economy, is so far advanced that racial purity can have meaning only to a numbskull." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"One cannot equate "capitalism" and "democracy." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"Power, no matter what kind of power it is, without a foundation in truth, is a dictatorship, more or less and in one way or another, for it is always based on man's fear of the social responsibility and personal burden that "freedom" entails." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"The word fascism is not a word of abuse any more than the word capitalism is. It is a concept denoting a very definite kind of mass leadership and mass influence: authoritarian, one-party system, hence totalitarian, a system in which power takes priority over objective interests, and facts are distorted for political purposes. Hence, there are "fascist Jews," just as there are "fascist Democrats." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"Finally, we arrive at the question of the so-called nonpolitical man. Hitler not only established his power from the very beginning with masses of people who were until then essentially nonpolitical; he also accomplished his last step to victory in March of 1933 in a "legal" manner, by mobilizing no less than five million nonvoters, that is to say, nonpolitical people. The Left parties had made every effort to win over the indifferent masses, without posing the question as to what it means "to be indifferent or nonpolitical."
If an industrialist and large estate owner champions a rightist party, this is easily understood in terms of his immediate economic interests. In his case a leftist orientation would be at variance with his social situation and would, for that reason, point to irrational motives. If an industrial worker has a leftist orientation, this too is by all mean rationally consistent -- it derives from his economic and social position in industry. If, however, a worker, an employee, or an official has a rightist orientation, this must be ascribed to a lack of political clarity, i.e., he is ignorant of his social position. The more a man who belongs to the broad working masses is nonpolitical, the more susceptible he is to the ideology of political reaction. To be nonpolitical is not, as one might suppose, evidence of a passive psychic condition, but of a highly active attitude, a defense against the awareness of social responsibility. The analysis of this defense against consciousness of one's social responsibility yields clear insights into a number of dark questions concerning the behavior of the broad nonpolitical strata. In the case of the average intellectual "who wants nothing to do with politics," it can easily be shown that immediate economic interests and fears related to his social position, which is dependent upon public opinion, lie at the basis of his noninvolvement. These fears cause him to make the most grotesque sacrifices with respect to his knowledge and convictions. Those people who are engaged in the production process in one way or another and are nonetheless socially irresponsible can be divided into two major groups. In the case of the one group the concept of politics is unconsciously associated with the idea of violence and physical danger, i.e., with an intense fear, which prevents them from facing life realistically. In the case of the other group, which undoubtedly constitutes the majority, social irresponsibility is based on personal conflicts and anxieties, of which the sexual anxiety is the predominant one. [ ] Until now the revolutionary movement has misunderstood this situation. It attempted to awaken the "nonpolitical" man by making him conscious solely of his unfulfilled economic interests. Experience teaches that the majority of these "nonpolitical" people can hardly be made to listen to anything about their socio-economic situation, whereas they are very accessible to the mystical claptrap of a National Socialist, despite the fact that the latter makes very little mention of economic interests. [This] is explained by the fact that severe sexual conflicts (in the broadest sense of the word), whether conscious or unconscious, inhibit rational thinking and the development of social responsibility. They make a person afraid and force him into a shell. If, now, such a self-encapsulated person meets a propagandist who works with faith and mysticism, meets, in other words, a fascist who works with sexual, libidinous methods, he turns his complete attention to him. This is not because the fascist program makes a greater impression on him than the liberal program, but because in his devotion to the führer and the führer's ideology, he experiences a momentary release from his unrelenting inner tension. Unconsciously, he is able to give his conflicts a different form and in this way to "solve" them." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"When, then, the Social Democrat worker found himself in the economic crisis which degraded him to the status of a coolie, the development of his revolutionary sentiments was severely retarded by the conservative structuralization that had been taking shape in him for decades. Either he remained in the camp of the Social Democrats, notwithstanding his criticism and rejection of their policies, or he went over to the NSDAP [Nazi party] in search of a better replacement. Irresolute and indecisive, owing to the deep contradiction between revolutionary and conservative sentiments, disappointed by his own leadership, he followed the line of least resistance. Whether he would give up his conservative tendencies and arrive at a complete consciousness of his actual responsibility in the production process, i.e., at a revolutionary consciousness, depended solely on the correct or incorrect leadership of the revolutionary party. Thus the communist assertion that it was the Social Democrat policies that put fascism in the saddle was correct from a psychological viewpoint. Disappointment in Social Democracy, accompanied by the contradiction between wretchedness and conservative thinking, must lead to fascism if there are no revolutionary organizations. For example, following the fiasco of the Labor party's policies in England, in 1930–31, fascism began to infiltrate the workers who, then, in the election of 1931, cut away to the Right, instead of going over to communism." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"Hence, what he wants -- and it is openly admitted -- is to implement nationalistic imperialism with methods he has borrowed from Marxism , including its technique of mass organization. But the success of this mass organization is to be ascribed to the masses and not to Hitler . It was man's authoritarian freedom-fearing structure that enabled his propaganda to take root. Hence, what is important about Hitler sociologically does not issue from his personality but from the importance attached to him by the masses. And what makes the problem all the more complex is the fact that Hitler held the masses, with whose help he wanted to carry out his imperialism, in complete contempt." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"As bitter as it may be, the fact remains: It is the irresponsibleness of masses of people that lies at the basis of fascism of all countries, nations, and races, etc. Fascism is the result of man's distortion over thousands of years. It could have developed in any country or nation. It is not a character trait that is confined specifically to the Germans or Italians. It is manifest in every single individual of the world. The Austrian saying "Da kann man halt nix machen" expresses this fact just as the American saying "Let George do it." That this situation was brought about by a social development which goes back thousands of years does not alter the fact itself. It is man himself who is responsible and not "historical developments." It was the shifting of the responsibility from living man to "historical developments" that caused the downfall of the socialist freedom movements. However, the events of the past twenty years demand the responsibility of the working masses of people.If we take "freedom" to mean first and foremost the responsibility of each individual to shape personal, occupational, and social existence in a rational way, then it can be said that there is no greater fear than the fear of the creation of general freedom. Unless this basic problem is given complete priority and solved, there will never be a freedom capable of lasting more than one or two generations."
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism"It did not take National Socialism long to rally workers, most of whom were either unemployed or still very young, into the SA [Sturmangriff, Stormtroopers, "brown shirts"]. To a large extent, however, these workers were revolutionary in a dull sort of way and still maintained an authoritarian attitude. For this reason National Socialist propaganda was contradictory; it's content was determined by the class for which it was intended. Only in its manipulation of the mystical feelings of the masses was it clear and consistent.
In talks with followers of the National Socialist party and especially with members of the SA, it was clearly brought out that the revolutionary phraseology of National Socialism was the decisive factor in the winning over of these masses. One heard National Socialists deny that Hitler represented capital. One heard SA men warn Hitler that he must not betray the cause of the "revolution." One heard SA men say that Hitler was the German Lenin . Those who went over to National Socialism from Social Democracy and the liberal central parties were, without exception, revolutionary minded masses who were either nonpolitical or politically undecided prior to this. Those who went over from the Communist party were often revolutionary elements who simply could not make any sense of many of the German Communist party's contradictory political slogans. In part they were men upon whom the external features of Hitler's party, it's military character, its assertiveness, etc., made a big impression.
To begin with, it is the symbol of the flag that stands out among the symbols used for purposes of propaganda." ― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"National Socialism made use of various means in dealing with various classes, and made various promises depending upon the social class it needed at a particular time. In the spring of 1933, for example, it was the revolutionary character of the Nazi movement that was given particular emphasis in Nazi propaganda in an effort to win over the industrial workers, and the first of May was "celebrated," but only after the aristocracy had been appeased in Potsdam. To ascribe the success solely to political swindle, however, would be to become entangled in a contradiction with the basic idea of freedom, and would practically exclude the possibility of a social revolution. What must be answered is: Why do the masses allow themselves to be politically swindled? The masses had every possibility of evaluating the propaganda of the various parties. Why didn't they see that, while promising the workers that the owners of the means of production would be disappropriated, Hitler promised the capitalists that their rights would be protected?"
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism"Yet, it was precisely our failure to differentiate between work and politics, between reality and illusion; it was precisely our mistake of conceiving of politics as a rational human activity comparable to the sowing of seeds or the construction of buildings that was responsible for the fact that a painter who failed to make the grade was able to plunge the whole world into misery. And I have stressed again and again that the main purpose of this book -- which, after all, was not written merely for the fun of it -- was to demonstrate these catastrophic errors in human thinking and to eliminate irrationalism from politics. It is an essential part of our social tragedy that the farmer, the industrial worker, the physician, etc., do not influence social existence solely through their social activities, but also and even predominantly through their political ideologies. For political activity hinders objective and professional activity; it splits every profession into inimical ideologic groups; creates a dichotomy in the body of industrial workers; limits the activity of the medical profession and harms the patients. In short, it is precisely political activity that prevents the realization of that which it pretends to fight for: peace, work, security, international cooperation, free objective speech, freedom of religion, etc."
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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Aug 08, 2018 | www.unz.com
Around 35 years ago, I was sitting in my college dorm-room closely reading the New York Times as I did each and every morning when I noticed an astonishing article about the controversial new Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir.
Back in those long-gone days, the Gray Lady was strictly a black-and-white print publication, lacking the large color photographs of rap stars and long stories about dieting techniques that fill so much of today's news coverage, and it also seemed to have a far harder edge in its Middle East reporting. A year or so earlier, Shamir's predecessor Menacham Begin had allowed his Defense Minister Ariel Sharon to talk him into invading Lebanon and besieging Beirut, and the subsequent massacre of Palestinian women and children in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps had outraged the world and angered America's government. This eventually led to Begin's resignation, with Shamir, his Foreign Minister, taking his place.
Prior to his surprising 1977 election victory, Begin had spent decades in the political wilderness as an unacceptable right-winger, and Shamir had an even more extreme background, with the American mainstream media freely reporting his long involvement in all sorts of high-profile assassinations and terrorist attacks during the 1940s, painting him as a very bad man indeed.
Given Shamir's notorious activities, few revelations would have shocked me, but this one did. Apparently, during the late 1930s, Shamir and his small Zionist faction had become great admirers of the Italian Fascists and German Nazis, and after World War II broke out, they had made repeated attempts to contact Mussolini and the German leadership in 1940 and 1941, hoping to enlist in the Axis Powers as their Palestine affiliate, and undertake a campaign of attacks and espionage against the local British forces, then share in the political booty after Hitler's inevitable triumph.
Now the Times clearly viewed Shamir in a very negative light, but it seemed extremely unlikely to me that they would have published such a remarkable story without being absolutely sure of their facts. Among other things, there were long excerpts from the official letters sent to Mussolini ferociously denouncing the "decadent" democratic systems of Britain and France that he was opposing, and assuring Il Duce that such ridiculous political notions would have no future place in the totalitarian Jewish client state they hoped to establish under his auspices in Palestine.
As it happens, both Germany and Italy were preoccupied with larger geopolitical issues at the time, and given the small size of Shamir's Zionist faction, not much seems to have ever come of those efforts. But the idea of the sitting Prime Minister of the Jewish State having spent his early wartime years as an unrequited Nazi ally was certainly something that sticks in one's mind, not quite conforming to the traditional narrative of that era which I had always accepted.
Most remarkably, the revelation of Shamir's pro-Axis past seems to have had only a relatively minor impact upon his political standing within Israeli society. I would think that any American political figure found to have supported a military alliance with Nazi Germany during the Second World War would have had a very difficult time surviving the resulting political scandal, and the same would surely be true for politicians in Britain, France, or most other western nations. But although there was certainly some embarrassment in the Israeli press, especially after the shocking story reached the international headlines, apparently most Israelis took the whole matter in stride, and Shamir stayed in office for another year, then later served a second, much longer term as Prime Minister during 1986-1992. The Jews of Israel apparently regarded Nazi Germany quite differently than did most Americans, let alone most American Jews.
... ... ...
Over the years I've occasionally made half-hearted attempts to locate the Times article about Shamir that had long stuck in my memory, but have had no success, either because it was removed from the Times archives or more likely because my mediocre search skills proved inadequate. But I'm almost certain that the piece had been prompted by the 1983 publication of Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by Lenni Brenner, an anti-Zionist of the Trotskyite persuasion and Jewish origins. I only very recently discovered that book, which really tells an extremely interesting story.
Brenner, born in 1937, has spent his entire life as an unreconstructed hard-core leftist, with his enthusiasms ranging from Marxist revolution to the Black Panthers, and he is obviously a captive of his views and his ideology. At times, this background impairs the flow of his text, and the periodic allusions to "proletarian," "bourgeoisie," and "capitalist classes" sometimes grow a little wearisome, as does his unthinking acceptance of all the shared beliefs common to his political circle. But surely only someone with that sort of fervent ideological commitment would have been willing to devote so much time and effort to investigating that controversial subject and ignoring the endless denunciations that resulted, which even included physical assaults by Zionist partisans.
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In any event, his documentation seems completely airtight, and some years after the original appearance of his book, he published a companion volume entitled 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis , which simply provides English translations of all the raw evidence behind his analytical framework, allowing interested parties to read the material and draw their own conclusions.
Among other things, Brenner provides considerable evidence that the larger and somewhat more mainstream right-wing Zionist faction later led by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was almost invariably regarded as a Fascist movement during the 1930s, even apart from its warm admiration for Mussolini's Italian regime. This was hardly such a dark secret in that period given that its main Palestine newspaper carried a regular column by a top ideological leader entitled "Diary of a Fascist." During one of the major international Zionist conferences, factional leader Vladimir Zabotinsky entered the hall with his brown-shirted followers in full military formation, leading the chair to ban the wearing of uniforms in order to avoid a riot, and his faction was soon defeated politically and eventually expelled from the Zionist umbrella organization. This major setback was largely due to the widespread hostility the group had aroused after two of its members were arrested by British police for the recent assassination of Chaim Arlosoroff, one of the highest-ranking Zionist officials based in Palestine.
Indeed, the inclination of the more right-wing Zionist factions toward assassination, terrorism, and other forms of essentially criminal behavior was really quite remarkable. For example, in 1943 Shamir had arranged the assassination of his factional rival , a year after the two men had escaped together from imprisonment for a bank robbery in which bystanders had been killed, and he claimed he had acted to avert the planned assassination of David Ben-Gurion, the top Zionist leader and Israel's future founding-premier. Shamir and his faction certainly continued this sort of behavior into the 1940s, successfully assassinating Lord Moyne, the British Minister for the Middle East, and Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN Peace Negotiator, though they failed in their other attempts to kill American President Harry Truman and British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin , and their plans to assassinate Winston Churchill apparently never moved past the discussion stage. His group also pioneered the use of terrorist car-bombs and other explosive attacks against innocent civilian targets, all long before any Arabs or Muslims had ever thought of using similar tactics ; and Begin's larger and more "moderate" Zionist faction did much the same. Given that background, it was hardly surprising that Shamir later served as director of assassinations at the Israeli Mossad during 1955-1965, so if the Mossad did indeed play a major role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy , he was very likely involved.
The cover of the 2014 paperback edition of Brenner's book displays the commemorative medal struck by Nazi Germany to mark its Zionist alliance, with a Star-of-David on the front face and a Swastika on the obverse. But oddly enough, this symbolic medallion actually had absolutely no connection with the unsuccessful attempts by Shamir's small faction to arrange a Nazi military alliance during World War II.
Although the Germans paid little attention to the entreaties of that minor organization, the far larger and more influential mainstream Zionist movement of Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion was something else entirely. And during most of the 1930s, these other Zionists had formed an important economic partnership with Nazi Germany, based upon an obvious commonality of interests. After all, Hitler regarded Germany's one percent Jewish population as a disruptive and potentially dangerous element which he wanted gone, and the Middle East seemed as good a destination for them as any other. Meanwhile, the Zionists had very similar objectives, and the creation of their new national homeland in Palestine obviously required both Jewish immigrants and Jewish financial investment.
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The importance of the Nazi-Zionist pact for Israel's establishment is difficult to overstate. According to a 1974 analysis in Jewish Frontier cited by Brenner, between 1933 and 1939 over 60% of all the investment in Jewish Palestine came from Nazi Germany. The worldwide impoverishment of the Great Depression had drastically reduced ongoing Jewish financial support from all other sources, and Brenner reasonably suggests that without Hitler's financial backing, the nascent Jewish colony, so tiny and fragile, might easily have shriveled up and died during that difficult period.
Such a conclusion leads to fascinating hypotheticals. When I first stumbled across references to the Ha'avara Agreement on websites here and there, one of the commenters mentioning the issue half-jokingly suggested that if Hitler had won the war, statues would surely have been built to him throughout Israel and he would today be recognized by Jews everywhere as the heroic Gentile leader who had played the central role in reestablishing a national homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine after almost 2000 years of bitter exile.
This sort of astonishing counter-factual possibility is not nearly as totally absurd as it might sound to our present-day ears. We must recognize that our historical understanding of reality is shaped by the media, and media organs are controlled by the winners of major wars and their allies, with inconvenient details often excluded to avoid confusing the public. It is undeniably true that in his 1924 book Mein Kampf , Hitler had written all sorts of hostile and nasty things about Jews, especially those who were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe, but when I read the book back in high school, I was a little surprised to discover that these anti-Jewish sentiments hardly seemed central to his text. Furthermore, just a couple of years earlier, a vastly more prominent public figure such as British Minister Winston Churchill had published sentiments nearly as hostile and nasty , focusing on the monstrous crimes being committed by Bolshevik Jews. In Albert Lindemann's Esau's Tears , I was surprised to discover that the author of the famous Balfour Declaration, the foundation of the Zionist project, was apparently also quite hostile to Jews, with an element of his motivation probably being his desire to exclude them from Britain.
Once Hitler consolidated power in Germany, he quickly outlawed all other political organizations for the German people, with only the Nazi Party and Nazi political symbols being legally permitted. But a special exception was made for German Jews, and Germany's local Zionist Party was accorded complete legal status, with Zionist marches, Zionist uniforms, and Zionist flags all fully permitted. Under Hitler, there was strict censorship of all German publications, but the weekly Zionist newspaper was freely sold at all newsstands and street corners. The clear notion seemed to be that a German National Socialist Party was the proper political home for the country's 99% German majority, while Zionist National Socialism would fill the same role for the tiny Jewish minority.
In 1934, Zionist leaders invited an important SS official to spend six months visiting the Jewish settlement in Palestine, and upon his return, his very favorable impressions of the growing Zionist enterprise were published as a massive 12-part-series in Joseph Goebbel's Der Angriff , the flagship media organ of the Nazi Party, bearing the descriptive title "A Nazi Goes to Palestine." In his very angry 1920 critique of Jewish Bolshevik activity, Churchill had argued that Zionism was locked in a fierce battle with Bolshevism for the soul of European Jewry, and only its victory might ensure amicable future relations between Jew and Gentile. Based on available evidence, Hitler and many of the other Nazi leaders seemed to have reached a somewhat similar conclusion by the mid-1930s.
During that era extremely harsh sentiments regarding Diaspora Jewry were sometimes found in rather surprising quarters. After the controversy surrounding Shamir's Nazi ties erupted into the headlines, Brenner's material became the grist for an important article by Edward Mortimer, the longtime Middle East expert at the august Times of London , and the 2014 edition of the book includes some choice extracts from Mortimer's February 11, 1984 Times piece:
Who told a Berlin audience in March 1912 that "each country can absorb only a limited number of Jews, if she doesn't want disorders in her stomach. Germany already has too many Jews"?
No, not Adolf Hitler but Chaim Weizmann, later president of the World Zionist Organization and later still the first president of the state of Israel.
And where might you find the following assertion, originally composed in 1917 but republished as late as 1936: "The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligation, knows no order nor discipline"?
Not in Der Sturmer but in the organ of the Zionist youth organization, Hashomer Hatzair.
As the above quoted statement reveals, Zionism itself encouraged and exploited self-hatred in the Diaspora. It started from the assumption that anti-Semitism was inevitable and even in a sense justified so long as Jews were outside the land of Israel.
It is true that only an extreme lunatic fringe of Zionism went so far as to offer to join the war on Germany's side in 1941, in the hope of establishing "the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich." Unfortunately this was the group which the present Prime Minister of Israel chose to join.
The very uncomfortable truth is that the harsh characterizations of Diaspora Jewry found in the pages of Mein Kampf were not all that different from what was voiced by Zionism's founding fathers and its subsequent leaders, so the cooperation of those two ideological movements was not really so totally surprising.
However, uncomfortable truths do remain uncomfortable. Mortimer had spent nineteen years at the Times , the last dozen of them as the foreign specialist and leader-writer on Middle Eastern affairs. But the year after he wrote that article including those controversial quotations, his career at that newspaper ended , leading to an unusual gap in his employment history, and that development may or may not be purely coincidental.
Also quite ironic was the role of Adolf Eichmann, whose name today probably ranks as one of the most famous half-dozen Nazis in history, due to his postwar 1960 kidnapping by Israeli agents, followed by his public show-trial and execution as a war-criminal. As it happens, Eichmann had been a central Nazi figure in the Zionist alliance, even studying Hebrew and apparently becoming something of a philo-Semite during the years of his close collaboration with top Zionist leaders.
Brenner is a captive of his ideology and his beliefs, accepting without question the historical narrative with which he was raised. He seems to find nothing so strange about Eichmann being a philo-Semitic partner of the Jewish Zionists during the late 1930s and then suddenly being transformed into a mass-murderer of the European Jews in the early 1940s, willingly committing the monstrous crimes for which the Israelis later justly put him to death.
This is certainly possible, but I really wonder. A more cynical observer might find it a very odd coincidence that the first prominent Nazi the Israelis made such an effort to track down and kill had been their closest former political ally and collaborator. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann had fled to Argentina and lived there quietly for a number of years until his name resurfaced in a celebrated mid-1950s controversy surrounding one of his leading Zionist partners, then living in Israel as a respected government official, who was denounced as a Nazi collaborator, eventually ruled innocent after a celebrated trial, but later assassinated by former members of Shamir's faction.
Following that controversy in Israel, Eichmann supposedly gave a long personal interview to a Dutch Nazi journalist, and although it wasn't published at the time, perhaps word of its existence may have gotten into circulation. The new state of Israel was just a few years old at that time, and very politically and economically fragile, desperately dependent upon the goodwill and support of America and Jewish donors worldwide. Their remarkable former Nazi alliance was a deeply-suppressed secret, whose public release might have had absolutely disastrous consequences.
According to the version of the interview later published as a two-part story in Life Magazine , Eichmann's statements seemingly did not touch on the deadly topic of the 1930s Nazi-Zionist partnership. But surely Israeli leaders must have been terrified that they might not be so lucky the next time, so we may speculate that Eichmann's elimination suddenly became a top national priority, and he was tracked down and captured in 1960. Presumably, harsh means were employed to persuade him not to reveal any of these dangerous pre-war secrets at his Jerusalem trial, and one might wonder if the reason he was famously kept in an enclosed glass booth was to ensure that the sound could quickly be cut off if he started to stray from the agreed upon script. All of this analysis is totally speculative, but Eichmann's role as a central figure in the 1930s Nazi-Zionist partnership is undeniable historical fact.
Just as we might imagine, America's overwhelmingly pro-Israel publishing industry was hardly eager to serve as a public conduit for Brenner's shocking revelations of a close Nazi-Zionist economic partnership, and he mentions that his book agent uniformly received rejections from each firm he approached, based on a wide variety of different excuses. However, he finally managed to locate an extremely obscure publisher in Britain willing to take on the project, and his book was released in 1983, initially receiving no reviews other than a couple of harsh and perfunctory denunciations, though Soviet Izvestia took some interest in his findings until they discovered that he was a hated Trotskyite.
His big break came when Shamir suddenly became Israel's Prime Minister, and he brought his evidence of former Nazi ties to the English-language Palestinian press, which put it into general circulation. Various British Marxists, including the notorious "Red Ken" Livingstone of London, organized a speaking tour for him, and when a group of right-wing Zionist militants attacked one of the events and inflicted injuries, the story of the brawl caught the attention of the mainstream newspapers. Soon afterward the discussion of Brenner's astonishing discoveries appeared in the Times of London and entered the international media. Presumably, the New York Times article that had originally caught my eye ran sometime during this period.
Public relations professionals are quite skilled at minimizing the impact of damaging revelations, and pro-Israel organizations have no shortage of such individuals. Just before the 1983 release of his remarkable book, Brenner suddenly discovered that a young pro-Zionist author named Edwin Black was furiously working on a similar project, apparently backed by sufficient financial resources that he was employing an army of fifty researchers to allow him to complete his project in record time.
Since the entire embarrassing subject of a Nazi-Zionist partnership had been kept away from the public eye for almost five decades, this timing surely seems more than merely coincidental. Presumably word of Brenner's numerous unsuccessful efforts at securing a mainstream publisher during 1982 had gotten around, as had as his eventual success in locating a tiny one in Britain. Having failed to prevent publication of such explosive material, pro-Israel groups quietly decided that their next best option was trying to seize control of the topic themselves, allowing disclosure of those parts of the story that could not be concealed but excluding items of greatest danger, while portraying the sordid history in the best possible light.
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Black's book, The Transfer Agreement , may have arrived a year later than Brenner's but was clearly backed by vastly greater publicity and resources. It was released by Macmillan, a leading publisher, ran nearly twice the length of Brenner's short book, and carried powerful endorsements by leading figures from the firmament of Jewish activism, including the Simon Weisenthal Center, the Israel Holocaust Memorial, and the American Jewish Archives. As a consequence, it received long if not necessarily favorable reviews in influential publications such as The New Republic and Commentary .
In all fairness, I should mention that in the Foreword to his book, Black claims that his research efforts had been totally discouraged by nearly everyone he approached, and as a consequence, he had been working on the project with solitary intensity for many years. This implies the near-simultaneous release of the two books was purely due to chance. But such a picture is hardly consistent with his glowing testimonials from so many prominent Jewish leaders, and personally I find Brenner's claim that Black was assisted by fifty researchers far more convincing.
Since both Black and Brenner were describing the same basic reality and relying upon many of the same documents, in most respects the stories they tell are generally similar. But Black carefully excludes any mention of offers of Zionist military cooperation with the Nazis, let alone the repeated attempts by Shamir's Zionist faction to officially join the Axis Powers after the war had broken out, as well as numerous other details of a particularly embarrassing nature.
Assuming Black's book was published for the reasons I suggested, I think that the strategy of the pro-Israel groups largely succeeded, with his version of the history seeming to have quickly supplanted Brenner's except perhaps in strongly leftist or anti-Zionist circles. Googling each combination of the title and author, Black's book gets eight times as many hits, and his Amazon sales ranks and numbers of reviews are also larger by roughly that same factor. Most notably, neither the Wikipedia articles on "The Transfer Agreement" and "The Ha'avara Agreement" contain any mention of Brenner's research whatsoever, even though his book was published earlier, was far broader, and only he provided the underlying documentary evidence. As a personal example of the current situation, I was quite unaware of the entire Ha'avara history until just a few years ago when I encountered some website comments mentioning Black's book, leading me to purchase and read it. But even then, Brenner's far more wide-ranging and explosive volume remained totally unknown to me until very recently.
Once World War II began, this Nazi-Zionist partnership quickly lapsed for obvious reasons. Germany was now at war with the British Empire, and financial transfers to British-run Palestine were no longer possible. Furthermore, the Arab Palestinians had grown quite hostile to the Jewish immigrants whom they rightfully feared might eventually displace them, and once the Germans were forced to choose between maintaining their relationship with a relatively small Zionist movement or winning the political sympathy of a vast sea of Middle Eastern Arabs and Muslims, their decision was a natural one. The Zionists faced a similar choice, and especially once wartime propaganda began so heavily blackening the German and Italian governments, their long previous partnership was not something they wanted widely known.
However, at exactly this same moment a somewhat different and equally long-forgotten connection between Jews and Nazi Germany suddenly moved to the fore.
Like most people everywhere, the average German, whether Jewish or Gentile, was probably not all that political, and although Zionism had for years been accorded a privileged place in German society, it is not entirely clear how many ordinary German Jews paid much attention to it. The tens of thousands who emigrated to Palestine during that period were probably motivated as much by economic pressures as by ideological commitment. But wartime changed matters in other ways.
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This was even more true for the German government. The outbreak of a world war against a powerful coalition of the British and French empires, later augmented by both Soviet Russia and the United States, imposed the sorts of enormous pressures that could often overcome ideological scruples. A few years ago, I discovered a fascinating 2002 book by Bryan Mark Rigg, Hitler's Jewish Soldiers , a scholarly treatment of exactly what the title implies. The quality of this controversial historical analysis is indicated by the glowing jacket-blurbs from numerous academic experts and an extremely favorable treatment by an eminent scholar in The American Historical Review .
Obviously, Nazi ideology was overwhelmingly centered upon race and considered racial purity a crucial factor in national cohesion. Individuals possessing substantial non-German ancestry were regarded with considerable suspicion, and this concern was greatly amplified if that admixture was Jewish. But in a military struggle against an opposing coalition possessing many times Germany's population and industrial resources, such ideological factors might be overcome by practical considerations, and Rigg persuasively argues that some 150,000 half-Jews or quarter-Jews served in the armed forces of the Third Reich, a percentage probably not much different than their share of the general military-age population.
Germany's long-integrated and assimilated Jewish population had always been disproportionately urban, affluent, and well-educated. As a consequence it is not entirely surprising that a large proportion of these part-Jewish soldiers who served Hitler were actually combat officers rather than merely rank-and-file conscripts, and they included at least 15 half-Jewish generals and admirals, and another dozen quarter-Jews holding those same high ranks. The most notable example was Field Marshal Erhard Milch, Hermann Goering's powerful second-in-command, who played such an important operational role in creating the Luftwaffe. Milch certainly had a Jewish father, and according to some much less substantiated claims, perhaps even a Jewish mother as well, while his sister was married to an SS general.
Admittedly, the racially-elite SS itself generally had far stricter ancestry standards, with even a trace of non-Aryan parentage normally seen as disqualifying an individual from membership. But even here, the situation was sometimes complicated, since there were widespread rumors that Reinhard Heydrich, the second-ranking figure in that very powerful organization, actually had considerable Jewish ancestry. Rigg investigates that claim without coming to any clear conclusions, though he does seem to think that the circumstantial evidence involved may have been used by other high-ranking Nazi figures as a point of leverage or blackmail against Heydrich, who stood as one of the most important figures in the Third Reich.
As a further irony, most of these individuals traced their Jewish ancestry through their father rather than their mother, so although they were not Jewish according to rabbinical law, their family names often reflected their partly Semitic origins, though in many cases Nazi authorities attempted to studiously overlook this glaringly obvious situation. As an extreme example noted by an academic reviewer of the book, a half-Jew bearing the distinctly non-Aryan name of Werner Goldberg actually had his photograph prominently featured in a 1939 Nazi propaganda newspaper, with the caption describing him as the "The Ideal German Soldier."
The author conducted more than 400 personal interviews of the surviving part-Jews and their relatives, and these painted a very mixed picture of the difficulties they had encountered under the Nazi regime, which varied enormously depending upon particular circumstances and the personalities of those in authority over them. One important source of complaint was that because of their status, part-Jews were often denied the military honors or promotions they had rightfully earned. However, under especially favorable conditions, they might also be legally reclassified as being of "German Blood," which officially eliminated any taint on their status.
Even official policy seems to have been quite contradictory and vacillating. For example, when the civilian humiliations sometimes inflicted upon the fully Jewish parents of serving half-Jews were brought to Hitler's attention, he regarded that situation as intolerable, declaring that either such parents must be fully protected against such indignities or all the half-Jews must be discharged, and eventually in April 1940 he issued a decree requiring the latter. However, this order was largely ignored by many commanders, or implemented through a honor-system that almost amounted to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," so a considerable fraction of half-Jews remained in the military if they so wished. And then in July 1941, Hitler somewhat reversed himself, issuing a new decree that allowed "worthy" half-Jews who had been discharged to return to the military as officers, while also announcing that after the war, all quarter-Jews would be reclassified as fully "German Blood" Aryan citizens.
It has been said that after questions were raised about the Jewish ancestry of some of his subordinates, Goring once angrily responded "I will decide who is a Jew!" and that attitude seems to reasonably capture some of the complexity and subjective nature of the social situation.
Interestingly enough, many of part-Jews interviewed by Rigg recalled that prior to Hitler's rise to power, the intermarriage of their parents had often provoked much greater hostility from the Jewish rather than the Gentile side of their families, suggesting that even in heavily-assimilated Germany, the traditional Jewish tendency toward ethnic exclusivity had still remained a powerful factor in that community.
Although the part-Jews in German military service were certainly subject to various forms of mistreatment and discrimination, perhaps we should compare this against the analogous situation in our own military in those same years with regard to America's Japanese or black minorities. During that era, racial intermarriage was legally prohibited across a large portion of the US, so the mixed-race population of those groups was either almost non-existent or very different in origin. But when Japanese-Americans were allowed to leave their wartime concentration camps and enlist in the military, they were entirely restricted to segregated all-Japanese units, but with the officers generally being white. Meanwhile, blacks were almost entirely barred from combat service, though they sometimes served in strictly-segregated support roles. The notion that an American with any appreciable trace of African, Japanese, or for that matter Chinese ancestry might serve as a general or even an officer in the U.S. military and thereby exercise command authority over white American troops would have been almost unthinkable. The contrast with the practice in Hitler's own military is quite different than what Americans might naively assume.
This paradox is not nearly as surprising as one might assume. The non-economic divisions in European societies had almost always been along lines of religion, language, and culture rather than racial ancestry, and the social tradition of more than a millennium could not easily be swept away by merely a half-dozen years of National Socialist ideology. During all those earlier centuries, a sincerely-baptized Jew, whether in Germany or elsewhere, was usually considered just as good a Christian as any other. For example, Tomas de Torquemada, the most fearsome figure of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, actually came from a family of Jewish converts.
Even wider racial differences were hardly considered of crucial importance. Some of the greatest heroes of particular national cultures, such as Russia's Alexander Pushkin and France's Alexandre Dumas, had been individuals with significant black African ancestry, and this was certainly not considered any sort of disqualifying characteristic.
By contrast, American society from its inception had always been sharply divided by race, with other differences generally constituting far smaller impediments to intermarriage and amalgamation. I've seen widespread claims that when the Third Reich devised its 1935 Nuremberg Laws restricting marriage and other social arrangements between Aryans, non-Aryans, and part-Aryans, its experts drew upon some of America's long legal experience in similar matters, and this seems quite plausible. Under that new Nazi statute, pre-existing mixed-marriages received some legal protection, but henceforth Jews and half-Jews could only marry each other, while quarter-Jews could only marry regular Aryans. The obvious intent was to absorb that latter group into mainstream German society, while isolating the more heavily-Jewish population.
Ironically enough, Israel today is one of very few countries with a similar sort of strictly racially-based criteria for citizenship status and other privileges, with the Jewish-only immigration policy now often determined by DNA testing , and marriages between Jews and non-Jews legally prohibited. A few years ago, the world media also carried the remarkable story of a Palestinian Arab sentenced to prison for rape because he had consensual sexual relations with a Jewish woman by passing himself off as a fellow Jew.
Since Orthodox Judaism is strictly matrilineal and controls Israeli law, even Jews of other branches can experience unexpected difficulties due to conflicts between personal ethnic identity and official legal status. The vast majority of the wealthier and more influential Jewish families worldwide do not follow Orthodox religious traditions, and over the generations, they have often taken Gentile wives. However, even if the latter had converted to Judaism, their conversions are considered invalid by the Orthodox Rabbinate, and none of their resulting descendants are considered Jewish. So if some members of these families later develop a deep commitment to their Jewish heritage and immigrate to Israel, they are sometimes outraged to discover that they are officially classified as "goyim" under Orthodox law and legally prohibited from marrying Jews. These major political controversies periodically erupt and sometimes reach the international medi a.
Now it seems to me that any American official who proposed racial DNA tests to decide upon the admission or exclusion of prospective immigrants would have a very difficult time remaining in office, with the Jewish-activists of organizations like the ADL probably leading the attack. And the same would surely be true for any prosecutor or judge who non-whites to prison for the crime of "passing" as whites and thereby managing to seduce women from that latter group. A similar fate would befall advocates of such policies in Britain, France, or most other Western nations, with the local ADL-type organization certainly playing an important role. Yet in Israel, such existing laws merely occasion a little temporary embarrassment when they are covered in the international media, and then invariably remain in place after the commotion has died down and been forgotten. These sorts of issues are considered of little more importance than were the past wartime Nazi ties of the Israeli prime minister throughout most of the 1980s.
But perhaps the solution to this puzzling difference in public reaction lies in an old joke. A leftist wit once claimed that the reason America has never had a military coup is that it is the only country in the world that lacks an American embassy to organize such activities. And unlike the U.S., Britain, France, and many other predominately-white countries, Israel has no domestic Jewish-activist organization filling the powerful role of the ADL.
Over the last few years, many outside observers have noted a seemingly very odd political situation in Ukraine. That unfortunate country possesses powerful militant groups, whose public symbols, stated ideology, and political ancestry all unmistakably mark them as Neo-Nazis. Yet those violent Neo-Nazi elements are all being bankrolled and controlled by a Jewish Oligarch who holds dual Israeli citizenship. Furthermore, that peculiar alliance had been mid-wifed and blessed by some of America's leading Jewish Neocon figures, such as Victoria Nuland, who have successfully used their media influence to keep such explosive facts away from the American public.
At first glance, a close relationship between Jewish Israelis and European Neo-Nazis seems as grotesque and bizarre a misalliance as one could imagine, but after recently reading Brenner's fascinating book, my perspective quickly shifted. Indeed, the main difference between then and now is that during the 1930s, Zionist factions represented a very insignificant junior partner to a powerful Third Reich, while these days it is the Nazis who occupy the role of eager suppliants to the formidable power of International Zionism, which now so heavily dominates the American political system and through it, much of the world.
Related Reading:
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by Lenni Brenner Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler American Pravda: The Nature of Anti-Semitism American Pravda: Oddities of the Jewish Religion American Pravda: The JFK Assassination, Part II – Who Did It?
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Aug 07, 2018 | www.counterpunch.org
Now a year-and-a-half into the Trump presidency, it's become a truism that the president's support is anchored in a deep sense of social and political powerlessness felt by many Americans, especially older, white men. An early 2016 Rand poll comparing Donald Trump and Ted Cruz supporters found that those who agreed with the statement "people like me don't have any say about what the government does" preferred Trump -- and by a whopping 86.5 percent majority.
This sense of powerlessness turned out to be a more reliable predictor of Trump support than all the other issues that dogged the 2016 campaign, including immigration, income, education, the economy and his abusive sexual exploits. And it still does.
In 1941, the then-radical psycho-theorist, Erich Fromm, published Escape from Freedom . In it, he warned:
The annihilation of the individual self and the attempt to overcome thereby the unbearable feeling of powerlessness are only one side of the masochistic strivings. The other side is the attempt to become part of a bigger and more powerful whole outside of oneself, to submerge and participate in it. This power can be a person, an institution, God, the nation, conscience, or a psychic compulsion.
Like Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse, Fromm was then worried about the growing threat of totalitarianism. In particular, these thinkers, among others, were concerned about how the deepening sense of powerlessness among what was then referred to as "the masses" had contributed to the enormous increase in the power of the leader, whether Hitler, Mussolini, Franco or Stalin.
The peculiar dialectic between power and powerlessness is shadowed by a necessary third component, the perfect target. These are the people who are identified as the threat that the powerful and the powerless must come together to defeat. In pre-WW-II Germany, the perfect target were the Jews, communists, homosexuals and gypsies, people that Nazi's claimed were different, thus threatening the purity of ordinary Germans' "Saxon heritage." The threat can come in any form, be it class, race, nationality, religion or political ideology -- or whatever is a distinguishing characteristic of those targeted.
Pres. Trump has up to now played the perfect-target dance with great success. As a candidate and now in the Oval Office, he's ranted successfully against "illegal" immigrants, whether long-time residents, married to a citizen and with American children, have a criminal record, served in the military or recent arrivals. In one Tweet, he opined: "They [Democrats] don't care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can't win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!"
Democrats are the problem. They don't care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can't win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2018
The Trump administration may have recently overplayed its perfect-target hand with the forceful separation of seized immigrant parents from their children, no matter at what age. From purely bureaucratic and media-relations perspectives, it's been a mess. No matter whether the immigrants might be "illegal," they are still people, parent and child, and -- in Christian America -- family still matters. Equally revealing, the Congress has yet to underwrite building a wall separating the U.S. from Mexico.
The U.S. is not in a pre-fascist period. Globalization is forcing fundamental structural changes on American society, affecting the economy as well as personal life. One key question involves a president's vision and the practices of his administration. Do fundamental social changes foster greater efforts to protect (and increase) the wealth and social power of the privileged or does it signal a sea change -- like the post-WW-II consumer revolution -- that enhances the quality and longevity of the lives of the many?
Trump is effectively exploiting the power/powerless minuet to maximize his own wealth and that among others of the 1 percent. His -- and his administration's -- efforts are designed to (moderately) upset the post-WW-II alliance between the federal government and private corporate interests. The alliance has long been a revolving door for both Democrats and Republicans -- and the Trump Team is spinning the door.
The Trump apparatus is pushing the revolving door further to the right. Every federal department and agency, including the Supreme Court, appears to include, if not run by, someone drawn from the military, a corporation or bank, an industry association, a lobbying firm, a religious group or a conservative thinktank.
Trump and his administration, ably assisted by a get-what-you-can Republican-controlled Congress and Senate, seem more like that of Herbert Hoover and the great denial of what everyone knew was coming rather than that of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the making of a modern super-state. With hollow bravado, one with apparently little thought about consequences, Trump Tweets new federal policies, offers false apologies and ceaselessly attacks on the media. For Trump and his administration, all information questioning a Trump Team statement suggests possible treason.
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For two-plus centuries, the U.S. has been a battleground between power and powerlessness. Through each era of contestation, a perfect target has been identified and exploited to help assure the position of those contesting for power. Four of the most revealing "perfect targets" are the Native People, African-American slaves and free people, Catholics and Communists. Each illuminates the social struggle between the powerful and powerless, thus providing a valuable snapshot into America's evolving culture.
No clearer or more honest statement as to the social role of the perfect target was made by Pres. Andrew Jackson on December 6, 1830, in his Message to Congress, "On Indian Removal." It was issued seven months after he signed the removal law that authorized to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi to Anglos or white people in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. He stated, in part :
It [the act] will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.
Four European states -- Netherlands, Great Britain and France as well Spain -- invaded and conquered parts of what was once the vast North America territory and was then home to innumerable tribes of Native Peoples.
The first African slaves arrived in North America in 1619 in Jamestown. Over the following four centuries many Americans believed that Africans -- and their descendants, African-Americans -- were not fully human, but rather subhuman. It was long an essential belief among colonial revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson as well as Confederate secessionists and those of the today's alt-right. As Jefferson wrote :
I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people.
The U.S. Constitution embodied this racism in granting African and African-American males 3/5 th voting rights compared to white citizens.
The Know Nothing movement grew out of the Second Great Awakening or the Great Revival of the 1830s and became the American Party that flourished during the late-40s and early-50s. It got its name when members where asked the party's positions and simply said, "I know nothing." It drew together Protestants who felt threatened by the rapid increase in European immigrants and, most especially, Catholics, flooding the cities. Catholics became the perfect target.
Know-Nothing adherents felt that Catholics, as followers of the Pope, were not loyal Americans and were going to take over the country. It had strong support in the North that witnessed large-scale Irish immigration after 1848. The American Party captured the Massachusetts legislature in 1854 and, in 1856, backed Millard Fillmore for president, who secured nearly 1 million votes, a quarter of all votes cast.
And then there were communists . It's nearly impossible to image just how awful it was for those who challenged the nation's official belief system during the post-WW-II era of 1945 to 1960. Alleged "communists" included Soviet Union agents, non-party trade unionists as well as professors, teachers, publishers and nonviolent civil-rights activists. And then there were the pornographers, homosexual and other alleged deviants who challenged the status quo.
The post-WW-II period was the age of Sen. Joe McCarthy, of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and New York's Archbishop Francis Spellman -- and Roy Cohn, Trump's consigliere . It saw hundreds lose their jobs, dozens arrested and jailed. And the powerful found their perfect target in two innocent New Yorkers, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who they arrested, convicted and executed -- they were prosecuted by Cohn.
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The dance of power/powerlessness shadowed by the perfect target is being exploited by Trump and his followers. Trump knows how to play this dialect given his narcissistic personality and likely compensation for learning disabilities. Since the campaign, his perfect perfect target has been non-documented immigrants. He's also targeted Democrats, the news media and NATO.
Trump needs a perfect enemy. In this way he is very much like other authoritarian leaders, whether all-powerful rulers like Hitler, Stalin or Mao or merely a failed petty tyrant like Nixon or -- pick your favorite Latin American, African or Asian dictator.
So, keep your eyes on Trump's ever-changing perfect target for it signals where the pin-ball bouncing around in his brain lands. And where it lands sets national policy by targeting those he thinks can distract Americans from understanding his profound failings. Who's next? Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: David Rosen
David Rosen is the author of Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York's Forbidden into America's New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015). He can be reached at [email protected] ; check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com .
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Aug 07, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
"Living in the Age of the Big Lie" [Stephen Gold, Industry Week ]. Gold is President and Chief Executive Officer, Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI):
All this has created the potential for an American cultural crisis of distrust, authoritatively captured in two recently published analyses.
In "Truth Decay," [cute! –lambert] the RAND Corporation lays the blame for the deteriorating role of facts and data in public life on four primary causes:
1. The rise of social media
2. An overtaxed educational system that cannot keep up with changes in the "information ecosystem"
3. Political and social polarization
4. And -- perhaps due to all of these factors -- the increasing tendency of individuals to create their own subjective social reality, otherwise known as "cognitive bias.""The Death of Truth" by Pulitzer-Prize winning book critic Michiko Kakutani explores the waning of integrity in American society, particularly since the 2016 elections. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts," is more timely than ever, Kakutani says: "polarization has grown so extreme that voters have a hard time even agreeing on the same facts." And no wonder: Two-thirds of Americans get at least some of their news through social media -- a platform that has been overwhelmed by trolls and bots, and which uses algorithms to decide what each of us gets to see.
Executives ignore the cultural shift away from honesty at their peril.
Social media has its own problems, gawd knows -- break them up and outlaw the algos, and they'd be a lot more like the public utilities they should really be -- but it's amazing how vague hand-wringing pieces like this ignore at least four seismic events since 2000, all of which involve perceived legitimacy and the nature of truth: (1) Bush v. Gore, (2) Iraq WMDs, (3) Obama's "hope and change" campaign, followed by (4) the crash, the bailouts, the free passes for bankers, and a brutal recession. The official narrative and its maintainers didn't lose credibility because of trolls and bots, who might be regarded as opportunistic infections overwhelming an already weakened immnune system.
Grassroots and/or AstroTurf?
Our Famously Free Press
"The Press Doesn't Cause Wars -- Presidents Do" [ The Atlantic ] • One of a ginormous steaming load of revisionist and defensive articles prompted by Trump's tweet that the press can "causes War." Anyone who was present for the build up to the Iraq War knows that Trump's claim is true; in fact, the "media critique" that began then was prompted by the Iraq WMDs scam, in which the press -- *** cough *** Judy Miller ***cough*** -- was not merely compliant or complicitous, but active and vociferous, especially in shunning and shaming skeptics. Of course, everybody who was wrong about Iraq was wrong in the right way, so they all still have jobs (David Frum, Bush speechwriter and Hero of the Resistance, at the Atlantic, among hundreds of others). So revisionist history is very easy for them to write.
Class Warfare
"The New Class-Blindness" [ Law and Political Economy ]. "It is true that class-based discrimination does not trigger heightened scrutiny under equal protection in the way that race-based and sex-based discrimination do . Some judges -- even some Supreme Court Justices -- have begun to argue that it is constitutionally impermissible for courts to take class into account under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit reached this conclusion a few years ago in the Whole Woman's Health case, in which it asserted that judges could consider only obstacles created by "the law itself" when determining whether a law unduly burdens the right to abortion -- a category that excluded obstacles such as lack of transportation, childcare, days off from work, and money for overnight stays. When Whole Woman's Health reached the Supreme Court, some of the Justices (in dissent) expressed support for this approach."
"Vermont's Striking Nurses Want A Raise for Nonunion Workers Too" [ Labor Notes ]. "Yet when 1,800 nurses and technical staff struck for better wages July 12-13 at the state's second-largest employer, the University of Vermont Medical Center, the people of Burlington came out in force to back them up. 'We had policemen and firefighters and UPS drivers pulling over and shaking our hands' on the picket line, said neurology nurse Maggie Belensz. 'We had pizza places dropping off dozens of pizzas, giving out free ice cream.' And when a thousand people marched from the hospital through Burlington's downtown, 'we had standing ovations from people eating their dinners,' she said. 'It was a moving experience.' One reason for such wide support: these hospital workers aren't just demanding a raise themselves. They're also calling for a $15 minimum wage for their nonunion co-workers, such as those who answer the phones, mop the floors, cook the food, and help patients to the bathroom."
"What Are Capitalists Thinking?" [Michael Tomaskey, New York Times ]. "I write today with some friendly advice for the capitalist class about said socialists. You want fewer socialists? Easy. Stop creating them . I understand completely why it's happening. Given what's been going on in this country, it couldn't not have happened. And if you're a capitalist, you'd better try to understand it, too -- and do something to address the very legitimate grievances that propelled it." • Finally, reality begins to penetrate the thickened craniums of the better sort of liberal
"In 2008, America Stopped Believing in the American Dream" [Frank Rich, New York Magazine ]. (The "American Dream" being one of the official narratives.) "It's not hard to pinpoint the dawn of this deep gloom: It arrived in September 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers kicked off the Great Recession that proved to be a more lasting existential threat to America than the terrorist attack of seven Septembers earlier. The shadow it would cast is so dark that a decade later, even our current run of ostensible prosperity and peace does not mitigate the one conviction that still unites all Americans: Everything in the country is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education, institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the bedrock virtues of civility and community. Nearly everything has turned to crap, it seems ." • Ditto
Arizona Slim , August 6, 2018 at 3:08 pm
sierra7 , August 6, 2018 at 4:54 pmComputer glitch? Well, who programmed the computer and who paid 'em? Follow the money, and you'll find that it leads back to Wells Fargo.
nippersdad , August 6, 2018 at 5:48 pm"We ("They") Were Doing God's Work" LLoyd Blankfein then head of Goldman Sachs in his testimony to Congress on " .what went wrong".
foghorn longhorn , August 6, 2018 at 8:18 pmI think I would put it much earlier than that. Anyone who watched Newt Gingrich during his Contract on America days, who watched Max Cleland be attacked by Saxby Chambliss, who watched as Clinton deregulated the media in favor of Rupert Murdoch even as they slagged him, knew something was afoot.
Integrity has been in short supply ever since.
cm , August 6, 2018 at 3:03 pmHow about going back a bit further,
Carter, put a sweater on.
Reagan, put it on the credit card.Carey , August 6, 2018 at 3:06 pmShenzhen Tech Girl Naomi Wu
informative post spelling out that China is still a repressive government in ways that Americans often cannot relate.
pretzelattack , August 6, 2018 at 3:23 pmTomasky at NYT:
"I have mixed feelings about this socialism boomlet. It has yet to prove itself politically viable in general elections outside a handful of areas, and by 2021 we could wake up and see that it's been a disaster for Democrats."
What is a Democrat? Are they inherently good? Is failing the Democrats OK, if doing so improves the lives of the 90%?
Pat , August 6, 2018 at 5:07 pmI would say it is required.
Carey , August 6, 2018 at 6:16 pmMr. Tomasky seems to have missed that Democrats throwing out the concerns of the working class to court wealthy donors for its Clintonian politics boomlet has been distinctly, well not all that long term politically viable. It has been a disaster for the Democrats. There were signs prior to 2000, but it took starting an unpopular and largely unsuccessful war and attempting to undermine Social Security for the Democrats to make a come back. That their success was pretty much over by 2010, with the exception of the Presidency is very clear in the massive loss of Governorships, State Houses and yes Congress leading up to the 2016 debacle when they foolishly nominated the Grand Dame of that 'can't give me lots of money – suck on it' political position to be their Presidential nominee.
But why let facts get in the way of a good narrative meant to convince the rubes to continue voting for polticians who have no interest in their concerns because of the right pronouns and Russia!
nothing but the truth , August 6, 2018 at 3:16 pmAll well said. I wonder also about who is included in Tomasky's "we".
Class class class
jsn , August 6, 2018 at 4:38 pmTruth Decay
The biggest cause is spin , that has become an art form, a business and career path.
Telling the truth in public is an invitation to cut short your career. The only time when officials tell the truth is when they are comfortably retired.
Especially with economists and journalists (the conscience keepers), it is not so important what they are saying, but why they are saying it (basically lack of trust in the narrator).
Craig H. , August 6, 2018 at 5:15 pmI can't remember who it was, someone like Art Buchwald or Molly Ivins way back, who said "a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth."
Synapsid , August 6, 2018 at 3:39 pmI personally blame Bill Clinton. The turning point was the report that he told Lewinsky "deny deny deny there's nothing they can do."
Which is true but that was the point in the timeline when a critical mass of people began to live like that. Or when it became obvious to me. Perhaps it was exactly like that for a long time before and it is not BC's fault.
Tom Stone , August 6, 2018 at 3:40 pmIt's cheering that coal shipment and use in the US has declined. The good news for our coal industry is that coal exports January to June 2018 have risen, in particular to Africa, Asia (largely to India which is voracious) and South America.
The current Administration can thank the previous one for increasing our capacity to export coal, I believe.
Carey , August 6, 2018 at 4:13 pmSarah Jeong is a piece of work, is her desk next to Judy Miller's?
Good grief, the cultural differences between different parts of SE Asian Countries can be profound let alone the cultural differences between countries.
I'm reminded of a boss who told me that monopolies increase competition, with a straight face.jsn , August 6, 2018 at 3:41 pmMy impression is that Ms. Jeong's job is and will be to start plenty of cultural "fires", so
that while the citizenry is distracted with them, the looting and pillaging of the many by the few can continue.diptherio , August 6, 2018 at 3:41 pm" the significant benefits that Federal Reserve independence brings." For whom?
diptherio , August 6, 2018 at 4:21 pmRe: Mastodon
You can simply "unpin" the columns you don't want to see.
Montanamaven , August 6, 2018 at 4:54 pmBut to answer the question you actually asked the Federated timeline includes your local timeline, which itself includes your home timeline. So if you want to see it all, just use the federated timeline. If you only want to see people you follow, use the home timeline, etc.
Lee , August 6, 2018 at 3:43 pmHow do you start? What "instances" would be a good fit?
fresno dan , August 6, 2018 at 4:25 pmRe Sarah Jeong
What's an Asian woman doing criticizing a white guy for commenting on a predominantly, but not exclusively, black art form? I mean, why is she even speaking English and how about that name Sarah for an egregious example of cultural appropriation? And, as I have previously queried on this site: how is it even permissible for Yo-Yo Ma to play Bach on the cello? And in case you ask: yes, identity politics has finally driven me insane. Or is it they who are mad?
curlydan , August 6, 2018 at 5:34 pmLee
August 6, 2018 at 3:43 pmActually, after I read the below, I'm kinda warming to her ..
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/welcome-to-bad-faith/
She (Sarah Jeong) wrote: "After a bad day, some people come home and kick the furniture. I get on the Internet and make fun of The New York Times." "I don't feel safe in a country that is led by someone who takes Thomas Friedman seriously." "Hannah Rosin shatters ceiling by proving women writers can be as hackish as Tom Friedman, too." "[David] Brooks is an absolute nitwit tho." "Notajoke: I'm being forced to read Nicholas Kristof. This is the worst." "if I had a bajillion dollars, I'd buy the New York Times, just for the pleasure of firing Tom Friedman ."
WobblyTelomeres , August 6, 2018 at 6:59 pmcombining the articles, it sounds like she's got a lot of opinions. Good for an aspiring pundit but also opening herself up for a greater possibility of errors.
sleepy , August 6, 2018 at 3:45 pmI'd buy the New York Times, just for the pleasure of firing Tom Friedman ."
Ah, but you"ll have to scheme to have a cabbie deliver the news. Otherwise, he wouldn't believe it.
Arizona Slim , August 6, 2018 at 3:51 pmit's amazing how vague hand-wringing pieces like this ignore at least four seismic events since 2000, all of which involve perceived legitimacy and the nature of truth: (1) Bush v. Gore, (2) Iraq WMDs, (3) Obama's "hope and change" campaign, followed by (4) the crash, the bailouts, the free passes for bankers, and a brutal recession.
Good list to which I would add the Katrina debacle.
jonhoops , August 6, 2018 at 7:18 pmOne for the thumb!
foghorn longhorn , August 6, 2018 at 8:28 pm9-11 anyone? Of course we should probably go back to at least Nov. 1963
foghorn longhorn , August 6, 2018 at 8:48 pmWe probably should, but then you're just a conspiracy theorist.
Ya big dummy.fresno dan , August 6, 2018 at 3:55 pmUnless of course all the SS guys are riding on the VP limo.
flora , August 6, 2018 at 3:56 pmThe New Class-Blindness" [Law and Political Economy]. "It is true that class-based discrimination does not trigger heightened scrutiny under equal protection in the way that race-based and sex-based discrimination do . Some judges -- even some Supreme Court Justices -- have begun to argue that it is constitutionally impermissible for courts to take class into account under the Fourteenth Amendment.
================
In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. Anatole Franceknowbuddhau , August 6, 2018 at 4:48 pmNote to Frank Rich: Read Simon Johnson's 2009 Atlantic Magazine essay 'The Quiet Coup'.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/
He saw what would happen if the US govt didn't clean up the TBTF banks, Wall St., and other financial perps. This still needs to happen.
zagonostra , August 6, 2018 at 3:57 pmHuh, you say that as if USG, TBTF, Wall St, other fin perps weren't all the same. /s
Montanamaven , August 6, 2018 at 5:02 pmRussia,Russia,Russia.
Not much concern over the disconnect between voter preference and policy outcome which was documented in the 2014 Gilens/Benjamin study or Jimmy Carter statement that the U.S. is a defacto oligarchy, or the massive voter fraud that is part and parcel of our voting system (see https://www.gregpalast.com/ ), or the disclosure of HRC/DNC collusion documented in wiki leaks and Donna Brasil's "tell all book", not much concern their at all.
Do you find it curious this obsession of the MSM with Russia meddling in our elections?
Richard , August 6, 2018 at 5:23 pmA compilation on Rachel Maddow and how many times she mentions Russia in ONE show on March 9 Russia, Russia, Russia
Hameloose Cannon , August 6, 2018 at 8:34 pmHilarious and mind-blowing.
diptherio , August 6, 2018 at 4:17 pm"Do you find it curious this obsession [ ] w/ Russia meddling [ ]?" The Russian meddling isn't the curious part; Russia tries it in every election west of the river Pina. The abnormal part is a sitting US President, on Twitter, accused his son of a felony aka violating 52 U.S. Code § 30121 (a)(2), soliciting contributions [things of value] from a foreign national. Talk about "Blue on Blue" fire. Nothing "friendly" about that. Especially given the prima facie evidence of violating 18 U.S. Code § 3, accessory after the fact, by dictating Don the Younger's response to the story.
Synoia , August 6, 2018 at 4:21 pmI read the book Q a couple of years ago. It's real good. Especially if you're into the gory details of European religious history. There's a lot of things they didn't mention in my confirmation classes
Hiding , August 6, 2018 at 4:24 pmSocial media has its own problems, gawd knows The official narrative and its maintainers didn't lose credibility because of trolls and bots, who might be regarded as opportunistic infections overwhelming an already weakened immnune system
Well said. The official narrative, the swamp, is very good at blaming effects and ignoring causes.
a different chris , August 6, 2018 at 4:30 pmQanon seems like a honeypot site(s) for retribution futures. Read anything, go into a database for future reference. Unz and others have likely multiple uses and followers, NOC/NotForAttribution and other.
JTMcPhee , August 6, 2018 at 4:40 pmAgree with the disagreement over the list. However, this underlies so many, maybe all problems and nobody is seemingly going to clean it up:
>An overtaxed educational system
MyLessThanPrimeBeef , August 6, 2018 at 5:27 pmOn decline in coal shipments: look what is happening elsewhere! "Germany had so much renewable energy on Sunday that it had to pay people to use electricity!", https://qz.com/680661/germany-had-so-much-renewable-energy-on-sunday-that-it-had-to-pay-people-to-use-electricity/ "Power too cheap to meter," just like nuclear was promised to be! And that is an old 2016 article. I saw another piece, I believe in Business Insider or Bloomberg, complaining that the big energy companies are facing "profit stress" because of grid-ties from solar and wind requiring them to pay people for energy in excess of the load. And having, gasp! to shut down coal fired plants, each closure being a pretty expensive anti-profit center! I would tend to think of it being a re-internalization of costs that the power companies have dumped on us (health effects from heavy metal and carcinogen emissions, smog, CO2/climate interruption. Too bad the paybacks won't come from clawbacks of CEO paydays or any of the lobbying money spent to bribe legislatures, deceive the public/consumers, spent on getting legislative approval for nuclear power plants that WILL NEVER BE BUILT like Duke Energy has done (and besides, they get to cllect a billion or more from customers to "pay for" those plants that will never be built. Kind of like an ISDS "judgment" in favor of a megacorporation because 'regulation and market conditions' impaired said corporations' "expectations of profit "
Of course, windmills built to a price are not infallible, either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ
I have to add, adding it all up and looking around, "Effing stupid humans," to get to this point
ewmayer , August 6, 2018 at 8:42 pmAnd beyond this point, more ***ing stupid humans thanks to, well, population growth.
That would be a problem in any system – capitalism, socialism, communism, etc.
David , August 6, 2018 at 4:41 pmWell, that green-energy surfeit may have something to do with the combination of a record-smashing heat wave in a country where A/C systems have not been needed at scale, historically speaking. But good on them if they are in fact doing it sustainably.
JTMcPhee , August 6, 2018 at 4:57 pm. and could provide some relief to North American farmers just as Chinese tariffs are sapping demand for soybeans and other crops.
From the USDA's Export Sales Query System
Soybeans (in Metric Tons) for the week of 7/26/2018,
Country – 2018 Exports / 2017 Exports
China – 186 / 73,314
Korea – 59,999 / 0
Japan – 72,120 / 7,758
Taiwan – 86,441 / 3,853Grand Total for the week – 856,438 / 637,737
MyLessThanPrimeBeef , August 6, 2018 at 5:54 pmOf course, a good bit of that "trade" includes genetically modified soybeans. Monsanto is happy to sell their "intellectual property," immune from consequence of course, pure profit all the way down.
And of course there are NO POSSIBLE RISKS OR CONCERNS about the propagation of gene-fiddled stuff like soybeans and canola, " Genetically Modified Canola 'Escapes' Farm Fields,
August 6, 2010 , https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129010499 , just for example, I mean it's not like the World Health Organization has not kind of flagged some things that "policymakers" might want to keep in mind when confronted by the Cropporate Corrupters wanting to peddle their 'risk free innovations:'"Frequently asked questions on genetically modified foods
May 2014These questions and answers have been prepared by WHO in response to questions and concerns from WHO Member State Governments with regard to the nature and safety of genetically modified food." http://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/food-technology/faq-genetically-modified-food/en/
"Do not worry, meine liebchen -- we do this for your own good "
JohnnyGL , August 6, 2018 at 5:22 pmThat's one more thing to ban – GM soybeans.
And growth hormone beef that's another.
Randy , August 6, 2018 at 5:26 pmhttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/medicare-save-businesses-trillions-dollars-190500400.html
Posting this because sometimes it's more about WHO is saying it, rather than what is being said. It's not often I look at a Rick Newman column and say, 'wow, he's really making a strong case'.
Tectonic plates of politics are shifting.
WobblyTelomeres , August 6, 2018 at 5:59 pmSalmonella in chickens.
The chickens are raised covered in their own filth and along with the filth comes salmonella. They attempt to contain the infection with antibiotics.
And if the conditions in the "chicken factory" aren't filthy enough the slaughterhouse ensures that the end product comes with salmonella by running the line speed so fast that punctured intestines insure that the end product comes out covered in salmonella-containing fecal matter. Which they try to contain with a chlorine bath.
If you like eating chicken shite eat store chicken. If you don't, and if you can, raise your own. Raising chickens for meat is a lot of work but they taste better and you won't be eating chicken shite.
Polar Donkey , August 6, 2018 at 5:49 pmOr quit eating meat.
Polar Donkey , August 6, 2018 at 6:06 pmJeez, Frank Rich needs to get out of New York City more. Everything has been completely broke around Memphis since 2006. It just mostly broke before that.
WobblyTelomeres , August 6, 2018 at 6:40 pmWas it Trump's election, the rise of Bernie/AOC, Obama's $32 million worth of post-presidency houses, 60,000 people dying from opiods, or the broken subways in NYC that caused Frank Rich's awakening?
Glen , August 6, 2018 at 6:54 pmMore likely a dollar sliding down the sidewalk
anon , August 6, 2018 at 6:01 pm"Obama didn't cause that broken spirit any more than Trump did."
Obama made it perfectly clear that the Democratic party was going to do nothing to correct 2008. Instead he put the very same people that wrecked the world economy back in charge. I will no longer vote for the "have no alternative" Democrat. I will vote for those that are going to enact the polices that will fix this mess. If that means we get twenty Trumps a row – so be it.
Bernie would have won.
Daryl , August 6, 2018 at 6:08 pmRe: On average for the year-ended this May, 58.5 percent of the job gains were in counties that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 , and this excerpt from that Associated Press link:
The jobs data shows an economy that is as fractured as the political landscape ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. As more money pools in corporate hubs such as Houston, San Francisco or Seattle , prosperity spills over less and less to smaller towns and cities in America's interior. That would seem to undercut what Trump sees as a central accomplishment of his administration – job creation for middle class and blue-collar workers in towns far removed from glitzy urban centers.
Looking at those cities noted, especially Seattle and San Francisco – both of which now have an inhuman level of inequality and homelessness -- a further dive into the details is necessary.
Specifically, are those job gains ™ out of state imported employees from: Ivy League Schools (predominately under 26, mostly white males from elite families); along with H-1B, and Opt Program ™ imported employees (predominately under 26, mostly males from mostly upper middle class Asian families, paid far, far less than those Ivy Leaguers) [1]; while the displaced unemployed -- yet, highly qualified for employment -- residents in those cities are continually being forced out (if they can afford the move and have somewhere they are able to move to), or made homeless.
[1] Admittedly, I'm not sure whether they are included in those job gains, but if the job gains are based on ADP reports, it might well be likely that they are; of course a search on two search sites brought up no answer to my query.
lyman alpha blob , August 6, 2018 at 6:22 pm> Mastodon users?
I find Mastodon's user interface to be fairly unintuitive myself. Presumably it would be possible to make your own "mixed" view as it's open source and based on open protocols, but not sure if Mastodon supports it out of the box.
Arizona Slim , August 6, 2018 at 6:39 pmHow does Mastodon work?
By rocking until you can't take it anymore.
Instructional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFop1gTbaj8
And their drummer is a monster!
Or did you mean the Mastodon platform ?
Sorry Lambert, couldn't help myself Just saw this band recently and they are tremendous.
ChrisPacific , August 6, 2018 at 6:26 pmFun tutorial, lyman!
Pat , August 6, 2018 at 6:51 pmRe: Indivisible
AOC is one of their candidates, as are Cynthia Nixon, Ayana Pressley etc. There is a prevalence of Democrat buzzwords, but I think they are aiming to be agnostic regarding left factions:
We're excited to make gains in 2018, but Indivisible 435 isn't just about notching wins. Our organization is not a wing of the Democratic party. While we care deeply about electing officials to oppose the Trump agenda, we care just as much building a strong progressive community nationwide and pushing the conversation back to the interests of the people.
This would be well off message for establishment Democrats.
I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, but still watch what they do.
Summer , August 6, 2018 at 7:18 pmI would posit that most of the job gains in the last decade maybe even two were probably in areas that voted for Clinton. That the Texas boom and the oil boom in the Dakota's were exceptions not the rule. I would also posit that the few Trump areas that did see job growth in that decade saw that growth in minimum wage low to no benefit jobs. (That last one wasn't much of a stretch since that has been the majority of jobs created during both the Bush 2 and Obama administration.)
drumlin woodchuckles , August 6, 2018 at 7:30 pmMaybe They Could Invent Houses" [Eschaton]. • After having invented the bodega, the bus
More like an "Appartment"?
The Rev Kev , August 6, 2018 at 7:36 pmSarah Jeong . . . hmmm . . .
Things like this have led me to comment in the past and every comment on this particular subject has failed to print. I figure I am tripping some kind of auto-filter.
So I will try again with indirect spelling.
We need a new word for this sort of thing. It would emerge from the new acronym we need.
The letters would be . . . arrr peee ohhh ceee
that stands for . . . rayciss purrsuns ovv cuhluhr.drumlin woodchuckles , August 6, 2018 at 8:51 pm"Dockless bike, scooter firms clash with U.S. cities over regulations"
I have a solution to these tech-companies which strew towns and cities with their bikes without coordinating or even asking to enter such a town and let the town try to adapt to their needs. It is called an impound lot. You have city workers pick them up and cart them there. If that company wants their bikes back again, they will have to pay to spring them from the lot. Rinse and repeat until that tech company gets the message. If that tech company doubles down, announce a $5 bounty for any bike driven to the impound lot till the company is ready to negotiate.
beth , August 6, 2018 at 8:05 pmDisrupt the disrupters.
Disruptive law-enforcement.
CalypsoFacto , August 6, 2018 at 8:58 pm"How a Pair of Kentucky Pols Are About to Legalize Hemp"
Please help me here. Hemp can be sold in all 50 states. The 2014 Farm bill allowed each state to decide whether hemp oil could be sold for medicinal purposes w/i that year. My first package sent to me was from a reputable company and was mailed through Amazon from Kentucky. I was experiencing severe pain and now have a better alternative.
The Rev Kev , August 6, 2018 at 8:37 pmI am also hoping for this bill so I can get into hemp processing for fibers into fabric!
ewmayer , August 6, 2018 at 8:43 pm"How to keep young people from fleeing small towns for big cities"
Not so hard. See that there are jobs for them. You cannot do much in modern society without money and a job provides this. A job provides dignity, discipline and the money it provides lets a young person to satisfy not only their needs but many of their wants as well. It is hard for a young guy to take a girl out but having no money to do so and a job's money will help a couple set up a household and marry and have children. The drop in marriage rates as well as the birthrate speaks volumes of the lack of decent paying jobs for young people, even those that have achieved credentials. Supply good paying jobs and most kids will stay put. Not so hard to work out.
Re. "Trump v. Fed" [Money and Banking], bolds mine: "Last month, interrupting decades of presidential self-restraint, President Trump openly criticized the Federal Reserve. Given the President's penchant for dismissing valuable institutions, it is hard to be surprised investors are reasonably focused on the selection of qualified academics and individuals with valuable policy and business experience the President's comments are seriously disturbing and -- were they to become routine -- risk undermining the significant benefits that Federal Reserve independence brings."
As Lambert would say, for some definition of 'valuable', 'benefits' and 'independence'.
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Aug 05, 2018 | russia-insider.com
"Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims ..." Chuck Baldwin Wed, Aug 1, 2018 | 14,261 389 MORE: History Revisionist History The author is a prominent American Christian conservative who was a presidential candidate for the paleoconservative Constitution Party in 2008, when he was endorsed by Ron Paul.
He is the pastor of Liberty Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Montana, and he is a popular radio host and columnist . His weekly sermons are available on his YouTube channel.
He is a relentless foe of neoconservatism and frequently criticizes the neocon hostility towards Russia. His views are representative of an influential and substantial part of Trump's popular support.
Here is an archive of his excellent articles which we have published on Russia Insider , when they were relevant to the debate over Russia.
What if everything we've been told about 9/11 is a lie? What if it wasn't 19 Muslim terrorist hijackers that flew those planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon? What if the Muslims had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks on 9/11? What if everything we've been told about the reasons we invaded two sovereign nations (Afghanistan and Iraq) is a lie?
What if the 17-year-old, never-ending "War on Terror" in the Middle East is a lie? What if our young soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have given their lives in America's "War on Terror" died for a lie? What if G.W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been nothing but controlled toadies for an international global conspiracy that hatched the attacks of 9/11 as nothing more than a means to institute a perpetual "War on Terror" for purposes that have nothing to do with America's national security? Would the American people want to know? Would the truth even matter to them?
The sad reality is that the vast majority of Americans who would read the above paragraph would totally dismiss every question I raised as being unrealistic and impossible -- or even nutty. Why is that? Have they studied and researched the questions? No. Have they given any serious thought to the questions? No. They have simply swallowed the government/mainstream media version of these events hook, line and sinker.
It is totally amazing to me that the same people who say they don't believe the mainstream media (MSM) and government (Deep State) versions of current events -- which is why they voted for and love Donald Trump -- have absolutely no reservations about accepting the official story that the 9/11 attacks were the work of jihadist Muslims and that America's "War on Terror" is completely legitimate.
These "always Trumpers" are dead set in their minds that America is at war with Islam; that Trump's bombings of Syria were because President Assad is an evil, maniacal monster who gassed his own people; and that Trump's expansion of the war in Afghanistan is totally in the interests of America's national security.
BUT WHAT IF ALL OF IT IS A BIG, FAT LIE?
What if the Muslims had NOTHING to do with 9/11?
What if Bashar al-Assad did NOT gas his own people?
What if America's "War on Terror" is a completely false, manufactured, made-up deception?
What if America's military forces are mostly fighting for foreign agendas and NOT for America's national security or even our national interests?
What if America's war in Afghanistan is a fraud?
What if the entire "War on Terror" is a fraud?
The Trump robots have bought into America's "War on Terror" as much as Obama's robots and Bush's robots did. Bush was elected twice, largely on the basis of America's "War on Terror." Obama campaigned against the "War on Terror" and then expanded it during his two terms in office. Trump campaigned against the "War on Terror" and then immediately expanded it beyond what Obama had done. In fact, Trump is on a pace to expand the "War on Terror" beyond the combined military aggressions of both Bush and Obama.
But who cares? Who even notices?
America is engaged in a global "War on Terror." Just ask G.W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News, The Washington Post, the New York Times and the vast majority of America's pastors and preachers. They all tell us the same thing seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Liberals scream against Trump, and conservatives scream against Maxine Waters; but both sides come together to support America's never-ending "War on Terror."
But what if it's ALL a lie? What if Obama and Trump, the right and the left, the MSM and the conservative media are all reading from the same script? What if they are all (wittingly or unwittingly) in cahoots in perpetuating the biggest scam in world history? And why is almost everyone afraid to even broach the question?
Left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, secular or Christian, no one dares to question the official story about the 9/11 attacks or the "War on Terror."
And those who do question it are themselves attacked unmercifully by the right and the left, conservatives and liberals, Christians and secularists, Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews. Why is that? Why is it that FOX News and CNN, Donald Trump and Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer and Ted Cruz equally promote the same cockamamie story about 9/11 and the "War on Terror?"
Why? Why? Why?
Tell me again how Donald Trump is so different from Barack Obama. Tell me again how Ted Cruz is so different from Chuck Schumer. They all continue to perpetuate the lies about 9/11. They all continue to escalate America's never-ending "War on Terror." They are all puppets of a global conspiracy to advance the agenda of war profiteers and nation builders.
The left-right, conservative-liberal, Trump-Obama paradigm is one big giant SCAM. At the end of the day, the "War on Terror" goes on, bombs keep falling on people in the Middle East who had absolutely NOTHING to do with 9/11 and the money keeps flowing into the coffers of the international bankers and war merchants.
All of the above is why I am enthusiastically promoting Christopher Bollyn's new blockbuster book The War on Terror .
Of course, Bollyn is one of the world's foremost researchers and investigators into the attacks on 9/11. He has written extensively on the subject. But unlike most other 9/11 investigators, Bollyn continued to trace the tracks of the attacks on 9/11. And those tracks led him to discover that the 9/11 attacks were NOT "the event" but that they were merely the trigger for "the event." "What was the event?" you ask. America's perpetual "War on Terror."
As a result, Mr. Bollyn published his findings that the attacks on 9/11 were NOT perpetrated by Muslim extremists but by a very elaborate and well financed international conspiracy that had been in the planning for several decades. Bollyn's research names names, places and dates and exposes the truth behind not just 9/11 (many have done that) but behind America's "War on Terror" that resulted from the attacks on 9/11.
IT'S TIME FOR THE TRUTH TO COME OUT!
And Christopher Bollyn's investigative research brings out the truth like nothing I've read to date. His research connects the dots and destroys the myths.
Mr. Bollyn's research is published in a book entitled (full title): The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East . I mean it when I say that if enough people read this book, it could change the course of history and save our republic.
This is written on the book's back cover:
The government and media have misled us about 9/11 in order to compel public opinion to support the War on Terror.
Why have we gone along with it? Do we accept endless war as normal? Are we numb to the suffering caused by our military interventions?
No. We have simply been propagandized into submission. We have been deceived into thinking that the War on Terror is a good thing, a valiant struggle against terrorists who intend to attack us as we were on 9/11.
Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims in order to start the military operations for that strategic plan. Recognizing the origin of the plan is crucial to understanding the deception that has changed our world.
Folks, 9/11 was a deception. The "War on Terror" is a deception. The phony left-right paradigm is a deception. FOX News is as much a deception as CNN. The "always Trump" group is as much a deception as the "never Trump" group. America has been in the throes of a great deception since September 11, 2001. And this deception is being perpetrated by Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals alike.
I do not know Christopher Bollyn. I've never met him. But I thank God he had the intellectual honesty and moral courage to write this book. I urge readers to get this explosive new book. If you don't read any other book this year, read Mr. Bollyn's investigative masterpiece: The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East .
Again, I am enthusiastically recommending this book to my readers, and I make no apologies for doing so. The truth contained in this research MUST get out, and I am determined to do all I can to help make that possible.
Order Christopher Bollyn's blockbuster book The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East here:
The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East
I am confident that after you read this book, you will want to buy copies for your friends and relatives. The book is under 200 pages long and is not difficult reading. However, the facts and details Bollyn covers are profound and powerful. I have read the book three times so far and I'm not finished.
Frankly, Bollyn's book made so many things make sense for me. His book dovetails and tracks with much of my research on other topics. Truly, his book helped me get a much fuller understanding of the "big picture."
What if everything we've been told about 9/11 and the "War on Terror" is a lie? Well, Bollyn's book proves that indeed it is.
Again, here is where to find Christopher Bollyn's phenomenal new book The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East :
The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East
Source: Chuck Baldwin LIVE
- AM Hants • 5 days ago ,
daveycrockett Merijn • 4 days ago ,Worked that out, when following events in Ukraine. All main events, since my birth and long before then, were no more than Operation Gladio false flags. It takes a lot to get your head around that, without feeling blind fury to your Governments, of each and every day. Plus media manipulation.
Orwell said it - "he who controls the past controls the future".
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Jul 27, 2018 | dissidentvoice.org
In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret.
It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda.
― Chalmers Johnson, Blowback , Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
There are no more leaps of faith, or get out of jail cards left anymore. The first casualty of war is truth.
Lofty heights of defining the first amendment are just overlooks onto the crumbling mythology of a democracy, where the people – citizens -- vote for laws directly. We have a republic, a faulty one, the source of which is the power derived from billionaires, financiers, arms merchants, K-Streeters and the attendant moles allowing the government to break every charter of human concern. So, in that regard, we in this corptocracy have the right to be fooled every minute, suckered to not know a goddamned thing about democracy in big quotes.
The very concept of manufactured consent and a controlled opposition destroys much of the power of agency and so-called freedom of assembly, association and travel.
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.
― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.
― Vladimir Lenin
But, alas, we have blokes who see the world not as a black and white dichotomous illusion of the for v. against bifurcation, but a world of flowing back to what words should mean, a world that allows the filters to be smashed like high polished glass and instead deploying a magnifying glass to point toward the very source of the blasphemies and strong arm robberies that have been occurring in the Republic the very first moment the beaver hat was put on and the first treaty scripted by the powdered wigs of Washingtonian Fathers and broken, ripped to shreds, seeded with the dark force that is the white race.
Here comes Tools for Transparency into the mix of triage to uphold the declaration of independence, and the few tenets of the constitution that are supremely directed to we-by-for-because of the people, AND not the corporation, monopoly, Military-Retail-Finance-Ag-Energy-Pharma-Prison-Medical-Toxins-IT-Surveillance-Legal Complex. This project is the brainchild of a former Marine who "came to life late in the world" of pure skepticism about the powers that be and his own questioning of the motivations and machinations of his government and political representatives.
... ... ...
...we talked about Mad Men , the Edward Bernays and Milton Friedman schools of propaganda, framing stories (lies) and setting out to paint good people as bad, heroic politicians like Salvador Allende of Chile as Commie Baby Killers. Even now, Bush, the instigator of chaos in the Middle East, with all the cooked up lies and distractions of his own stupidity (like Trump), and, bam, W is reclaimed (in the mainstream mush media) as something of a good president, and especially by the likes of the Democratic Party misleadership .
... ... ...
His Tools for Transparency cuts through the opinion, and as he proposes, makes the world news and the even more Byzantine and elaborate proposed legislation and lobbying groups behind "the news" approachable, again, consumable.
He taps into his college days taking courses in industrial organizational psychology, seemingly benign when the American Psychological Association gets to mash the term into a three-fold brochure by defining it for prospective students as business as usual for corporations, and humanity is better because of this sort of manipulative psychology, but . . .
In reality, it's the science of behavior in the workplace, organizational development, attitudes, career development, decision theory, human performance, human factors, consumer behavior, small group theory and process, criterion theory and development and job and task analysis and individual assessment. It's a set of tools to keep workers down spiritually and organizationally, disconnected, fearful, confused and ineffectual as thinkers and resisters, and inept at countering the abuse of power companies or bureaucracies wield over a misinformed workforce.
The shape of corporations' unethical behavior, their sociopathic and the draconian workplace conditions today are largely sculpted and defined by these behavior shapers to include the marketers and the Edward Bernays-inspired manipulators of facts and brain functioning. This begs the question for Hanson, just what are today's hierarchy of needs for the average American? Physiological; Safety; Love/Belonging; Esteem; Self-Actualization.
... ... ...
Brian believes there is an awakening today in this country, and that the examples of movements such as those in Portland where youth are out yelling against the police state, and then how we are seeing individual officers returning firing with violence against those youth:
The viral video of an officer drawing his pistol on a group of school age children is terrifying.
We talk a lot about the devaluing of language and intentional discourse which includes the abilities of a society to engage in lively and cogent debate. For me, I know the forces of propaganda are multi-headed, multi-variant, with so much of American life seeded with lies, half-truths, duplicitous and twisted concepts, as well as inaccurate and spin-doctored history, which has contaminated a large portion of our society, up and down the economic ladder, with mind control.
Unfortunately, our language now is inextricably tied to emotions, as we see leftists (what's that?) and so-called progressives screaming at the top of their lungs how Trump is the worst president ever. Black so-called activists , journalists, stating how the empire (sky) is falling because Trump talked with Putin . Imagine, imagine, all those millions upon millions of people killed because of all the other presidents' and their thugs' policies eviscerating societies, all those elections smeared, all those democracies mauled, all those citizens in the other part of the world hobbled by America's policies, read "wars, occupations, embargoes, structural violence." It is a daily reminder for us all that today, as was true yesterday, that we are ruled by masters of self-deception and our collective society having a feel good party every day while we plunder the world. Doublethink. Here:
To tell deliberate lives while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
Herein lies the problem – vaunting past presidents on pedestals while attacking this current deplorable, Donald Trump. The reality is the US has been run by an elite group of militarists, and by no means is Trump the worst of the worst, which is both illogical and unsupported by facts:
Yet, we have to mark the words and wisdom of those of us who have been marking this empire's crimes, both internal and external, for years. Here, Paul Edwards over at Counterpunch hits a bulls-eye on the heart of the matter:
After decades of proven bald-faced crime, deceit and the dirtiest pool at home and abroad, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the Justice Department and the whole fetid nomenklatura of sociopathic rats, are portrayed as white knights of virtue dispensing verity as holy writ. And "progressives" buy it.
These are the vermin that gave us Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Chile, the Contras, Iraq's WMD, and along the way managed to miss the falls of the Shah and Communism.
Truly an Orwellian clusterfuck, this. War Party Dems misleading naive liberal souls sickened by Trump into embracing the dirty, vicious lunacy Hillary peddled to her fans, the bankers, brokers, and CEOs of the War Machine.
Trump is a fool who may yet blunder us into war; the Dems and the Deep State cabal would give us war by design.
... ... ...
Paul Kirk Haeder has been a journalist since 1977. He's covered police, environment, planning and zoning, county and city politics, as well as working in true small town/community journalism situations in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico and beyond. He's been a part-time faculty since 1983, and as such has worked in prisons, gang-influenced programs, universities, colleges, alternative high schools, language schools, as a private contractor-writing instructor for US military in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Washington. A forthcoming book (Dec. 15, 2016), Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber , looks at 10 years of his writing at Dissident Voice , and before, to bring defiance to the world that is now lobotomizing at a rate never before seen in history. Read his autobiography, weekly chapter installments, at LA Progressive . Read other articles by Paul , or visit Paul's website . |
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Jul 27, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Lee Camp via TruthDig.com,
Our society should've collapsed by now. You know that, right?
No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a "Star Wars" movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans can't afford a $500 emergency . Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now worth a record $141 billion . He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than he could ever spend on himself.
Worldwide, one in 10 people only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has? 193 million years . (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our current world or even just our nation.
So shouldn't there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn't it all be collapsing? Look outside. The streets aren't on fire. No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone's going to work at gunpoint? No. We're all choosing to continue on like this.
Why?
Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched, like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned.
I'm going to cover eight of them. There are more than eight. There are probably hundreds. But I'm going to cover eight because (A) no one reads a column titled "Hundreds of Myths of American Society," (B) these are the most important ones and (C) we all have other shit to do.
Myth No. 8 -- We have a democracy.If you think we still have a democracy or a democratic republic, ask yourself this: When was the last time Congress did something that the people of America supported that did not align with corporate interests? You probably can't do it. It's like trying to think of something that rhymes with "orange." You feel like an answer exists but then slowly realize it doesn't. Even the Carter Center and former President Jimmy Carter believe that America has been transformed into an oligarchy : A small, corrupt elite control the country with almost no input from the people. The rulers need the myth that we're a democracy to give us the illusion of control.
Myth No. 7 -- We have an accountable and legitimate voting system.Gerrymandering, voter purging, data mining, broken exit polling, push polling, superdelegates, electoral votes, black-box machines, voter ID suppression, provisional ballots, super PACs, dark money, third parties banished from the debates and two corporate parties that stand for the same goddamn pile of fetid crap!
What part of this sounds like a legitimate election system?
No, we have what a large Harvard study called the worst election system in the Western world . Have you ever seen where a parent has a toddler in a car seat, and the toddler has a tiny, brightly colored toy steering wheel so he can feel like he's driving the car? That's what our election system is -- a toy steering wheel. Not connected to anything. We all sit here like infants, excitedly shouting, "I'm steeeeering !"
And I know it's counterintuitive, but that's why you have to vote. We have to vote in such numbers that we beat out what's stolen through our ridiculous rigged system.
Myth No. 6 -- We have an independent media that keeps the rulers accountable.Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing nothing but a trench coat.
Myth No. 5 -- We have an independent judiciary.The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges recently noted , "The most basic constitutional rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security."
If you're not part of the monied class, you're pressured into releasing what few rights you have left. According to The New York Times , "97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains, with defendants pleading guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence."
That's the name of the game. Pressure people of color and poor people to just take the plea deal because they don't have a million dollars to spend on a lawyer. (At least not one who doesn't advertise on beer coasters.)
Myth No. 4 -- The police are here to protect you. They're your friends .That's funny. I don't recall my friend pressuring me into sex to get out of a speeding ticket. (Which is essentially still legal in 32 states .)
The police in our country are primarily designed to do two things: protect the property of the rich and perpetrate the completely immoral war on drugs -- which by definition is a war on our own people .
We lock up more people than any other country on earth . Meaning the land of the free is the largest prison state in the world. So all these droopy-faced politicians and rabid-talking heads telling you how awful China is on human rights or Iran or North Korea -- none of them match the numbers of people locked up right here under Lady Liberty's skirt.
Myth No. 3 -- Buying will make you happy.This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious).
If we're lucky, we'll make enough money during the week to afford enough beer on the weekend to help it all make sense. (I find it takes at least four beers for everything to add up.) But that doesn't truly bring us fulfillment. So what now? Well, the ads say buying will do it. Try to smother the depression and desperation under a blanket of flat-screen TVs, purses and Jet Skis. Now does your life have meaning? No? Well, maybe you have to drive that Jet Ski a little faster! Crank it up until your bathing suit flies off and you'll feel alive !
The dark truth is that we have to believe the myth that consuming is the answer or else we won't keep running around the wheel. And if we aren't running around the wheel, then we start thinking, start asking questions. Those questions are not good for the ruling elite, who enjoy a society based on the daily exploitation of 99 percent of us.
Myth No. 2 -- If you work hard, things will get better.According to Deloitte's Shift Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years.
Ask yourself what we're working for. To make money? For what? Almost none of us are doing jobs for survival anymore. Once upon a time, jobs boiled down to:
I plant the food -- >I eat the food -- >If I don't plant food = I die.
But nowadays, if you work at a café -- will someone die if they don't get their super-caf-mocha-frap-almond-piss-latte? I kinda doubt they'll keel over from a blueberry scone deficiency.
If you work at Macy's, will customers perish if they don't get those boxer briefs with the sweat-absorbent-ass fabric? I doubt it. And if they do die from that, then their problems were far greater than you could've known. So that means we're all working to make other people rich because we have a society in which we have to work. Technological advancements can do most everything that truly must get done.
So if we wanted to, we could get rid of most work and have tens of thousands of more hours to enjoy our lives. But we're not doing that at all. And no one's allowed to ask these questions -- not on your mainstream airwaves at least. Even a half-step like universal basic income is barely discussed because it doesn't compute with our cultural programming.
Scientists say it's quite possible artificial intelligence will take away all human jobs in 120 years . I think they know that will happen because bots will take the jobs and then realize that 80 percent of them don't need to be done! The bots will take over and then say, "Stop it. Stop spending a seventh of your life folding shirts at Banana Republic."
One day, we will build monuments to the bot that told us to enjoy our lives and leave the shirts wrinkly.
And this leads me to the largest myth of our American society.
Myth No. 1 -- You are free.... ... ...
Try sleeping in your car for more than a few hours without being harassed by police.
Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms.
Try signing up for the military because you need college money and then one day just walking off the base, going, "Yeah, I was bored. Thought I would just not do this anymore."
Try explaining to Kentucky Fried Chicken that while you don't have the green pieces of paper they want in exchange for the mashed potatoes, you do have some pictures you've drawn on a napkin to give them instead.
Try running for president as a third-party candidate. (Jill Stein was shackled and chained to a chair by police during one of the debates.)
Try using the restroom at Starbucks without buying something while black.
We are less free than a dog on a leash. We live in one of the hardest-working, most unequal societies on the planet with more billionaires than ever .
Meanwhile, Americans supply 94 percent of the paid blood used worldwide. And it's almost exclusively coming from very poor people. This abusive vampire system is literally sucking the blood from the poor. Does that sound like a free decision they made? Or does that sound like something people do after immense economic force crushes down around them? (One could argue that sperm donation takes a little less convincing.)
Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults.
It's time to wake up.
bobcatz -> powow Fri, 07/27/2018 - 16:43 Permalink
DingleBarryObummer -> bobcatz Fri, 07/27/2018 - 16:49 PermalinkMyth #9: America is not an Israeli colony
bfellow -> DingleBarryObummer Fri, 07/27/2018 - 16:55 Permalink#10: Muh 6 Gorillion
#11: Building 7
Oldguy05 -> Oldguy05 Fri, 07/27/2018 - 22:25 Permalink815M people chronically malnourished according to the UN. Bezos is worth $141B.
$141B / 815M people = $173 per person. That would definitely not feed them for "multiple years". And that's only if Bezos could fully liquidate the stock without it dropping a penny.
Author lost me right there.
BennyBoy -> Nunny Fri, 07/27/2018 - 18:51 Permalink" Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults. "
Seems like there's tear gas in the air and guns are going to be used soon. The myths are dying on the tongues of the liars. Molon Labe!....and I'm usually a pacifist.
Oldguy05 -> Nunny Fri, 07/27/2018 - 22:43 Permalink"American Society Would Collapse If It Weren't For Invasions Of Foreign Countries, Murdering Their People, Stealing Their Oil Then Blaming Them For Making The US Do It."
Proofreder -> vato poco Fri, 07/27/2018 - 18:39 PermalinkEisenhower's speeches were awesome and true. But he was right there doing the same shit. Was he feeling guilty in the end?
east of eden -> vato poco Fri, 07/27/2018 - 18:55 PermalinkFreedom - just another word for nothing left to lose ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7hk-hI0JKw&list=RDEMoIkwgyb6gDyuA-bFyR
TheEndIsNear -> HopefulCynical Fri, 07/27/2018 - 18:33 PermalinkWell, in a world driven by oil, it is entirely bogus to suggest that citizens have to work their asses off. That was the whole point of the bill of goods that was sold to us in the late 70's and early 80'. More leisure time, more time for your family and personal interests.
Except! It never happened. All they fucking did was reduce real wages and force everyone from the upper middle class down, into a shit hole.
But, they will pay for their folly. Guaran-fucking-teed.
As one who has hoed many rows of cotton in 115F temperatures as well as picking cotton during my childhood and early adolescence during weekends and school holidays, I concur. It was a very powerful inducement to get a good education back when schools actually taught things and did not tolerate backtalk or guff from students instead of babysitting them. It worked, and I ended up writing computer software for spacecraft, which was much fun than working in the fields.
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