Space Colonization Is A Capitalist Perception Management Op — Caitlin Johnstone

Space colonization is largely a capitalist perception management op promoted by the likes of Musk and Bezos to strengthen the narrative that it’s okay to continue the world-raping global capitalist principle of infinite growth on a finite world because we can escape the catastrophic ecological consequences of that paradigm by fleeing to space.

“Ecocidal capitalism is fine, we’ll just go to space before it kills us!” is the message we’re all meant to absorb. And too many do. A large obstacle to waking people up to the existential crises we are facing as a species is the blind faith that technology will save us from the consequences of our mass-scale behavior, and therefore we don’t need to change. Which suits the world’s richest men perfectly.

Contemporary capitalism is based on advertising-driven consumerism to fuel "growth," which results in massive unnecessary overuse of limited resources by manufacturing wants, together with negative externalities of production that are socialized. It's a dumb system based on greed and selfishness that is supposed to result in spontaneous natural ordering for the great good. Does anyone actually believe that stupid story?

CaitlinJohnstone.com
Space Colonization Is A Capitalist Perception Management Op
Caitlin Johnstone

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By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on to which the alternative is a hopeless apathy, Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.

– TS Eliot

Well-written article on liberal overreach. How liberalism got unhinged from rationality and spun off into unenlightened self-interest with destructive consequences.

In terms of the historical dialectic, 18th century classical liberalism can be view as a reaction to the dogmatism prevalent in the West since the rise of Christendom as a social and political force. IN such reactions, the pendulum often swing too far in the other direction and stands in need of correction. Then another moment in the historical dialectic supervenes to restore balance. Then the cycle repeats in the new moment.

Liberalism is paradox. This is the conclusion drawn by Domenico Losurdo in his “counter-history” of the project. There’s the contradiction just alluded to: its unencumbered economy being born from, and dependent on, ravaging its accompanying society in order to survive. (The host has the unenviable task of regulating its own devourment.) But there’s also the uncomfortable fact that, right at the moment liberalism was most vociferously demanding liberty, it did so while upholding the most depraved chattel slavery. When it declared the necessity of self-determination, its ideologues were undertaking the almost total annihilation of North America’s first nations. The continent had to be made safe for the free market.

But today’s [neo]liberals can’t countenance this reality, it doesn’t fit with their cognitive maps. To them, the logic of the market — that leviathan that they will sacrifice everything to — is above criticism. After all, through it we have equality (in that, with enough money, intrinsic qualities are no constraint), freedom (regardless of previous error there’s always the option of succumbing to exploitation or starving), and smart phones (late modernity’s bread). This perfect system, which works best of all in minds poisoned by game theory, is forced into every part of society. The idea of a moral economy — i.e. all economies that existed before the Industrial Revolution — is lost; a dangerously utopian one is born....

Utopian thinking is a type of magical thinking.

Counterunch
Liberalism’s Last Legs?

Luke O'Brien 

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"Incredibly but while openly undermining international law Western politicians don’t hesitate to say that the key task of global politics is to counter Russia’s and China’s attempts to change the rule-based order," he told an online UN Security Council meeting. "Such statements came after a recent G7 ministerial meeting in London. In other words, this is nothing but double-talk. The West no longer cares for norms of international law and now insists everyone obey by its rules and stick to the order based on these rules."

"We think that such steps geared to impose totalitarianism in global affairs are inadmissible but they are widely practiced by our Western colleagues, first of all, the United States, the European Union and its other allies, who reject all principles of democracy and multilateralism insisting on everything be done their way and threatening punishment," Lavrov said.…

"My way or the highway" aka "You're either with us or against us."

 
TASS
West imposing totalitarianism, rejecting democracy in global affairs — Lavrov