Sputnik — ‘A Threat to Global Humanity’: For 70 Years, NATO Has Formed ‘Matrix’ of Imperialism

“We said that this gathering [the summit] should be seen as a threat to global humanity. It’s quite clear from its history - that is NATO’s history - that it is a structure that is used to maintain and advance Western global capitalist interest, and for that it should be seen as a threat. Most of the interventions by NATO have been beyond the pale of legality,” [Ajamu] Baraka, [national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace,] told hosts Eugene Puryear and Sean Blackmon.

“The very fact that this structure has the kind of respectability among Western forces is quite troubling and … reflects the current contradiction, which is a contradiction between the Western interests, Western powers, Western capitalist powers and the vast majority of global humanity,” he continued, also referring to NATO as a “very important instrument” used by the ruling elites to further their capitalist and white supremacist goals....

Not buying "spreading freedom and democracy."

Sputnik International
‘A Threat to Global Humanity’: For 70 Years, NATO Has Formed ‘Matrix’ of Imperialism

See also

Douglas Valentine is an investigator and author with a rare and tenacious approach toward research. His writing results in uniquely incisive and revealing books on the dark side of U.S. intelligence activities and the National Security State. His latest book, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, draws parallels between CIA operations in Vietnam—as exposed in his well-known 1990 book, The Phoenix Program: America’s Use of Terror in Vietnam—and recent/current operations in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. In the following interview, Valentine reflects on a variety of issues including the Phoenix Program, plausible deniability, paramilitary wars, drug trafficking, sabotage, blackmail, propaganda, Operation GLADIO, class interests of the CIA establishment, Trump, the Mueller Report and the Bidens. —CAM Editors

Doug Valentine has written numerous books and articles on the CIA based largely on interviews with former CIA officers revealing how the CIA is not just an intelligence organization tasked with intelligence gathering and analysis, as many suppose it to be, but also it is also a paramilitary operational organization tasked with carrying out covert operations based on plausible deniability.

Internationalist 360º
Inside the Organized Crime Syndicate Known as the CIA: An Interview with Douglas Valentine

Heidi Boghosian and Michael Steven Smith

Indians Shall Not Govern — Maria Paez Victor

The diplomat then proceeded to tell me who was and who was NOT Latin American, and pointing to the photo of a needy child which graced every table, he said: “For instance, that child there is not Latin American”. Astonished I asked how can you say that? She is Peruvian! “No, she is Indian. Latin Americans are those of us who stem from Spain and Portugal.” He was not kidding nor making some sort of epistemological statement on the origin of Latin languages. He was unashamedly, sneeringly , racist, making a clear distinction between himself and that poor child. Our conversation deteriorated from then on to reach a point when he said that “those” children got sick because their mothers were too ignorant to know how to care for them....

Who said that fascism is dead?

Counterpunch
Indians Shall Not Govern
Maria Paez Victor

See also at Counterpunch
Bolivia’s Five Hundred-Year Rebellion
Peter Lackowski

Lev Golinkin — Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine

Longish and detailed, with lots of documentation. It's an excellent reference tool.

Concerning in itself but also because of US support that turns a blind eye to it. "Never again" is happening again.

The Nation
Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
Lev Golinkin

Rémy Herrera — Cops in France brutalize high school students who join Yellow Vest protests

I would be skeptical of this if I had not witnessed it in France and the United States in the past.

In fact sort of behavior has a name in law enforcement and criminal justice. It's called "punitive" enforcement. On the one hand, it is mindset of some that join law enforcement, and it is also a result of a punitive culture in some departments that is at least condoned by superiors and supervisors.

So, there are two factors operative. One is sadistic disposition, and the other is control through fear and intimidation.

In liberal society, these are generally considered signs of fascism.

Worker's World
Cops in France brutalize high school students who join Yellow Vest protests
Rémy Herrera

Kit Knightly — The EU and the warning signs of Fascism

Sure sounds like incipient fascism to me. But, hey, it couldn't happen here, could it?

The Duran
The EU and the warning signs of Fascism
Kit Knightly | co-editor of OffGuardian (UK)

David Weiner — The important question is, Can fascism create social stability?

As David Weiner says, "important."

The problem is that people prioritize security, good order and liberty in a descending order. When social dysfunction increases domestically in a liberal society, or an external threat is perceived as existential, then liberty cedes to order and, in extremis, to security.

The question is whether "the free world" is facing such an issue, as some argue, and tending in this direction — vide the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, and the rise of the surveillance and security state. If so, what to do about it? David Weiner admits that he is not sure what his choice would be if push comes to shove in a divisive environment.

And just as the excess of "socialism" is totalitarian collectivism; so too, the excess of "capitalism" is totalitarian fascism. These are the extreme of political organization and both are reciprocal aspects of totalitarian statism in which an elite rules by diktat.

OpEdNews
The important question is, Can fascism create social stability?

David Weiner

Josh Jones — Yale Professor Jason Stanley Identifies Three Essential Features of Fascism: Invoking a Mythic Past, Sowing Division & Attacking Truth

Short book review, with some useful links. 

"Fascism" is claimed to be a rising phenomenon. The question is, what is it anyway? 

Does "fascism" denote a well-bounded set, or is fascism like pornography, hard to define but easy to identify when encountered, to paraphrase US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart?

Open Culture
Yale Professor Jason Stanley Identifies Three Essential Features of Fascism: Invoking a Mythic Past, Sowing Division & Attacking Truth

Josh Jones

Adam Kotsko — On civil war

We have a new tag — "civil war." Sadly, it has come to the point that serious people are discussing the issue.

Adam Kotsko is a rising public intellectual.

Incidentally, I follow many blogs and news sources on the RSS feed. The political divide in the US reflects the growing political divide in the world between unipolarism (my way or the highway) and and multipolarism (let a hundred flowers bloom). The right is convinced that the left is "communist," while the left is convinced that the right is "fascist."

This is not headed in a good direction either domestically in the US or internationally.

We the subject of war is occurring more frequently, both internationally and in terms of an actual US civil war.

This is happening mostly in venues that appeal mostly to the silos they represent. Since it hasn't been picked up by the corporate media, most are probably unaware of it.

An un für sich
On civil war
Adam Kotsko, independent scholar

See also

"Mob" again. The new political meme. You can see where this is going.

Zero Hedge
Trump: "Angry Mob" of "Radical Democrats" Has Become "Too Extreme And Too Dangerous To Govern"

Paul Robinson — No history, no culture, please

Paul Robinson calls it an attack on academic freedom. I call it incipient fascism. America is slipping down the slippery slope.

"The road to serfdom is not the by way of socialism but rather fascism and it is increasingly upon us since 9/11 and the suspension of constitutional liberties and the militarization of domestic security, and the rise of the surveillance state.

The striking parallels with history are clear.

Irrussianality
No history, no culture, please
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Publius Tacitus — America On It's Way to Being Stalin's Soviet Union

Nothing more sickening and offensive than the hypocrisy of a nation claiming to be the pinnacle of democracy and freedom while moving inexorably towards a state that embraces authoritarianism. And no, I do not mean that Donald Trump is the culprit. He is not. He is a weak man masquerading as a strong man while the BORG aka the Deep State pushes onward with its agenda to quash the spirit of liberty that once infused this great country. He is more a victim than an instigator....

Sic Semper Tyrannis
America On It's Way to Being Stalin's Soviet Union

Publius Tacitus

Brad DeLong — Joseph Goebbels (1932): Those Damned Nazis!: Weekend Reading

Should read. Goebbels present Nazism as a political form that combines nationalism, socialism, populism, and progressivism, and is opposed to internationalism, bourgeois liberalism, and capitalism, which Goebbels equates with "international Jewry."

Grasping Reality
Joseph Goebbels (1932): Those Damned Nazis!: Weekend Reading
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Peter Turchin Can Fascism Happen Here?

Peter Turchin equates fascism with tyranny, but I don't think that is correct. Fascism is a modern political theory, while tyranny is a political category proposed by Plato, as Professor Turchin notes. The "tyrants" of history were what now call "dictators," although the Latin term "dictator" had a somewhat different meaning classically from the Greek "tyrannos." Thus, equating fascism with tyranny as usurpation of absolute power as sole ruler involves a category error, on one hand, and it also fails to consider the range of meaning of both terms.

Fascism is a totalitarian concept of political theory based on authoritarian nationalism that doesn't necessitate a sole absolute ruler that has usurped power. Being grounded in authoritarian nationalism, fascism as a political theory has elements of tyranny associated with it, but it is not equatable with tyranny as a political category.

In the ancient sense, a tyrant was a military usurper that seized absolute power over the state. Solon was careful to deny that he was actually a tyrant, even though he held that power. In modern times, tyranny is no longer associated exclusively with military dictatorship but is extended by analogy to administrative or bureaucratic tyranny (Mill) and "the tyranny of the majority."

"Fascism" today is most closely associated with the Hitler regime and Mussolini doesn't come to mind, even though he was the originator of the modern term. Hitler was influenced by Italian
Fascism, but Nazism was an separate creation.

Ok, this is nitpicking a bit and the author is dealing the limitations of a blog post. But, I think it is useful to point out for the sake of discussion since "fascism" is a term that getting lot of use now, which risks Godwin's law by conflating "fascism" with "Hitler." But Nazism its a form of fascism rather than being the paradigm case of fascism as often presumed.

So asking whether it can happen here has deeper implications that often considered or admitted. Thinking not is letting one's guard down. And maybe the question is better framed as to what degree has fascism crept in.

Cliodynamica — A Blog about the Evolution of Civilizations
Can Fascism Happen Here?
Peter Turchin | Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Research Associate in the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, and Vice-President of the Evolution Institute

See also

Wikipedia — The Doctrine of Fascism

Benito Mussolini (with Giovanni Gentile) — The Doctrine of Fascism

Olivia Solon — Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent 'weaponised' web

The inventor of the world wide web warns over concentration of power among a few companies ‘controlling which ideas are shared’

The Guardian
Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent 'weaponised' web

Olivia Solon

While the chattering class is obsessing over social media, the deep state is operating behind the scenes.

Advanced capitalism leads to corporate statism, the symbiotic relationship between the state and capital, which is the definition of fascism.

"It can't happen here."

Insurge Intelligence — Medium
How the CIA made Google — Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet—part 1

Why Google made the NSA — Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet—part 2

Nafeez Ahmed

also

World Economic Forum
This is the future of the internet

Paul Laudicina | Chairman, A.T. Kearney Global Business Policy Council

also

Moscow also building alternative Domain Name System

Asia Times
Russia could disconnect from global internet in event of war: Putin advisor

Also

Disobedient Media
On The Weaponization Of Artificial Intelligence And Its Ties To The ‘Paypal Mafia’
Elizabeth Vos

Ramanan — Thomas Palley – Re-theorizing The Welfare State And The Political Economy Of Neoliberalism’s War Against It

Thomas Palley has a new paper:

The Case for Concerted Action

Thomas Palley – Re-theorizing The Welfare State And The Political Economy Of Neoliberalism’s War Against It

V. Ramanan

Peter Dorman — Freedom of Speech for Fascists?

Peter Dorman considers when liberalism needs to become illiberal, e.g., squelching dissent based on freedom of thought and expression, in order to protect itself. The question is where to draw boundaries and on what basis.

Econospeak
Freedom of Speech for Fascists?
Peter Dorman | Professor of Political Economy, The Evergreen State College

Pepe Escobar — The future of the EU at stake in Catalonia

Fascist Franco may have been dead for more than four decades, but Spain is still encumbered with his dictatorial corpse. A new paradigm has been coined right inside the lofty European Union, self-described home/patronizing dispenser of human rights to lesser regions across the planet: “In the name of democracy, refrain from voting, or else.” Call it democracy nano-Franco style.

Nano-Franco is Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose heroic shock troops were redeployed from a serious nationwide terrorist alert to hammer with batons and fire rubber bullets not against jihadis but … voters. At least six schools became the terrain of what was correctly called The Battle of Barcelona....

Asia Times
The future of the EU at stake in Catalonia
Pepe Escobar

SouthFront Thousands Protest In Barselona Over Police Violence During Catalan Independence Referendum

State fascism rearing its ugly head again in Spain?

SouthFront

Thousands Protest In Barselona Over Police Violence During Catalan Independence Referendum

lkb22

Independent
Spanish anti-separatists in Madrid protest with fascist arm salutes while singing far-right song

Natasha Salmon

Reuters
Serbia accuses world of double standards over Catalonia and Kosovo

More paradoxes of liberalism.

Mark Thoma — Paul Krugman: Fascism, American Style

The cards are on the table, and the battle lines are drawn.

Note: I am linking to the Krugman piece through Economist's View rather than providing a link to the New York Times, to which I refuse to link owing to what I consider ongoing bad behavior.

Economist's View
Paul Krugman: Fascism, American Style
Mark Thoma

Sam Kriss — The Myth of the Alt-Left

After Trump announced the existence of the alt-left on live TV, media outlets scurried to tell the world exactly where the term emerged from. CBS explains that it “came out of the conservative media.” CNN, quoting a director at the Anti-Defamation League, describes it as a “made-up term used by people on the right.” Heavy.com writes that “the term ‘alt-left’ began being used by the online conservative media in 2016 before it slowly migrated to more mainstream conservative voices, like Fox News’ Sean Hannity.” (Hannity, who repeatedly uses the term on his TV show, seems to be getting widespread credit.) The British Telegraph newspaper, meanwhile, flatters the president with a power of logodaedaly he definitely doesn’t have, claiming the phrase was “coined by Mr Trump” himself.

None of these explanations is really true. The term “alt-left” was probably simultaneously invented hundreds or thousands of times, always bearing a slightly different meaning depending on its inventor. But up until now, the people who most forcefully pushed the idea of an alt-left weren’t Nazis or 4chan posters or anyone else in the orbit of Trump and pro-Trump Republicans trying to invent a mythical opposite to the alt-right. The alt-left is, first and foremost, a figment of centrist Democrats....

The invention of the alt-left allowed centrist liberals to pretend that something entirely different was going on: They were sandwiched between two sets of frothing fanatics who secretly had a lot in common with each other. It established their particular brand of liberalism, possibly encompassing a few “moderate Republicans,” as the only reasonable ground, besieged by alts....

Politico
The Myth of the Alt-Left
Sam Kriss

Levan Vasadze — Challenges of Modern Traditionalism

As professor Dugin rightfully says in many of his lectures and books, the individual subjects or the centers of three mentioned totalitarianisms were each different: liberalism centered on Cartesian individual, which is an artificial concept; Marxism centered on class and Nazism - or fascism - centered on race. The deconstruction of these has happened in the reverse chronology, as we know. Communism dragged down - brought down - and collapsed the idea of supremacy of the race; and then liberalism brought down and collapsed the idea of supremacy of the class; and the oldest one of the three, which was initially invented, has remained as the standing beauty without any alternatives. Now we are entering the era of destroying the liberalism and the supremacy of the individual. I have had the honor and pleasure of discussing on numerous occasions with professor Dugin and the some of you what should be the center of the post liberal paradigm, of the normal society. And we all have different opinions, not necessarily contradictory to each other. For example, professor Dugin tends to gear towards the idea of people - people of the empire if you will - as the carrier and the center of the alternative matrix. I tend to favor more – and again I don’t think we are in contradiction here – the idea of family as the center of the alternative constitution. In Budapest[1] yesterday I said that, in my humble opinion, all 193 constitutions on the planet need to be rewritten. The center of each constitution today is an individual and I am not an individual, I am a component, I am a part – I am a brother, I am a husband, I am a father, I am a son – and when I loose these I become the enemy of humanity. Therefore, it is not the rights of an individual that we should be protecting in these constitutions, it is the obligation of an individual towards the family and the rights of the family that we should be protecting in the constitution.

Geopolitika.ru
Challenges of Modern Traditionalism

Levan Vasadze