Peter Lavalle — Collapse of the Radical Liberal Order

The paradoxes of liberalism.

Western Liberalism is in crisis. Originally conceived as a moderate and tolerant ideology is now caving in on itself. Instead of promoting a set of ideas that are inclusive and open-minded, Liberalism today is unwilling and unable to accept any other worldviews. Essentially it has become a form of political extremism mirroring Islam’s jihadist fanatics found in the Middle East and beyond. In fact, both provide the ideological oxygen each needs to survive.

Liberalism is suffering the same fate of other modern Western ideologies, namely Socialism and various forms of Nationalism. Each presented themselves as competing alternatives to the status quo, i.e. the establishment of the time. Each initially aspired to be inclusive. Once each achieved a degree of political traction and legitimacy, elements within each sought to monopolize politics and power. This result was the totalitarian temptation.…

History is dialectical, testing various solutions to social, political and economic challenges. Liberalism arose in 18th century Europe with the Enlightenment and its cause was greatly boosted by the founding of the United States of America on liberal principles.

It was wrongly believed that this was "exceptional," "indispensable," and "the end of history." Time rolls on, conditions changed, and new challenges arise calling for fresh solutions. The world is again that a juncture but not yet at the junction between the old and the new.

There is no way to "reform" an 18th century solution to make it suitable for the 21st century. The past shapes the future by contributing its lessons, both successes and failures. But it is for the present to take on the emerging challenges of the near future.

Since global society is a complex adaptive system, there is no way to predict from the past what the future will bring. History doesn't repeat itself in a circular fashion but rather develops as a spiral, making leaps that are only dimly seen at the horizon.

The sooner the West ceases to impose an 18th century narrative on globalization, liberalism can contribute to the transformation that is taking place as communications and transportation technology shrink the world without attempting to dominate the process, which leads to conflict.

The Duran
Collapse of the Radical Liberal Order
Peter Lavalle

See also

The gathering in Conference Room 3.101 of the Bundestag’s ultra-modern Paul-Loebe Haus on Friday, 16 December was described by its organizers from the Détente Now! / Neue Entspannungspolitik Jetzt! Initiative as a press briefing to officially launch the initiative in Germany. Détente Now! had already had its debut in the USA the week before with an op-ed article in the iconic Progressive weekly magazine of commentary, The Nation. The launch on two continents was meant to draw attention to the overarching objective of establishing a new peaceful Atlanticism to replace the Neocon-dominated Atlantic Alliance that has developed over the past two decades in a malignant way, bringing us into a New Cold War and, in the estimation of some of us, to the brink of a hot war.

Une parole franche
Berlin Diary: 16 December 2016

Gilbert Doctorow

Jon Hellevig — EU's Infowar On Russia - Putting In Place A Totalitarian Media Regime And Speech Control

... while Russia has been identified both in the EU and the US as the supposed adversary against whom these states are supposedly protecting, the real target of their crackdown is internal dissent. Their scandalous calls to an infowar against Russia is actually a red herring intended to conceal the much more sinister aim of establishing a totalitarian media regime and speech control with all-out propaganda and censorship internally in the EU states.

Obviously the EU and USA have very little to fear from Russia's quite limited media resources. Russia has no propaganda reach over the West and based on my observations has not even been engaged in any such attempts. Russia has, however, increased its legitimate reporting in English with an aim at Western and other global audiences. These are quite insignificant operations and reach only a very limited audience. Hereby, there is no need for Russia even to try to do anything called propaganda – in the sense of trying to push false narratives by subterfuge. The Western propaganda machine is the one that takes care of producing the propaganda content, and Russian and other alternative media sources need not do anything else than sit there and refute the Western propaganda narratives 24 hours a day, as well as report the real news.

For sure, this is annoying enough for the West, but their real concern is yet much more baleful. They have a need to enact a totalitarian media regime and speech control in order to continue unhindered in their geopolitical new world order machinations and in their endeavors to establish a World Government with its political and cultural agenda....

That the European mainstream media had been converted into a totalitarian propaganda machine should have become clear to the most lazy observer by the latest in 2013/2014 with the jaw-dropping anti-Sochi propaganda and the massive propaganda support and whitewashing of the Ukrainian coup and the atrocities in its wake - which clearly were perpetrated by people and groups that openly displayed their adherence to fascist and Nazi ideologies – on the Maidan, Odessa, Mariupol and its war of terror on the population of Donbass. The Western propaganda war on Syria in support of jihadists and Western mercenary terrorists labeling these groups “moderate rebels” should have come as final proof for those who still wanted to give the Western media the benefit of the doubt. – Now, they want to remove that doubt once and for all by the introduction of a totalitarian media regime and speech control.

Jon Hellevig's Blog
EU's Infowar On Russia - Putting In Place A Totalitarian Media Regime And Speech Control
Jon Hellevig, founder, Awara Group

Chris Hedges — Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism

An elegant tribute to Sheldon Wolin, who recently passed away at 93.

Wendy Brown, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and another former student of Wolin’s, said in an email to me: “Resisting the monopolies on left theory by Marxism and on democratic theory by liberalism, Wolin developed a distinctive—even distinctively American—analysis of the political present and of radical democratic possibilities. He was especially prescient in theorizing the heavy statism forging what we now call neoliberalism, and in revealing the novel fusions of economic with political power that he took to be poisoning democracy at its root.”

Wolin throughout his scholarship charted the devolution of American democracy and in his last book, “Democracy Incorporated,” details our peculiar form of corporate totalitarianism. “One cannot point to any national institution[s] that can accurately be described as democratic,” he writes in that book, “surely not in the highly managed, money-saturated elections, the lobby-infested Congress, the imperial presidency, the class-biased judicial and penal system, or, least of all, the media.”

Inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism. It does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader but in the faceless anonymity of the corporate state. Our inverted totalitarianism pays outward fealty to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the iconography, traditions and language of American patriotism, but it has effectively seized all of the mechanisms of power to render the citizen impotent…

Truthdig
Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism

Chris Hedges

Michael Kirkwood — The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West – Alexander Zinoviev

Alexander Zinoviev, along with Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, was one of the three great intellectual giants who became dissidents during the late Soviet period.

This remarkable and prophetic interview was originally published in 1999 in the French Figaro Magazine. Its original title was: ”The West and Russia - A Controlled Catastrophe”

An annual conference attended by Russian and foreign luminaries and Zinoviev fans in memory of Zinoviev's work will be held in Moscow on October 27.

Translated from Russian especially for RI by Sergei Malygin and Andrey Medvedev
Alexander Zinoviev was exiled from the Soviet Union with his wife and daughter on 6th August 1978, principally on account of his writings on the nature of Soviet communism.

They spent the next twenty years based in Munich. On 30th July 1999 they returned to Moscow, principally on account of his writings on the West. Zinoviev died in 2006 and his remains are buried in the Novodeviche convent.

These few lines suggest that he must have been a remarkable man. He was. Born in 1922 to a Russian peasant family, he was the sixth of eleven children who became an international phenomenon in a variety of fields: philosophy (particularly in the field of many-valued logic), literature (novels, novellas, poetry), politics, sociology, and painting. The two books which, for me, best illustrate the reasons for his exile and rehabilitation are, respectively, The Reality of Communism and The West.

This, Zinoviev’s last interview before returning to Russia provides an excellent example of his unmatched forensic gifts as a sociologist.

I look forward to sharing with friends of RI further details of the life and work of Aleksander Aleksandrovich in future columns.

Michael Kirkwood | Leading specialist on Zinoviev, professor emeritus, University of Glasgow.

Zinoviev was quite prescient in his day, but his conclusion that neoliberal globalization is the new totalitarian future may be overly pessimistic in light of recent pushback. Good read anyway, and a warning of the danger to be averted — the illiberalism of "liberalism."

Russia Insider
The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West – Alexander Zinoviev

Michael Kirkwood

Chris Hedges — The Great Unraveling

The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling. Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire, recognize that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, has been funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious, oligarchic elite, creating vast economic inequality. The working poor, whose unions and rights have been taken from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and underemployment, making their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The middle class is evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and offered factory jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing. Corporations have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing them to stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying taxes. And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into corporate leviathans.

Democracy, especially in the United States, is a farce, vomiting up right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump, who has a chance to become the Republican presidential nominee and perhaps even president, or slick, dishonest corporate stooges such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, if he follows through on his promise to support the Democratic nominee, even Bernie Sanders. The labels “liberal” and “conservative” are meaningless in the neoliberal order. Political elites, Democrat or Republican, serve the demands of corporations and empire. They are facilitators, along with most of the media and most of academia, of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted totalitarianism.”

How could I not post a link to an article with a lede like that?

Truthdig
The Great Unraveling
Chris Hedges

ht Don Quijones at Naked Bull-Shit

Fascism, American-Style

It can't happen here?

“Unbeknownst to most Americans the United States is presently under thirty presidential declared states of emergency. They confer vast powers on the Executive Branch including the ability to financially incapacitate any person or organization in the United States, seize control of the nation’s communications infrastructure, mobilize military forces, expand the permissible size of the military without congressional authorization, and extend tours of duty without consent from service personnel. Declared states of emergency may also activate Presidential Emergency Action Documents and other continuity-of-government procedures which confer powers on the President, such as the unilateral suspension of habeas corpus—that appear fundamentally opposed to the American constitutional order. Although the National Emergencies Act, by its plain language, requires the Congress to vote every six months on whether a declared national emergency should continue, Congress has done only once in the nearly forty year history of the Act.”
— Patrick Thronson, Michigan Journal of Law (2013, Vol 46).

Counterpunch

Fascism, American-Style
John Stanto

The greatest crime of the twenty-first century so far was the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Broadly conceived by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney immediately after 9/11, it initially lacked a coherent justification . But as Condoleezza Rice noted at the time, the tragedy brought “opportunities.” (People in fear can be persuaded to support things policy-makers long wanted, but couldn’t quite sell to the public.) 

First Bush and Cheney (and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Rice) made the decision to go to war. Then they sat down and carefully invented thereasons for their war. 

On Sept. 11, 2001 Bush asked his counterterrorism advisor Richard A. Clarke, who had warned him in early 2001 about an “immanent al-Qaeda threat” (warnings Clarke alleges Bush “ignored”) to produce a report blaming Iraq for the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. 

In his own account Clarke says: “I said, Mr. President. We’ve done this before.” (Meaning, we’ve explored the possibility of ties between Baghdad and al-Qaeda before.) “We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There is no connection.” 

But Clarke’s recollection of the event continues:

“He came back at me and said, ’Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there’s a connection.’ And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report. It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, ‘Will you sign this report?’ They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, ‘Wrong answer. … Do it again.’” 

Few policy decisions in modern history can rival the evil of that demand that the U.S. intelligence community deliberately contrive a false historical narrative, to justify a war that has destroyed a country and killed half a million people.

Counterpunch
The Gloating of the Neocons

Gary Leupp

Created under the guise of fighting terrorism, 'Sneak and Peek' now being used to spy on drug suspects, immigrants, rights group finds

Common Dreams
Police Using Controversial Patriot Act Authority for 'Everyday' Cases: Civil Liberties Group
Nadia Prupis, staff writer

Former CIA analyst and activist Ray McGovern was arrested as he attempted to attend an event in New York City featuring former CIA director and retired military general, David Petraeus. He was charged with resisting arrest, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. 

At 92nd Street Y, which describes itself as a “world-class cultural and community center,” Petraeus was to appear with John Nagl, who recently wrote a book, Knife Fights about being an army tank commander in the Gulf War of 1991. Neoconservative commentator Max Boot was to join them as well. 

Activists from World Can’t Wait, the Granny Peace Brigade, Brooklyn for Peace and a chapter of Veterans for Peace called on people to protest. Some tickets, which cost $45 each, were bought so people could attend the event and potentially participate in a question and answer portion of the event. 

World Can’t Wait activist Stephanie Rugoff said a guard stopped McGovern. “Ray, you’re not going in,” the guard said. 

McGovern, who is 74 years-old, told the guards something to the effect that the Bill of Rights gave him the right to go into the event. McGovern had a ticket too. But the guards would not let him pass and soon New York police officers surrounded him. 

Richard Marini, also an activist with World Can’t Wait, approached the entrance to the 92nd Street Y Center and saw McGovern, who is 74-years-old, being apprehended.
According to Marini, his arms were twisted tightly behind his back and he was in immense pain while they were dragging him to the police car. He was squeezed into the back of a patrol car and taken to the 67th Street station. 

Rugoff heard him screaming. He was shouting about how they were hurting his shoulder. He asked the officers to stop twisting it so they did not aggravate his shoulder and possibly re-injure it. 

“I had a ticket as well,” Marini explained. “They recognized me as well and called me by my name, my first name. They seemed to know who people were.”

Common Dreams
Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Arrested While Trying to Attend David Petraeus Event
Kevin Gosztola, FireDogLake

For years, Americans relied on the mainstream U.S. news media for information; some folks were even convinced the MSM was “liberal.” But the current reality is that the major papers have become mouthpieces for the national security state while amassing a sorry record of deception, writes Greg Maybury.

Consortium News
Big Media Has Betrayed the People
Greg Maybury

Chalmers Johnson — Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled

Goldie but goodie that bears repeating. Chalmers Johnson reviews Sheldon Wolin's Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.

Alternet
Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled

Chalmers Johnson

Wikipedia — Inverted totalitarianism

Inverted totalitarianism is a term coined by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin in 2003 to describe the emerging form of government of the United States. Wolin believes that the United States is increasingly turning into an illiberal democracy, and he uses the term "inverted totalitarianism" to illustrate the similarities and differences between the United States governmental system and totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union.[1][2][3][4] In Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco, inverted totalitarianism is described as a system where corporations have corrupted and subverted democracy and where economics trumps politics.[5] In inverted totalitarianism, every natural resource and every living being is commodified and exploited to collapse and the citizenry are lulled and manipulated into surrendering their liberties and their participation in their government by excess consumerism and sensationalism.

Contents
1 Inverted totalitarianism and managed democracy1.1 Managed democracy2 See also3 Notes4 References5 External links

See also
SuperpowerCorporatocracyNeoliberalismIlliberal democracyTotalitarian democracyAmericanism (ideology)Prison-industrial complex

Inverted totalitarianism
Wikipedia