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MrSmiley@lemmy.zipto News@lemmy.world•The shutdown is poised to deepen hunger in America — just as the Trump administration stopped tracking it26·2 days agoCivilization collapse will hit hardest on communities who haven’t localized their production of basic necessities like food. The financial backers behind Trump adhere to the Dark Enlightenment philosophy, with the goals of dismantling democracy, balkanizing America and establishing a patchwork of technomonarchy city-states from the ashes of destruction. The dismantlement phase is complete, now begins another phase of their philosophy, the scapegoating of Trump and replacing him with their Chosen One.
Here is a quote from the dark enlightenment to get people an idea of what these people have planned:
Civilization, as a process, is indistinguishable from diminishing time-preference (or declining concern for the present in comparison to the future). Democracy, which both in theory and evident historical fact accentuates time-preference to the point of convulsive feeding-frenzy, is thus as close to a precise negation of civilization as anything could be, short of instantaneous social collapse into murderous barbarism or zombie apocalypse (which it eventually leads to). As the democratic virus burns through society, painstakingly accumulated habits and attitudes of forward-thinking, prudential, human and industrial investment, are replaced by a sterile, orgiastic consumerism, financial incontinence, and a ‘reality television’ political circus. Tomorrow might belong to the other team, so it’s best to eat it all now.
The Dark Enlightenment, Nick Land
Freud popularized and systematized the concept, he was viewed as the founder of psychoanalysis so most psychoanalysts work was based off that foundation.
His reluctance to devolve power, his lack of loyalty towards his most zealous followers, his readiness to chop and change policies, his preference for mediocrities and sycophants over men of natural ability, and, most of all, his increasing tendency to believe his own rhetoric about the state of the nation ensured that the new state was never going to be a meritocracy
Nature of Fascism, R Griffin
This is in reference to Mussolini, but it’s a valid description of Trump as well.
MrSmiley@lemmy.ziptoPolitical Memes@lemmy.world•This feels like that time we had to fact check drinking bleach to treat COVID3·5 days agoThat’s typically the case between theory and practice. His writing carved out exemptions to justify totalitarianism in certain instances, defeating the entire purpose of his warnings against it. That said, the analysis of totalitarianism is accurate, the chapters on why the worst get on top and the end of truth are relevant to today’s political climate.
MrSmiley@lemmy.ziptoPolitical Memes@lemmy.world•This feels like that time we had to fact check drinking bleach to treat COVID27·5 days agoThe word “truth” itself ceases to have its old meaning. It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.
The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek
For that, you need to understand the etymology of the term and its evolution by way of elite capture as defined by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.
The term “woke” originated in AAVE to call awareness about racial injustice and systemic oppression dating back to the 1930s. The term was then captured and the meaning broadened by the elite within the Democratic Party, transforming the term into an empty signifier, that is the meaning is vague and varies from person to person.
The two parties differ on social issues because the ruling class (neoliberals) doesn’t really care about those issues, and use it as a tool to divide the masses into two camps.
The term was then captured again and inverted into a pejorative, loaded language term by the Republican Party, who has adopted authoritarian capitalist measures under Trump to protect the unsustainable system of increasing wealth inequality. It’s actually ironic how the right claims they are defending “Western Civilization”, when one of the main factors throughout history of civilization collapse is extreme wealth inequality.
The term “radical left” is used to shift the Overton window to associate center-right Democrats with “the fringe” of the left. This enables Republicans to move to the fringe of right-wing extremism and still be viewed as “moderate”. They got you fighting over trivialities, supporting policies that harm not only “the others” but yourself, while they pillage and plunder the wealth of the nation.
They got you supporting the same system as the Soviet Union, the same things you claim to oppose, because it’s marketed to you.
I recommend reading The Road to Serfdom, since you are by the author’s definition a socialist of the right-wing variety. In that vein of thought, it’s little surprise MAGA is closer to Marxist/Maoist Communism than anything American.
In short, the “non-radical” way to say it is its original meaning.
Learning about and recognizing the different plants around you can be extremely beneficial too. I recommend books for identifying local plants species, so many have medicinal and nutritional value. Call it gaining your “plant vision” lol!
“Radical left” is an example of loaded language from the video.
MrSmiley@lemmy.zipto News@lemmy.world•Whitehouse claims: "Chicago Mayor’s “ICE-Free Zones” Shield Violent Criminal Illegals, Abandon Citizens"41·6 days agoIt’s over the top and stupid because he’s using crowd psychology, it’s language tailored to elicit an emotional response based on irrational fear and anger. The “truth” is delegated from above, it’s true because the “authority” says it’s true. The intent of this type of rhetoric is to mobilize supporters to commit violence.
MrSmiley@lemmy.zipto News@lemmy.world•Whitehouse claims: "Chicago Mayor’s “ICE-Free Zones” Shield Violent Criminal Illegals, Abandon Citizens"14·6 days agoSince fascism’s mythic power is automatically sapped by the renewed ascendancy of the private over the public sphere of life which ensues once political stability and relative social harmony are restored, it can only maintain its momentum and cohesion by continually precipitating events which seemed to fulfil the promise of permanent revolution, of continuing palingenesis.
Though it may seek through agitation and propaganda to develop into an ‘irresistible’ mass movement, fascism must always in the last analysis be imposed by an elite in the name of a national community yet to be realized, and whose realization, even once the movement is installed in power, will initially (and in practice indefinitely) involve reeducation, propaganda and social control on a massive scale.
Since only a minority of the population can be temperamentally susceptible to converting spontaneously to fascism or becoming the new breed of homo fascistus, and since even at the height of its popularity, no modern regime can enjoy total support, the thorough-going ideological coordination of the national community could never come about ‘naturally’. A grotesque parody of it has to be enacted through the extensive use of propaganda and terror.
Nature of Fascism, R Griffin.
The means of action of the leaders. Affirmation, repetition, contagion
When, however, it is proposed to imbue the mind of a crowd with ideas and beliefs—with modern social theories, for instance—the leaders have recourse to different expedients. The principal of them are three in number and clearly defined — affirmation, repetition, and contagion. Their action is somewhat slow, but its effects, once produced, are very lasting.
Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds.
Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms.
When an affirmation has been sufficiently repeated and there is unanimity in this repetition … what is called a current of opinion is formed and the powerful mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes.
The Crowd, Gustave Le Bon
I prefer academic definitions to empty signifiers, and am not impressed by the outburst, it only reveals a latent authoritarian impulse.
MrSmiley@lemmy.zipto News@lemmy.world•Pod man out: Trump's support among influential podcasters is waning16·7 days ago“Influencer” is just the propaganda term for propagandist.
Of course that’s a thing lol
Personally, I think it is more accurate to call him a vulgar conventionalist and para-fascist with a narcissistic personality disorder. He isn’t what one would call a “true believer” of fascism, he doesn’t have any real ideology, just whatever his limited intellect can use to gain as much wealth and power he can. However, I won’t fault anyone calling him fascist.
Vulgar conventionalism is … that the life according to nature is the preserve of a small minority, of the natural elite, of those who are truly men and not [born] to be slaves. To be more precise, the summit of happiness is the life of the tyrant, of the man who has successfully committed the greatest crime by subordinating the city as a whole to his private good and who can afford to drop the appearance of justice or legality.
Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss.
para-fascism – a form of authoritarian and ultra-nationalist conservatism which adopts the external trappings of fascism while rejecting its call for genuine social and ethical revolution (see pp. 120–4)
Nature of Fascism, R Griffin
My bad, meant to add context. The « rectification » campaign included struggle sessions as a tool of Maoist propaganda.
The purpose of the “Hundred Flowers Campaign” was to make opponents come out in the open so they could be arrested and eliminated. The subsequent “rectification” campaign could not, in Mao’s words, be “gentle as a breeze or a summer rain for the enemies of the people.”
Even a propaganda centered on education cannot do without terror. In order to arrive at full compliance with propaganda, the 7 percent “incorrigible” individualists must be eliminated. The objective of Mao’s propaganda is a double one: to integrate individuals into the new body politic as deeply as possible, and, at the same time, to detach them from the old groups, such as the family or traditional village organizations. These groups must be disintegrated, always through action from within. For this there must be maximum conformity on the part of the individual.
Propaganda, Jacques Ellul
Oh… a joke, yes, ha ha.
That speaks more to your ideological fantasy than anything else.
In the chapter “The Rise of Factions,” Walter describes how aspiring autocrats cultivated racial and ethnic resentments that culminated in brutal ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. In “The Dark Consequence of Losing Status,” she describes how a sudden change in the power of a specific ethnic group can be more inflammatory than a sustained structural imbalance.
https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2022/10/13/review-walter-jacobs-civil-war-243912/
I’ll check it out.