In the last couple years there has been a rise in authoritarianism…..across Europe far Right is making head way…France, Greece, Hungary and even England…….the US is not immune from the ravages of authoritarianism.
The big question is will this trend continue or will thew world come to its senses?
If populism’s need for an ”apocalyptic confrontation” proves accurate, it might lead the Trump administration’s ”systemic revolutionaries” far beyond even their most extreme rhetoric.
In 2016, something extraordinary happened in the politics of diverse countries around the world. With surprising speed and simultaneity, a new generation of right-wing populist leaders emerged from the margins of nominally democratic nations to win power. In doing so, they gave voice, often in virulent fashion, to public concerns about the social costs of globalization.
Even in societies as disparate as the affluent United States and the impoverished Philippines, similarly violent strains of right-wing populist rhetoric carried two unlikely candidates from the political margins to the presidency. On opposite sides of the Pacific, these outsider campaigns were framed by lurid calls for violence and even murder.
Does history dictate that a rise in authoritarianism has to occur every 50-100 years?
Somehow voting has to to be mandatory. Not just the politically extremes voting. Results…..TRUMP.
Good morning Roger….I agree and I have been ranting about how we can make it mandatory…..some of it is pretty extreme….voting is a duty and we all should see it as such…..chuq
A mandate to enforce voting would be one of the most anti-democratic moves any government could ever make. Freedom means the freedom to vote or not to vote as a person chooses. But ever since the Kennedy assassinations in the 60s votes haven’t counted for anything anyway. It is the electoral college and the suckpreme court that picks the presidents.
and you believe we have a democracy now?
We have the remnants of a Democratic Republic that became something else when Big Money and some well-known powerful Intelligence agencies came together and took over in the 1960s. We are now ruled by a cabal that sets the rules for every socio-economic response and the commoners are nothing but ignorant pawns led by their noses to enable the will of those in power.
Because they are too damn lazy to change things….they are happy in their ignorance….
You hit that nail on the head!
we need a legislature that sees beyond the politics
Yes we do and that is almost an impossibility….sad as it is….chuq
No need to worry authoritarianism because the world will be a caliphate in less than a hundred years.
Worldwide caliphate is a pipe dream to instill fear and besides they are the very heart of authoritarianism….
Worldwide caliphate is what is happening to much of the EU right now and the evidence is clear and cannot be disputed. Sweden is a place where there are already 55 known no-go zones and in London there are whole enclaves where shariah is in force and I know this because I am in communication with a friend who lives in the UK and knows what is happening there. Don’t try to sell me the baloney about the worldwide caliphate being something invented to sell fear. It is something that is actually happening as we speak.
Another conspiracy theory that is not rooted in any fact
Sorry to disagree but facts are facts and evidence is evidence and it is the nature of the beast and the commandment to do it is being fulfilled and the world is hiding their heads in the sand and they will ultimately pay the price for their willingness to turn a dear ear and a blind eye. So as is often the case, “Believe what you wish to believe.”
You believe your facts and I shall believe mine
meh
https://youtu.be/Gki50QhqunU
Sounds to me like just another set of artificial labels, designed primarily to distract people from thinking of just how ridiculous the entire concept of government is, at all. No, we don’t have a democracy; we live in an oligarchy.
Human society has NOT been viable since the time our population growth forced us into gathering together in groups of more than 150-200 individuals. At that number of people, we do fine with a basically anarchist society; whenever we gather in larger numbers, hierarchal thinking emerges, and the smart, evil folks are given the opportunity to take advantage of the more numerous mundanes, leading, inevitably, to what we now observe….
It’s broken, & it won’t be fixable until we understand our own nature… I don’t see that happening this particular time around, any more than it ever has….
gigoid, the dubious
THat is what the media does….labels. Makes ir easier for some of us to digest the manure….chuq
There is something about learning history or people are doomed to repeat it.
Now we are getting it…LOL chuq
In the future, I am sure that 2016 will be looked back on as the year when ‘everything changed’. Pundits will be debating why this happened long and hard. Right up until the next time it all changes to something else.
Best wishes, Pete.
And can say we were there…LOL chuq
We just lost to the world of
blood sucking political class we are sooon going to loose humanity in an expense to restore sanity
Thanx for the visit and the comment…and I believe you are correct…the M-IC is a parasite on the country….chuq
Impoverished. I don’t think many of my fellow Filipinos agree with how you described our country. I do. At least in terms of educational and political impoverishment. I believe the very absence of a stronger sense of what is right and wrong, plus decades of political immaturity, allowed for authoritarian populism to fill the void.
Like Pigs
04.12.17
I recently had a chance to watch professional butchers slaughter pigs for distribution to the local market. Despite the almost apologetic attitude they exhibited during the process, I cringed at the sight of my fellow humans causing life to ebb away from the poor animals. In order to stand the gruesome scene, I had to force myself to think of all the pork inside the meat shops and the viands that could be made from them. This helped me think of the pigs as “not like me”, effectively, albeit slightly, reducing the feeling of empathy.
After reading the title of the photo essay that recently won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography, “They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals” (PDI, April 12, 2017), it suddenly made sense to me that, despite the figures showing that many Filipinos do not condone the killing of suspected drug users and pushers, there still is a strong support for President Rodrigo Duterte.
I believe he did not create a “callous disregard for human life”. He simply found a way to make more Filipinos regard suspected drug criminals as “not like us”, thereby putting them outside the category “human life”. He provided a very effective slogan and, generally, we Filipinos somehow found a way to convince ourselves to reduce, or perhaps eradicate, our empathy towards more than 7,000 Filipinos who are in the dubious “narco list”.
Of course, the apparent propensity to regard our fellow humans as worthy of being killed could not have come solely from President Rodrigo Duterte. A big part of this collective psychological malleability is from decades of witnessing crimes due to drug use go unresolved. Post-feudal institutions that should have worked to put criminals behind bars weren’t working as they should have. Thus, when the first echoes of the Duterte presidential candidacy echoed the “change is coming” battle cry, as a nation, we were simply in a very docile mode.
But how do we put back a semblance of empathy for our “outcast” fellow citizens? Perhaps, as a previous PDI editorial had done, we need to provide names and not just numbers as we stay vigilant in this war against drugs. Perhaps, when killed suspected drug offenders cease from being numbers, when names start representing stories of financial, intellectual and spiritual poverty, when, as a nation, we can find a way to an inclusive sense of nationhood, human life will really matter.
Good article, I like the questions you pose. American living in Germany right now, and we have the NPD and AFD. Both are fucked up.
Thanx for the kind words and I appreciate the visit and comment….please stop by whenever you can…..chuq
No problem, brother.
I see you mention Mississippi are from here? chuq
yep, a little bit of everywhere.
Cool….stop by when you can ….have a good day….chuq