Oh dear god, let this be true - and if it is, let there be photos.Originally Posted by Slothrop
Beast of Burden
Oh dear god, let this be true - and if it is, let there be photos.
Shub-Niggurath, Please
Does this mean he could, in some very indirect way, be Slothrop's fault?
Nice one, mate. No really, way to go there.
Doin' the Lambeth Warp New: DISSENSUS - THE NOVEL - PM me your email address and I'll add you
Beast of Burden
Alt history alert!
lala
This is a good tweet from an insightful twitter thread by a journalist who's been writing about Philipines.
or, as some smart-ass loser put it last week:
"!We took Trump literally but not seriously, his supporters took him seriously not literally!"
lala
This is a pretty interesting take too:
Prodigal Son
One could as well post the following in the Trump thread or the election 2016 doom thread, but also here:
It's also ironic that the regime of neoliberalism has corrupted (western) societies to the extent that now even several of the main propagandists of this said regime (conservative parties, lapsed former "social" democratic parites, cancerous media tycoons like Murdoch) are being swept away by products of (the permanent crisis produced by) neoliberalism, namley the populists and their disgruntled supporters.
The really said part is, we possibly get something even worse in return - authoritarian or downright fascist regimes instead of free market fundamentalism.
Last edited by firefinga; 22-11-2016 at 04:48 PM.
Darned cockwombles.
I know what you're saying, and I agree that the tensions that we're seeing are remarkable, but I'd be cautious about what you say has been swept away. Conservative parties still have an awful lot of power, in countries like the UK and Spain (not to mention America - I think the demise of the trad Republicans has been much overstated), and the Murdochs of this world are stronger than ever, surely (he got exactly what he wanted with Brexit)? Obviously social democratic parties are dying everywhere, that's very true, hollowed-out hosts slowly dying after being stripped bare of all their original function from inside (Blair as zombie wasp?).
There is an obvious surface tension between nationalist fascism and neoliberalism, but I would imagine an accommodation between these two centres of power is not too far away. Neither of them have much of a problem with making the rich yet richer. Trump is doubtful to follow through on many of his promises to poor people, once he's embroiled in the political system, for example. He recognised the need for populist rhetoric, but so far nothing in actuality has changed structurally - his history shows him to be as neoliberal as the best of them.
This is interesting and I think the conclusion is right: https://www.opendemocracy.net/john-w...ot-its-failure
"Fulfilment of the neoliberal transformation to unregulated capitalism is incompatible with electoral democracy. A polity can have one or the other, but not both. The dark genius of Donald Trump lies in following this incompatibility to its logical conclusion — if his brand of capitalism and electoral democracy conflict, it is democracy that will be undermined."
Last edited by baboon2004; 22-11-2016 at 06:41 PM.
Beast of Burden
There's a deep antipathy between nationalist fascism and liberal capitalism, it's a historic mistake to associate or conflate them, it was made in the 30s by the Communists and led to catastrophe.
Beast of Burden
Capitalism and fascism get on just fine. The ideal worker is a captive one.
Beast of Burden
...The truth must be spoken with a view to the results it will produce in the sphere of action. As a specimen
of a truth from which no results, or the wrong ones, follow, we can cite the widespread view that bad
conditions prevail in a number of countries as a result of barbarism. In this view, Fascism is a wave of
barbarism which has descended upon some countries with the elemental force of a natural phenomenon.
According to this view, Fascism is a new, third power beside (and above) capitalism and socialism;
not only the socialist movement but capitalism as well might have survived without the intervention of
Fascism. And so on. This is, of course, a Fascist claim; to accede to it is a capitulation to Fascism.
Fascism is a historic phase of capitalism; in this sense it is something new and at the same time old.
In Fascist countries capitalism continues to exist, but only in the form of Fascism; and Fascism can be
combated as capitalism alone, as the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive, and most treacherous
form of capitalism.
But how can anyone tell the truth about Fascism, unless he is willing to speak out against capitalism,
which brings it forth? What will be the practical results of such truth?
Those who are against Fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism
that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf.
They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if the butcher
washes his hands before weighing the meat. They are not against the property relations which engender
barbarism; they are only against barbarism itself. They raise their voices against barbarism, and they
do so in countries where precisely the same property relations prevail, but where the butchers wash
their hands before weighing the meat.
yurp
From one myopic extreme to the next ...
yurp
On the subject of fascism and Richard Spencer, Ross Douthat tweeted the following yesterday:
I'm not sure about his recommendations, but I think the rest of it is largely true. Spencer is (as Douthat says elsewhere) a clever troll, and one who is not shy about taking the 15 minutes of fame offered to him by the press.1. Last thought on Spencer: One issue is that Trumpism rose so suddenly that there's no clear intellectual substructure for his populism.
2. There's no equivalent of, say, Eric Zemmour in France or Thilo Sarrazin in Germany. Bannon is an operator, not a self-conscious theorist.
3. So there's an opening for someone like Spencer to say, "look at me, I'm the Snazzy Fascist AND the Mind of Trumpism!"
4. But he isn't. Go profile Steve Sailer or Mickey Kaus or the Journal of American Greatness guys instead.
Darned cockwombles.
not the words i would have chosen either (fwiw i agree that the talk of idiot and genius is equally tiresome), but i think that's missing the main point.
Last edited by baboon2004; 22-11-2016 at 08:21 PM.
Darned cockwombles.
i temporarily forgot that the Spanish Civil War was fought between Franco and the liberal capitalists
Liberal capitalism is only a temporary and pragmatic compromise anyways; it's not an ideology. The committed capitalist will soon abandon liberal principles as quickly as he adopted them, if it suits
Last edited by baboon2004; 22-11-2016 at 08:19 PM.
yurp
Quite possibly, although I think it reflects the general tenor of hysterical pessimism into which the media has now fallen.
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