Showing posts with label Populism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Populism. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Javier Milei - Latin America's Prime Golem Zionist | Alexander Markovics

During campaign events, he recites the Torah. At events, he lights Jewish menorah candles instead of extinguishing them like Grzegorz Braun. He stands unwaveringly by Israel’s side and calls Vladimir Zelensky his friend. His name is Javier Milei; he is a self-proclaimed ‘anarcho-capitalist’ and intends to convert to Judaism after his presidency.

Argentina's 'chainsaw messiah' President Javier Gerardo Milei.
An unleashed libertarian, chosen and promoted by his country's financial oligarchy, the Koch brothers and George Soros.
 Spiritually counseled by his dead dog, Milton Friedman and Chabad-Lubavitch. A hero to Wall Street.
 
[...] Milei sees himself, inspired by the zeal of the convert, in the succession of Moses as the great liberator of the Argentine people. In his anarcho-capitalist interpretation of Judaism, God is a libertarian who does not mind if people sell their internal organs or their own children to alleviate their misery. In his view, this represents ‘the natural order of things’. Yet, his first public appearances since taking office suggest that his real loyalty might lie with another state than Argentina. At the public lighting of a menorah, he proclaimed his ‘unwavering commitment to the State of Israel’, which likely refers to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. He follows the apocalyptic worldview of many evangelical Christians, who are becoming increasingly numerous in Latin America and see Israel as the ‘bearer of light’ in the fight against darkness.

[...] Both in Latin America and Europe, we can observe a type of right-wing populist politician who declares US and Israeli interests as the raison d’état, sacrificing the geopolitical interests of their own country. Strache, Pazderski, and Gauland now find their tragic counterparts at the other end of the world in Milei and Noboa Azin. The motivation is the desire for recognition by demonised politicians, as well as economic dependencies and/or philosemitism. What increasingly sounds absurd has roots that reach deep into Western occultism: in the Jewish-Kabbalistic mysticism of the early Middle Ages, we find the figure of the Golem. This is a human-like figure created from clay through magic, often with immense powers, serving its Jewish master as a will-less proxy. The theme was processed, among others, by the Austrian writer Gustav Meyrink in his novel 'The Golem'. Today, more and more politicians from Europe and Latin America are made into such golems through blackmail and dubious promises — Strache from Austria is a tragic example of how such politicians ultimately end. The path of the Polish politician Grzegorz Braun shows us that patriotic politics against Zionism is possible.


 Assisted by his rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish, Milei cries at the Wailing Wall.
February 6, 2024.

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

The Liberal Political Theology | Neema Parvini

Neema Parvini (2022) - From the realist perspective of [Carl] Schmitt, there is no structural difference between the liberal state, the communist state, and the fascist state — or indeed any other state. The only difference is the extent to which a regime may obscure the nature of its power or else genuinely buy into myths of neutrality. Viewed in this way, a state wedded to liberal democracy is as ‘totalitarian’ as any other since, by its very nature, it will be unable to tolerate any leaders who are not always already liberal democrats. 
 
"Liberalism is to freedom as anarchism is to anarchy." Ernst Jünger, 1977
 
Should such leaders rise, the stalwarts of liberal democracy will perceive them as ‘populists’, ‘fascists’, ‘threats to democracy’, and so on. The extent of free speech, free inquiry, free thought, and so on is a liberal delusion. In fact, the range of ‘allowable opinion’ is always exceedingly narrow and the liberal democratic state is marked by its intolerance and spectacular inability to imagine any worldview that is not its own. The dominance of liberal political theology is total. Schmitt would not have disagreed with Oswald Spengler who wrote in The Decline of the West:

"England, too, discovered the ideal of a Free Press, and discovered along with it that the press serves him who owns it. It does not spread ‘free’ opinion — it generates it. […] Without the reader’s observing it, the paper, and himself with it, changes masters. Here also money triumphs and forces the free spirits into its service. No tamer has his animals more under his power. Unleash the people as reader-mass and it will storm through the streets and hurl itself upon the target indicated, terrifying and breaking windows; a hint to the press-staff and it will become quiet and go home. The Press today is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and war aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined. Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty."

As Edward Bernays would go on to say these ‘are the invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. […] In some department of our daily lives, in which we imagine ourselves as free agents, we are ruled by dictators exercising great power.’ The point is that viewed from the outside, liberal democracy looks just as ‘totalitarian’ as any other regime even if it relies more on subtle persuasion, nudge techniques, and other psychological tricks than coercion to obtain its results.

The Rulers and the Ruled | Gaetano Mosca

Gaetano Mosca (1896) - Among the constant facts and tendencies that are to be found in all political organisms, one is so obvious that it is apparent to the most casual eye. In all societies — from all societies that are very meagerly developed and have barely attained the dawnings of civilization, down to the most advanced and powerful societies — two classes of people appear — a class that rules and a class that is ruled.
 
[...] In reality the dominion of an organized minority, obeying a single impulse, over the unorganized majority is inevitable. The power of any minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the majority, who stands alone before the totality of the organized minority. A hundred men acting uniformly in concert, with a common understanding, will triumph over a thousand men who are not in accord and can therefore be dealt with one by one. Meanwhile it will be easier for the former to act in concert and have a mutual understanding simply because they are a hundred and not a thousand. It follows that the larger the political community, the smaller will the proportion of the governing minority to the governed majority be, and the more difficult will it be for the majority to organize for reaction against the minority.


"I can certainly call myself an anti-democrat, but I am not an anti-liberal;
indeed I am opposed to pure democracy precisely because I am a liberal.
I believe that the ruling class ought not to be monolithic and homogeneous
but ought to consist of elements which are diverse in regard to origin and
interests; when, instead, political power originates from a single source,
even if this be elections with universal suffrage, I regard it as dangerous
and liable to become oppressive. Democratic Jacobinism is an illiberal
doctrine precisely because it subordinates everything to a single force,
that of the so-called majority, on which it does not set any limits."

[...] What happens in other forms of government — namely, that an organized minority imposes its will on the disorganized majority — happens also and to perfection, whatever the appearances to the contrary, under the representative system. When we say that the voters ‘choose’ their representative, we are using a language that is very inexact. The truth is that the representative has himself elected by the voters, and, if that phrase should seem too inflexible and too harsh to fit some cases, we might qualify it by saying that his friends have him elected. In elections, as in all other manifestations of social life, those who have the will and, especially, the moral, intellectual and material means to force their will upon others take the lead over the others and command them.

[...] From our point of view there can be no antagonism between state and society. The state is to be looked upon merely as that part of society which performs the political function. Considered in this light, all questions touching interference or noninterference by the state come to assume a new aspect. Instead of asking what the limits of state activity ought to be, we try to find out what the best type of political organization is, which type, in other words, enables all the elements that have a political significance in a given society to be best utilized and specialized, best subjected to reciprocal control and to the principle of individual responsibility for the things that are done in the respective domains.

"Who says organization, says oligarchy. [...] Historical evolution mocks all the
prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy."
Robert Michels, 1911

[...] Any political organization is both voluntary and coercive at one and the same time voluntary because it arises from the very nature of man, as was long ago noted by Aristotle, and coercive because it is a necessary fact, the human being finding himself unable to live otherwise. It is natural, therefore, and at the same time indispensable, that where there are men there should automatically be a society, and that when there is a society there should also be a state — that is to say, a minority that rules and a majority that is ruled by the ruling minority.

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Who Ever Sets the Price of Gold and Silver | Stephen Mitford Goodson

There was an increase in trade and Rome became one of the most prosperous cities in the ancient world. [...] bronze coins represented national money and were paid into circulation by the state and each was only of value in as much as the symbols on which its numbers were recorded, were scarce or otherwise. This money was thus based on law rather than the metallic content. [...] This can be considered as an early example of the successful use of fiat money.

While fiat money is much criticised in some quarters, for example by the followers of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, there is nothing wrong with it, as long as it is issued by government, not by private bankers, and is carefully protected against counterfeiters. Non-fiat money, in contrast, has the serious drawback that who ever sets the prices of gold and silver, i.e. private bankers, can control the nation’s economy.

[...] in September 45 BC, Caesar found the streets and cities crowded with homeless people, who had been forced off the land by usurers and land monopolists. 300,000 people had to be fed daily at the public granary. Usury was flourishing with disastrous consequences. [..] Caesar fully understood the evils of usury and how to counter them. He recognized the profound truth that money is a national agent, created by law for a national purpose, and that no classes of men should withhold it from circulation so as to cause panics, in order that speculators could advance the rates of interest, or could buy up property at ruinous prices after such panic.

Caesar introduced the following social reforms:

  1. Restoration of property was done at the much lower valuations which held prior to the civil war (49-45 BC).
  2. Several remissions of rents were granted.
  3. Large numbers of poor citizens and discharged veterans were settled on allotments.
  4. Free housing was provided to 80,000 impoverished families.
  5. Soldiers’ pay was increased from 123 to 225 denarii.
  6. The corn dole was regulated.
  7. Provincial communities were enfranchised.
  8. Confusion in the calendar was removed by fixing it at 365¼ days from 1 January 44 BC.

His monetary reforms were as follows:

  1. State debt levels were immediately reduced by 25%.
  2. Control of the mint was transferred from the patricians (usurers) to government.
  3. Cheap metal coins were issued as the means of exchange.
  4. It was ruled that interest could not be levied at more than 1% per month.
  5. It was decreed that interest could not be charged on interest and that the total interest charged could never exceed the capital loaned (in duplum rule).
  6. Slavery was abolished as a means of settling debt.
  7. Aristocrats were forced to employ their capital and not hoard it. 
These measures enraged the aristocrats and plutocrats whose “livelihood” was now severely restricted. They therefore conspired to murder Caesar, the hero of the people. 
 
The 'Ides of March' Denarius (43/42 BC), a declaration of the Republic's 'liberation' from tyrannical Caesar.
Ironically, Brutus appears on the obverse professing he killed Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.
This is one of the most sought-after coins from the Roman world.

Quotes from:
 
See also:

Stephen Mitford Goodson (1948 - 2018) was a South African banker, author and politician who was the leader of South Africa's Abolition of Income Tax and Usury Party. He stood as a candidate for the Ubuntu Party in the 2014 General Elections.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

The Developed World Populism Index │ Ray Dalio

* The latest point includes cases like Trump, UKIP in the UK, AfD in Germany, National Front in France,
Podemos in Spain, and Five Star Movement in Italy. It doesn’t include major emerging country populists,
like Erdogan in Turkey or Duterte in the Philippines.

On March 22, 2017 Ray Dalio published "Populism: The Phenomenon", a paper that analyzes the role of populism in today’s world and in history. Ray Dalio runs the $150 billion dollar hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest. The paper introduces a "Developed World Populism Index", which Dalio says measures the strength of populism over time. It’s a weighted index of the vote share of anti-establishment parties or candidates in national elections for major developed countries since 1900. The index shows that populism is now at its highest level since the early 1930s. Contemporary populism includes supporters of Donald Trump, UKIP in the UK, AfD in Germany, National Front in France, Podemos in Spain and Five Star Movement in Italy. "Populism is not well understood because, over the past several decades, it has been infrequent in emerging countries (e.g., Chávez’s Venezuela, Duterte’s Philippines, etc.) and virtually nonexistent in developed countries. It is one of those phenomena that comes along in a big way about once a lifetime — like pandemics, depressions, or wars. The last time that it existed as a major force in the world was in the 1930s, when most countries became populist. Over the last year, it has again emerged as a major force."
 

A portrait of President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) hangs on the wall behind President Trump in the
Oval Office of the White House. Jackson was a rich, bragging populist, who said: "I was born for a
storm and a calm doesn’t suit me
." Also: "Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must
sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.
" Trump like Jackson is a rich, bragging
businessman, a
narcissist and reality TV star, who never held any public office before. Calm doesn’t
suit him either, and millions at the U.S. home front are prepared for storm and blood
(
see also HERE + HERE).

"We believe that populism’s role in shaping economic conditions will probably be more powerful than classic monetary and fiscal policies (as well as a big influence on fiscal policies)," writes Dalio and three Bridgewater colleagues. Populism is a political and social phenomenon that arises from the common man, typically not well-educated, being fed up with 1) wealth and opportunity gaps, 2) perceived cultural threats from those with different values in the country and from outsiders, the “establishment elites” in positions of power, and 4) government not working effectively for them, according to Dalio. In other words, populism is a rebellion of the common man against the elites and, to some extend, against the system. In summary, populism is:
  • power to the common man.
  • through the tactic of attacking the establishment, the elites, and the powerful.
  • brought about by wealth and opportunity gaps, xenophobia, and people being fed up with government not working effectively, which leads to the emergence of the strong leader to serve the common man and make the system run more efficiently.
  • protectionism.
  • nationalism.
  • militarism.
  • greater conflict, and greater attempts to influence or control the media.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Where did Steve Bannon get his Worldview? From my Book. │ Neil Howe

Steve Bannon - Trump’s chief strategist.

Neil Howe (Feb 24, 2017) - The headlines this month have been alarming. “Steve Bannon’s obsession with a dark theory of history should be worrisome” (Business Insider). “Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable” (Huffington Post). “Steve Bannon Wants To Start World War III” (The Nation). A common thread in these media reports is that President Trump’s chief strategist is an avid reader and that the book that most inspires his worldview is “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.

I wrote that book with William Strauss back in 1997. It is true that Bannon is enthralled by it. In 2010, he released a documentary, “Generation Zero”, that is structured around our theory that history in America (and by extension, most other modern societies) unfolds in a recurring cycle of four-generation long eras. While this cycle does include a time of civic and political crisis — a Fourth Turning, in our parlance — the reporting on the book has been absurdly apocalyptic.

I don’t know Bannon well. I have worked with him on several film projects, including “Generation Zero,” over the years. I’ve been impressed by his cultural savvy. His politics, while unusual, never struck me as offensive. I was surprised when he took over the leadership of Breitbart and promoted the views espoused on that site. Like many people, I first learned about the alt-right (a far-right movement with links to Breitbart and a loosely defined white-nationalist agenda) from the mainstream media. Strauss, who died in 2007, and I never told Bannon what to say or think. But we did perhaps provide him with an insight — that populism, nationalism and state-run authoritarianism would soon be on the rise, not just in America but around the world.

Because we never attempted to write a political manifesto, we were surprised by the book’s popularity among certain crusaders on both the left and the right. When “The Fourth Turning” came out, our biggest partisan fans were Democrats, who saw in our description of an emerging “Millennial Generation” (a term we coined) the sort of community-minded optimists who would pull America toward progressive ideals. Yet we’ve also had conservative fans, who were drawn to another lesson: that the new era would probably see the successful joining of left-wing economics with right-wing social values. Beyond ideology, I think there’s another reason for the rising interest in our book. We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle in which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order.

Along this cycle, we can identify four “turnings” that each last about 20 years — the length of a generation. Think of these as recurring seasons, starting with spring and ending with winter. In every turning, a new generation is born and each older generation ages into its next phase of life.
The cycle begins with the First Turning, a “High” which comes after a crisis era. In a High, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if many feel stifled by the prevailing conformity. Many Americans alive today can recall the post-World War II American High (historian William O’Neill’s term), coinciding with the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies. Earlier examples are the post-Civil War Victorian High of industrial growth and stable families, and the post-Constitution High of Democratic Republicanism and Era of Good Feelings.

The Second Turning is an “Awakening”, when institutions are attacked in the name of higher principles and deeper values. Just when society is hitting its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of all the social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Salvation by faith, not works, is the youth rallying cry. One such era was the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Some historians call this America’s Fourth or Fifth Great Awakening, depending on whether they start the count in the 17th century with John Winthrop or the 18th century with Jonathan Edwards.

The Third Turning is an “Unraveling”, in many ways the opposite of the High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. Third Turning decades such as the 1990s, the 1920s and the 1850s are notorious for their cynicism, bad manners and weak civic authority. Government typically shrinks, and speculative manias, when they occur, are delirious.

Finally, the Fourth Turning is a “Crisis” period. This is when our institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up, always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. If history does not produce such an urgent threat, Fourth Turning leaders will invariably find one — and may even fabricate one — to mobilize collective action. Civic authority revives, and people and groups begin to pitch in as participants in a larger community. As these Promethean bursts of civic effort reach their resolution, Fourth Turnings refresh and redefine our national identity. The years 1945, 1865 and 1794 all capped eras constituting new “founding moments” in American history.
Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy and empire).

September 11, 2001: The sinister Neocon Project for a New American Century, engineering "some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor
" — one generation ahead of time
(HERE).

In our paradigm, one can look ahead and suggest that a coming time period — say, a certain decade — will resemble, in its essential human dynamic, a time period in the past. In “The Fourth Turning,” we predicted that, starting around 2005, America would probably experience a “Great Devaluation” in financial markets, a catalyst that would mark America’s entry into an era whose first decade would likely parallel the 1930s. Reflecting on the decade we’ve just lived through, we can probably agree that the 1930s parallel works well. In the economy, both decades played out in the shadow of a global financial crash, and were characterized by slow and disappointing economic growth and chronic underemployment of labor and capital. Both saw tepid investment, deflation fears, growing inequality and the inability of central bankers to rekindle consumption.

In geopolitics, we’ve witnessed the rise of isolationism, nationalism and right-wing populism across the globe. Geostrategist Ian Bremmer says we now live in a “G-Zero” world, where it’s every nation for itself. This story echoes the 1930s, which witnessed the waning authority of great-power alliances and a new willingness by authoritarian regimes to act with terrifying impunity. In social trends, the two decades also show parallels: falling rates of fertility and home-ownership, the rise of multi-generational households, the spread of localism and community identification, a dramatic decline in youth violence (a fact that apparently has eluded the president), and a blanding of pop youth culture. Above all, we sense a growing desire among voters around the world for leaders to assert greater authority and deliver deeds rather than process, results rather than abstractions.

September 1, 2005: FEMA-camp, New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (HERE).

We live in an increasingly volatile and primal era, in which history is speeding up and liberal democracy is weakening. As Vladimir Lenin wrote, “In some decades, nothing happens; in some weeks, decades happen. Get ready for the creative destruction of public institutions, something every society periodically requires to clear out what is obsolete, ossified and dysfunctional — and to tilt the playing field of wealth and power away from the old and back to the young. Forests need periodic fires; rivers need periodic floods. Societies, too. That’s the price we must pay for a new golden age. If we look at the broader rhythms of history, we have reason to be heartened, not discouraged, by these trends. Anglo-American history over the past several centuries has experienced civic crises in a fairly regular cycle, about every 80 or 90 years, or roughly the length of a long human life. This pattern reveals itself in the intervals separating the colonial Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II. Fast-forward the length of a long human life from the 1930s, and we end up where we are today. 

America entered a new Fourth Turning in 2008. It is likely to last until around 2030. Our paradigm suggests that current trends will deepen as we move toward the halfway point. Further adverse events, possibly another financial crisis or a major armed conflict, will galvanize public opinion and mobilize leaders to take more decisive action. Rising regionalism and nationalism around the world could lead to the fragmentation of major political entities (perhaps the European Union) and the outbreak of hostilities (perhaps in the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, the Baltic states or the Persian Gulf).  

September 18, 2008: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke met with key
legislators to propose a $700 billion emergency bailout. Bernanke reportedly told them: "If we
don't do this, we may not have an economy on Monday.
" (HERE)

Despite a new tilt toward isolationism, the United States could find itself at war. I certainly do not hope for war. I simply make a sobering observation: Every total war in U.S. history has occurred during a Fourth Turning, and no Fourth Turning has yet unfolded without one. America’s objectives in such a war are likely to be defined very broadly. At the end of the 2020s, the Fourth Turning crisis era will climax and draw to a close. Settlements will be negotiated, treaties will be signed, new borders will be drawn, and perhaps (as in the late 1940s) a new durable world order will be created. Perhaps as well, by the early 2030s, we will enter a new First Turning: Young families will rejoice, fertility will rebound, economic equality will rise, a new middle class will emerge, public investment will grow into a new 21st-century infrastructure, and ordered prosperity will recommence.

"Prestige lasts at best four generations in one lineage."
Muqaddimah (1377), Ibn Khaldun.

During the next First Turning, potentially the next “American High,” millennials will move into national leadership and showcase their optimism, smarts, credentials and confidence. Sometime in the late 2030s, the first millennial will be voted into the White House, prompting talk of a new Camelot moment. Let a few more years pass, and those organization-minded millennials may face a passionate and utterly unexpected onslaught from a new crop of youth. Welcome to the next Awakening. The cycle of history keeps turning, inexorably (see also HERE).

The Global Financial Crisis catalyzed by the 2008 financial meltdown in the US was the most severe
economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s. With public trust continuing to ebb, the
regeneracy phase of this crisis still seems years away. Most likely, this Fourth Turning will come
to an end in the late 2020s, just as the Generation Zero/Millennials will embark on careers
 
(HERE).