The New Totalitarianism That Dares Not Speak Its Name

As the world's leaders are battling it out in Toronto at the G8/G20 summit (comedic zombies photo gallery) - Obama proposing socialist Keynesianism to 'stimulate the economy', Europe embarking on a counter movement instead curbing spending - we are today the recipients of great news!

Ever since we embarked in 2006 on our quest to discover what foul ideology is nibbling away at the foundations of Western civilization, culminating in a manuscript entitled "The Dystopia of Paradise", the contours of the new, post Cold War, global mindset has become increasingly visible.

For want of a clear identity we called it Neo Communism (an epithet they feared most for propaganda reasons), Neo Totalitarianism, Postmodernism, subjectivism, the Unholy Alliance, the Counter Enlightenment movement, Leftist (and Rightist) Fascism, Transnational Progressivism and various other ugly names, depending on whether in a political, philosophical, rhetorical or historical context. We declared it Ideology of the Year 2007!

Although rooted in the world of academia, apart from the odd conservative researcher like Hudson senior fellow, John Fonte who coined the term Transnational Progressivism, and liberty authors like Mark Levin, higher education to date just produced adherents who did their utmost to further the notions while obfuscating its existence and identity. Recently that has changed - more about that later.

In fact, lack of identity and its undeclared war are one of the most typical aspects of the new anti-philosophy. This is not so strange when one realizes it has left a trail of blood and bodies throughout history. It is particularly hard to chase a nameless ghost that only surfaces for short periods of time, and is just discernible on the philosophical level and then only if one is inclined to spot it. There have been times fellow researchers as wel as self have felt like paranoid conspiracy theorists. It has been a quest akin to planet chasing.

I believe we are well past that period now with Professor Ernest Sternberg's publication, "Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For" (Orbis 54:1, Winter 2010, pp. 61-86)  - Hat Tip: Peter. Sternberg is coining yet another epithet for the new radical thinkers: the global purifiers. Non of these terms are factually incorrect and are all descriptive of various aspects of the dogma.

However, I believe when reduced to the historical and philosophical root the best identity description would be Rousseauism, or Utopian collectivism of the Rousseau variety. The fine, freedom-loving, individual-nurturing citations in this page, are his. The pristine, ideal tribal world as envisioned by Rousseau has a frightening, religious component.

It suffered in communism and fascism which largely preferred the cult of personality. But since the coalition between Western secular and Eastern religious collectivism (the Unholy Alliance) took shape, and has indeed now merged seamlessly (!) (women and gays be damned), the integration of ideas as put forward by Rousseau, is complete once again. From "Ideological Archeology":

In Roussea's ideas we find the source of every anti-Liberal, violent revolution ever since the French Revolution went off the Lockean track. Rousseau is ultimately the father of many noxious and lethal traditions besides: nationalistic Romanticism, redistributive Socialism, philosophical agrarianism, conservative and progressive Communitarianism, Nazism, and more to the point, the Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism. Cultures, adopting Rousseauian ideas found in them a mirror of some aspect of their own identity. [Another great analysis, by Wildmonk].

Many have descended into the abyss of collectivist hell. In France his radical egalitarianism led to The Reign of Terror, in Germany to Left and Right Socialism with known results, in Russia and the Far East to communism, starvation and slaughter on grandiose scales. In China Mao Tse Tung's Great Leap Forward resulted in the greatest mass murder in human history and in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge's extermination campaign to establish Rousseauian agrarianism resulted in the deaths of well over twenty percent of the population. [Wildmonk] If this is not evil, frankly I don't know what is.

The event of the Gaza propaganda flotilla two weeks ago - the fleet of barely disguised 'aid' ships whose proper description should have been raid ships - sought not to deliver goods to Gaza, but to break the blockade which the legitimate and autonomous nation of Israel put in place around the Hamas terrorist hell hole of Gaza.

It is but the latest strategy by which the Unholy Alliance seeks to deligitimize Israel's right to exist and the right to defend itself. This event is an indication how far the Alliance is willing to go: all the way. Sternberg explains that the secular component has largely refrained from serious violence because they see their religious terrorist comrades as proxies.

Sternberg is pointing out that the current status of World Purification is an ideology, not yet a regime. But I believe he is overlooking the existence of another Axis, the one of Evil, an alliance now of North Korea,  Iran, Syria, a number of other Middle Eastern and South American dictatorships like Venezuela et al. - the Gaza propflot perilously adding NATO member, Turkey to the toxic brew.

Sternberg is apparently also unaware of the radical background and ideas of his own president, Barack Hussein Obama, the leader of what used to be known as the free world, which seems to be unaware of the silent, covert war being waged against it.

If you care to know where they are, read "Where Have All the Radicals Gone?".

Update

Andrew Thomas on American Thinker is also on the case of Prof. Sternberg's essay. He has this to add:

(...) The article(...) will open your eyes and scare you to death. In Sternberg's analysis, from the historical ashes of failed fascist and communist regimes a new totalitarian ideology is emerging (...) One issue that Sternberg does not address is the pervasive, unrelenting propaganda machine that constitutes the progressive mainstream media. 

As long as free-thinking individuals are misled and kept ignorant of the purificationist agenda, the infiltration of our institutions and the destruction of our freedoms and values will continue. We (...)  must do everything possible to educate others and disrupt this movement. Otherwise, the sweet dreams of the purifiers will inevitably result in an unending totalitarian nightmare of global proportions. (...) >>>

Update

Jihad Watch: "Jihadists love Nazism: Turkish supporters of Jihad Flotilla fly swastika flag"

And no doubt they support Hitler's genocidal aspirations for the Jews, as these coalesce so nicely with Islamic antisemitism.

Photo courtesy The Religion of Peace. >>>

June 27, 2010
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Related dossiers

- "The Pomo Presidency"
- "The Dystopia of Paradise"
- "Socialist Utopia Redux"
- "Pomo Lingo"
- "Greenism"
- "The Jihad Project"

Elsewhere

- The Guardian: "A Communist Revival?"

Relativist Foreign Policy and the Free Gaza Propflot (update)

This wasn't a one off, but a new tactic in assymetrical warfare toolkit - or should that be warfare under the guise of humanitarian aid? Lebanon is now preparing to send propflots, only they are no longer propaganda tools, but covert warfare. Here's the collection point on Articles.

Al Manar TV: "“Flotilla Assault Marks the Beginning of the End for Israel”"

June 6, 2010

There was a time in human history, not that long ago actually but it seems like eons now, that the ideal state of mind when judging others, was to be as objective as possible. The notion is built on the idea that all men are created equal and all are to be judged by the same moral standard. It is symbolized in the statue of Lady Justice, weighing her cases blindfolded.

A murder is a murder no matter who committed it, whoever the victim, and whatever the circumstances; the idea being that men are judged by the contents of their character, not by the color of their skin, or social class.

That's no longer the case. When the Left embraced relativism, it accepted with it, it's nasty little sibling, subjectivism. So, whereas one murderer gets life for killing a human being, another is getting away with a few years, depending on the circumstances and the history of the persons involved.

Where social classes have largely disappeared from most Western societies, other victim groups have been created to keep the social warfare alive. It's done on the basis of the dialectic of oppressors versus oppressed, or postmodern varieties thereof. Persons are judged and treated according to the victim group they stem from. It happens to also nicely pave the way for the apartheid of Sharia law, one law for the natives, another for Muslims - that is, as a first stage to total submission.

Some liberals like to think of themselves as non judgmental, but that moral neutrality is a myth. We discriminate all of the time, but no longer based on an objective standard of ethics, but by different standards depending on whom we are judging: we are guilty of practicing the hypocrisy of reversed discrimination.

The same is true in international relations. One commentator on a post on the shocking events in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean this week, assures us Israel is held by higher standards than the Palestinians, because they are a liberal democracy, not the usual Middle Eastern hellhole ruled by a dictator.

How evil and unjust that double standard is, can be measured by its effect: in Western culture it is responsible for the 'down with us' syndrome, effectively foisting upon ourselves a handicap, not unlike fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. And that is just to make it fair, because the other feller is only half our size. Yet we stand idly by when two thugs are bashing each others heads in, since neither seems to know any better. (In the civil world - thank Heaven - they still end up in prison, maybe.)

If you project that on to the world of international relations we end up precisely where we are today: with Israel condemned for defending itself, and the thugocracy of Iran getting away with enough fissile material to produce two nuclear bombs. How's that for a debilitating effect of subjectivism?

Caroline Glick describes the objectives of the Red-Green (Left and Islam) coalition as follows:

It seeks to delegitimize Israel's right to exist and it seeks to make it impossible for Israel to defend itself. If these aims are met, Israel's destruction will become an historic inevitability.

Far from advancing the peace process, the result of this effort is the destruction of the state of Israel, which is rationalized in any sort of way: it is racist because it is Jewish, yet the country consists of Jews, Christians and Muslims which are treated as equals before the law. But Muslim countries on the other hand are backward dictatorships, so their discrimination against women and religions other than Islam, do not matter because they're held to lower standards.

Muslim countries have never had any intention of tolerating the liberal democracy the size of a postage stamp in the midst of its conquered lands. On top of that, they have now managed to get the Western postmodern Left on its side in a Red-Green fascist coalition; the brew is toxic in the extreme.

A commentator in the US has made it be known that ... of course the aid convoy was a ruse to cover the real objective: breaking the blockade of Gaza so that heaven knows what may be brought into the port. There's nothing illegal about the blockade and what's more, it's sheer common sense. Only subjectivists go to the point of requiring entire countries and cultures to commit suicide in order to be considered ethical.

Time and again, whatever patches of land the Iraelis restored to the Palestinians, it always became a launching pad for violence and terror. They have no reason to trust the Palestinians with whatever concession in the name of the unspeakable 'peace process". The hellhole of Gaza itself is a case in point.

At first, in the relativist's reasoning, there's no moral difference between the Israelis and the Palestinians: both have an equal right to exist and resist. Initially it makes no difference that Israel is a liberal democracy that treats all equal before the law and the Palestinians have proven themselves time and again the pit of moral depravity. They then move over to the other side and call for Israel's destruction.

Welcome to the upside down, inside out world of moral subjectivism applied to diplomacy and international relations.

Related

- Washington Post: "Those troublesome Jews", by Charles Krauthammer

We Con the World, We Con the People

Produced by Latma TV

NB: YouTube collapsed for the flagging by Hamas supporters and pulled the video.
It is now posted on Eyeblast (thank you, Eyeblast). See it here.

Cartoon by Ramirez