The Politics of Hate

There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures, and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility.

John Miller

The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stones

Europe and North America are facing a self imposed downward spiral in the quality of life for 90 % or more of its people.  There is a political standoff; a paralysis has set in where the public see nothing but angry political shouting and stonewalling while the present and future outlook is glum. And all of this has taken place while a fraction of 1% of the population are benefiting from unparalleled opulence. The wealthy few have corrupted politicians to do their bidding and the public be damned. 


In the United States we see the bizarre spectacle  of the rigid Tea Party financed by the reactionary cabal of the Koch brothers advocating the elimination of 100 years of social legislation. Essentially the Republican political focus is on creating a financial precipice  that will cause Obama to fail. Its hatred that drives them rather than the best interest of the American public. Blinded by their hatred they are willingly or unknowingly  en-route to achieving a Banana Republic status  for the Nation wherein a wealthy Oligarchy runs the show ably supported by corrupted politicians and  a strong military force maintaining law and order over a victimized populace. Since the Republicans controlled  Congress say NO! to all forms of progressive legislation and hoping to dismantle what is left they may unwittingly succeed in realizing their Banana Republic dream. Strident right wing talk radio and Fox News, proponents of right wing agendas, fuel a confused public's anger with distortions, exaggerations and outright lies. Hate sells. The latest news is that Fox News is asking for a license to bring their right wing brand of  distortions and lies to Canadian audiences. What a wonderful gift that will ensure ratings and put  Canadians against each other on the hate scale.  

In Europe hatred is mounting between a rigid Merkel led German government and the rest of the suffering European nations. With staggering unemployment in most of southern Europe and a dismal outlook for the future the political systems are in disarray and resistance has become an expression of anxiety, anger and hopelessness  while seeking alternative ways to resist sch as: mass demonstrations, strikes,  revolutionary movements, anarchy, going-it-alone, etc.  

Europe is Merkel's world. While leading nations such as the US, Canada, Japan and China are allowing their currencies to soften to improve their competitive position in the world, Merkle forbids the central bank in Brussels to issue bonds  and thus the Euro remains rigidly firm, grossly overpriced and noncompetitive for the remaining Euro countries. Tea Party style austerity programs have been imposed by Merkle that are collapsing economies, causing political instability, alarming levels of unemployment, and rising public anger, despair and revolt. As for the Euro it can best be described as a work in process. The working relationships between Euro members has yet to be clearly defined so it's a zoo of uncertainty with corrupt tax havens in their midst.  Lots of room for smoldering resentments and hatreds 

Unregulated Globalization has unleashed financial institutions  to freely pursue through outright theft the  amassing of  immense wealth by manipulating the price of just about everything. What is there not to hate? 

Ayn Rand and the worship of selfishness

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.


A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

 The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

 To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent on the upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength - then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I'll preform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ...I want you - and may I be damned for it!
 
If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.


― Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

The word "Freedom" has now taken on a narrow meaning within the mainstream of American opinion: "What I personally want I must have" It's the concept that has always been used by small children, thieves, dictators and ancient kings. It's the chant of infants " Gimme; it's mine and you can't have any."

Ayn Rand in "Atlas Shrugged" popularized Rand's philosophy of Objectivism: advocating rational selfishness and free markets(unregulated). I like Paul Krugman's view of this philosophy: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." 

 
Reagan, Greenspan and Milton Friedman became great fans of Rand and her thoughts  have popularized the Libertarian movement and heavily influenced Paul Ryan and the Tea Party, The Supreme Court and right wing extremists. Rand's early years were spent in Stalinist Russia  and this clearly influenced her hatred of Governments and her obsessive faith in the good will of rich and powerful men acting in a free and unregulated economic system. She claimed that in such a privatized system there never would be a need for regulations and social legislation because the economic system would work so well. She died in 1982 before events proved how utterly wrong she was about human nature. I wonder whether this rigid ideologue might have changed her views if she had lived to observe the rape of Russia under Yeltsin, the greed driven destructive behaviour of Wall Street and British bankers that came close to destroying the economies of the West, the alarming rise in unemployment in a deregulated laissez-fare market and the obsessive greed of an oligarchy intent on keeping it all.

 Mike Wallace interviewed her in 1959 and taking the time to listen to some of these You Tube tapes will give you an idea of what an ideologically narrow and naive woman she was.  A rigid ideologist, just like the communists she detested, she was determined to fit all human affairs into a simplistic model. Her model simply rejected government and replaced it with a blind faith in the leaders of laisez-faire capitalism.

Her influence still dominates the thinking within Wall Street, the Republican Party and the Supreme Court. No doubt her philosophy has provided a justification for the selfish values of wealthy men like the Koch Brothers and many others like him; gave birth to the Tea Party and popularized and strengthened the Libertarian movement. She was a pro-choice atheist, and viewed all religions and beliefs in the supernatural as barriers to reason so I am sure she would have been puzzled by the Tea Baggers (and most mainstream Republicans) who have blended her "Objectivism" in with a curious reinvention of evangelical Christianity, a contempt for intellectuals, blacks, the poor and foreigners, and a love for the military.

Rand's beliefs continue to dominate Republican political thinking in America despite the alarming wealth gap widening between the 1% and the rest of America. Freedom is now all about me. Rand vigorously rejected any form of social conscience and the Social Contract as influenced by John Locke in the Declaration of Independence and refined by the eminent American philosopher John Rawls as purely signs of human weakness. 
 

It is hard to conceive of a functioning democracy based on a philosophy of selfishness and laissez faire capitalism run by an oligarchy of wealth, free from any restraints. As described in Ayn Rand's writings it advocates a rejection of the social reforms of the 20th century and reduces the role of the nations state to that of a modern Sparta. Not a promising outlook.

Democracy enroute to Barbarism

In the Tea Baggers the Republican Party seems to have joined forces with quite a gang of social misfits. Here is the latest in a Nazi SS uniform.

Saturday's Le Monde has several pages dedicated to the French philosopher who recently died, Claude Lefort, and in particular his book entitled "democratic invention" that deals with the theme of 'neither socialism nor barbarism' , a refreshing examination of the spectrum of political and power systems. A fascinating read when looking at the world we live in and the political struggles taking place.

History clearly has shown us that total power corrupts. Monarchies, communism, dictatorships and religious dynasties inevitably become self serving and end up victimizing their citizenry. Their replacement, Democracy, a relatively modern intervention on a large scale (admittedly invented in ancient Greece) , attempts to mix a blend of centralized power with a fair amount of economic freedom to independently pursue ones own interests. As a system in North America and Western Europe it seems to have enjoyed its heyday from 1945 to the end of the century.

Now we are seeing the rapid rise of oligarchic power undermining that of central governments. If the current political struggle in the United States is an example of what is happening then democracy may just be a brief passage en route to the barbarism Claude Lefort talks about.

Where can this end? We are already seeing oligarchies doing battle with nation states to undermine their power so that they can escape into an international world where they can freely fight it out with their peers to own it all. I see the governors of nations states where an oligarchy unduly controls power as increasingly becoming the paid servants of this New World Order.

Under these conditions citizens are increasingly powerless, democratic elections become meaningless, and social systems break down. In the past this predictably led to social unrest, a sense of desperation, marching in the streets, civil disobedience, economic breakdown and if unchecked, revolution. A major difference over the past several decades has been the creation of a consumer society of entertained, preoccupied and indoctrinated citizens. In English speaking countries this has resulted in a surprisingly passive public and the streets are empty. In the United States living under permanent wartime conditions this has further reinforced their sense of loyalty and faith in their country.

The American oligarchy is clearly financing and controlling the Republican party including their inept and confused Tea Party members. If they should gain power they will clearly serve their masters by ensuring the deregulation of banking and corporations, reducing taxation by down scaling or eliminating social legislation that has evolved over the past century and the introduction of a church state alliance to control the allegiance of the masses. An assured highway to the barbarism that Claude Lefort talks about.

The US experience with democracy has lasted now for over two hundred years. The first 160 years reflects a heroic struggle by many great leaders to create an essentially middle class and just society. With the arrival of Reagan and his successors Bush Snr, Clinton, Bush Jr. and now Obama much of this is being dismantled, presumably to service the demands of their oligarchic princes.