The Forces of Light and Darkness: America’s Slide into Totalitarianism
“We will win, because our existence here is at stake,” he says, likening Hamas to Nazi Germany and calling the conflict “a war between forces of light and forces of darkness, between humanity and animalism.”
- Netanyahu to Knesset, Times of Israel
By Gregg Wall (12-9-2023)
What a week it was for the United States. And while I’d like to say it can only get better, I’m not a fan of deflection, frosting, Pollyanna narratives, and lies, that is to say, I’m not a member of America’s corporate MSM. I’m a huge fan of the truth, of lifting up the hood, and exposing the defects, problems, and most of all, America’s rapidly accelerating, downward trajectory into authoritarianism, fascism, and yes, even totalitarianism.
America’s genocide in Gaza continued unabated this week, with the slaughter of innocent civilians now numbering in the tens of thousands (mostly women and children). America took a beating in the United Nations this week, for supporting the same genocide under the Orwellian premise that, get this: peace can only bring more war. Amazing. A premise and position that the United Nations Security Council unanimously rejected (save for our boot licking lackey, the UK, which in cowardly fashion, abstained). The MSM and the Biden Administration did their part this week, as they do weekly now, by gaslighting and lying to the general public with a relentless campaign to tell us how great the Biden economy is. This tsunami of propaganda, despite libertarianism/supply-side being an overwhelming disaster for the majority of Americans (as is also becoming increasingly clear throughout Western democracies). And despite Biden’s public approval rating continuing to scrape rock bottom.
As for America’s slide into totalitarianism… it’s probably a good time to revisit some of the key characteristics of the totalitarian model.
The model often revolves around cults of personality or a single leader. At the moment, America has two elderly fossils, who compete for the top prize, Biden and Trump. Neither leader is a fan of democracy. Trump has talked about becoming a dictator, while Biden and the Democratic party have openly declared the doddering, old Biden will face no democracy and competition in the coming year, that is to say, no primary.
Both parties, as best exemplified by the congress, operate in open defiance and contempt for popular will. While exhibiting blind faith and obedience to banks, the deep state, multinationals, & oligarchy that actually run the country. (Imagine that, a U.S. economy and oligarchy that are repeatedly bailed out and on the government dole, deem it appropriate to run the United States government under the failed premise of greed first.) This tyranny is further enforced by a deep, police, and surveillance state, and mind-numbing debt to finance it all. The police state serves not to protect the public but to protect the totalitarian model, capital, and leadership itself, and the police state is also a source of chaos & terror. Crushing national debt is carried on the backs of Americans in the form of a regressive tax code, a dearth of social spending, and austerity (all but guaranteeing economic stagnation).
The U.S. economy is so concentrated into the hands of a wealthy few oligarchs and monopolies, that upon careful examination it more closely resembles a command economy w/ little that resembles a healthy capitalist model. That is to say, the so-called markets are performative & rigged (marked by collusion and price fixing); and as there is no competition and price discovery… there is only boardroom & C-suite despots dictating gov policy, prices, and wages. To backstop this failed model, catastrophic money printing and deficit spending have become the hallmark of the failed neoliberal/trickle-down paradigm, with absurd & considerable sums directed at moral hazard defined: private sector mercenaries, in the form of defense contractors, and endless war. Cronyism, corruption, and gerontocracy are the defining features of both the brittle U.S. economy and government, as the two are married & symbiotic.
Social authoritarianism and coercion - and a unifying ideology centered around greed - are growing more rife throughout the country, along with attacks upon the other: LGBTQ, blacks, minorities, women, Islam, and those of Jewish faith and patrimony. For many white males this attack upon minorities and women serves as a balm for a criminal oligarchy and economy that has failed them, as it has failed sixty percent of the U.S. population. And, as the economy fails, the atomization and social cohesion fall further and further into disarray. The nation’s oligarchy loves endless societal war, and the corporate MSM caters to division and social-acceptance of the two far-right political parties (Dems & GOP), because it keeps the nation distracted and divided. All the better to keep attention directed away from the 1% that are stealing the nation blind. Warning: This societal entropy often leads to great violence. Violence… economic, political, and societal… that is already rampant.
Totalitarian nations often set a specific goal, and here, America elites appear particularly centered & focused on global hegemony, both economic and militarily. We can see this best characterized in the United States empire, commercial colonialism, genocide, in excess of 800 military bases around the globe, and endless wars & nihilism. As mentioned above, the U.S. wartime economy is both critical & essential, as it backstops a libertarian/supply-side economic model that concentrates wealth and wages into the hands of few and fails to offer a living wage or an increasing standard of living to the majority of Americans.
Yet, another signpost on America’s highway to hell is illiberalism or the attack upon basic freedoms, such as freedom of assembly, protest, and speech. Americans should continue to expect the steady erosion of civil liberties, as our economy, government, oligarchy continue to decay and grow more intolerant, like the dying gerontocracy itself. As these civil liberties die, as democracy dies, hope is replaced by fear… this is currently best exhibited by ever rising deaths of despair, a national mental health crisis, and a general sense of societal malaise.
And what of the corporate media itself? Like all other facets of the economy, the media is becoming more concentrated, more uniform in putting out a party line or position, rather than actually investigating, uncovering, and holding the deep state, government, monopolies, politicians, and multinationals accountable. Like the government & regulatory agencies, the news media has become captured, owned. The consolidation of news organizations, in the end, may actually be the greatest threat and slide Americans have seen over the last 43 year on the road to authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It's all about controlling the narrative.
News has, all too often, become anodyne, torpid, centered around consumerism, and a showcase for the 1%. More noted for what the nation’s papers of record choose not to report, than what they do report. And in the process, fails to educate and inform. At its worst, the U.S. media normalizes fascism, the drift to authoritarianism, aids in the atomization of society, and becomes a source of government misinformation.
In short, abandon all hope ye who seek the truth.
To borrow from Malcolm X: If we are not careful, the corporate MSM will have We, The People hating the poor, the disenfranchised, and loving billionaires & politicians... who are, generally, evil, vicious killers.
Billionaires & politicians, who profit from: destroying democracy, greed, human misery, mass child murder, a violent assault upon individual freedoms, & planetary extinction.
The corporate MSM will have us loving these repugnant individuals, or Americans are so ground down, by a totalitarian economy & government… that We, The People don’t have the time to notice how evil our country has become.
And that’s the corporate MSM’ job as well… to do anything and everything but report the news.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023
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