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totalitarian democracy

Ajamu Baraka: We Are Entering A New Totalitarian Era

January 28, 2021 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
I understand the disgust, the revulsion people have to Donald Trump. We know who Donald Trump is. He's a sociopath, he's a white supremacist. He’s despicable, but Donald Trump is, in fact, America. Donald Trump represents the kind of attitude and the kinds of values that made the US settler state what it is today. So, this notion on the part of the liberals that he is some kind of aberration is completely ridiculous. In fact, it's ahistorical, but because of the disgust and because of the very serious legitimation crisis the US is facing, and the concern that neoliberal politicians have with the possibility of a return of Donald Trump, they have used the incident on January 6th as their opportunity to not only target Donald Trump as a person, but to target his “movement,” to undermine an above ground, legal political tendency, a tendency that generated 75 million votes.

The Power Of Ordinary People Facing Totalitarianism

March 19, 2017 Kathleen B. Jones, www.theconversation.com , , ,
By Kathleen B. Jones for The Conversation. In my view, “Origins” offers both a warning and an implicit call to resistance. In today’s context, Arendt would invite her readers to question what is being presented as reality. When President Trump and his advisers claim dangerous immigrants are “pouring” into the country, or stealing Americans’ jobs, are they silencing dissent or distracting us from the truth? “Origins” wasn’t intended to be a formulaic blueprint for how totalitarian rulers emerge or what actions they take. It was a plea for attentive, thoughtful civil disobedience to emerging authoritarian rule. What makes “Origins” so salient today is Arendt’s recognition that comprehending totalitarianism’s possible recurrence means neither denying the burden events have placed on us, nor submitting quietly to the order of the day.

The United States Of Innocence

September 11, 2016 Philip Weiss, www.mondoweiss.net , , ,
By Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss. Last week I published a lengthy interview with Guantanamo defense lawyer Major Todd Pierce (Retired), titled “Everything that we have done since 9/11 is wrong.” It told his story, from his childhood on a Minnesota farm to military service as a reservist in the Gulf War and the Iraq War. What follows is part 2, in which Pierce, who enters the New School this fall, relates his beliefs about American society today: that our wars in the Middle East have been fostered by propaganda and falsehood, including claims about radical Islam, and that the elites have fallen in line in a way that they did not do during Vietnam, and these developments threaten our democracy. We talked in Roseville, Minnesota, at the end of July.