Posts related to societies, people, communities, etc. Generally about humanity, human rights, people, and what affects them.
There are 378 posts filed in Society (this is page 3 of 38).
Conservatism is just another shade of liberalism. Both parties are neoliberals vying for control via different institutional methods depending on their specific voter base. Knowing this, fascism is a piece of both of these “parties.”
As Parenti and many other Marxists will tell you, “Fascism is capitalism in decay.” Although this is a good explanation, it kinda glosses over the fact that it is more of a “failsafe” mode to switch to when there is trouble for capitalism.
You can see it when people buy into fears and irrationalities and such in capitalist society. It doesnt just come when capitalism is “dying” it comes to “keep the peace” for the capitalists, albeit when fascists mobilize it is through nationalism and religious zealotry.
Conservatives in America at least are still basically fighting back against the concept and notions of Keynesian economics, which was beat out in favor of neo-liberalism (this concept being “free markets and everything about them should basically dominate society”).
Progressives in America generally want to go back to Keynesian type economics (free healthcare, welfare, social security, etc.) and this is where that specific divide comes from concerning only the modern day parties.
Conservatives are the social fascists that see no need to lift their boot off your neck. Democrats are smart enough to realize that that you need to breath for a sec if they want to keep the boot easily and firmly secure on your neck.
A major theme in monarchies is the divine right of kings, or the mandate from heaven. The State directly using religion to justify their rule. We don’t see that very often with Fascism; the religious aspect appears to take a backseat to the nationalist aspect. However, it should be mentioned that in fascist states, the one in power is in fact the religion the regime imposes and enforces on people.
When liberal capitalist societies fail, nations turn to glory, honor, nobility, and war to legitimate the system.
This is imposed on people in various ways but the feeling imposed is almost always the same. Making people feel noble and special and chosen, with a superhero came to rescue all and free them from their pain.
Today, what we see from conservatives are no different from old school fascists. Labeling some people as illegal, putting the blame on the opposite party (while in fact the system remains the same), populism, nationalism, imposing wars (both with military and financial power), threatening to jail and punish those who are not considered friends, discriminating against people with false excuse of fearing the reverse discrimination.
Conservatives today are seeking for the lost honor. Using everything they have, they just care about rising up from the dust. Stimulating the religious affiliations of the people, triggering them with fake news of tyranny, passing tyrannical laws where they’re in power, limiting people’s power, deceiving people and leading them to their desired path through lies, etc.
When they take the power, then the real propaganda begins. Short-term policies will give people the feeling that the situation is getting better when in long-term it just gets worse. Everything will be blamed on past mistakes, tyrannical laws will be justified by saying it’s the majority who voted for this, and every opposing voice will be shut. It’s easy to guess as it happened in history many times.
What conservatives advocate for is a mass social divide, same as fascists. In those societies there are two group of people: 1. People who seek liberty and are opposed to the system and 2. People who are directed to believe the system is (as it’s become a religion) taking back the pride for people and make them noble.
In American case, which is very important for world right now, conservatives are dividing people using Christianity, freedom (as they describe), financial status, race, sex, and family social status.
Bringing back the nostalgia of 80s showing only the good parts and completely ignoring the rest, they bang on masculinity, hard working, family relations, financial dreams, and only the rich people sight, view, and lifestyle of capitalism.
Conservatives and fascist are willing to sacrifice what they believe in to achieve their goals. They want a limited interference of government for example but we see they are willing to pass very personally interfering laws to satisfy their need to be superior and enforce their belief on others.
To make an example, some elites controlling the economy is one of many horrible results of capitalism but conservatives ignore this completely, just how fascists ignore the result of their actions. Same thing happens in Russia (a fascist state which American conservatives claim is communist) with oligarchs.
Labeling people is another similarity. Conservatives label their opposition as communists, or in Russian and Chinese case (while the system is in fact capitalist) they label their opposition as capitalist, against the opposition’s true nature. This happens to misinform people of what exactly is going on and to be able to paint their opposition in public eye as they wish.
Same goes in fascist states. Labeling opposition as enemy spies, the enemy of people, or anti-christ to trigger people’s feelings and justify their actions. Fascist states impose this feeling of “the leader is always right and its opposition is logically (their own logic of course) evil and bad.
As I said before, conservatives are social fascists but with them in power, it’s not so far from becoming a fascist state. It’s just a matter of time. Fascists and conservatives try to be seen as pro-human compassionate people but we know from history that it’s exactly the opposite.
Do not let history repeat itself in this case. It’ll destroy us all.
Someone told me “it’s unhealthy to care too deeply about another country’s politics. I think global communications have created that situation…”
In a perfect a world, that would be true but sadly we’re not there yet. But specifically about U.S. politics, it’s impossible to ignore them. The president of the U.S. is one of the most powerful people in world (if not “the most”) and its parliaments (congress and senate) can pass laws that effect every country in the world.
Living in the Middle East, I learned it the hard way that how much United States’ laws and policies can effect a country. Imposing wars and sanctions and taking sides in political debates and conflicts, United States is for sure the most effective country when it comes to international relations.
Every happening in the U.S., every nationwide protest, every law that get passed, every election, every statement released, every major corporation deciding on something, almost everything political in U.S. will affect the rest of the world.
The world is obsessed with U.S. politics because United States is stupidly a major player in people’s lives. United States can effectively destroy a country or improve it using its financial and military power. We’re obsessed with U.S. politics and we have the right to be obsessed because no matter how wrong it is, U.S. has a role in our future.
In 1942, there were a 110,000 Japanese American citizens in good standing, law-abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That’s all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had, “right this way” – into the internment camps. Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most, their government took ’em away. And rights aren’t rights if someone can take ’em away. They’re privileges, that’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter.
George Carlin
An extension of the class system, societies draw clear lines between people with rights and people without them: Migrants versus citizens, educated versus uneducated, homeless versus homed, convicts versus non-convicts, men versus women, heterosexual vs homosexual, white versus non-white.
Governments create rights so they can meter them out to certain segments of the population, pitting everyone against each other in a vicious competition for civil liberties and economic advantage. So long as everyone has to fight for their place in the world, they’ll have no time or energy to fight the system that creates and enforces these gross inequalities.
Continue readingA Bloomberg opinion suggested we give Amazon and Facebook a seat at the United Nations as commercial superpowers so we can force them to behave as we wish to benefit people!
What about no?
First of all, when did UN gain enough power to force anything on any country? What makes you think that an organization that fails to impose any power on its members can do anything about a company based in United States? And why do you think Amazon and Facebook will listen to UN instead of American government? And why the hell would someone think that the U.S. government would let any country enforce its desired behavior on its corporations?
What in earth would make an author write such dumb article to suggest we give some superpowers even more power and yet hope they behave better than before. It’s like giving Mussolini more power and hope he and his ally Adolf behave. Ask six million Jews about it, they have some to say.
They are more powerful than most governments. As the article goes, Walmart Inc. employs roughly the population of Botswana; Microsoft Corp.’s market cap is greater than Brazil’s GDP; FedEx Corp. has five times more planes than Air India Ltd.
So why would someone suggest such idiotic thing? Imagine a UN defense council headed by China, Russia, the U.S., and Zucky Zuck and Bezos. Like, not even joking, haven’t they all shat on developing countries enough as separate entities?
We already have a corporation who have a seat at the UN. The Holy See (i.e. the Catholic Church) has an observer seat at the UN. And hear me out: it’s not the country of Vatican City that has a seat, it’s the Catholic Church in itself, which is just like a massive private entity, not a country. And what did world or UN did about all the rape and child abuse and human rights violation by pedophiles resided in it?
Let’s not forget that Bloomberg is owned by, well, Bloomberg. The twentieth richest person in the world. So no wonder why would a rich person suggest something like this on its controlled media platform. Don’t forget that capitalists know how to exploit people for their own benefit.
Don’t forget how capitalists lobby to appoint their desired politicians in offices, using money and media. You surely know how politicians receive millions of dollars when they’re campaigning for a job. Now we want to put these people in a place where they can have more impact?
It’s not that our politicians are honest, no, it’s about how this idea would make more corruption and puts more power in hands of CEOs and world so-called leaders.
Human idiocy has no limit whatsoever and such articles prove this. It’s so sad that these ideas have a place in large media network and platforms. As much as I’d like to say these ideas won’t take place in reality, history and experience taught me that nothing is impossible when capitalism tries another way to make way for human exploitation.
In the series Peaky Blinders season 6, episode two, Tommy Shelby tells Laura McKee “in the Shelby family business comes before issues of vengeance.”
About a week ago, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in one day, most of them believed to be Shia people and/or opposers to the Saudi regime, including seven Yemenis and one Syrian national, on charges including “allegiance to foreign terrorist organizations” and holding “deviant beliefs”.
Since then, I’ve waited to see a single action done by western democracies and those regimes who claim to be concerned about human rights. Not a single useful action were done. I guess business comes before issues of human rights in freedom and human rights fighter regimes.
Few kilometers away from Saudi, Iran is under heavy sanctions for what is claimed to be human rights concerns over its reputation of human rights violation and nuclear program. Now I’m not against forcing a regime to respect humans but it’s the double standards the western countries have that annoys me.
Saudi is a key partner of United States and some European regimes in the region and keeping it happy benefits many countries who need Middle East oil to survive. With Iran under sanctions and other Arab countries under the influence of Saudi, it’s best to keep Salman of Arabia happy.
Same went when Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Saudi’s embassy in Turkey. Nothing happened. No sanction, no relation cut, no powerful action, absolute nothing but some useless statements and waste of paper.
Perhaps western countries’ leaders love to watch Peaky Blinders and have much to learn of it, specially when Tommy teaches them business can come before humans.
As we go through the war imposed on Ukraine from Russia’s authoritarian regime, we see more and more idiotic hatred against people of Russia.
Everyday I see more news about sanctions on Russian people and sports teams. Paralympics, football, tennis, motor sports, and lot other fields are now closed on Russian sport people.
I also heard news about an Italian university teaching of Fyodor Dostoevsky because he’s Russian.
Since the start of the war, I put up a banner on top of my site with a “Stand with Ukraine” statement to show my support for Ukrainian people but what is happening now is just dumb.
Russian people are not responsible for what their government does and I feel that in my bones as I too experience sanctions because of actions of my government.
People of Ukraine don’t need Russian people out of tennis courts or football pitch. Ukrainian people also like to read Dostoevsky.
I’m pretty sure nobody in Ukraine will be pleased to hear some innocent Russian person who tried hard to be able to participate in a competition was banned from it because of what that person had no influence on.
What Vladimir Putin does is what exactly a dictator does and people are not to blame for. Some are converting their support for Ukraine to hate towards Russia.
And by the way, weren’t sports and politics separate? For years, athletes around the world were punished because they refused to play against sports people from Israel. Iranians specifically have suffered much from this claim. Iranian Judo Federation is still banned because they refused to play against Israeli judokas.
I don’t advocate for ban on any sports person. In fact, I’m all in for separation of politics and sports as I see sports a wonderful way to achieve friendship between nations and people but this double standards are painful to see.
I hope the war ends very soon and we see peace everywhere in Europe, Middle East, and all around the world. And I hope we get rid of this stupid hatred we see today and do something else, like actually supporting victims of war with aids and goods.
You want all your problems to be solved? Die! Just think about it. You won’t have any concern or need or trouble. You won’t overthink about anything; in fact, you won’t think at all. There’s no injury you’ll suffer of after death and there’s no pain. Death is a wonderful answer that will guarantee your freedom of all pain and suffering and anything unpleasant.
But we don’t want to die, do we? We only live once and we want to live it good. We fight the troubles to be able to enjoy the life. The reason we fight the troubles is that the life itself is so much precious that it is worth the fight. We have a lot of amazing things in our life that we don’t want to miss and we continuously put our effort to make it better.
As much as death will solve those problems, it is not an answer. A good answer to our problems will erase the unpleasant stuff from life without touching the pleasant ones, or it acts with least impact on the good ones. A good answer won’t wipe everything, it’ll just clears the mess while it keeps everything else.
If someone suggests death to you to solve, say, your pain in your broken leg, you’d call that person crazy, right? This is not just about life. There are idiot crazy people in every matter that will suggest you the craziest option that may seem reasonable but are in fact very dumb.
Conservatives will suggest their philosophy of thought, capitalists will suggest their way of politics, authoritarians will suggest their dictatorship, democrats will manipulate you in their so-called democracy, republicans will suggest their modern slavery, fascists want to make you their soldiers, etc. etc.
Sometimes people fall for these traps, sometimes people believe in these systems and want to actually practice them without considering the harm it causes.
All it takes to know what it actually does is to think about them. Considering the benefit and harm without prejudice, bias, and bigotry. It only takes to be human and not be selfish, but to be selfless. Many say one is not free unless the whole society is free; while the society won’t be free unless every and each of us are not free. And this freedom starts in our thoughts and acts.
Living in Middle East, you can’t stop thinking of politics. Everything happening here impacts the whole world and everything happening in world impacts the region. Simplest aspects of life in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) are highly influenced by politics. Well, it’s the same all around the world but I can’t think of any other region that has this kind of heavy impact on world. Well of course White House or Kremlin Palace can change the world but those are places built for such thing.
When United States adds to its sanctions against Iran, the who region and the whole world changes. When Russia sold weapons to Saudi, when Emirates started normalizing their relations with Israel, everything in world was impacted. When OPEC decides about its oil price or production rate, everything in world is influenced.
Naturally, people here and all around the world feel the impact as well. Prices change, regimes make new decisions, new wars get started, old wars come to an end, etc. But here in Middle East, the impact is much more influential. Almost all of us in MENA are living under a dictatorship and under the shadow of a new war.
The point is that you can’t stop being involved in politics, you can’t even stop thinking about it here. An American, a French, an Italian, or a German can claim that perse is not political because they’re much more stable than Middle Easterners but here we’re all political, we may die tomorrow because of a new war in the region.
I run a business here. During the Iran Talks, currency price fluctuations are at the highest level and my business which relies on products produced in China and Viet Nam suffers easily. A simple smile from any part of the talks can change everything for small businesses like mine.
However, human mind and body has a capacity for stress and processing the events happening here. I’m trying to think less about politics knowing how impossible it is and have more conversation. I try to avoid political news, get away from people talking about politics, and comment less about stuff happening.
Of course to completely remove politics from my life I have to get out of earth with next spacecraft but even that doesn’t remove politics completely (what if politicians on earth decide I no longer have right to exist?).
I try to have more conversation, seeking for reason, solution, and answer rather than just listening and reading news and repeat the pointless cycle. I try to reduce the heaviness of everything happening by keeping my mind solid and with focus. Instead of repeating news to each other, I try to have conversation with people and know what they think of their future and know what is their desired system of thought and ruling.
There’s no doubt for me that I continue my political fight and I’ll continue walking towards my political goals but maybe in a different way but this time I try to do it focusing on people and conversation.
Well, isn’t that even more political?
