It’s no longer coming; it’s here.
I say that’s the direction we’re going because everybody seems to have a slightly different definition of what totalitarianism encompasses and very few people would say that we are actually living in a totalitarian society right now.
After all, this is “the land of the free.” This is “the freest country on earth.” Totalitarian? Hey, we fought those guys — and we won!
But the truth is we are actually living in a totalitarian society right now. And we’d better recognize that so we can deal with reality.
Is it as fully developed as Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, or North Korea’s socialist paradise? Of course not. But do you have to wait for the day-long bread lines or the boxcars full of doomed Deplorables to recognize the nature of a thing? Most people probably will wait — until it’s too late. But Western society — led by the Five Eyes countries of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, and trailed faithfully by most of Europe — has already gone totalitarian with dizzying speed.
Totalitarianism is not “down the road.” It’s not merely in politicians’ dreams. It’s not merely something one administration wants that can be undone by v*ting in a different bunch of liars, thieves, con artists, and slave-masters. It’s not merely a temporary condition that will be lifted once the current crisis (whichever current crisis is being used as the excuse) has abated. It’s here. It’s the new nature of our society and the everyday practice of our ruling class.
Tons and tons more I could excerpt, but I’ll just say it’s the esteemed, estimable, and in fact gifted Claire Wolf’s latest two-part opus, so I trust you’ll all click on over to read the whole thing. There is one more thing I just have to excerpt, however. Claire helpfully provides a quite copious list of what she defines as “bullet points for totalitarianism,” by way of laying out the warning signs. She opens with these, then continues on from there:
- Strong central rule by a single interconnected cadre or class
- An elite corps of managerial “experts” attemping to shape society
- Extensive surveillance networks, both directly run by government and consisting of volunteers eager to report on neighbors, family members, co-workers, and strangers
- An obsession with keeping the elite’s own secrets while taking away everyone else’s privacy
- Sweeping away of legal, social, religious, and political traditions
- Iron control over the economy; government either owns the major means of production is in clubby collaboration with those who do
- Control over the means of communication; constant barrage of propaganda
- Censorship of any dissenting views, even when such views are based on facts
- Increasing misery for the people it claims to represent
- Police using arbitrary violence and terror as a control tactic
- The law is whatever those in charge say it is
- Tragically laughable elections (if any) with unashamedly absurd outcomes
- All dissent is branded evil and harshly punished
Sound familiar? Because anyone of even modest intellectual means would have to find these confirmations of our current status absolutely marrow-freezing, seems to me.
I swear, I’m flattered and honored damned near speechless at this humble l’il websty’s inclusion on her blogroll page. No idea how that might’ve happened, but my grateful thanks to you for it, Claire.
- Entries
We see, continually, the lights of freedom rapidly going out all over the world, on the flimsiest of pretexts.
It’s up to us to keep the lights on, folks.
Fire can be an excellent source of illumination in a pinch, or so I’ve heard.