Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Alt-Right?

[Anthony '58]

Quote:I'm seeing them as more neo-victorian than neo medieval.  They seem closer to 'the white man's burden' or 'manifest destiny' than the notion of launching  a crusade.

I'm also dubious about the upcoming warrior age.  Given nukes, major powers are still avoiding taking each other head on.  Bush 43's adventures illustrated how insurgent conflicts and proxy support make attempts to occupy colonies difficult.  I can see how civilians who can't be drafted to serve and whose country is avoiding direct conflict might strut macho and beat chests, but that's just an offshoot of chicken hawk mentality.

If the Republican Party is faltering, I am looking for something to replace them.  You have to at least look at the possibility that the Alt Right might grow into the replacement. I can sympathize with the notion that if every racial, ethnic, gender role group can celebrate their place in society, the heterosexual write males should be allowed to strut and preen if they want to.  I find that mildly distasteful, but we don't have to watch if we don't want to.

But they have an awful lot of growing up to do before I take them very seriously.

Once the warrior age begins, the all-volunteer military is obviously toast.

And the Karl Marx vs. Ayn Rand dichotomy will be toast too - possibly to be replaced by this?

http://www.ru.org/index.php/economics/39...eory-prout

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-29-2016, 06:57 AM)Anthony Wrote: Once the warrior age begins, the all-volunteer military is obviously toast.

And the Karl Marx vs. Ayn Rand dichotomy will be toast too - possibly to be replaced by this?

http://www.ru.org/index.php/economics/39...eory-prout

You are beginning to remind me of Cynic Hero, advocating and promoting a return to militaristic Agricultural Age values.  A caste system?  Really?  It might possibly work in India where they have a tradition of such things, but as a world wide approach I am dubious.

But some of the directions Sardar is heading in aren't totally off.   Prout "seeks to guarantee what it recognizes as the five minimum requirements of life for human beings: food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care."  If you add a retirement system, you're getting close to FDR's "Freedom from Want."  Eleanor got most of that inserted into the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The theory is that if a population doesn't have these things, along with the other three Freedoms, Religion, Fear and Speech, the population will have perpetual unrest.  Freedom from Want is a good goal, an old goal, one that was set at the last 4T/1T cusp, and promptly forgotten.

Well, not totally forgotten.  The Democrats are working towards health care and education, for example.

I can agree that capitalist systems strongly tend towards putting far too much money and political power in the hands of too few.  I'm not seeing enough checks on the power of the elites in the PROUT stuff.  They are proposing a caste based new elite, with the castes in theory checking each other's power.  Perhaps I haven't dug enough to find how exactly that works.  Creating new groups of elites doesn't necessarily check the power of said elites, preventing them from creating government of, for and by the elites.

And I don't see a return to Agricultural Age style perpetual war will be helpful.  Recent history shows major powers highly reluctant to take each other on directly in an era of weapons of mass destruction.  I think this a worthy beneficial trend, and it's about time.  Bush 43's attempt at neo colonialism got really ugly.  In the early Industrial Age the imperialists had a big advantage in weapon technology.  Today, proxy war and insurgent tactics guarantees the enemies of the imperialists will be well supplied with arms and ammunition.  Thus, the normal expected result of colonial wars and foreign interventions ought to be insurgent conflict, quagmire, failed states, and misery.  See Syria.  Attached is a CNN attempt to 'clarify' the situation there.

It may be that different cultures will want to push towards the Four Freedoms in different way.  A caste system might possibly make sense in India, while single payer fits the US better.  PROUT favors a world army?  Well, perhaps if it comes with a mandate to suppress failed states and massive crimes against humanity, this might be a desirable thing.  I don't know that you can get there from here.  After Bush 43, few seem ready to commit forces to ugly areas of the world.  The established powers are far more willing to prevent their friends from losing than commit to achieving a win.  Thus, quagmire.

PROUT attempts to address real problems.  They shouldn't be dismissed lightly, but I don't know that their approach will fit all over the world.

[Anthony '58]

In any event, thanks to Donald Trump, Social Darwinism of the Ayn Rand type is now in the same place that communism was consigned to 25 years ago:

Oblivion.

We are either going to end up with Malthusian, Zero Population Growth economic nationalism, or neoliberal globalism - at least over the short haul.

[The Wonkette]

(08-28-2016, 10:21 AM)Anthony Wrote: If Alt-Right is "neo-medievalist" because it advocates that everybody go back to their "own" continent, then they are "pacifists," relatively speaking - because the Middle Ages were peaceful compared to both antiquity and modernity, the latter slated to end with this Crisis, as per the Prabhat Sarkar/Ravi Batra Theory (?).

So maybe Alt-Right is doubly in step with reality - in that its agenda appears to also be friendly toward the upcoming warrior age?

Really?  Those peaceful Middle ages?  Last April, I visited the Tower of London and had occasion to view those wonderfully humane torture devices.

[Eric the Green]

(08-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: In any event, thanks to Donald Trump, Social Darwinism of the Ayn Rand type is now in the same place that communism was consigned to 25 years ago:

Oblivion.

We are either going to end up with Malthusian, Zero Population Growth economic nationalism, or neoliberal globalism - at least over the short haul.

Only one of those two choices is on the ballot. And you can't tell where he really stands anyway.

[Eric the Green]

Th Free Syrian Army IS the Syrian Democratic forces. The civil war there is the consequence of climate change induced drought, and tyranny resisted by an Arab Spring uprising in 2011. This created a vaccuum in Syria into which ISIS (the Islamic State group, or IS) came. Before this, LACK of Western support (not Western intervention) allowed jihadist forces not aligned with Al Qaeda in Iraq (the IS) to join the democratic Arab Spring rebels in the fight against their monster dictator Assad. You can only understand a situation by getting the facts straight.

The best video on this https://youtu.be/NKb9GVU8bHE

[Eric the Green]

(08-29-2016, 06:57 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: And the Karl Marx vs. Ayn Rand dichotomy will be toast too - possibly to be replaced by this?

http://www.ru.org/index.php/economics/39...eory-prout

I endorse this, for the most part; this PROUT theory is basically the Green Party approach. It is true that different peoples may need to progress further in order to embrace it. It's what I call the Third Revolution (not just the "Third Way").

[pbrower2a]

(08-28-2016, 06:03 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 03:04 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: There is no "white culture" to defend. I have no qualms about pushing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach to black people who try to push 'their' rap upon me.  If black people can have images of a black Jesus and a black Santa Claus, then why not a "Black Bach"? Culture may have an ethnic flavor (there is no question that Degas is French, Dvorak is Czech, or Dostoevsky is Russian) but the really good stuff is accessible even with its ethnic flavoring. I do not have to be Japanese to recognize Hokusai as part of 'my culture'.

The attempt to achieve purity of culture as a cause of identity of a people is absurd. Racial homogenization is going on whether one likes it or not, and nobody can be sure what cultural  identity the very black-looking child of a black man and a white mother has. Melanin does not have culture.

I hope you don't think that because you are open minded about artistic culture that everybody is as open minded.  Some among the Alt Right are the sort to make a stink.  I just don't know that they are making enough of a stink for me to care.  Thus far, no.  I'll let them make their teapot tempests on the net, and start taking them seriously when and if they start electing enough of their kind to actually try to do something.

I have no illusion about the goodness of humanity -- even its most sophisticated parts. Even artists could serve Hitler by glorifying his Master Race and his perversion of the Nietzschean  Übermensch or Stalin with his empty Socialist Realism.

[Anthony '58]

(08-29-2016, 01:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: In any event, thanks to Donald Trump, Social Darwinism of the Ayn Rand type is now in the same place that communism was consigned to 25 years ago:

Oblivion.

We are either going to end up with Malthusian, Zero Population Growth economic nationalism, or neoliberal globalism - at least over the short haul.

Only one of those two choices is on the ballot. And you can't tell where he really stands anyway.

Apparently Charles Koch can tell.

That's why he - and arch-neocon Paul Wolfowitz - are seriously considering voting for Hillary!

[Eric the Green]

(09-01-2016, 09:41 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 01:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: In any event, thanks to Donald Trump, Social Darwinism of the Ayn Rand type is now in the same place that communism was consigned to 25 years ago:

Oblivion.

We are either going to end up with Malthusian, Zero Population Growth economic nationalism, or neoliberal globalism - at least over the short haul.

Only one of those two choices is on the ballot. And you can't tell where he really stands anyway.

Apparently Charles Koch can tell.

That's why he - and arch-neocon Paul Wolfowitz - are seriously considering voting for Hillary!

Yes, but that's partly because they think Trump is seriously unsteady, unschooled and ignorant about foreign policy. Compared to Trump, Wolfowitz and Koch are merely evil.

[Eric the Green]

(08-31-2016, 08:22 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 06:03 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 03:04 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: There is no "white culture" to defend. I have no qualms about pushing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach to black people who try to push 'their' rap upon me.  If black people can have images of a black Jesus and a black Santa Claus, then why not a "Black Bach"? Culture may have an ethnic flavor (there is no question that Degas is French, Dvorak is Czech, or Dostoevsky is Russian) but the really good stuff is accessible even with its ethnic flavoring. I do not have to be Japanese to recognize Hokusai as part of 'my culture'.

The attempt to achieve purity of culture as a cause of identity of a people is absurd. Racial homogenization is going on whether one likes it or not, and nobody can be sure what cultural  identity the very black-looking child of a black man and a white mother has. Melanin does not have culture.

I hope you don't think that because you are open minded about artistic culture that everybody is as open minded.  Some among the Alt Right are the sort to make a stink.  I just don't know that they are making enough of a stink for me to care.  Thus far, no.  I'll let them make their teapot tempests on the net, and start taking them seriously when and if they start electing enough of their kind to actually try to do something.

I have no illusion about the goodness of humanity -- even its most sophisticated parts. Even artists could serve Hitler by glorifying his Master Race and his perversion of the Nietzschean  Übermensch or Stalin with his empty Socialist Realism.

We are all subject to the universal hypnosis. Most of us are as yet not fully awakened.

[pbrower2a]

(09-02-2016, 12:24 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-01-2016, 09:41 AM)Anthony Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 01:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Anthony Wrote: In any event, thanks to Donald Trump, Social Darwinism of the Ayn Rand type is now in the same place that communism was consigned to 25 years ago:

Oblivion.

We are either going to end up with Malthusian, Zero Population Growth economic nationalism, or neoliberal globalism - at least over the short haul.

Only one of those two choices is on the ballot. And you can't tell where he really stands anyway.

Apparently Charles Koch can tell.

That's why he - and arch-neocon Paul Wolfowitz - are seriously considering voting for Hillary!

Yes, but that's partly because they think Trump is seriously unsteady, unschooled and ignorant about foreign policy. Compared to Trump, Wolfowitz and Koch are merely evil.

The neo-cons may have learned a lesson with George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- that a steady hand has more importance for someone who leads a nation. One need not be a fanatic to be an effective defender of American interests. Barack Obama, even a conservative must admit, has been absolutely horrible -- to terrorists out to do great harm to America and Americans.  Dubya may have been more a glory-seeker than an ignoramus. Donald Trump? He will create a world more hostile to the American government.

[pbrower2a]

(09-02-2016, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: We are all subject to the universal hypnosis. Most of us are as yet not fully awakened.

Nothing forces enlightenment upon people seeking everything else as does the harsh reality of the folly that originates in its denial. That's the School of Hard Knocks.

[Anthony '58]

Quote:The Free Syrian Army IS the Syrian Democratic forces. The civil war there is the consequence of climate change induced drought, and tyranny resisted by an Arab Spring uprising in 2011. This created a vaccuum in Syria into which ISIS (the Islamic State group, or IS) came. Before this, LACK of Western support (not Western intervention) allowed jihadist forces not aligned with Al Qaeda in Iraq (the IS) to join the democratic Arab Spring rebels in the fight against their monster dictator Assad. You can only understand a situation by getting the facts straight.

The Free Syrian Army is the Middle East's version of our Free Libertarians - total frauds.  Just as the latter are actually stalking horses for the Social Darwinist Republicans, so the former are actually stalking horses for the radical Islamist Wahhabis, who are most emphatically no friends of the West.

[Eric the Green]

(09-06-2016, 09:17 AM)Anthony Wrote:

Quote:The Free Syrian Army IS the Syrian Democratic forces. The civil war there is the consequence of climate change induced drought, and tyranny resisted by an Arab Spring uprising in 2011. This created a vaccuum in Syria into which ISIS (the Islamic State group, or IS) came. Before this, LACK of Western support (not Western intervention) allowed jihadist forces not aligned with Al Qaeda in Iraq (the IS) to join the democratic Arab Spring rebels in the fight against their monster dictator Assad. You can only understand a situation by getting the facts straight.

The Free Syrian Army is the Middle East's version of our Free Libertarians - total frauds.  Just as the latter are actually stalking horses for the Social Darwinist Republicans, so the former are actually stalking horses for the radical Islamist Wahhabis, who are most emphatically no friends of the West.

No, the Free Syrian Army is the men who were demonstrating against their monster and being shot down, so they formed an army to defend themselves and take out the monster; joined by defectors from Assad's gestapo thugs. More defections are happening now. Yes, since the USA didn't send help, jihadists called Al Nusra broke from Al Qaeda and the IS to help the free Syrians. To call these freedom fighters "a stalking horse" is to be a traitor to all American and Christian values and any other true values. The Syrian people just want their freedom and to live in peace. Some are fighting for it; others have left because they no longer have a country to live in; thanks entirely to their monster thug.