Inverted Totalitarianism

[astonmartin708]

A very interesting read on the recently deceased Sheldon Wolin who was a pretty renound political theorist and professor at Cal Berkley and Princeton.

His idea that the US has fallen into a political system that obfuscates and hinders the will of the people much like that of former totalitarian regimes, but not through the traditional despot / one party system. Instead he argues that corporate interests combined with a system that breeds voter apathy as well as an international interventionist policy that refuses to accept any attempts by a foreign nation to resist our domination.

His theories seem to place blame on both sides of the isle as he talked about the faults in both conservatism and neoliberalism. A lot of the ideas came during the Bush years from ~03' to 08' but I'm not not sure he was any more happy about today's political climate.

Interesting read. Take a look.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/sheldon_wolin_and_inverted_totalitarianism_20151101

 

[URedskin54]

Neo-liberalism, as I've always heard it defined, still means conservatism.

 

[astonmartin708]

Neo-liberalism, as I've always heard it defined, still means conservatism.

Fair enough, but he was talking about the welfare state, which isn't really a conservative principle.

Read the article. The guy is obviously intelligent even if you don't necessarily agree with everything he says.

 

[WATU2]

Thanks for posting. His views do describe a lot of what is going on these days, especially the corporate dominance and fear and money based politics of today. Interesting take.

 

[WATU2]

60 Minutes shows how our elected officials spend their time dialing for dollars. Further inverting things.

But Oliver does it much better.


Thank you Citizens United. Some on this board gave the President a hard time for disagreeing with our politicized SCOTUS for this one.