Re-reading Glazyev: Europe’s been the battlefield for a century – liberalism has lost

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Ramin Mazaheri
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Sergey Glaziev

A socialist spin to the ‘multipolarity’ thesis of a possible Putin successor 

World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the fall of the USSR, the rise (and failure) of the European Union - all are conflicts in which Europe was central or primary, and all involved a battle of ideologies. The undeniable but totally unreported failure of the European Union combined with the staying power of China means the verdict is in: the ideology of liberalism has lost.

Is this the new “end of history”?

The nationalist view of modern history obscures the fact that it is ideologies which matter, not borders. Ideologies are what produce and define management systems - i.e. governments - and it’s crystal clear that the last 15 years have seen the socialist-inspired management system (China, Iran, North Korea and to a lesser extent Russia) defeat the liberalism-inspired management system economically, militarily and politically. Liberalism is at a Great Depression-level nadir in terms of global admiration.

The French Revolution was not French imperialism whatsoever but an idea: that feudalism must end. World War I was an idea: that liberalism - with its components of imperialism and high finance domination - was at least better than absolute monarchism. World War II was an idea: that both liberalism and socialism must be toppled by nationalist-corporatist fascism, but fascism lost and was absorbed by the liberalist camp. The Cold War was an idea: that liberalism and socialism cannot coexist, and - in the battlefield of Europe only - socialism lost. The “unipolar world” was an idea: that liberalism will usher in the “end of history” after (allegedly) defeating socialism and absorbing monarchism and fascism.

The ideology of liberalism viewed Europe in the 1990s as a rabid imperialist would view the moon if it had oxygen and water: virgin space to create a new world. The pan-European project was indeed this new world, as it is more liberalist in conception than even the United States. The EU/Eurozone was supposed to be liberalism’s highest, most shining city on a hill.

I was re-reading Sergey Glazyev’s influential article Patterns Of Formation And Disappearance Of Global Economic Poles from Spring 2023. Glazyev is a longtime post-communist Russian politician, economist and the current Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission. He is often called among the top few potential successors to Putin, and his article is outstanding - something Xi and Khamenei could come up with but never Trump or Biden. It provides a major distillation of the new multipolar view of the world, and via some excellent and unique historical perspectives which are simply beyond the ken of most Western analysts.

In it he describes - but only if you really read it closely, as he only mentions this at the very end - what I’ll call a “Imperial vs. Integral thesis”. The latter worldview is being implemented by a diversity- and sovereignty-accepting China - this is exemplified by its multinational and multicultural Belt and Road project - to replace the Imperial worldview of the diminishing West. It is the rejecting of international cooperation which is the very essence of competitive liberalism and imperialism, after all - they don’t even work together among their own bloc, as evidenced by the plundering/self-immolation of the EU.

He quotes late-20th century Italian economist Giovanni Arrighi’s use of a “World Economic Order” concept and relays his summation of the succession of the most dominant poles of the global economy since the discovery of the Western Hemisphere: “Spanish-Genovese (Genoa financed the Spanish expeditions), Dutch, English and American ruling elites, now superseded by the Chinese communists.” In short, the management efficiency of the systems (not just their elites, as Glazyev repeatedly says) of these poles became dominant, propelled global economic development and -crucially - served as a model for other countries.

“They (the dominant pole) also serve as a model for periphery countries, which try to catch up with the leader by importing the institutions imposed by it. Therefore, the institutional system of the world economy permeates the reproduction of the entire world economy in the unity of its national, regional and international components.”

The pan-European project is precisely explained here: Europe took American liberalism as their model as a way “to catch up” with the US, but it has been nothing but catastrophe and open failure.

“The institutions of the leading country, which have a dominant influence on the international institutions that regulate the world market and international trade, economic and financial relations, are of primary importance.”

But what do you do when the institutions of the leading country no longer provide a workable model? Then you have the Western world in 2024, and this is why the failure of the EU/Eurozone is the biggest story of our century thus far: Liberalism’s efficiency has declined, and to the point where different models which were once on the periphery have proven to have qualitatively more efficient modes and institutions - socialist democracy - and they are now acquiring global dominance.

Glazyev writes that these management systems are so different that they have only transitioned from one to the other via a major war and social revolution, in order to crush the obsolete management system. This is what happened to - if I can give some examples - the feudal system in 1789, the slave/colony based economy in 1865 and the system of absolute monarchy in 1918. It is their refusal to adopt the more efficient, and always more moral and democratic (Glazyev stresses neither of these latter two critical components), system of governance that leads to the stagnation and decline of the once-dominant “World Economic Models” (WEM): “…the core countries of the old WEM are plunging into a structural crisis and depression caused by excessive concentration of capital in the obsolete productions of the former technological mode.”

This particular version the pan-European project is precisely this over-investment in an obsolete mode, and that mode is liberalism.

Lastly, in an interesting section Glazyev astutely notes that outside of Arrighi’s analysis of World Economic Model dominance does indeed stand Russia.

“As a result of this competition, a global leader emerges and steadily increases its dominance. Besides them, there is also Russia, which maintains its global influence in various political forms throughout the period under consideration, whose historical role Arrighi has completely ignored.”

This is what I mean by analyses which are simply beyond the ken of most Western analysts: huge chunks of the world are often simply omitted by them in their “global” analyses.

Glazyev is entirely right: he notes that from 1492 on the people of Rus held an empire that was really not much inferior to any other of the pole leaders - Imperial Spain, the seafaring Dutch, the English, the Americans and now the Chinese are not so very much more advanced than mighty Russia, no? Western-centric historians, politicians and analysts have ignored this fact of history, and many even blithely accepted the stupidities of John McCain’s gallingly ignorant description of Russia as a “a giant gas station pretending to be a real country”.   

Even Arrighi never considered: What about Russia? Indeed, but to Glazyev I could say: what about Persia/Iran, which he barely mentions?

Glazyev’s key mistakes, probably caused by adherence to liberalism

We must correct Glazyev’s over-excited relegating of the US into a complete non-pole of global power. Centuries of stolen wages and plunder simply don’t evaporate, and no nation is going to violently repossess much of America’s property. So let’s say that Glazyev is really talking about a tripolar system here in his vision of the future, and he basically admits as much later:

“…The bipolar core of the new (integral) IEU (note: IEU is used the same as World Economic Model), with communist (China) and democratic (India) poles, whose competition will produce half of the GDP growth. […] Finally, the third variety of the new world economic order is determined by the interests of a financial oligarchy that aspires to world domination. It is accomplished through liberal globalization, which consists of the obfuscation of national institutions of economic regulation and the subordination of its reproduction to the interests of international capital. The dominant position in the structure of the latter is occupied by a few dozen intertwined American-European family clans that control the major financial holdings, power structures, intelligence services, media, political parties and the apparatus of executive power.”

India, China and the West - choose your “World Economic Model” to follow.

A couple problems, however,

Firstly Glazyev both correctly and incorrectly estimates India. However, his analysis is mostly praiseworthy in perceiving that India is a huge part of the global future, which most Westerners simply cannot admit.

He notes that India’s constitution openly declares it to be a socialist republic (Indian Constitution: India is a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic”), and he notes that in 1969 India nationalised their banks. Where Glazyev errs is by believing that India is still “democratic” - and Glazyev clearly implies that he means “liberal democratic”, as he holds Switzerland up as a sort of equal to Indian “democracy” because of their use of referendums. The two are not the same whatsoever, and this is a false grouping by Glazyev - should Switzerland ever nationalise their private banks the rest of the liberal West would immediately invade and retake their ill-gotten gains.

He also errs by believing that by being “communist” China is NOT democratic - this is completely false, as China simply follows the model, rules, mores and structures of socialist democracy and not liberal democracy. Glazyev, being a very successful post-communist Russian liberal democratic politician, apparently does not believe that China can be both socialist and democratic, and he also believes that India is “democratic” even though nationalising their banks is not just anathema but even war-provoking for any liberal “democratic” country.

Glazyev also persists in the maddening, widespread refusal to call “liberalism” simply “liberalism”. There is NO difference between “globalism” and “liberalism” in the sense that - as Marx essentially noted in 1848 France - both are run by and for the 1%.  A “financial oligarchy that aspires to world domination… which consists of the obfuscation of national institutions of economic regulation and the subordination of its reproduction to the interests of international capital” - this is what liberalism has been for over 175 years! So we must realise that Glazyev fails to make the correct distinctions between “liberalism” and “socialism”, but getting this wrong is what non-socialists do all the time, in their effort obfuscate the awful failed project which is 175+ years of liberalism.

Important points indeed, but the larger point to make here is that Glazyev is correct in seeing the future as a three-way fight between the models of left-wing socialism (China), right-wing socialism (India) and liberalism.

And, as he notes, much like the earlier fight between socialism (USSR), liberalism (USA) and fascism (Germany) this is another battle of three where only two poles can prevail.

Similarly, in 1914 there were also three poles - socialism, liberalism and monarchism - and monarchism would be absorbed by liberalism. To socialists monarchism is, of course, anathema. The same goes for fascism - absorbed by liberalism, anathema to socialism.

But it’s this exposure of liberalism as the now-clearly inefficient governmental mode which is so historically vital for us to understand and proclaim today. Liberalism is the now-discredited, obviously inefficient WEM which is on its way out historically.

The defeat of Ukraine on the battlefield has shown that liberalism - with all its imperialist menace and all its tax revenue fascistically devoted their military - cannot fight against the more efficient socialist-inspired (on the military-economic planning level) Russia. The victory of China on the economic field since 2008 has shown that liberalism cannot fight against the more efficient socialist-inspired model there either. As Glazyev writes:

“The reasons for the PRC’s superior performance lie in the institutional structure of the new WEM (World Economic Model/management system), which ensures qualitatively more efficient management of economic development. By combining the institutions of central planning and market competition, the new world economic order demonstrates a quantum leap in the efficiency of socio-economic development management compared to the world order systems that preceded it: the Soviet one, with directive planning and total statism, and the American one, dominated by the financial oligarchy and transnational corporations.”

Even National Geographic, a mouthpiece for US imperial policies and propaganda, ran a glowing article about the Trans-Iranian railway in March, 2022.

Iran's comfortable and ultrafast train travel. People can sit back, watch movies or sleep. Nothing like this in America.

This is all clear and undeniable, as is the victory of Russia over the combined efforts of the liberal West in Ukraine.

Glazyev, perhaps as a liberal politician, almost totally does not discuss either imperialism or morality - the former because that would expose the true hidden basis of liberalism’s alleged “efficiency”: “S. Huntington admitted, ‘not because of the superiority of their ideas, moral values or religion (to which few other civilizations have been converted), but rather because of superiority in the use of organized violence.’” The latter is not discussed because morality is excised from liberalism, which claims to be the most “moral” economic mode mainly via constant false demonisation other modes. For liberalism (think of “Fordism” in the book Brave New World) efficiency is the highest morality - so we an say that even on liberalism’s own terms it is now clearly “immoral” to be a liberalist.

Glazyev gets a lot right - it’s a superb article - but one of the things he fails at is pointing out the absolute failure of liberalism as evidenced by the perpetually stagnant Europe. Does this omission mean Russia is going to make the same mistake as Iran did?

Significantly, Glazyev has failed to learn from Iran and their failed JCPOA thesis that Europe would break away from Washington on issues of primary foreign policy importance if Europe’s interests were greatly threatened. Europe did not break away even though Iran offered it excellent, mutually-beneficial terms, and we see how Europe did not break away even as Washington demands Europe impoverish itself - via inflation, via gutting their reserves of arms, via destroying their reputation in the Global South - with its incredibly self-harming policy towards the war in Ukraine.

Glazyev makes a major error in his conclusion by classifying Europe thusly in his final, prognosticating section, titled “Pole configuration of the new economic order”:

“The wandering between the cores of the old and new (World Economic Models), the European Union, Turkey, and the Arab world, whose chances for world influence will depend on their ability to break free from U.S. dictates.”

The EU is no “wanderer” - they have proven themselves to be a 51st state over and over, and this is because the question is not nationalist but ideological: the advent of the European Union totally ended the communist eastern half and the social democratic western half - Europe is a liberal bloc through and through now. From structure to practice - from soup to nuts and all courses in between - the difference between what a pan-European project might be (1948-2008) and what the pan-European project definitely is (2009-today) is undeniable and clear.

The error in including Europe in this grouping is to make the same “mistake” that Iran made: the EU is no wanderer but is totally allied to Washington even if it costs them. It is a toxic marriage, but Iran proved that it is a marriage nonetheless.

This marriage would be impossible were Europe divided into over two dozen nations, but the European Union has been a working - if also inefficient - political reality since 2009.

Should Europe somehow abandon Washington and thus abandon the liberalism which guides its very governance and structures, this could only be done in a true revolution which ends this version of the pan-European project and sets the project a new, more progressive course. The ideology at fault here is not “pan-Europeanism” but the same old liberalism versus socialism.

Are we assuming that Europe will “realize” that socialism is the more efficient mode of governance before the US does? Why? The two are joined because they are liberal capitalist imperialists through and through.

Glazyev’s ultimate answer, essentially, is that new Global South organisations such as BRICS will practically supersede or simply ignore (as the West does) the United Nations.

“The association of countries in large international organizations such as the SCO and BRICS represents a qualitatively new model of cooperation that honors diversity in contrast to the universal forms of liberal globalization. Its core principle is firm support for universally recognized principles and norms of international law and rejection of policies of coercive pressure and infringement on the sovereignty of other states. The principles of the international order, shared by the countries of the emerging ‘core’ of the new world order, are fundamentally different from those characteristic of previous world orders shaped by Western European civilization….”

It’s good that the Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission has such high hopes. We can simply look at the UN’s inability to merely rein in Israel’s latest invasion of Gaza as proof of the UN’s structural fecklessness.

There is no doubt that the liberal West, with its centuries of stolen wages, will retain major influence, but there is also no doubt that their “World Economic Model” is crumbling in comparison to socialist-inspired nations. It’s clearer every day that this is obvious, and that liberalism will not be emulated much longer by the periphery, only imposed, orchestrated and smuggled.

China proved this economically, Russia proved this militarily and Iran has proved this spiritually - liberalism is, to put kindly, no longer an “efficient model”.

It’s an amazing time to be alive - if you’re a socialist. The real and existential chaos of non-socialists is palpable, deserved and entirely avoidable.

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Why Biden Doesn’t Want Americans to Visit Russia

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John Varoli
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Why Biden Doesn't Want Americans to Visit Russia

Western perceptions of Russia are based on propaganda wrapped in lies, inside mounds of disinformation. So, what's the real Russia like? I went there to find out. The results were shocking.

The Holy Trinity Lavra in Sergiev Posad

My lead above is obviously a play on Winston Churchill’s famous quip in 1939 about Russia being "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

In their effort to support the liberal globalist war machine, major western media unabashedly fabricate their coverage of Russia, a country that they hate because of its defense of national sovereignty and traditional values.

This disinformation is so total and omnipresent that even the most educated and astute minds in the West can fall under its influence. The U.S. has few credible independent media and expert sources, and most Americans don’t have the time and skills to do their own research.

Even I had my doubts — just before departing New York last month, I almost cancelled my trip because I was bombarded with messages from people who tried to convince me that “Putin will abduct” me and use me as “a pawn to exchange” for Russians held in U.S. prisons. I began to wonder — “Maybe they’re right.”

With some apprehension, I boarded the plane and within a day I found myself on the Russian border. This was my first visit in five years. Instead of the lies and disinformation mentioned above, my trip revealed a country with a vibrant civil society where people enjoy far more freedom, economic opportunity and social protections than we do in the West.

The Winter Palace on Palace Square, St Petersburg

Developing in the right direction

I spent two weeks traveling to five regions — the Leningrad Region, Saint Petersburg, the Novgorod Region, the Moscow Region, and Moscow. I saw life in both provincial towns and big cities, and talked freely to a wide range of people. I traveled on my own schedule, living in local neighborhoods not in hotels.

Even though I visited in March, when the weather is gray and Russians still struggle with winter doldrums, I found the people to be of tremendous heart, goodwill, respect and kindness. I almost felt like I was back in the USA that we had 30 years ago.

The violence, arrogance, rapacity and anger that marked life in Russia when I lived there in 1992 to 2012 seemed to have dissipated significantly. What had happened in the past 12 years to make such a difference….especially when in this same period the U.S. has been on a downward spiral of violence, strife, hatred and collective insanity?


Visiting the tomb of St. Sergius in the Holy Trinity Lavra

Packed houses of worship

Orthodox churches are packed. Unlike the U.S. and Europe that are building ‘progressive’ societies based on secular totalitarian ideology, I saw Russians exhibit sincere devout religious sentiment, visiting houses of worship even during weekdays, and, in general, adhering to a moral code as they went about their daily lives.

Even in Moscow and St. Petersburg the churches were packed, which was very unexpected. Urban dwellers across the globe often have little room for religious faith in their lives. But that’s not the case in Russia. Moscow lives up to its moniker as the “Third Rome”, Christianity’s central city.

With some friends, I visited the tomb of St Sergius at the Holy Trinity Lavra in the Moscow Region. The line of the faithful stretched long to approach the saint’s tomb and leave a prayer request. In the fight with the West, Russia’s monasteries are the country’s ‘secret weapons’. No contraption designed by NATO’s military industries can overcome the spiritual power of Russia’s monasteries and its faithful.

Unlike Zelensky’s Ukraine where the native Orthodox Church has been banned, priests jailed, and churches and monasteries bombed, freedom of religion flourishes in Russia. Traditional faiths are protected from the scorn, derision and persecution that they often face in the West.

No anti-American feeling

Even though I’m a citizen of a country that now sponsors terrorism and fuels a brutal war against Donbass and Crimea, Russians didn’t harbor ill feelings towards me. I had encountered far more anti-American sentiment while living in Russia in the 1990s, a time when relations were rather friendly.

St. Petersburg — Nevsky Prospekt and Griboyedov Canal

Rising living standards

The Russian economy is booming and people now live far better than before the year 2000 when Vladimir Putin became president. Unemployment hovers just above 2.5%, and inflation is under control. Interest rates, however, are in the range of 17%, which is a drag on further economic growth.

Even if we put aside the technological and industrial advances of the past two decades that have improved life for most people across the globe, there are specific policy decisions by Putin’s government that have improved the quality of life.

These include his vigorous efforts to improve law-enforcement, restore public safety, as well as smash organized crime and the stranglehold that liberal oligarchs once had over Russia’s economy. Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, the oligarchs siphoned off hundreds of billions of dollars in national wealth, mostly from the sale of natural resources, and then stashed the cash abroad.

To this day, I can personally name Russian gangsters, fugitives from justice in Moscow, who have found a warm welcome in the U.S. This is why some oligarchs in exile can’t forgive Putin and continue to finance so-called ‘opposition figures’ such as the deceased U.S. asset Alexei Navalny.

By ‘rising living standards’ I don’t merely mean material well-being. There are also non-tangibles to consider, such as living in a country where the government protects and supports national cultures, traditional values and sovereignty. This is certainly a major factor contributing to the optimism that I sensed in the air.

Finally, the food — the food is fantastic. Natural. Delicious. Fresh. I surmise this is the result of strict state regulation over the food supply and the quality of ingredients and means of preparation — Something that’s nearly absent in the U.S.

With students in St. Petersburg

Vibrant and open discussions

Everyone I spoke to, from the average person in the street to those who I met at events, exhibited an exceptional intellectual curiosity and ability. People were open-minded, eager to discuss and debate. They exhibited a high level of knowledge about their country and the world.

For the most part, the vast majority of Russians sincerely support President Putin, as recent elections prove. There are two main reasons for his massive popularity — he stopped Russia’s disintegration in the 1990s, and his policies have made the country a much better place to live.

Also, I attended a few talk shows on state-run TV where we discussed geopolitics. I was surprised that the TV host always presented the U.S. version of events, even showing western media coverage so that the audience would clearly understand both sides of the issue, and not just the Russian point of view.

Then several of us would go on to discuss, debate and analyze the issue at hand. Never once did anyone try to prep me, control me, prod me or push me to say certain things. In fact, a few of the talk shows were live on air — which goes to show just how much freedom the Russian media allows.

 

“Do Not Travel” to Russia?

This could be the finest portrait of Joe Biden (left), capturing the essence of his soul — an evil man who has brought misery and suffering to so many. I suspect that such a portrait is hidden somewhere in a White House attic, something right out of Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The White House is afraid of Americans traveling to Russia. Why? Because they don’t want us to know the truth about how Putin has succeeded in making Russia stronger and more prosperous, how he protects the national culture and its traditions — All things that most Americans would love to see their own government do.

That’s why the State Department has labeled Russia as “a level 4 risk — DO NOT TRAVEL.” John Kirby, the White House’s national security communications adviser, has said that “If you’re a U.S. citizen, including a dual national, residing in or traveling in Russia, you ought to leave right now. Depart immediately.”

For my part, I can’t wait to return to Russia. And many Americans agree with me. Russia has become a destination for American dissidents and refugees, with a private effort afoot to build two ‘American villages’ outside of Moscow.

Soviet heroes

Crocus and Russia’s historic mission

My trip to Russia was marred on my last day with news of the heinous terrorist attack in Moscow. Investigators have pretty much proven that Ukraine’s secret services were behind the Crocus City massacre and that the West most likely assisted. Earlier this year, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland had threatened Russia with “nasty surprises”, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Miley threatened “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night.”

At the very least, the U.S. and all of NATO bear responsibility for the attacks because over the past two years they’ve incited hatred of Russians through disinformation, as well as by arming the regime in Kiev, and because the CIA actively trains the Ukrainian secret police in committing terrorist attacks and other crimes.

The Crocus City terror attack is a turning point. It’s the nail in the Kiev regime’s coffin, and possibly that of NATO. The attack has only strengthened Russian resolve. Just in the past week, the Russian Air Force has knocked out much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and a hunt is underway for agents of its secret services responsible for a multitude of terrorist attacks.

More than ever, Russians understand very well that they’re fighting for their survival, against a formidable coalition of some 50 hostile nations that’s come to their doorstep to continue where Napoleon and Hitler failed. In many ways, we could even classify the liberal globalist onslaught as the ‘spiritual heir’ to the Nazi death cult.

Recent events show clearly that we’ve left the realm of mere geopolitical rivalry between East and West. This is now another epic war against evil. And the past 210 years show conclusively that Russia always emerges triumphant.

ABOUT JOHN VAROLI 
Former foreign correspondent for New York Times, Bloomberg and Reuters TV. Trained as a U.S. foreign policy expert with a focus on Russia and Ukraine.

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Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

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Things That Have Been Discredited During The Destruction Of Gaza

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Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST

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Things That Have Been Discredited During The Destruction Of Gaza

RFK Jr lost substantial support on account of his stubborn pro-Israel apologetics.

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

List of things that have been discredited during the destruction of Gaza:

• Israel

• the “rules-based international order”

• liberals

• the label “antisemitism”

• the mainstream media

• Joe Biden

• the “two-state solution” myth

• Bernie Sanders

• Robert F Kennedy Jr

• the label “terrorist”

• the “human shields” lie

• the ADL

• AIPAC

• the US war machine

• right wing “free speech” supporters

• the Democratic Party

• the Republican Party

• Zionism

• all western governments

• all of western civilization

• everything westerners believe about their society

•

The US vetoed multiple UN ceasefire resolutions, then put forward a fake “ceasefire” resolution that didn’t actually demand a ceasefire and accused Russia and China of “sabotaging” peace when they vetoed it, then an actual ceasefire resolution was passed which the US abstained from voting on rather than vetoing in order to save face over its Russia/China moralizing, and then the US declared (100% falsely) that the UN ceasefire resolution which passed is “non-binding”.

•

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to support and defend Biden and just endorsed virulent Israel supporter Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker, even after accusing Israel of genocide in a House floor speech. 

If you say this is a genocide and then you support the people who are backing this genocide, it means either (A) you’re fine with genocide or (B) you only called it a genocide to score progressive political points and don’t actually believe what you said.

Biden supporters keep trying to spin his genocidal actions as some kind of aberration in his otherwise lovely behavior due to highly unusual circumstances, as though he hasn’t been a bloodthirsty warmonger AND an extreme pro-Israel hawk his entire fucking political career.

•

Don’t babble at me about how bad and wrong it is for Palestinians to use violence unless you can offer me a coherent plan for what they should do instead.

Civil disobedience won’t work because Zionists have no conscience and don’t care about Palestinian death and suffering.

The doors to a two-state solution with a real Palestinian state are slammed shut by Israel’s political landscape and are being further bolted down by continually expanding settlements deliberately designed to prevent such a solution from ever emerging.

A one-state solution where everyone has equal rights and no ethnicity gets preferential treatment is an even more remote pipe dream which not even Israel’s western allies support.

So what can the Palestinians do? It doesn’t look like anyone who opposes armed resistance has any good answers. Really what they want is for Palestinians to just lie down and submit to whatever abuses Israel wants to inflict upon them and just slowly fade into obscurity and become a forgotten people, but they can’t say that aloud without sounding like psychopaths so they just finger-wag at Hamas without ever offering any legitimate solutions.

Palestinians have been forced against their will into an impossibly horrible situation, and they sometimes use violence out of desperation because all the other doors are closed to them. If you want me to “condemn” them for this you can kiss my ass, especially since you can’t even tell me what they should do instead.

•

The overwhelming majority of westerners spend roughly zero percent of their day thinking about Jews and Judaism, but because Israel stands accused of genocide people are being gaslighted into believing our society is overflowing with a widespread seething hatred of Jewish people.

•

All popular online posts about Israeli atrocities will have numerous comments underneath claiming that it didn’t happen, or that it was justified, or that it was good actually, or that it should be blamed on Hamas. Every single one, without a single solitary exception. No matter how strong the evidence is. No matter how horrific the atrocity. 

This shows you that Israel apologists don’t care about truth or morality, and it shows you that they never have. All throughout Israel’s history they’ve been lying and manipulating the public narrative about what the Israeli state has been doing this entire time. That’s why they push so hard to get people de-platformed and censored and to get TikTok shut down: all they care about is controlling the public narrative, so they want to silence anyone who makes that harder for them.

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Nationalism, Religion and Sports Have Captivated the Working Class. Why Hasn’t Socialism?

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BY BRUCE LERRO
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Viewpoints

WWI: British soldiers standing knee-deep in water in a trench, Serre, Somme, 1916. Lenin had asked the workers not to fight in this war, and instead aim their weapons at their overlords. Unfortunately, the nationalist instinct—a form of tribalism—proved stronger than internationalism. The industrial way of war proved devastating. By the end of 1914, after just five months of fighting, the number of dead and wounded exceeded four million men.

In the closing section of my course Brainwashing Propaganda and Rhetoric: Dark Psychology in the 20th Century, I ask my students to compare organized religion, nationalism and sports, not only to determine the kind of propaganda they are (black, gray or white), but also the devices and artifacts that are used. This includes the use of architecture, statues, rites of passage, liturgy, sacred music, pilgrimages, holy days, use of visual symbols, language manipulation and techniques for altering states of consciousness. The world religions have used these processes for at least 3,500 years to exploit, control and distract people from their misery on earth and direct us instead to variations of ‘you’ll get pie in sky when you die’.

The history of nationalism over the last 400-500 years has closely followed the techniques of organized religion. In fact, I think it is fair to say that nationalism is more powerful than moderate and liberal religion in motivating people. I doubt whether most people of liberal or moderate religion in the West would sacrifice their life for their religion. But at least among the working class who sign up for the military, nationalism can motivate people to fight and die to kill strangers in other countries who share the same social class.

Sports, as opposed to religion or nationalism, is a more joyous escape from the difficulties of life. If I were a betting person, I would bet most Americans might go to the barricades if the AFC and NFC championships were not televised. A championship playoff game such as the World Series could certainly outdraw any religious or patriotic ceremony in TV ratings. And what is the result? Who wins the game ultimately has little effect on the lives of the fans. Yet they continue to watch. This is some mighty potion going’ on. Do the socialists understand it? Do we use similar techniques to win the working classes to socialism? Not on your life!

Qualification

I am certainly not claiming that religion or nationalism has the same hold on people in the 21st century that they did in the 20thcentury. At least in the western countries, there has been a steady decline of interest in religion. Nationalism certainly does not have the grip on Europe that it did in the 19th and 20thcenturies. Still, in spite of this decline both carry enormous power.

I   Socialists’ Failures to Come to Grips With Enchantment

It’s not enough for socialists to simply claim that religion, nationalism and sports are examples of “false consciousness” for the working class.

I would think that socialists, being social, would be hip to what is going on with these propaganda techniques. Sure, you may find cultural critics beginning with the Frankfurt School who will bemoan the lack of taste among the masses and state how all religion, nationalism and sports produce false consciousness. But this is a very mechanical and unnecessarily bleak understanding of the potential of the techniques used in these areas to light a fire under the working class. We must not only point out the manipulative nature of enchantment, but we need to be dialectical and ask how we could use these techniques to promote socialism. After all, the construction of a sacred space (whether a church or a ballpark), a dramatized story, ritualized gestures, and the use of music and the arts to alter consciousness is not just naïve superstition. It is part of our bio-evolutionary heritage to be interested in these things. The alternative to the alienated enchantment of sports, religion and nationalism is not de-enchantment, as so many dry-as-dust socialists seem to think. We must build a “this-worldly” pagan enchantment that is a foundation for socialism.

Socialists’ failures against nationalism and religion

Three examples should give you the picture. The first is the famous one of socialists before World War I. The socialist parties in Europe and, to a lesser extent in the United States, were very confident that the workers of the world would unite to oppose the war. After all, the workers understood that they had no fatherland, right? Wrong. Not only did working class people kill each other after being whipped up to mass hysteria, but most of the socialist ministers, some of them great intellectuals like Kautsky, Plekhanov and Kropotkin got emotionally caught up in defending the fatherland. Socialism as a political movement of internationalism was no match for nationalism.

The failure of fraternity brings massive horrors to humanity

The second example is of Germany in 1933. During the depression in that country, the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) was the strongest socialist party in the whole world. Economic conditions were bad. Great time for a revolution, right? What did the socialists do? According to the mass psychologist Wilhelm Reich, they simply fed the masses boring statistics about their condition. However, the Nazis understood that there is a charismatic side to people, a side that likes mythology, drama, pomp and circumstance, doomsday scenarios, scapegoats, black and white answers and promises of redemption. Goebbels and the Nazi brass understood mass psychology while the socialists were buried in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

My last example is about the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is one of the most horrendous institutions in the West in the last 800 years. Its officials committed every one of the “seven deadly sins” time after time as they tortured heretics and witches. They’ve made deals with royalists and military dictatorships and they have made peace with capitalists long ago. The Catholic Church has a record of child abuse that spans centuries. Yet many U.S., Italian, Spanish, French and all the other people in Catholic countries continue to attend mass and support the Church financially. At the same time, the socialist parties that actually do want to create heaven on earth with workers could not ever get masses of people to come to meetings once a week. People are too busy for that. But they are not too busy for church. How can this be?

The issue here is not that the working-class is stupid or that they are victims of false consciousness. Rather, I believe the issue to be:

+ The Church must be doing many things right to continue to collect their revenues and get people to attend in spite of being seen as the world’s first international terrorist organization.

+ Do the socialists understand this mass psychology? No, they do not.

+ Do the socialists think that the techniques of religion, nationalism and sports could be used to mobilize people for socialism? Ah, what?

Marx did not understand religion and nationalism

Marx said some very riveting things about religion. Among other things he saw the construction of “god” as an alienation of human creativity. But at the same time he believed that religion would wither away under communism as people’s material conditions got better. Clearly this has not been the case. Neither was Marx very dialectical about how religion could be used by socialists. With the exception of liberation theology, socialists have not understood how to transform all the ingredients that go into “cooking” a religious experience and mythologize a socialist story complete with music, ritual, mythology and patron saints. The closest instance of socialists doing something like this is May Day in southern European countries. It used to be that people made costumes for May Day and gathered together while wearing those costumes, sharing food and singing The International. All these things gave it some of the sweep and drama of religion.

The extent to which the Communist Party tried to outlaw religion is revealing in how little they understood it. All this did was to make it more attractive by burying it underground. Socialists also did not understand that nationalism would not disappear under socialism. During World War II Stalin needed to refer to the “Great Russian Fatherland” (hardly a call to socialist internationalism) in order to inspire and join people together through hardship.

Neither did socialists understand that race cannot be reduced to social class.

Again, Marxists’ general approach is that race will only preoccupy people when capitalists use race to keep people from uniting as a class. But once workers gain class consciousness, the issue of skin color will dissolve in people minds. This has not been born out in experience. In addition, because of Marxists’ cynical attitude towards evolutionary psychology they have yet to make current in their theory the fact that ethnocentrism goes all the way back to hunter-gatherers. While ethnocentrism and racism are not the same thing, ethnocentrism is present enough to see that the skin color of people does matter around the world and that this was present long before capitalism existed.

Marxists cannot explain how sports have charmed the working class

A number of years ago, Noam Chomsky commented on how amazed he was by the intelligence of working class people when they called into a sports talk program the Monday after Sunday’s NFL games. Their analysis of what plays didn’t work, what plays could have worked along with the strengths and weaknesses of the players was astounding. But then he pointed out how all this intelligence goes away when the same people are then asked to make a political analysis of the current events in their lives – working conditions, wages, war. The working class is mute when asked to explain how and why capitalism is failing. The question is not why working class people have cognitive compartmentalization, separating sporting events from their everyday life. The question is what does sports offer people that makes them so involved? Have socialists asked themselves what would have to happen to make working class people be carried away by socialism the way they are by sports?

As many of you know, a number of years ago the Seattle Seahawks played the New England Patriots in the Superbowl. The Seahawks were losing but had a great drive going at the end of the game. With about 90 seconds left and the ball on the New England one-yard line, the Seahawks quarterback decided to pass the ball rather than hand it off to Marshawn Lynch who had a great game. The pass was intercepted. I knew the next day in my brainwashing class, this was what they wanted to talk about. It wouldn’t have mattered if the stock market crashed. Why is this? Unless students were betting on the game, they had no material stake in the outcome. Still – most of the men in the class were very involved.

II  Bad Taste: A Communist is Swept Away By Baseball

Flashbulb memories of my performance as a baseball player

When I was about 7 years old I used to play a ‘let’s pretend’ game. I laid out 4 rags I’d gotten from the garage and placed them in a diamond form which represented the bases. The bases were about 45 feet apart. Then I looked at our house and took my batting stand and let my imagination take over. The scene is no doubt familiar to many of you. It is the last of the 9th inning, we are losing by three runs. The bases are loaded and there are two outs. Then I swing and hit the ball – tsssssch! “ As Mel Allen was saying in my head “there is a high fly ball deep to right center. The centerfielder is at the track. It is going, going, gone”. Then I would trot around the bases. As I got older I played a great deal of hardball and I hit home runs, but never quite experienced the situation I imagined when I was seven until my last year of playing.

In 1968 our team from Brooklyn got into a playoff game at Victory Field which was one of the fanciest fields around. My girlfriend Rose Nuccio let it be known to me that this was the last time she was coming to my games. Sunday was her only day to sleep in. “Besides” she said, “you are 0-8” (referring to my performance in the last two games.) She brought her sister Miriam along with her for this game. In the top of the first inning I am up with two guys on base and two outs. The left-handed pitcher, Rick Honeycutt, throws me a high inside curve ball.

“Tshrush”! I tomahawk the pitch and the ball really does head for the right centerfield fence just like in my fantasy 13 years ago. As I watch the ball head for the fence time and space seem to contract. It’s as if I were in my backyard 13 years ago. The ball lands on the tennis courts on the other side of the fence scattering everyone. I am so out of it that as I make my rounds of the bases I miss first base. The coach has to get me to touch the base. As I round second I see Rosie and Miriam jumping up and down screaming like two young Italian gals will. The look on Rosie’s face as our eyes met was like a melting ray of sunlight that united our eyes. I missed third base too. Finally as I headed for home most everyone on our team came out to home plate to meet me. It was as if we won the World Series. I disappear in a mass of teammates at the plate.

I have told this story in my psychology classes as an example of a peak experience. I also use it in my brainwashing class to show how powerful sports can be in moving people. Virtually every time I tell the story I cannot help but become teary. I’ve seen students cry even though they know nothing about sports. Unless socialists can find a way to create this kind of drama, not occasionally but as part of a regular seasonal sequence, we will continue to be marginalized.

The lure of professional baseball: the return of the hero Ken Griffey Jr. to Seattle

My last example is about a baseball player many of you know. Ken Griffey Jr. was a great home run hitter for the Seattle Mariners for about 10 years. For whatever reasons, I believe he asked to be traded to Cincinnati, where he played for about another seven years. Probably because he was a left-handed hitting center fielder like I was, and because of his grace I liked him and followed his career. Then I heard he was traded back to the American League, to the White Sox. The following year he was traded back to Seattle. How would the fans feel? Would they hold a grudge because he left? I knew they wouldn’t. I wanted to see the homecoming so I watched the game when he came back to Seattle. The fans made signs and were screaming for him. They must have given him a 5-10 minute standing ovation. Tears streamed down my face. I wasn’t even a Seattle fan! What was going on was not a baseball game. It was the return of a god to his home ground.

Movie stars, musicians and sports figures are our gods and goddesses. These celebrities have happily replaced priests and military generals as our heroes. Like gods and goddesses, they enter into sports mythology complete with the stories of great World Series, great stories of betrayal (by playing for another team) drug scandals and homecomings. The people of Seattle understood that when they came to this game they were participating in the final days of a great sports god, and this mattered more than who won this particular game. If socialists cannot figure out that this is what is going on with sports fans and, even more importantly, how to use this energy for our purposes, we will continue to be marginalized.

III Socialist enchantment needs to happen before the revolution

Socialism has certainly had its events that could be claimed as peak experiences or even religious experiences. Anyone who had participated in a revolution knows these moments are euphoric and unforgettable. Anyone who participated in the Occupy Movement will not soon forget it. And those centrists fools who think that Occupy “is over” will be in for a rude awakening as their spastic, decaying capitalist system will continue to undergo more nervous breakdowns. These breakdowns will only produce more “Occupies”.

Socialists understand enchantment during and after revolutions, but before the revolution too many socialists are disenchanted crab apples. In part, this is because of a sad lack of yearly seasonal rituals that keep the fires burning between one revolutionary generation and the next.

In Part Two we’ll explore in more detail what this might look like.

Read more of his articles and get involved at Planning Beyond Capitalism He can be reached at goethe48@pacbell.net

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Convenient Ideologies

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Mao was wise (and flexible) enough to implement the requisite changes. But capitalism has a fundamental ideological investment in the cult of economic freedom and competition, even in the age of multinational monopoly.

Entire ideologies have been developed and proliferated because they were temporarily advantageous to the economic and political interests of the ruling elite.  But as material conditions change, so too do the interests of the ruling elite and consequently their narratives must change as well, in order to better serve their new interests.

For a while, the narrative that "free trade is an eternal good", was beneficial to the interests of Western elites.  So for generations people have been indoctrinated to support and embrace "free trade" policies.  Since "free Trade" benefits those that are most prepared to win market competition, the imposition of "free Trade" policies in the colonies and throughout the developing world, was beneficial to the British empire.  This was particularly true throughout the years prior to WWII even though at the same time, Britain was nurturing and developing their domestic industries with subsidies and tariffs.

The gospel of "Free Trade" was also beneficial to US elites who inherited the British empire after WWII.  When the US accounted for half the global economy and only 5% of global population, "free trade" was an ideology that the US elites were keen to proliferate because by doing so, they ensured that their own industries (by now fully matured after being protected and nurtured by tariffs and subsidies) would be the greatest beneficiaries of market competition. So, the extent to which free trade policies were forced on the developing world, was the extent to which the Western elites benefitted from "market competition".

Additionally, Western elites set up institutes and other "educational" networks to train the leaders and future leaders of the developing world.  These "leaders" would be well compensated for demanding that their respective countries adopt exploitative "free trade" policies that were detrimental to their people but beneficial to themselves (in the form of kick backs etc.) and especially beneficial to Western oligarchs.

Unfortunately for Western elites, material conditions have changed.  China today is the most efficient producer of goods in the world and its greatest economic and industrial power.  The ideology of "free trade" and "market competition" no longer serves the interests of the Western elite.  Now Western elites must preach a new ideology which will better serve their interests and abandon the previous one, since they are no longer in a position to be the winner of market competition.

"While proletarian dictatorship develops policies and propaganda based on the best interest of the entirety of the working class, the bourgeoisie dictatorships decide policy and propaganda based on what is in the best interests of the wealthy elites..."

So while the ruling capitalist class was in a position to best harness competition and to harvest the fruits of "free trade" they were keen to platform the most ardent preachers of this gospel. Indeed, this gospel was so successfully evangelized, that large swaths of the population are today incapable of questioning their own certainty in the purportedly eternal truths of "free market" propaganda.

So the Western ruling elite have this eternal conundrum where their temporarily advantageous ideology which they proliferated and shoved down everyone's throat, must now shift a bit because it is no longer useful.  This is not a new phenomenon.  This phenomenon is as eternal and timeless as the existence of powerful elites that have interests that change over time, in accordance with changing material conditions.

In fact, a very similar phenomenon recently happened in China.  Not long ago, the CPC proliferated the ideology of self-sufficiency and opposition to private ownership, due to the Sino-Soviet split and the Western Trade embargo.  Mao was forced to embrace a policy of self-sufficiency out of necessity and this policy was sold to the public through the organs of state propaganda.  Once Mao's lobbying successfully ended the Western Trade embargo, a shift was necessary in order to take advantage of the newly available economic opportunities.  Some didn't understand this shift as they had fully embraced the propaganda of "self sufficiency".  Many had become true believers in the expedient propaganda that was temporarily useful due to the existing material conditions.  Once these conditions changed however, some of the true believers were unable to rationally recognize that it was in the best interest of everyone to embrace new policies and to update their ideology in order to better align with the changing material conditions.  These folks fought against the ideological change and economic re-orientation even though the new orientation was obviously in the people's best interest. Thankfully, pragmatism won out and irrational dogma was rejected by the majority and China was able to successfully overcome these obstacles.

Currently the West is facing a similar transformation.  Many are beholden to the temporary and expedient propaganda of yesteryear that was propagated in order to take full advantage of the material conditions that existed then.  Now, the ruling elite are attempting to develop a new narrative and a new dogma that they can propagate and shove down everyone's throat, in order to best deal with the emerging material conditions.

Just like the true believers in China that took to heart the ideology of "self sufficiency", in the US, there are those that have taken to heart the dogmatic gospel of "free trade" and they are struggling to come to terms with the fact that their deeply held beliefs regarding the "eternal way of the universe" (lol), was nothing more than a temporary and cynical propaganda campaign designed to maximize the wealth and power of the ruling elites.  Imagine the confusion of these poor folks as the ruling elites begin to abandon their old dogmas and embrace new ones in response to the changing material conditions and their own appraisal of how to best pursue their class interest.


A few points need to be made clear in order to not further confuse the already ideologically confused.  I do not equate the working class dictatorship of China with the Capitalist class dictatorship of the West.  While I understand that both the proletarian and bourgeois dictatorships respectively must deal with similar issues and must engage in ideological propaganda, censorship, and repression of their class enemies, etc., I understand that this is the inevitable result of capitalism and the class struggle that naturally follows capital's division of society between owners and workers.
 
I understand that capitalism results in class competition to control the means of political power (the state).  Again, it needs to be made clear that the difference between these two forms of government are absolutely existential and all important.

While proletarian dictatorship develops policies and propaganda based on the best interest of the entirety of the working class, the bourgeois dictatorships decide policy and propaganda based on what is in the best interests of the wealthy elites.  In other words, proletarian dictatorship is democratic and wants to further the interests of the masses while the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is anti-democratic and is solely concerned with maintaining the power and privilege of the wealthy elites.  These two are not the same and one is objectively better than the other, hence the need for revolution and the replacement of the latter with the former.  Again, these are the inescapable and natural results of capitalism.

Capitalism of course was a necessary and tremendous improvement over feudalism but it contained within itself the contradictions that only socialism can solve. This struggle still continues as the capitalists resist progress as progress for the masses necessarily represents a decrease in their own wealth, power, and privilege.  But socialism's victory over capitalism is as inevitable as capitalism's victory over feudalism."

Here's Ben Norton with the commentary that stimulated the above diatribe:


"Economist Joan Robinson demolished "free trade" dogma back in this 1979 book, showing how it was preached by the British empire only when it was in its economic interest, and contributed to underdevelopment of the periphery.

The US is doing exactly the same today, with its return to protectionism and trade war on China.
Free trade "doctrine suits the interests of whichever nation is in the strongest competitive position in world markets".

Her argument recalls the observation by Friedrich List in the 19th century that wealthy countries hypocritically "kick away the ladder", so poorer nations cannot follow the path to economic development that they did (a concept popularized by economist Ha-Joon Chang).

Robinson explained:

"The imposition of free trade on Portugal killed off a promising textile industry and left her with a slow-growing export market for wine, while for England, exports of cotton cloth led to accumulation, mechanization and the whole spiraling growth of the industrial revolution".
"Under the British Empire, the imposition of free trade made it possible for the Lancashire cotton industry first to ruin hand-loom production in what is now the Third World".


"In the post-war period, American influence was exercised, directly and through various international agencies, in favor of free trade, but since Japan became the strongest industrial competitor, faith in the doctrine has begun to weaken in the United States". (The same is happening today, as China has risen up the value chain and can now compete with US technology monopolies.)"
 
 
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