The universal pattern of authoritarian oppression
From blog.p2pfoundation.net -December 11, 2014 “Journalist Glenn Greenwald analyses here why people today seem to be so reluctant to challenge authority, or even to engage in any critical discussion about it. Excerpted from his column over at The Guardian.” Hope in the Age of Looming Authoritarianism
From www.truth-out.org - December 11, 2014 In the current historical moment, the line between fate and destiny is difficult to draw. Dominant power works relentlessly through its major cultural apparatuses to hide, mischaracterize or lampoon resistance, dissent and critically engaged social movements. This is done, in part, by sanitizing public memory and erasing critical knowledge and oppositional struggles from newspapers, radio, television, film and all those cultural institutions that engage in systemic forms of education and memory work. Historical consciousness has been transformed into uplifting narratives, box-office spectacles and lifestyle stories fit for the whitewashed world of the Disney musketeers. As Theodor W. Adorno puts it, "The murdered are [now] cheated out of the single remaining thing that our powerlessness can offer them: remembrance."[i] The relentless activity of thoughtlessness - worship of celebrity culture, a cravenly mainstream media, instrumentalism, militarism or free-roaming individualism - undermines crucial social bonds and expands the alleged virtue of believing that thinking is a burden. When Legalism Enables Lawlessness
From www.theatlantic.com - December 25, 2014 In two recent high-profile cases—the Ferguson grand jury and the Torture Report—formal remedies carefully followed the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit. In the late 1930s, Ernst Fraenkel, a German-Jewish lawyer, developed a theory that has surprising resonance today. In Fraenkel’s theory, called the Dual State, a totalitarian society is propped up by two interlocking halves: One half enshrines and enforces legal order, while the other arbitrarily exercises power free of legal constraint. The first half provides the veneer of legality necessary for the second to operate without producing overt rebellion, while the second allows the government to achieve its goals, notwithstanding a superficial commitment to legality. |
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