Libertarianism: What's In A Name?

[Globalfightback]

We live in a world where, increasingly, the meaning of words is a confusing flux. The confusion, one might argue, is deliberate: doublespeak, if you like, to use a word coined by the brilliant George Orwell in his novel 1984. The more confusion, the less people can be sure of what they are being told and, therefore, the less able they are to objectively evaluate it.

Libertarianism, as this Wikipedia article explains, originated as a left-field anti-capitalist ideology, but in more recent years it has been hi-jacked by the right: thus, the term becomes a large extent meaningless without venturing into the complex semantics of the various forms of definition; and thus, one might argue, it becomes easier to fool people of a left-field persuasion that the right-wing libertarians, or libertarian capitalists, are actually on their side, when in fact the opposite is true.

The article linked below is, I believe, of massive importance to all left-field activists, and well worth the read. This is what left-wing progressives are up against. The Sovereign Individual: it has a nice ring to it. Who would not want greater personal freedom to live the life that they want, free from the fettles of some faceless interfering State? But wait - Whilst the right bleat on about Agenda 21 and increased attacks on personal liberty, the right-wing libertarians have been mapping out the future for decades. You might consider that the article paints a bleak scenario: one where the rich elite get richer: free from democratic law, free from scrutiny, free from accountability, free from taxation and the resultant contribution to the wider pool of humanity; and the rest of us..... well, we lose our personal freedoms! In fact it's happening right now right in front of us: just look at the stage-plays currently acting out in the US and the UK in the context of this article and it may help to explain the extraordinary attempts to subvert democracy in the one and the unflinching passion for Brexit in the latter.

What if Agenda 21 is a masterful smokescreen of doublespeak, whilst all along it is the right who are seeking to erode the liberty of the masses for the benefit of a small elite? What do you think?

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2020/12/1 ... and-beyond

[Globalfightback]

This powerful article paints a stark picture of the outgoing #POTUS. It's also a harrowing insight into utterly unashamed selfishness, which drives many of the people our screwed-up value systems elevate into some sort of ghoulish 'elite' that makes a mockery of any noble vision of humanity some of us might aspire to. Taken along with the insights of the Alistair Campbell article linked in the top post it paints a stark picture of an approaching dystopia. The light on the horizon is that, as with Cohn, Trump is finally running out of road, but people like this leave an immense amount of collateral damage in their wake.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... ary-228144

[DownUnder]

So, Trump, eh?. He's back again! Who'd have thought the US electorate would be dumb/unprincipled enough to vote in a charlatan and now concicted felon for a second term!

[Mithrandir777]

So, Trump, eh?. He's back again! Who'd have thought the US electorate would be dumb/unprincipled enough to vote in a charlatan and now concicted felon for a second term!

Absolutely. It paints a pretty grim picture of the gullibility and/or self-interest of the US electorate, but it's bang on par for the sorry story of humanity as a whole, through the entirety of recorded history.

[Globalfightback]

Yes, what's happening over in the US and Gaza right now beggars belief. I'll have more to say about this in the near future.

[Globalfightback]

Just a few quick thoughts on Trump's success for the time being, I think there will be a lot more to be said on this in the coming months and years.

On the face of it, it's a disaster for democracy and a big win for neoliberal fascism. In addition to the US, much of Western Europe and beyond seems to be slipping towards a very dangerous fascist autocracy, that threatens all that democracy stands for head-on. History tells us that this is all going to implode spectacularly within a few years as the People push back and the almost inevitable in-fighting further erodes their structures; either that, or we're headed for an endgame of zero sovereignty for most individuals, i.e. enslavement. This could have massive implications on free speech, including all social media platforms and even this Board. As an example, it is already impossible to use certain Search terms on Facebook, including 'Trump' on many pages including the Global Fightback FB page; and yet this still works on other pages, this suggests some covert policing/censorship by Meta. In the longer term I think that these platforms are going to become increasingly unviable for left-field activism and that there is a need to find alternative, non-corporate platforms (such as this Board!). Without a usable Search tool, Facebook becomes even less viable as a platform for ongoing debate as opposed to kiss-me-quick superficiality. I wanted to paste here a post on Trump I made on the FB page shortly after his Election victory, and the only way I could get to it was a laborious scroll down the Timeline. To access something posted a year or two back would have taken an eternity! Anyway, I eventually found it:

TRUMP: A GREAT DAY FOR DEMOCKRACY
There are few countries around the world where a genuine, truly representative and untrammelled democracy exists. The United States is certainly not one of them. It long ago became a whipping boy of capitalist greed and corporate cronyism. In recent years, as progressives have sought a fairer, more inclusive, world for all, the right have pushed back and upped the ante, careering ever closer to the fascism that has ever been a component seed in a festering abscess of their egotistical hate of non-compliance. For their vision of freedom is not, ironically, a vision of the sovereign individual, but rather a freedom from ethics, empathy and accountability.

Trump's victory in the US Presidential Election has been a victory for divisive lies, doublespeak, and unintelligent rhetoric. That the US electorate were seduced by such a cocktail merely underlines the inebriated, semi comatose stupor that decades-long corporate brainwash has instilled upon blind trust and unquestioning gullibility: it's a strategy that has seduced the masses and kept them underfoot for most of recorded history, in every corner of the world.

The one good that might come of Trump's promised America First isolationism is a reduced military presence around a planet that the US has long interfered in and destabilised. If his accompanying tariff war pushes the worn cogs of capitalist excess into its final self-devouring death throes that would be, in the long term, a very welcome bonus. No balanced mind would pretend that what emerges from the ashes will be nice. It will merely be an opportunity to reset, and build new alliances that are hopefully built on all-inclusive respect. There is of course an alternative scenario: one better left unimagined, for it is the stuff of nightmares, and a place that only the heartiest evangelical would envisage as a twisted paradise.

See also: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/no-honeymoon-for-trumpism

Note: 'Demockracy' is not a typo, and using this as a hashtag on FB should reveal more posts about this - assuming it still works!!

With reference to Gaza: it's outrageous. It's hard to believe that Trump truly thinks the US can annex Gaza and simply evict it's present inhabitants, even with the help of his Israeli enablers, and then there's similar talk regarding Greenland and even Canada! Is this all hype and bluff?? If not, it's capitalist imperialism taken to the ultimate level of insanity, and will surely create cataclysmic geopolitical shifts across the entire planet, and quite possibly an escalation to global war. There's much to discuss around all this, and hopefully if we can encourage a few more passionate members to these forums some interesting debates can ensue. I will be trying to do this in the coming months; I think there might be a growing potential as more and more people get disillusioned with FB and X. Incidentally, I've recently created a profile on Bluesky, but since it follows a similar template to the earlier Twitter incarnation I feel that this has no real potential for in-depth debate. However, I've also just created an account on Substack, and this looks much more promising, and pretty left-field too, at this moment in time at least.

Notwithstanding all the above, a few positives might develop from Trump's latest Term, as referenced in my FB post pasted above (although with the proviso that I'm not sure his Term will actually go the full stretch). For example, even though his motives are almost certainly not as a peacemaker, the end of the Russia-Ukraine war would at least be one less flashpoint towards global war, at least in the short term, and if a genuine appeasement with Putin can be brought about it might be a starting point towards de-escalating things further. That 'might', of course, comes with massive provisos..... Additionally, Trump's mooted US isolationism and tariff warfare, whilst having unpredictable consequences at present, might at least provide the impetus needed for Europe, and elsewhere, to divest themselves of the heavy dependency they have had for decades now on US trade and defence systems, which has arguably encumbered wider global free trade and led to the formation of the rival BRICS bloc that could result in not just trade but military tensions escalating for the world as a whole.

The next few years are an unwritten canvas, for sure. These are very dangerous times we live in, but we have to be positive and hope that a pushback against all the negative factors of this change will make the world a safer and more inclusive habitat in the longer term.

[DownUnder]

Well as far as the UK is concerned, here's one unexpected upside:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... -choose-us