New World Order for Fun and Profit

The Martial Lord of Wei asked one of his ministers what had caused the destruction of a certain nation-state. The minister said, “Repeated victories in repeated wars.”

The Martial Lord said, “A nation is fortunate to win repeated victories in repeated wars. Why would that cause its destruction?”

The minister said, “Where there are repeated wars, the people are weakened; when they score repeated victories, rulers become haughty. Let haughty rulers command weakened people, and rare is the nation that will not perish as a result.”

— Masters of Huainan (ca. 200 BCE)

What Just Happened?

Although many American voters feel alarmed and disoriented by Donald Trump’s rise to power, this is nevertheless the direct, causal result of millions of Americans pretending that Democrats are an opposition party over the last 30 years.  Unfortunately, for these naive souls, the real difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans are delusional while Democrats are in denial.

At present, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats are blaming Russia for manipulating the election, which is pure propaganda. Russia probably manipulates every election.  Russia, China, and others probably do too — just like we routinely interfere with theirs.

The real issue is both more nuanced and more troubling.  In Wisconsin, for example, less than 1% of the vote separated Clinton from Trump. For comparison, in Florida after the 2000 election, a similarly narrow result triggered a recount by statute.

When one looks at what factors constitute that 1% of the vote in Wisconsin, however, the role of Russian involvement is not the decisive factor (though it may be a bit of a wildcard).  Rather, a number of pervasive influences within American society amount to a far more profound influence:

1) Systematic black disenfranchisement due to Reagan-era federal sentencing guidelines (2.2 million voters nationally)

2) Systematic disenfranchisement through Voter ID laws (coordinated among statehouses through think tanks like ALEC)

3) Closed-source electronic voting machines with proprietary code that behave anomalously but can’t be audited

4) Rampant gerrymandering

5) Campaign strategies that game the electoral college (Clinton won the 2016 popular vote, just like Gore won the 2000 popular vote against Bush)

6) Citizens United Supreme Court ruling overturning campaign finance reform, opening a floodgate of un-traceable political manipulation

7) Sporadic election fraud by officials like Kathy Nickolaus in Waukesha

Of course, Barack Obama — in blaming Russia — cannot call attention to these issues, because it undermines the validity of the very system from which he derives his power, influence, prestige, identity.

This was the same reason Al Gore couldn’t call for protests in the street after the 2000 election: he’s part of the system and therefore needs to help preserve it.  So now, instead of solutions, we get propaganda from the left in addition to the right.

What Does it Mean?

Historian Robert Paxton has analyzed historical fascist movements, and has discerned five distinct stages along the way to fascism:

1. Development of the ideology
2. Ideology takes root
3. Ideology gains power
4. Ideology exercises power
5. Open society overtaken by entropy or becomes a police state

In Paxton’s analysis, the proto-fascist disillusionment with popular democracy begins in the rural around a rhetoric of renewal. The Greek Golden Dawn party, with seats amounting to about 10% of the European parliament, holds the phoenix as the emblem of their movement.

Popular with past Greek fascist movements, the symbol of the phoenix — which rises reborn from its own ashes — resonates with Trump’s promise to “make america great again.”

After a fascist ideology takes hold, traditional conservative elite adopt the rhetoric of the rural brownshirts to stave off a resurgent progressive movement. Which is to say: Hitler used the brownshirts but did not create them, just like the Republican Tea Party took advantage of American right wing militants.

Once the traditional conservatives are able firmly to re-establish control over resurgent progressives, the brownshirts become emboldened to act on their own.  This historically has often taken the form of attacks on farmers.  It may seem appealing to suppose — given the current state of race relations in the United States and the animosity suffered between rural and urban areas — that a modern equivalent of this step may consist in right wing militants squaring off with disaffected black inner-city youth (who figure they have nothing to lose, since they’ll be dead or in jail by the time they’re 20 years old).  However, for all the problems with policing, it is unlikely that many police would sit by idly while white militants pick off black folks indiscriminately.  Moreover, rural folks are often afraid of the city, making such a scenario less likely.

While the rural folks are afraid of the city, however, they’re not afraid of Mexican migrant farmers with no rights. They’ll be the canary in the coal mine, or the sacrificial lamb, for the same reason a john beats up a hooker: she can’t take it to the cops.

Once the traditional conservative elements try to restore order in the face of quasi-sanctioned vigilantism, two general outcomes typically result: entropy, or a police state.

Since Bill Clinton put the wiretaps in place, Bush switched them on, and Obama made it legal to use them, we would seem to have a pretty comprehensive system of repression in place already.

What’s Next?

The panopticon principle makes it pretty clear that surveillance is not some passive proposition, but an active system of control. If you CAN be monitored at any time, but NEVER know exactly when, it is in your interest to behave at ALL times as though you ARE being monitored.

Foucault summarized Bentham’s insight:

“Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power…
“So… that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.”
— Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1975

The surveillance society depicted in George Orwell’s novel 1984 is built along these precise lines:

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.”

“You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

— George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

The social deviance of 1984’s protagonist Winston Smith is eventually arrested through police entrapment, not through the efficacy of the surveillance infrastructure.  Smith wanders into a forbidden part of town and rents a room from an undercover cop to use as a love nest.

In our world, these forces are already being brought to bear on the American population.  What’s needed first is a sober recognition of these realities.

Those who would organize an opposition should not do so over social media.  Use of the element of surprise is a rudimentary component of any strategy — which would-be organizers surrender without fight when organizing on a wiretap.

Those who would organize an opposition should not report their activities on social media.  The types of information gained through the elaborate system of hundreds of thousands of spies and informers utilized by the East German state is routinely handed over voluntarily today on FaceBook.  The East German state maintain control by exploiting personal information, and our system is not likely to be much different.

Cellphones are tracking devices.  Even with GPS off, they are in constant communication with cell towers.  The slight time differential between when a phone’s signal is picked up at multiple nearby towers can be used to precisely locate any such mobile device.

The walls have ears.  Cellphones speak and understand English now.  Past movements — the labor movement, the women’s movement, the civil rights movement — succeeded without social media.  An opposition movement that has any chance of success today will be no different in that regard.