With his mixture of vaulting intellectual ambition and howling
mediocrity of mind, Lenin is the MaGonagal of philosophers.
(Connoisseurs of intellectual incompetence and pretension should browse
through Lenin’s ‘Materialism and Empririo-Criticism’ for an especial
treat). Nonetheless, like Hitler, the man possessed a certain low
animal cunning and a complete absence of moral restraint, which
qualities permitted him to make a few acute psychological and
sociological observations. Amongst these is the concept of the useful
idiot.
For Lenin this was the role to be played primarily by
simpleminded bourgeois dupes who unwittingly aided the movement
towards the proletarian revolution, a revolution utterly antipathetic
to the ideals and aspiration of the simpleminded bourgeois dupes. But
the concept is of general political utility. The useful idiot is any
person who acts in a way which unwittingly promotes political interests
which are opposed to his own political ideals.
The best of all useful idiots are those in positions of the greatest
political advantage, both because they have power and their
propensity to be deluded by their egos into believing that they are
utterly beyond manipulation or mistaken in their policies. They also
display a serious want of understanding of the probable consequences of
their actions.
It was this combination of circumstances and mentality which made
Margaret Thatcher so potent a useful idiot in the liberal
internationalist cause. As I wrote that last sentence, I saw rising up
before me the opposing hordes of her admirers and haters, singularly
united in a ghastly embrace of disbelief. Was she not the Iron Lady,
the Hammer of the Left, the destroyer of union power, the slayer of the
socialist dragon? Did she not speak of turning back the tide of
immigrants? Was she not the rock from which the European Leviathan
rebounded? Did she not ensure that Britain was respected in the world
as she had not been since Suez? Was she not a mover and shaker in
the nationalist cause?
In her own rhetorical world Mrs T was all of these things, a
veritable Gloriana who enchanted some and banally persuaded many more,
but in practical achievement she was none of them. This discrepancy
between fact and fancy made her an extraordinarily potent tool for the
soldiers of the ascendant ideology of the post-war period, the sordid
bigotry that is liberal internationalism.
The hard truth is that she allowed the primary British political
corruptions of the post war period – immigration, multiculturalism,
“progressive” education, the social work circus, internationalism, the
attachment to Europe – to not merely continue but grow vastly in scope
during her period in power.
A harsh judgement? Well, at the end of her premiership what did
Britain have to show for her vaunted patriotism, her wish to maintain
Britain’s independence, her desire to drive back the state, her promise
to end mass immigration? Precious little is the answer.
Her enthusiastic promotion of the Single European Act, which she
ruthlessly drove through Parliament, allowed the Eurofederalists to
greatly advance their cause under the guise of acting to produce a
single market; her “triumph” in reducing our subsidy to Europe left us
paying several billion a year to our European competitors whilst
France paid next to nothing; our fishermen were sold down the river;
farmers placed in the absurd position of not being allowed to produce
even enough milk for British requirements; actual (as opposed to
official) immigration increased; that monument to liberal bigotry, the
Race Relations Act was untouched, the educational vandals were not only
allowed to sabotage every serious attempt to overturn the progressive
disaster, but were granted a great triumph in the ending of ‘O’ levels,
a liberal bigot success amplified by the contemptible bleating of
successive education secretaries that “rising examination success means
rising standards”; foreign aid continued to be paid as an unforced
Dangeld extracted from an unwilling electorate; major and strategically
important industries either ceased to be serious competitors or ended
in foreign hands; the armed forces were cut suicidally; the cost of the
Welfare State and local government rose massively whilst the service
provided both declined and Ulster was sold down the river with the
Anglo Irish Agreement. Most generally damaging, she promoted
internationalism through her fanatic pursuit of free trade.
At all points Britain was weakened as a nation. Such were the fruits
of more than a decade of Thatcherism. Even those things which are most
emblematic of her - privatisation, the sale of council houses and the
subjection of the unions – have had effects which are contrary to
those intended. Privatisation merely accelerated the loss of control
which free trade engendered. We may as customers celebrate the
liberation of British Telecom and BA, but is it such a wonderful thing
to have no major car producer or shipbuilder? The trouble with the
privatisation of major industries, which may be greatly reduced, go out
of business or be taken over by foreign buyers, is that it ignores
strategic and social welfare questions. Ditto free trade generally. Both
assume that the world, or at least the parts which contain our major
trading partners , will remain peaceful, stable and well disposed
towards Britain for ever, an absurd assumption.
Margaret Thatcher also engaged in behaviour which led to a corruption
of public life which undermined and continues to undermine her
intended ends. Politicians should always think of what precedent they
are setting when they act for bad precedents will be invariably seized
upon by later governments. She consistently failed to address this
concern. Take her attitude to privatisation and the unions. In the
former case she displayed a contempt for ownership: in the latter she
engaged in authoritarian actions which were simply inappropriate to a
democracy. Such legally and politically cavalier behaviour has
undoubtedly influenced Blair and New Labour, vide the contempt with
which parliament is now treated, constitutional change wrought and
incessant restrictions on liberty enacted.
There is a profound ethical question connected to privatisation
which was never properly answered by Tories: what right does the state
have to dispose by sale of assets which are held in trust on behalf of
the general public and whose existence has been in large part
guaranteed by taxpayer’s money? This is a question which should be as
readily asked by a conservative as by a socialist for it touches upon a
central point of democratic political morality, the custodianship of
public property. The same ends - the diminution of the state and the
freeing of the public from seemingly perpetual losses – could have been
achieved by an equitable distribution of shares free of charge to the
general public. This would have had, from a Thatcherite standpoint, the
additional benefit of greatly increasing share ownership. By selling
that which the government did not meaningfully own, she engaged in
behaviour which if it had been engaged in by any private individual or
company would have been described as fraud or theft.
The breaking of union power was overdone. As someone who is old
enough to remember the Wilson, Heath and Callaghan years, I have no
illusion of exactly how awful the unions were when they had real power.
But her means of breaking their abusive ways, particularly during the
miners’ strike, were simply inappropriate in a supposed democracy.
Passing laws restricting picketing and making unions liable for material
losses suffered when they broke the rules were one thing: the using
of the police in an unambiguously authoritarian manner in circumstances
of dubious legality such as the blanket prevention of free movement of
miners, quite another.
The Falklands War displays another side of her weakness in matching
actions to rhetoric. Admirable as the military action was, the terrible
truth is that the war need never have been fought if the government had
taken their intelligence reports seriously and retained a naval
presence in the area. The lesson went unlearnt, for within a few years
of the recovery of the Falklands, her government massively reduced
defence expenditure.
But what of her clients, the Liberal Ascendency? Would they not be
dismayed by much of what she did? Well, by the time Margaret Thatcher
came to power liberals had really lost whatever interest they had ever
had in state ownership or the genuine improvement of the worker’s lot.
What they really cared about was promoting their internationalist
vision and doctrine of spurious natural rights. They had new clients;
the vast numbers of coloured immigrants and their children, women,
homosexuals, the disabled. In short, all those who were dysfunctional,
or could be made to feel dysfunctional, in terms of British society.
They had new areas of power and distinction, social work, education,
the civil service ,the mass media to which they added, after securing
the ideological high ground, the ancient delights of politics.
Although the liberal left distrusted and hated Margaret Thatcher
(and did not understand at the time how effective her commitment to
free trade was in promoting internationalism), they nonetheless had the
belief throughout her time in office that Britain’s involvement in the
EU and the Liberal Ascendency’s control of education, the media, the
civil service and bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality
would thwart those of her plans which were most dangerous and obnoxious
to the liberal.
Margaret Thatcher greatly added to this wall of opposition by her
choice of ministers. Think of her major cabinet appointments. She
ensured that the Foreign Office remained in the hands of men (Howe and
Hurd) who were both ardent Europhiles and willing tools of the FO
Quisling culture, the Chancellorship was entrusted to first Howe and
then Lawson who was also firmly committed to Europe. The Home Office sat
in the laps of the social liberals Whitelaw, Hurd and Baker,
Education was given to Baker and Clarke. Those appointments alone
ensured that little would be done to attack the things which liberals
held sacred, for they were men who broadly shared the liberal values
and who were opposed to Thatcherite policies other than those on the
economy, which of course was the one Thatcherite policy guaranteed to
assist liberal internationalism. By the end, she was so weak that she
was unable to prevent the effective sacking of a favourite cabinet
minister, Nicholas Ridley, by the German Chancellor.
The constant cry of Margaret Thatcher after she left office is that
she did not understand the consequences of her acts. Of course she
does not put it in that way, but that is what it amounts to. She blames
Brussels and the Foreign Office for the unwelcome consequences of the
Single European Act. She readily admits that this minister or that in
her government proved unreliable or treacherous, but does not conclude
that her judgement in choosing them was at fault. She blames the
Foreign Office for the Falklands War. But nowhere does she acknowledge
her fault.
In her heart of hearts, has the second longest serving and most
ideological prime minister in modern British history ever comprehended,
however imperfectly, that she was a prime mover in the Liberal
Internationalist cause? I doubt it, because self deception is at the
heart of what makes a useful idiot.
Hat Tip
Living In A Madhouse Blog
http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/margaret-thatcher-the-most-useful-of-idiots/#comment-3511
A LOCAL BLOG SUPPORTING THE BRITISH DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN THE INTERESTS OF THE INDIGENOUS BRITISH PEOPLE AND ESPECIALLY THE PEOPLE OF WIGAN AND LEIGH IN OUR FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM, THE TRAITORS IN PARLIAMENT AND FOR OUR BIRTHRIGHT. - "NO FOREIGN PRINCE, PERSON, PRELATE, STATE OR POTENTATE HATH, OR OUGHT TO HAVE, ANY JURISDICTION, POWER, SUPERIORITY, PRE-EMINENCE, OR AUTHORITY, ECCLESIASTICAL OR SPIRITUAL, WITHIN THIS REALM" (ENGLISH BILL OF RIGHTS 1689)
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
CORPORATE FASCISM - AS TRUE FOR AMERICA AS IT IS FOR BRITAIN
Is it corporate fascism yet?
The financial crisis that washed across
the globe in 2008 is just the latest economic disaster to hit the
American people. The fall of too-big-to-fail banks and companies marked
the latest chapter of a tragedy that has been unfolding for years.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once warned that
democracy will never be safe if the people tolerate the growth of
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic
state itself. If such a scenario arose, Roosevelt said, that would be
the very definition of fascism.
With the rise of the lawless
transnational corporations, an increasing number of Americans are
becoming mere spectators to this winner-take-all economy. At the same
time, workers are simply too afraid of risking their positions by
demanding democratic representation in their myriad workplaces.
Corporations play on the fear factor while enforcing the most egregious
labor practices.
Combine this with the vast political powers that corporations have acquired and you have a recipe for a national disaster.
As Francis Fukuyama pointed out, “An American chief executive exercises authoritarian powers of which a politician could only dream,” and is held accountable in his actions only to a board of directors, which enables him to “hire, fire, make mergers or divest divisions at will.”
Indeed, the captains of big business are able to act with total
impunity, and this has created a veritable reign of fear throughout
every sector of the economy.
For the American people, out-of-control
corporate power – corporate fascism, if you will – has eroded their
standard of living, to say nothing about the standard of democracy.
No matter how the spin doctors twist US
labor data over the past forty years, it is nearly impossible to find a
silver lining. As the Financial Times summed up the grim reality: “The
annual incomes of the bottom 90 percent of US families have been
essentially flat since 1973—having risen only by 10 percent in real
terms over the past 37 years”—despite the rise in two-income homes.
Over the same period, however, the incomes of the top 1 percent have
smashed through the roof.
Consider the fantastic growth of
billionaires in the United States over a very short time. When Forbes
magazine launched its ranking of the nation’s ultra wealthy in 1982, the
“price of admission” into this prestigious club was just $75 million of
net worth. Today, as Forbes reported, even after adjusting for
inflation, “this year’s entry fee ($1.1 billion) is roughly six times what it was 30 years ago.
Here is a look at the residents of the Forbes 400 penthouse, otherwise known as the 1 percent: “The
combined net worth of the 2012 class of the 400 richest Americans is
$1.7 trillion, up from $1.5 trillion a year ago. The average net worth
of a Forbes 400 member is a staggering $4.2 billion, up from $3.8
billion, and the highest ever, as two-thirds of the individuals added to
their fortunes in the past year.”
Now compare those figures to 1982, when
there were just 13 billionaires while the total worth of the 400 club
was just $93 billion. Despite what the super rich wish to believe, this
massive hoarding of wealth is working against the American people.
For those who have forgotten what the
economic climate inside of the United States was like before the 2008
economic tsunami made landfall, consider the following. The Economist,
quoting Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institute, reported that “between 1974 and 2004 median wages for men in their 30s, adjusted for inflation, fell by 12% from $40,000 to $35,000.”
The Wall Street Journal, calling this middle-class bloodletting “the lost decade,” reported: “The
inflation-adjusted income of the median household—smack in the middle
of the populace—fell 4.8% between 2000 and 2009, even worse than the
1970s, when median income rose 1.9% despite high unemployment and
inflation. Between 2007 and 2009, incomes fell 4.2%.”
The article provided a candid comment by
Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the right leaning American
Enterprise Institute: “It’s going to be a long, hard slog back to what most Americans think of as normalcy or prosperous times.”
That dire prognosis may eventually prove to be overly optimistic since
many economists believe the best days of the American economy are gone
forever.
The hardest thing to accept about this
fantastic reversal of fortune for so many American people is that much
of the present pain and suffering was largely avoidable. It would have
required self-restraint, political will, and very little sacrifice, but
the bleeding of the American middle class was nothing less than a
deliberate, premeditated crime.
As the Financial Times revealed, “the
share of the US income that goes to workers as wages rather than to
investors as profits…has fallen to its lowest level since records began
after the Second World War.” The world’s most reputable business newspaper was forced to admit that “something strange and unprecedented is going on” inside the US economy.
Here comes the bloody kicker: “If
wages were at their postwar average share of 63 percent, workers would
earn an extra $740bn this year, about $5,000 per worker,” the FT
article reveals. Labor’s slice of the income pie has decreased to 58
percent, a historic low that still has not hit bottom. This
unprecedented disparity in wage distribution explains why the US economy
is furiously spinning its wheels, while only the corporations seem to
be advancing.
Meanwhile, labor is always one precarious step away from becoming road kill. “The
decline in the US labor share, along with a shift of labor income
towards higher earners, may be an important part of why the US economic
recovery is so sluggish,” the article concludes. “Instead of hoarding
labor and cutting prices to grab market share, companies are sacking
workers, holding prices and choosing to buy back their own equity rather
than make new investments.”
Clearly, the American corporate elite –
now fully blessed with the political representation originally designed
for We the People – is indulging itself to an all-you-can-eat
smorgasbord at the salary trough, and with a void of democratic
procedure inside the workplace, nobody is forcing them away from the
table.
What the American worker desperately
needs today is a separation of business from politics, similar to the
way the world of politics was separated from the world of religion. He
also needs democratic representation inside of the workplace.
“The mission of democratic statecraft…,” wrote Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. “is
to give society a chance of controlling the energies let loose by
science and technology. Democratic leadership is the art of fostering
and managing innovation in the service of a free community.”
A person need not be a Marxist to
understand a very simple universal truth: Without vibrant representation
both in the workplace and at home, the individuals at the top of the
corporate pyramid will exploit the people in the eternal quest for
greater profit. At that point, with the corporate overlords in bed with
our political representatives, and democratic procedure totally absent
inside of the corporate fortress, fascist is the only way to define such
a brutal system.
-----------------
And the LibLabCon, Unions, UAF etc are where?
In the pockets of the FASCIST CORPORATIONS that's where.
Nationalists at Wigan Patriot have been warning you for years that we are now living a TRUE FASCIST STATE.
Yet the Donkeys who are called the "ELECTORATE" keep voting for the FASCIST DICTATORS, too dumbed down or ignorant to care.
Thatcher (spit, spit pthwww) was the one who gave greed its reign and destroyed a homogenous society in the process of giving the British Silverware away away to Foreign Fascist Corporations (If you see Sid tell him).
If you want to end this and distribute wealth from those who have more than anyone could ever need or dream of then you have to vote for NATIONALIST PARTIES.
The BNP I'm sad to say isn't willing to work with other Nationalist Parties for the good of the Indigenous Population of Britain which means you should ignore them.
You have other choices, the main one being the new Nationalist Party that we have long been waiting for THE BRITISH DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
If your not willing to take a chance on them now then you might aswell wave goodbye to Britain and prepare for worse to come for you and your families in the FASCIST FUTURE being planned and implemented as we speak.
YOU are just another slave, when are you going to break the bonds that bind you ?
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