Charlie Angus is on a role. The NDP MP has a book excerpt in The Walrus explaining the rise of neoliberalism starting from Reaganomics.
The rules of the neoliberal game advise to take advantage of or create a crisis in order to shrink governmental oversight, bust any strikes, lower marginal tax rates so the wealthiest pay very little, reduce or obliterate corporate regulation or allow dubious self-regulation, and privatize the shit out of public services. Naomi Klein did a great job explaining it all in The Shock Doctrine, which he mentions.
Mr. Angus says,
"The crisis of the 2020s is something different than a lingering cultural stasis. The reality is that the political, environmental, and economic forces unleashed in the 1980s have finally caught up to us. . . . Operation Break the Working Class has created a generation of billionaire oligarchs form the stolen wages of the American working class. . . . To find our way out of this mess, it is necessary to confront the false history of the 1980s. Historical amnesia is not accidental--it is a political construct. If you scratch the sheen of '80s nostalgia, the underlying socio-economic fractures are readily apparent. These contradictions in the popularized narrative constitute a dangerous memory."
And then Mr. Angus outlined the problem with the current Conservative Party. In the words of Angus MacCaull, "Once anyone starts on a narrow diet of misinformation, the broader world starts to feels like a conspiracy." In the House of Commons, Mr. Angus said,
"In what universe would any single member of the Conservative Party care about public broadcasting? It's impossible. They live and they feed in a swamp of disinformation. This is what elected Donald Trump. The attack on CBC is about attacking public journalism just like the leader from the conservatives attacked CTV just like he attacked Global just like he attacked the Toronto Star just like he attacked Canadian Press, and individual journalists have been targeted by the member who lives in Stornoway, who wants the world to live in a swamp of disinformation. I am appalled that we're having to discuss contract choices made at what should be an arm's length institution. There's many many things I disagree with CBC. There's many times I rant as I listen to the radio driving in my car. But I believe that democracy requires an independent credible media system, and the conservatives who sit there like numpties laughing and ridiculing because they feed themselves on misinformation, they wouldn't know truth if truth came down naked painted in purple and danced all over their heads for two weeks. They wouldn't recognize truth because they've never seen truth because they live in the world of disinformation, and they're trying to reduce the rest of us to live in that fetid swamp."
The problem is that it works. People don't know what to believe anymore. Some well-educated and well-meaning people in my periphery here and there are saying wildly untrue things with great confidence. You know, things like, Covid ended years ago.
One writer calls this "weaponized unreality." He connects the Canadian experience to a worldwide strategy:
"The best way to understand the transnational fascist movement is as franchise fascism. It works much in the same way as many of global conglomerates or global fast food chains. It starts by doing research and tuning its product to the market, and then it opens a few outlets to test the waters. And then create new content based around the central model that appeals to that country's population and its targeted base of support before expanding into every area it can, all while pushing marketing and PR to achieve maximum saturation without overstepping and outstripping the regional market. The transnational fascist movement at this point has expanded across the globe using this model opening franchises in Hungary, Russia, India Brazil, Argentina, the United States, and Canada, all serving virulent hate for the regional consumer with the end goal of capture and control of government and society. It's using the same tactics as globalist neoliberalism, and riding the growing wave of resentment against neoliberalism's failure to provide material change for the majority of the populations as an open doorway to populations that feel they have been left behind or scared they may lose their positions socially/economically. This is a complex and very difficult issue to fix because it's had years to permeate and penetrate societies and institutions all under the guise of being 'just conservative pushback' against x,y,z, while also being an information issue."
Phase 1, in the 80s, was controlled by Milton Friedman with Reagan, Thatcher, and Mulroney in the spotlight. Phase 2 seems to be run by Steve Bannon, or maybe Putin himself, with Trump and a growing number of far-right leaning figures around the world either firmly in power or barking at the heels of power, like Poilievre.
In the 80s, in the countries that Friedman experimented on, many citizens were disappeared or outright killed by what some called the "Berkeley Mafia," as US led coups in other countries took out protesters, often starting with the most educated in universities. Is that next on their agenda?
An unnerving article in The Guardian relates how Germany and Nordic countries are preparing citizens for the possibility of war by distributing booklets of survival information. Norway focuses on surviving without electricity, water, and stores. Finland also mentions disruptions of the internet and banking services, natural phenomena, and longer crises like a military conflict. And Sweden doesn't mess around with a brochure titled, "In case of crisis or war," highlighting their defence system, how to maintain a state of alertness, and where to seek shelter during an air raid.
A switch was flipped on November 5th. Gee-zus.
Timothy Snyder advises using history to ground us. He wrote about four scenarios that might be similar enough to help us carve a path through.
"History can make familiar some consistent patterns of human life. . . . [1790s] Quite a few of Trump's proposed appointments, and much of Musk's rhetoric, suggest that rescuing Russia will be the priority. . . . [1860s] The United States in 2025 will be, in some sense, the victory of the old south. But is it a sustainable one? When people think of themselves as rebels they sometimes push too far when they actually have power. . . . It is not a great leap for people to decide to move to California, on the logic that the state could make it alone . . . From there is is a small step to start thinking of constellations of states that would be wealthier and more functional than the current United States. A west coast union would certainly be richer, and would have its own borders with Canada and Mexico. . . . [1930s] this politician speaks angrily of the media as 'the enemy of the people' and condemns his political opponents as 'the enemy within.' He hopes for some kind of emergency in order to declare a state of permanent emergency--for Hitler this was the Reichstag Fire of 1933, for Trump it could be something entirely imaginary. . . . Hitler's men opened their first concentration camp right after he came to power; if Trump's men are able to round up millions of non-citizens, they too will be in camps--an institution, as we know, that can be turned to other purposes than its initial ones. . . . [1990s] A doddering elected president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by a cluster of oligarchs. The successor they chose, Vladimir Putin, was eventually able to tame them all . . . This situation rather strongly resembles the America of today, with an elderly president, Donald Trump, surrounded by a cluster of oligarchs. The oligarchs have chosen his successor: JD Vance.
It is very hard to tell, right now, who is actually running the show, if anyone. All of the headlines are about shocking personalities who do not identify in any sense with th larger interests of the country. . . . [Putin] is working to bully Trump, to make him feel subordinate (for example by showing naked pictures of his wife on television). . . . Or could Trump himself, despite looking like Yeltsin, surprise us and end up being the Putin of the scenario, first getting close to the oligarchs, then using the government to freeze them out, and finally himself getting rich, as he has always wanted?
History warns. It would be wonderful if these scenarios helped peopel in positions of responsibility to make good choices. . . . In all four of these past moments, we see the problem of inequality somewhere close to the origin of political collapse. Any future rescue operation for the American republic will have to begin there."
"1. Play for time. Whatever he might imagine, Mr. Trump was elected with the thinnest of mandates. He is, what is more, a lame duck: The clock began ticking on his presidency from the day he was elected. . . . 2. Prey upon his weaknesses. Probe his psyche. Figure out his break points. Do not be afraid to annoy him. Most people do stupid things when they're angry. . . . 3. Stand together. Work with allies, in Canada - yes, that means getting the premiers on-side, if only to shut them up. . . . 4. Stand up straight. Ultimately, we can't control what Mr. Trump does. We can, however, control what we do. . . . We can at least maintain our dignity, our composure, and our self-respect. That's not the only thing that matters, but it's something."
It's this treatment of it, more than the others, that make me a little less worried. Still pretty worried, but just a little less so, which is nice.
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