Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled

[Ichingcarpenter]

SNIP.......



His new book, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, is a devastating critique of the contemporary government of the United States -- including what has happened to it in recent years and what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia. The hour is very late and the possibility that the American people might pay attention to what is wrong and take the difficult steps to avoid a national Gtterdmmerung are remote, but Wolin's is the best analysis of why the presidential election of 2008 probably will not do anything to mitigate our fate. This book demonstrates why political science, properly practiced, is the master social science.



Given this historical backdrop, Wolin introduces three new concepts to help analyze what we have lost as a nation. His master idea is "inverted totalitarianism," which is reinforced by two subordinate notions that accompany and promote it -- "managed democracy" and "Superpower," the latter always capitalized and used without a direct article. Until the reader gets used to this particular literary tic, the term Superpower can be confusing. The author uses it as if it were an independent agent, comparable to Superman or Spiderman, and one that is inherently incompatible with constitutional government and democracy.

Wolin writes, "Our thesis is this: it is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from the classical one, to evolve from a putatively 'strong democracy' instead of a 'failed' one." His understanding of democracy is classical but also populist, anti-elitist and only slightly represented in the Constitution of the United States. "Democracy," he writes, "is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs." It depends on the existence of a demos -- "a politically engaged and empowered citizenry, one that voted, deliberated, and occupied all branches of public office." Wolin argues that to the extent the United States on occasion came close to genuine democracy, it was because its citizens struggled against and momentarily defeated the elitism that was written into the Constitution.

SNIP.......


MUCH MORE.........http://www.alternet.org/news/85728/





WIKIPEDIA PAGE ON INVERTED TOTALITARISM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism



This should be included reading like the 'Shock Doctrine.;;

[TalkingDog]

1. And here is a documentary that examines how they accomplished this goal.

The Century of the Self.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM

Description of the Parts:

To many in both business and government, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power is truly moved into the hands of the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis tells the untold and controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How is the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interest?

The Freud dynasty is at the heart of this compelling social history. Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis; Edward Bernays, who invented public relations; Anna Freud, Sigmund's devoted daughter; and present-day PR guru and Sigmund's great grandson, Matthew Freud. Sigmund Freud's work into the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious changed the world. By introducing a technique to probe the unconscious mind, Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal....Check out this post with more info. about them and The Tavistock Institute: http://mysticalmusingsandpolitics.blogspot.com/2011/10/tavistock-institute-ma...

Part 1-Happiness Machines:
Part one documents the story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays who invented 'Public Relations' in the 1920s, being the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Part 2-The Engineering of Consent:
Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany, and in response to this, they set out to find ways to control the masses so as to manage the 'hidden enemy' within the human mind.

Part 3-There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed:
In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas, which lead to the creation of a new political movement that sought to create 'new people', free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics. This episode shows how this idea rapidly developed in America through "self-help movements", into the irresistible rise of the expressive self: the Me Generation.

Part 4-Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering:
This episode explains how politicians turned to the same techniques used by business in order to read and manipulate the inner desires of the masses. Both New Labor with Tony Blair and the Democrats led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group which had been invented by psychoanalysts in order to regain power. Both set out to mold their policies to manipulate people's innermost desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learned to do with products.

[PETRUS]

2. kick for later reading

[PATRICK]

3. Same old game in conflict with democracy

Given any imbalance in this type of symbiosis it will reveal that this "plan" is nothing more than accommodating the American Revolution. The slackness of the conflict only consists in the compliance of the people. The pressure will always be toward real dictatorship and complete control of the most venal, corrupt and destructive sort. The shock of WWII did not melt down the same old game sufficiently. Certainly democratic goals did not consciously rise to the surface as much as the corporate revanche has.

One result. No more lower class "populist" dictators like Hitler and Mussolini. Rich men from the club are preferred, competent boat becalmers second, military coup third. Disguise the fascist message a tad. The coup option is more the intent of large states for small ones at the hegemony level of the game, but coup elections are very big for the big guys even when you think they win either way. As the exchange in the movie Key West says, the cynic Bogart satirically informing the agreeing the puzzled Robinson, they just want "more" and it is never enough. Globalization is playing with options to imperialism, but just that, options for doing the same thing.

It isn't that complicated. Granted old Roman politics was all about elite families, the army and the dough. The Gracchi brothers learned to exploit populist power toward populist reforms. Their class mates learned the politics, turned it successfully back against them and killed them. Done deal and ever after incorporated some populist sops and the "mob" into power schemes. Maybe some minimal populist reforms too. Maybe it enabled their eventual Empire some resiliency and social health to survive a few hundred years.

Leadership among so called elites(money military, inherited) has been taken for granted and wealthy landowners among the framers of the Constitution did not upend it. Leadership itself is a nearly discredited term, but so is journalism, business and just about everything else. Democracy has not been born yet, just partial uprisings against the same old abuses.

[mod mom]

4. worth a full read. rec'd

[Zorra]

5. K&R

[bobthedrummer]

6. K&R

RECALL WALKER/KLEEFISCH!!!

[BOG PERSON]

7. what a perfectly useless "new way of understanding"