Fonte observes that elite institutions in western culture from the national council of churches to the UN and it’s plethora of NGOs are embarked upon an active path to destroy the concept of the sovereign nation state and it’s empowered individual and displace the influenece of the elected governments of these separate sovereign states with regional or global regulatory bureaucracies. He also observed that for some unknown reason all the governments in these sovereign western free nation-states seem on a self destructive course in being determined to deliver themselves up to this weakened national sovereignty and transnational governance.
[…]
Communism, or more accurately centralized socialism, is not a movement of the down-trodden masses but of the economic elite….the natural extension of this is global socialism which the “Tranzies” promote. If one understands that socialism is NOT a share the wealth plan but a politically actuated plan to consolidate power and control a nation’s wealth, then the paradox of super rich men promoting global socialism (or transnational progressivism) becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes logical, even the perfect tool for wealthy power-seeking megalomaniacs.
Great post. Read it all.
h/t
We, in the former USSR, figured it out long time ago, and after loosing many to gulag, left for other countries. Some keep low profile, some idiots like me open our mouths to shout: ‘Alarm, commies are coming!’… Now this idea is proclaimed by someone local, mayhap you folks will finally listen?
Fonte’s full treatise on transnational progressivism can be found at the Hudson institute’s site in the spring 2002 Orbis report…it’s a good read for any one keeping tabs of the financiers and elite prophets of the new global left.
Most telling in his article are these observations:
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:
* The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.
* A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist “privileged vs. marginalized” dichotomy.
* Group proportionalism as the goal of “fairness.” Transnational progressivism assumes that “victim” groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not, there is a problem of “underrepresentation.”
* The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities in major institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the worldview of the “dominant” culture. Instead, the distinct worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must be represented within these institutions.
* The “demographic imperative.” The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American life. The traditional paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework that promotes “diversity,” defined as group proportionalism.
* The redefinition of democracy and “democratic ideals.” Transnational progressives have been altering the definition of “democracy” from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks, one of American education’s leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that “to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power.” Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come when the different “peoples” that live within America “share power” as groups.
* Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK government report denounced the concept of “Britishness” and declared that British history needed to be “revised, rethought, or jettisoned.” In the U.S., the proposed “National History Standards,” recommended altering the traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a multicultural “convergence” of three civilizations—Amerindian, West African, and European. In Israel, a “post-Zionist” intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he deemphasized “sovereignty” and called for regional “elected central bodies,” a type of Middle Eastern EU.
* Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. In an important academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully “Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?”
* The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. Transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization requires some form of “global governance” because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future.
*********** can you find any of the above “Tanzie” concepts in a certain nations charter which was drafted by a certain famous transnational progressive from Montreal??
Unfortunately, our PMSH has shown an unexpected and unwelcome acceptance of big spending, high taxing, promise ditching government little different from the Liberals.
Right – WLMR – that transnational ideology is exactly what is set up in our Canadian Charter of Rights – which is not a charter about the rights of the individual but sets up, as I keep ranting, two types of subgroups in Canada.
First, in sections 16 through 24, it divides Canada into two groups, defined by language, each politically equal in power despite inequality in population. The ROC and Quebec. Then, it further weakens the ROC by dividing that population into subgroups defined by their origin in ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. There is absolutely no section in the Charter that defines and promotes the Canadian citizen.
The Charter specifically states that the individual is trumped by the rights of the group.
So- to govern these isolate and adversarial groups, each jockeying for power and funds to maintain themselves as ‘pure’ – a central government is set up. And, under the Liberals, more and more of this central gov’t became appointed unelected bureaucrats. More and more, power moved out of the elected House – with its 300 elected representatives and into the hands of the appointed – ten and many more times in number than the elected.
That’s a very accurate outline of the psychology and political power of setting up people into ‘marginalized groups’ and the insistence that that these groups gain political power. It is extremely disturbing that these groups are ‘functionally frozen’; they represent ‘icons’, static worldviews directly linked to their origins. Reason is rejected in favour of mimetic retelling of their ancient ideologies.
So, what is going on? I think the reason that this movement is global is because, economically and informationally, due to our modern technologies, all such processes are now networked and global. So – what’s going on?
I think it’s an ancient debate and will probably always be with us. It’s ‘the group’ versus ‘the individual’. Or, Plato vs Aristotle.
Transnationalism (I simply can’t use that term ‘progressive’ since it’s actually regressive) is a Platonic idealism. An ideology that there IS such a thing as a Pure and Perfect Mode of Life. Utopia. You have to ‘socially engineer’ or construct this perfection. How? Well, the notion of purity includes a notion that some people are ‘more pure and capable’ of such architecture than others. So- we get an elite set of humans to ‘guide our ignorance’. The rest of us are ignorant followers.
That’s a two class system. A small unelected hereditary or appointed elite who rule over the Workers. Plato’s ‘Philosopher-Kings’ (aka Trudeau?). The peasants must be closely watched and governed and the impure weeded out. Forming them into groups is a tactic of control. In our modern times, these are the appointed international governance – such as the corrupt UN, the European Union, etc, etc.
Again and again, we find that appointed boards rapidly become corrupt. That’s our psychology.
This mode rejects the human capacity for reason, questions, analysis. Only the leaders have the right to make decisions. No questions must be asked, no debate, no dissent. There is no accountability for these leaders.
We can see this in so many socialist regimes. We see this in Kyotoism..etc.
The other mode, that I call Aristotelian, focuses on the individual, who is defined, as human, with the capacity and duty to reason. This sets up a political governance based around the middle class. So – it’s a three class system, because the middle class is an active class, you are a member by merit not by hereditary right or appointment. The focus is on the nation-state because the government must be elected directly and answerable to the individual. The individual cannot be submerged in a group; groups don’t think. Only individuals think.
And, this is a mode of economic and political governance that operates by ‘bricolage’, by trial and error. It rejects any notion of reaching a Final Perfection, the Pure State. Remember, this notion of ultimate purity is expressed within fascism and communism, both of which are socialist ideologies.
Instead, this ‘bricolage’ state is realist, it is situationed within a natural context made up of our natural environment, other peoples, etc. It acknowledges ongoing evolution and change. Change that requires risk-taking, analysis, questions, debate and errors. It is an ‘adaptive complex network’.
Which is better? Well, a two class system with its evangelistic emotional ideology of Eventual Purity is great for the emotions. It states that there is such a thing as utopia – and we can reach it. Utopia by the way, means ‘no place’.
But utopianism is economically and politically disastrous. Why? Because it has no capacity to adapt or change. It rejects the individual – and only the individual can think. It therefore loses its powers to adapt, question, change, make errors and do better. It freezes – and that’s been the history of two-class systems in large populations since they began. When the population gets really large in a two -class system – the society collapses. It has happened again and again – from ancient to modern times.
The only system of human organization that can deal with the requirements for adaptive change – is a three class system that privileges the individual as a questioning, reasoning, working and free individual.
Now, this ‘freedom’ is not as emotionally calming, at least in the beginning, as the two-class utopian style of governance. Individuals in a society with the capacity-to-change, are often in doubt, and being in doubt is stressful.
But – a two class system with a leadership appointed rather than elected – moves rapidly into corruption and freezes. It has no ability, no capacity to adapt, to make decisions. So- despite the romance of utopia, the freedom from doubt – it’s disastrous.
Didn’t you know that Karl Marx was an inheritor who ended up on a generous sinecure from Engels, himself an inheritor of a factory from his old man?
Yup. The National Council of Churches is included in this lineup, and so it should be.
No one should be fooled that just because “Church” is mentioned that there is any semblance of genuine Christianity. Most mainstream Protestant churches have been infiltrated by the collectivist, redistribution of wealth, bug/disease and seem Hell bent for leather to lead their members into “centralized socialism,” with elites in our Synods and in positions of power.
The irony, of course, is that the only genuine power any Church possesses is the power of God through the power of the Holy Spirit–a quaint idea/myth in the minds of too many “Christian” leaders.
addendum to my post above: …with elites in our Synods and in positions of power leading the way.
Do we need any more reason to get ourselves out of the UN and to boot those leftists NGOs out of our nation? we dont need the evil UN
Right on, sp, about the UN and leftist NGOs, including those in the NCC (National Council of Churches).
“Key areas to watch in both the U. S. and Europe include immigration-assimilation policy; arguments over international law; and the influence of a civic-patriotic narrative in public schools and popular culture.”
Uh – OH ,for Ontario
1) “immigration-assimilation” = Sweet F all
2) “arguments over international law” = Iggy is a dual citizen International Human Rights Professor, Or “King of the Progressives” and there is no argument.
3)”civic-patriotic narrative in public schools and popular culture.”
Ahhh-hahahaha, What the hell is that?
The transnatprogs brainwashing and re-assembly plant is currenty housed in Toronto, City Hall # 2.
Go Prime Minister Steve!
But I thought our national motto is “In Diversity there is Strength”.
ET — excellent post.
Aaron — I too keep pointing out to people the decline in individual freedom that has been happening since I can remember. I also point out the regressive nature of so-called ‘progressive’ policies — in general, I am not taken seriously — instead of receiving any substantive responses to my points, I simply get humored.
Great posts here: knowledgeable and perceptive. Thanks.
Today’s Globe and Mail poll question: “Has the Charter of Rights, which is now 25 years old, made Canada a better place to live and work?”
Results so far: YES: 91%; NO: 9%. Fools!
Just one example of legions: thanks to the Charter, in schools, the worst, least responsible kids now rule the roost. Teachers, keep your true opinions and heads down. If any teacher voted that his/her working conditions have improved because of the Charter, he/she should be ashamed of being so ignorant.
I’m afraid that most Canadians are woefully uninformed about all kinds of issues and are willing to fall for all kinds of nonsense. E.g., Because the Charter has the words “Rights and Freedoms”, Canadians, by and large, think that that’s what the Charter gives them. Then ask these people if they have any idea of the courts and Human Rights (sic) Commissions’ woeful misuse of this document and the average “Charter supporter” won’t have a word to say, except maybe, “Don’t know”.
Remember the fox in The Gingerbread Man: the fox said he’d carry the little cookie safely across the river. Look what happened to the gingerbread man. (Cookie = Canadians; Fox = Charter) Canadians, beware!!
And please, sda readers, go vote at the Globe and Mail poll.
P.S. In the present, politically correct gulag that is much of public Canada, if David Hand really believes the motto he quotes, he’s one of the gullible ones. I could be wrong.
Perhaps Mr. Hand could give some context to his post. (I’ve noticed that he’s sometimes sketchy re referencing his opinions.)
With regard to the Charter of ‘Rights and Freedoms’, I’d bet that 99% of Canadians have never read it, never analyzed it, never thought about it. They go by the title – ‘Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’. Heh.
Do they seriously think that we had NO rights and NO freedoms before that Charter? Of course we did, all of them within the British heritage from Magna Carta on.
But – if you read our Canadian Charter, and it’s a short document – you see that the individual freedoms are four short lines in Section 2. And, as I said, are trumped by the much longer sections that establish ‘groupism’ as dominant sociopolitical systems in Canada.
Sections 3,4, 5 – short items about ‘every citizen has the right to vote’ – and the nature of Parliamentary rule.
Section 6 – ‘mobility’ ie, you can leave or enter Canada. Nothing about property rights – which we don’t have in Canada.
Sections 7,8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. All short; a few sentences – on legal rights.
Ahh..Section 15 on Equality Rights. There’s two parts. Section 1:No discrimination. Section 2 removes the validity of Section 1 by setting up the ‘amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups’…These actions trump individual rights. We have entered the realm of victimology.
And setting up the population in groups, that are adversaries in victimology, is a basic strategy of controlling that population.
Then – we move onto the Basic Groupism of the Charter – Sections 16 -23. Setting up Canada into the ROC and Quebec, ie, dividing the population into two groups. Linguistic groups, Two Adversarial groups.
Section 27 – yet another sentence on multiculturalism – a statement that everything in the Charter must be interpreted “in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians”. So much for individuals. Your group heritage trumps the individual.
The evolution of a mode of governance that has removed itself from the direct elected control of the population is a movement towards totalitarian tyranny. These tyrannies are maintained by utopian ideologies, not by elected accountability. Therefore, it becomes heretical to reject them, question them – such as is found within the UN, within Kyotosim.
They are attractive to socialists, to leftist academics, because these modes operate within the realm of ideals, ideas that are never put to the test, that are never rejected as impossible to attain. And, as such these people and their ideas are all the more dangerous as they increase their power and their attempts to engineer Perfection.
It is an ultimate arrogance – this notion of Purity. The Greeks knew this – you did not deal directly with Zeus.
“…NOT a share the wealth plan but a politically actuated plan to consolidate power and control a nation’s wealth…”
Sounds more like the various free trade agreements and corporate globalization plans to me. Corporations dictating government policy is the real threat.
ET said: “The Charter specifically states that the individual is trumped by the rights of the group.”
This is true ET….and group rights are dioled out via section 15(2) with is a section with is in conceptual concept with section 15(1)
But the real and inherent danger in the charter ( and I’m sure the one placed they by both PET’s tramnationaist progressivism and his admiration of European centralized socialism) is contained in section 1 of the charter.
“1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
This fundamentally sets the state above the individual and gives the state more rights than the individual…the state is claiming the right to determing who gets rights and how far these rights extend.
..they use the catch phrase “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” to make it appear as if the state must “prove” a need to truncate your rights and when they do they are acting for the majority ( a group) but this is no real deterrent to arbitrary tyranny as virtually every piece of legislation passed by federal parliement is “deemed” to be “justified” as being the will of the people when in fact they are always extentions of the ideology of the ruling party/regime.
…and the way the justice system is set up it is always the rights-damaging law that is passed and implemented first whereby an agrieved individual must challenge the courts to retieve his lost rights after the fact and in fct the onus is on him to prove the state should give them back…this exposes our “charter” as an empowering document for a centralized jurocratic oligarchy and an imperial state…these have “subjects” with “priviledges” as opposed to the constitutional democratic republic( which this document would like to fool us into beliving it represents)…in a constitutional democracy under rule of British common law… we have “sitizens” with “absolute” “Invioable” individual natural rights…this puts you on equal level with the state where the exercise of these rights are concerned…it make the government your serveant which exists to protect those individual rights against assault from the state or criminals or foreign aggressors…it also makes you a “citizen”…not a subject.
Charter section 1 “in pith and substance” sets up the franco-Napoleonic Roman code law as the law of the land…where by the state is supreme over the individual and the court is the ship of state wherein a individual has only the rights the state wishes to give him and its courts wish to recognize.
In essence section one of the charter turns “rights” into Priviledges doled by a omnipotent state/court and the individual citizen is made insubordinate to these authorities in the claiming and exercise of his natural rights.
Now, what was that passage in Fonte’s transnational progessivist identifiers which shows state over individual as a key plank in the “transie” ideology:
“The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.”
And to think this all started in Oak Lake MB.
Oak Lake, Manitoba. The Capital Of The World !!
No, lberia – the transnational uber-governments are not akin to corporate globalization. You see, corporations are, for the most part, run by chairs and officers who are responsible to their shareholders. There are indeed exceptions, including for example, the appointment of Belinda Stronach to the management of her father’s company, Magna.
But, responsibility is a keyword in corporations; they can’t operate without productive results for the shareholders.
These uber-governments aren’t accountable to anyone, and they can and will blame their disastrous results on anything and anyone. Eg, they’ll blame the US and George Bush; they’ll blame the environment and ‘global warming’; they’ll blame…whatever and whoever.
Unelected governments have one agenda and only one agenda – to stay in power. Their tactics are manipulation, cronyism, propaganda and corruption.
Corporate governance has one agenda – profitablity and success. Their tactics have to be objectively empirically verifiable; that year-end audit is always facing them down and can’t be blamed on spurious causes.
Yes beria,
Corporation have so much power they were able to block Harper’s tax on income trusts… er, I mean block the elimination of the tax deduction for foreign interest… er, I mean… er, never mind.
You’re a twit beria. Commies are vermin who need to be irraticated by any means necessary.
Spoken like a true communist Iberia.
I looked at this going what the,
Wonderful thread! Bang on.
“..The commission would be mandated by the United Nations and would be autonomous in its operations. It would draw upon and reinforce the efforts and mandates of other organizations, notably, the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, as the primary source of scientific advice, the United Nations Environment Program, the World Meteorological Association, and the UN secretariat serving the Climate Change Convention. It would seek out and respond to the advice of other organizations and actors, providing the channels through which they can contribute to the kind of focused and concerted action that is essential, and for which no single body is now responsible. It would monitor all activities involving climate change and report to governments and to the UN, evaluating the progress and performance of all of the actors, providing specific recommendations that would be expected to have a significant influence on public opinion and on the actions of government, industry and others.” Maurice Strong, March 7 2007 G&M
recommendations that would be expected to have a significant influence on public opinion and on the actions of government, industry and others.
What does “signigancant influence” mean ?? One World Governance ??
The discussion on the flaws of the COR brings up a point I have made in the past. Is there, or will there ever be anything more perfect than the United States Constitution and it’s spiritual father, the Declaration of Independence in clearly stating the principles of individual freedoms, liberties and rights?
The founding fathers were indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Its true. No single organization has been as successful as the CIA in its quest to “destroy the concept of the sovereign nation state and it’s empowered individual and displace the influenece of the elected governments of these separate sovereign states”.
Anyone want to step up to the plate and let the rest of us know how many governments the UN has toppled?
Iberia, your nick strangely resembles the everyone’s hated Lawrence Beria, Joseph Stalin’s right hand, who liked to torture the ‘enemies of the state’ himself. If you love socialism so much, why don’t you move to Russia? Pres. Putin will surely kiss your tummy for that.
This reminds me of the very old conspiracy theory of the illumnati, a shadowy elite that controls all the governments of the world. The theory can safely be considered false because there can be no way for a shadow elite to control all the people all over the world. If these tranzies think they can form a global state on earth, they are obviously deceiving themselves. It will never work.
That’s it exactly, WLMR-
“The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born”
That’s a disastrous system – a system that destroys the individual and therefore, rejects reason, critique, questions, in favour of emotional and mindless loyalties to collective myths.
Yes, I agree – the US declaration and constitution and bill of rights are indeed among the finest documents of freedom that has ever been written. And these rights are given to the individual. Not to groups, whereas Canada’s Charter describes some individual rights and yet, declares that these rights are trumped by both group and state rights. The US declaration specifically forbids this.
Jeremiah – don’t be juvenile. The CIA has not, ever, destroyed the concept of the sovereign state. Equally, the Soviet Union, which rode roughshod over many sovereign states during the communist era of massive take-over of such states – has not destroyed the concept of the sovereign state.
But the Soviet Union certainly tried to destroy sovereign states. Ever heard of what happened in Eastern Europe after WWII? Georgia? The Ukraine?
Oh – and speaking of sovereign states – ever heard of how France treats its ex-colonies?
The UN, however, has an ongoing agenda of doing so; its insistence on its domination in world decisions, attempting to set up world decision-making bodies such as the international court, such as Kyotoism that negate states rights.
And attempting to insert itself as having the only legitimate right to declare war – the UN is the biggest threat to sovereign states, along with this utopian international socialism of the left and islamic fascism.
Doug asks: “The discussion on the flaws of the COR brings up a point I have made in the past. Is there, or will there ever be anything more perfect than the United States Constitution and it’s spiritual father, the Declaration of Independence in clearly stating the principles of individual freedoms, liberties and rights?”
Well there is the Magna carta which set the core restraints on absolut power of imperial governance by making monarchy accountable to the law and giving the law the tennets of justice and civil fairnes…but this is a ancient document flawed by the feudalism it was written under.
Then there is Thomas Paine’s the rights of man that outlines the democratic republic. France had this for about 12 months before it was displaced by a military dictator.
But as a governing document to forment a nations civil contract with governnance, NO there is nothing that has ever been as inspired and morally just that these documents that spell out the individual as having inherent dignity and rights endowed by his nature (creator) and that ALL government exists to ensure the rights of the individual are sacrosanct and protected….the Constitution sets out the individual common man as the keyystone in a governing power structure to which all governmental institutions are subservient and accountable to.
A wonderous blueprint for a commoner’s democratic utopia.
Unfortunately this republic was mortally wounded 148 years ago and was given a secind fatal blow in 1913 and finally expired completely in 1933.
The US republic of the constitution is defunct hyjacked by a ruling cadre of elite insiders not unlike Canada but much more intense in intrigue.
The US commoner’s republic must’ve been a paradise for freedom lovers…too bad we can’t time travel back to enjoy it.
Today about the most inspired governing document left intact and followed fairly closely is the constitution of the Swiss confederation.
Et writes:
“Corporate governance has one agenda – profitablity and success.”
Of course they do. And international trade agreements help them do this, often by over ruling local laws.
Have you forgetten the MMT lawsuit against the Canadian gavernment? Ethyl Corp. was trying to force the use of this fuel additive in Canada, meanwhile it was illegal to use in the US. It cost the Canadian government millions to settle.
Profits, profits, profits…
Don’t be economically and socially naive lberia. Profits, or surplus are an absolute requirement both in natural and artificial (human) systems.
In natural systems, surplus of, for example, seeds beyond the requirement for that plant’s survival are required because that surplus provide the foods for many animals.
In human societies, surplus is necessary. That’s because humans must provide for the future. So -they must produce a surplus of seeds and animals to enable next year’s planting and food supply.
Surplus of money is required so that it can be invested in long term infrastructures that may not produce results for ten or more years.
You seem to want to live in a society without the capacity to produce surplus. The only type of society that is like that – is a primitive hunting and gathering band. They don’t produce anything and rely, completely, on what emerges, naturally, in their environment. Ahh, the life of ease. Problem is, that economic mode can only support about 30 people in a group. Ah well,
So, think a bit about the function of profits, lberia and move out of the mindset of a hunting and gathering band.
The weird thing about modern progressives is that they all seem to be trying to recreate the old absolute monarchy in the form of the oh-so-caring nanny state. Maybe that’s what socialism finally is: a deeply reactionary attempt to recreate a long gone imagined world where everyone knew his place, got his due, pledged fealty to the king who was the source of all this beneficence and the lynchpin of order, and individualists, freethinkers, and other disputers of received wisdom were aggressively persecuted. The biggest difference between the old dogma and the new is that the modern variety is dressed up as fake science instead of the word of God.
So here are two inheritances from the Enlightenment: a belief in personal liberty and free rational enquiry on the one hand (with all the risks inherent in both), and a desire for security and conformity under the divine rule of the nanny state on the other. It’s not nearly so simple as this, of course, and the two ideas aren’t always starkly opposed or incompatible, but I think there’s a basic difference in temperament implicit here and I’ve no damned doubt which I prefer.
“Corporate governance has one agenda – profitablity and success.”
That’s quantifiably false, at least in western civilization.
Many – perhaps most – corporations have defined diversity as a ‘business imperitive’, meaning that if they turn a large profit but remain insufficiently diverse they have, by their own standards, failed.
Companies such as Microsoft have explicitly stated that diversity is just as important to them as shareholder return on investment.
Of course, it goes without saying that a civilization that favours diversity over productivity deserves to fail.
ET: Great post at 9:40 am.
When the population gets really large in a two -class system – the society collapses. It has happened again and again – from ancient to modern times..
Richard Landes of Augean Stables uses the term “prime divider” societies. I’m guessing that this is along the lines of your two-class observation? What say you?
If memory serves he uses the term to distinguish the Arabs from the Israelis in that never-ending conflict and includes it in much of his analysis.
Sorry if I missed something (very busy at the moment) but if we could convince the Iberias of this world that corporations actually have zero power in the face of the sovereign consumer, we’d really get somewhere. Zero power, that is, absent the various market-skewing government interventions which, ironically, Iberia probably often unwittingly favours.
I often use this example: in the early 80s the consumer had decided that Chrysler should fail; the US government over-rode that decision with loans. While this appeared to have had a beneficial effect — the “saving” of existing jobs, there’s a strong probabiility that the potential jobs that might have come into existence, absent that intervention, would have exceeded the “saved” jobs. (see: Frederick Bastiat, what is unseen).
Repeating: corporations have zero power.
me no dhimmi – I’m afraid I don’t know the work of Richard Landes, but the term ‘prime divider’ is interesting. Is he trying to set up some kind of proportional formulae for social organization? My own view is that this can readily be done.
For example, consider a society as a ‘mass’ of energy. That energy is derived from its raw resources as accessed by its working population. So raw resources + working population = a particular mode of social organization.
A small energy mass (limited resources and small population) is organized in a minimalist manner. The easiest comparison is with a biological organism. A single celled organism is organized in a simple manner. Get more energy mass, and your organism starts to move into hierarchical levels where you get specialized organs, where some organs dominate and rule others, and so on.
It’s the same with a society.
A low energy social system is organized in a simple manner; a high energy system, that has accessed lots of resources and thus can support a large population, is organized in a more complex manner.
Dysfunctional societies are ‘out of sync’; their energy content and the organization of that energy aren’t harmonized. So, you can have two class social structures in medium sized populations – that have a steady-state energy dynamics, no growth in population. They are basic non-industrial agriculturalists. They have almost no capacity for adaptation or change. They can last a long time, but, if the situation changes and change is required – they collapse rapidly.
But – when you require a flexible and rapidly changing society – you must have a middle class in power. That means democracy with its privileging of the individual.
anyone who thinks that canada is anything but a socialist country hasn’t been paying attention we are the bastion of silverspoon socialists from pierre elliot twadles to bob ray carry on.
if the individual is not free the collective is not free
ET:
Why are you arguing with me – “Corporate governance has one agenda – profitablity and success.” I didn’t disagree, nor did I say that profits are a bad thing. I only have a problem with profits when they override things like safety, health or sustainability.
You didn’t comment on my MMT example. Why not? That’s just one case of how profits are more important than the health laws of a soveriegn nation.
For another example of profits uber alles, how about auto safety? Car makers had to be forced kicking and screaming to install seat belts into cars, decades after tests had shown that seat belts save lives. “We can’t…it will cost too much and then customers won’t buy our cars…” they collectively whined. So thousands of people needlessly died in order to protect the profit margins of the automakers. (The irony is that now the automakers trip over themselves advertising how many airbags they have in their cars just to show how safe they are.)
“I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.”
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816.
” ..Styling himself as a guru of global governance, Strong also helped to launch a major campaign for the U.N. to entwine its murky and graft-prone bureaucracy with big business, via so-called public-private partnerships. Strong introduced this process in his 1997 reform proposal as the bland notion of “consultation between the United Nations and the business community.”
Through his maneuvers, Strong has nurtured the U.N.’s natural tendencies to grow like kudzu into a system that now extends far beyond its own organizational chart. In this jungle, it is not only tough to track how the money is spent, but almost impossible to tally how much really rolls in – or flows through — and from where, and for what.
The U.N. today claims to have a core annual budget of only about $1.9 billion. But its total budget is more on the order of $20 billion per year, trailing off at the edges into opaque trusts, complicated in-kind donations and odd projects shielded by U.N. immunities — and accounting complexities — from any real oversight. And the potential for conflicts of interest is huge — and often overlooked by the U.N. itself.” Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.
“He (Maurice Strong)told Maclean’s magazine in 1976 that he was “a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.” He warns that if we don’t heed his environmentalist warnings, the Earth will collapse into chaos.”
“.. How could a mere MP wield the kind of international control he had tasted in Stockholm? Journalist Elaine Dewar, who interviewed Strong, described why he loved the UN.
“He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda,” wrote Dewar.
“He told me he had more unfettered power than a cabinet minister in Ottawa. He was right: He didn’t have to run for re-election, yet he could profoundly affect lives.”
Strong prefers power extracted from democracies, and kept from unenlightened voters. Most power-crazed men would stop at calling for a one world Earth Charter to replace the U.S. Constitution, or the UN Charter.
But in an interview with his own Earth Charter Commission, Strong said “the real goal of the Earth Charter is it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments. It will become a symbol of the aspirations and commitments of people everywhere.” Sounds like Maurice was hanging out at his spirit ranch without his sunhat on.”
Dunno bout that, considering how far the Kyoto Protocal has got in controlling countries’, including Canada’s, agenda.
ET: Site w3.theaugeanstables.com. Right side under MAIN, down a few items, below Eurabia, you will find his essay: Civil Society vs. Prime-Divider Society.
It is important to understand that these commitments are neither the norm, nor even a relatively common feature of most civilizations. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of civilized polities for the last 5000 years, from the ancient empires of the iron age to the early modern period in Europe, are structured along a fundamental fissure — a prime divider — between elites and commoners that structures most of the features of political and social life in basic ways. These societies are based on the political axiom “rule or be ruled” and permit even require the use of violence to defend one’s honor. They contain following main features..
From your many very interesting and erudite posts, I keep thinking you would really enjoy this site — he’s a prof at Boston U. In fact, as mentioned, your explanation of the two-class societies seemed very akin to his “prime-divider” concept (not sure if it’s his original term or not). I have no background in this area so am quite fascinated to encounter these conceptual frameworks and have found them most helpful as I have yours.
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring about?”
Maurice Strong
From brainyquote.com
//www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mauricestr300224.html
“I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously.”
Maurice Strong
[Including Al Gore ?]
“I do wish I could assist my many friends and colleagues in all the organizations I belong to, to remake the political and economic landscape.”
Maurice Strong
[Carbon-Credits would certainly do that !!]
“Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.”
Maurice Strong
[The World’s population will likely begin to declining in 30 or 40 years anyways., Mark Steyn.]
“Nothing less than the fate of the planet is at stake… No place on the planet can remain an island of affluence in a sea of misery.”
Maurice Strong
[Best we all be in misery ?]
“We in the industrialized world make a greater difference because our ecological footprint, our impact on the condition of the environment, is 40 to 50 times larger than that of people in the developing world.”
Maurice Strong
[Except Al Gore’s. His is about a thousand times larger :)]
“We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.”
Maurice Strong
[Nice !! Mass starvation, rampant disease, no medicine]
“What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody’s agenda now.”
Maurice Strong
[Like Oil-For-Food was ? Or the Cherry Car company of China ? Or bio-fuels, that use more fossil energy to make than they deliver ? Or carbon-credits that go to Third World Despots ?
or Wind Power that doesn’t deliver ?]
Thank you Kate and WLM Redux
For me … this is the most important post I have read on SDA. I followed on to Fonte’s piece and beyond.
It is all clear now.
elite institutions in western culture from the national council of churches to the UN and it’s plethora of NGOs are embarked upon an active path to destroy the concept of the sovereign nation state and it’s empowered individual
A state cannot exist without taking power away from the individual. The people who control nation states are using their confiscated power to create ever-larger and more impregnable institutions dedicated to consolidating and enhancing their control. Called the UN. The reason why so many in the west embrace this upward shifting of power is because they are blind to the original crime. They think that theft is OK as long as it’s “democratic”, and once it’s occured they can only think about how to manage the stolen power and money “fairly”.
P.S. We have a couple of thousand Canadian government employees working with several UN agencies and dozens of NGOs trying to spread the socialist pyramid scheme to central Asia. What a waste.
Terrific essay by Fonte and great posts here by WLNR, ET, blackadder and others.
I could spend an entire year looking in the major English-language newspapers of the world and not find such perceptive material. Makes me feel guilty for the pleasure of reading it for free.
Socialsim is what liberals want to have in america
“Socialsim is what liberals want to have in america
Posted by: spurwing plover at April 12, 2007 12:00 AM ”
Why don’t we start small and just go for sanity, then we can work on socialism.
Lookout. I guess I have to note “sarcasm” or “NOT” after my post about “In Diversity there is Strength”.
A comment recently by a top judge in Canada noted that prior to the Charter a murder trial would take 5-7 days where now with Charter challenges it takes 5-7 months! Perhaps that is why it seems to take years for people to have their day (months) in court. I remember when Trudeau was trying to bring the Charter in even lawyers were warning him to as it would only lead to a field day for them!
I’m with Richard Saunders. I don’t how you people find so much information, really brilliant stuff, and have the time to bring it SDA. Got to be the best blog on the web.