De morele ineenstorting van de VS: de oorzaak

In het hieronder opgenomen artikel,
geschreven door Umair Haque, eerder gepubliceerd op Vampires, gaat
deze in op de morele ineenstorting van de VS maatschappij.

Haque concludeert dat de VS zich andere ‘moraliteiten’ heeft aangemeten: egoïsme, hebzucht, wrok en wreedaardigheid……. Zie hoe men openlijk haat en angst tegen minderheden zaait in de VS, hoe men zich moreel zo hoog acht dat de VS waar het haar uitkomt illegaal oorlog voert, onder de valse vlag van het brengen van democratie en het bestrijden van mensenrechtenschendingen, zelfs als men een democratisch gekozen regime omver werpt en daar een dictator voor in de plaats parachuteert…… Of wat dacht je van het openlijk steunen van dictatoriaal geregeerde landen als Saoedi-Arabië, de Golfstaten, Egypte, Honduras, Filipijnen en ga nog maar even door……. Steun die niet zelden geleverd wordt door de CIA met ‘onderwijs’ hoe het best te martelen……

Ook in de binnenlandse politiek zijn menselijkheid, moraliteit en ethische waarden ver te zoeken, zie de omgang met de gekleurde bevolking, de vluchtelingen (veelal door VS ingrijpen op de vlucht geslagen) en de grote onderlaag…. Zo zijn meer dan 50 miljoen VS burgers afhankelijk van voedselbonnen, kunnen veel VS burgers belangrijke medische therapieën niet betalen en sterven mensen onnodig snel na constatering van bijvoorbeeld kanker……. Terwijl je het tegelijkertijd als politicus voor een groot deel kan vergeten als je niet van het christelijk geloof bent….* 

De VS is een maatschappij waar de armoede zo groot is dat velen zelfs met 2 banen nog niet rond kunnen komen en niet zelden mensen met meer banen niet eens een dak boven het hoofd hebben…….

Maar laat ik er verder het zwijgen toe doen, lees wat Haque te vertellen heeft en zie hoe ver de VS is afgezakt van de ‘morele ladder’ en is veranderd in een ijskoude, inhumane en wrede politiestaat, waar men nu zelfs bezig is om alle critici de mond te snoeren middels censuur…… Let wel: veel van wat Haque stelt is intussen ook al van toepassing op de EU en haar lidstaten, ook hier is moraliteit en ethisch handelen ver te zoeken, lullig genoeg zijn niet alleen politici maar net als in de VS, ook de reguliere media daar debet aan……

(Why)
America’s in a State of Moral Collapse

What Happens When a
Nation’s Taught to Think What’s Right is the Enemy of What’s Good

Go to the profile of umair haque

umair
haque
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vampire. Nov 26

I
spent a gentle and quiet Thanksgiving with family, watching Christmas
movies and overeating — away from the internet. Yawning and
checking the headlines this morning, I was startled, horrified, to
see the picture above — toddlers being tear-gassed. I asked
myself what many of you probably did: “is this who we’ve become?
Or is this, perhaps, who we always were?”

What
a moral abomination — attacking children. Is there anything
lower? And yet that’s hardly the only one — what the world
regards as moral abomination has become a gruesome habit in America,
a grim feature of daily life.
 Here’s a shocking yet
somehow unsurprising statistic — 40% of Americans struggle to
pay for basic medicine. School shootings, opioids, suicide,
depression, an imploded middle class, the swelling ranks of the new
poor — everyday American life is an endless list of the kind of
stuff that would make dystopia blush. What links all these things?

America’s
a nation in steep, profound moral decline. It gasses “those”
kids — while making its own do “active shooter drills.”
What kind of society lets this happen? How did America become such a
society? 
I think it happened because America’s moral
muscles atrophied to the point that it became a moral
weakling — unable to shoulder any kind of weight, to act with
much humanity, decency, or goodness, towards itself, or othersNow, I
don’t say that to judge or condemn or shame — but to observe
gently, and to maybe point a way forward.

(Moral
atrophy shouldn’t be a surprise — Americans have been taught,
maybe indoctrinated, not to care for one another, that they are only
their “productivity” and “utility”, seduced or compelled into
a kind of survival-of-the-fittest culture of cruelty, overworking and
undervaluing themselves and each other, which is the inevitable
result of a history of exploitation, slavery, segregation. It
culminated in the apocalyptic every-man-for-himself ideologies of
neoliberalism and predatory, which imploded back into the supremacism
they were born from. But I’ll return to all this.)

Let
me explain what I mean, by way of an example.

Americans
are told that the only case they can make for things like immigration
and refugees is an economic one — hence, endless repetition of
the fact that refugees become immigrants, who set up businesses, and
create jobs, and XYZ percentage to GDP and so on. Very well, they do.
But that fact alone doesn’t convince the unpersuaded, does it? It
seems to elide, to miss, to evade something deeper, more crucial,
truer — about the heart and soul of a people and a nation.

What
is always left unmade — what perhaps cannot be discussed in
America — is the moral case. The truly moral one — not
just why acting in everyone’s best interest is right, but why it
is 
good.
Good for us all. Not just 
right — at
our own expense. Do you see the difference? Think about it. Aren’t
we told precisely the opposite in America? What’s good for everyone
is what’s bad for us. But is it really true?

What
we don’t discuss — what we aren’t allowed to discuss,
really — is how morality, true morality, as in humane and
caring acts of kindness and decency, not Darwinian-Nietszchean
survival of the fittest — dramatically alters the fortunes of a
society, betters the prosperity of a nation, in profound, lasting,
and transformative ways. Do you see how foreign and alien it is when
I speak this way? It is as if this is something that we can barely
bring ourselves to even conceive of in America today.

Why
is that? Why can’t we make the link between what is moral being
genuinely good for us, not just right at our own expense, exactly?
Why are we always more or less told to believe, in America, that what
is right and what is good are polar opposites? I’m asked by
mainstream American thinking to believe, for example, that my greed,
vanity, contempt, and selfishness will somehow lead to the best for
everyone. In other words, I should never use my moral muscles — that
way, everyone will be best off. What’s right is the enemy of what’s
good. But does that bizarre, twisted, convoluted logic seem to have
worked out for America to you?

Let
us think about what happens if a nation accepts refugees. Not to its
economy, per se — but to itself, it’s deeper capacities and
capabilities, all the things that underpin an economy, which is just
stuff. That act of care confirms, strengthens, and expands its
capacities for empathy, generosity, humility, courage, truth, wisdom,
and gratitude. It extends and commits it to freedom, to justice, to
equality, for all.
 It is an act that builds moral
muscles, in other words. But what do moral muscles allow — or
maybe compel — us to do?

The
growth of all those moral capacities, empathy, generosity, humility,
and so forth, in turn, make it much more likely that such a nation
will act humanely toward itself, too. Those moral muscles will give
it the reason and the power both to develop systems like universal
healthcare, childcare, retirement. They will help steer it away from
inequality and injustice and bigotry and resentment, and towards the
opposites. And if a nation has universal goods, like healthcare and
retirement and so on, then humane acts, like accepting refugees, will
probably reconfirm its commitment to them, as well, by testing the
limits of its own goodness, the power of its moral character.

Let
me distill the three key lessons. One, humane acts, by testing us, by
strengthening us, and by empowering us, build moral muscles in three
ways. And there is no other way to build moral muscles, really. Two,
using moral muscles builds moral strength. But leaving moral muscles
to atrophy makes a nation morally weak. Three, we can only really act
as humanely towards ourselves as do to others, and so when we act
humanely to others, it confirms and tests, expands and strengthens,
our own moral strength, too.

Now.
If all this is not just idle theory, but truth, then we would expect
to see something particular happening in the world. Those nations
with things like universal public goods would also have the most
humane policies towards refugees and so on. And that is very much the
case. Scandinavia, for example, has the world’s most expansive
public goods, which underpin the world’s highest quality of
life — and also, mostly, the most open stances towards
refugees. Many of these are the most moral societies in the
world — by that I hardly mean they are perfect, but I do mean
that in them, people treat each other with greater respect and
decency than elsewhere. Not just theoretically, but
genuinely — socially, economically, politically. You would be
quite right to say that’s changed in a place like Denmark — and
I’d say that stance towards refugees indicates a weakening of moral
muscles that will have effects on society itself, too, corroding its
humanity towards itself in the long run.

So
the link seems to be true in the real world, too — humane acts
build our moral muscles, and make it possible for us to act humanely
towards ourselves, too. When we do things like accept refugees, we
are in a sense going to the moral gym — and making sure we are
morally strong also ensures that we have the power and strength to
treat each other humanely, too.

You
would be right to say that I am suggesting nothing different than
Jesus or Buddha or the prophets said thousands of years ago. So why
are Americans taught that they were wrong, essentially? That what’s
moral must come at their own expense? That what’s right is the
enemy of what’s good — not that what’s right 
is what’s
good? Do you see my distinction? It’s a subtle — but I think
a crucial — one.

Let
me put it another way. Why are Americans never taught any of this?
That there’s a moral case for humane acts — like accepting
refugees — not just an economic one? Why does the kind of
discussion above — that links real world morality to economics
and society, and produces a more sophisticated account of the
prosperity of a nation — never really take place?

The
reason is that Americans have been confused about what morality is
for a very long time now. For example, in America, it is perfectly
acceptable to label selfishness, greed, spite, and cruelty merely as
“different kinds of morality.” But a sensible, thinking person
should reject this approach entirely. Me thinking your kids are not
really people or denying you healthcare or turning a blind when your
kids are shot at school is not moral in any sense of the word — and
so if we accept such stances merely as “different moralities”, we
undermine the idea of morality to the point it has no meaning
whatsoever. It may be something that elevates my status within my own
group — but in no sense is it moral, because what I give to my
own, I merely take away from yours.

At
minimum, performing one’s moral duty as a citizen of a society is
to imagine, to learn about, to reason towards, how to care for
all — not just some, those of your own tribe, race, color,
creed, religion, place, or stratum. When I put it to you that way, it
should be much clearer where America’s problems stem from. It
struggles to reach the mature morality of a developed nation, because
it has never really built moral muscles to begin with. America’s
moral horizons never really expand beyond the idea of caring for your
own tribe or group — that is the toxic residue of centuries of
slavery and segregation, which resulted in a social philosophy of
almost pure atomic individualism, bitter competition, and power,
money, and status as the prizes to be won. The idea that one’s
moral duty as a citizen is to care for all — how could it ever
develop in an America that was segregated until the 1970s?

But
today, that failure to develop moral muscles has left America in a
state of moral collapse. It is having a kind of implosive
blowback — only having been taught to care for themselves, or,
at best, their own kind, Americans are left unable to build a truly
modern society.

And
yet at the same time, Americans aren’t often offered a perspective
of themselves that goes beyond economistic — mere cogs in a
capitalist machine, not truly moral agents. But being true moral
agents is what forging a genuinely better society — a more
decent, humane, caring, courageous, and wise one — demands. How
can mere cogs in a capitalist machine ever do it? That is why cases
for human actions which only analyze economic consequences are badly
deficient things. They are well intentioned, but they don’t
ultimately help a society build its moral muscles. If the only reason
I am helping you is that I will grow rich — then I am not
acting morally at all, I am still just a self-interested automaton.
But if I am helping you because it is by helping that you that I help
all, of which I am a part, then I am a moral being, who can reason
morally, think morally, and act morally, too. Do you see the
difference?

The
atrophy of their moral muscles has left Americans weak where it
counts most. Not just economically or socially or politically. But
morally. One of the great lessons of the last century is that
morality and prosperity go hand in hand. The riches and wealth we
gain from exploiting others come with a curse — they cheat of
us modernity itself. But modernity’s riches — societies
wealthy in the most beneficial goods of all, like healthcare,
education, retirement, which then engender trust, meaning, belonging,
and purpose — cannot be had any other than by building one’s
moral muscles.

How
strong? So strong that it is each one’s first duty to lift up all.

Umair

November
2018

==============================

* Alsof men in de ‘christelijke’ VS politiek niet weet dat het nieuwe testament van de bijbel in sterke tegenspraak is met het onmenselijke beleid dat men voert, neem de omgang met vluchtelingen en arme VS burgers……..

Fascisme nog steeds niet begrepen in de VS en de EU

Beste
bezoeker lees het volgende opiniestuk van Umair Haque.
Hierin legt hij uit dat de VS geen snars begrijpt van fascisme: de
opkomst en het grote gevaar van fascisme zoals we dat in Duitsland,
Italië, Spanje en aantal Latijns Amerikaanse landen hebben gezien.

Moet wel opmerken dat wat mij betreft de VS al een fascistoïde maatschappij is, neem de omgang van de politie met de gekleurde en zeker met de zwarte minderheid in de VS. Dan is er nog het frustreren van het kiesrecht voor gekleurden, die veelal niet eens kunnen stemmen als ze daartoe gemachtigd zijn (en aan die machtiging wordt ook nu weer flink geknaagd)…… Wat voorts te denken over het inperken van vrouwenrechten (zoals voor abortus en anticonceptie) in een aantal VS staten……. 

Lees
en geeft het ajb door, ook hier begrijpt men niet welk gevaar de
fascisten vormen voor onze toch al lamme democratie….. Hoewel wij
de les bij wijze van spreke aan den lijve hebben ondervonden, zie je
ook de neoliberale partijen als VVD, D66, CDA (in feite ook
neoliberaal), PvdA, CU en SGP meer en meer uiterst rechtse of beter gezegd fascistoïde denkbeelden omarmen, zie alleen al hoe men met vluchtelingen en hun
kinderen denkt om te kunnen gaan………. 

De CU sputtert nog wel wat op het gebied van vluchtelingen, maar deze hypocriete partij blijft wel achter  het inhumane waardeloze kabinet Rutte 3 staan, een kabinet waar het zelf aan deelneemt…… Sterker nog: dit kabinet kan niet zonder de steun van de ‘Christen’Unie…..

Ook het etnisch profileren in de VS en hier, is feitelijk een fascistische vorm van politie-inzet……

Bovendien is het
neoliberalisme uiteindelijk goed beschouwt niets anders dan een fascistisch
gedachtegoed! Daar is Haque het overigens niet mee eens, gezien het artikel dat hieronder is opgenomen. 

Verder stelt Haque dat de hang naar fascisme niet in de grote steden is te vinden, echter daar ben ik het niet met hem eens, zie alleen al de neonazi parades in diverse grote steden in de VS. 

Hooguit kan je uit het stemgedrag buiten de grote steden in de VS als meer rechts bestempelen dan in de grote steden, waar uiteraard het discriminerende gedrag tegen de gekleurde minderheid in die gebieden extremer is dan in de grote steden, ook al schiet de politie in de VS meer gekleurden neer in de grote steden van de VS…..

Vergeet verder het gevaar niet van de steeds verder toenemende macht van grote bedrijven die met een beroep op duurzaamheid intussen de wereld verder verrampeneren en de volksgezondheid ondergeschikt houden aan het maken van (mega) winsten……. Waar dit bedrijfsleven graag foute regimes steunt en van de VS regering eist dat consumenten zo min mogelijk te vertellen hebben over o.a. voedselveiligheid…… Ook hier is dit te zien, al helpen onze politici daar graag aan mee, neem het TTIP handelsverdrag*, een verdrag waarmee de consument wordt gereduceerd tot een lastige klant die zich vooral niet moet bemoeien met voedselveiligheid en zaken als genetische manipulatie……. Verder is het een feit dat het bedrijfsleven in Duitsland het prima deed in aanloop van WOII (vanaf 1933) en de eerste twee jaren van die oorlog…… Sterker nog: zonder het grote bedrijfsleven was Hitler (en de NSDAP) waarschijnlijk niet zo machtig geworden……..

Lees het volgende artikel van Umair Hague en oordeel zelf: 

umair
haque

vampire.
Sep 3

What America Still
Doesn’t Understand About Fascism

What
Happens When a Rich Society Suddenly Becomes a Poor One?

Today, I read, as you probably
did, 
that
Steve Bannon is to keynote the New Yorker’s Ideas Festival
.
LOL — it should go without saying that’s a pretty good
indication that a society is out of ideas. Yet I can almost hear the
reasoning in the New Yorker’s offices. Their problem is that
American thinkers have no real explanation for fascism — just
fairy tales — and that leaves you with…the fascists. Or maybe
they just wanted to stoke controversy and make money (I’d give them
more credit than that, but I digress.)

Let’s take the fairy tales Americans
tell themselves about fascism — there are three — one by
one, and then discuss what really causes fascism (and why American
thinkers are completely unable to get it, even at this late stage).
You can skip this part if you want the less nerdy stuff.

Fascism is caused by identity
politics. 
This
is what Francis Fukuyama suggests in his new book
 — and
I’d say he should be ashamed of himself, if it weren’t so funny
and laughable. I decide to be a gender-nonconforming them, not a he
anymore, and you respond by…cheering on Mexican babies as they’re
put in camps? LOL, you see why I think American thinkers don’t know
how to think anymore? It’s not just childishly absurd — it’s
a grotesque form of victim-blaming, that obviates freedom or liberty
in any genuine sense, every bit the equivalent of saying “well, you
shouldn’t have worn that dress…!”

Fascism is a cycle, a backlash
against “too much liberalism.” This seems to explain things — but
it doesn’t. What is “too much liberalism?” When we have
healthcare? Or just sewers and pipes? Does that mean that human
beings are doomed to be fascists? This is a kind of theology of
individualism — not really an explanation for fascism.

Fascism happens when white people
are afraid of becoming a minority. This explanation is trotted out
regularly by American pundits. But whites in Sweden are in no danger
of becoming a minority — yet extremism is in second place
there, in the upcoming election. That’s true in Italy, Poland,
Hungary, and Russia, too. So this theory is obviously false — it
can’t explain the global rise of fascism even a bit.

These three explanations lead to what
I call the meteor strike theory of fascism. Since we have no real
explanation, it becomes a random event, a kind of natural
catastrophe. But if it’s a natural catastrophe, then we have no
control over it. And if we have no control over it, then maybe the
best we can do is…invite the fascists to headline our festivals. As
a way to negotiate and bargain with them. Does that make sense?

Now. Let us try to look at all the
above from another perspective. Not the one of what we believe, but
simply what we know. What do we know about how America has changed
over the last thirty years?

80% of Americans now live paycheck to
paycheck. 70% have less than $1000 in savings. 70% expect their kids
to live worse lives. Life expectancy is falling. Real incomes are
shrinking. Suicides are skyrocketing. Depression and loneliness are
soaring. The old can’t afford to retire, and the young can’t
afford to start families. The middle class has imploded, and the
ranks of the poor have swollen. What does all this really say?

America is a rich country
that effectively became a poor one — in the space of a
generation
. Is it
any surprise that this sudden, unexpected, historic collapse would
massively, catastrophically destabilize society — and give rise
to fascism?

(Perhaps you object. The mistake many
Americans make is to think that flat-screen TVs and microwave ovens
somehow make them better off than people in poorer countries. They
don’t. People in Pakistan and Chile can afford those things, too.
Poverty — the experience of deprivation — is a truer
thing that not having a flat-screen TV. It’s about living at the
edge of perpetual ruin, which is something that most Americans now
face daily)

How might a society plunging from
riches into poverty destabilize into fascism, precisely? The social
bonds in a town or community get blown apart. People turn to fascism
for belonging. The sense of optimism and faith in the future people
have is destroyed. They turn to fascism for hope again. All the good
jobs are gone. People seek scapegoats to blame for their
miseries — the very ones they’ve barely learned to tolerate
living next to. Life is a frightening thing now — people seek
the soothing, comforting words of a demagogue.

You must work harder every year, just
to keep your head above water — the demagogue is the only one
who tells you this is wrong and unjust, while elites don’t seem to
notice or care much at all. You never expected to be poor — yet
here you are. Suicides and illnesses and drug use have come to
surround you. Everything seems broken — towns, communities,
cities, bonds, families, jobs, livelihoods, careers, even people. In
the end, you turn to fascism to restore all the things you feel have
been taken away from you — trust, meaning, purpose, belonging,
optimism, opportunity, fairness, dignity, pride, and strength.

Those things are what poverty is
really made of, and the new poverty that Americans face isn’t just
financial — it’s made of all the elements of a decent life.
In hard terms, poverty of human, intellectual, social, emotional, and
civic capital, to name just a few.

Now, if the theory is correct, we’d
expect to see fascism rising in places where all the above is
true — where poverty in all these forms has risen, where all
these real “capital deficits” have grown. Where are those places?
They are not places that have always been poor — but of
downward mobility. And that’s precisely what we do see. American
fascism isn’t rising in inner cities — but in Rust Belt
towns, in exurbs, in third-tier cities, in the regions where people
expected easy, comfortable lives, like their parents and
grandparents — but instead, are ending up elsewhere, and can’t
understand why, or what to do about it all. Bang! The fascist spark
is lit by the implosion of the middle class.

The fascist isn’t the
prole — he’s the frustrated bourgeoisie. The one whom
capitalism promised to make a capitalist — but only did it to
sell him on capitalism.
 It
had no intention of ever making him a true capitalist, like Bezos,
Gates, or Buffett — why would it? Capitalism isn’t there to
make him rich, it’s there to make them rich. So the prole turns to
tribalism, hierarchy, and predation, then, for the power and riches
and comfort he was promised — and still hungers for.

So now our theory goes something like
this. Capitalism promised proles bourgeois lives — it was the
best marketing trick in history, perhaps. But all it ever really
wanted to do was to squeeze the proles — and maximize profits.
Those disappointed would-be bourgeoisie, who are now poorer than
ever, enraged, losing trust and faith in the system, living at the
edge, turn to fascism. They band together into tribes of the pure—
so the prole, if he can’t be a real capitalist, a true bourgeois,
can at least be powerful enough to prey on the weak. The sudden,
jabbing sting of poverty, the feeling of being empty, hopeless, weak,
damaged, forgotten, abandoned, becomes a sense of of belonging,
meaning, purpose, safety, security, and strength. Now he is someone
again.

So the disappointed prole turns to
fascism to restore precisely the things that capitalism took away
from him — what it was impoverishing him of while he wasn’t
looking. But that means that he is at the mercy of tribal logic, in
all its fearfulness and cowardice and stupidity, too. The rage that
should be directed at capitalism is pointed at scapegoats. The anger
that should be directed at those above him is aimed below him. The
contempt he should have for the rich is turned into scorn of the
poor. The disappointment he should have in greed, egotism, and
self-concern instead turns to a vengeful resentment of the smallest
differences. He imagines that he is history’s great victim,
persecuted by malign forces, hunted, and hounded — and so
everything becomes an existential battle, in which only the strong
survive, and must act pre-emptively, to eliminate their enemies.
Self-preservation means that the price of survival is to become a
predator. Nobody will ever make him poor again — he will make
sure of it, by making everyone else less of a person at all.

Predatory
capitalism degenerates into fascism, by creating the glittering
expectation of riches, but the shattering reality of poverty.
Enraged, embittered, aggrieved, people turn on their neighbours,
colleagues, friends, and peers, preying on the weak, to gain back the
very things capitalism took away from them — even as it
promised them dreams of bourgeois wealth.
 If it can’t
live like the bourgeois, as capitalism promised, the tribe will take
whatever it can, by more vicious means, not to be poor in these ways
ever again. Democracy itself begins to wither and die. Society
shrivels. Norms and values are ripped apart. Everything seems to
shatter.

The world has seen all this before.
This was the story of Germany in the 1930s, almost exactly. A rich
society which had suddenly become poor. A middle class imploding.
People turning on their friends and neighbours. The tribe seizing for
itself what capitalism had promised — but never had any
intention of delivering. In more and more violent ways. Led by a
demagogue. Who made people feel strong and powerful and hopeful
again. Bang! Fascism.

That story is being retold in American
today. America can’t quite bring itself to believe it. It is too
busy telling itself fairy tales and fables. That is why Steve Bannon
can headline a festival of ideas — LOL — while a nation
seems to think fascism is the equivalent of a meteor strike. Fairy
tales, my friends, do not help you, in the deep, dark night, when the
monsters judder and screech. 
They are only there to lull us asleep.

Umair
 August 2018

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=========================================

* Sinds Trump aan het bewind is, zijn EU ambtenaren en politici bezig met een peperdure lobby in Washington om het TTIP verdrag alsnog getekend te krijgen, let wel: de EU is een volksvertegenwoordiging en niet een bedrijvenvertegenwoordiging!