It is democracy's authentic potential that is losing ground with the rise of authoritarian capitalism, whose tentacles are coming closer and closer to the West. Slavoj Zizek
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I think authoritarian capitalism has already arrived and is firmly entrenched. It's only a question of degree, a qualitative question, are we in the same fix as Singapore? I think the answer to that question is no, we are not. But the reason is simply that perhaps, a more overt strangulation isn't required.
I think the evidence for this view amounts to a list of three major disasters brought on by authoritarian capitalism: the economic collapse, the destruction of the Gulf of Mexic, and the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In each case the response of government was to use the pretext of a threat to national security (the security of capital) to keep public information and understanding as limited as possible through `embedding' media within a government process in order to control it.
Whatever information gets out, then revert to deception discourse or overt lying. `We' are making `progress' in the economic recovery, the Gulf of Mexico, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the notion that there is progress toward some return to normal will eventually be dropped. That will signal that whatever condition of the economy, the Gulf, and the wars will have become merely `normal' facts of life.
Consider another example. Consider NGO-Haiti under Viceroy Clinton. I am certain that any mainstream media interest in Haiti will first display the human misery, and then immediately follow with the `progress' being made to `rebuild' Haiti.
I like to say something about lying and politics. The deepest problem with lying and deception is that as a conceptual system of thought and practice, it threatens to destory the system of governance itself. The mode of destruction is primarily passive. If a disaster occurrs such as the economic collapse, then the vast machinery of deception takes over, presumably to protect the interests of the elite who prepetrated the disaster. The fundamental problem is not that the elite got away with our money. The problem is that the economic system will collapse, if laws, policies, and neoliberal ideology are not changed. The elite who benefit most from the neoliberal system of course have no interest in changing it. The only why to change the system is first to have the blinders taken off so that the public can force change through political means
I think the same argument can be made for the Gulf oil disaster. The sea will undergo a mass depopulation, the shorelines will become toxic wastelands, a large mass of people will loose their trades and many small communities will disappear or become depopulated ghostowns. Larger communities and cities will absorb the impact with rising rates poverty and falling standards of living for a much larger group than before. And, since the whole point to mass deception is to maintain the status quo, nothing will be done, when the status quo changes for the worse for a larger percentage of the population.
If we accept Carl Schmitt's idea that the political only appears under exceptional circumstances, when disaster strikes, then it can be argued that the whole point to mass deception is to prevent the political as an activity or activa vita from taking place.
So, then returning to the multiple disasters that are converging on our society. The physical and material problem with mass deception is that it prevents a society from acting on its own self-perservation need, since deception prevents the activa vita from occurring.
When mass deception breaks down, then the power elite response is repression of organizations and individuals engaged in the activa vita or The Political. If these measures turn out to be ineffective, then outright tyranny becomes the power elite order of the day. Those who are not engaged in The Political which is usually the overwhelming majority, will experience no change, and will not feel the crushing weight of tyranny. On the other hand, that same majority will continue to experience the material effects of the disasters that befall them or perpetrated against them.
CG
ps. Here is an interesting paper by Martin Jay, a professor of History at Berkeley:
http://www.polisci.upenn.edu/theoryworkshops/martinjay.pdf