INDRAJIT
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The last trick in the arsenal of Democracy™ is Zombie Democracy. This is where your government is dead—people vote it out or can't vote—but it lumbers on anyways, eating brains.
Examples
Take, for example the United States, which decapitated its President on July 20th but can't recapitate until January 20th, because their Constitution is shitty. They're running around like a chicken with its head cut off, except the chicken is a T-Rex and still quite capable of mauling children. Remember what everyone has forgotten. No 'one' is in charge of America right now. First Joe Biden's constitution failed and now they have this Constitutional conundrum. America will be without a functioning President for six months. They've given the game away. It doesn't matter if America has a President at all. American democracy doesn't exist. It's just a reality TV show put on by a megacorporation.
Take, also, France, please. In France, leftists won the general election and the President appointed a right-wing government anyway. Or take Germany (also, away). The governing coalition of whatshisname has fallen apart but continues governing somehow. Or Peru, where they couped and caged an elected President and installed someone with a 90% disapproval rating. Or Pakistan and my own country Sri Lanka (until recently). In all these cases, some shitty, unsustainable, and despised government limps on for years past it expiry date. Ukraine is the fighting flagship of Democracy™ and it's the worst. Zelensky's term expired long ago and he just cancelled elections entirely.
When decent people do have elections, the "liberal democrats" are libeling them. Russia's elections are not real, Venezuela's elections are rigged, Georgia's has been magically interfered with. Then they're rigging elections, like in Moldova where the Russian diaspora was prevented from voting. They scream about saving democracy, but they're the ones making a mockery of it. These democracy grifters are like the wolf who cried wolf. Thankfully, nobody believes them. They get voted out at every fair opportunity. It is only by violently suppressing real democracy that these fake democrats control anything. But their control is slipping.
Illusions
As long as people believed in elections, that was all it took. As Lord Varys said, “Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” But the ruling elite are increasingly failing to put on even a show democracy. In America, they're just doing reruns and the actors are dying onscreen. In France, the winner doesn't win, in Germany the loser doesn't lose, and none of these make for a convincing show.
Elections were a thin veneer over selections in the first place, but now they're not even trying. The American Democrats skipped their primaries and just installed a candidate. Kamala Harris was the DEI heir to a DNR president and now she's predictably DOA. Now America is stuck with an 81-year-old until they inaugurate a 78-year-old, great. This is real late-stage empire shit. A dying empire led by literally dying men.
China isn't trying to infiltrate America via their air fryers, but if Americans saw the kind of cars they could get for $10,000 under communism, they'd rightly overthrow their government. The sanctions and tariffs aren't to keep the Chinese, Russians, et al out, they're to keep Americans in.
Across the Empire the illusion of Democracy™ is crumbling. Take Ukraine, as America did. Their actual democracy was couped in 2014 and now they have a literal actor playing a part. They fought much of their Russian-speaking population for years and then picked a fight with Russia itself, something no independent country would do because it's stupid. Indeed, Zelensky ran on reconciliation with Russia, but that's not how his handlers ran him. Now Ukraine has lost much of its land, its population, and a corrupt elite has destroyed everything. For what? Ukraine was just a stick for America to poke Russia with, and thrown away, just as carelessly.
Or take 'Israel', where the also antisemitic Western Allies deported the Jews to further their imperial interests (guns near the gas). The 'only democracy in the Middle East' killed, ethnically cleansed, or apartheided the majority population while genociding them slowly with treaties. This is the actual American model for America, with 'Israel' as their franchisee. It's important to understand that most of the countries on a political map are a sham. America is the head of ye olde White Empire, and Germany, France, 'Israel', 'South Korea', 'the United Kingdom', none of these are real countries. 'Israel' is the unrealest of them all, and that illusion is being violently shaken off. The Palestinians, certainly, do not believe that power resides in 'Israel' or America, and their bravery has drawn the free world to their side.
Western media talks about how 'democracy is losing all over the world' but what's really happening is the democracy illusion is falling apart. Liberal democracy was a Trojan Horse we let into our countries, and bankers bust out and ransacked the place. Aristotle said representative democracy trended towards oligarchy and, whaddya know, it does.
If you read Aristotle, there are many species of democracy, he listed dozens of forms across just the Med, each suited to the population. America peddled the audacious illusion that there was one form of democracy, and that it fit neatly into bombs. This is philosophically nonsensical, but politically potent, a modern monotheism for the godless. One ring to rule them all. But this Democracy™ was always an illusion. America was always shit and what it was peddling was always bullshit. Now the stench is simply too much.
Is This Dialectics?
Throughout history, when people elected leaders America didn't like, America just couped or killed them. Chile, Iran, Australia, I'm just going by memory, there's dozens, this is constant. And the leaders you could get were always within the American neoliberal paradigm, otherwise you wouldn't have them (refer point #1). This somehow worked because it didn't touch the imperial core that obviously (besides Australia) and because obvious violations of democracy were covered up with mass marketing about how great Democracy™ was, and they had—as Francis Fukuyama said—the VCRs and microwaves to prove it.
It's important to understand that ideology follows material conditions and vice versa, this is the dependent origination of politics and it's an endless, indivisible loop. “It's the economy stupid,” as some stupid person said. Whatever America was doing, as fucked up as it was, seemed to work. They were rich, and every voter goes into the booth like it's a lottery. Every voter is thinking how their lives can be better, and Americans seemed to have better living through tricknology. Whatever dark sorcery they were doing, whatever Indian graveyards it was built on, Democracy™ seemed to produce refrigerators and color TVs. And so people literally bought into the ideology.
But now material conditions have changed and they're trying to keep the same ideology. People are encouraged to defend a Democracy™ which makes their lives measurably more shit because 'look at these other measurements', which average you and Jeff Bezos and call it win. Meanwhile, other system of democracy (yes!) like China and Russia produce much more popular leaders and much better results which are relentlessly covered up with marketing that makes less and less sense. America today is sanctioning more countries to prevent their people from experiencing and learning about other possible systems, not for national security. China isn't trying to infiltrate America via their air fryers, but if Americans saw the kind of cars they could get for $10,000 under communism, they'd rightly overthrow their government. The sanctions and tariffs aren't to keep the Chinese, Russians, et al out, they're to keep Americans in.
The End Of The End Of History
Remember that America never stopped attacking the world after World War II. They suppressed countless liberation movements (which were all socialist or communistic, you never had the Capitalist Peoples Front of anything). They couped, corrupted, and cajoled nations into parking the Trojan Horse of Democracy™ in their town squares. The fundamental productive incapacity of capitalism since the 1980s has been covered up with money-printing, unmoored from the gold standard or any standards, really.
Politically, the fundamental oligarchic character of representative democracy (sic) was covered up with puppets that looked like humans, despite having the invisible hand up all their butts. This insane marketing campaign worked as long as it delivered material results, but now it doesn't, and they have to hold on to power by force. This straining makes the invisible hand visible, and ruins the whole charade. Our corporate lords are able to cause many tragedies yes, but they are a farce. They look like morons who can't even rig an election properly, let alone win one.
Thus you get the final (inshallah) stage of Democracy™, Zombie Democracy. Where elections become increasingly stupid, where the genocides and coups aren't even covered up, and where the pretenders don't even pretend to pretend anymore. It's what William S. Burroughs called Naked Lunch, when you see what's on the end of every fork. The paint has come off the pantomime, liberal democracy's pants are down in front of the whole world, and they're not packing much.
No One Is Running America NowIn Sri Lanka, a new President is elected and they immediately take office. America drags this process out for 11 weeks, because their Constitution is badly coded and has mountains of technical debt. Joe Biden's government was actually decapitated on July 20th but Donald Trump won't be recapitated until January 20th, leaving a nearly six month interregnum. The king is dead and no king yet lives. The DEI heir failed but the hair apparent cannot yet succeed. Because of this glitch in the matrix, Joe Biden is still President, despite having mentally abdicated long ago. America's government is both a headless chicken and a lame duck, a metaphorical mess. So who's actually running America? Who the fuck knows. Some shadowy cabal of political consultants and the even darker money behind them. Who's commander in chief? Who gives a shit? A Raytheon board member is Defence Secretary, the military industrial complex has completely corrupted civilian governance. This has been America's state of affairs for at least three months, though it seems to have been Weekend At Bernie's for years, walking Biden's propped up corpse around, signing documents and sniffing hair. This moment is like the end of World War I when Woodrow Wilson got 'Spanish' Flu, broke his brain, and ghosted on the negotiations, possibly causing World War II in the process. In this case, Biden got COVID again, his team issued a resignation from the race while he was in bed, and who gives a shit, World War III has already started (if you count Slavic people and colored Holocausts). Wars used to require approval from Congress, then the imperial Presidency took over, and now the military industrial complex just does it on autopilot. Given that military contractors include Boeing, you can guess how this ends. When Eisenhower said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex,” this wasn't a warning. It was a description. Eisenhower said, “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together,” which is laughable, knowing modern Americans. As Ansarallah's Nasruddin said, laughing at Eisenhower's rusting reincarnation,
The world has indeed changed and no one is waiting for America to deliver values it never had in stock. As sex culty philosopher Osho said, I think about America, “Democracy basically means government by the people, of the people, for the people. But the people are retarded.” Osho is not that wise and American government has always been for, of, and by property, only propertied men could vote and their whole modern electoral system is just a hack around a Constitution that doesn't have direct election of Presidents at all. The #2 electoral vote getter (not real votes, but a parallel Congress) is supposed to Vice President, so the founders actually intended Trump/Harris to be running America next year. As I've said, the US Constitution is coded to weaken government so the rich can get away with slavery and murder, as they're still doing. It is, as Vladimir Putin said, a vampire's ball. As Vlad the Explainer said, “They are used to, for centuries, to stuffing their belly with human flesh and their pockets with money. But they need to understand that the vampire's ball is coming to an end.” Especially if you don't like Putin (there is no greater teacher than the enemy), Putin is a keen observer of America. In 2017, Putin said “I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go, but politics stay the same at all times. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well-dressed, wearing dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones. These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is what happens with every administration.” America has had the same enemies list since the 1960s and they're methodically not going through it. They're still fighting Korea, still fighting Iran, fighting the Russians again. An American President can pick their battles, but not the wars. American Presidents are given the same bloody menu when they enter office and they just order different airstrikes à la carte. Like their cinema, everything in American politics is a reboot. Their Presidents have been a series of bad Reagan impersonators since 1980: nerd Reagan, Reagan with a saxophone, dumb Reagan, black Reagan, Make America Reagan Again, Reagan's embalmed corpse, Make America Reagan Again, Again. Everything is a reboot, from their cinema to their politics. America public life is increasingly just a reality TV show controlled by invisible producers, funded by giant corporations who profit no matter what. It does not matter who's President. No 'one' is President now. |
- In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
- Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
- Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
Indrajit is super, he says it like it is and no further nonsense. The funniest line ever in
TGP is Kamala Harris was the DEI heir to a DNR president and now she’s predictably DOA
PS for those who are not medically trained: DNR is “Do-Not-Resuscitate” and DOA is “Dead-On-Arrival”. Prosit!