ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM

INDRAJIT—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.

EDITOR—Trump’s former Iran envoy at the State Department, Brian Hook, is reportedly coordinating the transition at State. That suggests that Hook could serve in a top position at the department, and it signals that Iran policy will be once again dominated by the hawks in Trump’s orbit. Iran hawks in Washington have been very pleased with the news of Hook’s involvement in the transition. Mark Dubowitz, president of the hardline, anti-Iranian think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and prominent supporter of the “maximum pressure” campaign, said, “I couldn’t think of a better person to lead the transition team given Brian’s experience in senior roles at the State Department.”

GODFREE ROBERTS—America is leading the West in a death spiral. Its greatest entrepreneur, Elon Musk, is a Western media punching bag1, once-mighty Boeing and Intel are bankrupt, its economies are in recession2 and its foreign policy is decided by Israel. 4 No Western leader, and neither American Presidential candidate is fit to run a business, let alone a country whose economy is collapsing as its debt reaches Weimar Republic levels.

CHARLES McKELVEY—The United States, either through war with Iran to contain China, or through unconventional war to weaken all anti-imperialist states, or both, is seeking to stop the dialectical march of modern history.  The United States can do so only through destruction, which also could lead to its own demise.  It would be far more dignified for the American republic to participate positively in the second stage of the modern synthesis, in which cooperation and mutually beneficial trade are established as an international norm.  In doing so, the United States would once again be one of the world’s leading nations, and it could interpret its enlightened turn as the fulfillment of the promise of democracy contained in the founding of the American republic. 

KARL SANCHEZ—Professors Hudson and Wolff have discussed the upcoming US Election on several previous occasions with Nima, while this session specifically focuses on US political dynamics, issues foreign and domestic that are being completely ignored, and what the outcomes might be depending on who is declared the winner. And no, there’s no talk of the election being stolen by on side or the other or what the social response might be depending on who wins. The number of excellent ideas and insights are too many to list. Dr. Wolff carries the show because he has somewhat better insights and is able to articulate them better. Dr. Wolff provides one of the more interesting points that’s revealed at the 19:00 mark of the 80-minute podcast:

The Hegelian Moment of American Politics: Cold War Isolationism of the Other as the initial thesis has matured and become its antithesis: the isolation of the US as it’s now the Other compared with the Global Majority.