Why Trump and the GOP love Hungary’s authoritarian leader

“The reason that Orbán keeps winning is he has the control of a dictator,” said one political scientist. “So the question is, what are the Republicans in it for?"

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/viktor-orban-cpac-trump-gop-hungary-leader-rcna40199

He has extolled the value of racial purity, is vehemently anti-immigration, has cultivated close ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and was a speaker at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, in Dallas.\
\
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, 59, is widely criticized around the world for systematically dismantling his country’s nascent democracy during his 12 years in power — but that hasn’t stopped him from emerging as a darling of many on the right in America.\
\
Orbán told a cheering crowd of conference delegates that he and other conservatives were in a battle to protect Western civilization against the forces of liberalism and mass migration.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/06/viktor-orban-cpac-far-right-us-trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orb%C3%A1n
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220727-holocaust-survivors-condemn-race-remarks-by-hungary-s-orban
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/04/hungarys-authoritarian-leader-no-gift-us-conservatives

#right-wing #far-right #conservative #usa #hungary #dictator #cpac #republicans #orban #orbán #viktor-orbán #racial-purity #anti-immigration #liberalism #mass-migration #mixed-race #racism #bigotry

We must analyze the ambiguity of our support of #Ukraine with the same cruelty we analyze Russia’s stance. We should reach beyond double standards applied today to the very foundations of European #liberalism. Remember how, in the western liberal tradition, #colonization was often justified in the terms of the rights of working people. John Locke, the great #Enlightenment philosopher and advocate of #humanrights, justified white settlers grabbing land from Native Americans with a strange left-sounding argument against excessive private #property. His premise was that an individual should be allowed to own only as much land as he is able to use productively, not large tracts of land that he is not able to use (and then eventually rents to others). In North #America, as he saw it, Indigenous people were using vast tracts of land mostly just for hunting, and the white settlers who wanted to use it for intense #agriculture had the right to seize it for the benefit of humanity.
In the ongoing Ukraine #crisis, both sides present their acts as something they simply had to do: the west had to help Ukraine remain free and independent; #Russia was compelled to intervene militarily to protect its safety. The latest example: the Russian foreign ministry claiming Russia will be “forced to take retaliatory steps” if #Finland joins #Nato. No, it will not be “forced”, in the same way that Russia was not “forced” to attack Ukraine. This decision appears “forced” only if one accepts the whole set of ideological and geopolitical assumptions that sustain Russian #politics.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/23/we-must-stop-letting-russia-define-the-terms-of-the-ukraine-crisis #war #geopolitics #israel #china #zizek

Hello fellow readers and friends. I finished formatting the ebook for Paul Mattick Sr's book Marx and Keynes: The Limits of the Mixed Economy. I have below several links to the various formats on Mediafire and on the Marxists Internet Archive
* EPUB
* MOBI
* MIA ebooks holding all above versions
* Other PDF

For other books on a similar subject also see bit.ly/CommunistEPUBs and the Marxists Internet Archive.

Image Description:

A book cover featuring a black background. In pink text along the top is "Marx and Keynes: The Limits of the Mixed Economy" and along the bottom is "By Paul Mattick" and "Marxists Internet Archive". In the center are two black and white photos of John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx arranged in such a way as to have them facing each other.

#Capitalism #Communism #Marxism #Keynesianism #Liberalism

The way white liberals shrug in the face of fascism is a terrifying reminder that they never feel the threat as acutely. It’s a lot of memes & jokes & calls for others to stay calm. Their whiteness is their passport to survival whenever the fascists succeed.

• @BreeNewsome · Jan 30, 2022

#whiteness #liberalism #friendlyfascism

Background image: Black male carried away by police during riots, Baltimore, Maryland, 1968. (ph. unknown)

Difference Between Liberals and Social Democrats

#politics #liberalism #socialdemocracy

Difference Between Liberals and Social Democrats

#politics #liberalism #socialdemocracy

What is #Neoliberalism ?

"Soure": https://dgrnewsservice.org/resistance/indirect/education/what-is-neoliberalism/

This post provides a brief introduction to the current form of #capitalism: #neoliberalism. It includes sections on: neoliberal #ideology; Governmentality – how neoliberalism governs, neoliberal government policies; how neoliberalism is a capitalist class project of domination; the history of neoliberalism in the twentieth century; and the three phase of neoliberalism in government since the 1980s.

Neoliberalism is a form of capitalism and #liberalism. Neoliberalism is the most aggressive form of liberalism ever formulated.

They achieve this by using the state and corporate power to make us act in that way, regardless of what most people want

it is important to differentiate between capitalism and neoliberalism because they are not the same thing – they are not the same KIND of thing. Capitalism is an #economic practice. Neoliberalism is a philosophy about how societies in which that practice prevails should be managed, and a programme which is at least nominally informed that #philosophy, or looks like it is

Indeed, neoliberal decision-makers function as expert designers of an attractive ideological container for their market-friendly political agenda.

#Meritocracy is a key feature of neoliberal ideology. This promotes a “hierarchical and highly unequal set of social relations while claiming to offer individuals from all backgrounds an equal chance to compete for elite status.

Rather than operating along more traditional lines of pursuing the public good (rather than profits) by enhancing civil society and social justice, neoliberals call for the employment of governmental technologies that are taken from the world of business and commerce

A key function of neoliberal ideology is to “secure consent and generate political inertia precisely by enabling the experience of #precarity and individualised impotence to be experienced as normal and inevitable.

Phases of neoliberalism

1. The ‘New Right’ of Thatcher and Reagan in the US and UK implemented a basic neoliberal economic programme with a range of conservative social policies such as restoring traditional family values, increased military spending, a tough law and order agenda, and limiting multiculturalism.

2. Second-wave neoliberalism in the 1990s: Clinton’s and Blair’s Third Way
   The Blair and Clinton governments in the 1990s took a more centrist approach, that included the majority of neoliberalism combined with socially progressive policies. The governments supported private-sector-led economic growth, combined with the government providing a consistent level of social services to citizens. They also promoted equality for gay people and supported women in the labour market

3. The third phase of neoliberalism began with bailing out the banks following the 2008 financial crisis. This was followed by austerity – massive cuts to public services. Inequality has increased, life expectancy has declined or stagnated, living standards have dropped. All this has polarised politics with the election of authoritarian, right-wing, isolationist politicians.

---

#politics #society

Frank Wilhoit on Conservativism

There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.

There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.

There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whateverthefuckkindofstupidnoise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.

No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:

The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

---

Posted to Crooked Timber, March 22, 2018, by Frank Wilhoit https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

#FrankWilhoit #conservativism #TheLaw #immunity #impunity #privilege #reponsibility #accountability #liberalism #progressivism #anticonservativism

Venezuelan Coronavirus Mask

This is in Spanish, but you'll get it anyway:
https://t.co/yG9dD0K3FW

Apparently US sanctions keep Venezuela from getting any masks, which puts them in the same boat as many of us proles up here in the belly of the Beast. Here is their DIY solution. Although it's far from perfect, it may intercept some spit and keep your hands off your face.
#diy #coronavirus #COVID-19 #C19 #CV #anarchism #socialism #communism #liberalism #conservatism #venezuela #bolivarian #benevolence

Global Ceasefire

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059972
https://worldbeyondwar.org/globalceasefire/

#war #peace #COVID-19 #anarchism #socialism #communism #liberalism #conservatism #ceasefire #ceasefire2020

I haven't seen anything about Natalie Wynn / ContraPoints on diaspora*, so here is the URL to her Patreon page which contains as good an intro as any. No use describing it, you've just got to see it. If 'overview' doesn't come up first, click on it above the frame.
[https://www.patreon.com/contrapoints](//https://www.patreon.com/contrapoints)

#anarchism #communism #liberalism #alt-right #art #video #trans #culturewar

While watching #VPROTegenlicht on #NPO2 i got tears in my eyes at multiple moments... 😢

Great story how heros Mulan Mu, Bas van Abel & many others in #Europe, #Africa and #China created my #Fairphone-#smartphone! 🌍📲

#Documentary #VIDEO: http://www.vpro.nl/programmas/tegenlicht/kijk/afleveringen/2016-2017/de-eerlijke-onderneming.html

#VPRO #Tegenlicht #BasvanAbel #MulanMu #televisie #Nederland #nederlands #NL #DeZwijger #Zwijger #Amsterdam #Congo #fairtrade #fair #eerlijk #eerlijkehandel #politiek #politics #neoliberalism #neoliberalisme #liberalisme #liberalism #capitalism #kapitalisme #postcapitalism #postkapitalisme #sustainable #sustainability #duurzaam #duurzaamheid #television #NPO #PubliekeOmroep #change #revolution #verandering #revolutie #bloodinthemobile #smartphones, #mobile #mobiles #phone #phones #iphone #iphones #humanrights #mensenrechten #Samsung #Nokia #Microsoft #Google #Android #Sony #Huawei #Vodafone #KPN #TMobile #Tele2 #telecom #telecommunication #telecommunicatie #communications #communicatie #LG #Alcatel #Mediamarkt #Belcompany #Phonehouse #bellen #iphone2 #iphone1 #iphone3 #iphone4 #iphone5 #iphone6 #iphone7 #iphone8 #iphone9 #iphone10 #Galaxy #SamsungGalaxy #HTC #telephone #telefoon #chinese #chinees #kinderarbeid #childlabour #slavery #slavernij #modern #moderne #toekomst #future #Afrika #koltan #coltan #mining #mijnen #mines #justice #honest #honesty #open #transparency #openheid #eerlijkheid #Holland #idealisme #idealism #actvisme #activism #documentaire #film #movie