Radical Politics in the Age of American Authoritarianism: Connecting the Dots

[marmar]

Radical Politics in the Age of American Authoritarianism: Connecting the Dots

Sunday, 10 April 2016 00:00
By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | News Analysis


[font size="1"]If the left is to fight back against authoritarianism, we must bring together diverse movements working for social change. (Photos: Bob Simpson, Ella, Workers Solidarity Movement, Mark Klotz, Mark Klotz / Flickr; Edited: JR / TO)[/font]


The United States stands at the endpoint of a long series of attacks on democracy, and the choices faced by many in the US today point to the divide between those who are and those who are not willing to commit to democracy. Debates over whether Donald Trump is a fascist are a tactical diversion because the real issue is what it will take to prevent the United States from sliding further into a distinctive form of authoritarianism.

The willingness of contemporary politicians and pundits to use totalitarian themes echoes alarmingly fascist and totalitarian elements of the past. This willingness also prefigures the emergence of a distinctive mode of authoritarianism that threatens to further foreclose venues for social justice and civil rights. The need for resistance has become urgent. The struggle is not over specific institutions such as higher education or so-called democratic procedures such as elections but over what it means to get to the root of the problems facing the United States and to draw more people into subversive actions modeled after both historical struggles from the days of the underground railroad and contemporary movements for economic, social and environmental justice.

Yet, such struggles will only succeed if more progressives embrace an expansive understanding of politics, not fixating singularly on elections or any other issue but rather emphasizing the connections among diverse social movements. An expansive understanding such as this necessarily links the calls for a living wage and environment justice to calls for access to quality health care and the elimination of the conditions fostering assaults by the state against Black people, immigrants, workers and women. The movement against mass incarceration and capital punishment cannot be separated from a movement for racial justice; full employment; free, quality health care and housing. Such analyses also suggest the merging of labor unions and social movements, and the development of progressive cultural apparatuses such as alternative media, think tanks and social services for those marginalized by race, class and ethnicity. These alternative apparatuses must also embrace those who are angry with existing political parties and casino capitalism but who lack a critical frame of reference for understanding the conditions for their anger.

.....(snip).....

There has never been a more pressing time to rethink the meaning of politics, justice, struggle, collective action, and the development of new political parties and social movements. The ongoing violence against Black youth, the impending ecological crisis, the use of prisons to warehouse people who represent social problems, and the ongoing war on women's reproductive rights, among other crises, demand a new language for developing modes of creative long-term resistance, a wider understanding of politics, and a new urgency to create modes of collective struggles rooted in more enduring and unified political formations. The American public needs a new discourse to resuscitate historical memories and methods of resistance to address the connections between the escalating destabilization of the earth's biosphere, impoverishment, inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, corporate crime and the poisoning of low-income communities. ..............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35573-radical-politics-in-the-age-of-american-authoritarianism-connecting-the-dots

[2naSalit]

1. K&R

[JEB]

2. Thanks for post the link to this excellent thoughtful article. nt

[marmar]

10. Henry Giroux is one of the best.

[Pauldg47]

3. American authoritarianism...you've got that right!

[Rebkeh]

4. I don't see the connection between authoritarianism

And the problems they listed.

From where I sit, government authority is the only thing standing in the way between "states rights" (we know what that actually means) and civil rights.

I keep seeing this argument but I don't buy it. Furthermore, authority is not inherently bad. Bad people in authority make it bad. Likewise for good so really, it's just a distraction and delays any real solution to corruption. Less authority would not magically make things better, it would only embolden the person with the most resources and/or the biggest asshole in the room (frequently the same people). All it would do is give them more resources to be an even bigger asshole with. Oppression and corruption would increase, it would not decrease. Unless you happen to be one of the assholes, if so, well then sure, it's great for you.

The article doesn't make the case, it talks about connecting dots without actually connecting them.

Less authority may work when people are nice - in a perfect world maybe. That's not the world we live in and getting there is not going to happen by simply giving people more "freedom" and liberty.

I don't want the Donald Trumps and other assholes of the world to have even more freedom.

[Uncle Joe]

5. The question being raised isn't states rights vs federal power, it's federal power being subjugated

to corporate authoritarianism.

It's overwhelming corporate power and the almighty dollar that most threatens our democratic republic and any concept of "the general welfare."

[Rebkeh]

6. The way you frame it is either/or

Corporate power OR anti-authoritatianism.

There is a lot of grey between them. Neither of them is good.

[Uncle Joe]

7. The way I frame it is for a strong federal government beholden to the American People, not

the mega-corporations and billionaires.

The almighty dollar has corrupted the system and drowned the peoples' voice.

[Rebkeh]

8. A representative democracy

Sure. I can agree with that.

On edit: I still don't see the connection though, from the O.P.

[Uncle Joe]

9. It would be nice to have one.

Peace to you, Rebkeh.

[felix_numinous]

11. K&R The authoritarian model

treats people like children, prefers to keep citizenry in a state of ignorance. But there is another side to this dynamic--that of giving the authority, the authorship of our lives away, and thus the responsibility away, and this can be a convenient state of plausible deniability.

Agreeing to remain in an authoritarian dynamic is to cop to a dependent relationship, you have given up control to another. It is not surprising then, that addictive behaviors are enabled to thrive, food is laced with chemicals, the land, and information itself is handled like a drug--because this is how we cope with losing so much power. It is a manipulation, and a way to barter compliance.

When people are comfortable it is easier to turn the hard decisions over, and be lazy and let others tell you they will handle everything, not noticing or caring these people might be on the take, buying into the con. This is what happened with the original yuppies, they conformed to the greed model.

This is why it feels so good to awaken and free ourselves from this stupor, refusing to be lied to is healthy, it is a retrieval of being the authors of our own lives. But awakening from this is to face the sobering aftermath, the damage done--the end of childhood and beginning of a new chapter of responsibility and sanity.