The global elite will use any means necessary to prevent the economic radicalization of the left. So “MeToo” and smears distract while tax evasion has become legitimate. Three widely reported recent events sum up our current sad predicament: the open conflict between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, Oprah Winfrey’s speech at the Golden Globe awards,… Continue reading As Trump, Bannon, Assange & Oprah make headlines: The Empire Strikes Back
Tag: fascism
Today’s anti-fascist movement will do nothing to get rid of right-wing populism – it’s just panicky posturing
Marx’s formula of religion as the opium of the people needs some serious rethinking today. It is true that radical Islam is an exemplary case of religion as the opium of the people: a false confrontation with capitalist modernity which allows some fundamentalist Muslims to dwell in their ideological dream while their countries are ravaged… Continue reading Today’s anti-fascist movement will do nothing to get rid of right-wing populism – it’s just panicky posturing
A Marxist for Trump
[Note: The embed feature of vice.com does not seem to work correctly; link to video is provided below the transcript.] Slavoj Žižek: I think it’s totally wrong to say Trump is really a dangerous right-wing fundamentalist. No. He is nothing. He is an opportunist, the way I see it. Narrated: Slavoj Žižek is Slovenian philosopher,… Continue reading A Marxist for Trump
Democracy’s Fascism Problem
Sometimes faces become symbols of the anonymous forces behind them. Was not the stupidly smiling face of Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem the symbol of the European Union’s brutal pressure on Greece? Recently, the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP)—the European cousin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—acquired a new symbol: the cold face of E.U. trade commissioner… Continue reading Democracy’s Fascism Problem
Are the worst really full of passionate intensity?
Now, when we are all in a state of shock after the killing spree in the Charlie Hebdo offices, it is the right moment to gather the courage to think. We should, of course, unambiguously condemn the killings as an attack on the very substance our freedoms, and condemn them without any hidden caveats (in… Continue reading Are the worst really full of passionate intensity?
Barbarism with a Human Face
Again and again in television reports on the mass protests in Kiev against the Yanukovich government, we saw images of protesters tearing down statues of Lenin. It was an easy way to demonstrate anger: the statues functioned as a symbol of Soviet oppression, and Putin’s Russia is perceived as continuing the Soviet policy of Russian… Continue reading Barbarism with a Human Face
Anger in Bosnia, but this time the people can read their leaders’ ethnic lies
Last week, cities were burning in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It all began in Tuzla, a city with a Muslim majority. The protests then spread to the capital, Sarajevo, and Zenica, but also Mostar, home to a large segment of the Croat population, and Banja Luka, capital of the Serb part of Bosnia. Thousands of enraged protesters occupied… Continue reading Anger in Bosnia, but this time the people can read their leaders’ ethnic lies
Barbarism With A Human Face
The recent expulsion oF illegal Roma (“Gypsies”) from France back to Romania sparked protests across Europe from both the liberal media and top politicians–and not only those on the Left. The expulsions, however, proceeded–and they are the tip of a much larger iceberg of European politics. Incidents like these have to be seen against the… Continue reading Barbarism With A Human Face
The Palestinian question: the couple symptom/fetish
There are two different modes of ideological mystification which should in no way be confused: the liberal-democratic one and the Fascist one. The first one concerns false universality: the subject advocates freedom/equality, not being aware of implicit qualifications which, in their very form, constrain its scope (privileging certain social strata: rich, male, belonging to a… Continue reading The Palestinian question: the couple symptom/fetish
The Two Totalitarianisms
A small note – not the stuff of headlines, obviously – appeared in the newspapers on 3 February. In response to a call for the prohibition of the public display of the swastika and other Nazi symbols, a group of conservative members of the European Parliament, mostly from ex-Communist countries, demanded that the same apply… Continue reading The Two Totalitarianisms
