Techno-Fascism: Every Move You Make

[Echo In Light]

Techno-Fascism
Every Move You Make
By CHELLIS GLENDINNING

Surveillance of private calls and emails. Cameras documenting every move. No habeas corpus. Unimpeded entry into personal financial records. Voting machines changing election outcomes with the flick of a switch. Protest defined as terrorism. Many people hope that the loss of civil rights Americans have endured since the onslaughts mounted by Bush Administration II is a political reality that can be reversed through electoral will.

Established mechanisms of political power are, of course, the immediately available means for attempting change. Notions of citizens’ rights, freedom, and democratic participation are compelling paradigms that have consistently stirred the bravery of U.S. citizens – and yet elder political scientist Sheldon Wolin, who taught the philosophy of democracy for five decades, sees the current predicament of corporate-government hegemony as something more endemic.

“Inverted totalitarianism,” as he calls it in his recent Democracy Incorporated, “lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual.” To Wolin, such a form of political power makes the United States “the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed.”

Wolin rightfully points out that the origins of U.S. governance were “born with a bias against democracy,” and yet the system has quickly lunged beyond its less-than-democratic agrarian roots to become a mass urban society that, with distinct 1984 flavorings, could be called techno-fascism. The role of technology is the overlooked piece of the puzzle of the contemporary political conundrum.

What are its mechanisms of control?

http://www.counterpunch.com/glendenning06192008.html

[Junkdrawer]

1. I've been using the term "Pseudo-Democracy" for 5 years now...

Absolutely spot on.

[Echo In Light]

2. An apt term for it as so little is actually what it appears to be

So much of the daily round of life contains glaring examples of this: an idea, a belief, a product, whatever, sold as something it is truly not. And people just accept it, or worse, exalt the unreality. In many instances, the only thing maintaining the mass ruse is the power of opinion, with the two common positions being either concession {"that's just the way it is"}, or, see it for what it is, speak your mind, and be relegated to the conspiracy theorist camp.

[emad]

3. Counterpunch hit it on the head with this story, maybe the root of

the Techno-Fascism story above:


CounterPunch

January 29, 2003
Blackout in Britain
Alleged Pedophiles Helm Blair's War Room

by MIKE JAMES

A child-sex scandal that threatened to destroy Tony Blair's government last week has been mysteriously squashed and wiped off the front pages of British newspapers. Operation Ore, the United Kingdom's most thorough and comprehensive police investigation of crimes against children, seems to have uncovered more than is politically acceptable at the highest reaches of the British elite. In the 19th of January edition of The Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay sensationally reported that senior members of Tony Blair's government were being investigated for paedophilia and the "enjoyment" of child-sex pornography:

"The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.

There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a 'rolling' Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur."

The allegations are the most serious yet levelled at an administration that prides itself on the inclusion in its ranks of a high quota of controversial and flamboyant homosexual men, and whose First Lady, Cherie Blair, has come under the spotlight for her indulgence in pagan rituals that resemble Freemasonic rites. Unconfirmed information also suggests that the term "former Labour Cabinet minister" is misleading and that the investigation has identified a surprisingly large number of alleged paedophiles at the highest level of British government, including one very senior cabinet minister.


http://www.counterpunch.org/james01292003.html

[Zorra]

4. Here's a topic related Rolling Stone article on "Market Stalinism" in China by Naomi Klein.

Techno-fascism seems to be a key component of the push toward worldwide "Market Stalinism"-scary stuff:

In Shenzhen one night, I have dinner with a U.S. business consultant named Stephen Herrington. Before he started lecturing at Chinese business schools, teaching students concepts like brand management, Herrington was a military-intelligence officer, ascending to the rank of lieutenant colonel. What he is seeing in the Pearl River Delta, he tells me, is scaring the hell out of him — and not for what it means to China.

"I can guarantee you that there are people in the Bush administration who are studying the use of surveillance technologies being developed here and have at least skeletal plans to implement them at home," he says. "We can already see it in New York with CCTV cameras. Once you have the cameras in place, you have the infrastructure for a powerful tracking system. I'm worried about what this will mean if the U.S. government goes totalitarian and starts employing these technologies more than they are already. I'm worried about the threat this poses to American democracy."

Herrington pauses. "George W. Bush," he adds, "would do what they are doing here in a heartbeat if he could."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20797485/chinas_allseeing_eye

[Vilis Veritas]

5. Corporate Will.

The will of the people has been replaced.

One. AD. At. A. Time.

saddlesore

[Echo In Light]

6. Too bad so many are compliant/complacent