Fascism is a specific type of authoritarianism. Both are forms of government characterized by tightly centralized power, either under a sole dictatorship / demagogue or a small cadre of rulers — typically of wealthy oligarchs — where rule is absolute and the vast majority of people have little say in policy-making or national events. Identifying […]
When the most common psychological defense mechanism — denial — hardens into an outer shell so impenetrable as to be worn like armor, you have yourself a clinical narcissist. They may not — and probably will never — be diagnosed as members of a group of personality disorders known in psychology as Cluster B; but […]
Chances are you’ve had an encounter with an emotional predator — whether you’re aware of it or not. Most everyone is familiar with the physical abuser: typically the man who beats his wife or female partner. But emotional abuse, and psychological abuse, are also integral components of abuse and are often present with, and precursors […]
Black and white thinking is the tendency to see things in extremes, and to view the world through a very polarized lens. Even complex moral issues are seen as clearcut, with simple right and wrong answers and no gray areas in between. Also referred to as all-or-nothing thinking or dichotomous thinking, black and white thinking […]
Who were the early conservatives? They emerged out of the group of former fascists and Nazi sympathizers in the US. 1930s opposition to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal 2 main right-wing factions then: After the Allies won World War II, a number of the early Hitler sympathizers “hid out” in anti-communist circles, allowing them to cloak […]
President Biden and Vice President Harris commemorated the 1 year anniversary of the January 6 attack on our democracy with morning speeches and a day of remembrance inside the Capitol rotunda with Representatives and Senators giving a number of moving speeches in their respective chambers. The tone on TV news and blue check Twitter was […]
Ask not what your country can do for you — but how you can save democracy in your country. “No one can do everything; but everyone can do something.” — Gil Scot-Heron Why? This moment is urgent. The GOP is 3 cults in a trenchcoat, all moving rapidly through radicalization and a veer headlong into […]
The concept of the Goldilocks Zone reminds us that most typically, there is a range of possibilities above and below which would not be viable. This is in contrast to the idea of unbounded growth, in which one or more key performance indicators is expected to continue to grow forever, without bounds. Think: up and […]
“Eternal Rome” is an ideology positing Russia as a geopolitical bulwark of conservatism against a weak-kneed West (part of Alexander Dugin‘s reformulation of Eurasianism theory). It explains part of the seemingly sudden appeal of Russia to a political party once responsible for McCarthyism — whose acolyte Roy Cohn would later groom Donald Trump for the […]
Extremism is a mentality; a black and white worldview. It’s a willingness to go too far to meet one’s objectives — to violate moral boundaries in pursuit of one’s aims. A political extremist is an individual or group adhering to ideologies that are far removed from the mainstream beliefs of society. These ideologies often promote […]
While we wring our hands in the United States over whether or not such a strategy is even conceivable, the erstwhile President of Russia has been running this playbook out in the open in Ukraine and Eastern Europe for some time. With help from Propagandist-in-Chief Vladislav Surkov, Putin has leveraged the open secrets about the […]
Much has been said regarding the so-called laziness of the poor. Hands have been wrung, glasses have been drained, Davos hotel rooms have been trashed year after year in elite consternation over The Perennially Perplexing Plight of the Poor. Meanwhile in the American political landscape, the answer is already clear: THEY’RE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH!!!! But […]
The creator of the also excellent Century of the Self film series released his latest film in October, 2016. Dubbed HyperNormalisation, it offers both a history lesson of the complicated relationship between the West, the Middle East, and Russia, as well as an unflinching look at the roles played by technology, surveillance, and the media […]
Russian aggression is mercurial — it’s getting harder to tell anymore who is being paid to push pro-Russian messages, and who has just been sadly taken in by them. For all this braggadocio (braggadocious, even!) about “building a wall” to keep supposed Mexican rapists out (although net migration has been falling with our southern neighbor for […]
Regardless of whether or not you agree that slashing spending, fiscal austerity, balanced budgets, and a low federal deficit are good ideas, the fact remains that the Republican Party does not generally live up to its aims of expense reduction and small government. As hard as it is to believe, there are still some people […]