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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsold read (2015) but still incredible: Inverted Totalitarianism
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/sheldon_wolin_and_inverted_totalitarianism_20151101>snip<
Political campaigns rarely discuss substantive issues. They center on manufactured political personalities, empty rhetoric, sophisticated public relations, slick advertising, propaganda and the constant use of focus groups and opinion polls to loop back to voters what they want to hear. Money has effectively replaced the vote. Every current presidential candidateincluding Bernie Sandersunderstands, to use Wolins words, that the subject of empire is taboo in electoral debates. The citizen is irrelevant. He or she is nothing more than a spectator, allowed to vote and then forgotten once the carnival of elections ends and corporations and their lobbyists get back to the business of ruling.
If the main purpose of elections is to serve up pliant legislators for lobbyists to shape, such a system deserves to be called misrepresentative or clientry government, Wolin writes. It is, at one and the same time, a powerful contributing factor to the depoliticization of the citizenry, as well as reason for characterizing the system as one of antidemocracy.
The result, he writes, is that the public is denied the use of state power. Wolin deplores the trivialization of political discourse, a tactic used to leave the public fragmented, antagonistic and emotionally charged while leaving corporate power and empire unchallenged.
Cultural wars might seem an indication of strong political involvements, he writes. Actually they are a substitute. The notoriety they receive from the media and from politicians eager to take firm stands on nonsubstantive issues serves to distract attention and contribute to a cant politics of the inconsequential.
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old read (2015) but still incredible: Inverted Totalitarianism (Original Post)
Javaman
Apr 2016
OP
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)1. Looks like interesting read. Bookmrkd
KoKo
(84,711 posts)3. Wise Words from Wolin....worth reading again...