“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
On Sunday, September 10, Breitbart News executive chairman and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon appeared on CBS News’ 60 Minutes for his first television interview. The following are 25 key quotes, both from the main interview and “overtime.”
1. “The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That’s a brutal fact we have to face.”
2. “Mitch McConnell when we first met him … he basically says, ‘ don’t want to hear any more of this “drain the swamp” talk.’”
3. “In the 48 hours after we won, there’s a fundamental decision that was made. You might call it the original sin of the administration. We embraced the establishment. … Because you had to staff a government.”
4. “The plan was to do Obamacare because, remember, Paul Ryan and these guys come in and said, ‘We’ve done this for seven years. We’ve voted on this 50 times.’ … There is wide discrepancy in the Republican Party, as we know today, now that we’re in it. But I will tell you, leadership didn’t know it at the time. They didn’t know it till the very end.”
5. “I’m worried about losing the House now because of this– of– because of DACA … it will be a civil war inside the Republican party that will be every bit as vitriolic as 2013.”
6. “You couldn’t be more dead wrong [about immigration]. America was built on her citizens.”
7. “What built America’s called the American system, from Hamilton to Polk to Henry Clay to Lincoln to the Roosevelts. A system of protection of our manufacturing, financial system that lends to manufacturers, okay, and the control of our borders.”
8. “The bishops have been terrible about this. … They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.”
9. “I’m a street fighter. And by the way, I think that’s why Donald Trump and I get along so well. Donald Trump’s a fighter. Great counter puncher.”
10. “When he’s talking about the Neo-Nazis and Neo-Confederates and the Klan, who, by the way, are absolutely awful– there’s no room in American politics for that. There’s no room in American society for that.”
11. “When you side with a man, you side with him … If you’re going to break with him, resign.”
12. “I don’t need to be lectured–by a bunch of– by a bunch of limousine liberals, okay, from the Upper East Side of New York and from the Hamptons, okay, about any of this. My lived experience is that.”
13. “There’s nothing to the Russia investigation. It’s a waste of time. … I think it’s far from conclusive that the Russians had any impact on this election.”
14. “The elites in this country have got us in a situation, we’re at not economic war with China, China is at economic war with us.”
15. “The geniuses in the Bush administration … I hold these people in contempt, total and complete contempt. … By the way, the Obama crowd, almost the same. Clinton crowd, almost the same. It’s three administrations.”
16. “I was the last guy to speak [about the Access Hollywood video], and I said, ‘It’s 100%. You have 100% probability of winning. … They don’t care.’”
17. “‘When you side with a man, you side with him,’ okay? The good and the bad. You can criticize him behind, but when you side with him, you have to side with him.” And that’s what Billy Bush weekend showed me.”
18. “I don’t need the affirmation of the mainstream media. I don’t care what they say. They can call me an anti-Semite. They can call me racist. They call me nativist. You can call me anything you want. Okay? As long as we’re driving this agenda for the working men and women of this country, I’m happy.”
19. “I cannot take the fight to who we have to take the fight to when I’m an advisor to the president as a federal government employee.”
20. “I think there has been a divide in this administration from the beginning. It’s quite obvious. There’s one group of people that on the campaign, that said, ‘All you have to do is do what you said you were going to do in these major areas. Let’s punch out one thing after the other. You’re going to keep your coalition together, and we’re going to add to it over time as you’re successful.’ There’s another group that has said, ‘Let’s compromise, and let’s try to reach out to Democrats, and let’s try to work on things that we can do together.’”
21. “I think if there’s one criticism or one observation is that the President in coming here, right, has still thought– at least in the beginning of his administration– that it’s about personalities, and, ‘If I can change this personality,’ or, ‘If I can get this guy on my side, I can do that.’ And it’s not what the institutional logic is.”
22. “I think what he does on Twitter is extraordinary. He disintermediates the media. He goes above their head and talks directly to the American people.”
23. “Here’s the problem of the Democratic Party. Problem with Democratic Party? There’s no Breitbart. The problem in the Democratic Party? They haven’t had a civil war. … Bernie Sanders had every opportunity. He knew about the Clinton corruption. He knew about how the Wall Street crowd has a lock on the Democratic Party. And he did not have the guts to take on Hillary Clinton in that primary.”
24. “I think he’s [at] 36% or 38% because he hasn’t — we haven’t gotten the wall built. We haven’t done — if you just go through and just do the Trump program that he laid out and just punch those things out, you’re going to be fine. … we’re going to win in ’18 and we’ll pick [up] or six or seven Senate seats. I think we’ll pick up a couple of seats in the House. And he’ll win in a huge landslide in ’20.”
25. “My suggestion and my recommendation is to solve the problem in Korea you need to solve that problem with China. … I think we have– tremendous leverage in capital markets. I think we have tremendous leverage with Chinese banks. I think we have tremendous leverage with the Chinese financial institutions.”
I used to command soldiers. Over the years, lots of them actually. In Iraq, Colorado, Afghanistan, and Kansas. And I’m still fixated on a few of them like this one private first class (PFC) in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2011. All of 18, he was short, scrawny, and popular. Nine months after graduating from high school, he’d found himself chasing the Taliban with the rest of our gang. At five foot nothing, I once saw him step into an irrigation canal and disappear from sight -- all but the two-foot antenna on his radio. In my daydreams, I always see the same scene, the moment his filthy, grizzled baby face reappeared above that ditch, a cigarette still dangling loosely from his lips. His name was Anderson and I can remember thinking at that moment: What will I tell his mother if he gets killed out here?
And then... poof... it’s 2017 again and I’m here in Kansas, pushing papers at Fort Leavenworth, those days in the field long gone. Anderson himself survived his tour of duty in Afghanistan, though I’ve no idea where he is today. A better commander might. Several of his buddies were less fortunate. They died, or found themselves short a limb or two, or emotionally and morally scarred for life.
From time to time I can’t help thinking of Anderson, and others like him, alive and dead. In fact, I wear two bracelets on my wrist engraved with the names of the young men who died under my command in Afghanistan and Iraq, six names in all. When I find a moment, I need to add another. It wasn’t too long ago that one of my soldiers took his own life. Sometimes the war doesn’t kill you until years later.
And of this much I’m certain: the moment our nation puts any PFC Anderson in harm’s way, thousands of miles and light years from Kansas, there had better be a damn good reason for it, a vital, tangible national interest at stake. At the very least, this country better be on the right side in the conflicts we’re fighting.
The Wrong Side
It’s long been an article of faith here: the United States is the greatest force for good in the world, the planet’s “indispensable nation.” But what if we’re wrong? After all, as far as I can tell, the view from the Arab or African “street” tells a different story altogether. Americans tend to loathe the judgments of foreigners, but sober strategy demands that once in a while we walk the proverbial mile in the global shoes of others. After all, almost 16 years into the war on terror it should be apparent that something isn’t working. Perhaps it’s time to ask whether the United States is really playing the role of the positive protagonist in a great global drama.
I know what you’re thinking: ISIS, the Islamic State, is a truly awful outfit. And so it is and the U.S. is indeed combatting it, though various allies and even adversaries (think: Iran) are doing most of the fighting. Still, with the broader war for the Greater Middle East in mind, wouldn’t it be appropriate to stop for a moment and ask: Just whose side is America really on?
Certainly, it’s not the side of the average Arab. That should be apparent. Take a good, hard look at the region and it’s obvious that Washington mainly supports the interests of Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt’s military dictator, and various Gulf State autocracies. Or consider the actions and statements of the Trump administration and of the two administrations that preceded it and here’s what seems obvious: the United States is in many ways little more than an air force, military trainer, and weapons depot for assorted Sunni despots. Now, that’s not a point made too often -- not in this context anyway -- because it’s neither a comfortable thought for most Americans, nor a particularly convenient reality for establishment policymakers to broadcast, but it’s the truth.
Yes, we do fight ISIS, but it’s hardly that simple. Saudi Arabia, our main regional ally, may portray itself as the leader of a “moderate Sunni block” when it comes to both Iran and terrorism, but the reality is, at best, far grayer than that. The Saudis -- with whom President Trump announced a $110 billion arms deal during the first stop on his inaugural foreign trip back in May -- have spent the last few decades spreading their intolerant brand of Islam across the region. In the process, they’ve also supported al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria.
Maybe you’re willing to argue that al-Qaeda spin-offs aren’t ISIS, but don’t forget who brought down those towers in New York. While President Trump enjoyed a traditional sword dance with his Saudi hosts -- no doubt gratifying his martial tastes -- the air forces of the Saudis and their Gulf state allies were bombing and missiling Yemeni civilians into the grimmest of situations, including a massive famine and a spreading cholera epidemic amid the ruins of their impoverished country. So much for the disastrous two-year Saudi war there, which goes by the grimly ironic moniker of Operation Restoring Hope and for which the U.S. military provides midair refueling and advanced munitions, as well as intelligence.
If you’re a human rights enthusiast, it’s also worth asking just what kind of states we’re working with here. In Saudi Arabia, women can’t drive automobiles, “sorcery” is a capital offense, and people are beheaded in public. Hooray for American values! And newsflash: Iran’s leaders -- whom the Trump administration and its generals are obsessed with demonizing -- may be no angels, but the Islamic republic they preside over is a far more democratic country than Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy. Imagine Louis XIV in a kufiyah and you’ve just about nailed the nature of Saudi rule.
After Israel, Egypt is the number two recipient of direct U.S. military aid, to the tune of $1.3 billion annually. And that bedrock of liberal values is led by U.S.-trained General Abdul el-Sisi, a strongman who seized power in a coup and then, just for good measure, had his army gun down a crowd demonstrating in favor of the deposed democratically elected president. And how did the American beacon of hope respond? Well, Sisi’s still in power; the Egyptian military is once again receiving aid from the Pentagon; and, in April, President Trump paraded the general around the White House, assuring reporters, “in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President el-Sisi... he’s done a fantastic job!”
In Syria and Iraq, the U.S. military is fighting a loathsome adversary in ISIS, but even so, the situation is far more complicated than usually imagined here. As a start, the U.S. air offensive to support allied Syrian and Kurdish rebels fighting to take ISIS’s “capital,” Raqqa -- grimly titled Operation Wrath of the Euphrates -- killed more civilians this past May and June than the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. In addition, America’s brutal air campaign appears unhinged from any coherent long-term strategy. No one in charge seems to have the faintest clue what exactly will follow ISIS’s rule in eastern Syria. A Kurdish mini-state? A three-way civil war between Kurds, Sunni tribes, and Assad’s forces (with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic Turkey as the wild card in the situation)? Which begs the question: Are American bombs actually helping?
Similarly, in Iraq it’s not clear that the future rule of Shia-dominated militia groups and others in the rubble left by the last years of grim battle in areas ISIS previously controlled will actually prove measurably superior to the nightmare that preceded them. The present Shia-dominated government might even slip back into the sectarianchauvinism that helped empower ISIS in the first place. That way, the U.S. can fight its fourth war in Iraq since 1991!
And keep in mind that the war for the Greater Middle East -- and I fought in it myself both in Iraq and Afghanistan -- is just the latest venture in the depressing annals of Washington’s geo-strategic thinking since President Ronald Reagan’s administration, along with the Saudis and Pakistanis, armed, funded, and supported extreme fundamentalist Afghan mujahedeen rebels in a Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union that eventually led to the 9/11 attacks. His administration also threw money, guns, and training -- sometimes illegally -- at the brutal Nicaraguan Contras in another Cold War covert conflict in which about 100,000 civilians died.
In those years, the United States also stood by apartheid South Africa -- long after the rest of the world shunned that racist state -- not even removing Nelson Mandela’s name from its terrorist watch list until 2008! And don’t forget Washington’s support for Jonas Savimbi’s National Movement for the Total Independence of Angola that would contribute to the death of some 500,000 Angolans. And that’s just to begin a list that would roll on and on.
That, of course, is the relatively distant past, but the history of U.S. military action in the twenty-first century suggests that Washington seems destined to repeat the process of choosing the wrong, or one of the wrong, sides into the foreseeable future. Today’s Middle East is but a single exhibit in a prolonged tour of hypocrisy.
Boundless Hypocrisy
Maybe it’s because most Americans just aren’t paying attention or maybe we’re a nation of true believers, but it’s clear that most of us still cling to the idea that our country is a beacon of hope for the planet. Never known for our collective self-awareness, we’re eternally aghast to discover that so many elsewhere find little but insincerity in the promise of U.S. foreign policy. “Why do they hate us,” Americans have asked, with evident disbelief, for much of this century. Here are just a few hints related to the Greater Middle East:
*Post-9/11, the United States unleashed chaos in the region, destabilized it in stunning ways, and via an invasion launched on false premises created the conditions for ISIS’s rise. (That terror group quite literally formed in an American prison in post-invasion Iraq.) Later, with failing or failedstates dotting the region, the U.S. response to the worst refugee crisis since World War II has been to admit -- to choose but a single devastated country -- a paltry 18,000 Syrians since 2011. Canada took in three times that number last year; Sweden more than 50,000 in 2015 alone; and Turkey hosts three million displaced Syrians.
*Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s attempts to put in place a Muslim travel ban haven’t won this country any friends in the region either; nor will the president’s -- or White House aideStephen Miller's -- proposed “reform” of U.S. immigration policy, which would prioritize English-speakers, cut in half legal migration within a decade, and limit the ability of citizens and legal residents to sponsor relatives. How do you think that’s going to play in the global war for hearts and minds? As much as Miller would love to change Emma Lazarus’s inscription on the Statue of Liberty to “give me your well educated, your highly skilled, your English-speaking masses yearning to be free,” count on one thing: world opinion won’t miss the duplicity and hypocrisy of such an approach.
*Guantánamo -- perhaps the single best Islamist recruiting tool on Earth -- is still open. And, says President Trump, we’re “keeping it open... and we’re gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, we’re gonna load it up.” On this, he’s likely to be a man of his word. A new executive order is expected soon, preparing the way for an expansion of that prison’s population, while the Pentagon is already planning to put almost half a billion dollars into the construction of new facilities there in the coming years. No matter how upset the world gets at any of this, no matter how ISIS and other terror groups use it for their brand of advertising, no American officials will be held to account, because the United States is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court. Hypocritical? Nope, just utterly all-American.
*And speaking of prisons, thanks to nearly unqualified -- sometimes almost irrational -- U.S. support for Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank increasingly resemble walled off penal complexes. You almost have to admire President Trump for not even pretending to play the honest broker in the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He typically told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “One state, two state... I like whichever you like.” The safe money says Netanyahu will choose neither, opting instead to keep the Palestinians in political limbo without civil rights or a sovereign state, while Israel embarks on a settlement bonanza in the occupied territories. And speaking of American exceptionalism, we’re almost alone on the world stage when it comes to our support for the Israeli occupation.
The Cost
Given the nature of contemporary American war-fighting (far away and generally lightly covered by the media, which has an endless stream of Trump tweets to fawn over), it’s easy to forget that American troops are still dying in modest numbers in the Greater Middle East, in Syria, Iraq,Somalia,and -- almost 16 years after the American invasion of that country -- Afghanistan.
As for myself, from time to time (too often for comfort) I can’t help thinking of PFC Anderson and those I led who were so much less fortunate than him: Rios, Hensley, Clark, Hockenberry (a triple amputee), Fuller, Balsley, and Smith. Sometimes, when I can bear it, I even think about the war’s countless Afghan victims. And then I wish I could truly believe that we were indisputably the “good guys” in our unending wars across the Greater Middle East because that’s what we owed those soldiers.
And it pains me no less that Americans tend to blindly venerate the PFC Andersons of our world, to put them on such a pedestal (as the president did in his Afghan address to the nation recently), offering them eternal thanks, and so making them and their heroism the reason for fighting on, while most of the rest of us don’t waste a moment thinking about what (and whom) they’re truly fighting for.
If ever you have the urge to do just that, ask yourself the following question: Would I be able to confidently explain to someone’s mother what (besides his mates) her child actually died for?
What would you tell her? That he (or she)died to ensure Saudi hegemony in the Persian Gulf, or to facilitate the rise of ISIS, or an eternal Guantanamo, or the spread of terror groups, or the creation of yet more refugees for us to fear, or the further bombing of Yemen to ensure a famine of epic proportions?
Maybe you could do that, but I couldn’t and can’t. Not anymore, anyway. There have already been too many mothers, too many widows, for whom those explanations couldn’t be lamer. And so many dead -- American, Afghan, Iraqi, and all the rest -- that eventually I find myself sitting on a bar stool staring at the six names on those bracelets of mine, the wreckage of two wars reflecting back at me, knowing I’ll never be able to articulate a coherent explanation for their loved ones, should I ever have the courage to try.
Fear, guilt, embarrassment... my crosses to bear, as the war Anderson and I fought only expands further and undoubtedly more disastrously. My choices, my shame. No excuses.
Here’s the truth of it, if you just stop to think about America’s wars for a moment: it’s only going to get harder to look a widow or mother in the eye and justify them in the years to come. Maybe a good soldier doesn’t bother to worry about that... but I now know one thing at least: I’m not that.
Major Danny Sjursen, a TomDispatch regular, is a U.S. Army strategist and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at @Skeptical_Vet.
[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
CT-Interview with Dutchman Jeroen Zandberg on the nature of free societies
Jeroen Zandberg is part of the leadership of the UNPO, an organization representing the ethnic groups that are not organized in the UnitedNations, such as Tibetans. Last year, Zandberg wrote the book The Politics ofFreedom, in which he outlined the foundations of our democracy and our striving for freedom in an unconventional way. It is mainly due to the uninhibited view of the Dutchman that he unmasked many concepts, we take for granted, and highlights their true meaning. Citizen Timeseditor in chief Felix Strüning spoke with the author about nationalism, patriotism, multiculturalism, tolerance and its significance for the free society (German version at blu-News).
Citizen Times: Mr. Zandberg, all of Germany discusses about right-wing nationalists, at the moment. You say, however, nationalism is good. Please explain this.
Jeroen Zandberg – author of The Politics of Freedom
Jeroen Zandberg: Nationalism is necessary in order to have a well-functioning democracy. Without nationalism there can be no modern democracy. Everyone who values democracy, and I do, therefore has to accept some form of nationalism.
Nationalism is an ideology that tries to bind the people to the state in such a way that the people, or the nation, coincides with the state, thereby forming the nation-state. An important characteristic of nationalism is that it doesn’t allow for a self-appointed elite to govern the people, but instead requires the people to rule themselves.
The people have to believe that the state represents them in order for them to accept the authority and legitimacy of the state. If not, then the state would need such a large police force to enforce cooperation that we would end up with a police state. Nationalism therefore is a driving force for a free and open society with no room for oppression by an elite.
Another objective of nationalism is to have all members of the nation identify with the same culture and thereby each other, which is done by standardising the language, education, legal codes, media etcetera. This doesn’t mean that everyone has to be identical to each other, but everyone needs to share a similar identity and needs to feel part of one community, that is in the same boat, so to speak. Only within such a community is it possible to have the democratic institutions that enable a modern democracy to function. Without such a national community it is impossible to have democratic debate.
Citizen Times: Don’t you mean patriotism instead?
Jeroen Zandberg: Of course nationalism can also be used to exclude and eliminate others, but this is rare. These rare occasions are however often used to discredit nationalism. An elite who doesn’t have the best interest of the people at heart, but which does want all the benefits of a high social position often tries to promote patriotism instead, and at the same time downgrades nationalism. Patriotism is simply to owe allegiance to the state even if that state is not legitimized by the people. The state is in that perspective merely an organisation like any other. If that were true it would be like asking soldiers to die for the telephone company. Without identification and an emotional bond between people and state we would have no alternative then to live under a police state. If we don’t want a police state then we need some degree of nationalism.
Citizen Times: By implication, this means that multiculturalism must be wrong or bad. Why?
Jeroen Zandberg: If you have multiple cultures present in the same location who each have different rules on how to order the world then there needs to be another ethical system to mediate between them. For example, Muslims have Sharia law which describes how a good Islamic society should be organised. These laws are not accepted by non-Muslims for if they would accept them they would be Muslim as well. In a truly multicultural society the Sharia law would govern the lives of Muslims and each of the other cultures would have their own laws as well.
Now Germany, as with other European nations, has a culture based on Christianity and the Enlightenment, which values ideas like freedom, equality and self-determination. If you implement multiculturalism then the values of the Enlightenment are degraded to the level of only being appropriate to the ethnic German population. You would get a Germany where each (ethnic) community has its own rules. Of course such a system could never work in a modern society because people are not isolated in small communities.
Multiculturalism can however also be used to invalidate all of the cultures present, because if all cultures are equal, which multiculturalism implicitly states, than none may rule over the other. This means that, in the case of Germany, the mere presence of another culture is already reason enough to replace German culture with something else. This ‘new’ culture is by definition anti-democratic, because it is one of a small elite who appoints itself as mediator between the various cultural groups. In this way an elite rules over a set of distinct peoples. In that sense multiculturalism is a leap backward in time when there were large empires ruled by a small nobility and people’s positions in society were fixed by birth. Characteristics of such empires are that they are fiercely anti-democratic, oppressive and unable to compete economically in a globalised world.
A second implementation of multiculturalism is at least as bad because it is geared towards the eventual destruction of the original population. In this view of multiculturalism immigrants with different backgrounds need to be supported, meaning privileged compared to the native population, to integrate into society because they are at a disadvantage due to their different cultural background.
However, there is always integration and disintegration in an individualistic society regardless of the presence of foreigners. Each individual strives to obtain the best possible social position and self-development, which can sometimes come at the expense of others. In Western society this is always accompanied by conflict between individuals who consequently drift apart and cause society to disintegrate. In order to keep the community intact there need to be mechanisms to keep these individuals together. The nation-state, representing and imposing a distinct national culture, has historically proven to be the best suited mechanism for this purpose. Integration and disintegration are eternal processes and there will therefore still be integration in the year 2525 even if all of humanity would have miraculously been transformed into one single community.
The fact that integration is an everlasting process and not a fixed endpoint has major consequences for individuals in Europe. By privileging foreigners you automatically discriminate Europeans. Due to the fact that competition in Western society is individualistic means that all Europeans who are not fortunate enough to belong to the elite happy few will be limited in their opportunities and simply have to accept being second class citizens. The opportunities of Europeans are then sacrificed to give those opportunities to foreigners.
Another policy which aggravates this situation even further is that the same people who advocate integration and affirmative action also try to keep the borders open. Seeing that every newcomer needs to be assisted to integrate into society, the resulting system will be Apartheid which privileges foreigners. The eventual consequence will be a replacement of the native European population. Integration can therefore best be compared to a neutron bomb which leaves the structures intact but destroys all people living within it.
Citizen Times: And what about the much vaunted tolerance?
Jeroen Zandberg: Tolerance is one of the ideas that make the West great. However, tolerance in a multicultural society is completely different from that in a national community. In the former it revolves around co-existence between different population groups, but in the latter it is a means to find new perspectives on life. This is a difference between stagnation on the one hand and progress on the other.
Tolerance in a multicultural society is about allowing distinct population groups to co-exist without the need for them to identify with each other. In such a situation it is necessary that the public domain is devoid of specific cultural expressions that favour one of the population groups because it would limit the freedoms of the other group.
Tolerance in a competitive society is only possible if the other person or group does not have a more successful strategy. It is impossible to be tolerant towards a superior group/lifestyle when you compete for the same means of existence because that would be suicide. In the case of group competition it is necessary to keep the group together and to form one coherent front against other competing groups. If that would not happen then the group would disintegrate and the individual members would loose the struggle for power. A major problem is that in order to keep a group intact its members need to abide by certain criteria. Those criteria define membership of the group. It means that these criteria are no longer available for members of other groups because they also need to be unique in order to demarcate their group boundaries. The situation then arises that a certain lifestyle has proven to be successful, but people can’t adopt it because it would threaten their identity and thereby endanger the continued existence of their group and thereby themselves. This means that in a multicultural society there are major obstacles to learn from others. Instead of providing elements for progress and freedom, a multicultural society places restrictions on everyone.
The other view of tolerance is geared towards progress and the best life for all. The ideology of tolerance in a national community states that people are free to determine their own lifestyle in order for them to be as successful as possible.
If for example someone ‘invents’ a certain lifestyle that enables him to become very successful in society then this would make him evolutionary more successful than the rest. In order for the latter to survive they need to be able to adopt (parts of) this more successful lifestyle. When the most successful lifestyle is adopted by all, the plurality in society dissolves and tolerance temporarily disappears after which the process repeats itself.
Tolerance is however not an objective but a means to an end. The objective is to be able to continuously search for a better lifestyle/truth. Tolerance therefore revolves around a set of social experiments to find the best lifestyle. The experiment that provides the best results should then be open for adoption by the entire society. Due to the fact that we live in a dynamic world it is necessary to never stop experimenting. This means that there is always a need for some form of tolerance.
The key issue here is that tolerance should not be used to exclude other people and opinions like it is used in a multicultural setting, but instead be a tool of freedom to uncover new opportunities and possibilities.
Citizen Times: This means, equality is therefore not as important as it is always presented to be?
Jeroen Zandberg: On the contrary, equality is an essential and key characteristic of western culture. However, equality is often deliberately misrepresented in order for a small elite to legitimate their position and implement ‘equality’ upon others whereby this equality can be seen as “all people being equal in slavery”. The main distinctions within equality are the equality of opportunity and the equality of outcome. I am a big supporter of the first and strongly opposed to the latter.
Equality doesn’t mean that everyone has or should have the same genetic make-up and social position. Equality for me revolves around the equal value of each individual whereby this value is determined from the perspective of the individual itself. The key to equality is therefore to offer equal chances to each individual to strive for his personal success. When someone has the aptitude to become a professional wrestler then it would be unethical to force him to take ballet lessons. Else his chances of a successful life (his evolutionary fitness) would be sacrificed for an ideal that has been formulated by an elite in order for them to hold on to power.
People are social beings. An individual can therefore only be himself if he is part of a group. Individualism however is seen as an important achievement in Western culture and the idea that the group limits the freedoms and opportunities of the individual is widespread. In order to solve the contradiction between individual freedom and the necessity to have a community in which this freedom can be enjoyed, Western culture strongly emphasises the freedom of association. People are then able to decide for themselves to which group they wish to belong. If this freedom would be absent then a totalitarian state would be the only alternative and people would have to conform to an imposed culture. People are after all unable to survive as an atomised individual.
Is a Jew racist because he is Jewish? Judaism is first and foremost a religion based on ethnicity and descent whereby everyone who is of different descent is excluded. Exclusion is in Judaism then discrimination on ethnic grounds. Despite this, Judaism is not illegal. Is it for people allowed to determine with what group they identify or should it be imposed by government? And what identity should people have? Is it racist to exclude others when they also have the ability to form their own group?
Every form of association necessarily involves excluding others who do not fit certain criteria. If a society accepts freedom of association, it needs to accept that people form associations with people they identify and exclude those they don’t.
Freedom of association usually did not coincide with a specific ethnic identity previous to the large flows of immigrants to Europe. In the 21st century however many groups organise themselves on the basis of ethnicity. The multicultural society is an everyday reality. Left-wing activists consider it normative; the multicultural society is good. Everyone who is against the multicultural society is then considered evil. Furthermore, it is incorrectly assumed that discrimination is a major threat to the multicultural society and that racism needs to be strongly condemned and outlawed. However, a multicultural environment is based on the existence of groups that organise themselves based on descent and affinity. A multicultural environment can’t exist without discrimination based on ethnic criteria. The principle of discrimination can therefore never be bad in a multicultural environment because it is the foundation of that system, thereby labelling it as ‘good’. In light of the fact that the term ‘racism’ is used as a moral judgment to state that the exclusion and prejudices of others based on ethnicity is evil, we can conclude that discrimination in a multicultural environment is not racism.
Equality doesn’t mean that everyone has to be identical and that therefore people should be outlawed to form associations. In our society equality should be seen as the equal possibility for people to strive for their objectives in making the most out of their lives. Being part of a community of your choosing is an important element in this. As long as others are also able to strive for their objectives and form associations then exclusion and equality can go hand in hand.
Citizen Times: And this self-determination should look like?
Jeroen Zandberg: Self-determination is about being in control of your own destiny. You decide what is best for you and not someone else who might not have your best interest in mind. It is then essential that all the mechanisms that influence the level of self-determination be transparent and democratic. Far too often science and politics are directed at undermining self-determination. It is therefore essential that the rationalisations be identified and countered with real facts instead of elitist opinions.
For example, an essential element of the left-wing world view is the idea of one moral truth that can be attained by any rational well thinking person. Every person will come to this same (left-wing) conclusion. Everyone who has a different opinion is then either stupid, unreasonable or an evil person. The left-wing view only knows ‘facts’ and they speak for themselves. This left-wing rationality can in reality be better described as a rationalisation because an absolute moral truth is impossible to achieve, seeing that nature itself knows no morality. All ethics are ultimately based on unproven assumptions which are only considered true because it suits our best interests. The left-wing world view can therefore be considered a religion. Anyone with a different world view is then blaspheme and is terrorised in order to maintain the hegemony of the assumed superiority of the left-wing elite. The fact that the left-wing ideology is inevitably correct also means that other opinions are excluded from the debate because the assumptions of left-wing ideology determine the boundaries of this public debate. Anyone with a different vision is then excluded with the rationalisation that they are evil or stupid. This false reasoning by the left-wing elite is consequently responsible for the fact that a large part of the population feels that they are no longer represented. They are excluded because they are considered unfit due to the fact that they don’t follow left-wing logic. In order to regain self-determination it is important to see that a moral truth can never be absolute and that the so-called ‘facts’ of the left-wing elite are mere opinions of the establishment that desperately clings to power.
When we talk about self-determination we can’t ignore the sciences. Virtually all scientific discoveries in the past centuries have been done in the West and it has been crucial in enabling us to control nature and ourselves. However, social science doesn’t simply measure things but at the same time creates a new reality as well. By selectively doing certain research you are able to manipulate the outcome in such a way that it influences the opinion of the people in any desired direction. Social science can therefore easily turn into a means of oppression instead of a means to increase self-determination. This doesn’t mean that social science isn’t useful. On the contrary, social science is one of the West’s most important achievements with which we can not only control nature but also ourselves. In order to have self-determination and thereby having our destiny in our hands we need to make sure that social science is free from abuse. Due to the fact that social science is always relative, means that abuse is always around the corner. The scientific climate of the last decades clearly shows that a lot of so called science is based on left-wing activism.
For example, studies prove that most of the media is not left-wing. These studies are based on counting the number of left-wing and right-wing people and items. In the same way it is easy to prove that the Discovery Channel is in fact a propaganda machine for neo-Nazi’s. When you count the number of times Hitler or the Third Reich is mentioned and compare that with the number of times American president Roosevelt is mentioned, then the former exceeds the latter making the Discovery Channel, in left-wing social science style, a neo-Nazi propaganda machine.
Citizen Times: More generally: How should a society be organized so that it becomes as free as possible?
Jeroen Zandberg: In my view democracy is the key to coming to the best possible society in which freedom for as many people as possible can be guaranteed. In today’s democracy however, there are many undemocratic forces at work which disguise themselves as being democratic. If we re-evaluate the values of the Enlightenment we have a good opportunity to defeat these anti-democratic forces. Regaining self-determination, understanding equality and the role of nationalism are all key elements in this struggle. Another element is to fully comprehend what democracy really is. In my book I spend many pages on explaining the principles of democracy and the positive effects of populism. Often people have just a general idea of what democracy means. They would come up with things like elections, the rule of law, freedom of expression and debate. This is all correct but it doesn’t fully address the essence of democracy and the threats to its proper workings.
The essence of democracy is not a specific defined content but it is the procedure to come to a result, a Truth, whereby the democracy in itself has no objective other than the creation of the public domain in order to make the search for Truth possible. This public domain than has to create an environment in which all persons have the ability to participate in the public debate as equals in order to get to the best possible truth together. To this end the public domain should not be based on a morality and should also be devoid of power.
In a democracy ‘the Truth’ consists of the best possible arguments and ideas at a certain point in time for a given problem, that promotes the well-being and survival of the people. Unfortunately, many forces are at work to manipulate this process where as a result the Truth that is reached is not in the interests of the people but of an elite.
For example, debate is often the exclusive domain of politicians who then come to form a Truth without a major role of the majority of the population which they only ‘consult’ during the elections after which they ignore their interests.
Populist politics understands that the existing procedures that ought to guarantee democratic debate and transfer of power have been hijacked by an elite, causing democracy to disappear. The search for the best truth for the people can therefore only take place outside these hijacked institutions. Populism is about regaining democracy by circumnavigating the hijacked, and consequently dictatorial, institutions and replacing this with a direct connection with the people.
The most important element is to make sure that society arrives at truths through debate by and for the people and not through debate by and for the elite.
Citizen Times: In your book you always criticize the Liberals. But you yourself are not one?
Jeroen Zandberg: Yes, I consider myself to be liberal and I can see the merits of many of the liberal and even left-wing principles. However, those principles can be explained in various ways. My main critique is that these principles are often deliberately interpreted in such a way as to legitimate the elite’s privileged position and in the process undermine the potentials of others. They have corrupted the principles that made the West successful and as such prove a major threat to the continued success of our society. I hope that the arguments I put forward in my book will help in attacking this corruption and provide alternatives for them.
Jeroen Zandberg (2011): The Politics of Freedom. 93 pages, self-publishing. Buy at lulu.com
“I can say very confidently that I have not detected any whiff of interference with that investigation,” Wray said at an Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington.
MORE CLINTON SMOKE AND MIRRORS:
Google says it found no trace of Russia’s interference in US election on its ad platforms
Google has said it has failed to unearth any facts that would implicate Moscow in exploiting its advertising tools to manipulate the US elections. It comes after Facebook said it had found dozens of Russia-linked fake pages promoting divisive US-related issues.
“We’re always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms,” Google said in a statement Thursday, as cited by Reuters. The search engine giant was asked to comment on the issue in wake of the allegations shared by Facebook, its fellow online advertiser, a day earlier.
In its report Wednesday, Facebook appeared to link Moscow to some 3,000 political ads run by 470 “inauthentic” accounts between June 2015 and May 2017 that touched on US topics ranging from gun right to LGBT rights and immigration. The only grounds given for the claim was that the pages were “affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.”
While Facebook noted that the most part of the said advertisements did not promote any candidate or even did not include any specific reference to the US presidential campaign, some of the US lawmakers have already jumped to conclusions.
Sen. Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the bodies probing alleged Russia’s meddling in the US elections, who met with Facebook officials back in July, was quick to blame Russia for waging a wide-reaching social media campaign to influence US public opinion.
"It appeared to me that the very social media sites that we rely on for virtually everything – our Facebooks, Googles and Twitters – it was my belief the Russians were using those sites to intervene in our elections," Warner said during the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington on Thursday, as cited by CNN, calling the revelations provided by Facebook only “a tip of the iceberg.”
Warner claimed that that while not mentioning any candidates or the fact of the elections, the ads were targeting American voters and aimed at “voter suppression.”
He said he expects Twitter to follow in the footsteps of Facebook, which has already submitted its report to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is tasked with investigating alleged Russia’s interference, and produce one of its own. Twitter, however, has not commented on the issue so far.
As the congressional investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the US election drags on 10 months after the vote with any hard evidence explicitly pointing to the role of the Russian authorities yet to be produced, the diplomatic feud between Washington and Moscow has been exacerbated by recent searches in Russian diplomatic compounds in the US, including in the consulate in San Francisco. The properties were seized by the US authorities in what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described as a “flagrant violation of international norms.”
Moscow announced it is initiating legal proceedings to get the properties returned.
Russia has repeatedly denied any allegations it interfered in the election campaign. In an interview to filmmaker Oliver Stone in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, accused the US in meddling in Russia’s latest presidential elections of 2012 by campaigning on the side of the Russian opposition.
In August, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stated that he has “no doubt” that the US would attempt to influence the 2018 presidential elections.
“We are used to American interference, we live with it. It’s the same as wire-tapping by US secret services,” Ryabkov said in an interview to foreign media.
Pro-Clinton 'sanctuary' Verrit draws mockery online
A website designed to act as a "sanctuary" for Americans who wanted Hillary Clinton to win the election – endorsed by Clinton herself – has been ridiculed online, with critics calling it anything from "echo chamber" to completely useless.
The website Verrit describes itself as "media for the 65.8 million," in a reference to the number of votes Clinton received in the 2016 presidential election.
Such a goal was unsurprisingly welcomed by the former Democratic candidate herself, who tweeted that she was "excited" about signing up for it.
However, since Clinton's tweet, the site has come under a DDOS attack and a "Hillary-hating frenzy," according to its founder Peter Daou.
Indeed, many have taken issue with the site and its entire model. The site provides shareable "verrits" – tidbits of text – which are marked with a 7-digit identification code. The idea is that if someone sees a verrit shared on social media, they can go to the website and type in the code. If it comes up, it's real. If it produces no result, it was made by a Verrit "copycat."
The trouble with that approach is that there is plenty of factual information online that didn't come from Verrit, doesn't have a code, and therefore can't be checked by the site. Fake information from other areas of the web also doesn’t come with codes.
That fact has led some to mock the entire code system, with one person joking that it's the "political equivalent of the 'certificate of authenticity' from a TV gold coin commercial."
It does appear that Verrit's authentication system is only capable of identifying Verrit copycats – people who manage to create mock verrits – and nothing else.
One such example includes a fake authentication code alongside a fake Clinton quote which reads: "Bernie would have beaten me if I didn't lie, cheat, steal, launder millions, destroy media credibility and gaslight millions with $10m CTR (click-through rate) trolls."
Another Twitter user mocked up a fake verrit about Clinton’s (factual) collapse after her September 2016 visit to the 9/11 memorial.
"Most people collapse on moderately sunny days. It's normal," the person wrote, including a phony Verrit authentication code.
Daou has addressed the "thousands of fake verrits" which emerged after Clinton endorsed the site, but said the site was able to "channel anti-Hillary energy into free marketing and promotion."
That statement has prompted some to say that Verrit is little more of a promotional stunt than a media platform.
Some have dubbed it an "echo chamber," a sanctuary where Clinton's fans can live in a bubble where their beliefs will not be challenged.
Meanwhile, others have accused the site of merely being a place to dump links, which then turn into "memes for liberals."
Critics have also taken aim at the site's actual content – or lack thereof – claiming that a search result for terms such as living wage, unions, manufacturing, and income inequality turned up empty.
"Boy, you Centrists are off to a great start!" one critic wrote.
Another Twitter user accused Verrit of being "like Fox News, but without even [a] pretense of honesty."
The conservative news site Breitbart poked fun at the site’s name, tying it to the Latin root“verro,” which can mean either a male pig (noun), or “to conceal” (verb).
