Guide to Surviving an Authoritarian Regime (America's E European Friends)
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1margd
Looks like this was posted February 2017 (?):
The COMPLETE 4-page Guide to Surviving an Authoritarian Regime, in graphic form
Year 1 Under Authoritarianism – What to Expect?
1. They will come to power with a campaign based on fear, scaremongering and distorting the truth...
2. They will divide and rule...
3. Through convoluted laws and threats they will try to control mainstream media and limit press freedom...
4. They will create chaos, maintain a constant sense of conflict and danger...
5. They will distort the truth, deny facts and blatantly lie....
6. They will incite and then leak fake, superficial “scandals”...
7. They will propose shocking laws to provoke your outrage...
8. When invading your liberal sensibilities they will focus on what hurts the most – women and minorities...
9. They will try to take control of the judiciary...
10. They will try to limit freedom of assembly, calling it a necessity for your security...
11. They will distort the language, coin new terms and labels, repeat shocking phrases until you accept them as normal and subconsciously associate them with whom they like...
12. They will take over your national symbols, associate them with their regime, remake them into attributes of their power...
13. They will try to rewrite history to suit their needs and use the education system to support their agenda...
14. They will alienate foreign allies and partners, convincing you don’t need them...
...And above all, be strong, fight, endure, and remember you’re on the good side of history.
EVERY authoritarian, totalitarian and fascist regime in history eventually failed, thanks to the PEOPLE.
– With love, your Eastern European friends
http://learnfromeurope.org/
______________________________________
Our Eastern European friends also provide at their website:
Authoritarian Checklist...
6 RULES for Survival under an Authoritarian Regime...
7 RULES on Approaching Authoritarian Supporters...
The COMPLETE 4-page Guide to Surviving an Authoritarian Regime, in graphic form
Year 1 Under Authoritarianism – What to Expect?
1. They will come to power with a campaign based on fear, scaremongering and distorting the truth...
2. They will divide and rule...
3. Through convoluted laws and threats they will try to control mainstream media and limit press freedom...
4. They will create chaos, maintain a constant sense of conflict and danger...
5. They will distort the truth, deny facts and blatantly lie....
6. They will incite and then leak fake, superficial “scandals”...
7. They will propose shocking laws to provoke your outrage...
8. When invading your liberal sensibilities they will focus on what hurts the most – women and minorities...
9. They will try to take control of the judiciary...
10. They will try to limit freedom of assembly, calling it a necessity for your security...
11. They will distort the language, coin new terms and labels, repeat shocking phrases until you accept them as normal and subconsciously associate them with whom they like...
12. They will take over your national symbols, associate them with their regime, remake them into attributes of their power...
13. They will try to rewrite history to suit their needs and use the education system to support their agenda...
14. They will alienate foreign allies and partners, convincing you don’t need them...
...And above all, be strong, fight, endure, and remember you’re on the good side of history.
EVERY authoritarian, totalitarian and fascist regime in history eventually failed, thanks to the PEOPLE.
– With love, your Eastern European friends
http://learnfromeurope.org/
______________________________________
Our Eastern European friends also provide at their website:
Authoritarian Checklist...
6 RULES for Survival under an Authoritarian Regime...
7 RULES on Approaching Authoritarian Supporters...
2margd
Christmas Eve massacre? New Year's Eve massacre? Congress is in recess, Trump is at Mar-a-Lago--how could he resist?
The Mueller Investigation Is in Mortal Danger
Jonathan Chait | December 8, 2017
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/the-mueller-investigation-is-in-mor...
The Mueller Investigation Is in Mortal Danger
Jonathan Chait | December 8, 2017
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/the-mueller-investigation-is-in-mor...
3margd
Trumpmenbashi: What Central Asia’s spectacular states can tell us about authoritarianism in America.
Sarah Kendzior | March 22, 2016
...In 2010, Laura Adams, a sociologist who conducted extensive fieldwork in the nascent Central Asian states in the 1990s, published The Spectacular State, an analysis of Uzbekistan’s nation-building through massive public spectacle.
“A spectacular state,” writes Adams, “is one where, more than in other countries, politics is conducted on a symbolic level, promoting the state’s domination over the shared meaning of concepts such as heritage and progress.” The ultimate goal of the spectacular state is the restriction of the public sphere, where all ideas of culture and heritage are either filtered through – or respond to – the narrative of the state, ruled by a dictator who has developed a cult of personality. The nation becomes a brand; the dictator, a brand ambassador; the people, a captive audience.
...Adams notes that “spectacle enables elites to close opportunities for input from below, but without making the masses feel left out.” Spectacle soothes the masses while distracting them from their suffering. Trump, a master of the American reality TV genre which has made a spectacle of human suffering – he made “You’re fired!” a beloved tagline during one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history – knows how to make an audience feel included through the theatrical exclusion of others. This tactic carries over into Trump’s rallies, where protesters are booted — and sometimes beaten — with fanfare. It also carries over into his policies, which are structured around exclusion: a wall against Mexico, banned entry for foreign Muslims, a database for U.S. Muslims, and a media denied access unless they acquiesce to Trump’s demands.
Spectacle is not all Trump’s proposed America and the Central Asian dictatorships have in common. Trump’s vision of America also supports a restricted press; persecution of devout Muslims and ethnic minorities; totalized control of government through a sequestered elite (Trump refuses to name potential partners and advisors); incredible wealth with little transparency concerning its accumulation (Trump refuses to release tax returns); and paranoid recitation of enemies both foreign and domestic, who are said to threaten the “greatness” of the state – and its leader. These are the standard characteristics of dictatorship, practiced in many countries around the world. But there are more distinct parallels to Trumpism to be found in Central Asia...
https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/trumpmenbashi/
Sarah Kendzior | March 22, 2016
...In 2010, Laura Adams, a sociologist who conducted extensive fieldwork in the nascent Central Asian states in the 1990s, published The Spectacular State, an analysis of Uzbekistan’s nation-building through massive public spectacle.
“A spectacular state,” writes Adams, “is one where, more than in other countries, politics is conducted on a symbolic level, promoting the state’s domination over the shared meaning of concepts such as heritage and progress.” The ultimate goal of the spectacular state is the restriction of the public sphere, where all ideas of culture and heritage are either filtered through – or respond to – the narrative of the state, ruled by a dictator who has developed a cult of personality. The nation becomes a brand; the dictator, a brand ambassador; the people, a captive audience.
...Adams notes that “spectacle enables elites to close opportunities for input from below, but without making the masses feel left out.” Spectacle soothes the masses while distracting them from their suffering. Trump, a master of the American reality TV genre which has made a spectacle of human suffering – he made “You’re fired!” a beloved tagline during one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history – knows how to make an audience feel included through the theatrical exclusion of others. This tactic carries over into Trump’s rallies, where protesters are booted — and sometimes beaten — with fanfare. It also carries over into his policies, which are structured around exclusion: a wall against Mexico, banned entry for foreign Muslims, a database for U.S. Muslims, and a media denied access unless they acquiesce to Trump’s demands.
Spectacle is not all Trump’s proposed America and the Central Asian dictatorships have in common. Trump’s vision of America also supports a restricted press; persecution of devout Muslims and ethnic minorities; totalized control of government through a sequestered elite (Trump refuses to name potential partners and advisors); incredible wealth with little transparency concerning its accumulation (Trump refuses to release tax returns); and paranoid recitation of enemies both foreign and domestic, who are said to threaten the “greatness” of the state – and its leader. These are the standard characteristics of dictatorship, practiced in many countries around the world. But there are more distinct parallels to Trumpism to be found in Central Asia...
https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/trumpmenbashi/
4margd
From Canada, to our U.S. friends: Might is not always right
Chrystia Freeland | June 14, 2018
The following is adapted from an acceptance speech by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on receiving Foreign Policy’s Diplomat of the Year award on June 13
...We remember a time when the United States believed great international projects like the Marshall Plan, or the reconstruction of Japan, were the path to lasting peace; when America believed its security and prosperity were bolstered by the security and prosperity of other nations – indeed, that America could only be truly safe and prosperous when its allies were too.
This vision was crucially dependent on the rules-based international order and the postwar institutions built to maintain it. It was based upon the willingness of all, especially the strongest, to play by the rules and be bound by them. It depended on the greatest countries of the world giving up, collectively, on the idea that might made right.
Now, the Second World War was over 70 years ago. It is reasonable to ask whether our grandparents’ hard-won wisdom still applies today. I am certain that it does – and for some new reasons.
After the devastation of the Second World War, the United States was the unquestioned colossus, accounting alone for half of the world’s economy. Today, the U.S. economy stands at just under a quarter of the world’s. Together, the EU, Canada and Japan, your allies in the G7 and beyond, account for just a little bit more. China produces nearly 20 per cent of the world’s GDP, and in our lifetimes, its economy is set to become the world’s largest.
Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Americans, Canadians and Europeans are much richer and healthier and live longer than our grandparents did.
The rise of the rest has been a chapter in the story of our own increased prosperity. And it is only natural that the 85 per cent of people who live outside the industrialized West should over time account for a greater and growing share of the world’s wealth.
But that shift leaves the Western liberal democracies with a dilemma. How shall we behave in a world we no longer dominate?
One answer is to give up on the rules-based international order, to give up on the Western alliance and to seek to survive in a world defined not by common values, mutually agreed-upon rules and shared prosperity, but rather by a ruthless struggle between great powers, governed solely by the narrow, short-term and mercantilist pursuit of self-interest.
Canada could never thrive in such a world. But you, still the world’s largest economy, may be tempted. That, of course, is your sovereign right. But allow me, as your friend, to make the case that America’s security, amid the inexorable rise of the rest, lies in doubling down on a renewed rules-based international order. It lies in working alongside traditional allies, like Canada, and alongside all of the younger democracies around the world – from the Americas, to Africa, to Asia, to the former Soviet Union – who are so keen to join us and who yearn for leadership.
You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano-a-mano with your traditional adversaries and be guaranteed to win. But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation’s pre-eminence is eternal.
That is why the far wiser path – and the more enduring one – is to strengthen our existing alliance of liberal democracies. To hold the door open to new friends, to countries that have their own troubled past, such as Tunisia, Senegal, Indonesia, Mexico, Botswana, Chile or Ukraine. To reform and renew the rules-based international order that we have built together. And, in so doing, to require that all states, whether democratic or not, play by common rules.
This is the difficult truth: As the West’s relative might inevitably decline, now is the time when, more than ever, we must set aside the idea that might is right. Now is the time for us to plant our flag on the rule of law – so that the rising powers are induced to play by these rules, too.
Our friends among the world’s democracies – in Europe, in Asia, in Africa and here in the Americas – are shoulder to shoulder with us. We all know we will be strongest with America in our ranks – and indeed in the lead. But whatever this great country’s choice will turn out to be – let me be clear that Canada knows where it stands. And we will rise to this challenge.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-from-canada-to-our-us-friends-mi...
Chrystia Freeland | June 14, 2018
The following is adapted from an acceptance speech by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on receiving Foreign Policy’s Diplomat of the Year award on June 13
...We remember a time when the United States believed great international projects like the Marshall Plan, or the reconstruction of Japan, were the path to lasting peace; when America believed its security and prosperity were bolstered by the security and prosperity of other nations – indeed, that America could only be truly safe and prosperous when its allies were too.
This vision was crucially dependent on the rules-based international order and the postwar institutions built to maintain it. It was based upon the willingness of all, especially the strongest, to play by the rules and be bound by them. It depended on the greatest countries of the world giving up, collectively, on the idea that might made right.
Now, the Second World War was over 70 years ago. It is reasonable to ask whether our grandparents’ hard-won wisdom still applies today. I am certain that it does – and for some new reasons.
After the devastation of the Second World War, the United States was the unquestioned colossus, accounting alone for half of the world’s economy. Today, the U.S. economy stands at just under a quarter of the world’s. Together, the EU, Canada and Japan, your allies in the G7 and beyond, account for just a little bit more. China produces nearly 20 per cent of the world’s GDP, and in our lifetimes, its economy is set to become the world’s largest.
Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Americans, Canadians and Europeans are much richer and healthier and live longer than our grandparents did.
The rise of the rest has been a chapter in the story of our own increased prosperity. And it is only natural that the 85 per cent of people who live outside the industrialized West should over time account for a greater and growing share of the world’s wealth.
But that shift leaves the Western liberal democracies with a dilemma. How shall we behave in a world we no longer dominate?
One answer is to give up on the rules-based international order, to give up on the Western alliance and to seek to survive in a world defined not by common values, mutually agreed-upon rules and shared prosperity, but rather by a ruthless struggle between great powers, governed solely by the narrow, short-term and mercantilist pursuit of self-interest.
Canada could never thrive in such a world. But you, still the world’s largest economy, may be tempted. That, of course, is your sovereign right. But allow me, as your friend, to make the case that America’s security, amid the inexorable rise of the rest, lies in doubling down on a renewed rules-based international order. It lies in working alongside traditional allies, like Canada, and alongside all of the younger democracies around the world – from the Americas, to Africa, to Asia, to the former Soviet Union – who are so keen to join us and who yearn for leadership.
You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano-a-mano with your traditional adversaries and be guaranteed to win. But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation’s pre-eminence is eternal.
That is why the far wiser path – and the more enduring one – is to strengthen our existing alliance of liberal democracies. To hold the door open to new friends, to countries that have their own troubled past, such as Tunisia, Senegal, Indonesia, Mexico, Botswana, Chile or Ukraine. To reform and renew the rules-based international order that we have built together. And, in so doing, to require that all states, whether democratic or not, play by common rules.
This is the difficult truth: As the West’s relative might inevitably decline, now is the time when, more than ever, we must set aside the idea that might is right. Now is the time for us to plant our flag on the rule of law – so that the rising powers are induced to play by these rules, too.
Our friends among the world’s democracies – in Europe, in Asia, in Africa and here in the Americas – are shoulder to shoulder with us. We all know we will be strongest with America in our ranks – and indeed in the lead. But whatever this great country’s choice will turn out to be – let me be clear that Canada knows where it stands. And we will rise to this challenge.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-from-canada-to-our-us-friends-mi...
7margd
Fascism: A Warning by Madeline Albright
Interview
Madeleine Albright: ‘The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad’
Andrew Rawns | July 8, 2018
...Where we might be going is the chilling theme of Fascism: A Warning. The book is a cry of anguish about the global resurgence of authoritarianism and a lament over the decay of the liberal internationalist politics to which Albright has devoted her career. The work is also an act of homage to her father who wrote books about the perils of tyranny and worried that Americans were so accustomed to liberty – so “very, very free,” he wrote – that they might take democracy for granted. She quotes Primo Levi – “Every age has its own fascism” – and makes her case with observations about the autocrats she has dealt with and brisk histories of past dictators and the horrors that they unleashed. A devil’s portrait gallery includes Benito Mussolini, the original fascist, and Adolf Hitler, the most destructive. Then there’s Donald Trump.
She agrees that we ought to be careful not to casually throw around the F-word lest we drain the potency from what should be a powerful term. “I’m not calling Trump a fascist,” she says. Yet she seems to be doing all but that when she puts him in the same company as historical fascists in a book that seeks to sound “an alarm bell” about a fascist revival.
She frequently nudges the reader to make connections between the president of the United States and past dictatorships. She reminds us who first coined the Trumpian phrase “drain the swamp”. It was drenare la palude in the original, Mussolini Italian. She quotes Hitler talking about the secret of his success: “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.” Sound familiar?
... “Defining fascism is difficult. First of all, I don’t think fascism is an ideology. I think it is a method, it’s a system.”
It is in his methods that Trump can be compared with, if not precisely likened to, the dictators of the 1930s. Fascists are typically masters of political theatre. They feed on and inflame grievances by setting “the people” against their “enemies”. Fascists tell their supporters that there are simple fixes for complex problems. They present as national saviours and conflate themselves with the state. They seek to subvert, discredit and eliminate liberal institutions. She reminds us that they have often ascended to power through the ballot box and then undermined democracy from within. She is especially fond of a Mussolini quote about “plucking a chicken feather by feather” so that people will not notice the loss of their freedoms until it is too late.
In her book, Trump is one nasty plucker...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-...
Interview
Madeleine Albright: ‘The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad’
Andrew Rawns | July 8, 2018
...Where we might be going is the chilling theme of Fascism: A Warning. The book is a cry of anguish about the global resurgence of authoritarianism and a lament over the decay of the liberal internationalist politics to which Albright has devoted her career. The work is also an act of homage to her father who wrote books about the perils of tyranny and worried that Americans were so accustomed to liberty – so “very, very free,” he wrote – that they might take democracy for granted. She quotes Primo Levi – “Every age has its own fascism” – and makes her case with observations about the autocrats she has dealt with and brisk histories of past dictators and the horrors that they unleashed. A devil’s portrait gallery includes Benito Mussolini, the original fascist, and Adolf Hitler, the most destructive. Then there’s Donald Trump.
She agrees that we ought to be careful not to casually throw around the F-word lest we drain the potency from what should be a powerful term. “I’m not calling Trump a fascist,” she says. Yet she seems to be doing all but that when she puts him in the same company as historical fascists in a book that seeks to sound “an alarm bell” about a fascist revival.
She frequently nudges the reader to make connections between the president of the United States and past dictatorships. She reminds us who first coined the Trumpian phrase “drain the swamp”. It was drenare la palude in the original, Mussolini Italian. She quotes Hitler talking about the secret of his success: “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.” Sound familiar?
... “Defining fascism is difficult. First of all, I don’t think fascism is an ideology. I think it is a method, it’s a system.”
It is in his methods that Trump can be compared with, if not precisely likened to, the dictators of the 1930s. Fascists are typically masters of political theatre. They feed on and inflame grievances by setting “the people” against their “enemies”. Fascists tell their supporters that there are simple fixes for complex problems. They present as national saviours and conflate themselves with the state. They seek to subvert, discredit and eliminate liberal institutions. She reminds us that they have often ascended to power through the ballot box and then undermined democracy from within. She is especially fond of a Mussolini quote about “plucking a chicken feather by feather” so that people will not notice the loss of their freedoms until it is too late.
In her book, Trump is one nasty plucker...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-...
