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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Timothy Snyder is even blunter in his book, "On Freedom," also published last year. The world, he claims, is divided into two types of political systems: liberal democracies (which embrace positive values) and autocracies (which lack values entirely). The tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump? They're "sadopopulists" who enjoy inflicting pain on others more than helping themselves. read more


Saturday, March 15, 2025

The race to colonize the moon has a formidable new member. Eric Schmidt, the former longtime CEO of Google is taking the reins of Relativity Space. Founded in 2016, this space exploration and technology startup is based in Long Beach, California, similar to its rival Rocket Lab USA. read more


Thursday, March 13, 2025

Axios first reported the decision on Thursday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads the Department of Health and Human Services, said Weldon wasn't ready for the role, Axios reported. HHS oversees the CDC and all other federal health agencies. read more


Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Israel's military industrial complex uses the occupied, Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world to despots and democracies. For more than 50 years, occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an "enemy" population, the Palestinians. It's here that they have perfected the architecture of control. Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in a global investigation with secret documents, revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting. This book shows in-depth, for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex: surveillance, home demolitions, indefinite incarceration and brutality to the hi-tech tools that drive the 'Start-up Nation'. read more


Tuesday, March 11, 2025

At 83 years old, Sanders is not running for president again. But the stooped and silver-haired democratic socialist has emerged as a leader of the resistance to Donald Trump's second presidency. In tearing into Trump's seizure of power and warning about the consequences of firing tens of thousands of government workers, Sanders is bucking the wishes of those who want Democrats to focus on the price of eggs or "roll over and play dead." For now, at least, Sanders stands alone as the only elected progressive willing to mount a national campaign to harness the fear and anger of the sprawling anti-Trump movement.


Comments

Lazy sumbitch. Does sadopopulism sum it up for you?

FTA:

Consider two recent high-profile books. The first, Anne Applebaum's "Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World," published in 2024, is right on point. These days, she argues, more and more illiberal regimes collaborate " not out of shared ideals but from a "ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve [the] personal wealth and power" of their leaders.

Timothy Snyder is even blunter in his book, "On Freedom," also published last year. The world, he claims, is divided into two types of political systems: liberal democracies (which embrace positive values) and autocracies (which lack values entirely). The tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump? They're "sadopopulists" who enjoy inflicting pain on others more than helping themselves. What about China? Clearly, "the entire country is a kind of prison." And whenever a country veers away from liberal democracy, the only question is whether it's using oligarchy to get to fascism (as in Russia and Turkey) or fascism to get to oligarchy (as in Brazil and India).

"The major illiberal regimes worldwide do not lack values or ideals " they overflow with them."
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From this perspective of correct liberal opinion, understanding the illiberal world boils down to a few core principles. First, today's illiberal regimes maintain power primarily through repression, violence and corruption. Second, their leaders and deputies are driven by the spoils of tyranny: power, wealth, sex and glory. Third " though opinion is more divided on this point " their populations are either systematically deceived by their rulers or, more insultingly, incapable of tolerating the complexity, openness and pluralism that liberal democracy promotes.

If these critics are right, there's no need to hold a new Colloquium of the Seven. We know what illiberals are about. They are driven by greed, not ideals; anger, not affection; and base interests, not human goods.

A Counterproposal
This article presents a counterproposal: The major illiberal regimes worldwide do not lack values or ideals " they overflow with them. They believe in their values sincerely. So much so, in fact, that each advances a positive and specific vision of human flourishing for its members. Finally, here is my thesis: They are ready and willing to use the soft and hard powers of the state to realize their visions of the good life. They are in the business of crafting souls, or soulcraft.

With this in mind, if I had the major representatives of these regimes at the colloquium table, I'd ask three questions:

1. What is the dominant conception of the good life in your country?

2. Why is it excellent and worthy of devotion?

3. How does " and should " your state advance it?

A weeklong conversation around this could go a long way toward helping poor liberals, like myself, understand the allure, potency, stability and deep human aspirations of my rivals.

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