Let’s face it – culturally, and increasingly economically, we live under totalitarianism, thinly disguised as naughty post-modernism.
Everyday we inch towards glorious Marxism of ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs‘, where the less ability you have the greater your needs are and the more they have to be met at any all cost to society.
THIS IS NOT THE OPEN-FACE TOTALITARIANISM OF YESTERYEAR. NO.
This is a veiled but steadily humming machine, ramping up speed with every election cycle and recently coming to full terms with itself.
We see it everywhere. We hear it everywhere.
Its agenda beams out of media and all entertainment, spun by hundreds of political pundits and talking heads. Objective journalism is neither objective nor journalism- it is only opinions of carefully calibrated words conveying one line of thinking, systematically persuading the public that there is only one way to see the world- the approved way, the party way.
It is enforced by social media gatekeepers, by search engines, by the ‘art’ of polling and by the brutal electoral machine. The propaganda is everywhere one looks – the party line held above logic, above reason, above history and increasingly, above truth.
Back behind the Iron Curtain, people were immune from it – like everyone else, they learned to read between the lines from an young age. The average American is naïve. The average American still believes in the ideals of that early republic.
The average American has become an easy victim to totalitarianism
Just as back in the day, this Marxism only works for some of the people — those in power, those on the top, the (party) darlings, the (party) elites, and (maybe) those on the bottom, the assigned aggrieved, the designated oppressed groups.
It is an easy math.
The top gets the whole cake, the bottom gets the crumbs, which buy its loyalty to the top and make the top feel benevolent and justified.
The system assigns its beneficiaries and it assigns its enemy. Those in neither group are destined for brutal exploitation without the benefits of the bottom and definitely without the benefits of the top.
Familiar story.
The system’s true totalitarian face and its regressive agenda are in the newspeak of political correctness, in its enforcement of approved words and conduct, and in its aspirational sloganeering. It has propagated its cultural and political grip onto mass media where it manipulates the zeitgeist invisibly and forcibly.
The wording has changed, but the actions are the same.
There is the thought police, the revisionist history, the punishments of the dissenters, the racial quotas in academia and employment, the denigration of religion, the politicizing of entertainment and creativity, the public shaming of those not in step with the party line, the uniform speaking voice of the press, the enabling of all falsehoods and abuse- as long as they do not challenge the party line, the instilled fear of law enforcement, the nurtured hatred between social groups, the encouraged violence from the identity groups, the intellectual dishonesty, the Cold War enemy buildup.*
Those not on top or bottom, those in the middle, the (petite) bourgeoisie enemy as such, are subject to vulgar dismantling of livelihood and dignity. Their values are ridiculed mercilessly and without respite. Their needs are dismissed as atavistic. Their grievances are the subject of late night TV jokes, social media censorship, and relentless ostracism for entertainment value. A social onslaught to keep them shamed, quiet and marginalized.
And that is OK, because they are the enemy and vigilance against the enemy is a primary virtue of Marxism and communism.
The one natural ally the middle had under the old Iron Curtain communism, the intelligentsia – either not existing on American soil or barely so- has long abdicated its calling for servitude to the party faithful elites. It has been brainwashed and coerced into becoming its most visible enforcer, without morals and without compunction.
The intelligentsia’s total capitulation is a unique perversion of American Marxism
The US has taken totalitarianism to a next level. Achievement, merit, patriotism, community cohesion- all those essential blocks of a healthy society have become the values of the enemy, to be scorned and beaten out by any means possible. Protectionism, cheap illegal labor, political correctness, quotas systems, identity politics- all are being rammed down the collective enemy gullet because these at the top want to. It is their cake and they will eat any way they choose, preferably to the loud cheers of the adoring crumb eaters. The party line demands it. Marxism demands it.
Marxism. Communism. Totalitarianism.
It is an old story. My family lived it many years ago and many miles away.
I am living it now, here, in these United States.
PS. PS The image above is from a seminal film by Georgian director Tenghiz Abuladze, called ‘Pokayanie’ or ‘Repentance’. This film is a must-see for everyone who fears the mob and fears the suppression of the individual’s freedom of expression in any form. Full film here
*This article was originally written in 2015. Obviously everything has become worse since.