|
laresident wrote: Unfortunately, by the insights of the Election thread, the erosion of democracy and the rise of Putinism seems to have washed up on the Brit shores also.
The erosion of Western-style democracy can largely be attributed to the rise of neoliberalism / neo-conservatism, which began in the late 70s, and experienced two drastic upkicks with the collapse of the SU in '91 and then 9/11 a decade later. Now that the "war on terror" has lost some of its hegemonic elan, "Putinism" has become the dominant way for the elite and their sycophantic media to divert peoples' anger away from their true enemy. "Putin" fulfills a role in the West analogous to Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984.
On another note, I do find concern with Russian "meddling" in America's elections somewhat hypocritical, given all the foreign elections that America has interfered with. Here's an example from the recent edition of the Observer - Haitians protesting Hilary's upcoming speech at a college, in part because she pressured Haitians to select America's pick for their country's leader, "or else."
http://observer.com/2017/05/haitians-protest-hillary-clinton-commencement-speech-medgar-evers-college/
Objectively speaking, neoliberalism is a much bigger blight upon the world than "Putinism." I would therefore prefer to see a greater role for Russia on the world stage, so as to counterbalance the neoliberal threat.
|
