Thursday, November 29, 2018

Trumpism ... Alt-Right ... Dominance and Jesus Christ

Daily, on social media, we discuss human issues under the general banner of politics. Humans have been doing this from time immemorial seemingly without ever reaching success at resolving human issues to everyone’s satisfaction.
Now we have what can be dubbed as “Trumpism” that has shaken up, disturbed and even violated the status quo once again creating strife, division, confusion and political chaos in hearts and minds.
Why?
Why has Donald Trump been so successful at challenging established norms … debasing behavioral codes … rubbishing rules of conduct … glorified mendacity … trampled over professed culture and values … discredited State institutions … attacked and subverted human rights … and invented the notion of a "deep State" ... with so much approval?
Alt-Right at Charlottesville, Virginia
Why are millions of human beings avidly supporting a grotesque debunking of the path that humanity had set itself on. Why, in particular, is America proving so susceptible to abandoning the road it was making sure and steady progress on after the iconic I have a dream” speech by Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Why is there so much support for abandoning its hitherto professed culture of equality, brotherly love and cooperation that it has been busy exporting across the planet?
Why is this atavistic culture receiving so much support across the planet in the phenomenon known as the Alt-Right
The answer is actually quite simple. It has to do with our DNA encoding.
You see, we were once in a cave, huddled together, fearful of just about everything out there. The
world was big … it was confusing … and it was dangerous. Darwin’s law of survival of the fittest was very much at play. It was very much a case of kill or be killed … eat or be eaten.
Note that just about all creatures were in the same situation … and reacted in the same way.  That is why we have a herd of elephants …. a troop of baboons … a flock of birds … etc. Survival has always involved banding together as a species … no question whatsoever.
Note that successful survival is not purely passive. It is not just an issue of self-defense. It also involves … and this is key … active dominance. Man, as a species, has proved most successful and become dominant because he was best at banding together to leverage collective strength.
Thus it even became the norm to invade, conquer and subjugate even other members of the human species. Until Adolph Hitler took this now entrenched culture of invade, conquer and subjugate to diabolical levels it was the universal culture across this planet.
The horrors of Hitler’s War, especially the Holocaust, induced a paradigm shift in man’s culture. For the first time in history humanity had the concept of human rights and the commitment to equality … all set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”), signed off at the United Nations after the last world war in 1948.
From that day mankind, with the exceptions of Russia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia, professed to set itself on a new path of equality, not dominance.
Mankind was repudiating what had been encoded in its DNA over the centuries of its existence as a species. It was repudiating the culture of dominance. It was abandoning what now part of its natural instincts. 
Perhaps it is to state the obvious that such repudiation of a natural instinct, so deeply embedded, was always going to be very problematical. This is so especially as we have continued to fuel this instinct in so many other respects. Our socio-economic model is absolutely geared for the achievement of dominance at all levels, personal, sectorial and nationally. The concept of achievers and under-achievers is deeply embedded. Sporting events, that thrill us to the very core, are the embodiment of this culture. Sectorial achievers enjoy iconic status be they Michael Jackson, Mohammed Ali, Meryl Streep, Bill Gates or Tiger Woods.
So the reality … the hard reality is that our genetically encoded instinct of dominance is still with us and has been available for leverage by the likes of Donald J Trump, Idi Amin, Robert G Mugabe, Vladimir Putin and the other skunks of the planet.
Common to all these skunks is a narrative, promise and commitment to dominance over “others”. “Others” comprise anybody and anything that stands in the way of that dominance.
As regards Trump this even includes established State institutions like the FBI and the CIA and the media.
Dominance is intoxicating. It is an appeal to the very core of one’s sense of being, worth and validation. Its attractiveness is as natural as breathing. It is why bullying is a never-ending problem. Ditto abusive relationships.
It is what drives racism and tribalism. It is why we have genocides. It is why we have gangs and cartels.
It is why in South Africa the reform model is to replace White dominance with so-called "Black" dominance.
So our instinct of dominance has always been there for exploitation and leverage … and Donald J Trump has succeeded quite spectacularly to date.
If you are in any doubt about this please consider the story of Jesus Christ.
Think it through.
When you do you will arrive at the point where you have to resolve His central counsel, admonition and insistence that – “Love thy neighbour as thyself … and do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
He was repudiating the culture of dominance.
At that point He was doomed.
The Pharisees, arch protagonists of the culture of biblically based exclusion and dominance, found it all so very easy to have Him crucified.
Donald Trump's "lock her up ... lock her up" is simply his version of a crucifixion.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Trumpism … Native Nationalism … Nazism

I have a terrible sense of foreboding.
If the Republicans win today in the Mid-Terms there will be no check on Trumpism. In fact, it will gain impetus, flourish and threaten the whole planet.

This is because, like Nazism it is an ideology. It is an ideology of dominance, like Nazism.
Hitler also trumpeted “the Fatherland First” as does Trump bellowing “America First”.
With both these leaders we see the claim that other countries are taking advantage of them; laughing at them; cheating them.

With both leaders we see the culture of “us”, “them” and “others”.
It is called “native nationalism”.

It seeks to posit a race/ethnic group in the land as unique and entitled to dominance over all others, internal and external, packaged as being in the “national interest”.
Others” become vilified, even demonized; first insidiously and then overtly. With Nazism the result was Polish and the Jews being targeted, that eventually led to the Holocaust.

With Trumpism we have seen the graduation of “immigrants”, i.e., foreigners being targeted with increasing intensity to the extent that an identifiable mass of desperate humans dubbed “the caravan” are being openly vilified and demonized.
Fox News is even trumpeting that these migrants are riddled with venereal disease.

To this we must add Trump’s repudiation of a culture of cooperation with other countries, even erstwhile allies. Other counties must be bullied into accepting dominance by America; one by one … just as Hitler sought to do.

Longstanding international agreements such as the TPP and NAFTA have been torn up with Trump then attempting to bully the countries into submitting to “America first” arrangements.
So, I have this terrible sense of foreboding. If the Republicans win these Mid-Terms Trumpism will receive a boost that will be to the detriment of world order.

Like-minded leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia will welcome this culture and probably team up with Trump for the immediate future in any event. Tyrannical leaders like Rodriguez Duterte of the Philippines and Trump’s proxy Saudi Arabia will jump at the chance.
Rogue regimes will adopt Trumpism.

The world will change. It will be back to the pre-war era of each country for itself and “might is right”.
The World will degenerate to the situation we had at the boarding school I attended. That school had an all-powerful "Head-boy" and the rest of us divided into groups, gangs and liaisons of survival in terms of a culture of confrontation and dominance.
This Trumpism culture will inevitably endanger the whole planet and its creatures on every front imaginable.

The blood of millions shed in the last world war will have been shed in vain. That blood secured the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”).
The UDHR was a paradigm shift in the culture of mankind. For the first time mankind had the concept of human rights. For the first time countries accepted that they need to cooperate to the benefit of all humans.
For the first time it accepted that all humans are equal.
These sacred precepts will be torn to shreds in terms of native nationalistic dominance of man by man.

So please pray with me. Pray to your God. Pray with me that the Democrats win today.
The future of our children, and their children, is at stake.

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PS: -The Demicrats did win ... big ..... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2018/nov/06/us-midterms-elections-2018-latest-live-polls-news-updates-donald-trump-republicans-democrats
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