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I know that I am not the only one who has noticed this, but there has been a push towards authoritiarian legislation in the many Western countries. Be it designated free-speech zones, regulation of the internet, or even laws in disguise that claim to benefit a group of people yet only stand to alienate others. Just look at the political candidates in the US for 2016, almost all of them stand to make the lives of the individual more difficult. Trump, Sanders, Clinton, Rubio, they are all the same. The end goal is to simpley shuffle around funds until the lobbyist vote has been settled, at which point the following legislation then focuses on small scuffles with the other party.

Simpley put, the modern stage of politics has de-evoled into a factory that aims to only benefit the lobbyist and any benefit felt by the American people is ussually just backwash from the bankers and executives who simpley let the legislation trickle its way down the food chain until it reaches you.

There will never be another presidential candidate or political party who truely values the individual rights and liberty of the common man. For to value the common man, those in power must be willing to leave themselves vunerable.

I hear Somalia is nice.

Those "evil" companies are what's keeping your government running. Governments have to reason / compromise with them in order to actually work.

Not sure what to make out of a thread that essentially is a blog quality ramble ramble.

It is as it has always been. Nothing new. Like any new frontier the Internet was never going to remain a free for all. It used to be new countries, now it's the electronic space.

150 years ago governments were beholden to the industrial companies, like the rail roads and the steel companies. 400 the great trading companies like the Dutch East India and Hudson Bay Trading. Before that merchants and barons held huge power, as did churches and monasteries.

All that has changed is the common man can now see the lies thanks to the Internet not forgetting, but unfortunately still not until after the fact.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Those "evil" companies are what's keeping your government running. Governments have to reason / compromise with them in order to actually work.

Not sure what to make out of a thread that essentially is a blog quality ramble ramble.

Never in my post did I call those companies evil. What I am eschewing is the rampant curroption that stretches across multiple platforms encompassing Goverment, Corporate, and Social interaction. If you cannot even speak your peace, then how is one supposed to voice their opinions on political matters?
The only voice that seems to ring is the voice with money backing it.

 Nurgle wrote:
I know that I am not the only one who has noticed this, but there has been a push towards authoritiarian legislation in the many Western countries. Be it designated free-speech zones, regulation of the internet, or even laws in disguise that claim to benefit a group of people yet only stand to alienate others. Just look at the political candidates in the US for 2016, almost all of them stand to make the lives of the individual more difficult. Trump, Sanders, Clinton, Rubio, they are all the same. The end goal is to simpley shuffle around funds until the lobbyist vote has been settled, at which point the following legislation then focuses on small scuffles with the other party.

Simpley put, the modern stage of politics has de-evoled into a factory that aims to only benefit the lobbyist and any benefit felt by the American people is ussually just backwash from the bankers and executives who simpley let the legislation trickle its way down the food chain until it reaches you.

There will never be another presidential candidate or political party who truely values the individual rights and liberty of the common man. For to value the common man, those in power must be willing to leave themselves vunerable.

Our friends at the frankfurt school have been extremely successful. 80% of the discussion on this forum derives itself from their writing and ideology. Most people are just unknowing advocates of an ideology and belief system they know nothing about.

The way I see it the world is the most corrupt its ever been. While corruption has always been globally widespread, the added complexity of modern society has allowed the corrupt to stack up. Kind of like the invention of steel framed buildings allowed buildings to go higher.

I don't see there being any revolutions to fix the problem unless something disastrous wipes out most the worlds population because the higher the population the harder it is to revolt. Revolts start with a single person spreading an idea or view and getting others to do likewise, but the most difficult part is not influencing people but keeping them campaigning long enough to amass people and make a difference. This is why we will never see a revolution of 100s of millions of people worldwide like what would be needed to just get attention, let alone enough weight to pressure anything to be done to fix the problem.

I find the attitudes of the OP kind of fascinating. This desperate need to see everything as awful, utterly corrupt. I admit I’ve never been able to engage with them at all, because the mindset is so completely alien to me.

It reads to me like a kind of semi-dystopian fantasy, where the bad parts of the system are given a vastly exaggerated scale and importance, while anything good is completely ignored. I read something a while ago describing that kind of outlook as having a very weird mix of optimism and pessimism. On the one hand there’s extreme pessimism about the state of things, but at the same time there’s a weird optimism that somehow things could switch to become a utopia that’d meet the person’s very high standards for an acceptable system. It’s probably about the only insight I’ve ever had in to the mindset.

EDIT – and having just posted, I saw my sig, which probably says everything I posted above, far more succinctly. "For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell"

Dropbear Victim wrote:
The way I see it the world is the most corrupt its ever been. .

That's quite the statement. I'd love to sit down and hear your insight on the levels of corruption of every human society in the world, from the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian Empires, through to the court of the second Ming Dynasty.

Because I mean, you'd have to know about every society ever, in order to make the above statement. Otherwise it would just sound a little bit daft.

Dropbear Victim wrote:
The way I see it the world is the most corrupt its ever been. While corruption has always been globally widespread, the added complexity of modern society has allowed the corrupt to stack up. Kind of like the invention of steel framed buildings allowed buildings to go higher.

I don't see there being any revolutions to fix the problem unless something disastrous wipes out most the worlds population because the higher the population the harder it is to revolt. Revolts start with a single person spreading an idea or view and getting others to do likewise, but the most difficult part is not influencing people but keeping them campaigning long enough to amass people and make a difference. This is why we will never see a revolution of 100s of millions of people worldwide like what would be needed to just get attention, let alone enough weight to pressure anything to be done to fix the problem.

Care to tell us how the world is the most corrupt it has ever been?

I think society is very much like a runaway train, it's easy to see where it is heading, but very difficult to change its course. Right now we still have a lot of inertia from the 20th century which is carrying us into a perverse form of capitalism, where people are exploited and corporations own governments, but it can't last. People are better educated and better informed than ever, and little by little they are going to demand a better world, and I think they're going to get it.

 sebster wrote:
I find the attitudes of the OP kind of fascinating. This desperate need to see everything as awful, utterly corrupt. I admit I’ve never been able to engage with them at all, because the mindset is so completely alien to me.

I think because it's simple and it's easy. Take a look at Bernie and Trump and how far they've gone decrying the evils of the system (while providing little else). It's really easy to see things that are wrong in the world, and once you see them it's very hard to understand that the power relationships and systems that produce those problems are not wholly bad, but also good. That society is not a collection of "good" things and "bad" things, but a collection of things that more often than not simultaneously produce good and bad at the same time, largely without any overt effort on the part of the people inside those things or even the things themselves. Indeed, that good and bad don't exist at all, and all there really is is a mass scrambling of people trying to live life one day to the next and constantly bumbling into one another, really can produce a perception at ground level that the world might be out get you

Looking at the world as a massive machine vastly beyond any one person's control, no matter how much money they might have, is pretty terrifying. It's kind of Lovecraftian actually

 LordofHats wrote:
I think because it's simple and it's easy.

I think simplicity is part of it, but it’d be even more simple to not engage at all. So there’s something else there. I don’t want to say there’s a desire to see bad things, but it’s something along those lines. Maybe a desire to cast one’s self as the outside railing against a bad world?

It's really easy to see things that are wrong in the world, and once you see them it's very hard to understand that the power relationships and systems that produce those problems are not wholly bad, but also good. That society is not a collection of "good" things and "bad" things, but a collection of things that more often than not simultaneously produce good and bad at the same time, largely without any overt effort on the part of the people inside those things or even the things themselves.

That’s a great point, and really well explained. I’m going to steal that

 Nurgle wrote:
I know that I am not the only one who has noticed this, but there has been a push towards authoritiarian legislation in the many Western countries. Be it designated free-speech zones, regulation of the internet, or even laws in disguise that claim to benefit a group of people yet only stand to alienate others. Just look at the political candidates in the US for 2016, almost all of them stand to make the lives of the individual more difficult. Trump, Sanders, Clinton, Rubio, they are all the same. The end goal is to simpley shuffle around funds until the lobbyist vote has been settled, at which point the following legislation then focuses on small scuffles with the other party.

Simpley put, the modern stage of politics has de-evoled into a factory that aims to only benefit the lobbyist and any benefit felt by the American people is ussually just backwash from the bankers and executives who simpley let the legislation trickle its way down the food chain until it reaches you.

There will never be another presidential candidate or political party who truely values the individual rights and liberty of the common man. For to value the common man, those in power must be willing to leave themselves vunerable.

We're getting the kind of society that we were asking for.

Enjoy the rollercoaster ride.

I wouldn't say its a push towards authoritarianism but more of a push of the nationalists. You are seeing them popping up in europe a lot more and gaining support parliament seats etc. It is kinda happening here in the states with the rise of trump.

@OP.... Sanders is seriously the SAME as all the others??? Have you even been watching politics for the last year?

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:

 Nurgle wrote:
I know that I am not the only one who has noticed this, but there has been a push towards authoritiarian legislation in the many Western countries. Be it designated free-speech zones, regulation of the internet, or even laws in disguise that claim to benefit a group of people yet only stand to alienate others. Just look at the political candidates in the US for 2016, almost all of them stand to make the lives of the individual more difficult. Trump, Sanders, Clinton, Rubio, they are all the same. The end goal is to simpley shuffle around funds until the lobbyist vote has been settled, at which point the following legislation then focuses on small scuffles with the other party.

Simpley put, the modern stage of politics has de-evoled into a factory that aims to only benefit the lobbyist and any benefit felt by the American people is ussually just backwash from the bankers and executives who simpley let the legislation trickle its way down the food chain until it reaches you.

There will never be another presidential candidate or political party who truely values the individual rights and liberty of the common man. For to value the common man, those in power must be willing to leave themselves vunerable.

Our friends at the frankfurt school have been extremely successful. 80% of the discussion on this forum derives itself from their writing and ideology. Most people are just unknowing advocates of an ideology and belief system they know nothing about.

93% of all statistics are made up.

Also, insert obligatory XKCD sheeple post here.

There definitely appears to be an upswing in nationalism in the western world, in defiance of the history of how that worked out the last time. However, if nationalism is on the upswing corporatism will be on the down swing. OP has sort of combined the authoritarian leanings of nationalism with corporatism's muddying of the process of democracy.

Funny enough but authoritarianism born of nationalism probably will not get along well with corporatism because nationalism's desire to nationalize industry. Which would effectively end the corporations and their power. Not good if your into the liberal economic model but great if you're worried about if someone is going to, "tuk yer jobz."

Corporatism can be corrupt and negatively influence the democratic process but only if it wants to do that. A corporation is as likely to do something bad as it is something good at any given time with any given leadership. Its technically not authoritarian but selfish. There isn't one corporation running everything behind the scenes and corporations are not a gestalt organism like a human dictator is.

If the west is swinging towards authoritarianism (which I feel it is currently flirting with it) it won't be because of corporate corruption but because of nationalism.

 Nurgle wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Those "evil" companies are what's keeping your government running. Governments have to reason / compromise with them in order to actually work.

Not sure what to make out of a thread that essentially is a blog quality ramble ramble.

Never in my post did I call those companies evil. What I am eschewing is the rampant curroption that stretches across multiple platforms encompassing Goverment, Corporate, and Social interaction. If you cannot even speak your peace, then how is one supposed to voice their opinions on political matters?
The only voice that seems to ring is the voice with money backing it.

Welcome to reality!

 BrotherGecko wrote:
There definitely appears to be an upswing in nationalism in the western world, in defiance of the history of how that worked out the last time.

I'd say it's less "in defiance of" and more "in accordance with" history. During a devastating economic crisis, capital in Germany supported fascism against socialism because liberals and such had grown unable to defend capitalism.

The neoliberal consensus is cracking. What was previously the obvious outcome of the universe functioning in accordance with natural law is now an insufficient explanation. It's an unappealing one to all those who've lost income, healthcare and social services to the champions of austerity and the end of history. When liberalism fails them, capital must take more drastic measures. It will soon be time for them to make that choice again.