The flashpoints that sparked the clash between world views earlier this month in Charlottesville, Virginia are just the latest battle in the decades-long culture war over racial and economic inequality in the USA. Once again, groups on the left and right of America’s political extremes (along with others) are battling it out in online forums and public protests. The most recent lightning rods are American Civil War monuments to white generals and soldiers who fought for the Southern Confederacy to maintain their (economic) right to own slaves. It was, of course, the slaves that allowed the South to prosper by providing the manual labor needed to run vast agricultural plantations.
Is anyone else having difficulty these days sorting reality from fiction??? Life seems more and more like the plot of a dystopian movie that’s set in a world where the public at large exists in a tube-fed state of reality (but not a blissful one), and seems to have no will to challenge the dominant paradigm that’s controlling them. In this drama, the masses seem to exist within the confines of a Reality TV series where they’re controlled by a ‘Big Brother’ entity–a sort of quasi corporate/government hybrid.
Yes, I am referring to the current state of the government of the United States of America and how it relates to both the ‘American’ people and the world at large. I’m also referring to the failure of the USA’s two party political system. In my humble view, both the Republican and Democratic National Committees, which openly operate like major corporations, only exist to polarize the population and therefore divide and conquer, an obviously winning political strategy historically used by successive world governments to gain power and control over the masses. Is what’s profitable for a major corporation also what’s beneficial to its customers—in this case, the ‘American’ public?
The most alarming trend I see in the USA and other Western countries at the moment is the growing support for the alt-right movement and its obsession with race. Richard Spencer, the current golden boy of the Alt-Right movement in the USA, has repeatedly denied being a white supremacist and in a December 2016 interview with CNN reporter Sara Ganim said, “Only white people can support what we call Western civilization.” He has also advocated a “peaceful ethnic cleansing,” with those of non-European descent voluntarily leaving the United States. Is this a likely scenario? Fortunately for the well-being of the USA’s economy, arts and culture, it’s highly unlikely. The Atlantic allowed Spencer to tell his own story in this 2016 interview. Take a look and then please read on.
Trump’s election rhetoric and the Alt-Right
The thing I deplored most about Donald Trump’s election campaign rhetoric was his verbal bigotry openly aimed at women, the physically challenged and racial and religious minorities. By firing up his supporters with what would normally be considered as ‘hate-speech’ at his political rallies, Trump led the way in making it okay for folks like Spencer to come out of the closet and throw off the white sheets. With his clean-cut, 1950s all-American good looks (which is fitting since Spencer uses appearance as his base line for separating one group from another), Spencer seems to be the perfect poster boy for the movement. He’s well-spoken and looks like a normal young suburban guy who might live next door. The most alarming thought to me is that he just might be, but perhaps it’s better for us to be able to identify who these radical racists are on a day to day basis rather than waking up in the middle of the night to find a cross burning in the front yard without a soul being in sight.
“Trump is a white nationalist, so to speak, he is alt-right whether he likes it or not.” Richard Spencer in a recent interview on The David Pakman Show.
