Author: Kenneth Vinther

2,418 words

Part 9 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 6 Part 1 here)

In a representative “democracy,” “public opinion” is a fiction. The people have no voice. They are never consulted directly on policy matters, and they are not given any mechanism through which they can express their honest opinion. Instead, an illusion of public sentiment is artificially generated by a small minority of private actors controlling institutions with disproportionate power and influence that can circumvent organic social pressures and coerce people into conforming to their artificially-produced social norms. (more…)

On Election Day in 2020 the AFL-CIO, then led by Richard Trumka (pictured), issued a joint statement with the US Chamber of Commerce calling for “all votes to be counted,” signaling a little-noticed alliance against American populism between corporate America and the Left.

4,237 words

Part 8 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 5 Part 2 here, Chapter 6 Part 2 here)

All of them portray themselves as defenders of democracy, but they’re attacking liberal democracy from the inside and using its concepts against it. That makes these people both new and potentially dangerous. – Alejandro Castrillón, Contemporary Far-Right Thinkers and the Future of Liberal Democracy (more…)

The National Guard imposes racial integration at gunpoint in Arkansas, 1957.

3,973 words

Part 7 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 5 Part 1 here, Chapter 6 Part 1 here)

The other most recent example of the progressive top-down technocratic elite transformation of society is the LGBT agenda. As the LGBT scholar Gary Mucciaroni explains, “sexual politics” in America is “a narrative about a heterosexist majority that has used religion and ideology to maintain its cultural and legal privileges.” The literature of the LGBT movement has always self-consciously identified itself as an elite, minoritarian revolution against this heterosexual majority. (more…)

President Lyndon Johnson signing the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act into law, surrounded by his supporters.

3,031 words

Part 6 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here, Chapter 5 Part 2 here)

When a term has become so universally sanctified as “democracy” is now, I begin to wonder whether it means anything, in meaning too many things. — T. S. Eliot (more…)

Karl Popper, one of the intellectuals who gave rise to the anti-populist conception of democracy that has prevailed in the West since the Second World War.

3,535 words

Part 5 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 4 Part 1 here, Chapter 5 Part 1 here)

Whereas liberal elites had always harbored a cynical and technocratic rejection of the fundamental premises of popular government, after the Second World War “the highly educated [also began] to deplore working-class movements for their bigotry, their refusal of modernity,” and their apparent instinctual tendency towards nationalism and authoritarian leaders. They became openly and dogmatically hostile towards all forms of “collectivism” and solidaristic political movements because they identified popular social organization as fundamentally incompatible with liberalism’s hallowed individual rights and liberties. Post-war elites embraced anti-fascism and anti-populism as two necessary tenets of contemporary liberalism. (more…)

Walter Lippmann, whose anti-democratic skepticism changed the course of American politics in the twentieth century.

3,142 words

Part 4 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 3 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here)

Politically, democracy means the sovereignty, not of the average man — who is a rather narrow, short-sighted, muddle-headed creature — but of a matured public opinion, a very different thing . . . In the forming of this opinion the sage has a million times the weight of the field hand. With modern facilities for mind influencing mind, democracy, at its best, substitutes the direction of the recognized moral and intellectual élite for the rule of the strong, the rich, or the privileged. — Edward Alsworth Ross, Changing America (1912) (more…)

The Founding Fathers were not what they are often seen as today.

6,140 words

Part 3 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, Chapter 4 Part 1 here)

Of the things for which I summoned the people to assemble,
was there one I compassed not? . . .
This is how the people will best follow their leaders:
If they are neither unleashed nor restrained too much. — Solon, circa sixth century BC (more…)

3,552 words

Part 2 of 9 (Chapter 1 here)

In all countries the rights of the majority take care of themselves, but it is only in countries like England, enjoying constitutional liberty, and safe from the tyranny of a single despot, or of an unbridled democracy, that the rights of minorities are regarded. — Sir John A. MacDonald (more…)

Artemisia Gentileschiová – Zuzana a starci (1610)

4.095 slov

English original here

Po sérií incidentů, kdy byly na pornografických serverech odhalena videa zachycující znásilňování nezletilých dívek (která majitelé webů v některých případech odmítli smazat), podepsaly přes dva miliony lidí petici za zrušení plejády pornografických stránek a stíhání jejich vedení za obchodování s lidmi (tento skandál vedl až k bojkotu stránek Pornhub společnostmi Mastercard a Visa). V reakci na rostoucí odpor vůči současné podobě pornografie ovšem mainstreamové i akademické publikace započaly soustředěnou kampaň s cílem očernit toto rodící se hnutí jako semeniště „antisemitismu“ a „antisemitských konspiračních teorií“. (more…)

4,909 words

Part 1 of 9 (Chapter 2 here)

There is no doubt: the digital space has incredible power for good. But . . . we’ve also seen the threat it can pose to our democratic values, systems, and our citizens. — Justin Trudeau

I think it [the Internet] is the single biggest threat to our democracy. — Barack Obama

(more…)

4039 كلمة

كينيث فينثر

English original here

سكوت هوارد
مجمع المتحولين جنسياً الصناعي
كواكرتاون، بنسلفانيا: أنتيلوب هيل، 2020

“إذا أراد الإنسان أن يضرب فليضرب من خلف قناع!” – موبي ديك (more…)

2,688 words

Those money-makers and power-seekers who would sacrifice anybody and anything — the whole world — to their personal ends. . . hide their cynical self-centredness under a noisy lip-adherence to the dogma of the “dignity of all men” . . . while bus[il]y causing, directly or indirectly, in view of their goal, the suffering and death of any number of human beings. . . (more…)

4,039 words

Scott Howard
The Transgender-Industrial Complex
Quakertown, Pennsylvania: Antelope Hill, 2020

“If man will strike, strike through the mask!” — Moby Dick

In March, South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem vetoed House Bill 1217, an act designed to “promote continued fairness in women’s sports” by prohibiting biological men from playing in girls’ sports leagues. (more…)