Overnight, his brother and successor Raul announced the death of the former longest serving non-royal head of a state. While we must condole with those who mourn, we must also recognise his very mixed legacy, as a Communist dictator leading a state that — per fair comment — has been very un-free and hampered in its development.
Be that as it may, we must recognise this is the death of a former national leader and widely respected statesman. One, who will be mourned not just by family and friends or countrymen, but far and wide across the world.
The development also comes at a pivotal time, when the USA is undergoing its own leadership transition after a very polarised election, and is showing signs of deepening polarisation connected to progressivist ideologies. One issue is that there is a projection of dangerous “Alt-Right” “populism” which is being openly compared to Nazism (incorrectly, National Socialism is a form of Fascism — founded by a leader of the Socialist International — and as its name suggests, is a now dead ideology of the left). The populism smear, as presented by Bloomberg . . and, do not overlook, this is ordinary Americans responding to their National Anthem and/or Pledge of Allegiance:
(In fact, it was plainly the fed-up Rust Belt working classes who previously voted for Mr Obama in 2008 and/or 2012 who delivered the decisive blow to Mrs Clinton — the progressive candidate — in the US presidential election.)
Across the Atlantic, Britain is undergoing a very unstable post Brexit transition (with the decisive blow delivered by the English working class in Labour strongholds . . . a pattern emerges), and Europe as a whole is pondering its implications in light of upcoming elections:
Okay, let’s get some basic stuff on the table, news announcement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBV88edVd-c
Added, Daily Mail’s bullet-point head and lead:
Also added, US President-Elect Trump’s brief tweet a short while ago [now being 1341+ hrs GMT]:
Now, on the focal matters for us here at UD.
A useful de-spinning and e-YES re-framing exercise for UD’s readers will be to take time in coming hours and days to observe coverage in the media and reactions of world leaders across the ideological spectrum (insofar as such a LEFT vs RIGHT spectrum has any objective warrant).
In this regard, let us understand that
Marxism presented itself for many decades as an undeniable — and in many contexts, the uniquely “legitimate,” “correct” and even “consensus” — scientific analysis of the world of man in society as determined by base line materialistic factors and laws that play out in a chain of social forms across history;
. . . leading to an evolving pattern of superstructures of economic, social, political, legal, and socio-cultural frameworks, with ideology and particularly religion seen as disguising and reducing the raw necessity of force to sustain oppression:
This of course bears a strong resemblance to how Cultural Marxist, critical theories (typically [Critical] Studies of X) approach their diverse fields of interest and it drives the use of oppressed minority identity politics to wedge apart a broad societal consensus into balkanised polarisation.
That polarisation is used, through Alinsky-style agit-prop activism, to discredit and destabilise those seen as undesirable oppressive leaders — yes, the emphasis falls on personal attacks and name-calling — and to create revolutionary conditions for fifth- column- already- in- the- gates subversion and/or overthrow of the regime in power. So, when such radicals attain power, they have never learned respect for others as made in God’s image, nor the roads of responsible, rational, genuinely objective analysis and reform by reasonable agreement. Consequently, communities and institutions under their domineering misrule tend to marches of folly, to attack and abuse or even murder dissenters, and ironically become just what they portray and project others to be in their base and superstructure analysis.
Yes, self-referential moral incoherence (cf. here) by way of being a mirror image of what such ideologues project unto others in order to supplant them.
Resemblance to the current course of our civilisation is NOT coincidental.
So, let us pose by contrast a much less loaded (while a lot is always wrong, much can be right also), seven mountains of influence perspective as a means of thinking through a more balanced approach to change:
Then also, let us look at [and link on] a model for law, government and leadership that draws out the inherent instability and desirability of a generally democratic, constitution based framework for governance:
. . . duly noting the need for stabilisation in democratic polities.
So, now, let us discuss these factors here at UD in the aftermath of a death that is bound to trigger a global discussion, and one that will turn in key part on the tendency of progressives to claim scientific legitimacy, imply intellectual superiority and insinuate that those who differ are morally illegitimate. Not only, on the onward path of government in general, but relating to governance of science issues tied to the design controversy and other similarly ideologically freighted studies and controversies such as climate debates.
In so doing, let us also take due note of the foundational issue of worldviews (with their roots and their expression in ideologies) and thus the cultural agendas they lend legitimacy to, with an eye to the significance of first principles of right reason as protective restraints on and guidelines for our thinking. END