Regional and Global Organizations

EU or the EUROPEAN UNION is an American project that was founded after WWII to ensure Europe would remain dependent on the United States as the dominant power in the West. The United States had the sole advantage of being the only major power not decimated by war in the early 20th century. After the First and Second World Wars, the idea of a “United States of Europe” seemed like a way to keep Europe from fracturing into conflict once again. The Marshall Plan, a huge reconstruction investment made by America in war torn Europe, came on the condition that Western European countries unite into a common free market. Individual nations were pushed toward a Liberal political ideology, if not a union of states. George Kennan, an American diplomat, summed up the vision: “We hoped to force the Europeans to think like Europeans, and not like nationalists.” Another goal was to align a European bloc of nations economically with the interests of the United States and NATO (also formed around the same time). Over the years, it was known under various names and incarnations, including the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, and the European Community Union (ECU) in 1993. As of the writing of this book, the EU is made up of 27 member states. Of these 27 countries, 19 use the common reserve currency, the euro.

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Globalism

HEGEMONY is the position of being the strongest and most powerful and therefore able to control others. It comes from the Greek hēgemonia, a noun formed from the verb hēgeisthai, “to lead.” It is a word that has been increasingly used in media articles in recent years, usually in the context of the United States dominating the world stage. Another noun form, hegemon, can be used as a synonym for a dominion or an empire. This power is spoken of as regional hegemony or global hegemony.

GLOBALISM is the aim of one or several allied nations to impose a single cultural, political and economic model on the whole world. It often includes erasing national identities and softening borders in order to realize a vision for a global utopia.

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Epistemology

EPISTEMOLOGY is the study of human belief systems; the nature and limits of human knowledge; analyzing why we believe the way we do and whether truth is attainable through human reason and knowledge.

EPISTEMOLOGICALLY SELF-CONSCIOUS means to be aware of one’s own belief system; to become more consistent in the implications of your beliefs; and to realize that your beliefs and ideas have consequences.

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Culture and Society

CIVILIZATION is made up of society and culture. It is related to the word civicus, from civis “citizen” – and denotes those living in a civitas or “city” rather than in the sparsely populated country. In modern sociology, civilization refers to an advanced stage of human society, where people live together in a Great Space with a reasonable degree of organization and comfort, and pursue higher achievements, such as the arts, sciences, and education. Civilization is often defined as the opposite of barbarism and chaos. There can be more than one culture and corresponding society within a civilization, although a core culture will always dominate.

SOCIETY is from the Latin, socius, or “companion.” It is a friendly association with others, a collection of individuals who live together under one set of laws or orders. Society is the organization that ties a culture together.

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Political World Orders

BIPOLARITY was the state of the world from 1945 to 1991 there were two large blocs of power during the Cold War. (1). The free world led by the United States, Western Europe and their allies. (2). The communist world, led by the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China and their allies. The so-called “Third World” or the emerging nations of the Global South were thought to be excluded from bipolarity or were aligned with either “West” or “East.”

UNIPOLARITY was the system that emerged at the end of the Cold War in 1991. The United States was the unchallenged hyperpower and was enjoying a unipolar moment at the “End of History”19 when Liberal democracy emerged as triumphant. There would be no more wars among the great powers. The role of the United States was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival … to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”[20 It took a series of wars led by the US and NATO and millions of dead until Western neoliberal globalism committed suicide by overextending itself. The United States’ had its brief “unipolar moment” as Charles Krauthammer stated in 1990.21 Since that time, the world has been shifting away from modern nation-states toward a multipolar order of civilization states.

MULTIPOLARITY was the state of the world in all of history until the 17th century. There were no “countries” as we think of them today. The political order of civilizations was organized into tribal peoples, kingdoms, and empires. The cultural order was aligned along the boundaries of civilizations. The boundaries of these great civilizations seldom touched. For most of history, one civilization did not even know others existed (e.g., Europeans, Chinese, Aztecs). When civilizations clashed, it was usually with great violence (Rome/Carthage, Greece/Persia, Spain/Inca). After the 14th century, which began after the Age of Exploration, the nations of Europe struggled against each other to dominate the sea trade and thus control the reserve currency and the seat of the European empire. Regardless of the fact that the power of Europe was unipolar, centering around one nation at a time, the entire world order remained multipolar as it was from the beginning.

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Modern Political Counterfeits

THE DEEP STATE is a synonym for the permanent political class. They are the unelected bureaucrats who are appointed, but do not stand for reelection. It poses a problem when an outgoing administration in effect leaves a Deep State in the form of thousands of unelected officials who often impede or negate the reform measures of a newly elected administration. In the United States, the original Deep State came about through executive orders and congressional laws that enlarged the executive branch with a huge bureaucracy. Through the powers given to the courts to create fiat law and executive power granting control to the military industrial complex, America is becoming more of an oligarchy in the form of a Deep State rather than a federal democratic republic.

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Political Theories

MODERNISM developed in the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of scientific rationalism. It is the idea that the new materialist worldview is the truth, while the old values based on religion are fading away. By the 1960s, it was common to hear the younger generation saying, “C’mon, Get with it man, this is the 20th century!” Family, faith and traditional morality are outmoded and old-fashioned. Therefore, these must be replaced with new political notions enforced as the only acceptable worldview to be promoted through civil politics, mass media, entertainment and education.

MODERNITY is the era in which this all took place and a blanket term for all Modernist philosophies.
THREE MODERNIST POLITICAL THEORIES and their SUBJECTS

  1. Liberalism – the subject is individual rights
  2. Communism – the subject is class
  3. Fascism – the subject is race or the state
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The Silent Scream

Ronald Reagan changed his view as a result of watching The Silent Scream – a movie he considered so powerful and convicting that he screened it at the White House.

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