Fuck John Galt. Go Johan Galtung!

Who’s John Galt? A bad fictional character, and pretty much the complete opposite of everything we know about real live capitalists. He’s also pretty much the opposite of this guy, who has his finger firmly on the pulse of a lot of global issues:

Who is this wizard? No, he’s not a psychic; he’s a sociologist. His name is Johan Galtung, and he’s from Norway. BTW, the above video is five years old, and mercifully, he was wrong about one thing, namely “not underestimating” Sarah Palin (who cannot be underestimated enough!). He’s quite right, though, about everything else, particularly the saving value of giving decent-paying jobs to the people. Here’s something more recent he has said:

Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.

The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9/11 attacks—among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies.

Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the “US empire” would collapse within 25 years. After the election of President Bush, though, he revised that forecast five years forward because, he argued, Bush’s policies of extreme militarism would be an accelerant.

Quite the track record, and I wouldn’t argue with any of it. So. What does this impressive predictor have to say about Der Drumpf?

He argued that American fascism would come from a capacity for tremendous global violence; a vision of American exceptionalism as the “fittest nation”; a belief in a coming final war between good and evil; a cult of the strong state leading the fight of good against evil; and a cult of the “strong leader”.

All of which, Galtung said, surfaced during the Bush era, and which now appear to have come to fruition through Trump. Such fascism, he told Motherboard, is a symptom of the decline—lashing out in disbelief at the loss of power.

Among the 15 structural contradictions his model identifies as driving the decline, are:

*economic contradictions such as ‘overproduction relative to demand’, unemployment and the increasing costs of climate change;
*military contradictions including rising tensions between the US, NATO, and its military allies, along with the increasing economic unsustainability of war;
*political contradictions including the conflicting roles of the US, UN and EU;
*cultural contradictions including tensions between US Judeo-Christianity, Islam, and other minorities;
*and social contradictions encompassing the increasing gulf between the so-called ‘American Dream’, the belief that everyone can prosper in America through hard work, and the reality of American life (the fact that more and more people can’t).

Galtung’s book explores how the structural inability to resolve such contradictions will lead to the unravelling of US political power, both globally, and potentially even domestically.

Trump has made clear that he thinks US troops are still needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even proposed sending more troops to Iraq. He also said that we should have ‘grabbed’ the country’s oil. But he has also heavily (and incoherently) criticized US military policies.

That, right there, is a pretty big internal contradiction for a man who led everyone to believe he was an isolationist. Nonsense! Drumpf seems to be obsessed with power and the exercise of it in any way he can wangle. Remember, he was nonplussed by the fact that the US has nukes and won’t use them! Deterrence is not even a concept for him. He can’t be trusted to keep his itchy fingers off the trigger and to himself.

And yes, there is fascism afoot within the US right now, and the likelihood is great that it will cause a collapse within the land, and soon. Barring some miracle, such as the Electoral College voting en masse against him, Der Drumpf will be the ruin of the US of A.

Forget “going Galt”, I’m going Galtung. You probably should, too.

Share this story:
This entry was posted in Der Drumpf, El Predicto Speaks..., Fascism Without Swastikas, The United States of Amnesia, The War on Terra. Bookmark the permalink.