{"id":34744,"date":"2018-06-04T07:02:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T12:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34744"},"modified":"2018-06-04T07:02:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T12:02:20","slug":"italy-the-center-cannot-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34744","title":{"rendered":"Italy: The Center Cannot Hold"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Italy: The Center Cannot Hold<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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For a generation, acceptance of the neoliberal doctrine that \u201cthere is no alternative\u201d has paralyzed politics in the West. But what is the meaning of politics if there\u2019s no alternative to the resulting Authoritarian Center, asks Diana Johnstone.<\/span><\/p>\n

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T<\/strong>he traditional governing parties, center \u201cleft\u201d and center \u201cright\u201d all follow the same neoliberal policies and constitute the self-designated \u201ccenter.\u201d Mainstream media enforce center right claims to authority on the base of orthodox economic expertise, while the center left derives its authority from its \u201cvalues,\u201d centered on an identity politics version of human rights. \u201cCenter\u201d sounds so reasonable, so safe from dangerous \u201cextremes\u201d and unpredictable populism. Against such threats, the Center presents itself as the champion and safeguard of \u201cdemocracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

How true is this?<\/span><\/p>\n

World Values Survey results indicate<\/a> that in Europe and the United States, people who describe themselves as \u201ccentrist\u201d on the average have less attachment to democracy (e.g. free and fair elections) that those on the left, and even those on the far right. This is not as surprising as it may seem at first, since \u201ccentrists\u201d are by definition attached to the status quo. In European countries, the authoritarian neoliberal \u201ccenter\u201d is institutionalized in the European Union, which imposes economic policy over the heads of the parliaments of the member countries, dictating measures which conform to the choices of Germany and northern Europe, but are increasingly disastrous for the Southern EU members. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Rise of the Outcasts\"\"<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Centrist fear of democracy was resoundingly confirmed by March 4 legislative elections in Italy. The Center was relegated to the margins and outsiders burst in. The winner, with 32 percent of the votes, was the Five Star Movement (M5S) whose campaign \u201cagainst corruption\u201d won popular support in the impoverished South.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italy: The Center Cannot Hold For a generation, acceptance of the neoliberal doctrine that \u201cthere is no alternative\u201d has paralyzed politics in the West. But what is the meaning of politics if there\u2019s no alternative to the resulting Authoritarian Center, asks Diana Johnstone. The traditional governing parties, center \u201cleft\u201d and center \u201cright\u201d all follow the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[20342,6963,204,7363,1464,637],"class_list":["post-34744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-centre","tag-consortium-news","tag-democracy","tag-diana-johnstone","tag-italy","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34745,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34744\/revisions\/34745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}