The Sect

by Hugo Dionísio for the Saker blog

Today, anyone who breaks out of the sphere “led” by the US and imprisoned inside G7, EU and NATO, and thus breaks out of the communicational, political-ideological and also cultural circuit constituted by the individualistic Anglo-Saxon and Judeo-Christian identitarianism, identified as what is called “the golden billion”, can only reach the conclusion that the privileged elite, that actually wields the power, is crystallized into a kind o/f sect or secret society, whose hermeticism increases as threats to its dominion also increase. The club of “free nations” that Biden alluded to, at the last G7 meeting, is a select but closed club, and, as in any sect, in order to enter, one must give up something important: freedom!

Like all sects, their existence starts from a notion of “exclusivity” associated with a certain “exceptionality”, which justifies different treatments and understandings. I think we can all agree, at least, that what we identify as neoliberal ideology is founded, primarily, on an idea of civilizational exceptionalism, founder of a unique culture, “elected” to lead the world and humanity. Not even the most hardened NATO fanboys can deny the ideal, inherited from European enlightenment, British and hyperborean supremacism, that positions the US as the “elected” leaders of humanity. Not to mention Hollywood, on the History channel (which has very little of that), there are successive programs, documentaries and plays about the divine, exceptional, even “extra-terrestrial” origin of the North American nation and its civilizing vocation.

In fact, it’s in this racial exceptionalism that the origin of neoliberal individualism is rooted, as opposed to a more collective and cooperative vision of humanity. It’s in this exceptionalism that the logic of competition is founded – the theory goes that the best person wins (meritocracy) – as opposed to the logic that founded human societies and, ultimately, the very existence of the animal that we are – cooperation, the ability to work collectively, the social and political animal.

As in all sects, there is their own jargon and a tendency toward self-absorption, caused by the closing of the circuit in which they operate. The greater the inability to establish bridges and lines of contact with other existences, the greater the radicalism and sectarianism of their positions, which is embodied precisely in a contradiction they cannot escape: the more they want to drag others along, the more others run away from them. If the reaction of most countries to the conflict in Eastern Europe demonstrates the disconnection between the official narrative propagated in the collective West and the understanding that most nations and the world population have of it, the identification of nations like the RPC, Russian Federation or Iran as aggressor and oppressor entities is something that only fits into the most sectarian minds of the sect, or its followers.

Take, for example, the meeting promoted by the White House for Africa (US-Africa Leaders Summit). At first glance, we could see it as a success; after all, more than 40 African nations attended. There was no shortage of funds either: $55 billion were promised upfront to “help” Africa development, to fight climate change, and to counter terrorism. However, there was a catch: to receive the “investment” one has to “decouple” from the PRC and FR. The usual jargon of “democracy” and “human rights” was well identified, mainly as a way to ensure the maintenance of dollarization through membership in the institutions that impose it (IMF and World Bank). The entire white house was optimistic. However, once again, the bulk of the African envoys cannot have failed to think, “but who does, this sect of Anglo-Saxon white people, think we are? Fools?” International articles rained down saying what we knew right away: “to convince Africa, talk is not enough!”

If ideologies with a connection to reality, it is reality itself that validates the respective theoretical assumptions (easier said than done), sects tend to work the other way around, opting for a more idealistic approach, in the sense that it is reality that has to mold itself to their ideas. The US has not listened to Africa, as it has not listened to others. The US has tried to drag Africa into its presumptuous ideas.

When reality – this stubborn inexorable one – insists on not validating the theoretical assumptions that justify the existence of the sect, the sect chooses to wage war against it, identifying the main agents of its transformation and electing them as its enemies. In essence, the whole strategy of “containing China” is a fight against a reality embodied in 5000 years of history. Hence, as the sect that they are, the result is also predictable: either you are with me, or you are against me! The sectarianism of the sect leaves no room for compromise, cooperation or any kind of mutual understanding.

To analyze, today, the privileged Western elite, that constitutes the superstructure of the system, its social characteristics of origin, its academic and social paths, and its deeply idealistic ideological stance, is to verify not only the existence, but the reinforcement and deepening of the logic of the sect. In this case, a cult in accelerated divorce with the real world and in an unrestrained struggle against the changing material conditions that, in the first phase, not only originated, but also sustained, fed and developed its own existence. From Ivy League courses, to CEO positions, to glamorous, exclusive institutional positions in international bodies, utterly closed to ordinary mortals due to original “non-compliance” with the “requirements” of merit, the constitution of the economic and political elite into a sect also represents its “aristocratization” and the consequent drastic reduction in social mobility that the “American dream” alludes to, so much. It is a kind of return to the time of the “feudal lords”, in a clear civilizational step backwards in terms of the social division of classes.

Another concrete example of this closed loop operation is what is happening in the conflict in Eastern Europe. One need only listen to the news in NATO/EU/G7 territory to appreciate some of the variables on which the official narrative is based. As in all sects, it is the dogmas that produce the aggregating and centrifugal force that keeps the periphery loyal to the center. The repetition of these dogmas until exhaustion has a ritualistic function that aims to keep the most peripheral faithful as centered as possible, almost like a prayer or litany. There are many litanies that, in this case, aim to maintain the cohesion of the whole:

• “It was an unprovoked conflict,” omitting its origin in a coup d’état perpetrated by extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi forces, deeply racist against the Russian-speaking population, forcing it to hive off in the east;
• “the war began on February 24, 2022, with the invasion,” omitting the actual start of the war in 2014, at which point the secession regions were bombed daily;
• “the people are all against the invader”, omitting the deep ethnic division of that country’s population, which led to a constant rotation of power between factions, giving rise to 3 “colored revolutions” organized by the CIA, as a way to remove the governments elected by the Russian-speaking population.
• “democracies against autocracies”, omitting the fact that the country they call “democratic” elected its government after preventing millions of Russian-speaking citizens from exercising their right to vote, that it has outlawed about 13 parties, leaving only those that are pro-Nato, which also happen to be the extreme right, whereas the country that the narrative points to as “autocratic” is based on a multi-party system, with no known cases of outlawing parties.
• “a peaceful country was invaded”, omitting that this “peaceful” country had an army of 600,000 men and a war capacity consisting of hundreds of aircraft, thousands of tanks, hundreds of air defense systems, hundreds of missile launchers and thousands and thousands of cannons, all of which are the envy, in quality and quantity, of any NATO country except the father of the alliance, the USA.

In this regard, the New York Times or CNN appear as the theologians on duty, defining from the outset the dogmatic lines to be followed. The editorial of the New York Times of January 21 (the true ideological beacon of the North Atlantic press), demonstrates all the incapacity that the sect, composed of the privileged elite that wields the de facto power, has in dealing with a reality that increasingly eludes it. As in any sect, for which – also in the face of crystallization – reality does not conform to its pretensions, the option for hysteria, demagogy, hypocrisy and cynicism is a necessary resource. In essence, they are waging war against reality itself.

Let us see at what point the circle closes in on itself:

• The “invasion” is the result of the “madness of one man” alone. Now, I think that this presentation of the president of the “invading” country as being a “crazy” man, is one of those that doesn’t play, neither in appearance, nor in substance. If there is one characteristic that has always been pointed out to the president Russian Federation it is his “thoughtfulness”, “coolness” and “calculation”. None of the physical or psychological characteristics denote any kind of “madness”, let alone “uncontrolled”. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that a man who co-leads important regional organizations, some of which bring together the majority of the world’s population, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, not to mention the bilateral agreements he is making, such as the strategic partnerships with India, Iran, China, Turkey and many others, always seen as a reliable partner… is actually an “uncontrollable madman”. To believe that countries like Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Algeria, Turkey, Emirates, Pakistan and others, who want to join the BRICS+, knowing the importance of this “madman” in that organization, would do so if the NYT was right… Is worth as much as the unfunny comedian’s “revelation” about the fact that Putin is dead. There you go, a fight against reality.
• The “madman” is “cruel” and distributes a “regular horror” against “civilian targets. Now, when in the same article in which the “invader” is accused of causing these things (and if war causes these things!), the editor himself, who writes it, comes out and advocates an escalation of the war through the delivery, by the US, of even more lethal weapons… After all, what makes the NYT tick? Is it the death of innocent civilians by a war it clearly supports, or is it the fact that the object of its support is also clearly losing this war? And why doesn’t the same editor mention the costs to humanity of the other wars caused by the US in the post 9/11 era, which have cost the American people more than 8 trillion dollars and millions of homeless, about 1 million direct deaths and more than 30 million refugees, calculations made by Western organizations (such as the Brown University Watson Institute)?

The article continues with a plethora of such accusations, pointing to a heroic narrative on the one hand and an illusion on the other. This view is itself the result of an inability, also proper to sect logic, to place oneself above phenomena and analyze them from an objective perspective. The same NYT that spends so much ink on this conflict, is the same NYT that spends no ink on the 85 countries that are currently subject to military intervention by the US (79 counter-terrorist training operations; 41 joint military exercises; 12 combat engagements; 7 bombings).

Typical of functioning in a sect logic is also the claim that their actions are all justified, acceptable and benign; whereas the enemies’ actions are always evil. In fact, just look at what official American documentation (such as the 2022 National Defense Strategy, among many others) says, referring to Russian Federation intervention as an “evil influence”, using quasi-religious verbiage.

And, like the sects, incapable of making an objective analysis of the movements of the real, it is enough to see how the Western bloc, formed by the G7/EU/NATO, relates to the rest of the world, to understand the state of denial and closure in which they operate: “the world condemns the “invasion””, being that, this “world” boils down to about 50 countries, which always vote in isolation or in contradiction with the other 140, which is quite evident in the case of sanctions, whose application is only assumed by this “world” increasingly closed behind a barricade that claims to be “democratic”.

Take the case of the article https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/12/22/west-un-vote-economic-system-equality/ , which totally dismantles the idea that the West formed by the imperialist bloc leads any democratic, emancipatory or liberation movement by the countries of the global South. His analysis of the UNGA votes allow us to draw the conclusion that this unipolar, supremacist, closed and quartered “world” behind its own schizophrenia – identifying attacks on all those who do not uncritically follow it – is in perfect contradiction with the real, increasingly multipolar world. Every UNGA vote on creating a fairer economic system, based on equality or sustainable development, puts the “Western” bloc in opposition to the overwhelming majority of humanity. Let’s see:

• On December 12, 2022 123 countries voted for the creation and a “new international economic order” based on the principles of “equality, sovereignty, interdependence, common interest, cooperation and solidarity among nations.” Who voted against? Right… The sect. 50 nations of the collective West.
• In a vote on “international trade and development,” 122 voted for, 48 against. The proposal aimed to regulate the abuse of dominant positions and the use of unilateral sanctions that are not authorized by UN bodies. The sanctioners-at-large voted against the sanctioned or sanctionable.
• In the convention on biological diversity and its role in sustainable development, 166 voted in favor and only three nations opposed it: USA, Israel and Japan. All 193 UN countries have ratified this convention, with one exception, the USA.
• In a vote on the “sovereignty of the Palestinian people (the NYT can’t see atrocities here!)”, 159 countries approved, and only 8 voted against. USA, Canada, Israel, Chad, Marshal Islands and such.

Incidentally, this vote exemplifies what happens every time there is a vote to condemn the blockade on Cuba, where the US and Israel repeatedly come out in isolation against the world. This pattern is repeated again and again when it comes to resolutions on control of Israel’s nuclear weapons. Recently, even when it comes to resolutions to condemn Nazi ideology and the spread of fascism, the whole world voted for it (7 billion human beings) against the collective West (1 billion). When the billionaire sect or the billionaire’s foreman accuses the Russian Federation president of being a Hitler, it seems that the rest of the world is still, very well, knowing who Hitler was and not embarking on hideous historical transmutations.

Imagine what the leaders of the 140 nations that govern 7 billion human beings will think, when a group of blue-suited suits come in front of them, promising “democracy” and “human rights”, in exchange for war, weapons and bickering with the neighboring countries… “what a sect…” They won’t stop thinking, through their diverse but endangered languages and through their exotic but harried traditional dress!

As someone said: “only the truth sets us free”. And contrary to what is said, even in war the truth continues to exist, so let us know how to identify it!

The idea that “in war the truth is the first casualty,” is just another dogma invented by the aristocratic sect so that it can lie without being held accountable for it.

Don’t expect to find the truth among the information of those who use war to lie.

Hugo Dionísio’s Telegram channel: https://t.me/canalfactual