<nettime> Tranzis (or, "i'm just a sweet transnational")

["N Jett" <njett@hotmail.com>]

All we need now is a scary looking symbol to put on flags and armbands...



http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2002/8/30/121900

Nazis and Commies and Tranzis ... Oh My!
Richard Poe
Aug. 30, 2002

First there was Communism. Then Fascism. Then Nazism. Then Communism
again.  Now there's a new ideology in town. It's called Tranzi-ism.

Like previous "isms," Tranzi-ism has the potential to plunge our world
into a howling maelstrom of war, poverty and dictatorship.

Yet, weirdly, most Tranzis don't even know they are Tranzis. Some call
themselves "progressives." Some affect free-market sympathies. Some
espouse a "Third Way" between communism and capitalism.

Don't be fooled. They are Tranzis, one and all.

Tranzi stands for Transnational Progressive -- a term coined by Hudson
Institute researcher John Fonte in a new article entitled "The Ideological
War Within the West."

According to Fonte, elite institutions ranging in size and influence from
the National Council of Churches to the United Nations are pushing the
notion that "the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill
suited to deal with the global problems of the future." They propose
abolishing nations and replacing them with a single, global government.

Under ordinary circumstances, no one would lose sleep over some crackpot
theory circulating among U.N. bureaucrats. Unfortunately, for reasons that
are still not entirely clear, virtually every government in the world
appears to have embraced Transnational Progressivism and is working around
the clock to make global government a reality.

Fonte warns that the coming global regime will not respect liberal
freedoms.  Though couching his message in the polite euphemisms of
academia, Fonte essentially suggests that the Tranzis will impose a kind
of racialist police state, in which historically downtrodden or oppressed
groups will be encouraged by the "elites" to rise up and get even with
their former oppressors.

"Dominant" groups (I guess he means white men) will be forced to yield
power to "oppressed" groups in all areas. In the economic sphere, the
system will compel "dominant" people to give up their jobs to "oppressed"
people, until every job category reflects the proportion of "oppressed"
people in the population.

But it won't stop there. The proportion of "oppressed" people in the
population will constantly grow. That's because another tenet of
Tranzi-ism holds that "dominant" countries must welcome immigrants from
"oppressed"  countries in unlimited numbers.

If any "dominant" people protest, they will be jailed for "hate speech."

When I read Fonte's essay, my first impulse was to yawn. He seemed to be
stating the obvious. Anyone who has tuned into talk radio or surfed the
Web in the last 10 years already has a pretty good idea of what the
"elites" are planning.

Yet Fonte's article became an instant cult classic among the bloggers –
linked, praised, glossed and debated on blog sites throughout cyberspace.

"His work is valuable because it names the beast," writes Godless
Capitalist on the popular blog site Gene Expression.

David Carr -- a London-based blogger who posts on the "rational
libertarian"  Web site Samizdata.net -- put it thus:

"A lot of us have known for some time there was something wrong in the
world but it was difficult to pin down and put our fingers on. It was
something that has no face and no name. Like fog it swirled all around us
but not being corporeal we lashed out in all directions, landing blows on
nothing.  It was like an itch we could never scratch."

Carr has a point. We don't really know who is masterminding this plot or
why.

When I worked for David Horowitz at FrontPageMagazine.com, we used to call
these people "the left." But many of those pushing the "leftist" agenda
seem to be high-level statesmen, wealthy blue bloods and heads of
multibillion-dollar corporations. Class struggle just doesn't seem to
explain their behavior.

If indeed the Tranzis are leftists, they are leftists only in the sense
that a butterfly was once a caterpillar. They have long since emerged from
their chrysalises and spread their wings to fly.

It was David Carr who gave the Transnational Progressives their
now-universal nickname: Tranzis.

In the end, Carr's nickname – even more than Fonte's rather nebulous
concept – may prove to be the catalyst that focuses world attention on
this grave new threat to our liberty. As Carr observed, it is hard to
fight something until you know what to call it.

The word "Tranzi" nicely evokes the ideology it represents. It has a
nasty, sneaky sound, like Commie or Nazi. And, like those earlier words,
it is easy to say and remember.

Fonte may have stated the obvious. And Carr merely thought up a nickname.  
But together, they have sparked a debate that even now may rouse our world
from its slumber.



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