Motto: Death from Below, Keeps Safety from Above? Mors ab Inferis. Salues Desuper. Or… Bravery for a Free Space? Fortitudo Ad Liberum Spatium. Or… Death and Bravery for a Free Space? Mors et fortitudo, pro spatio libero. (Note, I used Google Translate, so this may not be proper Latin)
Beret: Carolina Blue
New Space Force uniform.
Photo credit: A U.S. Soldier participates in a night raid training mission during Emerald Warrior 2012, an exercise put together by U.S. Special Operations Command. Photo: USAFA U.S. soldier participates in a night-raid training mission during Emerald Warrior 2012, an exercise put together by U.S. Special Operations Command. Photo: USAF
This is just a fun post. I’m in no way Rambo, Soldier of Fortune, etc.
But, if the US Space Force had special forces, I would assume it would fall under a newly created US Space Force Special Operations Command (USSF-SOC) that falls under the Unified Combatant Command, with the new command either based out of the Colorado Springs area (able to cross train with local USAF, US Army and US Space Force facilities); Huntsville, AL area, or potentially somewhere in Florida such as Hulbert Field next to existing USAF Special Ops, or Patrick Air Force Base/Cape Canaveral Space Station or MacDill AFB.
But what would they do?
USSFSOC would be the shock force that protects terrestrial satellite stations for sustainment of the Defense Satellite Communication System (DSCS), performs Counter terrorism/CBRNE counter measures, retakes US or allied terrestrial satellite stations, while also incapacitating and taking over enemy ones with hand-to-hand combat, small arms, assault rifles, ordnance, calling in close air support strikes, etc.
A USSFSOC personnel would be like the Air Force Tactical Control Party (TAC-P) mixed with USAF Combat Control (Air Commando) , but this would be a Space Combat Control Party, i.e., Space CCP, i.e., Space Commando.
Similar to how CCTs are FAA certified Air Traffic Controllers, a Space CCP would be a NASA certified Flight Controller taught at the Christopher C. Kraft Jr., Mission Control Center Houston (MCC-H)
They go behind enemy lines, take out or take over enemy communication stations, extract USSF or allied personnel, repair satellites, conduct Flight Controller duties.
Teams would be led by an officer in person or remotely who has an Electrical Engineering background but supported by a cadre of enlisted personnel who are capable of hacking into or retrieving elements of an enemy’s servers located at satellite stations, or setting up /repairing remote satellite stations, etc.
Enlisted members will be designated as warrant officers so they can operate above enlisted but be subordinate to officers.
This will give the US and allies vital intelligence but also the ability to disrupt enemy satellite operations in space thus throwing off an enemy’s GPS targeting systems, etc. Also, USSF-SOC operators can establish/repair remote satellite stations.
Training would essentially be “capture the flag”, i.e., taking over enemy facilities and defending allied facilities.
HALO/HAHO (High Altitude, Low Opening/High Opening) parachuting. Using littoral waterway entrance methods (infiltration via beaches by sea or river) to enter into enemy territory. Using SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) tactics to successful bypass/neutralize enemy combatants. Surveil enemies using SALUTE reporting (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, and Equipment). Direct close air support via Joint Terminal Attack Controller methodology to destroy enemy satellite stations. Defend and evacuate US Space Force or other DOD or Allied personnel at satellite stations in combat zones. Establish/repair remote satellite outposts. Physically take over enemy satellite stations either for destruction or for cooption.
Training may consist of (1) selection, (2) SERE school at Fairchild AFB, WA; (3) Ranger School; (4) US Army Airborne School (Parachute Badge) at Fort Benning, GA for Static Line qualification & Army Military Free Fall Parachutist School, Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona for HALO qualification; (5) Cold Weather orientation and Basic Military Mountaineering Course at the Northern Warfare Training Center at Ft. Wainwright Alaska, (6) Combat Diver/ Underwater Egress School at NAS Pensacola, FL, (7) Jungle Warfare at US Jungle Operations Training Center at Schofield Barracks, (8) Desert Warrior Course at Ft Bliss, also advanced training notably with satellite systems at the Jet Propulsion Lab Space Flight Operator Facility, .
Pararescuemen from the 38th Rescue Squadron and the 58th Rescue Squadron, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., jump from a HC-130P/N for a High Altitude Low Opening free fall drop from 12,999 feet in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. PJs use a variety of jumps depending on the mission. / USAF Photograph by Staff Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock.
In this March 1, 2017, photo, soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team participate in jungle warfare training at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The Army has set up a jungle training course amid a renewed focus on Asia and the Pacific after more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Daniel Lin)
In the future a person who qualifies for USSF SOC Space CCP could qualify for a NASA mission, meaning they’d be the first US Space Force Commando in space.
When I saw dirtbag, it’s a term that it’s out of playful endearment or out of actual…disdain for being a true dirtbag that betrayed the trust of others.
When I heard about Jack Teixeira, his beliefs reminded me of Timothy McVigh, yet, since he’s a Zoomer, and likely a dork, luckily not radicalized like McVigh, he was caught up playing video games like Call of Duty. Another Zoomer raised on 8chan in the post-BLM USA where the pre-existing (predominately white) “patriot” culture has morphed into cerebral bleh that threads upon Joe Rogan/Johnny Bravo conspiracy, pro-cop and military YouTubers like Popo Medic, etc. Also, the Republican Party is more pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine. Not saying that Jack was political, yet, ironically most of the “stop the war” rhetoric is coming a mix of traditional Vietnam era inspired liberal pacifists like Democracy Now! but also some Republicans who lowkey admire Putin or his conservative Russia. The Far Right which has a large impact on 8chan culture, “coldwave”, memes, etc., is pro-Russia, despite the early obfuscation in the Ukraine War about Ukraine only having Neo Nazis, etc.
Jack represents younger men and women who grew up in a postmodern landscape of conspiracy theory, MAGA, the Far Right, the Far Left, irony, Rick and Morty, memes, Twitch, Discord, OnlyFans, porn hubs, etc. Everything that Baudrillard, Philip K Dick, etc., talked about is…here. Zoomers are the true generation of the “future” because Millennials at least remember a world before full integration with computers, i.e., DVDS, VHS, newspapers, hell, even the Dewey Decimal System.
We live in a world where a Neo Nazi in France or Russia can divert funds using Bitcoin where he made such money to mine crypto was made pimping Eastern European cam models, and then give money to content creators in the US to spit out videos about Hitler, Indo Aryans, etc., while also having an army of loyal follower speaking with code and memes on social media as to not violate terms of service.
Also, no offense to the National Guard, but being state based, i.e., more local based, there is likely higher likely hood of nepotism, and there is no testing for rank in the National Guard unlike Active Duty, but rather promotions are based on a mix of time in grade, openings, etc. Joining the National Guard is more like applying to a job, and once a unit wants you, they ship you off to basic training mixed in with active-duty troops. In times of war or on federal orders, the Guard becomes Active Duty.
In other words, Jack could have had a great career. All he had to do was work, make ranks, stay on good terms with commanders, self study, and move up. Not as rigid of a career path as Active Duty. And, he was serving near Cape Cod…not a bad place to serve. I wish I did he ANG rather than Active Duty to be honest. They also deploy a lot so there is the chance of adventure.
It’s no surprise that Jack’s stepdad was a career member of the same unit he was in. So, Jack to some extent had inside clout going into his Guard Unit.
The military is ultimately about manpower and readiness. As a result, the culture for such as large department with its various sister-services/branches, etc., there’s not much time to “wait on people”. In other words, a commander’s main responsibility is to get a troop trained and ready to go to war, so because of this important need, it seems our security clearance culture for troops often ends up being rushed out of necessity. When I reported to my first duty station, it took only a few weeks to get my clearance, because you need it to do the job, yet, do you really? Anyways, it takes an act of God to get anything done in the military as far as cultural changes. Change is often reactionary in such large organizations rather than pre-emptive, e.g., look at the various changes in recruitment and physical appearance standards as a means of alleviating the recruiting “crisis”. From the President, Congress with its various hearings on security/military affairs, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but also other agencies like the Office of Personnel Management who may help with conducting background checks.
This culture of quick readiness of raw recruits into battle ready troops is delicate game. No squadron level Commander wants to report up the chain that the so-and-so didn’t pass their Career Development Courses or can’t pass a background check, etc.
Manpower, manpower, readiness, readiness, readiness, etc. You are a number in a formula that’s a part of larger calculus only the big wigs at the Pentagon, White House, Armed Services Committee, and Intel agencies understand.
Regardless, it is my feeling having served in the Air Force (only 4 years, though I was honorably discharged) and having grown up in the United States Army thus exposed to military life from a young age.
My humble recommendation for any person with actual power reading this is that Security Clearances should not simply be based on job, but should factor in age, rank, and completion of CDCs. Or, we may need to reassess what levels of clearance are required for specific jobs. For example, Top Security or TS/Secure Compartmentalized information (SCI) may only need eligible for E5s or E-5 selects. A Secret Clearance could be for E4s and below, though with high rank supervision, a lower enlisted person can handle certain aspects of TS information after a commander makes a certain determination if they truly need access to that information.
Also, the military I feel needs to change recruiting culture and its security clearance process in general. For example, as I wrote in a prior post, younger generations are not being comprised by marijuana, which is a disqualifier needing a waiver for entry into the force, but it’s how much time they spend online. There have been at least 4 major leaks including this one with the others being Reality Winner, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning. In no way was “marijuana” (not legal in most US states and some NATO allies), but it was being politicized and being sucked up in the conspiracy theory-based internet. If it were me, I would stop asking about marijuana use for entry, re-entry, or for security clearances (unless a person was arrested for an actual criminal offense such as distribution or intent to distribute), but instead ask recruits for all their social media so it can be assessed by threat-specialists, psychologists, etc.
According to the New York Times, by authors Dave Philipps, Jenna Russell, Jacey Fortin and Haley Willis (2023) Airman Jack Teixeira grew up in a family with strong military ties in Dighton, Mass., a town of about 8,000 people near the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border that retains a distinctly rural character, with tractors in backyards, fresh eggs for sale in roadside honor boxes and old stone walls rambling through woods. It is also reliably conservative.” Further, His stepfather retired as a master sergeant from the same Air Force intelligence unit where Airman Teixeira worked, headquartered on a base on nearby Cape Cod. He also has a stepbrother in the Air Force, according to a profile for the brother on LinkedIn (2023). He was a low-level computer tech at Otis Air National Guard Base in Sandwich, Mass., where his mother said he worked nights, helping maintain secure networks, which the New York Times pointed out as being the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. (Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/us/jack-teixeira-pentagon-leak.html)
I assume he was working with the 102nd Intelligence Wing, which when activated by federal orders falls under the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency.
For those not familiar with the military, there is the Total Force Structure comprising Active Duty (full time troops), the Reserves (the part time component of federal Active Duty, though you have full time Reservists), and the National Guards which are descendants in theory of the old state militias. The National Guards have Army and Air Force components. These are not to be confused with purely state ran State Defense Forces who get no federal benefits, retirement, etc. National Guardsmen can be DGR Drill Guard Reservists, i.e., weekend warriors like part timers in the Reserve components, or one can be an AGR Active Guard Reserve.
He was assigned as a Cyber Transportation System Specialist (which falls under the Intelligence career field) under Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) 3D1X2 and was a Journeyman.
You are assigned an AFSC in the Air Force, which is Air Force Specialty Code, like the Army’s concept of a MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). Within our AFSC you get a number embedded into the number detailing your job competency level, e.g., 0 (technically you’re a grunt in BMT), 1 (Helper – while you attend Tech School), 3 (Apprentice – on the job training while you complete your Career Development Courses and OJTs which on the job tasks), 5 (Journeyman – once you pass your CDC Exams, you can in theory “do the basics of the job yourself), 7 (Craftsman – is for Staff Level and above fields), 9 (Superintendent – for E8s which are Master Sergeants who can often serve as “First Shirts”, i.e., Senior Enlisted advisors to Officers and notably Squadron Level Commanders and above).
According to the United States Air Force’s public recruitment website, this occupation is more like a glamorized IT server and communications job. “Whether it’s repairing a network hub at a stateside base or installing fiber-optic cable at a forward installation overseas, these experts keep our communications systems up and running and play an integral role in our continuing success”.
The job requires you to complete the 7.5 weeks Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, pass a background check, not be color blind, and have some lose principles of video networking and electronics. If anything, it seems right up the alley of most tech savvy Millennials and Zoomers who grew up splicing together streaming videos, building their own gaming computers, etc. After BMT, airmen got to Keesler AFB in Mississippi not far from Biloxi for 136 days, so about 4 months and a week. Successful completion of BMT, Tech School, and any other civilian accredited college credits one has will go towards their Associates form the Community College of the Air Force, where in the case of the Cyber Transportation Systems AFSC would be an Associates in Electronics Systems Technology.
Looking at X, Inc., “Corporate Linkages” it shows a total of 31 “Children Companies” such as Twitter in San Fran; Gnip, Inc., based out of Boulder, CO; Tellapart, Inc., based out of San Fransicso, and so many more. On a creepy note, I found a Department of Behavior and Logic, LLC under DUNS 079342637 based out San Francisco, etc at Twitter’s main SF addrses. The things about corporations is there’s so many spin-offs, research joint ventures, etc.
I think Jack Dorsey made a smart move. He realized the power of Twitter in its current form was too much. Twitter is basically its own Matrix universe so to properly run it you need way more infrastructure in place, yet the business model of Twitter like Facebook relying on advertising, could in no way sustain what needed to happen to reform things. You need robust a content moderation program that gives the public and/or users a sense of fairness and transparency, an army cyber security IT team, etc.
Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk remind me of There Will Be Blood with Paul Dano’s character. Paul Dano plays a set of twins, Paul and Eli Sunday, where the first twin, Paul, meets oil man Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day Lewis) and is the wise son, who gets his money from a finders fee and runs (later proven to have invested it wisely), whereas the second twin comes off as a vain religious leader and pariah who ends up getting into moral quandaries his pockets can’t quite cash. He has a need to control others and make them bend to his will. Dorsey represents the guy who got out, while Elon purchased Twitter out of a vanity project.
Elon isn’t a manager by design but he’s a hand-on Venture Capitalist, but he fell onto the right-wing bandwagon about alleged censorship (an idea even promoted by Joe Rogan who hosted Tim Pool versus Jack Dorsey), and he did this because it was a way for a dork to get validation.
By the way, being a dork is cool, if you’re a legit good person who so happens to have a love for nerdy things, but most importantly you don’t become an asshole.
Anyways, once he realized it was an easy source of validation, he doubled down. His minions – so desperate for a Christopher Nolan archetype of the Anglophile hero, though his quasi Rhodesian vibes gets him bonus points – egged him on to be their savior.
Like the nerd who becomes cool but then later must start bullying others to retain his coolness, Elon bought Twitter, tried to back out by scapegoating Twitter who wasn’t falling for his bluff, and because of possible legal suit, Elon finally took the reins.
Anyways, I joined late.
I joined in 2020 because friends said it was a good source of news. It was during the height of the COVID pandemic, so I signed up cautiously. I deleted my Facebook years ago around the time of Trump winning office because it was already a depressing arena (I remember how rabid Republicans were to Obama yet Republicans were someone surprised Democrats treated Trump the same but for actual good reason). I am sure I missed a lot of mind-numbing drama. My Myspace from 2007 is lost on some server or its merely a Wayback Machine screenshot somewhere either with Three Six Mafia or Coheed and Cambria playing on repeat on my profile page….
But last weekend I woke up, checked my Twitter and it said, “after careful review, we’ve banned you”. A week later they double downed and stood by their ban..
I got no warning. No example(s) of why I was banned.
The irony is that there are racists, supremacists, bigots, transphobes, homophobes, sexists, etc., on Twitter such as Matt Walsh calling for eradication of certain groups of people. But, is that OK? There’s even hardcore Marxist Communists on there praising how US veterans from Iraq deserved to have committed suicide, etc. The Taliban has a Twitter!
But I get banned? I’m not a narcissist but I must have struck a nerve which validates my thought process even more.
I pissed someone off.
I submitted an appeal because I would like to delete my account because it was a mistake to have ever wasted my time on the platform, but per Twitter, it takes up to 7 to 10 days to hear back. With my first appeal denied, I’m trying again. In theory, Twitter holds your information hostage when they could give you an immediate ultimatum, i.e., you can delete whatever content is under question and get a strike (like Instagram), or you can have a set amount of time to save any personal photos, contact followers, etc., and then delete your account once and for all.
It’s like a club. You can gather your things and leave, or “security” is giving you a warning, but not kicking you out quite yet.
I am not sure what I said.
Ha, was it me tagging Eva Longoria and Anna Kasparian of the Young Turks explaining about why Hispanics are turning Republican based on a segment TYT did, where I stated that many Hispanics are wanting to assimilate into a system that berates them so they can prove they truly belong, and some even pick up on anti-blackness a means of appealing to White Anglo Saxon Protestantism. Some are converting from Catholicism to Evangelical Bible Belt Christianity. Also, look at the Proud Boys leadership, Nick Fuentes, etc.
I even shared a personal story about how I saw a Mexican Family at a Hooters for their kids’ birthday with a Confederate Flag. I felt that Anna and Eva not being from the Deep South might lack the entire ground level story. But maybe that wasn’t why I got banned.
Maybe it is because I called out Holly Holm because of her winning speech in which she seems to have insinuated that trans kids is somehow linked with human trafficking, or some sort of Qanon anti-trans talking point. I wrote that men in the past would have looked at her physique and said she wasn’t lady like, so why is it ok that she has “manly features” (using conservative logic) but others can’t have features of gender they weren’t assigned at birth? I said the she and Gina Carano were the old school term of “tom boy”, and back in the day that used to be a problem to many, yet, she and Gina are enforcers of a traditional gender binary.
Or….Maybe it was me tagging the CIA because of how cringe a Vice Media interview went with Pakistan’s ex-president with the interviewer literally talking up to a guy who was almost assassinated because he hasn’t done enough allegedly for women in a very Muslim country surrounded by Taliban controlled Afghanistan and Hindu based India.
Maybe I tagged the CIA about why its weird there’s so many ex-CIA Youtubers like Andrew Bustamante seemingly giving up secrets of the spy trade, almost as if they are on YouTube to lasso the tin-foil Joe Rogan conspiracy types and steer them with whatever disinformation they feel suited. I joked that Mr. Bustamante looks like a Costa Rican beach bum scuba instructor who bangs lonley housewives and/or Tulsi Gabbard. Sorry…
Maybe I got banned for saying that Ashli Babbit was noted for cheating on her husband, like Queen Karen Marjorie Taylor Green cozying up to her cross-fit gym bros, and instead of being shot at J6, she should’ve been a swinger at the Hedonism II resort or in Pensacola FL like many down-low conservatives (where many are freaks in the sheets anyways, I would assume. I’m pretty sure Tinder is quite popular in Nashville and I’ve seen plenty of country girls offering their OnlyFans).
Or, maybe I got banned tagging Rianna Conner Carpenter, i.e., The Combat Barbie, who is an ex enlisted US Marine turned softcore glamour model who is now on the “Ending Woke” bandwagon. I wrote a post, which she liked after I called her out for saying it’s ok to be proud and white (I simply said black people say we’re proud to be black because we don’t know our unique origins). Further, I added she was too much of a baddie (her looks are whatever in a sea of women who look like her online) to be a right-wing conspiracy theorist, considering many right-wing men don’t respect her yet just want to use her (e.g., the Manosphere), but I understood because jackboot fascism needs hot women. It’s like a jihadist being promised virgins in the next life. It’s all about money for these fascist barbie types.
Maybe, back to the Eva Longoria/Anna Kasparian posts, is that I explained that Hispanic culture in part is a machismo culture, and the Progressive Left often comes off as the opposite, so many people not wanting social shame from their community, will double down with projections of hyper masculinity, etc. It sounds crude but Republican Fox News types offer men…good looking seemingly submissive women, whereas he Left fosters empowerment, feminism, etc. I agree with feminism, but I also understand that boys are easily lured in my hot women who can help validate their manhood and steer it on the path to war.
Or, maybe I called out King Elon Fuhrer Musk himself by saying that Twitter is now his personal plaything.
Or, maybe it was because I said that conservatives have politicized the Jeffrey Epstein case, making it seem like a unilateral Democratic conspiracy theory, when in fact, creeps like that don’t care about politics but only power. I am sure you had Republicans and conservatives involved in sexual abuses both past and present (just look at churches), such as Jim Jordon being silent about abuse at Ohio State University, or Matt Gaetz investigated for allegedly trafficking under-aged girls.
In my post on Epstein, I explained that simply because you meet someone doesn’t mean you’re digging through their stuff or inspecting their house. If you go to a barbeque by your neighbor, but then later he ends up being a creep, then for people to blame you for knowing the guy is silly, yet, conservatives are so hungry to push this Democratic, Pizzagate, Child Abuse 2.0, Qanon eschatology nonsense. Trafficking isn’t political and affects all people, all groups, etc. If anything, this allows pedophiles to hid among conservatives because all they need to do is blame Democrats as to get the scent off them.
Maybe Elon is simply purging profiles that don’t pay for his blue check mark?
Maybe I called Lauren Southern a racist because she is.
Who knows? But honestly, there was always something existential about signing on and pondering deleting Twitter because ultimately, it’s an echo chamber. There are no real support units on it even within the left wing. Everyone is searching for their idea to be the best one that gets a pat on the head. It’s a popularity contest at the end of the day rather than a good news tool, conversation platform, etc. You can’t edit texts, there are text limitations inless you pay (Facebook Note was better), etc. Even if you try to escape politics, good luck because it’s ultimately a news and debate platform, rather than a photo repository for artists, creators, etc.
Elon also has done nothing about “bots” despite him trying to initially back out of the Twitter deal because he said Twitter was hiding actual bot account stats. I had such a low number of followers (which was fine) because I deleted most requests because they were the typical b.s., sign up for my Only Fans, I’m from Russia or China or Iran burner accounts. If he was so committed to getting rid of bots, his team could make simple changes, such as preventing anonymous accounts, posting the country of origin from where Twitter profiles originated from where most originated before the implementation of VPN technology, etc.
II. Riley Gaines is so busy being an activist, I guess she’s forgetting to swim.
It seems that Riley Gaines is doing more to hurt her swimming career by not swimming and training, but rather she’s doing what most desperate college kids need to do, i.e., find a job, and her job it seems is to have a career in conservative media. This is the same conservative media arena that gave us Charlie Kirk who never finished college/never served in the military/never opened his own business from scratch, but also Candace Owens who never finished college and ironically used the NAACP in a racial discrimination case. Finishing college doesn’t mean you can’t have a profound opinion, but it also means you may not be as much of an expert on things you constantly talk about.
When Riley “lost”, i.e., tied, Lia Thomas, she was tied for fifth place, meaning biological ciswomen beat both.
If Lia vanished out of the thin air, Riley would have been in a safe fifth place? I thought conservatives don’t like participation trophies if you “don’t win it all” anyways?
You would think, even if she disagrees with trans women in her sport, that she would still be motivated to be the best athlete she could. Instead of complaining, why not triumph?
Maybe Lia was the excuse Riley needed to do what many in her generation want to do regardless of politics, i.e., have an easy job as a talking head making algorithm money or dark seed money from the Koch Brothers or Uihlein Family.
I also find it funny that Heather Sue Mercer, daughter of infamous billionaire conservative donor, Robert Mercer, sued Duke University for discrimination for not being given a fair chance of making the men’s football team as a placekicker, with Heather Sue even quoting Title IX. Is this an apples-to-apples comparison? Not fully, yet, if Heather Sue, daughter of the man partially responsible for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, can be an activist for inter-sex sports, then it’s interesting that the modern Right Wing is as transphobic as they are.
III. Woke. How a word was appropriated but how that word was always ineffective.
At this point, just be proud to be woke, because it’s obvious that people saying “woke” in a bad sense are just…following the crowd, playing culture war team sports. So, just give them what they want and be proud to be woke if that’s something you care about.
The right wing has turned the word into an annoying “eye roll” term so no one wants to be associated with it, yet, they’re also addicted to it because…what else do they have? It’s gotten to the point where kids who qualify for reduced lunch are woke.
But, woke simply means being aware. It’s that simple.
It is about being aware as to how systemic oppression affected marginalized groups. Wokeness was typically a word used within Black Liberation political discourse usually expressed through casual conversation, i.e., chopping it up, where such discourse is influenced by an anti- and post-colonial mentality, i.e., discovering one’s roots.
Wokeness was basically “spitting facts” that calls out historical and systemic oppression, which is why it’s a term that was later coopted and then demonized, because it antagonizes the status quo of American Exceptionalism, white-washing atrocities, etc.
Wokeness isn’t purely racial but it is also economic, i.e., the working classes becoming more aware of capitalism’s inherent need to project a better world while also making the world worst off. Wokeness has also become a way for excuse for conservatives or pro-business types. If a person’s personal finances are bad, or career not going the way they want, etc., it’s easy to simply blame this abstract concept of wokeness, instead of admitting…maybe you just weren’t good enough, no on likes you, consumer sentiments change, etc.
Wokeness calls out the victory of those who dominated others into a moral quandary, i.e., it is a buzzkill to this concept of an entirely noble American project. And, that is what really angers people.
People want to celebrate without guilt, and it goes back to the adage of ignorance is bliss. We want the Costco frozen pizza, all-you-can eat breadsticks at Olive garden, the mid tier Kung Pao or general Tso chicken.
Even for people who want unity, the concept of wokeness poses the risk of stirring up divisions which can spillover between friends, couple, neighbors, citizens with their governments, etc. It usurps the notion of order and authority, which despite America’s vast diversity of people and opinions, is often viewed as one of our few unifying principles.
There’s a fear that wokeness will lead Kangaroo courts of androgynous, powder wigged, rotted teethed Jacobins cutting off heads for not being “down enough”.
Yet, wokeness is not bad, but rather we’ve been told it is bad because the term was coopted and spit out by Center-Left Liberals (Democrats) and Right-Wing conservatives (Republicans) where both never had good intentions towards wokeness. However, Commies using it can be annoying because constant social analysis is a means of waking up the working classes, i.e., culture war begets class struggle; however, Republicans are bad faith actors when they allege “Cultural Marxism” because anything not white, straight, male, and selfish is Communist.
Democrats appropriated the fiery somewhat “hip” rhetoric as a means of appealing to diverse voters, notably Black Americans and women regardless of race, but often end up with empty results, e.g., no comprehensive police reform, Roe vs Wade gone, accelerating defense spending while the communities of their voters have issues such as undrinkable water, etc. Kamala Harris for example persecuting people for marijuana, despite admitting having used it herself, and the White House firing staff who admitted to using it. Or, Bakari Sellers who can tap into his family’s Civil Rights participation and his HBCU connections, to throw Pro-Palestinian voices in the Progressive Caucus under the bus by working with AIPAC.
Yet, Republicans used the term woke to blanketly brush anything they disagreed with, considering conservatives seem to respond to simple thought-patterns and a very black/white as opposed to grey view of the world. The Republican appropriation of the word has metastasized into something akin to a witch-hunt hysteria caused by uttering one taboo word.
If a beer company acknowledges that gay people drink beer…it’s woke. If TV producers attempt to create more heroes outside the white heteronormative (straight) male…it’s woke. If NASA selects a highly qualified female with a strong science background to be a part of a space mission…it’s woke. If someone dares to say that our Founding Fathers either had slaves, were indifferent towards the condition of slaves, or didn’t use their power to accelerate abolitionism…it’s woke.
Genuine people used woke as a means of discovery/awareness. Democrats used it to exploit their target audience by paying lip service to promises they didn’t keep and if they did keep it, it was with token hiring positions rather than systemic changes to US laws, policies, etc. Right Wingers used it as a term to project their hate on, and it worked to corral its masses, but this strategy has devolved into brain-dead drooling, knee jerk reactions, and itchy trigger fingers.
However, I would argue that wokeness even before the word was appropriated was…ineffective.
Wokeness in the black community had an air of rap battle or barber shop banter, i.e., spitting facts as a means of feeling enlightened, but being humans, where humans are competitive, spitting facts never really resulted in any progress, besides giving individuals an air of sanctity. From starting from mainstream academic “Roots Research” to textbook Pan-Africanism with roots in Marcus Garvey to fringe Nation of Islam, Nuwaubian, Black Hebrew Israelites, Hotep thought, etc., there’s always an element of “spitting facts”, but for myself, almost 40 years, numbed into existential exegesis by America’s racial dynamics, I realized that…. facts don’t equate to actions or results.
You can be “woke”, but also…not very smart.
You can be aware but not very capable.
Wokeness in effect has an air of “novelty intellectualism”.
Regardless of race or background we are all guilty of novelty intellectualism. “Did you know this…?”, “Did you know that…?”, “Well, actually…”, “Um, but…”, etc. Being woke may come from the hard truth that life is boring and/or we don’t have full control over it, so filling our heads with facts is a way of ice-breaking, starting conversation, testing the waters of compatibility, etc., We’ve all been to parties, had deep “what is the meaning of it all” talks, and afterwards we may have said, “Yes, she’s cool”, “Yeah, he’s down”, etc.
You can have a brain full of facts, but for a race of people such as African Americans where there are sections with a very black nationalist mentality, this “wokeness” doesn’t build things. If anything its made us dumber as we seek to acquire fscts for social approval while living selfishly as bourgeoisie types, or being ignorant because why not? America “owes us something”?
It ends up translating as a passive way to get consolation without saying it, often via the mode of social media. Whomever says the most woke thing may get the most likes. For example, look at Instagram or Twitter. There’s essentially a separate “black” platform within these sites and the pages on Instagram for example are essentially self-help pages mixed with black nationalism, and maybe quotes about hustling within capitalism. The same videos recycles time and time again.
Wokeness, video essays, Critical Theory, Bell Hooks, etc., are not creating advanced technology, engineering, understanding agriculture, intensive medicine breakthroughs, Fortune 500 companies able to lobby and influence political power. This is important because even though African Americans are capable and it’s a miracle that we as a people have achieved as much as we have considering the brutual history and present of this country, we need realize…we are behind. We were truly freed in 1965 with the Civil and Voting Rights Act, which was just one decade removed from mass de-industrialization within Western advanced nations which therefore led to postmodern paradigm, where said paradigm is defined by the relativity of truth. With black people being freed upon and within the epoch of postmodern nihilism and the dawn of late-stage capitalism, the black quest for discovering one’s roots is prone towards slipping into non-scientific conspiracy theories (lacking extensive research, peer review, etc.), or, people are simply over-saturated with our digital reality making learning, on top of surviving in an economy prone to inflationary pressures, become tired, indifferent, etc.
White people for example don’t need to know all these hard sciences because there was an infrastructure built predominately by them and for them, where new generations, don’t have the insecurity of feeling behind. 99% of white people can coopted their own 1% hard work and get the higher quality value by association. The irony of our modern resurgence in white supremacy is that…most of its adherents are nobodies and they need nostalgia and a return to a better time to simply coddle their egos, and their violence is projection of this, like a child having a temper tantrum.
I would say that black academic achievement lacks not because of innate cognitive differences, and not just because of environment (poverty, crime, pollution, etc.), but because of confidence. With or without Critical Race Theory (CRT) how hard is it to teach children of all races the different types of African cultures (Bantu, Nilotic, San, etc.) or the rich history of kingdoms in West Africa? In other words, pre-slavery black culture. Black children have a natural sense of “catch up” because the weight of Western Civilization that fell upon them, often doesn’t include them, which is ironic because African Americans are a branch of Western civilization, like other assimilated groups, e.g., the Germanic tribes forcibly assimilated by the Romans and Franks, etc.
Wokeness thus ends up leading to either (a) a healthy sense of self, (b) off the deep in conspiracy, or (c) black nihilism but a nihilism lacking Nietzschean theurgy that ends up resembling pure nihilism of seeing no point. One can only be presented with so many facts before the existential angst of the need to act, i.e., “to be or not be”, comes into play. Wokeness also doesn’t protect black people from black pariahs, who focus on emotionalism, mythology building, and eschatology (the concept of a world to come) rather than building infrastructure. For example, the Nation of Islam surely had enough money at some point to have built hospitals, homes, invested in science, create a trust fund, etc., but where are the results? Even the “blackest” bourgeoisie black excellence capitalist will only donate a church or host a turkey-giving bloc party during the holidays.
The vision is lacking, but the need for pride and pride in general is already showing. Flash before systemic substance.
I am not trying to preach or sound like I am better. But at least I can admit it.
For example, if you are black name one place in the America that’s not Atlanta, where you’re like…this is place built by black people that is a world class place where everyone regardless of race wants to go because of the schools, food, culture, etc.?
Sure, we can spit facts about the Transatlantic Slave Trade, The Red Summer of the nineteen-teens where lynching spiked, the raising of Black Wall Street, the first this or that event be it scientists or doctor or 4 star general, and to the quasi superstitious fear of homosexuality as if homosexuality was always a learned behavior from acts such as “buck busting” where allegedly slave-owners systematically sodomized male slaves (a fear echoed in the black Mansophere but also within white stereotypes about effeminate black men or jailed black men in contrast to “capable” “law abiding” white men, yet also a fear within black femininity with their claim about the lack of black male partners either due to fear of homosexuality or feelings of being less desirable in relation to interracial dating or being “too dark skinned).
We can talk, talk, talk, but what we end up doing is ultimately airing dirty laundry that doesn’t need to be aired or isn’t worth our time anymore.
The social and qualitative sciences are easy.
Black people need hard sciences, patents, joint research, etc. Because, the thing about white culture (and this is anti-white), notably Germanic type of cultures is that they focus on self-reliance, i.e., this is why they wear camo, worship the outdoors, train with guns, and most Right-Wing discourse if passive dog-whistles about “preservation”, etc. It’s about capability. These skills aren’t alien to black people. Black people in the USA descend from rural self-reliance roots but urbanization largely outsourced these skills, but even before our ancestors landed on American soil, we were hunters, builders, etc.
IV.The Dalai Lama, NXIVM, Libya, Erik Prince, Roger Stone, Hillary, Benghazi, and Political Bias in Jeffrey Epstein Conspiracy Theories, etc.
So, the Dalai Lama is in trouble for kissing a child on the lips and then asking that child to continue with another disgusting act of…sucking his tongue. I have no words for it, I don’t understand what he was doing, etc.
I’ll let you think on that, but now that the Dalai Lama is back in the mainstream, I want to go back to previous “research” (reading articles) I did in the past about the Dali Lama, his entourage’s ties to the NXIVM sex cult, and how the NXIVM sex cult had odd ties to both Roger Stone of Trump but also the Benghazi Situation that occurred under Hillary Clinton before the fall of Libya.
First off, I like the United States, I love my country, I support the West, etc., but in a landscape of conspiracy theories and asymmetric warfare in an ever-growing Right-Wing reactionary world where such reactionaries are attempting to link atrocities like pedophilia explicitly with liberalism or left wing thought, it is best to call out oddities within the US/West otherwise silence means culpability and this culpability can be exploited by enemies, both domestic and foreign.
Sisters, Claire, and Sara Bronfman were higher ups in the NXIVM sex cults, with Sara Bronfman in 2009 reportedly having had a sexual relationship with Lama Tenzin Dhonden, an entourage (like a Cardinal to the Pope) of the Dalai Lama, who was also seen being cozy with now felon and ex-TV actress Alison Mack.
The Dalai Lama wrote the forward to a a book by NXIVM founder Keith Raniere titled, Sphinx & Thelxiepeia.
Sara Bronfman married Libyan-Swiss national Basit Igtet, who led the peace talks between government and rebel forces in Libya under the National Transitional Council as a special enjoy in 2011. It’s important to note that Libya is home to the Trans-African corridor which is an important smuggling and trafficking route, and it’s obvious that Swiss banks such as UBS and Credit Suisse have been involved in drug money, etc. According to Matthew Cole (2019) of The Intercept, stated that Erik Prince, the founder of the notorious mercenary firm Blackwater and a prominent Donald Trump supporter, aided a plot called Project Opus to move U.S.-made attack helicopters, weapons, and other military equipment from Jordan to a renegade commander fighting for control of war-torn Libya which violated the U.N. arms embargo for Libya. The mission included setting up a termination squad based on the elite U.S. Joint Special Operations Command model. Prince’s lawyer, Matthews Schwartz, denied Prince’s involvement. Also, the mission according to the UN report cost $80 million but no one knows the actual source, yet, the article by Cole (2019) speculates that it came from UAE.
A team of mercenaries planned to use the aircraft to help the commander, Khalifa Hifter, a U.S. citizen and former CIA asset, defeat Libya’s U.N.-recognized and U.S.-backed government (Cole, 2019, The Intercept). After the plot failed, Prince still eager to get Hiftner into power sent his minion Christiaan Durrant to meets with members of Trump’s National Security Council at an officer’s club near the White House (likely frequented by Pentagon members). They wanted Trump to help pressure Jordan to approve the arms deal because they claimed Russia was also bidding for Hiftner’s accession.
It is a theory but whoever owns the smuggling routes, controls black markets, and black markets are vital for intel, coopting shadowy figures to overthrow governments or do hits, etc. Libya is strategic important, has mineral resources, and is a coordinator for international drug trafficking including form Mexican Cartels. According to Vanda Felbab-Brown (2022) of The Brookings Institute, the collapse that followed the overthrow of the Muammar el-Qaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, and the subsequent civil war in the country and rise of assorted militias and warlords, provided both weapons and logistical assets for both criminal rackets and politically motivated violence across the Sahel.
Sara and Claire Bronfman are daughters of Edgar Bronfman, Sr., and brother to Edgar Bronfman, Jr., a former Warner Music executive. Edgard Bronfman, Sr., the former head of the Seagram Empire, who got his start in bootlegging, later become the president of the World Jewish Congress and an advocate for improving Russian and Israeli relations.
The Bronfman Family is related to the Morgenthau family just to name a few, where the Morgenthau Family produced Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the first Jewish American in the presidential line of successions who served as FDR’s Treasury Secretary, but also Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who was a career judge in the famous Southern District Court of New York where he oversaw major cases such as those investigating the BCCI Bank, a bank involved in the Iran Contra Case (which was investigated by Bob Mueller but overseen by John Kerry in Congressional hearings).
NXIVM to me like other cults with some loose plausibly deniable links to governments or NGOs was a “brothel” for the foreign dignitaries as a means of getting them to comply either willfully, or even possibly with coercion (sex entrapment as was the likely case with Jeffrey Epstein). Tibet for example is important in “capping” China because the West can call out any Chinese human rights abuses in the now annexed territory. It’s a strategy likely descended from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard strategy, i.e., whomever rules Central Asia in theory controls the world because Central Asia serves as spring broad between East (Asia) and West (Europe), North (Russia, Arctic), and South (Middle East), etc.
In regard to Roger Stone, according to Gillian Edevane (2018), the controversial political strategist confirmed to Newsweek that he worked as a lobbyist for the group, which was founded in 1998, for about two months in 2007. Stone said he audited one of the organization’s executive success workshops but was never officially enrolled, adding that he never saw anything that gave him reason to think NXIVM (pronounced “Nexium”) was involved in abuse. Even though Roger Stone led a sexually libertine lifestyle, I can’t say that he was involved with NXIVM as far as abuse, yet, as far as the world of conspiracy theory, conservatives will simply associate anyone they don’t like with conspiracies for simply having known someone.
Why aren’t conservatives for example amping up the fact that Trump knew Epstein and Trump knows Stone whereas Stone at some time and at some capacity, that will likely never know truly,
For example, on Twitter when speak about Jeffrey Epstein’s Island, but their list interestingly only includes Democrats, because this feeds into the Hollyweird, Pizza-Gate, Qanon eschatology. This partisan cooption of the moral virtue of fighting human trafficking and child abuse as a means of undermining your political enemies is not only morally low but realistically dangerous, because actual predators will simply adapt by pretending to be the anti-child abuse crusaders, and there’s plenty of mentally ill wannabe heroes who might hurt innocent people.
We all know that abuse can be done by anyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sex, orientation, assignment, age, religion, political affiliation, and it can be a stranger or from a person close to a victim.
If you get invited to some island that you hear is owned by some eccentric billionaire who has been donating to nerdy science projects, maybe you might have gone. People make it seems like Epstein was hosting science fairs while having underage strippers serving caviar. I’m pretty sure Epstein was some sort of intel asset or useful idiot who got adopted into the “game” by his ex-girlfriend’s, Ghislaine Maxwell, who dad, Robert Maxwell, was likely a spy involved in industrial trade secret theft. His island isn’t massive but I’m sure it’s not the size of a studio apartment. People make it seem like you simply get off a helicopter and it turns into a combination of a Scooby Doo mystery meets To Catch a Predator. Most people were probably like…this is a nice place, um, do I need to take my shoes off? Jeffrey gave them some slippers, Avian water, and then tried to steal his guest’s cellphone records or credit card information, etc.
A further irony about those trying to make the Epstein case a political partisan issue, is that conspiracy theory is a form of “wokeness” in the worst sense of the world. It has turned everyone into a know-it-all who barely does any research themselves, but by talking about Epstein all the time it’s an easy way to “seem based” without fully understanding all the facts, since we don’t have all the facts.
V. Alex Jones, Clarence Thomas, and Harlon Crow. Where’s the Bohemian Grove Outrage?
So, Alex Jones way back supposedly snuck into Bohemian Grove. We all know that Alex Jones in recent decades has been a Right-Wing conspiracy theorist. His blabber seems like pure nonsense with some facts sprinkled in, so the facts stick making him seem aware, but his blabber could be argued as a type of subliminal mind game. Yet, Alex with his Bohemian Grove or Bilderberg Group videos made him very popular. Yet, fast-forward, Clarence Thomas is in hot water for getting personal gifts from right-wing megadonor Harlon Crow. Crow is a member of Bohemian Grove. So, since Thomas is in the ecosystem of Trump, and Crow a close friend to Thomas…why isn’t Alex Jones talking about the Bohemian Grove ties? Seems like Jones uses conspiracy as a weapon to shape the world in the image he wants, or his powerful Right-Wing friends. Joe Rogan talked about Bohemian Grove, but I wonder what are his thoughts on Conservative Justice Thomas who is siding with the everygrowing Christian Nationalist movement having a donor who is a member of Bohemian Grove.
VI. Can we stop bullying trans or queer people? A Remembrance of the film Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie!
The more hate that keeps falling on Trans or queer people, the more I support them. If anything, Republicans with their dark age woogedy boogedy paranoia about LGBTQ people makes me want to support them more, which I figure isn’t what conservatives want. The sheer amount of focus and talks that conservatives have about LGBTQ people first makes me numb in a world that it is already numbing, but it also makes me build humanist connections with LGBTQ people because they are living in fear, do not have equal rights, etc.
I used to be very homophobic because I was raised to be that way because everyone in the 1980s through early 2000s was. But I can’t even remember feeling homophobic because it was hatred. I’m tired of “manly men” pretending to hate gay people as if we need that to be real men. It’s super childish, super middle school, etc. Honestly, I’m just not phased by the personal lives or sexuality of LGBTQ people.
First off, my mind can’t fully process it, because I am attracted to femininity, so it’s odd to me the people who obsess over gay people because that fear does mean a person is thinking on it more than they’d like to admit.
Also, I see no issue if a person wants to transition their sex or gender. We were likely around Trans people but never knew. I suspect most Trans people want to be left alone. I’m also tired of people thinking that being Trans means that you are a predator when most of our modern prolific groomers or criminals have been cisgender people. Also, when it comes to Drag, it is an artform. It may not be an artform that I gravitate towards, but the funny thing is drag is very popular in the South. Many Republican MAGA women I remember would often go to Drag shows for bachelorette parties.
I remember as a kid watching the movie Too Wong Foo with Wesley Snipes, John Leguizamo, and Patrick Swayze, and I didn’t become gay, I don’t wear makeup. If anything, my childhood innocence probably made me see them as people.
VII. The slight issues with entrepreneurs and the digital bourgeoisie and their understandings of socialism
Entrepreneurs worship and yell from the bullhorn about the sanctity of capitalism, but they are often only exploiting themselves or at a minimum a small team of people. And, this is “fine”, because in theory there’s less people, personal relations develop, and labor isn’t as compartmentalized where workers can’t see the results of their work, but most importantly, if ran by a good leader with a sustainable profit model, small teams can pay adequately to live on and pursue happiness.
We live in a world of the “digital bourgeoisie”, i.e., a new class of new money from YouTube, OnlyFans, Twitch streamers, buying the dip in our cyclical stock markets, Bitcoin bros, etc.
These people I notice, typically those on YouTube often praise capitalism, yet…even though they have money they are really exploiting themselves, whereas CEOs of corporations or large businesses are exploiting large groups of people. The end up supporting a system that has exploited the masses in many ways, but they are too self-obsessed about their own personal wealth.
Since entrepreneurs are exploiting themselves, they are entitled to their profits, yet, of course like everyone else they are eligible to pay a tax of some form, i.e., throw into the pot. An artist, music producer, sex worker, musician, barber, etc., aren’t really exploiting anyone but themselves, whereas an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos are sitting atop massive industries, bossing others around, underpaying their essential workers, busting unions, etc., while controlling thousands if not tens of thousands of workers. So, yes, they deserve to be subject to “socialism”, i.e., either higher tax, allowing unions, worker representation on corporate boards, etc. CEOs like Musk, Bezos, Gates, etc., are essentially given power because they came up with an idea, yet it’s the workers who make those ideas into reality because they have the core competencies within division-of-labor to do so. If Bill Gates was making every version of Windows in his garage, the product had good quality, then sure he deserves to keep the vast majority, i.e., the lions share. If, Jeff Bezos was delivering every package, then sure he gets to keep his lions share. But, it’s not that. Rather, it’s a modern “more humane” version of feudalism, where the notion of an idea, i.e., patents, intellectual property, etc., are considered “things” like property, where simply because you come up with an idea you are entitled to the lions share because your workers are essentially just serfs getting protection living off your “idea”.
But, are you entitled to profit from your own ideas? Sure. But I feel up to a certain point. For example, I think it is unfair to tax out of existence small businesses or newly created ones, and small businesses are required to make tough decisions because they don’t have the leverage, scale, legal clout, etc., that larger businesses do. Yet, even though I think owners/creators are entitled to their profits in their developmental/early profitable years and should be allowed to make tough decisions on their quest towards reaching profitability, once they achieve profitability, then at it comes required to sharing the wealth and power, even if something as simple as employee voting on a small scale, or mass unionization for large corporations, etc. Yet, many businesses might simply operate a constant loss so owners retain power, yet, this could be fixed by requiring business plans about how they intend to become profitable (factoring in market conditions they don’t control), and if plans aren’t met, then either more taxes are levied or more employee ownership is initiated.
But as to not get too lost in a theoretical system, for now, let’s stay on track of focusing on the slight issues with entrepreneurs.
As entrepreneurs cheerlead for capitalism as is, they are often getting in the way of important conversations that help understand the complex structures and negatives of “systemic capitalism” where in the modern world it is largely managed via corporatism. Their debates against leftist be they true leftists under ideas such as Socialism, or left-leaning liberals (e.g., welfare capitalism, culturally inclusive capitalists, etc.), often ends up being as utopian sounding as how they claim socialism sounds utopian. The will of the individualist, enlightened man on his quest to be Marcus Aurelius Stoic, Sun Tzu Art of War reading, Rules of Power espousing, meets Nietzschean Übermensch.
As they argue for unfettered capitalism from their positions as individual entrepreneurs, on their quest to cut government as a means of saving taxes, they rarely stare at what’s going on behind the scenes. They are selling the meal, but not telling us the lips, dicks, and assholes that are in the sausage, or the child labor, or the toxic dumping, or how lobbyists lobby to keep things illegal because it’s more profitable to keep certain things illegal, etc., for example, private prisons not wanting drug reform.
The criticisms of capitalism do not necessarily fall on the productive individual exploiting themselves but rather the individual who exploits the masses and while also including a criticism of systemic capitalism, i.e., a system of multiple complexes (the synthesis of state and industry specific businesses where corporate profits ultimately buys government) where capitalism is the internal logos (brain) of everything and in which capitalism pervades every aspect of life.
Capitalism as famously quoted elsewhere has convinced us there is no other system.
Entrepreneurs as they talk about hustle culture, grinding, the virtues of homo economicus, etc., end up diverting our attention away from the systemic impacts of capitalism, i.e., the polluted supply chain, the fact that it’s not profitable to…fix or maintain things, etc.
Socialism before you jump steps and land on your idea of what you think socialism is, which are likely Marxist-Leninist variants such as Stalinism, Maoism, Castro-ism, etc., i.e., authoritarian cult-of-personality based communism, we need to understand that ultimately and most simply is that socialism, which precedes communism (a type of socialism) is about labor relations.
It is about your individual relation to a boss, owner, or employer and the spread or ratio of who keeps profits in the end. Communism, a type of socialism, seeks to have the workers own the means of production as a means of alleviating wealth disparity, since profits are ultimately fueled by wage-theft (underpaying) or by replacing human labor with technology, while still requiring the working classes to pay to…essentially live, e.g., pay rents to private landlords, etc.
Socialism is a broad umbrella term encompassing various theories, ideas, systems, etc. Socialism is the overarching idea, while Communism is a specific type of socialism, Marxism of Marx and Engels is a specific analysis method towards achieving Communism, Leninism is a specific nation-based experiment of Marxism creating Marxist Leninism, etc. You can be a socialist but not a communist, such as an anarchist. You can also be a socialist who likes parts of Marx but not all his conclusions such as the Reformism or Revisionist Socialists such as the Fabian Society, etc. Orthodox Marxist often feel they are only true framework of “scientific socialism”, because any other form is too appeasing towards liberalism, i.e., individualism, private property, etc.
II. How does fraud happen, without it really “happening”?
III. Boring, Boring, Boring
IV. Basics I.
V. Basics II.
VI. Basics III.
VII. Basics IV.
VIII. Basics V.
IX. Some applicable laws
I. (a). Introduction into the Military Complex
Today, as of 14 March 2023, President Biden suggested his upcoming military budget of $886 Billion dollars. As a veteran (no Rambo) who served myself, an Army brat (ex-military dependent), and having worked for a contractor I can assure you that nothing makes sense, while simultaneously making total sense at the same time regarding the budget. At this point, the US spends so much on the military not because the military is “pound per pound” more efficient as compared to other combatant nations (I only shot a gun once in basic training and not while on active duty), but rather it is mostly a vestige of the World War II Military Complex that was established under FDR, with roots dating back as early as the Lincoln and Grant during and after the Civil War.
It’s basically a Keynesian “demand side economics” jobs program paid for with a mix of taxes, but mostly debt, where the United States can’t escape the addiction because to escape the addiction means to end the Empire, because a contraction is more of a sign to other nations, and signs in a world of image is everything.
For example, have you ever been to Lima, Ohio? No? I haven’t. Exactly. But, guess what, the Lima Army Tank Plant is there. The military complex is everywhere. It’s not simply Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, Saab, Leonardo Spa, Textron, etc., but a web of medium size or small vendors ranging from janitorial services, food vendors, laundry services, mail services (Pitney Bowes), cafeteria vendors (US Foods, Sodexho, etc.), universities who perform testing services, even entertainment via MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Readiness) which is were Hollywood comes into play. Coca-Cola is a military contractor. That seemingly boring office park you see might be full of contractors doing everything for sensitive document disposal, to architectural designs, to urinalysis testing, etc.
It’s everywhere.
In other words, we can’t stop upping the annual military budget because so much of our domestic economy is dependent upon it, as well as our international foreign policy which entails selling our technical expertise to our allies, who in return give us access to their airspace, land, and ports, but also purchases (props up) our debts by buying Treasuries, not debating the petrodollar scheme, etc. We are stuck as the “world’s mercenaries” who provide the best “science fair” productions, i.e., weapon systems.
I. (b). America’s faltering foreign policy
The interesting thing is that the United States is giving up these weapon systems to nations who are playing their own “Games of Thrones” such as Saudi Arabia, i.e., the home of the 9/11 hijackers or Israel, where Israel I would argue has capture US foreign policy, such as preventing the United States from engaging in direct diplomacy, which would theoretically cut China off from Europe since Iran is a land land-bridge connecting China via Pakistan, especially now that the United States is not in Afghanistan, which is Catch 22, because if we staying in Afghanistan we would be spending just as much money/endangering American lives in a nation incapable of being “reformed”. Yet, by leaving Afghanistan, which I hate to admit, per the theory of Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard the United States is essentially a sideline player, because per the theory of Brzezinski, whomever controls the Central Asian Steppes effectively cuts the world in half, thus “ruling the world”, i.e., the pivot point or bulkhead between West and East.
The irony is that Israel has its own ties with China, so even if the USA is bumped out of “important conversations” (as seen by a growing number of UN votes in China’s favor), the Israelis still can jump to their new “boyfriend” with the Chinese and Russia, etc. China will therefore simply replace the USA as the arbiter of peace negotiations with them financing the Muslim world but the Israelis wanting the lucrative Chinese market to sell their expertise (ironically, partially funded by US joint ventures in the Silicon Wadi for example).
Disclaimer: My opinions on Israel are not meant to be misconstrued as antisemitic because I want Israel to exist, but Netanyahu has been a bane to America’s existence. The Jews deserve to be back in the Holy Land, even though we can of course disagree on the current state of Israeli and Palestinian relations.
The United States toppled Saddam in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya, nearly took out Assad in Syria, and even disable Iran’s alleged nuclear program with the Stuxtnet Program (where General James Cartwright mysteriously being given the “David Petraeus” Treatment, i.e., accused of sexual misconduct as a means of getting rid of him), but it is still not enough for Israel. At this point, why doesn’t the US have a military base in Israel if we are so needed to kill off Israel’s enemies, which is basically elements within each Muslim and even Christian nation on Earth – let’s be real.
I. (c). Corruption Examples
Yet, it is easy to say the federal government is corrupt regarding contracting such as with the Military Industrial Complex (trust me, I get the frustration). First, let’s define contracting as the process of dealing with contractors/vendors/merchants, i.e., the process of conducting acquisitions, buying, purchasing, etc.. But getting “no bid contracts” without following any rules is possible but harder than expected, luckily thanks to whistleblower protection laws. Basically, if you are stupid enough to defraud at the federal level you deserve what comes to you because it is scary to do contracting for the Federal government.
The stereotype of corrupt politicians meeting at fancy DC steakhouses where you can get cigars and high paid escorts. But, does this happen? I don’t know; however, I would argue that corrupt contracting/procurement/acquisition/buying practices happens at lower levels of government, e.g., cousin Jedediah with the city purchasing card giving an award for parks and recreation clean up to his niece’s fiancé, or the Brett Farve situation in Mississippi where he was tapping into welfare funds. It is much easier to get away with corrupt contracting practices at local municipal and city government levels because of lack of centralized oversight, which is the same reason America’s policing policies have so many issues, i.e., there’s a separation of federal and state, so local governments are largely shielded from oversight unless they break federal law, i.e., mail or wire fraud, tax evasion, violations of intersection commerce, etc.
However, the federal government has arrested my Contracting Officers for abusing their powers such as the process of getting Kickbacks. I would say that corruption at the federal level happens outside the actual procurement process most of the time but rather during the vendor selection process, particularly no major weapon system programs, i.e., your major international tradeshow and airshow levels.
I. (d). America’s Military Recruitment Problem
America is allegedly undergoing a military requirement problem and I call it baloney. I don’t believe it. The Pentagon which essentially is a hive mind that calculates manpower and strategy, created this supposed problem by doing aggressive “force reductions” even before our withdrawal from Afghanistan. When I served, they let people leave the military before their Military Service Obligations (MSO). The US military thinks an updated version of “Be All you Can be” from our Cold War childhoods will somehow solve this “problem”. Let prior service members join, as well as expand the Reserves and National Guard.
The military has bad recruitment practices. Why are we still asking recruits or pre-service re-entries about marijuana usage when most US states now have it legal, as well our Canadian allies to the north (including for active duty)?
The military literally still asks about something we all know most people do, but if you lie, you’re breaking the law, but if you tell the truth, you need waivers which go on your record. It’s foolish. The military is still asking about marijuana use, yet there is no way of screening for sexual predators based on a questionnaire, which is way worst, e.g., remember the Venessa Guillen case, which is just one case of violence against women that got major media coverage [See: Murder of Vanessa Guillén – Wikipedia].
Further, most jobs in the military I would argue don’t feel like “warriors”, but rather paper pushers or administrators dealing with NCOs and officers who have a culture of “let the sh-t roll downhill”.
I shot a gun once in 4 years, but ironically the military budget is going up. It makes no sense. How are we going to call Airmen, “Airmen”, for example, when most never even ride on a military aircraft (think a C-130 Hercules) such as for trainings to simulate deployments or even being a part of an airborne mission, e.g., doing translation work or Air Battle Manager work on an actual plane for training?
The Taliban and Vietcong did warfare without nearly as much spending as the Americans, and still gave us hell. Instead of saying we’re at a lack of manpower, we need to empower those already in, those in the reserves/National Guard, and even Inactive Ready Reservists to feel like…warriors. I would argue that small NATO nations have more lethal troops as a percentage than the US military does. US Special Forces is a very small community and aviator jobs flying expensive aircraft are reserved for the officer class, with some exceptions for Warrant Officers and enlisted positions. The United States Air Force doesn’t even have a Warrant Officer tier meaning that skilled NCOs are eventually relegated to administrative jobs as opposed to staying has seasoned experts.
The sad truth in my opinion is that people don’t do twenty years because of “patriotism” but because the military provides benefits. There are people getting pensions for 20 years who never saw combat, versus people who saw combat but got out, and their VA compensation may not be as lucrative.
It’s just simply easier to do “raises” rather than to do structural reform in the US military.
II. How does fraud happen, without it really “happening”?
But they get away with the actual procurement via the “evaluation process”, where you can’t buy quality always at the “Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable”, i.e., the lowest price as determined by a competitive acquisition where multiple vendors compete in a “sealed bid” type of process, and where the winning bid feels the criteria of a Statement of Work (SOW) or Statement of Objectives (SOO).
In other words, they know that the big players will always win. So, they are playing by the rules, but the rules of the game are rigged for the big guys, since they are often evaluation on criteria outside of price via “Best Value” Source Selection evaluation criteria such as Past Performance (they’ve done it before), Technical Expertise, the best and most advantageous Warranty, Financial health, etc. Yet, the government does require that contracts comply with Small Business Administration requirements thus ensuring that the “little guy” is looked out for, yet, on certain important requirements, these firms simply can’t compete.
I would not say that federal government is corrupt per se, but rather it’s the equivalent of a Cohen Brother’s movie, i.e., a sort of Burn After Reading, Lost in Translation, Kafka-esque process, where the sheer size of the federal government with its various branches, departments, agencies, federal corporations, etc., are all speaking the same language but via different dialects. Sometimes you get corruption, sure, but mostly higher costs come from sloppy contracting or exhaustion from burdensome processes or cultures of fear within organizations where people are “afraid to raise their hands” for fear of being perceived an “inept” or making a small fire into a large fire.
III. Boring, Boring, Boring
Buying in the federal government is boring and burdensome, but this is a good thing because the slower you go the more likely you are to find errors or to have better bargaining power against suppliers who may want quick awards. Yet, buyers aren’t truly “empowered”. For example, let’s say you have a competition for a fleet of Jeeps for the Secret Service. You compete against five (5) dealerships, where some are registered small businesses, meaning you are sharing the love. You provide a Statement of Work with all the specifications you require, and you have also received questions from various dealerships. You then share these clarifications with all parties so no one has an advantage over the other. You eventually get the quotes back, you share them with the end users who sign off whether they meet the specifications or not, you disqualify some, but you land at the LPTA.
The thing is after you come to the LPTA, sure, you can still negotiate and ask for discounts, but you can’t make the suppliers fight against each other. For example, you go back to the second lowest LPTA and say, “Can you beat $x price”. The second may come back and say sure I can do that or, I can’t meet the price point, but I can give you a two-year warranty as opposed to a 6-month warranty as defined by your specification, and this is better than anything we give to civilian customers (you verify this is true). Or, let’s say the second LPTA comes back with a lower price. You can’t then say to both remaining competent vendors, “This is the last round. Can you beat $x price”, i.e., assuming $x price is the second LPTA. In theory both might go lower, or one might say, “Hey I can’t meet that price”, but at least the buyer would know that he left it all on the field for the benefit of the taxpayer.
You essentially can’t “haggle” like you can in the real world.
IV. Basics I.
The basis of federal contracting is the Federal Acquisition Regulation, but the certain agencies have their own specific supplements to the FAR, for example, you have the FAR, the DFARs (Defense Acquisition Regulation), the AFFARs (the Air Force Acquisition Regulations), etc. Further, if the government is awarding a federally funded taxpayer contract to contractor, who can thereon have its own various subcontractors, the government will require these businesses include “flow-downs”, i.e., certain selected FAR based clauses to be applied into their contracts, which are uniquely selected by the Contracting Officer.
The Contracting Officer (CO) may be one of the most powerful positions you have never heard of, but there’s offices full of them throughout the various agencies and departments. From NASA to the Department of Education, FEMA, the Treasury Department, etc., you have COs.
A CO will likely run their own contract, but in more complex acquisitions you may have a PCO, ACO, or TCO, i.e., a Procurement Contracting Officer, Administrating Contracting Officer, and Termination Contracting Officer.
A CO is granted their authority through delegation of the Executive, i.e., the President, like how a military office is granted their commission by the President. Of course, you never meet the president, but the theory is that all government workers are effectively extensions of the Executive who delegates explicit and implied authority to his workers in the various administrative agencies.
V. Basics II.
Prospective COs on behalf whichever Department they will be working for will takes courses as assigned by an Acquisition Career Manager (like a counselor) from accredited federal bodies such as the Federal Acquisitions Institute (FAI) which is for all federal agencies (except the DOD), which therefore technically falls under the General Services Administration (GSA), or the DAU (Defense Acquisition University) for DOD members, where the DAU trains COs to be in alignment with agencies such as the DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency) and DCAA (Defense Contracting Auditing Agency). [See: FAI Home | FAI.GOV; DAU Home]
After training, career development courses (CDCs), etc., a person will get their certification such as the FAC-C (Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting) Level I-III series from the FAI or an APDP (Acquisition Professional Development Program) Level I-III from the DAU.
Once a person becomes a CO, they will be awarded a Warrant, i.e., a Delegation of Authority, which states up to what level of money they are authorized to spend by themselves. Newer buyers of course start low while more seasoned buyers may have multi-million dollar or unlimited warrants. For example, in active-duty military a Contracting Squadron commander might have a very high dollar warrant even though they don’t deal with contracting directly, but rather high-level government-civilian workers or enlisted personnel (the technical experts) do the actual contracting process. Essentially, the commander might serve as the final stamp and oversight, but not really involved in all the details, even though they are being briefed on “hot requirements” which have higher level visibility.
All contracts entered by the federal government are input into the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) which also falls under General Services Administration (GSA) – think of GSA as the “Amazon of the Federal Government. [See: Federal Procurement Data System – Wikipedia]
VII. Basics IV.
So, when a buyer is buying something they to think about the Bona Fid Needs Rule which means that a federal procurement must be for an actual and immediate/foreseeable need, i.e., you can’t spend money necessarily on things because you feel a need, but rather there has to be an actual need; Misappropriation Act which requires that buyers use the correct “Color of Money” when buying something. Finance Departments help with this by coding “Lines of Accounting” with the proper pool of funds, fiscal year, location, etc.; the Anti-deficiency Act of 1982 which is asking “Do you actually have money”, and you can’t spend more than you are given.
Funding is also dependent upon the Federal government’s fiscal calendar which ends every 30th of September and begins every 1st of October. In theory, how it works, (I am assuming here) that by 15th April is when taxes are due, but between then and Oct 1st, I would assume that the Treasury sees how much “liquid cash” it can collect and how much debt it needs to underwrites, and for the debt it underwrites (Treasuries) then get sold at “auctions” with most purchased by the central bank to “insure” the “printing” of new money if necessary, then from there we have a fresh sources of cash comprised of a bundle of tax money and money printed (new debt), to be spent, i.e., recycled within the system – thus giving that currency “life” – to keep the next year going. When Treasuries mature, the Treasury then pays the Federal Reserve which helps the Fed Reserve clear the bonds off its balance sheet, if necessary, if the Fed Reserve hasn’t already sold them for profit elsewhere, i.e., such as to other central banks, mutual funds, etc.
The government is very strict about not crossing fiscal years because after each year expires, the appropriate funds are returned to Congress. Three questions of do you have funds?, and are you using the right bucket of money?, and is the need immediate? For multi-year contracts that span multiple fiscal years, contracts are designed to have “options” (think of it like a sports contract), e.g., Base Plus Three means you have a base year with three potential option years (where proposals are evaluated en masse prior to award), where Procurement Offices will either exercise or not exercise an upcoming year by notifying a supplier within an agreed upon time-frame. Once October 1st comes, the Contracting Officer will issue a modification to add the new years money, etc.
VIII. Basics V.
Once the buyer establishes these criteria, then it’s about how do you buy? Technically an RFQ is different than a RFP, i.e., Request for Quote versus Request for Proposal, where an RFP will fall under FAR 15 for Source Selection (higher dollar PO’s – purchase orders, typically services, where there’s complex evaluation criteria, including the possibility of needing a Source Selection Board), whereas an RFQ will fall under FAR Part 13 for Simplified Acquisition Procedures, i.e., falling under the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (varies from year to year sometimes).
A construction-based Invitation for Bid (IFB) will fall under FAR Part 14 relating to the Sealed Bidding process. Further, FAR 8 relates to Mandatory Sources of Supply which establishes the order of precedence for which to by from, with the first source of supply technically being Agency Inventories, i.e., if the Army has extra desks, then technically the USAF should be getting those; however, no one really follows this and instead agencies go with other sources, such as General Services Administration, Federal Prison Industries (now called Unicor), Ability One (a successor to the National Institute for the Blind and Severely Handicapped, i.e., NIB NISH), and then General Service Administration schedules found on sites such as GSA e-Buy, GSA Advantage, etc.
Then if you can’t find your items or services via these services then you can go into the “marketplace” by position a notice, solicitation, or combination of both (FAR Part 13) via the Government Point of Entry (GPE), i.e., Federal Business Opportunities.
Oral quotes are often looked down upon, but simple acquisitions can include all solicitation details in an email, where as more complex acquisitions require forms such as SF 1442 (construction) or SF 1449s (commodities and services).
For suppliers to get access to federal bids they need to register for codes such as NAICS Codes (North American Industrial Classification Standards) which determines what type of industry they truly fall into, CAGE (Contractor and/or Commercial and Government Entity codes), Federal Supply Codes (FSC), PSC (Product Supply Codes), etc.
Davis Bacon Act of 1931 which relates to federal construction contracts to ensure workers are being paid fair “prevailing” “at a minimum” wages [See: Davis–Bacon Act of 1931 – Wikipedia]
The Miller Act of 1935 which requires contractors doing construction to government real property post surety bonds, i.e., bonds which allows a party to seek damages in the event of nonperformance, to insure they can finish projects (performance bonds) and pay workers and subcontractors (payment bonds), etc. [See: Miller Act – Wikipedia]
The Barry Amendment of 1941 which requires certain sources be sourced (shopped for) from domestic sources only [See: Berry Amendment – Wikipedia]
The Brooks Act of 1972 which requires that Architecture and Engineering services be based on quality, expertise, design, etc., and not price. A&E contracts come before construction which will then fall thereafter to Davis Bacon, Miller Act, etc. [See: Brooks Act – Wikipedia]
False Claims Act, which prevents contractors from submitting false claims for damages against the Federal government, i.e., think Medicare Fraud by shady Florida doctors, etc. [See: False Claims Act – Wikipedia]
Support for or against the Ukraine War is diverse. It’s not a simple case of “Ukrainian Nazis” versus “Russian National Bolshevik…Nazis”. There are anti-war sides within both nations, with some Russians fleeing the United States to get away from the drafts, but there is also anti-war sentiment within nations that fall under each of the combatant nation’s hegemonic sphere of influence, i.e., you may have anti-war sentiment in the land-locked Steppe (-stan) nations more aligned – either willingly or out of fear – to Russia because they may be more vulnerable to inflationary pressure and high commodity prices such as on oil or grain, just as you have anti-war voices within the developed West such England or Canada. But, there’s also pro-war sides on both, yet these pro-war sides might be coming from hard ethno-nationalism, whereas others are coming from a general sense of national pride (patriotism for the idea of the state, not necessary fully dependent upon one’s blood or ancestry). Yet, there is also a mix of both, i.e., those who support fighting for whichever side yet wanting some sort of truce to come sooner than later. Then you have those who are indifferent to the conflict since it seems so far away.
In our world of social media from YouTube video essayists, to known actors or unknown actors on platforms like Twitter or Meta (Facebook), it is hard to get a clear picture. Technology and the general state of evolution in which we live is best defined en masse as the “postmodern epoch”, and this epoch is not political, but rather a landscape where it is hard distinguish real from fake, i.e., the Jean Baudrillard concept of the Simulacra and Simulation, i.e., when hyperreality produced from the state-subsidized capitalist, technological, and pop culture machine becomes indistinguishable from the physical world, where culture may or may not mutate into spliced anachronisms of style, symbols (semiotics), and iconography.
Yet, so as not to get too lost in discussions of postmodernity, many thinkers argued that postmodernity was dead and should stay dead, but as we’re seeing now, it is not dead, but rather we live in a world that physically allows us to experience it. This is not the 1960s through 1980s where most postmodernity was understood through literature, fiction, science fiction, and film, as a fun “thought experiment” or transgressive look into human nature, but we now have the actual tools they could only dream of, e.g., deep fakes, social media, avatars, the metaverse, Virtual Reality companions, cybercrime, “techno-terrorism” and espionage, etc. The worlds of William Gibson, Thomas Pynchon, Orson Scott Card, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, Robert Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick, seem real, palpable., and the effects of this lingering postmodernity – which is not innately bad since it is essentially a tool or lens to analyze society if done with caution and for the right purposes, i.e., analyzing systems of oppression to establish humanist reform – is that it is affecting…warfare. The modern battlefield where tactics are executed, to the think tanks and closed door “FOUO” “Top Secret” meetings where strategy is formulated, the modern world must factor in topics like memetic warfare, co-opted YouTubers whose main “patrons” are foreign governments, etc.
Hence, everything is fuzzy. And, a little depressing. It is easy to just want to watch streaming apps, watch porn, get drunk, and go through the motions of work as we penny pinch our wallets to pay our bills. It is easy to see Ukraine as a waste of time, but Ukraine represents in part the sustainment of the American Way of Life, while also the freedom of Ukraine. Think of it like concept of the universe expanding. There needs to be some sort of expansion to maintain relevancy, because the worse option, i.e., contraction, is terrifying, i.e., it’s better to have never-ending expansion, than a violent Big Crunch (i.e., just think about the fall of the British Empire). Complaining about returning to the old days and how younger generations are “soft” aren’t productive, because they did not set this train of events in motion.
II. The Factions:
Regarding the Ukraine War based my personal observations the below camps exist:
(1) The Dove “Down with the Man” Anti-NATO Left which encompasses figures such as Max Blumenthal, Andrew Mate, Jackson Hinkle, Katie Halper, Matt Taibbi [who is of Russian descent], Jimmy Dore – who often seems more comfortable with Tucker Carlson – similarly as Tulsi Gabbard, etc. This camp is often influenced by Noam Chomsky with Manufacturing Consent, Michael Parenti with To Kill a Nation, John Perkins with Confessions of an Economic Hitman, etc. Yet, as far as individuals there are a range of ideologies spanning from Marxist-Leninist Communists (i.e., called Tankies), other variants of Communists that may not entirely agree with Marxist ideology (think Rosa Luxemburg), Anarcho-Socialists – some may even say “Libertarian Socialists”, Democratic Socialists, Social Democrats, Centre-Left Liberals (i.e., traditional American Democrats or British Liberal Democrats), etc., with all claiming to some degree – at least in the USA to be “Progressive”.
Yet, conservatives on the right wing, indifferent to providing any nuance to the Left, often lumps everyone as “progressives” while insinuating all progressives are communists., and to be fair, the Left does this often to the right-wing labeling all people as “Fascists”, yet, I would argue that Right Wing politics typically is more “lockstep” cohesive, often because as far as the West it represents the “colonial and/or imperial class”, i.e., the right-leaning predominately white majority (e.g., the Republican Party as far as policy and aesthetics derives it mythology from American settlers, i.e., Manifest Destiny, White Zionism, “Home on the Range”, etc., while British conservatives are nostalgic for the British “Queen Jubilee” Imperium of Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian England). For example, the American “Redneck”, South African Boer, Australian “Bogan”, Canadian “prairie homesteader”, etc., are all essentially the same thing, i.e., the white racial buffer class to the white colonial elite.
This Dovish Left side of the house has merit traditionally speaking, such as calling out the Bush Administration with the Global War on Terrorism, the Patriot Act, FISA Court warrants, and has supported freedom for Julian Assange (some say he’s a Russian asset), Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden – with Snowden having fled to Russia.
But there is also a “counterculture” aspect with intersections that can easily bleed into conspiracy theory, e.g., the “con-spiritualist” scene, i.e., green and healthy living mixed with Ancient Alien or Antediluvian theories, Gaia Theory, Wiccan or Heathen thought, and the anti-vaccine theories such as those Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who instantly invokes conspiracies about the assassinations of his father and his uncle, JFK, which typically leads to theories about the mafia, CIA, Allen Dulles, etc.).
The utopian ideals of the “hippie Left” though honorable and good intentioned does not have a coherent foreign policy and often in its utopianism, often lacking constant effort and work by its adherents (protesting, yes, but with the boring, consistent, and dirty work such as volunteering, the results are iffy).
This dilemma often sets the Left up to be blamed for society’s ills, e.g., how Fox News is blaming homelessness caused by narcoterrorism from Mexican Cartels and Chinese Chemicals on anti-fascists who protested police during the BLM protests, or how conservatives blame crime rates on the Left despite police officers still collecting paychecks and pensions (and, with no actual federal level police reform bill passed).
“Peace, man…” or being a know-it-all on America’s follies is not a coherent foreign policy, considering many of the countries this Leftist side stands up for as they decry American Imperialism are often funding hostile activities towards Americans, and might have cultures that are not open to progressivism. This side of the house has a tendency to blanketly blame the CIA and USA for all the ills of the world (they are no saints), yet, the Left needs to understand that many friends and foes respect realpolitik, strength through force, etc.
This “far out” conspiracy culture, which is fun to engage in from time to time, seems to have been co-opted by America’s enemies, and merged with the right-wing to undermine America (a flanking strategy of left and right).
To finish up on the “Dove Left”, notably about the “Tankies” I spoke about above, they have this idea that Russia is still this romanticized worker’s republic of the Soviets. I would rather deal with the Soviets than Putin’s Right-Wing Russia where his neoliberal reforms have resulted in rampant corruption and wealth disparity.
Instagram for example has very interesting pages about life in the Soviet Union, brutalist architectural pages, pages dedicated to Soviet cosmonauts, etc. Yet, the Tankies are the byproduct of being disenchanted with the avarice of boom-and-bust cycle capitalism and billionaires like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, etc., with this mood having spilled over from the 2008 Financial Crash and the decade long recession thereafter.
Socialism is popular now, and I don’t mind that in theory at all, because it offers a good analysis about how our system works and how to improve it. Socialism is popular largely because the US educational system bent on creating capitalists didn’t fully explain the true and complex history of it, but rather demonized it fully. Conservatives for example use to call centrists Democrats, as being Communists, which is ridiculous, so, well, you get what you ask for.
Yet, regarding Ukraine, some Tankies side with Russia out of some foregone nostalgia, where most were not even alive when the USSR was around. I’m almost 40 years old (born an Army brat) and I barely remember the Cold War as it came to an end in the late 1980s. The problem with American Tankies is they are relying on a foreign source to define their ideology instead of looking internally to previous American Left Wing movements, i.e., it is OK to be a Communist if that is your persuasion but it is OK to also be patriotic because one would think that adhering to such a drastic ideology would hopefully be for…love on one’s county, and not merely the destruction it because its “imperialist”, and the CIA is “boogeyman, bad”.
I, as a black man have every reason to be angry at the US but America is in my blood and I’d rather define it and improve it rather than tear it down.
Even if one thinks that nation-states are bad, as if they are some sort of internationalist Trotskyite, then at least focus on your backyard before thinking about saving the world in full.
The next group with opinions about Ukraine is…
(2) The predominately white demographic, fear based Pro-Russia camp that is also anti-NATO, anti-CIA. This is a surprising shift because they use to be about both but now with their “racial replacement fear” they are against it because they see NATO as a reason for refugees, etc. These types of Right Wingers are a mix of conspiracy culture ranging from the Great Replacement, allegedly via plans such as Kalegri Plan to replace white Europeans by “flooding” the Northern hemisphere with people from the Southern Hemisphere – which is a theory embroiled in white privilege thinking considering the West and USA needed immigration to keep growing and immigrants do the jobs that the elevated the white “native populations” from poverty and since these “nativists” won’t downsize to lower wage job, for fear of losing the fancier things in life. But, now suddenly, they wish to reject those fancier things (allegedly), returning to some sort of “Indo-European, cough – Aryan” culture (German paganism, etc.) or medieval monarchism after spending decades gloating about their fancier things/superior civilization at the expense of other cultures. This is to say the least, hypocritical.
Sure, rampant or emergency based refugee crises or immigration isn’t ideal or comfortable, and certain cultures may have issues such as Sharia Islam in relation to Western secularism. However, instead of hate, there needs to be bridges. If one’s idea is better, supposedly, then sell that idea. I am a firm believer in the Melting Pot theory as opposed to multiculturalism.
Further, there is the Great Reset Theory which is from people interpreting thinkers like Alvin Toffler with his book The Third Wave, the book The Fourth Industrial Revolution by the World Economic Forum founder, etc., where people believe a the New World Order is using “shock doctrine” (the topic of a book by the same name by Naomi Klein), “manufactured austerity”, “merging genders”, “transhumanism”, and biological warfare – such as the Coronavirus 19 – to “terraform” the world into a one-world, integrated, genetically modified, and borderless system ruled by a powerful elite using digital currency, but by which all of it threatens white supremacy, i.e., very similar to old theories such as ZOG, i.e., Zionist Occupied Government, which is an outgrowth of the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The one currency concept is ironic since most Pro-crypto thought comes from these Jeffersonian, libertarian, Ron Paul, I hate government types, but the truth is most crypto has already been mined by the rich or anti-American nation states.
The World Economic Forum, as well as Davos, have become the poster children of what people see as a sort of Eyes Wide Shut amoral class of technocrats who are undemocratically designing the world in their own liking. Is there truth here? Yes! But, to what degree is debatable and such a large cabal requires way too much coordination. The only such coordination can only be possible with Elon Musk types.
The criticisms of this camp, same as that of the No.1 with the Dove Left are not entirely unfounded because there are problems with the existing technocratic world order where the common man or woman better understands topics such as World Bank, Bank of International Settlements, or World Trade Organization corruption, International Monetary Fund predatory lending, regime change, and the fact the rich seem to get richer after each catastrophe, etc.
The sad truth is that there ARE actual conspiracies that people see but little seems to get done about it, and if so, the punishments are often lite. For example, think of the relationship of NXIVM via Sara Bronfman whose husband, Swiss based wheeler, and dealer, Basit Igtet lead peace talks in the wake of the Libyan Revolution that toppled Gaddafi. There’s no denying a link between the two people, even though the events themselves were separate.
If anything, both No. 1 and No. 2., are responding to a sense of helplessness in the face of a very real machine, and America’s shameful history, ranging from giving amnesty to Nazis in World War II to the truths behind real experiments such as MK Ultra has led many to go off the deep end, trapped in nihilistic malaise. Movements such as Qanon exploited this fact, manipulating No. 2’s animus that centers around white exceptionalism while also being conservative on the surface as means of preserving their pleasure seeking and hedonism that goes on behind closed doors. I am no Freudian, but his emphasis on sex as the root of all things seems to explain these Alt-Right minions, because their affinity for movements like the Men’s Right movement is the result of feeling sexually repressed or unlucky, especially with boys raised on Instagram and with free pornography, where studies have shown social media beauty standards has also had negative effects on young girls.
Yet, this Qanon movement seems to have been highly manufactured by an international cabal of American conservatives, Russians, and possibly even Israeli Zionists, who blended everything from Millennialism and eschatology, Manifest Destiny, Zionism, Cold War Anti-Communism, the 1980s Satanic Panic, Nietzsche & nihilism (the need for struggle, the concept of eternal recurrence, etc.), Soldier of Fortune “Timothy McVeigh” type militia culture, racism (every Right Wing group involved at Charlottesville), homophobia, transphobia, sexism, Western exceptionalism, antisemitism, paganism, esoteric and occult thought (i.e., memes as form of tarot or alchemical spell to influence people), Alex Jones (serving as one of many “circuit board operators” of this movement), American and British Puritanism, Catholic “Deus Vult” fascism (ranging from the talking points of figures such as Michael J. Matt, all the way to the Pepe The Frog cynicism of Alt-Right/Neo Nazi figures like Nick Fuentes and the Goyim Defense League), Eastern Orthodox Christianity (such as the musings of Jay Dyer who is an avowed monarchist that rejects democracy, but also Jonathan Pageau), conspiracy theory, “Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition” callings, etc.
Qanon was essentially a “thought bomb” or informational warfare where some element might rub off on a person’s subconscious making them pay attention to the messaging. It appealed to older generations who didn’t have the best grasp of emergent technology, while also catering to younger naïve people who weren’t around for previous events to fully understand their contexts.
Most regular everyday people don’t see what the Right Wing is doing because they’ve fled off the traditional platforms and onto websites like Rockfin, Telegram, Gab, Rumble, etc.
For example, KKK leader David Duke had an apartment in Moscow and met with Russian Eurasianist theorist Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin later was a guest on InfoWars, same as Jay Dyer who with his wife Jamie Hanshaw were featured on 2.19.2023 (with Dyer contributing to InfoWars multiple times and he too interviewed Aleksandr Dugin. Jay Dyer was on Warski Live (a podcast) with Lauren Southern, who also interviewed Dugin in Russia, but later became a contributor to SkyNews Australia, under the Murdoch Media empire, which of course owns Fox News in the USA. Southern was also an associated of Proud Boy’s Founder and ex-Vice founder, Gavin McInnes, with both being Canadian (like other “Intellectual Dark Web” Figures such as Jordan B. Peterson and Stefan Molyneux). Neo Nazis have been known to go to Russia, as well as other Eastern European nations.
(3) There is a new demographic that I would call the Pro-War or Realpolitik Left or Liberal, where the common person who falls on this side of the political spectrum supports military action against Russia because they see Russian as representing an anti-progressive and/or anti-democratic threat to the West and the freedoms it enjoys. This is why you often notice Pro-Ukraine Flags in liberal cities or college towns, etc. They see Russia has an anti-democratic dictatorship that oppresses marginalized groups and who meddled in US politics, going as far as empowering the United States own Right-Wing movements which has resulted in influencing domestic terrorism, notably white nationalist domestic terrorism.
For example, Fox News has always been criticized for its hyper-partisan and hyperbolic approach to reporting on the news cycle, but Fox News has also backed pro-Russian sentiments.
This seems hypocritical because pundits including Tucker Carlson himself supported the Middle East Wars but now suddenly becomes a pacifist regarding a “white” country that seems to enjoy oppressing women [wife beating is legal], etc.
The things about this Realpolitik Left or Liberal is that even before the Ukraine War, many were sympathetic to the refugees caused by NATO intervention in Syria and Libya, with some going as far as sponsoring refugees to live in their homes. So, this sides isn’t as “ideological” than that of current conservatives, but rather pragmatic., i.e., they saw the hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern and African refugees as a consequence of not only despotic governments but also the West’s inability to engage in diplomacy with said governments, yet, there’s more sympathy for engaging in war with Russia because Russia is seen as an existential threat with a proven track record of hostility towards the West (e.g., poisoning journalists, our traditional Cold War nemesis where Putin can’t let the loss go, creating a parallel foreign policy to that of the USA so they can butt into American diplomatic missions as a means of recapturing their lost glory after the fall of the Berlin Wall).
Next, we have…
(4) The traditional Hawkish, Neoconservative Republican Camp, which due to be taken over by the populism of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, which was in part a reaction to the Neoconservatism of the Bush-Cheney and Clinton Eras, have largely fallen in line with the Pro-Russia Camp. This is where Meaghan McCain, Liz Cheney, Lindsey Graham, Adam Kinzinger, etc., reside at., yet, Kinzinger resisted the January 6th Insurrectionists, same as Cheney, but by doing so, both Kingzinger and Cheney lost their Congressional seats, showing how deeply entrenched MAGA was and still is. Figures like Tucker Carlson threads the line between No. 4 and No. 2., but is slipping more No. 2 because of more vitriolic competition from agencies like OAN and Newsmax.
Then of course we have…
(5) Non-Far Right Ukrainians, and international expatriates living abroad in the US, Canada, etc., simply wanting national autonomy from Russia, who see their relatives being killed as a result of Russian aggression. Most Americans were unaware of the Ukrainian community but the Western “bread basket” provinces have a rich history.
I know a woman who is of Ukrainian descent and is a very nice person, a Democrat, a feminist who is raising two strong daughters who often perform traditional Ukrainian dances to raise funds for charity, etc., but I had to watch her social media as she showed her hometown being raised by Russian troops.
Also, we have…
(6) Far Right Nationalist Ukrainians wanting freedom from Russia, but these types feed into the Anti-NATO Far Right who point to the Azov Battalion, etc., as proof of rampant Nazism in Ukraine. Are there Nazis in Ukraine? Absolutely, but there are Nazis in the United States as we speak (some in our military), such as Atomwaffen which has attempted to blow up power plants, etc.
The irony of the Anti-NATO Right Wing is they are soft or dismissive of Nazis riding the coattails of the Republican Party, but then anti-Nazi because NATO is going after their beloved Vladmir Putin, i.e., daddy.
Yet, having nationalist sentiments isn’t always bad, but it’s bad when nationalism explicitly becomes an exclusionary and supremacist ideology. Being patriotic in a socially acceptable way is not bad. Yet, there is truth to the Ukrainian Nazi accusation but to what is extent is debatable. It is true that going back as far as World War II that the OSS, i.e., the later CIA, did recruit former Nazi collaborating Ukrainians as cadres, i.e., cells, to combat Communist forces in post war Europe. The CIA even admits this on its own website. However, Ukraine, like Finland with Carl Gustaf Mannerheim was in a precarious position in WWII. The Ukrainians nor the Fins didn’t want to be conquered by the Reds (Communists), so they sided with the Nazis (with the Allied Powers not giving much if any military assistance against the Nazis), but there were cases of Ukrainians murdering their Nazi officers, considering the Germans wanted to eventually make the Slavs into literal slaves. A complicated case of the “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. However, real war crimes were committed.
(7) Ukrainian based separatist Russians, with their international Russian ex-patriate comrades – many living in the United States, Canada, etc. – who seem themselves similar to “Germans”, where Germans during nationalistic eras of old acted like a “race” (ethnicity in reality) of people fighting for their civilization and felt they needed expansion (lebensraum) to preserve themselves, but this tendency in some modern day Russians – largely fostered by Putin himself – destabilizes now independent nations freed form the ex-Soviet Union, such as Eastern Ukraine, possibly the Baltic States, and as of March 2023 we are seeing “Pan Slavic””Z” protests in the Czech Republic and Moldova asking for the West to the stop the war. [1] An anti-government protest in Czech capital draws thousands | Stars and Stripes, [2] Moldova police arrest members of Russian-backed network over unrest plot | Moldova | The Guardian
It was tulips in Holland or Louisiana swamp land sold by the French Central Bank with the Mississippi Company in 17th and 18th centuries. Florida land speculators in the early 20th century. Housing mortgages in 2008. Technology firms in the 2000s. There’s always an asset class that gets too hot, crashes, and bleeds into other economic sectors even if only by hurting public/investor sentiment. Now it’s crypto. Sam Bankman Fried is no different than John Law who created the Mississippi Burst than collapsed the world’s first true central bank in France.
According to Vice’s Motherboard, a few banks in Silicon Valley are going under due to investing in Crypto.
Crypto ….. seems like it was designed to A) steal money and trickle it upwards via the black market serving as the” bearer bond” for shadowy figures ranging from terrorists, warlords, PMCs, cartels, James Bond like billionaires, human traffickers, and B) cause a manufactured recession so other inflationary prone sectors will be forced to blow up and deflate asset prices and wages thus making a bargain buy session for the rich and private equity firms plus removing any bargaining power workers got via CV19, the Great Resignation, etc.
But the Feds won’t bail out or insure crypto – rightfully so – because crypto is literally wanting to replace the greenback which would destabilize the US and our influence on the world stage. Why should the government bail out the anti-government, libertatian, Anarcho Capitalists? The types spewing every anti government conspiracy they can?
Crypto bros never advocated for their own private insurance pools (even if they had The General’s insurance with Shaq would’ve been better than nothing), no rating systems like a Moodys or Finch, so its always been risky.
Which makes sense as to why Russia and China had so many crypto farms but then suddenly cracked down on mining aka they flooded the market and immature US investors with the help of “Crypto Bros” (wannabe Jordan Belforts from Wolf of Wall Street) bought the assets but then the bubble exploded rippling thru Banks. Russia and China didnt want a bubble so they helped make a large one in the US. Or, they never bought crypto but told customers they did and ponzi schemed the money. No insurance, sinister intentions, lack of regulation. __________ Just a theory.
Anyways Silicon Valley Billionaires should provide capital and bail them out to extinguish the fire before it spreads and then privately restructure the debt to hopefully recoup losses, even if they still believe in crypto or not.
But how do you recoup something backed by worthless or volatile assets? The amount of liquid cash and sellable assets vs outstanding debts, accounts payable and/or worthless assets may be out if control. Hopefully they lent to something productive. Real estate is already pretty hot. Investing in Global or developing markets are cooling as the cost to borrow USD has risen due to interests rates — e.g., the petro dollar scheme requires transactions be done in USD and everyone needs oil for…about everything — plus general instability mounting (oil, war, but some positive signs like Saudi Arabia and Iran reopening talks — major oil players. Russia waring down in Ukraine).
Instead of buying Twitter, Elon (I’m no Elon bro) maybe should’ve invested in banks. Similar to how the Japanese Keiretsu and zaibatsu often had their own banking wings within their web of intricate firms. But this is risky and “owning” Twitter as it has value allows Musk to borrow against his holdings so he can be an annoying living off credit billionaire.
II. Gus, Ken Death, A Hate Crime, Portland, and Punk Rock
III. Gay Fascism. Horny for Nazis? And, Remembering Darby Crash of The Germs
IV. Early Punk and Fascism as Irony but later as Reality
V. Was Van Sant a little irresponsible about his relation to Ken Death? Did he know his view?
VI. What was happening in the Ken Death’s Portland of his youth and early adult years?
I. Opening Thoughts
Racism in the U.S. state of Oregon has been discussed ad nauseam. People can’t control the past, however, it doesn’t mean we can’t continue to learn from it and improve for its failings.
Overall, Oregon is a great state with great people, many who are accepting, which I know from my time in college having known many people form the state, yet, I would argue it is still a “Pass-over state” with not much economic opportunity outside the Portland area, meaning there is a lot of poverty and lack of diversity, and these can lead to racism.
The state of Oregon I would argue has done a lot to face up to its “sea to shining sea”, Oregon Trail, Manifest Destiny past of being established as an all-white Anglo-Saxon Protestant utopian state. However, some say the gestures of self-reflection and combating racism may simply be performative gestures of “wokeness”. However, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) has done excellent documentaries discussing racism in the state’s past while also showcasing the contributions of people of color such as Portland’s historic black neighborhood of Albina. During the George Floyd Protests in the Summer of 2020, Portland was one of the main cities with Antifascist activists protesting police and exposing that some of the police force had connections with right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, etc. (See article: ‘Disturbing’ texts between Oregon police and far-right group prompt investigation by Erik Ortiz, published February 15, 2019, by NBC News).
However, in the wake of MAGA America, and staring at the potential of a DeSantis Fascist state come 2024 or beyond, where DeSantis and his Florida Republicans have espoused anti-LGBTQ rhetoric with his “Don’t Say Gay Bill” and other fascist moves such as bills limiting the press, removing books discussing BIPOC history, banning political parties, and taking over college boards for being too “woke” (with woke simply meaning not conforming to conservative, white, and male heteronormative standards at this point), this “Aryan” ideal of having the Northwest be an “all-white” area is still a lingering cause to many white supremacists. With the news flaming fears, many people not from the Northwest are buying up land in pristine areas in the Northwest jeopardizing the environment, encroaching on wildlife, etc.
Gavin McInnes, the annoying misogynist hipster founder of The Proud Boys – our modern day brownshirt thugs – talked about conservatives moving to Montana, which interestingly has a history of liberalism, progressivism, Democratic politics (e.g., John Tester), and a “to each their own” mentality in areas like Missoula and Bozeman. Yet, this might be changing as conservatives flood states like Montana, Oregon, Idaho, North and South Dakota, etc., because they see themselves as “refugees” from Democratic-ran cities that full of crime, minorities, communists, etc. Essentially, what every White Supremacist group wants, i.e., the Northwest Territorial Imperative (not to be confused with the progressive based Cascadia Movement).
Yet…the Pacific Northwest was home to many notable Right-Wing events, which I’ll get out the way. (1) William Luther Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries and The Hunter, which inspired terrorist Timothy McVeigh who killed 168 people with the Oklahoma City Bombing, and who inspired serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin who killed anywhere between 8 to 20 people, was a professor at Oregon State University and was inspired to support White Power as a response to the Civil Rights Movement – similar to how white racism is rising in response to the recent Black Lives Matter movement; (2) the White Power group, The Order, led by Robert Jay Mathews, died in a house fire caused by cops as he hid out on Whidbey Island in 1984; (3) In 2019, according to Chris Ingallis (2019) of King5 News, in Arlington, WA, north of Seattle, police seized weapons belonging to the Washington State Chapter of Attomwaffen, a group linked to multiple terrorist attack attempts in the United States including thwarted attacks on nuclear facilities; (4) The Aryan Brotherhood had a fortress in North Idaho near Lake Hayden; (5) Portland, Oregon was the birthplace of now defunct – allegedly -Volksfront; (6) In 2017, racist and convicted felon Jeremy Joseph Christian stabbed two men to death as they tried to defend a Muslim woman, etc.
A little-known fact about Oregon on top of its initial goal of being a WASP only state, according to Douglas Perry (2019) of Oregon Live, was that in 1936, before the US entered war with Germany, a Nazi warship cruised down the Willamette River, and Portlander’s cheered them on. Portland had a small German Bund or “social club” which passed out anti-Semitic flyers. Further, according to Silvie Adams (2019) of the Oregon Historical Society, stated that the German cruiser “Emden” chugged down the Willamette River with the Nazi naval flag, or ensign, at the stern. The ship moored in Portland at the foot of West Couch Street, just north of the Burnside Bridge (Adams, 2019). The photograph shows the flag at half-mast, likely honoring King George V of England, who died on January 20, 1936, the day the ship arrived in Portland (Adams, 2019).
We, or rather we should all know, that Oregon banned black people in its constitution, despite being an anti-slavery state loyal to the Union. The state also forcibly removed Native Americans from their ancestral lands and was also involved in “Yellow Peril” anti-Chinese sentiments of the mid to late 1800s. Further, we can add on anti-Japanese sentiments of the World War II era and anti-Mexican farmworker sentiments which is one of America’s more recent racist concepts (mid-twentieth century to present).
From personal experience, having lived all over the country, Oregon is sort of the boonies once you get outside Metro Portland, with little pockets of hippy areas like Eugene or Bend.
The many small towns dotting I-5 or elsewhere including the coastal areas remind you of towns stuck in the 1950s. They remind me of Castle Rock or Derry, Maine in Stephen King’s fictional universes. Rainy, dingy towns with Back to the Future-like Sunny Valley downtown areas, but with citizens straight from Raymond Carver’s alcoholic “kitchen soap opera” tragedies.
Yet, the state is still very white, which is not a bad thing at all, it is what it is, but just a reality, and with that reality comes lingering issues such racism and racial violence, even if now pushed to the fringes of acceptable societal norms.
As a black man who has lived all over the country, including having Southern American roots, I can attest I’ve had more isolated racial incidents in the progressive Northwest than the “racist South”, mostly from mentally ill hobos or freely released junkies lurking near bus or train stations. Don’t get me started about the West Coast Hobo situation. It’s notorious.
II. Gus, Ken Death, A Hate Crime, Portland, and Punk Rock
This paper however will go into details about famed director Gus Van Sant and his relationship with a Portland based Neo Nazi, Ken Murray Mieske, where with his accomplices, Kyle Brewster, and Steve Strasser – members of groups known as East Side White Pride and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) – murdered Ethiopian immigrant, Mulugeta Seraw on November 12, 1988, on Southeast 31st Avenue. Ken Mieske went under the alias, Ken Death, a punk rock persona in Portland’s punk and metal scene, which was known for hostility towards non-whites back in the 1980s. Mieske received life in prison, while Brewster served 13 years, and Strasser served about a decade behind bars.
It’s interesting to note that Kyle Brewster was later found at a Trump rally in Salem, Oregon and at Proud Boy events in Portland, Oregon, after his release from prison proving he wasn’t reformed, and should have received a longer sentence (or, at least a parole violation landing him back in jail). According to Oregon Live (2021) in its article, Kyle Brewster, convicted in notorious 1988 hate crime killing, seen at pro-Trump rallies in Salem, Portland, was stated has now living in Portland, Oregon. Per the same article, a 2012 essay by an unidentified man who claimed he had done time with Brewster in Oregon said Brewster helped radicalize him behind bars. The man stated that Brewster was a popular white prisoner and helped transform East Side White Pride from a racist street gang into a prison gang.
Further, David Holthouse (2017) of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in his article titled: Rude & Crude, mentioned that Brewster was lurking around Portland gang, The Brood, at one of their flophouses in Southeast Portland.
Mieske died in 2011 of viral Hepatitis C.
Tom Metzger, the racist leader of WAR, previously based out of the rural areas north of San Diego (with SoCal having its own history of Neo Nazism), flooded 1980s Portland with racist material. Portland and the Willamette Valley during this era had one of the world’s largest Neo Nazi populations. Jim Redden of the Willamette Weekly in 1988 wrote articles analyzing the Neo Nazi scene of Oregon. Redden wrote, “The Faces of Death: Street kid, actor, musician, skinhead—who is the real Kenneth Murray Mieske?” on Dec. 1, 1988, which was published 18 days after Seraw’s murder. In the article, Van Sant mentioned that Mieske was a “great actor”, but also music promotor/venue owner associated with Monqui Presents production company, Chris Monlux, stated Mieske was a street kid later turned musician who introduced him to death metal. Jack Yost, a former peace studies coordinator at Portland State University, knew Miseke was a street kid who was a byproduct of Reaganomics, i.e., poverty, wealth disparity, etc.
Gus Vant Sant in 1988 directed a short film called Ken Death Gets out of Jail where Ken talks about his jail experiences. It is interesting to note that according to IMDB, the film is listed under “gay” and “gay interests”.
Portland based LGBTQ author, Mannie Murphy, wrote the graphic novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden where according to Google Books, “…brilliantly weaves 1990s alternative culture – from Kurt Cobain to William Burroughs to Keanu Reeves to the Red Hot Chili Peppers – with two centuries of the Pacific Northwest’s shameful history as a hotbed for white nationalism: from the Whitman massacre in 1847, to the Ku Klux Klan’s role in Portland’s city planning in the early 1900s; to the shameful treatment of black people displaced in the 1948 Vanport flood; and through the 2014 armed standoff with Cliven Bundy’s cattle ranch”.
Mieske allegedly was a “houseboy” for a “Mr. X”, where a houseboy is a sort of house servant serving and “servicing” a wealthier older gay male patron, which would make sense considering the gay hustler/houseboy culture was analyzed by Van Sant in his film My Own Private Idaho starring Keanu Reeves and the late, River Phoenix.
Did Gus Van Sant know about Mieske more than thought?
Its sems Gus was quick to distance himself…
If so, does Van Sant have a responsibility to use his art as a means of exploring Oregon’s racism to create a better world? Did he use a lost street kid being brainwashed by Neo Nazism, instead of intervening and turning him on a better path?
III. Gay Fascism. Horny for Nazis? And, Remembering Darby Crash of The Germs
Sometimes in contemporary politics because of concepts like intersectionality we seem to assume that various groups, such as people of color or the LGBTQ+ community are always allies. The truth is you have lots of homophobia in minority groups just as you have racism and white supremacy in gay or queer culture.
Simply because both are different from white male patriarchal heteronormativity (well, per as the theory of intersectionality goes or is understood in popular culture, I guess…), doesn’t mean they are allies necessarily. For example, Morrisey of The Smiths has been known to spout nativist rhetoric (which sucks because The Smiths are pretty dope, so, eh, separate the music from the artist?), Dave Rubin in the USA has shilled for the Republican Party as they actively try to de-legitimize his very existence, Michael Caignet (a French Neo Nazi convicted of pedophilia – I hate even typing that word…), Milo Yunniopolis (who argued for pedophilia – supposedly, he’s not “not gay”), Nicky Crane, Ernst Röhm (Chief of Staff of Hitler’s S.A.), Michael Kuhnen, Herbert Hoover (allegedly), Cecil Rhodes (allegedly), Richard Nixon (allegedly with Bebe Reboso), were all gay men who fought for white supremacy, almost as if they…lusted and pined for a preservation of what they consider a romanticized version of the Western “Greco Roman” male ranging from the “nymph nubile” form to that of the hyper-masculine (i.e., leather daddy).
I learned about a few of men above from an odd site called Conservapedia where in some of the articles the authors are trying to defend the compatibility of homosexuality with Nazism. Interesting… Weird…
Homosexual intersection with explicit fascism aside, legendary punk artists, Darby Crash, previously named Bobby Pyn, real name John Paul Beahm (born, September 26, 1958 – died, December 7, 1980), played and explored fascism, likely not as a real-world political ideology he wanted to come into a political reality, but rather as a social study though music, i.e., a punk rock headman as a type of cult leader. Darby Crash was interested in Hitler same as he was into Charles Manson, likely not because of he liked them necessarily, but he was curious about the dark side of human nature and what humans can do.
The Germs ran with this concept often wearing their iconic black sleeve armband with a blue circle, where the blue circle represented being loyal to the band, and to be loyal to the band one had to get a “germ burn”, i.e., have a cigarette put out on their wrist.
IV. Early Punk and Fascism as Irony but later as Reality
Punk, especially early punk, often played with Nazi imagery to show hypocrisy of the societies they lived in, mostly in the 1970s which were racked by austerity, de-industrialization, messed up war veterans, poverty, the fall out of the hippie movement, etc. Many kids of the early punk movement had parents who fought in World War II, so a way to scare parents was to wear poorly scribed Swastikas. Many punk youths saw themselves as rebelling against their hippie and/or way more conservative older WWII parents, so instead of peace and love, they adopted a postmodern cynicism with watered-down Nietzschean philosophy.
Some got the irony or joke of fascism (for example, Siouxsie Sioux wore a Swastika before but she learned her lesson being assaulted for doing so, yet, later went to perform songs like Israel in the actual state of Israel), while others used fascism to stare into the face of evil or ponder an amoral or at worst an indifferent universe (e.g., Joy Division’s first release features a Hitler Youth and a Joy Division was Holocaust brothel notable in post WWII “stalag” fiction, e.g., think Ilsa the She Wolf of the SS released in 1975). Others such as the later Oi punk of the late 1970s, referred to as boneheads by original non-racist Skinheads, took the fascist imagery seriously and became full Nazis associated with the UK National Front, and this type of punk was re-imported back into the USA by the 1980s, notably in areas like Orange County, which had a notable Skinhead population (i.e., Huntington Beach in John Birch Society Orange County). White street kids who found themselves in serious hot water, i.e., LA County Jail, or worst, the California State Prison System, teamed up in the racially segregated system of the prison system. The already racist culture of prison mixed with the once faux racism of certain punk scenes, and punk in many ways became a recruitment tool for white supremacist gangs. Angry kids from the suburbs found themselves in actual Nazi gangs, having to “put in work” to gain protection. Released inmates indoctrinated by racism and/or scarred by the violence of prison life, would return to the blue-collar white areas, and spread their messages, especially as crack cocaine in the early 80s, sold by lost and impoverished black or Hispanic youth exacerbated racial tension, white flight, etc.
For Darby Crash, a sensitive kid, playing with fascism was a persona rather than his real self, even though his persona got the best of him, as he later died of a heroin overdose, with this death largely overshadowed by the death of John Lennon. Darby Crash and his band The Germs, which featured Pat Smear (real name Georg Ruthenberg, who is a Jewish and black American), are noted as inventing or rather being pioneers of “hardcore punk” or at least West Coast Hardcore Punk (the title of East Coast could be given to the Bad Brains) which was different than the high-brow yet fashionable London scene of Vivian Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, but also different that the “too cool for school style” of The Ramones from the Tri-state area.
Hardcore Punk of the West Coast, in part pioneered by producers like Geza X, was sloppy, playful, ironic, kooky, but with an underlying mania and aggression, while East Coast Hardcore Punk was more political and one could even say more multicultural (for example, the D.C. punk scene), even though the Dead Kennedys from San Francisco – a bastion of left-wing ideology – inserted political awareness into West Coast punk.
West Coast was violent and jittery, kooky but serious, playing with anachronistic fashion often coopting greaser or Mystery Science Theater aesthetics, but it was also faster which is a notable West Coast influence on music in general going back as far as Surf Rock of the 1950s with its emphasis on “whipping out” such as in the sounds of Dick Dale with his song Misirlou, Jungle Fever, OohWhee Marie, etc.
This is all notable because this hardcore punk scene likely traveled up the interstate of Portland and Seattle, which had an already pre-existing garage rock culture dating back to the 1950s such with bands The Sonics from Tacoma and The Kingsmen from Portland.
Mieske’s stage name of Ken Death is like the naming convention style of Darby Crash.
What’s the difference between the two? Darby pulled off being an actual musician with a professionally produced record, whereas Ken Death…was a street kid who didn’t amount to much. His violent actions in Portland were likely stemmed from a sense of failure, on top of a closeted homosexuality, and his racism filled the void between who he really was (gay) while also what he couldn’t be (successful).
It is now largely accepted that Darby Crash was gay or bisexual (in the biopic film, What We Do Is Secret, Crash called his sexuality “relative”). Darby being featured in The Downfall of Western Civilization, with a girlfriend was largely believed to have been staged to his keep his sexuality hidden. It is also possible, just a theory, that Darby’s suicidal tendencies in his later life could been in part depression related to being closeted gay or bisexual young man in a hyper-masculine scene. Crash was inspired before his punk days by Davie Bowie, where Bowie is iconic for his gender bending persona’s notably Ziggy Stardust.
Ominously songs like Five Years and Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide by Bowie seems to emulate the timeline of Darby’s pre-planned “romanticized” suicide, where he died in the hands of a female friend, Casey, or Kasey Cola.
In one of Crash’s last performances at the Starwood in 1980, which he allegedly did just to buy enough heroin to kill himself, it can be heard in the crowd via footage of him being bullied about possibly being gay and Pat Smear seems to get into a physical altercation with hecklers.
This last section of Crash simply sheds light that many gay youths were likely attracted to the punk rock scene of its early years. A sort of “leather daddy” scene for young angry youths, but the scene overall emulated a hetero-normative patriarchal sensibility of aggression, violence, etc. Some were gay, but they were still men and the scene may have offered them outlet to mediate between both positions.
Ken Death may have been in a similar situation to Darby Crash, with Death maybe even ripping off Crash, but instead of suicide, he chose white supremacy and murder.
V. Was Van Sant a little irresponsible about his relation to Ken Death? Did he know his view?
Van Sant in his youth attended the Caitlin Gabel School in Portland but later returned and this city became the basis for many of his films from Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, and Elephant. Van Sant was also close to controversial director Larry Clark who is famous for his film Kids which was criticized for its visceral depictions of adolescents having sex, even though it brought needed attention to underage sex and health risks.
Van Sant like Clark, and a later Harmony Korine, are gonzo, auteur, experimental directors with an emphasis on exploring the idiosyncratic fringes of society, which is very similar to author Hunter S. Thompson, a Louisville native, which is where Van Sant was born.
It’s important to note that Washington native, Chuck Palahniuk, LGBTQ author, who wrote Fight Club, lived in Portland was inspired to write Fight Club based on a prank club he was associated with. In Palahniuk’s book of memoirs, Stanger Than Fiction (2004), he talks about how he worked in hospice care taking care of men dying of sexual related illnesses in Portland, but also, he discussed loosely the concept of white privilege, describing whiteness as being “wallpaper”, i.e., the ability to be innocuous.
Portland was and is just a “weird place”. It’s not uncommon to see “Keep Portland” weird stickers in the area.
Yet, is it possible that Van Sant was more “intimate” with Mieske than known.
It would have been embarrassing for his burgeoning film director career to have been associated with a Neo Nazi, especially in a sexual sense, and it would have been embarrassing for Mieske (Ken Death) who posing as a tough male archetype in the punk, metal, and white power scene. If anything, maybe Mieske’s previous life as a gay hustler street kid on the dangerous streets of Portland, confronted with a faltering music career, on top of pre-existing racism, led him to overcompensate for his tough guy role and he did the unthinkable…murder an innocent man.
There’s nothing much known publicly about Ken Mieske’s life in his childhood, but maybe he suffered abuse, possibly even sexual abuse, however, I am not saying that to insinuate that being gay is a result of abuse, i.e., I believe people are born that way.
VI. What was happening in the Ken Death’s Portland of his youth and early adult years?
The goal is to paint a scene.
The Portland Blazers won the NBA Championship in 1977 which must have united the city which has a history of racism yet having a small albeit iconic black community in Northeast Portland in the historic Albina neighborhood which is now gentrified. Yet, in 1985 you had the police choking death of Lloyd “Tony” Stevenson, a security guard who was trying to stop a crime but was killed by police anyways.
Ken Mieskie, if he went to high school and simply wasn’t a street kid his whole life, may have gone to Madison or Grant H.S. in the Eastern part of the city, and I speculate this only because Mieskie was a member of Eastside White Pride. He was born in 1966 meaning if he finished high school and on time, he would have graduated around 1984 at 18.
The Eastside of Portland seems to have a more diverse population hence racial tension. Also, by the mid to late 1980s, Portland was hit by crack, and the crack trade brought gangs from California. As you saw more Crypts, white people likely started siding with white power gangs. Also, we can’t forget about the Pacific Northwest’ history of…serial killers, such as the I-5 Killer, Randall Woodfield, who attended Portland State University and was caught in 1981. Portland’s infamy by the 1990s caught the eye of TV producers and the show, COPS, had many of its earliest episodes there.
Richard Spencer was a guest on the No Jumper Podcast, hosted by Adam22, i.e., Adam Grandmaison, but this episode co-starred Destiny, born Steve Kenneth Bonnell II. The episode, segment, what have you, featured a cordial discussion between Spencer and Destiny (Bonnell) with Adam22 essentially “officiating” but he was fairly hands off. I am not here to hate on Adam22 or Destiny. Adam22 can run his show however he wants, but I think a little harder “psychoanalysis” of Richard Spencer would have been good, because Adam22 often does that with other non-political musician guests.
While Destiny to me comes off as a cultural relativist, left leaning liberal, i.e., he’s essentially a hipster capitalist, the thing about Richard Spencer is he is a Nazi, or supposedly a now “reformed” Nazi.
I am surprised that Adam22 who often has pornstars on his show (not hating) didn’t ask if Spencer had sex with Tia Tequila (who descended into Nazism herself as the I hate to say it, token Asian female sex object who always seem to get a pass from Nazis, Incels, etc.).
Sure, I believe in forgiveness and if he can be reformed considering he led many into the Alt-Right “Third Position” political pipeline, then this could be a net positive to society since many might start breaking out of regressive, racist, misogynist, and down-right hateful rhetoric. Yet, I do not think that we should let Spencer out of the “jail of public opinion” until he does way more than write blog posts or go on podcasting tours. It will take decades to undo the damage he has done.
I just don’t know how to trust the guy. Is he an informant now? Should be helping to dox his wealthy patrons or those in positions of power who supported his racist beliefs? Is he just putting on a mask, tying to get back into the mainstream?
For example, Christian Piccioloni was a hardcore Nazi but later rejected his ways and without much thanks has hosted seminars to help de-radicalize Neo Nazis. He is the founder of the Free Radicals Project, a global network working to prevent extremism, which sadly as I look up in 2023 may be closed. His books include White American Youth: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement–and How I Got Out and Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism.
Regardless, I am still very suspect about Richard Spencer. Sure, he said somethings I feel are promising and rational such as his criticism of libertarian types who think we can sustain our American Way of life while also being isolationist. I also thought it was great he gave President Biden kudos considering Biden is trying to repair America’s broken image from the Trump Era. Leadership isn’t always about “strongmen” but it’s about networking, calling in favors, doing favors, diplomacy, giving hook ups to your friends, grooming each other’s egos, etc.
Yet…this is the same guy who was singing Dixie Will Rise Again and “Russia is our Friend” before the Tiki Torch March at Charlottesville, VA.
He was married to a woman, Nina Kouprianova, of Georgian descent but who lived in the former Soviet Union, and she had ties to infamous theorists, Aleksandr Dugin, who in his Fourth Political Theory, criticized the West and had outright called for the destruction of the West. It could be argued that Russia’s psychological warfare campaign was inspired by Dugin’s mix of fascism with postmodernism. His goal, or rather the Kremlin’s goal was to promote every toxic idea within the USA with inexpensive online strategies such as bot accounts so we would destroy ourselves from within. Now in 2023 as Russia fumbles its war with Ukraine its easy to see why Russia stooped to such cheap, toxic, albeit effective online warfare methods, i.e., the Russian military has been overhyped. The military of Venezuela but with nuclear weapons, which it won’t use, because every other power will use its weapons on them. Ukraine is now in a war over Putin’s ego. A scary dude.
Dugin was an associate of a Russian Nazi, oh, sorry, a National Bolshevik (Nazbol), Eduard Limonov, who interestingly has ties to Matt Taibbi, currently famous in 2023 for his links to Elon Musk and the faltering “Twitter File” expose which was getting assistance from the anti-Leftist Pro-Zionist journalist Bari Weiss – even though the relationship between Taibbi and Limonov could be simply seen as a reporter having interviewed a subject. Note that Taibbi did do good journalism about the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York police, so he has done good work, but it seems Taibbi has fallen into this larger loose MAGA network that still lingers in the background. Taibbi’s descent into this “MAGA” adjacent network, i.e., the “anti-woke, Pro Trump” camp is because him being from Russia was fearful of war, yet, instead of pointing fingers at Putin, Taibbi along with people like Jimmy Dore and people at the Grey Zone such as Andrew Maté constantly pointed the finger at the USA and NATO.
Anyways, Spencer was accused of domestic abuse, but I don’t feel comfortable commenting on this, yet, his wife did launch a Go Fund Me account to get away from him [See Article Link: Richard Spencer’s Wife Launches GoFundMe Page to Leave ‘Abusive Marriage’ by David Richardson (2019) of The Observer. https://observer.com/2019/01/richard-spencer-wife-nina-kouprianova-divorce-gofundme/]
If he is truly trying to reform, then sure the possibility of losing his family would be hard for anyone, yet, if he isn’t reformed, then I could care less (or, it could be a case where Nina still has problematic views and Richard is trying to change, but I have no clue). Sure, people can change, yet, it’s hard for me to believe that a grown man with beliefs like Spencer’s somehow changed in less than 5 years from the when Trump first won the Presidency.
I suspect he just is tired of being blacklisted and wants back into the mainstream. Either he was iffy about his beliefs all along or he’s not being entirely honest now, or maybe an act of God happened and set him straight. It’s hard to tell without him being grilled properly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Maher has him on soon.
You can watch the podcast yourself to help No Jumper (subscribe), but if I had to summarize Spencer’s remedy for the perceived ills of society, his newly found political views seem to now be a Jordan B. Peterson, Joseph C. Campbell, and Carl Jung type with a need for mythology and universal – some might even say subconscious – archetypes as a mode of giving people purpose such as utilizing the “heroic archetype”, i.e., the naïve hero who has to find his or her power, face strife, but then meet and beat his or her nemesis.
However, Adam22 when asking Spencer what the “enemy” should be, Spencer breaks character and laughs and says “Islam”.
But Spencer isn’t wrong in saying we need a higher calling. But, why can’t it be transcending this version of capitalism? Or, transitioning to green energy? Or, spending more money on healthcare, free time, etc.? Why does it have to be a football game of cultures? This clash of civilization notion? I get that in certain ways Islam, at least extreme versions, is not very compatible with Western liberalism, not because Islam is evil but rather the West might not be its “thing”, and I would argue that religion, as opposed to any other identity factor (race, sex, etc.) is more dangerous because it’s an idea that often seeks to eradicate other ideas, but this goes for Christianity as well. It seems we need a truce and boundary drawn.
In other words, Spencer is advocating for dialectics, which simply put, based on my understanding, is when opposites, i.e., a thesis and antithesis are in eternal struggle, and sometimes they merge to create a synthesis, but then later that synthesis splits off an starts the cycles all over and in perpetuity (eternal recurrence). In order words to “evolve” there needs to be tension, yet, the issue with this is that tension is or may be manufactured, meaning what we think is a threat is only so because we taught to believe that. And, since someone or some force may be constructing an “enemy” this sheds light that history for example is essentially the construction of those with power, hence the main goal is power, yet power like popularity does not necessarily mean “truth” in the objective sense of the word.
Spencer admitted to being a Nietzschean or a former one in the talk. What that term of Nietzschean has become to be known as in popular culture, even though Nietzsche was much more complex than the guy who said, “God is Dead”, means without objective “grand narrative” truths, where subjective truths war with each other trying to assert their will, i.e., their will to power over others.
In a Nietzschean world, the world is often depicted in media – particularly in science fiction such as cyberpunk, e.g., Neuromancer by William Gibson – as a society dictated by corporations where culture is recycled, post-truths are prominent, and there is hard to distinguish real from fake, i.e., the notion of simulation and simulacrum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation). Regardless, I am suspicious still of Richard Spencer.
He’s shifted the outwardly blatant racism of the Alt Right which was highly inspired by postmodernism, chaos, memetic warfare, and disorder, but now wants a…nicer, more inclusive manufactured narrative that still has a lust for tension and conflict.
He sounds like Ozymandias from Watchmen by Alan Moore trying to mastermind some alien invasion to unite us all. Commendable in theory, but Ozymandias also killed…a lot of people to achieve that…
Destiny in the discussion also seems to have pointed out Spencer’s “need for enemy”.
II. Race this, race that, whatever.
On another note, there was a lot of discussion about race, and of course it was in part channeling, I hate to say it, but, this white boy fear of not having a voice or thinking they are unfairly held to a double standard such as how black people can say Black Power, but white people can’t say White Power. Destiny said what I would have said as a black person. Even though I don’t go around saying Black Power or that I’m proud to be black, I get why black people say it because…we don’t know where we come from. I was raised more on Robin Hood and stories of Knights more than anything stories of ancestral Africa.
White supremacy ironically made us “black”. We were not calling ourselves black until we were told by a white supremacist system with no regard for tribal or ethnic differences that we are “black”. White people have an easier way of finding their national and/or ethnic identity. It was essentially impossible for African Americans to do so for nearly 400 years. That is a long time with no connection to your roots.
For example, I find it funny that, we can celebrate the Irish driven Saint Patrick’s Day or the Mexican driven Cinco De Mayo or the German driven Oktoberfest with fun, beer, food, and joy, but the moment February hits in the United States people use Black History Month as a way of trying to accuse black people of “reverse racism”. That is really telling, however, as a slight rebuttal, there are elements of black rhetoric that are toxic, polarizing, self-segregationist, and downright stupid.
III. Rock is not dead. Please stop saying that
Anyways, some other topics they talked about was music.
Hate to say it but they all sounded like Boomers. Hell, I probably sound like one.
It is easy to think that music now is bad, but maybe we are all just old. My almost 40 years old brain is like carved wood compared to a teenager which is like a wet sponge. They feel things differently whereas old cats like me now might just be…numb. It is easy for older people to judge same way how my parent’s generation could never wrap their head around most of the MTV generation.
And, I am getting tired of this notion that “Rock is Dead”.
You know who cries about “rock being dead”. Lames like conservative, trans-obsessed yet transphobe Matt Walsh. I am sorry this isn’t 1997 with the band Semisonic releasing Closing Time.
I grew up listening to rock music more than rap music (I shock white people all the time) because I had conservative black parents, so sneaking rock albums, something they had no clue about was a way I listened to popular music. My parents did not like the sexism and violence especially on young black men. I don’t think rock died but rather it blew itself up, atomizing itself into a hyper-masculine, vagina drying, angry metal music with no groove, no style, no organic sense of cool. Sorry, Machine Gun Kelly supposedly representing rock’s “come back” is corny…. Though, Meaghan Fox is bad rock video vixen but not with MGK.
Rock went off the deep end, but now it is back in a calmer and more personal place. Why does rock need to “take over the world again”? The world is better without Motley Crue or Kiss to be honest (they could be a little…corny), or rather they are better appreciated as past forms of music in nostalgic eras.
When people complain about “rock being dead”, what they are really saying without saying it is…they want music where…white men are key and central, particularly since white people in rap are often made to feel like “culture vultures” by gatekeepers on the hip hop side of the house. We live in a world where Gucci Mane when he was fat and gross was considered a…sex symbol. We have kids with face tattoos with guns. Corporate America exploits people.
I get it. I think it is unfair that certain black personalities shame white rappers, when white people help drive music sales and in many ways were always a part of the culture, going back to the break dancing, rap battle days. Were white people predominating in this scene? No, because it was largely black or Hispanic, but you can’t say that early rap didn’t have white fans or those trying to move the genre forward, especially behind the production board. Without those white allies, many rappers never would have made it into a studio.
Yet, back to my point, I think there’s yearning for a “great white hope” to lift up the “sad boy” white guy because he has been beat up by “mean angry blue haired feminists” “black people”, etc. But I find this interesting because even in this “emo” state, people still feel sorry for white people. I would argue that nothing really has changed, besides the fact that the white male isn’t the default center of attention anymore, yet, he is still there and relevant.
By the way I am not hating on white people or white dude at all, yet, it is almost fashionable to feel sorry now for white men and even as BLM was popping off years ago, I knew we would land here, i.e., a woe as men for the white guy mentality so that aesthetic, whatever it is truly is, could reassert cultural dominance from the ashes of our sympathy and the inevitable “fuck ups” of the Far Left (the shaming whitey talking points of “woke” angry Communists, indifferent if they’re helping to grow the Far Right with their unforgiving rhetoric).
Regardless, I don’t think rock is dead at all, and if anything, it went back to its roots and away from the commercialization that has taken over rap, yet, rap even though it is essentially an extension of promoting neoliberal capitalism, is also…not that bad. It’s still a fun genre that makes you feel cool, however, I can only handle it in doses because I realize that art should be treated as fantasy, yet, rap is bent on maintaining “realism” even if it means its brightest stars getting murdered.
Node 1:>>>>>0>>>>>Rodney Alcala, known as the Dating Game Killer, allegedly responsible for up to 130 murders, while on the run from California regarding an assault of a minor, Tali Shapiro, that occurred on September 25, 1968, was studying at NYU Film School under Roman Polanski while using an alias. Alcala was in NY and NH between 1968 to 1971 but came back in 1977. >>>>>1a>>>>> While in NYC under aliases John Burgur and John Berger, Alcala worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield alongside another serial killer Richard “Richie” Cottingham, the Time Square Killer (and, Torso Killer), who was a computer programmer but both claim they had no idea of the others true identity. Cottingham was subject to the 2021 documentary Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer. >>>>>1b>>>>>> Alcala also worked at a New Hampshire summer camp. However, in June 1971, Cornelia Michel Crilley, a 23-year-old TWA flight attendant, was murdered by Alcala but he wasn’t blamed for it until 2011. In 1971 after being on the run he was arrested with detectives not knowing of his Crilley murder, but he was released in 1974, assaulted another girl, re-arrested, paroled again the 1976, but in 1977 his parole officer let him go back to New York despite being a flight risk. It was in 1977, a very rough time for NYC, that cold case detectives believe Alcala killed Ellen Jane Hover, 23-year-old daughter of Herman Hover, the owner of the popular Hollywood nightclub Ciro’s (later became the Comedy Store), and goddaughter of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. New York police detectives found the name “John Burgh” scrawled on Hover’s desk calendar in the box for July 15, 1977. The Summer of 1977 was also when serial killer David Berkowitz, Summer of Sam Killer, or Berkowitz as a member of the cult, The Children, were active attacking dark haired women. In essence, you had 3 serial killers (maybe more) stalking the streets of New York City in the 1970s
>>>>> 2 >>>>> Earlier after the Shapiro attack in Hollywood, Detective Steve Hodel of the LAPD Hollywood Division convinced the FBI to put Alcala on the Most Wanted List. These wanted posters were put in US Postal Offices and two girls from the camp Alcala worked in New Hampshire at spotted his photo while getting mail
>>>>> 3a >>>>> Earlier in the late 1960s, Roman Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate was murdered on August 9, 1969 by the Manson Family and this event is said to have killed the 1960s Free Love Era. Manson earlier in San Francisco while on probation was given LSD and other drugs under the MK Ultra Program in Haight Ashbury. He was transferred to the supervision of criminology doctoral researcher and federal probation officer Roger Smith. Until the spring of 1968, Smith worked at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic (HAFMC), which Manson and his family frequented throughout their stay in the Haight. Roger Smith, as well as the HAFMC’s founder David E. Smith, received funding from the National Institutes of Health, and reportedly the CIA to study the effects of drugs like LSD and methamphetamine on the counterculture movement in Haight–Ashbury. Manson created an ideology the blended Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, Scientology of L. Ron Hubbard, the Bible, Dale Carnegie, The Beatles. Manson, a racist, wanted to start a race war. Interesting note that in 1961 while awaiting transfer to McNeil Island, Manson was in LA County Jail and actor Danny Trejo stated he and others were hypnotized by Manson in a drug rehab session >>>>>3b >>>>> Two of Manson’s “family members” Sandra “Sandy” Good and Lynette Fromme, while in jail communicated with James Nolan Mason, originally of Chillicothe, Ohio (where Charles Manson coincidentally spent time in a youth jail around 1954), currently of Denver, Colorado, is the advisor to Atomwaffen, a violent Turner Diaries inspired Neo Nazi group that has attacked power stations, planned attacks on nuclear facilities, has ties to other groups like Patriot Front and The Base via the former website Iron March, planned assassinations on BLM organizers, produced abuse pornography with sites such as Facial Abuse and Ghetto Gaggers where white men degrade women of all races (choking, gagging, vomiting in dog bowls, slapping, verbal abuse, etc.), and arms trafficking. James Nolan Mason was inspired by the Manson Family’s ability to use TV as a terrorist tool to spread fear and chaos, similar to the ethos of the Process Church >>>>>4a>>>>>> Rewind, allegedly, Manson met Polanski at party via the co-founder of the Process Church of Final Judgement, Robert DeGrimston. Allegedly according to a Netflix documentary about Summer of Sam Killer, The Process Church of the Final Judgement, a dark apocalyptic variant of Scientology, influenced the New York based cult called The Children. The Children may have been responsible the Summer of Sam murders and not just Berkowitz. However, even if Manson knew Polanski, it is accepted by many that The Family killed Sharon Tate and her house guests on accident because they were searching for a record producer, Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day, who had rented out the house to Tate and whom had previously stood up Manson.
>>>>>5>>>>> Years after the Tate murder and after coming into contact with Rodney Alcala, by the late 1970s Roman Polanski fled the USA for France for having s-x with a minor. Anjelica Huston was questioned about the night the assault happened >>>>>6>>>>> Roman Polanski had directed the film Chinatown featuring Anjelica Huston’s dad, John Huston. John Huston played Noah Cross, a corrupt politician and gangster who runs LAs water system who has an incestuous relationship with his daughter whom he is trying to track down >>>>>7>>>>> In real life, John Huston was friends with George Hodel, the leading candidate in the Black Dahlia Murder. Hodel was head of the county’s Social Hygiene Bureau and had powerful ties in affluent LA. He was enamored with the darker side of Surrealism and the decadence surrounding that art scene, befriending photographer Man Ray, film director John Huston and their associates. With Man Ray and some other Surrealists, he shared an interest in sadomasochism. The way Elizabeth Shorts body was mutilated was similar to Man Ray’s piece, the Minotaur. Hodel was also a person of interests in the Chicago Lipstick Murders because he was in Chicago visiting a Man Ray art exhibit. >>>>>8>>>> Similar to Noah Cross in Chinatown, Hodel was put on public trial for having incestuous relations with his daughter Tamar Hodel. Later Hodel went moved to Territorial Hawaii and the Philippines but spent time in San Francisco too. >>>>>9>>>>> George Hodel’s son is Steve Hodel who helped track Rodney Alcala.
Conclusions? I am an not investigator. I don’t want to spread conspiracy, but…. what does all this mean? I think it means (1) The 60s and 70s was obsessed with “self help” ideologies which morphed into cults and when you mix this with unregulated drug usage it is like having a mass social experiment. It could be argued our modern understanding of mental health drugs comes from the MK Ultra Era. No “true” Manchurian candidate was created, however, many messed up people with pre-existing underlying conditions – ranging from standard depression to sociopathy/psychopathy, were released on the public which was more trusting back in those days, (2) criminals were attracted to the counter culture scene in order to control others or to commit crimes anonymously, i.e., it was a feeding ground for killers before DNA, inexpensive recording cameras, etc., (3) serial killers love hearing about their crimes so committing them in popular media markets like LA or NYC would give them an easy way of boosting their egos knowing they were playing a “cat and mouse” game with law enforcement, (4) Roman Polanski was a popular man in a hip scene with the Jet Set crowd of bi-coastal elites and artists, so he attracted bad elements into his periphery ranging from parties, drugs, sex, etc., but that comes with pimps (cult leaders), drug dealers (links to emerging biker culture for example, which has overlap with Neo Nazism that was emerging in the late 60s as a response to Civil Rights in the US Prison system), posers, clout chasers, etc. Alcala for example, was likely attracted to Polanski so he could fluff his resume for potential clients (victims). Being seen around Polanski in a hipster scene would likely attract young urban women interested in interesting things. Alcala working at the Blue Cross Blue Shield with Richard Cottingham is a crazy coincidence, but Cottingham was in the computer department, while Alcala was in the mail department I believe. The chance of a serial killer outing himself to another would be too risky especially if caught and either could potentially strike a deal with authorities for a lesser sentence, less than the death penalty.
All this proves is there was too much going on the 60s and 70s, all converging at intersections.
City of Angels, City of Death (TV Documentary) 2021. Features Steve Hodel talking about how he put Rodney Alcala on the FBI Most Wanted List. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16113748/
It is important to remember, for the sake of unity, that a fair share of white people helped Black Americans get our freedom.
Wilberforce University, Bennett College, Clark Atlanta University, Fisk University, Xavier University of Louisiana, LeMoyne Owen College, Rust College, Shaw University, Alcorn State etc are all named after white benefactors and abolitionists
And it wasn’t about being a “white savior” who infantilizes black people but white allies in the cause of human liberation and progress
We today don’t admit that it was dangerous for white people to help black people especially with white supremacy terrorists in the Reconstruction South.
John Brown was hanged for example for trying to start a slave revolt at Harper’s Ferry. Many Kansas Jayhawkers (abolitionists) died fighting Missouri Pro slavery factions. White women might have faced physical violence for disobeying white male oriented patriarchy.
Let’s not forget the thousands of lives lost in the Civil War where many units were from abolitionists hotbed in Maine, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania etc.
Even though the United States has kept perpetuating racism in various ways after the Civil War, we in modern times when analyzing the past should also look for stories of unity and positivity.
I have noticed in modern political discourse on both sides of the political spectrum a growing sense of segregation, with the left-wing pushing a de-colonial, Critical Theory (perpetual criticism), and a self-determinist framework, whereas the right-wing also plays the “identity politics” game but with a majority white, reactionary, and coded language mindset.
With each new generation we forget our past of unity or fleeting moments of unity.
It seems right wing racists, foreign intel agencies, the “woke” liberals, the media, political parties farming votes, capitalists monetizing race, etc., can’t help but divide things.
Mitchell Research Group 