(Right Wing Watch) Patrick Bet David is a Goofy Person. From George Soros antisemitism, Anti-Black talking points, etc. Parallels between Jordan Jorjani and The Kook Right Wing by MRG Staff

Disclaimer: You can either watch the videos first or read the post first and then revert to watching the videos. If you read first, remember to scroll up to the top to watch the first set of shared videos. Thank you! Also, I am not a communist, but rather I find value in some Marxist talking points or sentiments from an analysis standpoint. I find the worldview of Marxism offers an alternative methodology to the seeing the world as is, yet, outside of analysis, I find the real-world applications of Marxism (a type of communism) to be less than desirable. I feel it oversimplifies reality into dialectics based on my novice understanding of it. However, I acknowledge and understand, contrary to critics and enemies of Left-Wing thought, that there is a difference between socialism and communism, in which socialism is a plethora of various and often differing egalitarian types of socio-political and/or economic systems, whereas communism is a type of socialism, and Marxism is a theory of communism. Also, I do see value in capitalism. I consider myself open minded and blend elements of capitalism, socialism etc., in my personal views. Personally, I prefer to think theoretically about a world beyond the dialectics of capitalism versus socialism.

This post will explore (1) Patrick Bet David’s erroneous claims that the first slaveowner in the Thirteen Colonies was a black man; (2) an analysis of his casual antisemitism despite attempting to court Jewish people and Zionists, i.e., he juggles two key demographics of Right Wing politics which are Zionists/Evangelicals and Antisemites; (3) how immigrants often adopt a white supremacist mentality when trying to assimilate into pre-existing super-structures [(in Marxist theory) the super-structures are the institutions and culture considered to result from or reflect the economic system underlying a society]; (4) the nexus between capitalism, colonialism, and supremacy, and (5) remembering disgraced New Jersey Institute of Technology professor, Jordan Reza Jorjani, who is of partial Iranian descent — similar to Patrick Bet David, and how Jorjani’s views were infused within the late twenty-teens Alt Right movement, particularly relating to “Indo Aryans”, “Indo Europeans”, etc. Jorjani’s main ideas could be considered at an intersection with “occultic fascism” in the vein of people such as Julius Evola, another darling of the Far Right and Alt-Right, and Francis Parkey Yockey.

Further, Jorjani’s ideas are adjacent to the theosophy of Madam Blavatsky (who coined terms such as “root races”), antediluvian “pre-flood’ myths, pan-spermia (alien intervention in human evolution) or ancient alien theories (e.g., Anunnaki believers and alien assistance with pyramid building), etc. These ideas have been platformed on popular YouTube podcasts such as the Joe Rogan Podcast, Danny Jones, etc. The accrual of these counter-cultural and/or alternative history ideas have been documented as having a cross-juncture with Far Right and fascist politics such as the field of “Nazi Archaeology”. This is best explained by University of Exeter professor, Dr. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke who has explored Nazism and other fascists ideologies influence on and use of counterculture and fringe ideas such as Ariosophy, Western esoterism, etc. For example, regarding his 2001 book Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity it was mentioned that the book explored, “Subjects surveyed that include American and British neo-Nazism, the writings of Julius Evola and Francis Parker YockeySavitri Devi‘s and Miguel Serrano‘s Esoteric Nazism, belief in Nazi UFOs, neo-Nazi SatanismChristian Identity, the World Church of the Creator and Nordic Racial Paganism.”

[Note: Jorjani was the editor of Arktos Media, the publisher of Vladmir Putin’s chief intellectual, Aleksandr Dugin’s The Fourth Political Theory. Arktos Media has published Far-Right content. Jorjani is a believer in a cyclical view of history notably the Kali Yuga which as a concept was appropriated by the Nazis who themselves think they are Aryans, where Aryan is a variant of the word for Iran. Modern political pundits and provocateurs such as Steve Bannon have even been noted as having a “Kali Yuga” worldview.

Intro:

The one thing I notice about Right Wing grifters is that if they have larger legal troubles or fear getting in trouble, they often deflect their problems as being the fault of the “woke mob” or Leftists. For example, when Brian Callen got accused of sexual misconduct, it was because the system was out to get him. When Andrew Tate got in trouble for trafficking, it was because of the woke mob. Dan Bilzerian who will be talked about a lot in this post got in trouble with authorities about possible fraudulent accounting practices regarding his penny stock weed company. Patrick Bet-David, who I will refer to as PBD throughout this post, that despite never having been in trouble with the law to my knowledge, has been accused of running a Multi-Level Marketing pyramid scheme, so it is possible that since he sees no issue in how you make your money (he’s just an entrepreneur, right?) is that he understands he may be in trouble one day with the Federal government so he preemptively sides with Right Wing anti-government politics. However, I consider PBD to be an Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman disciple, so his worldview will always have a libertarian, anti-government, and Republican viewpoint. (End Intro)

But that aside, I don’t really know where to begin.

Let’s start with PBD promoting a racist talking point about how the first slaveowner in the USA was a black person. This was stated in the Valuetainment video, titled: “HATES Jewish People!” – Candace Owens & Dan Bilzerian UNDER FIRE, published on 21 August 2024

Patrick Bet David recently pushed the Right Wing lie that the first slaveowner in the United States was a black person. This is likely alluding to the story of Andrew Johnson, which has been debunked.

Tyler Parry of the African American Intellectual Historical Society (2019) stated, “In various corners of the internet, memes circulate about a Black man identified as “Anthony Johnson,” believed to be a pioneer of American slavery and the first slave owner in North America. Intended for shock value, these memes reveal the new ways people disseminate knowledge in the age of social media. Anyone with access to the internet and the necessary software can generate historical narratives that gain disconcerting popularity. Of course, memes are perfect for establishing “Myth-stories,” as they do not ask readers to evaluate the sources and are often shared prolifically.” (Parry, 2019).

Further, Perry (2019) stated, “Though it is not the only myth attached to American slavery, the meme-ing of Anthony Johnson manifests the unique challenges scholars face in combating historical misinformation. As one of the few documented Black landowners in 17th-century Virginia, his unique story has morphed into a manipulative trope used by right-wing activists. From the 1960s–90s Johnson was predominantly known among academics who studied slavery, but interest in his (misrepresented) life has recently gained traction with the advent of digital sharing, discussion sites, and public forums. For instance, as of July 12, 2019, Johnson’s Wikipedia page claims he was a “colonist” sold by “Arab slave traders,” though there is no citation for the latter claim, nor is it supported by historians. It was likely added by a user who hoped to redirect blame from the Atlantic Slave Trade toward the “Arab Slave Trade,” a popular talking point among right-wing commentators. In his podcast disputing reparations for slavery, conservative pundit Michael Knowles reiterated this myth about Johnson without reviewing the available literature. Such historical distortions seek to minimize Europe’s culpability in expanding African slavery and discredit the system’s intergenerational impact upon African Americans.” (Perry, 2019).

More can be read from the Perry (2019) article: https://www.aaihs.org/the-curious-history-of-anthony-johnson-from-captive-african-to-right-wing-talking-point/

Another source, the History Channel, stated, “On or about August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists. The exact date is not definitively known (a letter from the time identified the ship’s arrival coming in “the latter part of August”), but this date has been chosen by many to mark the arrival of the enslaved Africans in the New World—beginning two and a half centuries of slavery in North America. Founded at Jamestown in 1607, the Virginia Colony was home to about 700 people by 1619. The first enslaved Africans to arrive in Virginia disembarked at Point Comfort, in what is today known as Fort Monroe. Most of their names, as well as the exact number who remained at Point Comfort, have been lost to history, but much is known about their journey.”  There is even a historical marker dedicated to the area where the first African slaves on American soil.

The lie that PBD casually believes in and promoted on his YouTube podcast, is just another attempt at covert white supremacist historical revisionism and revisionist contextuality (with the latter being not necessarily erasing or revising history for bias purposes, but rather trying to doctor the context of generally agreed upon historical facts for bias purposes, e.g., claiming the Irish, Anglo, or Scottish indentureship was as bad as Africans within chattel slavery).

And I understand that many people reading this might state that PBD…isn’t white.

Regardless, the fact that American society is and has largely been dictated by white men created a super-structure in which whiteness is the default position (and where blackness was designed to be the antithesis), and even newcomers who aren’t white, as they try to assimilate will adopt white supremacy as an ontological position as a means of “fitting in”, weighing values, and garnering acceptance, i.e., being a “pick me”.

By white supremacy I am not talking about “European culture” or simply existing as a white person, but rather the mentality of believing that white people must control the levers of power at the expense of others as a means of “preserving themselves” since they consider themselves superior. White supremacy is an inherently paranoid and therefore violent way of thinking, because it sees reality as a Darwinist struggle of “different species”. White supremacy is also the epitome of projection, i.e., it alleges that everyone is out to get white people, yet white supremacists use this as a means of wanting to dominate everyone else.

The hardcore capitalist mentality of PBD is naturally in bed with white supremacy, since capitalism (if left unchecked) is an inherently elitist, top down and an exploitative doctrine which has variants or styles such as colonialism, where colonialism was the main culprit for the enslavement of black people and the mass murder of Indigenous peoples. Better put, PBD being a capitalist, notably of the Ayn Randian type of “virtuous selfishness” (e.g., the global pro-business organization called the Atlas Network takes its name from Rand’s Atlas Shrugged book despite claims that it did not), where Rand was popular within paleoconservative politics of the mid-to-late twentieth century, is naturally in alignment with a colonial exploitative framework which created the foundation for anti-blackness within the West. This therefore explains why PBD often has “Freudian slips” of casual racism when arguing for legitimacy of his capitalist doctrine. Even better put further, PBD essentially believes marginalized peoples are the result of their own follies, and he disregards the deeply enshrined white supremacy that dictated American discourse for most of its history. For example, many capitalists when speaking against the government or in support of the police state which protects their property, the typical culprits are black people, such as pushing the stereotype of being black people getting “handouts”, being “welfare queens”, being inherently poor, criminal, uneducated, and lacking an entrepreneurial spirit. Even white liberals can make this subconscious instant association of blackness with defectiveness or poverty, despite these liberals yearning to reconcile the flaws of the past, yet this yearning can come off as infantilizing via something akin to the “clinical gaze”. The clinical gaze I am referring to was address by Michel Foucault and is described as “how doctors modify the patient’s story, fitting it into a biomedical paradigm, filtering out non-biomedical material” (The British Journal of General Practice. https://bjgp.org/content/63/611/312)

In other words, at least based on my understanding of the concept, this means doctors dehumanize the person and then turn the person into data, statistics, etc. So, progressive liberals can be seen at times, despite noble intent, as incidentally seeing black people for example as the embodiment of statistical data needing to be corrected. However, the Left Wing’s emphasis on qualitative experience, i.e., lived experience, has been a movement that has largely corrected the clinical gaze of older progressive liberals who inhabited a more segregated paradigm.

I take what PBD said personally since I am descended from people who suffered under slavery in the United States, mainly from the US states of Georgia and Alabama.

At minute 26:40 of the video, PBD states talks about how one of the black descendants of Thomas Jefferson was wanting to erase history for not liking Jefferson statues. At minute 28:10 he states that the first slave owner was black, and his co-host Andrew Siosik agrees with them. First off, PBD does not get the point that by having a statue you are not just learning about that history, but rather you are celebrating and idolizing that history. No one is saying we can’t learn about Jefferson or even later Confederate soldiers, but rather people are raising the question of whether we should celebrate them, since a statue, i.e., a monument, ends up memorializing the person or persons.

But the fact remains that what PBD said is a flat out lie used by white supremacists as a means of taking the steam out of black people’s argument when discussing their lived experiences in relation to white supremacy such as being profiled, followed, any many cases killed. White supremacy is not about simply conquering a people but getting the people who were conquered to blame themselves for their lots in life. Yet ironically, white supremacy despite pushing notions that it is the most superior, also likes to play victim politics as a means of pre-emptively attacking and keeping down those which it rules over. By revising history, in this matter regarding PBD, it robs black people of authentic justification to be angry and tries to use reverse psychology to get black people to blame themselves and “look into the mirror”, i.e., judge ourselves.

White supremacy, in which many immigrants align with as they try to fit into the larger status quo and super-structure of American society, is what PBD panders to without even understanding it I think. In other words, he is very ignorant about the complexities of US history, but since he aligns himself with the profit seeking capitalist Right Wing, he applies as right wing historical revisionism to history (despite, the full history of the United States not being his own history). This mentality is very similar to the child of immigrants, such as Fit (real name Amrou Fudl) from the Fresh and Fit podcasts, who despite being of African origin has adopted a right-wing, Darwinist, Bell-Curve statistical viewpoint. Fit from the Fresh and Fit podcast has called black people stupid, lazy, and acted as a primate when describing black Americans.

PDB, Fit, and other immigrants or children of immigrants often swing down on black Americans because black America is historically the most swung down on race in the United States, and swinging down on blackness is almost a rite of passage when trying to assimilate into the predominate white superstructure. I would recommend you watch this video about Ferris State’s Museum dedicated towards understanding America’s racism.

Patrick Bet-David’s casual Antisemitism

But let me switch up to what I consider to be the subconscious antisemitism within Patrick Bet David’s mindset despite his claims of being a Christian Zionist. Separately, it is important to note that PBD doesn’t call himself Iranian (e-rahn-ian) but Assyrian, despite being born and raised in his early years in Iran. Back on track, I have been noticing that PBD has been pushing antisemitic tropes despites him appearing to seem to defend Jewish people in his recent discussion with Dan Bilzerian. Further, Patrick Bet David pushed more Jewish stereotypes in his group discussion about Candace Owens and PBD helped push the antisemitic George Soros conspiracy theory on the Flagrant 2 Podcast with Andrew Schulz. The video is titled, Patrick Bet-David Explains Who George Soros is & Why He’s Important in Society

Hannes Grassegger (2019) of Buzzfeed wrote a piece about how two Jewish political consultants helped to push the George Soros conspiracy theory. It is my understanding that they did this because of Soros’ criticism towards the Zionist project and the treatment of Palestinians, yet, by pushing a new version of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” conspiracy theory with Soros as the main villain, the real rise in antisemitism would create top cover for Zionists by making them into victims able to deflect away from their own mechanizations, plans, agendas, etc. Better put, these Jewish consultants scarified Soros for the cause of expanding Zionism yet also putting pressure on one of its biggest critics being George Soros.

The hatred towards Soros is laughable considering he is just one billionaire and the Right Wing who love capitalism are incapable of pointing out any plausible conspiracies from non-Jewish billionaires. The hatred towards Soros is not only lazy but it is just another form of white supremacist projectionism, i.e., desiring the capitalist avarice but only for themselves, and when a Jewish person plays and wins the game, the lizard brain of white supremacy descends into paranoid manic conspiracy theories. However, it is not just white supremacy that pushes antisemitism but also black militant politics such as the tomfoolery of people such as Louis Farrakhan, who ironically visited Iran to do give an antisemitic speech.

Note that this article was done in 2019 yet as of 2024, the Israeli state under Netanyahu has not only raised Gaza (with Zionists even blocking and destroying humanitarian aid to Gazans) but the IDF has also invaded the West Bank which has ever-growingly become conquered by Israeli settlers.

Grassegger (2019) stated, “The demonization of Soros is one of the defining features of contemporary global politics, and it is, with a couple of exceptions, a pack of lies. Soros is indeed Jewish. He was an aggressive currency trader. He has backed Democrats in the US and Karl Popper’s notion of an “open society” in the former communist bloc. But the many wild and proliferating theories, which include the suggestion that he helped bring down the Soviet Union in order to clear a path to Europe for Africans and Arabs, are so crazy as to be laughable — if they weren’t so virulent.”

The article by Grassegger (2019) talks about how Jews, George Birnbaum and Arthur Finklestein helped create the Soros conspiracy. [The article can be found at: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgrassegger/george-soros-conspiracy-finkelstein-birnbaum-orban-netanyahu]

Back to the video by Valuetainment, titled: “HATES Jewish People!” – Candace Owens & Dan Bilzerian UNDER FIRE, published on 21 August 2024, which as of August 22, 2024 at 3:17 PST has amassed 284,110 views. Contributor and co-host, Andrew Sosnick, who is of Jewish descent, actually justifies getting into bed with the Far Right if it means helping defeat Kamala Harris. Sosnick in a past video that I don’t have the title of or the time-stamp on has been accused or belittle by PBD for being soft on Democrats, so I feel Sosnik has to continue to double down on right wing rhetoric for his own credibility within the largely right-wing oriented, male, crypto bro, dating guru, Bell Curve statistic believing sphere of the Red Pill section of YouTube.

Adam quoted the recent Ronald Reagan movie starring Denis Quaid (who they called a friend), by stating “A person who agrees with you 80% of time is a friend an ally, not a 20% traitor”. Adam referenced this quote in relation to white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Far Right pundits such as Candace Owens criticizing the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. Adam, making a false equivalency between Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, one being center left and the often being left (some say “far left), justifies the Neo Nazis of the American First movement, Goyim Defense League, Groypers, etc., being part of MAGA. To me this common sense because Nazis, survivalists, race realists, antisemites, anti-feminists, anti-LGBTQ have always been apart of the modern Republican Party, so Adam is simply admitting what Democrats and the Left allege the Right actually is.

The irony to me is further exacerbate since Adam being Jewish is essentially arguing for a type of amoral realpolitik and pragmatism, which is something that Israel has been criticized for as far as achieving their objectives such as how Israel contracted a Nazi such as Otto Skorzeny to hunt other Nazis despite Otto Skorzeny starting various Neo Nazi organizations which endangered Jews across the globe.

Instead, Adam should have stated, “We don’t need you. Good riddance”, yet that doesn’t seem to enter his head.

Next off in the segment, another co-host, Vinnie Oshana, goes off to allege how the media is controlled by the Left, but fails to realize (if true) that this is not a manufactured conspiracy but possibly (and, most likely) the natural trajectory of American media since the US is a melting pot and has become more socially aware and accepting over the last sixty years.

It’s not that the mainstream media is biased but rather media is reflecting where most of the people are today. If we view the content of OAN, Newsmax, etc., most of that content is highly alienating and arguably offensive. Conservative media, art, etc., is not intended to be inclusive or accepting, and since capitalism is about market expansion, most media would lean progressive since they would have a larger pool of potential customers, etc. This seems like something a self-ascribed capitalist should know but Vinnie’s intent is to weave another needle in the right narrative of conservative victimhood despite their own propensity for bullying people outside the traditional Western norms. This goes back to my earlier points about PBD in which his type of capitalist beliefs has historically been in alignment with right-wing and far-right politics. PBD wants capitalism but a capitalism that only has a media that feeds into supporting the larger supremacist superstructure that hides behind the levers of power, i.e., the status quo.

In the discussion with Bilzerian, PBD around minute 1:01:10 starts talking about…Jewgenics, which is the study of Jews allegedly having higher IQs than everyone else. After, talking about this quasi “Bell Curve” talking point, PBD then goes to talk about how Jews are successful because of unity and higher IQs, thus they make “better decisions”. Sure, this may be flattering on the surface, but it does thread upon stereotyping a people, when there are many Jewish people living in poverty or in lower income demographics. We can debates studies on the matter all day, but the success of Jewish people seems (emphasis on seems) to be more environmental such as children (often bilingual since they are learning Hebrew and the language of the nations, they are citizens of), develop stronger linguistic and reading comprehension skills. This mixed with expectations and what I consider to be the multiplier effect of opportunity, i.e., uplifting each other despite academic performance, i.e., giving each other “a shot”, helps to incubate sub-communities of the larger Jewish community (which has segments that are impoverished, uneducated, under-employed, etc.) towards success.

We can even add on notions of inheritance to children, and the cultural traditional of giving financial donations that many Jewish children get during Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s that help train children how to deal or invest money, etc. It is almost a trope about how many Jewish teens get money from family members and use that money in something akin to venture capital to go start their first businesses. In other words, supportive environments with strong professional connections to get an inside leverage on jobs in exclusive industries – even if starting out as unpaid interns – mixed with children developing stronger bilingual, linguistic, and reading comprehension skills would generally produce “smarter children” in any race or culture.

PBD effectively is pushing the notion of seeing Jews as “lucky” or “lucky charms”.

At minute, 1:07:35, PBD brings up that portrait with the Shah of Iran. He goes to stated that the Shah actually oppressed the Jews and called out the “Zionist media”, and because of this his beloved Shah was removed from power.

This statement is strange because it seems PBD is trying to relate to and agree with Bilzerian and attempts to acknowledge that a “global Zionist plot” is possible or has been involved in regime change. So, it seems PBD trying to relate to the points of Bilzerian is alleging that because the Shah oppressed Jews that they somehow removed the Shah and installed the Ayatollah. If this is true, this means that PBD has revised history to totally disregard the abuse that the Shah imposed on his people overall (secret police, torture, abhorrent wealth hording and lavish lifestyles, etc.), and that his relationship with the US government, who were supportive of Israel, is a reason for the rise of the radical Islamic Ayatollah. The Shah was suffering from cancer and was allowed to get treatment within the United States, and this provoked the Iranians who were angry with the Shah and wanted him returned to Iran to face trail.

PBD despite objectifying the Jews from a standpoint of wealth that he admires, he then panders to the possibility of right-wing conspiracy such as “global Jewry”, “the Zionist occupied government”, etc. To me it is more about environment and incentive than supernatural forces or genetics, though genetics may play a role, though genetics are so complicated – with mutations happening all the time – that it seems rather objectifying to distill success down to pure genetic characteristics.

We also fall into the trap of defining intelligence based on a pre-conceived set of standards but who determined the standards? Creativity may outweigh concrete concepts like math or science in certain situations.

At minute 1:23:08, PBD goes off about how fascist and communists got rid of religion in order to support “materialism” and this was done to control people.

This is an odd statement because sure, yes, totalitarian regimes – both left and right – have employed erasing religion as a means of control, however…. religion was used since the beginning of religion to control people. PDB brings this up I suspect because it feeds back into his propensity for oversimplistic binary thinking, where in essence he is actually referring to dialectical materialism of Marx as being the culprit for what he see as the moral decay of the West and attacks against wealth.

This therefore can lead one to start pushing allegations of “cultural Marxism” against those who do not represent or bow down to the traditional status quo. In other words, conservatives can allege that people wanting rights are somehow employing “Marxism” has a means of “destroying hierarchy”, when in essence, people just want rights.

It is important to note that these Cultural Marxist allegations are ironically anchored in part in antisemitism, and contemporary figures such as Jordan Peterson who uses terms such as “Postmodern Neo-Marxists” are simply rehashing and repacking this cultural Marxist or cultural Bolshevik term employed by the likes of the Nazis for a new generation. A new generation which includes Dan Bilzerian.

Around minutes 1:25:29, Bilzerian asks PBD if Nazis are bad and PBD simply says “depends on who you ask”. Seriously? So PBD somehow thinks he is a defender of “Jewish people”, some sort of Cyrus the Great from Persia, yet, he cannot even straight up say that Nazis are bad and that it is all subjective?

The issue with Bilzerian’s question is that he is using the question to set up for his following false equivalencies. Bilzerian doesn’t distinguish German people from Nazis, as a means of alleging that not all Nazis were bad. He is making it sound as if the Western propaganda against Muslims during the Global War on Terrorism is somehow equal to stereotyping all Nazis. The difference is that the Nazis were a political party, i.e., a hate group, so yes all were bad, yet, Muslims are a religion so not all are bad, but Bilzerian is trying to use the “don’t stereotype” people notion because of their religion as a means of defending not stereotyping all Nazis. This therefore feeds into the foundation of Bilzerian’s ever-growing antisemitic lens. He is effectively saying without saying that the Nazis were good people, and they had a reason for disliking the Jews. The Nazis were pure evil. Many Nazis that survived the war never renounced their allegiance to Hitler and many died as ardent Holocaust deniers.

The creepy thing about living in the twenty-twenties and beyond is that the internet has repackaged old antisemitism and racism for a new generation of meme making, video game playing, technologically saturated youths who look up to people such as Elon Musk, where Musk promotes racist talking points all the time. This trend seems indicative of the inherent fear of many white people and the need for many to push apartheid like politics and sentiments. Online on YouTube for example, it is common to see Rhodesia nostalgia videos or Rhodesian military analysis videos which paints the Rhodesians has heroic rather than a Jim Crow racist pariah state. It is also common to see World War II videos pointing out the bravery of the SS. White supremacists have appropriated the self-determination of marginalized groups to push towards a new “White Identity politics”, where white supremacist can finally celebrate being different, separate, and superior to others. Many individuals within immigrant groups such as Indians, Iranians, Cubans, Mexicans, etc., often wish to be included into the right-wing white superstructure because of its perceived higher value.

Dan Bilzerian represents what happens when society has such a lack of discourse around the state of Israel and its politics that people then find themselves listening to good-faith but mostly bad-faith analysis of Israel, where the bad-faith side is of course steeped in a literal mistrust, hatred, and fear of Jews. This is something that Vinnie Ohsana on the the PBD segment alluded to but didn’t outright state.

What I mean by good-faith is pragmatic analysis of Israel indifferent to ethnicity of Jewish people, e.g., criticizing their government but not hating Jews. The lack of discourse in contemporary politics around Israel has enabled fringe ideologies to dictate the discourse, even if presenting their arguments as professional, restrained, well-researched, etc.

The typical subjects within this contemporary antisemitism involves a range of topics such as (1) 9/11 was in inside job and that a group of “dancing Israelis” celebrated because this meant that Netanyahu and the Mossad, etc., could drag the US into wars in the Middle East for the protection of Israel, (2) the USS Liberty attack by Israeli Air Force and alleged involvement in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings (3) the plausibility of Jeffrey Epstein being some sort of blackmailing intel asset for Mossad to make sure US politicians towed the line of AIPAC, WJC, etc. (4) the Jews allegedly controlling hip-hop, pornography, sports, etc., which helps conservatives point to Jews as being responsible for “moral decay” or “bread and circus” antics — despite the fact that many Jews are ultra conservative, follow Kosher laws, etc. However, the rebuttal is that despite Jews being conservative mostly, they have no problem in “corrupting” the goyim who have “lesser souls” (5) the over-representation on Jews in prominent positions, etc. (6) George Soros, who as a billionaire has spent his money on progressive causes to the ire of conservatives. Soros has found himself unilaterally being blamed for the current state of the world despite in the USA and Europe, most of the wealth or socio-political power is still largely white, male, and Christian, etc. (7) the Rothchilds via “central banking” have turned nations into slaves for the Jews, etc., (8) Jewish participation in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, (9) Jewish male “neuroticism” and the wavering between being unassertive versus a Might Makes Right clinical view of power, etc. (10) the Jews we see today are not the real Jews but Caucus peoples called Khazars who converted to Judaism to distinguish themselves from Muslims and Christians, who later migrated into Europe, so they have no legal claim on the lands in current day Israel (11) Jewish men enjoy abusing “shiksa” or Gentile Women

Antisemitism happens across racial, ethnic, and nationalistic lines, often where the develops an intersectionality of antisemitism depending on whichever group is promoting it. For example, antisemitism in the African American or Black-American community often centered around being denied power, whereas antisemitism in white people often centers around their power being corrupted and drained.

For example, around 2018 – 2020, on YouTube there was a creator called Adam Green, who went under the moniker, Know More News. He had guests such as Ryan Dawson who has been accused of holocaust denial.

I had watched quite a bit of the content because at first it seemed like a genuine criticism of plausibly shady dealing with Israel, such spying on campus protestors who support the BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) movement, but also Israel being home to many US tech companies and how this sharing of technology (and possible theft thereof) of US trade secrets, etc., has damaged American primacy.

Yet slowly but surely Adam Green started pushing the theory that the Talmud endorses hatred towards the “goy” or “goyim” (gentiles, non-Jews, etc.). He also started mixing in very common conspiracy theories about Jews such as Jews controlling the hip-hop industry as a means on enslaving black people and destroying the family unit (despite Adam Green likely being a white supremacist or at least adjacent to many of their talking points).

I actually wrote about Adam Green in another post relating to RFJ, Jr., where RFK himself has said antisemitic things.

Side note. The Right Wing is attempting to paint the Political Left as antisemitic because they are protesting the bombings in Gaza. Yet, the Right Wing my entire life have been the ones in bed with actual white supremacist antisemites. Look into Willis Carto or Eustace Mullins where Mullins is notable helping push the myth that Jews are behind the Federal Reserve. For example, the John Birch Society – a right-wing conspiracy organization – which was founded in part by th Bradley Family (who are related to the Uihlein Family who fund figures such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA), had splintered into the National Alliance, a white supremacist organization founded by William Luther Pierce and Revilo P. Oliver. Piece, author of the Turner Diaries, inspired hate groups such as The Order, who killed Jewish radio host, Alan Berg, but also this book inspired Tim McVeigh who did the Oklahoma City Bombing.

There are many links between conservatism and the Far Right, and ironically MAGA inspired the Far Right to change their appearance from skinheads for example, but rather into young ideological men in suits with modern haircuts, etc.

Other thoughts on PBD

Patrick Bet David is a….self-made millionaire…who allegedly made his money by running a Multi Level Marketing insurance company where he siphoned off the profits in order to inflate his own personal brand dubbed Valuetainment (which includes his PBD Podcast).

Patrick to me after having watched his material for years is a proponent of unfettered capitalism (almost teetering upon the libertarianism of The Atlas Network, Mont Pelerin Society, Mises Institute, etc.), social conservatism, etc. For example, Patrick Bet David in his home has a portrait with him, Tupac, Einstein, Martin Luther King, Milton Friedman, The Shah of Iran, etc. Within the portrait, there are the books Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (hence proving his links to Atlas Network type of anarcho-capitalist and libertarian thinking) and the Communist Manifesto. These two books best explain Patrick’s dialectic framework. It’s either “freedom” or “communism”, i.e., a hardliner yet oversimplified way of thinking.

Patrick despite maybe having changed his name to “Bet David” which insinuates a connection to Judaism, despite him being Iranian (he prefers Assyrian), ironically panders to antisemitic talking points and stereotypes despite what his almost scripted defense of Israel and Jews. Yet, Patrick has such as an oversimplistic and binary way of thinking mixed with his use of cherry picked statistics, that he sometimes comes off as gruff, unrefined, and in many ways simply pandering to current conservative landscape, notably online, which is comprised of everything spanning the Man-o-sphere (Men’s Rights Movement, Red Pill movement, Fresh & Fit podcast, etc.), Cryptocurrency community (a medium of exchange which has been linked to libertarianism on the surface, but organized crime under the surface), Trad-Wife Movement (via Pearl Davis, via Just Pearly Things), COVID skeptics, but also the George Soros Conspiracy (which is important to this piece I am writing).

Far Right love for Indo-European and Indo-Aryan Studies. PBD, Jorjani, etc.

PBD being Right Wing reminded me of the curious case of Jordan Jorjani. Jorjani of partial Iranian heritage was a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology but was fired I believe after being videotaped talking about a new world order of Aryans. He says it was taken out of context. Regardless, from what I know about Jorjani, who can be seen from time to time contributing to “New Age” podcasts on subjects such as time-travel and aliens, is that his main thesis is that Aryans, i.e., a Proto Indo-European peoples, whose traditions were best manifested in ancient Persia during the times Zoroaster, where corrupted and “mongrel-ized” by the Asiatic Muslims of the Mongols. These Aryans had spread sacred knowledge and in order to save the world, the world needs to adopt an Evola or Rene Guenon like return to traditionalism. He wishes to reinvigorate the Aryan spirit, invoking something asking to the Übermensch concept of Nietzsche in writings such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra which gave us terms such as “Will to Power”. This affinity with the Indo-European or Indo-Iranian or Aryan research is of course common within Nazi and white supremacist concepts. Many white supremacists however push that the original Aryans were blonde haired, blue eyed. Yet, most mainstream researchers seem to think of Aryans as a class of peoples within the social structures of the Steppe peoples of Central Eurasia, who may have domesticated the horse and spread their language west towards Southwest Russia and modern-day Ukraine but also as far as East as the Iranian basin and Indian subcontinent. Regardless, Patrick Bet David without saying it, though very prideful of his Assyrian origins seems to point here and there to being of a noble lineage that laid the foundation of Western civilization, but I had also heard him say somewhere that his language is the same that Jesus spoke, which may be true if he’s talking about a particular strain of Aramaic, notably that of Levant region.

There have been notable Right Wing or Alt-Right YouTubers such as Survive the Jive, who devotes his entire time to promoting Aryanism in as much of an academic sense as he can.

Jorjani however to me represents the “Kook Right Wing” at its finest. There’s something both quack but also Lovecraftian where of course H.P. Lovecraft was a notorious racist. He reminds me of a kind of Ghostbusters gone bad researcher who may have been a contributor to P.E.A.R, i.e., the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Lab, if it were still in existence.

#antisemitism #jewishstudies #blackstudies #africanamericanstudies #sales #business #politics #patrickbetdavid #fascism #rightwing #ufology #ufos #magic #racism

Tool, Pulp Fiction, Fascism, Fräuleins, Cops and George Floyd: How Pulp Fiction’s Pawn Shop scene is analogous to George Floyd’s Death by Quinton Mitchell (C).

What is the difference between the many cop deaths shown on TV and a snuff film?

This paper is for Elijah McClain, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Daunte Wright, Kurt Reinhold, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Jacob Blake, Michael Brown, Kristiana Coignard (White), Terence Crutcher, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Amadou Diallo, Rayshard Brooks, Sean Monterrosa (Latinx), Walter Scott, Samuel DuBose, Manuel Ellis, Zachary Hammond (White), Ricardo Hayes, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Michael Lee Marshall, Marc Ramos, Kathryn Johnston, Rayshard Brooks, Atatiana Jefferson, Isiah Murrietta-Golding, Sureshbhai Patel (Asian – Indian Subcontinent) etc. These names include black, white, AAPI, and Hispanic but there are too many names to mention.

Who would have thought that the lyrics of the band Tool would be a great way to analyze racial injustice?

Or, who would have thought that the sheer terror presented in Pulp Fiction’s pawn shop scene would be a microcosm of the terror that underlies our very feet within the real world – both past and present?

Tool released their album, Undertow in 1993. I remember being a kid during the ,glorious” days of the 1990s watching MTV, maybe it was on Beavis and Butthead, and seeing Tool’s music video for Prison Sex. It did not terrify me surprisingly, but it did leave a lasting mark as far as Tool’s ability to take things into realms that are dreamlike or nightmarish, or later what I would learn would be called the Jungian. Music at this point was taking on more of a darker sensibility post-Nirvana with bands like the Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, etc. Tool was my first introduction to Industrial-type metal, which was later reinforced by my discovery of Nine Inch Nails, especially with their music video Closer around 1996. The next year after Tool’s Undertow was released, I remember being a kid and overhearing Entertainment Tonight and they were talking about Spike Lee having issue with Quentin Tarantino’s new film, called Pulp Fiction, largely for the liberal use of n-word. I was aware of Spike Lee of course since my parents were film fans and I was alive in the late-80s to early 90s Black Revival of the arts (It’s a Different World, Roc, Do the Right Thing, the works of Robert Townsend, etc.), i.e., we had plenty of Jet magazines stashed around the house.

I did not know much about Tarantino and never really considered him a big director in the early to mid-nineties, because this was at a point where a director was simply a director, i.e., I didn’t see things as art yet since I was just a child. The only film that reminded me of Tarantino up to that point (I may have seen snippets of True Romance at my grandmother’s house in Miami), was the film Swingers by Jon Favreau, in which Tarantino is only referenced. The film by Favreau depicts a crew of young white horny males in Los Angeles searching for action, work, love, etc. They all party and live in apartments, but there is a poster of Reservoir Dogs within one of them, and one of the main characters who gets into a parking lot altercation draws a gun to the rebuke of his friends played by Favreau and Vince Vaughn. Essentially, early Tarantino represented film for angry white boys. A type of power fantasy for white males to envision themselves as hustlers, heist man, crooks, not taking junk. Fantasy about liberally dropping n-bombs and making dirty jokes in midnight diners about the color of this or that waitresses’ pubic hair. We have to remember that Tarantino did come on the scene as gangster rap had already won popularity, so with black males of rough backgrounds now seen as in vogue, and it’s almost as if Tarantino knew he had a market in the alternative. Masculinity wasn’t simply The Marlboro Man or Arnold Schwarzenegger but men like Tupac where Tupac in our racist past would be called a “mouthy n-word” or Denzel Washington would’ve been called an “uppity n-word” or a black dandy for simply breaking boundaries. Hell, even up to this day we see students busted For blackface, NBA owners caught dropping n-bombs, etc. Yet, in the film Swingers by Favreau, one of the men who attempt to fight Patrick Van Horn’s character (named Sue) is depicted as a white hip hop poser, insinuating that white adoption of black culture was prominent which it was, but to many it was seen as odd or out of place.

However, in recent times, well, the early 2000s, Tarantino has actively tried to eradicate his older perception as the “angry white boy director” with his Revenge Trilogy such as Kill Bill featuring a female lead, Django Unchained featuring an African American lead, and Inglorious Bastards featuring Jewish men in roles of strength and strong, developed, non-sexualized female characters. Including Jackie Brown with Pam Grier and even Randy Brooks as Holdaway in Reservoir Dogs, one can see an admiration that Tarantino has for black actors within American cinema, despite the truth that most black actors up until recent times were often caricature or side-pieces. It was not that Tarantino was racist per se, but rather he was recycling tropes of American cinema which were regressive (a nice word), yet, his defenses to his earlier works did display a lack in his understanding of why people reacted which is arguably a sign of…privilege. But, to get that out of the way, in this piece in no way am I considering Tarantino to be racist at all and he is not the central focus. He simply had growing to do, which we all do.

I didn’t see Pulp Fiction which was released in 1994 until way later in high school around 2003, and only because a girl I sat next to in chemistry class, stated she saw it on TV and it was crazy. Curious, I saw it, and it was crazy. This was before I would later fall into a fascination with postmodernism be it Don DeLillo, the works of Cronenberg, etc. After seeing Pulp Fiction, I saw the infamous scene of the rape in the pawn shop by Zed on Marsellus Wallace. But, now in 2020, seeing George Floyd call for his mother, while this smaller white male sits on his neck, instantly recalled Tool’s song Prison Sex. “Shit, blood and cum on my hands”, “Do unto others what has been done to me. Do unto others what has been done to you”, “I’ve got my hands bound. My head down, my eyes closed”, “You look so precious”, “Released in this sodomy”, “You’re breathing so I guess you’re still alive”. A white male cop taking pleasure in exerting his power over a black male while the black male calls for his mother. Effectively, the cops took the notion of calling a black man “boy” to the next level and all for the public to see.

Scene from Prison Sex by Tool

Even in George’s death, the sadness that people felt when they saw the scene but also heard those words, effectively stripped George of his honor, his masculinity, and forever left the image of him as a helpless victim with no means of fighting back legally, which makes something already tragic into something even more sinister. For example, when it comes Nazis, the terrifying thing is not simply how they came to be and all the atrocities they did, but rather how in a sense…they got away with it. Even in death, their power lingered as people tried to cope with their humanity. White supremacy in all its forms sees the world though a clinical, materialist, Darwinist struggle to survive, and it realizes that time is the greatest alibi, so the more damage or assault it can do, the more legacy it can leave. They do not want to just kill; they want to haunt. That is where their power comes from. The ability to make “sexy” their cruelty by turning it into legend which therefore time and time again will be analyzed in literature, film, TV, etc. This concept was explored by Don DeLillo in his 1986 National Book Award winner, White Noise, in which the protagonist, Jack Gladney, is a professor of Hitler Studies at a small liberal arts school in a pop culture department, which was done by DeLillo to explore how we assign objects (people, events, etc.), different meanings over time. DeLillo was right. Think about it. All one must do is turn on History Channel or History Channel 2 and find a documentary on Hitler such as Hitler’s Mega Weapons, Nazis and the Occult, or Hitler’s Sex Life. Essentially, we have turned a monster into an immortal pop culture celebrity, thus, it should not surprise you that decade after decade, a few people take his atrocities not as atrocities but rather as achievements. As a black man, I have heard at parties, “Hitler was a bad guy but…he had some good ideas”.  

There are many similarities between the Pawn Shop scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020. First off, George Floyd and Ving Rhames, obviously are two large muscular black males, thus they can create a sense of fear in others, which is unfair, but unfortunately how the iconography of the black male has been presented within American, Western, and even Asian societies. Secondly, both men suffered assaults with one obviously in reality and the other on film, yet, both men’s assailants were white males with Derek Michael Chauvin as a real life police officer whereas Zed in Pulp Fiction played by Peter Greene is a security guard. They instantly have positions of power, with Chauvin having real power and protection based on the law, whereas Zed has power in an almost pathetic way, yet, his “mall cop status” is still symbolic of the quest to dominate. Zed represents the angry white male, typically blue collar or low-income who fear what they perceive as competition. If Zed were a real person, he would vote for Donald Trump.

Both men, one real and one fictional, both represent power, with Derek Chauvin representing power through the notion of law and order, whereas Zed’s sense of power comes from sex and domination. But is there a difference? A white male cop dominating what he might perceive as his sexual threat. Cops are people. They watch CNN, Tucker Carlson on Fox News, were conditioned to vote Republican or Democrat, surf sub-Reddits, leave comments we might regret on social media, show up to work drunk, watch pornography (gauging penis sizes since masculinity has been reduced to nothing more than this in our postmodernist world or getting angry if they stumble on the “interracial” section), scroll through Instagram, etc.

It is my personal belief that the failures of our society are largely because we simply do not call out the reasons for the actions underlying the atrocities. Simple: fear, sex, power, needing attention, etc. That would be too easy to simply call it like it is. What am I about to say next is in no way meant to shame female sexuality, agency, and/or power. Rather, I am simply pointing to how sex and fascism are correlated and how it hides in our midst. For example, if you are familiar with Instagram it is not hard to find the hundreds of thousands if not millions (as it seems) models which post daily. Hyper-sexual, out of reach, depictions stimulating sexual desires for the droves of bored males equally as lost regarding purpose in our postmodern landscape which has now been defined by gender dynamics, intersectionality, the pressures of globalism, wealth disparity in a society fueled by conspicuous consumption, etc. However, within this category there is what I call the Freulein industry, i.e., sexually provocative women who are conservative and simply seem to be there to promote sexual stimulation for the support of supremacy. The reality is that the USA is of Germanic origins with German’s accounting for many of the white population, but Anglo-Saxon culture (English) is a branch of Germanic culture, thus, it seems safe to say that our white culture has many roots within the Germanic frame of thought, its aesthetics, etc. Something that would be interesting to explore another time. Regardless, these models use a mix of conservatism, country music, militarism, guns, Pro-Trump rhetoric, doses of cultural appropriation (sexually charged hip hop music), but all of this, to them at least, is justified by simply leaving a Biblical quote underneath their OnlyFans link. This sort of sexual stimulation is meant to embolden the “white knight mentality”, i.e., to breed for and defend the Western “white” race, and women simply are there to serve men by offering a type of reward for good and noble service. It is also an attempt at winning the race for being the most desired, because the most desired in theory becomes the most protected. This mythology making linked to sexuality is nothing new, and arguably has been deployed by groups such as the Nazis, who in turn were appropriating dark age and medieval notions of masculinity and femininity as they revolted against the modern age (while ironically using modernist practices to assault people). Yet, it is 2020, which just goes to prove that human nature has changed but hasn’t, and despite these people operating in code through the concept of sexually stimulating content, they are in fact aware of their intended audiences and overall “agenda”.

I am no Freudian scholar but based on “pop cultural and academic osmosis”, I feel it is safe to say that Freud simply reduced our activity to sexual behavior, or, rather sex was central to his analysis. From what I know of the time in which Freud existed, the Austrian intellectual scene in which he inhabited, gave us many pre-modernist or modernist thinkers who foresaw the sexual undertones and tension soon to come within the unfolding complex landscape of early democratic experiments, the consequences of industrialization, the liberation of females, and the permeation of the Scientific Method into all facets of life. I mean, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose last name the term Masochism comes from was active during the times of Freud, Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing and Isidor Isaak Sadger (with the later compounding the terms of sadism and masochism utilized by Krafft into the term S&M). Masoch interestingly wrote Venus in Furs (1870), which  interestingly inspired the song by the Velvet Underground & Nico (Fact: Nico was a racist), whom were under the tutelage of Andy Warhol, who in turn popularized “pop art”, which is a trope within postmodernism, where postmodernism – despite what a neoconservative will argue – is a consequence of capitalism as it bled into its post-capitalist phase. Masosch was alive during the time of Freud, Jung, etc., but this Austrian Renaissance also produced later thinkers such as Otto Weininger who wrote Sex and Character (1903) which speaks about the Madonna-Whore complex (adding in some self-hating Anti-Semitism and plenty of misogyny), Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, etc. As far the S is S&M it comes from the infamous Marquis de Sade, who was a libertine writer before the French Revolution. As a noble of the French nobility he was able to use his position of power to engage in sexual debauchery including reported kidnapping, rape, molestation, drugging, etc. Ironically, de Sade despite being imprison at the Bastille was later a member of France’s National Convention as a delegate, and some could say Sade’s writings were existentialism before existentialism and taken to its sexual extremes, and themes such as this were explored by modern horror and LGBT author, Clive Barker, in his novel, The Hellbound Heart (1986), later adapted into the film Hellraiser (1987).

Back to Pulp Fiction and the George Floyd death, both Derek’s and Zed’s power overlap with Zed simply being the hyperreal avatar of the white supremacist police state of a waning capitalist society where the underlying anima of such a state is a harsh hierarchical order built upon ideologies that promote domination and submission (patriarchy, racial segregation, worker exploitation, militarism for the benefit of economic elites, etc.). Regardless of politics or sex, the underlying notion is power and this Darwinist viewpoint is exemplified in the notion of policing in the United States which itself was built upon a racial caste system, or, what I like to call a psycho-sexual-racial caste system. I insert the “psycho-sexual” into the term because fear of the black male in a white male dominated society, often dealt with sexuality such fear of the black male “violating” white purity, fear of miscegenation or racial mixing, etc.

Basically, it is all about competition and monopolizing resources to make survival easier under this racial Darwinist viewpoint, but the underlying reason is arguably insecurity and fear, which ironically is not superior at all.

Pulp Fiction is a key example of postmodern fiction. It employs an irregular plot structure, distorts our notions of time, blurs high art with low art such as infusing dialogue and world-building with pop culture references (almost to the point where it could be argued all the characters are simply inhabiting a comic book, i.e., pulp is a genre of comic), distorts the viewers notion of stability by mixing seemingly safe environments with very dangerous criminal underbellies creating a feeling where the characters are mere mortals under the cruel games of “the gods” (something I notice when watching Cohen Brothers’ films, e.g., Fargo or Burn After Reading, or a similar concept such as that of H.P. Lovecraft’s notion of cosmic horror, e.g., humans are insignificant players in a larger cosmic game), and plays with psychoanalysis relating to power dynamics in a relativistic or nihilistic universe typically through depictions of sexual fetishism, e.g., in the novel, White Noise (1987), where the main character, Jack Gladney, has a fetish for his wife’s leggings which makes him fantasize about masculinity in antiquity, or, the protagonist in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) – an example work of the cracking of modernity into postmodernity – who has an obsession with prepubescent females, or, the infamous scene of coprophagia in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (just one of the many types of fetishes depicted in the novel, e.g., sex slaves, orgies, etc.).

Postmodernism is basically what it sounds like, i.e., “after modernity”, which, in other words, is a study of when humanity reaches its apex after the successes of modernity (and its failures). Society finds itself at the end of its logical conclusion, thus becoming consumed by a reality which ceases taking on an objective truth(s) and takes on a subjective, multi-dimensional, relativistic sentiment. There is no truth. This is not an original point I am making, but the show Seinfeld in a lite sense is a nihilist show, i.e., it is a show about nothing filled with characters, in an advanced civilization, lost in some comedic tragedy getting into random adventures. Postmodernity is when a machine becomes so efficient and reaches an apex that it starts to make copies of itself and people can’t distinguish between what is real or what is not, or what is original or what is a knock-off, which is a theme explored in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962), or even the film, The Matrix by the Wachowski Sisters, which in itself was influenced by real-life French thinker Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1981).  

Other common notions, tropes, or pastiches of postmodernism is a sense of transgression, a tendency to merge things such as in “postmodernist era science fiction” with the notion of cyborgs or mutants (Robocop by Paul Verohoeven – released 1987), punk (anarchy, dystopia), cynicism, pseudo-science posing as hard sciences since what is science? (aliens, mind reading, tabloids, conspiracy theories),  cyberpunk which is a punk sentiment in a technologically advanced world dominated by corporations (Neuromancer by William Gibson – published 1984), informational overload, things that are nuclear (we’re so advanced we created weapons that can destroy us ten times over), and the deification of symbols largely from capitalist systems (Mickey Mouse is arguably as revered as Jesus on the Cross as far as recognizability), etc. Symbols and semiotics are an important part of the postmodernist condition and could be argued as the key signifier of a society entering or being within a postmodern epoch. For example, the concept of memes, can only be understood in theory if one has a reference of what is being shown, thus a meme requires a deep level of understanding and juxtaposition against other objects, but there’s so many worldviews that the symbol can take on multiple meanings, or, if someone were to unearth a meme somehow in the far future they wouldn’t be able to properly understand it without reference to something else. A meme is not simply a picture, but really an agglomeration of multiple reference points, often only understood or with significance at a given moment in time.

Since postmodernism rejects objective truth claims thus making it relativistic and/or nihilistic in nature, postmodernism arguably falls under existential philosophy of the Continental School (Descartes, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, etc.). Existential philosophy itself doubts an objective view of reality, such as Sartre’s statement that existence precedes essence, and this existential umbrella of thought might deal with simplistic notions of doubt or angst, whereas extreme versions bleed into solipsism. People inhabiting postmodern societies are effectively bots reduced to Darwinist power dynamics inhabiting a reality of simulations, so because we’re so far removed from our natures, despite our advancements, we end up transgressing simply to reattach to nature, hence the propensity of “hardcore” content within our current landscape albeit pornography, blood sport, empirical managerial sciences which are simply fancy ways of saying the strongest survives, etc. Further, since there is no soul, humans instead are reliant alone upon their cognition, i.e., their egos, but since reality has no truth, the general sense of the zeitgeist ceases being solid but rather takes on something neurotic, jittery, or schizophrenic. In a postmodernist world, we are nothing more than base material without free will languishing under illusions, who can be evolved or forged into new objects, and are reduced to simply fulfilling our base desires of keeping our material in existence, but lacking any real explanation of why we exists since any truth is beyond our cognitive capabilities.

My whole breakdown of postmodernism, at least to the degree I can understand it (a true postmodernist would reject any claim of definition), is important to the Pawn Shop scene in Pulp Fiction. A Pawn Shop is a heap of collected artifacts (nostalgia) but also currently valuable things (technology, equipment, etc.) so it contains an anachronistic element, i.e., it has objects from different decades and eras, and the value of such goods are relative to whomever wishes to buy them, or even the seller of said objects who can create value in an ad hoc fashion by simply gouging the price to create the perception of a higher intrinsic value. Objects are disregarded, dreams are sold away, and value is created on whim. Pawn Shops are also predatory in nature in that people give up their items for loans, but many people are already suffering from economic hardship. So, when one is entering into a Pawn Shop, they are really entering into a capitalist space with postmodern potential. It is like how in the Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick,  the character Robert Childan has an antique shop full of American regalia but some of his items are forgeries, but to the buyer they can’t differentiate.

The Pawn Shop is the orphanage or burial ground of capitalism. Capitalism creates the simulation by glossing its existence over with empirical data, but underneath the surface is nothing more than Precambrian desire to survive or dominate. It reduces humanity into material chasing material to make more material, and since material is separate from the concepts of the spiritual, capitalism, similarly to Marxism both reduce humanity to concepts such as power, dynamics, intersections, etc. We are mere material within the flux of time and space without any real understanding of why we are here, but capitalism romantically dolls up Darwinism to promote the individual, whereas Marxism romantically dolls up Darwinism to promote the collective.

The Pawn Shop in Pulp Fiction is a microcosm of the USA which produces capitalist junk, but the owner and Zed represent the white supremacist underbelly of this ideology, hence, it is not a surprise that Zed picks Marsellus to be assaulted. Zed himself craves power but the power he was able to obtain as a security guard is basically a knock-off of real power, so not having power, he’s wired to dominate to compensate, and his identity being central, which is  his race, gender, position, and etc., attempts to dominate any antithesis to his identity whenever it presents itself. To me the fact that Zed picked Marsellus first to be raped means that race of course plays a larger role in his insecurity relating to power, but since one gets physical gratification from sex, Zed also represents a desire for what it is he is not. It is no different than a tribal chieftain wanting the head of a worthy enemy or how a cannibal wants to consume a person to obtain their symbolic power or essence. Interestingly, Bruce Willis’ character was not actually sparred from assault, but rather he simply got away, but despite Zed’s meaningless game of “einy meeny miny moe”, Bruce was spared most likely because of his privilege, but only temporarily. Butch (Bruce Willis) easily could’ve left the Pawn Shop after killing the Gimp, by reducing Marsellus’ fate to the strongest survives, but instead finds honor in himself and a common humanity with Marsellus to save him. Butch thus was not a bystander but an active participant in fighting against the injustices of Zed and Maynard (white supremacy in a capitalist wasteland obsessed with power, domination, and race). Butch did his part by challenging this “system” which gave Marsellus enough time to avenge himself.  

So, let us relate this to our world with police and the general population. Marcellus and Butch are both under threat by Zed and Maynard, similarly to how both the white and black populations are subject to police abuse, yet, the disproportionate level of abuse that Marsellus experienced over Butch, to me is similar to the disproportionate levels of violence against black Americans when dealing with police. Zed representing police and Maynard represents the white supremacy that enables Zed (the Confederate Flag in the shop), and the place of the assaults – the Pawn Shop – is symbolic of a capitalist wasteland which seems to be the fate of the USA as disparity and tensions rise. Maynard’s sexual gratification by watching Zed assault Marsellus is symbolic of how people watch police murders on TV. Many people support the police under the concept of law and order, or in Zed terms… BDSM. For example, during the Ferguson Riots, I vividly remember the police flaunting their power, wearing eerie paramilitary uniforms – faces covered – as they posed for closeups and rolled MRAPs (tanks) down streets. It was like the postmodern equivalent of putting down a “slave revolt” as millions of white eyes watched in fear from suburbia as their “boys in blue” kept them, their property, their money, etc., safe. What is the difference between the many cop deaths shown on TV and a snuff film? Further, white supremacy often displays hyper-masculinity, often most of the time as being homophobic, yet, Zed and Maynard’s closeted homosexuality is expunged through their violence. Their very acts seems to mean that besides being hypocrites (and rapists), that supremacy poses as one thing, denying certain elements, but deeply desires what is rejects on the surface.

Butch and Marsellus are in the same dilemma but Marsellus suffers because of his identity, and instead Butch chooses not to save himself, in which the opportunity to save himself was afforded by his privilege. This is like white protestors or activists assisting African Americans, Hispanics, etc., in standing up against the embedded underlying domination of the USA. For our world, white supremacy sustains itself because of pure selfishness. The “silent majority”, code word for the white majority, sees racial dynamics simply as such. They see it as teams acquiring points of injustice to justify acquiring power or equity. However, they claim this is what minorities are obsessed with, but minorities did not make this game. While the right-wing lambast the left or progressives or liberal democrats for playing what they perceive to be “identity politics” or the “victim Olympics”, ironically, they are the main purveyors of these concepts – they just have a different strategy for playing it.

Scene from Django Unchained
Maynard watching the assault

If Butch left the Pawn Shop leaving Marsellus he would have been no different than Zed. Butch’s actions would have been no different than the “silent majority’s” safe cozy nostalgia-ridden middle class existence, which might not associate with the KKK or Neo Nazis but their indifference to these groups enables these groups by reducing the severity of their actions, or even if acknowledging them, they are quick to normalize things thereafter without any systemic fixes. The reason this happens is because this “white proletariat and bourgeoisie class” subconsciously do fear losing the economic benefits and the iconography of supremacy.

In conclusion, the pawn shop scene of Pulp Fiction is analogous to the USA (nostalgia, capitalism, etc.) in which Maynard represents white supremacy (adorning his shop with a Confederate Flag) holding onto the dying dream of capitalism, and both he and Zed, represent white supremacy’s attempt to hold onto that power by exerting the most humiliating of acts onto a person of color (e.g., Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd as he called for his mother, is similar to Zed’s rape of Marsellus), yet, Butch (Bruce Willis) whom was spared temporarily because of his privilege as a white man, used his privilege to save Marsellus in the end instead of walking away, i.e., refusing to be indifferent like the “silent majority” or gimps of our actual reality. The pawn shop in Pulp Fiction is where capitalism, white supremacy, fascism, Darwinism, and power all collide to create a horror analogous to that which underlies our surface in the real world. By killing the Gimp, which is symbolic of those who comply with the authority of supremacy, and later killing Maynard who sees himself as a level above the Gimp but subservient to Zed, Butch is similar to non-black BLM protestors in our reality who disregarded their privilege to save the humanity of others despite their external differences. The fact that Maynard and Zed are hyper-real representations of white supremacy holding onto their fading sense of power, thus overcompensating with their depravity, makes me reflect on the quote by DeLillo (1987) which states:

“Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence.”

#film #toolband #pscyhology #pscyhoanalysis