The American Revolution was a worker’s strike and the modern Left needs to embrace this tradition to alleviate the accusation that it’s not “patriotic”. The colonists were subjects (contracted workers, i.e., contractors), within chartered colonies (corporations) – thirteen departments to be exact (the Thirteen Colonies)-, whose labor was being exploited for the benefit of shareholders back in the United Kingdom. Our understanding of the Revolution was crafted by the business class who used the proletariat class, for their “hostile takeover of the corporation”, to emphasis a radical worship of individual liberty and anti-taxation, which translates to power for the most powerful private interests.
Part 1. 1776 as a Worker’s Socialist Movement
Part 2. The Left Has a Patriotism Problem, in theory.
I. 1776 as a Worker’s Socialist Movement
Imagine it’s 1776 and somehow, we have TV and the modern mainstream news. Imagine the news talking about a guerilla army in a place called America revolting against the business interests of the British Empire. The news, imaging Tucker Carlson in a powered wig, would likely call the American Revolutionaries, terrorists, and Communist agitators for propaganda purposes.
When we’re taught about American Independence stories of Paul Revere, The Boston Tea Party, the crossing of the Delaware River, etc., come to mind, yet, what we’re not taught is that the energy of the American Revolution wasn’t purely about freedom in the way we understand it now, i.e., individual rights, personal property rights, etc., – which, in and of itself were used by the business class to advance their own interests at the expense of the people – but, also within the American Revolution there was a very Socialist energy. By Socialist it doesn’t necessarily mean Marxist, considering Marxism is just one of the many theories of Socialism, but since Marxism had the most indelible impact on the Socialist movement by providing a scientific framework for analysis, then what I’m saying is partially influenced by Marx such as his notion of class struggle, dialectical materialism, etc.
The colonists were subjects (contracted workers, i.e., contractors), within chartered colonies (corporations), thirteen departments to be exact (the Thirteen Colonies) whose labor was being exploited for the benefit of shareholders back in the United Kingdom.
The colony is the basis for the concept of the corporation where the first corporation, The Dutch East India Company, later inspired other companies such as The British East India Company. Colonies were business enterprises, often risky, which required private military contractors, inmate labor, human trafficked labor (slaves), and volunteers.
So, when the American Revolutionaries revolted, they as workers/slaves were revolting against a corporation, i.e., a capitalist enterprise.
We are often told one side of the coin when it comes the energy of the American revolution. It was not only libertarian in nature, but also socialist in nature. I suppose a merger of these traditions would be what we consider socio-anarchist.
For example, we often hear revolts against taxes as being American, yet even though the colonists (workers) were being taxed unfairly, there’s not much difference between taxes and wages. The workers were basically not being paid well enough, i.e., they weren’t fairly compensated for their labor to begin with, even before on the back end when they had to pay taxes, stamp duties, tariffs, etc. Colonists were getting the “double whammy” of being underpaid (slaves not paid at all) and then taxed (which likely caused harsher exploitation of workers/slaves by managers to make up for losses).
The energy of the revolution could only have happened if the worker classes revolted. In a way you could say the energy of the Revolution was a union movement, or, we could say the American Revolution is the birth of the American workers’ rights movement.
So, how did our conception of the American Revolution come to be? Those with power dictated the narrative, divided the public naturally with a capitalist system that created class struggle, but also layered it all with a racial caste system, so the white poor would identify, i.e., vicariously live through, the white elites.
I do feel that the Founders, some well-read into Enlightenment philosophers, might have speculated of the possibility of what would later become socialism as being a possibility, yet, since “mob rule of the people” would negate their own plans, but by not taking caring of the people would lead to disaster, they left an ambiguous statement within the Preamble, i.e., providing for the good will. Therefore, this one of the reasons why I believe in the Living Document interpretation of the constitution as opposed to the Originalist interpretation such as that of Supreme Court Justices such as Amy Coney Barrett, where the Originalist believe you must view the Constitution based on the time it was written, which is ridiculous, because that method denies the realities of the time at hand, its nuances, etc. (people were also slaves in this time, women had no right to vote in those times, etc.). The Founders were smart enough to know that the Enlightenment Tradition, such as what they were seeing in France, i.e., America’s fraternal brother, had utopian scope that not only emphasized the individual but also the collective.
We often hail the Founding Fathers as sage-life wisemen of virtuous character, but in essence they were of the gentry class, i.e., the middle-management classes, i.e., the managers of trading houses, labor agencies (slave depots), estates, warehouses, and law firms that served British investor interests. They were of the class had Anglophile sensibilities particularly in their education, and we can see this in the schism of the Loyalist gentry class versus the Revolutionary gentry class where Loyalists of the same class migrated to what is now Canada.
The American Revolution was two things, (1) A revolt of the proletariat, i.e., working classes subconsciously channeling what we could consider a Socialist energy, and (2) a “Hostile Takeover” by the middle-management of the colonies who wanted to cut out their foreign investors and become the de facto board of chairmen themselves.
Essentially, middle managers used the working classes, exploiting their unrealized concept of Socialism and worker’s rights, and then applied a concept of unfettered economic liberty which would always serve the ruling classes which the Founders after their victory now owned. It’s no different than workers revolting against a firm, but the leader of that firm simply uses them and turns around and does the same thing.
The very fact that the signers and framers from the upper classes didn’t trust democracy which they called “mob rule” is proof that the conscious and subconscious construction of the USA was based on classism. We can even add to the rebellions which came after the Revolution which weren’t simply about taxes, but about people fearing their wages would be eaten into since they likely didn’t make that much to begin with, such as in Shay’s Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion on the surface seems like American’s simply protesting taxes, but really, they were protesting the merchant class passing down costs on to them for them to pay their own creditors. It’s no different than a bank steadily increasing your withdrawal fees, as a means of covering their own overhead. The people who revolted at what is now called Shay’s Rebellion were suppressed by a private army funded by the merchant class and commanded by General Benjamin Lincoln, which foreshadows how today private military contractors are used to suppress workers across the globe.
However, the framers and signers of the constitution all had their own personalities and reasons, and their occupations spanned from doctors, lawyers, military, and land holders, etc. We can’t lump all Framers and Signers together since they all had their own philosophy, yet the one thing they did have in common, is they were, even if they had moral reservations about it, were a part of a class system, where many of the signers by the time of Independence had their own special interests in mind, and not necessarily the good will of the American people as claimed.
To add to the claim that the American revolution had a Socialist element to it is that the Enlightenment philosophy of the revolution encompasses Leftist thought, i.e., individualism versus collectivism, both have roots in an Enlightenment thought through the centuries of European history.
Yes, what we consider to be notions of radical freedom, democracy, capitalism, and socialism all have a common ancestry dating back to the Renaissance (thinkers such as Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola), yet over time as history carried on and democratic experiments were burgeoning there was a splintering of ideas, yet, what we consider to be libertarian and socialists both have the same ends but through different strategy, e.g., one posits that individual rights and private property rights somehow ensures liberty, whereas the other posits that collective control over the means of production or an empowerment of the larger collective working class ensures that individual rights are respected, i.e., equality. The issue with the capitalist argument is that you can’t have equality even if equality or liberty exists on paper because the accumulation of capital, often created by robbing one’s labor, i.e., underpaying, creates too much of a vast spread within a hierarchy, i.e., there’s a larger difference between the haves and have nots. Socialism, particularly the specific, I repeat specific framework (since other types of socialism exist) of Fredrich Engels and Karl Marx, i.e., Scientific Socialism or Marxism, is more based within reality, whereas notions of capitalism, despite what we’ve been told, are more based on romantic idealism, i.e., ideas over real-world conditions.
The notion freedom by way of a capitalist system is based more in ideas (romanticism, religion, non-empiricism), rather than realism (understanding negative effects of systems, i.e., externalities, using a scientific framework to study human interactions, the interconnection of things, the inherent social nature of humans and the social nature of transaction, etc.), thus the American notion as we know it of liberty is more in aligned with Hegelian idealism, which is something that Marx disagreed with. Instead of living under “grand ideas”, Marx rather called capitalism what it is, which is a system based on the exploitation of labor for the benefit of a few or an individual. It exists to have people work for you, but you underpay them and collect the surplus yourself.
We can put Karl Marx in the same umbrella of Western philosophy as the thinkers who inspired the Revolutionaries, even though Marx came later, and many thinkers went in their own directions. For example, both Marx and Jefferson were influenced by J.J. Rousseau. Hegel, Kant, Spinoza, Smith, etc.
Both Marx and Jefferson had a materialist view to reality, though unique and modified to themselves, which could be translated as a scientific (observation of nature) or a realist view to nature, i.e., science, such as the science influenced by Newtonian thought. Yet, to not get too much into religion, it could be argued that Jefferson would be agnostic in a modern-day sense with Christian apologetics, whereas Marx would have been an atheist on the deeper end of scientific realism.
Jefferson stated, “Nature has, in truth, produced units only through all her works. Classes, orders, genera, species, are not of her works. Her creation is of individuals.” If Jefferson had survived to read Charles Darwin, he may be interested in the works Darwin such as the interconnectivity of all life.
Marx stated, ““Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle”.
“Like many other contemporaries he read—e.g., Hutcheson, Kames, Bolingbroke, Tracy, and Hume—Jefferson was an empiricist, and in keeping with Isaac Newton, a dyed-in-the-wool materialist.”
The Left as a Patriotism problem. It’s not that those on the Left, Progressive, or Left Liberal side of the house don’t like the United States. Their efforts to improve conditions is proof they do care about America. Yet, the Left as largely lost the “Patriotism optics” war, despite winning the Culture War as far as mainstream media as mainstream media has become more inclusive over time. Many on the Left might think that not being a radical patriot, waving the Stars and Stripes, posting things about supporting the troops, etc., is all that necessary, and some might even think it’s cringe or nonsensical to do such things because they could be seen as mere figurative gestures that don’t improve material conditions of the American people.
Yet, by not owning more of the Patriotic aesthetic this gives easy ammunition to the political right who can simply rebut any progressive idea as being “un-American”, etc. The Political Right as far as culture, i.e., fashion, optics, aesthetics, attempts to own the soul of the military, police, and even the Revolutionary War. Why do Leftist let this happen? It’s ok to be critical of the American system while still honoring the aesthetics of it. It’s ok to have a post-colonial framework, or even a Critical Theory viewpoint, or to apply intersectionality, and still have the appearance, but also the innate belief of loving your country.
Basically, we need to see more marketing campaigns to stitch the Leftist Framework with Patriotic imagery. Having American Flags at a rally for Bernie or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is something simple to do. Unifying progressive veteran organizations and focusing on veteran care for troops while still honoring their service, even though the Left might lean towards pacifism, is fine. But the major point is to present the truth that the American Revolution was a worker’s strike (more to come on this below).
Republicans can easily have no policy besides enriching the rich even more, but they capture people with the allure of belonging to a Patriotic Tradition. Yet, the issue with how we understand this tradition is that the Revolutionary War for example wasn’t merely a war to free ourselves from taxes, but was also a worker’s strike, meaning the energy of the Revolutionary had a Leftist framework.
I’m frustrated as an everyday “heteronormative” guy wanting to see the Left succeed.
I surf the internet and on Instagram I constantly see beautiful models with Bible quotes above their LinkTree link (leading to OnlyFans) covering themselves with the US flag (something you wouldn’t see on the political left – which is fine, but it is a powerful tool), I see gun enthusiast pages, Don’t Tread on Me flags, people selling T-Shirts such as “Liberty or Death” or “1776”, truck or off-road vehicle pages, Blue Lives Matter pages, etc. The appeal of the political right is that it makes itself seem like a fun place for the normal person. “We got beautiful woman, we love our country, we admire our heroes, we eat meat, watch sports, we use our hands, we’re manly men and the women who love these men”, etc., etc.
Yet, on the Left things aren’t as monolithic and homogenous, which is fine, but due to ideologies such as Identity politics the Left is left in state where it can’t even agree internally on what can be done without people feeling they’re offending someone of another intersectional component. There’s a lot of “you aren’t down” enough shaming tactics on the Left which further divides things so the unified right can easily pick it apart or obstruct. How can the Left unite if the ideology of feminism (which isn’t bad) does posit itself against men and don’t really care what men think (not necessarily in theory as what a person criticizing this would say, but just look to social media where you see pages after pages essentially not…liking men), and I would say the same thing in reverse, when men on the Left might feel stunned or unable to feel they can articulate their thoughts without fear of being lectured? As crazy as it wounds, sexual politics are a big part of the appeal of the political-right because it coddles the heteronormative ego, whereas the left questions it, yet women on the right are willing to “stand by their men” because it’s beneficial for them to do so, i.e., they get adoring love and admiration.
You can apply this feeling of awkwardness across race, gender, orientation, assignment, etc. Yet, it’s not bad what the left has achieved as far as advancing the conversation. I almost feel a sense of “existential” growth at pondering intersectionality and I would say the Left has made me into a better person, but what I feel in my head even if it on the right track, and how the world outside of my head are two different things. The Left might feel enlightened but it’s a flimsy reality on the streets, where people like see it as “weak”, “intellectual”, etc.
I always had the idea of trying to reconcile heteronormative masculinity with Leftist thought. And, sure, I bet a critic with the typical “eye roll” response as if attempting such as thing is just proof of “male insecurity”, but I would argue it’s essential since this identity does exists in the material world, and the Right Wing is able to exploit masculinity and make it seem “explicitly” Right Wing. As a man, to be honest, this erks me. Maybe the American Left needs a “Men of Steel” tradition, where the notion of steel goes back to old Socialist imagery of the hammer, and this could help in hedging the culture war of the political right.
Regardless, the Right Wing is a unified force that markets itself with the high horse position of patriotic imagery and it also appeals to a “safe space” of non-intellectual, Football watching, beer drinking, firework shooting, Redneck rigging, “chicks” in daisy duke loving Americana. As a Leftist who grew up an old school Democrat before the passage of NAFTA, in many ways the culture of the right wing, is my culture (I’m watching Sunday Night Football with a beer right now), despite me coming from a tradition that always sympathized with the worker, had disdain for Wall Street, etc.
In many ways, the American Left lost its style of the “Roseanne America” or Axel Foley’s Detroit in Beverly Hills Cop. And, sure, these might not be “representative” of America as is, but ask yourself this question, “How do you help a Southern guy with a truck actually embrace Leftist ideology?”. Beau the Fifth Column for example is a refreshing attempt at inserting culturally conservative chic with the Leftist framework.
The last attempt at making the Left an actual fun place was decried at being “Bernie Bros”. Remember that? When men who supported Bernie were lumped into this category of a “Bernie Bro” because Bernie Sanders posed an ideological threat to Hillary Clinton, yet Bernie’s message even after the loss of Hillary in 2016 helped to re-energize the Democratic Party, going so far as helping first-time female candidates such as Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, Rhasida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, even though the powerbase of the Democrats are neoliberal capitalist. Were Bernie Bros toxic, or even a thing, or where they simply believers in Leftist ideology, simply using their masculine energy to rebut the appropriate masculine energy of the right-wing, who posed a risk to neoliberal female candidate whose decisions over her long (and impressive) career lead up to the issues we face today?
Seeing how radical Trump supporters are, the Left needs some All American “Bernie Bros” in the mix right alongside strong females, BIPOC communities, service workers, the LGBTQ community, veterans, etc.
It comes off as too erudite now, walking on eggshells, brainy, etc., yet ironically also living off a neoliberal “hipster” culture. It lacks the older aesthetics of the beer drinking truck driving union card holder, or the striking union organizers fighting the Rockefellers at coal mines in Colorado or Appalachia. It lacks the aesthetic of the “anti-war yet still patriotic veteran” such as how things were during the Vietnam War era, i.e., the men who might ride motorcycles with a POW/MIA flag.
The Left to survive needs to figure out its Patriotic and Americana problem, even though I know many intellectuals, content creators, podcasters, etc., on the Left will see this all as a silly attempt that doesn’t improve material conditions. But, why let your opposition have free ammunition, especially when that ammunition is easy the Left’s as well?
It has to also figure out a way of reconciling certain positions such as gun rights, which is a culture war aspect that the right holds onto firmly. There are actual liberal and left leaning gun clubs who could be used to advocate for gun ownership but also with progressive policies for safer gun controls. For example, the Socialist Rifle Association (https://socialistra.org/) and The Liberal Gun Club (https://theliberalgunclub.com/)
Why are all of these pundits coming from Canada? Seriously…. They’re all Canadian. It’s always the ones you least expect… Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder, Gavin McInnes, Stefan Molyneux, Nina Kouprianova, Ezra Levant, Laurent Southern, and the movie poster to Canadian Bacon (1995) by Michael Moore
Is the film Canadian Bacon by Michael Moore prophetic? Was it on to something without even realizing it? South Park by Matt Stone and Trey Parker even has its comedic take on Canadians. But, in reality…why are all these Right-Wing pundits…Canadian? Seriously? Have we become so cynical that people who want to do harm to the United States simply have to partake in our cynicism and disbelief? Laugh with us? There was the curious case of Anna Chapman along with nine others back in 2010 who were caught as being Russian spies and were given back to Russia in a spy exchange at an Austrian Airport (Sources: Russia spies plead guilty in US amid swap rumors by the BBC, 8 July 2010; The secrets of Anna Chapman by the BBC, 28 March 2011). We all should know the odd case of Maria Butina in the GOP NRA scandal. The agenda that is most prevalent to me right now, at least a piece of it, is how Right-Wing Canadian pundits that have gained influence in American politics but these people are simply the proxies of an international Zionist cabal spanning MAGA in the USA, the British Right Wing, Israel, and Russia. Trust me… I know that last sentence sounds silly. It will be called that. But I assure you, if you have not heard of people like Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, or Stefan Molyneux and their effects on American populism, you are the one who is out of touch. The global phenomenon of the Right Wing revolution isn’t organic but is actually a constructed movement unbeknownst to those who participate (you’re average Trump rally attendee), to build up mobilization for the defense of Israel and to link a newly rebranded traditionalist Russia with the West and USA on conservatism (whiteness).
The film Canadian Bacon I saw as a kid in the mid-nineties, and it did not leave much of an impact. Yet, I am watching it right as I write this. Be warned the film is full of 90s cheese (which is rather enjoyable in the dark times of late 2020) with some grunge music playing by people who are way too old to be listening to it (trying to capture the 90s Fugazi college crowd?), and a black character even drops the 90s phrase, “Can we all just get along”. Yet, brilliantly in satire fashion, akin to that of Don DeLillo’s 1985 book White Noise, Moore uses absurdity and hyperrealism to capture the time immediately after the Fall of the Soviet Union (I was a child) in which the USA was figuring out where to go considering there was no major enemies and the USA throughout the nineties enjoyed relative peace despite defense contractors trying to figure out how to create new revenue streams (sometimes going as far as fraud). It features a ragtag bunch of local cops (John Candy, Rhea Pearlman, Bill Nunn, etc.) who help foil a plot to start a new arms race. The film begins with the closure of a factory owned by a major defense contractor named Hacker Industries in a blue-collar community near Niagara Falls.
The film deals with the conflict of employment in the time of peace considering many US jobs are based within the Military Industrial Complex. The president of Hacker Industries working with a Washington insider, the President’s National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (played by Kevin Pollack), tries to stir contempt to help boost the arms industry, even though the President (played by Alan Alda) wants peace. However, the President later meets with the Russian President, named Vladimir of course, to reignite Cold War tensions to help boost his popularity and employment numbers. The Russian President jokingly states that Russia is now concerned with state-of-the-art plumbing equipment and America should not be sore winners. The Cold War was costly to Russia. Later on after their plan to reignite war with Russia falls through, General Dick Panzer (played by Rip Torn) while conducting a briefing in the war-room (alluding to the Dr. Strangelove war room) goes through a list of enemies spanning Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Min, and even floats the ideas of an alien invasion. The President floats the idea of international terrorism (an ominous reference considering the Council of National Policy in real life was prepping for the Global War on Terrorism, and other Hollywood films, like True Lies, foreshadowed the emphasis on the Middle East) but Rip Thorn states that terrorist are just a bunch of people blowing themselves up in rental cars. The President then floats the idea of Canada.
The President’s National Security Advisor later consults a veteran CIA agent named Gus (who is still salty about the Cuban Missile Crisis and Korean War) who argues that Canada is the enemy. While strolling a hallway to talk in private, a hallway adorned with photos such as that of Henry Kissinger, Gus and Stuart have a conversation: “You remember the big New York blackout?” “Yea” “Caused by a Canadian hydroelectric plant, Niagara Falls. The Canucks claims it was a faulty transmitter, we have reason to suspect otherwise…” “Why is that?” “These Canadians suffer from a serious inferiority complex. That’s why they built this (whipping out a photo of the Canadian National Tower). World’s tallest free-standing tower. Our scientist cannot figure out what it is for. Canadians are always dreaming up a lot of ways to ruin our lives. The metric system, Celsius, Neil Young…Jesus. We admired them… Clean streets, no crime, no minorities” “How’d they pull that?” “No slavery…. Their entire government is run by socialist” “But it’s not the real stuff”, Stuart responds, before Gus continues, “No no no…that is where you are wrong…they’ve always had these tendencies”. Stuart reads a newspaper cutout, “Capitalism must be destroyed in all its forms? What is this??”, before Gus interjects, “We think they are a little weird with the socialism stuff… They provide free healthcare, education…. free condoms!”. Later, back at the war council room, the President and his staff float the idea of labeling Canada an enemy. One advisor, an African American man, states, “Hell, they’re whiter than we are!”. Yet, the President agrees to manufacture consent against the Canadians, later slipping the story to the media who starts their campaign of muckraking, Charlie Rose-like panel discussions, CSPAN knockoff updates, etc.
Gus later appears with a CIA team posing as Canadians to blow up a power-plant, but the power station is of course being guarded by John Candy and his crew. The event goes viral and causes the American public to believe the elaborate rouse even more.
A funny line so far is when a character, Kabral Jabar, played by Bill Nunn, while attending an auction of surplus military gear of a recently closed plant owned by Hacker Dynamics (maybe a ploy on General Dynamics, though the logo does reflect Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc.), says, “Listen, can we get out of here? All these guns and white people have me feeling nervous”, but John Candy playing Sheriff Bud Boomer, says, “Can you knock it off with the white stuff. You got me looking at em funny”. The fact Michael Moore gave Candy’s character the surname of Boomer obviously alludes to the Baby Boomers but considering this was the nineteen-nineties the term Boomer wasn’t used then as it is now, e.g., a term meant to prove the Baby Boomer’s general sense of selfishness and ambivalence to everything while simultaneously having the need for authority such as surface level politics, cops, simplistic dynamics of good guys versus bad buys, religion, etc.
But the plot of Canadian Bacon aside… There is something sinister coming from Canada in our reality.
The next stuff is serious. I am not…joking.
Canada used to send us quirky comedians. People who came from a higher latitude of the English speaking realm that we assumed had a natural predilection for left-wing, center-left, or moderate politics – granted they do have an important rural heritage as well – considering their single-payer healthcare system, the general perception of cleanliness, a general acceptance of cosmopolitanism, bilingualism, the fact that most of their population centers around urban areas doting the various provinces, and unlike Americans, the Canadians kept closer to their British roots which in itself is seen as more well-read, artistic, capable of understanding the “abstract”, and parliamentarian in nature. The Canadians or Canadiens are our slightly smarter younger sibling who stayed closer to our “parents” as we rebelled to be free but ended up like David Hasselhoff eating a cheeseburger off the floor in a drunken stupor or a film like Robocop makes so much sense it deserves a statue in Detroit.
Americas always saw Canada as the better place to the North with its own unique quirks. Nasally accents and using words like gee, or an over usage oh, or phases like don’t ya know. Something innocent about it. Yet, in recent times, especially in the times that led up to Trump America, I must admit that things have changed about Canada’s export of entertainers. They are all Right-Wingers and often extreme Right-Wingers. This isn’t the era of Jim Carey, John Candy, Mike Myers, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, etc., but rather we got a ragtag incendiary bunch comprising Steven Crowder, Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, Jordan B. Peterson, Nina Kouprianova (Richard B. Spencer’s allegedly – I believe her – abused ex-wife), Stefan Molyneux, and Ezra Levant (a Jewish-Canadian Right Wing Zionist) with his “Breitbart of Canada” media outlet in Rebel Media (an outlet that has hosted controversial figures such as Alex Jones and was linked to helping organize the United the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA). I am sorry but Ezra Levant looks a lot like the main character from the Cohen Brother’s A Serious Man. Just saying. Is the United States being invaded by Canada? It sounds funny, it sounds like a movie-plot straight out of South Park or Canadian Bacon, but I am not joking even though it is amusing but…not. It is quite easy to do. We in the United States scrutinize people from South of the Border but is the same treatment given to those North of the border, and if not, gee I wonder why?
How clever of an idea when you think about it. Culturally similar nations with a predominately white population which can at times be reactionary to change, in right-wing politics at least, especially that which challenges the notions of conscious and subconscious supremacy (immigration, gender equality, people of color in lead roles, etc.). If the United States were to be invaded, sure, it could come from South of the Border with Mexico, or be from some shadowy terrorist cell, but we often don’t see Canada in the same light, even though the chances of espionage or infiltration is much higher with our Canadian sibling. It is not the Canadian government that is the issue, but rather non-state actors who are betrothed to a well-funded religious-political agenda that spans the United States, U.K. and Commonwealth, Israel, and Russia. More to come on this later.
Gavin McInnes, formerly of Canadian media outlet Vice Media (which interestingly has links to the Manhattan Institute founded by former CIA head, William Casey, via Vice’s former correspondent, Raihan Salam and this institute also has ties to PayPal founder, Peter Thiel – an ardent Trump supporter and owner of the infamous IT firm, Palantir), represents the Oi! Oi! Right Wing takeover of the British late-seventies punk scene and he uses the prevalence of political correctness, “wokeness”, and the elevation of marginalized groups to turn conservatism into “punk” against the mainstream. McInnes created the Proud Boys harkening back to the right-wing street thugs of the National Front in Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing 1980s England. The Proud Boys, supposedly started as a joke by McInnes, despite being known in the public sphere for years were elevated even further in Trump’s debate against Biden in which Trump stated, “Stand back and stand by” when asked about if Trump would denounce white supremacy, specifically when asked about the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys employ a strategy of surface level silliness to divert attention away from their chauvinistic West is the Best ideology. The Proud Boys require a beat-down initiation in which a man must read off as many as ten breakfast cereals while getting beat up. It seems childish and borderline like suppressed homoeroticism (considering McInnes has made-out with Milo Yiannopoulos) or MGTOW behavior (Men Gone Their Own Way) especially with the prevalence of nude male Greek statues representing logos within the Alt-right sphere of thought. The Proud Boys are a sausage fest of angry males who need identity. This playful silliness is not just common to the Proud Boys who have documented cases of using violence, but also Boogaloo, who took that name from a nineteen-eighties pop cultural reference, who gained notoriety when US Air Force Sergeant Steven Carrillo was indicted for the murder of two deputies in North California in 2020 using the Black Lives Matter protests as cover and a means of inciting a race war.
Lauren Southern and Nina Kouprianova with their “fraulein” looks aer the anti-feminists who represents femininity’s subservience to masculinity yet are outspoken in favor for militaristic masculinity protecting the “race” – a notion notable in the Right Wing [Note: Nina Kouprianova has been interviewed by vlogger, Jay Dyer, who converted to Orthodox Christianity, i.e., the main religion of Russia, and most of his work are directed at the United States and not at the current events happening in Russia. Dyer to me seems to have an affinity with “people groups”, i.e., differences as being ordain in his words by God). Lauren Southern not only went to South Africa to show a biased view of the racial situation in South Africa such as proliferating the white farmer murders (something Trump has tweeted about) but she has also flown to Russia to interview Alt-Right Anti-American intellectual Aleksandr Dugin.
Jordan B. Peterson and Stefan Molyneux represent an intellectual basis for Darwinism with concepts like “fitness”, “Bell Curves”, the strongest survives, etc., which are notable tropes of the Right Wing even though it hides in high-brow discussions of capitalism, intelligence, systems theories, i.e., alluding to the natural tendency to form social hierarchies which in and of itself insinuates a rejection of egalitarianism, etc. Steven Crowder represents the “bro” of the bunch. A frat boy beer drinking mentality which tries to out masculine you and harkens back to the days where the white male viewpoint of reality, including criticisms of others, dominated the landscape.
The fact that many are comedians helps deliver their messages into the public because they can simply state, “I’m just telling a joke”, so there is a level of solipsism and postmodernism in their tactics, where postmodernism comes into the mix because of the prevalence of memes, vlogs, and conspiracy theories/”true history” videos spanning or touching upon Indo-European studies (a gateway into Aryan studies such as the videos created by British Alt-Right vlogger, Survive the Jive), rejection of peer-reviewed and intensive studies such as the Out of Africa Theory in exchange for fringe theories such as Hyperborea, aliens (where aliens only seem to help people of color and not Europeans), etc., in the digital landscape. Postmodernism simply put (if it can be) is when the world has no reference of what the truth actually is, so truth is utterly subjective and an existential process, and the notion of objective truths or grand-narratives are false. Postmodernism was first a reaction to the atrocities of the right-wing after World War II, but now it seems like it’s being cleverly used by conservatives to deconstruct the new accepted truths of modern human rights, diversity, gender equality, etc. These types of individuals in the right-wing sphere in which I am speaking of broaden their base by being elevated on even more popular outlets such as the Joe Rogan Experience. Yet, whenever this side is called out, they can default to victim status by making it appear those who are fed up with traditionalism, patriarchy, racism, etc., are in effect nothing more than “commies”, “fascists”, “Marxist radicals” or “Social Justice Warriors” who are simply shaming white boys and women who love them. To stir this atmosphere of them being the oppressed or muzzled victims, any time a person is de-platformed they cry fascism, even though their very own ideology is the basis of fascism. They are playing games is where I am getting at. Using amorphisms and ambiguity to Trojan Horse their regressive ideology into the mainstream.
I’ve said this before but we truly live in the era of the Postmodern Conservative who uses deception tactics to de-evolve the modern liberal state back into a conservative homogenous state, but it claims to detest postmodernism in the vein of people like Pat Buchanan who popularized “Cultural Marxism”, despite utilizing postmodernism (asymmetric, shapeshifting, “what is truth?” – tactics, etc.) as a tool for its own agenda. Ironically, Donald Trump himself could be compared to Max Headroom, a Canadian character of a former Canadian TV show, where Max Headroom is a digital avatar and Trump in effect is the same with his use of the online arena to bypass the political process and stir up conspiracy theories to protect himself. The right-wing conspiracy culture that led up to Trump was the clay which gave us a Golem like Trump. Interestingly, certain portions of the Alt-Right, those more in line with the quasi-Nazi Occult elements, have even stated that they are using “magic” or magick when they troll online, i.e., they are willing their wants into existence using meme warfare.
In relation to the Russian elements regarding my “Canadian Cabal” theory, 541,810 people in 2016 claimed Ukrainian descent, there were 622,445 people in 2016 who claim Russian or partial Russian descent in Canada, and in 2016 about 20,710 people claimed Belarusian descent in Canada. In 2016, Canada had a population over 35 million (compared to the United States with is around 300+ million). The number of people of Eastern European descent might not stand out as being significant, but for a much smaller nation than the USA, the amount of cultural influence cannot be calculated. As far as cultural influence all it takes is one person or a few to gain a large audience to disseminate and proliferate messages. Further, it’s much easier to “fit in” with their American counterparts, especially those in the Right-Wing, which is an arena spanning household “normal” center-Right politics all the way to fringe Nazism, the John Birch Society, the Tea Party Movement, Christian Extremists, Traditionalist Mormons who practice polygamy, Qanon, the Rise Above Movement, Boogaloo (which resulted in the murders of two law officers where the assailant wrote Boogaloo in blood at a crime scene – yet, our media unfairly characterizes the Black Lives Matter movement as terrorists), the Right Wing occult (Order of Nine Angels, Atomwaffen SS, etc.), race realists, etc.
I am not saying espionage is happening from the Canadian government necessarily since they are US allies, but rather individual actors have the ability to infiltrate and change the culture of the United States by appealing to a sense of sameness. The United States could clamp down on these individual actors if they wanted to such as scrutinizing their visa status, look to see if they’re paying taxes, etc., but considering it is Trump America and he needs these people, it seems the Department of Justice is more concerned with a Hoover like condemnation of the left than it is protecting the USA from actual domestic and international agents who just so happen to be “good ole white boys”.
Most of the people I named are conservative and they speak on American politics more than they do Canadian politics. Is this not strange? Do American conservatives even call them out on this? No. Why? Because the white conservative base of America is so lost in fear than they will take anyone that looks like them and tells them exactly what they want to hear. This fear has created not only a business opportunity for entertainers but also a world-shifting opportunity for influencers who are attached to the agendas of larger and shadowy organizations, which I feel links to the controversies surrounding Trump. Most of these pundits are Trump supporters, even if they cannot vote in American elections. These pundits to me are in the web that spans Russia-gate (Israeli-Russian Gate), Trump, the Alt Right, and the US-UK & Israeli Zionist connection.
So, let me explain my beliefs based on that last statement I made. Russia was not alone in influencing the 2016 election, but rather Israel had the technological means and cultural connections within the United States to help sway the election in favor for Trump. For example, the Republican Jewish Coalition with people like Eliot Brody brought up in the Mueller investigation. Israel was displeased with the Obama Administration for abstaining on a United Nation’s vote over Israeli settlements on disputed Palestinian lands. This abstain vote by Obama resulted in a toxic backlash against his administration especially in the Israeli press and thinking that Hillary would follow suit with the Obama Administration’s policy (and that of previous American administrations who preferred to broker peace between Israel and Palestine), the Israeli lobby backed Trump, despite saving face and managing relations on both side of the political spectrum, particularly by denouncing antisemitism even though many people on the right are Jewish. So, in order to get the majority of the USA, which is white, to back Trump, the US Zionist and Israeli lobby spanning politics, media, alternative media (podcasting such as Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, even Joe Rogan during his phase of platforming Alt-Right guests), Wall Street, and Washington insiders, effectively created and elevated the Alt-Right. This strategy has in part helped to metastasize into movements such as Qanon, which might still seem harmless to the average American, but people running for Congressional seats are openly pushing Qanon, Islamophobia, Pizzagate, and “Holly-Weird” theories. It could be argued that Qanon is a cult but a cult for the internet age and it preys on the vulnerabilities of those in conservative politics. Qanon has a Zionist undertone to it, which therefore not only feeds into a support of Israel but also Western conservatism. It sounds strange by Qanon could be what helps turn the United States into something akin to the Handmaid’s Tale. A radical religious reactionary state where the courts are run by Noahide worshiping judges. Noahide is a form of Jewish proselytizing to non-Jews in which non-Jews are encouraged to worship the Jews as the Chosen people and to follow the Noahide Laws issued by Jewish clerics.
This reactionary Right Wing (predominately white) movement is filled with the fringe of conservatism (as we saw at Charlottesville) and is protecting Israel even if many of the people in this arena are not cognizant of it. I say this because many people in this arena have antisemitic beliefs but even antisemitic beliefs can be used by Zionist to increase their power. For example, appealing to a Christian Crusader “Dues Vult” mentality in defense of the Holy Land is essentially getting WASP Christians with Punisher skull tattoos, subscriptions to Soldier of Fortune, and a habit of dropping N-bombs while playing Call of Duty, to defend Israel, but these people must be convinced that they still are the majority, in supremacy, or are in jeopardy of being replaced. Basically, certain factions of the Zionist lobby are willing to fund Nazis as a diversion to what they’re doing but also to build a “street team” for Trump, but really Trump is an ally of Israel who will do what they want which can be seen in Trump naming Jerusalem the capital of Israel, landmarks being named after Donald Trump, the annexation of the Golan Heights in the wake of the Syrian War, leaving the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and leaving ambiguity around the contested Dome on the Rock between Jews and Muslims (which is where the Kusher relationship with the Saudis comes into play since the Saudis are the landlords or trustees of the property).
All these Right-Wing Canadians will shame minorities, the LGBTQ community, welfare, etc., but you notice they never talk about Jews. It is not that I want them to, but rather, they are all Zionists or tied to some sort of Zionist organization. They are the cover for the Zionist lobby simply put there to mobilize the majority that leans right into doing that lobby’s bidding. The marriage between White Supremacy and Jewish Zionism is not new and can trace roots in part back to the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century where there were British movements such as British Israelism where white Britons felt they were the chosen people in order to justify the British Empire. This grand origin story mythology is common among most empires or aspiring empires such as the Nazis trying to trace roots to Central Asia or India largely because they simply wanted that land, or even to the United States with notions like Manifest Destiny. Religions such as Mormonism were created during Manifest Destiny and used Zionist undertones to demonize Native Americans so they could take their land and bolster their own credibility (I do not hate modern, every day, and normal Mormons by the way).
The British elite establishment and the Jews who became prominent in the United Kingdom created a symbiotic relationship, and many prominent imperial administrators were Jewish such as Benjamin Disraeli, and, yes, the Rothchild Dynasty (responsible for helping acquire the Suez Canal, raising capital against Napoleon, treasurers of the Bank of England, etc.).
This symbiotic relationship or marriage of “mafias” resulted in the basis for the establishment of Israel in which the British helped the Jews acquire Palestine after World War I when King George defeated his cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm’s, allies in the Ottoman Turks who owned the area. Further, even though it is debatable, King George and the British Establishment with the help of American financiers, may have supported the Bolsheviks in order to overthrow the Czar of Russia in order to obtain the lucrative oil fields of the Caucuses. This symbiotic relationship surrounding being “Chosen”, i.e., supremacy, bled into the United States and Commonwealth nations thus influencing the treatment of the indigenous First Peoples and people of color in these regions (such as African-Americans with slavery which was argued with a misinterpretation of the Bible such as the Mark of Cain, Aborigines, Indians of the Asian Subcontinent, Africans in colonial Africa, etc.). The Rothchild’s did fund Cecil Rhodes’ DeBeer Diamonds in Africa and it is well known Rhodes was a Mason and racist, where Masonry in itself, at least that of the English realm has Judeo-Christian undertones.
Manifest Destiny in the United States was simply White Zionism similarly to how the British Empire was White Zionism, but the Zionism aspect is what links them to the Jews, even though these factions at times are in conflict (Waspy elitism of the Anglo-American establishment or the condescending tones that some Jews have of gentiles), but their working relationship as far as global control outweighs the negatives. In effect, these two groups of white Gentiles and white Jews can effectively merge with each other and have time and time again throughout history, even within some old European noble families such as Sophie von Hohenlohe (who spied for the Nazis) or Prince Rupert Lowenstein (the Rolling Stones former manager). Even though the common average white person or Jewish person might not mix as much, when you get to the upper echelons of power, then what’s ethnicity when all that matter is money?
It is my personal belief that all the weird events that happened from 2016 to 2020 in the present were simply this cabal coming to light for the first time to most Americans. The curtains had fallen and the system went into clean-up trying to get ahead of stories by pretending they were actually covering the stories in full, even though they were simply doing what a street hustler does when they play a “shell game”, i.e., moving around cups with a ball underneath it and making people wage money on where the ball actually is (sometimes the ball being taken away with a contraption so no one wins). For example, the Bronfman Clan of NXVIUM with their ties to the United Nations (via Sara Bronfman’s husband Basit Igtet who negotiated a peace deal in Libya after Hillary’s Benghazi situation), Edgar Senior’s ties to the World Jewish Coalition (where he advocated for improved Russian and Israeli relations) and Edgar Junior’s ties to the music industry; Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s ties to the British Royal Family and even the Iranian Contra era with characters spanning William Barr as a CIA operative around Reagan’s White House, John Kerry as a blue-blood old money Senator, Robert Mueller (classmate of Kerry) as a young investigator who worked on Iran Contra, Judge Robert Morgenthau (a relative to the Bronfman Clan), Adnan Khashoggi (uncle to killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Princess Diana’s lover, Dodi Fayed), the Clintons and the Trumps. This is deep stuff.
The Israeli lobby, at least that led by Benjamin Netanyahu (he does face opposition in Israel) and his allies in the USA and English speaking Commonwealth (various non-profits, social clubs, etc.), understand that hiding behind hyper-Republicanism of the majority in the United States is the best way to keep the light off of them and since Right-Wing politics are often Christian or Judeo-Christian in nature, this religious crux is a helpful variable that increases the power of this strategy. They can appeal to sense of Revelations, Armageddon, Holy War against Muslims, etc.
Ok, so keep all that in mind, but what about Russia? The truth is that Russia and Israel are closer than what most Americans realize. In the Cold War, the United States utilized Christianity and Zionism as a means of psychological warfare to differentiate ourselves from the godless Soviets. The truth is many Israelis and American/Canadian Jews, or Jews of the Commonwealth are of Eastern European “Pale Settlement” or Russian Jewish descent. Prominent Canadian billionaire, Edgar Bronfman Sr., of the Seagram’s Dynasty, is the father of Claire and Sara Bronfman (incriminated in the NXVIUM scandal), younger brother to Phyllis Lambert (who bailed Ira Einhorn, the Unicorn Killer, out of jail before he pulled a Roman Polanski and fled the USA), and father to Edgar Junior (music mogul with links to Jeffrey Epstein), was the president of the World Jewish Coalition (WJC) and promoted Russian emigration to Israel. Edgar Bronfman, Sr., who was a racist (disapproving his son’s marriage to an African American woman, foreshadowing to me the racist rant of LA Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling), advocated for increasing Israeli and Russian ties. Israel is the crux between the USA/West and the East typified in Russia, and Israel can leverage those multi-national bonds to its favor if the policy of one deviate away from Israel’s own ambitions (consolidating its borders to that of the Kingdom of David and bring forth their messiah, the Mashiach). As an analogy, Israel has positioned itself to the be the woman that two powerful suitors are courting and play them off each other, even though the future of this strategy is for all to…share Israel or Israel to control both, as the Russians and the Americans by way of the Republicans (the party you would least expect) try to join forces. A White Zionist alliance where the Israelis are the heart of the operation.
So, in 2016, Russia did have a major reason to favor the election of Donald Trump considering the sanctions they faced due to their invasion of Crimea and their tendency to generally annoy the United States by them conducting a “parallel policy” to the USA, e.g., if the USA has issue with Venezuela or Syria, then Russia steps in to show they are friends to these nations in the face of “American Imperialism”. Trump had done business in Russia, ex-Soviets turned businessmen had conducted business out Trump’s properties, Trump has links to many ex-Soviets in one way or another (Tevfik Arif, Tamir Sapir, Lev Leviev, etc.), many people in his cabinet had ties to Russia such as Rexx Tillerson for Exxon Mobil, Michael Flynn was called into suspicion, Rand Paul delivered correspondence to Moscow for Trump, and Mitch McConnell and other prominent Republicans have ties to Leonard Blvatnik etc.
The fact that Melania Trump is of Slovenian descent and Trump’s first wife, Ivana Trump, is of Czech descent, both former Soviet nations (which in and of itself is not a problem, i.e., they shouldn’t be shamed for this), I could imagine Donald Trump has a large following in former Soviet States as far as the media, tabloids, and news. Nations such as Hungary, Austria, Germany even (especially in the former Soviet Eastern part of the country which is under-developed in relation to the Western part of the nation), etc., has seen a rise in Right-Wing populist politics emulating the success of Donald Trump, and Russia sees this Right-Wing Revolution as good since they have ditched the Soviet style and in exchange are marketing themselves as Orthodox traditionalists against the depravity of liberal democracies, modernity, secularism, human rights, etc. This Right-Wing revolution in Eastern Europe which benefits Russia in its “rebranding campaign” can weaken the primacy of the United States by threatening NATO and calling into question the usefulness of the United Nations (the United Nations has always been a target of Right-Wing organizations such as the John Birch Society which helped coin concepts such as a one-world government. Interesting fact is that the Neo-Nazis in America trace roots back to an internal conflict within the John Birch Society in which a Revilo P. Oliver left the organization because he claimed the JBS was becoming too Jewish, which, even though I reject Nazism and white supremacy, he may have had a point considering post-war Neo-conservatism had many notable Jews such as Henry Kissinger, Barry Goldwater, Milton Friedman, etc.).
In conclusion, Canada is awesome. It is still seen as an example of a modern and developed nation that fosters diversity, education, public investments, and a rational well-balanced foreign policy. Yet, all of that aside, many Right-Wing pundits are coming from Canada. This to me is no coincidence but rather proof of a larger cabal using these low-level actors, podcasters, and vloggers, to infiltrate the United States political arena by appealing to a sense of sameness and being the “online street team” for Trump. The question is will American conservatives start to call it out, or are they so enthralled with the insanity of Trumpism, that they will take support from any source no matter how nefarious it truly is?
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, TheMatrix 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 UnchainedMaynard 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.”
TIMELINE: CORRELATING DATES FROM J.D. SALINGER AND THE NAZIS BY EBERHARD ALSEN AND THE BEAST REAWAKENS BY MARTIN A. LEE TO STUDY MY THEORY THAT J.D. SALINGER’S CATCHER IN THE RYE WASN’T A “MIND CONTROL” BOOK BUT RATHER A BLEAK EXISTENTIAL POWERFUL NOVELLA SERVING AS AN ANALOGY FROM SALINGER’S DAYS AS AN ARMY CIC AGENT WHICH THEN STARTED A CULTURAL REVOLUTION (WITH SOME INCIDENTS OF VIOLENCE). by Q. Mitchell
NOTE AND EUREKA MOMENT: Henry Kissinger served in the CIC same as JD Salinger but they were in two different detachments with Kissinger near Hesse and Salinger towards Bavaria. Yet, Kissinger served in the 970th Counter Intelligence Corps. I remembered back to a CIA document (available to the public) I read a while ago, by Michael C. Ruffner, that dealt with how the SSU, the precursor to the CIA, and successor to the OSS, started linking up with Soviet defectors but many were hard-line nationalist and antisemties. This falls in line with the policy of Allen Dulles who absorbed the Nazi intel apparatus into the CIA’s ranks, and gave them immunity in Germany, USA, Europe, and their hideaways in Latin America. Kissinger’s unit is brought up with, “Lt Col. Ellington D. Golden, Region IV, 970th CIC Detachment, to Commanding Officer, 970th CIC Detachment, “Hrynioch, Ivan,” 18 November 1947, (C), enclosing Special Agent Camille S. Hajdu, Memorandum for the Officer in Charge, “Hrynioch.17 November 1947, (C), in ivan firynioch, Dossier XE-20-19•66, Investigative Records Repository, US Army Intelligence and Security Command, Fort George G.Meade, Maryland (hereafter cited by dossier number, IRR, INSCOM).” (Ruffner, 1998).
From my research it seems safe to say that Salinger had no major role in knowing the OSS/SSU later CIA and other parts of the CIC in helping Nazis and European Nationalists which would create the intel network in Cold War Europe and Stay Behind Units. As a lowly corporal and later Sergeant, Salinger had his own inner demons, though he was privy to the fact that his CIC Nazi hunting was in vein. Yet, Kissinger, on the other hand likely played more of a prominent role in establishing these Far Right networks since his 970th CIC unit is mentioned in a CIA release by Michael C. Ruffner (1998) detailing how Frank Wisner took CIC information to run reports on how to establish and use emirges or “cells” in Europe to fight the Communists. Yet, these units, which had rival ethnic ties, a legacy of antisemitism, and many fought for the Nazis would go to inspire lingering antisemitism in the West. But, remember, Kissinger is Jewish and later as Secretary of State, a powerful role in the Cold War, he must have known that the CIA was utilizing far-right Pro Nazi forces across the globe for clandestine operations. Even, Mossad, would tap into such networks when the time was right such as the utilization of Otto Skorzeny for the assassination of German scientists helping the Egyptians (many had worked with Paperclip scientists who were sent to the USA). By the time Salinger landed back in the USA with his German wife in 1947, his work may have been referenced, but he was largely remove from the works of the CIA which picked up around 1947 to 1951. However, there were CIC agents and CIA agents still hunting Nazis, meaning there was internal politics going on, and I wonder if Salinger even kept up with any veteran friends and if any complaints were shared. Regardless, Salinger’s war-time experiences near battles and as a CIC agent had already likely given him enough jaded and nihilistic rage to manifest itself passively via the character of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, i.e., phonies, are the top brass and intel community.
The CIC seems to have been coopted by the intel community, likely via the officer class’s relationship with the intel community (Ivy League, etc), and Kissinger’s unit of the 970th may have been one of those. Klaus Barbie himself was a CIC informant and a British “agent” had testified on behalf of Otto Skorzeny, illuminating that Dulles, the OSS, MI6, and British and American elites wanted the Nazis to be “sparred” after the war. Wisner’s recommendation of using Soviet defectors (while secretly using Nazi defectors under Allen Dulles direction) also signs like back to Lee’s (1997) book about how the Nazi intel community sided with the West but also the Soviets, thus giving themselves more leverage in proving how important their continuity would be to the CIA. It’s also important to know that Frank Wisner would later kill himself after his career took a dive after his association with the Cambridge Five scandal of Kim Philby. The Cambridge Five believed Marxism-Leninism was the best political system and the best way to fight fascism. Thus, such facts calls into question how Cold exactly was the Cold War. For example, Ivy Lee, The Rockefeller Family’s media fixer, visited Russia in the early 20th century and wanted improved cooperation with Russia, and later David Rockefeller would help set up the first American bank in Russia during the 1970s, plus, sitting on economic boards assessing Russia’s banking infrastructure not far after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Relating to how the Nazi intel community used Soviet and Western allegiances to their advantages, Lee (1997) states, “The Americans also tried to recruit Skorzeny’s partner from the July 20 affair, Major General Otto Ernst Remer. But Remer spurned the offers, opting instead to collaborate with the Soviets during the Cold War. Those who looked to the East after the Third Reich fell took their historical cue from Bismarck, the Prussian realpolitiker who unified Germany “by blood and iron” in 1871. Bismarck insisted that Germany must align with Russia, its proximate and mineral-rich neighbor. This was also Remer’s wholehearted belief” (p. 6). It should be of note that this West East Fascist Intel dynamic still holds sway because East Germany to do this day, which isn’t as economically prosperous as the West, is still open for Russian influence particularly as it pushes far-right ideology.
A big question that seems unanswered is did J.D. Salinger keep up with any of his old Counterintelligence buddies, despite his elusive persona? With Salinger being back in the states by 1947, right as the CIA was being born and utilizing the Gehlen Organization to set up West German intelligence, it makes you wonder if Salinger ever kept up with any of his old troop buddies. Did they know something, especially that the CIC’s mission was shifting from Nazi Hunting to Anti-Communism and this meant many Nazis were being used by the CIA? J.D. Salinger according to the book by Alsen (2018) illuminates a picture of Salinger seeing Nazi hunting as futile, but is it possible his experiences, plus, maybe the rumors of his CIC peers, helped inspire the negative energy found in Holden Caulfield. “Phonies” serve as the CIC top brass, OSS, etc. Ironically, when Ronald Reagan was almost assassinated by a fan of Catcher in the Rye, Reagan’s secretary, Helen Von Damme, had ties to former Nazis such as Otto Von Bolschwing. I’m not making a direct connection, but with Salinger’s later use of Hinduism and yoga, it seems like the universe dished out a dose of cosmic karma.
Salinger served with the Twelfth Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, 4th CIC detachment, of the United States Army, having landing at D-Day on Utah Beach (yet, landed with the 8th Infantry Regiment at 0645), witnessed the pre-D-day friendly fire disaster at Slatpon Sands (Exercise Tiger), Liberation of Paris (Salinger’s 4th Infantry Division were the first to enter), dealt with the friendly fire accident at Saint Lo, and was near action in the Battle of Bulge campaigns such as the Hurtgen Forest (Kurt Vonnegut was taken POW. 12th Infantry has 3,142 troops but came out with 1,493 casualties) and Echternach (the 12th Infantry lost a whole company) near Luxembourg City. The 4th Infantry Division comprised the 8th, 4th, and 22nd Infantry Regiments. Each regiment had 3,200 men divided into 3 battalions, but the battalions were divided into 4 rifle companies. As separate auxiliary attachments there was an engineering, medical, quartermaster, HQ (which includes the CIC detachment). Salinger was a Sergeant and Corporal. The CIC unit has two officers and fifteen enlisted men. CIC members didn’t wear rank or insignia and carried a .45 caliber handgun, but also reviewed the work of the Military Police. Towns Salinger’s division were at included Zweifall, Saint Martin, Beuzeville au Plain, Saint Lo, Luxembourg, Nuremberg etc. Later his CIC detachment set up offices at Villa Oberwegner. He married in Pappenheim.
My excavation of this subject is based on two things. 1) From a clinical psychology perspective of helping people because I feel the Catcher in the Rye reveals the type of nihilism and existentialism associated with feelings of modern alienation, attention seeking, and feeling lost especially among boys/men. For example, mass shooters for instance can be or have been compared to people like Holden Caulfield. Yet, Holden as a character who is deeply wounded I see a person worth saving, helping, and assisting. The existential underpinnings of Catcher in the Rye foreshadowed the inevitable shift towards a nihilistic epoch largely produced by a sense of general relativity which in my opinion was created by the hyper-reality of post-capitalism (so I’m at odds with self-ascribed classical liberal gurus such as Jordan B. Peterson), e.g., mass media, life mimicking art rather than art mimicking life, cerebral marketing techniques meant to manipulate the human psyche including sex drives, the erosion of social units due to division-of-labor, financialization, extreme globalization without mitigation protocols in place, i.e., safety nets, and ultimately the reduction of the human soul into material on a type of Darwinist evolutionary trajectory of the strongest survives – a notion with prevails in our culture regardless of political affiliation.
And, (2) To understand history and how the world works such as my analysis on what I call the ACZS Network (Anglo-American Continental Zionist Saud). The group which really runs the Western Power bloc and has run the world since WW2. A group of competing factions in a type of cabal mafia network who cooperate, share ideas, but share a common goal of dominating the majority of humans. Yet, as times change, I’ve noticed the slow entry of Russia into the network and I warn that the style of its entry, with it being far-right, can have grave consequences for the notion of the liberal democracy and the freedoms we value.
** NOTE ** Max Von Hohenloe is mentioned in this timeline and he was referenced in Lee’s (1997) book. This Max von Hohenloe must be Prince Max Egon zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1897-1968), and not be confused with the other Max von Hohenloe (1931-1994). The Hohenloe family had many branches which included the Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. The Schillingfurst branch included Stephanie von Hohenloe who is allegedly from a Jewish common family who married into the Hohenloe, which is more of a common practice than talked about, such as parts of the House of Löwenstein-Wertheim. Stephanie von Hohenloe was a Nazi spymaster, awarded a medal by Hitler, and went to England to spy and seduce some members of the English far right aristocracy. This is where groups such as the Cliveden Set of Lady Astor but also Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, a tabloid publisher sympathetic to Fascism. Her intrigues were during the time of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler which compelled him to invade other nations.
December 1942: Walter Schellenberg, head of the SD (SS foreign intelligence service) who also happened to be a director of ITT’s German subsidiary came in December 1942 when he dispatched Prince Max von Hohenloe, a Prussian aristocrat and businessman, to Bern to se whether a rapprochement with the United States was possible. (Lee, p. 19)
September 12, 1943: [Otto Skorzeny saves Mussolini] On September 12, 1943, they swooped upon the mountain stronghold, stormed the Hotel Camp Imperatore, where the Duce was incarcerated, and plucked him from captivity. With little time to spare, Mussolini and Skorzeny piled into a light reconnaissance plane. The pilot used the sudden, thousand foot drop off the side of the mountain to gather speed. When it pulled out of dive, the plane barley cleared the trees below. An unshaven Mussolini turned white from vertigo. With tears streaming down his cheeks, the Duce proclaimed en route to a reunion with the Fuhrer, “I knew my friend Adolf Hitler would not leave me in the lurch.” (Lee, p. 17-18)
July 20, 1944: Adolf Hitler and his top military advisors had gathered at the Wolf’s Lair, the Fuhrer’s headquarters in East Prussia, for an early-afternoon strategy session on July 20, 1944. They were listening to Lieutenant General Adolf Heusinger, chief of operations of the Wehrmacht (German army), deliver a bleak reports about Germany’s latest misfortunes on the eastern front. Suddenly a violent explosion hurled everyone onto the floor. Writhing and coughing amid thick smoke and dust, several German officers could hear Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel shout, “Wo ist der Fuhrer?” (“Where is the Fuhrer?”) (Lee, p. 3)
August 10, 1944: On August 10, 1944, twenty days after the abortive coup attempt, sixty-seven prominent German industrialists – including leaders of Messerschmitt, Krupp, Volkwagenwerk, and other major companies – gathered at the Hotel Maison Rouge in Strasbourg. During the top-secret conclave, they made preparations “for the economic campaign which will follow the end of the war,” according to the minutes to the meetings, which were subsequently discovered by the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps. Conference records indicate that the participants had agreed to shift a prodigious amount of Nazi loot to neutral countries. Some Nazi firms would be relicensed outside Germany in order to dodge reparations claims the minutes noted, “so that after the defeat a strong, new Reich can be built” (Lee, p. 22)
September 1944: By September 1944, there were several confirmed reports that German submarines were taking both people and plundered capital from Spain to South America. (Lee, p. 22)
September 1944: In September 1944, when Hungary’s dictator, Admiral Miklos Horthy, a Nazi ally, was on the verge of suing for peace with Russia as Axis fortunes plunged, Skorzeny led a contingent of Special Forces into Budapest to kidnap Horthy and replace his government with the more hard-line Fascist Arrow Cross regime. That regime, in turn, went on to kill or to deport to concentration camps tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews who had managed to survive the war up to that point. (Raviv & Melman, 2016)
December 7, 1944: Salinger’s boss, Captain Oliver Appleton, reported that “Agents of this detachment took over the duties of the 83rd CIC Detachment in the City of Luxembourg” and that “offices were established at Mondorf, Senningen, and Junglinster” (Alsen, p. 77, para 2)
December 16-24, 1944: The Battle of Luxembourg cost Salinger’s Twelfth Infantry Regiment almost as many casualties as the Battle of the Hurtgen Forests. The regiment was especially hard hit during the action around the town of Echernach. The town is located on the Sauer River, twenty-one miles northeast of Luxembourg City. During the Echternach battle – which raged from December 16 to 24, 1944 – the Twelfth Regiment lost a whole company that was taken prisoner by the Germans. But the regiment held the town and prevented the Wehermacht from advancing toward the city of Luxembourg. The Battle of Echternatch was part of Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt’s preparation for the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge. (Alsen, p. 76, para 1).
January 1, 1945: Although little of the work of Salinger’s CIC detachment in Luxembourg was noteworthy, they did make one spectacular arrest whey they apprehended a Nazi spy outside the command post of the Eighth Regiment. This happened on January 1, 1945, a week after the Battle of Echternach. The spy’s name was Marcel Silberseisen, or perhaps Silbereisen, and his instructions were as follows: “Subject was…to find out especially how many armored units there were in the area, their unit numbers and strength in men and weapons, whether or not they were fully motorized, and their locations; also the location of any other units observed.” (Alsen, p. 78, para 2).
April 12, 1945: Roosevelt dies (Lee, p. 25)
April 27, 1945: Kaufering Lager IV was labeled the Krankenlager, the camp for the sick of the other ten Kaufering camps. But it was really an extermination camp because the sick prisoners, most of them Jews from Eastern Europe, did not receive any medical attention. Instead they were left to die from their sicknesses or from starvation. Soldiers of the US Army’s Twelfth Armored Division discovered Kaufering Lager IV around noon on April 27, 1945. At that time some of the camp’s building were still burning. On the previous day, April 26, the last eight hundred prisoners who were well enough to travel had been loaded onto railroad cattle cars to be transported to the main camp at Dachau. The morning of April 27, just before the SS guards abandoned the camp, they had a tank truck spray gasoline on the roofs of the eight earthen huts that housed the prisoners who were too sick to be evacuated. Then the SS set hose huts on fire. (Alsen, p. 83)
April 28, 1945: Salinger probably went to see the camp (Kaufering Lager IV, a concentration extermination camp for the sick). (Alsen, p. 83).
** The transcripts of the Dacau war crimes trials supply the most accurate Kaufering death count. According to those figures, Salinger would have seen the corpses of eighty-six prisoners who had been burned to death, plus 274 others of people had died from starvation or typhus or had been shot to death. (Alsen, p. 86)
** The astonishing thing about Salinger’s visit to the Kaufering concentration camp is that it did not result in a change of his nonjudgmental attitude towards Nazis or in the change of his negative attitude toward the war and the US Army (Alsen, p. 88)
May 13, 1945: Salinger’s May 13, 1945, letter to Elizabeth Murray shows that his nervous collapse had a more profound effect on his mind than mere despondency – that it impaired his judgement and his rationality. (Alsen, p. 95)
May 16, 1945: On May 16, 1945, he (Otto Skorzeny) emerged from the woods with a small group of German soldiers and strutted into the command post of the U.S. Thirtieth Infantry Regiment near Salzburg, Austria. (Lee, p. 26)
June 1945: Henry Kissinger (970th Counter Intelligence Corps) was made commandant of the Bensheim metro CIC detachment, Bergstrasse district of Hesse, with responsibility for de-Nazification of the district. (Isaacson, 1992)
July 1945: A week after the end of the war, Salinger suffered a mental collapse. But it took him two months, until July 1945, to seek help in the psychiatric ward of a civilian hospital. He mentions his nervous breakdown in a letter he wrote to Ernest Hemingway from that hospital… (Alsen, p. 89, para 1)
** In his letter to Hemingway, Salinger says that his nervous breakdown made him turn to “a General Hospital in Nuremberg.” Because in 1945 no other hospital in Nuremberg had a psychiatric clinic, that hospitals must have been the Klinikum Nord, then called the Allgemeines Stadtisches Krankenhaus, the Municipal General Hospital.
July 1945: In July 1945, two months after the end of the war, Dr. Ulrich Fleck, a prominent Nazi, still remained doctor of the psychiatric clinic at the Nuremberg hospital. Dr. Fleck’s file in Nuremberg City archived shows that he had been a Strumbannarzt (storm trooper doctor) of the paramilitary SA from 1933 to 1934, and a member of the Nazi Party from 1937-1945 (Alsen, p.91, para 1)
** And two of his letters from 1945 show that he came to see his Nazi hunting as a joke (Alsen, p. 110, para 4).
July 20, 1945: Operation Paperclip is initiated but wasn’t officially approved by President Truman until the next year.
September 1945: In September 1945, Skorzeny was escorted to Nuremberg, where the war crimes trials were about to begin (Lee, p. 30).
September 20, 1945: OSS disbanded, ironically enough, on September 20, 1945, the same day the Prussian spy chief (Reinhard Gehlen) arrived in the United States. (Lee, p. 34)
October 18, 1945: JD Salinger married the German, Slyvia Welter in Pappenheim, Germany by forging a French passport in order to get around fraternization laws. (Alsen, p. 102-103)
November 1945: By November 1945, when Salinger began his work as a special investigator, the chief responsibility of the CIC had become the denazification program. The program was created by the Allied Control Council even before Germany and Austria were completely occupied. The purpose of denazification was to remove all Nazi officials from positions of influence and to punish all former members of the Nazi Party from having supported an evil regime. The basic assumption behind denazification was that all Germans and Austrians were Nazis unless they could provide proof to the contrary. (Alsen, p. 111, para 1)
March 5, 1946: Originally, OMGUS (the Office of the Military Government, United States) tried to accomplish the task of denazification through special courts staffed by the divisional civilian affairs detachments of the US Army. But the courts could not keep up with the staggering number of former Nazis waiting for their trials. By March 1946, the military government’s judge advocate estimated that the number of persons in internment camps was 100,000, but the Denazification Policy Board believed that “the number to be tried might well be 500,000.” The military governor of the American Zone of Occupation, General Lucius Clay, reported to Washington that “even if the War Department were to send him 10,000 Americans for the purpose, he could not denazify the US Zone”. OMGUS resolved the dilemma by turning the denazification program over to the Germans. This happened during a ceremony at Munich City Hall on March 5, 1946. But the German denazification courts, or Spruchkammern, immediately developed a reputation for whitewashing former Nazi officials. This must have made Salinger realize that denazification was not working. (Alsen, p. 113-114).
April 1946: American intelligence had its first tentative encounter with Ukrainian emigre groups as early as April 1946, marking the beginnings of one of the earliest and most controversial covert action projects of the Cold War. The Strategic Services Unit (SSU. the successor to the wartime Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. and precursor to the Central intelligence Group and Central Intelligence Agency) learned about anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance movements that continued after the war in Western Europe.’ Boleslav A. Holtsman, SSU’s X-2 (Counterintelligence) representative in Munich, became the primary American contact with Ukrainian leaders in the American zone in Germany
May 10, 1946: Jerry and Sylvia Salinger arrived in New York on the War Shipping Administration freighter Ethan Allen. On her immigration form, Slyvia again claimed French citizenship. (Alsen, p. 102)
July 1946: Upon returning to Germany in July 1946 (Reinhard Gehlen who had been at Fort Hunt, MD working for the Intel community) he immediately pulled together the makings of a sophisticated espionage apparatus known as “the Org” (Lee, p. 35)
1947: Gehlen’s spies would work initially for army intelligence and then for the CIA, which was founded in 1947. Supported by regular subsidies from U.S. taxpayers and wealthy German industrialists, he set up his base of operations inside a mysterious, high-walled compound near Munich that had once house that staff of Rudolf Hess and Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputies (Lee, p. 35)
1947: By 1947, there had officially been “a change in emphasis,” according to a once-classified CIC report, “from the denazification mission to the collection of positive intelligence: – which meant that anti-Communism rather than Nazi hunting was now the guiding principles of CIC policy. To the extent CIC operatives continued to chase after Nazis, it was usually not to capture them but to recruit them (Lee, p. 36)
September 1947: Nevertheless, in September 1947 he (Otto Skorzeny) was acquitted of illegal actions during the Battle of the Bulge after a British officer testified that Skorzeny had done nothing that his Allied counterparts had not themselves considered or attempted. Despite the Dachau verdict, Hitler’s ace commando made a lasting impression on Eisenhower, who, as president of the United States, kept a photo of Skorzeny in the White House office (Lee, p. 33)
March 17, 1948: In early March 1948, Frank Wisner (University of Virginia Seven Society), a former OSS officer and a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, proposed that the State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee (SANACC) form an ad hoc committee to explore the use of Soviet exiles. Under the authority of NSC 4-A, SAN-ACC took up Wisner’s proposal and circulated his paper, “Utilization of Refugees from the Soviet Union in U.S. National Interest,” as SAN-ACC 395. Wisner proposed in SANACC 395 to “increase defections among the elite of the Soviet World and to utilize refugees from the Soviet. World in the national interests of the U.S.” The paper noted the great dissatisfaction of many Russians since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the growth of Russian anti-Communism during the German occupation in World War H. Wisner believed that at least 700,000 Russians were scattered in European DP camps and elsewhere. This figure, Wisner claimed, represented “the potential nucleus of possible Freedom Committees encouraging resistance movements into the Soviet World and providing contacts with an underground.” According to Wisner, the United States remained “ill-equipped to engage in the political and psychological conflict with the Soviet World,” and the “Soviet satellite areas like the USSR are tending to become a terra incognito.” American ignorance of the Soviet Union in all fields and at all levels, he lamented,was profound and growing. (Ruffner, 1998)
October 1948: As a result of Frank Wisner’s SANACC 395. CIA undertook an-other study of the various emigre groups in Europe. Zsolt Aradi and Boleslav Holtiman had moved on to new assignments, and with CIA’s Office of Special Operations in Germany, now had the responsibility of assessing the Ukrainians… Completed his report, known as Project ICON in October 1948. The report drew from and updated Aradi’s earlier December 1946 work on Ukrainian nationalism. He based. his conclusions on the files of the Army Counter Intelligence Corps in Munich and CIA records.”
1949: There were plenty of true believers in the CIA, which was given the green light to engage in political actions, propaganda, and paramilitary operations that relied heavily on the services of Gehlen and his “spooky Nazi outfit,” as one U.S. agent described it. The Org already employed four thousand Germans when it was bolted lock, stock, and barrel into the CIA in 1949. This was during the peak of the “Chicken Little” era of American espionage, when the sky was always on the verge of falling, or so it seemed. The Agency began shelling out what amounted to $200 million (some o fit siphoned from the Marshall Plan kitty) to satisfy the Org’s voracious, covert appetite (Lee, p. 37)
January 26, 1949: On January 26, 1949, a decree of the Family Court of Queens County, New York, annulled Salinger’s marriage to Slyvia Welter. (Alsen, p. 102)
1950: Gehlen’s biggest booster at the CIA was Allen Dulles, who started running off-the-shelf intelligence activities in Eastern Europe from the office of his Wall Street law firm before he formally joined the Agency in 1950 (Lee, p. 37)
July 1, 1951: Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is published
August 23, 1951: Frank Wisner becomes Deputy Director of Plans of the CIA and is reported to have been instrumental in the Iran Revolution and Guatemala, etc.
February 2, 1954: Otto von Bolschwing arrives in the USA (Carey, 1981)
1962: Heinz Krug, a Nazi scientist who went to work for the Egyptians to help them develop rockets goes missing and was likely kidnapped by a team lead by Otto Skorzeny. “After Krug was shot, the three Israelis poured acid on his body, waited awhile and then buried what was left in a hole they had dug beforehand. They covered the makeshift grave with lime, so that search dogs — and wild animals — would never pick up the scent of human remains.” “During the war that ended 17 years earlier, Krug was part of a team of superstars at Peenemünde, the military test range on the coast of the Baltic Sea, where top German scientists toiled in the service of Hitler and the Third Reich. The team, led by Wernher von Braun, was proud to have engineered the rockets for the Blitz that nearly defeated England.” (Reviv and Melman, 2016)
November 27, 1962: Parcel sent to rocket scientist Wolfgang Pilz exploded in his office when opened on 27 November 1962, injuring his secretary. [Otto Skorzeny likely behind it after being recruited by Mossad in order to not be outed as a Nazi]
October 29, 1965: Frank Wisner kills himself
March 1969: Otto von Bolschwing got a job in high technology. He was retained as an international business consultant by TCI, the Sacramento firm. The company planned to commercialize on technology development in the Silicon Valley and used a few years earlier to monitor troop movements in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war according to the firm’s founder, Oswald S. Williams. TCI’s subsidiaries in Palo Alto and Mountain View, Advanced Information Systems and International Imaging Systems, were developing a high-volume computer network for business and a navigation system for oil tankers using satellite communications, Williams said.”
References:
Alsen, Eberhard (2018) J.D. Salinger and the Nazis. University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI). ISBN 978-0-299-31570-2
This post will (1) Analyze the rise of the Franks which was highly influenced by their relationship with the Romans which gave the Franks a strategic and military advantage over less equipped barbarian tribes (2) Analyze the Rise of the Este-Younger House of Welf Dynasty (direct ancestors to the British crown) and its relations and ties to the Franks. The Este-Welf branch dates back to era of the Western Roman Empire in the conflicts between Goths, Lombard, Franks, etc., in Northern Italy (3) Analyze the diverse Frankish blood ties within the British Royal Family’s Este-Younger House of Welf heritage which includes Charlemagne and many others from the original Frankish realm before the Franks annexed the The Kingdom of the Lombards in Italy and later Germany.
Introduction: The British Royal Family is arguably the penultimate royal blood line that bares the strains of Charlemagne’s blood from multiple entries over time.
The modern British Royals via Germany not only fall under the Saxon House of Wettin (Saxe Coburg Gotha) but also the House of Hanover, i.e., a division of the House of Brunswick which is a branch of the House Welf-Este.
The House of Hanover is The Younger House of Welf which is the a branch of the House of Este and they all descend from Frankish or Frankish-Lombard families from Italy but before this they were likely from the Frankish homelands in modern day Northern France (Auxerre in Frankish times and later from Aquitaine), Belgium, and Luxembourg.
A mix of Frankish, Frankish-Lombard, Italian-Bavarian, Luxembourgish, Belgian, German, Norman Viking, Scandinavian, and more.
The British Royal Family through blood-ties, distant relative’s marriages, etc., has ties to historical characters spanning Godfrey of Bullion (via House Ardennes), Giovanni Mirandola (via House Este), the Borgia Popes (via House Este), etc.
UNDERSTANDING THE FRANKS
Before I get started, I’m going to summarize my thoughts on the Franks, which are part my own ideas but this beginning section regarding the background of the Franks was highly influenced by the research done by James L. Kelley (2013), in his piece, Frankish Civilization and origins of anti-worker sentiments.
In addition, I enjoyed the the discussion titled, The Kingdom of the Lombards: Migration and Integration(The Lombards with Mike Carradi of A History of Italy Podcast), by The Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, dated November 22, 2019.
The easiest way to really wrap my head around the Franks (Salian Franks) was that they were a Germanic tribe from modern day Belgium (Belgica in Roman), likely from the southern modern day Walloon Region and Northern France with some sets (Ripuarian Franks) in Germany near modern day Cologne, Trier, etc.
In the wake of the fall of the Western Roman Empire after the Goths sacked Rome, the Franks mobbed up and took over this Belgian and the Northern France area.
The Franks were both allies and enemies to the Romans but Maximian in 287-288 forced them to submit and this seems to have launched the eventual quasi-assimilation of the Franks into Roman culture. [See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genobaud_(3rd_century)%5D
(Quick Timeline) Last of the Western Roman Emperors as the Franks were gaining power.
Constantine (306-337) Captured and killed (by lion in an amphitheater in Trier) the Frankish co-kings of Merogais and Ascaric. The House of Constantine included Constantine II (337-340) who showed early examples of antisemitism, Constantius II (337-361), Julian (361-363), etc.
Jovian (363-364)
Valentinian I (364-375) was co-emperor with Valens
Gratian 367-383
Magnus Maximus 383-388, a usurper was assisted by some Franks under Marcomer
Theodosius I (379-395) Last emperor of united Roman Empire. Divided it to his sons; Honorius (West) and Arcadius (East); upheld the Nicene Creed first formulated in 325 under Constantine at the Council of Nicaea; fought the Goths, Vandals and other tribes and then made peace; persecuted pagans and Roman polytheist, and defeated usurpers in Gaul and Britain to preserve the West.
Honorius (395-423) Rome was sacked by Alaric but the Visigoths kept moving
** Goths sack Rome in 410 led by Alaric I
Joannes (423-425)
Valentinian III (425-455)
**** Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451) Franks under Merovech were mustered under Roman General Flavius Aetius with Visigoths to defeat Atilla the Hun. This was during the rule of Valentinian III.
Petronius Maximus (455) ** Vandals sack Rome in 455 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronius_Maximus]
Avitius (455-456)
Majorian (457-461)
The Battle of Orleans (463) The Franks under Childeric I allied with the Roman Rump state of Soissons, then under Aegidius, to defeat the Visigoths expanding Northward under Theodoric II.
Libius Severus (461-465)
Anthemius (467-472)
Olybrius (472-472) A puppet Emperor put on the throne by the powerful Roman-German General Ricimer and his nephew Gundobad, the King of the Burgundians
Glycerius (473-474) Abdicated and became a Bishop of Salona
Julius Nepos (474-475 in Italy, but 475-480 in Croatia as a Ruler in Exile) Assassinated in 480
Romulus Augustulus (474-480) Defeated by Odoacer, effectively ending Roman rule in the Roman homeland of Italy and imposing full Gothic rule. The Ostrogoth sect would stay in Italy while the Visigoth sect would setting in Spain near the German barbarian tribe, the Suebi’s Kingdom, and Southern France (Aquitaine, Gascony, Vasconia) which also comprised the lands of the Basque.
According to James Kelley (2017), after the fall of Rome, it wasn’t simply the Dark Ages but rather Roman culture and settlements still persisted, yet, there was big drop in organization, literacy, etc., and this made the peasant class more easy to indoctrinate with religion.
The Battle of Soissons (486) Less than 6 years after the Goths destroyed the Western Empire, the Franks didn’t take long to conquer the Roman rump state of Soissons in France (Paris, Orleans, etc.) under Clovis I of the Merovingians, the son of Childeric I. Clovis beat Aegidius’ son Syagrius. The Franks may have first adopted the usage of King of Romans from Aegidius and Syagrius when they concequered Soissons because both Aeigius and Syagrius were called Rex Romanorum, but it wouldn’t be until Clovis’ descendent Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in Rome that the title because literal rather than symbolic, i.e., they used the title of Rex Romanorum since they conquered the final Roman Rump State.
Clovis I converted to Catholicism for political reasons and at the behest of this hyper Catholic wife. Essentially, the Franks were much more formidable and weren’t simple barbarians but were exposed to Western Roman culture, tactics, etc., and probably saw themselves as the successors of the Romans (they had a chip on their shoulder).
Clovis I converts to Catholicism in 496 AD
Battle of Tolbiac (496) near modern day Zulpich in Germany where Clovis I and Sigobert the Lame defeated Gibuld of the Alamanni Confederation which included Suebi elements, i.e., what could be considered the proto-Swabians, Westphalian, and maybe the Northern Swiss);
The Battle of Voille (507) the Franks under Clovis I beat Visigothic Commander Alaric II (great-grandson of Alaric I) and acquired Aquitania (Southern France), though the region wasn’t officially conquered since there were various Dukes of Gascony, etc., that rebelled against the Franks. The region of Gascony wouldn’t be fully acquired by France until the 1300-1400s.
The Franks soon started a conquest of annexation of the Germans.
Last Germanic Tribal Kings before Frankish Annexation:
Gibuld of the Alemmani (496) as listed above
Hermanafrid (tribe was the Thuringii, conquered in 531 AD);
**** 695 the Franks start the Frank-Frisian Wars led by the Pepin Family again Radbod of the Frisii (modern day Netherlands)
**** 732 the Franks defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Tours under Charles Martel
The Battle of Boarn (734) saw King Poppo (Bubo) of the Frisians, conquered by Charles Martel
Siege of Narbonne (752-759) by Pepin the Short, son of Charles Martel, dad to Charlemagne, conquers the French Riveria near Narbonne (the historic region of Septimania) from the Muslims
Daufer known as Desiderius (last King of the Lombards, conquered in 774 AD) under Charlemagne
Widukind, (of the Saxons, conquered 785 AD) under Charlemagne
The Battle of Roncevaux Pass pass in 778 saw Charlemagne’s attempted invasion of Spain through the Spanish Marches (Duchy of Gascony/Vasconia) were defeated by Basques and this epic defeat inspired the Song of Roland, for Roland, a Frankish Knight (Paladin), who wasa type of “warden” for the Franks regarding the Bretons and possible veteran of the Saxon Wars who stood their ground against attacks but were killed. The Franks may have been tricked into coming to Spain by part of the Muslim factions in Spain who appeared to be in conflict but really weren’t.
Tassilo (of the Bavarii. Gave up in 794 AD to Charlemagne),
Charlemagne never conquered Denmark, likely for fear of sparking invasions of the Northern Barbarians, i.e., the Vikings or wanting peace in the areas of his Saxon conquests. He made mutual peace with Danish King Hemming at the Treaty of Heiligen (811) which established the Eider River as a border. Charlemagne allied with the Obotrites, a Western Slavic tribe, against the Saxons, where their princly family became the later House of Mecklenburg
2. ARGUING AGAINST THE MYTH THAT THE FRANKS WERE MERE BARBARIANS
The Franks had been exposed enough to Roman war techniques as seen in the figure of the Frankish commander Richomeres in the mid-to-late 300s who served Rome during the times of Gratian, Julian, Valens, Valentinian and Theodosius. Theodosious as the Roman Empire would split the Empire into Western and Eastern. This period of time was hectic for the Empire with barbarian sacks but also usurpers trying to carve out parts of the empire such as the pretender Eugenius around 394 in Gaul and Magnus Maximus in England. Theodosius I was successful at stopping these pretenders but also saving Christianity from slipping back to Roman polytheism, such as Theodosius defeating Eugenius who supported paganism with his Frankish ally, Arbogast. Richomeres was Arbogast’s uncle and helped Theodosius defeat him. Frankish training by the Romans as soldiers is seen in the previously mentioned, Arbogast, a General in the Roman Army who was Frankish, as was General Claudius Silvanus who served Constantine II (his father Bontius fought with Constantine), Mallobaudes, etc. Note: The words Count comes from comes domesticorum (count).
This is interesting because due to the nature of Frankish service to the Roman Empire, the Frankish soldiers were sent abroad (think of them as GIs being sent overseas on a tour of duty) as ordered by the Emperors to fulfill their duties. This means that Franks were more exposed to the various cultures of the Empire more so than other Germanic groups. For example, Richomeres served in Turkey, Britain, and other Franks possibly as far as Africa and the Middle East. This exposure to Roman culture, early Christianity (despite the Franks still being overwhelmingly pagan), Roman military culture and tactics, and building a reputation for themselves means the Franks were not simply barbarians but had the exposure to Western Roman ideals which gave them a competitive advantage over their tribal Germanic neighbors (military structure, cavalry tactics, and possibly systems of maintaining contracts or deeds which would be vital for their feudalist system which came).
The Franks weren’t simple barbarians but were assimilated barbarians who absorbed and merged elements of the Western Roman Culture, so the rise of the Franks wasn’t a pure barbarian takeover but the Franks likely saw themselves as the true successors of the Romans, largely considering that in the Era of the Last Western Roman Emperors, many had been privy to key Imperial intrigues such as attempts at preserving the Empire and campaigns of secession. Therefore, similarly to the Lombards in the East who were in a similar relationship with Rome (exposure to their culture, warfare tactics), both the Lombards and Franks would eventually be on a collision course, yet, the Franks were more tenacious.
The Franks had adopted Roman customs from their settlements in Gaul but kept their pagan religion until Clovis I of the Merovingian Dynasty converted to Roman Catholicism in 496. The Franks made a huge power move led by Clovis I (Merovingian) during the power-vacuum left in the fall of the Western Roman Empire after Odoacer (The Goth) deposed the last Western Emperor Romulus Augustulus by conquering the Roman “rump state” in Gaul called The Kingdom of Soissons in 486 by defeating Syagrius.
Soissons was previously created by Emperor Majorian (457-461) who put up one of the last great fights to preserve Rome as the West was falling a part. This era was complex because by this time the Romans had relied on assimilated tribal peoples, somewhat akin to “private military contractors”, to help fight wars and barbarians were migrating from the German interior, Scandinavia, and The Steppes deeper into Western Europe. Regardless, the Franks won Soissons and renamed it Neustria under the Merovingian. This area won the Franks the cities of Orleans, Angers, Paris, Reims, and Soissons.
From this time onward the Franks became a radically militant Catholic machine operating like a privately-held corporation based on the concept of franchise, i.e., freedom versus those not free and those who were free were those now a part of the Frankish noble bloodline, i.e., the creators, owners, etc. Feudal politics was essentially mob politics mixed with a level of communal arrangements.
According to Kelley (2017), building off the concept of the Roman villa, they likely established the idea of what we consider villain, meaning those not free. Effectively the Franks were a type of hereditary blood-kin corporation of land-lords/military force (knights) from France & Belgium who charged rent and operated a mafia style protection racket, and using modern warfare tactics they were able to bully the barbarian tribes the Romans often had a hard time with such as the forest peoples of Germany such as the Saxons, Suebi, Alemanni (the Swiss), Frisians, Burgundians, and eventually punked out the Bavarians and conquered the Lombards (Italians).
Since land was the money back then, land stayed in the top managerial classes through inheritance and calculated marriages between family, absorbing tribal Chieftains and their families that the Franks had conquered, or being overlords to chieftains who paid suzerainty. Noble women (the supermodels of their day) were thus traded and married off in order to seal deals and calculate down the road land acquisition. According to James Kelley (2017), after the fall of Rome, it wasn’t simply the Dark Ages but rather Roman culture and settlements still persisted, yet, there was big drop in organization, literacy, etc., and this made the peasant class more easy to indoctrinate with religion.
The Franks operated a pyramidal corporation based on a rent, Catholicism, and protection rackets, but classes were hereditary, meaning power would always stay centralized to the blood Franks. The Franks had Holy Decree by the Catholic Church who owed the Franks a big one for defeating the rival Lombards who swept into Italy after the Goths and Byzantines annihilated themselves trying to maintain or reacquire Italy. This Frankish system was so efficient, that the modern royal families are essentially Franks without thrones but still have power and estates.
The Lombards were a Viking culture who migrated into Eastern Europe before setting up shop in what is now parts of Ausrtia, Slovenia, etc., and served the Huns, but eventually came to speak a form of Vulgar Latin after dropping their Germanic tongue. They worshiped an Arian form of Christianity (non-Triad form considered heresy), feuded constantly, set up camps in urban centers as well as rural ones. They ruled over the pre-existing Roman population after the fall of the Goths in Italy during the Byzantine Wars.
Yet, the Lombards (which means Long Beards) probably weren’t a bad people objectively speaking. In a way, they were migrants looking for a home who found Italy a nice place to live and were tired of warring with other tribes such as Avars, Gepids, etc. Yet, the Lomards were reduced after the Franks once and maybe have been associated with snails in durogatory way, i.e., slimy. The Lombards may have been associated with “urban life”, pawn shops, etc., considering the Lombards built off the pre-exiting Roman urban centers.
The Franks were the Knight Class and Ruling Class, in something equivalent to officers over enlisted and today many of our modern ranks come from Old French, i.e., Lieutenant, Sergeant, etc.
So being knights by blood and the owners-landlords with Holy Decree they were able to consolidate power by monopolizing military technology such as mounted knights on horses. They buffered themselves with what we might misconstrue as knights with a warrior class who were really citizen-soldiers most the time who had to provide their own weapons if called to do so.
The general public, the villains or renters, were under something probably akin to modern day gun-control in that they couldn’t probably have weapons to protect themselves by themselves, and this is something common in feudal systems such as that of feudal Japan restricting peasants from having swords.
By bribing lower counts and their goon squads, this further consolidated power on the mid-management level, and all at the expense of the lower classes. Since lands would often be fractured in order to share with sons – if they were lucky – this land-based society gave the central authority more power since central edict would settle disputes and the King and Pope needed each other, so they often enforced outcomes mutually. To manage such as vast territory of competing fief lords, the Franks used marriage but also favoritism and pitting count against count, so the paranoia alone of possibly loosing title and status, was a psychological weapon to maintain power. War was costly but always a possibility in something akin to elite prep school backstabbing politics.
The Franks were essentially hereditary landlord, protection racket franchise opreations where serfs worked for a place to stay
3. ASPECTS OF FRANKISH CULTURE
(A) Polygamy was acceptable in the upper classes such as Clovis I and his son Chlothar I having multiple wives, so the Frankish nobility were womanizers and patriarchs
(B) Knights were all a part of the noble class originally and long-hair was a sign of honor among the nobility (having one’s head shaved as a serious offense/insult/punishment)
The film Dragoheart actually had fashion that seems accurate to the Frankish Dark Ages
(C) Capital punishment was cruel such as Brunhilda of Austrasia being pulled a part by four horses, executions were public, and people believed in witchcraft.
(D) The notion of nation-states didn’t exists yet, and the HRE was more of a realm of power held by firm central authority, so when the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon Ottonian Dynasty you have to view the HRE was one singular body full of counties, principalities, dukedoms, and military frontiers. So you could be in Italy but your follow Germans, Belgians, Swiss, Flemish, and Czechs (and later Spaniards) were all common citizens and to this day there’s overlapping culture in Bavaria and Italy and Switzerland.
(E) The first true university was the University of Bologna in Italy at 1088 and it seems there was something akin to “study abroad” by the Middle Ages where groups of students from lets say Germany would study in Italy
(F) Important cities included Aachen, Pavia, Rome, Milan, Turin, Paris, Regensburg, Toulouse, Tours, Verona, Venice, etc.
(G) The Bee and Bull seemed to have “lucky” elements in their culture
4.. NOTABLE FRANKISH FAMILIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE SCHISM OF THE CAROLINGIAN COLLAPSE AND REEMERGENCE OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
This next section is comprised of Frankish families to help give context. The Franks were essentially Germanic peoples who mixed with Gallo-Roman-Celtic culture, who migrated into Northern France and the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, etc) and set up shop in new lands based on their business model of warfare, intermarrying, protection rackets, a close bond with the Catholic Church. The ideas of castles according to James L. Kelley weren’t simply for protecting those in a manor but could be seen as military bases/franchise businesses.
Arnulfings (Pippnids) who were to become the Carolingian Dynasty. The were Mayors of the Palace to the Merovingians, similar to Secretary of State but took over. We know Charlemagne was the most illustrious but to give a better context of Frankish Civilization and its lasting influence, particularly relating to the confusing foundation of Italy, where the British Royal Family’s Este and Welf heritage derives, we have to understand the fracture of Charlemagne’s Empire.
(A) Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son, divides the Frankish realm into three parts for his sons with West going to Charles the Bald (France, Normandy, Aquitaine), Middle to Lothair (Netherlands, Lorraine, i.e., the German French borders, Burgundy, Provence and Italy), and East to Louis (Ludwig) the German in Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, and Switzerland, and parts of Austria.
(B) Lothair died and he divided the lands of Mid Francia to his children based in Italy, Provence, Upper Lotharingia (Lorraine, where Wigeric of Lotharingia is from – he will be important to this text), and Lower Lotharingia in Belgium and the Netherlands.
His brothers however, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, basically fought over the Middle Kingdoms in something akin to a Civil War
(C) Carolingians faded from power (though their blood still flowed) in West Francia as the Robertians (later morphing into the Capetians) took over; they also faded from East Francia when Ludwig’s bloodline died out and the Conradin Dynasty took over, before the Ottonian Dynasty later reestablished the Holy Roman Empire. Otto the Great couldn’t get full power of his nephew, Hugh Capet (establishing further what would become the French and German divide).
The Carolingians also faded from Italy during the rise of the Bosonid’s who crowned themselves Kings of Italy before Carolingian-kin, Benegar of Fruili took over (grandson of Louis the Pious meaning Ludwig The German and Charles the Bald were his uncles. He witnessed his uncles and cousins in Germany & France get replaced and his family’s disputes destroy Charlemagne’s Empire). Italy for a moment was an independent Kingdom similar to West Francia (France) during the collapse of central imperial control. However, Benegar I was able to save the Empire in part, not entirely, and was King of Italy and Crowned emperor. His mother was the daughter of Louis the Pious whereas his father was of the Frankish Uruochings Dynasty, Margraves of the frontier march of Friuli, and watched his uncles and cousins war with each other and destroy the empire.
Later, Benegar II organized the marches where the Este-Younger House of Welf Clan of the British Royal Family bears roots in Lucca, Milan, Tuscany, Fererra, Este, Emilia Rogmana, etc
(D) Italian Kingship in the power-vacuum in the collapse of Imperial centrality was contested by Widonids from Spoleto, Bosonids and Arnscarids of Burgundy and Provence areas and the Carolingian leftovers in the Uruochings in Fruili, but the Saxon Ottonians conquered Italy by beating Arduin of Ivera of the Anscarids, effectively reviving the Holy Roman Empire under German rule.
(E) From this point onward the Holy Roman Empire was German in nature before the later Habsburgs monopolized power by using calculated marriages and inbreeding.
(F) Before the Habsburg monopoly, the Golden Era of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire as far as Emperor was always ethnically German. These Germanic dynasties are as follows:
Ottonians from 962-1024 were Saxons;
Salians from 1027-1125 from Franconia in Central Germany;
The Supplinburg’s from Saxony;
The Hohenstaufen from Swabia in the Southwest;
The Welf (Este) from Bavaria though the paternal roots trace to Italy and maternal roots to Altdorf near modern Wurttemberg;
The House of Luxembourg from Luxembourg, falling under the larger House of Ardennes;
Nassau from the Rhineland-Palantinate
The Wittelsbach of Bavaria who got Bavaria after the Welf were stripped of it,
Habsburgs of Austria who were originally from modern day Switzerland and France. Habsburgs would rule until WW1 though by then they had already lost Germany when the fellow-Swiss descended House of Hohenzollern who became rulers in Prussia led the German causes of independence. Kaiser Wilhelm of House Hohenzollern (Protestant side), was a cousin to British King George and Czar Nicholas (and most other monarchs of the time such as the Kings of Romania via the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollern).
Etichonids who are likely the progenitors of the powerful Habsburg Dynasty which monopolized the Holy Roman Empire up until its fall in World War 1. The originated likely in the Frankish areas near Switzerland before setting up shop in Switzerland before making Austria their power-base and through calculated marriages came to acquire the Netherlands and Spain thus all of Spain’s vast colonies during the Age of Discovery.
Uruochings were Franks originally from Tournai in Walloon Region of Belgium who were set up as Margraves in Fruili in Italy and were interrelated with the Carolingian. Unruoch II was a witness to Charlemagne’s will and a friend.
Udalriching were a Frankish Family from France who were the counts of Orleans in the 800s and served in roles such as ambassadors for the Franks to the Vikings, Saxons, etc. They married into the Carolingian via Hildegard of Vinzgouw’s marriage to Charlemagne. Hildegard’s dad, Gerold married Emma of the Alamannia family of Agilolfing Family (of Bavaria)
Agilolfings were of the Bavarii tribe in Germany but were under the suzerainty of the Merovingians going back to the 500s who were de facto Dukes of Bavaria. Tassilo III of Bavaria was the nephew of Pepin the Short (father of Charlemagne). The Agilofings were close to the Lombards, such as Tassilo marrying Liutperga the daughter of Lombard King Desiderius, creating the basis for Italian-Bavarian relations. Through marriage with the Lombards they became kings of Italy known as the Bavarian Dynasty in the Lombard Era before the Frankish takeoever. Tassilo was betrayed by Charlemagne on possibly false accusations and the Pope sided with Charlemagne and forced Bavaria to be handed over. King Desiderius of the Lombards and King Tassilo of Bavaria were the last rulers until Charlemagne won the Iron Crown and annexed Italy. This acquisition by the Franks shows how they used marriage, war, and the papacy to get what they wanted. The Carolingians held Italy from 774-887 with last two direct Carolingian Kings being Carloman (Bavaria) and Charles the Fat (Alamannia), sons of Ludwig the German, King of East Francia. Carloman’s bastard son, Arnulf, overthrew Charles the Fat, resulting in the continued fracture of the Empire, and in Italy there were multiple pretenders but Berengar I (cousins to Carloman, Charles, etc.) won out, became Emperor and this stayed in his family’s line via marriages to the House of Ivera which spawned Berengar II who played an important role in elevating the Bonifaci-Orbertenghi (Este, later Younger House of Welf) to Margraves of Milan.
Robertians who evolved into the French House of Capet
Luipoldings who ruled over Bavaria
Ramnulfids of Toulouse who through marriage entered the English blood line via Henry II of England’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine thus starting the age of English (Angevin) and French disputes. This is interesting because the modern British Royal Family has a major chuck here because Henry the Lion of the House of Welf (Este) [great-granddad was Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan; he’s also a descendant of Charlemagne via the maternal bloodline] married Eleanor’s and Henry’s daughter, Matilda. One of Matilda and Henry the Lion’s kids, William of Winchester had a son, Otto the Child would be given a piece of his granddad’s (Henry the Lion) left over estate in what is Brunswick Luneberg which evolved into the House of Hanover.
The Ardennes, progenitors of the House of Luxembourg, Bar, Limburg, Arlon, Salm, and Verdun (Belgium, Luxembourg, Northern France near Belgium, Lorraine borders) and closely related the House of Flanders who trace roots back to Wigeric of Lotharinga and his children with Cunigunda of France (great x 3 grand-dad was Charlemagne) such as Siegfried of Luxembourg and Gozlin of the Ardennes. Famous Crusader Knight, Godfrey of Bullion is from a house within the House of Ardennes-Verdun (cousin the Luxembourg branch) on his mother’s, Ida’s side, whereas he was of the House of Flanders on his father’s (Eustace II) side. line who held titles such as the Lords of Bullion, Counts of Verdun, Dukes of Lower Lorraine. Yet, The British Royal Family pops up in this branch because Imiza of Luxembourg (granddaughter of Siegfried of Luxembourg and a 6x granddaughter of Charlemagne) married into the Elder House of Welf and her daughter of Kunigudne married Albert Azzo II Margrave of Milan, where in turn they had one son, Welf IV, whom would be elevated as Welf the I of the Younger House of Welf, when Kunigune’s brother died without issue. Welf IV (I) had a half-brother through their father, named Fulco. Welf IV (I) received Bavaria and lands North of the Alps whereas Fulco kept their father’s blood-line’s property in Este in Italy. The British royal family comes from this source. The German Welf (Este) would go to rule Bavaria, Saxony, and Carinthia but were deprived of their lands under Hohenstaufen rule, only to be given back the area of Brunswick in Germany, and be Holy Roman Emperor for one time, whereas the Italian Este maintained power in the Reggio Emilia region and where the Margraves of Milan, counts of Lucca, rulers of Ferrara, Modena, etc.
Anscarids, from Burgundy who were counts near modern Ivera in Italy. Aldabert I of Ivera married Gisela of Fruilia, the daughter of Carolingian Benagar I of Italy and Bertilla of Spoleto. Gisela of Friuli’s and Aldabert’s son, Benegar II, was King of Italy who reorganized the northern Italian Marches and he elevated the Orbetenghi Family (Este-Young House of Welf) to Margraves of Milan, meaning he played a role in elevated the family that would one day be British Kings.
Orbertenghi, the basis for the House Este (Young House of Welf, i.e., Brunswick Luneburg, i.e., House of Hanover), was a sub-house of the House of Bonifaci, who ruled the March of Milan after given the area by Benegar II of Italy. Other Obertenghi Houses included the Malaspina, Pallavicini, and Fieschi, but also were in the same area as the Vicini, Pinelli, Della Torre and Visconti.
The Bonifaci, originally counts in Lucca, they were appointed governors of Italy by Charlemagne and Margraves of Tuscany in the 800s. The Este-Young House of Welf branch of the Orbetenghi Line branches from Otbert (Orberto) II, a grandson of Adalberto the Margrave, i.e., Aldabert III, whose great-grandad was Boniface the II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boniface_I,_Margrave_of_Tuscany
The Elder Welfs, from Auxerre, France but set up shop in Altdorf, Germany and this Altdorf sect would marry into the Italian Este Clan (descendants of the Bonifaci of Lucca), and House of Luxembourg under House Ardennes.
Widonids or Guidonids (Lambertiner) from Nantes, France but came to rule the Duchy of Spoleto and Benevento
Reginarids who evolved into the House of Brabant which came to rule modern Belgium, Hainaut, Limburg, Antwerp. This evolved into the House of Hess
Bosonids of Frankish origins, via the Bivinids (name after Bivin of Gorze) who played a powerful part in Italy but were also prominent in Southern France in Burgundy and Provence. In the wake of Carolingian Civil Wars, they managed to become Kings of Italy before being replaced by Carolingian-kin, Benegar of Friuli (the last person crowned emperor before the Ottonian Revival)
Aleramici founded by Aleram who ruled in Piedmont and Liguria in the March of Montferrat in Italy after being given the eras by Benegar II
Arduinici who ruled the March of Turin and Marquis of Susa after being given the area by Benegar II. Their possession laid the foundation for the House of Savoy
The Normans Founded by Rollo the Viking and household of the later William the Conqueror. William the Conqueror’s wife was Matilda of Flanders (House Flanders), daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of France. Adela of France was the daughter of Constance of Arles and Robert II of France. Robert II of France was the son of Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine, and Adelaine’s mother, also named Adelaide (of Normandy) was the daughter of famous Viking, Rollo of Normandy who received lands from Charles the Simple (Carolingian) in exchange for him stopping his attacks. William and Matilda were actually related (3rd cousins) since Rollo the Viking was both their descendant. Rollo was William the Conqueror’s and Matilda’s great-great grandfather (Rollo > William Longsword > Richard I > Richard II > William the Conqueror) (Rollo > Adelaide of Normandy > Adelaide of Aquitaine + Hugh Capet, his uncle was Otto the Great of Germany > Robert II of France > Adela of Flanders > Matilda of Flanders). The House of Flanders in this line, actually ties to the Welf-Este clan in that Judith of Flanders of the House of Luxembourg via Frederick, a son of Siegfried of Luxembourg, had married Welf I of Bavaria (Welf IV in the Elder House chronology), meaning this is another spot where the British Royal Family appears. Judith’s mother, was Rozala of Italy of the House of Ivera, a child of Benegar II, who was a grandson of Holy Roman Emperor Benegar I of the Unruoching and Carolingian Dynasty. Benegar II played an important role in reorganizing the Northern Italian marches (territories or frontiers) and the Bonifaci sect known as the Orbertenghi (Counts of Luca) were given the Margave of Milan and this Orbentengi Clan evolved in the Este who thus married into the Welf (forerunners of the House of Hanover). The House of Flanders had Carolingian blood traced back to Judith of Flanders’ (daughter of Charles the Bald) marriage to Baldwin I (The Iron Arm) but also English via the House of Wessex. The House of Flanders almost were the Kings of France since Baldwin II was a grandson to Charles the Bald and dispute with the Robertine Dynasty which evolved in the House of Capet.
So in essence if we summarize, a large chunk of the British Royal Family can be traced to the Frankish Era and Frankish Civil Wars which resulted in the death of the last direct Carolingian Emperor to Germany via Altdorf by way of the Frankish homeland (Belgium, Northern France, Luxembourg) via the maternal bloodline (Kunigundeof Welf, her great grand dad, Siegfried, founded House Luxembourg, and her great x6 grandfather was Charlemagne ), and Italy through the paternal line (Alberto Azzo II of Este)who were elevated by Holy Roman Emperor Benegar II to “Governors” of Northern Italy, i.e., the Bonifaci and Obertenghi Clan of Lunigiana and Lombardy, who were the Margraves of Milan and Tuscany, Counts of Lucca, Este, Emilia Romagna, etc.
With the later ascent of Welf I of the Young House of Welf (Welf IV in the Elder’s chronology), this Franco-Germanic Italian line would largely become German over time by way of Bavarian and Saxon acquisitions (such as that of Henry the Lion as Duke of Bavaria and Saxony) but ended up only keeping a Saxon concession near Brunswick during the reign of Otto of Child. Otto’s grandmother – wife of Henry the Lion – was Matilda of England, daughter of Henry II, a Plantagenet King from Anjou and son of the King of Jerusalem, who was a descendent of Elias I, Count of Maine, who was cousin to Welf and his younger half-brothers Fulco I and Hugh V, since Fulco I’s and Hugh V’s mother was Gersenda on Maine (Alberto Azzo’s second wife), who was sister of Paula of Maine – the mother of Elias.
Thus, these ties link the Welf Este to England, i.e., Henry the Lion and Matilda of England were likely distant blood-cousins, or cousins by marriage.
However, Welf I’s (i.e., Welf the 4th in the Elder Line) younger brother, Fulco’s, line remained in Italy under the Este title, becoming Dukes of Ferrara, and they played a role in Imperial politics as the Italian Este kin to the Germanic Welfs fought as the Guelphs (Italian for Welf) against the Ghibellines (those loyal to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Hohenstaufen), and this conflict is an early example of Italian/Papal independence from Imperial rule.
The older brother Welf line in Germany never gave up their Italian rights until Henry the Lion. Separately, elsewhere, intrigues in France with the Normans (Vikings) and the Anglo-Saxons in England would set the basis for the other half of the modern British family (such as Plantagenet line spoken above which involved the War of the Roses between their cadet branches of York and Lancaster resulting in the rise of Tudor and Elizabethan England), and this half would be later infused with the Frankish-Germanic Italian line during the Hanoverian Period (i.e., Este Welf, Obertinghi, Bonifaci) and another German family, The Wettins of the Ernestine Branch, via Saxe-Coburg Gotha (Victorian Dynasty). Saxe Coburg Gotha changed their Windsors with the latter being a Anglicized name chosen to distant German ties during the World Wars). Queen Elizabeth was a Windows of this Welf Este & Wettin line but her husband Phillip went as Mountbatten.
3. NEOPLATONIC CONNECTIONS TO THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY’S WELF ANCESTRY VIA THE HOUSE OF ESTE AND MIRANDOLA IN RENAISSANCE ITALY.
Now to get to the premise of the paper (sorry I had nerd out), I was reading about Neoplatonism, things of the Occult, etc., for a separate paper I will post soon and found an interesting side note that Giovanni Mirandola’s (a father of Western Esoteric thought) family (the Pico) were related to other notable powerful Italian, Frankish, German, families such as the Este via Giovanni’s brother, Galeotto I’s marriage into the Este Family.
This is interesting because the Este are a the junior branch of the Young House of Welf, and the Welf Dynasty, following the descendants of Welf I (or, IV in the Elder House of Welf genealogy which died out), would go to inherit Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg, which would later evolve into the House of Hanover, i.e., the Kings of the England during the Georgian period. Technically, the Younger House of Welf is sub to the House of Este, but older brother Welf I inherited the Elder House of Welf after his uncle died, but his young brother Fulk or Fulco received their father’s Italian House of Este.
Welf I was the son of Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan. Alberto Azzo II’s great-grandfather was Adalberto the Margrave, i.e., Aldabert III, of the Obertenghi Family, whose family was granted large swaths of land during the time of Benegar II of the Italy, a descendant of Charlemagne, through his mother Gisela, the daughter of Louis the Pious. The Orbertenghi Family fell under the House of Boniface founded by Boniface the I who was appointed governor of Italy by Charlemagne himself after Charlemange’s son, Pepin of Italy died, and his grandson, Bernard of Italy, rebelled again Charlmange’s son, then-emperor Louis the Poius. Boniface also was the Count of Lucca. The Este Branch of the Orbetenghi Line branches from Odbert II, a grandson of Adalberto the Margrave, i.e., Aldabert III, whose great-grandad was Boniface the II.
An interesting note is that famous Crusader, Godrey of Bullion, was a distant relative to the this Welf and Este Clan. Godfrey’s granddad on his mother’s side was Godfrey the Bearded who was the descendant of Gozlin (branch: House of Ardenne-Verdun), a son of Wigeric. Wigeric’s other kids include Siegfried of Luxembourg (branch: Ardenne-Luxembourg) and Welf I who will be key to the post, was descended from from this line from his mom Kunigunde. . It seems this clan arose in the wake of the Lombard wars with the Franks and the Franks elected nobles who were probably loyal to the Carolingian and then Franks married into blood lines though arranged marriages. We know the maternal line of the Welf can be traced to Altdorf in Germany and then back to what is now Belgium/France, but the paternal side could’ve been Frankish settlers appointed rule, but were likely Lombards intermarried with Franks before becoming Frankish overall, yet, when you mix the maternal and paternal, it becomes Frankish.
Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan married Kunigunde of Altdorf, so think of it as Kunigunde Welf marrying Alberto Azzo Este. Kunigunde’s mother was Imiza of Luxembourg, the daughter, Frederick of Luxembourg, the son of House of Luxembourg scion and member of the house of Andennes-Luxembourg, Siegfried (born. 922), whom lastly was the son of Frankish duke, Wigeric of Lotharingia (areas in modern day Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of Northern France, Southern Netherlands, and the Lorraine borders of Germany and France). Her father was Welf II of the Elder House, whose ancestors came from France near Auxerre but owned property in what’s now Switzerland near Lake Constance.
The British Royal Family has direct Carolingian ties via Wigeric whose second wife was Cunigunda, granddaughter of Charlemagne’s direct descendant, Louis the Stammerer, i.e., Louis II of the West Francia, son of Charles the Bald, son of Louis the Pious, son Charlemange, son of Pepin the Short, son of Charles Martel, son of Pepin of Herstal, son of Ansegisel, son of Arnulf of Metz. The Arnuflings whom would evolve into the Carolignians were in the service of the Merovingian.
Relating back to the Giovanni connection to all of this, as stated the Mirandola House married into the Este (Italian Welf) House. Welf IV (I of the Younger House) inherited his mother’s uncle’s (also named Welf) rights to Bavaria, i.e., elevating him to Welf the I of the Younger House. He had a younger brother, Fulco, who retained power in the family’s Italian seat via their father in the areas he owned in Veneto, around Mantua, Padua, Treviso and Verona. When Fulco and Welf’s dad died, Fulco kept Este and his brother kept Bavaria.
Way later, Galeotto I, Signore of Mirandola, brother to Giovannai Mirandola, married the daughter of a descendant of Niccole III d’Este. Later down the line, Alfonso d’Este (21 July 1476 – 31 October 1534), Duke of Ferrara, married into the Papal Family via his marriage to Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Pope Alexander VI was one of the most notorious Popes known for his infamous, Joust of the Whores. “When we think of the popes who have presided over Catholicism in recent decades, it’s difficult to imagine them inviting 50 dancers to slowly strip while they ate dinner. It’s even harder to picture one of them throwing chestnuts on the floor for these dancers to snatch up, before handing out prizes for the guy who could have sex with the most women in one sitting. But Alexander VI was a Borgia before he was a pope, so his turn in the cassock was always going to be debauched.” (Cubis, 2017).
Welf I’s son Welf II had married the powerful Matilda of Tuscany and the Mirandola (Pico) family nearby had been vassals of Matilda, insinuating this possibly where the Mirandola line became associated more so with the Welf Este line. Welf I’s descendent, the famous Henry the Lion, settled the disputes between the Bavarian Welfs and the Italian Estes, giving up claims to his familial Italian possessions, yet, these Italian and Germany blood ties would be crucial during the Guelph (Italian for Welf) versus Ghibellines (those loyal to the Holy Roman Emperor) during Italy’s struggle to retain autonomy away from the Germanic, House Hohenstaufen (interrelated with the Welf’s, e.g. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion were cousins). The Guelph factions, siding with the Papacy, in Italy fought those loyal to the Emperor, and the conflict started during the Investiture Controversy as the Pope and Emperor battled over who had more power. Essentially, the Guleph factions commanded in part by Este Nobles, used the tensions between their cousin German Welf family, to help fight the Hohenstaufen imperial overlords (Frederick Barbarossa, i.e., the Frederick the I, and Frederick the II).
Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony (of the Welf Clan related his Este cousins in Italy) married Matilda of England the daughter of Richard II, thus interlinking the Welf-Este Clan to England when they finally ascended the throne of England as the Hanoverian kings. Yet, during the times of Hohenstaufen rule of the Holy Roman Empire, the Welfs and Hohenstaufens fought viciously over ruler-ship, and Henry the Lion had been stripped of his Saxon lands and Bavarian lands, but later after reconciliation obtain some lands back such as those around Brunswick. Henry the Lion’s son, Otto IV, would become the Holy Roman Emperor but was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Otto IV died without issue, so his brother, living in England due their mom’s English royal ties, named William of Winchester, took over, but his son, Otto the Child officially came to the rule Brunswick Luneburg.
To rewind a bit, an interesting fact is that Henry the Lion went on crusade in 1172 and met with the Knight Templars and Knights Hospitallers. Another interesting fact is that as already stated the British nobility has Hanoverian blood (Welf-Este) but the during the Victoria area a nearby German family in Saxony based in Gotha married into the British family, meaning the British family is highly German, but with a vast diversity spanning Italy (arguably back to the fall of the Rome during the Gothic invasions), Viking French (Norman Conquests), Scandinavian, etc. Think about this if you were to pull out the themes: royal blood lines, the Franks, Knight Templars, Occult practicing relatives, etc.
The House of Este still exists, directly speaking, today in Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este and the house of Welf exists today in Prince Ernst August of Hanover, meaning these people are distant relatives to the current British royal family. The British nobility during the times of Queen Elizabeth had John Dee as an adviser to Elizabeth and he was into Hermeticism, Rosicrucian ideas, etc. So, the heritage of the occult and esoteric thought goes back much further and John Dee coined the terms British Empire.
5. MIRANDOLA CONNECTIONS TO THE ESTE-WELF (BRUNSWICK LUNEBURG, I.E., HOUSE HANOVER)
GALEOTTO I, Signore della Mirandola e Conte di Concordia 8.11.1467, *Mirandola 1442, +by malaria Mirandola 7.4.1499, bur San Francesco, Mirandola; m.Ferrara 1468 Bianca Maria, natural and legitimate daughter of Niccole III d’Este, Lord of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio by Caterina de Taddeo (*18.12.1440, +Mirandola 12.1.1506) [Source: http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/pico1.html]
Margherita, +1461; m.1442 Taddeo d’Este, Lord of Este, Venetian General Governor of Friuli (+near Brescia 21.6.1448 [Source: http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/pico1.html]
Quotes from Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1959)
Just imagine, right… in these MAGA times we live. All the drama on TV, the news, Russia, talk show comedians, Mueller investigation, soft Brexit, hard Brexit, etc…. Hold Russia, Brexit and Trump in your brain for a while and now read these quotes from Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.
“Major Reid, our instructor, was a blind man with a disconcerting habit of looking straight at you and calling you by name. We were reviewing events after the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony, 1987 and following. But this was the day that we heard the news of the destruction of San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley; I thought he would give us a pep talk. After all, even a civilian ought to be able to figure it out now – the Bugs or us. Fight or die” (p.177)
“Major Reid didn’t mention San Francisco. He had one of us apes summarize the negotiated Treaty of New Delhi, discuss how it ignored prisoners of war…and, by implication, dropped the subject forever; the armistice became a stalemate and prisoners stayed where they were – on one side; on the other side they were turned loose, and, during the Disorders, made their way home – or not if they didn’t want to.” (p. 177)
“Major Reid’s victim summed up the unreleased prisoners: survivors of the two divisions of British paratroopers, some thousands of civilians, captured mostly in Japan, the Philippines, and Russia and sentenced for “political” crimes.” (p. 177)
“Besides that, there were many other military prisoners,” Major Reid’s victim went on, “captured during and before the war – there were rumors that some had been captured in an earlier war and never released. The total of unreleased prisoners was never known. The best estimates place the number around sixty-five thousand” (p. 177)
“How did the present political organization evolve out of the Disorders? and what is its moral justification” (p. 179)
“However, nobody can describe accurately how the Federation came about; it just grew” (p. 179)
“With national government in collapse at the end of the XXth century, something had to fill the vacuum, and in many cases it was returned veterans. They had lost a war, most of them had no jobs, many were sore as could be over the terms of the Treaty of New Delhi, especially the P.O.W. foul-up – and they knew how to fight. But it wasn’t revolution; it was more like what happened in Russia in 1917 – the system collapsed; somebody else moved in” (p. 179)
“The first known case, in Aberdeen, Scotland, was typical. Some veterans got together as vigilantes to stop rioting and looting, hanged a few people (including two veterans) and decided not to let anyone but veterans on their committee. Just arbitrary at first – they trusted each other a bit, the didn’t trust anyone else. What started as an emergency measure became constitutional practice…in a generation or two” (p. 179)
“Probably those Scottish veterans, since they were finding it necessary to hang some veterans, decided that, if they had to do this, they weren’t going to let any “bleedin’, profiteering, black-market, double-time-for-overtime, army dodging, unprintable” civilians have any say about it. (p. 179-180)
“In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d’etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called ‘Revolt of the Scientists’: let the intelligent elite run things and you’ll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social-responsibility.” (p. 180)
Such a alliance with Russia, objectively speaking seems fine, but the real issue is the anti-democratic realities coming from Putin and Trump, but particularly Putin’s grip on power and the ideology that seems to be coming from Aleksandr’s Dugin’s National Bolshevik Party.
There’s also this underlying sense from the Kremlin that they are the “Third Rome”, robbed from their proper place in history and thus willing to use force to firmly supplant themselves at the top of the world stage.
There doesn’t seem to be enough personal rights or freedom of speech in Russia to justify a bond, yet, people to people, I have no issue with Russian people. From the surface it might sound fine, but in real life we have to understand that Russia is close with China, and also lesser known with Israel.
So the reality actually seems something more akin to the speculation done by Orson Scott Card in Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegomon speaking to the theoretical Second Warsaw Pact and Sino-Russian Alliance — which, thus reflects the real-life Belt & Road Initiative, or, New Silk Road Project.
*** Side Notes: The Revolt of the Scientists within the book of Starship Troopers is supposed to be a jab at liberalism, or rather, liberalism in the leftist sense.
The Scientists are essentially the Technocratic elites and Ivy Tower Intelligentsia, and they tried to create a type of Huxlian (as in Aldous and Julian Huxley) Fabian Socialist society, but it failed and then the veterans swept in to create a civilian-or-citizen meritocracy. These sorts of utopian societies have been lampooned by right-wing conservatives as a means undermining any sort of socialist, or liberal ideas, in favor right-wing, Eurocentric, patriarchal libertarian ideals. People may insinuate that the world depicted in the film A Clockwork Orange would be the type of world created by The Scientists.
I’m not advocating for this. Actually, on Instagram, as a veteran, I saw a post by other military-men, and they were supporting a Starship Troopers “citizens versus civilians” style of government.
I commented to one guy – a young soldier – and said, “Are you sure that be such a good idea?”. He commented that Sargon of Akkad had posted a video, and he liked it. I watched the video, and it was good at first in his analysis of Plato’s Republic, and how the Constitutions of liberal democracies have to be protected by those willing to die for it, yet, at the end he took a to be expected far-right biased turn.
Like most Starship Trooper’s analysis, such as that of Sargon of Akaad or Roger Ager, it is largely coming from right-wing-esque, “classical liberal”, white male perspective (which is not a crime, i.e., I’m not racist to anyone), but Sargon specifically argues it from a type of Darwinist support for classical liberalism. Or analysis on the film is coming from a surface-level analysis of the film without really comparing it to what’s going on in real-world, and if so, it’s largely a criticism of gender-equality, diversity or multiculturalism, etc., rather than a rebuike of militarism.
For example, the demographic shift of increased numbers of Hispanics in the United States, largely due to free-trade and globalism, I can admit is oddly represented in a passive way in the film-adaptation by Paul Verhoeven. For example, the Americanized “Latin American” lead characters.
Also, the film touches upon odd “trans-human” elements such as remote viewing through the character of Carl Jenkins (portrayed by the actor, Neil Patrick Harris), which was actually studied in real life. Yes, it is kooky, but the Department of Defense in the USA with Project Stargate, the Soviet Union, and universities such as Duke University and at Princeton University’s PEAR Lab (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab) [with the latter having received funding from Laurence Rockefeller.] have studied paranormal activities.
I personally believe that Paul Verhoeven (director) and Edward Neumeier (screenplay writer) were showing examples of the kooky real-life esoteric studies done in World War 2 such as that of the Nazi SS, Thule Society, and Ahnenerbe, but later in the Cold War by the Soviet Union and USA.
Yet, the main theme that most pick up on from the film is the false-flag attack on Buenos Aires (real-life home to Juan Peron – a noted Nazi collaborator).
The film opens with a shot of a “lunar missile system” that destroys asteroids which were supposedly sent by Earth’s enemies, The Arachnids. Yet, Buenos Aires is possibly attacked by that same system to justify war. In real-life, how many US wars started from supposed attacks on ships or whatever? The majority.
In the analysis by Rob Ager of Collative Learning, and the separate one done by Sargon of Akaad, but more so Sargon, since Ager seems objective in his film analysis, there is a type of Jordan B. Peterson plea for classical liberalism and hierarchies.
A very amoral, survival-of-the-fit through unfettered capitalism viewpoint, but dolled up with imagery of Classical Greek nude statues insinuating a perfection within the Western logos. A very “Proud Boy”, The West is the best mentality.
As a kid, growing up a military-brat, when I saw the film in 1997, I was blown away. A total power-fantasy of warfare, teamwork, race wasn’t an issue, even the women were badass, and we all united under a common enemy. Yet, I didn’t see the brilliance of Paul Verhoeven’s satire as kid.
Verhoeven’s film was a satirical criticism on militarism. He also takes a nod to the Americanization of the Latin America, by having “whitewashed” actors play the roles of the Hispanic-named main leads (yes, I know there are white Hispanics), but by choosing Beverly Hills 90210 type actors, it helped to show the beauty and physical standards promulgated by US media.
However, Verhoeven’s depiction of a globalist-fascist world, with basis in Latin America, actually represents the real-life right-wing regimes of Latin America of the Cold War which were supported by the CIA, Washington, and Neoconservatives (such as Milton Friedman’s Chicago Boys creating the economy for the dictator Augusto Pinochet).
The process of admitting Nazi War-Criminals was accepted by the Cold-War Right-Wing CIA-backed dictators such as Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Juan Peron on Argentina, Emilio Garrastazu Medici of Italian descent and Augusto Rademaker of German descent in Brazil, and Alfredo Stroessner of German descent of Paraguay. Criminals such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengle, and Croatian Nazi Ante Pavelic were all in Latin America.
If you add Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil with his right-wing politics to that of this MAGA, Brexit, and Dugin’s Putin Russia idea, then it does seem to loosely relate to the Heinlein’s book and Verhoeven’s film.
To shed historical light on Latin America during the Cold War, according to Schemo (2006), “… General Stroessner won American help in establishing his secret police and hopes that his dictatorship would give way to democracy faded before a string of elections in which he faced token or no opposition and that were generally considered to be fraudulent.”
Further, Schemo (2006) stated, “Under General Stroessner, Paraguay’s security forces became so efficient at intimidating potential opposition figures that eventually fear itself — fear of arrest, torture, exile and murder — became one of his prime levers for staying in power. The country became a haven for Nazis on the run, with new passports and visas sold for a price. Among those it sheltered was Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death” who selected victims for the gas chambers at Auschwitz and conducted medical experiments on humans.”
Lastly, Schemo (2006) stated, “But General Stroessner surprised the political pundits and held on through seven successive elections marked by rigged voting. In time he became the prototype for a new crop of South American dictators friendly to American interests. Backed by the United States, military rulers later seized power in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia. Security forces in these countries worked closely together, formalizing their cooperation in a joint intelligence plan called Operation Condor.”.
*** This part is really me summarizing some notes I had that I wish to put in one central spot *** The actual Johnny Rico in the novel by Heinlein is actually Filipino, which in real-life was actually an American territory and housed the real-life Luzon Air Force Base.
Section II(A)
Where Technology, Trans-humanism, Occult, Corporations, Military, Hollywood, Liberalism and Conservatism Meet…
This section in is in part inspired by what I call the Dyer Thesis, of Jay Dyer of Jay’s Analysis. I’m not a subscriber to his site but I do enjoy his videos but I don’t personally care for the right-wing Alex Jones vibe I get.
I’m simply there for the information. Yet, as far as summarizing books, I do respect him in this right and he does seem to have a level of humanism in mind when he’s reading books relating to the control aspects of Globalism and Corporatism.
If I had to explain the Dyer Thesis, he’s explaining the Occult based ideology underneath both the general idea of Democracy as seen through the Masonic “Illuminus Revolutions” (the rise of banking houses after usury laws were abolished, the rise of merchant classes over the aristocracy, The French Revolution and The American Revolution), and how Occult esoteric thought under the Enlightenment went to inspire concepts such as a Darwinism and Newtonian Atomism, which once put together turns everything into “malleable soulless base material” which can be evolved through an alchemical process, most notably our version of “magic”, which is the Scientific Method.
Darwinism and Atomism essentially reduced the human aspect of a spirit or soul and turned everything in materialism and this led to the atheistic nihilistic movements under Totalitarian Communism, Fascism, and the Liberal Capitalist Democracy.
The thesis even goes further by explaining that this Occult, Darwinian, Newton Atomist view to reality is essentially the basis of The Complexes we see. Such as the relationship between corporations, military, science without a sense of humanity, RAND Corporation quantification, seeing people as “bots” in cubes, game theory, but also our notions of Trans-humanism. Trans-humanism is both technological in nature but also Occultic in nature since it’s about merging things and transcending to a type of new age.
Yet, Jay Dyer’s main focus, which is good I mind you, is mainly on the West and the USA but history proves that also Russian ideology was involved in these “evolutionary” “alchemy” “transcendence” movements. Particularly, the Russian Cosmism movement. I find it suspicious that for such a smart, well-read person that he never touches the “Russia card” with equal impartial analysis, and I suspect it is largely because he converted to Orthodoxy so his bias is naturally more anti-Western Russian, and with him being admittedly associated with Rand Paul and being a follower of Alex Jones, he is naturally suspicious of the left. It’s hard to believe someone entirely when they push this “it’s all rigged” idea, notably by summarizing books such as Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley, but now all of sudden start choosing sides, particularly a side that for an American…isn’t American, and is of a regime that has shown aggression (even if in some cases there is some basis out of self-defense). *** Note: I have no ill-will towards the Russian people. This isn’t about people on the streets or everyday people/families, but people in power, and we have to be equal in our assessments of power no matter where it comes from ***
Terms and Keywords: The Occult, Esoteric, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Rosicrucian, Theosophy, Kabbalah… Psychological Warfare, Lifestyle cults… Kabbalah, Zionism, Israel, The Fourth Temple Movement, Chabad. Alchemy, Darwinist Evolution, Materialism, Masonic Libertarian and Marxism of French Revolution Girondins and Jacobins; the Masonic Schism between the United Lodge of England with the York and Scottish Rites (more Girondin; merchant oriented) versus the Grand Orient Lodge de France (more Jacobin; Marxist oriented). Democratic Revolutions funded by Internationalist Banking Houses.
Heinlein was associated with Occultism by way of Jack Parson’s, the legendary Occult Rocketry Pioneer who was canonized by NASA, who also had connections to Aleister Crowley. There seems to have been a large active Occult movement leading from Santa Monica (home to RAND Corpration) to the Tuscan-like mountains surrounding the LA City basin. A mixture of artists such as Man Ray, Occultists, Satanists, scientists, military personnel, actors, and, even magicians such as Harry Houdini.
Parson’s himself has contact with Werner von Braun, but also, the lesser known Russian Cosmist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
The agenda seems to be the goal of bringing upon self-directed evolution by using notions such as alchemy as an analogy but in certain circles this is literal, to bring upon alchemical change, or evolution, by creating chaos between dialectics (an explosion), only to merge those dialectics, weed out the weak, and the rebuild a new order and new paradigm. So science, trans-humanism, and automation as an analogy are borderline modern manifestations of “magic”. There’s the possibility that there’s people in these fields who do have actual Occultist esoteric viewpoints, sometimes equated to Satanic since that view is libertarian in nature, where science or social-change are effectively “ritual” and elites, as apex predators within human nature, are entitled to advance the species. Also, from a communication pragmatic perspective, Occultism, Theosophy & Esoteric thought, is essentially a part of the basis for psychological warfare since there is a concept of the illusory, hypnotic, trace-like rites-of-passage, but in a hard propaganda psy-op campaign, contingencies span the spectrum of (1) controlling and managing conspiracy-theory culture to lead people down specific paths of thought (2) disinformation (3) deconstruction of linear reality, such as alternative history, for example think “racial superiority origin stories”, or even Ancient Alien theories [Interesting Fact: Jonathan Young of History Channel’s, Ancient Aliens series, is an alumni of the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, MD, but also the curator of the Joseph Campbell Archives, where Joseph Campbell was associated with the Esalen Institute – later site for the US Soviet Exchange Program], but also (4) memes, even though most are harmless – yet, they serve the purpose of visual communication and reinforcement of ideas.
An interesting fact is that the concept of the meme, which can be used in psychological warfare, was first coined by Darwin evolution proponent, Richard Dawkins, but the basis of these ideas were created in the times of Charles Darwin and T.H. Huxley (grandfather of Julian Huxley, the early proponent of Trans-humanism, and Aldous Huxley, the author Brave New World). Since Darwin’s theory of evolution is based in a chemical mutation and adaptation viewpoint, and memes are in essence linguistic or communication manifestations or catalysts of the process of evolution, then it can be said that performing “alchemy” on the body and through linguistics/psychology, one can actually self-direct evolve a given species. A catalyst for starting the chemical process of evolution within the linguistic sphere can be done with alchemy-like ideas such as postmodernism. Postmodernism as far as communication and linguistics goes, deals with ideas of “simulation and simulacrum”, or the inability of distinguish between original and what is replicated, but also the recycling of ideas and promulgation of ideas often through mediums such as Mass Communication. Further, postmodernism it related to the process of Deconstruction, which breaks down objects – including history, thus a meme as far as its effects within the evolutionary process can be used to break-down notions to reinsert new ones and then replicated and recycle those notions through mass dissemination. Memes effectively “chemical breakdown” preconceive notions, in order to reinsert new ones, and thus prep the mind for an actual physical transition. The art of memetics can be viewed in a practical-pragmatic sense but also from an Occult “wizardry” alchemy viewpoint.
Section II (B)
Robert Heinlein was an interesting guy and I’m not so sure if it were in a good way.
Treat the following as notes, tropes, bullet-points, and then think about it…. It’s really me working out pathways in my mind and if you read it, I think it will reveal a level of interconnection that most wouldn’t even think about.
University of Chicago received early funding from the Rockefeller Family; Neo-conservatism is a synthesis of Trotsky & Internationalism mixed with Right-Wing Conservatism of force and will. This synthesis of Trotsky Marxism with Conservatism as seen through Corporations leads to an Empirical quantitative elite bourgeoisie class; University of Chicago was associated with the Neoconservative Movement relating to people such as Milton Friedman, Leo Strauss; Henry Kissinger, Barry Goldwater, and Roy Cohn (all Jewish conservatives who aligned with traditional Republicanism in order to stitch Zionism as a fundamental part of US foreign policy). Roy Cohn was Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and enforcer who got his start in the McCarthy Era which also dealt the Red Scare – Communist witch hunts – in Hollywood which is where a young Ronald Reagan got his start; Eisenhower-Nixon-Reagan all associated with Bohemian Grove near San Francisco.
Section III: Personal Observations. It’s rigged. The Far-Left and Far-Right are both Dialectics. However, I stand with liberalism because I care about humanism (pro-feminism, pro-diversity, pro-LGBTQ, pro-free speech, pro-peace).
There’s really two underlying thesis to my thoughts on where the world is going, or how it looked like it was going. One deals with a revelation I’ve been having regarding the odd connections between technocracy, the Occult, and Darwinism, but the other relates to something slightly less theoretical but more palatable.
The the other being Trump MAGA, Brexit, and Putin’s Russia. However, as time goes on, and with more clarity, I will argue my case about how these two thoughts are actually mutually exclusive, one in the same.
Trump’s affinity with Russia and his business dealings with Russian nationals or nations of ex-Soviet nations particularly those linked to his real-estate interests aboard and those domestic such as Trump SoHo; Vladimir Putin’s remodeling of Russia from a Communist State after the Boris Yeltsin years into an oligarch-driven quasi-fascist state that still retains elements of the collective Communist era but painted over with a marketing scheme of Traditionalism and Orthodoxy (wife-beatings included); Russia’s lebensraum-type geopolitical strategy under Aleksandr Dugin’s Occult-inspired Eurasianism ideology (ominously predicted by Orson Scott Card’s Second Warsaw Pact in Ender’s Shadow); the troubles of the European Union which has been defined by a war-created refugee crisis but strongly the Brexit movement of Great Britain. Trump, Putin, parts of the Brexit movements, and even the rise of Jair Bolsonaro, which are nationalistic. Opportunistic nationalist ideologies, which could very well simply be dialectics prepping for a future explosion. Sure, I have a sliver of nationalism within in me, but I don’t take it as far as exclusion of newcomers, nor do I see race as explicitly linked to culture since one is a biological adaption whereas the other is mental construct of deified behaviors and customs, and I do feel that “hard nationalism and traditionalism”, is really what go us in this situation to begin with. I’m a firm believer the culture does evolve. For example, I can speak of what we consider English-ness, but this concept is actually a modern notion, reinforced with a type of Francis Fukuyama End of History viewpoint where culture as we see it is effectively a museum piece that is spared adaption or evolution, and making for nice tourism videos in our post-capitalist times, but this modern view of what we consider British culture is much different than what existed in the British Isles some two-thousand years ago.
Liberalism has become synonymous with Globalism in right-wing circles, so National Conservatism is their antithesis, but ironically the far-right is often a proponent of classical liberalism, which is obviously, liberal, but simply on the right-liberal perspective. All three players from Trump, Brexit, and Putin are using this to their advantage. Putin has become a symbol for the “underground far-right”, but what they fail to realize is that these people at this higher-level are in cahoots with the people they claim they’re against. It’s a confusing game to follow.
Disclaimer: I am not antisemitic, but if something is going on, we have a right to speak up. I believe Israel has the right to exist and is the homeland of the Jews (same as the Palestinians and Christian communities), but it becomes an uncomfortable conversation when we start seeing proof of Jewish supremacy, or, a type of entitlement to rule over others since they believe they are the Chosen people of God. The following words in this post is not to promote antisemitism, or to say that Jewish Zionism is the only culprit, but analysis or criticism is not antisemitism, though it often argued that way to not get people looking too deep or connecting any dots.
I don’t think the world works as simply as an us versus them, but rather I see the reactionary nature of nationalism as being a “pawn” in a larger conflict. This is arguably similar to how the German people fell for National Socialism, despite an early Hitler getting funding from sources which would later destroy Germany and carve it up between West and East. It didn’t come to save you, it came here to be a dialectical component or chemical-agent to do damage even to those who side with hard ethnic based nationalism. Nationalism in itself isn’t bad but it becomes bad when it is taken to its extreme, typically by positing a sense of racial “Blood and Soil” ideologies. From an American standpoint, nationalism is more of an idea that people of various backgrounds can adopt and assimilate into. I say this because while everyday people are enslaved to dialectical positions, doesn’t mean the people in power are. They support right-wing movements from one angle, while supporting left wing in another, or creating the right combination of either when they see fit. The benefit of doing this is that it keeps the people focusing on each other, while they continue to oversee and run a type of top-down elitist centrist mentality. Dialectics is important because by pitting to two sides against each other, the circle of the “Ying Yang” still creeps forward, thus those in power still gain yardage. Do we really think that Putin isn’t doing business with Swiss Banks same as US or UK industrialists? How the world actually runs and how we wish to see it are two different things.
When nationalism arises it is always the refugee, migrant, person of color, or anything seen as “liberal” which gets the blame. When Trump first got elected and even from his comments regarding Russia before he won, it was easy to see an actual conspiracy manifesting itself. It was so in your face, but you were groomed to not see it because of the level of postmodern irony that exists within the larger public sphere, but also the sheer levels of bipolar rhetoric. Everyone on the left wanted it to be true, whereas everyone on the right didn’t want to be true. It is hard to discern the truth in such bipolar situations, yet, facts are facts.
It is fact that Exxon Mobil (one of the successor companies of Standard Oil founded by the Rockefeller Oil Dynasty) with Rexx Tillerson had deep ties to Russia’s oil and natural gas sector with the Putin Regime, going as far as having joint-ventures such as with Russian enterprises such as Rosneft. It is fact that Steve Bannon, despite coming off as Reagan Cold War Era war-hawk Republican, was actively interfering in European politics of the far-right, going so far as trying to establish a type of Julius Evola-like school in a monastery outside of Rome. This far-right movement is geo-politically strategic for Russia considering it helps chip away at alliances such as NATO, opens the door for more European reliance on Russian natural gas, helps them sell their own weapon systems, and it helps spread Russia’s lost influence. I repeat, I don’t hate Russia as far as the idea, its people, its history, culture, etc.
Even, elements of the “echo-chamber” YouTube podcaster universe and MAGA “street teams” are highly involved in this. Lauren Southern, went to Russia to interview Aleksandr Dugin, and later took “cute” selfies with her far-right friend adoring Soviet-Era Ushanka Cossask hats. Lauren is of, or was formerly associated with Rebel Media, which is ironically a Jewish-Canadian ran outlet by a committed Zionist. Rebel Media is owned by Ezra Levant, a Jewish man, who oddly helped pull the far-right activists together at the Chancellorsville Riots.
The theme we start seeing in Russia and MAGA America is high occurrence of Zionists behind the scenes, largely from the Chabad Lubavitch community. I’m sure it’s very well the case in the UK too. From Rebel Media we also get Gavin McInnes, formerly of left-leaning Vice Media Group before it was bought out by Disney, and Mr. McInnes was noted for being influential on the Hipster movement (which does hide a sense of misogyny and has an anachronistic fetishism for less enlightened times), was later picked up by Rebel Media. Even, Alex Jones, who has ties to Joe Rogan with his libertarian-viewpoint and love for trans-humanism, is a noted Zionist, who has had Jim Corsi and Roger Stone on his InfoWars radio-show. He’s also beefed up Trump as a type of Messiah type figure. As funny as it sounds, the Alt-Right, was in part created by Right-Wing Jews in North America who have cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, which is a nation that saw the Alt-Right as a plug into the United States to help support Donald Trump at the polls.
The easiest way to understand the Zionist Jewish influence is to look back to the idea of a Christian Crusader. There’s this image of a blonde haired blue-eyed Teutonic Knight defending the Holy Land. In modern equivalency terms this iconography it is very heavy metal. This is actually a tool beneficial to Zionist because the Crusader mentality does the defending of the Jewish homeland. This explains anomalies within the American and Western mindset relating to conservatism and the historic antisemitism associated with it. Christian, white male, antisemitic, Crusader Knights fighting for the Holy Land, but it actually just ends up supporting radical Zionists, who don’t actually recognize or believe in Jesus Christ. So it’s an odd relationship of two sides that need each other but don’t believe what each other believes. Evangelical Christianity was created in part to link Israel’s destiny to Christianity, so this explains the anomaly of racist conservatives supporting Israel despite the historical precedent of antisemitism in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic thought, best described in events such as the Rhineland Massacres during the First Crusade. They know this base is easily manipulated, particularly by playing with latent racial fear or “replacement” myths.
Lauren Southern going to South Africa to speak on White Farm Murders isn’t her just going there to expose something which hasn’t already been exposed, but it’s propaganda to push a sense of “anti-white paranoia”, which thus feeds back to this MAGA, Zionist, Russian, Brexit strategy of destroying European economic cooperation, NATO, etc. Not once did she try to be objective. It’s not like she showed any of the White, Black, Coloured, Indian, or Chinese South Africans getting along or shopping or drinking beer at bars to rugby or cricket. Her goal was to go there to find one issue without providing any context and to twist that issue into something for a larger, more sinister, propaganda campaign. It’s one thing to show an angry political rally of black Africans, but it is another to not show the historical context which permitted such behavior, largely the brutality of the Apartheid regime and the exploitation of South African gold and diamonds. If you go looking for one thing, one thing is all you will find.
Even, more rational speakers that renounce racism and homophobia such as YouTuber, Styxhexenhammer666, and I enjoy his commentary, but in part, at least as far as perception goes, channels this Occult, “Do What They Whilst” dark-libertarian classical-liberal right-wing dialectic and is full of Trump apologetics – rarely even entertaining that the Trump Administration’s had ties to Russia.
Jay Dyer, whom I have respect for, since he is a well-read intellectual approaching theory from an academic stance regarding analysis, despite my many disagreements with him, is a convert to Orthodoxy who in Alex Jones fashion weaves this perception that all of conspiracies happening are largely because of liberals, in the leftist Marxist sense, though he does balance this by explaining that libertarians are liberals too, but in a classical sense. Mr. Dyer has a strong argument for his beliefs, but he never seems to publicly analyze this own beliefs, or show his real intent. He gives a strong explanation of dialectics and has a strong understand of theology. However, Jay do me is also an apologist for Russia, largely since the verbosity of this works are centered around one element of the “New World Order”, which is the Anglo-American Alliance and Western Catholic Europe. He rarely shows suspicion towards Russia and I suspect this is because he is an…Alex Jones, post-Republican, white male, who feels betrayed by the West, so he’s looking for a spiritual alternative.
There’s no crime in appearing in a Russian Cossack hat (they’re pretty cool), or being into the Occult (if that’s your thing), nor is there any issue with wanting peace with Russia (I’m sure Moscow and other cities are beautiful), but there is a problem with not fairly assessing the situation while also turning any attempt to look deeper or hold Russia equally accountable. Instead any thought deeper into the obvious facts and plausible conspiracy is turned into a type of “Muh, Russia” meme for the infosphere.
The truth is that, Dugin’s Chaos Magick strategy did infiltrate the West and USA, and though it is racist and supremacist, underneath the surface it’s only a mere dialectic in a larger global chess-match.
It is merely a piece in a much larger global paradigm shift which can be seen by viewing the historical intersections between technology, occult, hegemony, etc., particularly to the behind-the-scene links between the USA, Israel, Russia, and the UK.
Citations:
Heinlein, R. (1987). Starship troopers. New York: Ace Books.
Before I get into Card’s works, first I want to say that despite his personal beliefs, I do feel that people can change or make mistakes. Simply because Card was scrutinized for his personal beliefs and comments (which I don’t endorse), I think we would be doing ourselves a disservice by not objectively analyzing his works to find clues about his predictions on geopolitics. Below, I will provide quotes from Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. It will astound you the foresight that Card had in 1997 and 2000 relating to geopolitics considering these books were published before the onset of the War on Terrorism, the spy-state, and Russia’s unveiling of their recent ambitious geopolitical moves. Card’s stories are also…pretty good as far as an exploration of the human condition, family, friendships, etc. Though science-fiction probably gets the association of being a very male space with the negative connotation of fantasizing or projecting power-fantasy, I can assure you, that’s not true, and also that Card’s series has a diverse cast, and also one of the strongest female characters in a series I’ve read in Petra Arkanian. Though, there’s always room for criticism. If you ever see the Ender’s Game film, I can assure you that the book is better and the film’s writers (not the actors) ruined the possibility of a more expanded universe which parallels certain aspects of our real-world. Hollywood politics? Further, we have to realize that science-fiction often takes real world issues and simply speculates on their outcomes, particularly involving emerging technology. We can in many ways learn from certain science-fiction works.
But, how did Orson Scott Card predict Russia’s neo-imperialist ambitions, similarly to, but alternatively to how Robert Heinlein predicted the West attempting to merge with Russia (as read in Starship Troppers with the Russo Anglo American Alliance).
I will get to the point.
A character in Ender’s Shadow, named Bean, is a boy with genetically modified intelligence and an IQ which surpasses that of the series’ hero, Ender Wiggins. A street urchin forced to eek out a meager living on the chaotic streets of a dystopian Rotterdam, Netherlands (which in real-life is the end location of the developing Belt-and-Road initiative – strange how Card predicted this)….the boy, Bean, after surviving a Lord of The Flies situation between bands of roaming and abandoned street children, is taken in by a Catholic Nun who is working for the International Fleet (think the United Nations). Her job is to find special children able to be sent to Battle School, a school which trains genius children in adult war-games in order to become future commanders of Earth’s next fight with an alien nemesis (note: you can disregard the science fiction background about aliens in my argument). Bean while at Battle School, leaning about geopolitics, and assesses the world’s political situation for the reader.
While Bean reads, on page 400, it is said, “When the Buggers (i.e., a derogatory term for the aliens that Earth is fighting) showed up, China had just emerged as the dominant world power, economically and militarily, having finally reunited itself as a democracy. The North Americans and Europeans played at being China’s “big brothers”, but the economic balance had finally shifted.” (Card, 1999). Further, on page 400, Card (1999) states, “What Bean saw as the driving force of history, however, was the resurgent Russian Empire. Where the Chinese simply took for granted that they were and should be the center of the universe, the Russians, led by a series of ambitious demagogues and authoritarian generals, felt that history had cheated them out of their rightful place, it was Russia that forced the creation of the New Warsaw Pact, bringing its effective borders back to the peak of Soviet power – and beyond, for this time Greece was its ally, and an intimated Turkey was neutralized. Europe was on the verge of being neutralized, the Russian dream of hegemony from the Pacific to the Atlantic at last within reach.”
How does this relate to Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasianism strategy? The shortest way to describe it is that he wants to Russia to expand back to its Soviet territorial heights, but Dugin mixes a combination of esoteric thought and geopolitical maneuvering often through an ideological analysis of the “fallen” West.
From these quotes from Ender’s Shadow, it does sound very familiar to what is going on now in the real-world under Trump’s foreign policy, which on the surface feeds into a sense of right-wing isolationism, or even to liberal pacifism, or pacifism regardless of political affiliation (not all Republicans are warhawks), but in another light it seems as if Trump is purposely antagonizing the balance-of-power for reasons unknown. A very clever for “every action is an equal reaction” approach by Trump. For example, by challenging NATO members to meet their minimum contribution requirements, if they do meet these it raises his political perception among his base, but if nations refuse to, or simply can’t pay, it hurts the alliance as a whole and he’s able to placate the Kremlin.
We have to remember, that many of these NATO countries suffered through a Eurozone economic crisis while also providing military support to US coalition forces, and, took on the humanist task of permitting refugees from Middle East instability. By withdrawing from a leadership positions and shaming the credibility of US foreign policy it creates an opportunistic void in which a hungry Putin regime can fill. From Trump’s public shaming and attempted embarrassment of foreign leaders in NATO, i.e., our allies; to his sanctions on NATO-member, Turkey, which will only push the Turks closer to Russia, which was the case in the Cold War as the Turks played both sides, and this provides the Russians will Black Sea access to to the Mediterranean, and pulling troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, it seems as if Trump is going down the list of every move to tilt the balance-of-power to Russia. But why? Why would Trump create an opportunity for another superpower to make grand acquisitions on the “Grand Chessboard”?
Things teetering conspiracy comes to mind, yet, not really if we understand the complex historical events which lead to events such as World War II. It is known public record that many in the United States and British establishment helped fund our enemies in their infancy, or led policies of appeasement such as that of Neville Chamberlain regarding Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. In theory, these moves by the US and UK elite to throw secretive financial support to people such as Hitler, or to earlier movements such as the Bolsheviks before WWI, helped to create the justification for eventual Allied intervention. By Trump pulling out of the Middle East, challenging NATO, and presenting the most favorable policy to the Israel state in modern times despite human rights concerns of the Palestinians, it seems as if Trump is a type of “Chaos Agent”, but whose allegiance once you go down this hole is hard to discern. Is he actively while passively assisting Russia on its “Third Rome” dreams by permitting the Russian Government to take the spiritual baton as champion of the Holy Land away from the “fallen West”?
Is Trump on the surface combating Chinese intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices, yet, behind the scenes supporting China by proxy of his appeasement of Russia, in which these two powers are actively engaged in the emerging “Eurasian Superhighway” of the Belt & Road Initiative? Is Trump simply laying the dynamite of the “grand showdown” between powers, which on the surface will seem ideological or a clash of civilizations, but really be a way to usher in a world of less nations, a new monetary system, and larger power-blocs that rise from the ashes of chaos like the symbolism found in the ancient Phoenix symbol? It sounds odd, but if you were tell a farmer in 1902, that the United States would be the sole Western superpower, with dollar hegemony, a permanent place in European politics, and overseeing an international body called the United Nations, that farmer would call you crazy. The truth of the matter, regardless of outcome, is that new systems come, and with the Cold War over, and the United States taking the burden as “problem child” in a world of global mitigation and anti-terror operations, we live in a time where new powers will rise, thus current political & economic realities will change.
In Shadow of the Hegemon by Card (2000) it is said, “Over a million Indians made it out of India before the Chinese sealed the borders. Out of a population of a billion and a half, that was far too few. At least ten times that million were transported over the next year, from India to the cold lands of Manchuria and the high deserts of Sinkiang” (p. 427). “As if this vast redrawing of the world’s map were no enough, Russia announced that it had joined China as its ally, and that it considered the nations of eastern Europe that were not loyal members of the New Warsaw Pact to the provinces in rebellion. Without firing a single shot, Russia was able, simply by promising not to be asdreadful as overlord as China, to rewrite the Warsaw Pact until it was more or less the constitution of an empire that included all of Europe east of Germany, Austria, and Italy in the South, and east of Sweden and Norway in the North” (p. 427-8). “The weary nations of western Europe were quick to “welcome” the “discipline” that Russia would bring to Europe, and Russia was immediately given full membership in the European Community. Because Russia now controlled the votes of more than half the members of that community, it would require constant tug of war to keep some semblance of independence, and rather than play that game, Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, and Portugal left the European Community. But even they took great pains to assure the Russian bear that this was purely over economic issues and they really welcome the renewed Russian interest in the West.” (p. 428). “In the Pacific, Japan, with its dominant fleet, could afford to stand firm; the other island nations that faced China across various not-so-wide bodies of water had no such luxury” (p. 428).
My last quote from Shadow of the Hegemon by Card (2000), deals interestingly with Muslim nations and how Muslim nations might be unrealized allies to the West and USA. “Indeed, the only force that stood firm against China and Russia while facing them across heavy defended borders were the Muslim nations. Iran generously forgot how threateningly Pakistani troops had loomed along their border in the month before India’s fall, and Arabs joined with Turks in Muslim solidarity against any Russian encroachment across the Caucus or into the vast steppes of central Asia. No one seriously thought that Muslim military might could stand for long against a serious attack from China, and Russia was only scarcely less dangerous, but the Muslims laid aside their grievances, trusted in Allah, and kept their borders bristling with the warning that this nettle would be hard to grasp” (p. 428-9).
Citations
Card, O. S. (2000). Shadow of the Hegemon. New York: Tor.
Mitchell Research Group 