Support for or against the Ukraine War is diverse. It’s not a simple case of “Ukrainian Nazis” versus “Russian National Bolshevik…Nazis”. There are anti-war sides within both nations, with some Russians fleeing the United States to get away from the drafts, but there is also anti-war sentiment within nations that fall under each of the combatant nation’s hegemonic sphere of influence, i.e., you may have anti-war sentiment in the land-locked Steppe (-stan) nations more aligned – either willingly or out of fear – to Russia because they may be more vulnerable to inflationary pressure and high commodity prices such as on oil or grain, just as you have anti-war voices within the developed West such England or Canada. But, there’s also pro-war sides on both, yet these pro-war sides might be coming from hard ethno-nationalism, whereas others are coming from a general sense of national pride (patriotism for the idea of the state, not necessary fully dependent upon one’s blood or ancestry). Yet, there is also a mix of both, i.e., those who support fighting for whichever side yet wanting some sort of truce to come sooner than later. Then you have those who are indifferent to the conflict since it seems so far away.
In our world of social media from YouTube video essayists, to known actors or unknown actors on platforms like Twitter or Meta (Facebook), it is hard to get a clear picture. Technology and the general state of evolution in which we live is best defined en masse as the “postmodern epoch”, and this epoch is not political, but rather a landscape where it is hard distinguish real from fake, i.e., the Jean Baudrillard concept of the Simulacra and Simulation, i.e., when hyperreality produced from the state-subsidized capitalist, technological, and pop culture machine becomes indistinguishable from the physical world, where culture may or may not mutate into spliced anachronisms of style, symbols (semiotics), and iconography.
Yet, so as not to get too lost in discussions of postmodernity, many thinkers argued that postmodernity was dead and should stay dead, but as we’re seeing now, it is not dead, but rather we live in a world that physically allows us to experience it. This is not the 1960s through 1980s where most postmodernity was understood through literature, fiction, science fiction, and film, as a fun “thought experiment” or transgressive look into human nature, but we now have the actual tools they could only dream of, e.g., deep fakes, social media, avatars, the metaverse, Virtual Reality companions, cybercrime, “techno-terrorism” and espionage, etc. The worlds of William Gibson, Thomas Pynchon, Orson Scott Card, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, Robert Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick, seem real, palpable., and the effects of this lingering postmodernity – which is not innately bad since it is essentially a tool or lens to analyze society if done with caution and for the right purposes, i.e., analyzing systems of oppression to establish humanist reform – is that it is affecting…warfare. The modern battlefield where tactics are executed, to the think tanks and closed door “FOUO” “Top Secret” meetings where strategy is formulated, the modern world must factor in topics like memetic warfare, co-opted YouTubers whose main “patrons” are foreign governments, etc.
Hence, everything is fuzzy. And, a little depressing. It is easy to just want to watch streaming apps, watch porn, get drunk, and go through the motions of work as we penny pinch our wallets to pay our bills. It is easy to see Ukraine as a waste of time, but Ukraine represents in part the sustainment of the American Way of Life, while also the freedom of Ukraine. Think of it like concept of the universe expanding. There needs to be some sort of expansion to maintain relevancy, because the worse option, i.e., contraction, is terrifying, i.e., it’s better to have never-ending expansion, than a violent Big Crunch (i.e., just think about the fall of the British Empire). Complaining about returning to the old days and how younger generations are “soft” aren’t productive, because they did not set this train of events in motion.
II. The Factions:
Regarding the Ukraine War based my personal observations the below camps exist:
(1) The Dove “Down with the Man” Anti-NATO Left which encompasses figures such as Max Blumenthal, Andrew Mate, Jackson Hinkle, Katie Halper, Matt Taibbi [who is of Russian descent], Jimmy Dore – who often seems more comfortable with Tucker Carlson – similarly as Tulsi Gabbard, etc. This camp is often influenced by Noam Chomsky with Manufacturing Consent, Michael Parenti with To Kill a Nation, John Perkins with Confessions of an Economic Hitman, etc. Yet, as far as individuals there are a range of ideologies spanning from Marxist-Leninist Communists (i.e., called Tankies), other variants of Communists that may not entirely agree with Marxist ideology (think Rosa Luxemburg), Anarcho-Socialists – some may even say “Libertarian Socialists”, Democratic Socialists, Social Democrats, Centre-Left Liberals (i.e., traditional American Democrats or British Liberal Democrats), etc., with all claiming to some degree – at least in the USA to be “Progressive”.
Yet, conservatives on the right wing, indifferent to providing any nuance to the Left, often lumps everyone as “progressives” while insinuating all progressives are communists., and to be fair, the Left does this often to the right-wing labeling all people as “Fascists”, yet, I would argue that Right Wing politics typically is more “lockstep” cohesive, often because as far as the West it represents the “colonial and/or imperial class”, i.e., the right-leaning predominately white majority (e.g., the Republican Party as far as policy and aesthetics derives it mythology from American settlers, i.e., Manifest Destiny, White Zionism, “Home on the Range”, etc., while British conservatives are nostalgic for the British “Queen Jubilee” Imperium of Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian England). For example, the American “Redneck”, South African Boer, Australian “Bogan”, Canadian “prairie homesteader”, etc., are all essentially the same thing, i.e., the white racial buffer class to the white colonial elite.
This Dovish Left side of the house has merit traditionally speaking, such as calling out the Bush Administration with the Global War on Terrorism, the Patriot Act, FISA Court warrants, and has supported freedom for Julian Assange (some say he’s a Russian asset), Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden – with Snowden having fled to Russia.
But there is also a “counterculture” aspect with intersections that can easily bleed into conspiracy theory, e.g., the “con-spiritualist” scene, i.e., green and healthy living mixed with Ancient Alien or Antediluvian theories, Gaia Theory, Wiccan or Heathen thought, and the anti-vaccine theories such as those Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who instantly invokes conspiracies about the assassinations of his father and his uncle, JFK, which typically leads to theories about the mafia, CIA, Allen Dulles, etc.).
The utopian ideals of the “hippie Left” though honorable and good intentioned does not have a coherent foreign policy and often in its utopianism, often lacking constant effort and work by its adherents (protesting, yes, but with the boring, consistent, and dirty work such as volunteering, the results are iffy).
This dilemma often sets the Left up to be blamed for society’s ills, e.g., how Fox News is blaming homelessness caused by narcoterrorism from Mexican Cartels and Chinese Chemicals on anti-fascists who protested police during the BLM protests, or how conservatives blame crime rates on the Left despite police officers still collecting paychecks and pensions (and, with no actual federal level police reform bill passed).
“Peace, man…” or being a know-it-all on America’s follies is not a coherent foreign policy, considering many of the countries this Leftist side stands up for as they decry American Imperialism are often funding hostile activities towards Americans, and might have cultures that are not open to progressivism. This side of the house has a tendency to blanketly blame the CIA and USA for all the ills of the world (they are no saints), yet, the Left needs to understand that many friends and foes respect realpolitik, strength through force, etc.
This “far out” conspiracy culture, which is fun to engage in from time to time, seems to have been co-opted by America’s enemies, and merged with the right-wing to undermine America (a flanking strategy of left and right).
To finish up on the “Dove Left”, notably about the “Tankies” I spoke about above, they have this idea that Russia is still this romanticized worker’s republic of the Soviets. I would rather deal with the Soviets than Putin’s Right-Wing Russia where his neoliberal reforms have resulted in rampant corruption and wealth disparity.
Instagram for example has very interesting pages about life in the Soviet Union, brutalist architectural pages, pages dedicated to Soviet cosmonauts, etc. Yet, the Tankies are the byproduct of being disenchanted with the avarice of boom-and-bust cycle capitalism and billionaires like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, etc., with this mood having spilled over from the 2008 Financial Crash and the decade long recession thereafter.
Socialism is popular now, and I don’t mind that in theory at all, because it offers a good analysis about how our system works and how to improve it. Socialism is popular largely because the US educational system bent on creating capitalists didn’t fully explain the true and complex history of it, but rather demonized it fully. Conservatives for example use to call centrists Democrats, as being Communists, which is ridiculous, so, well, you get what you ask for.
Yet, regarding Ukraine, some Tankies side with Russia out of some foregone nostalgia, where most were not even alive when the USSR was around. I’m almost 40 years old (born an Army brat) and I barely remember the Cold War as it came to an end in the late 1980s. The problem with American Tankies is they are relying on a foreign source to define their ideology instead of looking internally to previous American Left Wing movements, i.e., it is OK to be a Communist if that is your persuasion but it is OK to also be patriotic because one would think that adhering to such a drastic ideology would hopefully be for…love on one’s county, and not merely the destruction it because its “imperialist”, and the CIA is “boogeyman, bad”.
I, as a black man have every reason to be angry at the US but America is in my blood and I’d rather define it and improve it rather than tear it down.
Even if one thinks that nation-states are bad, as if they are some sort of internationalist Trotskyite, then at least focus on your backyard before thinking about saving the world in full.
The next group with opinions about Ukraine is…
(2) The predominately white demographic, fear based Pro-Russia camp that is also anti-NATO, anti-CIA. This is a surprising shift because they use to be about both but now with their “racial replacement fear” they are against it because they see NATO as a reason for refugees, etc. These types of Right Wingers are a mix of conspiracy culture ranging from the Great Replacement, allegedly via plans such as Kalegri Plan to replace white Europeans by “flooding” the Northern hemisphere with people from the Southern Hemisphere – which is a theory embroiled in white privilege thinking considering the West and USA needed immigration to keep growing and immigrants do the jobs that the elevated the white “native populations” from poverty and since these “nativists” won’t downsize to lower wage job, for fear of losing the fancier things in life. But, now suddenly, they wish to reject those fancier things (allegedly), returning to some sort of “Indo-European, cough – Aryan” culture (German paganism, etc.) or medieval monarchism after spending decades gloating about their fancier things/superior civilization at the expense of other cultures. This is to say the least, hypocritical.
Sure, rampant or emergency based refugee crises or immigration isn’t ideal or comfortable, and certain cultures may have issues such as Sharia Islam in relation to Western secularism. However, instead of hate, there needs to be bridges. If one’s idea is better, supposedly, then sell that idea. I am a firm believer in the Melting Pot theory as opposed to multiculturalism.
Further, there is the Great Reset Theory which is from people interpreting thinkers like Alvin Toffler with his book The Third Wave, the book The Fourth Industrial Revolution by the World Economic Forum founder, etc., where people believe a the New World Order is using “shock doctrine” (the topic of a book by the same name by Naomi Klein), “manufactured austerity”, “merging genders”, “transhumanism”, and biological warfare – such as the Coronavirus 19 – to “terraform” the world into a one-world, integrated, genetically modified, and borderless system ruled by a powerful elite using digital currency, but by which all of it threatens white supremacy, i.e., very similar to old theories such as ZOG, i.e., Zionist Occupied Government, which is an outgrowth of the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The one currency concept is ironic since most Pro-crypto thought comes from these Jeffersonian, libertarian, Ron Paul, I hate government types, but the truth is most crypto has already been mined by the rich or anti-American nation states.
The World Economic Forum, as well as Davos, have become the poster children of what people see as a sort of Eyes Wide Shut amoral class of technocrats who are undemocratically designing the world in their own liking. Is there truth here? Yes! But, to what degree is debatable and such a large cabal requires way too much coordination. The only such coordination can only be possible with Elon Musk types.
The criticisms of this camp, same as that of the No.1 with the Dove Left are not entirely unfounded because there are problems with the existing technocratic world order where the common man or woman better understands topics such as World Bank, Bank of International Settlements, or World Trade Organization corruption, International Monetary Fund predatory lending, regime change, and the fact the rich seem to get richer after each catastrophe, etc.
The sad truth is that there ARE actual conspiracies that people see but little seems to get done about it, and if so, the punishments are often lite. For example, think of the relationship of NXIVM via Sara Bronfman whose husband, Swiss based wheeler, and dealer, Basit Igtet lead peace talks in the wake of the Libyan Revolution that toppled Gaddafi. There’s no denying a link between the two people, even though the events themselves were separate.
If anything, both No. 1 and No. 2., are responding to a sense of helplessness in the face of a very real machine, and America’s shameful history, ranging from giving amnesty to Nazis in World War II to the truths behind real experiments such as MK Ultra has led many to go off the deep end, trapped in nihilistic malaise. Movements such as Qanon exploited this fact, manipulating No. 2’s animus that centers around white exceptionalism while also being conservative on the surface as means of preserving their pleasure seeking and hedonism that goes on behind closed doors. I am no Freudian, but his emphasis on sex as the root of all things seems to explain these Alt-Right minions, because their affinity for movements like the Men’s Right movement is the result of feeling sexually repressed or unlucky, especially with boys raised on Instagram and with free pornography, where studies have shown social media beauty standards has also had negative effects on young girls.
Yet, this Qanon movement seems to have been highly manufactured by an international cabal of American conservatives, Russians, and possibly even Israeli Zionists, who blended everything from Millennialism and eschatology, Manifest Destiny, Zionism, Cold War Anti-Communism, the 1980s Satanic Panic, Nietzsche & nihilism (the need for struggle, the concept of eternal recurrence, etc.), Soldier of Fortune “Timothy McVeigh” type militia culture, racism (every Right Wing group involved at Charlottesville), homophobia, transphobia, sexism, Western exceptionalism, antisemitism, paganism, esoteric and occult thought (i.e., memes as form of tarot or alchemical spell to influence people), Alex Jones (serving as one of many “circuit board operators” of this movement), American and British Puritanism, Catholic “Deus Vult” fascism (ranging from the talking points of figures such as Michael J. Matt, all the way to the Pepe The Frog cynicism of Alt-Right/Neo Nazi figures like Nick Fuentes and the Goyim Defense League), Eastern Orthodox Christianity (such as the musings of Jay Dyer who is an avowed monarchist that rejects democracy, but also Jonathan Pageau), conspiracy theory, “Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition” callings, etc.
Qanon was essentially a “thought bomb” or informational warfare where some element might rub off on a person’s subconscious making them pay attention to the messaging. It appealed to older generations who didn’t have the best grasp of emergent technology, while also catering to younger naïve people who weren’t around for previous events to fully understand their contexts.
Most regular everyday people don’t see what the Right Wing is doing because they’ve fled off the traditional platforms and onto websites like Rockfin, Telegram, Gab, Rumble, etc.
For example, KKK leader David Duke had an apartment in Moscow and met with Russian Eurasianist theorist Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin later was a guest on InfoWars, same as Jay Dyer who with his wife Jamie Hanshaw were featured on 2.19.2023 (with Dyer contributing to InfoWars multiple times and he too interviewed Aleksandr Dugin. Jay Dyer was on Warski Live (a podcast) with Lauren Southern, who also interviewed Dugin in Russia, but later became a contributor to SkyNews Australia, under the Murdoch Media empire, which of course owns Fox News in the USA. Southern was also an associated of Proud Boy’s Founder and ex-Vice founder, Gavin McInnes, with both being Canadian (like other “Intellectual Dark Web” Figures such as Jordan B. Peterson and Stefan Molyneux). Neo Nazis have been known to go to Russia, as well as other Eastern European nations.
(3) There is a new demographic that I would call the Pro-War or Realpolitik Left or Liberal, where the common person who falls on this side of the political spectrum supports military action against Russia because they see Russian as representing an anti-progressive and/or anti-democratic threat to the West and the freedoms it enjoys. This is why you often notice Pro-Ukraine Flags in liberal cities or college towns, etc. They see Russia has an anti-democratic dictatorship that oppresses marginalized groups and who meddled in US politics, going as far as empowering the United States own Right-Wing movements which has resulted in influencing domestic terrorism, notably white nationalist domestic terrorism.
For example, Fox News has always been criticized for its hyper-partisan and hyperbolic approach to reporting on the news cycle, but Fox News has also backed pro-Russian sentiments.
This seems hypocritical because pundits including Tucker Carlson himself supported the Middle East Wars but now suddenly becomes a pacifist regarding a “white” country that seems to enjoy oppressing women [wife beating is legal], etc.
The things about this Realpolitik Left or Liberal is that even before the Ukraine War, many were sympathetic to the refugees caused by NATO intervention in Syria and Libya, with some going as far as sponsoring refugees to live in their homes. So, this sides isn’t as “ideological” than that of current conservatives, but rather pragmatic., i.e., they saw the hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern and African refugees as a consequence of not only despotic governments but also the West’s inability to engage in diplomacy with said governments, yet, there’s more sympathy for engaging in war with Russia because Russia is seen as an existential threat with a proven track record of hostility towards the West (e.g., poisoning journalists, our traditional Cold War nemesis where Putin can’t let the loss go, creating a parallel foreign policy to that of the USA so they can butt into American diplomatic missions as a means of recapturing their lost glory after the fall of the Berlin Wall).
Next, we have…
(4) The traditional Hawkish, Neoconservative Republican Camp, which due to be taken over by the populism of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, which was in part a reaction to the Neoconservatism of the Bush-Cheney and Clinton Eras, have largely fallen in line with the Pro-Russia Camp. This is where Meaghan McCain, Liz Cheney, Lindsey Graham, Adam Kinzinger, etc., reside at., yet, Kinzinger resisted the January 6th Insurrectionists, same as Cheney, but by doing so, both Kingzinger and Cheney lost their Congressional seats, showing how deeply entrenched MAGA was and still is. Figures like Tucker Carlson threads the line between No. 4 and No. 2., but is slipping more No. 2 because of more vitriolic competition from agencies like OAN and Newsmax.
Then of course we have…
(5) Non-Far Right Ukrainians, and international expatriates living abroad in the US, Canada, etc., simply wanting national autonomy from Russia, who see their relatives being killed as a result of Russian aggression. Most Americans were unaware of the Ukrainian community but the Western “bread basket” provinces have a rich history.
I know a woman who is of Ukrainian descent and is a very nice person, a Democrat, a feminist who is raising two strong daughters who often perform traditional Ukrainian dances to raise funds for charity, etc., but I had to watch her social media as she showed her hometown being raised by Russian troops.
Also, we have…
(6) Far Right Nationalist Ukrainians wanting freedom from Russia, but these types feed into the Anti-NATO Far Right who point to the Azov Battalion, etc., as proof of rampant Nazism in Ukraine. Are there Nazis in Ukraine? Absolutely, but there are Nazis in the United States as we speak (some in our military), such as Atomwaffen which has attempted to blow up power plants, etc.
The irony of the Anti-NATO Right Wing is they are soft or dismissive of Nazis riding the coattails of the Republican Party, but then anti-Nazi because NATO is going after their beloved Vladmir Putin, i.e., daddy.
Yet, having nationalist sentiments isn’t always bad, but it’s bad when nationalism explicitly becomes an exclusionary and supremacist ideology. Being patriotic in a socially acceptable way is not bad. Yet, there is truth to the Ukrainian Nazi accusation but to what is extent is debatable. It is true that going back as far as World War II that the OSS, i.e., the later CIA, did recruit former Nazi collaborating Ukrainians as cadres, i.e., cells, to combat Communist forces in post war Europe. The CIA even admits this on its own website. However, Ukraine, like Finland with Carl Gustaf Mannerheim was in a precarious position in WWII. The Ukrainians nor the Fins didn’t want to be conquered by the Reds (Communists), so they sided with the Nazis (with the Allied Powers not giving much if any military assistance against the Nazis), but there were cases of Ukrainians murdering their Nazi officers, considering the Germans wanted to eventually make the Slavs into literal slaves. A complicated case of the “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. However, real war crimes were committed.
(7) Ukrainian based separatist Russians, with their international Russian ex-patriate comrades – many living in the United States, Canada, etc. – who seem themselves similar to “Germans”, where Germans during nationalistic eras of old acted like a “race” (ethnicity in reality) of people fighting for their civilization and felt they needed expansion (lebensraum) to preserve themselves, but this tendency in some modern day Russians – largely fostered by Putin himself – destabilizes now independent nations freed form the ex-Soviet Union, such as Eastern Ukraine, possibly the Baltic States, and as of March 2023 we are seeing “Pan Slavic””Z” protests in the Czech Republic and Moldova asking for the West to the stop the war. [1] An anti-government protest in Czech capital draws thousands | Stars and Stripes, [2] Moldova police arrest members of Russian-backed network over unrest plot | Moldova | The Guardian
NOTE as of 1/11/13 Update! I wrote this too soon. I wanted to be merciful towards Andrew Tate, because despite his flaws and now his criminal accusations coming to light, I was trying to see if there was a redeemable person within Mr. Tate. After I wrote the below post, Mr. Tate was arrested in Romania for possible sex trafficking. If true, and I say that only because the courts have to work themselves out, then Tate should face punishment. My initial reason in trying to reconcile Mr. Tate’s beliefs was because I felt frustrated that the Left appears at times to think a space for men is childish, and I felt the Right Wing gaining steam by appropriating masculinity which of course…angered me as a man. But, I spoke too soon. The type of masculinity Mr. Tate promotes isn’t progress at all. [End Note Update 1.11.23]
I’m proud that I’m a regular guy. Especially as I write my thoughts out. I have no real skin in the game, and I’m doing this for free for now. I am just sharing my thoughts.
I.
I don’t hate Andrew Tate, but I just don’t agree with him on most things, but he does make good points, or rather I can appreciate his ability to question things to attempt to find any latent hypocrisies in arguments.
But, it is easy to blame the Left because they represent A) change & inclusion, B) represent a threat into how we view economics by challenging “winner take all” games. It easy to put the Left into a bubble even though it’s very diverse ideologically speaking which ironically why it often stalls, e.g., anarchists vs social democrats vs democratic socialists vs reformists or revolutionaries vs communists who may or may not adhere to frameworks like Marxism.
I will be writing about an episode of the YouTube podcast called PBD Podcast I watched, under the larger Valuetainment Media Group, hosted by Patrick Bet-David and Adam Sosnick, titled: Exclusive: Andrew Tate UNCENSORED Interview with Andrew Tate, published on September 13, 2022.
I don’t think Andrew is evil. Maybe a little too intense for me, but that’s fine. Let him live his life.
Some good points or insights he has is (1) Men value respect/honor and some of the most dangerous or damaged men who do irrational things are often those who feel the most disrespected – granted, men have responsibility for their actions even if their egos are hurt, i.e., no excuses for violence, but Andrew is not making an excuse but giving an insight; (2) Men are emotional creatures capable of intense and deeper levels of love; (3) Modern men in many ways are “drone” like figures, and many lack a sense of purpose or meaning, considering institutions like marriage aren’t socially required anymore, so more and more people are more lonely that ever. Having kids can be a motivator for many because they have something to live for outside of themselves. The future has literally been labeled as not being of “men”, i.e., The Future is Female, however, I understand this catch phrase isn’t literal but serves as an inspirational battle cry; (4) Men in certain ways are held to what I call the “standard of disposability”, i.e., men are often seen as worthy of being sacrificed when times are rough because nature is rough, and women carry life. However, this isn’t entirely true because in many ways women who don’t comply to traditional norms are often seen as disposable too; (5) our society is being dumbed down with social media, however, I would argue that his is a collective effort by foreign enemies and not simply the Chinese, but also the Russians, Sauds, Iranians, etc. It’s also just a natural extension of capitalism where you need consumers who produce goods under division-of-labor, i.e., people specialize in one part of the production process without understanding the whole [I don’t know how to make a cellphone from scratch for example. And, no one was going to teach me how to, especially for free], etc.
I would also agree with Andrew calling out some annoying elements of certain segments of feminism such as saying men aren’t needed, but when something bad happens, calling out men for not being there.
For example, there was the sad case of the murder of Sarah Everard, who was killed by an active-duty cop, who stalked, sexually assaulted, and then killed the young women. A horrible case for sure. However, while surfing around Instagram, even in the United States where the story broke into the news cycle, I noticed many feminist pages calling out men collectively for her murder because they didn’t save her.
What were men supposed to do when they didn’t know she was in danger? She didn’t even know she was in danger. Many good men have been encouraged to not talk to women for fear of being a catcaller, a creep, “not reading signals” well enough, being accused of another guy just trying to get laid, or to be secretly recorded and used as a pawn in someone’s Tik Tok video about “trash men”. The reactions seemed borderline fanatical to me, i.e., people who have adopted a specific framework of seeing the world, so much so, they never question it, and when they apply this blanket framework to everything it creates distortions in people’s heads (i.e., they see flaws or contradictions). But they don’t question it because the ideology isn’t simply about equality but power, and it seems this power is being achieved pragmatically, i.e., by any means necessary, even if unfair criticism or outright hypocrisy is utilized.
Some of the women (emphasis on some) are saying they don’t need men, but men are supposed to magically appear when they’re in trouble and protect them, and if we don’t then it proves how crappy we are as men?
Which is it? Some want this free or expected protection, while never saying anything good about modern men, let alone ever sympathizing with men. But what’s funny is, is that that most men if they knew Sarah was in trouble would have intervened but they weren’t around to help her. They would have helped her without even knowing if she was a “radical feminist” or not.
Certain feminists have based their entire empowerment by challenging men. But, I’m too old to care, yet, I can admit this mentality has in part created a reactionary modern male movement, full of very impressionable people, which can get dangerous, considering the realities of our late-stage capitalist existences. [Note: Feminism is not bad. It is a broad spectrum of various ideologies where women are central, so hating on feminism objectively, is nonsense because you can’t lump all feminists together]
II.
However, many of his concerning statements about women aside (or, at least crude analogies he might use to prove his points), one main issue with his rhetoric is it would be better suited if he criticized both sides, yet, as a chess player, I suspect Andrew is encouraging the more right-wing adjacent sentiment because it’s simply more conducive to his lifestyle at the current moment.
However in his interview on Valuetainment’s PBD Podcast, he stated he was apolitical, and he said some very progressive things (such as how the world rallied around Ukraine but traditionally the West exploited Africa and the Middle East and no one cared), etc.
He’s smart enough to know that any system has inherent flaws, but he’s also smart enough to know his audience and the reactionary elements within the political-right.
However, I am a proponent to the belief that even though Leftist thought is not perfect by any means, it will always be better than the political right, because the political left at least believes in humanism and inclusion. Yet, I’m critical of certain frameworks and mentalities in the contemporary left such as what I perceive as a “progressive form of segregation”, rather than focusing on uniting the proletariat around economic issues. Granted, I understand that intersectionality where identity is central is vital in analyzing injustice.
III
But, his persona aside, I think Andrew is funny, more so because after hearing his life story I can relate to him because he and myself were…military brats who are Americans of varying black ancestry living overseas. In other words, I know he’s funny. He reminds me of a relative. Sure, I don’t agree with him, but I don’t hate him. He is not dangerous to the world or rather he doesn’t want to harm the world. His dad is from the South, my dad is from the South. His dad was Air Force, my dad was Army even though we lived on an Air Base for many years (I, myself served in the USAF). I know he was raised in England and as a Cold War Era and later 1990s military brat living in Germany, I knew of the British bases like Lakenheath, Mindenhall, Alconbury, etc. His current persona aside, he reminds me of a kid I would have grown up with, notably since the military is so diverse, full of interracial families, etc.
But…
IV.
Andrew Tate talks about The Matrix a lot and to some extent he has valid points, i.e., we live in an ever-growing and more interconnected world where a few people at the top of power structures and institutions can craft narratives, especially though mass media. Basic stuff really. From a Leftist perspective, it’s basic Noam “Manufacturing Consent” Chomsky 101. Talking about The Matrix is a smart business and marketing move, even if he truly believes it, because we do live in a “paranoid”, “they are out to get us” world especially as people subjectivity interpret data, often with their own preconceived biases, fears, etc. But those fears are not unfounded entirely, yet, how we act on what we learn is important though (e.g., violence isn’t the answer, or, it does more harm than good, it accelerates to chaos, etc.).
Ludwig Wittgenstein said it best that the “limits of my language is the limits of my world”. This is true about everyone, me included.
And, Andrew using the film reference is simply because the movie The Matrix was popular, and a recent version was released (fresh on peoples’ minds), so saying The Matrix creates a subconscious pathway (I suppose, neural-linguistic programming) that people can understand since the movie is embedded into pop culture (people know it even without seeing it).
Yet, Andrew, like many in the digital “Manosphere” space, keep making this basic mistake of thinking in dialectical terms, yet, they claim to be free from the matrix. These men in these spaces as they “revolt against the modern world” (a Julius Evola reference), always blame the political-left and are incapable it seems of checking their own ideology, including their love for capitalism, i.e., the capitalist bro culture that now encompasses the crypto-coin bro culture (which Andrew spoke out against in his interview with PBD and Adam of Valuetainment).
I would argue that they’re stuck in the matrix. In theory, that’s even the point of the films or a theory of them I would argue. There was no real escape. The blue pill, red pill dichotomy was largely manufactured by the engineers of the matrix, so just people you think you’re free, you’re sort of stuck in a Nietzschean “eternal recurrence” nightmare, i.e., you keep coming back to where you started, such as in the Greek myth of Sisyphus.
Andrew acknowledges that “we’re under control” and I agree with him. Our data is being tracked with coding such as “Meta Pixel” by Facebook (now Meta). Cameras are everywhere and software firms with government contracts are specializing in facial recognition. Every app on your phone even if dormant is sending your data to 3rd party “data brokers”. Most of our food is made a few producers (which has benefits and negatives). Every aspect of modern life has been commodified. Mental health apps or Teladoc firms for example, though serving a real need, emulate the business model of social media companies and sell your data too. Our diets and lifestyles. Our retirements are pegged to the success of a stock market where the rich own most of the stocks to begin with, etc. It’s a rigged, pre-planned, Walt Disney – inspired, meets Patrick Bateman from American Psycho nightmare. Cities like Atlanta are building “cop cities”, while elsewhere there’s no affordable housing or cities don’t have drinkable water.
Capitalism in the West, not socialism, is turning more and more Orwellian by the day, but oddly, people support capitalism, since its so good at shrouding actual fear and intentions. In other words, acting like the” Alpha capitalist” might be covering up a person’s racism, fear, sexism, what have you. Capitalism being more individualist in nature is of course preferred by many on the political-right because it affords a passive aggressive way of segregating and maintaining historical hierarchies away from government regulations that might attempt at creating more equity for all. However, it could be argued that capitalism since it is individual creates an egalitarian state where capable individuals regardless of identity.
But, don’t you think the powerful are smart enough to already be one-hundred steps ahead?
It is chilling to think that your whole worldview and ideology, be it on the right or the political left, was designed and intended to serve a role as warring binaries? I truly believe, especially from an American perspective, that our countries were designed by the capitalist oligarch class using theories such as system’s theory where groups are treated like “commodities” to be pitted up against each other, so they never look up at power.
The people in power don’t care about capitalism or communism because they are smart enough to know that these ideas are things, i.e., tools, i.e., pragmatic concepts created to achieve certain objectives but within specific ways. For example, Communism tends to centralize resources which can be exploited, whereas capitalism has the tendency of exploiting labor to forge materials into finished products able to be jacked up in price with insane margins to make profit for a few owners.
Many of these men in the Manosphere, blame people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, etc., yet never seem to point to the fact that the misery they are trying to “Alpha Male” themselves out of is the result of a capitalist system that atomized society with concepts like division-of-labor, the monetization of time, wage theft, the notion of “sex sells” in advertising, pollution, poverty, gentrification, etc.
For example, I support women working because no woman is happy if she feels she didn’t at least try to own her life and own her own agency (considering men will guilt trip them if they aren’t able to earn their own income, i.e., “you’re living in my house”, “I buy the food”, etc.).
Yet, capitalism made women work because A) they were able to be exploited more easily and underpaid, and B) inflation over time caused by a confluence of diverse events over time and space created the need for two income households. The very fact that capitalism needs consumers inspired the two-income household, because more workers earning wages means more goods they will likely buy, thus more rich people. Yet, since growth must be a constant in capitalist systems, otherwise “people freak out” (market panics), to sustain this hard growth, capitalist either automate with machines, merge job specialties with management principles such as Lean Management or zero-defect Six Sigma, offshore to cheaper and more destitute waters, The truth is that many men got away with being able to marry women by simply providing them things they couldn’t get on their own in a more regressive and anti-woman environment, such as women being disbarred from owning property or obtaining insurance.
Many of the men in these “Manosphere” spaces often refer to the video-game boss-like figure of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Peterson sold this myth to impressionable and angry young men raised by meme culture, Taco Bell, and video games, that their blight is the fault of the “Postmodern Neo-Marxists”, a type of hybrid scapegoat terms that mashes Pat Buchanan with covert nods to the Nazis themselves (who called anything they didn’t like such as modern art or Bauhaus architecture degenerate).
Peterson flat out lied about postmodernism, knowing that most people have no clue what it is. Postmodernism, as I’ve said many times before, is simply “after modernism”, i.e., it is a broad framework that challenges the structuralism, objective truth-claims, etc. The intention wasn’t to be “relativist” but to analyze or deconstruction objective truths because objectives can’t be oppressive but also very biased, e.g., just because history is written by winners doesn’t mean their version of history is accurate. Postmodernism is a result of capitalism, because capitalism built modernity (the Industrial Revolution which opened the door for the psychological revolution over religion), yet, postmodernism is simply when this capitalist system reaches its apex on some level and starts to create simulation of itself, and it becomes hard to discern what is real or what is fake, be it an object (for example, is a GMO apple a real apple?) or reality itself. Because, truth becomes more relative, even in the face of empirical data, society starts naturally becoming nihilistic, apathetic, etc., because people by way of capitalism have been reduced to what Nietzsche would call the “Last Man”, i.e., the coach potato, near sexless conspiracy theorists, whose food is produce by one mega corporation, works in a cubical farm, and lives amongst extreme wealth disparity and urban decay, with the last statement being the result of capitalist systems being rigged by the “winners” (buying out competition, paying off politicians, writing laws that gives them universal right to copyright claims, etc.).
Postmodernism is both a condition of living in late-stage capitalism where it’s hard to discern what is real or fake, but also a study of the condition and the study of the condition occurs in traditional philosophy discourse (e.g., the work of Fredric Jameson), experimental literature, art, etc.
V.
As already stated, I don’t think Andrew Tate is the worst person on the planet and even though he is a figure that has worked with many figures in the “Men’s Rights” or “Manosphere” space, I think that Andrew out of most of these people is authentic, or more authentic than most. Andrew didn’t need the Men’s Rights movement, Manosphere or YouTube to become successful, unlike others in these spaces, so he is able to be more honest. He doesn’t need to chase the algorithm or escalate toxicity to get likes (for example, the Fresh and Fit podcast), because the truth is most men in the Manosphere are faking it to they make it and are using their followers to fund their lifestyles. Tate had a particular lifestyle before the popularity of the Manosphere. However,
3 hours:48 minute:15 second, Andrew states that nations that are not privileged, such as the Global South or Eastern Europe, etc., are more prone to traditionalism because they need to rely on survival more so than spoiled Westerners. So, if Andrew is complementing these societies for being tougher because they are poor, then what made them poor to begin with? Capitalist exploitation, colonialism, divide-and-conquer politics meant to destabilize nations such as in African or Middle Eastern nations where borders were arbitrarily drawn by foreign powers and smashed warring groups with ancient feuds together (for example, the Tutsis vs Hutus in Rwanda, Sunnis vs Shias, Pakistanis vs Indians, etc.). Andrew often talks about how the Left, progressives, feminist, people who take the “blue pill”, socialists, etc., are the problem and weakening society, yet, he praises the strength of societies that are exploited by a globalist capitalist system for the benefit of the West, China, United States, etc. From predatory loans, all out invasions, intelligence agency orchestrated overthrows, narco-terrorism, eco-terrorism, political terrorism, and a general objective of exploiting people with nothing else to live for.
In other words, capitalism not only makes stronger societies more apathetic and spoiled (self-destructive), but it also creates great inequities in the developing world. The same people who control the “matrix” as Andrew puts it are responsible for both, but these people aren’t Communists, they’re corporatists, capitalists, etc. There’s a reason why every aspiring socialist nation received military hostility from Western powers because they jeopardized the cheap resources needed by capitalist to insanely mark up their items built with the sweat (surplus labor value) of workers.
It’s also interesting to note that people like Andrew lean towards people like Donald Trump because of the way he carries himself, yet, Trump called developing nations, “shit holes”. So, is Andrew saying that people from “shithole” developing nations that are exploited by a global capitalist system, stronger? If he has administration from them, then why not stand up for them against the powers of capitalism, and not just this manufactured hysteria regarding “wokeness”?
It is also interesting how Right Winger thinkers who espouse these strong-men beliefs are often xenophobic to some degree, yet, if immigrants have traditionalist cultures, then why not accept immigrants?
The irony of the Left and Right relating to immigrants is that progressive movements often accept immigrants, e.g., the notion of Borders Don’t Exists or Borders are Illegal, yet, once these immigrants come to their nation, some over time become conservative, either because they’re still adapting to the free libertine nature of Western societies, and/or they comply with the assimilation and supremacy mindset of conservatives, i.e., the immigrants want to fit in so they emulate those who oppress them. Yet, conservatives often don’t want immigrants coming despite exploiting their cheap labor at home and abroad, largely because of a sense of racial, ethnic, and/or group preservation sentiments.
Conclusion
Let’s say Andrew knows all I am saying. Cool. But, do the world a favor and call out capitalism. It’s popular to call out socialism or communism, but what is affecting the US for example? America was already in decline even before it was OK for Americans to identify as socialists.
Terrence Howard, Kanye, B.o.B, Tyga, DeSean Jackson, Will Smith…something is going on.
I appreciate Umar standing up for black people but I disagree with him on things.
He’s another talker in a sea of people doing the same, chasing that easy money from the “algorithm”
I wonder how many women Dr. Umar Johnson sleeps with after his seminars while touring the country considering a lot of the applause in his crowds seems to come from black (maybe single, maybe not) women. Seriously. He’s selling a product that many want, and I figure many women might want the honor of saying they’re the muse to the “honorable” Dr. or “Chief” or “Emir” Umar Johnson.
For such a judgemental person he’s out of shape and should cut back on the deep fried lemon pepper wings.
Considering his misogyny and bigotry, like the “reject modernity, embrace traditionalism” “black people were better under segregation” of thinkers like Kevin Samuels, with the late Mr. Samuels having been associated with podcasts like the Fresh and Fit Podcasts (which leads to Rollo Tomassi, Andrew Tate, Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern, The Young Americans, etc.), I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson, with his version of Pan-Africanism, is a proponent of polygamy, considering many men are doing whatever they can these days to “get their balls” back, even though I’d argue they were never taken/they’re embarrassing themselves/saying things they might not be able to take back one day. But, who knows? That’s just speculation my part…
I guess according to Umar… people who love each other and have children across “racial lines” have to get…divorced? Split time with their kids? Feel shame?
Fuck you.
Umar chirps about staying in your race and that black men should only date black women but this puts all the blame on men as if black women don’t set the criteria. Marrying someone simply for their race and no other characteristic is stupid to me but it works for some.
There’s plenty of black men for black women and if a woman can’t find a partner that’s more of a sign of her than men. There’s always a willing man more than a willing woman in my opinion. Black women are also allowed to date outside their race and this doesn’t offend me. I remember growing up and there was no love thrown my way and I can admit that. I also grew up traveling as a military brat where environments are very diverse and non-segregated.
Honestly all the anti-whitey talk is a turn off. It’s a turn off to air this supposed dirty laundry. Hate is a turn off. Ignorance is a turn off.
I admit, I’m dating a white woman but black women are beautful but my lady isn’t black. Cool. She makes me feel supported, free, and she doesn’t think she knows better when I speak about race. I can be a nerd. I don’t have to worry about appearances. I can listen to whatever music I want. She simply listens. She shows me affection and there’s no real power struggles. I support her.
No one supported me so why turn my hand away from someone I care for just because of a fat and fat mouthed bigot rapping off black stats and woke talking points I already know about?
I use to live in “Hotlanta” and went to high school there but it wasn’t my style 100%. Bougie. Fast. Heartless. Fake it to you make it. Avarice. Leased cars. Shootings. Strip clubs. Hook up culture. Some of the most spoiled black children I’ve ever seen living in mansions but making fun of poor kids or bullying white kids. Granted there was plenty of old Dixie hate around. I know the S.W.A.T, Ben Hill, Greenbrier, Fort Mac, Old National, Riverdale, the West End near Morehouse and Spelman, just as much as I know the burbs where I grew up where my school was 50% black. Church on Sunday, wings for lunch with extra bleu cheese or Publix chicken with “fixins” on the side. To be honest I miss old days of black culture before rap, before “woke”, but I’m not hating. I grew up with two parents, one from the hood of Miami near Liberty City by way of kinfolk from Alabama near Selma (my grandmother grew up near Coretta Scott King), and my other parent is from the backwoods country of Georgia.
Yet, Umar Johnson has no right to tell a black person who lives the black experience, which is an experience of many experiences, from poor to bourgeoisie, rural to urban, Northern to southern, East to West, native born American or new African immigrant, part black, extrovert, or introvert, straight or gay, tall, or short, “proper sounding” or ebonics, that they aren’t black because they don’t meet his criteria.
When will black people ever stop this? Time and time again…This purity testing? Blackness could be this all-encompassing and loving movement, happy to spread sacred wisdom of the Motherland to influence all mankind, but instead it comes off as hate against hate.
And, who care’s if he’s “eloquent” or “funny”. Hitler was eloquent. Idi Amin was eloquent. Mao was eloquent. Grand Wizard’s can be eloquent or funny.
Dr. Umar who is essentially in the Intellectual Dark Web, like quacks such as Jordan Peterson, Stefan Molyneux, Eric Weinstein, etc. He’s not building anything. He’s not engineering anything. He’s not coding for anything. He’s just another…talker. A paid, viral, algorithm chasing talker with some papermill doctorate, in our postmodern hellscape of self-help gurus with fascist underpinnings hidden under Joseph Campbell Jungian analysis or whatever.
I find it offensive that Umar as one American guy thinks he can single handedly define what Pan-Africanism is. His Pan-Africanism seems like a black man’s wet dream of Hitler grandeur with his Pan-Aryan ideas or some George Orwell 1984 dystopia. Pan-Africanism, Umar aside, despite the noble intentions and the many contributions of self-ascribed Pan-Africanist is inserting a black framework into larger discussion, seems like a form of reverse colonialism where predominately American voices are dictating the narrative, despite America, compared to black countries abroad, is privileged. Yes, systems do oppress black people, but one black American has more opportunity than many black Africans abroad.
I understand the need for we as black people to regain a sense of our roots, but often Pan-Africanism seems like erasure, oddly. It attempts to merge all black aesthetics into one on the grounds of unity, but incidentally might erase the unique nuances that makes the black experience so unique. Further it might not even include things which some might not consider “black enough”. It also might insert toxic elements from the America’s into the family oriented, rural, and pastoral cultures of many African groups. It’s not that Pan Africanism is bad, but how it has come to be, seems slightly problematic but questioning it in certain circles is grounds for something akin to “excommunication”.
And, by the way if you’re some white liberal reading this. Respectfully, all love to you, thank you for being allies to black people in time of need, but on this matter… white liberals have a tendency of listening to the loudest black voice in the room because they’re constantly searching for the blackest “diamond” in the rough.
Pan-Africanism in one way could be considered a bridgehead for the United State’s growing interests in Africa to hedge countries like China, and the US State Department (and intel community) could use “Pan-Africanists” to insert US ideas into Africa.
Adding insult to injury as Umar goes around threatening the existences of interracial couples who are already receive hatred from certain parties, he also DID NOT go to a Historically (emphasis on historically) Black College and University (as if it matters or makes you less black if you don’t go to one). Sorry, is Obama not black enough for going to an Ivy League college, a place where black people were denied for most of American history? Why are we shaming black dance teams at “white colleges” when this could be a showcase of black culture, etc.? Black people act like white folk don’t have (or, didn’t invent) remote controls. It’s not hard for others to watch Grambling vs Southern or the Celebration Bowl.
Umar went to Millersville University and got an advanced degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, where osteopathic medicine is heavily criticized by traditional medicine, but it’s not that Umar cares, or many of his follower’s care, considering we live in a world of Zodiac followers and hand-readers, because he simply needed a Dr. in front of his name to give himself more credence. Good on him for achieving it, but simply because you’re a “doctor” doesn’t mean your prescription to the world’s problems are entirely accurate.
He’s even been caught lying talking about his ancestry to Frederick Douglass according to The Root (2017) article by Michael Harriot, titled: We Fact-Checked Umar Johnson’s Hotep Tantrum with Roland Martin Because Someone Had To. That should have cancelled him, but his hotep followers don’t care, his black female followers obsessed with black men with white women don’t care, no different than Trump supporters not caring for his multiple lies.
The further irony of Umar is that he’s some type of Muslim, but for whatever odd reason, black Americans never question the fact that Islam played a huge role and still does play on in the enslavement of black people. Muslims, whom I have no problem with, but relating to the history of slavery in Africa, weren’t permitted to enslave fellow Muslims, so being in Northern Africa and the Sahel, Muslims made raids into Sub-Saharan Africa or traded for slaves for goods with black African tribes or kingdoms. Tribes who didn’t want to be enslaved and wanted to make money from the gold trade routes converted to Islam as a business decision. These gold trade routes helped Timbuktu flourish, but the wealth of gold trading Muslim African Kingdoms likely tipped off the Europeans who had contact with Islam (for better or worsts).
After the Reconquista of Spain and Portugal over the Moors, the Portuguese simply sailed to areas that Muslims were familiar with, and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade began in the Age of Discovery, especially after Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand sent Christopher Columbus to what would be the new world.
If certain black people are so committed to “de-colonization”, then why not go further, and return to nature-worship which is more indigenous than any Abrahamic religion? However, our ancestors in the USA fought with Christianity inspiring us, so why throw away what our ancestors fought with simply because we want “consciousness”? Why can’t you be a Christian or a cultural one at least (identifies as one, but not a hardcore follower) like most Americans and be equally as intrigued with African culture? Are we better than our ancestors because they were more oppressed than us, but they didn’t “fight hard enough” according to or modern standards? I dunno…
I would argue the existence of black people is miserable because not only are you oppressed by systems out of your control that inherently criminalized or stereotype you, but you’re also policed, haggled, and harassed by your own black people where everyone walks around purity testing the authenticity of the other instead of owning their own lives. You’re a target of white supremacists and get the ire of black nationalists.
Yet, maybe I can’t be mad at Umar because black people are human and most humans care about what other’s think and try to fit in as to not bring negative attention to themselves.
II. Want to Hear a Conspiracy?
Anyways,
Want to hear a “conspiracy theory”?
Ok. Here we go…
White supremacists love black separatism.
Oh, wait, that’s not a conspiracy.
It’s as if the Founding Fathers who supported slavery but knew that the freedom of black people was inevitable, knew that one day, particularly with black people being treated so poorly, would segregate themselves, because they would hate white people, which was their plan all along.
There’s something odd going on to me, but it seems we as a people have accepted the contemporary discourse of self-determination and tribalism as a needed tenant for a more just world, yet, to me, I suspect that this tribalism, particularly in the United States, where white and black are more similar than we given credit for, is and has been pre-planned or is the expression of past segregated/nationalistic ideas still echoing into the present (for example, even the hippies of days past were still racially regressive compared today’s standards but their views or analyses on race, gender, etc., largely remains unchanged to this day).
The Great Replacement Theory” or “Kalegri Plan” is something spouted by conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, and Nazis (and, Fox News) alike, but I would argue that the future is the “Great Re-Segregation”.
The Great Re-Segregation is the innocuous herding of groups into defined spaces (maybe, even “smart cities” with “themes” and within meta-verse spaces, i.e., no different than racially segregated neighborhoods) in a globalized world where groups are essentially herded like animals (without thinking of it as such), where our data is collected (genetic information included), surveillance is everywhere, and the mass media is used to stir up unrest in the public, yet, since levers of power will be largely influenced by Westernized European inspired ideas, policy, etc., but also the growing influence of the homogeneous Chinese.
A society ruled by a technocratic elite (i.e., like things already are), indifferent to progressivism or conservatism, who operate with a pragmatic and “syncretic” viewpoint and manages the species, like a Darwinist exhibition. Sure, we will still have overlap between the groups, because we as a species have always had overlap, because sharing genetics helps “keep gene pools” humble (not inner-bred), which helps the overall longevity of the species (i.e., genetic vigor), but most people will be herded (socially groomed) to segregate and the political right and political left are both responsible.
Countries are essentially “centers” overseeing commodified groups where all nations answer upward to institutions and systems effectively ran by a small group of people, i.e., a pyramid scheme. When consumer bases start to slow down in how fast they replicate while also demanding more rights as they climb the economic ladder, economic down-turns are manufactured, new bodies from around the globe are shifted into industrial ones, and process of segregation in one hand and assimilation in another takes course.
However, I don’t want you to lose faith in all institutions, and institutions in many ways are highly effective at mitigating risks and subsidizing costs to help the public; however, there’s players within these systems that seem to have an agenda, or maybe these leaders are simply operating subconsciously the way the system was designed to, i.e., an empiricist, scientific, sterile mindset of mitigating groups, creating grand narratives, managing the scarcity of resources, etc.
III. Trauma, Conspiracy Theory, etc., etc.
But on black people.
Terrance Howard is flying around the world telling people that he has disproved gravity. Kanye “Ye” West is having a psychotic episode for our sick entertainment as he is handled by white nationalists and antisemites using him as a “pet to prove that they aren’t has “unstable” as Ye. Rapper, B.o.B., attempted crowdfunding to raise money to help prove the Earth is flat. NFL Wide receiver, DeSean Jackson was called out for saying antisemitic things. Rappers such as Tyga often talks about “Jewish money”, etc., the irony is that there’s likely Jewish management working on his albums (with rappers also somehow allowed to say terms like “white bitches”). Will Smith, likely feeling emasculated by social media and his wife (or, life partner, what have you, whom had a relationship with Tupac – who holds a messianic status amongst certain black people), calling his manhood and even blackness into question, assaulted another black man on stage, in front of the whole world, at the world’s most prestigious acting award (even if the event has fallen off in popularity in recent years as far as ratings). Kyrie Irving did share a post of a “Black Hebrew Israelite” adjacent documentary (not to be confused with black people who practice Orthodox or Reformed Judaism) that has antisemitic tropes.
The comedian, Godfrey, and even the radio personality, Charlemagne the God, whom I would say have their heads on right for the most part, sometimes praise the Farrakhan’s of the Nation of Islam, which as a group espouses…Black Nazi rhetoric, even if they make certain good points analyzing power, how things work, etc. I found it interesting that everyone called out Ye for his obvious hatred, yet, there this veneration for figures like the Farrakhan’s which is often a way of proving “how down you are” in a culture were purity testing, i.e., sizing each other up seems prominent.
Black people have been taught that we cannot be racist, but only prejudiced, since we lack institutional power, yet, the irony of this idea is that A) it allows black people to not challenge our potentially bigoted ideas and to feel empowered within those beliefs because traditionally we lack power, and B) this notion seems like a form of infantilizing black people by saying our actions aren’t as comparable to that of our supposed “superiors”, and this can be problematic on multiple fronts such as empowering sociopaths who already lack the ability to take self-accountability, and yes, black people can be sociopaths as well.
Bullet point (B) in my opinion tends to be promoted more by non-black liberals or non-black Leftists, who struggle with how to help or listen for fear of offending. Building empowerment solely on the idea that we as black people don’t have power or haven’t had an impact on power systems, seems defeatists to me, i.e., a victim-based mentality, which sure has plenty of merit – considering black people were and are victims in many ways – but, this tendency also has elements of “erasure”, i.e., it erases the impacts black people have been able to insert on power systems.
We as black people always focus on depression as black people. Our movies are either hilarious comedies or the most depressing family or slavery stories. It’s one extreme to the next. It reminds me of the Greek mask where one half is smiling and the other is sad.
Many self-ascribed black nationalists don’t know every single black person who contributed something of prominence, and we often talk about social leaders and celebrities, as opposed to our engineers, scientists, doctors, etc., which interestingly is something that all groups do, further showing we’re no better or worse than anyone else.
Before I go on, I want to state that I want all humans to be inspired by blackness. I do not want black exclusivity, black segregation, black hierarchies, black gatekeeping, purity testing, etc. We are all humans and should find inspiration and commonality amongst each other because we all have different ways of seeing things, so it’s intelligent to learn and adapt to each other. The same way how when I was kid found a moral is tales like Robin Hood who fought the rich and the state for the benefit of the common man, I want a white kid feeling lonely in the boonies to be inspired by Shaka Zulu.
I’ll get to the point of my beliefs. I don’t like segregation. I was raised with a Christian inspired Abolitionism that seeks a future where are people judged by their actions solely and not for their race.
Even though I am by no way a good Christian, and many Christians would reject me as being a Christian because I’m not an extremist, I still place merit on the teachings on mercy, love, humility, etc., that Christianity teaches.
Interestingly, my political left leanings are in part inspired by Christian mercy.
I believe that racial segregation is social engineering derived from our colonial roots and is a way of dividing the public by manufacturing dialectical (diametrically opposed) tension, cultures., etc.
I find it “funny” that white nationalists support the rhetoric of black separatists, so…if logic is to persist, and black people or the political left say that the US is white supremacists (i.e., Amerikkka), then maybe black separatism was intended to be another force that keeps the races separate, so they can be “farmed” “herded” etc. I find it interesting that certain elements of Left-Wing thought, with its anti-colonial, post-colonial, and de-colonial framework calls for self-determinism, yet, white nationalists or other Right-Wing forces call for self-determination too.
I believe that those in power use both left-wing and right-wing because they have a pragmatic view of power, to maintain racial segregation, hierarchies, etc., but these people, seeing themselves as entitled to “evolve the species”, use tension to merge elements of bipolar opposites, so from the explosion of these opposite agents, you create a new paradigm, but the later repeat the cycle as new diametrically opposed binaries reveal themselves.
There’s a Darwinists and Enlightenment Period based mindset (which includes liberalism, Communism, fascism, and capitalism) that sees chaos and flux as essential in the process of evolution and these concepts are embedded into Western thought, didactic, etc. The common man, burdened by the grind of existence, where the system knows and manipulates our Maslow Hierarchy of Needs by creating scarcity (competition, unemployment, etc.), is more likely to find solace in their identity (the cheapest form of currency in my opinion), and not question how those identities are constructed to be binaries in a system of control for the benefit of a few.
For example, the Nation of Islam, which is listed as a hate group by the US State Department, Southern Poverty Law Center (who helped take down the KKK in the 1960s), and Anti-Defamation League, believes that black scientist named Yakub (insinuating Jacob from the Jewish tradition) created white people and other races with an unspecified birth-control method to be “diametrically opposed” to blackness, and to conquer black people.
Nation of Islam by the way was allegedly created by a man impersonating a black man, and he mysteriously disappeared, potentially stealing money from membership fees of poor blacks. Many poor black people fled up north, and the creator of the Nation of Islam, using the then popular trend of secret groups, like B’nai B’rith, the Klu Klux Klan, etc., focused on these new black migrants who became jaded by racism up north. Before the twentieth century, after the Civil War, the United States saw an increase in spiritualism, mesmerism (hypnosis), seances, etc., because there was a lot of death from the war and a changing of America as new immigrants came in. The N.O.I., is simply a byproduct of these events. Today, the Nation of Islam has ties to Scientology, which is further proof of the mind-control elements the N.O.I. seeks out.
Simply reading this I can pull so much. A) black people descended from slaves often make similarities to that of the ancient Jews in captivity since that was the only book that slaves were allowed to read (or, be read too), granted it was redacted by slave owners to justify slavery, B) because of Christianity being forced upon us – my people, as it was for most groups, including tribal Europeans in the Dark Ages, newly freed black people after slavery, notably those exposed to other ideas in Northern Cities, were searching for identity and some chose a religion that was perceived as polar opposite to Christian, rural, and Southern, yet still beholden to the credibility of Abrahamic faiths, and chose unorthodox Islam, and C) the figure of Yakub – a rip off of Jacob – is essentially the concept that not only chirps to anti-Jewish thought, but also the notion of the “Uncle Tom”, “sell-out”, “race traitor”, etc., meaning that the Nation of Islam inserted this character, as a “purity testing” trip-wire figure, as a means of taking the high ground to call any detractors or critics “enemies of the race”, which is a pretty low and lazy way of winning arguments.
There was also an aversion to the COVID-19 vaccines, despite black Americans in certain categories being at increased risk for contracting it due to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, etc., but also black and Latin workers often work in businesses that were prone to outbreaks such as warehouses, meat packing facilities, restaurants, etc.
Sure, my last point about COVID-19 is more understandable, because to be frank, the virus was new, people had limited information, the virus did fundamentally change how we operate (such as tele-work, social distancing, etc.), and there is a general mistrust of institutions; however, for all the other previous points stated, there is a trend of black men, notably popular black celebrities, descending into what I consider to be postmodern solipsism, relativity, and conspiracy theory.
Further, as this phenomenon of black celebrities going mad is happening, which is not necessarily new, there are public figures willingly to use this distortion or confusion of what is real or what is not real to mix it with Pan-Africanism so these public leaders to ascend to prominent positions.
Umar Johnson, for example, is a Men’s Rights Activist, likely inspired by the late yet controversial Kevin Samuels (whom like Jesse Lee Peterson, tells the story that black people were better off segregated).
IV. Fascism hiding under Postmodernism
Misinformation affects all people regardless of demographic because as a society we are now living in a hyper-reality of late-stage, globalized capitalism – full of parody, pastiche, bad actors, i.e., trolls or agents of misinformation, and recycled pop culture – where the distinction between real and fake, or simulation and simulacra is hard to discern.
We live in a world where corporate power for example is so strong, innocuous, and entrenched and it pervades all aspects of life, including the commodification of race, culture, sexuality, orientation, ideology, religion, education, healthcare, and just about…everything. Even misinformation is commodified.
I say that postmodernism is the chameleon skin that shrouds the predatory animus of capitalism.
The disorienting “skin”, i.e., postmodern culture, is simply a way of capitalism to sustain itself by a) creating relativity so we don’t know what is real or fake, and b) recycling culture, often in anachronistic fashion, because most growth or markets have already been exhausted, and most production isn’t from labor value but is from financialization, i.e., using fiat money to speculate on assets to create artificial demand where those at the top benefit the most, and manipulate business cycles to their own benefit (knowing government’s, already being privatized, will insure their loses at taxpayer expense).
As a result, we live in a world where “Continental Philosophy” encompassing fields such as metaphysics and existentialism merges with “Analytical Philosophy” encompassing fields like linguistics, game theory, logic, etc. In other words, we have a lot of intensive research and data alongside endless subjective interpretations of said data thus leading to a “collective flux”, i.e., mass solipsism, resulting in statements such as “my truth”.
Even though this democratization of information can be inspiring and helpful (e.g., checking institutional power), it does lead to a “triumph of the will” of ideas, i.e., the strongest survives, hence we may be subject to constant and ever-growing ideological conflict as ideas battle each other with no sense of moderation or consensus in sight.
But as a fellow black man, I can understand why there’s this need for truth among black people, yet, it seems to be leading black men (not saying more so than anyone else) down conspiracy rabbit holes.
The truth is, of course, black people had our diverse and often differing indigenous identities stripped and were forcibly yet partially assimilated into Western Civilization, to be labor power, but also to serve as an aesthetic binary to whiteness, where blackness became the magnet for the vileness of white supremacy.
Black Americans were designed to arouse a sense of supremacy in white settlers, many who had nothing but the value of being white.
Black people historically were denied education, reading, the ability to speak up, and our own destinies. Yet, this doesn’t mean that black people lacked aptitude, but rather we were disbarred from understanding the civilization which fell upon us, and which also devalued us. There’s a tendency to think that we’re not getting the entire story, or, there’s a paranoia of some higher deeper and nefarious truth – which is true but can be untrue depending upon on how we seek those truths.
But, how far black people have come is a true miracle.
We must be willing to check our own theses.
Simply because we feel something doesn’t mean that it is true, and the also the simplest path towards a solution is often not the truth but its tempting to take the less arduous path. For example, antisemitism is often a gross simplification of the truth, because Jews don’t run the world, even though, of course, there are powerful players that are Jewish pulling the levers of power, but to time and time again blaming Jews is intellectually lazy and ironic. If Jews really ran the world, why would they not just bulldoze anyone in their way?
White nationalist for example, preach that they are superior one second, while claiming to be victims at the same time, and most of the bad ideas that are affecting everyone – white people included – were created by white people. Karl Marx, a Jew, or a BIPOC person didn’t steal your job, but Mitt Romney working in Leveraged Buyouts did.
The temptation to jump to antisemitism, is disingenuous, and an easy scapegoat, but black people do this too, i.e., we try to find a simple explanation without understanding all the nuances, conflicts, inner diversity of various groups, etc.
When you add all of this with the fact that black men are often the most criminalized, black people in general – traditionally speaking – are often seen as having “less quality” or “less refined tastes”, etc., there is an insatiable thirst for truth to rebuild or regain our “consciousness” “regalia” “honor”, but the trauma on black people, both present and past, both anecdotal and institutional, seems to corrupt the path towards truth. This corruption, which objectively is from a good place I would argue, seems to have some black people questioning everything, even basic principles such as Terrance Howard arguing against basic arithmetic (something all humans developed and understood on their own).
History is already a confusing and rigorous endeavor, but most people fall for conspiracy theories, where I defined conspiracy theories as theories where the conclusion is already predetermined, but the researcher with a specific or ideological bias uses facts that simply serve their point, instead of actively challenging their own thesis or idea. Conspiracy theories as opposed to let’s say investigative journalism often lacks rigorous peer review, panel presentations, debates, etc.
She’s not a horrible person, but I don’t get much from her opinions and they seem highly biased, reactionary, reactionary, and not reasearched that well. I think she has learning to do on issues, but she has a platform to spread her “contrarian” ideas to the masses and add to the paranoia that’s already out there. You hear the word shill a lot online, and in many ways despite her seeming “against the man”, I think she’s only libertarian as a rebuttal to progressive politics so conservatism can be sustained without verbally admitting it, yet, her Fruedian slips in her Tweets reveals a lot of where she is coming from.
Idaho, where Kim is from, is a lovely state with its own unique albeit small progressive elements, but hearing Kim Iversen talk it reminds me of a conservative person from Idaho who really didn’t grow up around a lot of diversity despite her having family who are Asian. Yet, she was indoctrinated within a largely white environment – which isn’t bad – yet, that can shape a person’s biases similarly to if it were the opposite. Put it this way, I’m sure many Right Wingers love her, despite her coming off as “progressive”. I feel she is closeted cheerleader for white supremacy without even realizing it because she equates the talks around white supremacy as being hostile towards white people but fails to get its a conversation about a system.
This take by Kim Iversen and Joe Rogan…is stupid. I’m sorry, it’s stupid. White Supremacists can’t be threats because they…wear khakis? Kim is so paranoid that white people will be “criminalized” that she’ll actually downplay people in a movement that has done violence in the USA such as terrorism.
Another goofball take by Kim. So liberals are leaving supposedly. OK. But Ryan Grim rebuts her claim by saying liberals are moving to liberal areas and her best comeback is “well, they’re not the same sort of Demcrats”. Oh really, can you elaborate more? She also doesn’t address the larger reasons behind the housing crisis such as the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy making home prices soar, innovations in online homebuying making home buying faster, etc.
I’m glad that Kim Iversen runs her mouth. Seriously. She could easily slip away as another innocuous ambiguous newscaster, yet, by her talking and her Tweeting, her true biases, thought process, and beliefs become more apparent.
See exhibits below….
.
She can’t understand why people are mad that a vigilante went to a protests which resulted in two deaths? She doesn’t get the symbolic nature of the case considering it was a BLM protests but Kyle being acquitted is a form of the state scaring people to not protests etc.
Forward: Before I get into the article, I want to write a quick list of white supremacists hate crimes, since it seems Kim Iverson is skeptical that white supremacy is a threat, largely since she feels doing anything about it would violate some sort of libertarian principle. But I’m not sure if she’s a libertarian necessarily, and could simply be a free thinker, yet her segments on Rising by The Hill to me have been helping to stoke a sense of mistrust, conspiracy, and even apologetics for right wing ideology.
After I wrote this, it struck me that Kim Iversen is following in the tradition of former MTV VJ, Kennedy, and MTV contributor, Kurt Loder, who are both libertarians. Yet, Kim’s style on her show, Rising by The Hill, seems to be picking up notes from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, i.e., opining in real time, firmly anchored by a bias, rather than giving in-depth analysis of the issues she’s talking about and with nuance. Kim Iversen seems like a decent person. She’s continuously worked and built a career for herself, and that is commendable. However, I notice that she seems flat-footed when it comes to having a good pulse of what’s going on, and in many ways, I think her upbringing has left her a bit ignorant or unable to understand nuance on many issues, such as those relating to race. Her politics are all over the place, which isn’t problematic in and of itself, but discerning what Iversen believes is task. To me, she’s ultimately a “progressive Republican” with a tendency of spreading paranoid energy, and seems strongly influenced by her upbringing in Idaho, but she takes the “hip position” of being a libertarian (without stating it publicly), meaning she’s really nothing more than a Republican. As she decries the tyranny of the state, her political position ends up being nothing more than apologetics for Republican politics. She can be the most progressive conservative pundit on YouTube if she wants, but in reality, the Republican Party doesn’t care about any of her “progressive ideas”, yet she continuously muckrakes the Democratic Party – a party, which of course, can be embarrassing and counter-productive, but still the Democratic Party gives more people across the country, regardless of background, a sense of belonging (as opposed to the monolithic politics of the GOP).
White Supremacist Violence and/or Mass Shootings by White Suspects Crimes:
Payton S. Gendron (10 kills in Buffalo NY). Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (168 Kills and 680 wounded). Dylan Roof (9 Kills at a church in Charleston, SC). Stephen Paddock (60 Kills and 411 wounded). Eric Rudolph (1 Killed and 111 injured at the Atlanta Olympics). James Huberty (21 Kills and 19 wounded at McDonalds during San Ysidro Massacre in 1984). Devin Kelley (26 Kills and 22 wounded at the Southerland Church Shootings in TX). Robert Long (8 Kills and 1 Wounded in Atlanta). Dimitrios Pagourtzis (10 Kills and 14 wounded at Santa Fe HS in Texas who was found with Nazi and Soviet regalia). Brenton Tarrant (51 Kills and 40 injured at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand). Buford Furrow Jr. (1 Kill and 5 wounded at a LA Jewish Day Care). John King, Lawrence Brewer, Shawn Berry (1 Kill of James Byrd Jr who was decapitated by being dragged by a truck in Jasper, TX). Frazier Glenn Miller (3 Kills at a Jewish Synagogue in Kansas). Robert Bowers (11 Kills and 7 wounded at a Jewish Synagogue in Pittsburgh). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (15 Kills and 17 wounded at Columbine HS, where the sole black victim was called the N-word before being shot while calling for his mother). James Harris Jackson (1 Kill with a sword of a black homeless man collecting cans in New York City, NY). Jeremy Joseph Christian (2 Killed and 1 Wounded in Portland OR). James Alex Fields (1 Killed by car and 35 wounded in Charlottesville. Trump supporter). John Earnest (1 Killed and 3 Wounded at Poway Synagogue). Gregory Bush (2 Killed in Jefferson Town KY). Kenneth Murray “Death” Mieske, Kyle Brewster, and Steve Strasser (1 Killed by baseball bat beating. Mulugeta Seraw was beated by Neo Nazis of W.A.R. in 1988 in Portland, Oregon. Brewster was found fighting alongside Proud Boys in Oregon in 2021). Jonathan Russell Kennedy (1 Murder and two attempted murders in Huntington Beach, CA, 1994). Erik R. Anderson (1 Fatal Stabbing of Native American, George Mondragon in 1996 in Huntington Beach, CA). Samuel Woodward (1 Kill of Ben Bernstein in Lake Forest, CA).
Intro in Kim Iversen’s Questionable Analysis on Ethan Crumbley and the Patriot Front March
There’s some controversy around Kim Iversen. I don’t hate her, and I will try to put her into context. Yet, she is quite a mystery. For a public figure she doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, not even a locked account that prevents public edits. Basic Google searches pulls up some information but not much about her background.
I don’t think she’s an evil person and I feel she’s fairly interested in the topics she speaks on. Yet, the controversy around Kim has been going on for a while but it really came to fruition with her “interesting” take of Oxford High School mass shooter, Ethan Crumbley. According to Kim, the reason the Sun publication showed an angelic photo of the mass shooter was because the media was trying to make it seem like all innocent white Christian males appear to be terrorists. She didn’t really miss the point as to why people were disappointed at the photo of Crumbley, in that she acknowledged that when people of color are shown in the media they are often depicted with the worst imagery, yet, Kim decided to be a contrarian for the sake of being one, by spinning as if showing an innocent photo of Crumbley was another attempt to “demonize” white males.
Honestly, it caught everyone off guard and left people scratching their heads. It is as if when progress about fair coverage relating race is happening, she felt she had to insert a contrarian opinion for the simple sake of doing so, which could be authentic, or could be for money reasons, i.e., it’s her job, but when you see her Twitter account response to criticism she doubled down on her defense of white Christian males (which makes sense considering she was raised in white society and has a white father and family members).
Traditionally, black people for example were always stigmatized via the media (something that Kim Iversen has acknowledged), e.g., just peek at George H.W. Bush’s campaign ad referring to Willie Horton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUxAMG8UqIw
Yet, even if we can all agree that racialized news coverage is bad, the fact that white supremacy is being analyzed seriously seems to have many people feeling uncomfortable, either out of fear of being unfairly associated with the movement, some who are angry that they feel black crime rates are displayed (despite has already stated there’s historical use of stats when referring to black people), or some people are living with a sense of false consciousness, in that America is largely based on white supremacy and people are naturally wired to act as if it doesn’t exists because that defies a certain set of morals mythologized within American culture such as “we are all individuals” or “all people are equal”, when in fact, many groups are not treated equally. Talking about and combating white supremacy isn’t anti-white, where certainly in the past talking about black crime was anti-black considering the U.S has an explicit anti-black history.
The backlash to speaking about white supremacy comes from fear, in which there’s an inherent fear centering around reprisal, which is ironic because if people are terrified for reprisal (which isn’t or won’t happen), what they’re admitting is that in the past they used similar tactics to make minorities live in fear. Basically, their unfounded fear of reprisal is based on them understanding the horrible past of this nation. If logic were to persist, if white supremacy is not a thing, then why are there so many people eager to point out black crime statistics? If America wasn’t built on racism, then why do so many white people fear “reverse racism”?
If we were to isolate this take by Kim on Ethan Crumbley, sure, OK, we can leave it as an “agree to disagree, but really disagree” moment. Yet, just a few days later Kim Iversen on her Rising program by The Hill released a segment titled, “Kim Iversen: Joe Rogan Calls BS on Patriot Front March, Is the Group Backed by Feds?”, published on 9 December 2021, which when accessed by me on 13 December 2021, amounted a total of 512,000+ views. In this segment it is important to notice that Kim is strategically positioned in the segment in the middle of her two co-hosts, meaning she is the focal point of the video and steering the conversation. In the video, she referenced a Joe Rogan segment, featuring Matt Taibbi (Episode 1745), in which Joe calls into question a recent march of white supremacists called Patriot March that occurred in late November 2021 in Washington, D.C. Joe claims that because they’re “in shape”, and wearing the same clothes, etc., that they look like the Feds. Joe does state jokingly that he’s an unreliable source because he’s a comedian (which is interesting because if that’s the case they why take you seriously anytime?), but still double downs on the fact that they can’t be white supremacist because…they have drums, and they have Khakis?
Kim event got the leader of Patriot Front’s age wrong by claiming he’s eighteen years old (I’m assuming she read an article from 2017) but is about 23 or 24 years older having been born in 1998 according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (2021). Further, Kim if she just read a little more into this or at least provided more context for her audience, she would have discovered that Patriot Front has ties to the Daily Stormer, being one of the most popular white supremacist websites. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (2021), “On November 3, 2017, roughly 30 members of Patriot Front marched through the University of Texas at Austin to the campus’s George Washington statue where Rousseau delivered a torchlit speech. The following day, Patriot Front members convened at Austin’s Monkeywrench Books with members of Daily Stormer and The Right Stuff meet-up groups for a flash demonstration.”
The fact that Patriot Front employs Flash Demonstrations seems to more evidence to detract from the idea that the November 2021 march was a Federal Law operation.
“The origins of Patriot Front lie in neo-Nazi organizing that began in 2015 at the message board IronMarch.org, itself an outgrowth of the community of dedicated fascists who commented at online forums such as 4chan and Stormfront, and allegedly founded by Russian nationalist Alexander Slavros. IronMarch in turn spun off the activist group AtomWaffen (German for “Atomic Bomb”) Division, whose members engaged in various far-right actions earlier this year.” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2021). Lastly, Southern Poverty Law Center (2021) stated, “After an AtomWaffen member in Florida shot and killed two other members in May 2017, telling authorities the group was planning to blow up a nuclear plant, a number of AtomWaffen participants joined ranks with Vanguard America.”
Relating to Alexandr Slavros stated within the Southern Poverty Law Center (2021) article about Patriot Front, I find it interesting that Matt Taibbi being Russian (which is not a crime, and I don’t want to promote Russophobia) spoke against the Russia-Gate situation during the Trump Administration. I can understand and accept that the case was likely fraudulent, yet, it wasn’t entirely fraudulent in my opinion. My opinion, is that Russia-Gate took facts, omitted some facts, and conflated others in order to check the balance of power of Trump who did display a sense of being imbalanced himself, and also threatening to unravel US foreign policy especially with Russia whom he and others in his administration such as Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil and Michael Flynn had relations with. It was a flex of power not only to the Trump Administration who were creating their own unauthorized foreign policy, but it was a sign to leaders abroad, like Vladimir Putin, that the US State will go to about any means to protect our democracy from foreign influence.
Taibbi and other commentors such as Michael Blumenthal and Andrew Mate of The Grey Zone, rallied against Russia-Gate, but nowhere to my knowledge did they or have they admitted that Russia was providing online Far Right propaganda which influenced the Alt-Right which therefore fell under the tent camp strategy of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump. The only sort of Far-Right ideology spoken about by members of the Grey Zone often revolves around the Azimov Battalion in Ukraine, who were revealed to have received US military financing against Russia. In essence, Taibbi and others will call out Eastern European fascism and Nazism when it comes from a US ally to discredit US foreign policy, yet they remain silent on Russian Far Right ideology such as the popularity of thinkers like Aleksandr Dugin who provided essential literature for many in the Alt Right (alongside the writings of thinkers like Julius Evola). Taibbi and others effectively “threw out the baby with the bathwater” as an analogy. Yet, the US government has endangered the US public with Russia-Gate because they didn’t focus hard enough on the far-right ideology actually coming into the USA and West, but rather appropriate facts for their own Machiavellian politics.
Yet, back to Iverson, after showing the Joe Rogan segment laughs before going into the history of plausible or proven examples of state-sanction terror cells. Kim also shows screenshots from Twitter by people like Mr. Reagan, an obvious right-wing pundit, who did have a YouTube channel for a long time and went so far as alleging that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was a fake politician and actress. Kim goes into the background of Patriot Front in which she explains the group was a splinter group that broke away from a group called Vanguard who were the group that set up the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA. Yet, Kim inserts some interesting commentary by stating they are “non-violent”, which might be true in theory, or at least that what’s they say to not bring poor press to their movement, yet, it seems Kim is saying they are non-violent as a way of dissuading any sort of threat by Patriot Front or influence they may have on other groups.
It’s as if Kim is undermining the potentiality of the movement because she’s coming from a libertarian mindset, e.g., she states, “the big question is, how big of a threat are these things though? Yes, do these things exists, yes. Do terrorists exist in all forms, yes. But how large of a threat? What are the American people willing to give up to root out this threat?”.
Before I criticize what Kim just said there, to be fair, the group, where leader Thomas Ryan Rousseau spoke, was relatively small (numbering around 100), and this is according to Ellie Silverman (2021) of The Washington Post, who further stated that the event was pushed by fake Twitter account. “It shows how a small troupe of fascists in uniform can … exploit the loopholes around a social media company like Twitter and absolutely make themselves look much more fearsome, look much more scary,” said Michael Edison Hayden, senior investigative reporter and spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, “and give themselves a much better shot at getting the mainstream coverage they so desperately crave.” (Silverstein, 2021).
The likelihood of what happened at the march is either A) the anonymous Twitter account as owned by a person associated with Patriot Front who sent the message to rally, employing their “flash mob tactics”, but then quickly erased their account, or to give more credence to the idea that the Federal Authorities were involved, is B) the account was set up by law enforcement, with them knowing their “flash mob tactics”, to snuff out Patriot Front to get evidence of its members and gain intelligence on the group. Even if masked, the members had to get to the Capitol somehow, so traffic cameras or other means such as triangulating cellphones can easily build a possible registry of suspects.
But, saying the group was a false flag set up by the federal government seems unlikely, if not disingenuous (my favorite Joe Rogan word he uses a lot), since the authorities would have to recruit about 100 people to march and with 100 people you get the chance that at least one person would spill the beans, or a person that any of those 100 people knew could become suspicious and possibly spill the beans, thus jeopardizing the operation. The possibility of a leak would jeopardize any sort of integrity the government has and be disastrous, culminating in Congressional hearings, firings, even possible cause for actual white supremacists to appeal their cases or convictions, etc.
Joe and Kim’s take on the event possibly being a false flag event has an underlying element of conspiracy, and what one could extrapolate from that claim is that other hate marches or even the Capitol Insurrection itself was a false flag. This therefore takes away from the severity of these situations in an attempt to sweep them under the rug as quickly as possible since they are ammunition for government or activist to continue seeking reform against topics such as white supremacy.
Kim also offers some very thin and weak arguments about the group. She claims that because they have a “polished website” and that they seem well-organized, and that the leader is allegedly only an eighteen-year-old person, somehow means this group can’t be real or be a threat. What Kim and Joe seem to be missing is that white nationalist groups aren’t unsophisticated and have adapted to not looking like traditional Skinheads with red-laced jackboots, being out of shape Good Ole Boys reading Soldier of Fortune with a cache of weapons, or Klansmen. It’s not that hard to get a professional website made if you have a lot of people and tap into someone’s talents or even pay someone do set up your site for you. Also, even if the supposed founder of the movement is young, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have funding from powerful people who have fascist sentiments, similarly to how Richard Spencer came from money, set up the National Policy Institute (ran from his mother’s $3 Million dollar home), and had powerful connections such as with Stephen Miller from the Trump Administration whom he attended Duke University with (Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 2017).
White Nationalists are not all junkies or meth-heads, or disenfranchised angry white youths, or men who have spent time in the prison system who are tatted up with Swastikas, but as Charlottesville proved, they can be a computer programmer, a cop, a military servicemember, a real estate agent, a college student, a bailiff, or even an adult actor, etc.
Note: The adult actor is Paul Kryscuk, whom according to Joseph Wilkenson (2020) of The New York Daily News, is a 35-year-old reported porn star, who sold multiple manufactured weapons to 21-year-old then-Marine Liam Collins, the feds said. Kryscuk allegedly mailed the illegal DIY weapons from his homes in New York and Idaho to Collins in North Carolina. Kryscuk and Collins were regulars on the online neo-Nazi forum Iron March back in 2017 before the site was shut down, according to the feds. During that time, they recruited Jordan Duncan, a 26-year-old ex-Marine and military contractor, and Justin Hermanson, a 21-year-old current U.S. Marine. According to the feds, the crew filmed a “training montage” of themselves shooting guns near Kryscuk’s home in Boise, Idaho. The video ends with all four giving the “Heil Hitler” salute under a black sun flag, a Nazi symbol. The phrase “Come home white man” then appears on screen to conclude the video. Kryscuk’s vehicle was also spotted at two different Black Lives Matter rallies in Boise, Idaho, over the summer, according to the indictment. Kryscuk and Duncan later discussed shooting the protesters, with Kryscuk calling their group a “death squad,” the feds said. Collins, who was enlisted until September, and Duncan had moved to Boise to work closer to Kryscuk before they were all arrested in late October, according to the Justice Department. (Wilkerson, 2020).
As we can see with Mr. Kryscuk, who lived in Idaho where Kim Iverson calls home, he was attached to IronMarch, similarly to Mr. Rosseasu of Patriot Front, where these groups interface with the Daily Stormer, Atomwaffen SS, and possibly even foreign Neon Nazi sources in Russia.
The analysis of Joe and Kim are both weak and lazy at best. The burden of proof to prove if this is a false flag is on them, but Kim especially didn’t do any sort of investigative research to prove if they aren’t real. Her skepticism is based on a libertarian position, mixed with historical precedent that the government has been involved with groups like this before (for example, Red Squads that infiltrated Leftist groups in the 1960s), but no actual investigative muscle to back up her opinion, despite being an employee of a multi-billion-dollar media corporations that owns hundreds of new stations across the USA.
It’s my suspicion that Joe had his take because he’s tired of Left-Wing politics particularly that centering around the topics of white privilege, wokeness, gender inclusion, gender assignment, etc.
Joe seems agitated by the Left because he’s a comedian and many in the comedian community are revolting against cancel culture. In the segment with Matt Taibbi, Rogan when talking about the Rittenhouse Case, insinuated that black people were so passionate about racial issues that they didn’t even know the victims were white, alleging he has black friends – who remain unknown – who told him they didn’t know the victims were black (I am assuming this is Charlamagne da God who was on the JRE with comedian Andrew Schulz on episode 1314).
Joe then shares a meme, showing the gas station owners of the Car Source that Rittenhouse was allegedly defending who are possibly from the Indian subcontinent, and the victims who were white. This is important because when showing the meme, Joe smugly says “I have a bunch of memes. I have a folder of my phone”, and this seems to be in reference to the backlash Rogan has received on his Instagram in which he’s posted questionable memes, such as one insinuating that the authoritarian right makes strong men and the libertarian right makes good times (silly, because conservatives don’t really care about personal freedoms including the marijuana Joe likes to smoke), but the left spectrum makes weak men and hard times. It’s easy for him to tap into the already existing mistrust of the mainstream media, take out his annoyance with the way things are, and use his platform/popularity to convince people that it’s all a hoax.
Lastly, Kim in this segment states that she was raised in Idaho which in the past was the headquarters of the Aryan Brotherhood near cities like Coeur d’Alene and Lake Hayden (now located in West Virginia) in the upper panhandle of the state. She states that people never really saw them as a threat, which is partially true, considering I grew up in the Pacific Northwest as child and later as a young adult, and remember counter-protestors at these events when showed on the local news. People would show up to protest the Aryan Brotherhood and other groups when they marched, yet, what Kim fails to admit is that this isn’t the 1980s or 1990s anymore. Back then, the United States and specifically Idaho still operated with a sense of white racial majority politics. White America could afford to not take them seriously since society then was still largely controlled by white people, e.g., most TV sitcoms featured white families (and, to even show an interracial relationship for example even in the 1990s was still taboo as to not anger the “Middle America” demographic), every President up to that point had been a white Christian male, etc.
Yet, fast forward, come after the election of the first black/bi-racial President in Barak Obama, the election of the first black and Indian American Vice President with Kamala Harris, and an evolution in society as far as acceptance of gay marriage, the inclusion of immigrants such as those from Latin America, the growing popularity of socialist or progressive politics, and the fight to include Trans people into everyday life, one could argue that white nationalists are gaining steam from this progress. The time Kim grew up in Idaho, gay marriage wasn’t even legal anywhere in the United States, the word Socialism was a political campaign killer, and BIPOC liberation politics had been largely anesthetized by the corporate white-wash appropriation of the MLK “can we all get along” iconography (despite MLK having socialist sentiments merged with Christian ideology). The change in the overall culture of America from when Kim grew up in Idaho to now is further amplified by advancements in technology where at the time Kim is referring to the fastest internet speed as dial-up, whereas now is lightspeed broadband communication across the globe, as well newer notions such as the dark web, using crypto currency, having aliases, etc. For example, the company Gab, located in Clarks Summit, PA., BitChute based out o of the United Kingdom, and Epik, located in Sammamish, WA, host white supremacists and Neo-Nazi websites, blogs, videos, torrents, etc., where Gab was associated with the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting. The world Kim is nostalgically looking back on didn’t have 8chan, BitChute, Gab, Parlor, Epik, etc.
When you add the differences between the past to the present with clear examples of white terrorism, then it’s unwise at best for Kim Iversen to simply be downplaying the threat movement of white supremacy. Hell, Fox News itself with commentators like Tucker Carlson openly panders to fascists rhetoric bordering upon “blood and soil” politics, and let’s not forget, Emperor Nero in exile himself, Trump and all the toxicity he and his administration platformed (including Steve Bannon going on a tour of Europe to inspire nationalists, influence EU elections, and set up a training center in Italy to train Right Wing activists).
According to Silverman (2021), “There were more than 5,000 cases of white supremacist propaganda in 2020, a near doubling from the prior year, the ADL found. The Patriot Front accounted for more than 80 percent.”
Is Kim Iversen really “Anti-Establishment”?
Kim Iversen despite appearing as if she’s anti-establishment, is establishment in that she is employed by The Hill and represented by N.S. Bienstock, which is a major TV talent agency representing the likes of establishment news figures such as Dan Rather, Chris Matthews, Anderson Cooper, Bill O’Reilly. United Talent Agency acquired N.S. Bienstock on 22nd Jan 2014. Grace N.S. Bienstock is owned by the private company United Talent Agency which is one of the top 7 talent agencies in Hollywood.
When it comes to the Rising segment, The Hill is owned by Nexstar Media Group, NASDAQ symbol NXST, which had Fiscal Year 2020 revenue streams of $4.5 billion with a Fiscal Year 2016 total equity position of $284.35 billion. Nexstar, owns TV stations across the United States who are affiliates with the major TV networks (e.g., CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.), and owns shares of Food Network.
According to OpenSource.com (2021), Nexstar Media Group has donated to both Democrats and Republican politicians such as in 2014 with $2,600.00 to Mitch McConnell; $1,000 to Adam Kinzinger in 2014; $5,000 to both Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Donald Trump in 2016; $2,500 to Joe Manchin in 2016, $5,000 to Jim Jordan, and $10,000 to Team Graham in 2020 which I assume is Lindsay Graham who went up for re-election in South Carolina, etc. So, Nexstar does lobby and donate to politicians like most corporations do.
What happened to Krystal Ball and Seegar Enjeti?
Before the current cast of Rising with Kim Iversen, Ryan Grim, etc., it features Krystal Ball and Seegar Enjeti. Krystal representing more of leftist viewpoint and Seegar representing more a conservative view, were quite popular, but were oddly fired from the segment. It is my belief that The Hill, being an extension of Nexstar (a major corporation most know nothing about, yet, that’s the nature of many corporations), were trying to overstep the traditional monopoly of the big TV corporations so they focused on YouTube in a way that touched into alternative media market yet still trying to keep the traditional news segment feel.
Yet, it seems that Krystal and Seegar were too good at their jobs, where in many cases Krystal’s left leaning commentary that rallied against corporatism likely sealed her fate. She worked for a corporation arguable with conservative politics, spoke against capitalism, became a relatively popular figure, and then she was canned. Yet, Kim Iversen was brought on with an enhanced model of focusing on click-bait and to covertly anchor the show with libertarian, i.e., right wing, i.e., capitalist, sentiments. Whether, Kim thinks she’s simply defending libertine ideals, or our notion of individualism based on classical liberal ideals like David Hume, the truth is that ideology has largely manifested itself obviously as Republican, and therefore as corporatist by nature. Essentially, sure we have our individual rights, but this notion of individual rights is also the basis for corporate personhood, which is no surprise that libertarian billionaires like the Koch Family funding right-wing grassroots movements.
Kim Iversen seems progressive enough, but underlying her psychology is what could be considered “red pilling”, i.e., opening the window to turn listeners into right wing viewers suspicious of authority and slowing attempting to chip away at the progressive gains the left has made. Her left leaning counterpart in Ryan Grim, though often inserting his counter opinion to Kim is often overshadowed, which to me insinuates that Ryan Grim is coming for a centrist position. What we’re left with is what we have if we were to look at Congress, i.e., a centrist’s democratic party lethargically talking about progressive talking points stolen from the few progressives in that party (as seen through Ryan Grim) but accompanied by an ever-growing fascist Republican party.
She’s hungry for clicks, she’s not doing this for free (she’s in it for a pay check and career), she comes from the radio world so she knows the power of sensationalism, it’s a matter of time before she’s on the Joe Rogan Podcast, she’s fairly stubborn when dealing with criticism instead of seeing it as an opportunity to grow her worldview, and likely will get crowned by the Right Wing as a darling sooner than later. A part of me feels she’s just being controversial for the sake of controversy because he’s aware that it’s about the algorithm and clicks, and this likely comes from experience in radio, where such shock tactics are needed, but this is amplified by the medium of social media like YouTube.
Another contrarian in a landscape of contrarians competing for attention.
Unpacking Kim’s politics
Kim Iversen has an ambiguous politics, similarly to that of Joe Rogan (note: if interested read by article titled, Is Joe Rogan a Neoplatonist? The syncretic politics of Starship Troopers, zany ESP, magick, the Human Potential Movement, Howard Hughes, Disney and the RAND Corporation by Quinton Mitchell).
But, that’s her right. Not everyone has to fit into a proper definition, necessarily, but I don’t really like Kim’s political analysis. I think she comes off as “progressive” but her underlying worldview is libertarian, where libertarianism despite having representation on the left, e.g., socio-anarchism in the tradition of thinkers like Noam Chomsky (author, of Manufacturing Consent (1988) with Edward S. Herman). However, the truth is that libertarianism within US political history has always been an extension of conservative and Far Right politics – the prevailing ideology for most of the United States history – and in many ways libertarianism has been a politically correct way for the Far Right to appeal to mainstream audience. For example, the libertarian positions of individualism and property rights often translates to segregation (such as with State Rights used the desegregation debates), not supporting social services which might go the poor/minorities/or immigrants, and maintaining an economic ideology – capitalism, i.e., a variant of colonialism – which exploits labor so owners who traditionally are predominately white keep ownership over the means of production. The very basis of property rights in the United States were originally written for white male landowners who were originally intended as being the only ones allowed to vote considering many had a Republican model idea to government, before Democratic ideas came about to expand the franchise to common people.
Whether she admits it or not, she’s a libertarian, but I define her as a Gen X 3rd Position syncretic libertarian and contrarian wavering in postmodern fashion between New Age, Far Right, the Left, etc., while using click-bait and suspiciously stupid opinions (considering, she’s represented by one of the top talent agencies in Hollywood, even though I thought Hollywood was now called “Hollyweird” by the Qanon crowd). How can she ever allege a conspiracy or shadowy “deep state” when in fact she’s an extension of institutions of power? The conspiracy is she’s a populist libertarian talking on a corporate media network. She’s really a libertarian, leaning in the vein of libertarianism one would find in the ideology that Joe Rogan displays. With her coming from a radio background and now getting more notoriety via the internet, Kim is picking up on hot button issues like COVID-19, China vs. the United States, buzzwords like the Deep State, or any other hot topic floating in the collective consciousness, i.e., the zeitgeist.
She like Russell Brand really dug into COVID-19 skepticism. She is a supporter of Palestine which might give her points with elements of the political Left coming from a de-colonialist tradition but also, she might get points from the racist elements of the Right Wing where supporting Palestine or even radical Jihadism is because they are antisemites (for example, the case of Devon Arthurs, who is Neo Nazi associated with Atomwaffen SS, converted to Islam and his roommates were planning on blowing up a nuclear facility in Florida, per the source A.C. Thompson, 2018, ProPublica. Also, Ethan Melzer, a former private in the US Army, was charged with treasons for divulging information about his Army unit to a Satanic Neo Nazi group called Order of Nine Angels, per Kyle Rempfer, 2020, Army Times).
She has spoken against US interventionism in Latin American nations, which is good. Yet, she doesn’t believe that white supremacy isn’t as big of threat as what the media is saying, even though the media never talked about it in the past at least as being indicative of a growing social trend, so the fact the media is finally acknowledging white supremacy doesn’t mean it’s a false story but, more so we’re finally pointing the light at white supremacy. Sure, we can debate the scope of white supremacy, for example, there’s not hundreds of thousands of hate crimes occurring, yet, white supremacy can’t be measured with a scope of simply being large or small, because all it takes is a few individuals to conduct terrorist attacks, and white supremacy isn’t always with terrorism but cast with ballots at the voting booth. Whether she wants to admit it or not, Donald Trump’s MAGA is an expression of white supremacy, or what I like to call “white settler politics”.
Deconstructing the aesthetics of Kim’s political ideology
Before I go on, I must state that I don’t think everyone in list below is bad or entirely problematic, yet, some are, yet, all of the people listed below represent the “alternative space”, and this space seems influential on Kim Iversen’s ideas.
Kim could be best associated with the alternative media sphere that has Jimmy Dore (who spends a lot of his time attacking progressives for not being aggressive enough despite not realizing that a person such as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is just one person in the House of Representatives who has to send legislation through a burdensome progress of drafting, committee, vote, Senate review/approval/or kick-back, and Presidential signature); Russell Brand; Graham Elwood, Joe Rogan (who has platformed and joked around with figures like Gavin McInnes – founder of the Proud Boys -, Alex Jones who shilled for Donald Trump and has ties to Roger Stone, Jordan B. Peterson [multiple times], figures of the Intellectual Dark Web, and any array of thinkers bordering upon being kooks); the Useful Idiots with Katie Halper (who really isn’t problematic at all – whom, interestingly hasn’t been invited to the Joe Rogan Experience. Kim Iversen has participated on Katie Halper’s podcast), and Matt Taibbi (a critic of Russia-Gate, yet, being Russian he seems to have bias and can’t seem to acknowledge the fact that even if Russia-Gate was fraudulent it doesn’t mean it entirely was, but even if it was entirely false, Far Right ideology from East Europe such as Russia and Ukraine, e.g., the concept of a Nazbol or monarchism, did influence the American Right Wing which therefore falls into the spectrum of MAGA politics. For example, Richard Spencer and his follower sang at Charlottesville, “You will not replace us” but also “Russia is our friend”), Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept, possibly The Grey Zone with Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté (critics of NATO, Russia Gate, Israel, the CIA, etc.), maybe a little Peter Schiff (an proponent of Austrian Economics spanning Fredrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard – a father of anarcho-capitalism, the Mont Perelin Society, and Ludwig Von Mises), sprinkle in some Ron Paul (an influential figure in anti-Federal Reserve politics, the Tea Party, etc. But, we can’t forget about Libertarian Presidential nominee, Gary Johnson, whom Joe Rogan admitted to voting for in 2016), and Tulsi Gabbard (who is pretty much the presidential choice for everyone listed before, yet Tulsi is an active duty military officer, who seems to be playing the same game that Kim Iversen is playing, i.e., being appealing to the Leftism developed by Bernie Sanders, the state via her ties to the Pentagon via her committee assignment to the Armed Services Committee, but also appealing to post-Tea Party libertarianism one finds on the political right).
Loose cultural markers or aesthetics that float around the world that Kim’s ideology wavers around are the following: A distrust of mainstream media (MSM) especially those associated with liberal politics such as CNN or MSNBC (where the MSM have issue of ethics and integrity, yet, to assume that mainstream media doesn’t do any good job at all is false, and for some reason conservatives don’t consider Fox News to be MSM), Naturalism, holistic medicine, anti-vaccinations (an easy way to gain followers in a heated debate on vaccines, but anti-vax culture often revolves around conspiracy theorists in the traditional of the New World Order, fears of racial replacement or de-population, the Christian Right, etc.), con-spirituality (i.e., conspiracy spirituality, the nexus between conspiracy theory culture and New Age spirituality such as zodiac, charms, UFOs, parapsychology, etc., where New Age spiritualism is a successor of older Occultic and Neoplatonic ideologies mainly from the late 19th to early 20th century such as of Alastair Crowley, Austen Osman Spare, or Madame Blavatsky, where some these older ideas did have intersection with right-wing ideologies, i.e., Nazi Occultism. For example, take the curious case of the MAGA Shaman arrested for the January 6th Insurrection. Think of it as when the Right Wing trips too much acid at Burning Man or when hippies and paleo-conservatism merge), Boomerism, Generation X MTV generation cynicism (a spoiled generation, despite being the product of the divorce generation of their Boomer Parents, from America’s Goldie Lock’s era of the 1990s after the Cold War but whom where anti-establishment largely because corporations appropriated anti-establishment fashion, e.g., punk, rap, grunge, etc.), comedians revolting against cancel culture (despite comedy often being a cover for actual oppression or further stigmatizing historically marginalized groups), a cynicism towards wokeness (e.g., insinuating that corporate America is only being inclusive now for profits as opposed to being humanist, when this argument fails because capitalism catered to white supremacy but I guess people didn’t have a problem with them?), the Manosphere (appealing to men’s rights in the face of what some consider to be the radical feminist takeover of institutions and culture, particularly at the detriment of white heteronormative males, which has spawned a subculture of dating gurus, Incels, but also women who can profit by simply saying what these men want to hear, i.e., “I’m not like other women”), T.E.R.Fs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), skepticism towards government or central authority (despite displaying a sense of disassociation because the right wing is anti-government in many ways, often because they feel they can’t benefit from government as they use to, but in other ways many support police and militarism, but they seem to fix this my favoring “paramilitary” culture, i.e., militia culture), liberalism based around the rights of the individual which naturally leads more so towards a favoring or apologetic of capitalism (despite having some socialist sympathies, but we have to remember Gen X was born and indoctrinated during the Cold War, so the recent Millennial and Zoomer generation acceptance of Leftism isn’t as strong necessarily within Gen X, i.e., it’s still a taboo ideology that defies their materialist needs, career ambitions, etc., considering many are in managerial positions now), decentralization, etc.
Her politics could be understood as a synchronistic 3rd position that merges elements of left and right. An overlap between the anti-establishment left of old mixed with elements or right-wing libertarianism, yet she seems firmly based on conservatism (her default position), which could be from the fact she was born and raised in a very conservative state, with one of the largest white populations, during the Cold War, etc. Then we must consider her personality, which could be naturally contrarian for the sake of being so (which is just one possible element of her personality, i.e., I am not saying she’s an overall bad person, i.e., we all have our quirks), and when you compound this by the fact that she is a career-woman (I’m assuming she identities with feminism) she likely has a chip on her shoulder. I am not saying that being a strong empowered career driven woman is bad at all (I support it), but when factoring in her own personality, it could translate that she essentially double-down hard on her beliefs to not relent since relenting even if she has a bad take on a subject is a form of losing. Appearing wrong or giving credit when due might be possibly hard for Kim in that she’s possibly self-conscious about what people think of her (getting into Twitter beefs), yet she doesn’t see it this way and double downing on bad takes.
It’s anti-establishment and seemingly progressive so it can appeal to actual progressive people, yet the issue with 3rd Position politics is that even though it seems natural, and many are prone to moderate politics, when you’re platforming 3rd position politics to a mass audience, typically through an opinion piece format such as what Kim Iversen does, then you do pose the risk of legitimatizing actual Far Right ideology and end up seeming likely a disingenuous centrists who cherry picks elements from whatever side of the spectrum they feel comfortable with.
Generation X
All these people, expect for Jimmy Dore, could be grouped into the Generation X demographic, i.e., millennials before millennials, but unlike millennials, they’re more influenced by the precursor Baby Boomer generation, and weren’t as emersed with technology as Millennials. For Generation X, technology was there but it was still speculative, such as William Gibson Cyberpunk, Johnny Mnemonic, The Matrix, etc., but the physical world wasn’t as technologically integrated as it was with Millennials and Zoomers. In other words, Gen X being older now, isn’t as nuanced around technology despite using technology, and their worldview whether they admit it or not is influenced by a nostalgia of how things were. In other words, sometimes Gen X misses the mark because they’re not as technologically emersed as what they think they are. For example, understanding certain memes might go over the heads of some Gen Xers because they’re older and not as culturally engulfed in the levels and sublevels of contemporary pop culture.
What I notice with people like Joe Rogan for example, is that he sounds old or lacks a sense of gravitas where the world is now. His podcast ends up simply being “Joe talking to Joe”, where it’s a platform for him sharing his opinions more so than really challenging his own opinions or even that of others. As a Millennial myself who is about to be 35 years old, I’m getting “up there”, yet Generation X is already “up there” yet Generation X was one the most prolific “youth generations”, probably on par with teenagers right after World War II, i.e., they were the MTV Reality TV (Real World, Road Rules) generation meaning that they defy age in a traditional sense. They’re older but are frozen in youth. Kim Iversen’s news coverage could be defined as when Tool listeners, with all of its Jungian psychology and appeals to the hippie moniker of “It’s all a lie man!” from the 1990’s enter institutions of power but end up not being as progressive as what they think they actually are.
Generation X was defined by postmodernism. Postmodernism being a philosophical worldview that was a reactionary movement to the objective truth claims (grand narratives or meta-truths) proposed by modernism or structuralism, e.g., the postmodernist rejecting the claim that science will save us all. To the postmodernist there is no grand truth but various truths meaning reality is ultimately subjective since most alleged truths are often biased by those who state such truths, or there are limitations in what humans can understand. The goal of presenting this subjective worldview was to undermine oppression that postmodernist blamed on the objective truth claims of objective truths. Postmodernism resulted in a merging of high-art with low-art (pop culture), a general sense of nihilism considering no truth could be objectively determined, but overall postmodernism, outside of being a philosophical worldview, is also a condition resulting from when capitalism reaches its zenith, i.e., late-stage capitalism.
If postmodernism could be easily defined, I refer to it as modern people existentially living as individuals within late-stage capitalism, in which the landscape is dominated by corporations who recycle culture but also use clever ways of shrouding power, conspiracy theories are endemic since people can’t discern between factual information or misinformation, people communicate through pop culture references, and no one really knows who is running the show system systems are highly complex and interwoven often creating problems by proxy of being so complicated.
Generation X was defined by this. They were the byproducts of Reaganomic consumerism, consumption, TV, the declining crime rate from the 80s into the 90s, and the general sense of global peace and American exceptionalism after the Cold War ended. The United States was the sole hegemonic force in the world, exploiting global supply chains built off cheap labor from America’s now competitor in China, and corporatism dictated culture. Yet, Gen Xers despite living in this relatively peaceful time, have a tendency for punk rebelliousness, where punk itself emerging in the 1970s, could be considered a form of postmodern music in that it revolts against order and plays with nihilism, yet, it became just another commodified movement of capitalism considering there is no real escaping capitalism.
I know all this because I was born in 1987, so I am an older Millennials, i.e., I’m Gen X’s baby brother who grew up with same tropes and cultural influences despite not being old enough to adequately partake, yet my childhood was still dictated by a sense of corporate culture (Beavis and Butthead, Daria, Liquid TV, The Simpsons), aggressive campaign marketing to children, etc. If you ever read the book White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo, my generation of Millennials are the baby charter of Wildmer, i.e., a baby born into a nineteen-eighties household absorbing CNN doomsday footage.
Idaho and Bio.
Boise is like a smaller Denver, yet development has grown rapidly largely since people form California migrated to the state for affordability reasons, similarly to how Californians flocked to states like Arizona. What do you notice about both states? They are traditionally very conservative such as Arizona being known not only for suntans, retirement communities, a love of John Wayne aesthetics, strict watering laws, and memories of late 1990s commercials featuring Arizona State University Girls Gone Wild footage, but also Barry Goldwater and John McCain neoconservatism. Not only do you have a local conservatism, but you have a conservative influx by newcomers mainly from places like California who fear taxes, dislike big cities, support the police, but want the convenience of nice homes, shopping centers with everyone favorite Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Chang’s, perfect suburban high schools, etc. It’s as if Orange County in the heyday of its John Birch Society paleoconservative phase landed in Arizona and Idaho. Cities and towns centering around Boise (located in the region called the Treasure Valley) include Nampa, Eagle, Meridian, Star, Emmett, Caldwell, etc.
I am familiar with Idaho. I lived in the Pacific Northwest in Washington State, and with my father being military, I stayed at Mountain Home Air Force Base for a short period of time since my family moved all over the place, but later in life, my first serious relationship in college was with a woman from a small town just outside Boise. When I traveled to Idaho to meet my girlfriend’s family and attend her cousin’s wedding (as the only black person there which wasn’t a problem), Boise was growing, but it was still relevantly new as far as being a “happening city”. In other words, Zillow or Realtor.com hadn’t gotten its hands on Boise quite yet. This was right around the time of Boise State’s iconic win versus Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl with the famous Statue of Liberty play.
She was born and raised in Idaho on March 28, 1980 (Alchetron.com, 2021). She attended Capital High School in Boise, ID (Metrobiography.com, 2021), and is a trained jazz drummer (Alchetron.com, 2021). It probably wasn’t until she got to college at The University of California – Davis (majoring in philosophy), where she first got her true sense of diversity and be able to break free, with UC-Davis being accessible to both metropolitan Sacramento and San Francisco. Yet, even California itself isn’t the most diverse state overall. Sure, in metropolitan regions, yes, but the State of California itself – same as everywhere else in the United States – does have a history or racism and segregation which culminated in segregated and often poorer/people-of-color communities. We often hail the West Coast as progressive but in many ways the West Coast is symbolic of the Dream of Manifest Destiny, i.e., white Zionism, where Western states did purposely segregate people of color, e.g., Portland, Oregon with Sunshine Laws (curfews), The Oregon Territory barring African Americans from settling after the Civil War in which Confederate settlers moved into the territory, the eradication of Native Tribes, discrimination against Hispanics even if they were native to California before the American take-over, etc.
In other words, whatever diversity Kim was exposed to when was attending college in late-1990s, it likely wasn’t the best depiction of diversity and even if there was diversity this was in a time when people didn’t analyze structural racism or oppression as much. This was the time of the MTV era 1990s where it seemed the “world was perfect” under corporatism and corporate America.
Kim being from Idaho which for most of its existence has been a predominately white state, expect for pockets of Tribal Lands such as those of the Nez Perce tribe, a significant Hispanic population due to the state’s reliance on agriculture, and others such as small demographic of Asian Americans, yet, very few African Americans traditional (outside of college towns like Boise, i.e., Boise State University). There’s also a very large Mormon population, arguably with the second largest Mormon population outside of Utah. There is also a significant Basque community in Idaho who hail from Basque Country in Northern Spain and Southern France.
According to Alchetron.com (2021), Kim worked for radio stations such as in California such as KDVS, KDND, and KWOD, but also co-hosted a show in Indiana called WAZY Wake-Up Crew with Big Jake and Kim Iversen on WAZY-FM. Yet, she received her own show in Austin, TX, Your Time with Kim Iversen on KAMX, and she has co-hosted the radio show Loveline. She has done stints as news reporter for News 12 Networks and as a VJ for Concert TV. Kim as a diverse portfolio of experiences which is good for her and her career.
Kim’s Ethnicity, Biracialism in White Spaces, and understanding orientalism (the sexualization and mystification of Asian Women) in relation to white supremacy
Kim is of Vietnamese and Danish-American descent. Her Vietnamese lineage likely comes from the Vietnam War Era where many Vietnamese refugees were resettled throughout the United States such as California, Louisiana, etc. So, likely she has anti-Communist beliefs because her family fled Communist Vietnam. I am not sure if her father is a war veteran but many veterans (just like Earl Wood’s, i.e., Tiger Woods dad) took Vietnamese wives. She was also raised in the Cold War in a conservative state meaning she likely grew up in a home that favored Ronald Reagan. Being in a home led by a white father, which isn’t bad, it’s easy to see that Kim grew up “white”. Sure, she was a minority in many ways and likely had connections to her Asian roots, but the environment around her was overwhelmingly white conservative, so she was indoctrinated with that belief structure of Republicanism.
Being partially Asian likely wasn’t a problem since Asian Americans were often treated as “model minorities” and it’s not uncommon for white men to marry Asian women. There’s nothing wrong with interracial marriage or love, yet, in relation to white supremacy, Asian woman are often victims of orientalism, i.e., Asian women are casted or lusted over as being mysterious exotics with submissive and consoling characteristics, and often not burdened by white supremacy as other groups of color traditionally.
Since Asian Americans are often seen to be treated with model minority status (which is a controversial term as stated by Audrea Lin (2018) in which she stated the model-minority myth obscures the vast differences among Asian-Americans), the truth is that Asian woman are often sexualized through orientalism. One could assume that the Far Right does tolerate Asian Americans despite when they need to activate white supremacy against Asian Americans to remind who is “on top of the totem pole”. It might sound off record, but for example with the Alt-Right online communities there is a love of anime for example, where women are often depicted with hyper-sexualized and white-washed features.
Audrea Lin (2018) of The New York Times wrote about white supremacy’s fetish for Asian women in an article titled, The Alt Right’s Asian Fetish. The article discusses how Andrew Anglin (founder of the Daily Stormer), Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich, John Derbyshire, and Kyle Chapman all dated, had sexual relations, and/or married Asian women. Lin (2018) even references Charleston AME Church shooter, Dylan Roof, who stated that Asians “could be great allies of the white race,”. Lin (2018) also references Adolf Hitler, who stated, ““I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves,” Adolf Hitler said in 1945. “They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own.””. Lastly, Lin (2018) interestingly points out that the Alt-Right fetish for Asian woman could be in part due to white women more so adopting feminism.
We must remember that Japan as an Axis power and to this day is a homogenous nation that has visible nationalist parties, paramilitary groups, etc., and this fact of course resonates with the Alt Right. For example, when it comes to showcasing history in the West, history is often dominated by Greco-Roman or Dark Ages European culture, yet, there is a soft spot for the aesthetics of Asian cultures such as that of the Japanese (for example, Samurai), yet, the cultures of let’s say Africa before slavery is pretty much non-existent within mainstream historical documentaries, etc.
Like many minority children living in predominately white spaces or multi-racial children, especially before society started talking about Critical Race Theory, often have a sense of identity crisis. Children of color are often the sole representatives of what other’s think their group is or how they see them on TV. For example, being a black child in suburbia but people assume that child to be like black people they see on TV, i.e., hip, tough, athletic, not academic, etc. Kim likely experienced this to a varying degree. For example, particularly as a female in a white environment and in a nation where beauty standards for the longest were catered to a European aesthetic of beauty, she likely had some issues with identity. Assuming she is cisgender heteronormative, most of the boys she likely liked growing up where obviously white. In other words, she was fitting into a culture that was predominantly white and emulated that culture’s view on the world (remembering this was the 1980s and 1990s – nowhere near as progressive as what we have now), becoming an apologist or defender of that culture, despite always being slightly on “the outside” of it.
If she adopted the worldview, politics, beauty standards, gender roles, and possibly even racial biases or racial lack of awareness (cultural sensitivity) of the predominate group, she was able to fit in and be just like any other kid, yet, I’m sure she’s experienced at least a little racism or ignorance while growing up as a kid.
When Darrell Brooks barreled through a Christmas parade on November 21, 2021, which killed six and injured over 62 people, many in the public, especially on the conservative side of politics, were quick to want to discuss Mr. Brook’s race. This is easy to understand simply because the tragedy happened just a few days after the non-guilty verdict of Kyle Rittenhouse regarding his debacle in Kenosha, Wisconsin at a BLM protest and riot.
Regardless, a week or so later, after the Waukesha Attack and the Rittenhouse Incident, a fifteen-year-old kid from Oxford, Michigan went into his high school, shot 30 rounds, killed four students, and wounded six students. The media never mentioned the shooter’s race (Ethan Crumbley), like how the media didn’t jump on Darrell Brook’s race. Why? If the conservative claim that the MSM (mainstream media) was trying to cover up Darrell Brook’s race were true but wanted to blame white people for everything, then why didn’t CNN or MSNBC immediately release a headline saying, “White Teen of MAGA Family in Michigan Murders Four and Injures Six”? Maybe it is because media, even though it is a business, does still have a level of reporting ethics and integrity guidelines. Even if they have a near monopoly on information, they still must compete and reputation is everything (for example, look how CNN just fired Chris Cuomo, or the NY Times fired Jayson Blair, etc).
This hatred for the “mainstream media” comes from a place in people who want something to objectively blame as being the problem, where the actual problems are outside of the media, i.e., in the material world, within structures, within history, etc. Can media have an effect and steer our minds? Of course, but at the end of the day, they’re just reporting news. So, you can’t just blame media, but really the failures of systems and society at large which creates the stories media talks about. Media is to blame but it’s not the thing to explicitly blame, when really the culprit is the failure of society itself.
It’s easy to blame the media for everything and this is something I do or have done before, so I can admit it. But the news still shows the news, and it serves a purpose. For example, local news stations, which are often affiliated with larger companies, e.g., you might have Fox 5 or 8 or 12 in in your local city which is an affiliate of the larger Fox News umbrella, or CBS this or that, but these local affiliates do show crimes regardless of race. I see criminals of all races on my local news affiliate stations, but these affiliate stations are a part of the mainstream media.
The reason race wasn’t as central immediately to the Oxford and Waukesha cases, in my opinion, is because the Oxford HS shooting and the Waukesha Incident were explicit and undeniable crimes, whereas the Rittenhouse Incident was ambiguous and ambiguity leads to conservation, which leads to easy story lines, commercial breaks for advertisers, conversations, panel expert guests spanning criminal justice experts or college professors on race, opinion pieces, etc.
Oxford and Waukesha were explicit crimes, where both suspects were quickly jailed and charged. Depending on type of crime and the effects those crimes could have on the public, there’s different levels of reporting practices regarding victims. For example, in a terrorism case, I’m sure the reporting practices are much different as to not create a copycat situation, or in the case of mass shootings (which could be argued as being terrorism depending on who is overseeing the case), the victims are often protected while the investigation commences.
The Rittenhouse Incident was different and focused on race because the situation was ambiguous, i.e., a gray zone, and many suspected that he would be acquitted based on his race. There was no chance of acquittal relating to Darrell Brooks. To reiterate, the Oxford and Waukesha cases were explicit crimes, whereas Rittenhouse was an ambiguous case where it tapped more into the conversation around race, criminal justice, the incongruity in sentencing laws, etc.
Think about this way. People brought up race regarding Rittenhouse because there was a chance he would walk, whereas what’s the point in making race central to the Waukesha or Oxford HS situations when there’s no chance the criminals will walk? It’s not like Mr. Brooks is being treated any better because he’s black, when really, he’s now going to facing multiple life sentences and will be found guilty. The fact that Rittenhouse received the appearance of preferential treatment from the judicial system and from supporters in the “MAGA verse” (going so far as crowdfunding a Go Fund Me account) was a sign that his race would play a role in his eventual acquittal.
There is no question as to whether Darrell Brooks and Ethan Crombley belong in jail, because their acts transcend our racial conversation and there’s no doubt that they committed those crimes with inherent criminal motives, whereas the Rittenhouse Incident was a grey zone situation more in alignment with a larger socio-political and racial conversation.
The Oxford and Waukesha Cases being actual crimes without a reasonable doubt didn’t need to be about race because race wasn’t necessarily central, based on what we know, and even if they were, to varying degrees, the sad truth regardless is people are dead because of explicit actions, even if race has nothing to do with the events. Rittenhouse was more of a symbolic figure in a larger cultural debate, hence why race was central to debate. Rittenhouse was about stand-your-ground, gun rights, self-defense, reactionary movements to Black Lives Matters such as Blue Lives Matters or All Lives Matters, Trumpism, etc. Rittenhouse happened to be the focal point of a lot of variable or aesthetics, hence the discussion around him was very verbose, complex, etc., i.e., everyone had an opinion on Rittenhouse that spanned spectrums whereas the other two events, it’s clear cut that both criminals are criminals.
White conservatives and pundits such as Candace Owens (who stated that black people are the most murderous group) or Steve Crowder, rushed to try to bring up the “double standard” of the mainstream media, insinuating that the media is against white people, despite the fact media is still controlled majority wise by white people.
What conservatives hate is that their traditional “mind control” operation over the majority isn’t as strong as it used to be, so they must revert to intensity, straw men, poor comparisons, conspiracy theory, a total disregard of nuance, context, or the fact that residual effects of history still haunt us, etc., to keep the status quote.
Conservatives are constantly trying to seek contrarian “gotcha moments” to appear as if they’re wanting fairness or equity, but really this method is an attempt at reversing any progressive gains the public has adopted, such as being more aware of concepts such as white supremacy or privilege. Basically, they don’t want to advance any conversation, if that advancement means a detriment to their base of power.
Conservatives want to reinforce the traditional narrative of black criminality as a social trend, but when attempts at doing the same towards white America comes, they become super defensive. I like to say, that traditionally the crimes of minorities are always collectivized, whereas the crimes of the white majority are often individualized, e.g., a lone wolf white supremacist, etc. Black people are “criminals” overall, but white people are “bad actors”. The crimes of minorities are allowed to be acknowledged to further stigmatize these groups, but crimes relating to white people could be argued as being selected out as being “bad apples” and not indicative of a larger systemic issue or cultural issue.
In other words, the tides were slowly reversing to how we view race, sociology, crime studies, etc., where it’s not just minorities under the clinical gaze, but now white America is too, and white America since the introduction of social justice, critical theory, etc., in many ways has shown levels of…fragility. Their goal is to constantly try to debunk any progressive claims largely since conservatives represent the status quo, i.e., hierarchy, majority rule (even, the possibility of minority rule by the majority since they fear “losing numbers”), wealth hording, and the disciplinary violence of the state be it police worship, or unilaterally trying to own the romanticism and sacrifice of the military, etc.
Put it this way.
I am black. I grew up my whole life with the weight of America’s perception of black people bearing down on me, even though I wasn’t a criminal or a “thug”, but people associated me with that simply because I was black. Now that the roles slightly reversed, well…welcome to my world.
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.
It seems like old news now…
First off, I don’t hate Russia. I don’t hate the Russian people. I don’t want bad relations with Russia, but find it unfortunate that the current regime decided to protect its sovereignty with such a bipolar ideology which brings back sentiments of fascism. Why? Really? The Cold War ended when I was two years old. I’m one of those “older” Millennials born before the Berlin Wall fell. I lived in Germany as a kid as well, being an Army Brat, and there was such optimism in the air. The German people were the loving, accepting, anti-war, and curious about the world, and here I am, just a small American kid witnessing the joy. Eastern Europe was excited too. I’m in in my thirties now, but I first saw Putin on TV when I was in the seventh grade… He’s still in power.
I think Russia has a rich culture, history, literary tradition, cinema pioneering tradition, vast wilderness, etc. So, it is not the Russian people that I am concerned with, since they like all people are just under their respective governments, but rather the strategies and maneuvering of the current political regime. There’s been a re-branding process from that old autocratic Communism that build off of older Monarchist serfdom, with what’s now effectively fascism. Sure, oligarchs might own NBA or Premier League soccer teams. Their maybe be glistening futuristic skylines with GAP, Versace, and BMW dealerships. Yet, there is a type of fascism there, appearing as a democracy, but still retaining the underlying psychological underpinnings of Soviet control. It seems Putin remodeled Russia with traditionalist Orthodoxy as a type of marketing attempt to appeal to the fears of segments of the Western and American conservative constituency – a base with a sense of losing a sense of national identity in the face of what they see as the “failures of globalism and Western liberalism, i.e., free-markets and human rights for all”. A rabid Trump supporter or Meme artist would simply utter, “Muh, Russia”, yet, I’m sorry, politics or the games of Team Red or Team Blue, don’t mean much to me on this matter.
It was not far after the election of Donald Trump and then the eventual unveiling of the Russia-gate situation, that I was sitting on my couch after work, and something odd hit me. Russia; Putin’s annexation of Crimea; the expansionist and quasi-Occultism to Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasianism ideology of his New Bolshevik Party… Chinese and Russian ties regarding the Belt-and-Road Imitative, also known as the New Silk Road Project. Trump… MAGA… Israel with Netanyahu… Is this out of a science-fiction book? I know it sounds strange.
But, imagine yourself at home, watching TV, and you’re hearing the Russia-gate case unfold. If you’ve read Card’s works, and remember them, then a sudden shock might have hit you.
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 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 young children in adult war-games in order to become future commanders of Earth’s next fight with an alien nemesis (you can disregard the science fiction background). Bean while at Battle School, leaning about geopolitics, assesses the world’s political situation for the reader.
While Bean reads, on page 400, it is said, “When the Buggers showed up, China had just emerge 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.” Before I go on, in other posts, I will tie these quotes to the geopolitical analysis provided by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book titled, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. However, I am not endorsing Mr. Brzezinski but will reference his book to find similarities between the books I’m referencing in this post.
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. More on his Fourth Politics strategy to come later, but really, it sounds like he removed Lenin-Trotsky (on the surface at least) and inserted Blavatsky. I mean there’s no real surprise that the Nazis tried to find their “origins” in areas which were rich in resources and strategically beneficial. The Occult ideology serves as a type of “wall paper” for Putin’s, not necessarily the Russian people’s, ambitions.
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. 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). I find this last quote interesting, not I’m not advocating for Iran, per se, but it would present a different approach to US foreign policy if the Americans and Iranians were on good terms, particularly with a Sino-Russian alliance as a possibility. However, the United States commitment to Israel, especially against its enemies such as Hezbollah, and the history of strained US-Iranian relations regarding regime changes, oil nationalization and the rise of the Ayatollah, has hurt this possibility, though the possibility of peace is always possible.
This all sounds strange, but bare in mind that contradictions avail themselves while these real-world happenings unfold themselves. For example, Erik Prince, the “former” leader of Blackwater Private Military Group and a noted Zionist was noted in mainstream publications for working with the Chinese-based Frontier Service Group on the bold infrastructure project, a project which has included human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur population of the ancient Western Chinese deserts (a region full of Indo-European undertones which meshes well with the Manifest Destiny in Dugin’s Eurasianism ideology. Think about the Nazis searching for their “origins” in the Far East). From a peaceful standpoint, particularly for a war-weary United States and Europe, it seems good on the surface, but this view doesn’t take into account the other factors relating to our changing world. These factors include the fact that Russia is close with Israel; Russia has ties to China, and all three nations have ties to the Chinese Belt-and-Road Initiative, i.e., New Silk Road Project.
In this next section before I go on, I assure you that I am not antisemitic. I don’t think the “Jews run everything”. From an American perspective, especially one birthed within the twentieth-century, the American Jewish community is an important cultural asset, which was contributed to the arts, entertainment, Civil Rights, technology, medicine, and politics. I grew up with a fond appreciation and Americana relating to Jewish America. I find Holocaust denial repulsive. Most are just like everyone else just trying to live their lives.
Yet, it is my personal belief that the Israeli government under Netanyahu did most of the hacking to the US political system, even if it were just social media campaigns to support Trump, though China and Russia also participated for their own personal interests. It’s the game. The Israelis were spared the US media backlash, because the US media has historically kept internal Israeli politics out of the American frame of sight, despite the loyalty to Israel through movements such as Christian Evangelicalism. The US seems to value this relationship based on cultural and political bonds, yet, Israel as a sovereign state committed to self-determination, continuity of its borders, and expansion of its borders to the Biblical Kingdom of David. The Israelis, or rather elements of the Israeli state, seem to be looking more Eastward for future prospects. We have to realize that many Israelis and US Jews are of Eastern European descent, largely from areas such as the old Pale Settlements in modern day Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic Region, and Russia. With Israel strategically located closer to Russia, it seems the “Defenders of the Holy Land” is a card that factions of the Israeli Knesset are willing to pull from the USA and bestow upon the Orthodox Imperium of the Russia sphere. We also have to realize that Putin is close with the Chabad community, and in it could be argued that the Russian mob, is in effect also, or partially connected to the Jewish mob based out of Russia.
Further, Israel’s future economic ties with China are invaluable. The little-known Russia state of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, that was founded by Joseph Stalin in Russia’s far-east is strategically located next to a corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative. There’s money to be made in expanded international commerce between West and East. If Israel, China, and Russia were to unite, it would be a strong military pact of nuclear powers encircling the resource rich and black-market crucial areas of Eurasia. Russia was singled out as the more politically viable option, because A) The United States values the Israel relationship for both cultural and strategic reasons, B) China posses the most military and economic risks to the United States, and C) Russia wants to restore itself to a major world-player and has “stunted” on the US and West.
Wherever the Americans are, the Russians are right behind to provide an alternate public statement, insinuating constant US aggression. From the late GW Bush Era through the Obama Era, the Russian government has been unfolding a type of strategic multi-platformed chess strategy. I mean Putin is into Judo and the martial arts. Knocking you off course and using your momentum against you. Letting you overexert and exhaust your resources, just to kick you down, and stand over you, with a smug smirk. We’ve seen the Georgian-Russian conflict regarding South Ossetia; the annexation of Crimea; the Sochi Winter Olympics as a showcase of Putin’s New Russia; the shutting off of gas pipelines to Europe; the spreading of Soft-Power such as purchases of Western real-estate, sport teams, and even, good ole Pabst Blue Ribbon. We’ve also seen the establishment of more pipelines with Germany and Turkey, but also propaganda campaigns ranging from giving Eric Snowden safe-haven as the NSA was blasted for the collection of meta-data,
Then we have the online “Chaos Magick” campaign which has seen parts of the Alternative Conservative movement become…compromised. By Chaos Magick, I don’t mean the Occult, though Dugin is inspired by the Occult, but I mean postmodern warfare: meme campaigns, anti-West conspiracy theories, bloggers, YouTubers, etc. From a youth perspective, there’s an easy gateway even in black and death metal circles, since the paganism and atheistic undertones feeds back into a type of Blood-and-Soil politics. I’m not calling out these genres, because honestly, I enjoy some metal music, and not all, or most of it is racist.
Anyways, pundits such as Lauren Southern, formerly of Rebel Media, went to Russia to interview Dugin. RedIce’s founder, Henrik Palmgren’s wife, Laura Lokteff, is of Russian descent. Richard Spencer’s wife, Nina Kouprianova, is of Russian descent, though their marriage ended, which is public record. Even Jay Dyer, whom one could call a conspiracy theorist, though I enjoy some of his works and to his credit, he is only reading the books of others (though we all have our own bias and spin), actually converted to Orthodoxy and has appeared on RedIceTV. In Mr. Dyer’s in-depth analysis of geopolitical history, I do notice that when he projects forward it’s arguably pro-Russian. I’m not sure what to make of the guy. It is not a crime to be these things at all, yet, he converted to Orthodoxy (which is not a crime), but never shows both sides of the larger debate and keeps the focus on the “degenerate West”, but rarely presents an objective Russian analysis. I repeat, I have no issue with Russia. I’m not insinuating that Russian people are inherently bigoted, but there is a specific movement within the United States with certain links to Russia.
Yet, to end this, The “Deep State” in my personable view was disappointed at Israeli hacks, but valuing that Israeli relationship it was easier to call out the Russian hacks, since, well, Russia poses a military risk, whereas Israel is still a partner, though it’s free to court new suitors. Yet, by calling out the Russian hacks and beginning an investigation, the general public would eventually come to the Israel sources, without the US government having to make an official statement.
Citations
Card, O. S. (2000). Shadow of the Hegemon. New York: Tor.
Mitchell Research Group 