Amos's River of Justice

Tag: Donald Trump

  • Neo-Gnostic Myth in American Politics

    I may have found the book behind the 2016 attack on progressivism. It’s Guido Giacomo Preparata’s The Ideology of Tyranny: The Use of Neo-Gnostic Myth in American Politics. 1 It explains the outrageous backlash that brought us Donald Trump as well as the behavior of the Democrats. But there are a few gaps in the narrative.

    The Unspoken Fear of the American Establishment

    It doesn’t explain the timing of Donald Trump’s attack on the ‘Democrat’ Party or his lack of attention on the progressive movement.

    You will recall that it was the Democrats who fought Sanders most ferociously in the 2015-16 Democratic primary. The Party was not facing much criticism before that. In retrospect, this was probably due to the fact that Donald Trump was not a serious contender for power until after the rise of Bernie Sanders.

    During the general election he never focused on the progressive movement. He merely pranced around acting like Bernie while pretending not to notice him.

    The strangeness continues today. The Democrats don’t mention progressives except to burn them in effigy whenever they see fit. And all the while, Trump’s ire is focused solidly on the Democrats.

    Preparata’s Attack is Really Aimed at Liberalism

    Preparata’s description of the Democratic Party is accurate from a progressive point of view. However, it’s revealing that his views seem to have become a textbook for the radical right. You would think the Right would want to keep the Democratic establishment in place. One of the Party’s goals after all, according to Preparata, was to squash resistance to the Right while giving lip service to the poor and working class. But of course Donald Trump’s Right is another matter. It seems Preparata’s (and Trump’s) attack is really aimed at Liberalism.

    Preparata’s Trigger Words

    All of the trigger words that send the opposition into a rage are in this book: diversity, political correctness, feminism, academia. These words have become bogeymen in their own right, perhaps because Preparata traces them to occult beliefs. And while he insists that both parties are to blame, his focus gradually becomes clear. Liberalism in general is not worth saving. And the majority of the blame for this state of affairs goes to the Democratic Party.

    Why Do They Ignore Progressives?

    When I think of the hopeful days after we first discovered Bernie Sanders and Pope Francis I could cry. We represented the one new and living thing that happened in my lifetime and the establishment squashed it without batting an eye. And make no mistake, the progressive movement was the target of both parties.

    What Exactly are we Fighting?

    Much of the establishment’s behavior during those years fits Preparata’s scenario. Both parties colluded to keep Bernie out of the White House. His description of the Democrats is also accurate. They seem comically incapable of mounting a resistance to Trump. But what exactly are we fighting?

    If everything Preparata says is correct, there is no happy ending to the process Donald Trump has initiated. His reign has no redeeming qualities.

    The Curious Case of the Epstein Files

    The MAGA Movement clearly believes pedophiles operate within the Democratic Party. Preparata’s book might be the source of this belief. However, the Trump Administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files does not fit Preparata’s scenario. What can explain this?

    The ‘Democrat’ Party’s Genealogy According to Preparata

    Preparata traces the Democratic Party’s inability to resist authoritarians to Michel Faucault. And Faucault’s inspiration was Georges Bataille. For his part, Bataille was fascinated by violent pre-Christian orgiastic cults and wanted to infiltrate the collective mind of bourgeois society in order to confuse and redirect it.

    The final objective being that of disabusing the potential convert by reconciling him or her to the spontaneous brutality of life and nature. Finally, Bataille’s social dream was to see men, after they have undergone this kind of initiation, create communities that would celebrate the mystery of collective life much in the fashion of the ancient orgiastic cults, which fascinated him so deeply. (Preparata, p. 9)

    From Bataille to Foucault: the Politics of Diversity

    This project never took off in Bataille’s time, but it is influential today. Preparata argues that Foucault later became part of this movement and made it more respectable. Among other things, his efforts led to a division of the population into identities that were never meant to be reconciled.

    Thus, with uncommon disingenuousness, feminism, homo-sexuality, and nonwhite ethnicity have been granted by the white establishment peer status in the grand arena of public discourse–through, for example, proclamations, exclusive legislation such as Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, and ad hoc academic departments. (Preparata p. 10)

    I assume this argument is the inspiration behind MAGA’s rhetoric. But if we follow Preparata’s logic, it’s strange how useful the concept has been to Trump. It’s like a script for Trump’s authoritarianism, which Preparata claims to reject.

    Michel Foucault

    According to Preparata, the politics of diversity is an academic treatment of Foucault’s Power/Knowledge. Power/Knowledge is a re-elaboration of a creed invented by Bataille in the prewar era. This relationship of ideas gives Preparata leeway to focus solely on Bataille’s vision. In fact, he carries on as if Foucault is Bataille.

    Taking Preparata’s Word For It

    Perhaps the two men really are interchangeable. Most of us are not familiar enough with either one of them to say for sure. But it’s important to keep in mind that we are now talking about Bataille and not Faucault. And it’s not quite that simple. We are also talking about Bataille’s interpretation of James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, all of which, we mustn’t forget, has been kept alive in the ideas of Faucault.

    We will have to take Preparata’s word that these connections are real and that they support the picture he is presenting. In the process, we should take advantage of any clues he provides. For example, Preparata uses the word ‘polarities’. This concept is important to the radical right-wing.

    Polarities

    According to Preparata, sacredness, like Kali, might have two faces (or polarities)–a clean countenance and a foul underside. The two faces are divided by the barrier of the taboo, which is periodically broken during the saturnalia. Taboo was also broken in cyclical wars.

    “Sacred filth” is, say, menstrual blood, which has filled men with dread for a long time and given rise as a result to a variety of prohibitions (taboos) affecting pubescent females. (Preparata p. 17)

    Was Epstein the Head of a New Religion?

    Frazer claimed that modern civilizations have not given up these rites because they satisfy their archaic craving for scapegoating and solemn murder by executing criminals…

    Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as Leyden jar is charged with electricity: and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical virtue in a man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid.2

    From this, Bataille derived imagery that would become a type of theology–“a theology contemplating the clustering of a congregation around a sacred core by means of a peculiar bonding energy.” 3

    Foucault used this conception in his work, Power/Knowledge.

    1. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. ↩︎
    2. See Berube, Radical Reformers, p. 24.) ↩︎
    3. Kepel, A l’ouest d’Allah, p. 76. ↩︎

  • Can Democrats Criticize the Enlightenment?

    Can democrats criticize the Enlightenment? In Harold Kaplan’s analysis of modern literature, he doesn’t criticize the Enlightenment (late 17th to early 19th century), but he mentions it as a timeframe for a modern state of mind which has been detrimental to western thought.1 He doesn’t criticize the Enlightenment in Democratic Humanism and American Literature either.2 He mentions it rarely, for example when he mentions that Melville’s ‘insights deserted the confident ideas of the Enlightenment’. Kaplan is a democrat. His analysis of Democratic humanism analyzes how well the writers of American classics defended democracy.

    (more…)

  • A Progressive View of the 2024 Election

    This article is a progressive view of the 2024 election. This is just the way I see it. It’s the result of watching the electoral process very closely since 2015, but I could be wrong on any point. It’s value to me is that it refutes many of the strategic mistakes I see in the political conversation. I think the following factors are important for decision-making in 2024. What do you think?

    • The political establishment is able to stop the progressive agenda in its tracks. Progressives should have learned this in the 2016 election.
    • Donald Trump is part of the establishment. That explains why the Biden Administration has continued many of Trump’s foreign policies. However, President Biden has cooperated with progressives in domestic policy. Biden achieved many important policy changes as a result. We seem to be looking at two different factions within the government.
    • Kamala Harris is a legitimate alternative to Donald Trump. However, Harris supporters of all political persuasions lament that she does not have the particular policies they want her to have. I believe this is evidence of a blindness to the reality that progressives were forced to learn in 2016, and which was repeated in 2020.
    • Biden and Kamala Harris as his VP have taken the progressives seriously. We don’t know if this will continue with a Harris presidency. Nevertheless, anyone who tells you that you have a choice in this particular election is leading you astray.
    • Kamala Harris is a good soldier, or she would not be the Democratic candidate for president. However, she may now have, or she may develop in the course of her presidency, a more nuanced agenda. We won’t know until we elect her.
    • Kamala represents a new generation of leadership. The entire political establishment is past its prime. Republicans admit this fact. The Democratic establishment still thinks it dodged a bullet in defeating Bernie Sanders.
    • The Green Party in the United States acts as an electoral pied piper for progressives. So does Donald Trump. Trump plays the part of the dancing fascist, partly as a way to distract the electorate.
    • It is well-known that Donald Trump has had ties with the Mob. This brings up some interesting questions. Mafias need states to make money. They earn money by providing services for these states. One of these services is helping certain candidates win elections. Therefore, it is very interesting that Trump is proposing to dismantle the US government bureaucracy. Trump’s Mob ties suggest the US ‘state’ is not going away. Apparently, Trump is serving its most extreme faction.
    • This extreme faction had no plan until the progressives developed their agenda in 2015. That’s how the right operates. Conservatives don’t propose new ideas. They only react to progressive proposals.
    • Trump is both a fraud and a real threat. He is an actor in someone else’s play. That has always been his role in the US government.
    • Mara-a-Lago has flood insurance through the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program. Trump once took a $17 million insurance payment for damage that no one remembers happening.
    • Trump put on quite an act when he teased us with the release of the JFK assassination files. Trump probably knows exactly who killed JFK and he doesn’t need the files to give him this information.
    • Donald Trump had a meeting with Bill Clinton immediately before he announced his candidacy in 2015. Perhaps the events are not connected. Bill should explain this.
    • Hillary Clinton received a large sum of money in 2016, after she was defeated. The Clintons used it to purchase the estate next to theirs in New York. Their daughter Chelsea and her family have the use of that estate when she visits her parents.
    • I believe the loss of the 2016 election surprised Hillary. It was a crushing blow. Trump was probably surprised as well. He thought he was only there to defeat Sanders. I’ll bet Bill was not surprised.
    • This does not mean that the 2024 election is not meaningful. If we fail to defeat Trump in this election, he will do exactly as he says he is going to do and no one will stop him. Trump will continue to behave as a fascist if he is elected, although he won’t have free rein.

  • Why No one Denies Anything to Netanyahu

    Why No One Denies Anything to Netanyahu
    Dolphin-class Submarine

    In a Neutrality Studies interview, Professor Dr. Dr. H.C. Wolfgang Streeck explains why no one denies anything to Netanyahu. They fear he might use nuclear weapons on his neighbors. This interview was based on an article Dr. Streeck wrote on this subject in December of 2023.

    If Streeck is correct, this explains President Biden’s unwavering support of Israel’s brutality during an election year. It also suggests why Biden’s support of Israel is not unique among American leaders, including Donald Trump. Nor is it unique to the United States. Aside from South Africa no government has done anything to stop Netanyahu.

    None of this is Biden’s fault. It’s not even the fault of the United States. That might sound strange. Lately, everything seems like the fault of the United States. But the most likely culprits have escaped notice. The United States did not create the overarching threat of nuclear weapons in Israeli hands. France was the first country to supply Israel with the ability to make nuclear weapons. Germany has contributed to Israel’s expansion and nuclear arsenal since World War II. The Israelis now have a ‘tripod’, which means submarines, missiles, and fighter jets. Their huge fleet of fighter planes is capable of going to Tehran and back without refueling, and while carrying a nuclear payload. And their Dolphin-class submarines are capable of being fitted with nuclear warheads.

    The nuclear arsenal of Israel is not just playing a part in the strategic decisions of Israel, but in the behavior of its neighbors. It is estimated that Israel has about 400 nuclear warheads of different kinds. By some estmates, Israel has the most technologically sophisticated nuclear arsenal, just behind or on par with the US.

    And it gets worse. The Israelis haven’t admitted they have nuclear weapons. This means there are no inspections and no formal nuclear policies. That’s serious enough, but when you consider that Israel’s neighbors in the the Middle East don’t have nuclear weapons at all, you begin to understand why Netanyahu feels so free to butcher the Palestinians. Israel’s neighbors in the Middle East offer no deterrence to Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

    How did this happen? France’s contribution took place before the Unite States entered the world stage. Germany’s contributions have been taking place since World War II. After the war the Germans were being supervised by the United States. However, they did some things on their own initiative.

    Streeck blames Germany’s courting of Israel on an absence of an identity, its dependence on the United States, and its pariah status. For these reasons, the Germans thought it was important to have some kind of good relations with Israel. After 1949, there was a conversation about reparations between Germany and Israel’s David Ben-Gurion. They discussed what Germany could do as compensation for the Holocaust. Ben-Gurion was quite clear that he needed support for expansion in Palestine, and Germany gave him that support. More recently, Germany has supplied Israel with six Dolphin-class submarines capable of being fitted with nuclear warheads. That’s how Streeck explains it anyway.

    I would put it this way: Germany made an alliance with Jews who happen to live in the most strategic location in the Middle East. Out of guilt. Never mind that every conqueror in the modern age has had designs on that place, incuding Hitler. But back to the interview.

    The fact that the Israeli government can pursue the strategy they are now pursuing has something to do with their confidence that if American public policy weakens US support, they have their own tools. So, there is a sort of intelligence feedback loop. The Americans are aware that if they don’t support Israeli policy in relation to Palestine, the Israelis will do it themselves. Then Israel might do things that are out of the control of the United States.

    I was worried before watching this interview by suggestions for electoral stategy in the US. There are journalists who say we can’t vote for Joe Biden because of his part in the genocide of Gaza. Some say outright that Trump is a better choice. It’s hard to explain these comments from reasonable people. We know that President Donald Trump helped Netanyahu’s reelection chances. He did this by recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heighs. Israel illegally seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, and since then every American administration has considered it ‘occupied’ territory. But not Trump. Trump also moved the US embassy to Jerusalem against the wishes of the Palestinians. And, since October 7, candidate Trump has assured Israel of his support.

    I agree that the US should support Israel when it is attacked by Hamas, but electing an eratic character like Trump is not the solution. Trump is no more concerned about the Palestinians than Netanyahu.

    Another thing to consider is whether this attack on Gaza is part of a strategy to elect Trump. If Netanyahu prefers Trump to Biden, which I think he does, humiliating Biden would be a good way to help Trump. And if Streeck is right, there’s nothing Biden can do about it.

    If you’re waiting for my suggestion of who you should vote for, you may have missed the point of this article. I predict that Netanyahu will continue to pound the Palestinians until the election. And if that’s what he wants to do, no one will stop him.

  • Rosicrucians and Fallen Angels in American Politics

    Rosicrucians, Fallen Angels, American Politics
    Fallen Angels

    Is magic a left-wing thing?

    Accusations of leftist magic leveled by right-wing members of Congress led me to research the question, is magic a left-wing thing? The closest connection I was aware of was the association of the drug culture of the 1960s with shamanism. It seems to me the right-wing is more magical-minded. It turns out the story of magical politics in 2016 begins by blaming the left for the whole phenomenon. Bothsidism is apparently the handmaid of American politics, even its weirdest manifestations. This is the story of Rosicrucians and Fallen Angels in American politics.

    The magical theory of politics

    Egil Asprem’s article about the magical theory of politics came up first in search results. The article indicates that the magic war is currently serving a right-wing agenda. The left is included in the discussion because it’s such a perfect target.

    Three camps of belligerents in the magic war

    Asprem distinguishes three camps of ‘belligerents’ in the magic war over Donald Trump: The Cult of Kek; the Magic Resistance; and the Magic Reaction. The Magic Resistance is where the left comes in. Asprem cites an article published on Medium by Michael M. Hughes, a left-leaning author and lecturer. Published on February 16, 2017, it was entitled A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him. Hughes suggested that a ritual be performed at midnight on every crescent moon until Trump is removed from office.

    The magic resistance and the media

    We can’t tell from Hughes’s own comments how serious he intended this effort to be. Asprem defines it as “a social media-coordinated protest movement leveraging the trappings of magic and witchcraft to mobilize resistance against the incumbent United States president and his administration.” It was the media coverage that made the magical resistance hard to ignore. The first event took place on February 24, 2017. The ‘movement’ was given coverage on social media and in magazines such as Elle, Dazed, Vanity Fair, and Vox. It’s not clear how many people actually participated in the initial event, and the numbers quickly diminished. But the movement earned equal billing with the right in the magical drama. This event supposedly inspired the Magical Reaction.

    QAnon, the Cult of Kek and Donald Trump

    In my opinion, the most disturbing discovery in Asprem’s article is a date that connects Donald Trump’s nomination as GOP presidential candidate, with 4chan’s /pol/ board. There was an unlikely coincidence involving the Cult of Kek, 4chan, 8chan, and QAnon. Since it predicted Trump’s victory in the presidential race, the question arises whether this association had help. This was the magical reaction.

    According to Asprem, there is “a particular form of playful superstition on 4chan”.

    Posts on 4chan are consecutively given an identifying number (currently nine digits, reflecting the fact that the total number of posts number in the billions). Due to the very high posting frequency (over one million a day, in 2018), it is impossible for a user to predict exactly what the last few digits will be when posting. This has given rise to a phenomenon where certain numbers, patterns, and repetitions of numbers–especially repeating digits, labeled “dubs,” “trips,” “quads,” and so on–are considered particularly auspicious. This phenomenon is related to a wider practice known as GET, by which posters on an image board would attempt to score certain integer sequences considered “special” (e.g. posts number 123456789, 1000000, or 555555555). Themes, memes, or users that frequently “GET,” or that just score many dubs and trebs, are considered special, allowing for hidden patterns and connections to emerge in the minds of users. During the primaries and the presidential campaign, a perception formed on /pol/ that Trump and Pepe memes were doing just this. For example, on 19 June 2016, a post on 4chan’s /p/ board with the text “Trump will win” achieved the remarkable GET 77777777. A web of significance was gradually spun, in the usual post-ironic way, in which Trump was divinely selected, the god selecting him was Kek, and the Pepe meme was one of the god’s many manifestations.

    The Fallen Angel Azazel and Republican Resistance to Trump’s nomination

    July 19, 2016 also connects the Rosicrucians to the current political turmoil.  That is the date when the fallen angel Azazel was supposed to rise from his earthly imprisonment.

    All things considered, this coincidence might have something to do with the scene that took place at the Republican National Convention after Trump’s nomination.

    Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions put Trump’s name up for the nomination shortly before 6 p.m. ET. The nomination was seconded by New York Rep. Chris Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse him.

    “Donald Trump is the singular leader that can get this country back on track,” Sessions said while nominating Trump.

    (It is likely Jeff Sessions is a 33rd Degree Freemason.)

    Particularly outraged was the Washington, D.C., delegation, which held its convention in March and attempted to award 10 votes to Marco Rubio and nine to John Kasich. But convention officials announced the rules merit Trump be award all 19 delegates from the nation’s capital.

    “This is an outrage, and this is a reason the Republican Party is turning off a lot of voters,” a Kasich delegate from D.C. said on MSNBC.

    After Trump had clinched the nomination, the Alaskan delegation contested how its vote total was recorded. They originally requested 12 votes go to Ted Cruz, 11 to Trump and 5 to Rubio, but the RNC recorded all 28 votes to Trump. However, the appeal was unsuccessful because, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus said, all the votes went to Trump because Rubio and Cruz suspended their campaigns…

    The official nomination came on the second day of what has been a rocky start to the convention. An effort Monday to protest Trump’s candidacy on the convention floor fell short, but not before images of chaos unseen in recent conventions played out on live television.

    See also: Neocons Erased George Kennan

  • Steve Bannon is a Pretend Traditionalist

    I recently found a key date that confirms my suspicions about Steve Bannon’s so-called Traditionalism.  I’ve long suspected that Bannon isn’t a real traditionalist. To be clear, Bannon is not a real traditionalist in the same sense that Donald Trump was never a real candidate.  Bannon piggy-backed on this conversation in the same way that Donald Trump piggy-backed on Bernie’s campaign.  We know Trump had no constituents when he started.  He had to hire actors to attend his first rallies. Steve Bannon is a pretend Traditionalist. He’s just trying to give depth and meaning to his audacious power-grab.

    Teitelbaum’s Book Probably Gives Bannon Too Much Credit

    In his book about Steve Bannon and the populist right, The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right, 1 Benjamin R. Teitelbaum says he first became aware of Bannon’s Traditionalism in 2016. On the one hand, he gives Bannon too much credit as a traditionalist. But I’m comparing Bannon’s version to the Traditionalism of the early twentieth century. It’s always had authoritarian tendencies, but it used to have a coherent worldview.  He’s right as far as he goes–as an ideology it has shed its coherent worldview and lost much of its luster. All that’s left is its claim to authority.

    Amid startling political gains for nationalist, anti-immigrant forces in the twenty-first century, Traditionalists on the right appeared to be carrying on with a fantasy role-playing game-like Dungeons & Dragons for racists…It was the sort of thing that “serious,” practical-minded activists on the radical right fled from as they charged toward burgeoning political opportunities and the chance to brand themselves as viable leaders.

    Teitelbaum goes on to describe his surprise that ‘an individual with such remarkable power and influence’ (Steve Bannon) had been recorded name-dropping Traditionalism’s key figures (like Rene Guenon).  He couldn’t believe someone like Bannon would even know about Traditionalism.

    What is Bannon Really Up To?

    Teitelbaum was right the first time.  Steve Bannon fits his definition of a typical Traditionalist on the right. However, Bannon represents its modern guise. He has no ideas of his own so he uses Traditionalism as a cloak.  He’s really a hyperactive trickster whose first impulse in 2016 was to steal the show.

    At the Least, Traditionalism Deserves to Be Correctly Represented as a Historical Phenomenon

    I’ve been talking about Rene Guenon since 2015. I wrote What Does Theology Have to do with Life? in March of 2015.  I wrote Transgender Rights, Same-Sex Marriage and Women in November of 2015.  I wrote Can We Talk About Patriarchy? in May of 2016.

    We would do well to ignore the piggy-backers and freeloaders on the conversation.

  • Who Are the Progressives’ Friends?

    I’m not trying to end to our conversation with people in these categories.  I’m trying to clarify the position of progressives by comparison with competing voices in the “progressive” movement.  I put progressive in quotation marks because there are non-progressive participants in this movement. In fact, there are categories of participants that we may not be aware of. I’m thinking of socially conservative Marxists, progressive Trump supporters, and the Greeks. Everyone who differs with us is important for purposes of comparison if nothing else. But who are the progressives’ friends?

    We can learn from our exchanges with them if we have the courage to ask hard questions and disagree when necessary.  But if we keep silent about our differences the conversation can’t help but be empty and purposeless, and it will become vulnerable to special interests.  The consequences of capitulation on our part will no doubt be very unpleasant.

    Aside from enriching our debates, many of these ‘voices’ have served our causes.  One individual in particular has worked hard to advance our agenda for the environment.  We could not have accomplished the things Pope Francis has accomplished in such a short time and I plan to remember what he has done and honor him for his service to us.  However, I think the time has come to identify what is American in the progressive conversation and for that matter, what is progressive about it.

    Occupy Wall Street and Marxism

    Since Occupy Wall Street burst on the scene we’ve seen a lot of Marxist rhetoric from the alternative media.  Most people who subscribe to these channels don’t know anything about Marxism except that it claims to be a solution to our present troubles.  Likewise, they don’t know anything about Occupy Wall Street.

    Unfortunately, it is likely that the agenda some of our allies are espousing will keep everything the same.  For example Caleb Maupin, a “Marxist” on YouTube, has been insisting that Marxism has always been socially conservative.  This is a direct challenge to progressive support for Roe v Wade. Similar to right-wing pundits, he resorts to a litany of Margaret Sanger’s racism and Malthusianism to justify his position and to ‘prove’ that Roe v Wade was a misguided piece of legislation from the beginning.

    It is also important for progressives to speak frankly about Roe v Wade and how it constrains our conversation.  The right for a woman to obtain an abortion–which is a medical procedure and not technically a political issue–is a very low bar as far as women’s rights are concerned. It is sad that we are forced to continually fight for it.  Unfortunately, the fight for Roe v Wade, which is already the law of the land, is as progressive as we are allowed to be in this political climate.  I regret this situation while I acknowledge the fight as necessary.  I also regret the way we are forced to be cheerleaders for abortion in response to conservatives’ obsession with it.

    Was Occupy Wall Street Socially Conservative?

    I believe Maupin was associated with Occupy Wall Street, which also claimed to have a Marxist foundation. Was OWS proposing socially conservative policies too?  This possible association is pretty enlightening, given that OWS temporarily took over our conversation in its early days. Were they proposing their own agenda for the conversation?

    This leads me to wonder whether the mutual admiration expressed between OWS and Vatican II Catholics indicates a deeper alliance than we realize.  Again, this is not a rejection of their ideas.  It is a request for clarification.

    For progressives, social conservatism usually implies control of women. This is not a progressive position.

    Reproductive Rights Are Not Faith-based

    Some will say that women have always dealt with social control and the country has more important things to worry about at this time.  That may be true, but what if the problems we are facing are a result of our culture’s control of women?   I’ve written about this in the past and I will write more in the future.

    Marxism on Population Control

    Another Marxist, Loren Goldner, claims that humans don’t have population limits like other species do because humans continually interact with the environment to create new environments.

    The universalism of Marx rests on a notion of humanity as a species distinct from other species in its capacity to periodically revolutionize its means of extracting wealth from nature, and therefore is free from the relatively fixed laws of population which nature imposes on other species.2

    This is clearly a matter of faith and I completely disagree with it.  I also believe it is contrary to the progressive agenda which advocates slowing population growth as much as possible and finding ways to care for the population we do have.  It is my understanding that this is the reason we fight for better management of the environment.

    Marx and Engels Use Class Analysis for Male-Female Relations

    Goldner’s praise of Marx and Engels on the importance of quality relations between men and women falls into this discussion about how humanity creates its own environment.  Basically Marxists deal with this issue under the heading of class.  This of course, diminishes the standing of women. On the contrary, I would argue that male-female relations are in a class of their own.

    Male-female relations should be decided by customs within the extended family, not by Marxist theory or work arrangements. However, Marxists don’t want to talk about this any more than capitalists do.  They would prefer to discuss same-sex marriage and gender rights. That way, they don’t have to make any changes to the fundamental position of women.

    Same-Sex Marriage and Trans Rights

    I agree that discrimination against gays and trans-people must be illegal, but the interesting thing in this development is the lack of attention to the position of women.  Why do we see this convergence of the left and right on women?

    It is clear to me that right-wing talking points, regardless of whether they come from the right or the left, cannot refute the current progressive movement.  Our agenda is the only sensible response being offered at this time to the realities of human existence.  But if the “Marxists” are successful in winning over the progressive movement, nothing will change because their policy proposals are identical to the Right and the Democratic establishment in the only ways that really matter. They negatively influence our relationship with nature and the way our culture deals with women.

    Loren Goldner on Marx and Civil Society

    Goldner envisions the following options given our current predicament:

    The fundamental question before the international left today is whether or not Marx was (as this writer believes) right to think that civil society could be abolished…on a higher level (which preserves and deepens the positive historical achievements of civil, that is, bourgeois society) and not on a lower level, as happened in Soviet-type societies. The second question, which follows hard on the first, is: if Marx was wrong about the critique of civil society, and was in fact a protototalitarian, what, if anything remains valid in his critique of political economy and its programmatic implications?…

    I haven’t yet said anything under the heading of progressive Trump supporters.  It seems to me this category overlaps with the people who supported Jill Stein in 2016 and those who are now arguing that Trump is better on foreign policy than Biden.  It also overlaps with those who have been refuting the DNC’s claim of Russian interference.

    I agree that the DNC is an embarrassment in many ways, but their opponents’ arguments verge on support for Putin, who is seen by many Christians as a champion for Christianity.  I would argue that there is one good reason to vote for Joe Biden and it can’t be rationalized in order to drum up support for Trump.

    Trump’s Covid Response

    During the covid19 pandemic Donald Trump has actually carried out policies that he knew would kill more people in blue states, and especially people of color.  In other words, he has not only admitted to homicidal tendencies, he has acted on this impulse.  Any progressive who argues that we should consider Trump as a candidate should not be trusted.  We don’t know if Joe Biden will be better, but at least he has not admitted to being homicidal!

    Unfortunately, the DNC is replaying Hillary’s 2016 choice of a vice presidential running mate.  Biden’s new running mate, Kamala Harris, is like a clone of Tim Kaine in her unpopularity with progressives.  Therefore I think it is possible that the Democrats don’t want to win in 2020 and that they didn’t want to win in 2016.  The only choice left to us is to turn out in such large numbers that Joe Biden wins in spite of himself.

  • Neoliberalism and the New Right v Democracy

    The Russian collusion debate was straight-forward to begin with. The Clinton campaign accused the Russians of hacking the DNC’s email account. They claimed Russia did this in order to embarrass the Democrats and swing the election to Trump. This was supposed to explain Hillary’s loss. The Left rejected this explanation only to ignore a bigger battle. This battle is Neoliberalism and the New Right v Democracy.

    The Left’s Rejection of Russiagate

    Progressives had good reason to reject the Russiagate argument, but it seems to me they’ve stopped paying attention. The investigation has uncovered plenty of troubling behavior by Donald Trump and his associates. The problem may be that progressives are too focused on the possibility of Hillary Clinton foisting herself into the White House. So, they continue to reject Mueller’s evidence.

    Again, there are good reasons to be suspicious of establishment fear-mongering, but it’s important to consider the evidence in each case. Otherwise while we’re busy fighting the neoliberal agenda we might ignore an agenda that’s every bit as hostile to the progressive cause. I’m thinking of the rise of the alt-right in the United States and its apparent ties to the current administration.

    Trump, White Nationalism and the New Right

    The election of Donald Trump increased American racism. It also increased White Nationalism. White Nationalism is racism of a different sort. Alarm about national security is legitimate when confronted with evidence of ties between Donald Trump, the White Nationalist movement, the European New Right, and Alexander Dugin.

    As it happens, the neocons are not the only ones forming think tanks and crafting ambitious plans for the world. According to an article in New Dawn Magazine, geopolitical groups have also been at work in Europe, laying the groundwork for the Eurasian agenda. That was the claim made by Romanian-born journalist and author, Jean Parvulesco (1929-2010), who compared the policies of these groups to the neoconservative Project for a New American Century.

    Parvulesco was influenced by the Perennialist Traditionallism of Rene Guenon and Julius Evola. He was also associated with the European New Right.

    “It is the confrontation of our imperial and catholic [universal] doctrines with the current political historical reality…which will see the final emergence of the catholic Great Empire which constitutes our ultimate objective, the Imperium Ultimum, the Regnum Sanctum, which should comport, in principle, three operational stages….

    “The first stage was to be the creation of a Paris Berlin-Moscow axis that is considered to be the axis along which this major change will occur. This axis will tie together the destiny of three nations (France, Germany and Russia).

    “The second stage is the integration of what was traditionally known as West and East Europe, together with Russia, Siberia, India and Japan.

    “The final stage involves what is termed the destruction of the ‘global democratic conspiracy,’ led by the United States, including a revolutionary liberation of its people, after which America as a whole (North and South) will become one entity. We can only wonder whether the present drive by the US to expand NAFTA and create a North American Union are steps in this direction.”

    Similarities Between the European New Right and the American Right

    There are a disturbing number of similarities between the ideas of the European New Right and the American Right. Parvulesco, for example, anticipates the death of the ‘democratic system’ of political correctness. You will recall that political correctness is a pet peeve of Donald Trump. Parvulesco predicted that the United States will self-destruct in a second civil war due to irreconcilable differences between the liberal community and the archconservative religious community. Conservative leaders in the US have spoken of the possibility of a civil war.

    Parvulesco’s Geopolitical Model Foresaw the Collapse of the USSR

    Parvulesco’s geopolitical model for what he had in mind was the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. He thought it demonstrated that powerful empires can disappear from one day to the next, requiring a new society and structure to be built from the ground upwards.

    The Same Thing Would Happen to Europe According to This View

    At the same time, he argued that the Soviet Union’s collapse was not as sudden as it appeared. The public collapse was merely the revelation of a death that had already occurred. This is what he believed would happen to Europe. “The collapse of ‘democratic Europe’ has already taken place, and all that is left is the public acceptance of this fact and the beginning of a new Europe.” And he also thought he knew what would replace it. His idea of a new Europe was the ‘Eurasian Empire of the End Times,’ and its symbol was Vladimir Putin.

    Both the Right and Left Make the Same Choices in the United States

    Lately, we see the same choices playing out in the United States. For some, it is obvious that American democracy is worth protecting. Many of them supported Bernie Sanders in 2016. For others, who also call themselves progressives, the capitalist system at the basis of American democracy is finished. This faction did everything it could in 2016 to distract Sanders voters with a third-party candidate and to promote inane advice like, ‘vote your conscience’. They failed to mention that your conscience will have no say at all in what happens after the collapse. Could it be that they are closer to the imperialists of both the Left and the Right than they are to Bernie Sanders’ supporters?

    Raymond Abellio and the Priory of Sion

    Another article in the same magazine speaks of the part that Jean Parvulesco played in acquainting the world with the visions of French esotericist Raymond Abellio. Abellio and Jean Parvulesco are identified in this article as two prominent French esotericists who visualized and tried to implement a roadmap for what Europe – and the Western world as a whole – should become. “It is a future where the real role of the Priory of Sion comes into its own.”

    The name ‘Raymond Abellio’ is the pseudonym of Georges Soulès (1907-1986). In 1942, Georges Soulès became secretary general of the MSR (Mouvement Social Rèvolutionnaire. “This group had evolved out of the sinister Comitè Secret d’Action Revolutionaire (CSAR), also known as the Cagoule. Soulès was now to become acquainted with Eugène Deloncle, head of the political wing, dedicated to secret direct, and violent action…so here we have a Socialist turned Fascist, deeply involved in political movements who actively collaborated with the Vichy government.” (Guy Patton, Masters of Deception, as quoted by the New Dawn Magazine)

    According to Patton, Abellio’s thought is “typical of an extreme right-wing esotericism, the aim of which is to ‘renew the tradition of the West.’ He wanted to replace the famous Republican slogan, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ with ‘Prayer, War, Work’, to represent a new society built on an absolute hierarchy led by a king-priest.”

    The Sun God Apollo, The Absolute Structure and the Assumption of Europe

    Abellio chose his pseudonym because he identified himself with Apollo, and because his initials, RA, were those of the Egyptian sun god. His ideas were a mixture of Christian eschatology, prophecy, and gnostic doctrines regarding what it is to be human. His most famous work is ‘The Absolute Structure’ (1965). The absolute structure is a vital ingredient in his idea of the Assumption (destiny) of Europe.

    Although Parvulesco and Abellio differed in some ways, they both believed in the need for a final battle against the counter-initiatory and subversive forces (the non-being), and they both saw themselves as freedom fighters, a theme that runs all through their writings.

    The Similarities Between Parvulesco and Abellio

    “In the West, it was the task of freedom fighters – terrorists? – to bring about this change. These ‘heroic’ battles were brought to life in [Abellio’s] novels…many consider ‘The Pit of Babel’ to be his best work and it is here that he plots intellectuals that are disengaged from all forms of ideology and scruples engaging in widespread terrorism.”

    Also mentioned is a familiar theme on YouTube, a polar shift.

    “Parvulesco often uses the term ‘Polar’ in reference to the ‘polar fraternities’ with which Guénon had once associated. He sees these as important instruments in the creation of modern Europe. He also used the term to refer to the Hyperborean origins of the present cycle of humanity, which he argued would soon end with a polar reversal. Here he is close to Guénon but far from Abellio’s thinking, who had an altogether more optimistic vision of the future…”

    (Some believe that Donald Trump inherited Hyperborean lineage, through his mother.)

    Esoteric Fatima

    The last part of this article, entitled Russia, Putin and the New Europe provides the names of people important to the New Right and emphasizes the importance of the last message of Fatima, which was delivered in October 1917, at the moment when the Bolshevik Revolution began. For esotericists, the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Fatima and her messages concerning the future of Russia are part of this Great Empire. This not only has meaning on the political plane—it coincides with their vision as to how ‘real politicians’ work together with the ‘denizens of the other world’ to accomplish the Assumption. The apparition at Fatima inspired Abellio’s effort to unite the two factions of the Cold War.

    Now for those who claim to be afraid of war above all else, it is clear that this movement provides a poor rationale for war with Russia. But this fear misunderstands the nature of the struggle.

    Democracy is on the Front Lines

    For those who see the value in continuing the struggle within the present system, it is important to know that democracy itself is on the front lines. Parvulesco argues that due to the extreme dissatisfaction within the United States and the disparity between the archconservative religious community and the liberals, it is impossible to be elected as president on a genuine agenda. This is his entire rationale for the end of democracy. Unfortunately for him, 2016 proved the flaw in this rationale with the sudden appearance of a genuine agenda and the support of the majority of Americans.

    Who Opposed Bernie Sanders and the Progressives in 2016?

    Considering the New Right’s focus on the demise of democracy it becomes obvious who the opposition was in 2016. It was every false actor who pretended to be like Bernie in 2016 and 2018. Everyone who rigged the process, purged the voting rolls and closed the polling stations. It was everyone who lied and wheedled and bribed and cheated, and who thought they could win with platitudes and cliches. In short, the opposition was everyone who helped to defame the democratic process. They played right into the arms of the imperialist devils.

    Little did we know that a campaign like the one Bernie ran in 2016 was the most logical response to this threat. It was the perfect defense of democracy against the defamations of the alt-right.

    Behold the Absurdity of the New Right and the Neoliberals

    When you draw the battle lines in this way, the entire polemic of the New Right is absurd. If democracy is destined to fade away, as they claim it is, what could be the purpose of all those books and articles? All those marches and slogans? The same can be said for the neoliberal agenda. Why bother convincing people at all? Do they hope they can get us to accept the theft of our democratic rights as a default position? If so, the outcome still depends on us.

  • Trump’s Puerto Rico Fail

    When I see ‘President’ Trump sitting smugly in the White House as Puerto Ricans are abandoned by the world I am ashamed to be an American. When I see my fellow Americans continue to defend him, grief overwhelms me. When I contemplate the fact that he appears to be a member of my species I am ashamed of the human race.

    The politics of the world have become sordid beyond measure. All of the questions that I used to think were so important have died in my heart and on my lips. Instead, a quotation plays over and over again in my head:

     

    For the youth of the world is past,

    And the strength of the creation already exhausted,

    And the advent of the times is very short,

    Yea, they have passed by;

    And the pitcher is near to the cistern,

    And the ship to the port,

    And the course of the journey to the city,

    And life to (its) consummation.   [*]

    [*]II Baruch 85:10, As quoted by J. Massyngberde Ford, Anchor Bible Commentary on Revelation, Doubleday and Company, 1975. Page 160 From II Baruch 85:10

  • Democrats: Stop Using the Intelligence Bureaucracy to Fight Trump

    The circus of the 2016 election was too weird to be explained by ambition. I suspected one of three motives. Keep in mind that I may have been in a state of paranoia:

    The geopolitical situation is so precarious that the oligarchs are afraid they’ll lose their hold on world domination if they give up power for four years.

    The establishment planned actions on specific dates determined by numerology and astrology and they have to be in control to carry them out.

    Any new president will find out what they’ve been up to and neither Party could take a chance on that new president being Bernie Sanders.

    But then I learned of a forth motive. An article in the June issue of Harper’s reveals the stranglehold that un-elected individuals in the intelligence and security establishment have on international policy. Apparently, whatever may have been going on during the election, we are now witnessing a fight to the death between competing intelligence interests. Trump’s firing of James Comey was part of this fight. However, this is not a fight between Republican and Democrat. You and I are not even in the game.

    This is the video that made me decide to write about this today. Before I go on it’s important to mention that this is definitely not the time to get bogged down in partisan politics, nor is it the time to demonize figures on the ‘other’ side because that will never give you a complete picture of what’s really going on. The video’s focus is an article on Circa by John Solomon and Sara A. Carter concerning the establishment’s frantic effort to hide evidence of illegal information gathering and surveillance of the American population. This activity was also revealed in George Web’s videos, but the article in Circa claims that evidence of it was presented to James Comey and that he failed to act on it. (http://circa.com/politics/accountability/james-comey-sued-by-intelligence-contractor-dennis-montgomery-over-spying-on-americans)
    https://youtu.be/0nRooYMzCgI

    But the problem is much bigger than the current actors. In the Harper’s article Michael J. Glennon describes its history:

    “A defacto directorate of several hundred managers, sitting atop dozens of military, diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, from the Department of Homeland Security to the National Reconnaissance Office, has come to dominate national security policy, displacing the authority not only of Congress but of the courts and the presidency as well. The precise sizes of the agencies’ budgets and workforces are classified in many cases, but the numbers are indisputably enormous—a total annual outlay of around $1 trillion, and employees numbering in the millions.”

    It began with the policy of containment of the Soviet Union. Harry Truman centralized national security decision-making, supposedly to end the ‘internecine warfare’ between U. S. armed services after World War II. Then Congress created the modern Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the National Security Council. Truman established the National Security Agency personally, through a secret order. Liberals generally approved of these actions, but conservatives feared it was a threat to democratic institutions and civilian control of the military. And they were right in this case.

    Power has gradually been transferred from elected officials to bureaucrats. In order to maintain the legitimacy of our democratic institutions, the illusion is perpetuated that national security is controlled by our constitutionally established democratic institutions. To this end, successive presidents projected an image of unity between themselves and the security directorate. Obama is a good example of this.

    “When the Pentagon advocated a troop surge in Afghanistan, Obama kept his disagreement largely out of the public eye. When NSA mass surveillance became a public embarrassment, Obama stuck with the organization. When his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied about it to Congress, Obama did nothing. And when the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report sparked calls to punish the torturers and their bosses, Obama came to their defense. No one was prosecuted.”

    However, after the NSA’s eavesdropping on Angela Merkel the facade began to crumble: Obama’s national security advisor claimed the president knew nothing about it (Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that some of these programs were on automatic pilot); the courts used ‘ringing rule-of-law rhetoric’ in high-profile disputes about national security but not so much when it came to unlawful war-making, torture, surveillance, and kidnapping; and Congress’s role in defining national security became more and more ceremonial.

    By the time Donald Trump appeared on the scene, the bureaucracy’s dominance was out in the open. Early in the campaign Trump criticized the military’s top brass and the intelligence community. Then after the election he refused to attend security briefings, which have become agenda-setting meetings where the agency lays out the framework for thinking about international developments.  (There is an activist internationalist nature of these briefings, which Glennon criticizes for taking precedence over domestic priorities, but of course domestic priorities are not high on Donald Trump’s list either.)

    In response, intelligence officials have allegedly withheld sensitive information from Trump and refused to give security clearance to one of his NSC officials who reportedly had been critical of the CIA. However the leak has been the Bureaucracy’s weapon of choice.

    Finally, the Democrats’ approach is not better than that of the president or the bureaucracy. The Democrats have apparently been using the security bureaucracy as their best hope ever since its disclosure of Russian interference in the election. They seem to believe that the Security directorate can act as a check on presidential policies, however this would actually represent an ‘entirely new form of government’ in which institutionalized, bureaucratic autocracy would displace democratic accountability. We have already seen the abuses of unchecked security forces in the United States. The bureaucracy was never intended to be a coequal of Congress, the courts, and the president.

    Glennon warns of serious consequences as a result of both strategies–the White House and the intelligence bureaucracy–and argues that they are not really working for either side. They cast doubt on the soundness of Trump’s security decisions and undermine his authority, because regardless of what Trump thinks of the bureaucracy he needs intelligence to make good decisions. And they also hamstring the intelligence community whose credibility is derived from the public’s belief that it is controlled by elected officials.

    Again, lest you think this is an argument for Donald Trump, savior, Glennon suggests an even darker scenario:

    Trump’s adversaries assume the security bureaucracy will fight him to the death, but the White House does have power in such a fight. What if the result were the desertion of some factions within the bureaucracy who approve of many potential Trump initiatives, such as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance?

    “Undoubtedly, some officials will leave when faced with Trump’s sticks. But plenty, I suspect, will overcome their qualms, accept Trump’s carrots, and do his bidding. I have witnessed this dynamic firsthand. In 1978, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was interested in what steps American law enforcement and countrintelligence officials were taking (or not taking) to stop the intelligence services of repressive ‘allies,’ such as Pinochet’s Chile, the shah’s Iran, and Marcos’s Philippines, from harassing, surveilling, and intimidating opponents within the United States. In Langley, Fort Meade, and elsewhere, my colleagues and I took the (still classified) statements of dozens of security officials. Some of them described conduct they found deeply repugnant. But we encountered no one who had objected, and identified no official who had resigned in disagreement. Everyone stayed.”(Michael J. Glennon, Security Breach: Trump’s tussle with the bureaucratic state. Harper’s, June 2017)

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