Why I Stopped Being White (and You Should Too) 8

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Race and Ethnicity • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Race is a touchy subject in the West. People across the aisle, especially white folk, tend to avoid it like a plague. A big part of the reason behind this reservation has to do with the fact that both the left and the right maintain an equally immature grasp on the subject. While the right seems to be convinced that race is some kind of scientific fact like a species of bird, the left seems to view it as an inescapable historical prison sentence with no hope for escape. Like usual, the left is wrong and the right is way fucking wrong. There is nothing scientific or permanent about race. It is a social construct as fluid in nature as gender or sexuality, and it is constantly evolving. Almost every known race was created by a collision of former races that have ceased to exist. About the only thing that the clueless class in the left-right paradigm gets right is that the white race is a very unique creature, and a dangerous one.

The white race is unique in that it is the first defining race of the imperial era and modern day imperialism defines its very existence. The Western Europeans designed the concept of whiteness to justify their expanse and enslavement of the New World and it’s dark skinned cousins across the Global South. As the insatiable nature of capitalism demanded endless expansion, it’s moneyed mandarins required the creation of a new super-class to rationalize the enslavement of the darker nations. This concept became even more necessary with American independence and the fall of monarchism.

This new white aristocracy replaced the royal bloodline and shaped the very nature of the planet’s economic ecosystem. The First World was created with the excess wealth pillaged from the Third World, and it’s subjects soon became victims of new races invented to further empower the white race. The colored races of black and Latino were constructed to both consolidate white supremacy’s ill-gotten gains and to rob the many tribes that made up these racial monoliths of color of their diverse indigenous cultures. The white race is unique, not simply by the Machiavellian nature of its design, but by the necessity of its supremacy over other similarly constructed mass races to justify its very existence. But like most imperial schemes, white supremacy backfired.

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I Was a Red Flag Kid 5

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Middle school sucks for everybody. But its harder for some people than others. After nearly a decade at a small, conservative, K-8 Catholic school, I was beginning to chafe beneath the cross of my mental illness. I had suffered from depression and anxiety since early childhood but as I entered the maelstrom of my teens, these issues became too turbulent to conceal. I didn’t feel like the other kids and my awkward individuality felt far from welcome among the pious adults. Even beyond my ability to cope with the basic everyday stress of being an active human being, I felt strange and detached from what passed as normal in this stifling environment. My body felt like a mistake and I couldn’t shake the fear that these feelings were evil. I had never heard of words like transgender or genderfluid. This was the Nineties and the only people who looked the way I felt were Dennis Rodman and Marilyn Manson, and the generally excepted wisdom at my church was that these freaks were going to hell, and so was I.

I was terrified. Terrified of myself. Terrified that if I ever let people in, that if people ever really truly saw me, they would either burn me at the stake or run screaming for the hills. So I retreated and found ways to cope. I lost most of my friends but I found shards of myself through the awesome power of punk rock music and radical politics. George W. Bush dropped bombs on Baghdad when I was in 8th grade and the very next day I came to school with a peace sign strapped to my arm. In early post-9/11 middle America, this mild gesture of resistance was tantamount to burning a pentagram in your forehead and declaring allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

I spent the proceeding weeks and months engaging in all out verbal combat with nearly every student and teacher I crossed. It was exhausting, but for the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t scared, I was proud. I had declared my independence from “normal” and stood my ground and it felt empowering. So I dressed in all black, stopped standing for the pledge of allegiance and gave up on trying to please the normal people who occupied my life. I decorated my backpack with badges emblazoned with the portraits of my new saints; Kurt Cobain, Che Guevara and Joey Ramone. Then the wolves came in and normal bit back.

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The Sound Money Showdown in U.S. States Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations, Uncategorized

Policies relating to sound money have been the subject of substantial debate at the state level this year, with bills, hearings, and/or votes taking place in nearly a dozen legislatures. 

As most state legislatures have now wrapped up their work for the year, let’s review the victories (both offensive and defensive)—and lone defeat—for sound money during the 2019 session.

The Sound Money Defense League’s primary goal is to remove every kind of taxation imposed on constitutional money. Given its practical importance, the hottest issue in the states has been taxation—i.e. whether citizens should face a levy when buying or selling gold and silver.

● House Bill 2684, introduced by West Virginia Delegate Pat McGeehan, aimed to remove all taxes (sales tax, corporate income tax, and personal income tax) from gold and silver. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 502, sponsored by Senator Craig Blair, exempted only precious metals from the state’s sales tax.

The West Virginia bill removing sales taxes passed overwhelmingly through both chambers, and Governor Jim Justice signed SB 502 into law.

● House Bill 2140, introduced by Kansas Representative Jim Kelly, included a sales tax exemption on the sale of gold and silver as part of a larger bill rife with new taxes. Governor Laura Kelly signed the measure in May.

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Who’s Afraid of Tulsi Gabbard? Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism • Tags: ,

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Elections are different for anarchists. We’ve already made our peace with the basic fact that representative democracy is a sham even when it’s not rigged by moneyed oligarchs. So when we do actually take part in the process, it’s usually for purposes of propaganda and/or Machiavellian strategy. One thing Trump was right about is the influence of the deep state, though it’s hardly the shadowy coalition of dope smoking lesbian Bolsheviks the Alex Jones-set imagines them to be (I wish.) Rather, they’re more of a loose coalition of rich old white men who travel back and forth between unelected positions in the federal government and the numerous industrial complexes of the Fortune 500. At the risk of sounding like a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, these are the people who really run this country. Elections, especially at the presidential level, are largely just theater, a glorified reality TV show designed to feed the masses the illusion of living in a democratic society beneath the steel boot of a rapidly decomposing empire.

I personally subscribe to the Murray Rothbard philosophy on elections, which basically goes that since the state is defined by it’s monopoly on the use of force, the best we the people can do when we’re not loading rifles is to support the most antiwar candidate available. To me, this school of thought is made doubly relevant by the fact that theoretically the only thing the president has direct authority over is the armed forces. To say that this philosophy has brought me to some strange places is an understatement. I have personally changed political parties no fewer than three times and counting. And I’ve found myself openly backing everyone from Jurassic goldbugs like Ron Paul to New Age hippie vaxxers like Jill Stein (who’s 2016 campaign sticker continues to haunt Hillaryites from the bumper of my Ford Taurus.)

The DNC’s bottomless clown car of milquetoast morons doesn’t exactly provide a lot of options for the Rothbardian voter. Most of the candidates seem to come from the Oprah School of social democracy, chumming debt besodden millennials with the promise of an endless procession of free shit, payed through taxing super-villains without offering to cut a single missile. The only solidly antiwar candidate was 89 year old former senator Mike Gravel, but since Mike has called it quits after essentially being banned from Cable TV and screwed out of his rightful place in the latest debates, that only leaves contrarian powder-keg, Tulsi Gabbard.

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After Fed Disappoints, Will Trump Initiate Currency Intervention? Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations • Tags:

By Stefan Gleason, Money Metals Exchange

Following months of cajoling by the White House, the Federal Reserve finally cut its benchmark interest rate. However, the reaction in equity and currency markets was not the one President Donald Trump wanted – or many traders anticipated.

The Trump administration wants the Fed to help drive the fiat U.S. dollar lower versus foreign currencies, especially those of major exporting countries.

Instead, the U.S. Dollar Index rallied throughout July ahead of the expected rate cut and continued rallying after Fed chairman Jerome Powell made it official on Wednesday.

In fact, the Federal Reserve Note broke out to its highest level since early 2017.

The Fed also announced it would end its balance sheet reduction program a month earlier than originally scheduled.

These dovish policy changes apparently weren’t dovish enough. The central bank could have gone for a 50-basis-point cut instead of the more routine quarter point cut it delivered. It could also have announced a new Quantitative Easing program.

Perhaps the biggest market-moving disappointment (equity bearish, dollar bullish) was Fed Chairman Jerome Powell shooting down the idea of an extended rate-cutting cycle.

In his press conference, he described the cut as “mid-cycle adjustment” that didn’t necessarily imply follow-up cuts.

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Reflections on His Goofiness: William Gillis on Positive and Negative Liberty 5

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, Religion and Philosophy

Goofy Gillis has a lengthy interview podcast interview available. Listen here.

Here’s my general take on the content of this interview.

He’s not unintelligent, and much of what he is saying is not “wrong” per se. But I know enough about him to know that his idea of “freedom” amounts to the de facto compulsory universalization of the PC/SJW/Antifa/call-out culture paradigm, although perhaps enforced by extra-legal vigilante violence rather than a conventional state.

His ideology seems to be “Total positive freedom to make unlimited choices resulting in absolute diversity, except for people who might do something I don’t like, such as being ‘reactionary.'” That’s consistent with the nonsense I’ve seen in his Twitter feed.

Technology or no technology, progress or no progress, the evidence from all relevant fields shows that humans are naturally tribal in a social context, and individual values are rooted in their psychological and genetic proclivities. Where there is “freedom,” there is “diversity.” But diversity often includes the existence of polar opposites.

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Israeli Lobby behind Senate Failure to Overturn Saudi Arms Sale Veto 1

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

My recent interview with Tasnim.

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The US Senate failed in its latest bid to block the controversial sale of $8.1bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia due to the influence of the powerful Israeli lobby in the United States, an American political analyst said.

“…Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also allies of Israel, which is extraordinarily powerful in the United States as well. The (US) President has a very close relationship with Israel, and the Israel lobby essentially controls much of the US Congress. The American petroleum industry and other US business interests also maintain massive holdings in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. For these reasons, the President vetoed the resolutions, and the resolutions did not receive enough support in the Senate to override the veto,” Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of attackthesystem.com, told Tasnim.

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Pompeo has ‘ulterior motives’ in expressing desire to travel to Iran 2

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

Press TV. Listen here.

It is clear that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has “ulterior motives” in expressing his desire to travel to Iran and be interviewed by Iranian news media, according to American political analyst Keith Preston.

On Thursday, July 25, Pompeo said he was willing to go to Iran for talks amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Asked if he would be willing to go to Tehran, Pompeo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, “Sure. If that’s the call, I’d happily go there… I would welcome the chance to speak directly to the Iranian people.”

Some independent observers have said that Pompeo is actually not very interested in speaking with the Iranian people, but actually is concerned by the way Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is presenting Iran’s case on the American media to the US public.

They say Pompeo wants to counter Zarif by pushing the idea of travelling to Tehran and speaking to the Iranian media which has suffered several restrictions in the United States. Washington has also pressured social media giants to block Iranian media channels on YouTube and Google.

Preston said that Pompeo “thinks it’s an opportunity to score some propaganda points.”

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Jp Cortez: Sound Money Movement Gains Momentum in the States Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations • Tags: ,

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege, now, to welcome in Jp Cortez, with the Sound Money Defense League, a non-partisan national public policy organization working to restore sound money on the state and federal level.

Jp is a proponent of, and has studied in the Austrian School of Economics, and his role at SMDL as policy director, has him regularly testifying at legislative hearings and speaking at various events throughout the country.

His articles and analysis have appeared in many national news publications, including The Washington Examiner, Huffington Post, Mises Institute, Foundation for Economic Education, and more, and he’s a frequent guest on various podcasts and national radio shows to talk about the importance of sound money legislation. And it’s a real pleasure to have him on with us today.

Jp, thanks for the time and welcome.

Jp Cortez: Mike, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much.

Mike Gleason: Well, Jp, as we start out today, let’s set the stage here and first have you explain why this idea of sound money is important in the first place, and then, as a follow up to that, what kind of policies would help restore and reinforce sound money? Let’s begin with that.

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I’m a Little Bit Ilhan, and I’m a Little Bit Tucker Too 2

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right • Tags: , ,

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

As something of a radical contrarian, I often feel like my life is comprised largely of coming out of an endless procession of closets, often without even realizing I’m stepping through the doorway. What? You didn’t know I was a pro-life feminist? You’ve never heard of a libertarian socialist? I genuinely can’t keep up with all the peccadillos you partisan pussies find indigestible. All in all, with this experience of casually shocking boring people, it’s little wonder I took to being queer like a fish in a frying pan.

But some closet doors are heavier than others and at this hybrid moment of Republicrat hysteria, they don’t get much heavier than the simple fact that I have a great deal of respect for both Ilhan Omar and Tucker Carlson, which is a bit like being a unicorn that everyone hates for a different reason. How could this be possible? Well, for one thing, I’ve long held a soft spot in my bleeding heart for both shocking people and, well, shocking-people. As a kid, I couldn’t seem to decide whether I wanted to be Mother Teresa or Marilyn Manson when I grew up. But more than any idiosyncratic character flaw, my respect for these two highly demonized figures stems from the fact that I am and will always be an anti-imperialist above all else. And regardless of their many many flaws both Ilhan and Tucker have been fairly consistent advocates for world peace.

I never expected to like Tucker Carlson and, for the most part, I still don’t. His demonization of immigrants and trans people like myself is nothing short of revolting. But like most paleocons, with Mr. Carlson you take the good with the disgusting. Regardless of how you or I may feel about the bastard’s social cluelessness, you have to be pathologically apoplectic to deny his post-partisan devotion to anti-interventionism. Where Tucker’s beloved pseudo-isolationist Caesar, Donald Trump, has faltered, Carlson has remained courageously resolute.

Since taking the prime time slot of pandering grope-a-holic Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson has delivered some of the most breathlessly eloquent prose in defense of peace that this country has seen since MSDNC had Phil Donahue fired for speaking out against the war in Iraq, often going against the very president he rebuilt his career on defending in the process, and it’s effect appears to be profound. Donald Trump seems to have only reversed his decision to commit mass murder in Iran after a brief phone call with his favorite Fox News host. With an impetuously impressionable man-child in the Oval Office, this xenophobic, binarist dick may have literally saved lives by sticking to his guns on America’s existential need to drop hers. Hate the fucker for who he is, but game recognizes game, and Tucker is looking pretty damn familiar to this tranny peacenik. Crucify me for being big enough admit it.

Perhaps the only thing more enjoyable than seeing a neocon network hijacked by a modern-day Charles Lindbergh has been watching mighty little Ilhan make those same pigfucking giants sweat. While, as an anarchist, I may find Mrs. Omar’s pseudo-socialist, big-government-solves-everything approach to domestic policy nauseatingly tiresome, she has proven herself to be the Lower House’s most doggedly consistent critic of empire since Ron Paul.

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The Condition of the World Economy 1

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Economics/Class Relations

A very good discussion of the world economy by two Marxist-Leninists. I agree with virtually everything they say except for, of course, their interpretation of the role of Communism in the industrial development of the Eastern world.

The Communist revolutions that took place in the East and the Global South in the 20th century were simply a continuation of the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th century. In every case, these revolutions (from America and France in 1776 and 1789 to Cuba and Cambodia in 1959 and 1975) were rooted in the left-wing of the middle class as revolutions almost
always are. The West is experiencing a bloodless revolution of that kind at present (what the right-wing calls “cultural Marxism’).

Industrial development of communist countries was always made possible by Western capital. An agrarian society can’t experience industrial development by practicing economic autarky. Russia tried that with “war communism” during the Russian Civil and it failed. Hence, Lenin developed the New Economic Policy and began importing industrial technology from Western capitalists.

China attempted a similar approach during the Great Leap Forward only to experience famine and mass starvation. It was the Dengist reforms of the late 70s/early 80s that allowed China to develop on its present mercantilist/national- capitalist model, which is basically the same model used by the Asian Tigers as well as the European nations during the Industrial Revolution.

Even the Khmer Rouge understood they needed the support of Western capital. The purpose of the “killing fields” was to produce as much of an agricultural surplus as possible to sell on the world market in order to be able to import industrial equipment and technology. The Khmer Rouge goal was the achievement of industrialization by the year 2000. After they were dislodged by Vietnam in 1979, they changed their ideology from Maoism to “liberal capitalism” and formed an alliance with the CIA against the Vietnamese.

Financial Media Elite Defensively Bash “Useless” Gold Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations

By Chris Powell, Money Metals Exchange

At least the Financial Times now has come clean about its hostility to gold – as well as to free markets and elementary journalism.

Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) friend Chris Kniel of Orinda, California, sent to the newspaper’s chief economic columnist, Martin Wolf, the excellent summary of gold and silver market manipulation just written by gold researcher Ronan Manly.

Wolf replied derisively and dismissively: “This is a matter of absolutely no importance whatsoever. Who cares about the prices of useless metals?”

Stunned by such a counterfactual assertion, Kniel prompted Wolf to elaborate, receiving this from the FT columnist: “I mean to dismiss the whole monetary history of gold. It has no significance in the modern world. It is, as Keynes said, a barbarous relic.”

Actually, Keynes’ “barbarous relic” remark was made not about gold itself but about the gold standard for currencies. Keynes wasn’t denying gold’s use as money. But that is the least of the problems with Wolf’s reply.

Who cares about the prices of useless metals? “No significance in the modern world”?

For starters, governments themselves care.

That’s why central banks, against Wolf’s advice, continue to hold huge inventories of gold and lately have been increasing them.

It’s why central banks classify gold as a Tier 1 asset, equivalent to government-issue bonds and cash.

It’s why central banks constantly trade the metal and its derivatives surreptitiously, directly and through the Bank for International Settlements, usually to restrain the metal’s price, recognizing that gold is a determinant of currency values, interest rates, and government bond prices.

It’s why the International Monetary Fund forbids its members from formally linking their currencies to gold, lest the metal gain precedence over government-issued currencies.

Further, London is the center of the world’s gold trading, the bullion banks are major employers there, and the FT is based in London, so the newspaper itself ordinarily might care.

Of course, Wolf’s dismissing “the whole monetary history of gold” doesn’t make that history disappear. Indeed, today Agence France-Presse distributed a report about gold’s monetary history that is both fascinating and tragic, gold’s history being a big part of human history.

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Who & What is Behind Secret Black Hawk Operation in Washington DC Area Reply

by • Military

Sputnik News

The US Army has been quietly conducting a secret flight operation in and around Washington DC for months, judging from recently released fiscal documents. US military experts have outlined the possible goals of the clandestine mission and the agencies behind it.

On 22 July, Bloomberg revealed that at least 10 Black Hawk helicopters are involved in conducting “a classified flight mission” in the National Capital Region (NPR), citing a $2.5 billion Army reprogramming request.

According to the document, the Pentagon asked the US Congress to allocate an additional $1.55 million for aircraft maintenance, aircrews, travel, and a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) capability in support of the mission.

​”Soldiers from assault helicopter company and aviation maintenance units will be supporting the mission with 10 UH-60s and maintenance capabilities for four months”, the document says, arguing that “without additional funding, the Army will not be able to perform this classified mission”.

The task of the aforementioned flight mission, which, according to Bloomberg, kicked off “early in the fiscal year” that started on 1 October 2018, remains shrouded in secrecy.

Possible Aims of the Secret Flight Mission

Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Defence Department adviser, and Keith Preston, a military analyst and chief editor of Attack the System, have outlined at least three possible goals behind the classified operation:

·         Surveillance operations

·         Evacuation of leading officials in case of emergency situations

·         Preventing potential terrorist activities in the National Capital Region

“The forces that are involved may be conducting surveillance operations”, suggests Keith Preston. “They also may be preparing to be deployed or activated in case of an actual emergency situation. We have to remember that the capital was one of the sites of the terrorist actions in 2001 [11 September 2001 terrorist attacks – Sputnik]. The capital area has been on heightened security ever since”.

Karen Kwiatkowski presumes that the mission is unlikely to be directly aimed at ensuring the US president’s safety, but “probably” envisages “an expansion to preserve and transport lower levels of executive branch personnel”.

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