An Assessment of the Gelderloos/Crimethinc Analysis Reply

This is my assessment of the recent piece by Peter Gelderloos at Crimethinc, “Preparing for Electoral Unrest and a Right-Wing Power Grab.” The Crimethinc article is a great companion piece to the recent commentary by It’s Going Down (which I critique here) and Three-Way Fight (which I had a brief comment on here with further elaboration here). It’s also interesting to compare these far-left/anarchist/anti-fascist analyses with that of fourth-generation warfare theorist Bill Lind from the far-right.

By Keith Preston

The main things I would add to or dissent from the Gelderloos analysis would be these: I don’t think there is any ruling class faction that desires the restoration of pre-civil rights era race relations, and views like that are very marginal even on the periphery. The ruling class is opposed to minorities that resist “system values” and as class divisions are widening that has racial implications as well, but it seems the overwhelming majority of the ruling class favors a kind of technocratic multicultural statism for many practical/pragmatic reasons. I have an article about that coming out soon. And leading “right-wing” street fighter groups frequently include minorities, even in leadership positions. Their “racial reductionism” is a longstanding criticism I have of the left-anarchist/anti-racist types. White supremacists are the most marginal sector within the far-right and are often in conflict with other far-right sectors, including some that are very similar in other ways. Most of the far-right views white supremacists in the same way that the far-left views anti-Semitic black racialists.

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Joe Biden, Multiple Miggs, and the Horrors of Lesser Evilism 1

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

As surely as the moon wanes and the dead leaves tumble, once every fourth October, it becomes downright chilling to be an American. That’s because every four years, like clockwork, Americans prove every flamboyant third world boogeyman we’ve ever high roaded right by openly flaunting our casual embrace of evil in the highest echelons of imperial power. I speak of course of the autumnal American tradition of choosing the lesser of two evils from this foul nation’s two-party oligarchy to run our horror show of a globalist menace. I feel like I talk about this subject a lot, but I never feel like I talk about it enough. That’s because words consistently fail to express how uniquely revolting I find this twisted mindset to be. The lesser of two evils. The lesser evil. Nothing exposes the cruel charade of liberal democracy like the fact that what is commonly excepted by the general public to be our most cherished democratic right is commonly excepted by that same general public as a choice to openly consent to nothing less heinous than pure evil.

I don’t feel like I’m being hyperbolic here and I don’t see the concept of the lesser evil as being merely symbolic. We are literally advocating choosing evil. One has to look no further than any two major party candidates in the last century. Hell, one has to look no further than Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

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An Assessment of It’s Going Down’s Assessment 8

It’s Going Down throws in their two cents worth. Listen to their original podcast here. My assessment follows.

By Keith Preston

As for my assessment of the IGD podcast, I agree that if the election is close, what mainstream political scientists call a “constitutional crisis” is likely to result. I suspect there will be violence associated with the election regardless of who wins. The losing side will likely claim the winner cheated their way to victory. Because of the pandemic circumstances, it is more likely that instead of having an “election day” there will be an “election month” where the drama involving vote counting, premature claims of victory, and legal maneuvering are involved. It will probably be similar to the Bush/Gore election only more intense because the circumstances are more complicated and because the level of political polarization is now higher.
A limitation of the IDG analysis is they’re looking at things from a very narrow ideological lens and are just concerned about the interests of their own side. Fair enough. But they also miss certain things as a result. First, like liberal and left opinion generally, they exaggerate Trump’s uniqueness as a supposed authoritarian in a way that is contextually shallow. I discussed that in this assessment of Trump. I see the same thing coming from conservative/right opinion all the time where folks are claiming Bernie and AOC are puppet mastering the entire Democratic Party, or that the Bidenists are crypto-Bolsheviks.

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My Assessment of Trump: Law and Order Liberalism Reply

He’s Tricky Dicky, redux. Only less Tricky.
By Keith Preston
I don’t spend a lot of time on Trump-bashing because TrumpHate, Inc. is a Fortune 500 corporation at this point. But my assessment of Trump is and always has been that Trump is a neo-Nixonian, a liberal Republican with a right-wing populist flavor. Only today, the culture has shifted far enough leftward that yesterday’s “silent majority” is now the “deplorable” culturally conservative minority. These Proud Boy-types are the present-day version of groups like the Hardhats from the Nixon era. As was the case with Nixon, Trump’s ego is his own worst enemy.
Trump is, at worst, Nixon redux. Though he’s not nearly as tied into the “deep state” as Tricky Dicky. Nixon had been Ike’s VP and associated with the Dulles brothers. Trump is more like Ross Perot is the sense of being a somewhat wacky loose cannon within the upper class.
In fact, Trump and Perot had similar politics. Semi-isolationist, protectionist, law and order, pro-military, patriotic, quasi-populist, etc. but comparatively socially liberal when compared to the “normal” Republicans in the sense of not being as fixated on religion, abortion, homosexuals, 2nd amendment absolutism, etc. The main difference is that Perot was a staunch fiscal conservative and Trump appears to be at least a closet believer in Modern Monetary Theory.

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100+ nights of Portland protests – Attack the System podcast 3

Keith interviews Attack The System co-editor Vince about Portland Oregon’s 100 plus nights of protest. Vince lives in Portland and provides first hand accounts and context for the uprising

Discussion includes:

  • 100 nights of protests in Portland
  • Scope of the protests and effect on the city
  • Targets of the protest
  • Trump’s switch to a “Law & Order” re-election campaign
  • Trump’s fixation on Portland and the presence of Federal Police
  • Shooting of Portlanders with “less than lethal” munitions and use of Geneva Convention banned weapons
  • Participation of the Lumpenproletariat in the uprising
  • Effect of the pandemic on the uprising
  • “Disappearing” protesters by the police
  • Conflict between right-wing groups and anti-fascists
  • Shooting of Aaron Danielson by self proclaimed anti-fascist Michael Reinoehl, who was killed by police
  • Failure of Democrats and progressives to address police brutality in liberal cities
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Ian M. Returns, Minneapolis Experience, & Voluntaryist Silver Linings 5

Listen here.

Episode 368 welcomes back Ian Mayes to have a chat with Skyler on the following topics: working in the neighborhood where George Floyd was killed; his experience with the Minneapolis protests and riots; Kyle Rittenhouse; lockdown created tinderbox across the country and world; Minneapolis “defund the police” campaign; lack of real anti-authoritarian sentiment; political coalition building and guilt by association; civil wars and anarchists; Portland neighborhood “wake up” protests (Reason interview); voluntaryist welfare actions, ie. silver linings; restorative justice systems (Kibbe interview); and more.

Founder and editor of Everything-Voluntary.com and UnschoolingDads.com, Skyler is a husband and unschooling father of three beautiful children. His writings include the column series “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” and “One Improved Unit,” and blog series “Two Cents“. Skyler also wrote the books No Hitting! and Toward a Free Society, and edited the books Everything Voluntary and Unschooling Dads. You can hear Skyler chatting away on his podcasts, Everything Voluntary and Thinking & Doing.

Police Officers Threaten to Quit If the Public Keeps Demanding Accountability Reply

by • Police State/Civil Liberties

Bye.

By Ryan McMaken, Mises Institute

Faced with an armed assailant at the Parkland school shooting in 2018, sheriff’s deputy Josh Stambaugh ran away and hid while children were gunned down. He was later fired for his lack of action, but last month arbitrators ruled that Stambaugh must be rehired by the sheriff’s department, and he will likely receive more than $100,000 in back pay. In 2018, at the time of his firing, Stambaugh earned $152,000 in base pay and overtime. It looks like he’ll soon be back on the payroll “protecting and serving” the community.

When faced with unarmed suspects, however, some police officers are quite a bit more enthusiastic. For example, when Mesa, Arizona, officer Philip Brailsford gunned down a crawling, sobbing, and unarmed man in a hotel hallway, he paid no price beyond losing his job. He was acquitted in the shooting and was soon thereafter rehired by the police department so he could claim a $31,000-per-year-for-life pension.

It is cases like these which help explain the growing popularity of police reform efforts in recent years.

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Gov. Whitmer kidnap-plotter posted anarchist videos calling cops ‘violent gang’ and ‘enemies’ Reply

by • Fourth Generation Warfare

If true, this is almost like the good old days of the “propaganda by the deed” era when anarchists were actual badasses.

By Laura Widener, American Military News

One of the ringleaders behind an FBI-thwarted kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was an outspoken anarchist, video evidence shows.

The FBI charged six people on Thursday involved in a plot to kidnap Whitmer and “target and kill police officers” over aspirations of overthrowing the government and creating a new society, Detroit Free Press reported.

One of those six individuals, Brandon Caserta, posted a series of videos to his YouTube account in which he promoted anarchist ideology while posing in front of an anarchist flag. The social media platform removed his videos, but producer and director Robby Starbuck reposted the videos to his Twitter account.

In one video, Caserta referred to police as “a violent gang that has each other’s back,” adding that they are “enemies” of freedom.

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How Hatred Came To Dominate American Politics Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Left and Right

By Lee Drutman, Five Thirty Eight

To anyone following American politics, it’s not exactly news that Democrats and Republicans don’t like each other. Take what happened in the presidential debate last week. President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden did little to conceal their disdain of one another. And although the debate marked a low point in our national discourse, it was a crystallization of a long-developing trend: loathing the opposing party.

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The Fed’s Quest for Higher Inflation: What Could Go Wrong? Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations • Tags:

By Stefan Gleason, Money Metals Exchange

The Federal Reserve is warning investors in no uncertain terms that higher rates of inflation are coming. Yet markets, for the most part, have disregarded that warning.

Bond yields, for example, remain well below 2% across the entire duration range. Stock market valuations continue to reflect a sanguine outlook for inflation. And crude oil futures suggest limited upside pressure on prices.

It seems the Fed has a credibility problem.

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Gamers, Grrrls, and Gangs: Youth Subcultures, Scenes, Neo-Tribes, and Their Role in Identity Development Reply

by • Uncategorized

By Brandon N. Kelly

Adolescence is a period of change and creativity where young people draw on adult and childlike behaviors to negotiate identity development. During this period of change, youth begin to form social groups with others that have similar concerns and experiences and as a result, different subcultures are born. Most of the research on youth subcultures in the United States and the UK view these groups as forms of style, resistance, and political opposition. Today, many youth subcultures are seen as micro-communities, which share a particular interest in music, taste, fashion, politics, art, sports, dance, and other social practices that provide a symbolic link to a parent culture, or the culture that preceded it. However, since individuals frequently move in and out of youth subcultures, terms such as neo-tribes and scenes are more widely used. Examples of some of the areas pursued in research on subcultures include:

  • feminism and exclusion of gender from subcultures
  • misogyny and homophobia
  • popular culture and marketing
  • positive deviance and straightedge culture
  • racial identity
  • racism
  • sexual identity
  • status and hierarchy in subcultures
  • stigma
  • virtual communities and gamming

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Subcultures or Neo-Tribes? Rethinking the Relationship between Youth, Style and Musical Taste Reply

by • Uncategorized

By Andy Bennett

Sociology

Despite the criticisms of subcultural theory as a framework for the sociological study of the relationship between youth, music, style, and identity, the term‘subculture’ continues to be widely used in such work. It is a central contention of this article that, as with subcultural theory, the concept of ‘subculture’ is unwork-able as an objective analytical tool in sociological work on youth, music and style –that the musical tastes and stylistic preferences of youth, rather than being tied to issues of social class, as subculture maintains, are in fact examples of the late-modern lifestyles in which notions of identity are ‘constructed’ rather than ‘given’, and ‘fluid’ rather than ‘fixed’. Such fluidity, I maintain, is also a characteristic of the forms of collective association which are built around musical and stylistic preference. Using Maffesoli’s concept of tribus (tribes) and applying this to an empirical study of the contemporary dance music in Britain, I argue that the musical and stylistic sensibilities exhibited by the young people involved in the dance music scene are clear examples of a form of late modern ‘sociality’ rather than a fixed subcultural group.

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Pre-Roman Tribes of Europe Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

History Files

Map of Europe's Tribes

This vast map covers just about all possible tribes that were documented in the first centuries BC and AD, mostly by the Romans and Greeks. The focus is especially on 52 BC, although not exclusively. Some migration was involved during this time, and some tribal divisions too, so there may be a few instances in which names are repeated. Other tribes or tribal groupings such as the Venedi covered a vast range of territory while the tribes of Western Gaul had divided and sub-divided to create a patchwork of names.

South American Indian Peoples Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

By Louis C. Faron

South American Indian | people | Britannica

The customs and social systems of South American peoples are closely and naturally related to the environments in which they live. These environmental relationships are mediated by the systems of technology that the people use to exploit their resources.

Four basic types of social and cultural organization of South American peoples emerge from the archaeological and historical records: (1) central Andean irrigation civilizations, (2) chiefdoms of the northern Andes and the circum-Caribbean, (3) tropical-forest farming villages, and (4) nomadic hunters and gatherers. Each type developed in its own fashion during thousands of years, and since the 16th century each has made a distinctive adjustment to the impact of European civilization.

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This is what Africa looked like before European colonialism Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

By Henry Miller

Matador Network

This is what Africa looked like before European colonialism

In 1884, a group of European leaders and diplomats met in Berlin to carve up Africa in service of their imperial interests. While there had been colonies in parts of coastal Africa for centuries, new advances in weapon technology, trains, and a liquid defense against malaria meant that European powers could now invade the interior. Great Britain was entering the height of its colonial power, while the French 3rd Republic and Otto von Bismarck of Germany were each constructing their own new empires. What followed the Berlin Conference is known as the “Scramble for Africa.”

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