July 31, 2016

Robert Stark, Rabbit, & Alex von Goldstein talk about Future Trends & Scenarios ¹

by robertstark2014 • Uncategorized

Listen Here!

Topics include:

The conservative concept of self sufficiency( ex.working for a corporation, driving a car, and owning a home, in the suburbs) vs. the traditionalist one(ex.growing your own food), and the futurist one
The traditionalist Larpy goal of a society where everyone grows their own food, and how local agriculture should be encouraged, but it is unrealistic for everyone to be involved in it
The growth of the suburbs, from the original Railroad suburbs of the 19th Century, to the post war car oriented suburban sprawl
How small towns that have access to both urbanism and wilderness are the ideal place to live for those who can afford them(ex. Marin County, Palo Alto, and Lamorinda in the SF Bay Area, and parts of North Jersey)
New Urbanism, which seeks to re-create walkable communities out of car oriented suburbs
James Howard Kunstler‘s theory that Peak oil will lead to the death of suburbia and re-creation of localized communities
Future predictions that Peak Oil will lead to a Mad Max style collapse
Conspiracy Theories, the theory that the elites want chaos vs the frog in the boiling pan theory, and Alex’s comment that the elite’s have a short time frame
A Futurist Utopian model that’s ecologically sustainable, where robots do all the work, and that has a Basic income
How a basic income could create a utopia if implemented the right way, but could also be abused by the elites
How the key problem with society is that the elites control to much of the wealth, and the underclass control a large share of the population, and how to remedy that
Mike Judge’s Idiocracy
Transhumanism
The Nineteen Eighty-Four Police State Scenario
The US Prison System, and how inhumane condition only make people more dangerous
How we have open border combined with a surveillance state
How terrorism, “hate speech”, and the underage sex hysteria have been used to justify complete surveillance of the internet
How every political ideology is tied to a cultural aesthetic
Our upcoming show on Retrofuturism, and how Retrofuturism is the perfect aesthetic for Radical Centrism, because they are both based on fusionism

July 30, 2016

Jeffersonian Governance, Burkean Conservatism, and Anarchism ¹

by Keith Preston • Anarchism/Anti-State, Uncategorized

By Chris Shaw

Libertarian Alliance

The conceptions of Jeffersonian governance pride equality before the law, the democratic will of the people tempered by intelligent argumentation and natural societal hierarchies, and a belief in limited, decentralised government. Within this tradition, governance should never truly invade the sensibilities and direction of succeeding generations, and should never supersede the choice of governance that one believes in. From such ideas came the Articles of Confederation, a decentralist set of ideas that gave significant autonomy and rights to the individual states of the Union. Further, Jefferson’s concept of sunset clauses naturally implanted within legislation and law-making[1] the decentralist idea of individual sovereignty and the right of the generation of the living to not be burdened by the collective irresponsibility’s of their ancestors.

jefferson

More…

July 29, 2016

Anarchism: History and Philosophy ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Anarchism/Anti-State, Uncategorized

An introduction to Anarchism intended for high school and college students.

An accompanying video can be found at Study.Com

Some form of government has been around for the entire period of recorded human history. However, some people don’t think government is necessary. In this lesson, you’ll learn about anarchism, its philosophy and its history.

Anarchism Defined

Arnie is an anarchist. Anarchism is a philosophy that argues that individuals should be free to pursue their interests without being coerced in anyway by anyone, especially the government. In fact, anarchists, like Arnie, believe that governments are unjust and completely illegitimate. Anarchists argue that nearly all states have been established illegitimately through violence and conquest.

For example, the United States, a democratic republic, was established through a revolutionary war and expanded through the help of military conquest, including the Mexican War and the so-called Indian Wars during the westward expansion. A government’s injustice, according to the theory, is due to its intrinsic coercion and violation of individual liberty and autonomy. In the final analysis, anarchists believe that no government is better than any government.

Types

Anarchism is a broad philosophy and not all anarchists have the same focus and beliefs. Arnie decides to attend an anarchist convention. At the event, he runs across several different types of anarchists that hold surprisingly differently beliefs:

Sally believes in anarcho-syndicalism, which holds that the successful elimination of government in our lives can only be achieved through organizing people and unionization of industry. A syndicate is an association of people that is formed to advance a common interest, such as workers joining together to promote their interests.
Ivan follows anarcho-individualism, and believes that the individual and his will should reign supreme over any external force, such as states, social groups, traditions or systems of ideology.
Paul is aligned with anarcho-primitivism, which argues for the complete destruction of civilization and a return to a primitive form of life.
Gary believes in green anarchism, which argues that we should regress back to a pre-industrial, agrarian society.
Francine is an adherent of anarcha-feminism, and believes that the problems of society are based upon its patriarchal nature (male-dominated society), and this is the reason that justifies anarchy. Anarcha-feminism emphasizes gender equality and the alleged social problems arising from a male-dominated society.
Frederick is partial to anarcho-collectivism, which advocates for small self-sufficient collectives after anarchy has been achieved, where all members share in the worst work tasks and all decisions and rules are made through group deliberation. A collective is simply a group of people joined in a common enterprise working together towards a common goal. Compensation would be based on difficulty of work and the time contributed. There is no private property, but its outlook is more individualistic than anarcho-communism.
Carl likes anarcho-communism, which advocates for small communes after the requisite mass revolutionary movement to overthrow the government. The system is based on communism, where all property is collectively owned by the community and work is managed for the advantage of the community instead of the individual. The classic formulation of communistic distribution is advocated, where people contribute according to their abilities and receive according to their needs.
Ayn likes anarcho-capitalism, which advocates for the privatization of all property and that all transactions between people be based upon voluntary exchanges. Remember capitalism is about private property and free markets to help you distinguish it from the other forms of anarchy.

More…

July 29, 2016

Fighting for the future: The necessity and possibility of national political organization for our time ¹

by Keith Preston • Activism, Anarchism/Anti-State, Uncategorized

By The Collective

Anarchist News

From Black Rose Anarchist Federation

This essay is an argument for moving towards national organization in the United States and was published in April 2013 during the opening of the process that led to the founding of what became Black Rose/Rosa Negra. It aims to explore the limitations of political organization today, recent positive experiences, and possible ways to build in the present moment.

By Adam Weaver and SN Nappalos

In the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades, the left stands at a crossroads. Despite widespread anxiety, restructuring, stirrings, and disruptions, the left has been unable to respond or develop bases for movements and revolutionary organization in any meaningful sense. In many ways the eruption of the Occupy movement onto the center stage with all of its weaknesses in politics, structure, and dynamics, was a reflection of this. The events of Wisconsin, Occupy, the Oakland General Strike, and the May 1st mobilizations have brought to the fore the nature and potential of combative movements from below as well as the limits of present politics. At the very least since the financial crisis of 2008, social activists are looking for clearer paths towards anti-capitalist alternatives. Many are realizing that something more is needed beyond endless activism, protest politics, and vertical-style union and NGO mobilization. The base level of political education on the left, provided largely by non-profits and liberal university campuses, suddenly seem to have even fewer answers than before. This has left many turning towards political study to deepen their analysis as well as taking up questions around the need for political organization.

We need to ask ourselves, in this time of crisis how can movements be built in an atmosphere of ruling class assaults, disorganization of the popular classes, and sporadic resistance efforts? What are the roles of revolutionaries within movements? What are the strategies to keep ourselves going for the long haul work that radical social change requires? What are the lessons of the past decades in social movements and revolutionary organizations? How do we politically develop the existing revolutionaries and help shape new ones to build a larger milieu of revolutionary organizers, thinkers, and supporters based in popular struggle? How would this milieu and potential political organization relate to broader social movements, other forces on the left, those we share perspectives with, and with those we do not?

The necessity of political organization

Our starting point for this is recognizing, as others have pointed out, that many, if not most, of those active on the left do not believe in political organization.[1] There are many reasons for this, but the reason voiced most frequently is that they do not see a need for organization. Beyond broad social movements, they view many of today’s groups as being disorganized and irrelevant. Others are put off by the poor internal culture of today’s organizations with their tendencies for personalizing conflicts, being unable to have constructive debates, and the culture of battles in meetings that seems to isolate rather than integrate members into broader society. The closest experience with left political organization is commonly that of the lone leftist selling strange newspapers at rallies. Frequently political organization as a whole is solely viewed through the prism of negative experiences with members of the worst of Leninist organizations with sectarian approaches to debate and relating to other political forces within organizing spaces, attempts to dominate and control leadership of struggles, and a ‘newspaper as transmission belt of political line’ approach to politics. Those on the left broadly adhering to anarchism fare only somewhat better, in our experience mostly falling into the previous three objections or alternatively the turn away from political organization is based on a reaction to the weakness, political immaturity, and lack of experience observed in existing political organization efforts. These experiences though valid, involve a failure to think beyond the present; a failure to consider the possibilities of the future.

July 29, 2016

Bill Lind on “Pussycats”–Martin van Creveld’s Important New Book ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Military, Uncategorized • Tags: William S. Lind

By William S. Lind

Traditional Right

Martin van Creveld’s latest book, Pussycats: Why the Rest Keeps Beating the West and What Can Be Done About It, is so important that it re-defines the military reform agenda. Previously, military reform has focused on the problems that have led to America’s repeated military defeats. The issues van Creveld raises in Pussycats suggests we are moving from an American military that can’t win to one that won’t even fight.

The essence of Creveld’s argument is that we (both the U.S. and Western Europe) have de-militarized our military. The introduction of women is one of the factors, but not the only one, although if a military is to fight it must have an aggressively male culture. That is unacceptable not only to the women in the military but to a broadly womanized society and culture. It would not surprise our ancestors to hear that a womanized society can’t fight.

But Creveld looks at influences well beyond womanization. The de-militarizing of our armed forces begins, he argues, with the way we now raise children, especially boys. No longer do they “go out and play”, get into fights, get into difficulties they have to find their own ways out of. Rather, they live controlled, “safe” lives where they always have adult supervision and are instructed in how to do everything before they have to do it. Instead of growing up, they are forever infantilized.

This problem is very real. Recently, I recommended to a friend, a lieutenant colonel at the Marine Corp’s Basic School for new lieutenants, that they reinstitute the “Zen patrol”. In the Zen patrol, which TBS used to do, new lieutenants are simply taken out on a patrol, without having received any instruction in patrolling. They have to figure it out for themselves, which means they also learn how to learn.

My friend replied, “You cannot do that with this generation. In everything they have ever done, they have had adult instruction and supervision. If you don’t first tell them what to do and how to do it, they get angry. They say, “You are setting me up for failure to embarrass me in front of my peers.”

July 28, 2016

Robert Stark interviews Peter Brimelow ^Reply

by robertstark2014 • Uncategorized

Listen Here!

Robert Stark and co-host Alex von Goldstein talk to VDARE editor Peter Brimelow. Prior to creating VDARE, Peter was also a writer and editor at Forbes, the Financial Post, and National Review

Topics include:

Peter’s background in financial journalism
Peter’s experience with the conservative movement
How Peter and other writers such as John Derbyshire were purged from National Review
The history of VDARE
Peter’s 1996 book Alien Nation
The economic and cultural factors behind mass immigration
The Immigration act of 1965 and how it discriminates against Europeans
How Mass immigration is a redistribution of wealth from the working and middle classes to the immigrants themselves and the economic elite
How the key issue with immigration is the numbers
A Progressive case against mass immigration
The European Migrant Crisis
How Brexit sparked a political realignment, and whether Donald Trump can do the same
How if elected, Donald Trump can make a major impact through executive orders and enforcing existing immigration laws
Defining conservatism and whether the label has become obsolete

July 26, 2016

Our political parties are based more and more on absurd tribalism ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right, Uncategorized

By Matthew Gagnon

Pine Tree Politics

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire is a fascinating moment in world history. Yet, the Roman Empire did not cease to exist in 476 as most people believe. Rome had long before been split into two administrative divisions — a Western, Latin Empire and an Eastern, Greek Empire.

Rome’s obliteration as we think of it today was, in reality, an event that occurred only in the west. The Eastern Empire lived on, and became what we today call the Byzantine Empire, though its government and citizens continued to call themselves Romans. That empire survived in some form for another thousand years.

The greatest Byzantine Emperor was Justinian I, who undertook a mission to reconstitute the full Roman Empire once more. He succeeded in recapturing much of Rome’s former territory, which had been lost in the preceding decades.

Justinian’s time — particularly his early reign — was an interesting one. The Empire he led could not be called a democracy, yet in the capital city of Constantinople — today known as Istanbul — an interesting brand of factional mass politics had developed, which organized citizens of the city into powerful mobs that stood in opposition to one another.

These factions, however, were not organized around politics, but around sporting events, particularly the Roman passion that was chariot racing.

I won’t bore you with the particulars of Byzantine sport fandom, but essentially, competitors in sporting events were organized into four teams represented by the color uniform they wore: Green, Blue, Red and White.

These teams each had mass support from major portions of Constantinople’s citizenry, creating large factions. The supporters of each of these teams would themselves wear the same colors.

By Justinian’s time, the Reds and the Whites had lost nearly all of their influence, and sport was dominated by Greens and Blues, creating a bipolar universe of tribal affiliation.

The Greens and Blues became, however, an expression of more than sports fandom. Lacking any kind of democratic power or outlet for mass opinion, these factions grew to dominate civic life as well, organizing around social and political issues. They exerted control over local governance of neighborhoods, religious disputes, and the distribution of food. They even involved themselves in disputes over claimants to the throne.

July 24, 2016

Robert Stark interviews Richard Spencer about the RNC Convention ^Reply

by robertstark2014 • Uncategorized

Listen Here!

Robert Stark and co-host Alex von Goldstein interview Radix Journal editor Richard Spencer

Topics include:

Richard Spencer’s experience at the RNC Convention
Richard’s interview with Jorge Ramos for an HBO Documentary
How Richard has found that liberal journalists are more interested in talking to him than conservatives
Richard’s disappointment in Trump selecting Conservative Inc. candidate Mike Pence for VP
How Trump ideally should of chosen Jim Webb For VP
Trump’s speech at the convention
How Trump is pushing the GOP in a radical centrist direction
Trump puts Glass Steagall & Peace In GOP Platform
Hillary’s selection of Wall Street puppet Tim Kaine for VP, and how that further alienates Bernie Sanders supporters
How Trump can Target Sanders Supporters due to Tim Kain, and #DNCLeaks
Ivanka Trump’s speech and her comment that the best predictor of income inequality is not being a woman, it is being a mother
Peter Thiel’s Archeofuturist Speech
How Archeo Futurism is a more grandiose vision than simply being a reactionary or radical traditionalist
How Richard was recently Banned in the UK
After Brexit
The recent Terrorist attacks in Nice, France and Munich, Germany, and how terrorism has become a common occurrence
How the Munich Shooter does not fit into the major political narratives

July 23, 2016

Questions Blacks Have For SJW’s ²

by Keith Preston • Left and Right, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism, Race and Ethnicity, Uncategorized

My videos are made under the U.S. Fair Use Law. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

July 23, 2016

Exploring Geo-Mutualist Panarchism w/ Will Schnack ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Anarchism/Anti-State, Economics/Class Relations, Left and Right, Religion and Philosophy, Uncategorized • Tags: Derrick Broze Will Schnack

Derrick Broze interviews writer, author, and activist Will Schnack. Will has been an organizer in North Texas for years, including co-founding the Black Cat Collective and the People’s Arcane School. Will runs the website Evolution of Consent which promotes his views on what he calls Geo-Mutualist Panarchism.

July 23, 2016

What about the Workers? A Libertarian Answer ²

by Keith Preston • Economics/Class Relations, Uncategorized • Tags: Sean Gabb Libertarian Alliance

By Sean Gabb

Libertarian Alliance

I was called this morning by the BBC. It wanted me to comment on the claims that Sports direct, a chain of sports clothing shops, mistreats its workers – keeping them on zero-hours contracts, sometimes not paying them even the minimum wage, scaring them out of going sick, generally treating them like dirt. Would I care to go on air to defend the right of employers to behave in this way? I am increasingly turning down invitations to go on radio and television, and this was an invitation I declined. I suggested the researcher should call the Adam Smith Institute. This would almost certainly provide a young man to rhapsodise about the wonders of the free market. My own answer would be too complex for the average BBC presenter to understand, and I might be cut off in mid-sentence.

Here is the answer I would have taken had I been invited to speak on a conservative or libertarian radio station on the Internet.

First, it is a bad idea to interfere in market arrangements. Sports Direct is in competition with other firms. Making it pay more to its workers, or to give them greater security of employment, would require it to raise prices and make it less competitive. A general campaign against zero-hour contracts and low pay would raise unemployment. In even a reasonably open market, factors of production are paid the value of their marginal product. Establish a minimum price for labour above its clearing price, and those workers whose employment contributes less than this to total revenue will be laid off. If I felt more inclined than I do, I could produce a cross diagram to show this. The downward sloping curve would show diminishing marginal productivity, the upward the supply of labour at any given price. The point of intersection would show the clearing price. Draw a horizontal line above this clearing price to show the minimum allowed price, and you can two further lines from where this intersects the curves to create a box showing the unemployment that would result. I leave that to your imagination.

Second, intervention of this sort tends to benefit larger firms at the expense of smaller. Sports Direct might be able cope with the resulting increase in labour costs by replacing labour with capital, or by squeezing its suppliers. The result would be increased market concentration, and this may not be to the benefit of workers.

Third, let us suppose that intervention for the alleged sake of the workers was actually to their benefit. It would still be undesirable, so far as it made the State the arbiter of fair practice and raised the prestige of the State still higher – thereby justifying still more interventions. I do not believe that any state intervention for the alleged benefit of ordinary people has been other than to enrich or empower some special interest group. But every state has its tame intellectuals to cry up whatever it does as steeped in the public good.

More…

July 22, 2016

Robert Stark interviews Alex von Goldstein about Conspiracy Theories & The Green Pill ¹

by robertstark2014 • Uncategorized

Listen Here!

Topics include:

The importance of being skeptical in regards to both the establishment narrative and conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories vs. the general populist theory that the elites are acting against the interest of the people
How contrary to conspiracy theories, many of the elites have a short time frame
How conspiracy theories have become irrelevent because the world is so crazy that reading the news enough
September 11th and the rise of the modern conspiracy movement
Alex Jones
How the US Government covered up Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11
The concept of controlled opposition
How conspiracy theories are used to avoid addressing politically incorrect issues
How conspiracy theories about 9/11 and Terror attacks distract from the Invade the World, Invite the World agenda
How conspiracy theories about mass shootings(ex. Sandy Hook and the Batman shooting were MK Ultra) distracts from society’s role in creating these individuals
Ingroup vs outgroup indentities as a basis for conspiracy theories
Jewish conpiracy theories vs SJW theories of White Privelege and the Patriarachy
Bohemian Grove(archeo-futurist bent of Carthage vs Rome)
David Icke‘s Reptilian “bloodlines” theory
The Green Pill, which is the belief in the supernatural vs. the Red Pill, which see’s the world in terms of people
Graham Hancock vs Richard Dawkins on materialism, the idea of “The Truth”, Spirituality vs Rationality- LSD/DMT hippies vs Fedora Atheists
Terence McKenna vs human biodiversity (Henry Harpending’s research): great leap in human IQ, magic mushrooms, “stoned ape” theory
The documentary Hollywood Casting Couch Satan’s Playground and the theory that sexual rituals are used to blackmail public figures
Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut
The Film They Live

July 21, 2016

Twitter Bans Milo Yiannopoulos, Initiates Major Internet Free Speech War ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism, Uncategorized

It’s interesting how when a Christian bakery refuses to bake a gay wedding cake, the Left calls for compulsory association in the name of equality. When a private media company denies it own services to outspoken conservatives, the Right calls for compulsory association in the name of free speech. Of course, neither side really cares one damn bit about free speech, freedom of religion, equal rights, or free association. They just want their tribe to always win. The Blue Tribe and the Red Tribe are rapidly becoming to North America what the Sunni and Shiites are to Iraq or what the Protestants and Catholics are to Northern Ireland.

By Robbie Soave

Reason

Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart tech editor and Trump-loving alt-right superstar, has been permanently banned from Twitter following accusations that he directed his followers to send abusive comments toward actress Leslie Jones. But while Yiannopoulos certainly straddles the line between being a free speech provocateur and merely a serial violator of Twitter’s terms of service, these sanctions are likely to increase the perception that Twitter is no place for conservative voices.

Yiannopoulos’s brawl with Jones stems from her role in the new Ghostbusters movie, which features an all-female cast. The movie has taken on a culture war context: opponents of the film think its characters were made female in order to appease the dictates of political correctness. Yiannopoulos gave the movie a negative review, and soon thereafter got into a public Twitter fight with Jones.

More…

July 21, 2016

L.A. Times Suggests Military Coup Against President Trump ²

by Keith Preston • Uncategorized

By Joel Pollack

Breitbart.Com

Jamie Kirchick, writing in the Los Angeles Times, asks readers to imagine a military coup against a future President Donald Trump — and argues why one would be necessary.

Kirchick cites the example of the recent failed coup in Turkey as a source of inspiration:

Americans viewing the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey as some exotic foreign news story — the latest, violent yet hardly unusual political development to occur in a region constantly beset by turmoil — should pause to consider that the prospect of similar instability would not be unfathomable in this country if Donald Trump were to win the presidency.

READ MORE

July 21, 2016

Trump Doctrine: Work with Russia, Draw Back NATO, Stop Arming Syrian Rebels ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Uncategorized • Tags: Donald Trump foreign policy war

About the only worthwhile thing about Trump is that he seems to genuinely disagree with the more extreme elements of the neocons’ foreign policy agenda and the neoliberal economic agenda.

Sputnik News

“We will have a very good relationship with Russia” promises the mercurial Republican nominee for president who once referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as his 60 Minutes “stablemate.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Indiana Theater Sunday, May 1, 2016, in Terre Haute, Ind

Donald Trump: Ten Thousand Syrian Refugees Are Threat To America

Republican nominee Donald Trump is anything but conventional bandying around suggestions that the United States force Mexico to pay for a wall to keep undocumented immigrants from fleeing into America, refinancing US debt as though the faith and credit of the dollar were akin to high-risk junk bonds, and declaring “you bet your ass I would” bring back waterboarding because the other side is “chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages.”The man who has played a starring role over the course of the presidential campaign in celebrity dust ups with the Pope and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg often elicits scorn from the mainstream media who point to his fervent nationalist streak, history of controversial investment dealings, and outright bigoted statements against Mexicans and Muslims calling the former murderers and rapists while remarking that the latter should be banned from the country altogether.

July 21, 2016

Trump wants 800K police officers trained to fight terrorism, Giuliani says ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Police State/Civil Liberties, Uncategorized • Tags: Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani '

The right-wing will likely criticize Obama for wanting to nationalize law enforcement, and then vote for Trump so he can actually make it happen.

By Claude Brodessor-Akner

NJ.Com

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump may soon call for the federal government to provide the nation’s 800,000 police officers with training in anti-terrorism intelligence gathering, according to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an adviser to the candidate.

“I am suggesting that the federal government take on as a mission the training all of our 800,000 sworn police officers so they can notice the precursors of terrorism,” Giuliani told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

Giuliani, a former associate U.S. Attorney General, has been advising Trump on terrorism since May. Giuliani’s working group’s recommendations prompted Trump to shift his position from calling for a ban of all Muslims from entering the U.S. to simply vetting those from “terror countries,” as Trump put it.

Giuliani said all recent domestic terror attacks, from the Boston marathon bombing in April 2013 to the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month, were later found to have a trail of unaddressed warning signs leading to them.

“Every one of these acts, there were things that could have been done to prevent it,” said Giuliani. “But because of political correctness, or lack of resources, we didn’t follow up.”

Giuliani added that Trump had reacted “very positively” to his memo, and took the recommendations on-board, just as he had with the reversal of the Muslim immigration ban.

If embraced by a President Trump, it’s not clear whether the recommendations would blur the traditional distinction between intelligence gathering and law enforcement.

July 21, 2016

The world is taking its revenge against elites. When will America’s wake up? ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Economics/Class Relations, Uncategorized

By Thomas Frank

The Guardian

Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg

snapshot of America in the middle of June 2016. It is several days before the first great shock of the summer, the Brexit vote, and here in America, all is serene. The threat posed by Senator Bernie Sanders has been suppressed. The Republicans have chosen a preposterous windbag to lead them; the consensus is that he will be a pushover. For all the doubts and dissent of the last year, the leadership faction of the country’s professional class seem to have once again come out on top, and they are ready to accept the gratitude of the nation.

And so President Barack Obama did an interview with Business Week in which he was congratulated for his stewardship of the economy and asked “what industries” he might choose to join upon his retirement from the White House. The president replied as follows:

… what I will say is that – just to bring things full circle about innovation – the conversations I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pull together my interests in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying.

July 21, 2016

The Making of the American Police State ²

by Keith Preston • Police State/Civil Liberties, Uncategorized

This is a very good overview of how the present state of affairs came into being.

By Christian Parenti

The Jacobin

Three girls at a juvenile facility in Racine, Wisconsin. Richard Ross

How did we get here? The numbers are chilling: 2.2 million people behind bars, another 4.7 million on parole or probation. Even small-town cops are armed like soldiers, with a thoroughly militarized southern border.

The common leftist explanation for this is “the prison-industrial complex,” suggesting that the buildup is largely privatized and has been driven by parasitic corporate lobbying. But the facts don’t support an economistic explanation. Private prisons only control 8 percent of prison beds. Nor do for-profit corporations use much prison labor. Nor even are guards’ unions, though strong in a few important states, driving the buildup.

The vast majority of the American police state remains firmly within the public sector. But this does not mean the criminal justice buildup has nothing to do with capitalism. At its heart, the new American repression is very much about the restoration and maintenance of ruling class power.

July 21, 2016

PKK on Turkey Coup: No Democracy in ‘Fascist’ Erdogan’s Govt ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Uncategorized • Tags: PKK Erdogan

Telesurtv.Net.

Turkey

“This coup attempt makes it necessary for us to not slow down the struggle against AKP fascism, but to enhance it,” read the KCK statement.

In a statement published Saturday, the PKK’s political affiliate, the KCK, said the real and more dangerous coup is the one being led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“This case is not a matter of defending or not defending democracy. On the contrary, this situation is the proof of a lack of democracy in Turkey,” the KCK Executive Council stated.

“Portraying Tayyip Erdogan and the fascist AKP dictator as if they were democratic after this coup attempt is an approach even more dangerous than the coup attempt itself. Portraying the fight for power among authoritarian, despotic and anti-democratic forces as a fight between the supporters and enemies of democracy would only serve to legitimize the existing fascist and despotic government,” read a translation by Firat News Agency.

The statement goes on to list how the president has exceeded his constitutional powers:

“Political power’s control over the judiciary, the implementation of fascist laws and policies through a parliamentary majority, the removal of parliamentarians’ immunities, the arrest of (Kurdish) co-mayors, the removal of co-mayors from their positions, and the imprisonment of thousands of politicians from the HDP and DBP (another Kurdish party) constitute more of an actual coup.”

The solution, said the statement, comes in supporting a path that does not involve supporting either side.

“Within this framework, the defenders of democracy should stand up against the legitimization of the fascist AKP government’s policies under the disguise of democracy and create a democratic alliance that would democratize Turkey. This coup attempt makes it necessary for us to not slow down the struggle against AKP fascism, but to enhance it so that chaos and clashes in Turkey come to an end and a new and democratic Turkey emerges.”

The PKK created the KCK to implement its political ideology, democratic confederalism, which is “flexible, multi-cultural, anti-monopolistic, and consensus-oriented,” according to PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the ideology.

July 21, 2016

Keith Preston: Russia disrupting US plans to topple Syria’s Assad ^Reply

by Keith Preston • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Uncategorized • Tags: Syria Assad Russia Al-Nusra

Press TV. Listen here.

“The Americans do not like the Russians getting in the way” of toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, says US journalist Keith Preston.

The US seeks to push Russia out of Syria because it views Moscow as a huge hurdle in its plans to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, says a political analyst in Virginia.

Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of Attackthesystem.com, made the remarks on Wednesday, while discussing the rising number of civilian casualties in America’s so-called war against the Daesh (ISIL) terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

The US military has admitted to killing several hundred civilians since the beginning of its aerial campiagn against purported Daesh positions inside Syria and Iraq in 2014, with the last incident reported on Monday when a US airstrike killed 20 civilians near the city of Manbij in Syria’s Aleppo Province.

“What is significant about this particular situation in Syria is not really that there are civilian casualties, there is nothing unique about that,” he said. “However, it is important to understand the geopolitical context in which this is happening.”

On the one hand, Preston said, Washington has been urging Russia to stop its aerial campaign against the al-Nusra Front terror group, an al-Qaeda affiliate, in Syria. Russia has been pounding al-Nusra and other terror groups such as Daesh since 2014.

This is while the US has escalated its own military efforts in the region, a move that indicates Moscow and Washington have “polar opposite objectives” in the conflict, Preston argued.

“The Russian see the Syrian government of President [Bashar] Assad as a bulwark against terrorism in the region and Russians wish to maintain stability of that government,” the journalist explained.

“The Americans, however, are more concerned about toppling the Syrian government” as their “first goal,” Preston added.

The reason for that intention is Assad’s refusal to “incorporate Syria into the American system of hegemony in the Middle East,” he said, portraying Syria as a rival to Saudi Arabia, Israel and other states that are aligned with the US.

Americans oppose Russian raids against some terror groups as they see potential in those groups to serve the ultimate US goal of removing Assad, Preston noted.

“The Americans do not like the Russians getting in the way of this,” he concluded.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict that has gripped Syria for over five years now.

July 20, 2016