Author: Keith Preston

All Posts by Keith Preston

Kick the Puppy Episode 24 3

Kick the Puppy, Uncategorized

Wal-Mart Dominates U.S. Retail Economy

U.S. cancels large scale military exercises in South Korea, Trump’s defense of Kim Jong Un leads to discord with parents of Otto Warmbier, the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, federal lawsuit takes aim at Nevada’s brothels, lawmakers push to legalize prostitution in New York, federal officials won’t pursue charges against cop who shot unarmed black man, 200 empires have come and gone in world history the US will be the same, the United  City-States of America, man delivering food arrested after dipping his testicles in salsa over low tip, Florida man threw old toilet through window of school board building in East St. Louis, lobbying powerhouse Ron Book charged with DUI after Lamborghini crash, Starbucks’ music is driving employees nuts, nudists plan roller-coaster world record attempt, person shot after stealing a leaf blower, Walmart Is eliminating greeters and so workers with disabilities feel targeted.

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Redefining the ‘N’ Word 1

Culture Wars/Current Controversies • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Jimi Hendrix was a n*ggaJesus Christ and grandma, too Jackson Pollock was a nigga Nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga Nigga, nigga, nigga Outside of society, they’re waitin’ for me
Outside of society, if you’re looking That’s where you’ll find me Outside of society, they’re waitin’ for me Outside of society
-Rock n Roll Nigger, Patti Smith

Are there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? “Are there any niggers here tonight?” I know there’s one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let’s see, there’s two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kike. And there’s another kike— that’s two kikes and three niggers. And there’s a spic. Right? Hmm? There’s another spic. Ooh, there’s a wop; there’s a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there’s three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there’s one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm.

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Attack the System After 20 Years Reply

Uncategorized

It was in late 1998/early 1999 that “American Revolutionary Vanguard” was founded by a small coalition of left-wing and right-wing anarchists, plus assorted others, for the purpose of moving past the standard left/right paradigm and toward a more radical position. In the Spring of 1999 we started a local public access TV show that ran for about three years and subsequently started Attack the System in early 2001. The following three articles date back to the early years of ATS and summarize the ATS “philosophy” as thoroughly as anything I have ever written.

Anarchism or Anarcho-Social Democracy?

Liberty and Populism: Building an Effective Resistance Movement for North America

Philosophical Anarchism and the Death of Empire

The first article was written circa 2000/2001 during the peak of the anti-globalization movement. The other two were written circa 2003/2004 following the beginning of the Iraq War. While some of the content may be slightly dated, these core ideas remain the foundation of our outlook.

It is interesting to reconsider these old essays in light of things that have happened in subsequent years.

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Burlington’s Foreign Policy Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags:

A writer at National Review (Neocon Central) inadvertently points out how Sanders has been a complete sell-out on foreign policy as his career has advanced.

“Burlington has changed over the past three and a half decades; progressives have moved up in the world. And Sanders’ foreign policy vision reflects the appetites and prejudices of a class that is moving up in the world.”

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

National Review

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks in Emeryville, Calif., during his 2016 presidential campaign. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

In the 1980s Bernie Sanders cozied up to dictators from around the world. Now, his updated foreign policy reflects a certain gentrification.

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Orania: “Right-Wing Anarcho-Communism” and Freedom of Association Reply

Uncategorized

Orania is a South African Afrikaner commune that is economically self-sufficient and has no police or prisons. Predictably, they are attacked by the Left with the usual “racist” and “fascist” labels.

But if racists want to escape a non-racist society, they should go for it, just as if communists want to escape a capitalist society, they should do so. One of the biggest points of contention that I have with most conventional leftists, including apparently left-anarchists, is over the issue of freedom of association. Freedom of association means the right to associate in a racist way, a communist way, an atheist way, a religious way, etc. It means the right to exclude redheads, meat eaters, television watchers, short people, or rock music fans. It means everyone involved can be required to be gay or required to use drugs.

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Don’t make women register for the draft. Just end draft registration for everyone. Reply

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Men and Women, Military

The anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft movements of the 1960s and 1970s are a shining example of what I would consider to be an anarchist success. No, the government wasn’t abolished. But the most powerful state in history was forced to withdraw from a war of imperialist aggression by means of a combination of illegality (draft resistance), civil disobedience, mass protests, riots, civilian armed struggle (there were literally thousands of bombings in the US during that time, as well as armed confrontations between feds/pigs and militant organizations), and passive resistance, mutiny, and “fragging” (assassinating officers) by soldiers.

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Tucker Carlson on the Religiosity of the Authoritarian Left 1

Left and Right, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism

Apparently, my critique of the SJW ideology as a kind of theocratic religion is now becoming mainstream. The long term effects of the SJW ideology will likely be the following: centrist Democrats will be pushed rightward (thereby liberalizing the Right in the process), the traditional working class will also be pushed increasingly rightward (i.e. the ones who care about gun rights, free speech, taxes, religious liberty, etc) and more receptive to right-wing populist messages, and the Left will become more fractured among contending factions claiming victimological status, or claiming to be more ideologically pure than others.

Ultimately, my position is that the ATS approach constitutes the “true far left,” i.e. a form of far-left anarchism that embraces the panoply of anti-authoritarian ideas and movements, and rejecting Communism as the Eastern world’s version of National Socialism, rejecting social democracy as a middle class oriented managerial statist ideology, rejecting SJWs as quasi-theocratic social conservatives, and rejecting Antifa as a mere variation of the skinhead street thugs.

Far Left Democrats Declare WAR On Moderates Threatening The Democratic Party Reply

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right

Unlike Tim Pool, who is a centrist vlogger, I am very appreciative of the divisive and disruptive effect that supposed “far left” Democrats are having on their party, just as I am very appreciative of the effect that Trumpism is having on the Republicans. The neocon/neoliberal duopoly is being forced into a defensive position. Interestingly, in one of Pool’s recent videos he describes SJWs as a religious movement, i.e. the Left’s version of theocratic social conservatives, which is the position that I (and others on the margins) have been advancing for years.

Tulsi Gabbard vs. “Human Rights” Imperialism: Educating the Ignorant Women Of “The View” Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Military, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism • Tags:

In an article I wrote for LewRockwell.Com 12 years ago, I introduced my theory of “totalitarian humanism” (i.e., the co-optation of cultural leftism by the state and capitalism) as the emerging ideology of the ruling class. Read the original article here. These were the core precepts of “totalitarian humanism” that I identified:

  1. Militarism, Imperialism and Empire in the guise of ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’, modernity, universalism, feminism and other leftist shibboleths.
  2. Corporate Mercantilism (or ‘state-capitalism’) under the guise of ‘free trade’.
  3. In domestic policy, what I call ‘totalitarian humanism’ whereby an all-encompassing and unaccountable bureaucracy peers into every corner of society to make sure no one anywhere, anyplace, anytime ever practices ‘racism, sexism, homophobia’, smoking, ‘sex abuse’ or other such leftist sins.
  4. In the realm of law, a police state ostensibly designed to protect everyone from terrorism, crime, drugs, guns, gangs or some other bogeyman of the month.

The reception that Tulsi Gabbard received during her appearance on “The View” is a shining example of totalitarian humanism human being applied to the foreign policy realm. An authentic cultural leftism would be more in the vein of Thaddeus Russell or Abbie Hoffman, not this crap.

Trump’s shaky capitalist support: Business conflict and the 2016 election Reply

Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right

An interesting analysis of the relationship between Trumpism and the capitalist class by “antifascist” writer Matthew Lyons. Read the article here. (Caveat: Lyon is vehemently opposed to attack the system).

As I would have suspected, Trumpism was an unwelcome insurgency that was initially opposed by the overwhelming majority of the capitalist class. When other options became less viable, many of the conventional sectors of the traditional right-wing of the ruling class started moving toward Trump, while most of the capitalist class remained in the Clinton camp. As I was saying at the time of the election, of the two candidates it was Trump who was the more “left-wing” of the two, e.g. espousing populist economic views and anti-interventionist foreign policy views (however sporadically, ineptly and inconsistently). Trump is also much more of a social and cultural liberal than the normal Republicans as demonstrated by his multiple marriages, his current marriage to a former Playboy model, his fondness of porn stars, his involvement in vice-related industries, his support for marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and prison reform, his lack of religiosity, and other characteristics that would have barred him from the Republican nomination until very recently.

Some highlights from the article:

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The United City-States of America, Mapped Reply

Activism, American Decline, Secession, Strategy • Tags:

The future infrastructure of pan-anarchism? The city-states should only be the meta-structures for thousands of local communities, intentional communites, neighborhoods, districts, and autonomous zones. And why only 100? Ancient Greece was comprised of nearly 1100 autonomous cities. The Holy Roman Empire included hundreds of kingdoms intersecting with many more free cities and territories. 

By Nolan Gray

Medium

From ancient Greece to Renaissance Italy to the Four Asian Tigers, city-states have always punched above their weight. They’ve driven culture forward, facilitated global commerce, and charged ahead of their nation-bound peers.

Indeed, cities — and the metropolitan regions that orbit around them — make sense as a political and economic unit. The key services we depend on government to do, from building infrastructure to ensuring public safety, are mostly handled by cities. And contrary to earlier predictions, the forces of globalization and the rise of the information economy have only made cities more important as economic engines and innovation hubs. It’s no surprise, then, that cities — and their mayors — are increasingly finding their voices in a world previously dominated by nations and international entities.

Unfortunately, the way the United States is structured today undermines this trend by privileging states as the key political entity. State boundaries in these modern times are typically arbitrary and often no longer reflect any meaningful political, cultural, or economic reality. Some U.S. cities, both big and small, manage to straddle state borders (think Texarkana or Bristol) while others run right up to the state edge but sharply hug the border (think Cincinnati or St. Louis). And a number of states are inexplicably fragmented because their seat of government is very different from their most populous town (think New York City/Albany and Chicago/Springfield). This often results in excessive fragmentation, unproductive competition, and a near total lack of regional land-use and transportation planning. We all suffer as a result.

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The End of Our World Order Is Imminent Reply

American Decline, Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Economics/Class Relations, Environment, Military


A writer at The Nation points out how more than 200 empires have risen and fallen in world history, and the US empire will eventually fall as well. I think this author likely overstates the prospects for future Chinese dominance, and his environmental alarmism may be overstated as well. Most likely what will replace US hegemony is the system that the author describes the US as having a pivotal role in creating, i.e. the system of global capitalism. As the US recedes, international organizations will increasingly come to dominate, e.g. the UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO, G20, transnational corporations, NGOs, foundations, international media conglomerates, etc. US military power will likely retreat as various European and Asia powers come to dominate their particular regions, but within the wide framework of global capitalism.

By Alfred McCoy

The Nation

Once upon a time in America, we could all argue about whether or not US global power was declining. Now, most observers have little doubt that the end is just a matter of timing and circumstance. Ten years ago, I predicted that, by 2025, it would be all over for American power, a then-controversial comment that’s commonplace today. Under President Donald Trump, the once “indispensable nation” that won World War II and built a new world order has become dispensable indeed.

The decline and fall of American global power is, of course, nothing special in the great sweep of history. After all, in the 4,000 years since humanity’s first empire formed in the Fertile Crescent, at least 200 empires have risen, collided with other imperial powers, and in time collapsed. In the past century alone, two dozen modern imperial states have fallen and the world has managed just fine in the wake of their demise.

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‘No Allegations of Human Trafficking’ and ‘Women Could’ve Walked Out’ In Florida Massage-Parlor Prostitution Stings 2

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties, Sexuality and the State • Tags: ,

Sex trafficking hysteria is the new “War on Drugs.” Like the war on drugs, virtually every category of do-gooder is getting duped once again.

By Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Reason

It’s been nearly a week since Florida police started bragging about their big “human trafficking” bust, an operation that pulled in professional football owner Robert Kraft, more than 150 other men, and several Chinese immigrant women associated with Asian spas in Palm Beach County. Police say the spas were fronts for prostitution, that the workers there were victims of sex trafficking, and that their six-month long investigation was time well spent.

Six months is a long time, however, and it’s hard to reconcile the cops’ timeline with their heroic rhetoric. If the women employed at these businesses were really the victims of “modern slavery,” why did police take six months to get them out of that situation? Why did it require repeat intimate undercover visits and building misdemeanor prostitution charges against all sorts of random men before these “heroes” decided to intervene?

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Keith Preston: US Claim of Aid A Pretext to Sponsor Regime Change in Venezuela Reply

Uncategorized

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An American political analyst described US efforts to send the “so-called humanitarian aid” to Venezuela as a pretext to conduct regime change in the Latin American country, calling on Washington to help Yemenis and Palestinians instead.

“The US claim of wanting to provide humanitarian aid to Venezuela is simply a pretext for efforts to engage in the domestic subversion of the country in order to sponsor regime change. Claims of wanting to provide humanitarian assistance cannot be taken seriously. At present, there are many humanitarian crises around the world that the US has either largely ignored, or has provided assistance to states that are responsible for carrying out humanitarian catastrophes such as the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen or Israel’s war against the Palestinians,” Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of attackthesystem.com, told Tasnim.

The following is the full text of the interview.

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No One Is More Oppressed Than Children 3

Uncategorized • Tags: ,

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Social justice has become such a loaded term in the Twenty-Teens. There was a time when only renegades gave a flying fuck about the disenfranchised. Now its been hijacked, in name only, by the state to justify its own malign existence. This leads to far too many reactionary renegades either embracing the state as a solution to the woes it perpetuates or conversely rejecting social justice out of hand. The sad reality here is that this has left many oppressed people without any legitimate advocacy outside of their own embattled tribes. The Civil Rights Movement has been twisted into a distraction from the very class issues that serve as the source of virtually all forms of bigotry and too many class warriors have written off social justice as a whole as some kind of neoliberal vanity project. But people are still fucked for more reasons than class even if class is the foreplay that makes that fucking possible.

Among so-called Social Justice Warriors, the conversation often devolves into a squabble over who gets fucked worst; The blacks or the browns? The trans of the gays? This bickering rarely serves any justifiable purpose but I’m always perplexed by the fact that no one takes the side of the most obvious winner of this dubious distinction. Across the globe, without exception, the most roundly fucked class of people on the planet are children and if that sentence makes you uncomfortable then that’s a start. The fact that this obvious truth is still a total mystery to even the most obsessive compulsive SJW’s only further proves the point. But really think about it, dearest motherfuckers.

Even here in the supposed civil rights bacchanalia of the West, children are afforded all the rights of pets. They are essentially the property of their adult guardians or even worse, the state, if they see fit to interfere in the oppression process. If you are beneath the sacred age of eighteen in this country, you can’t vote, you can’t own property, you can’t work, and you have absolutely zero say in your living situation. The oppression begins at birth with the glorified genital mutilation of circumcision and, even worse, the painful and invasive surgery that defines intersex children’s physical sex before they can even speak. Children are routinely conditioned to be well behaved cattle, to be seen but not heard. They are instructed to obey adults without question and do as they’re told. Is it any wonder that children are the number one victims of abuse in this country with the lion share of the abuse being dolled out by the very authority figures they’re groomed to obey; Parents, cops, teachers, priests.

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US aid ‘smokescreen’ for regime change in Venezuela 17

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

Press TV. Listen here.

The United States is using humanitarian aid as a cover to bring down Venezuela’s legal government and break the country’s will to stay independent, says an American political analyst.

Keith Preston, director of Attackthesystem.com, said Washington wanted a puppet regime that could allow it to take over Venezuela’s oil resources.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday that the US “will take action” in support of anti-government protesters amid clashes between them and Venezuelan police.

Venezuela’s opposition leader and self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaido, has vowed that humanitarian aid would enter the crisis-hit South American country in open defiance of President Nicolas Maduro, who has stated that the aid is a US plot to disguise an intervention in Venezuela.

Violence has broke out in Venezuela’s border city of San Antonia de Tachira on Friday, after trucks and protesters attempted to break through the barricaded Simon Bolivar bridge to bring humanitarian aid into the country.

“What is happening in Venezuela is that the United States is trying to sponsor what is commonly called a regime change,” Preston told Press TV on Sunday. “They are trying to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro and they are trying to install a government that will simply be a puppet of the United States.”

Taking control Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and defeating the country’s resolve to follow an “independent course” were the two objectives behind Washington’s push to topple Maduro, Preston said.

PressTV-US to 'take action' amid anti-govt. protests in Venezuela

PressTV-US to ‘take action’ amid anti-govt. protests in VenezuelaSecretary of State Pompeo says the US “will take action” amid clashes between Venezuelan police and anti-government protesters.

According to the analyst, Washington was concerned about the example Caracas was setting for other countries that had joined the so-called “Pink Tide” in the region, a movement that revolves around independence from the US and its allies.

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Keith Preston: US war against Daesh was cover to undermine Syrian government Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

Press TV. Listen here.

The US military intervention in Syria to fight the Daesh terrorist group was a cover for removing the government of President Bashar al-Assad, an American analyst in Virginia says.

“The way that the United States got involved in Syria was simply by sending troops to Syria ostensibly under the guise of fighting the Daesh, or ISIS as they’re called here,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

“In reality the objective was to undermine the regime of President Assad,” Preston told Press TV on Tuesday.

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Returning Libertarianism to its Proper Place: The Current Fight for Socialism within the U.S. Libertarian Party 2

Uncategorized

In my view, a world where right-libertarians and an-caps represented “the Right” and where left-libertarians and libsocs/an-coms represented “the Left” would be a wonderful place. “Let a thousand flowers bloom.” -Mao tse tung

The main problem that libertarians of any kind seem to have, and one that I have been criticizing for years, is that “freedom” (broadly defined) is not an idea that inherently appeals to most people. People who are drawn to libertarian ideas represent the minority of human beings who find the idea of freedom appealing. But being a libertarian (broadly defined) is like being gay, i.e. it’s something that may come naturally to a minority, but doesn’t appeal to the majority. Most people defer to the norms of their own primary reference groups, perceived legitimate authority figures, and their wider community of origin. And most people prefer safety and security over freedom. So the big question is how can libertarians influence societies beyond their actual numbers? What are the actual examples of situations where freedom emerged, usually by accident as the result of circumstances?

The following is an email interview with Matt Kuehnel and Dane Posner, two members of the Libertarian-Socialist Caucus (LSC) of the Libertarian Party. The interview took place over the course of a few months, between December 2018 and February 2019. The LSC may be contacted and followed on Facebook and Twitter. If interested in learning more or interacting, the LSC welcomes prospective members to participate in their discussion group on Facebook.

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The History Of American Imperialism, From Bloody Conquest To Bird Poop 4

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

What a succinct headline.

National Public Radio

Historian Daniel Immerwahr shares surprising stories of U.S. territorial expansion, including how the desire for bird guano compelled the seizure of remote islands. His book is How to Hide an Empire.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. American presidents like to describe the United States as a force for freedom and independence in the world. Our guest, historian Daniel Immerwahr, says there are also plenty of times in our history when we’ve subjugated and ruled foreign lands – sometimes with bloody conquests. Today, roughly 4 million people live in the American territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas.

Immerwahr’s new book is a colorful look at the history of and forces behind U.S. territorial expansion, including – and I’m not kidding – the need for massive quantities of bird poop in the 19th century. Daniel Immerwahr is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and the author of a previous book “Thinking Small: The United States And The Lure Of Community Development.” His new book is “How To Hide An Empire: A History Of The Greater United States.”

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/18/694700303/the-history-of-american-imperialism-from-bloody-conquest-to-bird-poop?fbclid=IwAR3STkAlxapdo2svAmBwR3vt5OSF5V0ySKKLyscZ1vn2Lpm4RmG0cqGflhwREAD MORE

The Future of US Party Politics? 3

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right

A reader at AttacktheSystem.Com nails it:

“I’ve noticed more and more folks on the current right becoming anti-war (at least, selectively anti-war for pragmatic reasons, though some have begun to sound like full-on peaceniks). If nothing else I guess that reflects neocons’ losing hold on the GOP.

 

Which raises another interesting question. What is the future of the Republican Party proper? As you pointed out yesterday in your Coming Dystopia piece, and in the past, the kind of Republicans that make up Trump’s base are largely a (literally) dying breed. And the more time passes the more I agree with your assessment that the new “conservatives” will essentially be neoliberals who reject progressive-style economic proposals and/or some of the excesses of SJWism.

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