Author: Keith Preston
Libertarian presidential candidate looks to get rid of the federal government 2
Watch here. Adam Kokesh is running for the Libertarian Party nomination on a platform of ending the federal government for real. Not “enforcing the Tenth Amendment, ” not “going back to the Constitution,” not “reducing the size and scope of the federal government,” not “tax cuts and deregulation” or any other mainstream conservative/neoliberal-libertarian bullshit.
Adam has the right idea, but I’m not sure he’s the right kind of leader given his failed, over the top, armed march on Washington from a few years ago, and his much publicized domestic abuse issues. The ideal revolutionary leader would have a clean image and one that exhibits uber-competence, and not have a personal history of instability (mental illness, alcoholism/drug addiction, domestic violence, financial corruption, etc). I don’t really care about any of those things myself. It’s more about marketing.
I like what Adam says in the video, and I think he’s on the right track. But he brings too much personal baggage, and the LP is not the right forum for this. Fringe parties don’t reach a large audience. For a range of tactical and propagandistic reasons, what we need is an American version of someone like Carne Ross running as a Democrat on the same platform that Adam is suggesting, and a Ron Paul-type running as a Republican on a parallel platform (thereby covering the left and right wing bases simultaneously).
This is not to say that electoralism/reformism is the means by which the state will be abolished per se, only that Adam’s idea applied in a competently and strategically executed way would be an excellent marketing/propaganda/strategic effort.
Why “the System” is Vilifying Iran Reply
The Atlanticist-Zionist-Wahhabist axis regards Iran as the primary obstacle to its imperialist ambitions in the Middle East and Central Asia.
To break it down more precisely, it’s a geopolitical rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between the kinds of Sunni fundamentalism that originate from Saudi Arabia and northern Egypt (Wahhabism, Salafism, Qubtism) and the Shia. For obvious reasons, the Shia throughout the region are aligned with Iran, but so are plenty of Sunni (particularly in Palestine and Syria) who reject Sunni fundamentalism of the kind being exported by the Gulf States, or who regard Saudia Arabia or (in the case of Hamas, for example) Israel as a greater enemy. Iran is Shia but their leader has called for unity among Shia and Sunni, and the Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian minorities in Iran are tolerated and even have seats in parliament (and there are women parliamentarians as well). Plenty of Christians, Alawites, Druze, and others who see Wahhabism, Salafism, Qubtism, etc as the primary threat are also tactically aligned with Iran. Everybody in the Middle East hates the Saudis, even their own allies in the Gulf. The Saudis threatened to invade Qatar a few years ago. The UAE is jealous of its more powerful big brother. The Omanis are Ibadi Muslims who are aligned with the GCC out of geopolitical necessity.
This article from Foreign Affairs (not exactly a pro-Iranian publication) from a couple years ago explains this pretty well:
“Arab elites, grappling with the consequences of an eroding Arab state system, poor governance, and the delegitimization of authoritarian states following the 2011 Arab Spring, enabled Iran and its partners, including Russia, to build a new regional political and security architecture from the ground up. With the support of Tehran as the undisputed center of the axis, Shiite armed movements in Iraq and across the axis of resistance have created a transnational, multiethnic, and cross-confessional political and security network that has made the axis more muscular and effective than ever before.”
Israel is tacitly aligned with Saudi Arabia because they both regard Iran and Syria as their primary geopolitical rivals. The Americans and the British simply want to create network of colonies and client states in the region. As Neal de los Huecos in a thread on my other page, these are the de facto goals of US foreign policy regarding in the region”
“1) Pull support from Hezbollah and let Israel take over Southern Iran, 2) Pull support from the Syrian Druze and let Israel take over Syria, 3) Pull support from the Houthis and let Saudi take over Yemen. 4) Quit all alliances with the Shia Iraqi Govt and let Iraq be the colony it was meant to be. 5) Arrest the Mullahs and bring in the “exiled-to-Los Angeles” National Council of Iran to reinstate the Pahlavi Dynasty.”
Whatever one thinks of Iran, the Iranians are the primary bulwarks against all of the above.
Pretenses for US troop deployment dubious Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
The pretenses under which the US is sending troops to the Middle East are dubious, according to an American political analyst.
Media reports said that the US was sending 1,000 more troops to Middle East for ‘defensive purposes’ amid tensions with Iran.
PressTV-US sending 1,000 more troops to MideastThe United States has approved deployment of some 1,000 more soldiers to the Middle East amid escalating tensions with Iran.
Speaking to Press TV from Virginia on Tuesday, director of Attackthesystem.com Keith Preston, questioned the claims behind the move and said the troops deployment was under false pretenses.
“Supposedly, this is a response to the attacks on the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman,“ he said, while pointing out that it had not been established yet who carried out the attack.
“It has not been established as to who was actually responsible for those attacks,” he said.
Preston said the administration in the United States had very recklessly tried to blame Iran for the attacks.
However, Preston reminded, any involvement of Iran had “not been demonstrated by any kind of evidence.” He noted, “In fact, all of the evidence points away from the idea that Iran would be responsible for the two attacks.”
He said the truth of the matter was that sending additional American troops to the Middle East was an anti-Iran effort aimed at exerting pressure on the Islamic Republic.
US President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive anti-Iran stance has been the result of false reports to him by White House National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who were pushing the United States into a military confrontation with Iran, according to the American analyst.
Preston said Bolton, who is notorious for his decades-long animosity towards the Islamic Republic, was pigheadedly pursuing “regime change” in Iran.
The analyst noted that regime change in Iran was part of the wider neoconservatives’ agenda that had been implemented in the region for some years now. “This is the latest chapter in the unfolding of that drama.”
“The important issue at present is to recognize that the pretext for sending the troops is a false one,” Preston said, concluding the interview by saying, “It is based on claims that have not been demonstrated.”
Trump formally launches campaign in Florida Reply
US tanker story evades rational reasoning Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
The United States’ assertion that Iran was behind blasts on board two tankers in the Sea of Oman evades rational reasoning, says an American political analyst.
Speaking to Press TV from Virginia on Sunday, Keith Preston said, “The story that the United States is spinning about the attack doesn’t make any sense.”
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has released a video after the Thursday blasts purportedly showing “Iranian sailors” removing a mine from one vessel’s hull earlier that day.
Refuting the alleged evidence, Preston said, “The tankers that were attacked were owned by parties that are friendly to Iran: Japan and also a Norwegian shipping company that has been doing business with Iran for years.”
PressTV-‘Two tankers hit by explosions in Sea of Oman’Two large tankers have reportedly been bit by explosions in the Sea of Oman.
“So, it makes no sense that Iran would have carried out attacks of this kind. It certainly wouldn’t have been in Iran’s interest,” added the commentator and author. However, “it appears that the Americans are rushing to blame Iran for the attacks irrespective of what is the actual evidence of that,” he added.
Upon being notified of the incident, Iranian authorities dispatched rescue missions to the area to try and douse the fire. Iranian vessels also took in the tankers’ crewmembers, transferring them to the southern Iranian Jask Port.
PressTV-‘Tankers attacks false flag incident to frame Iran’A senior analyst says recent attacks on tankers near Persian Gulf waters were meant to target Iran.
Pompeo words, actions don’t go together
Separately, Preston addressed recent remarks by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in which he distanced himself from his usual adversarial rhetoric concerning Iran, alleging that the US does not seek war with the Islamic Republic. “President [Donald] Trump has done everything he can to avoid war. We don’t want war,” Pompeo said on Sunday in an interview with Fox News.
Preston described the US top diplomat’s remarks as “a bit odd” at a time when “the level of bellicosity that’s coming from officials in the Trump administration has certainly escalated.”
“The actions of the members of the Trump administration are not consistent with what they’re actually saying,” Preston added.
He was apparently referring to numerous instances when Pompeo has been trying to forge international consensus against Iran during his overseas’ visits and highlight Washington’s animosity towards Tehran.
The Spreading Antifa Virus Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
There’s a storm brewing, dearest motherfuckers, or so I’m told. And I’m not talking about climate change. The wild wild world of the world wide web is ablaze with rumors, dark rumors, rumors told of a Fourth Reich, more than seventy years since the last one ran out of gas in the mucklands of Stalingrad. Fash is back and this time it’s coming through the left door. There are reams of hysterical chatter across the mucklands of social media speaking of a diabolical collaboration between the far right and the far left. From Julian Assange robbing Hillary of her throne for Donald Trump, to Steve Bannon and George Galloway exchanging bro-hugs at a Eurasianist summit in Kazakhstan, to Glenn Greenwald getting chummy with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. It’s a deep, dark, twisted, incestuous collaboration built on a shared comradery among crypto-Baathist Russophiles goosestepping their way to overthrowing the blessed post-war order of the Atlanticist brand of globalism we all know and love. And naturally that dastardly Kremlin puppet master, Vladimir Putin, is behind it all with his army of trolls and bots and other assorted shadow people. It’s a dementedly elaborate conspiracy to lynch liberal democracy and here’s the Shyamalan twist, apparently I’m the token tranny holding the noose.
For those of you who are less than familiar with my jagged, lip-smacking brand of drag queen satire, that first paragraph was a joke and so is this whole tired conspiracy theory of a new Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Some call it Horseshoe Theory, some call it the Red-Brown or Red-Green-Brown Alliance (Just add Islamaphobia!), but that old feverish canard about a grand plot by the fascist right to infiltrate the far-left or vice versa has long been a favorite scare tactic of neoliberal centrists seeking to keep dissidents separated across their manufactured left-right divide. The desired result of this campaign is to keep conservatives and leftists too frightened of “infiltrators” to think outside of the ideological box while also keeping them dependent on the radical center to protect them from the ominous “other”. Nothing scares the establishment more than working class unity, so the establishment turns this unity into a Polanskiesque horror story. Any leftist open to working with the right (like myself) is in danger of being linked to the worst excesses of white nationalism, while any conservative who refuses to spit on a hippie is blackballed as a dreaded National Bolshevik.
Create Two, Three, Many Stonewalls Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone its Pride Month. Its been advertised everywhere from Google to Twitter. A coming out party for the wholesale corporate appropriation of an underground movement. Its not even Queer Pride Month anymore, that title has become too politically incorrect, it might make the straight world uneasy. It’s LGBTQ Pride Month, that Disneyfied assimilationist alphabet soup cooked up to get the breeders comfortable enough to bother curing AIDS.
Not that I have anything against Pride Month, quite the contrary, I’m very proud to be a genderfuck lesbian. I’m just apoplectic over the fact that I finally came out just in time for my community to sell out. If you were to go on the advertisements and fanfare alone you’d think we were celebrating the day that drone strike sociopath Barack Obama granted us the right to government sanctioned monogamy. The liberal establishment who suddenly loves us so goddamn much always seems to fail to mention that Queer Pride Month was originally launched to commemorate a violent uprising against the very state they hold so near and dear.
June became Pride Month in celebration of the Stonewall Uprisings of late June, 1969. After the NYPD launched another violent raid against another underground gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, the T-girls and gay boys decided they weren’t in the mood to get bashed again by a bunch of bribe taking, sexually confused, neckless, cretins with badges. June 28, 1969 was the day the fags bashed back. And they bashed hard. These weren’t today’s garden variety house queers either. This mob was a beautiful patchwork of the colors of the queer rainbow that have been erased by the LGBTQ establishment in favor of marketability. These were the drag queens, unpassable trans women, Radical Faeries, and flannel bound bulldykes, my people. We took on the state and we fucking won. We literally kicked the ass of the meanest police force in the country, digging our nails into their thick necks and cracking their jar-heads wide open with bricks. By the time we were finished with our enemies in blue they were running for their lives from the queer volcano they ignited.
Rise of the Decadents: Notes From a Spenglerian Faggot 3
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
In spite of my Freudo-Marxian syndicalist roots I pride myself on being something of a cafeteria philosopher, taking a little influence here, there, and everywhere, even from the fringes. Fuck, who am I kidding, especially from the fringes. Wack-jobs make the best visionaries. But as far as the far right is concerned you’ll be hard pressed to find any work of philosophy with anything resembling intellectual depth. Even the non-racial shit (few and far between) is plagued with the kind of half-baked mysticism that’s only fascinating to a pre-teen metal-head (been there, done that). I make an acception, however, for the work of German Conservative Revolutionary Oswald Spengler, in particular his World War era magnum opus Decline of the West, which is more than worth thumbing through, even for a genderfuck anarchist derelict like me.
The basic thesis is that the world is broken up into distinct cultures (Greco-Roman, Persian, etc.) that tend to have a shelf life of roughly two thousand years. Every culture rises, stagnates, and develops into a civilization once its creative impulse wanes. And every civilization falls into a murky abyss of cultural decadence (people like me) and monetary greed (people like Trump) from which a new culture springs, starting the cycle over again. The focus of Spengler’s theory was that at the dawn of the First World War, Western Civilization had reached it’s winter time. The Faustian Civilization, as Oswald referred to the stagnant West was bleeding out. It’s organic aristocracy of philosophers and prophets had been replaced by a plastic plutocratic elite. It’s spirituality had been replaced by the paper god of money. It’s temples had become transformed into veritable piggy banks for greedy heretics. And most foreboding of all, the West had entered into a final state of militant Caesarism with it’s increasingly desperate populace looking to enigmatic strongmen for guidance in the turbulence.
Towards a Third World Class System Reply
A fan created a montage of audio clips from Kick the Puppy Season One showing how we are moving towards a third world model class system.
“The Gulf of Credibility“ Reply
By Craig Murray
I really cannot begin to fathom how stupid you would have to be to believe that Iran would attack a Japanese oil tanker at the very moment that the Japanese Prime Minister was sitting down to friendly, US-disapproved talks in Tehran on economic cooperation that can help Iran survive the effects of US economic sanctions.
The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous was holed above the water line. That rules out a torpedo attack, which is the explanation being touted by the neo-cons.
The second vessel, the Front Altair, is Norwegian owned and 50% Russian crewed (the others being Filipinos). It is owned by Frontline, a massive tanker leasing company that also has a specific record of being helpful to Iran in continuing to ship oil despite sanctions.
It was Iran that rescued the crews and helped bring the damaged vessels under control.
That Iran would target a Japanese ship and a friendly Russian crewed ship is a ludicrous allegation. They are however very much the targets that the USA allies in the region – the Saudis, their Gulf Cooperation Council colleagues, and Israel – would target for a false flag. It is worth noting that John Bolton was meeting with United Arab Emirates ministers two weeks ago – both ships had just left the UAE.
The USA and their UK stooges have both immediately leapt in to blame Iran. The media is amplifying this with almost none of the scepticism which is required. I cannot think of a single reason why anybody would believe this particular false flag. It is notable that neither Norway nor Japan has joined in with this ridiculous assertion.
Reactions pouring in over oil tanker attacks Reply
Anarchy and Economics with Keith Preston Reply
China demands US stop interfering in Hong Kong’s internal affairs Reply
Psychologist: Social Justice the new Religious Fundamentalism Reply
By Michael Liccione
Intellectual Takeout
Religious believers sometimes say that atheism is a “faith,” and in that sense a religion. That’s debatable because they’re using the word ‘faith’ ambiguously, and trading on that ambiguity. But according to NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, there is a scientific sense in which a relatively new, secular “religion” of “social justice” is entrenching itself among students on America’s campuses.
He’s got a cogent point.
ITO has run several pieces about Haidt’s ideas before. He’s not a conservative or even religious; he self-identifies as a liberal Democrat. Yet he’s alarmed by “the lack of ideological diversity” among faculty and students, which he sees as causing a “breakdown of discourse.” As he sees it, such stifling orthodoxy can never be good for higher education, which thrives when opposing views are permitted and given a fair hearing.
But, suggests Haidt, it appears that many colleges and universities are hosting what is not merely a stifling orthodoxy, but also one that exhibits a few key characteristics of religious orthodoxy.
That’s the thesis of a lecture he gave a few weeks ago: “The American University’s New Assault on Free Speech,” organized by the Manhattan Institute in New York City. It’s summed up in an article with the provocative title: “This New Religion Is Causing an Existential Crisis at American Colleges and Universities, NYU Prof Says.” The article includes a podcast link to the lecture.
Thus: “There is an extremely intense, fundamental social justice religion that’s taking over, not all students, but a very strong [space] of it, at all our colleges and universities. They are prosecuting blasphemy and this is where we are.”
What does he mean by “a very strong space”?
Hollywood, Cinema, Pornography & Propaganda 1
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
It’s often said that there is a fine line between art and pornography, and this is true, but few people take the time to seriously contemplate where that line is. As a fan of both art and pornography, not to mention sociology, I have probably spent too much time on the subject. Most people view the dividing line between these two mediums to be the actions of its subjects, to put it bluntly, people fucking. But some of my favorite art films include graphic scenes of passionate and unsimulated coitus. And some of my favorite genres of pornography involve acts that many wouldn’t even consider to be sexual. No, the line between art and pornography is not defined by its subject matter but rather by its intent. The intent of art is to provoke and engage the audience intellectually. The intent of pornography is to indulge and engage the audience reactively.
Unlike far too many other feminists, I have no problem with pornography in and of itself, particularly if it involves Asian lesbians with small feet and plenty of rope, but there are forms of pornography that have nothing to do with natural human sexuality in all its perverted diversity. Propaganda would probably be my least favorite genre of pornography and this hardcore smut plays on cable news 24/7 when any child could be flipping through the channels. Propaganda is the ultimate form of malignant pornography. It is the complete antithesis of art, designed for the express purpose of keeping people reacting by making sure they have no time to think. The audience is blitzed with an explosive barrage of suggestions, largely parroted from the satanic conglomeration of big government and big business commonly referred to by woke freaks like me as the Establishment. “Fear! Fear! Be afraid! Be afraid! Vote! Buy! Vote! Attack Iran! Squirrels on jet skies! Lupus fun run! Drone strike! MONEY SHOT! Have you attacked Iran yet?” Some pretty sick shit. Ted Turner makes Bob Guccione look like Captain Kangaroo.
Praise of Folly Podcast #52: Three Views on Sociology 1
Todd Lewis and Keith Preston discuss the three man views on the rise and fall of nations in 20th century sociology: Race, Culture and Geography. Using Lothrop Stoddard, Victor Davis Hanson and Jared Diamond as the perspective representatives.
Russia to deliver S-400 missile systems to Turkey in two months Reply
War with Iran is not what Trump wants 1
Press TV. Listen here.
War with Iran is not what US President Donald Trump wants, says an American author and political analyst in Virginia.
Keith Preston told Press TV in an interview on Thursday that Trump was not in favor of war with Iran.
The author of Attack the System said despite his bellicose language, Trump, who is a businessman, is against war with Iran. “The instincts that I have is that Trump really does not want to have a war with Iran.”
“But I think that he is also basing his opinion on a lot of false information that has been fed to him by various sources within the intelligence services, within his own administration,” he added.
“Something similar happened to President George W. Bush back in the early 2000 where George W. Bush also had limited knowledge or experience with foreign policy issues and international relations, and was simply led to war in Iraq by the people in his administration by Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense, and by Dick Cheney, the former vice president, ” he stated.
Preston also said that “Trump has zero experience when it comes to foreign policy.”
National Precious Metals Dealer Offers Sound Money Scholarships to Deserving Students Reply
Charlotte, North Carolina (June 5, 2019) – A national precious-metals dealer is teaming up with a sound money policy group to help students pay for the ever-increasing costs of college.
Money Metals Exchange has teamed up with the Sound Money Defense League to offer the Sound Money Scholarship — the first gold-backed scholarship of the modern era. Starting in 2016, these organizations have set aside 100 ounces of physical gold (currently worth more than $130,000) to reward outstanding students who display a thorough understanding of economics, monetary policy, and sound money.
The Sound Money Scholarship is open to high school seniors, undergraduate, and graduate students with an interest in economics, specifically the tradition of the Austrian school. Applicants do not have to be economics majors to be eligible to receive this scholarship.
A Journey Through the Anarchist Subculture Reply
An interesting interview with a fellow that describes a more than 20-year journey through the world of anarchism, communes, intentional communities, and activist culture. Lots of anarchist name-dropping in this.
From The Brilliant. Listen here.
US aims to ease conflict with Iran? Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent announcement is an effort to ease rising tensions that have sparked fears of a conflict, American author and political commentator Keith Preston says.
In past months, Pompeo was said to be setting the stage for war with Iran.
PressTV-Pompeo preparing for war with Iran: Bush-era officialMike Pompeo is “setting the stage for a war with Iran,” says a Bush-era official, claiming he sees the same pattern that developed ahead of the 2003 war on Iraq.
However, Pompeo seems to be moving in another direction now. He said on Sunday that Washington was now ready for unconditional talks with Iran.
The author of Attack the System believes that some of the Trump administration’s anti-Iran comments, mainly those by Pompeo and the hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton, have been very extreme and “Trump may be trying to rein those guys in a bit.”
