Category Archives: Culture Wars/Current Controversies

In Defense of Tulsi Gabbard Reply

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

An interesting article from Daily Kos. I know the author of this piece, who is generally friendly to ATS.

By Alex Shepard

Daily Kos

he election of 2020 is approaching us fast, and the primary season will be here before we know it. Already, the 2020 democratic field has a few challengers. The darling of the establishment, Elizabeth Warren, has announced. From the insurgency ranks, outside of the establishment, is Hawaii congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard.

Tulsi Gabbard, on nearly all sensible and progressive policies gets a perfect score. She supports the reinstitution of the Glass Steagall act.[1] She supports raising the minimum wage.[2] She also has vocally opposed and taken part in protests against the monstrosity called the Keystone Pipeline. She has continuously called for Climate change to be taken seriously and for America to embark on a pragmatic shift away from fossil fuels to efficient alternative energy.[3] She has supported civil rights for all individual Americans, including our Latino, LGBT, African-American, disabled and Muslim citizens.[4] So therefore, it appears she should be an ideal candidate for all left-leaning individuals, mainly those who supported Sanders in the 2016 primary. She also was one of the few Democrat Party officials to endorse Bernie Sanders during his presidential race in 2016, with considerable risk to her political career. She freely resigned from her high ranking post as vice chair of the DNC in order to follow her conscience and endorse Sanders, much to the chagrin of the DNC’s operators.

Most importantly, and speaking from the personal perspective as a PHD candidate in the field of Middle Eastern Studies, she has a spotless foreign policy. Hers is the kind needed for a successful and functional American relationship with not only the Middle East, but the rest of the world as well. She has rightly condemned the illegal war of aggression against Syria.[5] At great risk to her person, and her own political career, she undertook a fact-finding mission in the war-torn nation of Syria. She has since taken it upon herself, much to the ire of the Democratic Party establishment, to tell Americans the truth about where their tax-dollars are going. They are being funneled at the behest of the Military Industry Complex, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to aid the wrong side of a conflict that is of no interest to the United States. Mainly, the American government is actively using American money to assist those who have killed Americans in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.[6] She also repeatedly called for the suspension of aid and weapon sales to the atrocious and genocidal regime in Saudi Arabia, which has been in the process of starving the Yemeni population to death.[7] She also condemned Obama’s illegal war of aggression against Libya, which our former commander in chief admitted was a tragic mistake.[8]

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Robert Stark talks to Guillaume Durocher about the Yellow Vests & National Economics Reply

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

The Stark Truth. Listen here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and Anatoly Karlin talk to Alt-French Unz Review blogger  about the Yellow Vest Protests, political situation in France, and National Economics.

Topics:

The gas tax as largely symbolic for overall populist discontent
Macron’s Neoliberal economic polices
Decentralized nature of the movement
The culture of protest in France
The role of the police(update: Police Deploy Rifles with Live Ammunition to Yellow Vest Protests)
The White Working Class demographic
Fusion of Left and Right Populism and support from both nationalist Le Pen and leftist Mélenchon supporters
How the outcome of the Yellow Vest protests will impact the next election
Why movements need a segment of the elite to succeed
Russian and American(ex. Steve Bannon) conspiracy theories
Orbánomics, or the Return of National Economics
National Economic policies such as state control of banks, national banks, and local production
The Economics of Globalism and High vs. Low Globalism
Left Wing French Social Nationalist Alain Soral
France Is Becoming More Violent

Who Cares About Russia? Reply

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

The Russian Bear is the Wizard of Oz, and Putin is the man behind the curtain. The Russophilia of the far left/far right and the Russophobia of the center left/center right is pathetic.

My own geopolitical outlook is more like that of the classical anarchists of the late 19th/early 20th century or the Sunni jihadis today, i.e. global insurgency against the global enemy even if I don’t share the politics of the jihadis.

Ultimately, I would want to see worldwide insurgencies attacking states, ruling classes, and empires on a global scale. An insurgency against the DC empire, against the EU, against the Kremlin, against Beijing, against Delhi and Islamabad at the same time.

The problem that I have with the Russophiles and Sinophiles is that ultimately they are just an Eastern version of the Republicans, only instead of a bunch of yahoos chanting “USA! USA!” at a monster truck exhibition it’s “Russia! Russia! China! China!” at a Communist or Alt-Right assembly. Just like the SJWs are really just a variation of social conservatism, only instead of being anti-abortion fanatics they are animal rights fanatics, or instead of being obsessively anti-gay they are obsessively pro-gay, or instead of protesting against adult bookstores and Satanic rock they are protesting Confederate flags and center-right campus speakers. And sometimes they overlap, e.g anti-porn feminism, anti-smoking puritans, sex trafficking hysteria, etc. It’s the same problem with the antifa who are just a variation of the skinheads (and both of these have their roots in the cultural milieu in England in the 70s and 80s). A real anarchist revolutionary insurgency would not be wasting time with any of this crap.

Tulsi Gabbard Is Running For President In 2020 Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right • Tags:

This is a pretty good discussion of Gabbard. From what I can tell, she’s basically just a moderate who trends liberal on social issues, who is pro-military, pro-Israel, and pro-terror war but who merely thinks the neocon/neoliberal foreign policy paradigm is insane (which it is), largely from her experience of actually having been in the military in Iraq. She apparently has a soft spot for India, which is obviously due to her own Hinduism. The worst thing that I have ever heard about her is her friendship with Sheldon Adelson.

Poll: Most Americans blame Trump, Republicans for longest govt. shutdown 4

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies

The United States’ partial government shutdown drags into its fourth consecutive week as President Donald Trump and Democrats fail to settle their scores over funding a border wall.
The stalemate has led to the closure of at least 25 percent of the federal operation since December 22. Air travelers have also had to wait for more than an hour to get through domestic checkpoints at Atlanta airport. The shutdown has also put on hold the Federal Aviation Administration approval of aircraft. Trump is demanding five-point-seven billion dollars from Congress for building a border wall with Mexico. The U-S president has warned that the partial shutdown will continue unless he receives the money.

News Review – U.S. Border wall Drama Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies • Tags:

The speaker of the US House of Representatives says the Democrats have a better idea to improve the country’s border security and eventually end the prolonged government shutdown. Nancy Pelosi added that it is now up to President Donald Trump to make the next move to end the shutdown. She made the remarks during a ceremonial signing of a House bill that restores funding for two federal government agencies that have been closed due to the shutdown. The Senate now has to vote on the bill, but its Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he will not bring the measure up for voting as the GOP stands with the president to get the funding.

Neither Open nor Closed but Decentralized Borders: The Revolutionary Potential of Illegal Immigrants 1

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Immigration

An immensely important essay given the current controversies.

“It seems as if the time has come to abandon terms like open and closed borders in favor of decentralized borders. We imagine a free society with decentralized borders would consist of a mixture of open borders, closed borders, public property, private property and unowned land. We believe a network of competing public and private spaces which allow for freedom of movement is most consistent with the sovereignty of the individual.”

By Derrick Broze and John Vibes

Activist Post

By Derrick Broze & John Vibes

The following essay is chapter 10 from the upcoming Manifesto of the Free Humans, book 3 of The Conscious Resistance series, from Derrick Broze and John Vibes. The book will be released for purchase and free download on April 7, 2017.

We are going to take a look at one more area of conflict among students of radical political philosophy. After examining differences of opinion on property and the environment we believe it is essential to discuss the arguments around borders and immigration. We start by considering several key questions. What would migration look like in the absence of the State? How does a society’s view on property affect the view of immigration? Would there still be a class of people known as “illegals”?

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U.S. border patrols use tear gas against migrants Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Immigration

US security forces have engaged with migrants at the country’s southern border with Mexico. US border patrol agents used tear gas to keep the group from approaching the crossing line. The recent deaths of two immigrant children in U-S custody have piled pressure on President Donald Trump for his tough immigration policies. The U-S president blamed the Democrats and QUOTE- their pathetic policies for the tragedy. Democrats, on the other hand, accuse Trump of demonizing migrants for political gain. The U-S government has been on a partial shutdown over a standoff between the White House and the Congress over funding for a border wall since December 22 last year.

Ann Coulter vs Hasan Piker on Immigration 1

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Immigration, Left and Right

A predictable shit show. I love political fractiousness. Virtually none of the contending factions associated with the present political/culture war paradigm have any relevance to the pan-anarchist position. All of them are groups that seek control of the state or seek to solicit favors from the state. The best bet is for the Left and Right to continue to attack the Center, while simultaneously attacking each other, and for the Left and Right to similarly fracture internally. The objective is to weaken the state’s ability to  maneuver while preventing any political faction from gaining a monopoly on power.

 

Kyle Kulinski Vs Hasan Piker Debate On Free Speech Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies • Tags: ,

A pro-free speech progressive vs an antifa on free speech. I am actually somewhere between these two guys. I am all for violence against the state (when tactically appropriate) but opposed to either censorship/deplatforming of mere expression of opinions or violence against other political groups that are against the system and out of power.  There’s far too much moralizing on the part of both of these guys for my tastes, and this Hasan Piker guy engages in a great deal of special pleading. This discussion also represents another interesting cleavage on the left.

Far Left Media Is Dying Because Gen-Z Is Too Conservative 6

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism • Tags:

Will the rise of Generation Z mark the death of SJWism? Is the PC/SJW/Antifa phenomenon simply the final stage in the backlash against the “old world” that existed before the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and which has now become status quo?

It is necessary for anarchists and libertarians to oppose authoritarianism wherever it emerges. In the 1950s, it was racism and McCarthyism. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the draft and the Vietnam War, Nixonism, and COINTELPRO. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was Reaganism, the War on Drugs, the “Satanic panic,” the religious right, Clintonism, and the “war on crime.” In the 2000s, it was the neconservatives and the War on Terrorism. In the past decade or so, left-wing authoritarianism of the SJW variety has become pervasive. In the future, it could become something else. For instance, “anti-sex trafficking” hysteria seems to be on the rise, or perhaps SJWism could create a right-wing backlash of the kind that has already been partially observed by the emergence of Trumpism, the Alt-Right/Lite, etc. Eternal vigilance.

 

Far Left Media Is Dying Because Gen-Z Is Too Conservative. Study after study shows the trend, generation z is becoming conservative and mostly resembles libertarians or moderate Republicans. This is a dramatic shift from Millennials who are overwhelmingly progressive. What happens then is that these companies cannot grow or attract new readers because young people do not want far left media. The outcome is obvious, these companies are laying people off and collapsing. While social justice is something most people agree with, the regressive left is too authoritarian and off putting.

Critiquing Left-wing Authoritarianism is Essential to Anarchism Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right

The foundation of anarchism should be a commitment to anti-authoritarian values generally, not just opposition to “right-wing authoritarianism.” Far too many anarchists are simply “conventional progressives, minus the state” and even the anti-statism of many “anarcho-social democrats” is questionable. Left-wing authoritarianism has been a plague on radical movements for more than two centuries. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the critiques of left-wing authoritarianism that have been developed over time.

One of the first and most important works of this kind was Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. The writings of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche provided an analysis of left-wing politics as a expression of secularized religiosity. Early anarchist criticisms of Marxism are also an important part of this history, particularly the critique of Marxism offered by Bakunin. In the 20th century, a range of writers from the left and right created critiques of Communist authoritarianism. The writings of Arthur Koestler are among the most interesting of these.

Many anarchists, even those of a hard left variety, are aware of the history of Communist totalitarianism (although such tendencies are also making something of a comeback in leftist circles as well, and are presently infesting the anarchist milieu in various ways). However, many anarchists are oblivious to the fact that the tradition of leftist authoritarianism is far more than merely Bolshevism or Stalinism. Hence, most anarchists have no intellectual armor against the influence of critical theory and “cultural Marxism.”

The Marxism That Must Not Be Named 1

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism • Tags:

History repeating itself as a tragedy and a farce. The principal weakness of most contemporary anarchists is their failure to recognize that any set of values can be turned toward authoritarian ends, not just conservative ones, and any kind of group can act in an authoritarian manner, not just traditionally hegemonic ones. Here’s the money quote from this article:

“And if all the volumes of scholarship are not enough, the parallels between Marxism-Leninism and cultural Marxism are obvious:

  • Both eliminate freedom of thought and expression and attempt to impose totalitarianism on their suffering subjects, as we see on too many American university campuses.  Stalin’s and Mao’s tyranny was more oppressive than Hitler’s or Mussolini’s and killed far more people, probably at least ten times as many.
  • Both see history as a product of only one factor, in Marxism-Leninism ownership of the means of production and in cultural Marxism which groups, defined by race and gender, have power over which other groups.
  • Both define some groups of people as good and others as evil regardless of what individuals do.  Marxism-Leninism defines workers and peasants as good and capitalists and members of the middle class (the hated bourgeoisie) as evil, while cultural Marxism says whites, males, heterosexuals, and non-feminist women are evil while blacks, third world immigrants, gays, and feminists are good.

More…

How Leftists Learned to Love Le Pen Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right • Tags:

This article is almost two years old but relevant to current events. Has the “far right” become the “new left” now that the Left has largely fallen down on the job? On an international level, if neoliberalism has become the standard, and if the traditional left has largely been coopted and absorbed by neoliberalism, is populism the “new left” in terms of domestic politics of Western countries? And is Eurasianism the “international left” when it comes to global geopolitics?

By Katy Lee and Claire Sergent

Foreign Policy

The leader of the French far-right National Front (FN) party Marine Le Pen visits on March 20, 2015 a farm in the northwestern French town of Juilley ahead of the ahead of the March 22 and 29 departemental local elections. AFP PHOTO/CHARLY TRIBALLEAU. (Photo credit should read CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images)

The leader of the French far-right National Front (FN) party Marine Le Pen visits on March 20, 2015 a farm in the northwestern French town of Juilley ahead of the ahead of the March 22 and 29 departemental local elections. AFP PHOTO/CHARLY TRIBALLEAU. (Photo credit should read CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images)

HAYANGE, France — The towers of the ArcelorMittal steel mill loom over the little town of Hayange, silent and shuttered. Few people stopped to chat on a recent winter day — the streets were shrouded in an icy fog — but those who paused summarized life here succinctly: There has been little work since the blast furnaces at the mill were shut down in 2013, and little hope either.

“Everyone is sick of it,” said Pascal, who declined to give his last name, leaning on the door of his tattoo parlor. “100 percent I am going to vote for Marine Le Pen.”

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Trump: Hush payments in 2016 vote were legal Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Law/Justice • Tags: , ,

US President Donald Trump says hush payments to women he allegedly had affairs with before the 2016 presidential election were legal. Trump said the payments were personal transactions and denied they were a violation of US campaign financing laws. Earlier, federal prosecutors in New York demanded a “substantial” jail sentence for the US president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen pleaded guilty in August to bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Democrats say Trump himself could face impeachment and imprisonment if the transactions are proven to be campaign finance violations.