Tyranny & Tantrums: A Rant on America’s Collapse

America is to going to hell in a hand basket, and the cracks in its foundation are glaring. As Linkin Park’s Burn It Down echoes, “We’re building it up to break it back down,” the cycle of destruction and collapse feels all too familiar. Institutions meant to uphold democracy are being dismantled, only to be rebuilt on even shakier ground. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few, while the vulnerable are left to fend for themselves. Like the song’s imagery of betrayal and downfall, the current political landscape mirrors a system that prioritizes control and greed over people. The flames of collapse are fanned, and the question remains—what will rise from the ashes?

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Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School

Since the election of Donald Trump, a growing body of research has examined the role of digital technologies in new right wing movements (Lewis 2018; Hawley 2017; Neiwert 2017; Nagle 2017). This article will explore a distinct, but related, subject: new right wing tendencies within the tech industry itself. Our point of entry will be an improbable document: a German language dissertation submitted by an American to the faculty of social sciences at J. W. Goethe University of Frankfurt in 2002. Entitled Aggression in the Life-World, the dissertation aims to describe the role that aggression plays in social integration, or the set of processes that lead individuals in a given society to feel bound to one another. To that end, it offers a “systematic” reinterpretation of Theodor Adorno’s Jargon of Authenticity (1973). It is of interest primarily because of its author: Alexander C. Karp.

Moira Weigel — Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School

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The Khazar myth and Marxism? 🤦🏼‍♀️

Someone questioned me about the Khazar myth in relation to Marxist ideology. I immediately thought of the Jewish Bolshevism and Cultural Marxism myths. I have never heard of this Khazar myth before, but it sounds like an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. So far, I have seen claims that the Communist Party of China is working with Jewish Marxist academics to incite a Communist revolution in the United States. Hahaha! I want to find these Jewish Marxist academics! Bring on the Communist Revolution! I wish people would pay more attention to the true enemies—the oligarchs behind the politicians—rather than these ridiculous conspiracy theories. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Trumpworld’s Favorite Writer Says The Right Must Emulate Dictators in Battling Leftist ‘Unhumans’

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Joshua Lisec’s work is highly regarded by J.D. Vance, Donald Trump Jr., and Steve Bannon. He thinks democracy is overrated and that law should be used as a tool of political revenge. He spoke to Current Affairs to explain why his book praises McCarthyism and dictatorships. 

Trumpworld’s Favorite Writer Says The Right Must Emulate Dictators in Battling Leftist ‘Unhumans (archived)

Related:

The Atrocities of Augusto Pinochet and the United States

Fighting Pinochet ebook

Don’t Blame Karl Marx for ‘Cultural Marxism’

Neo-reactionaries

Don’t Blame Karl Marx for ‘Cultural Marxism’

Don’t Blame Karl Marx for ‘Cultural Marxism’

You might think that a history of cultural Marxism would start with Marx, but the poorly coiffed Prussian has almost nothing to do with this tale of insidious infiltration. Instead, the theory took off in the late 1990s due to speeches, essays, and books by William Lind, then with the Free Congress Foundation, and Patrick Buchanan, the firebrand conservative columnist, TV talking head, and sometime presidential candidate. (The idea, though not the name, was hatched earlier, in a 1992 monograph called “The New Dark Age: The Frankfurt School and Political Correctness.” It was written by a disciple of the noted conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche.)

Related:

The CIA & the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism

Free Congress Foundation:

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[2022] Chaos Agent – Yuri Bezmenov

Yuri Bezmenov defected from the Soviet Union to Canada in the ‘70s, and his warnings about disinformation have made him a posthumous star on social media. Documents obtained by CBC News reveal his toxic relationship with Canada’s intelligence services.

Chaos agent (archived)

Semi-Related:

Call Of Duty Trailer Recklessly Promotes Far-Right Conspiracy Theory (archived)

The person interviewing Bezmenov in the footage is far-right conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin, who has since made a name for himself in HIV/AIDS denialism and alt-right recruitment. As a member of the John Birch Society, a famously anti-Communist organization focused on establishing a more conservative government in the United States, it makes sense that Griffin would peddle Bezmenov’s claims about Soviet interference by way of social progress without any critical analysis. In the Call of Duty trailer, Activision presents Bezmenov’s words bereft of this important context.

Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War uses KGB video from 1984. Critics say it’s CIA propaganda