Friday, August 18, 2017

After Charlottesville, after Bannon



The song is from 1965. It's relevant again, jah? Especially when it comes to those tiki-torchers who insist that they had no idea that they were marching alongside Nazis. The song also reminds me of a certain ludicrous doubletalker who thinks that one can revere Julius Evola while claiming not to be a fascist.

14 comments:

JSL said...

@Joseph Cannon,

Our modern day Martin Bormann (Chief of the Parteikanzlei), Steven K. Bannon, is officially out of the White House. I don't know what hell he will raise now that he's outside government again. But it's not enough to placate me. It's not enough, period. The fight is far from over. I hope you'll agree with me that the fight has to continue until Trump is removed from office or resigns. Even after Trump, the Far Right is burgeoning today like never before in the post-War era. There is a global resurgence of Fascism. Removing Bannon and Trump from power are just first steps in combating Neo-fascism.

Joe, it is time for the Centrists and the Leftists to unite in fighting Neo-fascism. The neo-fascists (like Bannon) only benefit from rifts like that between the centrists and progressives (Hillary vs. Bernie, etc.). For the sake of annihilating fascism, which has resurged thanks to Putinist Russia, the Center and the Left need to reconcile. At least for a long time. Either the center will hold or we will end up in a Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) dystopia.

Bernie Sanders was much closer to my political, social, economic and jurisprudent positions. But if it means defeating neo-fascists (the Alt. Right, the Far Right, Kekistanis, GamerGate, Ethno-nationalism, White nationalism, Ultranationalism, Economic nationalism, Trumpkins, etc.), I will ally with people of a wide range of political views. Even moderate or 'Main Street' Republicans. Even Wall St. ilk. And I'm saying that as someone who is anti-capitalist and left of Sanders. Neo-fascism should be public enemy numero uno. I hope to Hell you'll agree with me on that much.

Jay

Joseph Cannon said...

A well-written comment, Jay.

But I would not compare Bannon to Bormann. Bormann always struck me as more pragmatic, more efficient, less ideological, less of a perpetual outsider.

Bannon is more like...well. To whom do we compare the man?

Evola. Goebbels. Some odd combo of the two.

History never offers true repetition. It gives us variations on a theme.

Joseph Cannon said...

One other thing, Jay. I just recalled: Bormann was not at all well-known while the Third Reich was operational. He was more of a behind-the-scenes mastermind. He became well-known only at the very end, and of course, during the search for his whereabouts.

Say what you will about Bannon: He DOES like publicity.

JSL said...

@Joseph Cannon,

Thank you for the responses. You're right, I was too quick to put Bannon in the secretary Martin Bormann position. But if Bannon is not the behind-the-scenes mastermind of neo-fascism, who would you say is? Richard B. Spencer seems too foolish to me for masterminding fascism's undead resurrection. Vlad Putin? If Putin isn't the most vile, wretched and evil power moving in the world today, I don't know what is. The fact that so much of the Left have become Putin apologists makes me sick. I'm still a 'radical Leftist', but I'm in 'time out' because I refuse to be an apologist for the Chekist state that is the Russian Federation. The endless flow of Putin apologists coming from Jimmy Dore, Oliver Stone, Consortium, and other sources I use to trust. The fact that the Left I love has allied with Putin has damaged me to the very core.

Anyway, there's a new video from Olbermann's the Resistance which I think we'll both enjoy. See it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBAAzC0KtsU

You can replace every reference to Chappaquiddick with "Benghazi", "EmailGate" or "PizzaGate". The tools of neo-fascism are many today. But two tools are endlessly referencing debunked nonsense about the Clintons (including the "Pay-to-Play" Foundation scheme) and insisting that Russian collusion and interference is a "nothing-burger". It terrifies me that the Left is using tactics of the neo-fascists. So here I am, in time out. Trying to find allies like you. Like anyone willing to fight Nazis again.

Jay

b said...

The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over."

Quiz question: was Stephen Bannon echoing someone else's words?

I don't know the answer. Perhaps Benito Mussolini or an associate said something similar at the start of the Salo Republic in 1943?

Other possibilities that come to mind are Otto Skorzeny after VE Day, or Vladimir Putin at the end of the USSR.

Anonymous said...

Jay
I don't want to get into a contest on who was damaged more by the left, you or me. But I know mine was longer than Putin. Their treason on 2016 isn't just for the country, but mostly for the ideals which are the fabric of their existence. They betrayed the very people who are supposed to be helping. They showed no principals, values or morals what so ever. I simply can't trust them. They call dump brother trump. Do I need to say more?

b said...

The man who carried out the terrorist murders in Turku appears to have been arrested about 100 metres from the synagogue on Brahenkatu, and when he was moving in its direction.

That's one of only two synagogues in Finland.

Joseph Spiezer said...

Back to the fixed election https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba

prowlerzee said...

Joseph Spiezer, thanks for the link...I will check it out when I get my computer back! I used to love Medium but they are walling it off...I know, they are trying to survive.

prowlerzee said...

Joseph, that song reminds me of this time at work, the trainees shared a bit about themselves...and this German guy shared about his dad being a WW 2 German veteran and I just stared, thinking...you mean a Nazi? I did not end up working there!

prowlerzee said...

Jay, I applaud your moving out of your bubble. While everyone is in a horror over the racism of the right, next to none even acknowledge the sexism of the left. It is so pervasive it's like water to fish. As long as we're comparing losses to our core identities, just know every time anyone references Olbermann I react the way I did to the Nazi 's son calling his dad a WW 2 vet. Here is someone A-OK with Uber-man 's calling for Hillary ' s death at the hands of men. On air. Women are reminded every day men hate them, but never more so when things like that are forgiven and forgotten.

Amelie D'bunquerre said...

I wonder if most of the world's peoples regard the United States more or less in the same way that Democrats, liberals, progressives, and centrists regard white nationalists and white supremacists.

I wonder how many first-tier people in advertising and public relations understood that Virginia Slims and Clairol were marketing white supremacy.

Factoid curiosity about the era of the grandparents of the Millennials*: Around 1970, when the U.S. population was around 200-plus millions, Bucky Fuller noted that some 250 million people in India have never heard of the United States.

*Gore Vidal delighted in pointing out a writer's usage of the dreaded double genitive.

Amelie D'bunquerre said...

@prowlerzee 10:10 AM

I can't and don't watch any TV news stuff or any of its bastard progeny. The viewer by nature seeks and locks onto eye contact; the talking head, aka jerkoff, looks directly into a camera lens, to provide fake eye contact, which is unnatural and quite perverse when you think about it.

Michael Jordan is a super-wealthy gambler, while Julia Fischer can't afford a Stradivarius (and won't lease one).

JSL said...

@Anon 11:21 AM,
What I'm encountering is the same tactic over and over again. The 'far left' have collectively decided that they hate Hillary Clinton to such a degree that they'd prefer 'Red Fascism' and they'd prefer to protect Vlad Putin. If you criticize Putinism (which is really a form of Chekism, 'Red Fascism'), you are attacked as a warmonger, neocon or outright insane. They say it means you want to start thermonuclear war with Russia, a World War III of sorts. Nevermind the fact that the Putinists/Chekists have decriminalized domestic abuse, nevermind the cyberwarfare that the Chekists are engaged in, nevermind the concentration camps in the Caucuses which are dedicated to the 'rehabilitation' of homosexuals (failing that, outright extermination), nevermind the crimes of the Putinists. Bring any of it up and you're classified as a warmongering neocon, a threat to the entire globe.

@prowlerzee,
The Left shares some similar problems with the Right. Both have horrific pasts, to give one example. Another systemic and structural issue for both of them is sexism. Both are based on hyper-machismos, an idealized and fictional machismo that glorifies the 'strong man' ideal. For the Right, this can be goons and gangsters like Hitler, Reagan (read Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob), Franco, Oliveira Salazar, Donald Trump or any of the innumerable psychopaths of the Far Right. For the left, this can be sociopaths like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and so forth. Both the ideals of the Left and Right were codified in the writings of men, whether that's Marx or Mises or whomever else. It's not an inside-joke to say that the Patriarchy has and continues to dominate politics (and by extension, the personal and public morality).

There can be no doubting it. Hillary Clinton "lost" (even though she didn't, not really) because of sexism. My opposition to Hillary had nothing to do with sex or gender (whether you consider them distinct or synonymous), it had everything to do with corporatocracy. Corporatocracy has eaten away at both the Democratic and Republican parties, not just them, but governments across the world. Government (which is, at least in theory, publicly accountable and answerable) is decreasing in power, to an eventual irrelevancy. It is not by mistake but by design that governments across the world are paralyzed, gridlocked, inefficient and completely out of touch. Real power is in the corporate and financial sphere. Both institutionalized, as in the case of the Financial Stability Board, the Bank for International Settlements, the Federal Reserve System, the Eurogroup, the International Monetary Fund and others.

On this, I recommend Patrick Deneen's book Why Liberalism Failed.

"Has liberalism failed because it has succeeded?
Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century — fascism, communism, and liberalism — only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. Liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism (privatization); and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. The centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure."

As someone that self-identifies with the 'far left', I am more than presciently aware of the crimes of the Left. Here is an excellent documentary on what I call 'red fascism':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlHL5zEP3rM