kontextmaschine

chandelyer:

wedding gowns by Stella De Libero

NRA inviting me to fight the merchants, like Chuck Schumer

I’m a white guy. I’m a well-educated intellectual who enjoys small arthouse movies, coffehouses and classic blues. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably mistake me for a lefty urban hipster.

And yet. I find some of the alt-right stuff exerts a pull even on me. Even though I’m smart and informed enough to see through it…

Trust me: After all that, some of the alt-right stuff feels like a warm, soothing bath. A “safe space,” if you will. I recoil from the uglier stuff, but some of it — the “hey, white guys are actually okay, you know! Be proud of yourself, white man!” stuff is really VERY seductive, and it is only with some intellectual effort that I can resist the pull. And yet I still follow this stuff, not really accepting it, but following it just because it’s one of the only places I can go where people are not always telling me I’m the seed of all evil in the world. If it’s a struggle for someone like me to resist the pull, I imagine it’s probably impossible for someone with less education or cultural exposure.

you: seduced by the alt-right

me, an intellectual: follow the alt-right, increasingly conceptualize my identity and ideals in its terms, write apologetic epistles about it, but resist its pull

I mean, christ, talk about no self-aw…

wait

kontextmaschine:

Lot of attention lately to the Dark Enlightenment that is mostly about Moldbug. The brown menace, she rides again.

As I’ve said before, his one innovation, “neocameralism”, is just a rewording of the Divine Right of Kings in corporate shareholder idiom, a legitimating myth for an order that hasn’t established itself yet. It is significant that that’s exactly the idiom native to the SF tech/VC complex - if shit kicks off in America, dollars to donuts it starts in the Bay Area, which I’ll maybe go into in another post, but suffice it to say I expect the particular details of his program to be pretty much irrelevant to anything.

I will say what intrigues me more, and what could really be a prime mover in that sector, is the construction of a modern, international, English-speaking Australian-American-Polish-British-Scandanavian-Serbian-etc. white volk around a core of internet-native right-masculo-populism on the chans’ “waifus, warhammer, and white nationalism” model

things like Polandball’s (and SatW’s) western-centric resurrection of the concept of national personification, heavy metal culture and the associated Vikingism, feelsguy’s translinguistic sense of selfhood, /pol/’s kebab removal… well, just /pol/’s /pol/ness, really

Now this sounds ridiculous. I know this sounds ridiculous. This is me pointing to cultural trends particularly prominent in the dork niche circles I notice and ascribing to them world-shifting importance. I know it is.

Sure, heavy metal is not the actual historic musical tradition of any people. Sure, Norse neopaganism is not the actual historic religious tradition of any people. Sure, Tolkien-by-way-of-D&D aesthetics are not the actual historic mythology of any people.

Unless, of course, you count “2008” as being a part of history, or those then alive as counting as a people. Or, say, 1978. Or, you know, the 19th century, and the conscious, successful Wagnerian construction of Germanic identity from which these are all lineally descended.

To Golda Meir is attributed the line that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, by which was meant that the identity didn’t predate the establishment of the state of Israel. True, true. Neither was there such a thing as an Israeli. But then the state of Israel was established.


Plus okay, the celebration of western, particularly north european feudal great man realpolitik that is Paradox games is a niche thing, not quite mainstream popular culture

but how about the celebration of western, particularly north european feudal great man realpolitik that is the Canadian/Irish/American “Vikings” series?

how about the celebration of western, particularly north european feudal great man realpolitik that is Game of Thrones?

*de Benoist voice* metapolitics

May 29, 2014

New Portland trend I’ve noticed: Christian college girls (as a type, yes, but I overhear and literal WP/UP/Concordia students) ambiguously out at bars with soft butch partners

anyone: [anything positive about Switzerland]
me: yeah, and their flag is a big plus too

you know, an antifa gimmick could make the Batman rogue “Anarky” relevant again

I mean, as if Machiavellian ethnonationalism + a septuagenarian yelling at the bad things on Fox News until they go away wasn’t what the base wanted all along

so while you were sleeping, Shia LaBeouf was arrested at his anti-Trump livestreaming protest art installation in Queens, after he punched one of a group of /pol/acks who came to sing Kek carols at it for the second night in a row

mapsontheweb:

This map from the 1920s plotted exactly where gang hideouts and different territories were located across Chicago.

Apparently enough people are going to keep asking me about this, so I may as well answer.

I saw it back when it was tweets, it’s nice to see someone bringing up the forgotten lessons of history and I think it’s basically on target, but I do have some reservations:

For one, the Weatherman or PR independence types were kind of prisoners of the Cold War and it’s normal to release prisoners after you win, their patron collapses, and their cause is obsoleted, I think that context is underaccounted for.

More than that, though I think there are points where his comparisons of the power of left-insurrection and right-insurrection (finding the first stronger) are improperly treated as suggestive of the efficacy of left-insurrection against right-government, like under Trump

Thinking that point through further - that the right holds state security forces, I almost wonder if you shouldn’t go through there and count those state security forces as “institutions”, and strong ones, available to right-insurrection. Because looking back, attempts to overthrow the government from the right tend to come from there.

Paradigmatic example is the Spanish Civil War - the Republicans were the government, but the Nationalists were the army and state security forces that overthrew said government.

Like, around and after the Days of Rage period, Frank Rizzo, Ed Rendell, and Rudy Giuliani did oversee the use of unsanctioned violence to defeat their enemies and move the political situation in a congenial direction, directly in the face of officially legitimated government policy. They just used police forces. They weren’t even punished with light sentences, and more than “assistant professor”, they became mayors, governor, plausible candidate for President.

How’s that for institutional support?

collapsedsquid:

argumate:

kontextmaschine:

Apparently enough people are going to keep asking me about this, so I may as well answer.

I saw it back when it was tweets, it’s nice to see someone bringing up the forgotten lessons of history and I think it’s basically on target, but I do have some reservations:

For one, the Weatherman or PR independence types were kind of prisoners of the Cold War and it’s normal to release prisoners after you win, their patron collapses, and their cause is obsoleted, I think that context is underaccounted for.

More than that, though I think there are points where his comparisons of the power of left-insurrection and right-insurrection (finding the first stronger) are improperly treated as suggestive of the efficacy of left-insurrection against right-government, like under Trump

Thinking that point through further - that the right holds state security forces, I almost wonder if you shouldn’t go through there and count those state security forces as “institutions”, and strong ones, available to right-insurrection. Because looking back, attempts to overthrow the government from the right tend to come from there.

Paradigmatic example is the Spanish Civil War - the Republicans were the government, but the Nationalists were the army and state security forces that overthrew said government.

Like, around and after the Days of Rage period, Frank Rizzo, Ed Rendell, and Rudy Giuliani did oversee the use of unsanctioned violence to defeat their enemies and move the political situation in a congenial direction, directly in the face of officially legitimated government policy. They just used police forces. They weren’t even punished with light sentences, and more than “assistant professor”, they became mayors, governor, plausible candidate for President.

How’s that for institutional support?

Exactly, that piece while interesting only barely mentioned in passing the role that police and army can play as rightist institutions.

Two of the major right-wing militia groups I pay attention to now consist of law enforcement, the Oath Keepers and the CSPOA.(Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association)  I believe members of both showed up at the Bundy standoffs.

Both of them can basically put their views into practice as part of their day job, and that’s not going to get publicity. 

Now that everyone’s decided that rangers are the face of Hashtag TheResistance, question is which cartoon ranger gets jacked up and memed first. Candidates are:

Chip n’ Dale
Ranger Rick
Smokey Bear
Ranger Smith (Yogi Bear)

this is great

if the detatched-yet-authoritative-yet-conversational witty dude essayists of the Dubya era come back to pick up the pieces of the culture, fuckin’ A, that works

where have you gone Carles and Klosterman
a nation turns its lonely eyes to you

One week into Trump’s America, and all the staff-curated images on tumblr radar are telling me to support #NoDAPL, check my privilege, and listen to marginalized folks

meanwhile the ads have started highlighting southern college blondes in tube tops

If I was Steve Bannon I’d have Trump arrange chats with the big Hollywood studio heads and prep him with a leave-behind sheet of things he’d like to see

The original version released in 1986 included 10 tracks. Tracks 11 to 15 are available on a Special Expanded Edition released in 1999. Tracks 16 to 20 are available on a Deluxe Edition released in 2006. Tracks 16-20 do not appear in the film, nor are they related to it in any way.

2006 Deluxe Edition bonus tracks

1. “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon
2. “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister
3. “The Final Countdown” by Europe
4. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship
5. “The Power of Love” by Jennifer Rush

untrustyou:

Stefanie Moshammer

Trump won West Virginia by 42.1%, and unless the Trump train blows up before he’s gotta set up his 2018 reelection, Joe Manchin’s a good bet to switch parties.

Plans to split off enough Republicans to jam Trump in the Senate seem to rely on Graham and McCain living their brands, plus Rubio staying pure for a potential run as a pre-Trump generic Republican, but generate enough pressure to crack Manchin and you need one more