Bernie Sanders associate Tulsi Gabbard has reportedly been contemplating an independent run for President. A member of the Sanders Institute, she nominated Boinie at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and was bandied about as Sanders’ potential Vice-Presidential candidate. With her possible role as a “spoiler” in the 2020 Presidential campaign looming larger, Gabbard’s adoration by American fascists and reactionaries is something to be considered. In addition to David Duke’s support for her: “Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, is impressed with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her ‘libertarian instincts,’ while Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her ‘refreshing.’ . . . . And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi. ‘She’s got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person,’ Mr. Cernovich said. ‘She seems very Trumpian.’ . . . . Then there is 4chan, the notoriously toxic online message board, where some right-wing trolls and anti-Semites fawn over Ms. Gabbard, calling her ‘Mommy’ and praising her willingness to criticize Israel. In April, the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, took credit for Ms. Gabbard’s qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates. . . .” In past broadcasts, we have noted that Gabbard is a member of the Hare Krishna cult. She also sits on the advisory board of a Koch-funded think tank with links to the Neo-Confederate movement. Often described as “the first Hindu in Congress,” she is a vital contact point for Narendra Modi’s Hindutva fascist government in India.
This broadcast is something of a “prequel” to the next two programs, both dealing with Charlottesville.
What the media have termed “Alt-Right” and the author calls “the radical right” were present at Charlottesville and participants in the assassination of JFK.
Numerous programs and articles on this website have dealt with Nazi involvement with the assassination of JFK, from paramilitary American Nazi elements to individuals and institutions overlapping the Reinhard Gehlen spy milieu.
In this program, we excerpt a recent, massive volume General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield M.D. NB: For a seasoned researcher, this is a useful and important book, however it MUST be handicapped–the author is dismissive of the [by now recorded fact] that elements of the intelligence community were involved in the killing. Of course, they were.
Notwithstanding that significant flaw, the book features a treasure trove of information about Nazi and fascist connections to the assassination of JFK. A veteran researcher can–and should–easily take the information from Caufield’s book and collate it with the intelligence community elements with which the “radical right” individuals and institutions are affiliated.
Although not coterminous by any means, what Caufield terms “the radical right” and U.S. intelligence are profoundly connected.
We suspect that overlapping groups comprising what Caufield terms “the radical right” constitute an “American Gladio.”
This hypothetical relationship suggests the possibility of a domestic version of “Operation Stay Behind” and its Italian component, “Operation Gladio”. The above were NATO operations that utilized extreme right and fascist elements as potential guerilla forces to fight against communists in the event of either a successful Soviet takeover of Western Europe (an extreme improbability), or the greater likelihood of a popular Communist takeover of a major Western European country. In practice, Gladio resulted in a program of terrorist acts (bombings, kidnappings and assassinations) directed against the left. (Many of those acts were actually blamed on the left, in order to discredit it in the eyes of the public.)
Disturbed by the alleged lack of “backbone” demonstrated by American military personnel during the Korean War, American strategic thinkers undertook to indoctrinate the American public with a practically militant, anti-Communist perspective. These leaders feared that, in the event of a protracted nuclear face-off with the Soviets, lack of American political resolve could result in the United States “blinking” and backing down in such a confrontation.
In 1958, the Eisenhower administration issued a National Security Council directive authorizing the military to engage in a program of political indoctrination of military personnel and (more importantly) the civilian population as well. The goal of this directive was to alter the political views of the American people. The constitutional implications of this directive could not be exaggerated. The bulk of the broadcast examines evidence that suggests that, as a result of this NSC directive, the national security establishment began utilizing far-right and fascist groups in order to realize the desired ideological transformation. Mr. Emory suggests that these networks may very well have been utilized in the American political assassinations of the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as domestic intelligence operations against the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements.
We begin our analysis with New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s 1967 letter to Lord Bertrand Russell, in which he noted the Nazi associations of many of the people involved with the JFK assassination.
Next, we excerpt text discussing David Ferrie’s Nazi musings and associations.
In future programs, we will take up the issue of what Fort Sill Operations Command Officer Glenn Pinchback referred to as a “Neo-Nazi plot to enslave America in the name of anti-Communism” and “a neo-Nazi plot gargantuan in scope.”
In FTR #188, we detailed the “Hate Bus,” a gambit by American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell to protest the Freedom Riders and the Civil Rights movement. It bears some structural similarity to the Charlottesville incident, with fascists staging a counter-event to a progressive demonstration, in this case the “freedom riders” bus ridden by white college students and black civil rights activists in support of integration and voting rights in the South.
Note that apparent Oswald associate Ray Leahart was the best man at the wedding of David Duke, a major participant in the Charlottesville event.
Highlighting aspects of the career of “Hate Bus” participant Ray Leahart, a New Orleans ANP [American Nazi Party] member, we note that:
1.-Leahart was alleged to have been an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald. ” . . . . On December 16, 1963, after the Kennedy assassination, the New Orleans FBI investigated a tip that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen with Ray Leahart during the previous summer. Leahart was a New Orleans Nazi whom [Guy] Banister had bailed out of jail in the Hate Bus incident. . . .”
2.-The FBI had no documents on Leahart, raising the question of what happened to a document about Leahart’s arrest in the “Hate Bus” incident. (For more about the Hate Bus, see FTR #188.) Author Caufield speculates that Oswald handler Guy Banister’s close relationship with FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the disappearance of Leahart’s arrest record. ” . . . . No FBI documents, other than the New Orleans police mug shots from the Hate Bus arrest, were in the FBI record, which raises the question of what happened to FBI reference 841767D (Leahart’s arrest record in the Hate Bus incident) and why it did not accompany the allegation and substantial likelihood of an Oswald-Leahart association when sent to the Warren Commission. Banister’s close friendship with New Orleans FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the critical omission. . . .”
3.-Leahart was close to Dallas, Texas, ANP members, including Robert Surrey, who printed a notorious poster of JFK: ” . . . . . . . The Dallas FBI office was aware of correspondence linking Leahart to ANP [American Nazi Party] activities in Texas. One Dallas ANP member, Robert Surrey, was a close associate of General [Edwin] Walker. Surrey’s wife Mary was Walker’s personal secretary. Wealthy oilmen reportedly funded Surrey’s Nazi outfit. Surrey printed the infamous ‘Wanted for Treason’ poster which had circulated in Dallas before the association. The poster pictured mug-shot-styled photos of President Kennedy and accused him of treason. Surrey and Walker were Warren Commission witnesses, and, of course, Walker was close to both Guy Banister and Kent Courtney. . . .”
4.-Leahart was an associate of David Duke, and was best man at Duke’s wedding. ” . . . . On September 9, 1972, Leahart became the best man at Duke’s wedding. . . .”
The program then reviews Daniel Burros, one of the American Nazi Party members whose contact information was in Lee Harvey Oswald’s address book.
Burros viewed with favor veteran Nazi Edward Hunter, a Guy Banister’s associate, who had been a member of the pre-war Nazi Fifth Column in the U.S.
Burros allegedly committed suicide at the home of Pennsylvania Klan leader Roy Frankhouser, who–as seen in AFA #13–had operational links with elements of U.S. intelligence, CIA in particular.
Frankhouser also infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party, an organization so infiltrated by spooks and fascists that it was little more than a right-wing front organization. (The SWP was the ideological petri dish in which Lyndn LaRouche and Bernie Sanders were cultured.)
Note that Frankhouser was apparently in possession of correspondence from Michael and Ruth Paine, two “liberal” babysitters of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife. Both Michael and Ruth Paine had strong links to the national security establishment.
Fleshing out the continuity between the Nazi Fifth Column of the pre-World War II period and what author Caufield termed the “radical right” and by contemporary observers as “the alt-right,” we excerpt John Roy Carlson’s Under Cover. Note that Edward Hunter was an associate of Guy Banister’s. (Banister was one of Oswald’s apparent intelligence handlers.)
Gerhard Frey was the editor of the Deutsche National Zeitung und Soldaten Zeitung, which had veterans of the SS and Goebbels’ propaganda bureau on its editorial staff. The publication received financial support from the CIA.
A financier of contemporary Russian fascist Vladimir Zhironovsky, Frey was associated with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
Formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943, that organization is a consortium of Eastern European Third Reich subsidiaries such as the Ukrainian OUN/B, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Bulgarian National Front, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Croatian Ustachi, the Slovakian Hlinka Party and others. The unifying element in these fascist organizations was the SS. The ABN became a key element of the Gehlen organization and the GOP.
Both Frey and General Charles Willoughby were associated with the ABN.
General Charles Willoughby was also tight with the ABN, and its founder Jaroslav Stetzko, the head of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborationist government. (The spelling of Stetzko’s name varies with the transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet.) In numerous programs, we have discussed Stetzko, his wartime genocidal operations, his and the ABN’s links to the Gehlen organization, the GOP, the CIA and the Underground Reich.
An element of continuity between the wartime regime of Jaroslav Stetzko and the present OUN/B successor organizations in Ukraine is Roman Svarych.
Roman Svarych was Stezko’s personal secretary in the early 1980’s. He became Ukraine’s minister of justice (the equivalent of Attorney General) under Yuschenko, and held the same post under both Timoshenko governments. Svarych then became an adviser to Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko and is the chief spokesman for the Azov Battalion. (We highlight Stetzko/Stetsko in numerous programs–use the search function with the alternate spellings to flesh out your understanding.)
Now that the neo-Nazi car attack on a group of anti-racist protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia, has once again reminded America that hate groups represent a and significant threat to the country (and world, if you look around), it’s worth keeping in mind that these groups are in many ways cults reinforced by far-right media ecosystems that have been steadily radicalizing Americans as American conservatism has veered further and further to the right. A media ecosystem that includes Steve Bannon’s Breitbart along with sites like Daily Stormer and InfoWars and tells its audience that a cabal that includes everyone from liberals to the Muslim Brotherhood are all working together to undermine white Christians and The West in general. It’s the kind of hate landscape that might make a violent lunatic run over a bunch of anti-neo-Nazi protestors. But this is where we are and now a significant contemporary challenge for American is figuring out how to get fellow Americans trapped in such hate cults to recognize they got sucked into something awful and need to leave it and join Team Nice. Sure, that might be fruitless in many cases, but it’s still important to try. And nice. And as we’re going to see as we look at a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on the Kingston clan, a ~6,000 member strong polygamous incestuous super-racist apocalyptic cult that runs its own business empire, it’s pretty clear that figuring out how to encourage hate cult members to join their fellow humans and just mellow out is a challenge we can’t ignore. Because they might be apocalyptic death cults planning on winning a race war and becoming diving kings. With their own high-end firearms manufacturer. Hate cult recovery services are something society is going to have to get really good at if its going to survive so we should probably work on that.
In FTR #888, we detailed Glenn Greenwald’s years-long (pre-“journalist”) career running pro-bono legal interference for Nazi killers and the leaderless resistance strategy. At their party celebrating receipt of the prestigious Polk Award, Greenwald and Laura Poitras had Nazi troll/hacker Andrew Auerenheimer as a guest. Auerenheimer (pictured at right) is also the site architect for the “Daily Stormer,” arguably the leading white supremacist blog/website. All of the contents of this website as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 37+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of videotaped lectures are available on a 32GB flash drive. Dave offers his programs and articles for free–your support is very much appreciated.
In FTR #188, we discussed the “Hate Bus,” put together by American Nazi Party chief George Lincoln Rockwell to protest the Freedom Riders and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. New Orleans American Nazi Party member Ray Leahart was arrested in the Hate Bus incident. Leahart was reportedly seen with Lee Harvey Oswald–neither the FBI nor the Warren Commission accessed Leahart’s arrest record in the incident. This may have been due to the fact that New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Regis Kennedy was very close to Oswald handler Guy Bannister. Leahart was also close to Dallas American Nazi Party member Robert Surrey (Edwin Walker’s personal secretary), who printed up the infamous “Wanted for Treason” poster of JFK. Leahart was also best man at David Duke’s 1972 wedding. All of the contents of this website as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 37+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of videotaped lectures are available on a 32GB flash drive. Dave offers his programs and articles for free–your support is very much appreciated.
One of the illusions harbored by many–in particular, young people who have grown up with the internet, social networks and mobile technology–sees digital activity as private. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even before the cyber-libertarian policies advocated by individuals like John Perry Barlow, Eddie Snowden, Julian Assange and others became manifest in the Trump administration’s were implemented by the Trump administration and the GOP-controlled congress, digital affairs were subject to an extraordinary degree of manipulation by a multitude of interests.
We begin our examination of technocratic fascism with a look at the corporate foundation of Pokemon Go. Information about the background of Pokemon Go’s developer (Niantic) and the development of the firm is detailed in an article from Network World. In addition to the formidable nature of the intelligence agencies involved with generating the corporate foundation of Pokemon Go (Keyhole, Inc.; Niantic), note the unnerving nature of the information that can be gleaned from the Android phone of anyone who downloads the “app.”
Pokemon Go was seen as enhancing the “Cool Japan Strategy” of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The “Cool Japan Promotion Fund” was implemented by Abe (the grandson of Nobosuke Kishi, a Japanese war criminal who signed Japan’s declaration of war against the U.S. and became the country’s first postwar Prime Minister) to “raise the international profile of the country’s mass culture.”
The Finance Minister of Japan is Taro Aso, one of the enthusiasts of Nazi political strategy highlighted below. The “Cool Japan promotion Fund” would have been under his administration, with Tomomi Inada functioning as his administrator for the program. Now serving as Japan’s Defense Minister, Inada is another advocate of Nazi political strategy.
Next, we turn to another manifestation of Pokemon Go. The “Alt-Right” (read “Nazi”) movement is using Pokemon Go to recruit kids to the Nazi cause. Consider this against the background of Niantic, the Cool Japan strategy and the pro-Nazi figures involved with it. Consider this also, in conjunction with the Nazified AI developed and deployed by Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica and the “Alt-Right” milieu with which they associate.
A recent “New Yorker” article by Jane Mayer concerning Robert Mercer keys some interesting thoughts about Mercer, Bannon, the Alt-Right WikiLeaks and the Nazified AI we spoke of in FTR #‘s 948 and 949. In FTR #946, we noted this concatenation’s central place in the Facebook constellation, a position that has positioned them to act decisively on the political landscape.
We note several things about the Mayer piece:
She writes of Mercer’s support for the Alt-Right–Mercer helps fund Bannon’s Breitbart: “. . . . In February, David Magerman, a senior employee at Renaissance, spoke out about what he regards as Mercer’s worrisome influence. Magerman, a Democrat who is a strong supporter of Jewish causes, took particular issue with Mercer’s empowerment of the alt-right, which has included anti-Semitic and white-supremacist voices. . . .”
Mercer is racist, feeling that racism only exists in contemporary black culture: “. . . . Mercer, for his part, has argued that the Civil Rights Act, in 1964, was a major mistake. According to the onetime Renaissance employee, Mercer has asserted repeatedly that African-Americans were better off economically before the civil-rights movement. (Few scholars agree.) He has also said that the problem of racism in America is exaggerated. The source said that, not long ago, he heard Mercer proclaim that there are no white racists in America today, only black racists. . . .”
His work at IBM was funded in part by DARPA, strongly implying that the DOD has applied some of the Mercer technology: “. . . . Yet, when I.B.M. failed to offer adequate support for Mercer and Brown’s translation project, they secured additional funding from DARPA, the secretive Pentagon program. Despite Mercer’s disdain for ‘big government,’ this funding was essential to his early success. . . .”
In a 2012 anti-Obama propaganda film funded by Citizens United, Steve Bannon borrowed from “The Triumph of the Will: “. . . . Many of these [disillusioned Obama] voters became the central figures of ‘The Hope & the Change,’ an anti-Obama film that Bannon and Citizens United released during the 2012 Democratic National Convention. After Caddell saw the film, he pointed out to Bannon that its opening imitated that of ‘Triumph of the Will,’ the 1935 ode to Hitler, made by the Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Bannon laughed and said, ‘You’re the only one that caught it!’ In both films, a plane flies over a blighted land, as ominous music swells; then clouds in the sky part, auguring a new era. . . .”
Next, we return to the subject of Bitcoin and cyber-libertarian policy. We have explored Bitcoin in a number of programs–FTR #‘s 760, 764, 770 and 785.
An important new book by David Golumbia sets forth the technocratic fascist politics underlying Bitcoin. Known to veteran listeners/readers as the author of an oft-quoted article dealing with technocratic fascism, Golumbia has published a short, important book about the right-wing extremism underlying Bitcoin. (Programs on technocratic fascism include: FTR #‘s 851, 859, 866, 867.)
In an excerpt from the book, we see disturbing elements of resonance with the views of Stephen Bannon and some of the philosophical influences on him. Julius Evola, “Mencius Moldbug” and Bannon himself see our civilization as in decline, at a critical “turning point,” and in need of being “blown up” (as Evola put it) or needing a “shock to the system.”
Note that the Cypherpunk’s Manifesto (published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the 1996 “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” written by the libertarian activist, Grateful Dead lyricist, Electronic Frontier Foundation founder John Perry Barlow decry governmental regulation of the digital system. (EFF is a leading “digital rights” and technology industry advocacy organization.)
The libertarian/fascist ethic of the digital world was articulated by Barlow.
Note how the “freedom” advocated by Barlow et al has played out: the Trump administration (implementing the desires of corporate America) has “deregulated” the internet. All this in the name of “freedom.”
In FTR #854, we noted the curious professional resume of Barlow, containing such disparate elements as–lyricist for the Grateful Dead (“Far Out!”); Dick Cheney’s campaign manager (not so “Far Out!”); a voter for white supremacist/segregationist George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential campaign (very “Un-Far Out!”).
For our purposes, his most noteworthy professional undertaking is his founding of the EFF–The Electronic Frontier Foundation. A leading ostensible advocate for internet freedom, the EFF has endorsed technology and embraced personnel inextricably linked with a CIA-derived milieu embodied in Radio Free Asia’s Open Technology Fund. (For those who are, understandably, surprised and/or skeptical, we discussed this at length and in detail in FTR #‘s 891 and 895.)
Next, we present an article that brings to the fore some interesting questions about Barlow, the CIA and the very genesis of social media.
We offer Ms. Sunderson’s observations, stressing that Barlow’s foreshadowing of the communication functions inherent in social media and his presence at CIA headquarters (by invitation!) suggest that Barlow not only has strong ties to CIA but may have been involved in the conceptual genesis that spawned CIA-connected entities such as Facebook.
In FTR #951, we observed that Richard B. Spencer, one of Trump’s Nazi backers, has begun a website with Swedish Alt-Righter Daniel Friberg, part of the Swedish fascist milieu to which Carl Lundstrom belongs. In FTR #732 (among other programs), we noted that it was Lundstrom who financed the Pirate Bay website, on which WikiLeaks held forth for quite some time. In FTR #745, we documented that top Assange aide and Holocaust-denier Joran Jermas (aka “Israel Shamir”) arranged the Lundstrom/WikiLeaks liaison. (Jermas handles WikiLeaks Russian operations, a point of interest in the wake of the 2016 campaign.)
It is a good bet that Lundstrom/Pirate Bay/WikiLeaks et al were data mining the many people who visited the WikiLeaks site.
Might Lundstrom/Jermas/Assange et al have shared the voluminous data they may well have mined with Mercer/Cambridge Analytica/Bannon’s Nazified AI?
We conclude with recap of Microsoft researcher Kate Crawford’s observations at the SXSW event. Crawford gave a speech about her work titled “Dark Days: AI and the Rise of Fascism,” the presentation highlighted the social impact of machine learning and large-scale data systems. The take home message? By delegating powers to Bid Data-driven AIs, those AIs could become fascist’s dream: Incredible power over the lives of others with minimal accountability: ” . . . .‘This is a fascist’s dream,’ she said. ‘Power without accountability.’ . . . .”
We reiterate, in closing, that ” . . . . Palantir is building an intelligence system to assist Donald Trump in deporting immigrants. . . .”
In FTR #757 we noted that Palantir is a firm dominated by Peter Thiel, a main backer of Donald Trump.
Program Highlights Include: WikiLeaks’ continued propagation of Alt-Right style Anti-Semitic propaganda: ” . . . . Now it is the darling of the alt-right, revealing hacked emails seemingly to influence a presidential contest, claiming the US election is ‘rigged.’ and descending into conspiracy. Just this week on Twitter, it described the deaths by natural causes of two of its supporters as a ‘bloody year for WikiLeaks.’ and warned of media outlets ‘controlled by’ members of the Rothschild family – a common anti-Semitic trope. . . .”; assessing all of the data-mining potential (certainty) of WikiLeaks, Pokemon Go and the (perhaps) Barlow-inspired Social Media world against the background of the Mercer/Bannon/Cambridge analytica Nazified AI.
This program continues our analysis of the transformation of the Underground Reich into a triumphant, broad-based movement. Some key features of the analysis include:
“Alt-Right” luminary Richard B. Spencer’s greeting to his followers at a meeting held a few blocks from the White House a couple of weeks after Trump’s victory: ” . . . ‘Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!’ That’s how Richard B. Spencer saluted more than 200 attendees on Saturday, gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as ‘an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.’ . . .”
Spencer’s referencing of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda, racial theory and attacks on the media in that same address: “. . . . He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the ‘children of the sun,’ a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were ‘awakening to their own identity.’ . . . Mr. Spencer’s after-dinner speech began with a polemic against the ‘mainstream media,’ before he briefly paused. ‘Perhaps we should refer to them in the original German?’ he said. The audience immediately screamed back, ‘Lügenpresse,’ reviving a Nazi-era word that means ‘lying press.’ Mr. Spencer suggested that the news media had been critical of Mr. Trump throughout the campaign in order to protect Jewish interests. . . . ‘One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem,’ he said, referring to a Jewish fable about the golem, a clay giant that a rabbi brings to life to protect the Jews. . . . Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Spencer said, was ‘the victory of will,’ a phrase that echoed the title of the most famous Nazi-era propaganda film. [Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will.”–D.E.] . . . .”
Trump’s chief White House advisor, “Alt-Right” publishing kingpin Stephen P. Bannon describing himself as an “economic nationalist” and discussing how exciting the coming period will be: ” . . . I’m an economic nationalist,’ Bannon told the news outlet earlier this week. [The term “Nazi” is a contraction of “National Socialist”–D.E.] . . . ‘It will be as exciting as the 1930s . . . conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.’ . . .”
Bannon also referenced elements he thought were good exemplars of “darkness.” “. . . . Bannon, in the [Hollywood Reporter] interview, also gave some insight into how he viewed his political foes (presumably, liberals and the media) — and the ‘darkness’ he touts in fighting against them. ‘Darkness is good,’ Bannon said. ‘Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they…get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.’ . . . ”
The fact that New York Times columnist Charles Blow voiced what we feel is an accurate sentiment: ” . . . This may well be the beginning of the end: the early moments of a historical pivot point, when the slide of the republic into something untoward and unrecognizable still feels like a small collection of poor judgments and reversible decisions, rather than the forward edge of an enormous menace inching its way forward and grinding up that which we held dear and foolishly thought, as lovers do, would ever endure. . . .”
Blow’s underscoring of Trump National Security Advisor General (ret.) Michael Flynn’s affinity for “Alt-Right”/white supremacist Mike Cernovich: “. . . . In October, Flynn tweeted: ‘Follow Mike @Cernovich He has a terrific book, Gorilla Mindset. Well worth the read. @realDonaldTrump will win on 8 NOV!!!’ The New Yorker dubbed Mike Cernovich ‘the meme mastermind of the alt-right’ in a lengthy profile. The magazine pointed out: ‘On his blog, Cernovich developed a theory of white-male identity politics: men were oppressed by feminism, and political correctness prevented the discussion of obvious truths, such as the criminal proclivities of certain ethnic groups.’ . . . . ”
Much of the program focuses on the media and communication and the corruption of the very concept of truth and the profession of journalism. The growing, dominant phenomenon of fake news was a major factor in the campaign. The growth of social media, the role of WikiLeaks and the proclivity of Donald Trump and those around him for tweeting disinformation are heralding the transformation of journalism into propaganda.
In addition to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, his son and advisor Michael Flynn, Jr. is a major advocate of “fake news,” saying that a story should assumed to be true until proven false. We note that Flynn, Sr. disseminated a fake news story about the Clintons alleged involvement with a child-molestation ring. That story tracks back to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, has been nominated Education Secretary by Trump. Another of Trump’s advisors, Joseph E. Schmitz, succeeded Prince as the head of Blackwater. With powerful, militarily capable outfits like Blackwater (since renamed) in the Trumpenkampfverbande, the capabilities for violent suppression of dissenting journalism are enormous.
Trump has been extremely vocal in his criticism of dissenting media, lambasting broadcast journalists at a recent meeting and moving to “loosen libel laws.” With Trump poised to appoint several Supreme Court justices and other federal judges, the capabilities for the Trumpenkampfverbande to eliminate free speech will be profound. Trump has also been one of a number of billionaires who have made a point of suing media voices they dislike. This comes at a time when the growth of the internet has made media outlets more financially vulnerable to that sort of pressure.
Other Program Highlights Include: the creation of a “Professor Watchlist” by a right-wing youth group; rumination about how “open-carry laws” (such as one in Texas permitting college students to take handguns to class) might affect the well being of professors on that watch list; the suspension of Frank Navarro, a Mountain View (California) high school teacher and Holocaust expert, for comparing (rightly) Trump’s rise to the rise of Adolf Hitler; The U.S. vote against U.N. resolution condemning the celebration of Nazism and neo-Nazism on the grounds that it would restrict free speech (tell that to Frank Navarro!)
With the election over, the Trumpenkampfverbande is now positioned to solidify its primary function—the successful transition of the Underground Reich from a clandestine institutional element into a broad-based, above-ground mass movement.
Closing his campaign with an overtly anti-Semitic tweet: “ . . . . From a technical and thematic perspective it’s a well made ad. It’s also packed with anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Semitic vocabulary. I’m not even sure whether it makes sense to call them dog whistles. The four readily identifiable American bad guys in the ad are Hillary Clinton, George Soros (Jewish financier), Janet Yellen (Jewish Fed Chair) and Lloyd Blankfein (Jewish Goldman Sachs CEO). . . . This is an anti-Semitic ad every bit as much as the infamous Jesse Helms ‘white hands’ ad or the Willie Horton ad were anti-African-American racist ads. Which is to say, really anti-Semitic. You could even argue that it’s more so, given certain linguistic similarities with anti-Semitic propaganda from the 1930s. But it’s not a contest. This is an ad intended to appeal to anti-Semites and spread anti-Semitic ideas. . .”
Again, Trump has formally legitimized Nazi/white supremacist elements: “. . . .‘Trump has shown that our message is healthy, normal and organic — and millions of Americans agree with us,’ said Matthew M. Heimbach, a co-founder of the Traditionalist Youth Network, a white nationalist group that claims to support the interests of working-class whites. It also advocates the separation of the races. . . . ‘For racists in this country, this campaign has been a complete affirmation of their fears, worries, dreams and hopes,’ said Ryan Lenz, the editor of the Hatewatch blog at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups from its headquarters in Montgomery, Ala. ‘Most things they believe have been legitimized, or have been given the stamp of approval, by mainstream American politics to the point now where it’s no longer shameful to be a racist.’ . . . .”
Trump’s campaign will include the overt fascists who have supported him. ” . . . . ‘I have been very surprised that we have not seen attractive, well-spoken, racially aware candidates running for local office,’ Jared Taylor, head of the white nationalist American Renaissance publication and annual conference, told TPM in a Wednesday phone call. ‘I think this will be inevitable, and I think that Trump will have encouraged this. That our people will run for school board, city council, mayor, all that I anticipate certainly.’ . . . .”
Trump’s “alt-right” campaign manager Stephen K. Bannon is being considered for White House Chief of Staff: “President-elect Donald Trump is strongly considering naming his campaign CEO Steve Bannon to serve as his White House chief of staff, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN on Thursday. . . .”
In FTR #906, we noted the highly partisan position taken by FBI director James Comey in the campaign, as well as noting the media prominence given to the spurious book “Clinton Cash,” authored by Koch brothers’ protégé Peter Schweizer (aided by Breitbart editor and Trump campaign manager Stephen K. Bannon.)
It turns out that Comey’s (probably) decisive last-minute intervention in the campaign may well have been precipitated by a “Trumpenkampfverbande” faction within the FBI, who were taking their cues from “Clinton Cash!”
Program Highlights Include: The Trumpenkampfverbande’s compilation of an enemies list, a la Richard Nixon; the stunning acquittal of the Bundy Brigade, after their illegal occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge; reflections on the implications of that acquittal against the background of the massive Trump faction within the FBI; Alfa Bank consultant Richard Burt’s role as a foreign policy advisor to Donald Trump; Burt’s position as Regan’s ambassador to Germany; Burt’s lobbying on behalf of a natural gas pipeline financed, in part, by major German corporations; review of the links between Alfa Bank and the Trump organization; review of the links between Alfa Group and Marc Rich’s operations; review of James Comey’s investigations of Marc Rich; speculation about the possible role of the Alfa/Trump and Alfa/Rich links in Comey’s behavior during the campaign.
We will be analyzing David Cay Johnston’s book about Donald Trump in weeks to come. WikiLeaks played a decisive role on behalf of the Trumpenkampfverbande, manifesting what we have called “Technocratic Fascism”: “. . . . Such technocratic beliefs are widespread in our world today, especially in the enclaves of digital enthusiasts, whether or not they are part of the giant corporate-digital leviathan. Hackers (“civic,” “ethical,” “white” and “black” hat alike), hacktivists, WikiLeaks fans [and Julian Assange et al–D. E.], Anonymous “members,” even Edward Snowden himself walk hand-in-hand with Facebook and Google in telling us that coders don’t just have good things to contribute to the political world, but that the political world is theirs to do with what they want, and the rest of us should stay out of it: the political world is broken, they appear to think (rightly, at least in part), and the solution to that, they think (wrongly, at least for the most part), is for programmers to take political matters into their own hands. . .”
Continuing analysis of aspects of Donald Trump’s candidacy that have been eclipsed by his boorish attitude and behavior toward women, we note Trump’s use of thinly-veiled anti-Semitic rhetoric intimating that Hillary Clinton is in bed with an international Jewish cabal. ” . . . . The speech was hinged to the original purpose of his campaign: to trade on the resentments of a restive remnant of white America—angry white men and the women who love them—and set the stage for mayhem in the wake of his likely electoral defeat. This was not your standard, off-the-cuff Trump rant. This was a scripted speech, delivered with a teleprompter. It was crafted. It featured the key words of right-wing complaints: “sovereign,” “global bankers” and “slander.” Really, it came right out of a Nazi propaganda playbook. And when one considers the themes common between Nazi propaganda films and the films made by top Trump campaign staffers Stephen K. Bannon and David Bossie (as analyzed by AlterNet), we should hardly be surprised. . . . The agenda of the “media establishment,” Trump said, was to elect “crooked” Hillary Clinton, in the service of “special global interests rigging the system.” There are a lot of ways in the land of Wingnuttia to telegraph that your target is Jews, and these are two of them. Remember them: You’ll be hearing a lot in coming days about the “media establishment,” “global special interests,” oh, and “bankers.” . . . .”
Trump is also rhetorically invoking the prospect of turning to violence to right the wrongs of the “rigged” election he has bruited about. “ . . . . I watched his speech Thursday, and if I closed my eyes, I could smell the campfire smoke at the Malheur refuge and feel the Oregon winter wind on my face. Here were the conspiracies, the references to the shadowy international cabals, the whispers about the illegitimacy of the Department of Justice and the Trilateralist coopting of the FBI. It was like listening to an immodest Ammon Bundy. We have to protect ourselves from not just the government (because it is only a pawn) but from the people who really run it. We should be watchful, resilient, ready—and though he is reluctant, he will sacrifice himself, for he is the only one who can save us from the terror. Donald Trump shouted out every fevered dystopian fantasy I heard on the refuge . . . . I was outraged by Trump before. But now I am worried. . . . Thursday, Donald Trump traveled a step further down the path of militant right-wing revolution. It wasn’t a call to arms, exactly. But it was far past the point of comfort. . . .”
A major point of discussion concerns Trump’s deputy campaign manager, David Bossie. Even as Trump accuses Hillary of being a tool of the “elites,” Trump is utilizing Bossie, who is the head of Citizens United. It was a lawsuit by Bossie’s organization that opened the floodgates to virtually unlimited campaign funding by the ultra rich, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United. Bossie and Steven K. Bannon, Trump’s campaign manager, have utilized propaganda techniques pioneered by Hitler, Goebbels and company. ” . . . . The late Andrew Breitbart, founder of the website Bannon went on to lead, called Bannon the “Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement”—a reference to the infamous creator of Nazi propaganda films. While insisting to a Wall Street Journal reporter in 2011 that his work isn’t propaganda, Bannon went on to cite Riefenstahl among his main influences. . . . Ivana Trump, the candidate’s first wife, told Vanity Fair in 1990 that her husband kept a copy of Adolf Hitler’s My New Order, a collection of speeches that display the Nazi dictator’s exceptional ability to manipulate reality, in a cabinet near his bed. . . . . The Nazi regime produced a massive amount of propaganda; it had an entire Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels. A central technique of Nazi propagandists, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, was to cast Jews as outsiders and dangerous enemies of the Reich, ‘‘subhuman’ creatures infiltrating Aryan society.’ . . . In her analysis of Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will,’ Price noted that ‘perhaps most critically, Germany’s comeback is portrayed as well underway; the viewer need only jump aboard. What is being said implicitly is that there is no alternative.’ In ‘Battle for America,’ Bannon and Bossie follow the same formula, positing the Tea Party movement as the bandwagon to jump on. But the formula isn’t the only thing about the film that carries echoes of Goebbels: a researcher and counsel for the film was white nationalist Robert Vandervoort. . . .”
Program Highlights Include: The arrest of militia members in Kansas for plotting an attack on Somali refugees, scheduled for the day after Election Day; discussion of UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage’s support for Trump; the support Trump has received from Russian fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky; Zhirinovsky’s funding by German Nazi Gerhard Frey; Frey’s dissemination of the disinformation that Lee Harvey Oswald fired at General Edwin Walker; Frey’s close association with Reinhard Gehlen; Trump’s close relationship with the Steuben Society.
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