M-L-M Mayhem!

Usually I review books and not essays but Josephine Armistead's  The Silicon Ideology  was such a clear, timely, and engaging twenty pages that I believe it deserves a review post. Indeed, I think it is best understood as an extended abstract to a book that needs to be written [or might have already been written if the soon-to-be published Neoreaction A Basilisk  by Phil Sandifer is anything like an expanded version of Armistead's essay] particularly since the centres of global capitalism are witnessing the rise of various fascisms and ur-fascisms. Ostensibly about neo-reaction and the alt-right, The Silicon Ideology  also attempts to provide a "unified theory" of fascism so as to demonstrate that the neo-reaction/alt-right ideological milieu is united around an emergent fascism that is connected to the old fascisms and multiple contemporary fascisms. Rather than focus on the more seemingly popular fascist movements (fascist political parties in Europe, the Trump po

EDIT/UPDATE (25/01/2016): When I wrote this it was directly following the Mixon Report and thus was unable to a thorough social investigation beyond what was already written and claimed. Since then I have become convinced that my initial suspicions about the Report's opportunism, and the character of those lining up to punish/silence Sriduangkaew, were not only correct but did not go far enough. Only a few months after I wrote this at least one response to the Mixon Report was written, thus providing me with a bigger picture of the event. Since then (based on investigation, my own experience with Sriduangkaew's blog, interactions with her detractors and Sriduangkaew) I have become convinced that the targeting of Sriduangkaew was not only designed to silence her criticism of an author who was poised to release a best-selling work that was extremely orientalist (Tricia Sullivan's Shadowboxer ), but was isometric to the open reactionary politics expressed by the "Puppies&

Although it is true that an innacurate review of a book tends to reveal more about the reviewer's politics than the book in question, it is also true that such reviews might do damage to the reviewed book by convincing possible readers to avoid it at all costs.  In this context, then, the cliche "no press is bad press" is far from a truism: if enough potential readers assume that a review written by an author they respect is accurate––because why would they have reason to dispute the views of someone they trust?––then they will avoid that which this author has thrown into dispute even if this author has done so in an erroneous and dishonest manner.  Clearly, the average reader cannot read everything, and must trust those reviewers whose work s/he respects, and so reviews can sometimes function in a "gate-keeping" manner.  In this sense, even if a dishonest/inaccurate review can and should shed light on the reviewer's own political sympathies, such an insight

Although much has already been made of Maoist Rebel News ' [MRN] public youtube meltdown , and indeed a very good blow-by-blow analysis of everything leading up to this meltdown has been written, I still believe it is worth examining here.  Not to internet "ambulance chase" (in this case, I'm not even sure what that would accomplish) but because the MRN meltdown is significant insofar as it can teach us something about correct communist practice. For those unaware of MRN and what I am speaking of, here is a quick summary of what happened: Jason Unruhe, the person responsible for MRN (a youtube channel that promotes a "maoish" analysis of public events) was challenged on his use of homophobic language; he refused to recognize the criticism and attacked his accuser, going so far as to imply she was a pseudo-feminist simply because she dared to mention gender; he released a youtube video defending his right to privacy and use anti-queer language, arguing tha

[I'm temporarily suspending my last page in the Tao of Mao ABCs to write this post––but do not despair!  The final letters are already written, and only require lay-out, and the alphabet will be finished.] In the past month more than one troll has wandered unto this blog to gleefully inform me that marxism was a failure, that any adherence to marxism is akin to religious dogmatism, and that maybe I wasn't aware that past communist revolutions have never delivered on their promises.  Indeed, the most recent trolling happened on the comment string of a post about dogmatism in the left , a typical example of someone who imagines they are brilliant parachuting themselves into a theoretical terrain they have no interest in exploring and declaring themselves the authoritative representative of common sense. "I will convince you that I am brilliant and you are stupid." To be honest, I'm a little confused as to why people who are so avidly devoted to bourgeois &q;

Some time ago, I wrote something about the liberal notion of free speech called Whose Speech and for Whom .  At the moment it's one of my more popular posts [oddly enough, the rather strident entry about the attractiveness of the young Stalin is the most popular] and now and then, when I chase down the links that appear in my traffic, I discover cross-postings where it is either enjoyed or reviled.  Generally, my reason for writing it in the first place was because I was growing rather tired of the uncritical acceptance of liberal notions of freedom––and the entire liberal ideology of "free speech"––amongst the internet left.  Indeed, those internet leftists whose entire anti-capitalist praxis appeared limited primarily to internet forums and/or university class rooms were the same leftists who tended to yammer on about some platonic notion of free speech, complain about "censorship" whenever they were banned from anti-capitalist forums for problematic speechify

Ironically following my post about oppressors who masquerade as victims, some troll-provocateur found his way to this site to comment as "Anonymous" under my entry Where's Andrea Dworkin When We Need Her.   Breaking the rules of my guideline policy, Mr. Anonymous decided to post his misogynist, uninformed, and rather banal thoughts about Andrea Dworkin.   Although I allowed his original comment to remain, though indicating that it was in defiance of the comments policy, I deleted his following comments and placed the page under moderation. This trolling is especially amusing considering that I recently dealt with the discourse where oppression desires to masquerade as victimhood.  Today's Anonymous has provided me with an excellent real world example to reinforce the claims made in that post . Let's take a look at his first comment that still remains below the post that talked about Andrea Dworkin: “This walking maggot of a woman was NEVER relvant to the