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rametarin · 5 months

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My favorite rap songs.

I like the one that starts like,

"BOOTY BUTT, BUTTCHEEKS, CLAPCLAPCLAP, ASSORTED 'OH!' NOISES AND SEX."

And also the one that's like, FEMALE AND/OR FEMININE PERSON SEX NOISES ON LOOP "MY DICK IS HUUUUUGE. OH. SEX. YES INDEED." Love songs, you know.

Also the timeless ones: "WEED. YES, WE'LL SPELL IT. WE TOKE IT AND SMOKE IT AND BLOKE IT AND GEL IT. IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DISSECT MUSIC, WE SELL IT. THIS SONG'S ABOUT WEED! WEEEEEEEEEEEEED."

But there's also rap songs like: "BRAPPA BAP BAP BOW I GOTTA GAT AND IT MAKE NOISE LIKE THAT. SHOT A RIVAL SELLER ACROSS THE STREET, PUT HIS FAT BLACK ASS IN A BOX NEXT WEEK. I SELL DRUGS IF IT ISN'T OBVIOUS. IT'S THE ONLY JOB OUT HERE FOR SOME REASON BEYOND US. NEED A GANG FOR SAFETY, TOO MANY GANG BANGERS. WE'D PUT THE GUNS DOWN AND STOP SHOOTING, BUT THE GANG NEXT DOOR IS A DANGER. THANKS TO DRUG CHARGES, CAN'T OWN THEM LEGALLY. BUT THE DRUG DEALERS SELL GUNS, OR YOU CAN GET A HOT ONE THROUGH THIEVERY. DAMNED WHITE PEOPLE AND GUN CONTROL. FORBIDDEN TRIGGER FRUIT GET YOU LOCKED AWAY 'TILL YOU'RE OLD."

And also, "LIFE IS HARD FROM THE HEAT FROM ALL OF THE GANG DEALERS BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE A PAWN I WANT TO BE A TOP EARNING BIG WHEELER. I WISH THE LAWS DIDN'T TARGET INNOCENT BLACK MEN, BUT SO LONG AS CRACK'S ILLEGAL IT'S NOT IF, BUT WHEN. I LOOK DOWN ON OTHER BROTHERS FOR, 'BEING TOO WHITE.' IF YOU DON'T HAVE MY INFLECTIONS AND ACCENT, 'CUZ, WE GON' FIGHT."

Followed up immediately with, "FUCK COPS AND FUCK PIGS AND FUCK WHITE LAWYERS, ALL I DID WAS RUN FROM POLICE, B/C I'M A SOLDIER. THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO CHASE AND PURSUE, I GOT BILLS TO PAY AND THE RENT IS DUE. I DON'T PAY TAXES FOR THE DRUGS I SELL, I JUST COLLECT SAFETY NET MONEY, MULE DOPE AND YELL. THIS FILTHY SOCIETY IS NOT MADE FOR ME, I CALL 9/11 BUT IT TAKES HOURS TO SEE. PERHAPS IF THE HOOD HAD FEWER DOPE DEALERS, MORE PEOPLE TO BE NURSES, DOCTORS AND AMBULANCE WHEELERS. BUT INSTEAD WE GET CARNAGE, VIOLENCE, DEATH AND THE KNEE. I BLAME WHITE PEOPLE FOR GANG BANGERS, LIKE ME. THE LOCAL SCHOOL COMMITTEE EMBEZZLED FUNDS AGAIN, OUR DISTRICT HOOD IS 99% BLACK, BUT I'LL BLAME THE WHITE MEN. WE WON'T EVEN DISCUSS THE DEAD KIDS BY STRAY FIRE, JUST ATTRIBUTE THAT TO OUR SITUATION, MOST DIRE."

And sometimes the song that goes like, "WHITE PEOPLE ARE EVIL, WINK AND NOD, I'LL MENTION THAT EVIL SCIENTIST, YAKOB. MORE SOUR GRAPES THAT'D GET A WHITE ARTIST CENSURED, BY FAR. LISTEN AS I GET AWAY WITH SAYING THE WORDS OF THE R-. CASUAL SLURS AT GAY PEOPLE, BUT IT'S OKAY, I'M OPPRESSED. WE'LL BLAME WHITE AMERICA, AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH DO THE REST. MORE CONSPIRACY THEORIES, LIKE ALEX JONES, JUST WITH VAGUE SEIGE MENTALITY AND WANT FOR POWER, BLACK OWNED."

And who could ever forget this wonderful little ditty. "THINLY VAILED CALL TO ETHNOSUPREMACIST ARMS, WE GOT AN UNDERDOGS GRUDGE AND WISH INCREDIBLE HARM. UH YEAH, OPEN TALK OF 'US' FINALLY RISING, SEIZING A STATE AND THEN GETTING 'ENTERPRISING.' SOLIDAIRTY FISTS AND LAURELS, ROSES SICKLES AND HAMMERS. IT'S JUST A PITY OUR FINANCEERS ARE IN SLAMMERS. BUT WE WON'T BE DENIED, SOVEREIGNTY IS OUR MISSION. WE'LL ANNEX PART OF AMERICA, OUR SECESSION AMBITION. C'MON JOIN MY MOVEMENT." Pity nobody actually joined it. The artist hasn't given up hope that Black America will eventually personally finance his vaguely/lapsed Islamic Caliphate that practices polygamy and consumption of pork, and hopes for splitting off from the United States to form a legally sovereign nation inside the United States. Preferably one that can cry for reparations and the poor state of the reservation every year while the leadership misappropriates funds as they have the right to do, letting the populace demendent starve. Echoes of Sean P. Diddy Combs' compound and any time they try this ethnoseparatist movement.

And the ever loved, "YEAH YEAH YEAH. MIC CHECK. POLITICAL COMMENTARY! THIS SONG'S ABOUT SLAVERY YES, AGAIN. 244 YEARS FROM THE FIRST TO THE LAST, WE BEEN LEGALLY OUR OWN FOR A CENTURY AND A HALF. BUT NOT IF YOU ALSO COUNT THE POLL TAX, AND TRASH. JUST A REMINDER THAT RACISTS EXIST, SO I SAY ON GOOD AUTHORITY, WHITE PEOPLE BE IT. IT'S WRONG TO STEREOTYPE AN ENTIRE GROUP, BUT ONLY IF IT'S US, MENTAL GYMNASTICS, WOOTWOOT. HOW DARE THEY SPEAK AS IF WE'RE MONOLITHIC. BUT IT'S COOL IF WE SAY WHITES COLLECTIVELY ARE DICKS. IT'S WRONG TO TREAT A GROUP LIKE THEY'RE ALL CRIMINALS, UNLESS THEY'RE WHITE, THEN: DAMAGE RECEIVED = MINIMAL. MY CAREER SURVIVES DESPITE INSISTENCE ON SLURS, AND I DON'T EVEN JUST MEAN THROWING AROUND THE N-WORD. IT'S THE 90S AND THEY'RE MAD, BUT CONSIDER IT CHARITY, TO LET A 'BROTHER' DROP GAY SLUR F-BOMBS AND STILL WANT MINORITY SOLDIARITY. SO WE GET TO SPICE IT UP WITH THE LYRICS, PEOPLE WANT TO SAY RAWNESS AND THEY ALSO WANT TO HEAR IT. WE'RE PRIVILEGED TO HAVE THE RULES LAX FOR US, WHITE ARTISTS CAREERS DISAPPEAR WHEN THEY MAKE THIS MUCH FUSS. THEIR STINT WOULD BE OVER AND THEY'D CATCH ENDLESS FLACK, SHOULD'VE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO CUSS ON AIR WHILE NOT BLACK. THIS DISPARITY COMES FROM ACADEMIC LEFTIST FLACK. WE GET TO MAKE WAVES, AND THEY'VE GOT OUR BACK. ANYONE ELSE TRY TO SPIT TRUTH, GETS HIT WITH VAGUEPOSTS THAT DIRECT PUBLIC RELATIONS' NOOSE. THIS IS FAIR AND IT'S TIGHT AND NOT AT ALL TRITE OR A SPIT IN THE FACE TO EQUAL RIGHTS. "

And who could ever forget the classic: "HEY YOOOO I'M A WHITE RAPPER. IT'S '94 TO '04, AND I HAVE MOXIE AND SASS. MORE THAN THAT, HOWEVER, I'VE GOT UNLIMITED N-WORD PASS. A PRIVILEGED, CARTE BLANCHED AND SHELTERED USE, DON'T YOU WORRY, BUT ITS USE CAUSES CONTROLLED OPPOSITIONAL CONTROVERSY. THE ONES THAT AREN'T COLLARED TO BIG BOY GAME RAPPERS GET THEIR CAREERS DESTROYED AND THEIR BUTTCHEEKS ALL CLAPPERED. SEE, RAP CAN BE PARTICIPATED IN BY WHITE PEOPLE! I'M PROOF! IT'S A LIE WE'RE NOT WELCOME OR EVEN TOP OF THE HEAP-LE, THE TRUTH. I HAVE AN AUDIENCE BECAUSE I'M A PLANT; WHAT A RACKET, IF NOT FOR MY USE IN WHITE SOCIETY, I JUST COULDN'T HACK IT. MY CLAIM TO FAME IS I USE A THESAURUS AND DON'T SPEND ALL THE SONG JUST REPEATING "UH" AND "YEAH", FOR US. M.C. PET-MAJORITY SIGNING OUT, DADDY NEEDS MORE LIPS UP HIS ASS."

But I also like that rap song that goes like: "UH. YEAH. CHECKIT. PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY, MY JAM. THIS SONG HAS NO POINT, BUT I'M FOND OF THEM, MAN. SOME ABSTRACT FLOW, WHERE IT GOES I DON'T KNOW, IT HAS NO POINT BUT THAT'S THE POINT OF THE SHOW. IT'S HARMLESS, GARMLESS, THERE'S NO CONTROVERSY HERE. JUST STREAMING OF CONSCIOUSNESS, MAYBE THANKS TO WEED AND BEER. BUT, THEY'RE NOT REALLY MENTIONED IN THE SONG, JUST IMPLIED BY THE TONE AND THE AMBIENT SOUND EFFECTS OF PING-PONG. MAYBE I'M REFERENCING RAPPERS THAT SAMP'D MORE POPULAR SONGS HOPING TO MAKE SALES MORE AMPED."

Maybe I'll add to this list when I can think of a few more rap song niches, complaints and themes.

Also, chill out. If you can handle boiling down country music as a genre to the same songs about beer, trucks, sex and racism, you can handle a tongue in cheek post about rap song tropes.

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jollythunderstorms · 2 years

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So while I was watching episode 2 I noticed that, besides the book with the clue, there were other books in the shelf as seen here:

Being curious, I took a closer look to see if there was something significant on it (this was supposed to be the society's room after all)

(From L to R)

The first book is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, a novel where a young woman is haunted by the memory of her husband's late first wife, to whom she's frequently negatively compared to, so it deals with themes of jealousy, escaping memory, the past, etc.

Second is Plutarch's Lives, a series of biographies of famous Roman and Greek men illustrating their common moral virtues/failings juxtapositioned with one another

Third is Essays and New Atlantis by Sir Francis Bacon, the former delves into a variety of different topics while the latter is depicts an utopian (*cough* happy *cough*) land in the mythical Bensalem

Fourth is the book clue itself, My Island Paradiso by a J. Haley which, unlike the others, doesn't seem to be an actual book! Google doesn't show anything when you search for it BUT the supposed author shares their name with Jay Haley, one of the founding figures of brief and family therapy and of the strategic model of psychotherapy

Next is Harvard Classics Vol. 37: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, the three major English philosophers in Empiricism (of which Bacon is also considered the father of, mentioned above) which emphasizes all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the world aka "knowledge is based on experience"

Sixth is Lewis Cass by Andrew C. McLaughlin, an US biography on the aforementioned 18th century man who was a leading spokesman for "popular sovereignty" aka the belief that each citizen has sovereignty over themselves (tho mainly to determine if they get to keep slaves 'cause US)

Seventh is Kidnapped by R. L. Stevenson, an historical fiction novel based around the Appin murder so it centers heavily on the concept of justice

I can't for the life of me make out what the eight one is

And the last one is How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, which gives guidelines for critically reading books of any genre

#is the symbolism symbolizing or am i seeing things???#like 5 gives me ms perumal vibes and essays is very mr benedict #regardless it was fun researching this #there's def a theme tho #the mysterious benedict society #tmbslb

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alibatya · 6 months

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States’ Rights is an ideology that dictates the right of individual states to oppose the federal government when they think the federal government is encroaching upon them. Thomas Jefferson based it on Thomas Hobbes and John Locke’s social contract theory. The idea made it so the country was formed through a union between the United States and the states themselves. Arguments over federal vs state persisted throughout the decades, the most staggering development was in the 1859s and 1860s.

After the Mexican War, the United States had amassed more land in California, Utah, parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The hope was for the United States to integrate them without disturbing the balance between slave and free states. The question became if slavery would also be implemented in these new territories. The solution was the Compromise of the 1950s. What this meant was California became a free state, the slave trade was discontinued in Washington, a Fugitive Slave Act was passed, and popular sovereignty was executed to have the people in the other territories vote on slavery.

This agreement did not prevent conflict. The Fugitive Slave Act made it an obligation of free states to work with slave states to ensure the return of the slaves who were in free states’ territory. Another reason was the Scott vs. Sandford Supreme Court trial whereby the ruling was slavery could not be limited to the territories. The irony was the usage of federal law for Southern interests when the notion of states’ rights didn’t serve them. Divided widened further as their sections of North and South cultivated different means of economic production. In the North, there was an industrial revolution whereas in the South it was about slavery for cotton picking.

Southern democrats were fearful of federal opposition to slavery, their response would be states’ rights. Ultimately, this conflict then later between the North and South was always about slavery. Again the contradictions of supposed champions of states’ rights appear through Southern democrats fearing how popular sovereignty could result in voting against slavery which would limit its spread thus hurting them financially. The tension between these groups resulted in a Civil War occurring.

The Civil War started through the Southerners using states’ rights as a way to make Northerners seem like the aggressors, tyrants controlled by slaves who now wanted to enslave the South by impeding on their laws, and in general creating this image of these helpless white people victims. The Civil War ended with the Southerner's defeat at the hands of the Northerners. The aftermath was the myth of the“Lost Cause”, a persistent belief about how the war was about states’ rights and secession.

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boredtechnologist · 8 months

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Reviewing Probe 2000's "War Room" for the ColecoVision console necessitates a foray into the existential, ethical, and political philosophies that grapple with such catastrophic scenarios.

1. The Ethical Dimensions of Nuclear War and Government Continuity: "War Room" places players in a scenario where managing the continuity of government during a nuclear crisis is paramount. This setup raises profound ethical questions that resonate with the works of philosophers like Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Kant's categorical imperative, which stresses actions based on moral duty irrespective of the outcome, contrasts sharply with Mill's utilitarian ethics, where the greatest good for the greatest number is paramount. The game challenges players to consider the ethical implications of decisions made under extreme conditions, where the survival of the government and, by extension, the state, is weighed against the potential loss of countless lives.

2. Existentialism and the Human Response to Catastrophe: The backdrop of nuclear annihilation in "War Room" echoes existential themes explored by philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. The game confronts players with the absurdity of existence in the face of such immense destruction, challenging them to find meaning and make rational decisions in a situation that seems inherently irrational and devoid of traditional moral frameworks. Sartre’s emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility takes on a grim tone in the context of nuclear war, where choices may seem futile or overwhelmingly consequential.

3. The Political Philosophy of Sovereignty and Survival: "War Room’s" focus on maintaining government functionality during a crisis invites analysis from the perspective of political philosophy. Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, who extensively wrote on the nature of sovereignty and the social contract, provide a framework for understanding the game's underlying political themes. The Hobbesian view of a strong, centralized authority to prevent societal collapse contrasts with Locke’s emphasis on the government's role in protecting individual rights, even in extreme scenarios.

4. The Dystopian Vision and Critique of Power Structures: The game’s portrayal of a world on the brink of nuclear destruction offers a dystopian vision that can be analyzed through the lens of critical theory, particularly the works of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Their critiques of Enlightenment rationality and the destructive potential of technologically advanced societies are reflected in "War Room’s" simulation of a technologically facilitated apocalypse. The game serves as a critique of power structures and the potential moral bankruptcy of a society overly reliant on technology and militarism.

5. Moral Responsibility and the Continuity of Government: The concept of "continuity of government" in the face of nuclear annihilation raises questions about moral responsibility as explored by Hannah Arendt. Her discussion on the banality of evil and the moral considerations in bureaucratic settings resonates with the game’s setting, where players must navigate the impersonal machinery of government even as the world faces destruction. Arendt’s insights prompt players to consider the moral implications of maintaining government structures when such structures might have contributed to the crisis.

6. Nietzschean Perspectives on Power and Survival: Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas about power, the will to power, and survival provide another philosophical angle to approach "War Room." Nietzsche's critique of traditional moral values and his emphasis on the creation of new values in the face of existential threats can be applied to the game’s scenario. The game prompts reflection on Nietzschean ideas about the human drive for power and survival in extreme situations, where traditional moral and ethical structures are challenged or abandoned.

In conclusion, "War Room" for the ColecoVision console offers a complex and thought-provoking experience that delves into philosophical questions about ethics, existentialism, political sovereignty, dystopian futures, moral responsibility, and power dynamics. Through its simulation of government continuity in the face of nuclear annihilation, the game provides a rich and challenging platform for players to engage with deep philosophical issues, encouraging a critical examination of the moral, existential, and political dimensions of such catastrophic scenarios.

#Probe 2000 #Warroom #War room #Nuclear War #COG #Continuity of Government #Retro #Game #colecovision #Pixel Crisis

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sethshead · 11 months

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Qadhafi bragged about driving the last Jew out of Libya. Then, after he had confiscated all their property he invited them back exclusively to weaken the one country that gave those refugees safe haven. These are the games people play with Jews when we're considered worthy only of being a subject people dependent on a tyrant's whim.

There are and never have been Arab Jews. Jews, of separate stock and origin than Muslim and Christian Arabs, were never treated as equals, as peers, by their non-Jewish neighbors. They were locked in ghettos, subject to humiliation, discrimination, and violence. Yes, even in the MENA, which progressives so wish to idealize for their supposed diversity and tolerance. Jews were considered a lesser people, due not authority nor respect from their Muslim rulers. This is what is so jarring for modern groups like Hamas: their world is inverted, the divinely ordained power dynamics are threatened, so long as Jews have sovereignty in Israel. That is an insult they must avenge, just as they murdered Kaab ibn al-Ashraf.

The genocidal mindset of Hamas is not derived from occupation nor any recent phenomenon. They are not motivated to achieve freedom from Israeli rule for the Palestinian people or any Western anti-colonialist theory. They exist to restore supremacy to Islam and to show the Jews our subordinate place, with as much horror and terror as they can inflict. To them, we are dhimam who have rebelled, and must be annihilated.

This is why Israeli Sefardim and Mizrahim are less sympathetic to Arabs than are Ashkenazim: they lived through this, remember the slights, and know what would await Jews should Israel fall. They will not go back to being the Arabs' Jews, the Arabs' dogs. In Israel have Jews restored our pride and independence, and no number of Hamas butchers or college radicals will overcome that.

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tinyshe · 3 years

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It’s Time To Build Our Own Parallel Economy

By Andrew Torba

[this is interesting and thoughtful, american based article]

The problem with the American Populist movement is that it was centralized.

Centralized movements give the enemy a central attack vector to target and overcome. One man, who took on the weight of the world, became the sole focus of both the enemy and of the American Populist movement itself for over five years.

The oligarchs removed that one man from the entire internet, then they removed him from office. Everyone knows this, we all watched it happen. What no one has clearly defined is where American Populism goes from here.

The oligarchs believe that they have destroyed American Populism by rigging an election, removing the movement’s leader from public view, and by forcing everyone to stay locked inside for a year while the country burns down around us all.

They think they have won and want to define “New Normal” under their rule as they consolidate power. What they don’t realize is that they have recruited tens of millions of Americans to the side of reason, light, and Truth. Many millions of these people didn’t even vote for Donald Trump, but they recognize what is happening to our country and want to stop it.

Over the course of the past year I’ve seen comments across the internet become increasingly “red pilled” and aware of the Big Lies being pushed by the corporate media and frauds in government. It turns out that keeping people locked inside on the internet for an entire year ends up illuminating a lot of minds.

The People are learning what the real problem is: the globalist oligarchs. Not any one politician. Not this political party or that one. The entire system is corrupt. Banks, tech companies, media companies, schools, government, and on and on. We must exit this broken and failing system and start building a new one immediately. We are not revolutionaries. We are not violent. We are reformers. We are builders. When we up and leave the existing system in favor of our own the existing system will crumble without us lifting a finger.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”― Buckminster Fuller

The way around centralized problems in the movement is to decentralize American Populism at the local level. In order to take our country back and move forward with the American Populist movement we must first take our local communities back. Here are several examples of this happening across the country:

Big Tech’s Unlikely Next Battleground: North Dakota

Montana Bill Would Designate Antifa as Domestic Terrorism

Florida restaurant goes viral for ‘face diapers not required’ mask policy

We must build our own parallel economy.

Pull your positions out of their useless stock market and buy bitcoin, gold, silver, food stores, and ammo. Bitcoin is free speech money. Learn what it is and how to use it. Now.

National elections are a big distraction. Members of Congress are bought and sold like cattle by the oligarchs, foreign nations, and whoever has the money. Instead center your focus on getting American Populists and Christian men and women elected mayor, to state legislatures, as judges, on school boards, etc.

Cut the cable cord. That includes both Fox and CNN. Do not watch it. Do something else with your time and money. Support alternative media outlets and individuals. Get that garbage marxist indoctrination content machine our of your home and away from your family.

Exit the Big Tech mind prison. Join Gab.

If your church has gone “woke,” leave. We have room for only one Gospel in Christian churches and that’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not the imitation false gospel of “social justice.”

Leave Big Banks for local community banks.

Start supporting small local shops.

Create pro-family, pro-business, and pro-law and order policies for your local area. We can’t control DC, but we can control what happens in our backyards.

Pull your kids out of public schools where their minds are being molded at the altar of marxism. Do everything and anything you can to homeschool or attend Christian private schools or online schooling programs.

Pay attention to the brands you buy and support. Check out their websites and marketing. If they are “woke,” stop giving them your money. Period.

We must also work to unite American Populists on the left and the right. What unites the left and right wing populists, and Americans in general, is Jesus Christ.

The trasnhumanist nihilists and their technocracy are offering nothing of spiritual value. The Gospel Message of Jesus Christ, and that of American Populism, is one of redemption, hope, love, dominion, sovereignty, freedom and forgiveness. None of these things are possible with critical theory or woke consumer crony capitalism paired with a corporate techno tyranny.

What are you waiting for?

Let’s get to work, we have a new economy to build.

Andrew Torba CEO, Gab.com February 17th, 2021 Jesus is King

Tags

american populism , andrew torba , gab

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ingek73 · 4 years

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Feb. 27, 2020

A Royal Instagram Mystery

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Credit...Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Getty Images (royals), Shutterstock (stool)

Two royal couples, two Instagram accounts, one conspiracy theory.

By Caity Weaver

Of all the tricks humankind employs to concoct the illusion of security, the most vital to the British royal family is hierarchy.

Hierarchy is what makes an elder brother more important than a younger one, a newborn more powerful than his 33-year-old uncle. A minor tweak to the laws of succession requires the consent not only of British Parliament, but of 15 other nations.

While sovereignty operates under hierarchy, it survives by public support. What happens, then, when monarchical order is pitted against social popularity?

On Instagram: a mystery.

This is a tale of two social media accounts, both alike in dignity, yet cast as star-cross’d competitors on Instagram, where we lay our scene.

@KensingtonRoyal was established in January 2015. Crucial to our saga, it was a shared account for Prince William, his wife, Catherine (formerly known as Kate Middleton), and his younger brother, Harry. (William and Harry are the only children of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales; Charles is first in line for the British throne, making Prince William second in line.)

When the younger Prince Harry became engaged to the American actress Meghan Markle in 2017, @KensingtonRoyal began functioning as a shared account for the two couples. It remained as such through Harry and Meghan’s wedding in spring 2018 (when they were formally given the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex), and for several months beyond.

Until April 2, 2019.

That date marked the appearance of a newer, more sprightly Instagram account called @SussexRoyal. This was a new official handle for Prince Harry and Meghan alone.

It has served ever since as their base of social media operations, and as a channel for direct communication with the world. It was where, at the start of this year, Harry and Meghan posted their surprise announcement they intended to “step back” from the British royal family. It was where, in the wake of the hectic negotiations that followed, they posted a screenshotted statement from Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, to show that she expressed support for their decision.

In the latest development, the couple will be required to relinquish use of the word “royal” in their branding, commercial and charitable activities, and presumably, Instagram handle; that change in status is scheduled to take effect on April 1.

But let us back up a year, to when one royal brand was cleaved into two. That’s when things got weird.

From the outset, @SussexRoyal was runaway popular. It set a Guinness world record for reaching 1 million faster than any account in Instagram history — in 5 hours and 45 minutes. (Only Jennifer Aniston has improved on that time, when she created an Instagram account later in 2019.)

Tabloid writers and royal reporters began to forecast the moment that @SussexRoyal’s follower count would overtake @KensingtonRoyal’s, thus crowning Harry and Meghan the definitive winners of an unofficial couples’ popularity contest.

It seemed inevitable; already, when it came to Google search interest, Harry and Meghan towered over William and Kate. (From November 2017 until the end of January 2020, Harry-and-Meghan-related searches accounted for 83 percent of the world’s curiosity in the two couples.)

The Instagram eclipse would happen in April or perhaps May, with the birth of the couple’s first child, royal watchers speculated.

It happened in neither, it turned out. Nor in June. Nor July.

Every day, without exception, from April 2, 2019, until Jan. 21, 2020 — through Guinness world record growth, the birth of Harry and Meghan’s baby Archie, and the seismic rupture that was their public departure from royal life — the size of Harry and Meghan’s Instagram audience failed to exceed that of William and Kate’s.

Was it coincidence that Instagram popularity appeared to align so unwaveringly with monarchical hierarchy? Or was there invisible mischief afoot?

A conspiracy was at play, conspiracy-minded corners of the Internet murmured.

A cross section of social media analysts, researchers and product developers disagreed about the degree to which the British royal family’s two most prominent Instagram accounts invite suspicion.

Some felt the growth and engagement patterns between the accounts could be explained by the unknowable workings of Instagram, which regulates the spread of content with the invisible force of a deep ocean current. Others saw in the data a possible shadow campaign, perhaps intended to inflate the appearance of one couple’s popularity over the other.

Representatives for both royal houses denied strenuously any suggestion that their social media teams had manipulated follower numbers.

Here is what we know:

April 2019, the month @SussexRoyal announced itself on Instagram, marked eight years since the first royal wedding of this generation: that of the first brother Prince William, to Kate Middleton. In those eight years, a trio of births had knocked the second son, Prince Harry, down the ladder of succession to his current spot, sixth in line to the throne. But the public’s longstanding affection for Harry (as indicated in public polls) remained. It — combined with the sparkling addition of his new romantic partner — meant that, since their engagement, Harry and Meghan, whom the younger prince met in 2016, had been channeling public energy and enthusiasm like palms on a plasma ball.

To wit, the day before Meghan first appeared on @KensingtonRoyal in November 2017, the account gained 981 followers, bringing its audience to just under 2.27 million. The day Meghan’s engagement was announced (her debut appearance on the account), it gained 104,092.

It kept gaining, steadily and in occasional frenzied bursts. Over the three-day period that consisted of Meghan and Harry’s wedding weekend in May 2018, plus the Monday morning release of their nuptial portraits, @KensingtonRoyal acquired more than 1.5 million new followers. In the period after Meghan was effectively incorporated into @KensingtonRoyal, that account’s following more than tripled in size.

For the remainder of 2018, the two couples surfaced on their single account smiling radiantly — or, on the prescribed days, staring off in solemn remembrance — in an easy rhythm. The impression was of companions casually interspersed throughout one another’s lives, locked in a perpetual couple’s staycation behind the walls of their shared palace, with participants slipping out now and then to pursue their philanthropic passions.

In 2019, however, Harry and Meghan began a process of gradual separation.

They extricated themselves from their joint “royal household” arrangement with William and Kate, moving their administrative offices out of Kensington Palace, and hiring new staff. They formed a charitable foundation separate from the one William and Harry had founded in 2009, which had been the locus of both couples’ philanthropic efforts. And, most visibly, on April 2, they introduced a stand-alone Instagram account.

Though Meghan was by no means a global star before her marriage, she had maintained an active and successful personal Instagram account, its profile buoyed by her regular role on a moderately popular American cable legal drama. That account boasted around 2 million followers before its deletion following her engagement (not far from the approximately 2.27 million followers @KensingtonRoyal had when the engagement was announced).

From its very first post, Harry and Meghan’s new Sussex account was distinct from @KensingtonRoyal — and seemed unmistakably the work of an Instagram veteran. It established a signature color palette (royal blue) and typography (a hybrid of caps-locked roman and lowercase italics). These kinds of personalized elements were absent from @KensingtonRoyal.

Over the next several months, the two accounts would diverge even further in style and tone.

According to data provided by CrowdTangle, a social media analytics tool that, like Instagram, is owned by Facebook, nine of the 10 most-liked posts ever shared by either @KensingtonRoyal or @SussexRoyal showcase some combination of Harry and Meghan (and/or their son). The single outlier is an image of William and Kate’s two eldest children taken on Princess Charlotte’s first day of school in 2019. (It came in eighth.)

Data generated by the media monitoring software Cision, which tracks online media mentions, found that, from the date of the announcement of Harry and Meghan’s engagement in November 2017 to January 2020, Harry and Meghan received vastly more global online attention than did William and Kate. (Recall, too: They crushed them in Google searches.)

(William and/or Kate did receive more online attention than Harry and/or Meghan on a handful of dates, such as: the day Kate wore a green gown to the BAFTA awards ceremony, out of step with the event’s unofficial all-black dress code to express solidarity with victims of sexual misconduct; the period immediately before and after the birth of William and Kate’s third child; and their daughter’s first day of school.)

Thus it is perhaps not surprising that, from the date of the @SussexRoyal debut until Harry and Meghan’s bombshell announcement this past January, @SussexRoyal’s Meghan-and-Harry-centric posts received more total likes than @KensingtonRoyal posts centered on Kate and William. According to CrowdTangle data, the Sussexes came out around 13.5 million likes ahead.

Of course, on Instagram, likes are only one measure of engagement. Another is comments.

Harry and Meghan won that by an even bigger margin: In the same time frame, their account received more than double the number of comments that @KensingtonRoyal did, despite @KensingtonRoyal laying claim, perpetually, to hundreds of thousands more followers.

Likes and comments are a quick way to eyeball an account’s success. Divide that combined figure by an account’s number of followers, and you can calculate an interaction rate. A high interaction rate suggests a highly engaged following, which suggests high popularity — or at least a lot of interest.

@SussexRoyal’s interaction rate was nearly twice that of @KensingtonRoyal’s. Its audience was rapt, active and, within a month and a half of the account’s creation, numbered more than 8 million users — a figure it had taken @KensingtonRoyal more than four years to amass.

With good reason, perhaps. Unlike @KensingtonRoyal, @SussexRoyal established early that it operated largely independently of the British press. While @KensingtonRoyal released coveted family images in concert with members of the media, @SussexRoyal surprised its followers with images royal reporters could not get. From time to time, it even broke news.

Yet it seemed, from the outside, that no matter how many followers @SussexRoyal gained, it could never quite catch up; rather, it appeared eternally on the cusp of doing so.

On the date @SussexRoyal was created, @KensingtonRoyal had an audience of about 7.3 million. But the older account’s prolonged dominance cannot be attributed to its head start. Accounts created later often overtake popular “partners.”

For instance, Michelle Obama surpassed her husband’s Instagram account within months of him leaving office. Kaia Gerber, 18, overtook her supermodel mother, Cindy Crawford, within months of her own runway debut.

Furthermore, follower growth for one account does not necessarily portend a comparable increase for a similar one.

Few accounts are as closely related as those of Jonathan and Drew Scott, the identical twin brothers who jointly star in their own home real estate television franchise, “The Property Brothers.”

CrowdTangle data indicates that, after years of virtually complete growth overlap, one Property Brother’s account began blazing an upward trail at the end of last year. Its associated Property Brother (Jonathan) had recently revealed he was dating the actress Zooey Deschanel.

It is a quirk of digital popularity that social media accounts with large followings can reasonably expect to lose a very small percentage of followers immediately after sharing new content. The appearance of said new content, regardless of format or platform, will inevitably lead some portion of followers to conclude they don’t care about it. It will inspire decisive action — to unfollow.

It is therefore not unusual that, when @SussexRoyal posts a photo of Prince Harry, a typically well-performing subject — on horseback at about 2:40 p.m., London time, on a Friday — it will lead to a brief exodus of followers. In this case, of something like 420 accounts in the first hour, according to timestamped data.

A successful post will quickly make up this difference as new users discover it and elect to follow the account. In this case, the horse post resulted in a net gain of about 1,200 new followers in the first five hours, plus over 420,000 likes.

It is less explicable that when, for instance, @KensingtonRoyal shares a low-resolution image of a painted portrait of the late Queen Victoria — who is neither a common nor immediately recognizable subject for the account — at 6:47 a.m. the same day, it should immediately gain over 730 followers in the first hour.

It is even less explicable that it should experience a net gain of roughly 3,500 new followers in the first five hours, especially considering it garnered only around 283,000 likes total.

That means that although the somewhat obscure portrait of Queen Victoria was apparently enchanting enough to draw droves of new followers to @KensingtonRoyal, it received far fewer likes than a photo of Harry on @SussexRoyal — a photo that, paradoxically, despite receiving hundreds of thousands more likes than Queen Victoria, enticed far fewer people to follow the account.

Curious!

Before Harry and Meghan’s account existed, @KensingtonRoyal might gain something like 1,000 followers on an average good (but not astronomically good) day. But between Jan. 1 and March 31 of last year, its following shrank by nearly 10,000 accounts.

The creation of @SussexRoyal seemed to reinvigorate it — and then some.

On May 12, the day @SussexRoyal posted a photo of Meghan’s hands holding newborn Archie’s cute tiny baby feet, the account of Archie’s aunt and uncle, @KensingtonRoyal, gained more than 42,000 followers. This despite the fact @KensingtonRoyal had posted no content, as well as the fact that the Sussex post was in honor of a holiday few in Britain were observing: U.S. Mother’s Day.

For comparison, the day @KensingtonRoyal shared its hugely popular — for it — first day of school post, which featured Charlotte and George hugging adorably in impeccably clean uniforms, it gained slightly over 40,000 followers. (@SussexRoyal, which shared no post that day, gained about 10,400.)

May 21 marked the first time @KensingtonRoyal’s growth rate began regularly outpacing @SussexRoyal’s. The differences were slight — often hundredths of one percent — but they appeared to manifest irrespective of the content posted.

On back-to-back dates when neither account posted anything, Kate and William’s account growth rate might inexplicably increase from 0.06 to 0.11 percent. Or, on a date when @SussexRoyal content received roughly 10 times the number of likes and comments as @KensingtonRoyal content, Kensington’s growth rate might still outpace it by 0.01 percent. From May 21 on, CrowdTangle data showed the accounts’ followings growing in lock step — with @KensingtonRoyal permanently ahead.

Matt Navarra, a British social media consultant, was unconvinced that either account exhibited suspicious follower activity. “I don’t think there’s anything in it,” he said — but added, “I wouldn’t put my life on it.”

Samuel Woolley, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin whose research focuses on social media political propaganda, said that while manipulation was impossible to confirm without more account information than is publicly available, the CrowdTangle data is “pretty damning if we are looking for inauthentic activity.”

Others consulted were in agreement that several scenarios could explain the follower gap:

Scenario 1

Despite @KensingtonRoyal’s prior lackluster performance and oddly low engagement rate relative to @SussexRoyal, it maintained its follower advantage with no manipulation. More real people simply elected to follow William and Kate over Harry and Meghan.

Scenario 2

@KensingtonRoyal was given better placement on Instagram’s “Who To Follow” list, a curated selection of accounts presented to new users — a variable known to drive tremendous numbers to specific accounts with virtually no effort from account owners.

Scenario 3

@KensingtonRoyal was the beneficiary of a concentrated fan-driven campaign to keep its numbers high. (No evidence of such an effort could be found.)

Scenario 4

@SussexRoyal’s initial follower takeoff was supplemented by bot followers, and its growth slowed when no new bots were bought to replace them. (This would not seem to explain Kensington’s sudden and sustained increase in popularity relative to Sussex — unless, perhaps, Kensington began acquiring followers at the same time as Sussex, and for several months after.)

Scenario 5

@KensingtonRoyal was receiving follower boosts in the form of bots.

Several researchers observed that some inauthentic activity is bound to plague any prominent social media account: Following popular users is one tactic bots use to mimic humans.

While no one consulted knew of a reliable way to keep numbers artificially low by suppressing genuine follower activity, all agreed that it’s easy to make them appear artificially high with bots. As part of a recent NATO study, researchers acquired more than 3,500 comments, 25,000 likes and 5,000 followers, all for roughly $330.

It is also possible to use bots to inflate social media accounts even if you are not the owner. Anyone can buy bots on behalf of anyone else, or send them to an account with which they have no affiliation.

But inauthentic activity is somewhat unverifiable. One of the biggest challenges of unearthing fake followers, for the layman, is that many of the tools for doing so have disappeared.

Alex Taub, a founder and the former C.E.O. of the social media analytics company SocialRank, described the current social media landscape as “like a black box.”

It stems from the spring of 2018, when TechCrunch reported that Instagram had abruptly limited the amount of user data developers outside the company could access. (Mark Zuckerberg was about to testify before Congress regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consulting firm collected and sold the personal data of nonconsenting Facebook users.)

The move impaired the ability of third parties to perform widespread data analysis. In so doing, it granted all Facebook and Instagram users more privacy — including those accounts operating as bots.

“Overnight, almost all audience tools were killed,” Mr. Taub said of the Cambridge Analytica fallout. “It’s very hard to see who follows who, on the granular level, unless you manually go into the account and click on followers.”

Mr. Taub sold his analytics company in December — a development he said allows him to “talk more freely” without worry of “Facebook or Instagram taking away” access to the interface that, in its original form, enabled independent developers to collect user profile data for audience analysis en masse. (A spokesperson for Facebook said: “We revoke access for third parties when they abuse our terms of service.”)

Mr. Taub said: “If it was 2016 and you said, ‘Hey, Alex, I want to analyze the Duchess in Essex and all this whatever,’ it would take probably a day or two, and I could come back to you and show ‘These are the followers they share in common. This is the percentage of fake followers this one has. This is the breakdown of locations. This is the amount of fake followers in a location.’”

Now, the only people with access to such information work inside Instagram.

Mr. Woolley, the professor at the University of Texas at Austin, echoed Mr. Taub’s sentiments. “It’s so frustrating to not have better access to the data” of public figures, he said. “Especially in an era when social media, particularly Twitter, is the favorite mode of communication for some politicians. It’s not just Trump. It’s people like Modi in India and Bolsonaro in Brazil.”

“What it comes down to is manipulation of public opinion,” Mr. Woolley said.

Yes, but back to Kate Middleton.

Jay Owens, a social media researcher in London who evaluated the CrowdTangle data, said she was “certain to a 95 percent confidence interval” that there was no mass follower purchase on behalf of @KensingtonRoyal since April 2019 — in part because a graph of its follower counts did not feature hallmarks of bot acquisition. (Those hallmarks include large, inexplicable surges of thousands of followers, and plateaus of growth that suddenly drop off.)

Mr. Woolley was less deterred by the lack of obvious indicators of bot activity.

“Most people leveraging fake followers these days — especially at the behest of well-resourced groups or individuals — are being very careful to avoid suspicion, detection and deletion,” he said.

The new goal is not sudden popularity, but mathematical untraceability: In a sophisticated campaign, fake followers are more likely to be added more frequently, in smaller quantities.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen accounts gain 50,000 followers overnight,” said Mr. Woolley. “That doesn’t really happen anymore unless it’s organic.”

To him, @SussexRoyal’s initial explosive growth seemed genuine. But the fact that @KensingtonRoyal’s follower count grew by large numbers on days of popular @SussexRoyal posts — the day @SussexRoyal shared the shot of their baby son’s feet, for instance — made him suspicious of the older account.

Then there was the matter of the fans. Anna Gebremedhin, a data analyst specializing in Instagram commerce, found that, when William, Kate, Meghan and Harry shared one Instagram handle, their respective Instagram fan accounts grew in ways that largely mirrored @KensingtonRoyal. But after @SussexRoyal was created, that pattern collapsed.

“Major fan Instagram accounts for William and Kate, which previously corresponded to the popularity of their official page, did not see growth aligned with their official account,” Ms. Gebremedhin said. Followings of Meghan and Harry fan accounts rose in proportion to @SussexRoyal’s following, but @KensingtonRoyal’s numbers grew faster than William and Kate’s fan pages.

Ms. Gebremedhin called this “a deviation from historical growth.”

On Jan. 21, 2020, there was a breakthrough:@SussexRoyal, at last, surpassed @KensingtonRoyal’s follower lead — two weeks after the Sussexes’ semi-departure from the royal family.

Direct comparison of the accounts is hindered by a final peculiar fact.

@SussexRoyal is classified as an Instagram “creator account” — a free designation that grants owners (and, to a more limited extent, other users) the ability to view some account metrics.

@KensingtonRoyal, on the other hand, is designated a “personal account” — a setting a celebrity digital media strategist who was granted anonymity by The Times to protect client accounts called “bizarre.” These accounts do not have access to advanced publishing capabilities and other account management tools.

“Why would the most prominent figures in the world, basically — or among the most popular and prominent — not have that? With dedicated social media teams, it doesn’t make sense,” the strategist said.

The mystery remains; the parties of suspicion, neither condemned nor excus’d.

Of course, any bots present could have come from anywhere. They could have been purchased by someone in another country, with no connection to the royal family.

We cannot even assume that bots added to one account were intended to make that account look good, or enforce a hierarchy of any kind. Perhaps, an account was receiving bot infusions, only so that its growth would fall off a cliff if (when?) they stopped being added.

“If you really want to be in a position of power and just mess with people’s social media presence, you spend a while intentionally inflating another’s presence, and being a kind of puppet master,” said David Berkowitz, a marketing consultant for technology companies. “Then, you just start taking this stuff away.”

Over the last two months, with media glare bright upon the Sussexes, @KensingtonRoyal continued its usual drip of tasteful, anodyne photos of William and Kate.

Yet on Feb. 17, it regained its follower lead, propelling itself past @SussexRoyal. As our tale draws to a close, the accounts are neck and neck.

Correction: Feb. 28, 2020

An earlier version of this article, using information from Instagram, referred imprecisely to the data that is available to “personal” Instagram accounts. Verified “personal” accounts created before January 2020 have access to data profiles; it is not the case that all personal accounts lack access to their data.

#royals #meghan markle #prince harry #prince william #kate middleton #kensingtonroyal #sussexroyal #duchess of sussex #duke of sussex #duchess of cambridge #duke of cambridge #duke and duchess of cambridge #duke and duchess of sussex #instagram #new york times

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Faşistler Sol Kanat Öfkesini Nasıl Operasyonelleştirdiler

https://hummusforthought.com/2018/03/16/the-multipolar-spin-how-fascists-operationalize-left-wing-resentment/

Hummus For Thought

by joey ayoub

The Multipolar Spin: How Fascists Operationalize Left-wing Resentment

Hummus For Thought

Syria

Syria and the Left

11 Comments

This article was originally published by Alexander Reid Ross, author of the book ‘Against The Fascist Creep‘. Republished here for education purposes. It was originally published on the SPLC which took it down, but you can still read the archived link

During his recent tour of Europe, disgraced former Trump strategist Steve Bannon declared “Italy is in the lead.” Amid the historic resurgence of the Italian far right that returned right-wing populist Silvio Berlusconi to prominence, Bannon fantasized about “the ultimate dream” of unifying the anti-establishment Five Star Movement with the far-right League (formerly the Northern League) through a populist movement. Bannon’s international vision of nationalist populist movements is locked into the Kremlin’s geopolitical ideology of a “multipolar world.”

The League is tied through a cooperation pact to Putin’s Russia, and its deputy in charge of relations with foreign parties, Claudio D’Amico, explicitly called for a “multipolar world” in Katehon, a think tank created by fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin. Following the ideological line Dugin put forward in his text, Foundations of Geopolitics, Katehon calls for uniting a “Eurasian” bloc in constant struggle against “Atlanticist” countries. For Dugin, the “21st century gamble” is to create a “multipolar” confederation of “Traditionalist” regional empires united under Russian sovereignty that will overthrow the “unipolar” empire of “postmodern” democracies.

Shortly after Putin’s election in 2000, the Kremlin released a set of foreign policy guidelines calling for a “multipolar world order” against the “strengthening tendency towards the formation of a unipolar world under financial and military domination by the United States.” Escalating with the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004, the Kremlin’s production of soft-powernetworks throughout Europe and the United States involves- think tanks, loans, forums, propagandaoutlets and cooperation agreements with far-right parties like the Austrian Freedom Party and the League. From Russia to Iran to Western Europe and the U.S., this international movement uses conspiracy theories and “gray material” to warp the political spectrum into a populist referendum along “geopolitical” terms set by fascist engagées.

Red and brown polarities

As a recent major report on syncretic networks exposed, the modern fascist movement’s obsession with geopolitics emerged in force amid the post-Cold War antiglobalization movement. In 2002, a front group formed out of the U.S.-based Workers’ World Party known as the International Action Center joined forces with the Assisi-based “Campo Antimperialista.” As Duginists infiltrated the Campo, opening a journal called Eurasia that garnered the influential involvement of Campo participant Costanza Preve, the International Action Center continued their cooperation.

Soon, a similar Russian group called the Anti-Globalist Resistance began to repost the Campo’s dispatches. Sharing support for Milosevic with the Campoand the International Action Center, the Anti-Globalist Resistance emerged simultaneously with the same tendency to fight globalization by linking far-right to hard-left. In 2008, they brought the Campo to Moscow for the third “All-Russia Anti-Globalist Forum,” introduced by long-time U.S. fascist Lyndon LaRouche. The next year’s conference included Duginist leaders like Leonid Savin and retired General Leonid Ivashov, along with LaRouche and Holocaust denier Israel Shamir.

As their work continued, the Campo and Anti-Globalist Resistance drew more anti-globalization activists into their syncretic orbit. In 2012, a group came together at a Campo Antimperialista event in Assisi and developed what would become the Syria Solidarity Movement. The movement’s steering committee came to include top figures from groups from the U.S. hard left, including the Workers World Party, its affiliate, ANSWER and a spinoff of the latter group called the Party of Socialism and Liberation.

After changing their name to the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, the group drew people from the Syria Solidarity Movement’s network to a conference called the “Right of Peoples to Self-Determination and Building a Multipolar World” in 2014. A delegate from the International Action Center attended, along with delegates from another Workers World Party front group called United Anti-War Coalition, including an editor with the Black Agenda Report named Margaret Kimberly. Among the conference’s other attendees were Michael Hill of the neo-Confederate League of the South and the Texas Nationalist Movement, as well as the far-right Republika of Srpska and National Bolshevik Italian Communitarian Party.

The following year, the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia met with a purported Cherokee Nation elder named “Mashu White Feather” and a representative of the Uhuru Movement, also connected to the Black Agenda Report. They then organized a state-funded conference that drew members of the fascist Italian group Millenium, Mutti’s associate Antonio Grego, and a leading member of the far-right Rodina party, as well as representatives of separatist groups like the Texas Nationalist Movement and the Catalan Solidarity for Independence party. The now-notorious troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, would later invite the Texas Nationalist Movement to join an armed, Islamophobic protest launched by the fake “Heart of Texas,” while also inciting counter-protestors.

The Syria connection

The Syria Solidarity Movement lists on its steering committee a host of syncretic figures like Duginist, Navid Nasr and an Australian representative of the fascist-modeled Syrian Social Nationalist Party affiliate, Mussalaha. Before a report revealed her associations with Global Research, Ron Paul and the right-wing British Constitution Party, conspiracy theorist Vanessa Beeley held a position on the steering committee as well.

As an editor at the alt-right-associated conspiracy theory site, 21stCenturyWire, Beeley’s repeated conspiracy articles attempting to link the White Helmets to al Qaeda and George Soros earned her a visit with Assad in Damascus and senior Russian officials in Moscow; however, they have beenthoroughly debunked. A defender of right-wing Hungarian president Viktor Orban, Beeley promotes antisemites like Gilad Atzmon and Dieudonné, even speaking at a conference hosted by the latter in partnership with notorious Holocaust denier Laurent Louis. Regardless, the Syrian Solidarity Movement and the associated Hands Off Syria Coalition recommend Beeley’s work.

Along with members of the Syria Solidarity Movement, delegates who attended the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia’s “Multipolar World” conference sit on the Hands off Syria Coalition’s steering committee. Showing its commitments and affinities, in January 2016, the Hands Off Syria Coalition published a “Multipolar World Against War” statement signed by the leader of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, Alexander Ionov.

Similarly, the Hands Off Syria Coalition website publicizes self-described Marxist, Tim Anderson, who has an interesting record of attending far-right conferences. In 2015, Anderson attended the far-right Brandherd Syrien Congress, and the next year he was at Defend Our Heritage’s Leura Forum, chaired by a leader of far-right party Alternative for Germany. Following that, Anderson’s pet project, Center of Counter Hegemonic Studies, convened a conference that brought in Paul Antonopoulos, an editor for the Duginist website Fort Russ.

The Hands Off Syria Coalition advertises Anderson’s book, The Dirty War on Syria, which is published by syncretic conspiracist site Global Research. Multiple “Research Associates” of Global Research sit on the “scientific committee” of the Campo-linked Duginist journal Geopolitica, and the site lists as its “partner media group” the Voltaire Network. Publishing LaRouchite and Duginist articles, the Voltaire Network boasts the Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs as its Vice President. One of the Voltaire Network’s leading contributors is Mikhail Leontyev, an associate of Dugin who has moved from prominent media personality to the role of spokesman for Russian state oil company, Rosneft. The Syria Solidarity Movement publishes Voltaire Network articles by founder Thierry Meyssan, a contributor to Campo-linked journal Eurasia who associates with Holocaust deniers and open fascists, among others.

Hands Off Syria Coalition steering committee member Issa Chaer joined Meyssan on a panel at the Second New Horizons conference in Iran in 2012. Conference speakers that year included World Workers Party member Caleb Maupin, Alt Right journalist Tim Pool,

Holocaust denier Kevin Barrett, and Duginists like Voltaire Network associate Mateusz Piskorski, German editor Manuel Ochsenreiter, Leonid Savin, and Claudio Mutti the leading fascist infiltrator of the Campo Antimperialista. The banner image for last year’s New Horizon features Aleksandr Dugin.

Multipolar propaganda

According to the metrics search engine BuzzSumo, most of the leading articles with the terms “multipolar world” and “multi-polar world” in the title come from an interconnected network of sites, including Global Research, The Duran and Sign of the Times. With an estimated six million unique daily views per month, the biggest and most influential in this network is the Russian state-run media site Sputnik News.

Billing itself as pointing “the way to a multipolar world that respects every country’s national interests, culture, history and traditions,” Sputnik frequently publishes Piskorski, Ochsenreiter, Mutti’s fellow Campo infiltrator Tiberio Graziani, commentator Andrew Korybko and Fort Russ editor Joaquin Flores. Furthermore, Sputnik has joined RT in consistently usingdubious sources affiliated with the Syria Solidarity Network to attack the White Helmets and throw doubt on the Assad regime’s war crimes, for instance its use of chemical weapons.

A syncretic hub on Sputnik, anti-imperialist John Wight’s podcast, “Hard Facts,” promotes the same figures associated with the pro-Assad network in the West, including Beeley, Anderson, and Nasr. Perhaps most interestingly, Wight also hosted trans-national far-right figure, Edward Lozansky during the 2016 election and again early the next year.

With more than 30 years of involvement in the U.S. and Russian far right, Lozansky is perhaps most known as the creator of the American University in Moscow. Boasting a number of Fellows involved in pro-Kremlin media outlets like The Duran, RT and Russia Insider, the American University in Moscow appears to be an ideological center in the concerted social media campaign associated with the Internet Research Agency to boost anti-Clinton, pro-Kremlin propaganda in the U.S. Lozansky also hosts conferences with knownfascist ideologues and an annual “Russia Forum” featuring far-right politicians and left-wing media operators from Russia and the U.S.

During both of his pro-Putin, pro-Trump interviews with Lozansky on “Hard Facts,” Wight advocated “a multipolar alternative to the unipolar world,” insisting, “we’re talking about a struggle for a multipolar world to replace the unipolarity that has wreaked so much havoc since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.”

The most important anti-imperialist hub on Sputnik, however, is hosted by Brian Becker, whose fellow party member and brother sits on the steering committee for the Syria Solidarity Movement. The leader of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Becker regularly hosts Fellows of the American University in Moscow on his Sputnik podcast, “Loud & Clear.”

“Loud & Clear”’s Lozansky-affiliated guests include far-right PR man Jim Jatras, Mark Sleboda of the Dugin-founded Center for Conservative Studies, the Ron Paul Institute’s Daniel McAdams and Alexander Mercouris of the syncretic conspiracist site, The Duran. The program also provides a platform to a variety of explicitly far-right guests, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, antisemite Alberto Garcia Watson, alt-right figure Cassandra Fairbanks and militia movement leader Larry Pratt.

Aside from marginal guests, Loud & Clear can bring on some heavy hitters. During his two appearances on “Loud & Clear” in late 2017, bestselling author Max Blumenthal called the red-brown radio show “the finest public affairs programming” and declared, “I am increasingly turning to RT America for sanity.” No stranger to Sputnik, Blumenthal also went on “Hard Facts” that August, claiming that notorious ISIS militant Mohammed Emwazi was ushered into the Syria conflict by the CIA via a “rat line” from Saudi Arabia.

Highway to the Grayzone

Around the same time he went on “Loud & Clear,” Blumenthal appeared on Tucker Carlson’s FOX News show to defend RT — his second time on the far-right show that year. Blumenthal’s RT appearances have been praised by white nationalists like Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., who murdered three people outside of a Jewish Community Center in 2014, so his courting of the right on FOX drew considerable backlash.

Two months later, Blumenthal offered up a staunch defense of “Russia’s position in the world” to author Robert Wright in an interview on bloggingheads. Admitting that Putin’s Russia remains far from left-wing, Blumenthal justified support for the country’s authoritarian conservative government as “part of the multipolar world.”

“If you believe in a multipolar world,” Blumenthal told Wright, “you believe in détente, you believe in diplomacy.” He specifically mentioned Becker’s Party for Socialism and Liberation and groups like it, arguing that they “tend to get all the major issues right regardless of their ideology or agenda.”

Blumenthal was not as clear of a spokesperson for Kremlin geopolitics before he appeared at the same RT gala as disgraced former National Security advisor Michael Flynn and the Green Party’s Jill Stein in December 2015. During that occasion, he joined a panel called “Infowar: Will there be a winner” alongside Alt Right anti-Semite Charles Bausman of Russia Insider. A month later, Blumenthal’s pro-Kremlin position crystalized with the founding of the Grayzone Project.

Grayzone is a collaborative project also featuring journalist Benjamin Norton, who cosigned the Hands Off Syria Coalition’s points of unity statement along with Beeley and others. After going on “Loud & Clear” with Duginist Mark Sleboda and Infowars regular, Ray McGovern, Norton plugged the Party for Socialism and Liberation on a podcast episode titled “Hands off Syria.” With other Grayzone contributors, Norton has been criticized for downplaying warcrimes and helping publicize false theories about rebels contaminating Damascus’s water supply.

When reached for comment by email, Norton retorted, “I know your goal is to outlandishly smear anyone who opposes US imperialism and is to the left of the Clintons as a ‘crypto-fascist,’ while NATO supports actual fascists whom you care little about.”

Grayzone is perhaps best known for Blumenthal’s controversial two-part article attacking the White Helmets, which brought accusations of plagiarism from Beeley. Grayzone contributor Rania Khalek had, Beeley insisted, “pumped me for information on the [White Helmets] and then Max wrote the article.”

While Blumenthal may have repeated some of Beeley’s theories, Beeley cannot be seen as a credible source. Regardless, Khalek has since used a questionable interview sourced from Beeley as evidence that the White Helmets “were deeply embedded in al Qaeda.”

Grayzone recently announced their move from independent news site AlterNet to The Real News Network, a left-wing site with a penchant for 9/11 truther inquiries. Neither Blumenthal nor Khalek responded to efforts to reach them for comment.

Right uses left

Through its amplification of an interlinked, multi-centered network organized around institutions like Lozansky’s American University in Moscow and the Voltaire Network and conferences like Moscow’s “Multi-Polar World” and Tehran’s “New Horizons,” syncretic networks associated with Dugin’s Eurasianist ideology have combined distortions and ambiguities into a geopolitical narrative meant to confuse audiences and promote authoritarian populist opposition to liberalism.

The “gray measures” used to deny the Kremlin’s influence operations may seem dubious when delivered through channels like Sputnik that are, themselves, political technologies of far-right political influence. When cycled through “narrative laundering” of secondary and tertiary networks enhanced by trolls and coordinated influence operations, however, propaganda is “graywashed” of its dubious sources and presented as cutting-edge journalism.

As shown with Figure 3, think tanks like Katehon and connected Russian Institute for Strategic Studies develop strategies for media spin and online promotion through influence groups and botnets. These think tanks engage in feedback loops with Russian state media channels and linked syncretic news sites, amplified through social media with the help of botnets, and eventually reaching more legitimate sources often freed of their dubious sourcing. The results are explored by a recent study from Data and Society called Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online: “Online communities are increasingly turning to conspiracy-driven news sources, whose sensationalist claims are then covered by the mainstream media, which exposes more of the public to these ideas, and so on.”

The problem with multipolarism, aside from assuming polarity as a useful prescription, may be that it supports not the emergence of Russia as a world power but the rise of the Kremlin’s authoritarian conservative political ideology. In this, multipolarists tend to support other authoritarian regimes and movements from Iran to Syria to Italy. Although anti-imperialists may believe that these measures land them on the right side of history, taking stock of the fascist movement suggests that the strategy of opposing a liberal order through red-brown populist collaboration makes the left a willing accomplice.

Alexander Reid Ross is a Lecturer in Geography at Portland State University. The Portland Mercury listed his latest book Against the Fascist Creep as one of the top books of 2017.

The author would like to thank Professor Wayne Wakeland of Portland State University for his assistance with the development of Figure 3.

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sleepyclassesupsc · 2 years

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Trends in PSIR Previous 5 Years and Strategy for Mains 2022

Trends in Paper 1 Part A

· Western Political Thought:

o Trace the evolution of western political thought from ancient to contemporary period. [2020]

· Plato:

o Explain Aristotle's critique of Plato's Idealism. [2019]

o 'Plato was an enemy of the open society'. (Popper). Comment. [2015]

· Aristotle:

o Explain Aristotle's critique of Plato's Idealism. [2019]

o Everywhere inequality is a cause of revolution’. (Aristotle). Comment. [2017]

o Comment on Aristotle's conception of equality. [2015]

· Machiavelli:

o Comment on Machiavelli on secularism. [2020]

o Critically examine Machiavelli's views on religion and politics. [2018]

o Compare and contrast the views of Kautilya and Machiavelli on statecraft. [2015]

· Thomas Hobbes and John Locke:

o Comment on Hobbesian notion of political obligation. [2017]

o How would I and my fellow human beings behave if we were to find ourselves in a state of nature, and what does this behaviour tell us about our innate predispositions? Thomas Hobbes. Discuss. [2016]

o John Locke is a father of liberalism. Explain. [2018]

· J.S. Mill:

o Representative democracy…means the people as a body must be able to control the general direction of government policy. (J.S. Mill) [2020]

o John Stuart Mill is a 'reluctant democrat’. (CL Wayper). Comment. [2018]

· Karl Marx:

o Discuss Karl Marx’s concept of class. [2020]

o Differentiate between freedom and liberty. Discuss Marx's notion of freedom. [2017]

o Explain Marx's understanding of human essence and alienation. [2016]

o Discuss the relationship between base and superstructure in Marxist theory. [2015]

· Gramsci:

o According to Gramsci, 'hegemony is primarily based on the organisation of consent.' Comment. [2019]

o Comment on Gramsci's concept of hegemony. [2016]

o Discuss Gramsci's notion of organic intellectuals. [2015]

· Hannah Arendt:

o Critically examine Hannah Arendt's conceptual triad of labour, work and action. [2019]

o Discuss Hannah Arendt's analysis of the role of ideology in the modern totalitarian regime. [2016]

· Political Theory:

o Discuss the significance of normative approach to Political Theory. [2020]

o Comment on resurgence of political theory. [2019]

o Comment on the decline of Political Theory. [2018]

o Comment on the post behavioural approach. [2016]

· Theories of State:

o Comment on Post Colonial theory of State. [2020]

o Write a short note on pluralist theory of the State. [2019]

o Critically examine the neoliberal theory of State. [2018]

o Comment on neoliberal perspective of the State. [2017]

o Discuss the feminist theory of the State. [2016]

o Examine the challenges to sovereignty of the State in the contemporary world. [2015]

· Justice:

o Make a comparative assessment of the Greek perspective of Justice and Rawlsian perspective of Justice. [2020]

o Examine communitarian perspectives on justice. [2019]

o Comment on distributive justice. [2018]

o Analyse John Rawls' justification of discrimination to achieve the goals of justice. [2018]

o 'Rawls' theory of justice is both contractual and distributive'. Examine. [2017]

o Critically examine John Rawls argument for democratic equality. [2016]

o Comment on difference principle in the Rawls theory of justice. [2015]

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Equality:

o Comment on equality of opportunity. [2020]

o Equality means fair treatment rather than equal treatment. Comment. [2018]

o Comment on affirmative action. [2016]

· Rights:

o Assess the significance of right to property in political theory. [2020]

o Discuss the doctrine of 'rights as trump'. [2019/15m/200w/4b]

o What do you understand by three generation of human rights? [2018]

o What do you understand by multiculturalism? Discuss Bhikhu Parekh's views on multiculturalism.[2017]

o The implementation of human rights is regarded as a matter of changing the conduct of states. Comment. [2016]

o Comment on the idea of Natural Rights. [2015]

· Democracy:

o Write a short note on Deliberative democracy. [2019]

o Comment on Substantive democracy. [2018]

o Critically examine MacPherson's views on democracy. [2018]

o Deliberative democracy does not have its salience without participation and Participatory democracy does not have its credence without deliberations. Comment. [2017]

o Explicate the features of representative democracy. [2016]

o Elaborate the difference between participatory and deliberative democracy. [2015]

· Power:

o Examine the nature and meaning of power. [2020]

o Explain the relationship between power, authority and legitimacy. [2018]

o Distinguish between power and authority. [2015]

o Discuss the 'crisis of legitimacy' in capitalist societies. (Habermas). [2015]

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· Ideologies:

o Liberalism as a revolutionary idea. [2020]

o Compare negative and positive concepts of liberty. [2019]

o The political ideology of Globalisation is neoliberalism. Comment. [2016]

o Define socialism. Discuss the salient features of Fabian socialism. [2017]

o Discuss the key features of pre-Marxist socialist theory. [2015]

o What is the contemporary relevance of Marxism? [2019]

o 'Nothing against the state, nothing over it, nothing beyond it'. (Mussolini). Comment. [2018]

o Distinguish between liberal feminism and radical feminism. [2019]

o Comment on Ecofeminism. [2017]

o Comment on Postmodernism. [2017]

· End of Ideology:

o Discuss the end of Ideology debate. [2019]

o Write a brief note on the End of History. [2017]

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Indian Political Thought

· Ancient thought and Kautilya:

o Explain the sources of ancient Indian Political Thought. [2020]

o Discuss Kautilya's views on the elements of the State. [2019]

o What do you understand about the notion of statecraft? Discuss the theory of statecraft as given by Kautilya. [2017]

o Compare and contrast the views of Kautilya and Machiavelli on statecraft. [2015]

· Sri Aurobindo:

o According to Sri Aurobindo, Swaraj is a necessary condition for India to accomplish its destined goal. Comment. [2017]

o Discuss Sri Aurobindo's views on cultural nationalism. [2016]

· M.K. Gandhi:

o Explain ideological components of Gandhism. [2020]

o Discuss MK Gandhi's concept of Swaraj. [2019]

o Examine Gandhi's critique of modernisation. [2016]

o Comment on Gandhi's views on the state. [2015]

· B.R. Ambedkar:

o Comment on Ambedkar on Constitutionalism. [2020]

o Discuss Ambedkar's ideas on Annihilation of Caste. [2018]

o 'Political democracy could not last unless social democracy lay at its base'. (BR Ambedkar). Comment. [2017]

o Discuss Dr. BR Ambedkar's idea of state socialism. [2016]

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Sources and strategy

· Stick to your notes and revise them repeatedly.

· If possible make mind maps and tables for thought and theory for quick revision.

· In case of lack of material, stick to IGNOU.

· Answer writing key for conceptual clarity, interlinkage and scholars to quote.

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odishaphotos · 3 years

Text

Generosity

Edit money and background Liberalism is not a matter of ideology or philosophy. It is a policy that the government cannot subordinate to its own law. It is a flow of human liberation that is not created by any particular person or at a given time. It is a belief or an intellectual thought. Its theme and motto is "uniqueness", which is derived from the Latin word lib. Rationale, scientific outlook and research are the mainstays. It seeks to establish one's sovereignty or sovereignty. That is why it is the practice, the tradition, the change of institutions, and the need for revolutionary change, if necessary. That is, it extends to religion, morality, education, economics, and politics. In the social sphere, it wants freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. It opposes all negative pressures on individual identity. In the economic sphere, it is a free trade and a free economy. In the political sphere, it emphasizes the value of individualism and democracy. It focuses on limited and constitutional government, rule of law, decentralization of individual identity and power. Defining liberalism, Sartori said, "In a very simple way, liberalism is a matter of individual identity, the rule of law and the constitutionality and reality of the constitutional state." According to Bertrand Rasel, "liberalism in reality means living on one's own in order to save oneself, to tolerate tolerance and freedom, and the absence of religion in politics until public order is allowed." According to Professor Laski, "Opinion is less expressive than generous. It gives a hint of uniqueness; And because of the potential for emotional distress, it can also be a source of stress and resilience, which is a rare human trait. " Liberalism has influenced Western philosophy for more than four centuries, from the seventeenth century to the present. But it was only in the early nineteenth century that the word 'liberalism' came into being and was used. Liberalism is largely the result of a neoliberal and reformist movement. In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli separated the state and politics from religion to religion. In his opinion, the state has already created the individual. So Locke is said to be a man of political liberalism. In the eighteenth century, Montes propelled Montes to the theory of separation of powers, and Rousseau advocated liberalism by embodying popular sovereignty. The United States declared independence in 1776, and France in 1789 adopted the Declaration of Human Rights. Liberalism is mainly divided into two parts. These are (1) classical or negative liberalism and (2) modern or positive liberalism. They are discussed below.

Classical or negative liberalism-- The liberalism of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries emphasized the uniqueness, dignity, personality, and logic of the individual, but was not universal; Rather, it was confined to the capitalist class. That is why it was considered a necessary evil for the state. According to him, "the nation is the best, the lowest in the world." Its spokespersons include John Locke, Machiavelli, Thomas Moore, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and others.

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arcticdementor · 4 years

Link

Moldbug quite memorably makes the observation that America is a communist country, and then goes further and makes it obvious that all of the world is America now, so all of the world is communist. He also traces this communism back through American history to America’s founding and then even further back and places this founding as the continuation of an English political conflict between Tories, and Whigs.

We can get under the engine of this broad claim and start to get at the mechanism behind this conflict and the roots of this communism. For a start, we can look at the claim of communism. Moldbug clearly used this for rhetorical effect, and it works to a degree, but we don’t need to retain this for analysis purposes. Instead we can concentrate on the status of the origin of property in the various strains of thought which is what defines this communism.

In the first instance we have the Tory conception which was expressed by Filmer. Now Filmer’s concept of property has been dismissed ad nauseum for being based on biblical grounds unlike Locke’s which were based on…biblical grounds, but there is a difference in that Locke’s ideas were developed in service to the Whig’s position in society and they won, so there is that. Why were Locke’s positions popular with the Whigs, whilst Filmer’s were popular with the Tory loyalists? Locke’s position was one supportive of rebellion, anarchism and oligarchy – which is what the Whigs were about. We can really consider this a case of two power centers forming two distinct cultures based on their specific interests – the monarchy versus parliament. Parliament won

History shows that the Whigs won so effectively that they purged Filmer Tories from every effective position of power in England following the failed Jacobite Rebellion. From this point on, every Tory position would be based on the grounds of Locke and we see the conservative is born. Every single incarnation of Toryism (and there have been many of that pathetic shadow) would forever be reborn on some new absurd position trying to justify a position built upon the ever shifting basis of anarchic property tied in with the individual coming before society, or communism if you will. We have had Burkean conservatism, Peelite conservatism, modern American conservatism, compassionate conservatism and now the alt-right – it is the never ending joke.

…

And now we can turn to Locke who tells you that IF WE DON’T HAVE FREEDOM, AND LIBERTY MEN WILL SODOMISE AND EAT THEIR OWN BABIES!!!!!!

…

No very flattering and demonstrates the weakness of Locke’s position, which is why I think he concentrated as pedantically as possible on Filmer’s claim of descent from Adam. It is the weakest part of Filmer’s arguments and frankly we can do without it and cut straight to the reasoning behind both author’s positions.

Locke’s reasoning is without basis in my opinion as it works from a state of nature which has never existed. So why are we still taking his writing as a serious and respectable body of work? Why do I need to argue past this point? His claims of the independence of the individual and the labor theory of property are obscenely wrong. Everything about his thinking is disastrously wrong but given it was a rejection of absolutism it was useful, and anything pushing individualism has been warmly received by the modern state for its destructive value. The advocate of individualism is the foot soldier of a centralised state. Now, some may have trouble with this concept because on the face of it the contradictory nature is hard to get past, but it is only a contradiction if you don’t think it through and realise the destruction of individualism is aimed at everything and everyone except the centralising power, which in this case was democratic governance seated in parliament.

…

Here he is saying rule of law is nonsensical. Law is merely a tool in the hands of someone. Were he alive today, he would no doubt be amazed at the manner in which modern conservatives look at the law and the constitution in particular as some form of magic document that rules.

On other issues, Filmer is no less logically robust, whilst Locke rests on assertions and not arguments. Anything based on the state of nature is not an argument and shouldn’t be accepted as one, it is an assertion based on a point of faith (that we are born free and equal.) One such robust position is in the underlying logic behind the patriarchical model put forward by Filmer. While we can merely set aside the whole issue of progeny from Adam, we can nonetheless maintain Filmer’s conclusion that governance does indeed mirror a paternal relationship, and that authority can only flow down from those with authority to those with less.

…

In effect, Filmer is making it absolutely clear that those arguing in favour of constitutional monarchy are violating logic, and they are. From our 21stcentury perch, we should be in an excellent place to judge just who is right on this point – Locke or Filmer? There is where it gets interesting. It is obviously clear from conventional history and practically all conventional political theory that Locke was completely correct but seeing as this history and theory is based on Locke, there is a serious problem here. If we start out with the assertion that X is true, will always be true, and is not to even be questioned, then what will this say about our results if X is false. Garbage in, garbage out.

…

What Filmer is implying here is explosive. He is making the point that laws don’t come into being by themselves, but are authorised by a higher power in all cases. Common law was not made irrespective of the sovereign but was, and is, determined by agents acting on his behalf, and transmitting his will either directly or in accordance with the presumed wishes of the sovereign. The sovereign obviously being unable to sit in court for all cases and talk with every judge must delegate, and as such has a judiciary working in accordance with his will. In this instance, we can see that authority is the determiner of all action within the area of common law, and this holds true across society as a whole if this logic is maintained. All action that occurs within the authority of the sovereign is by default either within the sovereign’s will and therefore acceptable, or it is not, and it is illegal and/or a threat. Any other definition nullifies the entire concept of sovereignty as a meaningful term. There is no spontaneous action independent of authority but all of our means of formally viewing the world (political theory, political science, politically acceptable history) are premised on the concept that there is. Notably, in areas with more practical usage (such as property law) this premise is quietly and (I am sure quite innocently) ignored.

Approaching the matter from a non-lockean perspective, and using, say for example, Filmer’s refusal to accept the sovereign can be bound by lower powers, or that authority can be reversed, we get Moldbug’s history. In this history, revolutions are led by elites in a position of authority, the entire concept of democracy is rendered a sham by following the trail and determining which institution is sovereign, and the republican governance structure comes into view as the mere surface camouflage that it is. In short, we go from Lockean consensus history based on a giant lie, to a realistic history based on a giant uncomfortable truth regarding authority.

#john locke #sir robert filmer #reactionaryfuture

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airdropsandcryptonews · 4 years

Text

Investors are back into Bitcoin but DEXs are still the future of crypto

https://ift.tt/3kgp0QD

Investors are back into Bitcoin but DEXs are still the future of crypto

Bitcoin’s long-waited bull run and the recent wave of corporate and institutional investors allocating significant portions of their reserves to Bitcoin (BTC) are all signs that the pace of crypto’s mainstreaming is rapidly accelerating: But has the path to mass adoption come at the cost of privacy and decentralization?

Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering laws have forced the majority of cryptocurrency exchanges to become more transparent about who their users are, and those who refused have had to limit the jurisdictions in which they can offer services.

In order to operate legally in many countries, many exchanges have had no choice other than to abide by strict AML procedures, and aside from Monero (XMR), swathes of privacy coins have been delisted from most major exchanges.

Recently, regulators have begun to crack the whip and jurisdictions around the world continue to propagate further measures to ensure investors disclose their crypto holdings and pay taxes on their profits.

And this is all happening as the United States Department of Justice arrested the co-founder of BitMEX and the CFTC charged its owners with running an illegal crypto derivatives exchange.

Roughly a week later, the Financial Conduct Authority, the United Kingdom’s top regulatory watchdog, went as far as to ban investors from derivatives trading at all crypto exchanges.

All of these maneuvers are designed to force compliance on crypto service providers, and while they may eventually assist with furthering mass adoption, many crypto ideologues are looking for alternatives to press their case for financial self-sovereignty.

Decentralized exchanges may be the solution

A growing number of investors feel that centralized crypto exchanges essentially operate in the same manner as traditional banks. As a response to this, decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, 1inch, Curve Finance and Balancer grew in popularity throughout 2020.

For more sophisticated investors, decentralized exchanges offering derivatives trading have also become available. Similar to traditional derivatives, crypto exchanges offering the service essentially act as the broker, but the process is marginally different on decentralized exchanges. This is because they utilize smart contracts in place of a broker, and the derivatives contracts are settled when the contract terms have been met.

At the moment, Synthetix is one of the most popular decentralized derivatives exchanges, and in 2020, it saw its total value locked rise to $1 billion before a sharp sector-wide correction led to a drop in TVL and daily active users at the majority of DEXs.

Total value locked in Synthetix. Source: DeFi Pulse

The exchange allows users to create an instrument called a synthetic asset “Synth” that can track gold, fiat and cryptocurrencies. It also allows the creation of assets that track the price of assets inversely.

Platform users can also stake the native SNX token as collateral in order to mint new synths, and similar to Uniswap, those who provide liquidity are rewarded by earning a portion of the exchange’s transaction fees.

Those familiar with DEXs like Uniswap will know that literally, anyone can list a new asset, which, in the case of derivatives, means any underlying asset can be transformed into a derivatives instrument.

These platforms allow users to trade derivatives without the need to deposit funds in any centralized platform, and they are not required to complete any KYC procedures.

While some investors shun KYC and tax compliance, this is a serious matter for crypto service providers. According to Molly Wintermute, an anonymous developer credited with founding Hegic DEX, compliance is more of an issue for centralized crypto service providers, not DEXs.

When asked how DEXs can remain compliant with financial regulators, Wintermute bluntly explained in a unique vernacular that:

“They can’t. this is a new layer of financial infrastructure, not an addition 2 z current financial system. it’s like TCP/IP or FTP, not jst a decentralized crypto exchange. U can’t stop z code or ban internet. unless public blockchain is open & permission-less it’s almost impossible 2 ban decentralized derivatives protocols.”

Wintermute further explained that decentralized derivatives are alluring to a particular subset of investors because:

“Non-custodial trading (protocol/people don’t hold funds as funds r allocated on smart contracts). Verified on-chain settlement (there’s no ability 2 cheaply manipul8 z derivatives & no close source trading algorithms that only exchange owners knows how 2 work/manipul8 with). deeper liquidity (new peer-to-pool/peer-to-contract model might offers lower spreads & better terms 4 users).”

According to Wintermute, the number of investors actually using DEXs is quite small, compared to the total number of crypto investors. To Wintermute, this means the FCA derivatives ban and the recent legal actions taken against BitMEX are completely irrelevant and non-applicable to decentralized finance protocols.

Wintermute said:

“Decentralized derivative is a part of small crypto world. there r 100M+ of crypto holders globally. around 5-10 of them might b actively trading crypto derivatives (globally). i don’t think that FCA ban has opened any new interesting opportunities. nothing has changed.”

After being pressed to elaborate on the chance that the SEC, FCA or other regulators might not attempt to shut down a platform such as Uniswap and arrest its founders, Wintermute said:

“They could probably arrest 1 or 2 CEOs like bitmex founders who have some shady things goin’ on internally but only 2 make everyone else feel fear. they can’t arrest everyone. also compare decentralized derivatives with crypto used 4 dealin’ drugs. these two things r 4from different sides of a spectrum. a toy in case of decentralized derivs & a gun in case of drugs dealers who r usin’ crypto. decentralized derivatives r not a crime.”

Wintermute also appeared to shake off the recent BitMEX scandal, sharply replying that:

“I don’t think that somebody gives a f— abt DeFi or DEXes. bitmex guys have so many shady things inside that this might b a great target 2 attack while DeFi / DEX protocols have 100% transparency & u can’t take a person 2 jail 4 buidlin’ a website that jst has numbers on it which r transparent 4 everyone else in z world.”

Ultimately, Wintermute believes that “Bakkt/CME & other wall s— guys r so angry that no one uses their s—– products that they now takin’ crypto entrepreneurs & tryin’ 2 send them 2 jail.”

The anonymous developer then explained that in her view, the “meta game is 2 ban every cool crypto products & try 2 cannibalize on their user base but with compliant s—– products.”

While there may be merit to some of Wintermute’s bold assertions, the arm of the law is quite long, and as we have seen with the now-defunct ICO era, bringing those who violate securities laws takes time.

In 2020, the total value locked in DeFi platforms has risen to $12.6 billion, and data from Dune Analytics shows that Uniswap processed $11.2 billion in volume in October. These massive figures are sure to catch the eye of U.S. and international regulators so it may only be a matter of time before legal action is taken against DEXs.

Decentralized exchanges are a testing ground for layer-two solutions

In addition to addressing privacy concerns and restoring decentralization to the crypto sector, DEXs also provide a sandbox for layer-two developers to play in. As has been thoroughly reported by Cointelegraph, scaling within the Ethereum network has been a persistent challenge.

When the network becomes congested during high demand periods, gas fees increase exponentially, and transaction speeds grind to a halt. With Ethereum 2.0 in perceptual “development,” a number of DEXs have begun to experiment with integrating layer-two solutions to provide users who are willing to forgo the Ethereum network with cheaper, faster options.

Project Serum is probably one of the better-known success stories for a non-Ethereum based DEX.

The decentralized derivatives-based project is built on the Solana blockchain instead of the default Ethereum network that most DEXs operate on, but it is also fully interoperable with ERC-20-based assets and Bitcoin.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his team are the brains behind Project Serum, and according to Bankman-Fried, the project is designed to circumvent the privacy and safety concerns of centralized exchanges by giving users a permissionless method to invest with leverage and swap assets.

The project also provides a cheaper alternative to the high gas fees and slow transaction speeds that frequently plague the Ethereum network during periods of high traffic.

Bankman-Fried said:

“In order to build a product capable of offering fast, cheap order matching, you need a chain with high throughput. This demand increases further for trading nonstandard markets and handling risk or liquidations. Serum chose to build on Solana because the chain has focused on a unique and powerful vision for scaling.”

According to Bankman-Fried, technical issues such as congestion and high fees can make or break an investor. Regarding high fees, he said:

“They’re fatal: You basically cannot have derivatives on Ethereum because of the scaling problems. To the extent that decentralized derivatives have growth opportunities, they’ll either be on a new L1, or on an L2.”

Bankman-Fried also agreed with Wintermute’s claim that hardly anyone is using DEXs, as “the vast majority of derivatives volume is on centralized exchanges,” but he suggested that in theory, “composability and self-custody” should be incentives for more users to join the movement.

One DEX to rule them all

Total value locked in DeFi. Source: Digital Assets Data

Currently, investors have shifted their attention back to Bitcoin as the digital asset pursues a new all-time high, and data from Cointelegraph and Digital Assets Data indicate that DEX trading volume and daily active users continue to decline.

DEX daily active users. Source: Digital Assets Data

While this is likely disappointing to investors, it at least provides developers some quiet time to focus on properly integrating layer-two solutions to DeFi protocols.

The trend of major cryptocurrency exchanges becoming more centralized is unlikely to change anytime soon. This means that the first DEX to successfully provide a platform with low fees, privacy protections and a fast user-friendly interface will rule supreme once investors make the choice to invest in decentralized finance and decentralized derivatives again.

https://ift.tt/38oiepT Market Analysis Investors are back into Bitcoin but DEXs are still the future of crypto

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