Mediaboss Marketing

In the summer of 2014, years before he became the White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon gave a lecture via Skype at a conference held inside the Vatican. He spoke about the need to defend the values of the Judeo-Christian Westa term he used 11 timesagainst crony capitalism and libertarian capitalism, secularization, and Islam. He also mentioned the late Julius Evola, a far-right Italian philosopher popular with the American alt-right movement. What he did not mention is that Evola hated not only Jews, but Christianity, too.

References to Evola abounded on websites such as Breitbart News, The Daily Stormer, and AltRight.com well before The New York Times noted the Bannon-Evola connection earlier this month. But few have discussed the fundamental oddity of Evola serving as an intellectual inspiration for the alt-right. Yes, the thinker was a virulent anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer who influenced far-right movements in Italy from the 1950s until his death in 1974, but shouldnt his contempt for Christianity make him an unlikely hero for those purporting to defend Judeo-Christian values?

Behind the Internet's Anti-Democracy Movement

His current popularity has several experts perplexed.

Bannon seems to be both [a] very religious [Christian] and a staunch capitalist, two things Evola didnt believe in, said Cas Mudde, a professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.

Francesco Germinario, a historian at the Luigi Micheletti Foundation specializing in far-right movements, went even further. I would not exclude the possibility that Evola is turning in his grave, he wrote in an email.

Born in Rome to an aristocratic family, Evola became fascinated with esotericism and the study of non-European religions in his 20s. He developed a strong rejection of modernityincluding egalitarian principles, democracy, and pluralismand yearned for a return to an ancient form of spirituality: Roman paganism. A hardcore nativist, Evola became enamored with the Roman religion because he saw it as Italys ancestral belief system.

When the fascists came to power in Italy in 1922, Evola jumped on board and became a regular contributor to the regimes mouthpiece magazine, Difesa della Razza (Defense of the Race). He devised his own brand of anti-Semitism, which he called razzismo dello spirito, racism of the spirit.

Fascist-era anti-Semitic ideologues fall under two categoriesbiology-based racists and nationalism-based onesbut Evola was something different, explained Valentina Pisanty, a semiologist at the University of Bergamo. As an occultist, he was convinced that the world contained some mysterious truths that only the initiated could see, and one of those hidden truths was a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.

Further distinguishing Evola from other racist writers was the fact that he openly attacked the Christian religion, which he described as a Semitic superstition and as one of the main sources of the decadence of the West in his seminal 1928 essay Imperialismo Pagano. He opposed Christianity both because it was not native to Europe (an Asiatic movement born to a Jew) and because of its very message, which he deemed incompatible with fascisms aggressiveness. Which kind of State, not to mention Empire, can we build based on a Gospel preaching obedience the pre-eminence of the humble, the abject, and the miserable? he asked.

Evolas fascination with esotericism wasnt only abstract; he believed in the power of magic and tried to use it to restore Roman pagan religion. He joined an esoteric group called the Ur Group and performed rituals with the specific aim of drawing [the dictator Benito] Mussolini away from Christianity and toward paganism, said Simone Caltabellota, an editor and writer who researched the groups archives for his historical novel Amore degli Anni Venti, set in Evolas inner circle.

Evolas radical ideas about Christianity eventually put him at odds with Mussolinis regime, which signed the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican in 1929, establishing a special relationship between the Catholic Church and the Italian state. Evola wasnt an organic intellectual for the fascist government, but rather a merely tolerated one. Mussolini didnt like Evola, because he knew of the magic rituals. For his part, Evola thought that Mussolinis fascism wasnt extreme enough, Caltabellota noted.

Only after the end of World War II did Evola become the intellectual of choice for the far righttheir Aristotle, Germinario said. Both in Italy and in Europe, its hard to find a militant who hasnt dealt with Evolas writings.

Evolas once-marginal spiritual racism proved more fit to survive the fall of fascism than other ideologies from the Mussolini era, according to Pisanty. Biological racism fell out of fashion and nationalist racism eventually morphed into a more acceptable form of nationalism, the semiologist explained. But Evolas message, soaked in conspiracy theories, has quietly endured in the underground and has reemerged on the surface recently, thanks to the popularity of conspiracy theories.

Whats more, Evolas way of thinking resonates in a post-truth world, Pisanty said. For instance, in 1921, the philosopher wrote an introduction to The Protocols of the Elders of Zionan anti-Semitic text first published in 1903in which he conceded that the document may have been a forgery, but insisted that it nevertheless contained a deeper truth.

For some scholars, the fact that an anti-Semite is held in high regard by radical conservatives claiming to defend the Judeo-Christian West comes as no surprise.

When people from the far right talk about the Judeo-Christian roots of the West, often what they really mean is Christian. The Judeo part is just fig leaf, said Donatella Di Cesare, a philosopher at the Sapienza University in Rome.

For Di Cesare, its Evolas relationship with Christianity that makes his popularity within the alt-right uniquely perplexing. There are two approaches to religion [in right-wing identity politics], depending on how one views the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, she said. I can either be a neo-pagan right-winger and reject Christianity because it came from Judaism, or I can reconcile my right-wing views with Christianity by separating it completely from its Jewish roots. What I cannot do, however, is to be a neo-pagan and a Christian at the same time.

Nevertheless, Di Cesare noted that there are points of convergence between the Christian and the neo-pagan far right: In the end both approaches come down to the idea of defending ones identity at any cost, and religion is just an instrument [in this struggle].

This may explain why some far-right organizations that appeal to Christian values still appreciate Evola.

Matteo Cavallaro, a political scientist at Paris 13 University, said this phenomenon isnt limited to American groups. Forza Nuova, an Italian far-right political party that combines radical Catholicism with xenophobia, has likewise embraced Evola and has even organized conferences about him. Explaining how some Christians in the far right rationalize their fascination with the philosopher, Cavallaro said, They argue that Evolas main teaching was to go back to tradition, so we have to look for what incarnates the tradition today, which is the Catholic Church.

Toward the end of his life, Evola toned down his attacks on Christianity and on the Catholic Church in particular. While maintaining that Christianity was incompatible with his worldview, he claimed that, in an increasingly materialistic world, a sincere conversion to Catholicism could be an advancement for those incapable of embracing a more authentic spirituality.

But he found a new target for his invective: America.

Evola saw the advent of [what he described as] Americanismconsumerism and egalitarian valuesas the worst thing that could happen to Europe, Germinario said, adding that Evola was particularly suspicious of Anglo-Saxon cultures because he blamed Protestantism for having undermined the principle of authority.

So, even if liking Evola and liking Christianity arent necessarily mutually exclusive, those who do so in the context of the United States need to wrestle with the philosophers anti-America polemics.

If the Anglo-Saxon far right flirts with Evola, Germinario concluded, then it must first find a way to reconcile its being Anglo-Saxon with being far-right.

Follow this link:
The Alt-Right's Intellectual Darling Hated Christianity - The Atlantic

Identity politics refers to the people of a religion, race, or social background forming exclusive alliances for political agendas and wider cultural movements.

The significant difference between identity politics and, lets say, regular politics, is that this form of politics is rooted in personal identity. Therefore, disagreements take on whole new levels.

When you disagree with a Nazi, for example, youre not simply disagreeing with them on social policy; youre also disagreeing with who they are as a person.

And when youre disagreeing with Black Lives Matter members, they think youre disagreeing with who they are as a person, in the deepest fundamental sense.

As I'll explain, this type of thinking, at its roots, goes back to Karl Marx and led to the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century.

This is my warning to you, Alt-Righters & SJWs:

When you partake in identity politics, youre playing with fire.

What are your ideal worlds, Richard Spencer or Yusra Khogali?

What do you have to do in order to achieve that ideal world? What are you willing to do? What are you followers willing to do?

Now, think about Nazi Germany & Soviet Union...

Here is the original post:
Dear Alt-Right and SJWs: You Should Both Reject Identity Politics - The Rebel

As award season reaches its climax with the Oscars on February 26th, it is impossible to overlook the largely leftist political edge of award acceptance speeches. While the entertainment media industry leans left and would have some criticism of any Republican president, the current president, Donald Trump, differs greatly from a usual Republican. Consequently, celebrities have focused on criticizing the divisive nature of his rhetoric more than usual conservative policies. In her Golden Globe speech lambasting Trump, Meryl Streep most clearly demonstrated this kind of criticism, pointing out that without outsiders and foreigners, [wed] have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.

While criticism like Streeps are direct and rhetorically powerful, it does little more than galvanize the lefts approval and the rights disdain. Streeps message and conservative reactions highlight the redrawing of the culture war. Whereas the old culture wars were fought on matters of religion and sexuality, Trump has redrawn the battle into one of populism and nationalism versus cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. With the culture wars reset and reignited, the question remains: what is pop cultures role?

Although the fantasy of a post-racial America after Obamas election was quickly dashed, his term oversaw the diversifying of pop culture and the rise of multiculturalism. Voices and narratives from marginalized perspectivesparticularly women and people of colorgained prominence in national discourse. Beyonces proclamation of her feminism as a black woman made her the subject of conversation and admiration. With examples ranging from Steven Universe to Ms Marvel to Transparent, television and comics have also been telling a stories from a wider range of perspectives and identities. While movies were slow to catch up by comparison, this ethos is embraced in films from Moonlight and Hidden Figures to even Mad Max: Fury Road.

This trend towards diversity coincided with the growing value of inclusivity and intersectionality on the political left. As a result, the cultural and political left became more closely entwined, especially due to the Obamas effective use of pop culture as a political platform. This synthesis is perhaps best embodied by Hamilton: An American Musical.The musical quickly garnered national attention for its cast of racially diverse Founding Fathers and hip-hop score. Yet, it let its leftist flag fly with the young, scrappy, and hungry idealism of 2008 Obama and the belief that a strong executive is needed for general prosperity.

This growing inclusion and respect of minority voices was matched by a growing backlash to political correctness. This backlash was first manifested with Gamergate in the summer of 2014. Originally a controversy over ethics in games journalism, Gamergate soon devolved into harassing female game developers and commentators. They were villainized as unwanted invaders whose perspectives politicized and attacked their media, their entertainment, their culture. With its rejection of diversity and its use of social media, Gamergate can be seen as the herald of the alt-right.

Two years later, those who resented the cultural elite and its politically correct hegemony would join those who resented economic and political elites to vote Trump into the presidency. When then VP-elect Mike Pence was addressed by the cast of Hamilton, imploring the Trump administration to heed the worries of the minority communities, Trump claimed that Pence was harassed and demanded that the cast apologize. The war against multicultural pop culture thus began.

With the values represented by Hamilton rejected under Trumpian pop culture, what will pop culture look like? Gamergates premise that culture should be apolitical, while understandable on the surface, is ultimately impossible. Narratives are political because they are drawn from societaland thus, politicalexperience. The desire to be apolitical is really a desire to return to what was not noticeably political: to default to the status quo that is in itself political. A prime example of this is the backlash to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. As the film neared its release, the alt-right charged that it was anti-white propaganda; a politicized defiling of the pure, original trilogy. However, made in a time when fascism was considered morally wrong on principle, the original Star Wars itself was political: its antagonists fascist tendencies were sufficient to demonstrate their villainy.

If art cant be apolitical, then maybe pop culture will now be less focused on racial diversity and return to focusing on white working class protagonists. One narrative regarding Trumps win was that he was supported by the white, working class voters who felt economically abandoned by the elite. Regardless of how accurate this narrative actually is, there have been hints of its resonance in culture. J.D. Vances memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, briefly caught national attention for its depiction of the despair surrounding the collapse of white working class culture. Hell or High Water, a crime thriller rooted in that same despair, is up for several Oscars, including Best Picture.

One could argue that this is for the better. By appealing to minorities through their concerns regarding their race, gender, and other markers of identityhence the term identity politicsone could argue that the left have equated straight white males as oppressors in the process, encouraging them to act and think according to concerns regarding their identity. The white nationalist alt-right, fighting against diversity and white genocide, can be thus seen as identity politics from the right. Should pop culture try to dial down identity politics on the left in the hope that it will matched on the right?

I dont quite think so.

As tactical rallying cries and mere appeals to ones identity, identity politics are a definite cause for concern. Casting Trump supporters as a basket of deplorables without considering their reasons for supporting him not only cuts any attempt at conversation short, but also risks pushing those supporters to more tribalistic extremes. Streeps aforementioned speech falls into this exact trap by casting herself and her audience as cosmopolitan, pro-art heroes and Trump as a nationalist, anti-art villian.

However, striving for diversity and the inclusion of marginalized voices should not be a means to political power, but a universal ideal, monopolized by neither the left nor the right. At its core, diversity reinforces the dignity of all individuals regardless of their race, gender, class, or creedincluding the white working class which has been marginalized over the years. While the technocratic political elite have lost the ability to articulate why core values, such as diversity, are important on a visceral level, art and entertainment retain that ability by emotionally investing us in the lives of the characters on page or on screen regardless of how similar or different we are from them. Rather than rejecting those who feel economically marginalized and therefore are beginning to devalue racial diversity, we must take their perspectives into the fold before it is too late.

This is not to ask that all of pop culture be reduced to condescending fables or leftist drivel. Rather, this is an urgent call for entertainment media to reinforce the value of diversity by presenting subjects of all identities as complex characters rather than simple caricatures, especially in the face of an administration whose rhetoric has stridently otherized minorities and whose policies look to do much worse.

Hansy D. Piou 18, a Crimson editorial writer, is an applied mathematics concentrator living in Quincy House.

Go here to read the rest:
Culture Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - Harvard Crimson

She felt that the leadership of the pro-choice movement kept her at arms length.

But she felt that the leadership of the pro-choice movement kept her at arms length. The womens movement was by then an established, PR-conscious network of mainstream organizations that aimed for mass appeal, and they were aware that McCorvey was not an ideal representative. She began to feel at odds with mainstream feminism, rejected for her lesbianism, her class status, her initial lie about being raped, and her past flirtations with drug dealing and occult religions. In photographs from that era, she looks uncomfortable at pro-choice rallies. She slouches and frowns; she is dour-faced and plain in a housedress next to civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, who wears a full face of garish 80s makeup and dramatic shoulder pads.

Women used to come up to me all the time and say, Oh Norma, I want to thank you, if it wasnt for you I wouldnt have finished college, or, If it hadnt been for you, I wouldnt have done this, she said in a 1995 interview with ABC News. And I used to look at them and I envied them, because they got to choose, they had the right to choose. And I never had the right to choose. She never managed to climb out of poverty, either, although the attention brought by the decision garnered her two book deals and many interviews and speaking engagements. She began to feel increasingly embittered towards a feminist movement whose leaders were dramatically wealthier, better educated, and divorced from the cultural milieu of the working-class South. She found herself with less and less in common with those who most loudly claimed her cause.

In 1994, she published her first memoir, I Am Roe. At a book signing, the national director of the anti-abortion extremist group Operation Rescue, the pastor Flip Benham, appeared with a group of protesters, and shouted at McCorvey that she was responsible for the deaths of 33 million children. Benham was based in a suburb of Dallas, and opened Operation Rescues headquarters across the street from the abortion clinic where McCorvey was working. She initially refused to talk to him, but eventually took a liking to Benham, and began going to visit him at the Operation Rescue offices during her smoke breaks. She chided him for being too uptight. What you need is to go to a Beach Boys concert, she once joked. Yes, Miss Norma, he replied, I havent been to a Beach Boys concert since 1976. A friendship was born.

Benham baptized McCorvey in front of network TV cameras in 1995, in a backyard swimming pool in Dallas. She wore overalls. It was a major coup for the pro-life movement, who had now captured a major symbol of their opponents and made her their own. At first glance, it seemed like a fit for McCorvey, too. The brand of Evangelical Christianity that Benham initiated her into prized sinners and converts as signs of Gods forgiveness, and in their hands the more sordid parts of her past became plot points in a story of redemption, not public relations liabilities to be swept under the rug. We want very much for her to be absolutely who God made her, Benham said in a TV interview on the occasion of McCorveys baptism. Its not who we want to be, not what we force on her. She can just be beautifully, supernaturally Norma. The pro-choice movement shrugged. She wasnt one of the leaders of the movement, said Susan Hill of the National Womens Health Organization.

McCorvey spent the rest of her life in pro-life activism, gradually evolving a more anti-choice stance on issues such as rape, incest, and abortions in the first trimester. She published a second memoir, Won by Love, in 1997. McCorvey converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism a few months thereafter, claiming that she had heard God tell her to join the Mother Church. In 1996, she had publicly renounced homosexuality as sinful, although she continued to live with Gonzales in Dallas until 2004. She sought out the spotlight, preferring high-profile anti-abortion actions in Washington. In 2009, she dumped a box full of tiny pink plastic fetuses onto a table in the offices of thenHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In 2005, she petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, claiming standing to sue as one of the original litigants. When Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012, she campaigned passionately against him. He murders babies, she said.

Norma McCorvey had a ninth-grade education, a drug addiction, and a history of being abused, abandoned, and unloved. It is not difficult to see why she was seen as an enticing mark for both sides of the abortion debate. Her desire for justice was perhaps outweighed by her need to be accepted; the grief she felt for the life she had been denied gave way to a grief for the children she believed had been killed by abortion. Now it is our uneasy task to grieve for her.

See the article here:
What the Culture Wars Did to Norma McCorvey - New Republic

We learned how strong wed become from the force of the opposition that rose against us.

OK, are we going to count the people that come in then, as a blessing or a curse?

These children are among 6,000 of Texas most vulnerable patients whose lives may have been put at risk by the states effort to cut Medicaid costs, their parents say.

I dont think theres any guarantee for the family of the 6-year-old boy.

Despite Horthys WWII-era legacy wearing the medal was not necessarily seen as an endorsement of that leaders anti-Semitic views.

Bild apologizes expressly for the untruthful article and the accusations made in it.

Everybody makes mistakes.

You wont see the KKK charged with domestic terror even though thats what they do.

The status of ethics in an administration tends to reflect the character of the chief executive, regardless of the rules in place at the time.

What was Flynn talking about with the Russians during the campaign?

Here, in convenient list form, are the 30 small questions and three big ones about Donald Trump and Russia.

The American military has failed to publicly disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, a Military Times investigation has revealed.

It is particularly focused on demonizing people who are refugees.

The rally took place at the Canada Christian College, an evangelical institution Id never heard of before.

The [more than 50] bomb threats occurred against a backdrop of rising anti-Semitic hate crimes in the nation and the refusal of President Trump to address the issue or to disavow the anti-Semites who say they are invigorated by his electoral victory.

As is, Mosenkis finds that the districts with the fewest white students are currently shortchanged according to the formula by almost $2,000 per pupil, while the districts with the most white students get about $2,000 more per pupil than what the formula says is their fair share.'

The agents apparently detained the woman Feb. 9 after receiving a tip, possibly from her alleged abuser.

It is one of the most serious examples of governmental misconduct that I have come across in my 40 years of practice.

The future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau continues to remain in question with yet another attack being lobbed at the Bureau this week as [Republican]lawmakers introduced new legislation both in the House and Senate that would abolish the agency.

He had also violated federal regulations around wage theft with his own employees, and threatened to replace workers with machines since, as he put it, theres never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.'

At the same time that it is Trumps biggest known creditor, Deutsche is in frequent contact with multiple federal regulators.

During Obama, for eight years, I suffered, was unemployed, dependent on my wifes income, he said. Trump got him a job. He is still unemployed now, but he just enrolled in Liberty University to study divinity. Its just a matter of time.

If businesses are forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ.

What I call them is, is youre a host.

The Trump administration, it seems, wasnt altogether impressed with the site or its awards.

Youre going to see a lot of love. OK?

Follow this link:
Postcards from the class & culture wars (2.21.17) - Patheos (blog)