Left Coast Media
Left Coast Media
Wherein We Get Extremely Online
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Two.
Speaker 2How are you kidding? The error opening sound advice.
Speaker 3Welcome comrades
Speaker 1podcast. We have a very special guest today from the discourse collective, but before we get into who was actually on the show today, uh, we'll introduce myself. I am type areas Graca so you can find me now on Twitter, on the handle Checka informant, uh, as well as left-pad. Uh, we have our cohost today.
Speaker 2I am Kamiyah. All sauce. And congratulations on choosing yet another usernames that's really difficult to pronounce and spell out on, on, I mean c h e
Speaker 1k a informant. So I, it's all right. It's not the best, but it was the only thing that I could come up with. And then before we digress too far, let's go ahead and introduce comrade celery from the discourse collective. Hey, what's up? Thanks for having me on you guys. Yeah, thanks for slumming it with us. Uh, what today we're actually talking about where this current moment, uh, of the rise of fascism came from. And, uh, we're all extremely online people, so we're probably good people to talk about this. So why don't, uh, um, comrade sauce, why don't you go ahead and, uh, sort of get us into the topic?
Speaker 2Well, uh, we are probably largely going to be talking about, uh, kill all normies by Angela Nagel and also a piece that she released shortly. Um, I think it was last week or earlier this week. Um, addressing primarily Charlottesville and where the alt right is going to go now, uh, after, after those events.
Speaker 1Yeah, I um, I have some words about that, but uh, well let's find out what our guest has to say about the topic.
Speaker 4I'm not just a really excited to be able to talk about this. So we actually at the discourse collective, we kind of talked about doing an episode like this a couple months ago, but, uh, I kind of got drowned out, so I'm, I'm really glad you guys are having me on a, I think it's a really interesting topic.
Speaker 1It is, but it is very online.
Speaker 4It is. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, that's kind of how Nagel frames it and kill all normies and a lot of the pieces, she has pieces in Jacobin in the Baffler and uh, she frames it as a war in
Speaker 2online culture war. And
Speaker 4you know, for the longest time it was, but recently we've been seeing it a spill out over into meat space.
Speaker 1Yeah. It, um, so the way that I kind of think about what the Internet is for this generation, um, is it is much like newspapers or uh, pamphlets were for like previous generations. So, so like what we're doing right now is, is sort of like the modern technological equivalent of putting out a weekly or monthly, uh, pamphlet of the things that we're doing and interested in. Okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think, I think an am radio show is, is good as well because, um, in a pamphlet or a newsletter, you don't really have the back and forth. Um, I mean in a podcast you also don't, but once you get to the, the air area of forums or of IRC or slack or discord, then you have the immediate back and forth replacement if necessary for IRL meetings. Uh, and unlike an actual meeting, um, usually anybody who, who has access can just go back and read the entire thing rather than working off minutes or working off their own memory or recording of the event. Um, which I think personally I think means that what you say can live on, um, in all of its ugliness rather than being paraphrased and reformed into something that, that sits better in the head, uh, into a slightly better worded phrase.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a, that's a good point that the discourse is a lot more permanent now. But yeah. So just kind of getting a sense here. Uh, so when, when did you guys sort of like get into like the, for want of a better word, the darker corners of the Internet? Like what was that point where you guys actually started interacting with these kinds of, these kinds of people?
Speaker 4Let me personally, um, let's see. I think I first got a dial up connection in 1997 and, um, right off the bat I was on like a, what the hell was it back then? Like using it and shit, but I'm not really, you know, it was like five or six years old. So I wasn't really getting into the dark corners of the online at that point in time. But, um, you know, back in like 2006, 2007, I was a typical, uh, Greasy 15
Speaker 2your old shithead. And, um, that's when I first discovered four Chan and I loved it for exactly the reasons as Nagle, it, it's,
Speaker 4uh, you know, it's slimy and grotesque to the outside world and, and it's, it's an Ingroup outgroup dynamic.
Speaker 1Well, and it's highly transgressive.
Speaker 4Absolutely. But over the past 10 years or so, it's transformed from in immature, I don't want to say innocent transgressive this, but it has, it has turned into something far more sinister in the past 10 years. It's, it's turned from something you can say boys will be boys about and, uh, only get a minor. I roll in response into something that you cannot even hand wave away.
Speaker 1Right? Yeah. Cause there was a, I mean there was a time when you could plausibly deny, uh, the, the seriousness of your actions because one, the Internet was a new thing, Eh, Eh, you know, and then most people were not online. The quote normies we're not online yet. So there was this real distinction between what happened on the Internet and what happened in meet space. And then, you know, over time, more people started coming online. Uh, the popularity of my space and, uh, Facebook got like everybody's grandmother online and that sort of kind of naive transgressive Nis, uh, started getting people involved. They were always there, but it started getting people really involved. And I'm directing the conversation who we are now seeing as the thought leaders, the, the people actually pushing like what happened in Charlottesville. Like that's, it was a, it was a situation where if you pretend like you're a piece of shit long enough, actual pieces of shit will take over your space.
Speaker 4I think that's a really great point. And, um, it reminds me of my personal experience, uh, with four Chan Chan Culture in general. My kind of breaking point is, um, Gosh, a few years, maybe five years ago, um,
Speaker 5okay,
Speaker 4five years ago, pull was libertarian. Now it is decidedly not. Uh, but five years ago it was, uh, you know, it was a genuinely libertarian and not in the larval stage of fascism kind of way. And, but it was also is this mix of this genuine libertarianism, right libertarianism. But it was a mix of that and these just weird far out there and increasingly, um, far out there a conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. Um, Alex Jones was very popular on pole at this, uh, to give one example. And he wasn't even that bad compared to some of this stuff that was going on. And I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. I was so into this and I had a friend at the time in real life, a friend I went to college with and we got into this, uh, ironic, um, conspiracy theorists stuff. I'm pull at about the same time. And after a couple months I realized, oh, he really does think that the moon landing was faked. And that George W. Bush was a reptile. And that for me was a of like a wake up call for me personally because I realized that, you know, a lot can be said about irony in the role that irony plays at our online lives. But I think a lot of people miss that irony is not something you just turn on or off. We make jokes about, you know, how many layers of irony are you on my dude. Right? But it really is, it's, it's us, it's a spectrum with irony and sincerity at either poles and, uh, you know, it's sometimes it can be very hard to navigate where people are at. And I think another great example, you guys may have seen, uh, you know, sorry a sauce is you're trying to get a thought in here. Um, I think before we get too far, I think, uh, allowing type areas. And I also too, to talk a little bit about our history online. So we all, I'm so sorry. I just Kinda took off. That's all right. You can, you can make a note and we'll definitely come back to it. Um, for, for my sins, I am a little bit older than comrade salary and a little bit younger than type areas. Um, I was on something awful on something awful. Forums 2002. I do still have an account, it's not the same account, but I, I bounced in, I bounced out, I was on live journal when LiveJournal was a thing and I knew the Lj drama crew, which included. Okay.
Speaker 2Andrew, we've, um, so I do have like one, one degree of separation and a lot of the time the, the attitude that we had towards what you would call cyber bullying or online drama at that point was, um,
Speaker 4the Tyler, the creator, a tweet that he put out in 2012 of how the fuck is cyber bullying? Real. Just walk away from the screen, like close your eyes. Um, and
Speaker 2that, this feeling that it's all just online so it doesn't matter. And at that point, you know, in order to be online you had to have a computer and be in front of your computer. You didn't have it in your pocket all the time and it wasn't really something that was impacting everything the same way that it is now. I have had some, some other with, with Sas Paul's, um, there are Internet cesspools of people who got banned from something awful where it used to just be a local location where people would go and talk about how bad low taxes and about his foot fetish and all sorts of things like that. And then gradually, as you were saying, it goes from the joking irony of um, yeah, with [inaudible] ban shitheads and we believe all these kinds of horrible things and then people who really believe those horrible things move in and it just becomes at another kind of 90% Stormfront infiltrated space. So, and type areas. What about your CD and Shady Internet past?
Speaker 1Uh, well, um, similar to celery, uh, I got my first Internet connection back in the mid nineties, I want to say 95 or 96. It was, it was, um, I think like a year or two after the eternal September. And, uh, but I was, I was a little bit older than him at the time, so I was just getting into junior high school and like my, my first experience with the shady or side of the Internet was, um, pedophiles and aim chat. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. So there was a, so I knew like very, very early on, there's a lot of really shitty people willing to do really shitty things on the Internet, so, and so that kind of colored the way that I sort of interacted with the Internet, like basically from then on. Um, but you know, I was on, I had my own Geo cities site, you know, and I had my, I had my own little sort of micro blog. I was on live journal, uh, mostly as a, as an emo golf team. And then, you know, after that I started getting into, um, like, uh, my space following bands there, um, going to, uh, something awful, just as a place to like shit post about games that are happening. Uh, and it, it wasn't until, it wasn't until like the, the, the troll army on something awful, like started really ramping up and I, I, uh, got sent over to four Chan and saw what was going on there and sort of like, nope, the fuck out really quick. All right. Uh, and, you know, and I, I sort of like got into, um, I can, has Cheezburger means and uh, dig and then read it. And, and it was really like reddit that I, I really interacted with, like some of the worst people on the Internet, you know, at is, I think this is still true, but at its height, reddit was literally the largest white supremacist website in the world. Yeah. I mean, it, it got really bad. So, so, you know, that's, that's sort of like where I'm kind of coming from like watching, I was always really big into metta drama until about like two years ago when I was just like, you know what? This is bad for my mental health. I don't need this bullshit. That's true. Yeah. I started, I started going like heavy into leftist, um, you know, theories and that kind of stuff. At that point I was just like, Eh, I don't, I don't need this. So, but I was definitely, I was definitely around for a lot of that. Uh, you know, I watched we've, and Andrew Anglin and you know, I watched the rise of the National Policy Institute and Richard Spencer Likeso, it's, you still, even if you're not actively seeking it out, if, if you understand or the dog whistles, if you understand sort of like what's going on and you, yeah, you're able to sort of deconstruct that level of irony that really forms this kind of, sort of like psychic shield that, that protects these, these people from really understanding like how shitty they really are. Uh, once you, once you start being able to see past that is a really difficult not to. And even if you're not trying to, even if you're not trying to see the shit, it's so pervasive that you, you have to basically disconnect from the Internet not to see it. So, so that's, that's where we're coming from. Um, why don't we go ahead. Did you have something to say? Sauce.
Speaker 4I was just going to redirect us back to what salary was talking about before I bought it in so that we could tell our our stories. Oh, you didn't, you didn't button. I was rambling.
Speaker 1We do that. We, we rambled a lot in this show.
Speaker 4Oh my gosh. We do it all the time on, uh, on discourse collective of our producer made a joke out of it playing a, a saying the word tangent every time we go off.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, yeah. But uh,
Speaker 4yeah, I was, I think I was talking about iron. Right. And you know, there's like a moment for the lucky few when they see the irony and they snap out of it. And you know, if you're lucky it happens online. Um, but recently we saw, I can't remember the exact rally that this video came out of a, but it was one of these so called free speech rallies in the past week. Right. And, um, it was a video of this white kid, baby, I don't know, 18, 19, 20 years old is young guy. You know, he was wearing like the white polo and the Khakis and he was, and you know, people were coming up on, and then he's like, oh, it's just a joke, man. I'm not actually white supremacist. And he takes his shirt off and he starts freaking out because he realizes that this is real life and it's not just epi means and ship posting. It's real and it has real consequences. And, um, when I was watching that video, I was like, I don't, I don't think that kid is coming back to another one of these rallies. I, you know, I don't know if the shit is going to stop
Speaker 2for this guy in particular immediately, but I, I definitely think he had a moment there and you know, uh, will, when we get to Nagle's a response to Seaville, we'll, you know, we'll see that she kind of talks about that too, in a way.
Speaker 1Yeah. And it's not just, I mean, we've been seeing this quite a few times, I think particularly a cow. What was it like? I Dunno, it was like 200 years ago, like two weeks ago, whatever. Like, it's, it's hard, like this is Trump's America time doesn't mean anything. Right. Um, but it was, it was the guy who showed up to the, a false flag with his paintings. Yeah. So he, he showed up with his pay pay means and his like, shit, he, he brought his shit posting into the real world and all of these like actual militant, um, you know, fascist are fascists adjacent guys, three pillars, oath keepers, unreconstructed confederate. It's like these kind of guys. And he was showing up with his means and they're like, what the fuck are you doing? You're a fucking joke. Like you're just larping. And the guy's like, no, but the means, but the means that memes are good. And it's like, I think Vat guy also had, you know, this, this moment of introspection or at least I hope he did because he, at some point you got to realize like the guys that you're aligning with are terrifying and well armed.
Speaker 2They are definitely not in it for the lols Marlana ESCOs. Yeah. I, I look back on a lot of my, I mean I went to a liberal arts college, um, in an area amongst it with a fair amount of hippies and a fair amount of, I guess soft leftists. Um, and none of that got through my shell of onward, extremely online. This even though, you know, for four fucking years of, um, women's studies and talking about bottom up, um, change and that kind of shit, none of that broke through, but it was, it was fucking means that did it. That turned me into a, a capital n nice person. And that actually makes me, makes me kind of wheat for, for our generation. Like people, people of old had, you know, um, gas lamps is nostalgia and turning points was like, oh, when we got color TV or when we first saw that train barreling towards us in the movie theater, we have, what kind of mean was it that radicalized you and in which direction?
Speaker 1Well, I mean there's, there's something to be said for the fact that every generation has its memes, right? Like the, the idea of a meme is actually like the, the word meme itself is actually kind of old. It goes back to Richard Dawkins and his sort of evolutionary biologist way of, of looking at the spread of ideas. And he talked about these ideas as, as having a kind of life of their own and, and he, and, and I think that every sort of, every generation has it. It just, you know, we, we associate the meme so much with a really specific kind of, um, a medium. Yeah, exactly. Uh, as a very specific kind of medium. Yeah. And you know, previously it would be a songs. It would be, um, you know, plastering up these like homemade propaganda posters. It would, it would be just, you know, and he's ideas that were spread sort of person to person. It's just that now we can spread those ideas. Person, the person at just a lightening quick pace. Alright. Aye.
Speaker 2Kind of feel like we go much deeper into that. Well, we're going to have an entire 90 minutes of just discussing means and then we'll get people coming in and calling in and complaining. We're not pronouncing them as may maze. So
Speaker 1yeah, we should probably, we should probably get to, um, uh, Nagle's pieces. I at this point, I have to admit that, uh, I did not have time this week to read anything. So, uh, I am lost on that. Uh, I did read the, the article though.
Speaker 2I am at a 93% of kill all normies. Um, thanks.
Speaker 1Huge thanks to Governor
Speaker 2Kate. Kate reads books for her recap of kill all normies which fantastically helped me get that far. But, uh, I know salary that you've actually read the book and done the reading or so.
Speaker 4Yeah. Um, you know, uh, when I think the first time I heard about this book was, uh, when I believe it was Nagle's first appearance on Chapo Trap House and I was very excited for it because this is a very much my jam as they say. And I ended up contacting the publisher. I was like, Hey, we, you know, we'd love to talk to her on the show and they send us a, a pdf. So I was able to repeat it that way. And unfortunately she was so busy that she didn't come on. Uh, but I, I was able to read it and um, I just, I had mixed feelings about it. It didn't, I don't think it, it, I, I don't think it reached my expectations that I had for it. Uh, based off of her two interviews, uh, at, at that point in time, um, on, on Chapo Trap House that I had heard. But you know, she does have some good analysis. Uh, first of all it's um, well let me, let me actually at the subtitle, cause I have it right here in front of me. She calls, uh, the book kill all normies the online culture wars from Tumblr and four Chan to the alt right and Trump. And that's what it is. Her, you know, her book is supposed to be anthropological, it's about online culture wars and there is some politics in there and she does a good job of explaining the relationships between culture, specifically online culture or pop culture and politics. In this day and age. My number one thing that I have to give her credit for is a, this isn't something that a lot of people have done. Not many people that I know of have undertaken as a serious study of the culture of, uh, Chan culture and a sites like Tumblr, the, you know, these, uh, social media, microblogging sites, et cetera. Uh, not a lot of people have undertaken a serious study of the culture of these sites. And she attempted to do that. And I think for the most part, she did a pretty great job. My biggest problem with the book is, in my opinion, I believe that, um, she criticizes the left when she means to criticize a, actually what I think is more properly the realm of a neo liberals. And so there's the very big problem of some, some horseshoe theory, uh, going on in this book. Uh, and, and that's a, that's a pretty big problem in my opinion.
Speaker 2So I'm going to jump in. And I think especially in the chapter where she starts talking about Tumbler and about, um, yeah, the multiplicity of identities and little subgroups that that create have been created through through cross links between, between Tumblr users, uh, and some of that she then attributes to the left and,
Speaker 6Oh, while
Speaker 2personally what I've seen in tableau with some of the more, uh, I'm not gonna say extreme, but some of the, the more out, um, fuck it, I'm going to have to say at the slightly more out their identities are that they are, there's a lot of mention of representation that has a lot of mention of kind of the, the identity politics style of we all need to be represented.
Speaker 6Okay.
Speaker 2Rather than a more leftist orientation of that we need equity. It's, it's just we want, we want to be represented rather than we want everything.
Speaker 4Right. And you know, Nagel mentions that too. She says that a lot of these tumbler leftist, and that's what she says, she calls the leftest lack a material analysis. And what I, how I respond to that as well. If they lack of material analysis and what are you doing calling them leftists. Um, but you're right,
Speaker 1that is more properly sort of the, the realm of the, like you said, the neo liberal centrist where they, they have this, there's a disconnect between the various identity groups and, and where are they actually came from the, the basis in economic analysis, this materialist analysis that, you know, even even when they say that they are intersectional, really what they are doing is, is they're sort of like stacking up oppression points there. They're not really having a truly intersectional analysis of uh, you know, the, the underlying causes of how these various identities came to be formed and why they are being upheld. And the culture it is really just, well, I am a transgender, uh, non binary woman of color. And so therefore my experience, uh, is it an on these specific topics is more valid than yours. And because you're a white cis, Hetero Male, uh, that means that you aren't a part of the sort of like Liberation Movement for my identity. It is, it is this in, in a strange way, it is using a really surface level intersectional analysis to silo these identities further.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 2So more of that atomization that we see under liberalism and neoliberalism of atomization into the individual rather than the group. Uh, I think when, when Nagel starts to cover some stuff that happened in the atheist community of some, some stuff about like elevator gate or some, some harassment. Um, I recall being adjacent to that, not in the atheist community, but having people that I knew that were in it, uh, and they were not leftists
Speaker 4was a liberal lists of liberals who also enjoyed going online and,
Speaker 2and yelling about atheism.
Speaker 4I'm Phil Mayor for don't they?
Speaker 1Well, because our classical liberals like the quote unquote classical liberals. Yeah. Which is really just like the reactionary way of saying, uh, I really love capitalism and I am an individual and there's no such thing as society, which again, that's basically like, uh, that's a, that's a really shitty elevator pitch for Nate neo liberalism. [inaudible] so why don't we, why don't we sort of like get into, um, that, uh, it start, let's start at that. Um, the new atheism and sort of like work our way forward. They're like trying to, trying to figure out like where her analysis sort of starts to break down.
Speaker 4Well, the new atheism is a very interesting, um, because she Nagle ties the new atheist movement into a broader, uh, well many movements that she sees as a loose coalition of online, predominantly young, white male dominated, um, various movements. You have new atheism, you have a pickup artists culture, men going their own way, men's rights activists, things like that. Then you also have the, you know, the dark enlightenment. Um, and then all of these different neoreactionary groups, uh, kind of formed this loose coalition that is the alternate. This is how she defines this loose coalition of who you would mock in a neck, neck. Beate mean, I mean, yeah, you know, you, you could, uh, you could, you could say that I suppose because again, a, you know, a lot of these guys are extremely online. Uh, and also she does talk about the whole, um, I actually, I don't remember, she talks about this and kill all normies specifically, but some of her pieces in either Baffler or Jack have been, uh, she talks about the whole Beta male culture that you see online. And it's this kind of ironic self mockery, but it's also worn as like a badge of pride in a way. And the whole, uh, data male culture is also definitely part of this. All right. Uh, this loose coalition.
Speaker 1Oh, very much so. There is, um, I think it's banned now or actually, no, maybe it's not. It's might be still there. Uh, but there is a subreddit called incell involuntary celibate. Oh yeah. And, and they, um, they, along with their, well, they were, you know, the Roger Elliott breeding grounds. Yeah, exactly. Um, similar to four. Chan's are nine k. Uh, these are, these are the breeding grounds were sort of these lonely
Speaker 4lack of breathing.
Speaker 1They're anti breeding grounds. So it was what they are. Um, but so there, there are these places where these lonely, disaffected alienated young men, uh, who are, let's not forget the sort of traditional demographic of the online culture and is that demographic is a really big reason why the Internet is the way it is today. Like that's how this, um, that's how this idea of female invasion into quote male spaces happened. Uh, that that's really a big part of the buildup into Gamergate. But there are these places where these, these young men congregate to feel pity and, and sorry for themselves. And then there are these, um, sort of colts life figures who come into these places and tell them that they are actually the chosen people, that it is the world that is wrong, that they actually have this kind of power, uh, uh, sort of because of their identity. Sort of like taking this, this really surface level identity politics and, and twisting it in a way to, uh, really suck these people into the, the red pill or, um, you know, men's rights activism or these quote unquote classical liberal, uh, neoreactionary spaces.
Speaker 2And I do want to highlight the, not only is red pilling a phrase used by men's rights activists, but is also a phrase used by a storm front online forum infiltrators, they will refer to that work as red pilling. Um, well yeah, I guess I guess that's become a phrase now and a lot of their playbook involves, uh, really knowing your target audience and that it's not important that you're winning these arguments or these debates. The importance is that you get your message out and impose your own terminology and get people talking about it, which I don't know that that Nagel really pushes on that point because especially in, in goodbye pet pay, she says, you know, this is the end of a significant phase because, because they didn't win the way that they wanted to because what they showed was heavily armed militia men rather than means and pay page science. I'm not so optimistic. I think that the, the two are going to continue to exist. Um, but I feel like she doesn't fully fully engage with that rather than as getting, getting caught up in a highlighting how, what she calls the left kind of failed to push back against, against this transgressive online. Right,
Speaker 4right. And you know, again, in a, first of all, she says to the left when it's really this kind of, uh, identitarian or input neo liberalism, the way that she, she says it is, it's close. It's so close I think to being right. Because she says, you know, it's, it's the liberals fault that they're this way and no, uh, this is what reactionary is, aren't they react against. Right. And, um, you can't just blame, the liberals want more representation and this and that. And the other thing, it's not that they want more representation, it's that they lack material solutions and these alt right people, they come in and they offer an alternative vision and what she calls the alt light, like a Milo. Um, and, uh, Mike Cernovich and Paul Joseph Watson and people like that, they have messaging and means and all that, but they, they don't offer solutions. They just offer critiques. But then it's a, you know, the more core of the outright that come in with actual concrete solutions to the real or imagined ales of these various, uh, vulnerable, uh, you know, potential neoreactionaries online.
Speaker 1Right. And, you know, sort of that, that shift from online to meet space, this is exactly the 2016 election. Um, that, that is what happened. It was Trump came in, uh, you know, dog whistling and sometimes even just outright saying a lot of these same things that these neoreactionaries white supremacists neofascist outright neonazis, uh, have been sort of, um, creating a culture online for. And on the other side of that, uh, because of the shitty way at the Democratic Party is run. We didn't get Bernie who was offering, if not a full solution, at least a way forward and a way to actually get to the solutions that these people were having problems with. But instead, we got Hillary Clinton who represents exactly that same kind of a neo liberal centrism. And, and I get a lot of, uh, these, you know, worthless Sanchez libs going, but she had the most progressive platform of any Democratic candidate ever. It's like she had a couple of specific policy points that she, uh, that, that she bitterly swallowed because she was forced to buy real politique but she never had anything, any actual vision for making anything better. She's like, okay, you guys really want a $15 minimum wage, will give you $12. Right? You guys, you guys really want single payer healthcare. Oh, we'll get, we'll have a public option. And it was, it was the same kind of thing. It you, she couldn't actually give us a vision because she represented the status quo. And so what that really was a referendum was the neo liberal order is failing people. People recognize this. And the only person who offered anything was Donald Trump. And so that is, that is where like the, um, the election of Donald Trump came from. And, and that is, that is very similar to the kinds of things that, that we're talking about in d in a lot of these online spaces. You start talking about these, um, fairly heavily siloed, um, uh, left quote unquote identity politics that can feel very alienating if you don't fit exactly into that silo. And what was then offered as an alternative to that was, well, here is this like sweeping grand vision of a fascist world where you are king and, and that's, you know, this is the same thing that we see over and over and over again. It's, it's the same. It's, it's that same failure of liberalism to deal with its own problems.
Speaker 2And that's why I think the while I disagree with the thesis that of Niggles, goodbye, pet pay of that the alt right is going to fall apart. Now I do agree with a part of her conclusion, which is that a lot of this rise was because because of a failure to offer much that was better because all that was really offered was status quo was kind of laissez faire liberalism. Uh, the, the, the, the left, the real left, not necessarily what Angela Nagle's things others the left did not have. While they weren't ever really enough of a stressed heart, uh, did not have a vision, did not have something that we could point to that was better and that we have to, we have to develop something. Um, we can't just have this sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Like hunter s Thompson says in fair and loathing. We, we can't, we can't think that there's no point in fighting because we have all the momentum and we're riding high. Um, because that is, that is how the, uh, the movement falls apart when you just assume that whatever you're doing is right and that you're winning. Um, and I think that that is a danger that if the outright does begin to falter and fall apart, that we will just assume that, oh well then it must be our time because it's not going to be that easy.
Speaker 4I am like shaking in my seat cause I'm getting so excited from what you guys are saying because, um, I, uh, I read kill all normies before, couple of months ago when I, when I first got it in. And when you guys reached out to me to invite me on a podcast, I decided to read it again. But this time I decided to, in preparation for that, okay, I'm going to sit down and I'm finally going to read something that's been on my to do list forever. And that is a Trotsky's pamphlet, fascism, what it is and how to fight it and, uh, uh, use that in order to inform my reading. And you talking about sauce, uh, you talking about, um, you know, we, we can't just, we being left, we can't just watch, you know, the pep bays, uh, fade into dust and then ride the high of a victory that we cannot claim. Right. Um, because, uh, Nagle and her piece warns, you know, if, if the left isn't careful, the centrists are going to consolidate power and she's absolutely correct. A Trotsky says the same exact thing. Um, in his, uh, in his pamphlet, both in Mussolini's, Italy and Hitler's Germany leading up to both of those, uh, leaders, uh, rise to power. There was a failure of the left to capture the imagination of a, the proletarians in those two countries. And part of the reason for that is, uh, first of all, a lack of unity among left parties and also a failure of these leftist parties and organizations to reach out to the working class. And uh, on the other side, the fascists coopt the language of the left in order to attract the proletarian class. And that is a real danger. And Tiberius, when you were speaking about the 2016 election, you know, Bernie Sanders is a social democrat. He's not a real socialist of course, but he did offer a very sincere material analysis of the, of the problems that we have in our country. And that is what informed his, okay, we're going to have a $15 an hour minimum wage. We're going to have a health care for all. It was based in a materialist analysis. When Hillary Clinton offered $12 an hour or a single payer option or a public option. This was not based in a material analysis. As you said, it was conciliatory. She did it because she had to. Um, and the far right represented in Trump did cooperate a lot of the language of the left. Um, and uh, another thing that, uh, Trotsky points out in his pamphlet is that the, uh, fascism in any country where it comes out is a movement that needs, um, the petty bourgeoisie and the big, uh, bourgeoisie will a whip up the petty bourgeoisie, uh, to come to their aid. And, uh, when, whenever they sense that capitalism is in crisis and that is exactly what happened, uh, with the rise of Trump and our country.
Speaker 1And, you know, alongside that we also have to not make the same mistakes of the KPD. Um, if I'm not mistaken, one of their sort of, I dunno if it was one of their sort of like internal slogan, something, uh, a meme that was
Speaker 7mmm.
Speaker 1Repeated over and over was first the Nazis than us. Where, where the idea was, all the centrists are going to see the, you know, what these fascists are like in power or you know, when they, when they start really seeing the rise of these fascist hard right parties, they're going to say, oh shit, we have to do something about that. We need to run to the communists. And that is absolutely not what happened. And, and it was a big part of the reason why, um, the left in Germany was crushed at also in no small measure to
Speaker 7uh, uh,
Speaker 1Bernie Sanders killing Rosa Luxemburg.
Speaker 4And you know, Trotsky says, uh, the bourgeoisie is terrified of fascism, but nowhere near as much as it is of anti capitalism because fascism, whatever it is, is not anti-capitalism. And today, you know, we have a very popular meme that I'm sure both of you have seen, uh, liberals hate socialists more than fascists and used repeatedly. Absolutely.
Speaker 2So you heard it here. Yeah. You heard it here first on the left coast podcasts that Trotsky had some good ideas. Absolutely.
Speaker 1Hey, Lennon had some good ideas too. I'll give him that. I'm a, I'm a big proponent of every comrade reading state and revolution.
Speaker 4That's a good one.
Speaker 2The fact that I'm never going to read something that long.
Speaker 4Okay.
Speaker 2So, uh, actually type areas. Could you, uh, spell out that acronym and give just a brief, maybe 15 second, uh, what it is that you were talking about with KPD?
Speaker 1Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So the KPD is, uh, the Communist Party of Germany.
Speaker 7Uh,
Speaker 1I can't, I'm not even going to attempt that, the German because it's going to just be absolutely butchered. Um, yeah, but that's there, there the, there were the hardcore communist party,
Speaker 7um, of, uh,
Speaker 1Germany as opposed to the sort of like soft reformist communist, a socialist party, which was the SPD who are, you know, obviously the ones who used the fry core to put down the Sparta cyst uprising and in the process killing Rosa Luxemburg and securing the capitalist future of Germany and frankly, probably the rest of the world along with it.
Speaker 2And other of those delightful moments when the left was standing outside the tent pissing in rather than inside the tenant missing out
Speaker 1left unity. Uh, yeah. So, so let's, um, let's talk about a little bit about sort of what we sort of, what we think about the, the current moment and, you know, trying to keep in mind that this is not just, obviously it's, it's not just a, an online thing anymore. It is very much in the streets. It is very much in, in me space and, and I think we all sort of have this idea that obviously this, this horrific event, uh, in Charlottesville with the, the murder of our comrade by an outright terrorist, that's not going to be the end of them because we have already seen a and alright, terrorists step up and murder two people, uh, grievously wounding a third on a train in Portland and that was eventually swept under the rug as well. So, so what's our, what's our response to that? Uh, and, and how do we sort of reach out to the people like Nagel who have this ostrich in the sand reaction when a lot of these things start to pop up?
Speaker 2I don't think necessarily that you reached directly out to people who have their head in the sand. Like Andrea and Nagel, I think that you reach first two people local to you to build solidarity there and don't necessarily uh, you know, throw your, your grain on, um, on land that's not going to support it. I mean, give it a try, but if somebody is well into the, the liberal echo chamber, maybe you're each going to need to be more than just you to, to destroy that.
Speaker 4I think it's interesting, Tiberius, uh, that you characterize these, uh, terrorists as being outright terrorists because this is actually another problem that I had with kill all normies is that, uh, I think Nagle, uh, fell short of making a distinction between the pep A's and the more hardcore white nationalists, neo Nazis, et cetera. And um, these guys, um, I think his name was, uh, James Fields with the, with the car, right. Um, Charlottesville, uh, you know, he, he was not a peppy, that guy was serious. You know, he used the vehicle as a weapon to injure people and murder a person. And, um, you know, these armed, uh, three percenters in oath keepers and whatever, these people are not, you know, online making means all day and bringing means to rallies. And, um, I think Nagel does make that distinction in her goodbye pep, a s a m on the baffler that she released as a response to Charlottesville.
Speaker 8And, um,
Speaker 4the point of that was kind of the outright tha tha tha Meemers and the ship posters, they're going home, they're packing up and going home. They're not coming to these free speech rallies any more now that they know what they really are. But the other guys, the real neonazis, they got momentum. You know, they're empowered because they've had the media attention, they've been able to ride on the coattails of the outright. The media has refused to denounce them.
Speaker 8And, um,
Speaker 4and they feel empowered by that and they're not going home.
Speaker 1No. And, and I also want to say that it's a really important to see the history and at, to see the continuation of this. Uh, there was an incident back in late 2015, I believe it was, where a bunch of Pole Jack Asses, uh, went to a, we're going to a BLM rally and a, they were suited up with balaclavas and side arms to go and uh, threatened some black people obviously using much more racially charged language that I am absolutely not going to use. But this isn't, this isn't just a response to Trump and when Trump goes away, this is still going to be a problem. And for me, sort of what I see as that, uh, a big part of what we have to be doing as leftists is doing perhaps a better job of reaching out to these people online or, or at least being approachable online enough that when they come to us to tell us that we are Beta Cox and Cultural Marxist, that we're not always just responding with the kind of a dismissive anger, putting them down as these worthless virgins basically. Uh, because, because there is a real danger in, in further radicalizing them by pushing them away and not accepting the fact that not everybody who is going to be a part of our movement is going to come from our movement already. A lot of people who are going to come from a really dark place where they espoused some really dark things.
Speaker 4I think it's interesting that you brought up of the sorry sauce. Do you, where are you going there? I was just making a noise ahead. Well, and, and I think before you respond to, I want to point out that this is really difficult emotional labor and absolutely not going to fault anybody who feels like, especially people in, in minority groups. It's easier for me because I pass white. I'm a CIS gendered male, you know, straight. So, so it's a lot easier for me. A lot of these things aren't sort of directly attacking me and, and, and I recognize that and, and I really don't want to say that if you don't feel you're in a place to respond to anger with patients, then don't. Absolutely. This is if, if it's not a fight, you feel you can fight, don't fight it because you're just, you have to be taken care of yourself in order to be useful to your comrades. So I, you know, I just want to put that out there. I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say like everybody has to be doing this all the time. No, I completely agree with you. Um, I do, you know, from each, according to his ability, if you are able, uh, to educate, then, you know, go for it. Uh, and if you feel that you're not, that's fine too. But, uh, going off of what you were saying earlier about, um, the, uh, Pole Jack Asses who, uh, you know, uh, tried to terrorize people at the black lives matter march in, uh, I think it was November of 2015. Um, this is actually a good example of that kind of irony that we were talking about earlier because they recorded a video, I think in their car as they were going to the event. And one of the guys pointed at the camera and said, stay white. And this is a good example of where the tone is ironic. It's of course mocking the stay woke, uh, that was, uh, very much in vogue at that time. But the message is absolutely sincere and that is missed on a lot of people on these online forums where it becomes difficult to tell the barrier between irony and sincerity. And again, we saw a lot of these, a ship poster show up to these so called free speech rallies and have a rude awakening.
Speaker 9Also,
Speaker 2I'm wary of
Speaker 9okay.
Speaker 4Of necessarily giving time to
Speaker 2members of the alt right
Speaker 9or
Speaker 4anybody who is more than right. Curious.
Speaker 9Yeah.
Speaker 2One of the things that I keep being told and I keep hearing at DSA trainings is it is that people say that we're nice and I know I try and be nice with a capital n online, but you can't necessarily respond to every, every slight or every person with that level of, of niceness sometimes. Um, like in the, in the storm front infiltration form infiltration thing. Um, a lot of it predicates on people concern trolling and I'm just innocently asking questions. But what they are really doing is they are pushing a message. They are pushing a white supremacists message, um, and their, their talking points. And I fear that if you follow the route of
Speaker 10engaging,
Speaker 2you give time to people who are extremely good at selling a message, extremely good at the propaganda of what they do, which is one of the reasons why I do not like when people reshare those videos of like the white supremacists crying about how he's going to be in trouble. Because a lot of that is carefully crafted to get across their message and humanize them or whatever. Uh, and so I have concerns about giving any, any attention to any time for them to present anything in their own words. It's definitely a tight rope.
Speaker 1Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not exactly sure how to, how to respond to that because I mean, well, you do you, well, and it's, it's not that it's, it's that it's a very, it's a very, very difficult tight rope to walk obviously. I mean, I saw, you know, as, as a member of reddit because it has a very large, um, word, character limit. You would see a lot of these essentially Gish Gallup's, um, this, these stat dumps of this data that's been taken completely out of context and, and basically used to back up these ideas of white supremacy that people already have as just being a part of the culture that we live in. And it is very difficult to properly respond to those because if you don't go like line by line and, and refute everything that's, that's been posted, they just point to that other thing and say, oh, but you didn't, you didn't talk about this. This obviously supports my point. So obviously you're wrong and black people are bad. So, right. So there is, there is a, uh, an element of that and, and I think you're right that it's a, it's important to try to recognize when the conversation with you is not a conversation with, but a platform to boost. Absolutely. You know, these talking points. But at the same time, you know, I have seen and, and for, for myself, like I used to be incredibly transphobic and, and it took people like just nicely talking to me and explaining things to me and the fact that I'm a fairly curious and intelligent person to, to sort of like be open to these ideas that trans people are actually people. They're not, it's, they're not. He, she's there just people who's lived experiences different from myself. And finding the balance in between that is a challenge. And, and I, I don't know if I quite have that yet. I don't know if anybody does, but
Speaker 4there's an art to it for sure. In art to it. Uh, for me personally, I'll sometimes have, you know, some reactionary critiques coming into my mentions on Twitter and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt at first. You know, one reply, engage in good faith and then see what they say to that. Um, sometimes you'll get, um, you know, people replying with a, uh, a critique of leftism rather than a argument for a more reactionary politic. So, uh, a negative versus a positive argument. And when they're making positive arguments in favor of their side, that's when you know that they are platforming you. They're using you as a platform. If they are asking questions in it, it could be concern trolling or it could be genuine. And that's, um, is it's pretty easy to tell online generally the of the tone, um, because if people are concerned trolling, it's pretty easy to identify. And if people are just being mean, then that is very easy to identify. Of course. Um, but you know, if it'll, it'll get to a point where after one or two replies, I'll be able to tell whether, okay, I should drop this conversation with this person, or, oh, they're actually interested in, uh, now I know, uh, I'll refer you to this or that resource. Um, I don't have all the time in the world to spend educating people online, but I know that if you read this, you may find the answers that you're looking for. It's kind of thing.
Speaker 2Uh, I, I think a lot of this also, it's easier to tell in person, but it's harder to have that discussion in person. I'm personally, I don't engage in these discussions in either place because I am not, I don't have the wherewithal to, to do that sort of stuff. Um, I know at my strength lay and it is not in having an online debate or an in-person debate. Um, but I would be interested
Speaker 4in knowing kind of the tells or in it in wider why did dissemination of guides for how to engage in good faith online and how to know when you are not being engaged in good faith so that we don't necessarily spend all of our time retweeting Joanne read and making fun of her. But perhaps instead,
Speaker 5uh,
Speaker 4talking to somebody who maybe has a, a draft Bernie for a people's party kind of idea because it seems like one of those is going to be a better use of our time.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 4Well, personally, I actually think that owning lives online as good practices. Um, and I, I do because as we said earlier, their analysis, um, their policy ideas are completely devoid of any material analysis whatsoever. They are an empty politics. And I, I think if you are owning lives online in a way that shows that, uh, they're nothing more than I'm an egg without a yoke that very easily cracks. Um, I think that's good. But yeah, we, it's also a good idea to engage, uh, when you can with, uh, people like, uh, you know, Bernie Bros or what have you, uh, who may have some background in a material understanding of the present conditions, but are not quite to where we are yet. And I do think it is worth engaging with these people. I also personally, you know, I, I was a libertarian five years ago and, um, I think it's worth engaging with some libertarians. And in my opinion, there's, there's two kinds of libertarians. There are the ones who are nearly a in the larval stages of fascism. And there are those who are really left anarchists and do not know it yet.
Speaker 1Saas can confirm this is something that I say quite often.
Speaker 4Yes, yes. In fact, I think even in the previous episode, um, I think you even previous one we, we recorded, you even said that.
Speaker 1Yes. Yeah. Actually that's true. Um, yeah, because there are like when you're talking about the libertarianism, you start taking that to its extreme, it becomes an arco capitalism. And the sort of joke is that you are either a quote, an Arco capitalist or you are a, an arco quote capitalist. And, and where you put the quote matters because it are you critiquing hierarchy and haven't critiqued capitalism yet or are you so in the tank for capitalism that anything that violates your perceived property rights is bad and therefore you're on the road to fascism. So right now we are, uh, I think we're coming up on an hour. So why don't we go ahead, uh, salary. Do you want to wrap us up?
Speaker 4I, I don't, I don't know if I have any concluding thoughts. I think we hit on pretty much everything, uh, to bring it back to Nagle. I do want to say she, you know, she did have some very good points that I feel that her, her analysis fell short in a couple of places. Um, you know, um, she criticized the identity politics of the left when I think she really met, criticized the empty identity politics of Neo liberalism, which are not intersectional or based in uh, material realities as our, uh, you know, leftest uh, material analyses are intersectional and based in uh, material realities. Um, I think she did a pretty good job of summing up the culture of the online right in the culture of online liberals, even though she did often say that they were the online left. And so I would, I would have to say, you know, the, the biggest critique of her analysis is that it, it flirts way too much with horseshoe theory for me to give it any sort of endorsement. And I don't think that it's any sort of complete damnation if the people that you don't want to like your book end up liking your book. But I think it does says something that a lot of folks on the outright do like her book and have praised her book and have given it glowing reviews because she gets them, cause she wrote a, she wrote about liberals in the way that they see liberals and she called them the left, which that, you know, they think that liberals are the left. So I do think that that is definitely problematic than she does fall short in those ways.
Speaker 1I think if, if anything, if we have any real reaction to the way that this discussion is being had is, and, and sort of like a broader discussions about, um, the political economy of our time, it's that we, we don't have a two sided battle going on. It is really a tripartite war.
Speaker 4[inaudible]
Speaker 1it's a, it's a tripartite conflict with the, the liberal establishment, uh, a rising fascist movement and a nascent left socialist movement. And you really have to understand that these are three very, very different camps that have very different worldviews, very different analyses, different ethics and different power structures
Speaker 4to bring it back to online. What we're seeing is a tripartite war between four Chan metal filter and whatever discord or Twitter subgroup, the left's have their podcasts or conversations in this week. I
Speaker 1think it's a good place to end it up. A salary. What are you doing? What's going on in your world that we should know about?
Speaker 4Well, let me just, um, plug once again, uh, Trotsky's pamphlet on fascism because he does talk about this tripartite war. Um, I, it's relatively short, I think maybe 20 or 30 pages. If your listeners are interested in learning about fascism and how to fight it, I would highly recommend it. It holds up to this day. As for what I'm doing, we're, uh, we got some interesting stuff planned on theory, on the discourse collective. We got a, we're wrapping up our section on marks and angles, so we're going to do a recap on that. And then, um, we're going to have a special episode on a primer on leftist tendencies. So I'm very excited for that as well.
Speaker 1Very cool. So have you guys googled Marie blockchain yet? Is that something we can look,
Speaker 4I have, um, I don't know who else has, uh, we will be discussing him at some point for sure.
Speaker 1All right, so that wraps it up today. Comrades, uh, very good, uh, conversation that we had with Conrad celery. Uh, we are very online today, so in that spirit, if you want to catch us online, you can catch our show at left-pad on Twitter. Uh, and you can actually catch me at my new handle at Checka informant and a hit up sauce at commune, all sauce. And if you want to get in, contact us via email, uh, to give us criticisms to yell at us and written form to request to be on the show. We'll probably have you on that email address is left coast podcast@gmail.com. Our RSS feed can be found on soundcloud for as long as soundcloud remains. soundcloud.com/left coast podcast. Uh, if you want to join reddit discussion for whatever reason you're on Reddit, Stowe, that sub reddit is reddit.com/r/left coast. And I think that covers every way that you can get to us so far. Uh, look for a actual website for us in the near future
Speaker 4and if my audio is working perhaps, uh, is there a chance that we might be on iTunes?
Speaker 1Ah, okay. So funny story about that. There is another podcast called the left coast podcast and they are already on iTunes, so that's going to have to be worked out. It's, it's cool. They're great guys. They have a good show too. So
Speaker 4you thought you might be coming on the cool one that's on iTunes, but in fact it's just us on soundcloud.
Speaker 1Yup. All right. With that being and go and solidarity comrades, thanks again for having me on you guys. So I had a blessed yeah, absolutely. And the in peace, calm red
Speaker 11hair. It's about
Speaker 12spoke English. We actually put, and I get my ass bitch last night to say, shit, flip a number. Pick up a rock show as opposed to take you to get your ass on the wall. It's real easy. Just let passion look real close to get it popping. Baby step, shake, shake, shake, shake. I'm a man. Open your mouth for about four or five minutes, a double t pain and a couple of these apple bottom jeans knows that she can look at this sexy. Ask Him. I told him, come on, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.