totalitarianism today

Where Huntington was wrong: The continuing rise of extremist nationalism in Hungary.

Huntington predicted Hungary's successful transition to democratic pluralism

By now, it is received wisdom that Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory did much to affect the analysis and understanding of postcommunist transitions in the East and Central European states. Unfortunately, Huntington's insightful explanations for the rise of religious extremism were not appropriately applied in the context of Hungary, one of those "Catholic" countries that Huntington believed would manage the transition from totalitarianism to democractic pluralism more successfully.

Conversely, Huntington expected Romania's transition to democracy to be much less successful. Economically, this has been accurate. But the difference between the Hungarian and Romanian economic transitions can be explained by the opening of the Hungarian economy prior to fall of communism as contrasted with Ceausescu's increased devotion to hardline economic communism during the same period. Put simply, Hungary had existing social and economic institutions to faciliate the transition to a mixed market economy. Romania had nothing of the sort.

Huntington's predictions, however, were not premised on economics but rather on the culture and "civilization" of these two countries. I think Huntington was wrong about Hungary. I venture to say he was dead wrong. It is becoming rather difficult the rising wrong of Mr. Huntington's thesis with respect to the transitions.

The continuing rise of the Hungarian right-wing extremists

As anyone who reads this blog knows, Hungarian right-wing nationalists have been framing the political and legislative agenda for over a decade now. Despite the lessons of the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia, extremism in Hungary continues to rise. (In fact, one could even make a case that it continues to rise as a result of the success of Milosevic and other extremists in gaining and keeping large territorial concessions through the use of extremist rhetoric and the so-called "defensive" terrorism against non-Serb populations.)

Jobbik crusading on the streets of Hungary earlier this year

The recent elections of April 2013 revealed significant gains for Hungarian extremists on the ballot. Jobbik candidate Balázs Ander received 31 percent of the vote- three times more than the party received in 2010 national election.For the sake of "objectivity", I'll translate these electoral results according to the meaning attributed by the Hungarian nationalists themselves:

These results show that the national radical party has become the second most popular party not only in Eastern and Central Hungary, but also in some parts of the Transdanubian region as well and as such, it might become the main challenger of Fidesz in the 2014 national election. 

Apart from contributing to the myth of Hungarian greatness by maintaining a running record of its star atheletes and guard dogs, Hungarian Ambiance, the blog cited above, also keeps Hungarian extremists informed about the status of the God-given struggle to reclaim the territory that would comprise a Greater Hungary.

Make no mistake- this is a movement that has been gaining steam and popular support rather rapidly. In April 2012,  a member of parliament affiliated with Jobbik, the Movement for a Better Hungary, which The Economist describes as "a radical nationalist party", revived the blood libel that Jews murder Christian children in a parliamentary speech that made its way around the web. Jobbik's leader, Gabor Vona, has earned success based on a platform of patriotism and xenophobia ("preventing foreigners from contaminating Hungarian values"). 

A Jobbik fan displays his rather ugly tattoo.

Conservative prime minister Viktor Orban, affiliated with Fidesz, has both flamed and flirted with Hungarian nationalist fever, using it to maintain political support among the working classes, youth, and villages. Orban has done as much to promote this extremism as Milosevic did to promote Serbian extremism. Perhaps he thought Orban believed he could fan it and then keep it under control. Perhaps Orban has been sleeping through the last century.

Orban was quick to condemn the anti-Semitic violence and vandalism that followed April 2012's parliamentary nonsense. But he didn't address the larger problem of a right-wing extremism's rise. In fact, he left a number of legislative ventilation shafts for such extremism by emphasizing the role of local governments in adopting extremist-supported statutes.

In an interview with Die Presse, Orbán insisted on the separation of "political and historical debates". Orban's plank elevates democracy over tolerance and liberalism- if the people in Hungarian municipalities want to erect a statue of Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler,  he would not stand in their way. And he will make sure that no laws exist which stand in their way either. So much for the democratic pluralism in Hungary these days.

The poetry of the Hungarian nationalist renaissance

One of the best articles I’ve read on the rise-rise-rising of the Hungarian right-wing was recently published on DK- ”Hungary experiences nationalism renaissance”. The article follows the historic rehabilitation of a Hungarian poet; it's hard to miss the meaning in the tea leaves. I'm going to quote Keno Versek's article in its entirety: 

Nationalism is on the rise in Hungary. The works of a far-right poet are to be taught in schools, while his remains are to be buried in his hometown in neighboring Romania - against the will of the Romanian government.

Jozsef Nyiro was born in 1889 in Szekler Land, a Romanian region of Transylvania, which at the time was a part of Hungary. He was not only a simple "blood-and-soil" poet, but one of the leading cultural ideologues during the rule of Hungary's national socialist Arrow Cross Party from October 1944 to March 1945, when tens of thousands of Jews were massacred or sent on death marches.

Nyiro served in the Arrow Cross Party's parliament, and he remained faithful to Ferenc Szalasi's fascist regime up to the end of the World War Two. After 1945, he was hunted as a war criminal by both Hungary and Romania, but he was able to flee to Germany and then to Franco's Spain in 1950. Today, his works are compulsory reading for Hungarian school children.

The Romanian government recently banned a re-burial ceremony in his honor. According to Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, the decision was issued in order to prevent the poet's grave from becoming a pilgrimage spot for far-right extremists.

In its place, an ecumenical service was held on Pentecost Sunday at the poet's birth place, attended by the Hungarian State Secretary for Culture Geza Scocs and Parliamentary President Laszlo Kover. The latter declared that the planned re-burial would take place sooner or later, even if was against the will of the "uncivilized, hysterical, paranoid, barbaric" Romanian government. He added that the people, "who had a son whose ashes were feared," would be "victorious."

Szocs has since admitted, in online Hungarian publication index.hu, that the urn containing the fascist poet's ashes had been smuggled into Romania. He said that despite the conspiratorial operation, "nothing illegal had happened," but that he no longer knew the ashes' location.

The planned re-burial of Nyiro's remains is part of Hungary's recent nationalist renaissance, successfully driven by the country's far-right, and it now boasts the whole-hearted support of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his conservative nationalist Fidesz party.

I should add that Orban has always supported and encouraged this "nationalist renaissance". It should also be noted that the revitalization of fascist "heroes" is only a symptom of the drastic anti-Semitism currently warming Hungarian streets. Earlier this month, the The World Jewish Congress announced that it will hold its annual assembly in Budapest in May to show solidarity with Hungary’s Jews, who it says are facing “exceptionally strong and aggressive anti-Semitic voices." 

Orban is re-assessing relations with those neighboring countries that still have significant Hungarian minorities: Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania. After two decades of working to re-establish friendly relations while still attempting to gain better rights for minorities, Fidesz is now following a new revisionist policy. At least for now, the party is unlikely to risk the taboo of renegotiating borders - or revising the 1920 Treaty of Trianon where Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory - but it is significant that Fidesz, more than any other post-communist Hungarian government, is emphasizing the unity of all Hungarian people in the region.

Hungarians everywhere are being reminded of their "holy duty" to their nation - either through the "Day of National Solidarity" on June 4, meant to commemorate the "tragedy of Trianon," or through the new constitution - which came into force at the start of the year - or in the controversial media law.

At the same time, Orban is intervening in domestic politics in Slovakia and Romania by supporting the Hungarian minorities there - often by helping them to re-found parties. In some instances, like the aborted burial of Nyiro, Fidesz politicians indulge in more or less open electioneering in their neighboring country.

Romaniais holding municipal elections on June 10, when the Romanian-based Hungarian minority party MPP hopes to overtake the more moderate Democratic Union of Hungarians (RMDSZ). For many years, the centrist RMDSZ was the only political representation of Romania's Hungarian minority. It even took part in several government coalitions between 1996 and 2010.

In 2011, activists from the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania, under the leadership of MEP László Tőkés, helped establish the MPP party as a rival to the existing ethnic Hungarian political organizations, which were deemed too moderate for Orban's go-get-'em taste. Apparently, moderation is not desirable when representing ethnic minorities in a geographic location.

Parallel to this political revisionism, Hungary is also in the process of rehabilitating Miklos Horthy, who governed the country from 1920 to 1944 with an authoritarian, ultra-conservative clerical regime. Horthy, a notorious anti-Semite, was responsible for the deportation of over 400,000 Hungarian Jews in the spring and summer of 1944 - they were eventually murdered in Auschwitz. Now new plaques and statues are to be unveiled in his honor.

But the success of this new nationalist, revisionist line remains in doubt. Hungary has become isolated in the EU, where the country is considered a destabilizing force in central and southeastern Europe. On top of that, Orban and his party may have permanently weakened the representatives of Hungarian minorities in those neighboring countries.

For example, Prime Minister Orban recently funded the establishment and construction of a Hungarian college inside the borders of western Ukraine. When asked why he was willing to allocate such a gargantuan amount of money to this project, Orban explained that "state borders separating Transcarpathian Hungarians from the European Union are becoming less and less relevant". To whom, I wonder?

The Hungarian Coalition Party (MKP), supported by Fidesz, failed to enter the Slovakian parliament in a recent election there. As a consequence, the Hungarian community's political representation in Slovakia sank from 14 percent to 9 percent.

The Hungarian minority in Romania faces an even bigger disaster in November's parliamentary election. Around 400,000 Hungarians have left Transylvania in the past two decades. As a consequence, the community's political representation could diminish to the minimum of mandatory delegates that every minority in Romania is entitled to.

Not only that, but no fewer than three Hungarian parties are standing in the election, and the number of Hungarian votes will barely be enough to allow one of them to clear the 5 percent hurdle necessary to enter parliament.

But perhaps, viewed cynically, this is precisely Orban's plan - to encourage as many disenfranchised and disappointed Hungarians to return to Hungary as possible. That would secure Orban's party a stable and long-term voter base. It would also ease Hungary's chronic demographic problems, without relying on the immigration of non-Hungarians.

"Nation-building" has no regards for the rule of law

With the politics of nationalism comes the politics of "other"-based exclusion. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal featured an article on the "looming" legal segregation of Roma in Hungarian schools. Everyone knows that it's hard to teach extremist nationalism in a classroom including ethnic minorities. Solution? How about separate education for those minorities, many of whom also might be said to tarnish the sanctity and purity of Hungarian values.

And the good news just keeps coming. Last week, controversy erupted over accusations that the Hungarian government flouted Romanian campaign finance law by using state-owned companies and institutions to finance political parties serving Romania's Hungarian minority. These laws prohibit the foreign funding of domestic political parties.

Transindex, a Hungarian news portal, published its findings that "state-controlled Hungarian institutions such as MVM Hungarian Electricity, the Hungarian Development Bank, and Hungarian National Asset Management Inc. channeled roughly EUR 1 million to newly-established civil society groups whose founders and staff members are either close associates or political candidates of the Hungarian People’s Party of Transylvania. It will be interesting to see how this plays out before the Romanian elections in June.

As for Jobbik, Fidesz, and Orban, it's time for US scholars and activists to start asking questions about the ugly, shamless extremism which has gained prominence in Hungary. Let's face it- Huntington was right about some things (albeit, only a very few) yet very wrong about this thing. His cultural analysis should not be the frame of reference for intelligent Europe-watchers. I'll save the juicy details on ties the Hungarian terrorist network for another day this week...

Please pardon me if I can't muster any tiny violins for Orban and his crew. And forgive me if I can't find it in my "heart of hearts" to forgive the apologists who believe that wishing it wasn't the case actually has any effect on the verity of what is, in fact, the case. Hungarian nationalism is not going away- it's been too well-seeded, tended, and cultivated for decades now. The time for wishful thinking is long past.

MORE ON THE RISE OF HUNGARIAN NATIONALISM AND ITS EFFECTS:

"Hungarian terrorists enjoy vacations in Bolivia" (Romania Revealed)
April 2013 Open Letter to Europe's Citizens (Hungarian Ambiance) 
Miklos Horthy (Yad Vashem)
Miklos Horthy, Jr. (Wikipedia) 
"Does Hungary have a new hero?" (The Economist) 
"Government still after red stars" (Budapest Times)
"Biggest march of living held in Budapest" (Ynet News) 
Christian Democrats oppose place names honoring dicatators and racists (Politics.hu) 
"Jobbik's anti-Roma crusade" (Press Europ) 

The revolutions will radicalize you.

Weapons in a Free Syrian Army safehouse in the town of Taftanaz. Photo credit: John Cantilie/Getty Images. Originally posted in Guardian UK.

Daria Solovieva writes about the growing radicalization in the heart of the Syrian rebellion right now:

In fact, the growing role of international fighters in Syria’s rebellion against the government, which started as a peaceful movement, is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Syria’s transformation into the center of gravity for international terrorists is becoming a reality,” according to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.

But the number and role of fighters from the North Caucasus should not be overstated. “There are countries with much bigger numbers [in Syria],” said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

And it is not the presence of foreign fighters alone that is driving the war, as the underlying conflict and dim prospects for its resolution take their toll on the morale of citizens in that country.

“Syrians themselves are becoming more radicalized because of the situation they are in,” Jarrah said. “Normal people are becoming more violent, more sectarian.”

We have reason to be worried. The tone is reminiscient of what happened in the former Yugoslavia once Milosevic and his minions came to power. Consider the Free Syrian Army's requests for guns and training as similar to those made by Bosnian Muslims once the ethnic cleansing began. France continues its historic commitment to arming the underdogs and those fighting for freedom, as the US continues its historic commitment to shifty navel-gazing.

Contrary to what the ultra-nationalists at the Serbian Network would have you believe, most Bosnian Muslims became radicalized as a result of the extermination policies implemented by the Serbian nationalists. 

Due to lack of support from Western democracies, Muslims in the former Yugoslavia lacked the option of choosing their friends- they took the guns needed to protect themselves from anyone who offered them. As negotiators and elected politicians were percieved as unable to protect their Muslim constituencies, the people-power behind the KLA increased. Of course, jihadists had plenty of guns to go around around the war in Afghanistan, and they wasted no time in arriving on the scene.

As Samantha Power observes in her excellent survey of "the age of genocide":

The perpetrators of genocide were quick studies who were remarkably attuned both to the tactics of their murderous predecessors and to the world's responses.

Nationalist Serbs see themselves as the victims of history. Anyone who wished to rise rapidly to power in the former Yugoslavia only needed to distract citizens from the poverty and misery by waving a big flag of injustice and finding the Muslims to blame. If you imagine Serbian nationalists to be big, tough daddies on a hate rampage, just remember the bullies in high school- those guys who lash out at everyone because they are ultimately simpering inside. Their victimology allows retribution at any price.

Milosevic and his friends clearly consulted the history books in their plans to create a Serbian homeland. In fact, the Serbian Network continues to claim that:

While talking about the horrors of the Holocaust, Jewish literature tends to be ethnocentric. It is understandable to a certain degree. Still, when talking about suffering in Yugoslavia, all of the literature talks with one voice about "Serbs and Jews"... For Jews and Serbs the destiny was the same.

Professor Enriko Josif provides a personal account of the shared history of Jews and Serbs- an account that could not be more agitproppy if Enriko ultimately announced that the Serbian ethnicity is actually Semitic. This reference to the suffering of the Jews during the Shoah is an attempt to reveal why the Serbs deserve their own homeland. Just as they Jews needed Israel for their security as a people, the Serbs need a greater Serbia for the security as a peoples. Otherwise, obviously, the Serbs will be eradicated from history. 

What is it about nationalism that makes it so difficult for me to keep my sarcasm under wraps? Since 1993, the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has indicted 161 people for crimes associated with the wars that overthrew the Yugoslav federation. 94 of these prisoners are Serbian. Although 15 people have been acquitted, several dozen suspects remain on trial.

Serbian extremists continue to consider themselves victims of a Western world who wishes to reneg on its promises of national self-determination while destroying cherished Christian churches and historic places. Muslim extremists continue to interpret history so as to weave a tight knot between persecution of Muslims and the need for Islamic republics.

In the meantime, the presence of jihadist enclaves within the former Yugoslavia continues to grow. And the truth fails to capture anyone's attention. Perhaps the future of foreign relations will involve a more "humanitarian" national self-interest than previously imagined as officials realize that it is in the US's interests to aid victims of ethnic and religious persecution before the international jihadist network steps in and does the "aid" in their stead.

MORE ON THE SITUATION IN SYRIA AND SO ON:

• Jonathan Freedland urges governments to involve "religious fundamentalists" in the Middle East Peace process. Find out why.
• Chris Preble examines the "push for a war in Syria". Listen to the podcast. 
• Ted Carpenter untangles the Syrian civil war and "its implications". Learn more. 
• The history of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo from 1999 to 2004 is a drastic one. Take a look at these maps to see where terrorism arose in the aftermath.
• The Canada-based Center for Peace in the Balkans is not what it seems. (On the upside, it does provide access to archived articles from the international press.) Here's why.
• Alija Izetbetgovic's Notes From Prison is available online in full text for the reading. Read it. 
• Samantha Power left the Obama administration in February of this year to "spend more time with her family". This seems implausible given the amount of space she devotes in her writings to the resignation fallouts of Clinton's inhumane responses to global genocide. I'd be interested to learn more about the details...

Scientology: An inspiration for budding totalitarian leaders.

Scientology makes use of tried-and-true methods to secure, maintain, and oblige the cooperative obedience of its subjects. Though Scientology is not a government, it is a very strong social institution which informs every aspect of its members' lives. In that sense, a totalitarian government might learn or replicate a few practices instituted by the Church of Scientology. 

In an interview with Jenna Miscavige-Hill, the niece of Scientology top dude David Miscavige and author of Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, Alex Erors encourages Jenna to describe the youth group known as the "Cadets". Jenna joined the Cadets at a very young age, where she was quickly put to work digging trenches, laying irrigation pipes, hauling rocks out of creeks to build rock walls, and other activities which might fall under the category of "landscaping". When asked about the purpose of the Cadets, Jenna replied:

I think it’s mainly for indoctrination purposes. We were taught that only criminals get things for free and we were doing our part to earn the beds we slept in and the food we got to eat. It was about teaching us to obey, teaching us discipline, teaching us not to question.

If a Cadet proved disobedient, a system of punishment existed to mark such character flaws:

People would write a “chit” on you. People would report on each other because if you didn’t, and the other person was caught, you would get the same penalty as them. You had a file with all of your reports on it and depending on how bad it was you could be assigned to only having rice and beans to eat, that sort of thing.

Your future reputation depends on the content of these "reports". In fact, you understand and interpret the events of your life in light of your mental state as validated or invalidated by the dictators of the system. Moral principles do not exist independently of the religious technological system (Ellul would have been floored). There is nothing above the techne.

When asked why celebrities are targeted for recruitment and seem drawn to Scientology, Jenna surmised:

They're targeted because people are interested in the lives of celebrities, so if people hear them talk about [Scientology] they’ll hopefully become members themselves. I think it’s also because in Scientology you don’t worship anybody, you learn in the end that you are your own God, you have endless capabilities and you can create anything. I think that definitely attracts egotistical people. I think it’s about power.

Spending a little time on the Operation Clambake Forum, I couldn't help noticing how much the sessions sounded like preparations for a Stalinist show trial. All the requisite components are in place, from imaginary crimes conjured out of loyalty to the "system" through stigmatization of those who insist on validity of individual moral insight or conscience. 

Sec checks pressure the person to think up crimes, even imaginary ones, just to end the session. Auditing sessions encourage fantasy over reality, like how a "suppressive person" relative was evil. Sleep deprivation can create dreamlike states during working hours, making memory unreliable. (Source A)

Rather then address these concerns, anyone who has made such a report has been declared a suppressive person, including myself. The enforcement of disconnection tears families apart, and causes untold hardship for those affected. (Source B)

Hubbard could not legally compete with the institutions (AMA/APA) and so he decided to turn it into a religion in order to place it outside their jurisdiction. (Source C)

I hereby nominate L. Ron Hubbard to receive a Stalinist medal of honor for his contributions to the modern totalitarian mindset. More on the mental gulag known as Scientology:

"How to believe in Scientology" via Xenu 
"Characteristics of Total Institutions", an essay by Erving Goffman
Ex-Scientology Kids, Jenna's blog about her experiences
Voices in Unison, a collection of stories by those who escaped
Leaving Scientology, the blog and book by Jefferson Hawkins

Links on a theme: Youth without youth.

Drawing by Dee Rimbaud (Exquisite Corpse)

“And even if he’s still alive, what can we do with him?” The voice seemed to come from far away and it sounded to him tired, bitter.

“Who knows what sins he’s committed, that God would strike him on the very night of Easter, right behind a church!” Then, after a pause, he added, “Let’s see what the intern says about it.”

It seemed strange to him that he felt nothing, that he did not, in fact, feel his body at all. He knew from the conversation of those around him that he had been moved. But how had he been transported? In their arms? On a stretcher? On a cart of some sort? 

An excerpt from Mircea Eliade's book, Youth Without Youth (University of Chicago Press)

"The End of Everything", an essay by Carlos Lozada (Washington Post)
"I hope you had it while you could because, last week, sex ended." 

"Youth Without Youth", the video for the Metric song (Vimeo)

Sascha Altman DuBrul talks about "losing" his mind, his book, and the Icarus Project (Zeek)

Youth Without Youth directed by Francis Ford Coppola (2007)

"Resisting the End of Childhood", an essay by Sara Goldrick-Rab (Chronicle of Higher Education)

From Primitives to Zen, a book by Mircea Eliade (Hypertext)

"Teenage Wastleland", a short story by Anne Tyler (Weber University)

"Mircea Eliade and the Perception of the Sacred in the Profane: Intention, Reduction, and Cognitive Theory", a paper by Bryan S. Rennie (Temenos, Vol. 43)

"Our Age of Anxiety", an article by Elaine Showalter (Chronicle of Higher Education)

"The Founder of Ace of Base's Nazi Past", an article by Adam Chandler (Tablet)
"I don't think any of us saw 'The Sign'" 

A Russian view on Boston bombers' motives.

David McDuff translates Yulia Latynina's article on the Boston Bombers, providing a Russian perspective on the motives:

As Said Buryatsky, who before becoming an Islamist mujahid was an ordinary Russian guy, Alexander Tikhomirov from Ulan-Ude, said in one of his sermons: “Gone are the days when we fought for the freedom of Chechnya, for that pagan  idea. Now we are fighting for Allah. Gone are the days when every Chechen was our brother. Now the Russian, if he’s a muhajid, is our brother, and the Chechen, if  he’s a kafir, our worst enemy.”

So the fact that the Tsarnaevs are Chechens is not surprising. but it is totally unimportant, just as unimportant as the fact that Trotsky was Jewish. What they were fighting for in Boston was not the freedom of Chechnya. They were fighting for a worldwide Caliphate.

They were waging defensive jihad.

Why the downplaying of nationalist motives from the Russian press?

 

 

A close-up of the Boston Islamic Society and the "terrorists" to which it is reportedly connected.

The price of living in a free country is having to live with others who prefer that it not be free. Everyone knows the names of publicity-huntering freedom-haters like Jerry Falwell, the Westboro Baptist Church, James Dobson, and Dick Cheney.

But there are also individuals who aren't quite as famous and yet still know (often, from personal experience) that a little provocation and a few bombs always leads to massive reduction in civil liberties and individual rights. In that sense, any killer, rapist, or mass murderer can be considered a fan of less freedom and more security cameras. 

Of course, these days our myopic visions are focused on the "War on Terror" as kickstarted by President Dubya Bush. Much attention right now is being focused on the Boston area mosques, where the Tsarnaev brothers may have worshipped or through which they may or may not have meet the mysterious radicalizer named "Misha".

Writing for the International Business News, Jill Heller reports:

Tsarnaev’s aunt, Patimat Suleimanova, told the news outlet that an uncle of Tsarnaev’s had contacted a mosque the family attended and requested a funeral, but had been turned down. In addition, the Islamic Society of Boston, where Tsarnaev sometimes attended prayers, has also distanced itself from the Marathon bombing suspect, telling reporters that Tsarnaev was disruptive and received warnings from mosque leaders. 

Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a research institute that sometimes organizes local funerals,  told the Huffington Post that he would not consider having a funeral for Tsarnaev, and that his alleged involvement in the Marathon bombings went against the Quran.

"I would not be willing to do a funeral for him," Eid said. "This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim. He already left the fold of Islam by doing that. In the Quran it says those who will kill innocent people, they will dwell in the hellfire."

Journalist Oren Dorell did a bit of research on the "terrorist" affiliations of the Islamic Society of Boston. The list is not short.

But it's also not detailed enough to serve as more than a jumping-point for further investigation. And I can never resist the siren call of "further investigation".... 

For those of you who like electronic databases, the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) allows you to search for alleged "militants in the War on Terror" who have lived in the US. It is a useful resource for understanding how name missspellings and English-based computer programs don't always lead to a match or a catch.

TAREK MEHANNA

Tarek Mehanna who "worshiped at the Cambridge mosque, was sentenced in 2012 to 17 years in prison for conspiring to aid al-Qaeda". According to Oren and federal investigators in Boston, "Mehanna had traveled to Yemen to seek terrorist training and plotted to use automatic weapons to shoot up a mall in the Boston suburbs".

But Glenn Greenwald disagrees and sees the Mehanna case as one in which "the architects of the policies he felt compelled to battle" will be the ones revealed as criminals by the long march of history. It is certainly worth a read and the elegance of your consideration. Greenwald is one of the most committed civil libertarians still signing his name these days, and his writings make me "proud to be an American".

See also the Free Tarek website for more about the specifics on how Tarek's arrest came about. Don't miss this thoughtful interview with Mehanna's family to find out why Howard Zinn's books may soon be swept off the bookstore shelves.

AAFIA SIDDIQUI

Aafia Siddiqui worshipped at the Cambridge mosque while completing her PhD in neuroscience at Bradeis. According to Oren, "she was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 while in possession of cyanide canisters and plans for a chemical attack in New York City". Siddiqui is currently serving an 86-year-sentence for "trying to grab a rifle while in detention and shooting at military officers and FNI agents". Ultimately, the FBI got serious about pursuing her after "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave up Aafia's name as being a major Al Qaeda operative". Aafia's family maintains a Justice for Aafia website, while her supporters maintain a Justice for Aafia Coalition, and Stephen Lendman defends her with details.

Judy Bello can't believe that Aafia was "convicted of separate counts of attempted murder and assault for every American in the room, sentenced to 86 years in prison and incarcerated in Carswell Medical Center in Texas" when she did not so much as shoot a fly. In fact, it was she who was shot and had to have a kidney and part of her intestine removed. It is a strange and complicated case- one in which a mother and her children just vanished into part of the post-terror gulag. 

DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV

More recently, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has earned a Respect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev facebook page created by his friends, like Troy Crossley, and supporters who cannot imagine why "Jahar" would ever do something so nihilistic. A petition to President Obama urging a fair trial for Dzhokhar has also appeared on Change.org. 

 ABDUL RAHMAN AL-AMOUDI

Abdul Rahman al-Ahmoudi was a powerful player in American Muslim politics and lobbying. As the founder of the American Muslim Council, he broke bread with some of Washington's most eminent politerati. In July 2000, al-Amoudi and other leaders met with then-presidential candidate Dubya, offering to support his bid for the White House in exchange for Bush's commitment to repeal certain anti-terrorist laws. 

Daniel Pipes has, of course, no kind words to say about al-Amoudi in his article describing the crimes for which al-Amoudi is spending 23 years in prison. But Daniel Pipes has never been much of a diplomat. It's important to remember that anyone attempting to act as a moderating influence between extremists and the US government will be required to make contact with extremists.

If the US government plans to ensure that no American citizen communicates with radicalized Muslims, even for the purpose of trying to de-radicalize them, then we can expect a blooming of homegrown jihadist bombs in the future. The truth remains that the US has honed its skills in bombing and torture much more than its skills in public and private diplomacy. That's what we're known for- it's what you call a "reputation".

Reputations determine how facts are interpreted and assimilated by an audience. Our reputation for "winning hearts and minds" is akin to that of a heroin-addled prostitute sporting a "Jesus Saves" tshirt on the international scene. What on earth do I mean by that? Simply this- if you let us into your bed (or country), you'll find yourself host to a few diseases (or armed bases) that you couldn't have guessed were part of the bargain.

Moments with a Multipedic Mind: Episode 1 on the podcast.

A postcard from Mary Ruefle's website to go along with this podcast.

This is the first podcast in a new project called Moments with A Multipedic Mind. Ten minutes of circumstantial evidence for the drive home or the sacred restroom break.

To download the mp3 or just listen to the podcast, click on the image above. 

EPISODE 1: Mary Ruefle, Soviet steel, and the Value of Marginalia
links for those inclined to ramble on....
Mary Ruefle
The end of marginalia?
Six personal libraries of marginalia
"I Remember I Remember" by Mary Ruefle
Outline of Nechaev's Revolutionary Catechism
George Macdonald's grave in Bordighera
 View from a blond on Ann Coulter

Trotsky on self-improvement.

It's no secret that Ivan Pavlov, the influential psychologist who theories are used to buttress many current educational practices in these United States, worked for the Bolsheviks and earned a very nice apartment for his efforts. For Lenin, the making of the "New Soviet Man" appeared critical in the post-October period when the Bolsheviks lost the support of the Russian peasantry (who mistakenly believed that "power to the people" meant they would be able to farm their own property and land).

Lenin invested a lot of time and money in finding the right form of social engineering to transform selfish individualists into true patriots- the kind of patriots who say "My country, right or wrong", the kind of patriots unable to think critically about their government, the kind of patriot so eagerly recruited by certain segments of the Republican Party these days. Pavlov got a little uncomfortable when he realized that Lenin wanted him to extend his experiments on dogs into the human sphere, but then he realized "you're either for us or you're against us". 

Leon Trotsky got swept up in the excitement of this mass-assembled man. (Note: I'm referring to Trotsky the revolutionary, as opposed to Trotsky the sickly guinea pig who once claimed our castle as residence.) In fact, Trotsky got so excited that he made one of his famous speeches which could be qualified as uplift from Trostky:

What is man? He is by no means a finished or harmonious being. No, he is still a highly awkward creature. Man, as an animal, has not evolved by plan but spontaneously, and has accumulated many contradictions. The question of how to educate and regulate, of how to improve and complete the physical and spiritual construction of man, is a colossal problem which can only be conceived on the basis of Socialism. We can construct a railway across the Sahara, we can build the Eiffel Tower and talk directly with New York, but we surely cannot improve man. No, we can! To produce a new, "improved" version of man- that is the future task of Communism. And for that we first have to find out everything about man, his anatomy, his physiology, and that part of his physiology which is called his psychology. Man must look at himself and see himself as a raw material, or at best as a semi-manufactured product, and say: "At last, my dear homo sapiens, I will work on you."

(Source: Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924)

Mayakovsky and Lily Brik: Love in the time of revolution.

A poet first and foremost, Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) wrote and illustrated one of the primers put out by the Commissariat of the Enlightenment during the Russian civil war. This primer was intended to "educate" the peasants in the tenets of social revolution as conceived by the Bolsheviks, who were still struggling to secure control of the country.

What Orlando Figes called a "brilliant piece of popular satire" made use of the offbeat couplets characertistic of the peasant chastushka, or rhyming song. It also tapped directly into the new "manliness" with which the Bolsheviks hoped to invest their popular image. You can see from the abecadarius below a strong appeal made to young, demobilized peasants who would be shamed by flowers and all things effeminate.

B
The Bolsheviks hunt the burzhoois
The burzoois run a mile

K
It's hard for the cows (korovy) to run fast
Kerensky was Prime Minister 

M
The Mensheviks are people
who run off to their mothers

T
Flowers (tsvety) smell sweet in the evening
Tsar Nicolas loved them very much 

When he wasn't propagandizing the revolution, Mayakovsky kept his hands full with a notable love affair and his participation in developing avant-garde art movements.

Alexander Rodchenko elaborated upon the the photo montage technique, which was pioneered by Italian Futurists and popularized by the Dada movement. To illustrate About It, a poem written by his friend Vladimir Mayakovsky, he created a series of composite pictures, combining magazine clippings with the photographs of Mayakovsky and his lover, Lily Brik. (HT to Dieselpunks for the image and idetails.)

A few screenshots from a book which provides interesting details about Lily and Vlady.

"The Pricker" imagifesto: Exploring the literary merit of conspiracy theory manifestos.

The world of Kevin Harris is like nothing I've ever imagined. What happened in Costa Mesa on April 15th, 2012 was either a conclusion or a subplot in Harris' online imagifesto. Police are still struggling to sort through the "17,000 word essay" dubbed "The Pricker" to make sense of Harris' actions. As the officials continue sorting and scratching their heads, I'm going to take a different route and explores its merit as an imagined subsect of the "fantasy" genre.

"Publicity is the culture of the consumer society. It propagates through images that society's belief in itself," said John Berger. 

As a conspiracy theory, The Pricker is actually rather mediocre. As a form of postmodern speculative fantasy, however, it deserves a thorough reading. Harris speaks in first person and uses his own name, which gives it the feel of autobiography. At those times when Harris reveals his strangest hallucinations, the text grows heavy with that confessional impulse carefully cultivated in evangelical churches.

In Harris' world, the US government and its mysterious allies control the flow of information to the public. Control of information is maintained by the assassination of dissenters through freak accidents and diseases, including cancer and AIDS. Harris renegotiates he common currency of pop culture, discovering, for instance, that the government arranged the murders of John Lennon and Nicole Brown Simpson, organized the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, and caused the death of Righteous Brothers singer Bobby Hatfield. All this is accomplished through use of the ultimate WMD, which Harris calls "the pricker":

The pricker is an assassin’s weapon that deposits biological agents into a victim’s skin, on contact, without their knowledge.  It can be deployed in the palm of a hand, or hidden in a ring worn on a finger.  The pricker is capable of inducing a wide array of lethal, potentially lethal and non-lethal conditions.

He explains how the pricker functions and why it is so effective. And Harris wants everyone to know that he is in on this metaphysical secret. He has spoken truth to power; he is a footsoldier in truth's revolution:

I have delivered copies of The Pricker to staff in the offices of representatives Loretta Sanchez, Linda Sanchez, Christopher Cox, Edward Royce, Maxine Waters, Grace Napolitano, and Gary Miller, they have not responded.  On 8/6/05 I revisited Dana Rohrabacher by handing him a copy of this. He is now Chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. Ordinarily, when you write to a legislator about anything, you can expect a response.  I’ve never had any response from any legislator on any of these issues.  That is because if they respond, they will have acknowledged receiving this information.  If they acknowledged receiving this, they would have to act on it.  While it is possible that some are actually unaware of my work, I think most simply don’t want to act.  Their predecessors would not have passed a law repealing all other laws (50 USC 412) if they had not intended to wield unconstitutional power.

Kevin Harris shared a name with a player in the events at Ruby Ridge. In fact, you can learn alot about the pricker by browsing the 9-11 Truth website. Reading "The Pricker", I become very conscious of my roles as a spectator- first as a stranger priivy to Harris' inmost fantasies and second as a consumer of these fantasies or conspiracies (though I think the term "conspiracy" overlooks their literary value).

John Berger described our modern role as spectators in Ways of Seeing, his notable book on art criticism and theory. For Berger, the advertising and marketing agencies (which today would include social media) have changed the way view, receive, interpret, and value art. "Publicity" is the word he uses to encompass all the levels of mediated, ad-based visuals in our lives. Berger writes:

The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life. Not with the way of life of society, but with his own within it. It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better. It offers him an improved alternative to what he is. 

So the underlying assumption is that there is some "way of life of society" which is eminently ideal and worth chasing. Berger continues:

All publicity works upon anxiety. The sum of everything is money, to get money is to overcome anxiety. Alternatively the anxiety on which publicity plays is the fear that having nothing you will be nothing. Money is life. Not in the sense that without money you starve. Not in the sense that capital gives one class power over the entire lives of another class. But in the sense that money is the token of, and the key to, every human capacity. The power to spend money is the power to live. According to the legends of publicity, those who lack the power to spend money become literally faceless. Those who have the power become loveable. 

Harris takes this anxiety personally. He can't ignore it. So he confesses and "outs" it in a rather astute analysis of the popular TV show, Survivor:

That show presents an experiment in sociology in which all players are enemies who are dependant on those they seek to destroy.  The show was produced to sell us the idea that this is how we live.  It is how they think we should live, working cleverly for those who will destroy us. The twisted artificiality of that show is made to seem more real by calling it reality TV.  In real reality, people trapped in a difficult situation consider themselves successful when everyone gets along, rather than when everyone destroys each other.  I propose we seek that reality for ourselves rather than the insane artifice of Survivor.

With a handful of pixel-dust, Harris conjures up community of seekers united by the sentiment that Survivor obviously sucked in more ways than one. Wearing his paranoia like a badge, he makes skepticism the ultimate communual virtue while ignoring the fact that consumption of conspiracies is still consumerism, albeit of a very specific and often unpopular fantastic product. 

Kevin thinks his conspiracy product is not receiving the consumption it deserves. In the last section of "The Pricker", Harris comfortably straddles the line between fiction and confessional reality. Just after warning his readers about the "destruction" of society, he comforts them by admitting that he has "destroyed the alien spaceship plot". Just in case you were begining to take all this too seriously.

This is the long term failure of democracy, and every other known form of government.  Our social structures serve purposes diametrically opposed to their stated purposes.  Rather than defend and uphold the Constitution, officers of government undermine and attack  it.  Rather than suppressing murder, it is inflicted on an industrial scale.  Rather than preserve and disseminate information, disinformation is disseminated and information is suppressed.  Rather than protect society, its destruction is sought.

I have destroyed the alien spaceship plot, but there are more plots coming, more subtle and powerful motivational implants, robot weapons, biological weapons, and colossal deceptions.  We all need to realize that if we do not get this situation under control (or out from under control), that our entire species will perish.  At the end there will be only one of us left.  One person who has enslaved or killed all others.  All of the billions of people, with thousands of languages, cultures, and civilizations of history, with only one person left, very soon.

"Only one person left...", a classic line to build suspense when plot as a whole lacks direction. Surely we can understand the implications of a lone human on Earth? Surely we can muster the gratitude to save the lonely, misunderstood man who wants to save us from such an end? Harris mourns:

I have been looking for people who understand what is at stake; people who are not fakes, have not been fooled, tempted, intimidated, killed, crippled, or jailed, and who can not be ignored.  I have come to understand that the enemies we face can not tolerate such people because they know that just one such person could disrupt the growth of their power.  Because I have not found such a person, I have had no choice; I have had to become such a person.

As Harris whines his way onward, Orlando Figes' Lenin comes to mind- the last man, the only one who sees through it all. The theorist of the revolution is doomed to become its dictator.

If they really mean it, then why are they killing the only person on earth who can credibly assess and report whether they mean it or not?  Why do they want to hold the power of life and death over me?  Absolute despotism is coming, and the people who are bringing it have no intention of quitting.  When they are well and truly caught, they may say that this exposure has fixed everything.  It would be the same old lies, with a new bunch of fake reformers and watchdogs.

They have always recognized the vulnerability of the alien spaceship plot, and have taken it into account.  They have amplified the idea of the Antichrist, so as to be able to focus all the blame on one person, if they get caught (their supreme leader is unlikely to be the one identified).  The person who exposes their fake Jesus can then be hailed as the real Messiah.  That person would have the moral authority to pardon the unspeakable brutality of these criminals.  They will make sure that person works for them – If they can eliminate me.

I am at 3152 Bermuda Dr., Costa Mesa, CA, USA.  You can tell it’s me because I am the only one who can get into my house.  I think it may be dangerous for you to come to my house alone.  My only reader to come alone lives nearby, and so, would have been hard to identify as a visitor.

As a postmodern James Dean, Harris makes it clear that all the guns in the world won't save us from the pricker. The only thing that can save us is forming a community "in the know"- a group of loyal Americans devoted to saving the Constitution and revealing the pricker, a group which must obviously be led by Harris himself, the hero without a horse, the hero willing to blow up his own house in the service of the revolution.

"For publicity the present is by definition insufficient," said John Berger.

Harris falls in good company with wise critics of consumer society, but he parts ways with them by way of hero worship. The hero, of course, hasn't been given the opportunities to demonstrate his heroic powers. Instead, he muddles around through the mundane. There, he discovers that the boringness of the day-to-day is actually profane. He is the hero who needs your help to fix the world, to resacralize it. Pass the donation plate. Hurry. Our shelf life is ticking away.

For thousands of years people have observed the corruption of their leaders.  The leaders I have described here betray everything that is sacred.  Sacred, not in someone else’s terms, but by their own definition.  Truth, justice, human life, God, country, friends and family are all expendable commodities to them.  Think of this treatise as a test of character.  What do you do when you are presented with reasonable indications of unreasonable betrayal and abuse?  If we can hear of these things, and remain silent, then we should not, and will not be allowed to remain as entities with free will.  If we want to change the way things will be we can start by exposing the way things are. This is our last opportunity, don’t let it slip away. Your neighbor, Kevin, October, 2005.  First edition May 31, 2002.

Ultimately, "The Pricker" keeps you reading through what I can only describe as a taut tedium- a condition of suspense with the weight of gravity holding it down. Like good spec-fi or fantasy, it plays with your head by lending gravitas to the ordinary. Like religion, it invests alternate explanations for reality with a deep and binding meaning. Go ahead- let Harris play with your head. 

IF YOU'D LIKE TO CONTINUE THE MIND GAMES:
Ways of Seeing by John Berger (free online text via ScribD)
The Cryptogon (Kevin's alleged "friend") 
"The Strategy of Tension: Part II" (Cryptoscatology) 
"Boris Berezovsky Obit" (Telegraph) 
"Berezovsky did not kill himself" (Telegraph) 
Netspionage (The New York Times)