Category: Eclectic Intellect

Pusha T’s Daytona as Confession of Collaboration with Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns

Pusha T & Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns

The color red is used by members of the PSUV and the Bloods street gang. Covering one’s face with bandanas is typical of the Bloods and the ELN.

Abstract
Existing aesthetic approaches to interpretating trap and ganga-rap music frequently conceptualize the lyrical performances as being done by someone responding to economic precarity and a low-level likelihood of upward social mobility with an entrepreneurial mindset.

This article seeks to subvert that paradigm and understand it as an expression of wholesale rejection of the existant political institutions which enforce laws. Because of the lyrics of popular artists and the numerous arrests made for those involved with rap labels that are fronts for illicit drug acitivty – most famously the Black Mafia Family – it is my claim that this music is more appropriately situated in a context of transnational drug-trafficking networks, just as narcocorridos are.

By looking at Pusha T’s recent rap-album Daytona in such a light, it appears that it could be interpretated as an articistic confession of participation in drug trafficking operations that involved the FARC, the Venezuela’s Cartel of the Sons, and the Cuban Communist Party.

Keywords: Trap music, aesthetics, drug-trafficking networks, PSUV

Pusha T and Roger Waters and Venezuela

The first two lines of Daytona establishs a connection between the luxury goods that Pusha T enjoys and Pink Floyd.

Given the braggadocio typical of King Push this seems an interesting choice given Roger Waters doesn’t isn’t even listed amongst the top ten richest rockstars.

Another reason that Pusha T could be citing this particular individual is their mutual connection via Nicholas Maduro Moros – who recently gave a “new toy,” a guitar, to Roger Waters. Waters received this because he had promoted and performed a concert to keep Hands Off Venezuela, a phrase often used by Communist political organizers and activists. Considering Nicholas Maduro Moros and Hugo Chanvez before him has given praise and money to African-Americans they considered to be “fighting their cause” – such as Ajamu Baraka and Danny Glover – this raises the likelihood of such an interpretation being true.

Roger Waters’ new stage show connects the current political climate to 1984. An immediate indicator of possible connection to Venezuela.

The two musicians also share an avowed animosity towards President Donald Trump. Whereas Waters is significantly more ostentatious in his declarations, in an interview on the Angie Martinez Show, Pusha expresses disdain towards Kanye West for his support of the President and his Christianity.

While rapping about cocaine, as Pusha T often does, doesn’t lend the same political cachet as producing the types of songs which Pink Floyd has – it’s worth considering that the valorization of his behavior has a sort of Ninotchka effect – i.e. the development of desires and aspirations within the audience that leads to the normalization of “new” behaviors – in this case accepting cocaine trafficking as the behavior of an anti-hero rather than a law-breaker.

Pusha T’s Knowledge on Cocaine Prices

In the same first song, Pusha T states that many of the rappers currently singing about the prices their connects offer them aren’t accurate. More than that, in additino to proclaiming that many of these rappers turned trappers are fake – he periodizes how long it’s been lower. Because he claims to be a “trappers turned rappers”, he knows the “real price”.

Here are some of the geopolitical events that helped drive down the cost of cocaine.

(1) Venezuela’s Begins Sponsoring Narcotrafficking Operations

In the book Bumerán Chávez: Los Fraudes que Llevaron al Colapso de Venezuela by Emili J Blasck, Chávez’s former bodyguard Leamsy Salazar states that Hugo Chávez met with the high command of FARC somewhere in rural Venezuela in 2007. Chávez created a system in which the FARC would provide the Venezuelan government with drugs that would be transported in live cattle and the FARC would receive money and weaponry from the Venezuelan government. According to Salazar, this was done in order to weaken Chávez’s perceived enemy, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. This drastically reduced the risk costs associated with cocaine production

(2) Rise of Bitcoin as a Means of Managing Drug Money

Bitcoin was first launched on 3, January 2009. The coins were first announced and promoted via an email list populated by numberous computer security specialists with connections to international anarchist organizations and Communist Party Activists. Actors connected to Occupy Wall Street – a Situationist-inspired political festival organized in coordination with above mentioned international Anarchist and Communist activists – were some of it’s first promoters. Their ability to get enough “real people” involved with Bitcoin provided cover for the FARC-EP to use it and thus drastically reduce the risk costs associated with moving money.

While both of these facts are within the public record – neither of them are “general knowledge” and indicate that Pusha T has insider information, that is the information of a co-conspirator.

Pusha T – Confessions of being Under Cuban Surveillance and Relation to Broader Conspiracy

In verse two of If You Know You Know, Pusha T states that amongst  the members of a “fraternity of drug dealers” there are still people looking at him with “one eye”. When one consider’s Fidel Castro’s role in cocaine trafficking, and that ten years ago the Cuban Five were released and CubaInformation – who’s logo is a single eye – was founded then this makes much more sense. This “news network” was formed as it allowed Cuba’s Intelligence services to  operate in much the same way that the spy-ring did, but with more legal cover.

Following this admission of being under surveillance, he makes two other cryptic statements that can be related to his participation in a transnational-drug trafficking network connected to the FARC, the PSUV, and the PCC.

“The company I keep isn’t corporate enough” 

The two great proponents of Che-Z thought: ex-coca-leaf farmer’s union leader turned disgraced president of Bolivia Evo Morales and ex(?) cocaine-trafficker turned rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z.

This seems to be criticism levelled by the fraternity of drug dealers against Pusha T because his closeness to the street prevents him from being able to easily diversify his money laundering operations and corruption networks.

“Child Rebel Soldier, You Ain’t Orphan Enough.”

This screenshot from a FARC account on Facebook seems to hint that those with sexual proclivities for pre-pubescent children will find their desires satisfied if they decide to join the People’s Army.

While Child Rebel Soldier was the name of a “rap supergroup” it’s also the appropriate categorical name for the 5000+ children that were recruited by the FARC for combat.

It’s in this context that we see that this is another criticism levelled by the “fraternity of drug dealers” against Pusha T.

Specifically they seem be upset that he cannot manage “real” artists – like the musicians in Child Rebel Soldier – in the same way that orphans – like Puff Daddy – can be.

This tension between Pusha T and this Fraternitiy; those – to quote from the chorus of this song – which are “coachin from the side of the ball courts” is important and comes up again later in the album.

Pusha T & Cuban Cocaine Trafficking Networks

Lyrics from Santeria, an artistic depiction of Fidel Castro as the Santeria god Elegguá, two examples of FARC logos, the sign for Che Bar and Grill and a photo of Ivan Marquez – leader of the FARC – holding a rose.

Lest all the above seem like a reach, let’s look at Santeria, track five on Pusha T’s album Daytona.

For appropriate context, it’s important to understand that as a religion, Santeria is most appropriately associated with Cuba. According to RT, the state media outlet of Cuba’s long-time ally Russia – Cuba is a paradise for santeros.  But the connection between Santeros and Cuba goes even deeper…

In his book Fidel and Religion, the theologian Frei Betto – one of the Liberation Theologists involved with the creation of the Sao Paulo Forum – transcribed his conversations with Fidel Castro. Betto asks him about Castro’s relationship with Santeria. While he denies being a practitioner, he does say that many santeros who supported the Communist Revolution saw in him a spiritual liberator for Cuba, and that there are many who consider him the son of the deity Elegguá. Also worth noting is that in the book Los Brujos de Chavez David Placer provides ample documentation that Hugo Chavez has engaged in Santeria practices.

Pretext done, to the song lyrics.

By Pusha T’s own admission, the song opens with a reference to his road manager’s murder – for reasons that the courts were never able to determine.

Cursory research shows that not only is “CHE” the name of the location of where Pusha’s tour manager DayDay Pickett was stabbed, but that the sign outside the building includes a red rose at the top – which is one of the symbols of the FARC-EP!

Given this graphic, and that restaurants (and concert tours) are often cash-based businesses that provide amble opportunity for money laundering – I would speculate that the “payola” Pusha T mentions relates to contested percentages considered due for such services – be it transporting cocaine or laundering money.

Thus we can come to understand that Pusha T’s equation of himself with a priest is to put himself on the level of Hugo Chavez – who helps grow cocaine – and Raul Castro – who helps ship cocaine.

Is Pusha T a Drug Dealing Money Launderer working on behalf of The Cartel of the Suns, the Cuban Communist Party and the FARC-EP?

“When people show you who they are, believe them.” – Maya Angelou

Given the above – I’m curious as to what it is you think? Is Pusha T currently just a rapper – or, like his idols Big Meech and Sosa – is he engaged in cocaine trafficking with artistry as a cover..?

Leave your comments below…

Mark Zuckerberg Testified Before Congress: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

As someone that is a strong supporter of Libra, even though it has not yet been launched, I decided to watch Mark Zuckerberg provide Congressional testimony on the matter.  It was 5 hours long, and I wasn’t taking notes while watching – I was making spaghetti sauce – but I did snap a few screen shots and make mental notes.

Rather than summing it all up I broke it down the questioners into three sections – the good, the bad and the ugly…

The Good

No surprise, the Congressmen with some background within the technology and business field asked genuinely insightful questions related to the launch of Libra. Hearing them speak, I wished that they had more time to ask questions as it was clear that they were “in the know”.

Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing is, of course, one of the major issues as it relates to launching Libra. Both of these Congressman clearly recognized this and, to his credit, Mark Zuckerberg answered their questions well. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to know what I do about the birth of Bitcoin – as if he did and if he brought this up then and there – I think it would have radically changed how the proceedings went with these two.

The Bad

When I saw a few hours after the hearing a number of videos and memes making it appear as if Ocasio-Cortez had “pwned” Mark Zuckerberg I couldn’t help but laugh.

Her questions related to fact-checking of politicians speech were not insightful – she appears to be endorsing a patently anti-Constitutional stance – and the antagonistic tone added to the questions was rude. The way in which she closed trying to characterize Mark Zuckerberg as racist and Facebook as an enterprise supporting white supremacism was absurd and her inability to recognize that the Independent Fact Check Network is not within Facebook’s purview – althought they do contract with them – was sad.

The Ugly

When Mr. Green started to speak I thought for a moment that perhaps my video feed had switched to the same smooth jazz radio station I’d be forced to listen to after my mom would pick me up from late-night baseball practice, while the content of his comments made me think that I was witnessing a Critique session run by Bay Area Maoists.

I’m sure that this Congressman from Texas has a passionate base of supporters – and I’m also sure that they don’t support him for his subject area knowledge of anything related to the field of technology.

Academic Presentations

Academic Presentations

United States Social Forum
June, 30 2007
Is Youth Activism Still Alive?

SUNY Binghamton
Philosophy and Interpretation of Cultures Conference
April 25, 2008
Syndicalism, Pedagogy and the Renewal of the Sublime: Reclaiming a Role for non-party Leftist Politics

University of Bristol
Philosophy and Film Conference
July 4, 2008
The Conquest of Film: Anarchism, Propaganda and Transvaluative Film

Florida Atlantic University
Comparative Studies Conference
October 25th, 2008
When Green Anarchism Turns Red: Violence, Communism and the Homeland Security Advisory System

SUNY Binghamton
Comparative Literature Conference
November 7, 2008
Self-Mutilation vs. Social Transformation: Alienation, Action and Reaction in Progressive Era America

Modern Language Association
40th Anniversary Conference
February 27, 2009
Wrongthink: Recoordinating Aesthetics of Teenage Rebellion from Politically Aloof Hedonism into Genuine Radicalism

University of Gainesville
Marxist Reading Group Conference
March 26, 2009
Crisis and Convergence: The Brief Life of American Socialist Parties in The Context of the Age of Obama

International Conference of Education Research and Innovation
November 14th, 2011
Incorporating Attention Dynamics Phenomenology into Classroom Lesson Planning

UMass Amherst
Rethinking Marxism Conference
September, 22 2013
In the Shadow of Chavez: Collectivo Protagonists and El Proceso of 21st Century Socialism

Florida Atlantic University
Latin American Studies Conference
March 21st, 2014
Socialismo Maduro o Socialismo Inmaduro: Venezuela en la Cruce

University of Gainesville
Marxist Reading Group Conference March 22, 2019
Kultural Marxism: Reflections on Venezuela’s Gramscian Fantasy of Exporting Revolution via a Long March

 

Debunking Richard Wolff’s Debunking of Jordan Peterson’s “Cultural Marxism”

This article contextualizes an exchange between Dr. Richard Wolff and Abby Martin about Jordan Peterson that was uploaded to Empire Files’s YouTube channel.

It then debunks some of the critical analysis and positions made by Wolff, and places his work within the context of Kultural Marxism.

Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Žižek Discuss “Happiness: Capitalism vs. Marxism”

I know a lot about Marxism.

Slavoj Žižek was one of my professors during my M.A. research at New York University and in his lectures, he frequently explicated on the works of Karl Marx and G. W. F. Hegel.

Vivek Chibber and Bertell Ollman, experts in the fields of historical and dialectical materialism – sub-fields in History and Political Sciences based on the writings of Marx – were also my professors while at NYU.

While not that familiar with the work of Jordan Peterson (my familiarity with his work consists of watching another of his other debates) I was curious to see him speak given his rise to fame and my own psychological investigations under my father’s guidance while attending FICAM.

Grading the Debate

Watching Jordan Peterson explain Marxist thought was thorougly cringy.

When I first heard him say something askew from what Marxists actually describe in their works I thought of writing – as I did with the Steve Bannon vs. David Frum Munk Debate – a sort of ongoing commentary, this time correcting him.

I quickly realized that to do so would consume more time than I was willing to commit, so was heartened to see that Harrison Fluss, a former colleague from mine from FAU, went into specifics in Jacobin Magazine. Though I don’t agree with a number of his conclusions there or in his other commentary on Peterson, his assessments related to Marx are valid and insightful.

This, however, doesn’t mean that Slavoj Žižek won the debate.

There was no real overarching conflict affirming or negating a resolution. It was more like a mutual clarification of perspectives, a charting of concepts histories and a series of clarifications and jokes.

Though Žižek states in his rebuttal that Peterson’s reading of The Communist Manifesto was overly-simplified, he also recognizes that what Peterson means by “Cultural Marxism” doesn’t actually emerge from Marxist thought and even agrees with Peterson that some of the critical points he makes about it are nevertheless correct.

More importantly, as it relates to Capitalism vs. Marxism and it’s relationship to Happiness, is that Žižek agrees with Peterson’s description of post-modernist/identity politics protests and other ideas it the replacement of Marx’s idea of class conflict– defined as being between the working class, proletariat and the bourgeoisie – with those of the terms used within identity politics discourse.

Thus even though Dr. Peterson can’t name a single of these “post-modern Marxists”  – they both share that they’ve had experiences on campus of those embodying this value system.

This is important, as it allows the Žižek and Peterson to come to a mutually agreed-upon understanding of what is meant by Cultural Marxism and to agree that what they understand by it is socially harmful.

Debunking the Debunking of Jordan Peterson’s “Cultural Marxism” with Richard Wolff


In his interview with Abby Martin on Empire Files Dr. Richard D. Wolff similarly recognized Peterson’s unfamiliarity with Marxist literature and inability to name a single person that would fall under the rubric of a “Cultural Marxist”.

But, rather than being a magnanimous interlocutor he claims that Dr. Peterson’s used of the term Cultural Marxism is merely a revival of an old Nazi trope that has no connection whatsoever to Marxism (it does, and I describe it in brief here) and then denigrates him for not understanding what “exploitation” means to Marxists. That whole subsequent dialogue between Dr. Peterson and Dr. Žižek which finds them clarifying the terms used and then agreeing to the? Completely ignored.

The extent to Dr. Wolff’s unfairness to Jordan Peterson goes beyond making red herrings and being condescensing to someone speaking outside their area of specialization.

In his closing comments, Dr. Wolff equates the perspective of Dr. Peterson (a view, incidentally, shared by Marx [₁]) – that social hierarchies will always exist in some form to the justification of chattel slavery in the Americans.

Let me state this again as it is important.

Whereas Dr. Jordan Peterson limits his discussion on hierarchies to endogenous personal capabilities (such as physical attractiveness and other such mundane and widely recognized categories) and says equality of ends is offensive to the human condition but equality of opportunity is a necessary value to strive for – Dr. Wolff twists this and Dr. Peterson’s otherwise mundane argument (“People can be judged based on different qualities” – a position adjacent to his claim that history can be judged on qualities other than class struggle) to mean that he is justifying slavery.

More than that, he places this position within a wider, conspiratorial framework wherein Peterson is an expression of the economic elite which feels the “status quo is in danger” and thus the “dominant classes” revert to using the language of “natural law” to justify their rule.

Beyond merely making the false claim that Peterson’s position is to justify slavery, Wolff states that in situations wherein people use the language of natural law – that physical violence is an appropriate response.

His exact words are: “The minute you hear that [justification of hierarchies] you should reach for your gun.”

Given that Dr. Peterson’s last words are to praise the human capacity to engage with and learn from others that hold different world views and that Žižek’s last words are to warn Leftists from falling into “the political correctness trap” and to be intrepid in their thinking, this line of commentary by Dr. Wolff’s seems highly suspect [2].

Orwellian Irony: Why Kultural Marxists Seek to Debunk Cultural Marxism 

“Loyalty Forever, Traitors Never” – In this Facebook Live video Nicolas Maduro expresses the view that good citizens don’t question the Revolutionary Process or speak bad about Hugo Chavez. In the comments section on the right, Venezuelans ask Maduro for financial assitance.

Dr. Peterson and Dr. Žižek both reject the Marxist framework that subsumes individual liberty under the collective.

The above image provides a brief indicator as to why that is so – being forced to rely upon the attention and benevolence of a Party or Dear Leader for the means by which to self-reproduce or better one’s socio-economic standing is degrading and has lead, historically, to a wide variety of crimes great and small.

In contrast to Dr. Richard Wolff, who views Dr. Peterson as an avatar for the anxieties of an economic elite that fears a shift towards Socialism in America (Idealism), I view Dr. Richard Wolff along with a number of intellectuals, artists and political activists as being associated with Venezuela’s state media, state intelligence apparatus and the PSUV (Historicism).

What is the basis for my claim, besides being on a show funded by Venezuela?

In addition to appearing on a number of media outlets connected to or associated with Venezuelan state media, Richard D. Wolff was also involved with Occupy Wall Street (along with many other Venezuela-aligned Marxist-inspired organizations such as the Workers World Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Revolutionary Communist Party); is also an instructor at the People’s Forum and and is on the board of the Left Forum –  organizations which hosts a number of Kultural Marxist personalities; frequently appears on The Real News Network– which has numerous former Venezuelan government officials working for it; and is involved with a Democracy at Work, a non-profit with an anti-capitalist orientation akin to other political activism projects that have received funding from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

In fact, Dr. Wolff’s closing comments – misrepresenting the position of a perceived enemy and then threatening violence – are roughly commensurate with the political climate fostered by Nicolas Maduro: Discouraging criticism under threat of neglect (access to government goods and services) and violence (via SEBIN and colectivos). Given the role that academic editors and peer-review plays in academic publications

I imagine that Dr. Wolff’s written corpus isn’t as distortive and crass as this “debunking,” but I’ll have to rely on other’s assessments as after having watched his exchange with Abby Martin I’m disinterested in potentially encountering other falsifications done for the sake of demonstrating ideological purity and superiority.

Footnote

[1] This is a very strange claim for Wolff to make as the notion that “hierarchy” disappears under a socialist regime is quickly disproved via historical analysis or reference to seminal Marxist texts. In Critique of the Gotha Program, Karl Marx writes:

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

While one can certainly make the claim that conflating Marx and Lenin is intellectually problematic, it’s also worth citing Lenin to disprove Wolff’s claim that all hierarchies are flattened in a Socialist societty. In Lenin’s own words, from , “The State and Revolution”:

“We are not utopians, we do not ‘dream’ of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and ‘foremen and accountants’.”

One could also look to the history of the Soviet Union, with Joseph Stalin’s policy enactment of “primitive socialist accumulation” to demonstrate that exploitation still existed via the provision of surplus value being provided to political cadres loyal to the current leader of the Communist Party and not workers.

[2] In what is essentially a criticism of The Resistance, which is intimately connected to the Left Forum, Slavoj Žižek also claimes in his closing statement that “People labeling others fascist is lazy thinking, and Trump is not a fascist.”

Silence of the Professors: Mark Crispin Miller

Screenshot from Abby Martin’s interview with Mark Crispin Miller, who wrote the forward to the recently republished book Propaganda by Edward Bernays.

One of Venezuela’s media assets that I’ve identified is Mark Crispin Miller.

He’s a professor of media studies at NYU and in addition to his work with TeleSUR English, he is interviewed in the documentary Orwell Rolls in his Grave.

Given this and the recurrent invocations of George Orwell throughout the literature associated with Kultural Marxism, I thought I would give a quick look through his website and see if he had anything to say that I might be able to add to my case study on Orwellian Irony. I was not disappointed!

I found this link to a re-posted article about NewsGuard, a company which is working with different news organizations to do the analytical work previously done by newspaper and magazine editors prior to the Internet Age.

What I find most ironic is that the article does not at all engage with the substance of what NewsGuard does – basically checks it’s credibility, reliability transparency by determining if the website, amongst other factors:

  1. Regularly publishes false content
  2. Gathers and presents information responsibility
  3. Regularly corrects of clarifies errors
  4. Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly
  5. Avoids deceptive headlines
  6. Discloses ownership, financing and potential conflicts of interests
  7. Clearly labels advertising
  8. Published names of the authors

Instead of actually stating what is going on, the article Mark Crispin Miller linked to (by another “journalist” associated with the Kultural Marxism network, Whitney Webb) instead engaged in fear-mongering.

What’s even more ironic than this, in light of the fact that he’s a professor?

I left a post raising some of the issues that I see as missing from the article and pointed out a factual inconsistency.

Individuals like myself are genuinely concerned with ensuring that honesty, integrity, and professionalism are values that are upheld within the media and journalism industry and the claim of conspiracy that this is all a matter of “big Silicon Valley tech companies in league with the U.S. government” that are trying to “censor” people is absurd.

Mark Crispin Miller’s response?

Not to allow the comment to be posted.

He’s certainly welcome to make that choice as his website is his platform, but so too am I free to share a portion of my comments below to show the sweet, sweet Orwellian irony of a 9/11 Truther refusing to let counterfactual evidence onto his website.

A portion of the comment post left on Mark Crispin Miller’s website about NewsGuard.

On Social Media’s False Democratic Promise: Virality, Newsworthiness, and Propaganda

Since the widespread adoption of social media by Americans, news outlets have sought to incorporate it into the new media landscape. Whether this takes the form of Tweets of those involved in a specific news story having their comments read on air; the views of established commentators being read; live events on Facebook; Ask Me Anything on Reddit, etc. – social media is seen as providing the means for reporting that is more democratic – not just for allowing more voices to potentially be incorporated into reporting but also as a story’s newsworthiness is increasingly being chosen for packaging by news companies based upon the things that are trending online.

The rationale for this is understandable, in an age wherein people now spend more of the time on their computer, this allows for a means of engaging audiences in a novel fashion and being able to discern what is important to the audience in advance allows news teams to produce content based upon what is cared about. But as an indicator of actual interest in a topic, virality itself is tricky as it can so easily be falsified.

Dianne Feinstein and the Climate Kids

After official treatment by TeleSUR, commentary spreads throughout the Kultural Marxism ecosystem and their sock-puppet army engages with it to create the appearance of virality.

In an article by Mark Heertsgard in The Nation entitled, On March 15, the Climate Kids are Coming you can see an example of how this plays out. Here is an extended quote describing the birth of the Green New Deal:

“Last November, Sunrise activists welcomed the incoming Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives with protest signs demanding that Democrats “Step Up or Step Aside.” Next, they occupied the office of incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to demand her support for a Green New Deal. The sit-in went viral after Ocasio-Cortez, likewise rejecting the wait-your-turn etiquette expected of freshmen members, joined the protesters. The mainstream media picked up the story, and voilà: The Green New Deal was on its way. “

Whatever one’s position on the Green New Deal, knowledge of the connection between it and Venezuela’s Gramscian Project in America as well as the image at the top of this section clearly shows virality not only to be an empty indicator of actual interest in political policy, but also as a means for getting content re-shared on older and more established media platforms with a wider audience. In other words, virality is manufactured by people with access to coordinated inauthentic behavior networks and thus the democratic promise of social media via genuine engagements dies.

Media workers can quickly turn political events into memes in an attempt to control the interpretation of events and give an impression that this interpretation is hegemonic.

The kids in the Sunrise Movement, Bay Area Earth Guardians and Youth vs. Apocalypse may not get this – but those that then booked them on Democracy Now and others do.

Regardless of the perceived imperative of their causes, online networks of digital activists, intellectuals and artists that falsify how many people actually care about something and to what extent they care about it do their own cause a disservice by opening them to criticisms of propagandists and via the normalization of such behavior. With many actors engaged in such same spam-like activities, social media platforms like Facebook become a staging ground for propaganda campaigns – something which is a far cry from the services most users signed up for.

This image was widely shared by Venezuelan and Russian coordinated inauthentic behavior networks on social media.

Another example of this is the news story of how the ‘Iconic’ image of Palestinian Protestor goes viral. The image was turned into memes connecting it with Lady Liberty Leading the People and the number of comments left on news sites with such features was high. Rather than a bunch of posts of pictures of comments by bots, I decided to quote someone often cited by critics of America, Noam Chomsky, who claimed that “Propaganda is to a democracy what a bludgeon is to the totalitarian state.”

Karl Marx and Teen Vogue

Interestingly, this article on Teen Vogue begins with a variation on the virality theme addressed above. By alluding to perceived popularity, this article begins with the sentence: “You may have come across communist memes on social media. The man, the meme, the legend behind this trend is Karl Marx, who developed the theory of communism, which advocates for workers’ control over their labor (instead of their bosses).”

Considering that many if not most of these meme groups were developed with the assistance of Venezuelan Intelligence Officers and that Teen Vogue itself is deeply connected with them – this is yet another example of a false authenticity and virality being the cause to justify it publication.

The last case that I’ll cover here is that of George Ciccariello-Maher, the Drexel Professor who went ‘viral’ for a white Genocide Tweet. While not reported until several months after the events, it was later revealed that this and a number of other of GCM’s Tweets were in fact boosted by sock-puppet accounts connected to Russia – who is Venezuela’s media partner! Considering George Ciccariello-Maher’s long-standing connections to Venezuelan Intelligence what this means for his credibility as an academic, or political commentator is unknown – but given the extensive media coverage he received over it, it’s worth adding this fact to the historical record.

Newsworthiness and Propaganda

These three viral but not necessarily newsworthy narratives all draw on a similar and well-established framing for propaganda – the powerless standing up to the powerful. In the above cases we see a group of non-voting age students and their parents try to pigeonhole a Senator to get her to agree to the Green New Deal; a group of poorly armed activists entering the military zone of a neighboring power to dismantle its borders; a lone professor takes on White Supremacism with a single tweet.

And yet despite addressing vastly different subjects – the environment, Palestine and White Supremacy – all of them are not only connected the same coordinated inauthentic behavior networks but also demonstrate the same anti-systemic political sensibilities. I’m not saying that these narratives should be silenced, but when seeking to understand the current political moment it’s important to recognize that foreign powers see value in creating such political polarization and that this is destructive to the democratic process.

Glossary of Technology Terms

TECHNOLOGICAL GLOSSARY

Technology development: Development of products, processes, equipment and operating methods. It includes research and pilot processes.

Sustainable development and social responsibility: The production of the present must not affect the production of the future, seeking to rehabilitate, preserve and conserve renewable resources and the quality of the environment. It implies taking responsibility for the impact. Its objective is to prevent and mitigate the environmental impact that productive activities may cause on the natural heritage and the quality of life.

Technological development: Set of activities through which seeks to improve or generate new processes or products in the production or administration of the company. It includes one or more forms of research (basic, applied, experimental), but also refers to activities such as adapting technology, solving technical problems and standardization (analysis, inspection and testing of raw materials and inputs, machines and products) ).

Technological unemployment: It is understood as a probable consequence of the application of new technologies or of the substitution of some process by another one that is more intensive in the use of capital.

Technological diagnosis: It consists of systematizing and analyzing the pertinent data of information and technological intelligence; qualify, in relation to quality and productivity, the level of technological modernity of the company in relation to competitors; qualify the potential of own technological development and by technology acquisitions, with reference to the tendencies indicated by the technological prospective; identify bottlenecks related to technology that prevent the company from moving towards higher levels of quality in processes and products; identify specific lines of research and development and technological innovation to increase the capacity for competition in general and for the improvement of quality, in particular.

Diffusion: Process of propagation of a technical innovation among potential users (adoption of a new technique), its continuous improvement and adaptation.

Dimension: One of the criteria under which a certain indicator can be analyzed within an organization.

Effectiveness: Systematic generation of consistent results integrating effectiveness and efficiency. Customer satisfaction is achieved with the optimal use of resources.

Efficiency: Contribution of the obtained results to the fulfillment of global objectives (of the society); relevance, relevance, validity or socioeconomic utility of the results (predefined objectives).

Efficiency: Measures the amount of resources used to achieve the proposed objective, that is, it relates the degree of use of the resources of the production process.

Link between basic and applied research. The presence of efficient connectors that link the results of laboratory research with industrial practice. The realization of industrial scaling for new products. Participation in this process of highly qualified personnel (PhD level), interaction with research centers and universities.

Entity: Any important thing within the organization that deserves to be embodied in a data model.

Support entities: The existence of entities for the development of innovation, through the provision of advice and funding such as: Institute for the promotion of Innovation, INNOVAR, TECNOS, CORPODIB. Technological centers for research such as CORPOICA; CENICAFE, this project that presents the current situation of innovation and gives guidelines for improvement.

Strategy: Mode of relating to the environment; form (ways, modalities) of reaching the proposed objectives. In the strategies, the philosophy of the company is specified. The strategies express the way in which the company hopes to sustain itself or increase its participation in the market. The strategies can be of a financial nature, focus on marketing and marketing or be oriented to technological development. The strategies also show the aspirations of the company, regarding the positioning in its productive sector and the capacity to generate greater added value.

Organizational structure: The organizational structure is the way to group human and material resources, defining the role of each unit, in the sense of making its administration more viable and achieving the objectives of the organization. When technological development becomes an important strategy, the challenge is to make it a systematic and permanent activity. For this, it is necessary to adapt the organization and structure of the firm, defining the functions, responsibilities and means.

Technological evaluation: Process of systematic analysis, prediction and assessment of a wide range of impacts on society, the environment and the economy, related to selection and technological change, in order to identify public policy, investment and production options . Evaluation of the social, environmental and economic costs of existing technologies, of the form of environmental pollution, social disturbances, infrastructure costs, etc., anticipation of probable harmful effects of new technologies; design methods to minimize these costs and evaluation of the possible benefits of the introduction of new or alternative technologies in terms of social, environmental and economic needs. The technological evaluation has tended to be translated, however, into a relevance analysis and cost-benefit calculations. The evaluation of technological alternatives is an internal process of the company, consisting of the identification of technological offers, national and international, in the individual valuation of said offers and in the determination of their impacts, based on the knowledge and experience of the company.

Evaluation: Process oriented to decision making and action, which seeks to determine the relevance, effectiveness and impact of the use of resources, activities and results based on pre-established objectives. The evaluation, which can be “exante” or “expost”, constitutes a dynamic, technical, systematic, rigorous, transparent, open and participatory process, supported by data, sources, information and diverse agents and explicitly incorporated in the process of taking decisions. The evaluation unit (evaluator) must be independent of the political authorities and executors involved, and have credibility and autonomy. Currently, multi-criteria evaluation methods are used in a wide variety of problems, including the evaluation of projects.

Critical success factor: Those areas where satisfactory performance is essential in order for a business to be successful; characteristics, conditions or variables that have a direct influence on customer satisfaction in a specific business process; the group of activities that must be carried out correctly if a vision is to be achieved.

Environmental management: Activity oriented to the application of modern management principles and techniques to the process of sustainable production, seeking to establish alternatives for the use of natural resources that are economically, ecologically and socially sustainable. Its objective is to incorporate environmental considerations in the planning processes and in the definition of development programs and projects.

Quality management: proactive management of productive, administrative and commercial resources to ensure the achievement of the global objectives defined in the plans and development strategies of the organization When the company is organized to perform with quality products and each of the operations productive and administrative, it is possible to achieve significant changes through a series of innovations that use quality control. The organization for continuous improvement favors creativity and constitutes a very important input to achieve mastery of productive and administrative technologies.

Information management: The company must document its technological development activities so that the institutional memory is kept up-to-date, the collective use of knowledge is facilitated, mistakes are not repeated and efficiency is achieved in the actions. Business information today must be conceived as a source of knowledge and decision, not only of registration. The information at managerial level must be designed to generate knowledge and this to allow opportunity of action that at the same time generates innovation.

Management of technological innovation: It is the process aimed at organizing and directing the available resources, both human and technical and economic, with the aim of increasing the creation of new knowledge, generating ideas that allow obtaining new products, processes and services or improving existing, and transfer those same ideas to the manufacturing and marketing phases.

Personnel management: Innovative companies must have an excellent management of human resources, therefore it is a fundamental variable for business success nowadays. The management of creative human teams must take into account the following aspects: motivate creativity, give spaces to generate ideas, accept and practice suggestions given by workers, select people with innovative capacity and interdisciplinarity. The transformation of companies must be advanced through human resources, implementing a model focused on leadership and the improvement of various aspects of the company and people. Through the human factor companies improve their operational efficiency and achieve high performance teams. These elements produce efficient and flexible organizations oriented to the client and obtain better results.

Technology management: The process by which companies manage their technological resources, understood in terms of hard technologies incorporated in machinery and soft technologies semicorporated in advisory or training courses, or disincorporated in the form of manuals, books, plans, patents, among others.

Management of the human factor: The way in which the human factor intervenes and manages innovation. It consists of four elements: The training of staff constantly. The promotion of teamwork. The integration of the personnel and the creation and application of strategic personnel groups (mixture of professionals with people from the base of the organizational charts). The development of creativity in all the staff.

Human Resource Management: Way to manage human resources, motivating them towards continuous improvement. The elements that constitute it are: 1) Training and ongoing training; 2) Stimulus to creativity; 3) Motivation; 4) Leadership and 5) Teamwork.

Technological management: Application of management techniques in support of technological innovation processes. The ability of the company to make knowledge and information productive. As a branch of industrial engineering, technological management is defined as the set of activities and business decisions related to the technological variable, within a holistic and systemic vision of the organization, in order to be competitive in the global market. Technological management is an interdisciplinary field in which knowledge of engineering, science and administration is mixed in order to carry out the planning, development and implementation of technological solutions that contribute to the achievement of the strategic and tactical objectives of an organization. In technological management, technological needs and opportunities are identified, and technological solutions are planned, designed, developed and implemented; it constitutes a process of administration of technological research activities and the transfer of its results to the productive units.

Enabler: Practices, processes or methods that facilitate the implementation of a best practice and allow satisfying a critical factor of success, help explain why the performance indicated by a benchmark.

Management indicator: It is a measure of the condition of a process or event at a given moment; is a relationship between quantitative or qualitative variables, which allows observing the situation and trends of change generated with the object or phenomenon observed, with respect to objectives and expected goals and expected influences. The indicators can be values, units, indexes, statistical series and, together, they can provide an overview of the situation of a process, a business or the general state of a company. By using them in a timely and up-to-date manner, the indicators allow for adequate control over a given situation; The main reason for its importance is that it is possible to predict and act based on the positive or negative trends observed in overall performance.

Adaptation of technology: Process during which foreign technologies are modified in order to accommodate them to local conditions in terms of market size, raw materials and consumer needs, among others.

Total quality management: It refers to the establishment of policies, objectives, annual plans, strategies and quality activities, which lead to comprehensive quality through the participation of everyone in the company. It also includes the formalization of quality in the company through structures, responsibilities, standards, procedures, methods, tools and techniques determined to achieve it. It contains all the required documentation including national and international standards that govern the product and process.

Acquisition of technology not incorporated in goods: In the form of patents, licenses, know-how, brands, projects, models and services with technological content.

Acquisition of technology: Selection of the technological inputs that are more attractive to acquire than to develop. Includes selection, negotiation and transfer.

Assimilation of technology: It is when the person or company that acquires it is able to exercise total control over it, understanding as such the full application to the productive activities in which it is used, its possible reproduction, adaptation and improvement, application to new situations within the company and distribution of it to third parties.

Technological audit: Follow-up to the technology that was acquired, adapted or developed to establish its goodness and real use.

Benchmark: Measuring best-in-class achievement, benchmark or standard measure to be compared, this novel is recognized as the standard of excellence for a specific business process.

Generic Benchmarking: Benchmarking process that compares a function function of a particular company or process with two or more independent companies in your industry.

Internal benchmarking: The comparison process carried out within an organization between similar units or business processes.

Benchmarking: An organizational improvement tool based on the evaluation and continuous analysis of practices; processes; policies and strategies recognized in the market as successful; for its subsequent adaptation and assimilation in an organization.

Biotechnology: Use and manipulation of biological processes using microbial agents, plant or animal cells or their derivatives to generate or modify products and processes, improve plants or animals and develop microorganisms for their application in agricultural activities, health, food production; project and selection of equipment such as enzymatic reactors, etc.

Data Warehouse: See Data Warehouse.

Productive chain: The productive chains are the continuous and discontinuous flows of products, processes and aggregation of values, which follow the primary products until reaching the final consumer.

Technical change: In a broad sense, it is an advance, a change in technique (production method) or the adoption of a different technique. Technical change refers to obtaining a specific product with a different amount or proportion of inputs (labor and capital), that is, a zero displacement along the production function; the qualitative improvement of existing products or processes or the introduction of new processes or products. A technical change occurs through innovation and, to some extent, diffusion. Changes in technique do not necessarily imply new technology; they may simply consist of imitation and diffusion of existing techniques or substitution of factors. Play an important role in models of economic growth; However, there is some controversy regarding the extent to which it is an exogenous factor in economic growth. Sometimes it is confused with the terms technological change and technical progress.

Technological change: It is an advance in technology, an increase in technical knowledge or in the available set of techniques; a change in technology itself, in a strict sense. It is a change within the technical relations of production. Technological change is a process closely related to technological research, invention, innovation and diffusion. Technological change can be defined as the process through which societies acquire and put into practice new and better ways of producing new and better goods and services. It is a social process that presents a complex cause-and-effect relationship with cultural transformations. It also influences the structures, mentalities and values ​​of society; which, in turn, condition technological innovations. There are several motivations that lead a company to value technological change, some of an endogenous nature and others of an exogenous nature.

Cycle P.H.V.A. (Plan, Do, Check, Act). The P.H.V.A. is a managerial conception that dynamizes the relationship between man and processes and seeks to control them based on the establishment, maintenance and improvement of standards, a task that is advanced through the definition of project specifications (quality standards), technical specifications of process and operating procedures. This cycle effectively helps to adopt and monitor the processes of a company, as long as it is constituted in an endless procedure, that is to say, that is planned, an action is taken, it is verified if the results were the expected and acted about these results to restart the cycle.

Competitiveness: In general terms, competitiveness refers to the capacity of an entity (organization, region or country) to create added value and increase its wealth by managing assets and processes, enhancing local and regional factors based on its internationalization within of a project of economic and social development. Competitiveness is the ability of a company, sector, region or country to maintain, grow or expand or diversify in a market. The competitiveness of the biotechnology sector food and beverages is a measure of the ability of economic agents (producers, industrialists and traders) to design, produce and sell goods whose attributes in terms of prices, environmental sustainability and satisfaction of needs and demands are combined to form a more attractive package than that of similar products offered by competitors, taking into account that the final judge is the national and international market. What is important for competitiveness (and productivity) is not the amount of technological research, but the ability to frame technological developments (innovations, technical progress), within a company strategy.

Conceptualization of technological innovation. It consists of the way in which technological innovation is interpreted within the sector. It consists of three elements: The interpretation of innovation as a process that seeks to introduce new products, processes or internal improvements into the market. The interpretation of innovation as a process of technology transfer. The interpretation of innovation as research and development activities that do not need to be commercialized.

Ad hoc query: It is a query that can not be easily satisfied by means of a data model previously constructed.

Technical assistance contract: It is the set of activities dedicated to advising and training a certain entity in the solution of its technical problems during a certain period of time.

License Agreement: Is the permission granted by the grantor or provider of the technology to another person or company to exploit a patent, a registered trademark, an industrial model or drawing and a secret process during a determined period.

Patent contract: It is the exclusive right, granted under the Law, for the exploitation of a technical innovation and that excludes other parties from the production, sale, import and use of the product that is the subject of the patent. It is a form of industrial property.

Management control: The management control is a managerial, integral and strategic instrument that, supported by indicators, indexes and tables produced in a systematic, periodic and objective way, allows the organization to be effective to attract resources, efficient to transform them and effective for channel them. Management control is a system of statistical, financial, administrative and operational information that, placed at the service of the organization’s management, allows it to take correct or timely decisions, adopt corrective measures that correspond and control the evolution over time of the main variables and processes.

Creation of technology: It is the search for original solutions to existing problems that require a technological solution, whether applied to processes in machinery and equipment or in people in the form of knowledge or training.

Creativity of professionals. The techniques and mechanisms used to encourage and develop the creativity of the people directly involved with the innovation process, especially professionals. The sector’s concern for encouraging creativity.

Business culture: Incorporated in the principles, behaviors, norms, beliefs and values ​​that constitute the expression of the business philosophy. It defines the way of thinking of the company, the way of acting.

Organizational culture: The culture is specific to each organization, including the values, beliefs and behaviors that are consolidated and shared during the business life. The leadership style at the level of senior management, the rules, procedures and general characteristics of the members of the company complete the combination of elements that make up the culture of a company. Organizational culture is the way of “thinking”, “feeling” and “acting” of organizations. It must be developed around effectiveness, whose main element is the self-learning that is achieved through the search for what influences the behavior of people, inquiring about what motivates and “moves” to do.

Data Mart: Data Warehouse limited in scope and / or approach.

Data Warehouse Global: Data Warehouse that covers the information needs

of the organization as a whole.

Data Warehouse: A copy of transactional data specifically structured for queries and analysis, which is Oriented towards topics, with Integrated information, which supports variations over time and whose information is not volatile.

DBMS: Abbreviation for Database Management System.

Technological disaggregation: It is the breakdown of each of the components of a technological package for the production and distribution of a good or a service. It seeks to disaggregate spinal and peripheral technology in order to improve the negotiating position of the acquirer, reduce the cost and volume of acquisition, generate demand for local goods and services and stimulate the dissemination and assimilation of technology.

Process technology: Refers to the conditions, procedures and forms of organization necessary to combine inputs, human resources and capital goods in an appropriate manner to produce a good or a service. It usually has to do with process manuals, plant manuals, performance calculations, material and energy balances, distribution of equipment, etc.

Product technology: It is the part of the technological package related to the standards, specifications and general quality and presentation requirements that a good or a service must fulfill. If you want to create a package where the product technology is predominant, you should have information regarding the description and drawings of the product, the manuals of use, application and maintenance of the same, the formulas and compositions, the specifications of raw materials, assembly instructions, tolerance, etc., as well as industrial property issues such as patents and trademarks.

Cutting-edge technology: It is the most modern of all. It usually requires a high capital investment for its acquisition and few companies own it.

Disincorporated technology: It is one whose knowledge has been extracted from people or objects.

Dynamic technology: That which has a high development through the time of validity of the technology.

Hard technology: The part of knowledge that refers to equipment, products, facilities, processes and materials developed by an organization. Hard technology refers to the mechanical aspects or hardware. It refers to the automatic and systematic, in this the risk is zero because it does not involve the emotional part of the people; It contemplates everything that is protocolized and is rigid.

Emerging technology: It is one that is appearing in the economic and industrial field and is being used by some companies.

Static technology: Represents low level of development through the time of validity of the technology.

Embedded technology: These are technologies that are neither modern nor primitive.

Acquisition of Technology Incorporated into Capital: those situations in which concepts, ideas and methods are incorporated into the firm through the purchase of new capital goods and productive inputs, in which case the acquisition of Technology “incorporated into capital will be discussed. 

Acquisition of Technology not incorporated into Capital: those circumstances in which such incorporation is the result of a research activity carried out either routinely or not outside the firm or at the request of the latter, in which case we will be referring to the acquisition of technology “disincorporated or not incorporated into capital”.

Free technology: Public domain technology, which can be accessed without restrictions. Knowledge is available in full.

Core technology: A set of knowledge that are essential, inherent, specific, specific to a project, service, product or administrative technique. Such knowledge characterizes the corresponding activity by way of its basic properties and requirements.

Modern technology: It is the one produced in the last decades. It is not the most advanced.

Obsolete technology: It is the one that has been completely surpassed by another more recent one because the new technology needs less capital, less work or less of the two factors to produce the same.

Peripheral technology: Set of knowledge that are specific to a process, product or service and that are necessary for the use of core technologies; It is related to all knowledge that is not the exclusive domain of a branch of the production of goods or services, but with those that can be applied to many different activities.

Primitive technology: It is one that has been used since ancient times, requires little capital and a lot of manpower. It does not produce large profits, therefore it does not develop the specialization of the workers, nor a rapid growth of capital.

Secret technology: It is one whose knowledge is protected. It is very difficult to have access to it or its cost is very high.

Technology: In its most general meaning, it is the set of ways and ways of doing things or the set of systematized knowledge for the production of a good or a service. Often it is scientific knowledge but also knowledge organized in another way, applied systematically to the production and distribution of goods and services. Technology is the set of knowledge and methods for the design, production and distribution of goods and services, including those incorporated into the means of work, labor, processes, services and organization. Technology is driven by need, by satisfying the needs of society, the economy and business. There is a practice of privatization and restricted access to technological knowledge. Technology is a system of technical knowledge, systematic knowledge of practical or industrial arts; It consists of a series of empirical techniques, traditional knowledge, craftsmanship, skills, skills, procedures and experiences that are not based on science. Technology reflects and is determined both by the technical relations of production and by the social relations of production (it is not neutral), within a given social formation; it constitutes a concrete response to specific social economic conditions.

Trend towards quality: The clarity in the objectives of the innovation, oriented towards the search of the quality of the products and the continuous improvement within the company.

Technology transfer: Technology transmission process (technical knowledge) and its assimilation, adaptation, diffusion and reproduction by a productive device different from the one that generated it. The appropriation of technology includes knowing its nature (process, product, tacit), the effectiveness of legal protection mechanisms (patents, copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, intellectual property) and complementary capabilities (marketing, quality control and support). On sales). The transfer of technology has the following modalities: sale or purchase of machinery and equipment, licensing agreements through which the use of legally owned technology is authorized, Know-How agreements when there are no patents, technical assistance, training, contracts for administration and marketing, research and development services, consulting services, engineering services, “turnkey” contracts, etc. The transfer of technology requires the issuance of a technology contract, an agreement by means of which a transferor discloses to a concessionaire the technology to execute an operation and / or license for the use of technical knowledge. Among the basic characteristics for the transfer of technology are: the degree of complexity, level of maturity, investment, characteristics compared with new technologies and replace, the economic environment, the scientific and technological environment of the country, the company is innovative, information on innovations, benefits expected by the user and the provider, costs, knowledge and legislation, among others.

Internal transfer of technology: It occurs between companies of the same type, by a producer of capital goods or raw materials, by a technical research or information center.

Real technology transfer: It occurs when the technology acquired is received by the country’s scientific and technological structure or by companies that carry out processes of disaggregation, assimilation and adaptation of these to local needs.

Transplantation of technology: Process by which acquired technologies are used without carrying out processes of disaggregation, assimilation or adaptation in them.

Vision: Provides the frame of reference of what the company wants and expects to see in the future. The corporate vision points the way that allows top management to establish the course to achieve the expected development of the organization in the future. It must have dimensions in time, be broad, inclusive, understood by the members of the entire organization, realistic and possible.

Abstract for Marxist Reading Group Conference

Kultural Marxism and Reflections on Venezuela’s Gramscian Fantasy of Exporting Revolution via a Long March Through United States Institutions

For over a decade Venezuela’s Intelligence Agency has operated a network in America to disseminate political values, beliefs, strategies, tactics, and knowledge from the Bolivarian Revolution to American audiences in hopes it would lead to political radicalization and domestic unrest such that a “multipolar” world would emerge.

This multi-faceted, multi-million dollar project inspired by Antonio Gramsci included funding and other forms of assistance to found or further develop: outreach programs which sought to unite poor Americans for economic and environmental justice; movements which seek to educate, agitate and mobilize African American and Latino communities for direct actions; support of alternative news outlets and messaging coordination with foreign state media; a large inauthentic coordinated behavior army of trolls to amplify their messaging; etc. in order to feed into the creation of a counter-hegemonic movement within America.

As participants were averse to sharing their funding, partnerships and end political goals to outsiders, prior to new technological methods involving data science on sources of public and private origin, documenting and charting these behaviors was difficult. Now, however, the unveiling of this information is on the immediate horizon.

This presentation will be an excerpt of an ongoing investigation into Social Media and Democracy by the author, a doctoral student in Innovation and Technology Management, former Marxist Reading Group presenter and applicant for a research grant in partnership with Social Science One and the Social Science Research Council. It will cover why Venezuela’s state media and their many U.S. partners will soon be removed from Social Media; why this isn’t censorship; and what this means for American democracy.

Keywords:

Political discourse in Popular Culture; Digital rhetoric and cultures; Data Science; Activism and commodification; Venezuela; Media Studies

Why Steve Bannon Beat David Frum in the Munk Debates

“BE IT RESOLVED, THE FUTURE OF WESTERN POLITICS IS POPULIST, NOT LIBERAL”

As a former Lincoln-Douglas and Policy-Forum Debater while attending Jupiter High School, and a teacher of Speech and Debate while working at South Broward High School, I was excited to see an ad for The Munk Debates in my Facebook feed about the above resolution between Steve Bannon and David Frum.

Rather than drawing out who the winner was, I’ll say that it was without question Steve Bannon.

You can see why in my below tracking of the debate.

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Steve Bannon’s first words presented a compelling narrative.

Etiological stories are powerful as they allow for an organic depiction of various actors and values and as it allows the audience to quickly project themselves amongst the group of actors described.

Bannon’s choice was all the more poignant – he describes the people arrayed in the White House speaking to the president during the 2008 financial crisis that caused numerous deleterious social, political and economic across the world. Bannon thus establishes his view of the driving concern of the modern populist movement – seizing power from a transnationally oriented economic elite – the party of Davos. The framing of the story allows the viewer, within the first minute, to either identify yourself as a member of this group – or as someone that has been affected by it.

Bannon then goes to define populism, as understood in this particular moment, to be equivalent with economic nationalism. Economic nationalism, as propounded by Bannon in this instance and shown by his expressed disdain for Richard Spencer, does not care about race, gender preference, sexual orientation or religion.

After a fawning show of respect for Bannon, Frum’s opening speech proceeds to develop a Manichean framework that he will develop throughout the debate. There is a choice between “renewal and destruction; freedom and unfreedom” in this given moment and to side with Frum is to side with the former. Populism is defined as Bannon and Trump and allude them to
I think that Frum made a lot of very unusual statements. For one, he says: “We are here to show that who are who are parents and our grandparents were.” and then states that the same fights that they fought are ours as well. This claim is made without a substantiation, and for those like myself that are deeply versed in American history this appears baseless.

Another aspect of Frum’s case that was peculiar and unpersuasive in their mobilization was his choice of political allusion.
Besides Donald Trump being president, the only other historical events that Frum cites are the Poppy Day and Kristallnacht. While rhetorically powerful points to mention, the bright line showing the connections between the 1918 and 1940 and the present is not. Frum doesn’t just make this poor allusion, but doubles down on it by making an extended point about how it is that Populism divides with more hints to Nazism and Fascism. To reinforce this construction of “the present populists are an echo of former 1940s villains” he then goes on to cite a number of current foreign politicians – which the audience is unlikely to be familiar with – to reinforce his claim that populists are crooks rather than giving substantive examples. Frum’s then fumbles with a prolix description of how those in the current White House are just interested in destroying things (apparently he’s not familiar with Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy and the notion of creative destruction) and then is unable to define what the “one assumption” that the new populism is based on because he has gone over in time.

Bannon’s retort that Frum is just smearing the populist movement and stating again how it was that it is previous government politics that drove people to become more politically involved allows him to deflate quickly deflate the case. By putting into context and then ending with a joke related to Trump’s poll numbers, he humanizes himself. More than that, he expands on his narrative, citing Hillbilly Elegy – a book that connects sociologically the deindustrialization of the United States with the opioid crisis.

Steve Bannon cites this as well as the $7 trillion dollars’ wars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the infusion of capital as the motivating factors for why so many people abandoned the traditional Democratic and Republican establishment. He then relates the traditional economic concern for the “Little guy” as the basis of traditional American (settler, colonial) civilization. By following up with the rhetorical point on Canadian’s Commonwealth status gains him extra points given the audience.

One of the points that I think Bannon would have benefitted by responding to Frum’s comment is when he impugns the ethics of Trump for extracting profits from his businesses – as this is a form of financial inducement. While outside the proscribed constraints of the topic – “Be it resolved, the future of Western Politics is Populist Not Liberal” it would have been worthwhile to point out how the Clinton’s liberal policies helped them turn from poor county lawyers to billionaires. Say what you will about Breitbart, some of their reporting, such as on the Clinton Foundation, is worth-reading journalism.

Frum’s rejoinder round two begins with a torturously long admission that Liberal democracy is in crisis, but then claims that “the failures of a good system are not a reason to turn to an evil one.” Another binary sans substantive policy discussion. He states that there is a need to “renew and repair,” but rather than giving any substantive description of what those mean, their correlative in the American social body, or how to address the issues perceived as ills. He instead goes on to bloviate about how inclusiveness is important. After Frum sits down to another round of speech-halting applause, a class on why closing a speech with such a sentiment is bad rhetoric because of the opening it provides the opposing side is then provided by Bannon.

He responds by postulating the fundamental need for the Populist movement to convert others to its position or die as a directive forced in the governance of America. This and his follow up drastically undercuts Frum’s projection of it as xenophobic, racist or religiously intolerant. The succinct 3-part definition that Steve then gives definition to Populism/Economic Nationalism via specific items of Trump’s policies: economic nationalism, America-first security policies and deconstruction of the administrative state.

Given that a significant portion of Frum’s speeches are reminiscing about the political acumen of Bannon and referred to him as a “fiery tribune of Populism” it, functionally debunks Frum’s construction of the operating principles guiding the modern U.S. populist movement.

Bannon states that what is needed is an economic order that does not orient itself to the maximization of shareholder value, but of citizenship value. As someone that’s admittedly not familiar with the writings of America’s Modern Populist Movement, I was rather shocked by this. Bannon directly counters another of Frum’s positions by refuting the notion of populism as “mere destruction” by pointing out that the new NAFTA trade deal that was just organized helps develop a manufacturing hub that will be able to counter East Asia.

Frum tells a long tale meant to highlight how Trump is clumsy and his trade advisor doesn’t have any peer reviewed articles, then makes an introduction of two news terms he wants to introduce to the debate – nationalism and globalism. Describing several cases of one population harming another for various, such as pollution or military action and climate change he makes a national socialist (i.e. Nazi) smear rather than interrogating these new terms in detail and then claims that peace and prosperity are liberal ideas. Since Frum has already admitted by non-rebuttal of earlier of Bannon’s claims that he was a “conservative” involved in all of the government decisions that he now rues – to me this was a shocking admission. Not only does this disprove his claim, but it also shows from to be an unprincipled character as he did not leave in protest of the “illiberalism” that went on in the name of liberalism.

Having myself studied the history, institutions and policies of the EU myself in a graduate seminar at FAU, Bannon’s rejoinder is exactly what I would have responded with to this Frum’s turn of the debate topic from populism and liberalism to globalism and nationalism. Bannon asserts the longstanding tradition of a state within specific geographically definable national limits, and describes the chilling sentiment by many people about the foreign imposition of rules and also the rule by foreign unaccountable agents in some ways over the conditions of their lives. Citizen empowerment is populism. Bannon points to the supply chain changes as positives, as well as states movements to maintain their sovereignty. Bannon also states an eminently quotable phrase. “We have socialism in the United States for the very wealthy, and the very poor, and a brutal form of Darwinian capitalism for those everybody else. The devil gets the hindmost.” Millennials are like serfs in their non-ownership, 20% behind where their parents were in a gig economy without careers.

In another one of Frum’s unfit forensic formulations he responds to Bannon by claiming that “Trump’s economy is the same as Obama’s, but with more tariffs, more inflation and higher interest rates.” Given the impact these three factors have on the totality of America’s economic activity – this is a strange formulation. Substantive descriptions of continuity are absent. After this poorly made point, Frum gives a self-negating formulation – stating that the populists attempts to bring manufacturing back via tariffs shows that they “don’t know what they want” and that “hate doesn’t build”.

Bannon counter’s Frum’s hate point by pointing out that Trump’s first act of travel to visit foreign dignitaries in Saudi Arabia to have discussions on how to eradicate Muslim extremism, how does the Arab world come together to stop Iran, and in some ways advise towards the development of a peaceful social modernity. I think a worthwhile point to include here would have been to point to the massive amounts of fences that have been put up in Europe over the past two years to show provide a counter-factual to Frum’s construction of Europe as “less hateful”. I’ve heard Bannon talk about “the signal and the noise” in other interviews, and he closes the rejoinder by making it.

The debate is then here interrupted by the moderator so that he can ask specific questions. While they are tangentially related to the topic and are generally interesting, I think the moderator failed to sufficiently keep the debate within the framework of the resolution.

Frum claims Trump won in large part by appealing to people’s desires to have a better healthcare system that costs less money, a point which Bannon places back on his lap by stating that it was the Republican establishment that fumbled there, having requested to take this part of leadership over and not being able to follow through. Bannon responds by furthering the definition between establishment Republicans and Populist Republicans by talking about tax rates – which Bannon wants to increase for those that are making more than five million dollars a year. Bannon excuses Trump as getting his “sea legs”

Frum’s competency criticism of Trump seems shallow given the context of the 2016 election – wherein a political outsider who does not follow all of the pre-established paths paved by moneyed interests is governing in a new manner. Individual mistakes are endemic to any such process and while it’s true about his past similar denigrations aren’t now made about the character of Bill Clinton for his failed push for single player health insurance.

Bannon shows that much of this friction stems from contrasting Trump’s policy of quantitative tightening – something not desired by all economic sectors – with Obama’s of qualitative easing as well as a new national security policy that seeks to ensure that America’s allies are paying for their protection as otherwise the burden falls on U.S. taxpayers to the tune of trillions of dollars.

After another faltering deference to Bannon’s biography, this time to his military record, Frum’s response is to give the unsubstantiated claim that by demanding more of their NATO partners, Trump is selling the United States. It’s a weird statement given the lack of context provided, and Bannon shows his smarts by not responding to the claim and instead going back to NATO and national security and then relates this spending to an expressed desire not to be an Empire or an Imperial power expending “deplorable lives” in foreign theaters of war but a Revolutionary Power.

Frum’s rejoinder here about race seems shallow and following this he starts going on about how Bannon and Trump are “selling the country to the Russians”.

While Bannon does not go into detail about this, given the effects of global climactic change will have on the Arctic trade routes over the next 20 years (I am deeply pessimistic about U.S. politicians ability to enact legislation that will allow for the reaching of targets for cutting emissions) there will likely be a major shift in U.S. and Russian trade, collaborative resource extraction projects and military interaction (as more bases are planted to protect the routes) I was hoping that he would. Suffice to say as the questions continue from the moderator Bannon comports himself with equanimity even though the questions are loaded against him. Being familiar with the shocking statistical increase in White Nationalist murders and assaults across the country I found his claim that the left was worse to be disingenuous, even if I could agree with him that attribution of such people’s actions cannot be honestly placed solely at Trump’s feet.

Frum’s closing is weak. He falters at two points in making his points and can again only make an appeal based on poorly-explained historical precedent that populism will fail. When Frum states that “Liberal democracy is stronger than it looks because human kindness and decency is stronger than it looks.” I can’t wonder what he’s referring to as he’s agreed with so many of Bannon’s understanding of politics from Bush II to the Obama. He then goes on an extended diatribe reiterating the binary terms by which he has referred to throughout the debate which – given what speech acts have transpired better the orators – rings hollow. Frum has simply agreed to so many earlier points that I read the caricature he presented of Trump and other populists as disingenuous. When Bannon opens his response with describing David Frum’s speech as “Very good, and irrelevant”. It certainly matched my own assessment. Bannon’s assessment that the future will either be left or right populism, i.e. Bernie Sanders/Jeremy Corbyn or Trump/Bolsonaro is also my reading of the current moment. As evidence to the anti-institutional sentiments of this moment in history, Bannon points out how none of the “traditional” Republicans – backed as they were by think tanks and major donations by billionaires – were able to beat Trump. Giving a final emphasis to his point by alluding to other major upheavals in the U.S., Bannon states that it is the fourth turning moment and therefor it has to be the time of populism. Though I would not have understood the depth of what he meant by this had I not already ready The Fourth Turning, it was still a well-enough explained concept that it related to the resolution in a powerful manner.

At the end of the debate, for all the reasons describe in my comments above, I believe that Steve Bannon won the debate.

That said, I’m surprised that Facebook didn’t consider as part of their collaborative production with the Debate forum a scorecard on their website. It’d be an interesting to see how people actually tracked and responded to the debate. A little bit more pre-planning would have made for more interesting results that that which was given.

In a last bit of commentary related to the debate I have to admit being curious as to the protest that the moderator alluded to in the opening. After doing a little bit of digging online, I was amused to learn that one of the organizations that was involved in the demonstration outside and that may be responsible for the protestor interrupting Bannon was none other the front group for the Venezuelan State in Canada: The CPC and the Hugo Chavez Front. I find this to be yet another example of Orwellian Irony given that the economic goals of their Bolivarian project are actually pretty aligned with that of Bannon’s Economic Nationalism and that both projects – via different methods – are involved in re-writing/re-interpreting the law in radical ways.

Hugo Chavez Front is one of the Venezuelan government’s 5th Estate Front Organizations.