Commentators from the media and both major political parties have been quick to condemn the rebellion, but few have ventured to explain the event. Yet many factors contributed to the rage that fueled the siege. It cannot simply be attributed to Trump’s rhetoric. (Originally published on RT.com. January 7, 2021.)
A socialist-communist sequel is coming to a theater near you. Some of the same old characters are reappearing, while new ones have joined the cast. While the ideology and rhetoric sound nearly the same, they are being put to slightly different ends. This time around, the old bromides and promises are in play, and a similar but not identical bait and switch is being dangled. Socialism promises the protection of the beleaguered from the economically and politically “evil,” the promotion of the economic interests of the underclass, a benign banning of “dangerous” persons from public forums and civic life, and a primary or exclusive concern for “the common good.” China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative may hang the takers in Africa and other underdeveloped regions as if from an infrastructural noose. A different variety is on the docket in the developed world, including in the US. (Originally published on the Mises Wire. January 1, 2021.)
As I noted in the previous installment, the Great Reset, if its architects have their way, would involve transformations of nearly every aspect of life. Here, I will limit my discussion to the economics of the Great Reset as promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF), as well as to recent developments that have advanced these plans. (Originally published on the Mises Wire. December 26, 2020.)
The Great Reset is on everyone’s mind, whether everyone knows it or not. It is presaged by the measures undertaken by states across the world in response to the covid-19 crisis. (Originally published on the Mises Wire. December 16, 2020.)
While my country’s currently the Dis-United States of America, calls for it to be broken up into a Republican-dominated state and a Democrat-dominated one are so radical that it’s difficult to see how it could be implemented. (Originally published on RT.com. December 5, 2020.)
Editors' note: Michael Rectenwald is a former leftist who has become one of our country’s most effective critics of the Left. After being forced out of his professorship at NYU, Dr. Rectenwald has written four books explaining the mindset, tactics and goals of the new generation of intolerant leftists -- including, Springtime for Snowflakes, Google Archipelago and Beyond Woke. Thought Criminalis his new work of fiction that parallels our present state of affairs and points to a terrifying future lying just around the corner. Kenneth Timmerman has called it “the 1984 of the Covid era.” It is Frontpage's honor to run an excerpt of Dr. Rectenwald's new book below. (Excerpt fromThought Criminal on FrontPage Magazine. November 24, 2020.)
All but leftists realize that Big Digital corporations like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and others lean left and squelch opposing views. But few ask why they are apparently leftist, let alone satisfactorily answering the question—to my satisfaction, that is. How are we to understand the blatant and well-documented leftist bias and the censorship of non-leftist views and sites by these companies? Why leftist? Is the Internet leftist merely because those in Silicon Valley have been indoctrinated into leftism?
And, should we adopt the view that since Google, Facebook, Twitter and others are private enterprises, they can be as biased and censoring as they like? After all, aren’t these private platforms and not public utilities, with no obligation to represent views with which they disagree? They are no more obliged to do so than I am obliged to allow some Antifa member into my home to spout his, her, or zir beliefs, right?
These are the kinds of questions I hope to address in this talk. The answers should go a long way toward explaining the disavowed yet blatant attempts on the part of Big Tech Internet companies to impact the 2020 election, and much, much more.
(Presented at the Mises Institute’s Ron Paul Symposium. Lake Jackson, Texas. November 7, 2020.)
It seems that the woke world uses Orwell’s 1984 as an instruction manual, as it changes word uses and meanings by the day. Now the phrase ‘sexual preference’ is out—after its use by a leading LGTBQ magazine only weeks ago. (Originally published on RT.com. October 15, 2020.)
Why do giant corporations and billionaires fund Black Lives Matter and Antifa, both avowed socialist groups? And why do the leftists accept their aid? They both want a kind of socialism, but only one of them could get their way. (Originally published on RT.com. October 12, 2020.)
Facebook has stepped up its ban on the pro-Trump conspiracy movement, but in doing so, it simply feeds into the ‘conspiracy theory’ that the social media company is part of a ‘deep-state’ apparatus hell-bent on global control.(Originally published on RT.com. October 9, 2020.)
Trump calls the Iraqi invasion ‘a disaster,’ wants to end ‘endless wars,’ and bring US troops home. It’s this that has fueled the deep state’s attempts to remove him from office by any means possible. The hawks want Biden to win. (Originally published on RT.com. October 6, 2020.)
Nearly 2/3rds of Americans believe the nation’s on course for civil war, and 1/3rd now support political violence. The Civil War’s death toll won’t be beaten, but the second will be unequalled for its nation-destroying potential. (Originally published on RT.com, October 5, 2020.)
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed on Sept. 18. Ginsburg, a feminist and role model for some women across America, is being lauded as a “legal giant” and “trailblazer,” accolades being doled out across political boundaries. Ginsburg was dedicated to jurisprudence tasks, even pouring over legal briefs from her hospital bed. But what did Ginsburg trailblaze, and in what sense was she a legal giant? (Originally published in The Epoch Times. September 20, 2021.)
Not long after 9/11, academics began to weigh in on its cultural and political meanings (or lack thereof). Ward Churchill’s scandalous reference to the victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmanns” provided fodder for political talk-show outrage. On the other hand, Jean Baudrillard contributed the quintessential postmodern response, which went largely unremarked upon outside of academia. In Simulations (1983), Baudrillard had described the postmodern world as a series of simulacra, a spectacle of simulations without originals. Suburban neighborhoods, amusement parks, jungle dioramas in shopping malls, and even the political left and right – these were all simulations without originals, imitations without prototypes. Baudrillard enraged both left and right when he remarked that the first Gulf War “wasn’t real.” He meant that the real had been displaced by images and history by the serial reproduction of imagery…
Rather than “an inside job,” Baudrillard suggested that 9/11 represented a suicide, self-destruction committed by everyone within the global system. The self-immolation hadn’t been planned so much as wished for – by everyone, including its victims. According to Baudrillard, everyone who witnessed “the event” openly or secretly rejoiced at the exposure of weakness at the epicenter of power. “The moral condemnation and the holy alliance against terrorism are on the same scale as the prodigious jubilation at seeing this global superpower destroyed – better, at seeing it, in a sense, destroying itself, committing suicide.” Even those who enjoyed its advantages held a death wish for the global system’s uncontested power. Even its victims had been “complicit” in the system’s symbolic demise. The West acted the part of “accomplice in its own destruction.”
“A Postmodern Suicide.” Excerpt from Springtime for Snowflakes.
Reading the news, one might come to believe that US higher education has devolved into nothing more than a “social justice” indoctrination camp and that any deviation from the orthodoxy is impermissible. And one would be right. (Originally published on RT.com. September 10, 2020.)
After scholars decried English as ‘anti-black linguistic racism’, the nation’s leading academic language association acceded to the demand that black students no longer have to think about proper English, let alone use it. (Originally published on RT.com. September 3, 2020.)
What if the politics of the left actually serve the interests of the would-be corporate monopolists and that is why these corporations embrace leftism? That would mean that woke capitalism is actually the expression of corporate interests. (Originally published on GlennBeck.com. August 18, 2020.)
The First is an intervention into the present-day free speech controversies that begs for our attention. Unfortunately, Fish’s new book does little to clarify the issues and in fact only compounds them by introducing a parade of specious homologies and straw man arguments. With his characteristic slipperiness, Fish is a sophisticated postmodern leftist who contrives convoluted arguments for proscribing expression that he doesn’t like. Academic Questions. July 24, 2020.
Some major corporations now intervene in social and political issues and controversies, partaking in a new corporate activism. The newly “woke” corporations support activist groups and social movements, while adding their voices to political debates. Woke capitalism has endorsed Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo Movement, contemporary feminism, LGBTQ rights, and immigration activism, among other leftist causes…The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed. Recorded at the Mises Institute on March 22, 2019. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.
