Conspirituality

First of Matthew's two-part examination of why the hell questions of force, non-violent resistance with and without force, unarmed violence and property damage, and armed violence are so incredibly hard to talk about in a culture thick with spiritual and political bypassing. Are we capable of understanding the difference between morality and strategy?

Part 1 focuses on philosophy and psychology while Part 2 focuses on definitions and tactics. Together, both parts will push back on conspiracism about the identities, motives, and methods  of antifascists. Both will present slices of the rich discourse on violence and non-violence from antifascist history, including clarifying definitions of key terms. Both will open a space to think carefully about what intensities of self and community defense are both useful and tolerable in the fight against fascism. 

Part 2 gets into the very thick weeds of how the “strategic nonviolence” research of Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan is framed as empirical, but may be way more about idealizing Gandhi than about facts on the ground. Drops Monday on Patreon.

Huge list of references for each!

Show Notes

Stopping the Press: The Threats to the Media Posed by the Second Trump Term | The New Yorker

What the FBI Has Done, and Kash Patel Could Do - Columbia Journalism Review 

Hakeem Jeffries cracks down on Trump speech disruptions 

Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got Punched—You Can Thank the Black Bloc | The Nation 

Aamer Rahman: Is it really ok to punch nazis? 

$16.5M settlement reached in class-action lawsuit over mass arrests during 2010 G20 summit | CBC News 

Meditations at the ringed fence around G20 Toronto - rabble.ca 

Remaining Human: A Buddhist Perspective on Occupy Wall Street - Michael Stone 

Brief: The Outside Agitator Conspiracy Trope (w/Dr. Peniel Joseph) — Conspirituality 

Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years | Donald Trump | The Guardian 

40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Sunshine 

rules for radicals | saul d. alinsky 

198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION | — Gene Sharp

She Interrupted a Town-Hall Meeting and Was Dragged Out by Private Security - The New York Times 

Martin Luther King Jr. had a much more radical message than a dream of racial brotherhood 

The Enigma of Frantz Fanon | The Nation

Frantz Fanon and the struggle against colonisation | MR Online

Frantz Fanon and the Paradox of Anticolonial Violence – Solidarity

Frantz Fanon—a vital defence of violence by the oppressed - Socialist Worker

Land and Freedom (1995 Ken Loach) [ENG Sub] (starting at the collectivization debate scene) 

Full Spectrum Resistance — McBay 

The Failure of Nonviolence | The Anarchist Library 

Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | ROAR Magazine 

Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance | ROAR Magazine 

Social movements and the (mis)use of research: Extinction Rebellion and the 3.5% rule 

Responding to Domestic Terrorism: A Crisis of Legitimacy - Harvard Law Review 

Domestic Terrorism: Definitions, Terminology, and Methodology — FBI 

676 | United States Sentencing Commission

Activists use 'Tesla Takedown' protests to fight job cuts by Musk and Trump | Reuters

Tesla vehicles destroyed, vandalized since Musk began role at White House, authorities say - ABC News

Anti-DOGE protests at Tesla stores target Elon Musk's bottom line | AP News

Tyre Extinguishers: A Night Out with the Climate Activists Sabotaging SUVs

Leaflet | Tyre Extinguishers 

Tesla Stocks Tumble as Elon Musk’s Political Role Grows More Divisive - The New York Times

Internal Memos: Senior USAID Leaders Warned Trump Appointees of Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths From Closing Agency 

Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | ROAR Magazine 

Violence Will Only Hurt the Trump Resistance | The New Republic 

Why Not Riot? Interview with Author Ben Case - CounterPunch.org

10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Director Ken Loach

BBC Taster - How to Make a Ken Loach Film

Land and Freedom (1995 Ken Loach) [ENG Sub]

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Lately a lot of folks (including us) have been doing the fascism comparisons.

The questions we ponder this week: How long it takes for fascism to fully dig its roots in, how varied is the opposition along the way, and what role does the media play?

Show Notes

165: Outrage Machine (w/Tobias Rose-Stockwell)

16 October 1919 | Hitler Archive

Konrad Heiden 

Fritz Gerlich, publicist and prophet – how did he resist the Nazis? 

Fritz Gerlich 

Nazi Germany’s Schriftleitergesetz: The End of Freedom of the Press - Arolsen Archives

The illegal press – Verzetsmuseum  

The Liberal Media Always Fails Against Fascism — Robert Evans 

Can a news media that doesn’t really oppose fascism ever cover it well?

Against Normalization: The Lesson of the “Munich Post” | Los Angeles Review of Books

The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler

Fascist-Sympathizing Newspaper Barons Were the Blueprint for Today’s Right-Wing Media

Media's Failure in Times of Crisis: Election Coverage in the Interwar Period

How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler | Smithsonian

How Britain's Nazi-loving press baron made the case for Hitler | The Times of Israel

Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2016). Is there a “postmodern turn” in journalism? In C. Peters and M. Broersma (Eds), Rethinking Journalism (pp. 97-111). London: Routledge.

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The MAGA attack on government jobs, takeover of government agencies, and purge of supposed “DEI” and “woke” professionals has a long history in the US. Julian uses old-timey newsreels, biographies, and events in the public record to trace the lines from 1919 to today, making stops at the so-called Red Summer’s “race riots,” Red Scare communist panics, Hollywood Blacklist, and Lavender Scare that fired thousands for being presumed gay.

Unrelated to any of this completely useless and repressive paranoid bigotry, actual Soviet spies were being apprehended and prosecuted—even then everything was not on the level. The prosecutors had their own hidden skeletons and shady bedfellows, even as they claimed the patriotic moral high ground.

At the heart of this history is a lineage of men who never let truth get in the way of gaining, and wielding, power and cruelty. Julian uncovers a surprisingly direct lineage of dirty-tricks demagogue succession, from Woodrow Wilson to A. Mitchell Palmer, to J. Edgar Hoover, to Joe McCarthy, to Roy Cohn, to Roger Stone, to our current president.

Editorial Note: The Paul Robeson clip that starts the episode is a re-enactment by James Earl Jones for the Zinn Education Project. It uses the transcript of Robeson’s 1956 appearance before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

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MAHA's response to the measles outbreak has been horrific, though expectable. Yet RFK Jr's op-ed, in which he advocated for the MMR vaccine, ripped apart his coalition—briefly.

Derek looks at the responses to Bobby's moment of clarity, then contemplates what MAHA really wants now that their champion is the bureaucracy.

Show Notes

Dr Jessica Knurick’s video

Vitamin A For Measles: Kevin Klatt

Measles is not a harmless illness — complications include brain damage, immune amnesia, and death

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This week we’re looking at how folks who associated themselves with the magical and morbid QAnon memes about the “coming storm” that would destroy the Deep State have become that storm, mainly by talking about it, and are now in the position to congeal an even Deeper State characterized by more repression and control. They’re doing it both as conspiracists and as conspiracy theorists would predict: as rich guys pretending to be oppressed.

This opens up the question of “Have we been here before in the US, and what happened?” The parallels are uncanny. In the late 1920s, Henry Ford had his car dealers stick copies of The Dearborn Independent newspaper in the glove compartments of new cars. That was the rag in which he published excerpts of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Today another auto baron, Elon Musk, busts out seigheils and posts Nazi memes whenever he likes. But only one of them got a White House office.

CDC Statement on Measles Outbreak

US Health Secretary Kennedy calls for end to deadly Texas measles outbreak

Copy of STORM is HERE Data 

LIVE: Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing for FBI director 

Kash Patel Wants to Work From Home for FBI. But Who Does He Live With? | The New Republic 

Kash Patel privately agreed to hire an experienced deputy FBI director. Then Trump picked a loyalist | The Independent 

How Dan Bongino Went From Infowars to FBI Deputy Director | WIRED 

How Trump’s Justice Department has gutted the government’s ability to chase public corruption | CNN Politics 

123: The Red-Pilled "Academic" Who Named Our Podcast — Conspirituality 

Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy — The Public Domain Review

Conspiracy Theories Abounded in 19th-Century American Politics | Smithsonian 

Wealthy bankers and businessmen plotted to overthrow FDR. A retired general foiled it.  

Medical Mystery: What killed ‘Red Scare’ Sen. Joseph McCarthy? 

FBI director considering having UFC train agents in martial arts, say people familiar with plan | Reuters 

What We Know About the CIA's Midcentury Mind-Control Project | Smithsonian 

FBI Records: The Vault — COINTELPRO

On campaign trail, RFK Jr. pushes 'bonkers' theory about CIA's 'takeover of the American press' - ABC News  

Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style” Can’t Help Us Now 

Rehabilitating McCarthyism 

JFK, Richard Hofstadter, and the ‘Paranoid Style in American Politics’

Ford's Anti-Semitism | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

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Former "race realist" Richard Hanania recently published an article on The Free Press claiming that all those Nazi salutes the right is waving high in the sky is really "just trolling." Derek disagrees.

Show Notes

Enough — John Ganz

I Can Explain Why the Nazi Salute Is Back — Richard Hanania

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Is life worse for women now than in the 1950s? In a recent interview for The Free Press, author Louise Perry and journalist Bari Weiss muse on just how much women have lost since premarital sex was normalized, the pill reduced sex to consequence-free hedonism, and Roe v Wade rendered abortion as common as going to the dentist. Perry calls this “re-paganization,” delivering an eloquent longing for a lost golden age of female subservience as Weiss nods along and smiles. It’s all very heterodox.

Or is it? No mention of the impacts of Project 2025, the dangerous ascendancy of Christian Nationalism, or the deadly crisis of women’s health in full swing.

Julian analyses their conversation to pinpoint how digital new media dresses up traditionalist right-wing talking points as if they’re open-minded, edgy, and brave intellectual insights.

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Trump has decreed it’s the Gulf of America, and Google agrees, at least for US users. Rep Buddy Carter has introduced HR 1161, the Red White and Blueland Act of 2025 to rename Greenland. And then, of course, there's making Canada the 51st state.

Pay attention to shit like this: it's a magic spell.

Trump is speaking in the old language of the Discovery Doctrine. That’s what we’ll excavate today.

Show Notes

Zizian Killing Spree and Arrests

Zizian leader denied bail

Roko’s Basilisk and Zizian beliefs/practices

Feb 2023 Community Alert about Ziz on Less Wrong

Project 2025 Observer

Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny — Richard J Miller

Trump calls Canada a 'very serious contender' to become 51st state 

H.R.1161 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025 

DISCOURSE ON COLONIALISM Aime Cesaire Translated by Joan Pinkham 

Biography - Burnum Burnum - Indigenous Australia 

The fight to 'free' the Aboriginal flag

Common Methods of Annexation | Snohomish County, WA

Doctrine of Discovery: How the 500-year-old Catholic decree encouraged colonization 

Speech Acts (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 

Mexico's President Sheinbaum threatens to take legal action over the Gulf name change : NPR 

How Canada planned to invade the U.S. (and vice versa) 

Poilievre says Canada is broken

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What do we worry more about: the far-right beliefs of trolls, or the coding skills of the trolls? 

The split focus on Marco Elez and Elon Musk—are they Nazis, or hackers, or Nazi hackers?— highlight two prongs of emergent fascism. The ideological/aesthetic/psychological on one side, and the technocratic on the other. We can call them the manners and the machine. 

First, Matthew unpacks a century-old thesis by an OG fascist that says totalitarian regimes take shape when both are working together, but that ultimately, the coup d’etat is about seizing control of the machine. 

Then he rounds off with a rant about how easy it is liberal-centrist discourse about manners to distract from the reality of the machine. Why? It’s because in the absence of a clear analysis of how capital and power work—it’s in the sphere of manners—that liberals feel they have a fighting chance. But it’s also exactly where Musk and Elez and Vance and Trump can ignore them.

Show Notes

A Doomed Democracy | STANFORD magazine 

The October Revolution - Introduction | Marx Memorial Library 

Alexander Kerensky Dies Here at 89 - The New York Times 

Curzio Malaparte | Italian Author, Journalist & Politician | Britannica 

Reading the Eccentric Italian Writer Who Tried to Cover Up His Fascism ‹ Literary Hub 

Curzio Malaparte: The Illusion of the Fascist Revolution 

The Californian Ideology 

The Californian Ideology Personified - Truthdig 

Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology on JSTOR 

175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian) — Conspirituality 

Opinion | Don’t Believe Him - The New York Times 

Welcome to Neokayfabe — Abraham Josephine Riesman // Writer 

 40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Street-Legal Tactics for Community Activists — Spencer Sunshine

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Education / Public service alert:

Matthew critically reviews six books that define fascist eras and recount how they have been opposed. A kind of “here we are, now what?” episode that hopefully interrupts the doomscroll with the sobriety of some practical considerations.

Formats range from popular nonfiction to academic history to pragmatic field guide. Politics range from liberal to anarchist. More feminist and non-white sources to be reviewed soon.

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 

Timothy Snyder’s Bad History | City Journal 

Robert O. Paxton - The Anatomy of Fascism 

Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind. - The New York Times 

How to Stop Fascism 

Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook  

Curzio Malaparte - The Technique Of Revolution 

40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Street-Legal Tactics for Community Activists — Spencer Sunshine

Joyful Militancy | The Anarchist Library 

Let This Radicalize You | HaymarketBooks.org 

Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life — Natasha Lennard

DISCOURSE ON COLONIALISM Aime Cesaire Translated by Joan Pinkham

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