It Could Happen Here Weekly 92

bunch of really funny things. I saw this morning. Actually, there was this hair salon who was refer to serve LGBTQ clients, which now all of like all of like the suppliers for the hair salon are no longer sending orders to the hair saloon because they're also allowed to discriminate from this hair salod because of the same ruleing.

So it's creating all these really complicated like supply chain things with businesses choosing to be really homophobic and queerophobic and then like type of like a supplier is just not then just not giving these businesses the supplies they need to operate their business, which is pretty funny.

like like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of history that pre date the American system arguably can trace us back to the Roman system. One of the things that's fundamentally based on is that you cannot try a case on a hypothetical. Something has to something has to actually happen for you to have a case, And this case has just thrown that shit out the window.

What appears to have happened is that she and like this sort of like one of the one of the sort of right wing like legal networks got together and cobbled together this business like specifically so they could get this ruling.

like he's a dictator. Oh yeah, that's like on the level of like evil on a dictator level, Like he's not He's no mau he's no Hitler, Like come on, like he also like again, he is not a dictator. He was just some fucking random guy like the guy you kill our streak furnite Like okay, baffling stuff, but but okay, the important thing about this.

just like incredible corruption that he's doing. So okay, so I'm gonna start with like this is like this is like like the level one corruption, which is so Crow bought Clarence Thomas's mom's house and then did quote tens of thousands of dollars of improvements to the home, and he seems to have bought the house for like significantly above market rate. And so this is this is a this is I'm gonna, I'm gonna we're gonna do it. We're gonna do a corruption anatomy here because this is

a classic Chicago, uh corruption scam. So there there's like there's like six revenue streams in this. Right, you have the money from the sale, which goes to like you know that that that that's that's like that's your level one bribe, right is you're selling, you're selling, you know, you're you're selling your house to someone at above market value. The level two bribe is, uh, you're not. You're now throwing in the renovations because his mom is still living in this house.

She did give one hundred thousand dollars to Harvard to buy a portrait of like to get them to hang up a portrait of Clarence Thomas, so you know he is a deeply weird guy. But this, uh, this.

vacant lots? And the answer to this question is that these people are part of the real warsoisi they are like they they they are like as alien to us lstate scamming, right, this is like yeah, like basically yeah, like they're they're they're they're they're doing stuff, like they do stuff with their money that like makes them like like they they are like as dissimilar to us as

like we are from like a fucking Neanderthal. Like these people, like the way they think about money, the way they like just like the way they act in the world, the way they relate to other people, like the fact that they're just buying random fucking lots like across the

street from their parents' house, like why who knows? And and Okay, so the thing that's very important about this right is if you you know, okay, everyone in the government right from like starting from every core that is below the Supreme Court down to like a fucking astronomer who works for a national lab If you receive a like a large gift over five hundred dollars, you have to report it to the government, and there's like an ethics process you have to go through.

actual enforceable ethics standards the Supreme Court has. You have to report it. It doesn't have to go through an axcess commission. You just have to report it.

private chef. If Thomas had chartered the plane in the one hundred and sixty two foot yachts himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded five hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately for him, that wasn't necessary. He was on vacation with real estate mogul and Republican mega donor Harlan Klohe, who owned the jet and the yacht too.

Crow helped finance. I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There's something normal about.

the government, and he simply did not. And you know, this is one of those things where okay, so like if a normal person does this right in the governments, you would take them to court. But we've now returned to our problem of who watches the watchers because it's Supreme Court, right, they've established themselves as a dictatorial ruling council based on a power grab. And you know, I'm gonna do my the Supreme Court rant I do every time. But the Supreme Court does not have the power of

judicial review. They do not have the power to strike down laws. They don't have it. They fucking get vened it out of whole cloth in eighteen o two. It doesn't exist, it's not it's never been real. You can just fucking ignore them. But in the meantime, while everyone believes it it's real, they get to do this bullshit. And you know, so, yeah, so that that Indonesia trip is like the big one that we know of. He

took another one to like Moscow and another. But the other thing that that see he seems to have been doing a lot is basically like he like just uses Harlan Crowe's private jet as like his own jet republica calculated that like one just like one flight that he took in twenty sixteen would have cost seventy thousand dollars, which is more than I make in a fucking year.

and and this whole thing we should specifically know. So okay, the reason the Supreme Court has to do any of this at all is that the stream is that like someone finally had a good idea right after Watergate that was like we should actually make everyone in the government disclose their gifts and this and this law actually like included the Streame Court, although I feel like it won't in like two years when they strike that law down

or some shit. But you know, but again, like one of the things that like specifically in this law is if you take a private jet, you have to report it. And Thomas has been just like jetting out in this fucking jet for like a like many like at least like at least seven years that we know of, and has never reported it.

bullshit like political lobbying group. But it's like so it's a lobbying group, but like the actual thing that it does is reverse lobbying, which is you can go to the lobbying group and use it for like to get access to Clarence Thomas, and that group funded. God, I didn't write down the number of mount like that group got like two hundred thousand dollars that again, his wife works for got like two hundred thousand dollars from crow.

this kid. Okay, so a thing, a thing that I didn't understand until I got to like college, is that, like, Okay, so like I knew intellectually that private schools existed, I did not understand that private schools there are like like there's like because I was used to like like Christian private schools, right, yeah, yeah, I did not, Like I didn't like get how rich people could be, and I

didn't understand that that they were. Like I I like, walk in there and there's like nine kids who all speak Latin and every single one of them went to a private school that was like fifty at least fifty like somewhere between fifteen and one hundred thousand dollars a quarter. Yeah,

is like what the fuck? What the shit so Clarace Thomas isn't so his the schools he's going to aren't quite that expensive, but the kid, the ones he sends this, this kid to, So for two years, the estimate is that it was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year. That was for two years, so seventy five thousand dollars a year, which again more than I make it a year.

It's like what and you know, but like so, but the funniest part about this is again, whenever any of these pieces come out, like every single conservative like pundits like in Unison and like like all of their fucking newspapers, all of their magazines, they're all funded by these people, so they all like published like identical things going like how dare you criticize like the noble friendship of hard of this billionaire and the Supreme Court justice or just pals.

They're just extending hospitality like you would to any other friend by taking them on a half a million dollar cruise around on your yacht. It's it's it's it's like incredible stuff. All right, we should do we should we should do one more ads because you know who's These are advertisements that we are being paid to promote.

a unique situation the history of the court. And then like like literally two months later, so Samuel Alito, who is another Supreme Court justice, I in and this isn't. This is in two thousand and seven, appears on a a two hundred thousand dollars fishing trip in Alaska with a billionaire hedge fund manager, Paul Singer, who is Singer is like one of the most like Okay, as much as I don't like Carlan Crowe, like, Singer is like one of the most evil people who's ever lived.

that's like one thing that he does. The other thing that he's cool, Well yeah, I mean it sucks because like every single person who would work, they lose their drop. But this that's the less bad thing that he does, right, Like like this this is what I'm talking like, this is like legitimate one of the worst people in the world, like for like any norm like Mitt Romney, right, like that was the worst shit that he ever did. Was was like just destroying a bunch of people's lives by

like annihilating these companies. For Singer, that's like that's like the fuck, that's the bullshit stuff like that. That's like that's the fucking brush league shit. Singer's actual game is so one of the things that happens over the course of the seventies and eighties is you get a bunch of uh I've talked about this at length of my Neylberalist and episodes, But you get a bunch of these economies that basically like across the global South that just implode.

And they implode because there's this combination of like commodity prices drop and then they have all these adjustable rate like loans that they're taken out and when Paul Volker hot like hikes interest rates, all of these like loans suddenly have like twenty percent interest, And so you have all these economies all over the world that just fucking are imploding because they suddenly have this like unbelievable that they can't pay off, and so over the course of

the nineties, this kind of like anti IMF revolts starts and I have the International Monetary Fund are the people who you're borrowing money from who also destroy your economy to like you know, like pay the IMF back the money. By the time you get into like the two thousands, it's gotten less bad. Well, I guess bad again, tails Nate.

But there had been this process of debt restructuring where these countries were allowed to like only pay like a small percentage of the debt because they just literally couldn't pay it because their economies have been destroyed. Or and this is another very common thing. You get a country where like a bunch of loans were taken out by like a dictator and he would just like buy planes with them and then he get deposed. But you know, the IMF and like the World Bank was still hold

them liable for the loans. And it's like, well, okay, like that's like the money's gone right, Like it's in like a bunch of gold bars. This guy like drove across the border when he like fled.

economy into this debt servicing machine. We're like just like every like there's they're like they're they're there's they're stripping the copper wires out of the buildings in order to like fucking pay for oh metaphorically, so metaphorically they are

stripping the copper wires to pay this debt off. Uh, not metaphorically, they are taking food from the mouths of babies, because the way this stuff is paid for is they cut a bunch of government assistance programs and they're like, you know, they don't build fucking hospitals, they don't staff hospitals, and so like a lot, Like he has killed a lot of people, and his his most famous version of

this was this battle that he waged against Argentina. So in in two thousand and one, there is this massive like basically like the last twentieth century, like the last twentieth century, communist revolution happens in Argentina in two thousand and one, and they lose, but it's they they lose

like pretty it like only pretty narrowly doesn't work. Like there is a there is a timeline that is not that different from this one, where like like a bunch of anarchists basically have taking control of Argentina, and the result of this is that Argentina defaults on its debt, and you know, they default in this debt, so they enter this restructuring program, and all of the rest of the like people who are like holding this debt are like, okay, well,

in order to let the Argentina economy recover and get like some of this money back, we'll just like let like okay, well, we'll like write off most of our debt. But Singer like looks at this and is like, oh shit, I'm just gonna buy all this debt that I know is junk and can't be repaid, and then I'm gonna go to the courts in the US and like just force Argentina to repay it. Now he sees not how debt is supposed to work.

But what Singer figured out is that you could just use the US court system and you know, the threat of the the the implicit and explicit threat of the US military to just like force people to pay you whether they have money or not.

order to pay down the debt. There's another one where like he tries to like he tries to steal Argentina's entire pension fund. And this causes this like series of like lawsuits that sort of like run their way through the courts, and in twenty fourteen, one of these cases

finally makes it to this review court. And this is where Singers two hundred thousand dollars Alaskan fishing trip pays off because Samuel Alito rules that Argentina has to play Singer two point four billion dollars and eventually they do so. Alito like like he's also he also has another guy

who just like pays for his vacations. Who's the uh I don't know if I want to say incredibly named or disturbingly named, but this guy's name is Robin Arkley the second wait, Robin Robin Arkley the second second God, Okay, yeah, and he's a also like a genuinely terrible person, like these are these are all like you read Hitchhickers. Have

you read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? No? Okay, So my favorite bit from that is there's a bit where like the encyclopedia from the Foundation series, like from the future, like falls down and it falls open onto a page and someone had just made a joke about how these people are gonna be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. And the Encyclopedia for the Future drops down and they open it and it says that these two people were first against the wall when the revolution came.

And that's like all of these people, these are like the worst people in the fucking world or like in the US.

takes Alito on a bunch of trips. So when when Republica like reaches out to Aledo about this, he gets so mad that she the Wall Street Journal editorial board allows him to publish a like an op ed that is just him yelling about how this article that hasn't come out yet is fake. And one of the specific things that he's really mad about is part of this article is talking about how the wine at this met at this like lodge that he's staying at that's being

paid for by by the fucking mortgage slipper. Guy has a thousand dollars a bottle wine and Claire's time was just like, no, the wine is not was not a

thousand dollars a bottle. You can check the website. And then Republica was like, well, yeah, but that's because the lodge, like the quality of the lodge was downgraded after Alito had like one of the like just just just a truly incredible meltdown that he was just allowed to have in the op ed section of the Wall Street Journal in like in response, not even in response like before this article came out. And the other thing that we learned from this is that also apparently former Justice Antonin

Scalia also was taking trips from this guy. So this is just like every conservative like justice in the last like twenty years has just been doing this. They've just been getting like flown around the world on fancy vacations by their billionaire friends. Well, I don't actually know if I actually might merely be a millionaire. I'm not tired sure, but he may might be a billionaire.

the government and he just didn't. And this and this is a this is a really important thing, which is that Supreme Court justices it's like your fucking daughter like could be one of the plaintiffs in a case and you don't have to recuse yourself. Is recruising yourself is completely voluntary, m which is not how this works for fucking anything else. Right, But again, the Supreme Court is

not like it's not actually a court. It's just like a fucking it's just this like weird dictatorial tribunal that

is subject to like absolutely no authority whatsoever. And Okay, So it also turns out that there's like there's like yet another layer of fuckery with this, which is that universities u Supreme Court used Supreme Court justices to solicit donations by like so so they'll they'll have like a don invite a justice to like give a talk at the university and they'll pay them a bunch of money and then they'll they'll have them like go to a dinner and then they'll advertise to all their donors like, hey,

if you give us a bunch of money, you can go to this dinner with Supreme Court justice. And so a bunch of like like a bunch of people who have cases in front of the Supreme Court like use this to go get access to a bunch of Spreme Court justices. So it's great, this is this is really fun. Oh did I did I do the Venmo thing? No, I've got the Venmo thing. Okay, Okay, here's the Venmo thing. So two days after I started, like like two days ago, like from the time of writing this will be like

like this will actually be like almost exactly. Wow, It'll be like almost a week from when when this comes out.

there are liberal billionaires. The actual real problem with a liberal attempt to like take control of the judiciary is that like liberal like liberal lawyers are hacks instead of actually like trying to hold on to like judicial positions, right, and you know, to have to like move their way up through like circuit courts in order to like like seize control of like large, like increasingly large portions of

of the court system, which is all the Republicans did. Uh. The Democratic lawyers, they'll they'll get like like they they do the even lazier corruption, which is like they'll just they'll be a judge for like three years and then they'll just leave the private practice because they're all just

fucking greedy shits. And you know the result of this is that all these like fucking liberal lawyers, Uh, you know, they go into private practice and make a quick buck and they leave us to fucking burn to death in this smolder and keep while they spend their vacations in Bali.

And you know, and and again, the only the only thing that like could conceivably slow down the Supreme Court is the fact that like technically speaking, so it's never actually gone through, it is possible for like Congress to impeach the Supreme Court justice. But the Democrats don't want to do that because because then the right, we'll be able to impeach all of the liberals justice.

bribes in the history of the fucking republic. And the Democrats are just like, wow, if we do anything, it'll undermine the faith in our institutions. So I gad, fuck them. But also like, we don't fucking need these people like you could, Like you could, you can fit all of these people in one submarine and we could just be fucking dumb with it.

of European settlers in the late eighteenth century. The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in eighteen forty between the British Crown and Mari chiefs, was meant to protect Maori rights and

ensure a peaceful co existence. However, as a bilingual text, it kind of sucked at being bilingual because some of the words in the English treaty did not translate directly into the written Maori language of the time, and to the Mari text is not an exact translation of the English text, particuarly in relation to the meaning of having and seden sovereignty. In other words, the full implications of

what they were signing was not fully understood. The concept of private land ownership as the British understood it clashed with Maori communal land practices, which led to a significant

land loss for Maria communities. The New Zealand government implemented policies and laws that systematically favored European settlers, and throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, Mari lost control of much of the land they had owned, sometimes through legitimate sale, but often by way of unfaired land deals, settlers occupying land that had not been sold, or through outright confiscation in the aftermath of the New Zealand Wars and New Zealand Wars, where they also as the Land

Wars or Mari Wars, were a series of conflicts that took place in Auti Aura between the indigenous married people and the British government and its colonial forces. These wars banned from the early eighteen forties to the late eighteen seventies, and the underlying cause was that very stroubled for land and resources as European settlers were arriving in increasing numbers and more and more dispute ceteris and over land ownership

and the interpretation of the Treaty of Watangi. The wars were fought on multiple fronts involving different married tribes and regions. Conflicts included the Northern War, the Tehrank, the Taranaki Wars, the Wakaito War, and the Tauranga Campaign, and these were also characterized by a combination of gorilla warfare, fortifications, and conventional military tactics.

Married children were often forced into English speaking schools where their own language and customs were discouraged, and that also led to decline the use in transmission of the Mari language and the loss of cultural identity for many Maria individuals.

This I think can be characterized as a cultural genocide. Moreover, discriminatory pract justices were prevalent in various areas and putting an employment, in housing, and in political representation, married people faced significant barriers and discrimination when seeking employment or housing opportunities. They were also underrepresented in political institutions, which limits to their ability to advocate for the rights and influence decision

making processes. Now, the seeds of contemporary married activism were sowing in the sixties and seventies. Struggles were taking place basically from the point of first contact, but Mari activism as we understand it.

same time. So the New Left and autai rower was shaped by these international developments. The late nineteen sixties when it's a surge in student activism and the emergencyverior social movements again environmentalism, women's liberation, anti racism, et cetera. And so Mari protest groups were really picking up on those movements, and those movements would shape the mindsets and the actions

of Mari protest groups during that period. They were taking the analysis and the understanding of racism and inequalities faced by MARI in a broader context, and so they will aligning themselves with class struggle as well and were to progressify due to the left at large. So this point in time, the Maori struggle, it was characterized as largely leftist. That is something that will change later on as the movements become more heterogeneous, but for now it's been mostly leftist.

Even though there were some part protest groups that were less left oriented and more just you know, national liberation and focused, they still saw themselves as part of.

Pakeha antiraist groups and the emergent Maori protest movements. One significant event that really brought them together was the exclusion of Mari rugby players from the nineteen sixty All Black Tour of South Africa by the New Zealand Rugby Football Association, and that decision, of course sparked widespread opposition because at the time South Africa was very much involved in the part TI and this decision to exclude Mari rugby players from the team and from that particular tour led to

many protests under this banner of no Maori, No Tour, which focused on only in the exclusion of the Maori, but also on the morality of engagion with the country

practicing apartheid. More collaboration would take place in the form of the formation of the Halt All Racist Tours Group also its Heart in nineteen sixty nine, which is an umbrella organization that united a couple different voices and groups, both Maori and Pakeha in the opposition to reduce their discriminatory sports tours and they ARESO involved organizations like ker which included young Mari political.

organization and in broader society. So they're fighting to presume the politics and culture and language of Mari society while also seeking liberation from the oppression that they would face in that Maria society. So it's a struggle for both preservation and also reformation of Maori society, or rather liberation,

preservation and reformation. There was also an increase in strike activity and general class struggle happening during the late nineteen sixties, which had a significant impact in the political education of many Mari workers who were fighting for better wages and

improved working conditions. Trade unions were playing a crucial role in providing organizational base for MARI protest groups, as demonstrated by the emergence of groups like Tehokioi and the Mari Organization on Human Rights or MWHR, both located in Wellington and both strongly connected to trade unions. The secretary in fact of the MWHR, Tamapuata, was actively involved in the

Wellington Drivers Union and the New Zealand Communist Party. These organizations were advocating for an alliance between MARI and progressive elopments. In the working class I view, the fundamental contradiction society is being between labor and capital, between workers and bosses or landowners, and racism was seen as a consequence of class inequality, and the majority of Maori being working class were considered an impressed segment.

That may be true, but then at the same time you also to consider that the racism embedded within you see, the society, you're not going to go away just as a result of the end to that class based depression. To be fair to the MWHR, they will also playing an active role in reaison awareness about racism specifically you know, in housing, in sports and employment, and in violation generally

of marrit political rights. They also had a very strong stance on issues related to the Treaty of Waitangi, you know, the alienation of Mari from the land and the depletion of resources and the inability of Maori to access those resources. Their stance, interestingly enough, was really on sort of reclaiming the Treaty of Waitangi as a potential foundation for harmonious and bicultural country with the conditions that past injustices were

addressed and rectified. However, like I alluded to earlier, there would be a shift as the movements would progress. The inspirational monum behind the te ho Kioi and MHR had begun to weigne, particularly during the lea to mid nineteen seventies, and eventually in nineteen seventy five, the m WHR would merge with Matekite as part of the Land Rights movement, which marked the end of their separate existence and also

led to the rise of Brown Power. So if brown power sounds like black power, that's because it's copy and black power. Similar to the ideologies of black power advocated by folks like Kwamiture and Charles B. Hammat, Brown power centered on the complete rejection of the racist institutions and values of New Zealand society, and the belief that the

group solidarity was essential effective collective action and negotiation. The proponents of brown power urged Maori people to unite to recognize their shared history and the faster sent of.

adjustment or cohabitation with existing structures. It is a movement that desired complete autonomy from those systems, from those structures, an assertion of the freedom of married people to exist and not have their existence in pots to port. The organization Tamatoa initially drew inspiration from the revolutionary faction of the Black pap movement in the US. However, as the group evolved, different interests and objectives had emerged, which led

to a division within the movement. On the one side, they were the conservative, university educated members such as Sid and Hannah Jackson, Peter Reikis, and Donabtiri. And on the other side they were the more militant proponents of black or brown power like John Ohio, Paul Kottara and Tednia. Eventually, unfortunately, the more conservative members of Tamatoa really took center stage

in the movement. Their strategies diverged from the militants in that they sort changed through alliance with more liberal elements within the Ruins. They believed that by implementing appropriate legal measures,

MARI could achieve prosperity. They were really advocating for like wealtha and self help programs for our development, and in fact, there was even some belief among them that New Zealand capitalism coupled with the parliamentary political system could be rid of racism, that you could extract racism from capitalism and then everything would be hunky doory.

that kind of thing. And well, we've seen consequences to that. I mean, they are more black billionaires and millionaires than they ever have been in human history. But that doesn't mean racism has been dealt with. Putting aside the capitalist oriented advocates of Brown Powell on the revolutionary side, a new group would emerged to challenge the system. And this group and you're going to you know, going to pick up on a little bit of a theme here in

terms of inspiration. This group was called the Polynesian Panthers. Interesting establishing. Yeah, they were established in June of nineteen seventy one, and they had a membership primarily composed of Pacific Islanders such as simmer Ones, Tongueuns, and New Ones, and they drew obviously explicitly inspiration from the Black Panther Party in the United States.

down to migrants are to blame for everything. So as the production boom was subsiding in the mid nineteen seventies and living conditions were deteriorating, racism and police harassment against

Pacific Islanders became even more prevalent. And by the Pacific Islanders does technically refer to Mari as well, and the Polynesian Panther party position is that Mari our Pacific Islanders are into the part of the Polynesian Panthers, but speaking specifically about the migrant Pacific Islanders and they experiencing they're

doing three, you know, just like the Maori. They're dealing with low wages and poor living conditions and the government, you know, being migrants, they're an even more precurious position because government had taken a more aggressive stance towards over stayers, people who overstayed on their work visas, which put these first generation New Zealanders at risk of deportation to countries that they had never visited, had never known, you know,

being forced into these precarious circumstances. A lot of young Pacific Islanders were living in unsafe neighborhoods and a lot of them felt compelled to join gangs or to stay hidden at home for survival, and so the Polynation Panthers really emerged as an alternative option, seeking to provide a more positive path for young people in Pacific Islander communities.

The Polynesian Panthers were particularly influenced by huy Newton's policy of Black Unity, and also echoed his distinction between revolutionary and cultural nationalism when debating the conservative members of Nagatamatoo.

The Panthers identified their root cause of Pacific calendar oppression within the exploitative social relations of the capitalist system, and so they advocated for a liberation strategy that involved completely overthrowing the capitalist system and the social relations and enabled its existence. And so in practice this meant that the Panthers expressed solidarity with other liberation struggles, oppressed groups and activists, and ultimately aimed for a global revolution.

the movement. As they shed light on the daily struggles faced by Maori and also other Pacific Islanders, ranging from land claims, discrimination, police violence. The Panthers actively worked to unite Maori and Pacific Islanders in a pan ethnic coalition, which contrasted with the viewpoint in Nigard Tamato because they

were prioritizing Mari unity above everything else. It almost reminds me of the the way that sometimes in the US context there were some organizations, or rather there are some to me SI of organizations that are attempting now in the present day, to emphasize African American unity above and before any other form of Pan Afghanism, more Black unity, so an insiduous seeds, to attempt to distance African Americans from the rest of the BLASBA and to ferment divisions

between African Americans and African immigrants or Caribbean immigrants. So again the tactics the strategy is the it feels like a canon event at this point that there will always be These individuals or groups were trying to find ways to chop up and to divide troops that should be united and have a lot to gain from being united

in a common struggle. The Panthers, along with any other Pacific Island youth, were actively working to support MARI causes, including the nineteen seventy five Landmarch and the Bastion Point occupation. They became one more depth at political lobbying, which became apparent during the Dawn Rates in nineteen seventies and the

Spring Bok Tour of nineteen eighty one. T Ness was jailed for his actions during the tour but essentially released out charge and will Lahya, along with jne Harawira and others. One trial for two years, only getting off the charge after and you know they'll come your parents here. Bishop Desmond tou Tou, well known South African activist, flew in to be a character witness for their trial, and I

think I'm going to put a pin on it. There covered the seeds of contemporary Maria activism, the trade union movement, Brown Power, and the Polynesian Panthers. And in the next episode we'll talk more about the development of the land rights movement and the weaknesses of the Mari struggle in the post nineteen eighties context. That's the penal for me. I'm Andrew could follow me a youtubet at andrew'sm and

supporting patron of commns slash Saint Drew. This has been it, hey everyone, and welcome back to it could happen here. In my last part, I spoke a bit about the historical context of.

in the US, formed the Polynesian Panthers. For those on where this as it could happen here, I am Andrew of the channel Andrism, and I'm joined.

government's commitments to Mari rights. The Mari land rights movement emerged from nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy eight, bringing together diverse range of activists the sort of alliances with workers both Mari and Paquale, viewing them as natural allies in the fight against oppression. The common enemy was seen as the racist and capitalist state. The occupation of Bastion Point and subsequent viction from Bastian Point intensified the direct

conflict that the movements were happened with the state. It garnered their public support and also the involvement from the Paquea left. The Auckland Trades Council placed a quote unquote green band on the area which went refusing to allow work to commence on the planned subdivision, and a north shore contractor even donated six trucks, including two Bitjumin tankers

to help with a planned blockade. The occupation at Bassian Point was followed by arrests at the Ragland golf Course, and many of those arrested were representatives of various activist groups. The land rights movement and the struggle against Racism radicalized a group of Mari women who were already part of Nagatamatoa to go on to form the Capital B Capital

W Capital Black Women's Movement. In the early nineteen eighties, the Waitangi Action Committee married People's Liberation Movement to our Ta and the Black Women's Movement emerged as prominent Mari

political activist groups, primarily based in Auckland, New Zealand. They continued the protest tradition of Nagata Matoa with annual protests to the Watangi Day celebrations, and they even came up with the idea to call it the Cheaty of White Tangi instead of the Treaty of White Tanki very clearfl and they also called for a boycott of the celebrations.

Not initially, Marie activists had collaborated with certain Pakeha anti racist groups, but that association was weakened after divisions emerged during the anti Springbok tour protests in nineteen eighty one, which, as you may remember from the previous episode, was a protest against the national rugby team's participation in a tour

that included apartheid South Africa. The perception was that Alisa mang Luri that many Pakeha had failed to recognize the connection between aparthide in South Africa and colonialism and racism in New Zealand, and so the bonds between those two movements would beginning to weaken. Add On top of that a prolonged economic crisis that was taking place in New Zealand during the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties as a result

of course of the inherent tendencies of capitalism. The government had to grapple with the crisis of political legitimacy and of economic management, and that of course fueled further.

While some ARIA activists that sought strategies to challenge the system and addressees inequalities, others ended up pursuing struggles that posed little threat to the state and fail to address the courses of economic and social crisis inherent to capitalism and the initial focus of Marie culture nationalism was on

secure and Marie studies and language programs in the educational system. However, the move on eventually shifted its emphasis towards this rediscovering Maori history and culture more broadly, and along the way, there was less emphasis on putting together a robust political movement and robust strategies for broader social change, and while Failiar movements had a very clear focus on left wing politics. It's also around this time that we see a shift

towards a broader range of politics, including right wing. One of the most important books in the Maria Actress movement at the time was Donna our Seria's Maori Sovereignty, published in nineteen eighty four, and that book was really less of a critique of right wing racist politics and more of a critique of left social movements, which, according to Auritiri, was committed to a status coo characterized by white supremacy

and Marie subordination. And she was calling everybody else she was called Pakeha activists, whether they be feminist, trade unionists, socialists or otherwise. She called them all out as ben committed to the status quo of white supremacy and Marie'sbbord nation.

Around this time there was also a growing sense that pake has society was intrinsically based in competition, exploitation and material success, as opposed to Maori society and Maori values, which culturally was more communal, more collaborative, and more focused on the wellness of the whole. And so the solution was seen as really emphasizing cultural consciousness, but the emphasis and cultural consciousness Aluin often led Mary away from political

activism and towards purely cultural writer list pursuits. In nineteen eighty four, the Fourth Labor Government was elected and it sort of addressed the rise in Mari protests by enhancing the status of Mari culture specifically and incorporating Mari representation and practices within state institution shots. This approach is known as by culturalism, and it extended the jurisdiction of the White Tanki Tribunal and incorporated Maori personnel and cultural symbolism into government institutions.

the world. You see that the government seeds a certain ground but it does so so it doesn't lose other fights. It pretends to lose certain battles so that it can win the war right because in conceding to more reformist demands of the movement, it allowed them to marginalize and to disempower the movements more radical demands, and it allowed them to put forward this pr face of doing a good thing for the Maria community while not actually challenging

the underlying social relations of racist and capitalist society. Basically, the state's adoption of ethnic rhetoric and corporation of Mari elites into state institutions save to appease a decent portion

of Mari protests while maintaining the status scope. Now, after the Labor government had introduced the Treaty of waitang Gi Amendment Act, which expanded the powers of the White Tangi Tribunal in nineteen eighty five, the White Tangi Tribunal actually had very little power when it came to enforcing its recommendations. So it would hear out these cases of land theft, It would hear out, you know, these Maori individuals or groups would invested a lot of time and energy and

resources into their land claim cases. The tribunal would find them correct. It's like, oh, yeah, they did steal from you. You probably should get that land back. But the only thing is we can really help you. The tribunal, which was set up to help with these cases, didn't actually have the power to enforce its recommendations, to actually enforce the settlements. It came to it was toothless to really

end up being a waste of energy. And at the same time, the Labor government was doing some economic restructuring and to reduce government expenditure and implement an economic plan to restore profitability, which included like deregulation, privatization, dismountling with

the welfare state. Again echoes this is newliberalism one o one Thatcher regan all of u because the claims that were made to the wait Tangia Tribunal and the recommendations made by the tribunal posed obstacles to that sale of state owned enterprises and that further restruction the economy towards more new liberal ends. There was a growing scent within the government that this was quote unquote special treatment for Mari and the political costs associated with the tribunal was

just causing too much headache for the government. And so by nineteen eighty nine, just four years after they introduced that act, under the immense pressure of you know, these smart people getting in the way of their ability to new liberalize, the Labor government ended up downplaying the significance of a treaty policy. And while that's going on, the government has co opting key individuals in the Mari protest

movement through various negotiations and consultations. More and more of this quote unquote Mari elite was being brought into the fold of the state. Came in privileged positions and wealth, and so they became insulated from the grassroots Marie struggle.

The following government, not the Labor government, but the national government also sort to restore profitable investment in the New Zealand economy and to address some of the uncertainty created by the treaty claims, and so they went to the Mari elite, did their little negotiations and they decided to

settle certain claims to the fisheries around New Zealand. That became known as the Sea Lord's Deal, which caused a lot of headache and anger and divisions in the Mari community because of the lack of transparency and democracy in

these negotiations. The it was made between the New Zealand government and a group of Mari corporate entities known as the Sea Loord Group in nineteen ninety two, and under this agreement, the Sea Lord Group, which was said to represent Mari interests, acquired a fifty percent steak in Sea Loord, which is a major seafood company New Zealand. The other fifty percent remained with the Japanese fishing company Nisui, And so the deal was seeing as a resolution like, yeah,

we put ourselves in the back. The Maori were making these claims over fishery resources. So we met up with to Marie businessmen and gave them a fifty percent steak in Sea Lord.

that represent all of us? And it's actually kind of similar to what was happening during the initial stages of the land theft that was taking place during New Zealand's colonization, because when I mentioned in the first part that some of the land were so legitimately, what I mean by that is certain Mari individuals saw an opportunity to profit

by screwing over everybody else in their community. So they would claim, oh, yeah, this is my land, completely disregarding the fact that this is coming on land that it has been for generations. This is my land, So I will sell it to you. You give me the money, and so I, you know, profit and a real sort

of suck. So as kind of seeing that mirrored in this nineties context, and then at this time with the divisions in the community over the decisions made by these Mari elites, they were even further divisions trained by some negotiations that were all taking place for the government's one billion dollar fiscal Envelope, which is an attempt to evoke a full and final settlement of all remaining treaty of

Oitangi claims. Basically the government was saying here here have some money, get out of the way, shut up bas it so called reparations right, and so there was another upsurge of Mari protests and you know, more of people were frustrated and there was traited desperation because there was really a lack of options for resolve and the crievances

that they were dealing with. Some of the protests were continuing the struggle with the land right to move onto the nineteen seventies, but others were challenging the decision making power.

these representative bodies inability to accurately represent them. And another key component of this division was the fact that the more middle class elements or middle class professional elements of the Maori population were enjoying an expansion opportunities and were growing in wealth and prestige, but they were leaving behind the working class Maori population, which was still struggling in

the same way they had been for decades. The policies of both the Labor government and the national government disproportionately impacted working class Mari communities, and the movement there was supposed to represent them had lost sight of them and their interests. There was a lack of intermovement solidarity, of pushing for fundamental social change instead of these individual changes,

and there was a sense of crumblence internal cohesion. Some marioctivists such as te Ahu who, like I said in My Free Spot, I drew primarily from their work when researching this particular history, and they were very critical of that historical period and particularly of the personalization of the

conflict for liberation. And so their position was that by focusing on individual relationships and prejudices, rather than challenging the systemic structures perpetuating opression, it left the struggle to be fought on this individual level, while the larger system was left unaddressed. And particularly because you know, in the eighties there was a shift away from class struggle as a

central component of the Maori struggle. Middle class and wealthy Mari interests were dominating the conversation and their interests were exclusively in cultural nationalism, with no real room for working class struggle. For class struggle in any form and then part of that whole strategy and that will focus on exclusively cultural nationalism would attempt to throw everybody under this one.

Under this broad brush, right, the wealthy new liberal Mari politicians would be in the same vein as the impoverished and unemployed working class Mari despite their clear differences and access to economic and political power. And so this notion of Maria as a homogeneous group with identical experiences and political aspirations, disregarding the diversity within Marie society and the conflicting political strategies within Marie communities, would really weaken the

cohesion of the struggle as a whole. And I don't know how else to say this except there needs to be a recognition of racial struggle, gender struggle with class struggle, of struggles for ability and disability justice, like inter sexuality, intersectionality. It's really so simple. Cultural nationalism has its place, but it's very insufficient and very easily cooptible. That's why the New African anarchist Ashanti Austan says that we must go beyond nationalism, even.

in itself. It does little to change material realities. Tea who in their piece had said that while and I'm quoting here, while culture and identity remain absolutely essential to Mari social wellbion, it does not automatically follow that cultural identity alone should provide the organizational basis for the fight

against racism and Marie disadvantage. Because identities are blurred and multiple, any fight against Mario oppression must be based upon building the strongest possible liberation movement by uniting different oppressed groups into a common struggle. This is essential because true liberation for Mari will not occur without a fundamental transformation of capitless society and the creation of a classless society in which there is real women's liberation, gay and lesbian liberation,

and freedom from racism endquote. Historical evidence has shown that the political movements based solely on the identity of the participants could be very diverse. Let's just say on the spectrum there are reactionary and their revolutionary segments of pretty much every national liberation movement, from Black Power to Free Palestine. Because when the focus is on cultural or national liberation, there is a lot of room to adopt a variety

of approaches and a variety of political aims. I so it's a lot of room for middle class interests to dominate as they have a lot more time and resources to contribute and take over the rhetoric and the messaging of the causes. Another example that we see in the feminist movement, which in a lot of ways diverge from the struggle of working class women towards the more niche interests of you know, the girl bosses who we're facing genuine hills in their climate, the corporate ladder.

to achieve the objectives. There's no unanimous agreement on the vision of Tino Rangatira tanga, which is the Marii term for Mari self determination. Tino Rangatira tangle can be associated with Mari capitalism, electoral power, cultural nationalism, or revolutionary activity. In the past, some artists had believe that fundamental transformation the system was necessary for liberation, and so they rejective reformism. But the landscape has changed.

But I hope that the takeaway here has been clear, and that is the need for a clear intersectional approach to revolution in our struggle against racist, sexist, capitalist, et cetera society. The Mari movement is still ongoing. And though the focus of these two parts has been pmarily on the current rather has been primarily on the struggle of the sixties, seventies, eighties, and early nineties.

putting Ron, Yeah, Pudding Ron old dasanct demonious. Now, Garrison, you've got a banger of an episode written out here. I'm looking at your script right now. It's beautiful. Right before we get into it, I do want to give an update on a past subject if it could happen here Lord Miles Rutledge for those of you who may

not have caught that episode. Lord Miles is a British Man who went to Afghanistan to hang out and got caught up in the Taliban's you know, victory in that war, and then turned himself into a danger travel influencer, visiting in dangerous place, going to war zones, going to Ukraine

and like making it about him. He went back to Afghanistan because it really was better for his social media following than any of the other places he went, bragged about breaking laws, including faking his visa, and then got arrested and has been radio silent for about the last five months now. A lot of people have wondered is Lord Miles dead that he liked die in custody in the Taliban are trying to keep it a secret, but worry no longer. Friends today his account posted this is

a friend of Lord Miles to give an update. Four months in Taliban custody. He's treated very well, has several servants, loads of movies on his laptop, goes on picnics and has tea with the Taliban cabinet government. He still loves Afghanistan. And then there's a photo of him giving the thumbs up. Dou't so he's not dead, guys. He's in a nice Taliban farm upstate. Gets he gets to run all he wants, you know, wide open fields. He's super happy. It's really funny.

One of his All of these people are so fucking brained, poised, brain poisoned, but like a big part of Miles, he was like trying to also be kind of a right wing influencer. He was doing this like anti woke. The Taliban is awesome and like actually kind of good guys because they they don't like believe in the woke agenda. And one of his friends, after this message got posted, like messaged his account be like, hey, Taliban, if you're the guys that have like captured him, we really want

him back. I'll pay a ransom. I'm like, I know this is probably just a misunderstanding because you guys are on our side on the anti woke war.

pretty extreme like homophobia. He attacks Trump for for for previous statements that Trump has made regarding LGBTQ rights, and then the video kind of transitions and we see basically a version of what we're gonna call fash wave, and I'm gonna explain all of these terms here in this episode, but we're seeing kind of a resurgence of a political meme style that was popular years ago. It's kind of laid dormant the past year or so for reasons that

we will very soon discuss. But a whole bunch of both conservatives and liberals are kind of not really sure how to take this ad shared by the Desanta's campaign and are ill equipped to understand what the fuck.

laser eye type things. So we're gonna start with this because this is actually one of the one of the most common traits of fash wave, and we've seen this be adopted by multiple politicians in the past, and most people probably like don't know what the fuck this is, like is this like a Superman thing? Like what what the fuck is this? So laser eye memes started in the early twenty tens, originally referencing video games like Mass Effect two and other like sci fi and superhero media

people like Superman or anyone with like laser eyes. Is also like a a like a cultural touchstone for this sort of thing. The laser eyes usually represent like a figure growing in power, So when when someone has laser eyes and a meme, it's like they are they are They're gaining power, the gaining security. The The original caption for the early laser eye memes was assuming direct Control,

which was also just a video game reference. So again I would have someone with like glowing glowing laser eyes and text that says like assuming control or assuming direct control.

So this was this was popping off in like the early twenty tens, Around the same time, synth wave and vapor wave were gaining traction as both like nostalgic musical microgenres and a mimetic visual style featuring neon glitchy kind of eighties retrocomputer aesthetics mixed with traditional Greco Roman sculpture for a variety of reasons which we'll touch on, but vapor wave had influences from video games, cyberpunk anime, and it was it was relatively popular as a microgenre in

like the twenty teens, and throughout the twenty teens, both the laser eye memes were steadily growing in popularity on places like Reddit and four chun alongside the rise of a vapor wave and its kind of surrealist, nostalgia laden aesthetics focused on highlighting the comfort and unfulfilled promises of the Internet of yester year, and this like nostalgic surrealist aesthetic was prime bait for easy co option into the reactionary meme variant dubbed fash wave, which soon became kind

of the de facto esthetic of the then burgeoning alt right. Glowing laser eyes on various fascistic political figures became a staple of fash wave during the rise of the alt right around twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen. I actually kind of like vapor wave. I think it's maybe a bit overplayed now and It certainly is frustrating how much it was kind of taken over by reactionaries, because actual vapor wave is almost actually like anti capitalistic in a few ways.

It's kind of it's kind of criticizing the disposableness of like modern consumerist culture using like forgotten eighties technology and like software that kind of stuff. So I'm looking at two of my little vapor wave images here in the script, and it does some of some of the little like ways that the images are broken up makes it look kind of like like old Internet pop up ads back when they had like clearly defined borders and x'es and weren't just like overtaking your entire screen and you had

no way to close them. But you know what does kind of overtake your entire viewing experience via an ad. It's it's podcast advertising because it's going to go straight into your ears, and there's no way to x out. You have to you have to suffer through the ad unless you unless you figured out that you can press

a button that makes you go forward thirty seconds. Anyway, anyway, here is here is our beloved, our beloved sponsors who fund such vital research that I that I'm doing for this episode anyway, the rise of the alt right to this is kind of where where fash wave is both like getting the name fash wave and also you know, it's becoming a larger problem because there's more Nazis wing around.

So after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the Altright went through a sort of split between the more Trumpian adherents, who made up large parts of the then dubbed all to Light, a term we don't really use it very much anymore, and then this kind of other section which had more of the accelerationist neo Nazis who were starting to congregate on the messaging app Telegram. And then we have groups kind of like the Proud

Boys that are like in between. They're kind of Trumpian, they're also also like more fascy, but they're not like really full skull mask. Usually some would adopt that esthetic later on, but that's kind of due to this cultic milieu that's starting to develop on Telegram. So a fash wave largely followed the self proclaimed fascists, so it too became the central visual style of the of the burgeoning network of militant accelerationist telegram channels, which would eventually be

dubbed terror Gram Terror as in terrorist. And this was combining with a whole bunch of weird factors around twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, including the Boogloo Boys, which Robert has written about at length before It's and it was also influenced by the Iron March forums and like the skull Mask network with groups like Adam Waffen and the Bass, they were all the.

They kind of like haunt us. If hontology is a big reason why liminal spaces got popular because of early nineties and uh and two thousands, like aesthetics of like big office buildings that are now left empty.

pretty were pretty popular. It's like the the sun wheel version of the swastika essentially, but a lot of these are like remember tradition embrace your race with like Nazi figures in like this monochrome style over over like scan lines like you would see on like a like an old like arcade video game that has like that has like a horizon, but you know, all like neon colors kind of kind of like glitchy type stuff. There's there's one Trump one here from like twenty eighteen where he

has glowing yellow eyes, also in the fashwave style. So this was kind of the aesthetic around around twenty nineteen here and like fashwave was definitely still common on imageboards like four chan, eight chan, and eight kun, but the ever pressened kind of hitler particles and poor web design on those sites drove away most of the mega conservatives who might try to stumble on to four chan or to eight chan to like watch q and on stuff.

It was just it was just the site was too hostile to them and then circled Like twenty twenty, among waves of Twitter and Facebook suspensions, Trump supporters and high profile far right figures started congregating on other platforms. A few Twitter clones popped off, like Parlor and eventually Trump's Own Truth Social but a number of mega conservatives also ended up on Telegram, in part due to telegrams largely

off approach to moderation. So around this twenty twenty and like just post twenty twenty time period is when Telegram began functioning as the far right's very own cultic milieu, a sort of like shared online space where various memes, ideologies, conspiracy theories, and propaganda could all intermingle with each other and spread. Now, part of this is how Telegram operates as a platform. I'm going to quote from an article

about Telegram and the cultic milieu from logically quote. Telegram offers features that straddle the line in between social media and messaging app. Users can create channels which function as one way message channels that allow someone to send a feed of messages available to all of their subscribers. Public channels and group chats are searchable by name, allowing anyone to subscribe to a public channel or join a public group.

Channels and groups are uniquely connected on Telegram. When a message is forwarded from a public channel into another channel or group, it links back to the origin group, creating a chain in between different channels and groups. Another common feature is for users to advertise for channels and groups in other channels and groups, with some users creating directories of these channels and these big group chats that have

extremist content unquote. So this kind of interconnected nature that allows this chain link of being able to award a message, Like you have a Telegram channel with like three thousand people in it and you post fash raight memes. You can make some fash rave memes in the style of like Trump, and then you can forward this message to a Trump channel that has forty five thousand members in it. They see this meme, they might like it, they click the meme, it sends them back into your three thousand

person channel. So now they're going to getting exposed to all of the other weird shit you have going on. So it became a really easy way to kind of make a rabbit hole and like a pipeline for people to get exposed to new aesthetics, new ideologies, and especially conspiracy theories. I think we should have an ad break now and we will return to talk about the the increased Trumpian focus on fash wave that happened as a result of this kind of telegram cross proliferation.

Dark Mega promoted a form of dystopian inspired overt authoritarianism with the assumed direct control laser eyes front and center, and for emphasizing militaristic domestic connotations. Dimlylit images were usually edited in red or blue monochrome. Dramatic images of Trump are fairly prominent, as is the presence of weapons and the occasional Nazi symbol. I have two examples of fashwave here for for for the UH for the gallery. James, what do you what do you.

to like manage a black powder rifle. I would, I would really deeply enjoy that. It's as good as a Tucker Carlson shooting. They like the sec fire rifle was a very funny moment. Yeah, the guys who pretend to light guns so.

he can fill. He was too kind hearted, too forgiving Dark Mega demands he learned from his mistakes. Another dark Mega propelled it just described uh described the intentionality behind the movement of being quote if you want to win, if you don't want to repeat the past, you have to get mean. You have to almost embrace the villain

role that they're bringing you with. So that's fun. But uh, but like dark Mega's ambitions were to be more than just a meme, but instead kind of be the first real attempt at a coherent post at right aesthetic that

was being pushed by mainstream political actors Uh. And included in this push was kind of a pressuring back toward militant posturing after the failed pseudo coup on January sixth, because in those first few months after JA six, everyone was like, oh, you know, we probably shouldn't be doing super overt like violent propaganda if we're if we're like

on the right. And then over over time, and I think Dark Mega was part of this, was the right realizing that maybe they should just keep going and like go back to that much more kind of like Milton posturing that they were doing beforehand. I have, I've I have a few other a few other dark Dark Mega images here one with Trump and a skull mask and UH and pit vipers holding a Bible in front of a pit vipers.

blue monochrome with Trump with these blue laser eyes. And this is kind of the this is like the main dark mega aesthetic here is this one that's just like red with with with with like a dark dark blue as like the accent and then these little laser eye things.

So dark megas had the goal of serving as both a rebrand and an attempt to reunify the various disparate factions of the online right into using attention grabbing authoritarian propaganda to push Trump and his supporters even further into the extreme while holding on the legitimacy that is lacking in the contemporary sketchiness of like the Proud Boy groups or like Patriot Front, which especially after J six, the Proud Boys legitimacy took a big hit, and all of

these fucking Dark Mega guys think that Patriot Front's like a fed op. So it's it's it's it's it's a it's a way to kind of like push a new version of the alt right that still relies on the legitimacy of Trump. To quote the Institute for Strategic Dialogue quote, the secondary aim of Dark Mega is to launder more extreme narratives and aesthetics into the mainstream Trumpist movement, an attempt to introduce mainstream conservatives to more extreme parts of

the right through melding Trump memes with these different aesthetics. So, like we kind of mentioned before, the previous attempt at this was the White Boy Summer trend from twenty twenty one, which I and Robert have already wrote about before. And White Boy Summer was influenced by very similar kind of fash wave telegram asthetics, but it was really successful in leaking through to one or two Republican politicians, namely Paul Gosar.

and content creators. Among the Dark Mega proponents were Republican candidates like Tim Swain, a former strategist now Blazed TV employee Logan Hall, Andrew McCarthy, far right propagandist Jack Sobiek now former Congressman Madison Cawthorne, and former White House lawyer Andrew Closter, and was even boosted by the father of accelerationism,

Nick Land, was a brief Dark Mega proponent himself. Famously, Marjorie Taylor Green joined in on the action in May of twenty twenty two under the hashtag ultra Mega, but with the same like red monochrome images with the big glowing eyes. Probably the most upsetting bit of Dark Mega lore was a post that Madison Cawthorne wrote on Instagram. He had this post full of like here's the list of America First Conservatives. Look how small the list actually

is the people who are truly America First. And attached to this little image of this list, he wrote an extremely unhinged Dark Mega post. This was also in May of twenty twenty two. Quote the time for genteel politics as usual has come to an end. It's time for the rise of the new Right. It's time for Dark Mega to truly take command. We have an enemy to defeat, but we will will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our

own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming unquote. So this rhetoric did not secure Vess and cawthorne continued employment in the House of Representatives.

which played a crucial role in twenty sixteen election. So dark Mega peaked as an online search topic back in May of twenty twenty two, and it may have reached like peak popularity in actual like spread of memes as early as March of twenty twenty two. I think I think it peaked in May because there was a few news articles about it, so more kind of normies were like googling what it was. But it act the actual peak was only in March of twenty twenty two. It

only lasted like three months. You can you can still find some dark Mega bubbling under the surface, but only by like random Nazis and like that doesn't that doesn't that that's not signifying any kind of like political movement.

And the reason why dark Mega kind of stopped being effective in between between March and May of twenty twenty two is that there was there was there was something that happened that summer uh and and that spring that effectively killed dark Mega while also dealing a pretty big body blow to fast Wave in general, and we will learn more about about Brandon's special secret operation in part two. That's right, this is going to be a surprise two parter because because I wrote get too many words.

more interesting. So Dark Brandon began with chronically online leftists doing a satirical riff on Dark Mega, replacing the figure of Trump with an alter ego of Biden and having this like mirror universe president appear as some kind of like neoliberal socialist demagogue, because when you replace the fascist figure with some largely ineffectual liberal given like militaristic and socialist or anti fascist catchphrases, but like otherwise leave the

rest of the authoritarian, ascetic stylings of fascism, the result is pretty funny because it's Joe Biden.

of names. Has shinzo albe neutralized, gas prices neutralized, COVID nineteen neutralized, Antifa fully armed? Roe v Wade too coming soon, Global Homo coming soon, Communism coming soon, which is pretty funny.

The ironic nature also made a Dark Brandon all but impervious from attack by conservative commentators on the right, because like, how can you attack this vibe like it's it's so ironic and absurd that like there's no way to be like, look how dangerous the dark brighton memes, eyes glo, what like come.

when Dark Brandon broke containment. So Dark Brandon kind of started in March of twenty twenty two, and by early August it has now left the irony poisoned leftist like Twitter sphere and has now broken out and is freely swimming around the liberal populace. So come August, Dark Brandon

no longer belonged to leftist ship posters. Liberals started to catch on and make Dark Brandon memes of their own, albeit much more cringey boomer versions, And although most of these liberals probably didn't really know what was quite being satirized, that didn't stop them from trying to emulate this cooler,

more edgy version of Biden with glowing eyes. So here I have two liberal memes here, with someone reacting to the news that there was no civilian casualties in the drone strike at Kilty al Kainda leader having Biden shooting laser eyes down from orbit, and then also him eating ice cream in front of an explosion, which is horrible, like a not very good meme, but the fact that there was bad, like very very bad, low quality dark branded memes is actually very important for later.

towards the camera that quickly went viral. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut posted a dark branded meme which was a drawing with yellow glowing eyes later that same day, and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee posted the same picture as well, and the Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates posted a whole ass dark branded meme, writing dark Brandon is crushing it with a horribly cringing photo abided with red laser eyes and a white text that reads,

your malarkey has been going on for long enough.

had something to celebrate, and having this kind of overly outrageous kind of joking meme was like the first bit of like agit prop that liberals have like done since Trump went out of office, and it's also like the first effective edgeprop they've ever done period.

either side. Far right politicians and influencers reacted with shakunhorror, calling the speech demagogic, outrageous, and divisive, while liberals and even some leftists praised the speech for accurately addressing the threat posed by far right actors in this country. But both of those on the right end left definitely noticed the frank brandonness of the entire thing, especially with this being less than a month after the White House's own

Brandon posting. The red lights, the background marines, and the impassioned and oddly well delivered appeal to fight for the soul of the country from the Trumpian mega extremist political faction set on dismantling democracy played very well. The whole thing felt very Dark brandon Esque, and the takeaway many people had is that they had somehow memed Dark Brandon into existence. Do you know who else you don't want to fuck with? It's the products and services that support

this vital, academic level research into Dark Brandon. Truly truly unparalleled work on the part of myself. You're welcome, here's fucking ads. All right, we are back. Let's talk even more about Dark Brandon. I cannot believe I wrote three thousand over three thousand words on this all right, So, like many natural predators, Dark Brandon went through a period of hibernation, laying dormant through most of the winter, that is,

until a huge resurgence in April of this year. This past April, Biden launched his new twenty twenty four re election campaign website, which not only featured a Dark Brandon error four oh four page reading your Lost Jack, Let's get you back on the rails, which is kind of funny but not really funny because it's doing the whole like Biden and track reference And it's kind of funny because it's like a four oh four page, So it's like it's Dark Brandon telling you to get back to

the regular website because you're now on like the the part of the website that doesn't exist, because like Dark Brandon doesn't exist. It's not I'm overthinking this. I'm doing way too high concept. It's like Beaudry art analysis of this. This joke is not that good. But beyond the Dark Brandon error four oh four page, there is also official Dark Brandon merchandise. Biden's Dark Line features dark blue monochrome images of Biden or Brandon staring forward with red laser

eyes and a mischievous grin. The design comes on baseball hats, t shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags. Product descriptions are as follows. Best worn while vanquishing malarkey. Protect yourself from malarkey and the sun with this dark cap, dark Brandon, dark Rose, dark dark Brandon, dark roast tea drinkers, Welcome, and and finally, the worst one malarkey is tot's over after we re elect President Biden.

Dark Mega and the fashwave aesthetic, which is just a pretty shocking and like amazing trajectory for fash wave.

was fact checked by real Dark branded acolytes. So this is like fun and good, right like this, this is fine, But there's actually a surprisingly like positive result from this whole Dark branden sega, because even as far back as August of twenty twenty two, myself, some research colleagues, and other journalists that I have like no connection to all started to kind of observe the same thing. The liberal recuperation of the fashwave style via Dark Brandon seemed to

seriously damage fash Wave's legibility in right wing circles. The normy use of dark Brandon had already appeared to have ceased all of the dark megaposting because there was this influx of like Minion's Facebook Tier Brandon memes, which offered very strong levels of vicarious cringe that provided a social disincentive for anyone wanting to post laser eye dark Mega memes due to their fear of being associated, even just aethically associated with the liberal boomer Biden memes, which which

now like represented this cringe and dead style. The widespread nature of Brandon laser eyes also seemed to seriously dampen the Patrick batemanification of characters like Homelander from The Boys, who was at the time becoming one of the far

right's favorite memeable characters. Yeah, there are few things that these online nazi weirdos fear more than their special toys being played with by normies, because almost immediately they're like esoteric plaything loses all appeal once the normies like start using it.

Jones quote. The fashwave athetic has already seen its best days and wasn't as pervasive on the far right Internet as it used to be. But by associating himself with a meme style that had partially descended from it, Biden and his earnest staff and followers have probably made it impossible for neo nazi edge lords to make fashwave posts for at least a bit. By enlisting fascist meme offshoots,

the administration unlocked a code. Earnest Democrats like Biden may have a hard time being cool on the Internet, but they can kill hip stuff that bad people like that is extremely powerful. They made fashwave a bit cringe. Do you know what else is a bit Crene Robert that breaks Garrison, the fact that we have to have advertising on my on my fash wave Biden Dark Dark Gear Brandon episode.

of fash wave misfire. So this happened about a year after Dark Brandon had taken control, so there was at least a like a good a good year's worth of buffer where fash wave was unacceptable and just not really even attempted because of how cringe it is at this point. But that did not stop the Dysantis war Room Twitter account from trying to do it. And then we will

see what the right's reaction to this was. So, like I said at the beginning of the beginning of this episode, on the last day of Pride Month, DeSantis's campaign shared a video on their Dasanta's war Room account attacking Trump for previously held positions seemingly in support of LGBTQ people and statements that he said about like allowing transgender women to compete in his Miss Universe pageants and allowing Caitlin Jenner to use the bathroom of her choice in Trump Tower.

This video opens with footage of Trump at the twenty sixteen RNC saying that he would quote do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens unquote. Now, this is pretty gross that the video opens this way because very importantly, this was just a month after the Pulse nightclub attack in DeSantis's home state of Florida, which killed forty nine people. That's why Trump was saying this is because there was just a massive massacre in the state

of Florida. And the fact that Dysantis is opening up this Trump like homophobic attack ad by including this little

bit is pretty is pretty gross. So this video then kind of transitions fifteen seconds in, accompanied by a dark synthetic beat, to a black and white image of Dysantis standing in front of an American flag with red glowing eyes shooting out little laser lightning things before a wave of pulsating images of Spartans and the Muscular Chad and clips of American Psycho, the Wolf of Wall Street and

Peaky Blinders. Overlaid on top of these flashing images are headlines and short clips about Dysantis's extreme anti LGBTQ policies that he enacted in Florida. I cannot think of anything more plurifying.

twenty sixteen. And then it switches to like footage of like news articles about DeSantis, you know, doing horrible things to queer people in Florida, and like clips of pete leftists reacting to how bad it is, and like clips of Ron de Santis like walking around or you know, art of him photoshopped with like sunglasses.

have men competing in women's things like athletics. And so we've been very clear on it that we believe in protecting the rights of our girls and the rights of women athletes to be able to participate paid with fairness and with integrity.

of understanding what's going on here. There's there's absolutely no like larger trends that that like maybe at play, but obviously we we've kind of offered some insight into what's been going on here. And in the end, DeSantis's attempt at fash wave has been rejected by conservative America either through it's just sheer like esoteric strangeness and also the kind of the the whittling away at at at Fashwave's power that the dark branded meme has been doing for

so long. There's just nothing first of all appealing about this, which makes all that remains just incredibly just like just like off putting.

still heavily tied to fash wave. It kind of like it glorifies the setics of mental illness to push you towards doing like extremist violence.

uh dysantist Chad Wojack in this video. So and in the end, like this had temp kind of reviving a soft fash wave style or you know, kind of dark mega style for an attack ad by the Dissanda's campaign was basically wholesale rejected by conservative Americans and with with no with no other politicians co signing this. The only other mean notable figure who applauded this was Ian Miles Chung. No no, no one else of note thought this was a good idea. Most dissenttas of supporters were off putted.

The only people who really like liked this were like chronically online fascist zoomers who are either not old enough to vote or just barely old enough to vote.

or just like turned off. And so in the end, like I think there is there is a recurring trend here, and that like dark Mega didn't help the Republicans win the mid terms. Like that that was that was a pretty pretty big defeat for them. All of all of the work they were doing beforehand to like to like start getting people like wiled up, get making making like attention grabbing authoritarian memes, all of like the critical rice

theory stuff. None of that panned out in the actual elections, and whatever DeSantis is doing sure doesn't seem to be helping him beat Trump. The only person who who is who is winning right at this is Dark Brandon. Dark Brandon strikes again. He is the one that it actually has made, has made sure that DeSantis cannot use this playbook. Dark Brandon is is sitting on a gargoyle over top of whatever city in Florida de Santis lives. Dark Brandon

is our watchful protector. He is he is, he is our silent guardian.

Telegram channel. So this guy Proud Elephant is, from what I can tell, the origin point of this video. I can't seem to find it in any earlier places. I've tried to getting into contact with him to figure out what his intentions were for, like if he made the video or if he found it from somewhere. But this is why I said, I clarified that the DeSantis team

shared this video on their official campaign account. They did not make it themselves, which is also pretty funny because they didn't spend any money on this thing, and it still like was a massive shot in the face. Like

it's just like huge, huge blowback. They didn't need to like embed this video made by like whatever weirdo loner who has like final cut pro on his computer, Like there's there's really there's really no reason, like they have an actual ad team and for some reason they did this instead.

their propaganda quite compares to this video. It is such a weird outlier that makes me really wonder, like who who both who who was operating the the DeSantis war room to Twitter account that like hit publish on this tweet with this with this video embedded, and like what their relation is to the rest of like the Dysantis like media strategy because it's just it's just it is. It is utterly, utterly baffling.

a pretty effective ad. And I you know, I wrote about this some at the time, and I talked with the guy who'd been doing attack ats and stuff and was like, I don't know, I think this is a pretty successful ad because it it feels authentic in a

way that pull up ads don't. And my guess is that when this got presented to them, people at the DeSantis campaign were like, well, this could be that for us, right, this could be us leaning into something that's it's new, but it's like real and it's representative of how kids, young people are talking these days, and that will build the kind of excitement and the kind of like conversation around our campaign that can help take us to the

next level. And I think the thing that they missed there was that Trump in sort of, you know, signposting to that online alt right was adopting and kind of making his own a real movement that was representative of some things that were appealing to a lot of people.

And this is not right, Like there's been no ground swell of people who are into this like these weird Like the only ground swell of a lot of normies getting into fash wave has been dark branded, Like normy Republicans did not adopt like this kind of shit in en Mass And I think it was a mistake, Like it was a it was a it was a mistake to think that like I don't know, like random like goop heads were going to see their candidate compared to a serial killer from a famously off putting movie and

be like this.