Politicians Owned By The Tiny Minority Pass Bill To Protect Zionism

AP  |  The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses. 

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”

Advocates of the proposal say it would provide a much-needed, consistent framework for the Department of Education to police and investigate the rising cases of discrimination and harassment targeted toward Jewish students.

“It is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans from the scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country,” Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., said Tuesday.

The expanded definition of antisemitism was first adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the United States and European Union states, and has been embraced by the State Department under the past three presidential administrations, including Joe Biden’s

Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it into law have failed. But the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have reignited efforts to target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.

 

There's A Civil War Ongoing Within The Chosen's Elite Ranks

theintercept  |  European colonial movements came in different flavors, and Zionism was unique in that its members — certainly after World War II — were fleeing not just persecution, but also extermination. Still, it was of psychological necessity shot through with colonization’s standard ideological racism. Rudolf Sonneborn, an American who would go on to make a fortune in the oil business, was secretary of the Zionist Commission in Palestine following World War I. He reportedOpens in a new tab that “the average [Arab] is inferior even to our average Negro … I believe there is very little to ever fear from them. Besides, they are a cowardly race.”

This was also true for Christian Zionists. George Biddle, a friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the ultra-WASPy descendant of the original settlers on the Mayflower, took this view in an article in The AtlanticOpens in a new tab after visiting Israel shortly after its 1948 founding. First, Biddle enthused about how Israel would serve Western interests. Then, he explained that Arabs were “foul, diseased, smelling, rotting, and pullulating with vermin and corruption.” Fortunately, they “were about as dangerous as so many North American Indians in modern mechanized war.”

The fact that European Jewry were the greatest victims of the racism that was central to this worldview, which Zionism adopted (in a less virulent form), is one of the most bizarre twists of human history.

In any case, Europe’s centurieslong reign of piracy and mass death should make it clear why people around the world — including such far-flung, surprising places as South KoreaOpens in a new tab and PeruOpens in a new tab — look at Israel’s action in Gaza with particular concern. It is not a coincidence that the genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague was brought by South Africa with the participation of Irish lawyers. 

But what happens now? No one knows. 

Israel was, in a sense, both too early and too late. If it had been founded earlier, it could have massacred the entire Arab population, just as the United States killed most Native Americans and Australia wiped out huge swaths of the country’s Aboriginals. Then there would be no Palestinians left for the world to be concerned about.

On the other hand, if it had come along later, Zionists might have believed that they should join forces with the decolonization movements across the Mideast and the world in the 1950s and 1960s. But in our timeline, an Arab nationalist approached Ben-Gurion about fighting the U.K.’s colonial forces together while Palestine was still under the British mandate — and Ben-Gurion reported him to the British.

In any case, despite the dreams of the Israeli right, the “expel and/or kill them all” solution is (probably) no longer available. But it’s also extremely difficult to imagine a South Africa outcome, in which Jewish Israelis accede to becoming a minority in a one-person, one-vote, one-state Palestine. 

Meanwhile, some parts of the Arab world fantasize about an Algeria analogy, in which (after massive bloodshed) the colonists go back to where they came from. Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, recently claimed every Jewish Israeli “has a second nationality and has his bag ready.” This is both factually false and extremely foolish. Israelis are not going anywhere any more than Americans or Australians are.

 

 

A Handful Of Bad Apples Making It Hard On Everybody Else....,

wsws  |  To better understand the narrow social basis of the campaign to silence opposition to Israel’s genocide, it is useful to understand who is leading it. This campaign of censorship and intimidation is being led by an alliance of billionaires, Zionists, the far-right and top government and political leaders of American imperialism. 

The first major group involved are a handful of multi-billionaires and economic power players whose stranglehold over the global economy positions them to control the political and cultural leadership of the major universities and other significant institutions.

As the World Socialist Web Site noted in an article written by an anonymous Harvard employee:

Just as inequality in general is increasingly incompatible with what remains of democracy, so is the subordination of universities to wealthy donors incompatible with academic freedom. The right-wing, pro-Zionist “donor revolt” is a qualitative development in big-money university donors attempting to use their power and influence to shape campus discourse. That these donors wield such influence—and that many of them seek to do so publicly—is an indication of how deeply compromised academia already is.

Indeed, universities are largely reliant on this stream of cash. According to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, in 1980 private donations to US colleges and universities amounted to $4.2 billion. Today they have surged to $59.5 billion.

These are some of the major billionaires whose “donor revolt” is leading to the attack on basic rights of free speech and protest on US campuses.

Les Wexner – One of the most important capitalists in retail sales, Wexner has amassed $10.6 billion, and is the 192nd richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg. Wexner founded L Brands, which controls, or previously controlled, Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, and several other major brands. While Wexner no longer controls L Brands, his foundation, the Wexner Foundation, donated tens of millions of dollars to Harvard over the last few decades and has now pulled millions of dollars of future support. (He is also the billionaire who became the launching pad for convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner’s personal holdings for nearly two decades).

Idan Ofer – Idan and his brother Eyal are the 77th and 87th richest people in the world, owning $42 billion, according to Bloomberg. Together they control Ofer Global, the Zodiac Group, Quantum Pacific Group and Global Holdings, each of which are massive industrial, energy and real estate investment firms. They own about half of Israeli Corp., Israel’s largest holding company. Collectively their companies take in hundreds of billions of dollars a year in revenue through shipping, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, energy and real estate. Miller Global Properties, one of the various “small”’companies that they have a leading ownership in, is notable for controlling various landmark properties, such as the Pebble Beach golf course, the Aspen ski resort and the Bevely Hills Hotel. Idan Ofer and his wife Batia both quit the Harvard Kennedy School Dean’s Executive Board in an attempt to pressure the university to crack down on the outcry of pro-Palestinian sentiment on the campus. Idan Ofer’s companies have been at the heart of multiple chemical leak and environmental scandals in Israel. Eyal was formerly an intelligence officer in the Israeli Air Force; he now resides in Monaco.

Bill Ackman – Ackman is an American billionaire who runs Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with about $20 billion under management. Ackman owns $4 billion personally. Pershing Square Capital holds significant shares of major US companies, including a 10 percent ownership of Target, one percent of Procter & Gamble, 10 percent control of Chipotle, a 7 percent share of Universal Music Group, and over a billion dollars in Netflix. Ackman is currently leading a vicious campaign to oust Harvard President Claudine Gay. Previously Ackman fought to get Harvard to release all the names of students who signed a pro-Palestinian statement, demanding that employers refuse to hire these students.

Ken Griffin – Griffin is the 35th richest person in the world, with over $37 billion in assets. He is the CEO of Citadel, a massive $52 billion hedge fund based in Miami. Citadel owns a significant share in some of the largest technology and bioscience companies, including Microsoft, Activision, Boston Scientific, Nvidia, Humana, Apple, Comcast, Merck, and Adobe. Griffin has donated over half a billion dollars to Harvard and is pressuring the university to adopt a stronger pro-Israel stance.

Cliff Asness – Asness is an American billionaire who founded AQR Capital Management, which has over $100 billion under management. Asness severed all his donations to the University of Pennsylvania and has publicly begun a campaign to pressure the university to stop “support[ing] evil.” In a diatribe published in the Wall Street Journal, he described the pro-Palestinian protests as a reflection of the “deep and systematic rot on elite college campuses.”

Marc Rowan – Rowan is co-owner of Apollo Asset Management, one of the largest private equity firms. He has over $6 billion in personal wealth. He halted his donations to University of Pennsylvania, using “Wall Street tactics to ‘strong-arm’” the university, in the words of Business Insider. Apollo has sprawling investments in real estate, cruise companies (Norwegian, Regent), hotels (Harrah’s Entertainment), education (McGraw Hill), entertainment (Chuck E. Cheese), private security (ADT) and retail (Smart and Final). Apollo co-founder Leon Black was formerly CEO of the company before revelations emerged that he had paid Jeffrey Epstein over $100 million for tax planning and consulting services. 

Zionists, antisemites and ethno-nationalists

Complementing this group of billionaires are a series of ethno-nationalists, both Zionists and MAGA Trumpers, who are more closely coordinating the effort to censor outrage against Israel’s genocide.

A recent, 2023 film, Israelism, made by two Jewish filmmakers, provides a window into the mechanisms used to promote Zionism in American culture and equate it with Judaism. One central figure in the film is Abe Foxman, an American lawyer and multi-millionaire who was the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1987 to 2015. Foxman and the ADL are major fixtures in the American Zionist lobby, heavily promoting organizations such as Birthright.

 

 

When The Iron Law Of Oligarchy Pinched Joe Biden's Little Narrow Peasant Ass

ZeroHedge  |  As the MSM turns on President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 election, the Washington Post had an interesting piece on Thursday exploring a little-known connection between the Bidens and the du Pont family, which revolves around a 2001 case in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was voted in as a prominent new member of a prestigious Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, founded by a du Pont heiress.

That year, Biden, known for his "Middle-Class Joe" image and modest financial status, joined the exclusive Fieldstone Golf Club, a symbol of prestige and power. This move painted a contrasting picture: a politician aligned with working-class values, yet rubbing shoulders with the state's most affluent family, renowned for their chemical company empire.

At the time, Biden walked a delicate line. On one hand, he campaigned as an Amtrak-riding “Middle-Class Joe” striving to make ends meet, and accurately described himself as “one of the poorest members of Congress” — reporting $221,000 in combined income with his wife that year and $360 in charitable contributions. -WaPo

Biden's connection to the du Ponts extended beyond social interactions. His staffing choices, political allies, and personal real estate investments all reflected a deep integration with this influential family. His acquisition of a mansion built by a du Pont member further underscores this relationship.

Yet, Biden's entry into the Fieldstone Golf Club raised eyebrows and led to a brief FBI investigation in 2007. The inquiry centered on how Biden obtained his club membership, especially as it involved an "unused" ticket from a company owned by the club's founder, potentially bypassing a substantial partnership fee. The FBI's probe, which included photographing Biden's personal locker at the club, eventually closed without any allegations of wrongdoing. It's unknown whether Biden was ever informed about the FBI investigation.

In response to an inquiry, the White House told the Post: "These bizarre suggestions from more than 20 years ago are confusing given the fact that the Post is reporting that President Biden was fully responsible for membership dues at the golf club and all out-of-pocket costs associated with it. Frankly, the Post’s own reporting suggests this supposed matter was closed 15 years ago with no finding of wrongdoing. If you want to dig deep on who’s funding a president’s golf habits, we might have some suggestions."

Yet, this story reveals the delicate balance Biden navigated between his public identity as a relatable politician and his private interactions with Delaware's elite. While maintaining his image as a defender of middle-class interests, Biden also sought inclusion in the state's upper echelons, epitomized by his association with the du Ponts and his membership at Fieldstone.

For someone raised in Delaware with Biden’s blue-collar background, “it would be quite an accomplishment” to rise into the same social circles as the du Ponts, said Joseph Hurley, a Wilmington attorney who grew up with Biden and represented Moseley.

“It’s like, ‘I’ve really arrived,’ because the du Ponts were the family, the king’s-family type thing,” he said. -WaPo

Biden often cited the long role of the du Pont family in Delaware in his family story - writing in his memoir that his father moved the family from Scranton, PA to a suburb of Wilmington, which was made more economically stable thanks to so many well-paid DuPont employees.

"DuPont meant security for today and better times for the future," Biden wrote.

Years later, Biden recalled that his mother urged him to value his heritage with as much pride as the state’s best-known family. “Like I’m a du Pont or something,” Biden recalled. “You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you, and everybody’s equal to you,” his mother told him.

Still, he envied the position and power of those who founded the DuPont company.

Elected to the Senate in 1972, he served in Congress alongside Rep. Pierre “Pete” du Pont IV, who later became Delaware’s governor and ran for president. Biden’s close adviser and Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, had worked for DuPont as a plastics engineer.

 

 

 

Social Parasitism In Humans (How Different Individuals In A Single Species Can Be)

counterfire |  It is not surprising that Marx’s concept of class is unpopular in the mainstream. Marx’s picture of a brutally divided society with organised robbery at its heart amounts to a devastating moral condemnation of capitalism. It also directly contradicts the various ways in which the establishment want us to understand the world we live in. Their preferred model of society is a giant market in which individuals interact freely and equally. In reality, of course, individuals are born into society with drastically different levels of wealth. Marx stressed however that it is the way production is organised that more than anything shapes society. ‘The arrangement of distribution’ he says in Capital, ‘is entirely dependent on the arrangement of production’. What people consume, even what people regard as needs, depends in the first instance on what is produced in any given society. The way the goods are distributed depends on the distribution of wealth, itself determined by one’s position in the productive process.

Politicians also like to tell us ‘we are all in it together.’ This illusion can only gain traction because the economy appears to operate independently of human will and control. The idea can’t survive contact with an understanding that the whole system is driven by a tiny minority forcing profit from the labour of the many. We are also told that capitalist investors are ‘wealth creators’. Looked at from the point of view of class, the capital that an investor brings to the table has been extracted – stolen – from past labour. The investor is simply recycling the spoils to make still more money.

Marxism also challenges the idea that capitalism will ‘lift up’ the poor over time. Capitalism has produced unimaginable wealth, but as Marx predicted, its drive to keep wages down means that for most of its existence the distribution of that wealth has become more and more unequal. Forty years of neoliberal capitalism has brought us to the extraordinary point at which just eight men are worth as much as half the world’s population. Marx’s analysis leads to the devastating conclusion that the poor are poor because the rich are rich. Generalised poverty and inequality are a necessary outcome of a system based on competition for profit.

The most radical aspect of all of Marx’s class analysis is however that it shows that in the process of conquering the world and achieving by far the highest levels of exploitation in history, capitalism has created its own nemesis, its own ‘grave digger’ in the working class. Marx believed workers had the potential to overthrow existing conditions for a number of reasons. The first was directly economic. The fact that workers are denied the material benefits of a more and more productive society gave them an immediate interest in resistance. The second was that the degradation experienced by most of humanity under capitalism was concentrated in the working class. The denial of human self-fulfilment, the ‘notorious crime of the whole of society’, was most acutely experienced in exploitation and its attendant alienation. Workers have through their experience the most acute consciousness of the immensely destructive and degrading capacities of capitalist accumulation.

Secondly, as well as having an interest in change, workers have the means to make it happen. Just as workers rely entirely on capitalists for their livelihood, capitalists are completely dependent on workers for their profits. Powerless as individuals, collectively, workers have immense potential power. As Marx put it, ‘of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself’. By forcing huge numbers of workers together at the point of production, capitalism creates a counter-power. Struggles over pay and conditions have the capacity to generalise into a political conflict between different class organisations:

Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance – combination… If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more necessary to them than that of wages…In this struggle – a veritable civil war – all the elements necessary for a coming battle unite and develop. Once it has reached this point, association takes on a political character.

Secular Jews Sick Of Ultraorthodox Extremism Putting Jewish Bidnis Out In These Streets

FT  |  Many say the crisis was triggered by Netanyahu’s decision to form an electoral alliance with extreme ultranationalists previously on the fringes of politics. 

The divisive veteran premier, who is on trial for corruption, returned to power in December by manufacturing a coalition dependent on ultraorthodox parties and ideologically driven religious Zionist leaders. 

These include Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in 2007 was convicted of inciting for racism and is now Netanyahu’s national security minister, and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-declared homophobe whose Religious Zionist party is one of the main drivers behind the legal reform. 

Both men live in settlements in the occupied West Bank that most of the international community consider illegal. They represent the religious nationalist settler movement and support the annexation of Palestinian territory. Ultraorthodox leaders hold other key posts, including the interior and religious affairs ministries. 

After last year’s election — the fifth in less than four years — the coalition’s 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset are split between Likud, with 32, and the ultraorthodox and religious Zionist parties.

🇮🇱 ALERTE - Israël s’enfonce dans le chaos en raison d’un projet de réforme visant à accroître le pouvoir des élus sur les magistrats. Le plus gros syndicat de travailleurs va appeler à la #grèvegénérale. Les universités se mettent en grève. Manifestations massives à #TelAviv. pic.twitter.com/jSKPB9pFX9

— Mediavenir (@Mediavenir) March 26, 2023

In coalition agreements with the parties, Netanyahu committed to a number of policies that would have a far-reaching impact on Israeli society, including expanding the powers of Rabbinical courts and tightening rules around religious conversions and immigration. He also pledged to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel”. 

Since winning the election last year, the coalition has drafted legislation on a number of fronts, ranging from the legal reforms to changes that allow people convicted of crimes, but spared jail time, to serve as ministers. It has also legalised nine Jewish settler outposts deep in the West Bank, which even Israel had deemed to be built illegally. 

Simcha Rothman, a MP with Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party, who heads the Knesset’s justice committee and is an architect of the planned judicial changes, considers the moment a “great opportunity” for “the believers”.

“What brings together the ultraorthodox, a religious Zionist like me [and] a secular like Netanyahu . . . is the deep belief that Israel is and should always be the homeland of the Jewish people,” he says. Rothman says the legal reforms are needed to rein in the “unchecked and unbalanced” powers of judges. He blames the Supreme Court for having a “big part in radicalising” Palestinians of Israeli citizenship, and argues that in its current form it can block parents’ autonomy over how they educate their children, and even economic policies. 

He complains that Jewish aspects of the state have been eroded, with “progressive elites” staging a “power grab in culture and academia”. He says an Israeli child can spend a year in school without opening a Bible and condemns a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that it was OK for people to bring non-kosher food into hospitals during Passover. 

In his mind, “Israel was helpless against trends that would make Israel lose its Jewish identity”. “I think it’s time for the public in Israel to decide if they want to be a country ruled by its people or by its judges,” Rothman says. “A constitutional moment is always some kind of a crisis, but it’s very important.” The government’s goal, he adds, is to “bring Israel back to normality”.

Musty Medieval Ultra-Orthodox Tryna Take Control Of The Jewish State

tikkunolam  |  As over 600,000 Israelis marched in scores of cities throughout the country and in major world capitals, cracks began to form in the governing coalition.  Facing near munity in the ranks of the IDF, defense minister Yoav Gallant called on Bibi Netanyahu to put a halt to the legislative steamroller being rammed through the Knesset. He did so in a dramatic national TV address, which was clearly intended as a shot across the prime minister’s bow.

Already, the ruling coalition passed a law legalizing five settlements Israel had promised George Bush would not be populated.  It also passed a law removing the attorney general’s right to disqualify a prime minister convicted of a criminal offense.  This will protect Netanyahu if he is convicted on any of the corruption charges he confronts in his current trial.  As Opposition leader Benny Gantz said in a TV interview, there are dozens more pieces of legislation that will follow if the government continues this onslaught.

Regardless of Gallant’s political opinions about this agenda, as a former army general, he understands that Israel must have a cohesive fighting force.  When there is munity within, the country cannot protect its citizens.  Not to mention, that the IDF is most significant unifying institution in the country.  It defines Israeli identity and most citizens serve in it.  For many Israelis the army and the state are indistinguishable.  For that reason, Gallant defines his allegiance to the state via the army.  If the army is not with the government, then the latter cannot or should not function.

To clarify, I am defining Israeli reality as most Israelis see it, in the above paragraph, and not offering my own opinion, which is highly critical, as readers will know.

Two senior Likud MKs followed suit announcing support for Gallant.  On the other side, a number of Netanyahu stalwarts denounced Gallant.  Fascist firebrand, Itamar Ben Gvir, called for the PM to immediately fire him.  I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow he calls for erecting a scaffold in Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street and hanging Gallant by the neck till he is dead, as judges used to say in the old Hollywood westerns.

Netanyahu has two choices: he can accede to Gallant and declare a ceasefire.  That would involve members of the governing coalition and opposition negotiating a compromise legislative agenda that would ensable some of the proposed “reforms,” while eliminating the most objectional ones.  Even if he agreed to this option, these negotiations would have no guarantee of success, since the sides are so far apart.

Or Netanyahu can reject Gallant’s call and go full steam ahead, throwing in his lot with the radical elements of his coalition, the anti-democracy coup plotters, Yariv Levin and Simcha Rotman. As I wrote in a recent post, this will bring a confrontaton between the legisltiave and judicial branches of Israeli government.  Until now, the Supreme Court has exerted limited powers compared to high courts in most democratic countries.  But at least it could review legislation and declare it in violation of Israel’s quasi constitutional Basic Laws.

In that sense, the Court would take up the laws passed by the far-right governing coalition and likely strike down most, if not all of them.  The legislative body really has very little recourse at that point.  It cannot force the Court to arrive a different conclusion short of taking the justices out in the courtyard and offering them a choice between life or death.  The Knesset has no enforcement provision that would enable it to override the Court.  Thus, its edict will prevail.

It remains to be seen how the coup plotters will react.  Perhaps after reading the decisions, they will water down or rephrase new proposed bills in the hope the justices will be willing to approve them.  Since the Court is a right-wing institution, it remains possible that they will approve some of the current legislation; and improve even more if it is modified or recast.

 

 

 

The MINUTE Netanyahu Opened His Mouth For SVB Bank, The Jig Was Up!!!

Counterpunch |  facilitating the purchase of critical infrastructure— and housing is critical infrastructure, by Wall Street is predatory, short-sighted, and systemically de-stabilizing. Permitting unlicensed hotels (AIRBNB), unlicensed taxis (Uber), and the systematic refusal to collect state and local taxes for online purchases (Amazon), reflects a contrived and wholly nonsensical ‘individualist’ ethos of capitalism where individuals born into the bailed-out class effectively govern the US. This is the political context in which Joe Biden bailed out corrupt and / or incompetent bank managers and corporate depositors at SVB.

Political architecture where a small group of politicians, oligarchs, and corporate executives erase the lines between corporate and state interests to use state resources for their own benefit while treating the populace as rubes and marks deserving of being preyed upon 1) reasonably well describes the US at present and 2) fits the definition of Italian fascism as state corporatism. Add in unhinged militarism motivated by imperialist objectives and ‘liberal democracy’ looks and feels like fascism to those on its receiving end.

It is clear that this view of the architecture isn’t widely shared, with most Americans relying on the imagined choice that voting for duopoly party candidates provides. Missing from that view is the proletarianization of the US that has taken place over the last five decades, with the exception being the PMC (Professional-Managerial Class), which manages state and corporate affairs for the rich. The genesis of the PMC in service to power has it parroting the logic of the rich in exchange for privileges that the remaining 85% of the population doesn’t receive.

SVB, like SBF (Sam Bankman Fried) of crypto infamy before it, is a weathervane helpful for reading the direction of the prevailing winds, but not a whole lot more. The system that produced it is coming unglued, with mass Covid deaths far out of proportion to the size of the population, failing healthcare and banking systems, a proxy war underway that risks nuclear annihilation, and a government that sees its role as working with corporations to loot the world. Underestimate the risk of truly horrific outcomes at your own peril.

Last, on a personal note, I, and most of the people I know, are so angry about this state of affairs that I don’t see how existing political unions hold. The people running the country never cared much about us, but unity in ‘nation’ led to a sense of shared interests that disappeared with the neoliberal turn. As I’ve written before, revolutionaries don’t make revolutions, existing power does. While I’m not holding my breath, if the current political leadership doesn’t lead to a revolution, revolution isn’t possible.

Anosognosia: The Biggest Risk Is Not Knowing What You're Doing

NYTimes  |  On Saturday, an entrepreneur named Alexander Torrenegra, who was an S.B.V. depositor for two companies as well as his own personal accounts, explained what happened on Twitter. “Thursday, 9 AM: in one chat with 200+ tech founders (most in the Bay Area), questions about SVB start to show up.” he wrote. “10 AM: some suggest getting the money out of SVB for safety. Only upside. No downside.”

It’s easy to see how a whisper network of a few hundred C.E.O.s — all convinced they have exceptional vision, all working themselves into a panic — could spiral out of control. But what happened in that chat is an extension of the fundamental way that these venture capitalists operate, which is groupthink on a staggeringly consequential scale.

Top tier firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins subject candidates to a rigorous screening process that ensures that only the strongest founders leading the most promising businesses proceed to the next level. Or that’s what I once believed, anyway. But the screening process places significant emphasis on “culture fit,” which is industry speak for whether a founder fits into the venture capital firm’s full portfolio of companies and conforms to their ideas about how a founder is supposed to look and behave. A founder’s ability to navigate this process is considered a good indicator of the company’s success. Unfortunately for women and people of color, culture fit often boils down to being a white male engineer with a degree from an elite university.

Some screening mechanisms are more subtle, like whether the V.C.s are already in your professional network, or one or two degrees removed. The industry line is that relationships will help founders attract capital, talent, and business partners. True, but the result is a largely homogeneous and even self-reinforcing community that’s difficult for outsiders to crack.

It’s this sort of insularity, emphasis on existing relationships, and reliance on intangible measures of competency that fueled last week’s bank run. The V.C.s expect the companies in their portfolio to use approved vendors. When it comes to legal counsel, that generally means tech-friendly law firms like Morrison & Foerster or Wilson Sonsini. When it comes to banks, it has meant S.V.B.

S.V.B., in turn, assessed its clients’ creditworthiness in part by who their funders were. As my colleagues and I saw, an investment from a top tier V.C. could be the ticket to a package of favored services, including things like home mortgages for the founders of these start-ups.

I opened my account at S.V.B. in 2017, when I had meetings lined up with some top tier V.C.s to raise money for a digital media company. Like everyone else who heads to Buck’s of Woodside (a favored venue for early-stage deal making) with a deck and a dream, I tried to anticipate the screening mechanisms and make sure I passed. And despite the fact that I was not a first-time founder, and having worked in tech and tech adjacent companies, was decently well networked, I suspected they might regard a 40-year-old woman without an engineering degree as not quite the culture fit of their dreams. I wasn’t contractually obligated to bank with S.V.B., but as with so many other unspoken norms, I was aware that I would be evaluated by my choices.

Disaster has now struck, but I don’t see any public introspection from the investment community participants who both helped create the dangerous conditions and triggered the avalanche by directing portfolio companies to withdraw en masse.

Venture Capitalists Dictated The Use Of These Failed Incompetently Run Banks

It was not the venture-capital backed companies that chose or agreed to keep all their deposits at SVB. It was their venture capital investors that forced this arrangement on them, confirmed by a reader: “Speaking as a former customer as dictated by my VCs.” This distinction matters because it puts the locus of influence and favor-trading much higher up the food chain. 

nueberger  | It’s highly possible, one could even say likely, that those massive deposits — Roku alone kept almost half a billion dollars in a single account — were part of a corrupt set of practices by the bank itself and its big-dollar clients.

SVB would typically require, as part of its venture debt investments into emerging companies, that the money would be held in an account with SVB. SVB would then offer concierge, I think they called it white glove, services to the founders including personal LOCs, mortgages etc.

— Dhananjay (DJ) Ghildyal (@Dj_Ghildyal) March 12, 2023

David Dayen, in an excellent, comprehensive piece, writes: “So you have depositors that either didn’t know the first thing about risk management, or were bribed by the bank into neglecting it.”

Keep in mind who these depositors are: the very very wealthy in the West Coast venture capital world. The corruption didn’t start just with the bank. The VCs often initiated it. As a friend and former Silicon Valley entrepreneur pointed out to me recently:

SVB was a special case. VCs required the companies they funded to keep their cash there. So the companies (and their employees) really were victims, not incompetent at risk management. In exchange the VCs received various favors from the bank. This is how Silicon Valley works behind the scenes. I was in one deal where the lead VC for our funding required a secret kickback of a certain % of the company stock and that this arrangement be kept secret from the firm. This is typical.

Where Does That Leave Us, Part I

Where that leaves us is here: The U.S. banking system, which hasn’t been private in my recent memory, has been officially taken under the wing of the federal government, with every deposited dollar now de facto insured by the FDIC.

The Fed says its new lending facility is big enough to cover all US uninsured deposits and that it is "prepared to address any liquidity pressures that may arise" https://t.co/XwS40BS4hk @FinancialTimes

— Colby Smith (@colbyLsmith) March 12, 2023

To cover these claims, the FDIC normally collects money from the banks receiving the insurance benefit. This means that the covered banks prepay a reasonable amount for a bailout of depositor funds up to $250,000 per account.

What would a “reasonable amount” be to cover all funds on deposit in the U.S.? Are the banks willing to prepay it? Highly unlikely. After all, who’s going to make them? The government they control?

So the federal government has nationalized the banking system, or nationalized its insurance of bank deposits to 100% of risk, all at no new cost to the banks.

What do you think these banks will do next, with that worry off their backs? I hesitate to find out, but I know we’re about to.

Where Does That Leave Us, Part II?

The second “where does that leave us?” leaves the financial realm and enters the political. If Saagar Enjeti is right (see the clip above), the rich decided that taking even a 10% loss (“haircut”) via the normal unwinding process was still too big an ask.

Meanwhile, in East Palestine OH where the working class makes its life, this went on:

With a population of about 5,000 people, there are roughly 2,600 residential properties in East Palestine according to Attom, a property data provider. The average value of a property there in January of this year, prior to the derailment, was $146,000, according to Attom.

Taken together, the value of all residential real estate in the town adds up to about $380 million, including single family homes and multi-family properties.

Those values are only a fraction of the money that Norfolk Southern earns. Last year it reported a record operating income of $4.8 billion, and a net income of $3.3 billion, up about 9% from a year earlier. It had $456 million in cash on hand on its books as of December 31.

It’s been returning much of that profit to shareholders, repurchasing $3.1 billion in shares last year and spending $1.2 billion on dividends. And it announced a 9% increase in dividends just days before the accident.

A year ago its board approved a $10 billion share repurchase plan, and it had the authority to buy $7.5 billion of that remaining on the plan as of December 31. (Emphasis added)

The point couldn’t be more simple. When the wealthy face losses, the government they control bails them out, within days if necessary.

When the rest of us faces losses, we’re on our own. Neither the wealthy who caused the mess nor the government that represent “the people” will step up to the plate.

And it will be this way forever unless force is applied.

Everywhere You Look U.S. Foreigner Policy Infested By Name-Stealers....,

theatlantic |   “In the past two years, democracies have become stronger, not weaker. Autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger.” So President Joe Biden declared in his 2023 State of the Union address. His proud words fall short of the truth in at least one place. Unfortunately, that place is right next door: Mexico.

Mexico’s erratic and authoritarian president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is scheming to end the country’s quarter-century commitment to multiparty liberal democracy. He is subverting the institutions that have upheld Mexico’s democratic achievement—above all, the country’s admired and independent elections system. On López Obrador’s present trajectory, the Mexican federal elections scheduled for the summer of 2024 may be less than free and far from fair.

Mexico is already bloodied by disorder and violence. The country records more than 30,000 homicides a year, which is about triple the murder rate of the United States. Of those homicides, only about 2 percent are effectively prosecuted, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institution (in the U.S., roughly half of all murder cases are solved).

Americans talk a lot about “the border,” as if to wall themselves off from events on the other side. But Mexico and the United States are joined by geography and demography. People, products, and capital flow back and forth on a huge scale, in ways both legal and clandestine. Mexico exports car and machine parts at prices that keep North American manufacturing competitive. It also sends over people who build American homes, grow American food, and drive American trucks. America, in turn, exports farm products, finished goods, technology, and entertainment.

Each country also shares its troubles with the other. Drugs flow north because Americans buy them. Guns flow south because Americans sell them. If López Obrador succeeds in manipulating the next elections in his party’s favor, he will do more damage to the legitimacy of the Mexican government and open even more space for criminal cartels to assert their power.

We are already getting glimpses of what such a future might look like. Days before President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Mexico City for a trilateral summit with López Obrador in early January, cartel criminals assaulted the Culiacán airport, one of the 10 largest in Mexico. They opened fire on military and civilian planes, some still in the air. Bullets pierced a civilian plane, wounding a passenger. The criminals also attacked targets in the city of Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa.

By the end of the day, a total of 10 soldiers were dead, along with 19 suspected cartel members. Another 52 police and soldiers were wounded, as were an undetermined number of civilians.

The violence was sparked when, earlier in the day, Mexican troops had arrested one of Mexico’s most-wanted men, Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of the notorious cartel boss known as “El Chapo.” The criminals apparently hoped that by shutting down the airport, they could prevent the authorities from flying Guzmán López out of the state—and ultimately causing him to face a U.S. arrest warrant.

The criminals failed. But the point is: They dared to try. If the Mexican state decays further, the criminals will dare more.

Everyone Is Frustrated With The Race Wars "They" Started And Perpetuated

The people Kanye got cancelled for talking about are the Government. They own the politicans.

 

University Of California Unbroken And Unbowed To Chosen Whiteness's Small Minority

dailycaller |  “The biggest problem is that for Jewish students there are two standards for how universities treat harassment … but Jewish students have not been treated fairly,” Rossman-Benjamin said.

In 2022, a report released by StopAntisemitism, which describes itself as the “leading non-partisan U.S based organization” combating anti-Jewish hate, gave a failing grade to both UCLA and UC Berkeley because of past incidents and Jewish students reporting that they felt unsafe on campus.

UC Berkeley Asst. Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof told the DCNF that the university recognizes the “rising tide of antisemitism” and noted that is “one of the reasons we respond quickly to address antisemitic incidents and support our Jewish community.”

“Among the “robust programming” referred to above by the ADL, is UC Berkeley’s Antisemitism Education Initiative, launched by members of our faculty in 2019, “Mogulof said. “We also take great pride in our kosher dining facility—the first of its kind in the UC system; a vibrant Hillel chapter; the broad range of other Jewish student groups; and the aforementioned Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies; The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life; and our Center for Jewish Studies.”

Mogulof also pointed to a 2022 Anti-Defamation League’s statement praising the campuses Hillel community, Jewish program and “Israel-related course offerings,” and explained that the university has a “strong stance against BDS.”

UC Davis also struggled with several antisemitic incidents in the past year. In February 2022, during a Zoom presentation by Israeli chemist Sason Shaik, multiple individuals joined the call and started “broadcasting antisemitic messages,” according to a press release.

Later that summer, four men dressed in black holding antisemitic held banners on an overpass bridge claiming that “the Holocaust is an anti-white lie” and “Communism is Jewish,” according to the Times. Several months afterward in October, several swastikas were found in a first-year-student dormitory, according to a university press release.

A UC Davis spokesperson told the DCNF that the university’s Principles of Community reject all forms of discrimination.

“UC Davis is partnering with the city of Davis and Yolo County to create Hate-Free Together, a community-wide framework to combat the recent string of local hate incidents and prioritize the well-being and safety of all residents,” the spokesperson explained.

All of the incidents at UC Davis were condemned by university leaders, a step that Marcus noted was an improvement from the past, but he also pointed out that many of these statements by UC schools were “weak.”

“It’s a good sign that UC [campus] chancellors are condemning antisemitism, this is an improvement from past years,” Marcus said. “The fact is they need not only to speak in clear plain terms but also to back it up with action.”

Rossman-Benjamin also pointed out that those statements had done little to improve the climate for Jewish students on college campuses, particularly when the complaints had to do with Israel.

“I talked about the sympathy of the campus community when the antisemitism is motivated by classical sources … but when it’s motivated by anti-Zionism nobody cares,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “Not only does nobody care, they actually would get upset if the university were to address it … so there is no motivation, in fact, there is an incentive to complain when Jewish students say, ‘[anti-Zionism] is hurting me.'”

Handy Chart Showing George Soros Oversized Presence

opensecrets |   The top seven GOP megadonors have contributed nearly $222.7 million to Republican candidates and outside groups. Of the $185.8 million given by the top three Democratic megadonors, $128 million has come from Democratic megadonor George Soros, the top individual donor this election cycle and a frequent target of anti-semitic attacks from conservative pundits and politicians. Fund for Policy Reform, a 501(c)(4) funded by Soros, has given an additional $25 million to super PACs during the 2022 election cycle.

“There are still very active megadonors – George Soros, Ken Griffin, Richard Uihlein – and then also new ones like Sam Bankman-Fried from industries on the rise like cryptocurrency,” Bryner said. 

Soros, an emigre from Hungary after WW II, is very keen on Eastern European “democracy” and (according to his Open Society Foundation website) spent $18 billion on projects around the world since its founding around 1980. An “Open Society” (term coined by Karl Popper, who Soros claims as an intellectual father) has open borders to flows of capital, labor and information. The epitome of a “Closed Society” was the USSR (when Popper’s book was published in the ’70’s).

I wouldn’t be surprised if Soros has used his influence in the Democratic Party over the years to ensure that people like Madeleine Albright (parents fled Czechoslovakia) and Vicky Nuland (parents fled Ukraine) were placed in high places. I suspect he was a big supporter of Russophobes like McCain and Graham as well.

Some of Soros’s “projects” may well have borne fruit in such diverse areas as the framework for the EU (free flow of capital and labor); EU and NATO expansion; the growing dominance of Neocons throughout the DC establishment; and much more. I’m not a conspiracist, and won’t say that Soros “caused” all of these things; but in the absence of a countervailing $18 billion force, I think he surely made a difference by lubricating and tipping the balance in many ways.

 

Not Even Valodya Explicitly Calls The Name Stealers Out

NYTimes | President Vladimir V. Putin declared on Thursday that Russia’s battle was with “Western elites,” not with the West itself, in a speech seemingly aimed more at winning over political conservatives abroad than his own citizens.

Mr. Putin, addressing an annual foreign policy conference outside Moscow, appeared intent on capitalizing on political divisions in the United States and its allies that have only heightened since they began showering Ukraine with military aid to fend off the Russian invasion.

Many of the Russian leader’s themes were familiar, but they took on particular resonance given the coming midterm elections in the United States and growing discontent in Europe over the costs of the war.

“There are at least two Wests,” Mr. Putin said.

One, he said, is a West of “traditional, mainly Christian values” for which Russians feel kinship. But, he said, “there’s another West — aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial, acting as the weapon of the neoliberal elite,” and trying to impose its “pretty strange” values on everyone else. He peppered his remarks with references to “dozens of genders” and “gay parades.”

Mr. Putin, as he often does, portrayed Russia as threatened by the possible expansion of NATO — and the values of its liberal democracies — to countries like Ukraine that were once part of the Soviet Union.

He denied that Moscow was preparing to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. “We have no need to do this,” he said. “There’s no sense for us, neither political nor military.”

It is Mr. Putin himself, however, who has raised that prospect, as have other senior Russian officials. And past Kremlin assurances about its intentions have proved unreliable. In the days before the war began, for example, Russia denied that it planned to invade Ukraine.

Who Are The Tribal Elders Who Put Blinken And Nudelmann In Charge In The First Place?

The Western “framing” of the current civil war in “Ukraine” is ahistorical, as much by ignorance as by design. The division of “Ukraine” and “Poland” by the Prussian, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires between the Congress of Vienna and the collapse of the USSR has caused 200 years of horrific suffering and deeply-held grievance throughout the region that is incomprehensible to Western audiences.

If you have a strong constitution, read about the events of June-July 1941 in Lwòw (Lviv) where the retreating NKVD’s murder of thousands of ethnic Polish and German “Enemies of the State” was quickly followed by a Banderite pogrom in which Ukrainian civilians armed with sticks and clubs murdered thousands of Jewish men and women in the streets — the U.S. Holocaust Memorial has a fragment of a “home movie” shot by an SS-man of this savage barbarism conducted against the backdrop of a modern European city. It will shock you. The Nazis and the Red Army then conducted another decade of mass-murder and forced resettlement/ethnic cleansing that even make Pol Pot’s killing fields pale in comparison.

It is a tragedy that the U.S. State Department and Central Intelligence Agency have annointed no one except grievance-holding refugees from these Eastern European Killing Fields, like Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Albright (Korbelovà) and their descendants Kagan, Nudelmann, and Blinken, to be the “expert” arbiters of American policy toward the region. Their only interest appears to be in controlling a false and irrelevant narrative that demonizes Russia in order to facilitate the settling of old scores that have no bearing on American interests.

Some countries (Trump's "shitholes") are largely ignored by the U.S. because they are worthless lacking either natural resources or technology. Some countries, like most European ones, lack natural resources but have technology, so the U.S. wants them as vassals. Within that state of vassalage some countries have been allowed to have social-democratic and even semi-neutral governments - so long as they absolutely create no trouble for the master. That's the choice made by South Korea, Singapore, Ireland, Austria, etc.; it takes a degree of skill to enjoy a little autonomy as a U.S. vassal. 

The same is not true for resource-rich non-technological countries. These slave states are harshly ruled by compradore sellouts who pillage their own people on behalf of a U.S. master. Finally, there are natural enemy states. These are countries that are both technological and have significant natural resources (e.g. Iran, RF, PRC) Eventually, the U.S. will turn its baleful glare in this regard toward India as well. 

thedissenter | Helmut Kentler and the Pedagogical Center

At precisely the same time that CIA-directed psychological torment of Danish orphans was underway, authorities in West Berlin were dabbling with something even more diabolical - state-endorsed pedophilia.

Psychologist Helmut Kentler advocated in the 1960s  for placing vulnerable youths in the care of pedophiles—on the ostensible basis that “loving environments” would effectively integrate them into society.

An influential figure, Kentler used his extensive political connections to market his ideas directly to lawmakers and state institutions.

Kentler established the Pedagogical Center in February 1965 to conduct various tests and trials. The results were supposed to help educational authorities develop best practices for nurturing the nation’s youth.

Fully endorsed by the city’s Senate and Social Democratic Party (SPD) and West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, the Center was granted a multi-million dollar budget, along with 37 staff. It was overseen by SPD Senator for Schools and Education Carl-Heinz Evers, who knew Kentler personally. (Brandt later served as West German chancellor 1969 - 1974.)

Children in West Berlin were sent to live with pedophilic foster parents at Kentler’s direction in 1969.

Kentler's ideas gained increased currency in the wake of incendiary student protests, which erupted across much of the Western world the previous year. These mass actions revitalized the writings of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, in particular his early 1930s works The Sexual Struggle of Youth and The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

Reich’s thesis was suppression of sexuality went hand-in-hand with obedience to authoritarianism, as an individual’s perspectives and predispositions were formed during their formative years. The argument went that it was necessary for people of all ages to become sexualized, and embrace their sexuality.

The resurrection of Reich’s ideas was no doubt welcome to West Germany’s occupying powers. The notion Germans were psychologically and genetically disposed towards aggression and dictatorship—and that German society needed to be drastically reordered to blunt these tendencies—was widespread in the aftermath of World War II.

In fact, the U.K. and U.S. had long-pursued wide-ranging social engineering efforts to that end.

None Of This Can Be Understood Without Mention Of Syria

It was the Russian intervention to help stop another disastrous US/Israel 'regime change' operation that led to the zionist neocons flipping out. 'Russiagate' was born out of Trump's comments on the US intervention in Syria (These match his previous outspoken comments on Iraq) and branding Hilary and her state department as the 'mother of ISIS'. 

It was because of this that the zionist neocons were able to suggest that Trump was 'Putin's puppet', this is now forgotten. The progressive liberals, hungry for any reason to see Trump as illegitimate, disgracefully ran with it. (Many of them, particularly those on social media, were just truly ignorant geopolitically and in terms of zionist neocons) These buffoons have deluded themselves into being neocons on Russia - with no contextualizing idea what is really going on. They were unable to accept that Trump won the election through winning previously solid blue state great lakes states. These states previously voted for Obama twice. They couldn't comprehend why Trump won - so they accepted any reason given for why it wasn't real.

Generally, zionist neocons have been the most successful political conspiracy of the 20th and 21st centuries. This is true despite the fact that their actions and influence have repeatedly brought disastrous consequences home to roost. This is true despite the fact that they represent a tiny interest group. Zionist neocons have run roughshod over numerous supposed democracies. Despite their serial failures, zionist neocons have never faced any consequences for their serial evil manipulations.. Only their political proxies ever do. 

Everyone goes on about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But it's the swarm of zionist neocons that these two empowered - working in the background (and increasingly out in the open) who remain politically active and face no real scrutiny. This includes zionist neocon columnists in the MSM who face no consequences or scrutiny. This is why major media outlets keep giving them a platform from which to spread their increasingly transparent and hysterical lies.

Zionist neocons are right wing Jewish nationalists. Any attempt to explain what is going on without reference to this fact and to their influence - means they will get away with it. Zionist neocons have gotten away with serial misuses of American military hegemony since the end of the cold war. In order to solve the zionist neocon problem, you have to name it. 

None of the zionist neocon program makes any sense from the perspective of hard-nosed American national interest. This is why America can't be negotiated with - because the zionist neocon program isn't about American interests. Peeling Russia off China is an imperative American interest.  However, what has unfolded here to date is entirely counterproductive because zionist neocons are driven by ethnic animus toward Russia and a short-term desire to remove obstacles to regime change in Syria. Russia and China coming together is a problem for later.

It is also inescapable to not notice that a lot of highly ethnocentric supposedly left-wing anti-war Jews are most prominent and energetic in pushing this, from Sean Penn and Ben Stiller to Paul Mason and Jon Stewart.

At what point are we supposed to finally trust our own eyes, stop pretending that the emperor has any  clothes, and call out the source of our national predicaments?

 

What Do Kids, Drug Users, Sex Workers, Political Radicals, Terrorists And The .0001% Have In Common?

pluralistic |  Kids, drug users, political radicals, sex workers and terrorists are all unwelcome in mainstream society. They struggle to use its money, its communications tools, and its media channels. Any attempt to do so comes at a high price: personal risk, plus a high likelihood that some or all of their interactions and transactions will be interdicted – their work seized and destroyed or blocked or deleted.

Using a new technology comes at a cost. If it's 1979 and you're Walt Disney Pictures, you've got no reason to explore the VCR. The existing system works great for you – and it works great for your audience. You can always find a movie theater willing to show your movies, your audience is happy to be seen entering that cinema, and the bank gladly accepts ticket revenues as deposits.

But if you're into smutty movies, none of that is true. Just mailing your 8mm films across state lines is risky – maybe it gets seized and incinerated, maybe a postal inspector shows up at your door with a search warrant. Most theaters won't show your movies, and most people don't want to be seen in the ones that will.

Given all those structural barriers, it makes sense that the technophiles who also happen to be involved in the sex trade will get a hearing from their colleagues – unlike the traditional media execs whose endorsement of the VCR made them persona non grata within their companies. That is, technophilia is a deficit if you're doing something socially acceptable, and an asset if you're doing something that's socially disfavored.

Which is why technophiles are leading figures among terrorists and kids and sex workers and drug users and political radicals. The kids who left Facebook for Instagram weren't looking for the Next Big Thing; they were looking for a social media service that their parents and teachers didn't use. The kids who were technophiles discovered Instagram and the others followed their lead. They endured the hassle of learning a new service and re-establishing social connections, because that hassle was less than the hassle of staying on Facebook, subject to scrutiny by the adult authorities in your life.

One corollary of this phenomenon is that technophile circles have disproportionate numbers of socially disfavored people. If you're a normie who just likes new tech, the services and systems you seek out will have higher-than-baseline numbers of people into sex, as well as radicals, kids, druggies and terrorists.

Another corollary of this phenomenon is that the founders of new technologies will always start out by courting these marginal groups – they are the vanguard, after all – and then, eventually, turn on them.

Sex workers know this story well. Sex workers' content and transactions turned companies from Tumblr to Instagram, Paypal to Twitch into multi-billion-dollar enterprises, whereupon these companies turned on sex workers and kicked them off the platform, seizing their money and destroying their creative work in the process.

No one knows this story better than Susie Bright, a pioneering sex-positive, high-tech feminist author, critic, educator and performer. Bright helped found the seminal lesbian magazine On Our Backs, practically invented serious film criticism for pornographic videos, edited many classic erotic books, and has used the courts to win justice for many sex-positive causes.

Bright is also a technophile. I met her on The WELL, an early online service, in the early 1990s. She was already a desktop publishing pioneer by then (On Our Backs was the first magazine to be laid out in Pagemaker). Since then, Bright has been at the forefront of every technological development and human rights struggle for sex workers.