Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 10
"Back in 1990 — decades before he got into politics, Trump reportedly acknowledged owning a copy of Mein Kampf. The admission came in an interview with Vanity Fair shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Ivana. Here's what the magazine reported:
'Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade.'
Vanity Fair reporter Marie Brenner asked Trump if his cousin had given up a copy of the book to him. She wrote this is how Trump responded:
'Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew,' Trump told Brenner.
Brenner then asked Marty Davis whether he gave Trump a copy of the book.
'I did give him a book about Hitler,' Davis told her. "But it was My New Order, Hitler's speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I'm not Jewish.'"
Source: ABC News
Robin DiAngelo gets a lot of criticism, but everything she says in the following talk is true. DiAngelo reveals many sneaky, self-deceptive ways the mind is racist. This is important for everyone to learn.
The reason DiAngelo gets so much shit is because people do not want to confront the fundamental truths of racism. Yes, racism is way more subtle and sneaky than just, "I hate black people". Conservatives are in deep denial about this, which is why they troll and raise a stink. Conservatives would rather distract with drama than do inner work. We can learn valuable insights from DiAngelo without going on an all-out SJW crusade. You should be mindful of racism without being obsessive about it.
As part of your consciousness work you should introspect about your subtle racist biases. I certainly have them. It would take a lot of work to get rid of them all. And there are certainly racist biases within your community, sub-community, and culture at large. To deny this is self-deception.
It's amazing to me how much political drama and noise people create just to avoid development. There should be nothing controversial about what DiAngelo said in the video above. This is just basic, basic consciousness work. Stop whining about "wokeness" and just do the development work.
I love that racism is so subtle, sneaky, and intelligent! All self-deception is beautiful in the eye of a sage.
This video is an astonishing piece of propaganda. I'd like you to just admire it:
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"Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true socialism is not." — Hitler speech, 1923
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Everything Prager said is ahistorical, misleading, backwards, and ignorant.
Here's the historical reality:
- Hitler was a far-right ultra nationalist.
- As soon as Hitler took power in 1933, that same year he banned the German Communist party, arresting all its members. That same year Hitler banned the Democratic Socialist party. All remaining left-wing parties in Germany were banned or harassed out of existence.
- Hitler ended democracy in Germany. Hitler viewed democracy as against Nature, where Nature meant that the strong must rule the weak.
- Hitler believed that Marxism and Communism were an evil leftist plot by the Jews. Communists and left-wingers were Hitler's top enemy alongside Jews.
- Hitler hated Communists and Marxists just as much as Jews. Because he didn't distinguish between them.
- The "socialism" in National Socialism meant an extreme form of German nationalism. The entire purpose of the movement was to centralize power in a rigid hierarchy to serve a nationalist agenda.
- Hitler's nationalist agenda was similar to Christian Nationalism and Project 2025.
- Hitler's whole movement was deeply ethnocentric and glorified the return of Germany to its traditional roots, values, and glory.
- Nazis held traditional conservative values: masculinity, strongman hyper-masculine leadership, patriarchy, survival of the fittest, traditional family values, religious mysticism, persecution of minorities and deviants, a rigid power hierarchy, conformity to traditional culture, etc.
- Most businesses in Nazi Germany were privately owned. Private property existed.
- Some industries were denationalized and privatized.
- Heavy state control and intervention was implemented in order to make sure that industry fit Nazi nationalist goals and militarization needs.
- Hitler allowed German industrialists to earn huge profits.
- Independent labor unions were banned. Worker rights and strikes were suppressed.
- Hitler and Nazism was closed vs open to diversity of perspectives and peoples. Anti-pluralist.
- Hitler did not divide the world by race, he divided it by ethnicity, privileging German/Aryan ethnicity and blood.
- "Blood and soil" is a classic Nazi slogan which is now adopted by the American far-right/alt-right. Right-wing conservatives chant "Blood and soil", leftists and progressives do not.
- Holocaust denial is largely a racist right-wing phenomenon. The left wing does not engage in Holocaust denial.
- Race IQ and race science is popular on the right, not the left.
- Prager saying that the right-wing is not obsessed with race is ridiculous and false. The KKK is a classic racist right-wing group, and there are many more. Racism is most popular with conservatives. It is conservatives who oppose interracial marriage. It is conservatives who complain about ethnic minorities "invading" the country. It is conservatives who complain about The Great Replacement.
- White supremacists are conservative and right-wing.
- It is conservatives who are caught on video praising Hitler and doing Hail Hitler salutes. It is conservatives who do apologetics for Hitler.
- Hitler did not hate capitalism. He hated Communism. Which is why most businesses in Nazi Germany were privately owned. If Hitler hated capitalism he could have abolished private ownership of businesses. The reason Hitler so-called "hated capitalism" was because he needed organize Germany industry to fuel his insane levels of militarization for war. In this sense it was similar to how the US economy was state-guided during WW2 in order to mobilize for war. A war economy has to be highly coordinated by the state, that doesn't make it socialist or Communist.
- All historians recognize Fascism as right-wing. Hitler is recognized as a Fascist. Hitler was friendly with far-right Fascist leaders like Mussolini.
- Nazism strictly promoted traditional gender roles.
- Nazism was strongly anti-egalitarian and anti-equality. The strong are supposed to rule the weak.
- Nazism was anti-intellectual, with suspicious of university academics and intellectuals.
- Nazism hated "degenerate" unorthodox art. Just like how today's right-wingers hate postmodern art.
- Nazism opposed democracy, liberal values, progressive values, pluralism, and diversity.
- Nazism opposed individual creative self-expression, forcing conformity to traditional roles and values.
- The term "socialism" in National Socialism was used as a strategy to appeal to and attract average working people, who were attracted to Marxist ideals about empowering the working class. Given Marxism's popularity at the time, Hitler wanted to tap into that populist energy in order to gain power.
- For Hitler, the term "socialism" meant a form of national solidarity and collectivism based on race and nation, not class. By this logic, today's Christian Nationalists could be called Christian Socialists because they want to build a nationwide community of Christian domination.
- Hitler and Nazis were extremely hostile to LGBTQ people, sending many of them to concentration camps for extermination. Nazis, like most conservatives around the world, are homophobic, transphobic, and anti-feminist. This holds true globally, across all cultures. The more conservative, the more homophobic and anti-feminist the culture. For example, Afghanistan.
- Hitler and the Nazis sent other minority groups to the gas chambers too. Minorities were treated as weak, inferior, and unworthy of existence.
- Right-wingers today move to 3rd world countries, saying it's better because these places are less feminist and LGBTQ. Today's right-wingers like Andrew Tate glorify subservient women. They also glorify control and domination over women. And hostility towards effeminate men. These are all right-wing values.
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Quotes from Hitler:
"The problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated." (Mein Kampf)
"The whole of Judaism is a sworn enemy of National Socialism. The Jew is the incarnation of Marxism, of Bolshevic revolution, of universal subversion." (Speech, 1933)
"The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight." (Mein Kampf)
"The Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism which without it would not be thinkable. It provides this world plague with the culture in which its germs can spread." (Mein Kampf)
"The invention of democracy is a crying example of this sort of mind virus, for has anything more mischievous ever been devised than concocting a system wherein a numerical majority of incompetents can outvote a minority of the capable?"
"We must eliminate homosexuals root and branch... We can't permit such danger to the country; the homosexual must be entirely eliminated." (Speech 1934)
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If a conservative ever tells you that Hitler and Nazism was left-wing, you should call them out on their bullshit by using the facts above.
Dennis Prager is one of the top propagandists of our era. Shamelessly defecating in the epistemic ecosystem by the metric ton.
Prager started a channel called PragerU Kids, which makes fun right-wing propaganda videos for children. A pipeline for teaching kids that Hitler was left-wing. Millions of kids will grow up thinking that Hitler was left-wing. Thanks Dennis.
Behold, pure brilliance:
This video summarized a lot of the stuff I have been talking about over the years. I've even called it a Dark Age myself. It's nice to see that some independent philosophers are actually doing quality philosophy.
The epistemology and metaphysics of the 20th and 21st centuries are profoundly dysfunctional. This leads to all sorts of unrecognized social and cultural problems.
I came up with a new label for our condition:
The Era of Epistemic Quagmire
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Torch in hand,
together we wade,
through dark swamp,
of human bullshit,
molested by mosquitos the size of eagles,
in search of dry ground and Light.
If you're into this work it's good for you to know the history of the New Age:
Personally, I don't regard my work as New Age, and I have a hate for most New Age stuff because it's so much group-think, belief, conformity, and larping. But there's no denying that the New Age contains many valid truths. Mostly what I dislike is how it is packaged, promoted, consumed, and adopted as a kind of sub-culture. I hate the style and vibes of it. It lacks rigor and seriousness. It stinks of humanness. Like a wet turd atop a bowl of your favorite ice cream.
But as easy as it is to ridicule the New Age, the truth is that the New Age got a lot of fundamental things right. Those who reject the New Age for being too woo or unscientific, are fooling themselves. Before you trash it you gotta spend 10 years studying it. The New Age is a huge step up from both fundamentalist religion and atheist scientism rationalism materialism.
But to really go far in this work I recommend you put your New Age toys in the closet and begin serious solo contemplation. God forbid you turn into one of those New Age rats.
I have a deep new video coming soon about Post-Modernism. Here's a little appetizer:
Rorty's pragmatic definition of truth:
After Darwin it becomes very hard to say that human beings grasp the true nature of things. It’s much easier to say they’ve developed language to enable them to serve various ends: better food, better sex, better shelter, more interesting lives, and so on. As opposed to doing this thing called ‘knowing what things in themselves really are’. So, don’t ask the question: Which language gets reality right? Just ask the question: Which language serves what human purpose best?
-- Richard Rorty
Pragmatism and post-modernism define truth as whatever can be justified relative to a culture, era, and people. Truth is thus not a matter of whether we got reality right but whether our language serves a certain utility or end.
According to pragmatism, "true" is an adjective which we apply to beliefs which we have sufficiently justified. And justification is relative to an audience, a culture, and other factors. We don't have to know what truth is because we just know how to use it.
So, atomic theory is true not because that's how nature really is but because it allows engineers to successfully manipulate matter and create useful technology and scientists to communicate successfully between each other to sustain academic institutions, publish in journals, and hold functional conferences.
What do you think about this definition of truth?
Is it true?
What is wrong with that definition of truth? What is right about it? How do you know?
Crazy? Unscientific? Not at all. There is nothing unscientific about aliens flying around Earth. An alien is no less scientific than a rat. Just because something doesn't meet your standards of proof doesn't make it unscientific. All it means is that proof is a very limited thing. The Universe is much vaster and weirder than anything you can prove.
I hope an alien tickles your butt-hole.