Re: [Marxism] Is Slavoj Zizek a US propaganda psyop?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 5/26/14 9:45 AM, Richard Menec via Marxism wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (I cannot attend this, unfortunately, but it would be great to have a report!) http://www.leftforum.org/content/zizek-delenda-est Zizek Delenda Est Participants: Jacob Levich Chair, Hannah Wolfe ISO Molly Klein John Steppling Levich is a long time anti-imperialist who was a Marxmail subscriber over a decade ago. I can't remember if I booted him or if he unsubbed. The title of the workshop comes from Carthage delenda est, which means Carthage must be destroyed. I wonder if Michael Smith was an outside consultant on the title. I have written a number of articles critiquing Zizek but I would never consider him some kind of imperialist operative, which is the impression that these panelists want to convey based on the blurbs found in the Left Forum website. Abstract: Is Slavoj Zizek a US propaganda psyop? I want to ask my comrades on the left to consider the possibility. After years of research, I have come to the conclusion that Zizek is a charlatan posing as a Stalinist to both discredit communists by performing a caricature Bolshevik and simultaneously, to smuggle fascist ideas including old fashioned Aryan supremacism and 19th century race theory, back into public discourse disguised as radical left critique of liberalism. I zill focus on how he exploits his radical left image to spread imperialist propaganda and disinformation. I'll trace the origins of the Zizek Industry to his first anointing by the New Left Review,then under the control of Croatian Nationalists and Tudjman supporters, as the Balkan Leftist who would initiate, in 1990, the dominant strain of imperialist propaganda about Yugoslavia, and yet further back to his career as an antiMarxist dissident and Slovene ethnic nationalist. I will discuss the way he has influenced a generation to the point where now right wing and reactionary ideas as well as pure white house disinformation and propaganda are routinely packaged as hip lefty and radical thought. (I assume that Levich wrote this. It smacks of the conspiracist mindset that has infected the left for decades now. Skullduggery reminiscent of the Mad Magazine Spy versus Spy cartoons.) Molly Klein: Zizek Must Be Destroyed. Zizek is not only an individual celebrity intellectual who, with the help of the NYTimes, the Guardian, the BBC, In These Times, and Verso Books has become the most recognizeablle Marxist in the spectacle, but the name of a type of ideological revanchist black operation which seeks to reverse the gains of the radical scolarship and decoloniality of the past decades, to vend US imperial propaganda and disinformation as critique of liberalism and contrarian insights, to rebarbarize moeurs (normalizing racist and sexist verbal aggression, re-segregating intellectual milieux) which had been to a great degree civilized by the successes of the social movementsm, and to revive Nazi ideology - rebranded as radical left - in academic, indy publishing, and what's left of counterculture circles. The problem is not confined to this one individual (whom many dismiss as clownish) but involves a significant network of culture producers showing his influence routinely reproducing US imperialapology, propaganda and disinformation in a superficial left package and opportunistically attacking all challenges to Empire which threaten to gain steam. (I just love the business about ideological revanchist black operation. I have a feeling that Molly must have a poster of Vishinsky on her bedroom wall like John Travolta had one of Al Pacino in Saturday Night Fever. Klein, like Levich, is anxious to demonize NLR and Verso. Over the years I have grown used to sectarian idiots making NLR and Verso into a kind of litmus test after the fashion of the Trotsky From a scratch to a gangrene polemics. As if someone lecturing on The Matrix is the biggest problem facing the left. In my view, the biggest problem facing the left is the sheer lunacy of people wasting space and time at the Left Forum on something like this. Frankly, I was a bit distressed to see that Hannah Wolfe of the ISO is taking part. The comrade should know better.) Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Is Slavoj Zizek a US propaganda psyop?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On another front this morning I recommended Orwell's Politics and the English Language to those who swoon over abstract, meaningless jargon,and the sloppy politics it enables. But this is beyond duplicity and incoherence. It's just fucking stupid. Will the workshop organizers bring tin-foil alien signal-receptor caps for everyone or should we bring our own? On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 9:51 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 5/26/14 9:45 AM, Richard Menec via Marxism wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (I cannot attend this, unfortunately, but it would be great to have a report!) http://www.leftforum.org/content/zizek-delenda-est Zizek Delenda Est Participants: Jacob Levich Chair, Hannah Wolfe ISO Molly Klein John Steppling Levich is a long time anti-imperialist who was a Marxmail subscriber over a decade ago. I can't remember if I booted him or if he unsubbed. The title of the workshop comes from Carthage delenda est, which means Carthage must be destroyed. I wonder if Michael Smith was an outside consultant on the title. I have written a number of articles critiquing Zizek but I would never consider him some kind of imperialist operative, which is the impression that these panelists want to convey based on the blurbs found in the Left Forum website. Abstract: Is Slavoj Zizek a US propaganda psyop? I want to ask my comrades on the left to consider the possibility. After years of research, I have come to the conclusion that Zizek is a charlatan posing as a Stalinist to both discredit communists by performing a caricature Bolshevik and simultaneously, to smuggle fascist ideas including old fashioned Aryan supremacism and 19th century race theory, back into public discourse disguised as radical left critique of liberalism. I zill focus on how he exploits his radical left image to spread imperialist propaganda and disinformation. I'll trace the origins of the Zizek Industry to his first anointing by the New Left Review,then under the control of Croatian Nationalists and Tudjman supporters, as the Balkan Leftist who would initiate, in 1990, the dominant strain of imperialist propaganda about Yugoslavia, and yet further back to his career as an antiMarxist dissident and Slovene ethnic nationalist. I will discuss the way he has influenced a generation to the point where now right wing and reactionary ideas as well as pure white house disinformation and propaganda are routinely packaged as hip lefty and radical thought. (I assume that Levich wrote this. It smacks of the conspiracist mindset that has infected the left for decades now. Skullduggery reminiscent of the Mad Magazine Spy versus Spy cartoons.) Molly Klein: Zizek Must Be Destroyed. Zizek is not only an individual celebrity intellectual who, with the help of the NYTimes, the Guardian, the BBC, In These Times, and Verso Books has become the most recognizeablle Marxist in the spectacle, but the name of a type of ideological revanchist black operation which seeks to reverse the gains of the radical scolarship and decoloniality of the past decades, to vend US imperial propaganda and disinformation as critique of liberalism and contrarian insights, to rebarbarize moeurs (normalizing racist and sexist verbal aggression, re-segregating intellectual milieux) which had been to a great degree civilized by the successes of the social movementsm, and to revive Nazi ideology - rebranded as radical left - in academic, indy publishing, and what's left of counterculture circles. The problem is not confined to this one individual (whom many dismiss as clownish) but involves a significant network of culture producers showing his influence routinely reproducing US imperialapology, propaganda and disinformation in a superficial left package and opportunistically attacking all challenges to Empire which threaten to gain steam. (I just love the business about ideological revanchist black operation. I have a feeling that Molly must have a poster of Vishinsky on her bedroom wall like John Travolta had one of Al Pacino in Saturday Night Fever. Klein, like Levich, is anxious to demonize NLR and Verso. Over the years I have grown used to sectarian idiots making NLR and Verso into a kind of litmus test after the fashion of the Trotsky From a scratch to a
Re: [Marxism] Is Slavoj Zizek a US propaganda psyop?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On May 26, 2014, at 12:33 PM, Richard Fidler rfidle...@sympatico.ca wrote: Actually, Michael, in Latin it is Cartago delenda est. No th in Latin, and cities are feminine, hence delenda. Of course it is, because as you correctly note, 'Carthago' is feminine; but Zizek, presumably, is not. Hence he is delendus rather than delenda. As for 'no th in Latin', I suggest a quick look at LS or OLD. 'Cart(h)ago' is of course not a native Latin word. Michael Smith m...@smithbowen.net A man should take care not to be made a proverb; and, therefore, should avoid having any one topick of which people can say, We shall hear him upon it. --Dr J Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Is Slavoj Zizek a US propaganda psyop?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 26.05.2014 18:40, Michael Smith via Marxism wrote: On May 26, 2014, at 12:33 PM, Richard Fidler rfidle...@sympatico.ca wrote: Actually, Michael, in Latin it is Cartago delenda est. No th in Latin, and cities are feminine, hence delenda. Of course it is, because as you correctly note, 'Carthago' is feminine; but Zizek, presumably, is not. Hence he is delendus rather than delenda. As for 'no th in Latin', I suggest a quick look at LS or OLD. 'Cart(h)ago' is of course not a native Latin word. My memory from my Latin lessons is that the word order was: Delenda est Carthago - I believe that th was used in classical Latin to represent the sound of the Greek letter theta, which was similar to the voiceless th sound in English. And Zizek would definitely merit a delendus! Einde Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
