It was a tad ironic, to put to mildly: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that famously phony anti-Semitic “document” purporting to provide the details of the worldwide Jewish conspiracy straight from the Elders themselves, not only helped to inspire and rationalize the vicious Nazi campaign against the Jewish people; it provided the Nazis with a blueprint for their own underhanded actions.
“The Protocols was required reading for the Hitler Youth,” Stephen Eric Bronner notes in A Rumor About the Jews, his history of The Protocols.
The pamphlet served to illustrate “how it could be done,”or how the seizure of power might be accomplished. The fictional conspiracy of the Jews was employed as a model by the Nazis.
This meant a lot of pretty underhanded shit:
Intimidation of opponents became a favored tactic along with the assassination of public figures. Perversion of the public sphere, concerted use of propaganda, and use of the big lie all became elemental tactics. No charge was too outlandish, no tactic too outrageous, no goal too ambitious.
Has Roosh Valizadeh, the noxious “pickup artist” and wannabe prophet of “neomasculinity” who favored us a few months back with his thoughts on “The Damaging Effects Of Jewish Intellectualism And Activism On Western Culture,” been reading The Protocols recently?
Because it seems as though he’s trying to beat the imaginary Elders of Zion at their own game.
In a grandiose and ethically bankrupt manifesto posted on his blog yesterday, Roosh sets out what he sees as the path forward for “neoreactionaries” like himself to bring about the return of patriarchy over the next half-century or so.
In his mind, it will be a five stage process.
In the first stage, already completed, people like him set up blogs and built “Red Pill”
internet communities that serve to help men meet women, teach them entrepreneurship skills, improve their health and bodily strength, and enlighten them with counter-cultural truths.
In Stage 2, which Roosh for some reason calls “Seed Resistance,” these Red Pill dudes will basically start acting like utter douchebags to everyone who disagrees with them, launching “counter operations” in the form of “attack pieces against far left narrative bots” (?) as well as cruder “public shaming” campaigns against enemies “through humorous images and comics.”
This stage, he explains, is ongoing.
But it’s in the third stage, which we are just entering into, where things start to get wildly underhanded and unethical.
This stage begins with a pulling together of a new coalition of patriarchy lovers made up of elements from
the men’s rights sphere, religious conservatives, liberal gamers, and even white nationalists.
These groups, currently “probing each other for common ground, loyalty, and commitment” will ultimately assemble into “a huge fighting force” and launch an all-out “Culture War” against the “far left” ideologues who, like the fictional Elders of Zion, supposedly run the world.
Culture war will involve sustained, asymmetrical, and intense informational warfare against the enemy that starts to damage their way of life, happiness, and disposable income. They will soon have sleepless nights just like I did in Canada when the full force of the establishment came down upon me.
The strategies Roosh suggests that this ragtag army use against the evil “establishment” seem to be copied straight from Supervillaining for Dummies. You can almost hear a loud “muahaha!” as Roosh spells out his devious plans:
- Acute divide and conquer campaigns that target weak-willed individuals who are not ready to fight without being part of the herd.
- Sustained criticism of individuals to encourage meltdowns and bad decisions, facilitating their descent into illogical madness that makes them lose support or prestige within their group.
- Psy-op campaigns to undermine the word of women and other alternative groups by painting them as pathological liars or mentally insane
- Creation of pressure groups (i.e. mobs) to target small companies that are sensitive to even small amounts of negative publicity and profit loss.
- Stealth infiltration into intellectual circles and various institutions such as universities, media, military, and government bureaucracies.
As he sees it, the first shots in the Culture War have already been fired: he counts GamerGate, the Hugo awards fiasco, and the “cuckservative” meme to be some of the victories so far.
It’s at this point — in stages four and five — that Roosh’s manifesto starts to sound a bit like the supposedly foolproof plan of South Park’s Underpants Gnomes.
After a decade or so of “Culture Warring,” Roosh thinks a giant “cultural vacuum” will form, allowing neoreactionaries like him to, well, suck up those no longer convinced by the establishment’s evil narrative. And then, somewhere in the 2045-2075 time range, the patriarchy itself will magically return, triumphant.
Over the course of a generation, there will be a gradual return to the patriarchy as at least 50% of the population believes in traditional ideals and have the voting power to usher in non-bought leaders who see patriarchy as the only way to maintain cohesion of society.
PROFIT!
I have no doubt that stages four and five are little more than the grandiose visions of a PUA guru who desperately wants to become a full-fledged cult leader; they will never come to pass.
It’s stage three — all that underhanded shit — that’s more troubling. Roosh’s plans to bring back the patriarchy is doomed from the start, but energized “neoreactionary” trolls can cause a lot of damage to individual people while traveling down their particular road to nowhere
In fairness to Valizadeh, the Montreal police officer he spoke to was a motherfucking polar bear.
Op, op, op, op,
Oppa Gangnam style!
@flrpwll: In the UK, pretty much every political party has a manifesto, as do a lot of lobbying groups. The more moderate parties’ ones are pretty reasonable.
@thedxman: Good catch. “Cohesion in society” seems to be the modern euphemism for, essentially, patriarchy. Put that way, the line you identified seems almost a tautology.
@vanir85: A solid point. I think Valizadeh – and a lot of men, to be honest – don’t really understand the difference between intimacy and dominance. Genuinely consensual sex, including the possibility that a woman might have a libido of her own and political thoughts of her own, is a frightening spectre to them because it raises the possibility that they become the object who is acted upon.
I say “a lot of men” because I was certainly like that when I was younger, too. The difference is that some of us grow up.
“They will soon have sleepless nights just like I did in Canada when the full force of the establishment came down upon me. ”
Ghandi’s salt march? King’s march on Washington? Pshaw, I’ve seen the true face of Civil Disobedience and will forever remember the moment it got a drink thrown at it.
Hey, finally coming out of lurkmode! *looks around suspiciously* You people don’t haze around here, right?
I find it weird that these people don’t realize that if they have to spread misinformation about their “enemy”, they’re basically admitting they’re in the wrong here.
Soon Roosh will have a cake named after him.
On a more serious note; how far can this go before a Roosh’s neoreactionary hate mob actually becomes categorized as a domestic terrorist group? He openly admits he seeks to undermine social order and individual rights through deception and harassment.
– EJ (the other one)
Seems to me the kind of society Roosh & Co wants is one where men don’t HAVE to think of or treat women as people, where they can just force women into submission and take what they want from them.
Roosh and his fellow neoreactionaries really ARE the western version of IS (and I’m certain they’ll turn to violence, beyond the lone wolf shooter types they already spawn, once they realize there is *nothing* they can do that will make women *peacfully* go back to subjugation and second-class citizen status).
“On a more serious note; how far can this go before a Roosh’s neoreactionary hate mob actually becomes categorized as a domestic terrorist group? He openly admits he seeks to undermine social order and individual rights through deception and harassment.”—So true Vanir, that is why as fun as it can be to ridicule these people, they incite violence even though some deny it. All it takes is one followere to decide a bunch of women need killing. This has already been the case too.
My favourite quote from his rant is this:
“Heuristic rules of living that stem from religion and tradition will be used instead of ever-shifting scientific “facts” ”
…ever…shifting…scientific….facts
I have trouble coming up with a more misguided misinterpretation of science. Aren’t these guys supposed to be the rational ones?
@Vanir85:
I doubt they will. I hope I’m right.
Daesh (the Islamic State) are a disciplined group who have an enormous organisational capacity, a resilient leadership system honed over years of war, and a huge pool of soldiers who’re willing to follow orders even when it’s personally difficult for them. Aiding them in this is the fact that they can recruit from places where more than a decade of war with the West has inured people to fighting, and they can draw recruits from places like Palestine or Chechnya where the fighting has gone on even longer.
Also importantly, Daesh has shown its ability to genuinely offer an alternative society. They’ve built courts of law, a simple but robust welfare state, and a taxation system. They’re capable of running a country, meaning that whenever the infrastructure of state fails they can move into the void as a genuine alternative. Their alternative state may be a hateful place but it functions.
The neoreactionaries have none of this. They’re a bunch of bloggers and sock puppeteers whose proudest achievements have been hijacking social media to have some advertising pulled for a while. When one looks at activities rather than words, they disappear entirely. I can see them producing lone gunmen, probably tragically many of them; but I can’t see them building an army in the same way as Daesh did.
(This should not be taken as admiration of Daesh. They’re genuine villains of a sort we thankfully seldom see in the world. They are however competent villains, and we need to recognise this.)
Yeah, this part made me chuckle. I can only assume he thinks the ‘full force of the establishment’ takes the form of a beer and a crowd of hecklers.
If the Big Boyz (& a Token Big Girl) can lie without repercussions, then why can’t Roosh? And Paul Elam? Why shouldn’t they get in on that action? America, land of opportunity.
It’s the Republicans’ (and the MRAs’, the PUAs’, and so on) bizarro world. We just live in it.
Or so they would really, really like us to believe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/opinion/paul-krugman-fantasies-and-fictions-at-gop-debate.html?_r=1
That’s part of it, but Gamergate has a long and strange relationship with their purported political affiliation. The best way I can think of to explain it is a label they came up with for themselves awhile back: “cultural libertarians”. They frame it as being defenders of free speech, artistic expression, and so on, and thus they are the “true liberals” as opposed to the censorial “cultural authoritarian” SJWs who want to stifle expression and ban speech in the name of not offending anyone.
Of course, anyone outside their bubble can see that A) criticism is not a call for banning or censorship and B) They’re perfectly willing to throw their support for “artistic expression” out the window and get all riled up about “forced politics” in media when the artist expresses opinions they don’t like. It’s all a smokescreen, but its all to keep themselves convinced that they’re the real liberals.
Does Roosh not realize that a return to a society where women are the property of men would severely cut into his pua/rape fun? Other men wouldn’t want him touching their chattel.
Given his hygeine habits, I imagine a blanket party or two would come his way.
@AnAndrejaPejicBlog:
Funny thing about that, actually. Roosh has said multiple times in the past that his PUA garbage is something he does because he feels he has to, and he’d look forward to a more traditional society.
Sounds odd, but it boils down to who has to court who. Roosh is supremely upset that women can have agency and careers in our society, and therefore they don’t have to appeal to men in order to ensure their basic survival. Thus, since women can do whatever the hell they want, men have to be the ones going to women and being a clown in order to get the sex women are holding hostage.
In his mind, a “traditional” society is one where women have to essentially grovel at his (“men’s”) feet for food, so he’d therefore have all the sex he wants with a nice submissive housewife automagically.
Roosh doesn’t quite see PUA as a means of having sex with women in general… more like a way to wade through hot women’s high standards while those women are allowed to have them.
Not really seeing what’s so amazing/goofy about step 3, for the most part. A lot of it is just big words describing behavior that’s been pretty par for the course with fuckhead assholes.
“Sustained criticism of individuals to encourage meltdowns and bad decisions, facilitating their descent into illogical madness that makes them lose support or prestige within their group.”
“Sustained criticism” yeah haha you mean harassment, Rooshie. You mean “harass people with an endless horde of sealioning idiots until they finally lose patience and lash out.” Granted the targets don’t usually lose much support within their group, because their group consists of actual decent sensible people who know that stress and endless hassling can take a toll on you.
“Psy-op campaigns to undermine the word of women and other alternative groups by painting them as pathological liars or mentally insane”
Yeah, you mean “harass people until they lash out or express frustration, then leap on that and blow it up. Or failing that just like dig up logs from ten years ago. Or just scream ‘OMFG LYING CRAZY WUHWUHWUHWOOOOOOMEN’ on YouTube until we pass out.” We’re all painfully familiar with this, thanks anyway Roo dude. But you know maybe calling it “psy-ops” will make it actually accomplish something besides spreading shit everywhere.
“Creation of pressure groups (i.e. mobs) to target small companies that are sensitive to even small amounts of negative publicity and profit loss.”
Clearly braying mobs of angry stupid assholes will work on SMALL companies after failing so spectacularly with BIG ones (cough cough Gamergate). I know if there’s one thing I’d want my small business being known for, it’d be for obeying the demands of obvious misogynists, many of whom are probably not actual customers.
I can’t help but admire his honesty in actually saying “mobs” though.
“Stealth infiltration into intellectual circles and various institutions such as universities, media, military, and government bureaucracies.”
Okay this one’s genuinely sorta ambitious with some of its targets. Not that universities don’t already keep some far-right fucksticks around to facepalm and laugh at. But “stealth infiltration” makes me think of “Femcon 2015” and “NotYourShield.” Such encouraging test cases for future “stealth” missions.
If he’s still alive then, I’ll ask him about his plan in 2075.
Nope…but if you look near the bottom of the right sidebar, you’ll find a scented candle. Click on that, and your initiation will soon be complete!
I’m not a bit surprised, myself…lying to try to manipulate others is what these guys do, full-time. They’ve even lied to and manipulated themselves and each other, and the funny part is that they’re all too self-deluded and mutually brainwashed to realize it.
Also, I’m pretty sure they think that WE do that, so THEY have to, if they’re going to “win” — à la the CIA with their justification for MKULTRA, which they insisted they’d have to do if they were going to beat those devious Chinese and creepy Russkies at their own game…
@kirbywarp
In the society he envisions, it’s still not going to work out for Roosh, since he’s not rich and/or powerful enough to access women of the hotness level he desires. Beautiful women of the upper classes would always be out of reach, while beautiful women of the lower classes could marry up or be the mistresses of upperclass men. He really doesn’t think this shit through, does he?
@EJ – I just wanted to give a thanks for using “Daesh”.
I wish it would gain more traction in the US.
—
For those who don’t know why:
“The term “Daesh” is strategically a better choice because it is still accurate in that it spells out the acronym of the group’s full Arabic name, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. Yet, at the same time, “Daesh” can also be understood as a play on words — and an insult. Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, it can mean anything from “to trample down and crush” to “a bigot who imposes his view on others.” Already, the group has reportedly threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who uses the term.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/10/09/words-matter-isis-war-use-daesh/V85GYEuasEEJgrUun0dMUP/story.html
@AnAndrejaPejicBlog:
I don’t think he knows what a Nash Equilibrium is.
@mockingbird:
I love the phrase.
My Arabic friends tell me that apparently it’s a very difficult pun to translate but is extremely insulting, even more so than the translations suggest. I’m told that it’s like “Faux News” for Fox News in the level of inadvertent hyperappropriateness.
“They will soon have sleepless nights just like I did in Canada when the full force of the establishment came down upon me”
OH man that’s good. Look mate, maybe when police show up in armoured vehicles to stop you with full authorization to kill you while the media and authorities describe you as thugs and terrorists you can play that card, until then harden up.
These wet noodles aren’t even cut out for the lowest levels of activism. They’d go to a protest and balk at the sight of a counter-demonstration, let alone any police resistance.
I do love the pattern of reactionaries deciding evil tactics are okay:
1. Push some straight BS like the Protocols of the Elders Of Zion, or Secret Communist Plots or Cultural Marxism to show how left wingers engage in these evil tactics that we do-gooder reactionaries must stop!
2. Study those strategies used by this made up left wing
3. Adopt them because it’s okay to do this stuff that outrages us as an evil plot because they’re doing it too, it’s only fair
4. Commit acts of evil, wonder why there is a backlash when they are uncovered, there was no backlash to those nasty lefties (who didn’t do anything) so we better double down and do it harder.