The Gutter Art Critic

The rise of the Pirate party in recent Czech elections shows that the left may in fact be invigorated enough to go beyond the Occupy movement and its ultimate failure. Gaining 22 seats in the Czech parliament, the Pirates are now the third largest party in Czech Republic. The only irony here is that the Pirates consider themselves a center party.   This digital ‘left’ acts as a counter point to the alt-right described by Angela Nagle in her book on the subject called ‘Kill All Normies.’   As if there is no end to all the irony in the world, in today’s upside-down world, it is the ‘right’ that is most plugged into the digital world and the internet, somehow able to coopt every tactic that the old ‘new left’ used in its political stance on very diverse issues, from feminism and gay rights, to environmentalism and animal rights, and literally turning them inside-out, into stances like men’s rights, which were initially tongue-in-cheek, but developed into a strangely potent politica

For as long as I can remember, there has been fake news out there, from yellow journalism to paid advertising made to appear as news.   Advertising itself has in recent years gone to absolutely crazy levels of faking real life so as to make the two virtually indistinguishable.   There is a story by Jon Ronson of a group in England that faked a meteor impact in the country side, a crypto advertising campaign during a soccer match involved a Barcelona player and a spectator that threw a banana on the pitch, the player nonchalantly picked up the banana and ate it before serving up a corner kick, the whole event meant to advertise the campaign against racism in ‘football.’   There are countless of these stories.   In the 1930s yellow journalism spearheaded by the psychopath robber baron William R. Hearst, in a vast conspiracy with likeminded new-aristocrats like Dupont, made marijuana illegal for the next 80 years, only so they could have a monopoly in the paper and tree pulp market.

In light of the inauguration of Donald J Trump as president and the million people marches out there, I’d like to stay optimistic about developments around the globe, yet I find myself sinking back into a realization that we are not experiencing anything new.   The inauguration of both George W Bush and Barack Obama spawned protests and counter protests, all a bit wishy washy, with no clear goals or agendas, littered with celebrity speakers to make the crowds feel good about themselves.   I fear we have not learned much from the past.   I fear that the protests are a simple reaction, not a means to a sustained political and social change.     If we look at Trump’s cabinet appointees, we see that he’s filled it with nothing but business types, some with no political experience, much like Trump himself.   But is this a revolutionary move on Trump’s part?   I would argue the opposite.   Trump is just doing what is considered hegemonic in the current globalist business ethos.   He

First, I would like to point out that in no way am I offering any sort of diagnosis of Slavoj Zizek’s speech impediment.   This article/essay is a simple exercise in perception, and yes, a Zizekian analysis.   What do we get when we apply Zizek’s theories to Zizek himself?   The answer may or may not be surprising, depending on whether you are a Zizek follower or an anti-Zizek propagandist.    In an analysis of The King’s Speech, Zizek points out that the king’s stuttering makes the king self-conscious and in a way embarrassed.   As a divine ruler, the king of England should be a confident authority figure perfectly capable of assuming the role of the head of state.   Delivering messages to the masses through oratory on the radio is just one of the ways that the king’s authority is projected to the public and if the people hear that in the voice of the king is a slight imperfection, this may be read as a fault that might preclude the king from carrying out his divine duty, f

As disconcerting as the election of Trump was, nothing is more telling than the fact that authenticity is coming back into the lexicon of everyday use, courtesy of the populist right and the crypto-rightism of figures like Alex Jones.   When Hillary said she was two different people in public and in private she might in fact have been sincere, pointing out a simple truth.   In fact most of us act differently in front of different people. We are a different person in front of our friends or in front of our parents.   The same goes for the public and private spheres.   We not only act differently, we speak differently without realizing that we do so.   That Trump is seen as authentic because he seems to be the same person everywhere he appears, only shows how perfectly he plays his part in public.   Are we to assume that President Trump will be the same person as Apprentice Trump, the boardroom Trump, and the bedroom Trump? I can only surmise that Trump’s election is taking humanity b