In relation to this — how trolls (an account that's not 'real') — I wanted to share this performance by Bo Burnham:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU

He takes on the internet as a character, using various funny/rhetorical methods to articulate an illusion of personal power that people may feel on the internet. He's getting at the mass manipulation that occurs when information is planted to get people to respond in specific ways, making them feel like they have more control over their responses than they actually do.

This is partly why social media and spin dictators can mesh so well. The social media companies want people to spend the most possible amount of time on their apps. This is how they make money: attention/data/ads. Apps become echo chambers for the amplification of misinformation/disinformation.

I think it's so important to recognize the necessity of autonomous space among indigenous communities. And how space also acts as a form of power. Imperial powers often take over Indigenous spaces, and it's a violent offense against, often times, thousands upon thousand of years of culture.

The reproduction of violence in this context is incredibly frightening. It normalizes violence on such a large scale. And with drone strikes and suicide bombs having the capability of killing 'targets' of people in mass, there becomes an imagination of people as statistics. Death can be so destructive that people are no longer seen as people. Perhaps its a way of filtering out things that are too awful to fathom.

When all these similar issues with the Trump campaign came up, I was thinking about how Facebook is. it a town square. Facebook is a private company with incredibly large responsibilities. The conversation needs to be different when it comes to free speech. They need to have more thorough systems for speech/accountability.

It's incredibly interesting to think about confirmation bias, gatekeeping , and how the internet is not a free space.

This all seems very similar to the Trump playbook. I'd be interested to know if Duterte's campaign physically collaborate/approached Facebook in in the same way that Trump's campaign did.

Maybe we could talk about how there is still fear in spin, and how that fear is different from dictators in the 20th century?

The weakening of trusted institutions is an effective way to structurally create chaos and control the people — a very spin dictator thing to do.

And also sanitizes.

Drone strikes are a form of colonialism, where the U.S. can feel comfortable declaring sovereignty over all places. There is an inherent assertion of dominance that articulates a threat to the entire world.

Tapey is a response and resistance to oppressive colonial actions. There is a grappling with how to live and resist colonialism.

This makes me think of imagined communities and how ideological forces construct harmful power structures that are both material and immaterial .

This is a big point — the US has severely contributed to disrupting social and political structures. This disruption has destabilized regions and fostered conflict.

This is getting at the simulacra of control. The space-time of capital is stuck in the retro, selling the old as new and cheapening everyday life.

This is such an interesting insight. Capitalism is pitched as this eternal profit machine. Colonialism was essentially pitched as that as well... Manifest Destiny — this illusion of progress. However, what capitalism and colonialism have done is demean people/nature/culture.

Relating this back to how the article detailed ex-colonies as 'haunted,'colonialism is a persistent force. It has tainted so much land and culture that its stench is still very much so present. It comes down to how do we live in the present and find anti-colonial methods of living for the future?

Again, everything is so much about appearance. It's not about making the world safer and protecting people. It's about better positioning oneself for a more appealing political aesthetic.

This makes me think about performance and political theater that's mentioned in chapter 4.

The word "specter" is really interesting in this context. It implies that authoritarianism of some kind has always been present. It's just been hidden by fake ideas of exceptionalism in this country.

It's interesting to think about this in the context of our so-called global village. Maybe I shouldn't say "so-called," because it is a global village. Everyone is now more aware of each other than ever, and we act in accordance with that awareness. However, there seems to be a lot of selfishness among individual countries — being aware of each other but not helping each other. This phenomena potentially leads to heightened levels of violence.

When Marshall McLuhan coined the term "global village," that what he accounted for — violence. It wasn't a term that meant to articulate the idea of everyone holding hands across all counties. That's of course an ideal outcome. But the world has so many conflicting perspective that it becomes difficult to live up to any form of ideal scenario.

I like the word "reciprocal" here. It gets at how the book's topics operate in an ecosystem where there are returns given among power structures — reciprocity that upholds the oppressive model of politics/economy.

This is a really helpful characterization — authoritarian neoliberalism as an ecosystem of ideology manifested in concrete action that upholds inequality, and advantages for people in power. This has been a prominent theme in the United States that was further revealed throughout Trump's presidency.

I really like this summation. It's a method to make very clear what the text is getting at/a good area for activists to be made aware of the potential ways they might be silenced/the potential ways to avoid those silences. Also, it makes me think about silences in general, and the ways Derrida got at that —how in capitalist society there will always be inherent silences/an inability to acknowledge all people and all things. There will always be blindspots.

I'm not sure if this is a good connection, but I'm thinking of Foucault's panopticon, where everyone is vulnerable to authority and everyone's freedom is vulnerable at all times, especially with heightened digital technologies.

"Transcending" seems to be a fitting word to use in regard to "the will" that was just discussed and authoritarianism. In other words, there is this illusive will that must be obeyed, which is a form of control that uses mysticism as an excuse for oppression.

I find this distinction incredibly helpful. Perhaps authoritarianism provides more of an illusion of freedom whereas totalitarianism is blatantly disregarding freedom? With regard to authoritarianism and the law in relation to God's commandments, it made me think of a film called "The Sheik and I." Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi travels to Sharjah and subverts the Sheik's position of power by making fun of the religion that the country abides by — that's at least part of the idea of the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM00MM5IgTY

This line and blurring between a regime's pressure valve and a springboard for entering government is incredibly poignant. It makes me think about what activists jobs are, and how that job is different than a politician's. The activists job is to understand social issues and create action for change. And then the question might become, where does power shift after change occurs for that change to be upheld?

I'm hoping that maybe we can talk about definitions of power, along with the connections of those definitions with ideology. What is power? How has power been invented and what is its relationship to the material and immaterial structures of ideology?

In relation to the "Freedom for the Wolf" documentary that we just watched, its interesting to think about how the collective peoples' voices can shake up the ruling party's voice. The film referenced Bruce Lee's "be water, my friend," quote. And if the people collectively "be water," they can weigh down and seep through the cracks of the ruling party just by sheer numbers and logic. The people can "flow," as Bruce Lee says, or they van of course "crash," as Lee says as well.

On this topic, I'm thinking a lot about how the women-led activists in Iran are flowing together to resist the current regime.