THE LANGUAGE OF THE THIRD REICH: LTI — Lingua Tertii Imperii, A Philologist’s Notebook by Victor Klemperer as translated by Martin Brady, 2006

In Klemperer, the alert will find solace and validation. Volumes of knowledge to explore are on every page of LTI. It’s a humbling and sobering reading experience that helps to sharpen the technicolor mind warp american imperialism casts as if all the pieces are simply random glass shards in a kaleidoscope.

This past week after I had written my first installment, I was shocked to view the NFL draft on a television at the local bar I frequent. ABC boasted a crowd of 300,000 people in the streets of Nashville to watch this auction, and the shots reflected it. If only the demonstration against a new Wal-Mart branch in Sherman Heights San Diego I was at seven years ago to the day had such numbers. There were many close-ups of young Black men wrapped up pretty as Christmas packages, and the most senior of the white commentators donned a large bobbly-headed mask resembling the top pick who was black. I find it quite shocking that ABC aired this for several minutes, and to me, just those few minutes signify the many steps backwards in american society that have become intensified in these last few years.

Time to visit Klemperer, I thought. I took to the chapter that discusses “punitive expedition” (chapter 6, “The First Three Words of the Nazi Language”). Punitive expedition translates from Strafexpedition in German, and Klemperer writes that it was the first term he recognized as being specifically Nazi. To him, it

was the the embodiment of brutal arrogance and contempt for people who are in any way different, it sounded so colonial, you could see the encircled Negro village, you could hear the cracking of the hippopotamus whip.

The whip-cracking I saw at work during the NFL draft was accelerated during the short bios they would give on different draft picks between the bouts of “real action”. One that stood out to me was of another Black man who was chosen because of his family’s solid military background. Both of his parents served, and they showed many pictures of them in uniform at various social functions throughout this short biopic while the young man elaborated on how important it was for him to grow up in a military family, how important the stability was to his budding career. Stunning.

But I am getting ahead of myself a bit because Klemperer first relates a personal story to even be able to tell us about the meaning of Strafexpedition. A visiting professor at his university had required the services of an engineer to demonstrate the uses of a new machine (that went unnamed by the author), but there were none available. Luckily, an eager apprentice emerged and did the job handily. Klemperer recognized his talents and took the somewhat impoverished young man under his wing as he earned an academic education while practicing his trade. Klemperer and his wife came to consider him as a son. This seeming protege of Klemperer’s, who he refers to as T., became involved with NASDAP and while he tried to maintain a relationship with him, T. insisted that all this “Jew talk” would eventually wash away once Hitler took power. The last phone call Klemperer had with T. happened as such:

[H]e rang us up and invited us out for a meal. It was very shortly after Hitler came to power. “How are things with you at work?” I asked. “Very good!” he answered. “Yesterday we had a great day. There were a few shameless communists in Okrilla, so we organized a punitive expedition.” — “What did you do?” — “You know, we made them run the gauntlet of rubber truncheons, a mild dose of castor-oil, no bloodshed but very effective all the same, a proper punitive expedition in fact.”

There’s much more to elaborate on here but I will leave that as food for thought for now. I will certainly continue to cite LTI throughout this series. The contrast here is stark. I will revisit the american continuation of slavery in the guise of professional sports as it relates to Staatsakt (state occasion) in LTI.

Developing: naval intelligence playing multiple roles in North Carolina operations?

In my last post, I incorrectly wrote that there had been a commie LARP-like stunt in Durham, NC, around April 21. It was actually in Raleigh, but the newly-formed, so-called organization that was panhandling for donations for “jail support” for the two oppressed souls who had defaced confederate statues outside the Raleigh capitol is regularly involved in Durham actions, because the citizens there being displaced by the latest round of gentrification very much care about statues on North Carolina campuses and not like, their heirs who are building brand spanking new towers of condos for the upper tech strata. Riiight.

So, me being me, and having written about where this whole statue-protest business was headed in 2017, I wanted to know why we were seeing another pale-faced duo making headlines in doing the supposed cutting-edge best to protest against racism, and in the most bland ways possible for a captive audience. Kops heart Klan, what a surprise. Not really the most novel stance in 2019, but lord knows if I would happen to publicly question officer @authcom19 about the relevance of this comically tame protest in which the capitol police knew his name, I would be required to produce a detailed list of What I Am Doing; see also: What Party Are You Even In? cf: You Can’t Complain If You Didn’t Vote.

I’m just joshin’ of course; I don’t think @authcom19 is a bona fide agent. I just think he’s being run by a former naval petty officer first class, one Amber Mathwig whose LinkedIn profile, at least at the date of this publishing, boasts a navy background dating back to 2005. In trying to search out @authcom19’s concern perhaps related to recent data that UNC School of Government published on their Criminal Law blog (a law blog, yes — in fact, it’s my favorite law blog of all the law blogs out there), I noticed that any attention he’s paid toward UNC Chapel Hill has been expressed by retweeting the news of Mathwig’s arrest who apparently protested an active-shooter training.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I expect for people who have visibility in life and death struggles who ostensibly pose as in favor of the oppressed of the entire world, as @authcom19 purports in his Twitter profile in totality — his bio as of this publishing reads “Anti-Imperialist | Communist | #HandsOffSyria | #BLM | Palestine will be free | @_YouthFUSE_ | Decolonization and Reparations! |” to take a very detailed, methodological approach to their resistance. I expect them to have a firm grasp on their surroundings, and personally I face questions from friends and comrades daily about my experiences and activity, and frankly, I invite them and look forward to such engagement. So naturally, an engaged person such as myself would search out to see where someone like him stands on issues close to home. Well, apparently he stands with a vaguely-defined UNC staff member whose more specific title is actually Student Veterans Assistance Coordinator.

This find was definitely one of those record scratch moments. I can’t say it was surprising, but one doesn’t typically expect to smoke out the handler of a sketchy Twitter personality in one go. However, the centering of white people in anti-racist struggle that was highlighted with the spectacle of Heather Heyer’s death in Charlottesville, VA, while this sphere drowns out the struggles and suspicious deaths of Darren Seals and Sasha Avona Bell in favor of their own egos has allowed for all kinds of fuckery under the guise of leftism, anti-imperialism, and communism. These assholes don’t expect you to look twice. Trust them! Anything action-y oriented with cover of statues, literally, is just peachy.

Mathwig’s arrest during an active shooter drill on the UNC Chapel Hill campus predictably centers her as heroine. Just a few search engine queries of her history is enough to sicken one, in my opinion, when she gets write-ups like this for her supposed bravery:

In her statement, Mathwig said she noticed the training drill on Wednesday as she left the Odum Village parking lot and saw several law enforcement vehicles, dozens of officers wearing paintball-style masks, a few rifles with orange caps on their muzzles and more.

Both Mathwig and a witness of her arrest – undergraduate Roger Kennely, who works under Mathwig at the veterans center – said the location of the exercise concerned them.

[…] “While a lower velocity than actual ammunition, simunition rounds are a projectile that can break glass and cause bruising and cuts to the skin if struck,” Mathwig stated. “In addition to 10 years of generally conducting training around policing tactics and firearms in the military, I specifically worked for a training unit for three years that conducted regular training with simunition rounds. Because of the risks associated with their use, and that they should never be mixed with actual weapons or people unaware of what is going on, these trainings were held in unused buildings that were fenced, clearly marked and had access control through one point of entry only.”

[…] “You have no idea the potential triggers that this will cause for the veterans in the center, not to mention that we still have students on campus,” said Kennely, who served in the U.S. Air Force for nearly 11 years.

[…] UNC Police showed “disparate treatment,” Mathwig added, toward two students of color during the interaction. Kennely is one of the students she was referencing. She stated that both students were threatened with Honor Court by an officer. Kennely said that Kay asked for his UNC ONE Card, student identification number and name, even though he was only observing the situation.

[…] In her statement, Mathwig stood firmly by her decision and her opposition to “militarized policing” that she believes has been sanctioned and protected by UNC.

“Most of all, I know what I did was right,” Mathwig stated. “I know that I am being retaliated against after being a vocal voice for anti-racist students this past year.”

Mathwig is no hero — she’s scary as fuck actually, and the navy’s history of intelligence work is well-documented by anti-fascist researchers. If she were such a hero for the underdogs, as she likes to portray herself as on her Twitter profile, why didn’t she give us any inkling about what could have happened at UNC Charlotte yesterday? — as someone who was actually privy to one of these drills that so often come before these incidents. Instead she made it about herself and her history in the navy.

As far as I can tell, Mathwig’s goal is to be a presence in any dissident gathering in the triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) to make sure it’s on lock and she has news to report back to her handlers. You can’t trust it — we always have to make sure we’re looking any which way when it comes to these actions that have some kind of slick promotion by social media attention getters. There is really no excuse for someone who labels themselves as @authcom19 does to be promoting scary goons like her.

Still on deck: Alabama’s prison conditions have made the headlines since the FBI invasion news I mentioned last time; Nick Bryant is now talking about the Boy Scouts scandal on RT