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References
Stephen Skowronek // "The Politics Presidents Make" (1993)
Rational Choice Theory (1955) "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice" by Herbert A. Simon
The Nixon movie I couldn't remember was "Secret Honor" (Robert Altman, 1984)
Abramowitz et. al study of Southern Republicans https://journals.shareok.org/arp/article/view/366
Notable Esoteric Platonists: Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Aspasia and Pericles the Younger
Otto Ambros (Third Reich Scientist/Operation Paperclip)
Dialogues by Plato:
Meno (Knowledge, geometry, 'rememberance')
Republic (Justice, the Noble Lie)
Laches (Instruction in courage)
Symposium (Love, homosexuality, Diotima)
Crito (Fidelity to the state, homeliness)
Seventh Letter / Seventh Epistle (Esoteric Platonism)
GAZA LINKS:
Oxfam - https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/emergencies/gaza-and-israel-emergency-appeal/
MSF (Doctors Without Borders) - https://www.msf.org/gaza-israel-war
Palestinian Youth Movement - https://www.palestinianyouthmovement.com/
Support this work and unlock more of it (for free!) on Patreon
https://patreon.com/c/hemlockpatreon
This is from Hubert Dreyfus' 2008 Berkeley undergraduate course Philosophy 7 "Existentialism in Literature and Film"
https://archive.org/details/ucberkeley_webcast_itunesu_461120622\
Course Description: The course will be organized around various attempts to reinterpret the Judeo/Christian God, and to determine in what sense, if at all, such a God is still a living God. We will study Dostoyevsky's and Kierkegaard's attempts to preserve a non-theological version of the God of Christianity, as well as Nietzsche's attempt to save us from belief in any version of God offered by our tradition. We will view and discuss three films that deal with related issues.
Those films are, for the record:
The books being read are:
Fear and Trembling & The Sickness Unto Death (Kierkegaard)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
Twilight of the Idols & The Gay Science (Nietzsche)
Cover art is Caspar David Friedrich, "Monk by the Sea"
Support Sabrina's work and educate yourself on Israel, Palestine, and the US while connecting with likeminded people:
Not only will you learn about the history, Zionism, US involvement and more, but it's a great way to connect with others who care about what's happening and learn ways that you can take action. The next class session starts January 10. Reserve your spot by December 12th and get a class journal (digital download) with space for notes, reflection questions, resource lists, an FAQ guide, and more!
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SIGN UP LINK FOR THE CLASS:
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Demolishing the White House is just the beginning.
Subscribe to Will Sanchez on Substack!
https://substack.com/@philosophicalrebellion
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
First: we are going to be soon starting a new audiobook series - this time it will be To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - I will release it chapter by chapter, and the first chapter or two should be out within a week, if the Great Tao should accommodate. You can get updates on that and future open source audiobooks, narrated by me on the Patreon page.
Second is that as we approach the finish line with Hubert Dreyfus’s Great Books course, I am looking for suggestions about where to go next, in terms of content - so if you are on Spotify please check the audience survey in this episode and vote on the things you want - If you’re not on Spotify then just email me with your desires, fantasies, crackpot ideas, and degenerate art and I will respond to you there: williamengels@substack.com
Last is that this is an episode about politics in America, and William Sanchez and I leave no stone unturned, so if that’s not your cup of tea, then watch out for the fascism-free Virginia Woolf stuff that I’ll be making, as well as the more lighthearted project that I’m doing with my buddies Thomas and Richard over on Bad Role Models. But if it is your cup of tea, then you should support William’s work on Substack, and listen to my other interview with him. Links in the thing, as always.
REFERENCES
Paying for the Ballroom with Silicon Valley Tribute Money:
$50K Signing Bonus for ICE Officers
https://bbc.com/news/articles/cqle5newg0no
Bipartisan Bill to Force Release of Epstein Files Being Jammed
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5482096-massie-discharge-petition-epstein/
Reagan and US Indicted by ICJ in 1986 for Terrorism Against Nicaragua
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_vUnitedStates
Book: Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State by Garry Wills
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7254108-bomb-power
Bernie Sanders' Saving American Democracy Amendment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_amendment#Saving_American_Democracy_Amendment
Even the dead are not safe.
“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.” This statement, deliberately provocative, was made first by Continental philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard before its later canonization by Mark Fisher in his 2009 theoretical masterpiece Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?. For Fisher, it is a call to action, and a structuring limit. Strictly speaking, it is probably an overstatement, at least without the implicit qualifier:
As long as things continue as they have up until now.
This is the statement: that our world is more likely to collapse from trophic exhaustion, reactive warfare, and molecular violence, than it is to shed capitalist practices and norms in favor of any of the many proposed alternatives. This same thought was expressed in another form - a case of convergent evolution emanating elsewhere in the landscape of literary Quotatia - humanity will go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective.
Advisory: discussion of death and suicide.
References, Media Usage, and Sources:
"NO" by Joy Harjo - September 2004
"Resisting Left Melancholy" by Wendy Brown
NB: If you cannot access this, try using sci-hub.se
"Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin - 1940
Cover Art: "Smoldering Ghost: Happy Painting" by Michael Prettyman
Ambience Tracks (Creative Commons) from Nemo's Dreamscapes
Outro Song: Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 30, Movement 3, performed by Anastasia Huppmann (Creative Commons, YouTube)
Excerpt from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson.
Ode to Mark Fisher: Part 1 - Introduction to Fisherology (Hemlock Substack)
Originally published as "On Wings of Art" (1984).
"In this six-part series, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell introduces and explores the unifying themes and mythological symbolism in James Joyce's three greatest literary works--A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake--arguing that these three major works were the precursors to a fourth, even greater novel that Joyce never got to write."
From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916):
He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!
He halted suddenly and heard his heart in the silence. How far had he walked? What hour was it?
There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of his blood.
He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies: and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast.
He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watchers, trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer or a flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than other.
----------------------
Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.
Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:
Amjad Hamad and his Family
The ultimate theological journey through the midlife crisis, presented by existentialist philosopher Bert Dreyfus in 2006 at UC Berkeley. (REPUPLOAD)
Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.
Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:
Amjad Hamad and his Family
MSF (Doctors Without Borders)
Palestinian Youth Movement
Read more about Bert Dreyfus
A nice change of pace for me as I am put on the hot-seat and forced to properly explain myself for once. Interview by Roubin Thind, a social media manager and podcast connoisseur, running down topics ranging from diplomacy to education and back.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
This is Part Four of a multipart series on the Great Books of the Western Tradition by Berkeley Professor of Philosophy Bert Dreyfus, which you can begin here.
The source material is found here on Internet Archive.
Who is God? What does it mean to be anointed (chrīstós, in Koine Greek), emptied of self (kénōsis), or resurrected? What is the world, seen through the eyes of love? How does philosophy encounter Christianity? In this two-lecture episode, Dreyfus takes these concepts apart and analyzes them in the terms of Heidegger, literary theory, and the hermeneutic approaches of different Continental thinkers.
Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.
Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:
Amjad Hamad and his Family
Paul Thomas Anderson made this when he was 28. So did Richard and Will.
A celebration of the greatest movie of our greatest living director. Hats off to you, man.
advisory: child abuse, self-harm, suicide.
“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”
―Hafez
Music Credits:
Violin version of Habañera by Katy Adelson
Everything becomes its opposite.
cw: animal harm, general doom.
"All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (1967) by Richard Brautigan
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Poem: Batter my heart, three-person'd God by John Donne
Credits:
Richard Brautigan Reading "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace"
Palantir CEO Alex Karp Speaking in February 2025 in New York (End of Episode)
Rachmaninoff, Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C-sharp Minor performed by Mr. Forte (Creative Commons)
George Kennan, Memo PPS23, February 24th 1948. Declassified in June 1974.
Books:
The Assassination Complex by Jeremy Scahill and the Staff of The Intercept
Times are tough for everyone, but if you can spare $5 per month to support the History of Philosophy, my political writing, open source audiobooks, and simple intellectual entertainment, please consider joining my Patreon and helping me escape my day job.
YouTube original video credit (Plum Village). Apparently first delivered in the "late 1980s".
Read more about Thích Nhất Hạnh here.
Music Credit: Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major, performed by Max John.
The great Michael Parenti returns to HoPAA to enlighten us about capitalism's leading myths and legends. As the man says, 'brothers and sisters, WE own the airwaves'.
Times are tough for everyone, but if you can pitch in $5 per month to support this project - a humanity and humanities-focused ad and spook-free education platform since 2023 - it would mean the world to me over on Patreon.
This talk was uploaded in 2013, but the date of the lecture itself is unknown.
Music Credit: Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major, performed by Max John.
Summary (Bot Generated):
This podcast episode, featuring political scientist Michael Parenti, offers a critical deconstruction of the self-legitimating myths propagated by "the one percent" and giant corporate capitalism. The central thesis is that no ruling class rules nakedly, and the powerful actively take "strenuous efforts to justify their rule" through themes like the rags-to-riches mythology, fair play, and equal opportunity. The discussion focuses on two core capitalist myths: that the system creates general material prosperity and that it bolsters democracy. Parenti challenges the prosperity myth by citing "consumer realities" such as the corporate-driven replacement of public rail transit with polluting auto systems and the industrialization of food supplies. He concludes that the history of capitalism is one of great wealth and great poverty, which exist in a "dynamic interrelationship," with the wealth of the few resting on the poverty of the masses.
Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian, and cultural critic who writes on a wide range of scholarly and popular subjects. Known as a leading intellectual of the American Left, he has taught at numerous universities and is the author of over twenty books, including Democracy for the Few and Blackshirts and Reds. You can find more information about him on his Wikipedia page or his official website: The Michael Parenti Political Archive.
Keywords: Corporate Capitalism, Ruling Class, The One Percent, Myths, Prosperity, Democracy, Wealth Inequality, Poverty, Horatio Alger, Transnational Corporations, Public Transit, Pollution, General Motors, Tobacco Industry, Nicotine, Perjury, Corporate Crime, Consumer Realities, Third World.
This text was generated from a transcript by Gemini.
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Samuel Mathers is Bane, not Wolverine.
People Mentioned:
Aleister Crowley
Edward Kelly
References:
"On 20th September 1906, Haig attended a séance with his sister Henrietta where he sought advice as to whether the expansion of the Territorial Army would be more satisfactory on a company or battalions basis. He was advised by the spiritualist a Miss McCreadie to adopt the former rather than the latter. Apparently, when Ms McCreadie gave this advice she was under the control of a native girl called ‘Sunshine’, who had Napoleon by her side. Haig must have found this circumstance most reassuring."
Out of their depth. By 1942, British Navy vessels had begun to shift the tide in the Atlantic battlefront, sinking more German U-boats than Hitler’s army could Allied submarines. Scientific progress proved a major factor in Allied dominance, with the development of Radar and Sonar technology significantly upping the odds of locating German vessels in deep water. But Germany Navy officials had a different strategy in mind: U-boat captain Hans Roeder convinced colleagues in arms the British were using pendulums to predict their boats’ location underwater. As an amateur pendulum dowser himself, the enterprising captain established the Pendulum Institute to pinpoint British ships, enlisting pendulum dowsers and occultists from across the country and tasking them with applying their clairvoyant powers to search for British vessels. Results were, unsurprisingly, not altogether successful.
Books Mentioned:
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.
-Vergil, Aeneid
You can support the continuation of this effort, and get unlimited access to my entire body of work for$5 per month on Patreon.
My favorite translation of the Aeneid is the Modern Library edition by Shadi Bartsch, which is richly introduced and essayed/footnoted, although the Fitzgerald and Dryden translations are also classic for their poetry.
Read more about the late, great Hubert "Bert" Dreyfus here.
Music Credit: (Intro and Outro): Max John, Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major, Creative Commons (YouTube). Interlude is Peter Bradley-Fulgoni, from Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 4, Movement 2 (IMSLP).
This series will have X parts:
The Odyssey and the Archaic Greece (Done)
Aeschylus and Greek Tragedy (Done)
Aeneas and the Roman Tradition (This)
Catholic Christianity: The Gospel of John, Dante's Comedy (Upcoming)
Protestantism: Pascal's Pensées and Moby Dick (Upcoming)
Stay tuned...
Kick in on Patreon to support the both of us!
This is the new work.
Movies:
Music:
Violin Concerto in D Major, Movement III Allegro Giocoso by Johannes Brahms
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by Wu-Tang Clan
Etude Op 10 No 3 in E Major "Tristesse"
Composed by Frederic Chopin,
(Best) Performed by Maurizio Pollini
Song: "No Other Love" by Jo Stafford
-//-
No other love can warm my heart
Now that I've known the comfort of your arms
No other love, oh the sweet contentment
That I find with you everytime, everytime
No other lips could want you more
For I was born to glory in your kiss,
forever yours
I was blessed with love to love you
Till the stars burn out above you
Till the moon is but a silver shell
No other love, let no other love
know the wonder of your spell
-//-
References
For the general conversation of " God wants me to destroy you, obviously" see especially the Melian Dialogue.
If you want to watch a Scientology documentary I would recommend Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief by Alex Gibney (2015).
Come join the Patreon!
https://patreon.com/c/hemlockpatreon
The best version of Musashi in English that I have found is the book The Complete Musashi translated by Alexander Bennett, which is available in audiobook form and is quite short and scholarly to boot. Goodreads link.
Books and Movies:
Introduction to Zen Buddhism - D. T. Suzuki
Links:
Music Credit (Drums, Intro/Outro) by RelaxMusicPro on YouTube:
Edit: removed the part where Shogun Richard and I discussed the YouTube parody AI Am a Jedi, which you should look up just in case:
Documentaries:
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore)
Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (Netflix)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras)
Hollywoodgate (Ibrahim Nah'at)
The Mauritanian (Kevin Macdonald)
Books:
Alfred W. McCoy: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict
Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil & War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina
Russ Baker, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put it in the White House & What Their Influence Means for America
Valerie Kaur, See No Stranger (Link)
Barton Gellman: Angler: The Dick Cheney Vice Presidency and Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State
Robert Fisk, Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East
Michael C. Ruppert: Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (Note to reader: serious conspiracy/crank material is found mixed quite freely with fact herein, read with due hazard in mind)
Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Guantánmo Diary
Follow Sabrina Jennings on Bluesky or Patreon:
Follow William Engels on Bluesky or Patreon
Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:
Amjad Hamad and his Family
MSF (Doctors Without Borders)
Palestinian Youth Movement
Further References:
The Carlyle Group (US-Saudi Investment Firm of Bush Family Provenance)
Clinton Destroys Pharmaceutical Factory in Sudan as Distraction
US Military Attacks on Journalists in Iraq War / Gulf War 2 (Wikipedia)
False Intel on Iraqi Buildup at Saudi Border in 1990 (Christian Science Monitor)
FDR and Abdul Aziz Meeting in 1945
The Onion Router (Tor) Web Anonymization Tool
A truly decadent and indulgent episode for the genuinely twisted wordheads and storyfreaks still crawling on all fives. Cheers, you beautiful bastards.
Music by Anapse, track Bisector off Streamsafe Essentials
Books
Hells Angels by Hunter S Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Screwjack by Hunter S. Thompson
Better Than Sex: The Gonzo Papers Vol 4 by Hunter S Thompson
Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson's Campaign for Sheriff by Daniel Joseph Watkins
Dark Alliance by Gary Webb
Goebbels by Peter Longerich
HST's Best Audiobook Narrator: Scott Sower
Film
Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Sundry Fed, Spook, and Military Initiatives
COINTELPRO (FBI)
MHCHAOS (CIA)
Project Plowshare (DARPA)
With special guest Deputy Dick filling in (for) Richard Sinex.
Music by Anapse, track Bisector off Streamsafe Essentials
--Books--
Hells Angels by Hunter S Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Screwjack by Hunter S. Thompson
Better Than Sex: The Gonzo Papers Vol 4 by Hunter S Thompson
Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson's Campaign for Sheriff by Daniel Joseph Watkins
Dark Alliance by Gary Webb
Goebbels by Peter Longerich
HST's Best Audiobook Narrator: Scott Sower
--Film--
Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
--Sundry Fed, Spook, and Military Initiatives--
COINTELPRO (FBI)
MHCHAOS (CIA)
Project Plowshare (DARPA)