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Oct. 12, 2020 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
37:50
Patrick Casey: "Woke Capital: An Unholy Alliance" (2019)
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Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to introduce the first speaker this morning, Patrick Casey.
He is the founder and the leader of the American Identity Group.
He is, for that reason, the founders of, I think, the most promising and effective organizations that have come along our movement in a very long time.
Patrick Casey has a bachelor's degree in anthropology from San Diego State University.
And I would think that studying anthropology in that mishmash that California gave him a particularly acute understanding of the current degeneracy we face in this country today.
So please welcome Patrick Casey, who will speak on the subject of Woke Capital and Unholy Alliance.
There is a specter haunting America.
The specter of woke.
While conservatives lament the rise of socialism in this country, big business, billionaires, and the entire oligarch class plots to throw open our borders and poison our minds.
But before we get too deeply into the subject of woke capital, we need to define what it is.
So the term capital refers to money, financial assets, and so forth.
And oftentimes it is used as a proxy to refer to powerful moneyed interests in society.
Now, the term woke is a little different.
I think it's a newer term.
It's a colloquialism.
Why don't you raise your hand if you know what the term woke refers to?
Alright, so it's basically everyone.
I thought it might be a generational divide.
It seems not.
But the term woke is one that is mostly found on the left, right?
To be woke is for the left to be aware of certain things that the average person is not.
To be woke is to be initiated into an understanding of reality, unbeknownst to the average person.
So given that the term woke is primarily used on the left, being woke means to be aware.
Of certain left-wing issues, right?
Issues they believe to be truths.
I think we would have some disagreements there.
For example, to be woke is to believe that Mike Brown put his hands up and said, please don't shoot.
To be woke is to believe that large corporations are run by patriarchal white supremacists focused on trying to keep the immigrant down.
We all know that isn't the case.
So simply put, woke capital refers to the phenomenon by which powerful moneyed interests have gone over to the left.
They have adopted progressive orthodoxy.
Now, some examples of woke capital.
I'm sure many of you have a ton that you could offer, but we'll just go through a few right now.
So Goldman Sachs raising the pride flag alongside the American flag on its flagpole.
That is woke capital.
Target in 2016 getting involved with the tranny bathroom fiasco.
That is woke capital.
And it cost them over a billion dollars.
HSBC tweeting out, business doesn't recognize borders.
That is woke capital.
And it's unfortunately very true.
So, it's worth pointing out that historically, and even at this point in time, many have conceived of capital and powerful financial interests as predominantly being a thing of the right.
Libertarianism is largely about securing free enterprise and getting the government out of business.
Well, what does big business want?
That's a big part of what they want.
They want special privileges and so forth, but...
The fact that capital has switched sides is a phenomenon that must be noted, and many are still behind on the times.
Many still believe that capital is an ally of the right.
If you look at almost any action that TPUSA engages in, that Charlie Kirk engages in, you see them holding up these signs that say, socialism sucks, and maybe it does.
But they also hold up signs that say, we love Netflix.
We love Starbucks.
We love Amazon.
Well, I can tell you for a fact that these corporations do not care about us, and they do not care about the things that we value.
So the question then becomes, why did capital become woke?
And that's a question that's worth pondering, and I think it's one that we are going to be exploring for years.
There are two explanations for the rise of woke capital.
The first, and the most basic of the two, is that capital became woke as a response to left-wing social changes that have gradually happened in society.
Changes that have only accelerated in the past five to ten years.
So this explanation is one, ultimately, of marketing, of PR.
You have all of these greedy businessmen and oligarchs and so forth, and they don't care about anything beyond money.
Well, they see that society overall is becoming more progressive, more liberal.
And as a result, they say, well, we just want to keep our bottom line.
Sure, we can pay homage to diversity and LGBT, right?
We can fly the LGBT flag.
It doesn't cost any money to do that.
And so forth.
That explanation, I think it holds up.
I think, you know, historically, businesses and anyone interested in turning a profit have understood that they need to exist within the confines of the hegemonic values of their time.
But is that explanation sufficient to describe the rise of woke capital?
I would argue that it is not.
No. For there is a deeper cause and a more insidious cause to the rise of woke capital.
Now, this second explanation entails capital not merely responding to these left-wing changes, but actually being a prime driver of many of these left-wing ideals that all of us in this room rightfully understand to be responsible for the destruction of our civilization.
But how could this be?
The left has historically been, or at least styled itself, as the defender of the oppressed, the defender of the underdog, fighting against the bourgeoisie, the oppressor, however defined.
For most of the left's history, that oppressor has been defined in economic terms.
However, recently, in the past few decades, after World War II, The left has begun to define the oppressor, as we all know, largely in racial and cultural terms.
atoms.
So if the left has historically been, or at least perceived itself to be, the defender of the underdog, then how could the ruling ideology of our society be left-wing?
And how could, you know, these big, greedy businesses, how could they be responsible for all of these progressive mores that so many in our society, I would add, on both sides of the aisle, take to be self-evident truths?
Well, to better illustrate this dynamic, I would invite you to consider a hypothetical with me.
Imagine that you, here in this room, sitting in your chair, hopefully listening intently, Part of a ruling elite in a hypothetical, non-existent society.
Now imagine that you just care about money.
You just care about increasing your own power.
And you're not too inclined to care about, you know, those pesky, grubby, you know, natives.
You know, the people you're supposed to be benevolently ruling over.
Well, I think you would find that the natives want to work for a living wage, right?
They have a little bit of self-respect.
And that's no good for the bottom line, right?
Well, you would come to realize that there are people all around the world who would love to come in and slave away for $2 an hour.
Probably want to bring them in, again, given that you only care about money and nothing else.
Well, the first thing that you would find when you try to bring in these people by the millions is, again, those pesky natives.
They don't like it, right?
They want to have a homogeneous society that reflects them.
They want to have economic opportunities and do not want their jobs taken by immigrants.
And they do not want their wages to be undercut by immigration.
And why would they?
Well, again, as a member of this hypothetical corrupt ruling class, it's not good for business, right?
So, the first, you would probably employ a number of strategies in order to deal with You know, again, these people you're supposed to be ruling over in an enlightened manner.
You would try convincing them that, no, it's not happening.
There aren't that many people coming in.
Don't worry about it.
You're never going to lose your majority status.
Well, I think most people would realize very quickly that that isn't the case.
Well, then you would try to convince them through the media, through academia, that, no, it's actually good for you to become a minority in your homeland.
Because these immigrants, these new people, they're not undercutting your wages, all of that.
It's just a big conspiracy theory.
These people are going to be paying for your pension.
These people are going to be culturally enriching your society.
Well, I think you would find that it takes decades of social conditioning to convince people of this nonsense.
So you would have to probably find a way to stifle dissent.
You would have to find a way to ensure that people who speak out against these injustices Are maligned, dehumanized, and unpersoned.
And let us keep in mind that that is exactly what happens to us when we speak out against the ruling ideology of elites.
Behind all of the talk of tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism lies a sinister and cynical drive for profit and power.
And that is exactly what we are fighting against.
Now, is everyone promoting ideals such as diversity, tolerance, and so forth?
Are these people all cynically doing so for personal gain?
No, absolutely not.
While economic gain, while the interests of capital are undeniably one of, if not the biggest factors in this mess that we have found ourselves in, there are absolutely many sincere left-wing activists,
Non-white ethnic advocates, professors, and of course, journalists, who again sincerely and genuinely believe in the multicultural progressive experiment.
And to them, there is but one obstacle standing in their way of realizing and achieving utopia.
And that obstacle is us.
But we're not going anywhere, are we?
Are we?
No! That's right.
Now, the left used to understand the peril posed by mass immigration, particularly vis-a-vis the worker.
And in fact, it wasn't even that long ago that you could talk about immigration being, in the words of Bernie Sanders, a Koch Brothers policy, which it absolutely is.
But what happened?
A lot of things happened.
First and foremost, both sides of the aisle, with very few exceptions, are ruled over by capital, by powerful, moneyed elites.
And moreover, the Democratic Party realized that it's very easy to get votes when you just bring people in whom you know will disproportionately vote for your garbage policies.
As another example of how the left used to understand Many of the issues that we are very concerned with, albeit perhaps from a different perspective.
Cesar Chavez, the famous and glorified, canonized, left-wing Chicano activist, famously sent groups of armed men down to the border to beat illegal immigrants who were trying to come over.
These were his co-ethnics.
Not only advocated, but implemented policies far more extreme than those of us, many of us in this room, would advocate.
But nevertheless, the cognitive dissonance that defines the left allows them to still imagine him as being a champion for their cause, and to be fair, towards the end of his life, I think he did kind of change tune when he realized that, you know, oh,
these illegals are coming over in very large numbers, and that's going to help us pursue our ethnic interests.
Now, if the left used to understand the peril posed by mass immigration, and if these progressive values are nothing more than a ruling ideology that justifies the interests of our corrupt elite class,
the question becomes, why can't people see it?
Why does this elude people if it is so obvious?
Well, one simple explanation is that people are not supposed to see the reality of this.
And there is a term that very accurately describes the mindset of many of our people on both sides of the aisle.
And that, to borrow from Marxist theory, is false consciousness.
False consciousness is a term that was first used by Engels, I believe in 1823, something like that, to describe the process by which, or rather a psychological state that develops when Elites embed their ruling ideology in the minds of the masses to convince the masses that what is good for the elites is good for them.
Now, that isn't the case, as we all know, but unfortunately many people see it.
Many people do see it.
Many of these DSA types, right, the Democratic Socialists of America, they talk about how illegal immigrants are workers too.
And they will tolerate no criticism of mass immigration.
Well, why do they do this?
Simply put, because they are suffering from false consciousness.
They have been convinced that, again, what is good for elites is good for them.
But they're not aware of that.
So false consciousness, in Marxist theory, refers to a state that prevents people from recognizing the truly horrific reality of their social circumstances.
Now, if any of you are listening to this and thinking, who invited this communist to speak at American Renaissance?
I'll have you know I'm not a socialist, I'm not a communist, but I'm also not a free market ideologue, and that's an important distinction to make.
So, if there's anyone who has any doubts about the fact that progressive liberalism is the ruling ideology of elites, I would encourage them to just take a look.
At the political climate that we're in.
This isn't something that needs to be confined to the realm of abstract and lofty theorizing, right?
We can look at the world and empirically validate and empirically determine just what it is that is in the best interest of the ruling class.
And the way that you do that is you see what the establishment attacks.
You see which ideas the establishment has deemed off-limits.
Is it run-of-the-mill, Rachel Maddow liberalism?
No, no, it's not at all.
That is far from having those positions, believing, perhaps even still, that Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election.
Not only is that something that will not result in you losing your job and being subject to media smear campaigns, But it might actually be a good thing, right?
In elite, wealthy, urbanite circles, having these absurd views might actually be a sign of status.
So, it's not liberalism.
Is it socialism?
Well, as you can probably guess, the answer is also no.
To be a socialist, to be a member of the DSA, does not carry much of a social cost.
Maybe if you live in a very, very conservative area, people might make fun of you.
But that's about it.
So to be a socialist, in fact, probably is a sign of status in many elite circles as well.
If you're applying for a job at Google or some other big tech company, being a member of the DSA, retweeting Bernie Sanders, listening to Chapo Trap House, that might be seen as, again, a sign of status.
Speaking of Chapo Trap House, they illustrate a very important point.
Not only is socialism permissible to the system, and perhaps a sign of status in some elite circles, but it's actually very profitable.
Chapo Trap House on Patreon alone, and for anyone who's unaware, this is the flagship left-wing DSA socialist podcast.
They bring in something like $125,000, and that's per month.
Right? So it pays to be a socialist.
The guys who get together and talk on a podcast for two to three hours a week are getting paid quite a lot of money.
So not only does the system condone that, but the system in the form of big tech and the banks and credit card companies will absolutely permit that.
They will allow you to turn a profit as a capitalist in a seemingly, you know, ostensibly corrupt capitalist society.
So that is a point that many on the left should ponder at length.
Now, it's difficult to address the scourge of woke capital, given the utter intellectual destitution on the right.
Again, the likes of Charlie Kirk and TPUSA hold somewhat of a Manichaean view on reality, right?
Reality is, not just politically, but perhaps in a cosmic sense, is the result of conflict between two diametrically opposed forces, socialism and capitalism.
Well, if you hold that socialism bad, then within such a dualistic perspective, then obviously it would hold that capitalism good.
As we all understand, it's a little more complex than that.
And the danger of just creating a boogeyman around socialism and fixating on socialism as the number one cause of the ills of the West and the number one threat for us to worry about is that Such a position occludes,
it hides the threat of woke capital.
So again, you have all of these ostensibly right-wing, nationalistic people going out there, waving signs saying, we love Starbucks, we love Amazon, right?
While lamenting the rise of socialism, saying AOC is going to ruin our country, and maybe she will.
And in the case of Sebastian Gorka, saying that AOC is going to take our hamburgers away.
Right. Truly a very nightmarish vision for the future.
The point here is that while AOC and the likes of many socialists in America, if not all, would implement policies that would largely lead and would probably just make things worse.
Now, I'm not applying this to socialism overall.
I'm applying this to people who I don't think have the best interest of our people in mind.
It is absolutely possible, and I would argue ideal, to take the position that both the free market excesses of capital and woke capital in general, both that and what the AOC and the Democratic Party have to offer in the form of things like the Green New Deal.
Neither two of these options are suitable and acceptable options for our people.
So it's time for the right overall in America to realize what we understand as well.
What we've understood for a while.
And that is that the threats to the things that we hold dear can be found on both sides of the aisle.
That capital is not a friend to America.
That capital is ultimately only interested in securing its profits.
And at this point, they are doing so.
At our expense.
So what is the solution for this, right?
Well, I would argue that the solution is nationalism.
Nationalism holds that you must do what is in the best interest of a nation.
Nationalism isn't purely socialistic.
It isn't purely capitalistic.
It gives you some freedom to not be too constrained ideologically by either side.
It allows you to do, again, as I said, what is in the best interests of your people, socially, politically, economically, and culturally.
But ultimately, what we need in this country, if anything is going to change for the better, is a new ruling elite that will then promulgate and distribute a new ruling ideology.
Thank you.
Because I think it's naive to believe, as many leftists, communists, and perhaps, sorry, some anarcho-capitalists, if there are any in the room, that a society without a state, without a ruling class, and without a ruling ideology is possible or even desirable.
I think just given the scale of civilization at that point, I don't think that's very tenable.
So we need a new ruling class that is going to govern benevolently.
And in an enlightened manner, for the benefit of our people, of our nation, and more broadly, our civilization.
And one of the first things that ruling class would need to do, or perhaps something that would need to be done in order to get to that point, is the systematic dismantling of the current globalist power structures.
We can talk about immigration.
We can talk about building the wall, certain very specific policies.
And we should.
We should.
But we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that we're just, you know, a few thousand miles of wall away from achieving the restoration of our country, or perhaps the creation of a new country.
Who knows?
We must be very honest about the fact, and very aware of the fact, that Power in this country does not solely exist in the government.
I think we all know that.
Power can be found in many centers.
And in order for us to ensure that globalism is dethroned, there needs to be a systematic dismantling of these power structures.
The deep state, the mainstream media, the academic system, all of these need to be dealt with before any positive long-term changes can be secured.
So while we, again, it is good to talk about immigration, it's good to focus on, you know, everyone has their key issues that they like to hit on.
But we, again, we should be under no illusions about the fact that we need a holistic change in our power structure.
We need a changing of the ruling class, and we need to dismantle these centers of power.
Now, admittedly, this is far easier said than done.
But we need to be absolutely clear about the goal.
We need to be absolutely clear about what needs to be done.
And we need to keep our eyes on the finish line.
Otherwise, we will never reach it.
Thank you.
I want to ask a philosophical question.
You impressed me as a student of history, and there are two opposing views of history.
One is that it's governed by individuals, strong individuals that take leadership roles and change the course of history.
The other view of history is that individuals are almost meaningless, they're just subject to the tides and flows that move us.
I'm reminded that after the death of Yeltsin, an oligarch sat down with Putin and said, look, we're just going to create two parties.
You're going to be on the right, okay, and you'll be the socially conservative, and I'll be on the left, and we'll be the social democrats, and we'll convince people of this false dichotomy that you mentioned.
And we'll just cycle back and forth between the two.
So to break this, how do you see it happening?
Do you think the forces of history will bring us to a point inevitably where our movement will triumph or fail?
Or do you think it's going to take an individual of great leadership?
And if you do, what type of individual is that going to be?
What characteristics and qualities do they have to have to really change the course of history that we may be trapped in?
Sure, that's an excellent question.
To begin, you asked me about the two opposing perspectives on history.
I would say I'm somewhat in between.
I think that you can look at some of the most profound paradigm shifts in civilizational changes that have happened.
You know, in society have largely been technological.
That's kind of the perspective that I take.
Now, obviously, an individual invented a certain type of technology.
You can look at the effects of the printing press, right?
Led to the Protestant Reformation, led to the Enlightenment, led to, I would argue, leftism as we know it, right?
Without having the ability to disseminate propaganda to the masses, you don't really have the masses in the sense that we understand things.
So, I would argue that the world is largely rudderless.
But there's still, you know, you obviously can look at certain points in time when people are given historical opportunities.
They're in the position to, you know, have an immense impact.
So I think that history and all, you know, historical forces...
Cultural forces, economic, technological, and so forth, these all define the playing field.
These all define what can and can't be done.
They present opportunities, they open doors, and they close other doors.
And within those confines and limitations, there absolutely is the ability for great men and great women to make a huge difference, right?
So you ask, what kind of qualities would be needed?
Well, we need people who are dedicated, intelligent, well-adjusted, right?
For the right reasons.
They're not just lashing out because it's transgressive or something.
And we need people who are willing to make sacrifices.
And I'm very fortunate and grateful to have many such people in my organization, and I've met many others in this room who are outside of my organization, who nevertheless possess those qualities.
But we're going to...
What I do is, and what I encourage my guys to do, is before you go to sleep every night, ask yourself, have you done everything you can for your people?
And if the answer is no, Then you should think what you can do.
Not everyone can do activism.
Not everyone can be a public figure.
I get that.
But you can network behind the scenes.
You can contribute financially.
You can write articles.
There are many things.
Many things that can be done.
So that is my answer.
Thank you.
So I very much appreciated your talk.
And in some ways it's so basic.
It actually makes me a little bit black, though, because some is so obvious.
I've got two points.
You talked about why this change, and sometimes I wonder if it's generational.
Part of me thinks that the silent generation was more grounded in reality and the boomer generation is more idealistic, or at least there's these tendencies in these generations, and as the silent generation passes on, we're left with kind of a certain segment of the boomer generation who are driving the narrative.
In a very, very idealistic way.
And so, if you have a comment on that.
And also, I have your question.
It's mostly a rhetorical question.
You mentioned Sebastian Barca and Charlie Kirk.
And I think we all find them cringeworthy in a way, but they're also on Fox News, and we know who's not on Fox News.
And, I mean, it's a rhetorical question in a way, but, like, what can we do about that?
Sure. Well, the first question, I think you're trying to goad me into some boomer bashing, and I'm going to politely decline.
Yes, there are people in every generation.
Yes, thank you, thank you.
But to answer your question, I think each generation, as a result of their unique circumstances, have their own pros and cons.
It's far too easy just to look at the boomers and be like, they screwed everything up.
Well, there are many boomers in this room who were sounding the alarm before we were born.
So, you know, there's no need to...
If you're going to boomer bash, just bash the liberal boomers.
And I'm not accusing you of that.
I'm mostly kidding here.
But your rhetorical question about, you know, the fact that, yeah, Charlie Kirk and Sebastian Gorka, yeah, they're on Fox News.
And I'll say this.
For all of the faults of TPUSA, they're better than...
It could be worse.
It's mostly TPUSA leadership, and at least what they say publicly, and so forth.
But, I mean, it seems to be an increasingly recurring thing that allegations of racism keep coming out from these TPUSA chapters.
One example of this was the...
Well, I'm not going to go into the examples, but you can find them on the internet.
And it's obvious that perhaps despite some bad optics, there are many people within TPUSA who are thinking about these issues and are very sympathetic.
So we have to be careful not to bash them too broadly, just like with the boomers.
We just need to criticize in good faith the ideals that they promulgate and their leadership.
I give you a little bit of money every month.
I write a lot of checks every month.
And most checks I write are painful, paying the mortgage and utility bills.
The only check I write a month that gives me a feeling of pleasure is whether I write to AIM.
Thank you.
I encourage everybody here who can.
To contact Mr. Casey and to make arrangements to make, you don't have to give a lot.
It's more important to give something and make it steady.
People ask why nothing is being done, and one reason is that people who are out front don't get support from people like us.
The organization is really a very splendid thing, the most encouraging thing I've seen maybe in my lifetime.
As you know, though, I was unhappy with the change from identity of Europa to the youth of America.
The famous Rabbi, Stephen Wise, went from March in the 1930s, explained to Jews where their primary loyalty had to be, that we have been Jews for 2,500 years, we've been Americans for 200 years.
And I think we really need to think about that.
Do you see any problems with nationalism?
I see problems that we here, I define myself as a racial idealist, not a nationalist.
And I have far more in common with an Irish Catholic in Dublin or a couple of Scottish Presbyterians in Edinburgh than I do with an American in South Atlanta who is not a part of it and not of my race.
I just think that nationalism has caused so many of our problems, World War I, World War II.
We have to go back to something that existed in medieval Christendom, where you do have individual nations, but we see an overarching unity.
Do you see any problems?
Are you tending toward civic nationalism?
Well, first, I want to thank Sam Dixon for the support that he's given, not just financially, but morally, intellectually, and so forth.
So, I think there are a few questions in there.
So, I'll say this for anyone who's worried about us drifting towards civic nationalism.
We're not civic nationalists.
We are very explicit about being identitarians.
And I think identitarian is a term that could be perhaps somewhat comparable to the term that Sam prefers, which is racial idealist.
If you go to our website and you look at our principles, we have five principles outlined.
One of them is identitarianism.
So yeah, we're never going to start talking about how America is just an idea.
Anyone can be American.
No, we are absolutely in defense of the historical American nation.
And what does that refer to?
That refers to us.
It doesn't refer to someone from the Middle East who came here last week, right?
I think we all get that.
So it's really the America question.
That's really what we're getting at here.
So whether or not America can be salvaged is part of that.
Whether or not America...
I mean, I think if present trends continue, America is not going to hold up.
America is not going to remain a cohesive nation.
I think eventually there's going to be so much conflict.
On various levels, so much turmoil that there could be some kind of collapse of the federal government and that would lead to, as in the case of Yugoslavia, ethnostates, right?
But that could happen in hundreds of years.
That could happen in hundreds of years.
At this point in time, our people, largely, even many of our people who are identitarians, they still identify with their identity as an American, just as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers did as well.
Because to be white, It's to have a racial identity.
But to be German is to have a national identity, an ethnic identity.
And for us to say that we are just white and we do not have that national or ethnic identity is, I think, to kind of remove an important piece of the puzzle.
So, wrapping it up here.
Last bit on that.
I studied anthropology.
I was made aware in college by my Marxist college professors.
Yes, they do exist.
That culture hacking is a viable strategy to get people to see things your way.
So when applied anthropologists go in to, say, a primitive tribe somewhere, and they're trying to get them to take their vitamins because they're dying of malnutrition, well, they don't want to do it.
What they would do is they'd say, okay, what symbols are valuable to these people?
What matters to these people?
You're trying to get them to do what you want.
One example, they shaped the vitamins like fish because the tribe valued fish.
Well, guess what?
Now everyone's taking their vitamins there.
So you can apply that to America, right?
Wrapping an idea in a mythology, in an aesthetic that is palatable and appealing to people in your target demographic.
So Jared wants us to continue along.
I think we've got a bit over.
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