Fascism makes you dumb, so here's some food for thought while combating fascism-in-disguise: "Are beards evil?" Joking aside, this question specifically concerns Western Marxism and its flaws, namely transphobia in the anti-Zionist movement (among white straight guys with beards and/or degrees playing the hero and the victim in bad faith). I'll give examples from my own work (a trans woman with a degree who is also anti-Zionist), but also other peoples' work, too (trans or otherwise). We'll consider examples from academic and non-academic sources; e.g., The Kavernacle defending Bad Empanada on YouTube, and Norm Finkelstein's own transphobia treating bigotry and slurs like "activism" (trading one genocide for another). However, feel free to add your own! I know hair smells bad when lit on fire, but time to barbecue some sacred cows!
Update, 7/8/2026: Chris Kunzler invited The Kavernacle on stream, discussing the unfolding situation with Graham Platner and the rape accusations against him ("Talking Platner w/the Kavernacle," 2026). To know my thoughts, read "The Graham Platner Situation; or, Flaccid Kav[1] Strikes Again!" after the original article; see, also: "Raising Awareness" (2025), which covers the same subject matter but far more seriously and at length.
For the visually impaired: I read this essay on my YouTube channel (new version).
Disclaimer Regarding Essay Contents: All opinions are my own; i.e., as part of my research, conducted alongside my book series, Gothic Communism (2023). The material within is written/speaks about public figures and popular media for purposes of (sex) education, satire, transformation and critique, hence falls under Fair Use regarding copyright and free speech regarding defamation/obscenity laws.
CW: racism, transphobia, whorephobia, rape*, fascism, genocide, and beard abuse
*Meaning (from my definition) "to disempower someone or somewhere—a person, culture, or place—in order to harm them," generally through fetishizing and alienizing acts or circumstances/socio-material conditions that target the mind, body and/or spirit) […] Rape can be of the mind, spirit, body and/or culture—the land or things tied to it during genocide, etc; it can be individual and/or on a mass scale" (source: "Psychosexual Martyrdom," 2024).
Table of Contents
Note: I've expanded "Straight Guys with Beards" since first publishing, table of contents included; and while I've made various changes throughout, the clear-and-obvious addendums are in bold and color-coded. —Perse, 7/9/2026
P.S. (7/10/2026-7/11/2026), Added footnotes; small changes throughout, including more visual aids. / Wrote some afterthoughts.
- Concerning State Vampirism
- Original Article
- Update, 7/8/2026: the Graham Platner Situation; or, Flaccid Kav Strikes Again!
- Afterthoughts: A Gothic Approach to Intersectionality
- More Beards: Good vs Bad (the Quartering and Amazons)
Concerning State Vampirism
(artist: Karen B.; cited: "The World Is a Vampire," 2024)
This piece (essay or otherwise) is part of a larger series on state vampirism. As I conceive it, state vampirism = feeding through the state mid-abjection*, be it openly capitalist or Marxist-Leninist. These are largely questions of aesthetic, whose Promethean (self-destructive) function extends to other configurations "of Omelas"; e.g., Zionism. Furthermore, there's overlap between my anti-Zionist work and my work critiquing Marxist-Leninism/state vampirism alongside capital, so consider reading both.
*Which state predation and revolutionary action both rely upon to function; i.e., "on the Aegis" as something to further or reverse, mid-vampirism, through paid/unpaid labor (re: me, vis-à-vis Julia Kristeva). To that, abjection (us versus them/alienation and fetishization) is one of four main Gothic theories my book series utilizes—the other three being hauntology (retro-future), cryptonymy (show/hide) and chronotopes (time-space) alongside smaller theories; e.g., Jerrold Hogle's ghost of the counterfeit† and Barbara Creed's monstrous-feminine (Gorgons and Amazonomachia, as I study it). As a queer sex worker and academic, I dialectically-materially prioritize abjection and vampirism through unpaid labor—chiefly sex work as exploited by Cartesian dualism and its harmful, maximalist binaries under Capitalist Realism, treating nature as monstrous-feminine (re: "Nature Is Food," 2024)—but mention the other theories, too (access "Four Main Gothic Theories (the Four Gs)" in "Paratextual Documents" for their longer definitions). In essence, capital/the state rape by design, which unpaid labor prevents by breaking Capitalist Realism mid-abjection; i.e., reversing abjection during ludo-Gothic BDSM (rape play) when having the whore's revenge (which "State Vampirism" explores at length): "to break the profit [and productivity] motive by making a world for which it (and rape) are no longer possible using these methods; i.e., by using the same demonic and slutty language capital does, but at cross purposes" (source: "Rape Reprise," 2024).
†Re: "Raising Awareness" (2025), footnote 1.
Original Article
(source screencap: Lost Future's "AI Is Watching," 2026)
"To beard or not to beard?" is a question for the philosophers. For praxis and for us, the question of today's discussion—developing Communism, which good praxis is—concerns Western Marxism and its flaws, chiefly transphobia (and other bigotries) in the anti-Zionist movement echoing classic exclusionary tactics in Socialism since Marx (at least): "Are reactionary and/or moderate straight white guys with a beard and/or degree [2] always right?" Put differently, can such people sell out behind different status symbols per the status quo; re: white skin, straightness, degree and/or beard (e.g., Asmongold meeting some of those criteria, above)?
Transphobia has historical precedence within Marxism, ergo Socialism as a whole addressing Zionism. Marx was a white straight guy with a beard; Marx was homophobic[3] (and born Jewish, but rejecting that side of things). Norm Finkelstein is a white straight(?) Jewish guy with a degree (minus the beard, above); Norm is transphobic. Marx died before Zionism and worldwide transphobia could manifest under capital (often at odds, as demonstrated in Oscar Wilde's world-first homosexual trial in 1895 and blatant antisemitism in Dorian Grey [4] from five years earlier); Norm is queerphobic well after—meaning in ways that sacrifice identity politics on the altar of class reductionism. He is class-reductionist, using his status as a PhD to punch down at trans people during their own genocide; i.e., furthering one genocide (and the abjection process) while claiming to fight another genocide "more deserving." Sucks for trans Palestinians, I guess, but also trans anti-Zionists as a whole. Simply put, you don't stop one genocide by waging another (slurs or otherwise) to play the hero and the victim—what my friend and mentor Sandy Norton calls "the Imperialism of Theory" (1994).
This extends to people outside of academia proper. Take YouTube: Bad Empanada has both a beard and BA in history, and (not Jewish or queer) is subsequently transphobic, antisemitic, racist and exclusionary of Indigenous Peoples, etc, from the anti-Zionist movement he demonstrably monopolizes (as an Ozzie expat living in Argentina, no less); i.e., through a monopoly of oppression that apologizes for rape/genocide as something he historically doesn't receive (a white savior). However, the example I'll give isn't so much Bad Empanada—as I've said enough about him, as is (re: "Raising Awareness")—but someone else downplaying his bigotry in ways that highlight the flaws of Western Marxism "from inside the house" (re: from Marx, onwards); i.e., vis-à-vis Zionism as something to enact in bad faith: so-called "anti-Zionism" with a literal beard, and not the gay kind!
(source video thumbnail: "Kav Takes the Soup," 2026)
I'm talking about The Kavernacle (which "Raising Awareness" also discusses, but far less than Bad Empanada, above). Kav is a white Irish guy with a master's living in London who, after ignoring Bad Empanada for years, is suddenly defending him versus F.D. Signifier (The Kavernacle's "FD Signifier Has a Problem with my Anti-Israel Videos," 2026):
But yes, Bad Empanada has said some bad stuff. Bad Empanada has said some bad stuff to black people online. Bad Empanada, in my opinion, should really, really think about how he wants to present himself going forward because I think a lot of people obviously respect him. They like his content. He makes good videos and even [with] F.D. Signifier Noah Samson said that to him on his stream. But the way he presents it turns so many people off. And like I said, I like [to] troll a little on Twitter myself. I like making a few jokes here and there at the expense of the online left and US leftist[s] and all that shit. But I think there is a line you can easily cross where it's just detrimental to your overall message because you're just not getting the reach that you could potentially have (timestamp: 30:31).
Holy token lip service, Batman! Kav is literally advocating on Bad Empanada's behalf, essentially playing devil's advocate (sounding a bit like Burke from Aliens [1986]: "It was a bad call, Ripley..."). He's not critiquing him; he's giving him advice to improve his image (and saying "who hasn't been a troll online?" to further apologize for his racism). But when I—a good-faith trans woman who defended Kav from someone abusing my research on Bad Empanada (re: "Essay 9.25: Apologizing for Misapplied Research/Asking for The Kavernacle's Help with Bad Empanada," 2025)—gave Kav valid criticism, he angrily broke months of silence to punch down/play the victim in bad faith:
Flaccid Kav: There are timestamps so please at least watch the relevant parts of the videos before commenting. Especially if you are one of Bad Empanada's fans (or haters). The section is called "Bad Empanada" so watch this first. FD Signifier is fine. He makes good content, and its [sic] fine for you to watch me and him at the same time. Please don't be parasocial and say we have to have a conversation and make amends because you want us too [sic]. I don't wish to discuss this much any more than I have to after this video and I certainly don't want anything to do with him. I care about this stuff deeply so for someone I have collabed with, who is a mutual on every platform, to say stuff like this just annoys me a lot. I take this stuff really serious, and the lack of seriousness in the critique of me specifically is what got me so annoyed.
Me: Was waiting for you to respond to this, and your response is... "Bad Empanada has said some bad stuff." Eat your heart out, Norm Finkelstein (a famous critic of Israel who's also a transphobe)! In BE's case, he's called plural, furry, disabled, trans, Indigenous and SWers "useless eaters," my dude, and your criticism of his fascist language is pretty flaccid; i.e., you're as bad as FD is—no, you're worse because I know you've seen my dossier on him. Edit: "This is my response to that, and language policing on the Left." That's rich. So, let the incel fash in red paint encourage punch[ing] down against anti-Zionist queer folk, BIPOC and other minorities? As if, dude! Do better.
Flaccid Kav: You helped make a video about me which was outright defamation and slander (for people reading this is the Trash Discourse video). You are literally credited as one of the authors. You have no right at all to lecture me about anything.
Me: Um, the video was never supposed to be about you. Did you watch my response to Trash? The dossier was about Bad Empanada, and they misapplied it to you; re: "Essay 9.25: Apologizing for Misapplied Research/Asking for The Kavernacle's Help with Bad Empanada." Quit taking the soup, dude. BE's a fascist and my research was about him and only about [him]; Trash took my material and misapplied it to you, which I've publicly explained multiple times; e.g., in my own video, but also with publicly to President Sunday on stream. I literally asked Trash after said stream to apologize to you for misusing my research to slander you. I had nothing to do with them doing that to you. They released the video without telling me they'd use it to slander you. I have receipts[5] if you don't believe me (source YouTube comments: "FD Signifier has a Problem with my Anti-Israel Videos").
(source [the first image]: "Raising Awareness")
Flaccid, indeed! Kav ignored my receipts and research—not only misrepresenting how citations work, but continuing to protect Bad Empanada by keeping silent/playing dumb (which lip service largely is). It's possible to be right and wrong at the same time; Kav's hypocrisy is selective, outing Platner as an ex-mercenary[5a] while downplaying and reducing Bad Empanada's own abuses to "some bad stuff, online." Comments don't stay online, do they? The double standard is plain, one that makes exceptions for the trans people, BIPOC, plural folk and furries, etc, Bad Empanada calls "useless eaters" (from the research dossier Kav continues to ignore, above). In short, Kav throws us under the bus, then blames us for speaking out concerning our own genocide (thus rape)—all to defend a piece of work like Bad Empanada! It's gross, but sadly all too common from those ignoring transphobia in the anti-Zionist movement (as white straight guys with beards so often do).
To it, you don't keep quiet for someone, then defend them like Kav does, unless you're a fan to some extent. Omerta isn't a neutral act; Kav kept quiet for eight months, only to open his mouth and suddenly lie to discredit my work on Bad Empanada (again, we'll cover this more in "Flaccid Kav Strikes Again"). If that's not a defense, I don't know what is. Kav's a moderate, through-and-through, ironically proving Trash right post hoc (despite her throwing me under the bus, but such is life[6]). He's Rennick from Sinners (2024), but wearing more masks (which beards often are: status symbols). No matter how many he puts on, defense of fascism = fascism; fascism historically corrupts Socialist action by hijacking emancipatory language, beard or not, in bad faith (with Kav a proven liar defending open bigotry while using his activist/academic credentials to shield him [and others] from criticism; re: "Kav Takes the Soup"). When someone fucks with you, fuck back. Poke and prod to expose what they're defending by keeping mum/punching down: the apathy of those who think they're untouchable/too clever for others not to call them out—indeed, are banking on it; i.e., white straight guys with diplomas and beards rely on the same-old reactionary-to-moderate tricks to prey on others, calling others "theatre kids while doing it themselves[7]. Through DARVO and obscurantism, they abuse their credentials and positions to feed in bad faith. Worse, they do so while also weaponizing genocide victims/pitting different oppressed groups against each other (who they exploit in different ways, white saviors making money off the backs of or building a reputation on the suffering of others)!
(source tweet: BreeEsq, 5/27/2026)
Meanwhile, F.D. Signifier—while hardly above criticism, either (re: "Sharing the Blame," 2025)—is still a black man calling out Bad Empanada's laundry list of bigoted behaviors; i.e., doing so mid-genocides (trans and Palestinian, but also black people in America; e.g., Bad Empanada calling a black ML Z*Gslave[8], above), and all while Kav discredits my work: making false statements about me as a fellow anti-Zionist (re: "Kav Takes the Soup"). If you scratch a moderate, a fascist bleeds (and Kav, a token Irishman, bleeds the soup—same difference).
In short, Kav excludes me similar to how Bad Empanada did, but also as Norm Finkelstein would do, or Marx: the white straight savior with a degree and/or beard who apparently trumps my own credentials, and right to exist/defend myself and my friends from bad actors. Doing so is predatory and Western Marxism (and Marxist-Leninism) are not exempt from such behaviors—especially when invoking state power as something to defend from so-called "degenerates" (or "theatre kids," which Kav prefers when surreptitiously discounting queer critics/saying "fag" in politically correct ways); i.e., various strongmen (e.g., Stalin, Marx, or anyone acting like them to various degrees) declaring people like me as "corrupting" the movement: predominantly one that defends different in-group members, said members historically monopolizing oppression for themselves. Saying you're smart[9] doesn't automatically make you smart, anymore than saying you're "oppressed," "under attack" or anything else does. Nor does having a beard, degree, and/or white skin automatically turn you into a wizard (straight or otherwise). These are performances of power, first and foremost; i.e., as something to flow dialectically-materially up or down, flow-equals-function (not aesthetic). Context matters, "white" as much something to act like (defending the status quo) versus appear as, in-group as well as token actors: "assumptions are harmful and non-ethnically-white people can [also] be gatekeepers within capital, a predominantly white, European system that bears out white qualities adopted by other ethnic groups. These groups shouldn't be described as incapable of doing such things; e.g., Fanon's black skin, white masks or Coulthard's red. Same idea with Chinese and Filipino" (source: "Interview with the Vampire," 2026).
(source: "Recognizing and Performing Empathy," 2025)
I digress. The point being—and one addressing the central question, here—is that anti-Zionism isn't beyond reproach. Nor does it eclipse other genocides taking place. I am and have been for years a queer author, academic, and activist (who can easily grow a beard [above] but choose not to[10]), but the moment I critique the white straight guy with a beard, another white straight guy with a beard comes to Bad Empanada's defense; re: Kav lying about me and ignoring piles of evidence; i.e., despite my going to bat for him multiple times, both on my own channel and on someone else's, and despite my being a rape survivor, granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, and fervent anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, and anti-Zionist eco-Socialist (stressing intersectional consciousness/solidarity to avoid class, culture and race reductionism). Kav doesn't care, defending Bad Empanada and the status quo of Western Marxism they both belong to. The problem isn't strictly white straight guys with beards, but bad actors bearing those qualities out who refuse to face facts and criticism; re: Kav taking the soup to myopically defend Bad Empanada from valid criticism (mine or F.D.'s).
To conclude, while F.D. is again far from perfect—and I repeatedly say so while celebrating his dunking on Bad Empanada (re: "React #33: F*ck Around, Find Out; or, F.D. Signifier Totally Schools Bad Empanada," 2026)—he'll admit wrongdoing once confronted; i.e., with evidence like Bad Empanada calling a black ML "Z*Gslave" (which Flaccid Kav unironically defends by citing the usual "free speech" bullshit, above). By comparison, the usual benefactors of Western Marxism—online and/or at university—only double down when confronted; re: white straight guys (with or without beards) clutching pearls, and doing so while using their credentials like shields from criticism (adorning them with the bodies of dead Palestinians for further protection, in this respect). This goes for Norm Finkelstein or for Bad Empanada and The Kavernacle, none of whom take accountability about furthering transphobia (and other bigotries) during the Palestinian and trans genocide, side-by-side (that includes trans Palestinians, below). Instead, they only use and/or stubbornly defend the use of slurs (obvious or not) from ivory towers—meaning in moderate-to-reactionary ways that further genocide "for some" (and generally ones they don't directly experience themselves, being white straight men). Toothless and flaccid but also bad-faith, they lie and downplay things to posture as saviors exempt from criticism; re: playing the hero and the victim, while preying on others behind their diplomas, beards or anything else. Rape apologia = genocide apologia. They're Evil Santa; I tug on Kav's beard to see his bigotry play out, specifically his sexism, transphobia, and racism.
I counter that trans people are people and should be heard alongside other minorities (and their modularities); i.e., when holding bad actors (Santas or otherwise) accountable. To it, bad actors don't monopolize anti-Zionism, which—when gatekept like it is, here—only weakens the movement to serve Zionism, thus cast Marxism and Socialism in a bad light.
(source: "Save Jordanian-Palestinian Trans Woman's Life")
Update, 7/8/2026: the Graham Platner Situation; or, Flaccid Kav Strikes Again!
(source: Jessica Piper and Adam Wren's "Exclusive: Woman who dated Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her," 2026)
Speaking of evil beards (and the cloaks they work like), news broke yesterday how Graham Platner—the Democratic candidate for Maine's senate position—was accused of rape on a Politico exclusive (above); i.e., on top of the Nazi tattoo and serving in Blackwater while killing brown people overseas (which should, in my opinion, bar him from office for life). This update gives my thoughts on the scandal as it unfolds—both as I gave them, myself, and regarding Chris Kunzler talking with Flaccid Kav who hypocritically lied to defend, and deflect criticism from, another "anti-Zionist" bad actor with a beard besides Platner (re: "Talking Platner w/the Kavernacle" and "Kav Takes the Soup"); i.e., Kav going on stream to denounce bad actors is pretty rich, given he's one himself for defending Bad Empanada; re: lying on his behalf, denying evidence in the process. It's less aggressive cover up—the sort typically enacted through raw intimidation and dirty tactics (that's Bad Empanada's style, while still playing the victim like a little bitch)—and more looking the other way save to smugly also play the victim, where convenient. Selling out is selling out.
You sure you don't have a colonizer voice, Kav? Though something Trash invented while attacking you on their own, I have to wonder if they were onto something. It's not like the Irish can't sell out/otherwise assimilate, "killing home rule with kindness" (or doing way too much coke, in Conor McGregor's case). If the American side eventually did, with "Plastic Paddies" (Leftist Cooks, 2026), then why-oh-why not a full-of-himself, master's-toting Londoner like you—licking the boot if only less of it (and Bad Empanada's hairy ass crack)? To it, you can nobly raise money for the Palestinians, but still be a racist, transphobic douchebag. You're just a moderate, hypocritical one.
Enough jabs. We'll get to Chris and Kav in a second. First, my thoughts on the scandal!
I gave my thoughts when it happened: "I'm an anti-capitalist trans woman, one whose PhD emphasizes rape prevention while dealing with bad actors. For me, Platner's rape allegation is the least surprising thing in the world. Capital rapes by design, the state lying to maintain this predation. Platner was merely the latest" (source skeet: vanderWaardart, 7/7/2026). I would comment further in a short YouTube video, "The Least Surprising Thing on Earth: Graham Platner's Progressive Swansong" (2026), which I summarize: "tl;dr - guy with Nazi tattoo and employment history with Blackwater is (to no one's surprise) an alleged rapist. Also, Nazis are bad and don't vote them into office" (source skeet: vanderWaardart, 7/8/2026). However, others would chime in, too; e.g., Shaun, who wrote snarkily (and with much justice) "sorry for not being clairvoyant about the nazi tattoo[11] blackwater merc guy. there was simply no way to know about the nazi tattoo blackwater merc guy":
(source skeet: shaunvids, 7/7/2026)
Lots of people taking the piss (e.g., Blaque in the City's "I'm So Shocked," 2026), lots of people calling it way ahead of time (e.g., Non-Compete's "Graham Platner Proves that Individualism and Personality-Driven Politics Are Holding Us Back," 2026), lots of people playing dumb (e.g., Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report's "Graham Platner Must Drop Out," 2026). But some, like The Kavernacle, are being weird hypocrites. As I comment on Chris' video, "Talking Platner w/the Kavernacle":
Chris,
Trans author, activist and academic, here. While I appreciate your talk with discussing Graham Platner and his abuses, there's something you should know about The Kavernacle: he's defended Bad Empanada's bigotry repeatedly despite being shown many receipts. These include where Bad Empanada calls me—a rape survivor, anti-Zionist, and granddaughter [of a] Holocaust survivor—a "useless eater" who, along with my friends (many being BIPOC, plural, [furries and/or] sex workers), "belongs in the mines." However, The Kavernacle has only doubled down, lying to defend Bad Empanada while apologizing for his many bigotries [and dogwhistles/veiled slurs]. I've e-mailed you the details.
I think you should address them, given you spoke publicly with Kav. Given his own statements on Platner, Kav's willingness to turn a blind eye when it suits him makes him pretty hypocritical, and at least deserving of some criticism himself.
Unsurprisingly, this led to a variety of sus comments from defenders of Flaccid Kav and Bad Empanada (almost like they're friends, in this strange kayfabe). These include
(source skeet A [which has alt-text]: vanderWaardart, 7/8/2026)
and
(source skeet B [which has alt-text]: vanderWaardart, 7/8/2026)
(source skeet C [which has alt-text]: vanderWaardart, 7/9/2026)
I would respond to each, if only to document things playing out: "Big TERF energies with this one: another white woman saying 'don't decenter Platner's victims,' despite my being a rape victim and empathizing with the Palestinians. These aren't mutually exclusive, anymore with themselves than with critiquing white straight guys for being hypocrites" (ibid.). "Lotta defenders of a white straight guy called out for his hypocrisy. There's 'What does this have to do with anything?' (plural person), 'Your kind have never done anything for us' (non-white Global Southerner) and 'This doesn't apply to you' (rape apologist). / People are so atomized, it hurts" (skeet B); or, as a friend says, "So repulsive when marginalization is DARVO'd into privilege" (skeet A). Whataboutisms and other deflection tactics are the tools, classically, of moderates and their little friends, fascists: playing dumb to not only apologize for rape (which genocide is) but encourage it behind their mask-like beards! Time for a shave; we queer anti-Zionists must expose them, as barbers, the thieving faces smiling fox-like underneath: "The hypocrite!" said [she to herself as she] crossed to the church, which formed one side of the quadrangle; "but I will unmask him" (source: The Italian, 1796).
And yet, troubling news of Chris Kunzler—hosting the impostor, out in the open? Curses, Flaccid Kav strikes again! Can his evil beard not be stopped? Hopefully Chris responds with more grace (should he respond at all)! British boy wonder! Turn away from false preachers before it's too late (who often mix lies with truth to fleece others and harm them)!
Afterthoughts: A Gothic Approach to Intersectionality
Having discussed the exposing of Gothic villains (re: bad actors tied to rape, specifically systemic abuse), I want to give short takeaway on intersectionality (solidarity aka tactical unity alongside consciousness[12])—one touching on state vampirism being inherently barbaric and rapacious: an alien "hot potato" whose dark worrisome presence raises questions without easy answers (essentially the walking dead, or comparable things; i.e., Marx' vampiric "dead labor" [1867] speaking as much to people alienated by capital as the actual factories they work at). So often there's a Veil, and it's Black and person-shaped; but what does it mean? It means capital, a system of predation always in crisis (whose conspicuous decay [a looming presence of disorder] denotes an ongoing cycle or transfer of power from older to newer rulers). Capital, without pause and without end, rapes nature-as-alien mid-contradiction (e.g., "sex bad; sex sells"); Gothic stories tackle said rape to expose it—meaning those who cause and/or perpetrate it (enablers, which aren't discrete from overt abuse). This classically happens "from inside the house," a Roman simulacrum laden with external fears pointing the finger Elsewhere (the foreign plot aka "barbarian at the gate"). Capital loves to scapegoat its own abuse (whose rape includes genocide to maximize profit), but survivors can't scapegoat capital like the old novels tried (re: "Radcliffe's Refrain," 2025). And yet, the language survives in ways that—in the proper hands—expose the predatory system those bad actors personify. We access capital through its middle men, servants of the ruling class that hint at people feeding on us "from on high." So cryptonymy's opaqueness speaks to things the concealment gives away.
(source: Sam Hirst's "Radcliffe’s Heroes in Order of Uselessness," 2020)
To it—and dealing with transphobia in the anti-Zionist movement—I approach this in the Gothic style, specifically Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism breaking Capitalist Realism, cryptonymy-and-abjection (whose dialectic of the alien shifts material and social conditions away from state predation). This makes me a Gothic heroine of sorts, one outing systems of abuse through those representing them (usually some copy of pirate, bastard or impostor). This means I'm constantly facing Gothic villains playing the savior in bad faith on a shared stage (often white straight men in positions of authority that beards and/or diplomas commonly announce). Instead of a house, the very planet is at stake (making my work not just anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and anti-racist, but eco-Socialist). Even so, the usual poetics work well enough (despite whatever critics of the mode insist); or as Patel and Moore write, "Real abstractions both describe the world and make it. That’s why real abstractions are often invisible, and why we use ideas like world-ecology to challenge our readers into seeing Nature and Society as hidden forms of violence. These are undetonated words. Real abstractions aren't innocent: they reflect the interests of the powerful and license them to organize the world" (source: A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, 2017).
Gothic is perfect for this, paradoxically fostering unity (and turning things inside-out) by cutting both ways. Capital is always in crisis, feeding mid-turmoil. In Gothic, the heroine is someone (classically a white female detective) who unveils hypocritical theft and rape, and generally to expose the feeding these entail as happening in bad faith; e.g., the false preacher using the language of the outsider (which aliens are, perceived or otherwise) to distract from his own institutional privilege and predation. My approach remains holistic, Gothic Communism critiquing benefactors of genocide to blow the whistle against local darlings; i.e., those best positioned within their community to betray and fleece people less fortunate (which, in the Internet Age, extends easily to places overseas). By poking and prodding person and process, we might raise empathy and brains—doing so through intersectionality preventing predation anisotropically (according to direction, namely power and its flow). Capital divides workers with workers to conquer them, and without end; we unify mid-division, doing so from divisive positions that gentrify and decay labor in undead ways (re: fascism makes you dumb, below). Through capital's boom-or-bust, such cannibalism oscillates mid-peristalsis to an endless swallowing (and digestion) of embarrassing food: ourselves.
(source video thumbnail: Persephone van der Waard's "Flaccid Kav Strikes Again: Token Hypocrite, Transphobic Racist Guy," 2026)
So whilst our focus here remains on white straight men with beards (who appear unassuming and innocent, above), it also includes those they hypocritically dupe in bad faith. Anyone can be the scapegoat, can wear the beard in duality having no set function. Oppression, though mustn't monopolize/weaponize for state predation (and all that entails). This includes obviously hostile examples, conducting Imperialism in mask-off ways; it also means the wolf's fox-like sibling (re: Malcolm X, 1963)—i.e., those who wear concentric disguises that, all the better to eat you with, facilitate genocide "with more steps" (therefore Imperialism coming home to empire, during fascism). Capital rapes by design under state models, Imperialism what Lenin called "the highest stage" (aka monopoly Capitalism, 1916). To prevent a "re-slicing the pf pie," we must recognize and critique other allies in good faith—all while recognizing that intersectional problems (and their solutions) require a flexible holistic approach; i.e., one whose subsequent awareness and teamwork, while outing impostors, allows for universal emancipation: from a broader pick-and-choose cannibalism, smaller stomachs in bigger ones. That means no scapegoats, "acceptable" rapes blaming the whore, Omelas children, etc. That being said, criminogenic conditions don't preclude abuse from minorities "under the boot"; e.g., Arab cultures who—desperate for aid, inside the vice—gradually see their cultures' progressive elements swept away/driven underground. Only the reactionary factors stay at play (or favor themselves in global discourse), which feed paradoxically into Orientalist tropes, stereotypes, and bad praxis: as furthering Imperialism, mid-abjection, through an Elsewhere both at home and abroad (their placement situational, relative)!
Inside capital's endless frontiers (re: stomachs), unity is uphill; it takes struggle—meaning honesty and awareness among workers divided differently by capital's feeding on them through each other (doing so through manufactured instability and conflict, above). That's the function, which paradoxically reverses through subversion as disguise and demo. Savage, barbarian, whore—the state can mark anyone for abuse, including white trans people with or without beards (also above). Meanwhile, the racially oppressed can harm others oppressed differently than themselves; e.g., your average Arab on the street isn't past reproach (or ranking rape, when push comes to shove) anymore than Edward Said or Norm Finkelstein. Zionism still feeds in bad faith, regardless, and people are human (thus prone to make mistakes). To be anti-Zionist in holistically intersectional ways, we shouldn't be afraid to critique each other and give positive/negative feedback;
(source video thumbnail: Persephone van der Waard's "React #32: Orientalism and the Gothic; or, Mild Criticism for an Arab Ally Who Loves/Hates Aladdin," 2026)
(source YouTube community post: Persephone van der Waard, 7/10/2026 in response to Abdul Hussein's "This Israeli Propaganda Movie Backfires," 2026)
i.e., we must, if that means fostering a better collective understanding that "fills gaps." We want to prevent harm (which rape is), making workers more conscious/prone to work together when undermining a common foe that harms each party differently. That happens mid-oppression as something to overcome: to reduce harm in all its forms, including bigoted worldviews that lead to harm, matter-shapes-consciousness (and vice versa). As I see it, consciousness can't rise alone; it demands intersection while capital drives so many wedges betwixt allies: mid-predation, under capital's spell.
We're all in the same boat, specifically the same planet rebellious workers unify versus traitors (open and veiled something that cuts both ways, above). If all it takes to divide us forever is being born different—including whatever divisions capital historically manufactures—then unifying workers must happen anyways; i.e., despite those differences. Meanwhile, the conditions that lead to bigotry's rise (and blowback) "groom" recipients of state abuse for generational trauma; i.e., given and received, "once bitten." This renders some out-groups (or individual members) more desperate for white saviors than would otherwise happen. Said groups can even benefit (at least in the short term) from said relief. However, if said aid leads to future rape—of one's own or other groups, besides (all part of a larger whole)—then capital isn't being challenged; it's being upheld!
Even so, the state—try as they might—cannot monopolize the asymmetrical language of violence, terror and monsters; the latter helps workers in duality release steam to expose abuse (those who, as bad actors, appear within our homes beset by capital's invisible predation). To do so, we need recognize the central problem monsters commonly speak to:
Often in visualizations of the spread of capitalism, the image that offers itself is an asteroid impact or the spread of a disease, which starts at ground or patient zero and metastasizes across the planet. Capitalist frontiers require a more sophisticated science fiction. If capitalism is a disease, then it’s one that eats your flesh—and then profits from selling your bones for fertilizer, and then invests that profit to reap the cane harvest, and then sells that harvest to tourists who pay to visit your headstone. But even this description isn’t adequate. The frontier works only through connection, fixing its failures by siphoning life from elsewhere (source: Seven Cheap Things, whose above passage "Gothic Ludology" [2026] explores at length).
By comparison, deliberately failing to voice predation (often by selling out) = betrayal; betrayal =/= tactical unity (solidarity amid aggressive difference) but suicide—and commonly of a prolonged, unironic, and painfully slow death (the ignominious death, in Gothic stories, a "hoisting on one's petard"). To further or reverse this aim happens behind masks/on mirrors, whose confusing liminalities we inhabit in duality to speak to ghosts of different kinds (or bandits pretending to be ghosts): the spectres of empire and emancipation, "sharing the graveyard" in Numinous ways. Anyone can betray anyone, the pimp and the whore not clear-cut; i.e., under virgin/whore, insider/outsider models abused by capital in Rome's tall shadow (the oldest profession, the oldest struggle—one joining other survivors not to rank but recognize rape). A hauntology!
(model and artist: Scyllacibin and Persephone van der Waard; source: "Restating My Goals Before We Start; or, Celebrating Satire in Gothic Forms" from "A Response to Brigitte Empire," 2026)
I digress. Our aim here is intersectionality at large, its awareness (and teamwork amid difference) challenging transphobia from bad actors among anti-Zionism. To it, two things can be true at once, and capital feeds on different workers differently to uphold state rule. There are no perfect victims or abusers. Instead, workers of all kinds need take responsibility by not infantilizing ourselves in cop-like ways (whose power we reclaim mid-exploitation, above). This means despite our different degrees of privilege and oppression; i.e., workers have more in common with themselves, and whose divisions by owners see them betraying a shared class interest (therefore culture and race intersecting with class): liberation for all people from capital/state predation (and its Realism). This means while facing the complications of discourse that historically emerge; i.e., when unmasking villains "among us." Doing so recognizes how someone can be both right and wrong at the same time, and how marginalized peoples don't monopolize oppression anymore than the white (straight male European) saviors using them as shields do—can move against their own interests and values by acting bigoted while being duped; i.e., weaponizing oppression (of themselves and others) to self-serve and uphold capital at oppressed peoples' expense (who again, hoist on their own petards when taking the bait). Betrayal takes many forms, reactionary to moderate, and includes tokenized saviors leading if not paving "the road to Hell"; re: The Kavernacle an Irishman who—regardless of intent—weaponizes brown oppression, doing so to defend fascism and apologize for trans genocide within the anti-Zionist movement. He simply hides it behind false "tolerance," a Black Veil unto itself (the chaotic, ambivalent intimation of exploitation and genocide—of rape and some-such Great Destroyer something to sense and stall, as best we can, when parting the curtain).
Regardless of the betrayal(s) taking place, you don't fight fascism with fascism and genocide with genocide; you come together and expose bad actors, capital-in-small. Vampires of the state sort, they feed behind this mask or that. Exposing them isn't clean; it's messy and happens inside empire, meaning while capital dies, revives, and digs into everything around it: feeding in all directions while kicking up dust, binging and purging to conceal its own food source. To shock the system and transform it, we must boldly poke and prod whatever's needed. Only then can workers free themselves from planetary bondage, uniting efforts across the world to engender a world-ecology (as Patel and Moore call it): one that combats state shift inside the Capitalocene, reminding others that assimilation is poor stewardship. Betrayal = assimilation, workers prone to cannibalize in so many ways (re: Kav taking the soup).
More Beards: Good vs Bad (the Quartering and Amazons)
For an accidental sequel (that focuses on misogyny and Amazons instead of Zionism), refer to "Video Essay #3: The Quartering and Amazons" (above, 2026). Twice the beard, twice the attitude (and butts)!
Footnotes
[1] My new nickname for The Kavernacle after his taking the soup (re: "Kav Takes the Soup"). Refer to that video for context and receipts beyond what I show here, but also my critiques of other moderates besides Kav (and his defenders); i.e., tied to state vampirism, as I call it; e.g., "White Moderates" (2025) and "Black Moderates Don't Challenge Fascism" alongside "Dead on Arrival; or, Rowling's Autopsy (and Those Who Shill Her)" (2026). Though flaccid, Kav is just the tip of a much longer spear (or goatee)!
[2] Our focus here is white straight guys with beards, insofar as Western Marxism is predominantly white straight guys with beards... who tend to means-test/exclude other groups in bad faith (e.g., non-white people, women, unpaid labor as a whole, Indigenous Peoples, etc); i.e., by evoking Marx as someone to imitate and/or apologize for, in the bargain. See: George Rockhill's Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (2025). Also, this blogpost originally appears on Reddit: r/anarchocommunism and r/Socialism_101 (where some MLs punch down to stymie discourse; e.g., Clear-Result-3412 in r/Socialist_101, above). It's meant somewhat as a joke, but not entirely. The satire has bite, ruffling some feathers (or beards) on purpose. I shall tug as much as I like, if it means exposing bad actors; i.e., per "the scratching method" as I call it (aka the magic mirror argument), "reversing abjection to see how workers respond—in short, how they react to different things that get them to drop the mask" on a stage shared by good actors and bad (source: "Interview with the Vampire," 2026).
[3] As I write in "Making Marx Gay" (2024), but also others before me; e.g., Peter Drucker's "Gays and the Left" (1997).
[4] Despite Wilde having Jewish friends, himself. Marx had gay friends, by comparison, but was still homophobic. So can anyone punch down while playing that card. Bigotry isn't some neat, clean, black-and-white thing; it's messy and full of contradictions, like capital (and those who embody it). Interrogating bigotry happens where one is (the Victorian period, for Marx and Wilde), and while dealing with good-and-bad actors on a spectrum of different, contradicting forces between shared struggles; i.e., "Exploitation or liberation?" a question asked by and for different parties and their problems; e.g., transphobia and Zionism versus their polar opposites. Intersectional problems require intersectional solutions, those who assimilate, lie or otherwise divide-and-conquer poor stewards of the world at large. Betrayal is betrayal, rape is rape (an abuse of power) to whatever degree (and through whatever monopolies) they transpire!
[5] The receipts I'm referring to (originally read in "Kav Takes the Soup" from their 5/30/2026 Bsky post):
Always good to back things up and presume that people don't click on external links!
[5a] Which—as I tell Chris Kunzler (above, who we'll get to in "Flaccid Kav Strikes Again")—is perfectly valid, while his bigotry from defending Bad Empanada is not: "I agree with Kav on Graham Platner, and recall him saying from the outset that Graham is bad news because of his Blackwater service and Nazi tattoo. All fine. However, Kav's defense of Bad Empanada is another story. [...] A lot of people apologize for him, but especially white straight MLs and leftists on YouTube; re: The Kavernacle, who really should know better (as an Irishman whose family was in the IRA) but sadly defends BE for his transphobia."
[6] Then again, they're the one who deleted their entire channel from the blowback (above), so I guess I came out on top?
(source YouTube comments: Spooky Streaming Socialist's "The Platner Cult Sunk to New Lows..." 2026)
[7] E.g., Spooky Scary Socialist loving the same "theatre kid" slur Kav does, birds-of-a-feather. Regarding Platner and his abuse, SSS correctly points out the hypocrisy of one group while engaging in their own brand; i.e., by omitting important information about Platner's critics, to which I respond: "Good thing I'm a theatre kid used to unmasking impostors. It's not just Platner and those who defend him (a rapist), but those who condemn Platner while hypocritically celebrating men just like him; i.e., anti-Zionists who engage in genocidal behavior in pick-and-choose ways; e.g., The Kavernacle rightfully condemning Platner, then apologizing for Bad Empanada's abuse of different minorities, including trans people, BIPOC, plural folk, the disabled, sex workers, etc" (ibid.). Lies commonly happen by omission. The point in being a good detective, then (which Gothic heroines are), is unmasking hypocritical lies and theft wherever it occurs. The aim should be to make people collectively more emotionally/Gothically intelligent (regarding issues of class culture and race as intersecting modules). Criticism has to be holistic, or the same-old problems (of divide and conquer) will invariably occur. Rape apologia is a gradient. Kill your darlings, accordingly.
This being said, the pedagogy of the oppressed is holistic and should allow criticism to be an exchange of information conductive to intersectional consciousness and solidarity (awareness and teamwork); e.g., I enjoy Lil' Bill's work as an American black man
"The Left has a whiteness problem." Verily! Western Marxism has historically prioritized white male factory workers, for example (and Marxist-Leninism in the East/the Eastern half of the Roman empire turning into the Russian empire and its czars; i.e., very few black people even in Russia, now); e.g., American unions famously excluding BIPOC, women, and other minorities for as long as they've existed. John the Duncan highlights this as "the universal class subject" (a white European man); I describe it as, "the state is white, straight and male." This status quo reflects in men like Platner as apologized for by defenders of establishment politics, yes, but also of Socialism that only takes its radical nature "so far" (source YouTube community post: Persephone van der Waard, 7/10/2026 in response to lil' bill's barbershop's "I (don't) hate to say 'I told you so,'" 2026).
but still criticize him when valid:
(source YouTube community post [comments]: billdabarber, 7/9/2026; cited: "Hailing Hellions: An Interview with Amanita Daukta," 2026)
As a sex worker and sexologist, I'm of two minds about this: companionship and compensation, consent being paramount for either case. Yes, you can find someone "that'll do it for free"; doing it "for free" is precisely the thing that sex workers (often women) face: lack of dignity and compensation for sex as a service and social act. So long as the brag stays "sex work is sex work and we support sex workers," there's nothing wrong with advertising one supports sex work (and not just female or even cis sex workers, my dude).
Such are the dictates of good praxis; i.e., when exercised in good faith towards the development of Communism for all: no scapegoats, no blind eyes, no weird double standards when walking away from Omelas together. We have to be able to criticize each other, not pick low-hanging fruit until we assimilate and betray our fellows in bad faith!
[8] As my best friend, Ginger, points out: "The more obscure a slur is, the more fascist the circles you have to occupy to even know it exists; where'd you learn the word "ZOG," dude [which comes from the Turner Diaries [1978] aka the Neo-Nazi Bible]?" Anyone saying a slur is just a joke is apologizing for it, ergo the harm it causes (rape or otherwise), mid-genocide; Kav is apologizing for Bad Empanada's cryptofascism, undermining anti-Zionism by being racist, transphobic, etc. It's possible to bigoted in multiple ways at the same time, yet convince yourself you "can't" punch down because you're punching up. It's DARVO and obscurantism (the usual liberal/fascist tools) at play!
[9] As another friend explains, "The Kav and BE defenders demonstrate this peculiarly online phenomenon where any kind of intersectional analysis of material conditions or social factors which go beyond traditional understandings of material conditions are dismissed as 'identity politics,' which must be reduced away to get anywhere. I'm not a big fan of Foucault—nor do I think it should replace material analysis—but wow could some of these people use with an education on discourse analysis. Because their obtuseness about how words can constitute harm whenever it's their favs doing it is immensely frustrating." Equally frustrating is the telling inability of such people to be intersectional, as a result; i.e., to take the sides of multiple oppressed, at once, under a shared struggle; e.g., asking Kav to say "trans people are people, sex work is work, and free Palestine" is like pulling teeth. He simply defaults to reductively abject (us-versus-them) positions that reduce trans people and sex work to "theatre kids." We're monsters to him, therefore not part of the struggle as he arbitrates it. Yet here the white straight guy is, gatekeeping on behalf of a group he isn't even part of. It's rape ranking from member of the oppressor group acting the oppressor to a moderate degree:
This kind of ranking can happen from non-white, non-Westerners towards trans anti-Zionists, too, and its meaning is anisotropic as such. However, tactical solidarity and intersectional consciousness remain vital; i.e., we are stronger as workers (and have more in common with each other than the owner class) if we don't divide ourselves, mid-abjection.
[10] I hate beards because they itch, first-and-foremost (and only seem to exist in cis-het culture for straight men to compete and celebrate like peacocks). But also, not having one makes me feel more femme (and without which has gotten me laid a lot, though plenty of beard-havers lay pipe, too).
(source: Kimberlee Kruesi and Patrick Whittle's "Nazi Symbol Has Been Covered," 2025)
[11] Formerly a Death's Head, which Platner covered up with fascist dogwhistles (cryptofascism): a wolf and the Celtic knot. He's literally a Nazi werewolf—shifting shape, but signaling to his homeboys that he's still on the prowl (Gothic language, like all language, a dualistic proposition): "Draw blood!" my werewolf in Maine.
[12] Different flavors of the same idea, that idea being cooperation versus capital. Intersectional solidarity stresses intersection within teamwork; consciousness, within awareness (which goes hand-in-hand with teamwork as I describe it; re: "Paratextual Documents," 2024). Tactical unity denotes "strange bedfellows," or similarity amid differences exacerbated by capital and state predation. Po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh.
