On Listening – being listened to – by the Palantir Corporation
On Listening – being listened to –
by the Palantir Corporation
“Palantir is here to disrupt and make our institutions we partner with the very best in the world and when it’s necessary to scare our enemies and on occasion kill them. “ Alexander Karp [2’27”]
1
This beast inside of me
born and bred where culture
becomes the craft of the coloniser
and where nature must soon sleep
our very own insatiable sleep.
This beast inside of me
reared on the savage bone,
broken on the rusty wheel
of a history
disembodied of heart and
with a mind nearly mindless
this beast that was empire-born
and brutal-bred
in blood and bewilderment
waking with a snarl
a century’s most poisonous ideology
with mask and truncheon and murder
now telling me
who i could be, one-day,
a rising star of the swastika, another
celebrity of chaos and cruelty
and catastrophe.
This beast inside of me
with its desperate belonging,
in a world surely deranged by
the normality of its excess,
with its paper excrement called Money
and its morbid cunning,
its death cult of Corporation & Congress
knowing nothing of its own dialectic,
its dangerous and sudden demise
now scheduled, and on time
– just like our own.
2
Once i lived at the edge
of things
where water and flower
knew the kiss of sweet sunlight.
Once i washed my face in cleanliness
and schooled myself in virtue
and the inner truth of poverty
(this never-ending March of the Poor)
and other things that
slowly taught me
the storms and seasons
of kindness.
3
But i tell you now,
all that has ended
and my orders today will come
from robots and mad-men
who once invented their mechanical minds
to power their secret and powerless
penis
and powerful women who once tasted
the luxury of hate
and seasoned their seduction with
its hopelessness.
4
So behold! this synthetic rot
running like a virus through vein
and synapse and neuron, and,
i am told,
after each successive catastrophe,
this next “war-to-end-all-wars”
will no longer worry about
wound or wounding, health
or healing
this last fear you will feel
will not be about
the catastrophe of freedom
instead,
better here and now
let us make our last and final farewell!
we, the sheep with little left to eat
unlike these many millionaires
with their warlike walls,
the grasp of their greedy hands,
this hunger of a hurt and heartless heart,
– heedless and unhinged.
5
So come now! Greet
this beast inside of me,
armed and colonised,
but subdued
trading its assets and value
in the cruel genocide
of commodities.
séamas carraher
6 september – 20 october, 2025
https://seamascarraher.blogspot.com/
IMAGE
DHS announces ICE enforcement actions on criminal aliens released due to California sanctuary policies
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
“…peace and prosperity threatens the business model”
Vanessa Windgarth – Sept. 5, 2025 [14’16”]
“Permanent war is the most effective mechanism used by the power elite to stifle reform and muzzle dissent.”
Chris Hedges. “Death of the Liberal Class”
Wikipedia – “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010)
Alternative Quote(s)
“One of the lessons of the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness. How many were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood of Hitler’s rise, when it was already as clear as daylight … According to the clever people, fascism was impossible in the West. Clever people have always made things easy for barbarians, because they are so stupid … That cleverness in becoming stupidity is inherent in the historical tendency.”
– Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “Dialectic of Enlightenment” (from the introduction to “Disaster nationalism”)
“I think disaster nationalist leaders are pathfinders for a new type of fascism, because in a manner of speaking we are always pre-fascist as long as the conditions for fascism have not been abolished.”
Richard Seymour – “Disaster nationalism : the downfall of liberal civilization”, Verso, 2024.”
Related Video Discussion
DISASTER NATIONALISM: Is it the Downfall of Liberal Civilization?
“Are we on the brink of a new and irreversible epoch; one that signals the end of democratic civilization as we have known it? Hard right political groups like Germany’s AfD party, which has roots in Nazi ideology, have celebrated Trump’s second term along with other extreme European politicians like Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban who announced that he had “downed vodka” in celebration of Trump’s win.”
GBH Forum Network – March, 2025 /
Palantir
“Battles are won – before they begin.” Palantir
The Education of a Libertarian, Article by Peter Thiel (2009)
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
The Future of Warfare | Palantir Advertisement – Palantir
Palantir CEO Alex Karp
Not that I understand Mr. Karp, (I wonder how much he understands himself?) but, what is concerning I think is the world he is, confusedly or not, telling us we are on the threshold of… The fact that the “Winners” are going to own (and, of course, fight to control) everything in this Greedy-New-World, is maybe the least of our (99% of us?) problems..?
Alex Karp [21:06] “I believe progressives in this country are working day and night to hurt poor people in this country. I don’t believe they’re progressive.”
Alex Karp [21:16] “…I’ll tell you… so then the question is are you allowed to fight war? And then…the other point is if you want to minimize human life, innocent human life being killed, you’re going to have to use software. And this is going to have to be better in the future than it is now… it’s true Israel’s ratio of like casualty, innocent to non- innocent, is better than anyone has ever had in the history of humanity. And it’s going to have to be better in the future.”
Alex Karp [22:12]“…when in fact you know we are used in Israel …and like I would say as a generalization where we are used in Israel most people in this audience would be very supportive of and … it actually has been very precise and deadly and I support that.”
Palantir CEO Alex Karp: Why the West is Destroying Itself, Data Empire, Skeptics, How to Win
All-In-One Podcast – September 9, 2025
(Unhinged?) Palantir CEO Alex Karp: Everything you learned in school about the world is intellectually incorrect… “to discuss his new book, why he believes the West has lost its way…”
[2:23] “So a country has to have a border. The educational institutions have to work. The military actually has to be scary. You actually can have things. Function in a way where the outputs are much greater than the inputs. And people who ignore this are going to be washed away. [2:40]
Watching You – The World of Palantir and Alex Karp Trailer
Documentary Trailer – February, 2025.
See Also: “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” (Book)
“In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success.”
Goodreads – ‘The Technological Republic’
“Palantir itself is an attempt—imperfect, evolving, and incomplete—at constructing a collective enterprise, the creative output of which blends theory and action. The company’s deployment of its software and its work in the world constitute the action. This book attempts to offer the beginnings of an articulation of the theory.” ack and nw – november 2024
(Preface: The Technological Republic)
See also: The Independent Review (Fall, 2025)
Palantir – Investigation & Critique(s)
How Your Tax Dollars Built Palantir’s Global Surveillance Empire
“From a startup founded by Peter Thiel and funded by the CIA to a $370 billion tech giant, Palantir has quietly become one of the most powerful companies in the world…” Vanessa Wingårdh
[2:00] “Their CEO openly states their mission to become the US government’s central operating system, all while fear-mongering and using war rhetoric. The same software tracking you at a protest is also identifying targets on the battlefield.” [2:16]
Vanessa Windgarth – YouTube Channel – September 5, 2025
Palantir: Because There Are Some Lines Google Won’t Cross
“In this video, Dr. Jon Padfield (engineer → state representative → business professor) explores Palantir’s rise, its contracts with agencies like ICE and the Department of Defense, and its role in projects like Project Maven — integrating AI into drone targeting systems.”
Business Reform – September 28, 2025
Palantir is Getting Out of Hand – How Palantir Helps the Military
[1:43] “The first is Gotham. Yeah, with a name like that, you can see why this company is spoken about as being quite dark and mysterious. And the Gotham platform is designed for governments and defense. It’s used by the military, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement to help detect threats, map patterns, and plan missions. For example, one well documented instance of the US military using Gotham is during operations in Afghanistan where it was deployed to help identify and disrupt roadside bomb networks. Intelligence analysts use Gotham to combine data from field reports, drone footage, signals intelligence, and info from local informants, and the software helped map relationships between people, locations, and events, which helped uncover hidden networks of insurgents responsible for IED attacks. In this instance, the platform proved so effective that many field commanders requested Palantir over military issued alternatives.[2:34]
How Palantir is transforming modern warfare | The Listening Post Al Jazeera – September 28, 2025
What Does Palantir’s Secret Registry REALLY Do With Your Data?
“ICE used Palantir’s real-time tracking to detain and deport 675 immigrants in a single day. These were families and lives just gone, erased by an algorithm’s cold logic, and the people who carried it out. Palantir’s tools are the engine of the digital police state.” [0:45-0:59]
What is Peter Thiel Trying to Tell Us?
[2:41] “While Peter Teal is warning that the Antichrist could bring totalitarianism by exploiting our desire for peace and safety, a company that he co-founded is building the tools for a totalitarian surveillance state based on our desire for peace and safety. Is it too late to stop this nightmare? [2:58]
“Reason, the magazine of free minds and free markets, is your home for alternative news, views, and comedy from a libertarian perspective.”
The Man Behind The American Oligarchy
“The Rise of Peter Thiel and his step into the political life…
“…in his book ‘The Diversity Myth’ he blames women for rape and discussed how higher education was increasing multi-culturalization and this would harm the future of America…” [4:33-4:41]
See related Links in Description: “And the List, goes on and on…”
Also Palantir [“Palantir’s first investor was the CIA…” – 10:43 – 13:13]
What’s Up With the £320M [UK] NHS Palantir Contract?
“We look deep into the huge contract between the UK’s National Health Service and US spy agency-linked tech firm Palantir, and what it means for local health services. Featuring a varied cast of egomaniacal tech billionaires, good lawyers, fictional villains and a squinting reporter staring into the sun for a good angle.”
Cronxwatch – September 25, 2025
Article: Palantir allegedly enables Israel’s AI targeting in Gaza, raising concerns over war crimes
“Palantir Technologies… “We stand with Israel,” the Denver-based company said in posts on X and LinkedIn. “The board of directors of Palantir will be gathering in Tel Aviv next week for its first meeting of the new year. Our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue.” As one of the world’s most advanced data-mining companies, with ties to the CIA, Palantir’s “work” was supplying Israel’s military and intelligence agencies with advanced and powerful targeting capabilities—the precise capabilities that allowed Israel to place three drone-fired missiles into three clearly marked aid vehicles.”
…”For years, the United States has had strict regulations on the export of weapon systems to foreign countries because of the lack of accountability once in the users’ possession, and the potential for serious war crimes. Even Palantir CEO Alex Karp has argued that “the power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems is now so great that it equates to having tactical nuclear weapons against an adversary with only conventional ones.” Israel’s indiscriminate killing in Gaza offers the perfect example of why it’s time to also begin far stricter regulation of the export of AI systems, like those developed by Palantir. Systems that, as Karp suggested, are the digital equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction. After all, it’s not just the bomb that kills, but the list that puts you and your family under it.”
Business and Human Rights Resource Centre – April, 2024
And:
from Naomi Klein – “Bunkered Billionaires” – Introduction – Sketching Fascism’s Long Arc with Naomi Klein
[20:50] “Gustavo Petro has been saying now for a year and a half that in Gaza’s unfolding genocide, the poorest and most vulnerable nations in the world are seeing what they fear is a glimpse of their own future…
Petro said this early, placing Israel’s attacks in the context of the global war waged by the rich against the poor, one that is intensifying in every part of the world in the era of climate breakdown…with migrants left to die rather than cross our increasingly fortressed national borders or sent to offshore camps and dungeons like the now notorious CECOT in El Salvador.
“Petro is warning us that the arc of fascism is already reaching forward into
a present and future of extreme border violence, bunkered billionaires, and
climate apartheid.” [21:40]
Centre for Climate Justice – August, 2025
REFERENCES [TEXT]
1
with mask and truncheon and murder
Images of armed and masked thugs currently being streamed to our screens
are, surely, reminiscent of the Brownshirt/Storm Troopers Organisation used to suppress the German revolutions and in particular the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (among others) : “On January 15, 1919, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered by officers of Noske’s counter-revolutionary troops with the connivance of the government of the Right Social-Democrats Ebert and Scheidemann”
Marxist Internet Archive – Lenin – 1919
More recently
US immigrant Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was shot dead by ICE-Squad member immediately after dropping off his children at a nearby school.
Reuters – ICE OFFICER KILLS – September 12, 2025
now scheduled, and on time
– just like our own.
Before the awareness of Global Climate Catastrophe – See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on History’:
“There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.”
2
where water and flower
knew the kiss of sweet sunlight (etc.)
Compare the world of the US poet, Mary Oliver, with that of Mr. Karp, CEO of Palantir
“Wild Geese” — written and read by Mary Oliver
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
3
who once invented their mechanical minds
to power their secret penis
House Oversight Committee Releases Trump’s Sexually Suggestive Birthday Note to Epstein
Democracy Now Headline – September 09, 2025
and women that once tasted the luxury of hate
and seasoned their seduction with
its hopelessness.
Virginia Giuffre’s Family Says DOJ Gave Maxwell “A Platform to Rewrite History”
Democracy Now – Article – August 25, 2025
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Lawyer ‘Admitted’ to Secret Deal With Trump Live on CNN
Daily Beast – September 9, 2025
Also see Richard Seymour’s essay in ‘Disaster nationalism’:
‘“Sex: Pornonationalism against Marxism (Making Capitalism Sexy Again)”
“Contemporary nationalism swaggers with male braggadocio, much in the spirit of the Italian poet and fascist Gabrielle D’Annunzio. Trump privately boasts of grabbing pussies and publicly boasts of wanting to date his daughter. Duterte publicly discourses on his huge penis. Bolsonaro sets his internet claque cackling with the announcement that he ‘wouldn’t rape’ the former minister for human rights, Maria do Rosário, ‘because she doesn’t deserve it’. (Who does he think deserves rape?) The erotics of today’s nationalist revival are limned by a fascination with transgressive power. Republican strategists find that ‘Walmart moms’ sexually admire Trump, whom they compare to a symbol of violent power, like a lion. Even Modi’s austere celibacy draws plaudits along these lines, as former Miss India America, Pria Warrick, enthuses that he is ‘wild – like a lion in that beard of his’. Such literal erotic lionisation leads neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin to propose a try-hard ‘Chad Nationalism’ of the alt-right, fronted by ‘sexy’, ‘dangerous’, gym-hitting boys. On the face of it, this looks nothing like bourgeois respectability politics.”
From: Richard Seymour – ‘Disaster Nationalism’ [Chapter 3]
4
for the sheep with little left to eat
See Wikipedia – Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the German poet, who, after the last century’s “largest” genocide, began his poem ‘The wolves defended against the lambs’:
“should the vultures eat forget-me-nots?
what do you want the jackal to do,
– cut loose from his skin, or the wolf? should
he pull his own teeth out of his head?
what upsets you so much
– about commissars and popes?
– why do you gape at the fraudulent TV screen
as if someone just slipped you the shaft?”
…and ends it with:
“you stick to your lies. you’d love
to be torn limb from limb. you
won’t change the world.”
Penguin Modern European Poets (1968)
unlike these many millionaires
with their warlike walls
“There were 204 newly minted billionaires in 2024, nearly four every week. Oxfam predicts there will be at least five trillionaires a decade from now.”
Oxfam Ireland – Davos-25 Report
Oxfam report finds billionaires’ wealth soared in 2024 • FRANCE 24
[0:54] “…billionaire wealth now comes from either inheritance, monopoly or powerful connections – meanwhile the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990…”
And Finally: from Chris Hedges ‘Death of the Liberal Class’
“We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money.”
Finally: Hope for the future?
“… This threat lurks on the historical horizon — the development of the United States into a truly fascist imperium of the Nazi type. It is sheer rubbish to say that this country is a “paper tiger.” It is a thermonuclear tiger and the American ruling class, owing to the absence of any cultural restraints, is capable of being even more vicious than the German.”
From: ‘Listen Marxist (1969).
‘Listen Marxist!’ – Internet Archive (for Download)
‘Listen Marxist!’ – Murray Bookchin – Marxists.org (Better read only copy)
Murray Bookchin – (1921-2006) – Bibliography
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