The “Alternative Right"

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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:51 pm

Meet Lauren Southern, The Latest “Alt-Right” Media Troll To Gain Access To The White House Press Briefing

Southern Gained Prominence As An “Alt-Right” Media Personality. Southern was formerly “one of the most popular hosts for Canada’s alt-right media torchbearer, the Rebel.” She announced on March 9 that she was leaving Rebel Media and, in her words, “going independent” to counter “the mass amount of left wing media we have that pretends to be impartial in Canada.” [Vice News Canada, 3/10/17]

Southern Spread Unverified Reddit Rumors About The Quebec Mosque Shooting To Falsely Paint Two Innocent Syrians As Suspects. BuzzFeed reported that Southern was among several right-wing Twitter personalities who cited “police radio chatter” to claim suspects for the shooting were “Bashir al-Taweed and Hassan Matti, Syrians who entered Canada as refugees last week.” Police chatter frequently involves the rapid exchange of information which may not be accurate, and in this case it was not -- the actual shooter was Alexandre Bissonnette, a white French Canadian, “and there is no evidence that police ever investigated” anyone named Bashir al-Taweed or Hassan Matti. [BuzzFeed, 1/31/17]

Southern Gained Clout After Posting An Anti-Feminist Video In Which She Said Rape Is More Of A Problem For Men Than Women. In a viral video posted by Southern titled “Why I Am Not A Feminist,” Southern dismissed the notion of rape culture by noting that men are raped too. She also posited that feminism isn’t a movement for equality because it doesn’t address the problems men face, and accused feminists of “creating a world of reverse sexism.” [Rebel Media, 4/8/15]

Breitbart Championed Southern’s Image After She Trolled Protesters By Yelling “There Are Only Two Genders.” Southern mocked feminist protesters at a demonstration against libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Augustus Sol Invictus, arguing that people are too quick to believe rape victims’ charges without proof and yelling, “There are only two genders,” male and female. Breitbart boosted Southern’s celebrity by casting her as “a fearless nemesis of the regressive left.” Breitbart reported on the confrontation and linked to Southern’s Rebel Media “debut video explaining why she isn’t a feminist.” [Breitbart News, 3/5/16]

Southern Denounced Black Lives Matter For Its “Fascistic Tendencies.” Vice reported that Southern “has called Black Lives Matter a ‘divisive, violent movement that has fascistic tendencies,’ falsely claiming they’ve caused more deaths in the last 30 years than the Ku Klux Klan.” [Vice News Canada, 3/10/17]

Southern Was Suspended As A Candidate Of The Libertarian Party Of Canada After Trolling Feminist Demonstrators. Southern downplayed the prevalence of rape during a Slut Walk protest by holding a sign that read “There is no rape culture in the west.” She went on to comment, “Rapes do happen, but the ... vast minority of men and women are rapists.” In response to her incendiary remarks and antagonistic tactics, Southern was suspended from being a candidate for the Canadian Libertarian Party.

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More at: https://mediamatters.org/research/2017/ ... ing/215674
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Fri Mar 17, 2017 2:10 pm

Another Day, Another Report About Steve Bannon’s Affection for Nazism

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Maurras was eventually sentenced to life in prison for supporting Nazism. Steve Bannon is still one of the most powerful people in America.


http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... azism.html
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:30 am

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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:13 am

Henrik Palmgren: Migrants are Causing a Crime Wave in Sweden and Making Whites a Minority

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At the recent Identitarian Ideas IX conference in Stockholm, Sweden, Red Ice Radio host Henrik Palmgren gave a speech on the supposed spike in violent crime in Sweden caused by Muslim immigrants.

Citing absolutely nothing, and constantly keeping his eyes down to read from his script, Palmgren claimed that “some estimates are as high as…fourteen-hundred percent, and said “we didn’t have these levels of crime in Sweden before immigration.” Moreover, Palmgren asserted that “this change in the criminal landscape in Sweden is not attributable to a drastic change in the introvert nature of most Scandinavians,” but rather a result of a “rapid demographic change.”

There is nothing to back up the claim that crime has risen by fourteen-hundred percent in Sweden, or an unprecedented crime wave by immigrants. As Vox points out, while, historically, “immigrants to Sweden do commit crimes at higher rates than the native-born,” there was “no significant uptick” in threats, harassment, fraud, assault, mugging, or sexual offenses between 2005 and 2014. (Since the murder rate was infinitesimal it was not included.) And the rise in reports of rape increased so drastically because Sweden expanded the definition of rape and “started counting each instance of sexual violence as a separate attack.”

So Palmgren’s assertions are far from being “just a fact.” But Palmgren continued to defend Donald Trump from his “fakestream news” critics.


Continues at: https://angrywhitemen.org/2017/03/12/he ... -minority/
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Wed Mar 22, 2017 10:49 pm

https://matthewnlyons.net/works-hosted- ... ting-jews/


Critiquing neocons and scapegoating Jews:
An exchange with a “heartland Democrat”


Twisted anti-elitism is a centerpiece of fascist and other right-wing populist ideology. Right-wing conspiracy theories blame oppression on small groups of evil-doers who supposedly distort the normal workings of society — such as the Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, the World Trade Organization, the Bush family, etc. That’s fundamentally different from a systemic analysis of capitalism or imperialism. In addition, many right-wing conspiracy theories explicitly or implicitly scapegoat Jews or other ethnic groups. Nevertheless, such theories have repeatedly found their way into leftist discourse. Exposing and critiquing them is an important part of anti-fascist work.

This problem was brought home to me again after I posted my essay “Christian Rightists and Neocons: a 25-year Alliance“ to the Three Way Fight anti-fascist blog. A few days later I received an email response from Barbara —, offering her own critique of the neocons. With a little digging, I found that Barbara’s email was a lightly edited excerpt from her blog The Southern Journal, which blends seemingly progressive positions with hatred of Jews and Mexicans and other far-right themes. [This blog has been discontinued.] Although it’s easy to condemn Barbara’s explicit bigotry, the subtler forms of scapegoating implicit in her portrait of the neocons could find a broad audience.

Here is the beginning of Barbara’s email, with a link to the original blog post on which it’s based. My reply appears below.
–ml

* * * * *

April 22, 2006

Mr. Lyons

I just read your article about the Christian right and the neo-cons. I have my own theory about the neo-cons and i wonder if you could tell me what you think about it.

Thank you
Barbara

LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE FLIP SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

People usually think of the neo-cons and the liberals as being the opposites of one another and that is true regarding many important issues. Yet in a fundamental way they are the same. Both are busy stirring up hatred against Christians and waging war on American culture and the religion that most of the people in the United States claim to believe….

[The rest of this essay, published on the defunct blog The Southern Journal, is no longer available.]

* * * * *

May 22, 2006

Barbara,

Thank you for your April 22 email with the essay “Liberals and Neocons are Flip Sides of the Same Coin,” excerpted from your blog, The Southern Journal. Because my writing time is limited, it’s taken me a while to put together an adequate response. Your work illustrates how right-wing ideas influence people who don’t fit into standard right-wing categories — even people who are or used to be on the left. In the April 22 email, you argue that neocons and liberals together represent a new power elite that’s trying to overthrow the traditional aristocracy, that they’re undermining traditional American culture and stirring up hatred against Christians and southerners, that they favor Israeli interests over U.S. ones. These are old claims that paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan have been making for years. You back up your argument with quotations from the National Humanities Institute website, a paleocon outfit.

The hard right influence on your thinking becomes even clearer when we look at the original version of your liberal-neocon essay, posted on The Southern Journal on April 12. The original, unlike the version you sent me, contains passages that denounce Mexican immigrants as a threat to U.S. culture and warn that liberals and neocons are dangerous in large part because many of them are Jews. These are major themes on your blog, as they are for paleocons or groups even farther to the right. You repeat standard falsehoods and stereotypes about how Mexicans come to the U.S. and supposedly expect a free ride, don’t pay taxes, refuse to learn English, etc. You call Jews “a cancer on America” and write “Ask yourself why Jews have been hated and killed and chased out of every country where they ever lived. Do you think it is because they represent goodness and those who hate them are pure evil?” You despise the Christian right because, you say, it has been “propagandized by Jews” into supporting Israel.

What’s interesting is that your politics also has another side. You declare that “the Republican party is for the rich and big corporations” and “capitalists are the new slave drivers.” This isn’t just Pat Buchanan-style populism. You support the NYC transit workers and other labor unions, you point out the economic racism that intensified Hurricane Katrina’s impact on African Americans, you back Dennis Kucinich for president and suggest nationalizing the oil industry. You call yourself a “heartland Democrat” who wants to take back the Democratic party — not just from the hated liberals but also from the conservative Democratic Leadership Council. The specifics are different, but it’s the kind of political mix that fueled George Wallace’s presidential campaigns in 1968 and 1972, or Father Coughlin’s fascist crusade in the 1930s — seemingly progressive stands on economic or social welfare issues coupled with moral traditionalism and ethnic scapegoating. (Like you, too, both Wallace and Coughlin were rooted in the Democratic Party.)

You and I both oppose the neoconservatives, but we do so from radically different standpoints. I see the neocons as representatives of one capitalist faction who are working to intensify the long-established system of U.S. imperialism and related forms of social control. You see the neocons as a mostly Jewish group of interlopers working with deviousness and characteristic Jewish arrogance to destroy traditional Christian culture, weaken the United States, and seize power on behalf of Israel. My critique is rooted in a systemic analysis of oppression; your critique is rooted in antisemitic scapegoating.

The term antisemitism is often misused and misunderstood, so I want to explain clearly what I mean. It’s not inherently antisemitic to criticize Jews, Jewish organizations, or the Israeli government. Jews as much as anyone sometimes act in unethical or oppressive ways. Most Jews in the U.S. hold white skin privilege, the majority (though by no means all) are middle class or higher, and a few have even made it into the upper reaches of the economic or political elite. For these and other reasons, the leading U.S. Jewish organizations, like most organizations in this country, have a stake in a social and political order that’s inherently oppressive. Israel, like the United States, is a racist society founded on settler colonialism. The very concept of Israel as a Jewish state is inherently undemocratic and discriminatory toward Palestinians.

Some Jews and Jewish organizations misuse the charge of antisemitism or the memory of the Nazi genocide to deflect legitimate criticisms, especially criticisms of the Israeli state and its supporters. This muddles the issue, but it doesn’t mean the concept of antisemitism has no validity. It is antisemitic, for example, to treat Jews as a monolithic group, blame Jews as a whole for the oppressive actions of some, or stereotype Jews as arrogant, power-hungry, or evil — all of which you do in The Southern Journal. It’s also antisemitic to trivialize or justify the persecution of Jews or single out Jews for disproportionate criticism — as you do in your blog.

Antisemitic ideology exaggerates Jewish influence on politics and society — it imagines that Jews wield an immense, secret, malevolent power. The fictitious international Jewish conspiracy has been blamed for everything from the bubonic plague to the rise of global capitalism. A more limited version of this lie is the widespread notion that “the Jewish lobby” dictates U.S. support for Israel — as if U.S. imperialism didn’t have good reasons of its own for maintaining Israel as its number one client state.

The myth of Jewish power is partly rooted in a distinctive societal dynamic. Historically, non-Jewish elites have often recruited Jews into positions of relative privilege that were highly visible but outside the real centers or power. This allowed the rulers to make use of Jews’ higher literacy rates and other skills, and also to insulate themselves against popular resentment by setting up Jews as scapegoats for oppression. In medieval Europe, Jews often worked as moneylenders, merchants, tax collectors, or administrators on feudal estates. Although only some Jews held these jobs, they took on a defining role for Jewish communities as a whole. Under this arrangement, Jews were alternately tolerated and terrorized — periodically their rights were revoked, their property seized, and they were expelled, imprisoned, or massacred.

This dynamic has continued in the modern era — even, to a limited extent, in the post-World War II United States. Here, Jews have been disproportionately concentrated in middle-level roles as shopkeepers, landlords, white-collar workers, administrators, or professionals, which to many poor and working-class people represent the most visible kinds of status and power. Seeing Jews in these roles can reinforce the myth that Jews are the main oppressors.

We can see a related dynamic at work with regard to the neoconservatives (setting aside the fact that some of the most important neocons — such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, and Michael Novak — are non-Jews). Like the “Court Jews” of another era, the neocons are influential, publicly visible agents representing a section of the mostly non-Jewish ruling class. Their influence depends on capitalist patronage — courtesy of Dick Cheney, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Scaife, the Olin and Smith Richardson foundations, etc. And like Court Jews, they are useful not only for their skills in the service of power, but also as expendable scapegoats in times of need. It’s striking that Jewish neocons Perle, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Feith have all left the Bush administration, while Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice (traditional hawks who are neither neocon nor Jewish) are still there.

Israel, too, reflects this same antisemitic dynamic. Yes, the Israeli state is an oppressor and aggressor in its own right, but for almost forty years its power and stability have depended on massive U.S. subsidies. As U.S. imperialism’s most loyal ally in the region, Israel has helped keep Arab states in line, but in its scapegoat role Israel has also drawn some of the fire away from U.S. imperialism and oppressive Arab regimes. Presenting themselves as enemies of Zionism and friends of the Palestinians has helped such regimes deflect popular opposition away from their own brutal policies.

So, by exaggerating the neocons’ power and independence as mainstays of a “new power elite,” by obscuring their role — and Israel’s role — in a larger system of social control, and by treating both as an expression of Jews’ evil nature, you are faithfully following an old, tired script. You’re promoting a fake radicalism that leads people away from understanding how oppression works.

Your theories about Jewish power are not only insulting and dangerous for Jews, they’re also patronizing to Christians, who you claim to be defending. In your piece about liberals and neocons you write, “the neocons know perfectly well that by using the Christian right they…are causing Christians and Christianity to come under attack.” Elsewhere you describe Christian rightists as “morons” who have “enthroned” Jews because they were “propagandized by Jews since they were small.” In other words, Christian rightists are too stupid to make their own strategic decisions — they’re passive pawns manipulated by (Jewish) neocons, who pretend to support them in order to discredit Christianity.

Saying that the neocons have allied with the Christian right as a ploy to stir up anti-Christian sentiment is just silly — it makes about as much sense as the idea that they support the Israeli right in order to stir up anti-Zionism. But aside from that, you are simply treating millions of evangelical Christians with contempt, which is a strange way to counter supposed anti-Christian hatred.

In reality, the Christian right is one of the strongest mass movements in U.S. history, neither controlled by nor dependent on the small network of neocons, and its leaders have been making shrewd strategic decisions for decades. The Christian right has forged an alliance with the neocons as part of its effort to amass power and pursue shared goals. Most Christian rightists support Zionism because they believe that a strong Israel is a necessary part of the End Times (during which all Jews and others who don’t embrace Christianity will be destroyed), and because it fits with U.S. capitalism’s drive for global dominance, which they embrace. These choices are not very nice, and they reflect religious beliefs that are not subject to rational discussion, but they are neither stupid nor the result of external manipulation.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my position on these issues.

Sincerely,

Matthew Lyons
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby Luther Blissett » Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:54 am

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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Thu Mar 23, 2017 10:18 am

Intelligence: a history

Intelligence has always been used as fig-leaf to justify domination and destruction. No wonder we fear super-smart robots


The story of intelligence begins with Plato. In all his writings, he ascribes a very high value to thinking, declaring (through the mouth of Socrates) that the unexamined life is not worth living. Plato emerged from a world steeped in myth and mysticism to claim something new: that the truth about reality could be established through reason, or what we might consider today to be the application of intelligence. This led him to conclude, in The Republic, that the ideal ruler is ‘the philosopher king’, as only a philosopher can work out the proper order of things. And so he launched the idea that the cleverest should rule over the rest – an intellectual meritocracy.

This idea was revolutionary at the time. Athens had already experimented with democracy, the rule of the people – but to count as one of those ‘people’ you just had to be a male citizen, not necessarily intelligent. Elsewhere, the governing classes were made up of inherited elites (aristocracy), or by those who believed they had received divine instruction (theocracy), or simply by the strongest (tyranny).

At the dawn of Western philosophy, intelligence became identified with the European, educated, male human

Plato’s novel idea fell on the eager ears of the intellectuals, including those of his pupil Aristotle. Aristotle was always the more practical, taxonomic kind of thinker. He took the notion of the primacy of reason and used it to establish what he believed was a natural social hierarchy. In his book The Politics, he explains: ‘[T]hat some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.’ What marks the ruler is their possession of ‘the rational element’. Educated men have this the most, and should therefore naturally rule over women – and also those men ‘whose business is to use their body’ and who therefore ‘are by nature slaves’. Lower down the ladder still are non-human animals, who are so witless as to be ‘better off when they are ruled by man’.

So at the dawn of Western philosophy, we have intelligence identified with the European, educated, male human. It becomes an argument for his right to dominate women, the lower classes, uncivilised peoples and non-human animals. While Plato argued for the supremacy of reason and placed it within a rather ungainly utopia, only one generation later, Aristotle presents the rule of the thinking man as obvious and natural.

Needless to say, more than 2,000 years later, the train of thought that these men set in motion has yet to be derailed. The late Australian philosopher and conservationist Val Plumwood has argued that the giants of Greek philosophy set up a series of linked dualisms that continue to inform our thought. Opposing categories such as intelligent/stupid, rational/emotional and mind/body are linked, implicitly or explicitly, to others such as male/female, civilised/primitive, and human/animal. These dualisms aren’t value-neutral, but fall within a broader dualism, as Aristotle makes clear: that of dominant/subordinate or master/slave. Together, they make relationships of domination, such as patriarchy or slavery, appear to be part of the natural order of things.

Western philosophy, in its modern guise, is often taken to begin with that arch dualist, René Descartes. Unlike Aristotle, he didn’t even allow for a continuum of diminishing intelligence among other animals. Cognition, he claimed, was the business of humanity. He was reflecting more than a millennium of Christian theology, which made intelligence a property of the soul, a spark of the divine reserved only for those lucky enough to be made in God’s image. Descartes rendered nature literally mindless, and so devoid of intrinsic value – which thereby legitimated the guilt-free oppression of other species.

The idea that intelligence defines humanity persisted into the Enlightenment. It was enthusiastically embraced by Immanuel Kant, probably the most influential moral philosopher since the ancients. For Kant, only reasoning creatures had moral standing. Rational beings were to be called ‘persons’ and were ‘ends in themselves’. Beings that were not rational, on the other hand, had ‘only a relative value as means, and are therefore called things’. We could do with them what we liked.

According to Kant, the reasoning being – today, we’d say the intelligent being – has infinite worth or dignity, whereas the unreasoning or unintelligent one has none. His arguments are more sophisticated, but essentially he arrives at the same conclusion as Aristotle: there are natural masters and natural slaves, and intelligence is what distinguishes them.

For many decades, the advent of formal intelligence testing tended to exacerbate rather than remedy the oppression of women

This line of thinking was extended to become a core part of the logic of colonialism. The argument ran like this: non-white peoples were less intelligent; they were therefore unqualified to rule over themselves and their lands. It was therefore perfectly legitimate – even a duty, ‘the white man’s burden’ – to destroy their cultures and take their territory. In addition, because intelligence defined humanity, by virtue of being less intelligent, these peoples were less human. They therefore did not enjoy full moral standing – and so it was perfectly fine to kill or enslave them.

The same logic was applied to women, who were considered too flighty and sentimental to enjoy the privileges afforded to the ‘rational man’. In 19th-century Britain, women were less well-protected under law than domestic animals, as the historian Joanna Bourke at Birkbeck University of London has shown. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that for many decades the advent of formal intelligence testing tended to exacerbate rather than remedy the oppression of women.

Sir Francis Galton is usually taken to be the originator of psychometrics, the ‘science’ of measuring the mind. He was inspired by The Origin of Species (1859) written by his cousin Charles Darwin. It led Galton to believe that intellectual ability was hereditary and could be enhanced through selective breeding. He decided to find a way to scientifically identify the most able members of society and encourage them to breed – prolifically, and with each other. The less intellectually capable should be discouraged from reproducing, or indeed prevented, for the sake of the species. Thus eugenics and the intelligence test were born together. In the following decades, vast numbers of women across Europe and America were forcibly sterilised after scoring poorly on such tests – 20,000 in California alone.


More at: https://aeon.co/essays/on-the-dark-hist ... omination/












American Dream » Sun Jan 08, 2017 9:14 am wrote:What the alt-right is really about

Angela Nagle, Irish Times, 6 January 2017

Spencer is in the strict dictionary definition of the term, a racist. He claims “race is something between a breed and an actual species” and believes non-white Americans should leave in a ‘peaceful ethnic cleansing’. He believes the Alt-right will infiltrate mainstream American culture and politics, starting with deporting undocumented immigrants under Trump. Spencer’s Alt-right takes influence from the French New Right who were often called ‘Gramscians of the Right’ applying the theories of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , arguing that political goals would best be achieved through changing the culture and media from which formal politics would follow. And so far, it seems to be working.

The strictest definition of the Alt-right includes other overtly racial thinkers like Jared Taylor who calls himself a ‘race realist’, Steve Sailer who writes about ‘human biodiversity’ – a pretty transparent euphemism – and Nick Land who explores the idea of the ‘Dark Enlightenment’. All of these are to varying degrees preoccupied with racial IQ, the Bell Curve, Western civilisational decline due to increased racial impurity, cultural decadence, cultural Marxism and Islamification.

More at: http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/angel ... -1.2926929
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Fri Mar 24, 2017 9:28 am

No, the meme-slinging alt-right Pepe worshippers didn't win the election for Trump

Image

It is certainly true that the alt-right's pro-Trump "shitposting"—the act of flooding social media with memes and commentary designed to bolster their "God Emperor" Trump—raised the public visibility of the alt-right and its memetic handiwork. And it is also true that this uptick in public visibility forced people to focus on Trump more than they would have otherwise. The shitpost connection reached critical mass in August 2016, when Hillary Clinton held a press conference (precipitated, in part, by Pepe the Frog) denouncing Trump's ties to the white nationalist group—much to the delight of precisely those white nationalists. Without a doubt, this speech and all the alt-right activity that preceded and followed it contributed to the overall momentum of Trump's campaign.

But that activity didn't happen in a vacuum, and wasn't self-propelling. "Trolls" and the alt-right may have played a prominent role in the 2016 election, but that fact is dependent upon and cannot be untangled from journalistic coverage that amplified their messaging—shitpost memes very much included. Phillips describes how media coverage—even coverage condemning alt-right antagonisms—helped conjure this monster, and how that conjuring, in turn, helped amplify Trump's overall platform (which itself was a series of memes).

The fact that alt-right participants received so much coverage speaks to an even deeper issue, perhaps the weightiest issue, influencing Donald Trump's rise. More than fake news, more than filter bubbles, more than insane conspiracy theories about child sex rings operating out of the backs of Washington DC pizza shops, the biggest media story to emerge from the 2016 election was the degree to which far-right media were able to set the narrative agenda for mainstream media outlets. (This point is ably argued by internet scholars Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, and Ethan Zuckerman).


Trolling Scholars Debunk the Idea That the Alt-Right’s Shitposters Have Magic Powers
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby Luther Blissett » Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:06 pm

I never listened to the speech but I still can't believe that Clinton took the time to denounce Pepe. It exists only as some kind of fever dream in my imagination.

I'm definitely more than a little worried about violence tomorrow. I don't see many ways for these rallies and counter-protests to end peaceably.
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:21 pm

American Dream » Thu Mar 23, 2017 9:18 am wrote:
Intelligence: a history

Intelligence has always been used as fig-leaf to justify domination and destruction. No wonder we fear super-smart robots

[...]

At the dawn of Western philosophy, intelligence became identified with the European, educated, male human


To the first statement: intelligence has sometimes been used that way, among other imputed qualities. So?

To the second: There were no "Europeans" in Plato's time. It's doubtful whether he was even thinking of Greeks, or Athenians, or Spartans. He was writing something analogous to a science fiction novel (a utopia) using many different riffs, ideal characters, and almost surely without a particular identity assignment for his ideal philosopher.

This is an extremely simple-minded attempt at an old-style history of ideas. These are predicated on the false premise that there was a founding moment and a founding father of a philosophy called ________ (in this case labeled "Western," although that was also not a concept until about 2200-2300 years after Plato!) and that this then continued as an entity all the way to whatever calls itself (or is called) by the same name today. It's bullshit. Plato and the rest have been forgotten, rediscovered and re-invented to suit contemporary purposes many times over. The Plato someone may claim as the originator of whatever idea is used to justify a present-day politics (a.k.a. ideology) isn't necessarily related to the Plato who actually lived and wrote. This is just not how the world works. Ideas do not exist outside history as divine forces that unfold their consequences inexorably, fulfilling some original fallacy. More often than not, people choose ideas that work for them.

I dare say this sort of idea-determinism hardly bespeaks an anarchism based in free will, although I've seen similarly fallacious renderings proceeding from Descartes. (He split mind and body, therefore imperialism and Monsanto now poisons the environment and nuclear war is coming, QED.) You know some other examples of this fallacy? Leo Strauss is a popular one. He taught some power-seeking little shits in Chicago, therefore we have the neo-cons. Of course it's the opposite. What really mattered was the Cold War and that Scoop Jackson hired them as staff, followed by GHWB at the CIA some of the neo-cons invented Strauss retrospectively as their inspiration, so that later LaRouche or Tarpley (other self-styled philosopher kings who can only see thinkers as the masterminds) could spin a narrative out of Strauss. Another one is the Alt-Right's own completely made-up vision of the Frankfurt School and "cultural Marxism." Again, material developments involving people and social classes and movements over very long periods are attributed monocausally to magical idea-beings that inhabit the human hosts. Sort of like God.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Sun Mar 26, 2017 8:41 pm

Image

THE WORLD HAS SAID “NO” TO RICHARD SPENCER


Richard Spencer has always fought for a seat at the table. At least the edge of the table.


He entered the broad Conservative Movement in the mid-2000s not through the popular Neoconservative and evangelical hangers-on of the Bush Administration, but through the dissident wing to its right. Brought on as an Assistant Editor at the American Conservative after giving a racially charged speech on the case of Duke Lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a black sex worker, Spencer was open that even at Pat Buchanan’s home publication, he was the odd man out. Jokingly calling himself as a Nietzsche-con, he was already a subscriber to the “race realist” publication American Renaissance by the time he took the position and he spent his time fraternizing with dissident rightists like Pau Gottfried and Steve Sailer. He then walked through the fringes of the right, from Taki’s Magazine to his flagship AlternativeRight.com, where he set firmly in the camp of “big tent” neo-fascism. While the website published semi-mainstream paleoconservatives at first, it continued to drift in the direction of the French New Right and pseudo-intellectual strains of white nationalism, all while Spencer desperately held on to any connection to the Conservative Movement he claimed to loathe.

As AlternativeRight.com came into its own and Spencer took over the National Policy Institute, he became one of the most toxic figures on the edges of the Conservative Movement. After Jack Hunter’s past as the Southern Avenger was dredged up, the fact that he co-hosted the Taki’s Magazine podcast with Spencer was another blow to his failing career. When the Heritage Foundation published an erroneous report on the multi-trillion dollar cost of immigration in the U.S., one of their analysts, a new conservative careerist named Jason Richwine, was shown to have published a Harvard dissertation that asserted racial differences in intelligence. A quick Google search found that he also had published at AlternativeRight.com for editor Richard Spencer, which provided the last nail in his coffin.

Though a few renegades from mainstream conservatism would still take his calls, the rest of the world was telling him no. Though he fashioned himself as a bohemian intellectual, the rest of the movement disagreed, and instead put him back firmly in the camp of David Duke, William Pierce, and George Lincoln Rockwell. The narrative he created for himself was rejected by the broader world, and his desire for a “dialogue” was met with a firm “No.”

That was, of course, until a series of blogs, trolls, and trending hashtags took Spencer’s brand of pseudo-intellectual white nationalism into the Chan culture of vulgar abbreviations and he was back in the news. The Alternative Right was shortened to #AltRight and used again as a catch-all for angry white men enamored by race realism, anti-democratic philosophy, the reclamation of vulgar patriarchy, and conspiracy laden anti-Semitism. Now media outlets could not get enough of Richard Spencer, and just about every conference appearance, event, or public disagreement was cause for dozens of articles, and his views and ideas were republished on a daily basis. His whole career was now happening at once as his entire history was being condensed into biographical think pieces and antagonistic retreads of right-wing agitprop, all making his own synthesis of the French New Right and American white nationalism seem as though it was new and fresh.

And he was waiting.

Spencer embraced the attention with open arms, ready to give interview after interview, repeating the same answers to different questions. As the interest swelled, and the press finally showed up for his previously vacant press conference, he got cocky. While most people focused on the leaked video from The Atlantic from the National Policy Institute’s 2016 conference featuring attendees Seig Heiling, during the lunch-time press conference he berated the gaggle of reporters that crowded in front of the attendants. Weeks later he came to a heavily-contested appearance at Texas A&M, where he was notably off his game, instead mocking and insulting attendants and refusing to answer questions with the pragmatic sincerity that marked his earlier branding.

Spencer marked this as a point of entry into the culture, that he and his ideas had “arrived.” He called 2016 the “Year of the Alt Right” and jokingly said “We’re the establishment now.” His assent was actually a free fall, one he could not see amidst the glare of the spotlight. While he believed he was mainstreaming his ideas, he instead was becoming a reality star famous for his own eccentricities and a society’s lurid fascination with the trainwrecks of social mood. Spencer’s fame provided him nothing tangible, nothing real.

Now that his antics have been overexposed, the sheen has worn off completely. The world that said “Yes” to him only so briefly has now become a rapid fire series of “Nos,” denying him entry to almost any avenue he has listed. At the recent Students for Liberty conference, a libertarian student organization that skews left on social issues, Spencer arrived at the invitation of a small Alt Right friendly contingent known as the Hoppe Caucus. He wasn’t even allowed in the conference gates before being banned, relegated to the bar, and publicly denounced by Jeffrey Tucker. While the Alt Right made some minor inroads with some chapters of Students for Liberty and, more definitively, with Young Americans for Liberty, that well has dried up.

Image
Richard Spencer being kicked out of CPAC.


Continues at: https://antifascistnews.net/2017/03/27/ ... d-spencer/
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby liminalOyster » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:38 am


Political Sex Pistol: Johnny Rotten backs Brexit and Trump!

The working class have spoken, and I stand with them!
– John Lydon on Brexit

Godfather of punk, anarchist and former Sex Pistol John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten, was on the show this morning promoting his limited edition new book Mr Rotten's Songbook. Having built a career on his anti-establishment views, he didn't shy away from talking about todays political landscape.

Lydon came out in support of Brexit claiming the working class had spoken and that he would stand by them. He also claimed he could see a possible friendship in Trump, praising his ability to terrify politicians. Rotten himself inspired a generation of anarchists.

http://www.itv.com/goodmorningbritain/e ... -and-trump

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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby American Dream » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:57 am

So weird...

Before his election Lydon publicly stated to the media in response to questions about the electoral prospect of Donald Trump's candidacy for the office of the Presidency of the United States: "No, I can't see it happening, it's a minority that support him at best, and it's so hateful and ignorant."*

*Exclusive: John Lydon talks PiL, Punk, and Donald Trump". Metro. London), 22 April 2016.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lydo ... _criticism
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Re: The “Alternative Right"

Postby Luther Blissett » Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:19 pm

I have some wily career-criminal friends who talk like this, but they are essentially accelerationist lone wolves who could never find a way to play well with others. I don't know, I don't really feel like defending Lydon. I just recognize that abrupt shift in opinions as something that I see often. They're the ones most likely to change direction mid-stream if it bucks convention or seems "countercultural" since they're not "supporting" these elements for the same reasons other normie core supporters are.
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