The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby jakell » Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:21 pm

American Dream » Fri Mar 04, 2016 8:58 pm wrote:http://antifascistnews.net/2016/03/04/fascist-entryism-adbusters-and-the-problem-of-hazy-politics/

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FASCIST ENTRYISM: ADBUSTERS AND THE PROBLEM OF HAZY POLITICS

MARCH 4, 2016

Note: Before we get started, we want to unequivacably say that we do not think that AdBusters is a fascist or fascist allied publication. We enjoy a great deal of what they publish, support their project, and will continue to re-post articles, videos, and art from them. Instead, AdBusters is just an example where the left creates open points that fascists can infiltrate.


The conventional political spectrum often betrays the actual process for radicalization that takes places on what we call the “far-right.” The term far-right is often negated by comparative fascist studies scholars because it lacks clear boundaries. Is it right populism? Was Hitler on the far-right, or Ron Paul? What we generally mean is anything that is within the fascism spectrum, from racialist to masculanist to other forms of militant right-wing politics. The defining feature of fascism is that it adopts many aspects of the left, while maintaining the values of the far-right. This means it may critique capitalism, argue for protection of the environment, and be anti-war, yet do it for reasons that are racialized, based on hierarchy, and opposed to democracy and equality. It is because of this that they have found easy entry points into the left, often using a lack of ideological coherence or the willingness to be open to conflicting views if they share some political affinity.

Fascist infiltration in left spaces is reported reasonably often, from participation in Palestinian support work inspired by their anti-Semitism to points when the American Freedom Party or National Socialist Movement will join actions against the TPP. When we get to vaguer left spaces, where analysis is growing and reshaping, this can be the perfect place to slide in and create doubt and complicate the analysis.

AdBusters has been a left institution for a couple of decades now. Coming out of the “Culture Jamming” period of the 1990s, it was really founded on anti-globalization principles that were critical of global capitalism because of the way it destroys human interactions, replaces consciousness with vapid branding, and generally destroys the earth, communities, and free thinking through compulsive consumerism. This type of analysis has become less and less popular since the 2008 financial crisis, largely because it is a critique of the excesses of capitalism. Today, many people would love to have access to that kind of suburban wasteland, but as poverty and the inability to join the working middle class grows, the focus on capitalism’s effects at creating “boredom” and general affluence is less central. That being said, they have continued to be an incredibly relevant publication, and they were the rhetorical beginning of Occupy Wallstreet, even if they did not do any real organizing work.

While they are often criticized for using the same flashy style as the media organizations they critique, they have used a beautiful design model to subvert conventional communication. They also attempt to go beyond the analysis of the left at many points and forgo conventional political essays in favor of appeals that are often more emotional, narrative, and experimental.

Within this model, a clear political line is lacking, and they likely support having a diversity of voices. Inside of that model, however, there has been a lacking of discernment for how some voices have become present. Part of this comes from the willingness to include voices that would be controversial, even on the radical left, and part of it comes from a lack of understanding among the editors of what fascist crossover politics actually look like.

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As is common in publications that deal with issues like American foreign policy, Palestinian oppression, and AIPAC, AdBusters has been accused of anti-Semitism. They would likely say that this is a buzzword used to denigrate supporters of Palestine, and it has been on occasion, but it is also incredibly accurate for many choices they have made. In a much publicized issue from March 2004, they ran a story called “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?,” which looked at the number of supposed Jews among the Neoconservative establishment of the time. This attempt to identify “Jewish power” is a major fascist talking point, and is often parroted by people like white nationalist academic Kevin McDonald, where they try and show that Neconservatism is a movement comes from former Trotskyists and is actually is a “far-left” and Jewish ethnic agenda. This comes from the idea that Jews operate on an ethnic interest collectively, and therefore they are actually allied with Israel instead of the U.S. The article itself outlines a key area of entryism: the inability to be discerning. Here, instead of having a clear analysis of Israel, its role in global capitalism, and then the politics key to the Bush administration, they focus in on something that has an incredible history of violent impression: whether or not they are Jews.

A lot of ink has been spilled chronicling the pro-Israel leanings of American neocons and fact that a disproportionate percentage of them are Jewish. Some commentators are worried that these individuals – labeled ‘Likudniks’ for their links to Israel’s right wing Likud party – do not distinguish enough between American and Israeli interests. For example, whose interests were they protecting in pushing for war in Iraq?

Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite. But the point is not that Jews (who make up less than 2 percent of the American population) have a monolithic perspective. Indeed, American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat and many of them disagree strongly with Ariel Sharon’s policies and Bush’s aggression in Iraq. The point is simply that the neocons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding exactly who is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House, while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of the them are Jewish.


Again, in 2010 an issue had a cover comparing the Gaza Strip to the Warsaw Ghetto, which caused them to be pulled from shelves in different places. This may be a defensible point when discussing the open-air prison that Gaza had become, but it lacks a clear willingness to confront anti-Semitism as well when building a political analysis about the Palestinian people.

Lasn himself is fond of publishing 9/11-Truthers who blame the attack on the World Trade Center on “Zionist Jews.” This includes people like Bill and Kathleen Christison, who published their article “Elliot Abrams: Dual Loyalist and Neocon Extraordinaire.” Here they said that the former deputy national security adviser was behind the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon. We should look closely at their title, mainly “dual loyalist.” While they are trying to eschew direct connections, this is the kind of rhetoric that was employed for years in American anti-Semitism where it is said that Jews are actually loyal to Israel instead of the U.S. (hence they have “dual loyalties”). This is not a direct line, but more of a “dog whistle” to anti-Semitic images of Jews as secretive, diabolical, and using crypsis to hide in society.


Continues at: http://antifascistnews.net/2016/03/04/f ... -politics/



Occupy Wall St?

I know there's a mention of this in the middle of the article, but that is not about the 'right hand'. This would be a better fit in your 'Drawing Lines' thread, also continuing the 'antifascistnews' theme.
The switch to Jewish issues is a little hard to understand, and they could have done a bit better with that, however, going by the other antifascistnews pieces I've examined, they do tend to be a little sloppy.

(We're over the page, hence me reproducing the whole thing. Wasn't too sure about the shoe, but left it in)


ETA: it seems the article is quite a bit longer than what you quoted here, still, it seems more of the 'Drawing Lines' type of thing
They seem to mainly be complaining that there are such things as 'vaguely Left spaces' and would like a bit more definition, this vagueness is a product of the real world though, no matter how much they would like things to be different. The piece on Jews is from 2004, surely they could have come up with something more current, in these days of the internet that is a long time, for instance, think how different Red Ice Radio was back then
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Sounder » Fri Mar 04, 2016 6:06 pm

Oh, don't be absurd AD. Just because WN's are anti-Semitic and see a certain thing, and other people see a similar thing does not mean that the second group are or then magically become WN and anti-Semites.

Neo-cons are shitheads, and that doesn't change whether a WN type is saying it or a normal person is saying it.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby jakell » Fri Mar 04, 2016 6:20 pm

Sounder » Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:06 pm wrote:Oh, don't be absurd AD. Just because WN's are anti-Semitic and see a certain thing, and other people see a similar thing does not mean that the second group are or then magically become WN and anti-Semites.

Neo-cons are shitheads, and that doesn't change whether a WN type is saying it or a normal person is saying it.


True. It seems that Antifascistnews are saying that they (Adbusters) should avoid the association, even when this is mistakenly made. The irony being that it is mainly these types that promote the 'guilt by association' thing in the first place.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby tapitsbo » Fri Mar 04, 2016 7:34 pm

The whole issue of "white nationalism" already sketchy in itself is now increasingly conflated with unambiguously fascist european petty nationalisms that are indeed supported by neocons. Especially in places like the UK, Sweden, Germany and elsewhere this has been coupled with an aggressive denial by official institutions that an indigenous ethnic population exists, a flimsily propagandistic claim that doesn't necessarily originate with the same parties but occasionally does, yet certainly indicates a form of extreme hostility if not "war" on the populations of these countries.

Qui bono?

Time to reject bullshit across the board.
Last edited by tapitsbo on Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Mar 05, 2016 12:06 am

tapitsbo » 05 Mar 2016 09:34 wrote:The whole issue of "white nationalism" already sketchy in itself is now increasingly conflated with unambiguously fascist european petty nationalisms that are indeed supported by neocons. Especially in places like the UK, Sweden, Germany and elsewhere this has been coupled with an aggressive denial by official institutions that an indigenous ethnic population exists, a flimsily propagandistic claim that doesn't necessarily originate with the same parties but occasionally does, yet certainly indicates a form of extreme hostility if not "war" the populations of these countries.

Qui bono?

Time to reject bullshit across the board.


No one denies Sami people exist.

What other indigenous people are there in Europe?
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby tapitsbo » Sat Mar 05, 2016 1:54 am

The Sami are actually the only indigenous people in the world.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Mar 05, 2016 2:53 am

tapitsbo » 05 Mar 2016 15:54 wrote:The Sami are actually the only indigenous people in the world.


How many European people can actually claim an indigenous connection to place? How many have not been colonised or attempted to colonise others, back and forth for millenia? Not many.

http://indigenouspeoples.nl/indigenous- ... indigenous

Any United Nations-system body has never adopted a definition of the concept of “indigenous peoples”. The prevailing view today is that no formal universal definition of the term is necessary, given that a single definition will inevitably be either over- or under-inclusive, making sense in some societies but not in others. For practical purposes, the commonly accepted understanding of the term is that provided in the Jose R. Martinez Cobo’s Study on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations. The working definition reads as follows:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby tapitsbo » Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:04 am

Ah, the UN again. You seemed to find their documentation to be of selective relevance in our other conversation, as anyone would, including the UN.

What is the relevance of the second of the questions you ask here? Colonise or colonised?

Sounder feels people should be able to "see" the neocons, as they're called.

Do you feel the UN has more or less legitimacy since the ascendancy of the neocons? Why would what the UN says actually matter to you?
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Mar 05, 2016 4:12 am

What does the UN have to do with it?
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby tapitsbo » Sat Mar 05, 2016 5:44 am

The document you cited seemed to refer to the UN and I mistook it for one of their publications. The fact that it starts with a reference to the UN of course makes it less convincing to me.

It seems the horse is out of the gates with what you're trying to do here.

Your claim about no connection to place just backs up the argument about colonialism that might have seemed like a such a stretch in the other thread.

You sure don't need to be part of the indigenous population of a place to have a connection to it. But Europe does have indigenous populations; sorry that seems to inconvenience you.

Does anyone here take that claim of Joe's seriously?
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby jakell » Sat Mar 05, 2016 6:45 am

tapitsbo » Sat Mar 05, 2016 9:44 am wrote:The document you cited seemed to refer to the UN and I mistook it for one of their publications. The fact that it starts with a reference to the UN of course makes it less convincing to me.

It seems the horse is out of the gates with what you're trying to do here.

Your claim about no connection to place just backs up the argument about colonialism that might have seemed like a such a stretch in the other thread.

You sure don't need to be part of the indigenous population of a place to have a connection to it. But Europe does have indigenous populations; sorry that seems to inconvenience you.

Does anyone here take that claim of Joe's seriously?


A good measure of 'indigenous' would be to look at the time it takes to build up a unique culture, ie a particular language with it's own literary forms, societal habits customs and laws that have a pedigree (ie they didn't suddenly appear fully formed), technologies, architectural styles, art, poetry music, cuisine the details can be endless but they all point to a particular culture having been there for quite some time, it can't be faked.

A important detail here that is often overlooked is variation within that culture (which introduces resilience and flexibility) folks who only take a brief look at this assume that homogeneity is the marker, leading to protestations that it is not diverse enough, (and that this is a problem), therefore some new ingredients get overlaid. The trouble is, this trick can be played out again and again... once those ingredients have been around a while then we might hear again "you're not diverse enough!" .
This is actually a lie though. Go back seventy years or so (WWII is a good marker in the UK) and we find that British society was incredibly diverse back then, and the yardstick used by the diversifiers appears to be arbitrary. I would hazard that this applies to the other European countries too. I use the term 'local' nationalisms BTW can't get along with 'petty'.

This is where WN would come unglued if local nationalisms were still strong enough, in the case of the UK it had it's last gasp several years back (IMO), so it's become rather academic. Don't know how you got this direction from AD's bump, but it's his own fault really in not maintaining coherent threads.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Mar 05, 2016 7:08 am

tapitsbo » 05 Mar 2016 19:44 wrote:The document you cited seemed to refer to the UN and I mistook it for one of their publications. The fact that it starts with a reference to the UN of course makes it less convincing to me.

It seems the horse is out of the gates with what you're trying to do here.

Your claim about no connection to place just backs up the argument about colonialism that might have seemed like a such a stretch in the other thread.

You sure don't need to be part of the indigenous population of a place to have a connection to it. But Europe does have indigenous populations; sorry that seems to inconvenience you.

Does anyone here take that claim of Joe's seriously?


Who are the indigenous people of England, or Germany? (You could probably answer accurately about parts of Britain or the island its west.)

What about the French? What parts of Italy?

Common Law, which is 1000 years old and the basis of both our legal systems, is an invaders system. It was called "Common Law" to differentiate it from the Customary Law of the place. Because it was enforced by the invaders across the entire conquest commonly - ie it had jurisdiction over everyone. You might wonder about the colonial history of Great Britain but it started as one of ongoing colonisation by Romans, Germans and French people. Of its 1000 years of existence Common Law has actually become more concerned with justice and treating those subject to it fairly, but it wasn't always that way. (Its evolved to be more just than it was, but it still has a way to go.)

Its not an indigenous legal system.

BTW The reference to the UN notes the UN has no definition of indigenous people. So being an organisation that claims to represent indigenous people it makes its own definition.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 05, 2016 8:29 am

Anti-Fascist News wrote:

There have been a few strange misreadings of our most recent article, as well as what seem to be intentional misreadings. There are some that see our criticism of anti-Semitic rhetoric as political support for Israel or as a lack of support for Palestinians. We want to say that we unabashedly support Palestinian liberation, call for the freedom of Gaza, and stand with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. We do not, however, stand with any form of anti-Semitic rhetoric, Jewish caricatures, or comparisons between Israeli Jews and Nazis. There is no excuse for the allowance of creeping anti-Semitism into movement spaces, in magazines like AdBusters, or anywhere else.


Just fyi.
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby jakell » Sat Mar 05, 2016 8:39 am

So, the mudslingers cry 'foul' when a bit is thrown back in their direction.

Still better off in your 'Lines' thread AD don't you think, along with the other AFnews articles ?
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Re: The Right Hand Of Occupy Wall Street

Postby tapitsbo » Sat Mar 05, 2016 2:38 pm

Joe Hillshoist » Sat Mar 05, 2016 7:08 am wrote:
tapitsbo » 05 Mar 2016 19:44 wrote:The document you cited seemed to refer to the UN and I mistook it for one of their publications. The fact that it starts with a reference to the UN of course makes it less convincing to me.

It seems the horse is out of the gates with what you're trying to do here.

Your claim about no connection to place just backs up the argument about colonialism that might have seemed like a such a stretch in the other thread.

You sure don't need to be part of the indigenous population of a place to have a connection to it. But Europe does have indigenous populations; sorry that seems to inconvenience you.

Does anyone here take that claim of Joe's seriously?


Who are the indigenous people of England, or Germany? (You could probably answer accurately about parts of Britain or the island its west.)

What about the French? What parts of Italy?

Common Law, which is 1000 years old and the basis of both our legal systems, is an invaders system. It was called "Common Law" to differentiate it from the Customary Law of the place. Because it was enforced by the invaders across the entire conquest commonly - ie it had jurisdiction over everyone. You might wonder about the colonial history of Great Britain but it started as one of ongoing colonisation by Romans, Germans and French people. Of its 1000 years of existence Common Law has actually become more concerned with justice and treating those subject to it fairly, but it wasn't always that way. (Its evolved to be more just than it was, but it still has a way to go.)

Its not an indigenous legal system.

BTW The reference to the UN notes the UN has no definition of indigenous people. So being an organisation that claims to represent indigenous people it makes its own definition.



Interesting, so a process where one group of europeans was assimilated by another. This doesn't disqualify groups elsewhere in the fact. What people are indigenous to North Africa or Central Asia? You're about to tell them they have "no connection to place"? I doubt they'd feel a need to explain their connection to place should they be occupied by e.g. a hostile international force, certainly one like IS and perhaps one like the USA, too.

The idea of europe doesn't come from extremely ancient people but instead comes from the relatively more recent empires of antiquity. If you're saying the Roman Empire left a legacy of disconnection from place, that may have been true at the time or even left a lasting influence. But are we going to say the Aztec Empire destroyed any connection to place?

Are we going to divide Indians in India into those who belong there and those who don't? The population of India didn't have a lot of trouble figuring out who their colonizers were.

what does common law have to do with this subject? ;)

Indigenous people who are relying on it in some way to assert themselves could most definitely do better somewhere down the line, don't you think?

Thank you for the interesting points you've raised.
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