This looks to be an interesting new book from a leading antifascist writer (and critic of yours truly).
A few of the comments in the description of this book highlight the basis of the ongoing conflict between myself and the anarcho-left/antifa milieu.
Disloyalty to the state is a key dividing line within the U.S. right…That includes white nationalists who advocate replacing the United States with one or more racially defined “ethno-states.” But it also includes the hardline wing of the Christian right, which wants to replace secular forms of government with a full-blown theocracy; Patriot movement activists who reject the federal government’s legitimacy based on conspiracy theories and a kind of militant libertarianism; and some smaller ideological currents.
For example: because of the history of fascism in the 1930s and 40s, we tend to identify far right politics with glorification of the strong state and highly centralized political organizations. Some far rightists, such as the Lyndon LaRouche network, still hold to that approach, but most of them have actually abandoned it in favor of various kinds of political decentralism, from neonazis who call for “leaderless resistance” and want to carve regional white homelands out of the United States to “sovereign citizens” and county supremacists, from self-described National-Anarchists to Christian Reconstructionists who advocate a theocracy based on small-scale institutions such as local government, churches, and individual families.
As a lifelong anti-imperialist anarchist, my objectives have been both the overthrow of the genocidal international U.S. empire, and the domestic U.S. regime which is consistently moving toward totalitarianism. During the 1990s, I began to notice that some “far right tendencies” were indeed making the transition to “anti-Americanism” and political decentralism. I came to regard some of these tendencies at potential pressure points that might have an impact of weakening the domestic regime.
One of the lessons here is that opposing centralized authority isn’t necessarily liberatory at all, because repression and oppression can operate on a small scale just as well as on a large scale.
This comment gets to the heart of my disagreement with the Western Left. Ultimately, these folks are too comfortable with the system, otherwise they wouldn’t conflate the killing of millions of people overseas or the mass incarceration millions domestically with narrow-mindedness, localized exclusion, social discrimination, private crime or even terrorism by non-state actors. As an illustration, the author of this book once said this in criticism of yours truly: “Authoritarianism doesn’t require a large centralized state, but can operate on any scale, such as a region, a neighborhood, or a family.” And as I said in response:
Once again, comparing the narrow-mindedness common to small towns, a snobby and exclusionary suburban community, a neighborhood populated by racist rednecks with green teeth, a dogmatic church or strict parents with what the U.S. empire has done in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Iraq, Afghanistan, Indochina, Indonesia, Central America, the Philippines and many other places is an absurdity that merits mention only for the sake of pointing out what the Left has degenerated into.
It is at least theoretically possible, maybe even probable, that anarcho-pluralism might result in believers in Christian Identity coming to dominate scattered clusters of backwoods counties where most of the locals already share many of their views anyway. While there is zero possibility of reviving the Confederacy (as even Jared Taylor has acknowledged), it is possible that the League of the South could achieve political preeminence in an occasional enclave in the southern states. And it is also possible that Christian Exodus or comparable groups might come to dominate some of the reddest parts of the reddest states. The politically incorrect response to this question is: “So what if they do?” It is likewise possible that believers in the Nation of Islam might come to dominate some urban sectors with large African-American populations or that enclaves of believers in traditional Islam would emerge that reflect that faith’s brand of “cultural conservatism.” Given the realities of immigration, it is also likely that communities of Hmong, Somali, Pakistani, Iraqi, or Chinese ethnics would develop, and that the guiding mores of these communities might be rather un-PC in many ways.
Of course, this does not mean that any one set of mores would necessarily be frozen in place for all time. It is certainly conceivable that a civilization where the dominant principles of political philosophy resembled something like anarcho-pluralism might over time see the development of a feminist or homosexual opposition movement in the conservative Christian or Islamic traditionalist communities, or a gun rights movement in the liberal communities, or a socialist movement in the libertarian communities, or a libertarian movement in the communist communities.
This comment is also interesting.
But three way fight politics also challenges the common liberal view that in the face of a rising far right threat we need to “defend democracy” and subordinate systemic change to a broad-based antifascism. Among other huge problems with this approach, if leftists throw our support behind the existing order we play directly into the hands of the far right, because we allow them to present themselves as the only real oppositional force, the only ones committed to real change.
Yes, exactly. But with the happy exception of the seriously anti-imperialist Left in the US (the ones whom antifacists are constantly accusing of facilitating “red-brown alliances”), the Left’s efforts have indeed been to “subordinate systemic change to a broad-based antifascism” and for this reason the Left shouldn’t be surprised that they “play directly into the hands of the far right.” The Left’s adoption of the Democratic National Committee line on virtually every issue of substance has indeed allowed the far right to “present themselves as the only real oppositional force, the only ones committed to real change.”
This is an interview with another leading antifascist that provides an interesting illustration of how these people think: http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/fascism-usa-shane-burley-interview.html#.Ws4yo5cpDcs
This kind of polymorphous pettiness is ultimately what matters to these people. I doubt Fred Hampton would have been much impressed.
Here is a statement from Alexander Reid Ross on Syria that provides another interesting illustration of where the antifascists are heading:
The key part of this statement would seem to be this:
It seems that Alexander Reid-Ross is starting to sound a bit like Samantha Power if not Norman Podhoretz.
It’s also interesting how the antifascists are accusing the anti-imperialists of carrying water for the Kremlin while the anti-imperialists are accusing the antifascists of carrying water for the US/NATO/Israeli/Saudi empire.
As for my own perspective, I generally favor mutipolarity over unipolarity, and welcome the rise of the Eastern axis as counterpower to the Western axis. As was the case during the Cold War, an armed peace between East and West is probably as good as it is going to get. However, I do not see the Eastern axis as anti-imperialist per se as much as counter-imperialist, in the sense of trying to co-opt anti-imperialism for the sake of establishing a hegemony of their own. Instead, I am for a bottom up global struggle against imperialism through the formation of independent blocks of nations (like Tito’s and Nehru’s old Non-Aligned Movement), the proliferation of regional independence movements worldwide (pan-secessionism), the proliferation of independent startup societies, and, of course, the development of revolutionary anarchist movements that are independent of the baggage carried by the Western Left.
As for Syria, it seems there is at present only two viable options there, i.e. a secular regime like Assad, or a Salafist regime of some kind. I suspect the US wants to make Syria into another Saudi Arabia, which means Assad is probably the best available option at present. I don’t know what happened with the recent chemical attack though the timing is a bit odd, and it’s obvious Western sources can’t be trusted when it comes to claims about Syria (or Iraq or Iran or virtually anywhere in the East). My first guess would be that the chemical attack was carried out by a jihadi group, possibly with the assent of the CIA and Mossad as a means of ensuring the US continues to get bogged down in Syria, and that Trump gives up any thoughts he might have about withdrawing from Syria.
Conspiracy is a legal term. Israel is the center of foreign policy. When the PM of Israel addresses Congress it looks like the Soviet Union. All the crooks clap and clap. AIPAC bribes EVERYBODY. Congressmen lose their seats just by pointing it out.
Syria is no threat to Americans. Its a threat to Israel, the bankers and global hegemony though. Syria is one of three countries WITHOUT A ROTHSCHILD BANK. Iran, Syria and North Korea are those three. Bush jr’s Axle of Ebil.
Russia is there to stop a pipeline being built by Halliburton (Cheney’s old digs). It is to “disrupt” the Gazprom of Russia. Russia threatens the “American Century” Global Hegemony Plan. Mr. Putin is about to spike the neocons in Syria as a result. Those hypersonic missiles he developed may sink some of those garbage scows built by the lowest bidder and manned with “diversity”.
The South China Sea is not any of OUR business. China has monetized the Yuan in OIL. The Renminbi is now a REAL COMPETITOR to the petrodollar and Bretton Woods.
Follow the Money. Money changes everything.
Does the LaRouche Network still have any support, outside of Unz.com comment sections? The only people who talk about them are these “antifascists.”