Category Archives: Culture Wars/Current Controversies

Antifa Organizers Announce Plans To Disrupt Neo-Nazi Rally Or Whatever Else Going On That Day Reply

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The Onion is generally a left-leaning site. Fortunately, they’re smart enough not to fall for the “anti-facism” hysteria Kool-Aid.

BERKELEY, CA—Vowing to derail whichever event it is by any means necessary, local Antifa organizers announced plans Monday to disrupt an upcoming neo-Nazi rally or whatever else is going on that day. “We will stop at nothing to prevent these vile fucking neo-Nazi hatemongers from gathering, or, if not them, someone else,” said Sarah Jackson, 26, adding that the only way to end the spread of fascism is to physically confront Nazis, peaceful right-wing protesters, or just random people going about their daily lives. “We need to tell these Hitler-loving fucks or whoever else is standing there, ‘Get out of our city!’ Remember, we’re talking about white supremacist terrorists, people running errands on their lunch breaks, or a group of tourists, so if we have to throw a punch or two, then so fucking be it.” At press time, black-clad Antifa demonstrators screaming “Fascists, go home!” had swarmed a Scandinavian street festival.

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Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis Reply

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As any Eastern European can tell you, neo-Communists are just as dangerous as neo-Nazis.

By Marc A. Thiessen

Washington Post

Last weekend in Berkeley, Calif., a group of neo-communist antifa — “anti-fascist” — thugs attacked peaceful protesters at a “No to Marxism in America” rally, wielding sticks and pepper spray, and beating people with homemade shields that read (I kid you not) “No Hate.” The Post reports how one peaceful protester “was attacked by five black-clad antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself.” Members of the Berkeley College Republicans were then stalked by antifa goons who followed them to a gas station and demanded they “get the [expletive] out” of their car, warning, “We are real hungry for supremacists and there is more of us.”

The organizer of the anti-Marxism protest is not a white supremacist. Amber Cummings is a self-described “transsexual female who embraces diversity” and had announced on Facebook that “any racist groups like the KKK [and] Neo Nazis . . . are not welcome.” The protest was needed, Cummings said, because “Berkeley is a ground zero for the Marxist Movement.”

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Was Jewish Antifa Caught Off Guard By Charlottesville White Supremacists? 2

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Race and Ethnicity, Uncategorized • Tags:

By Sam Kestenbaum

Forward

For Jewish protesters gathered at this month’s far-right rally in Charlottesville, facing off with white nationalists meant coming face to face with groups that call openly for their murder.

“First stop Charlottesville, next stop Auschwitz!” white supremacists shouted, brandishing swastika flags and hoisting their arms in the Nazi salute. “Get in the showers!”

“For weeks, I was debating whether or not anti-Semitism was central to the American formation of white supremacy,” said Bethany Koval, a Jewish college student and activist from New Jersey. “I was emotionally unprepared for many of those traditional Nazi chants in Charlottesville.”

Koval said that before Charlottesville she saw white supremacy as primarily targeting or exploiting African Americans and other people of color. “I struggled to see how Jewishness fit into that equation,” Koval said. “Then came the tiki torches.”

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Has the “Alt-Right” Met Its Gettysburg? 4

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Poor Spencer Sunshine need not have worried. The Alt-Right ended up self-destructing largely on its own initiative. When I became involved in the Alt-Right during its initial phase, it was a high brow neo-Nietzschean movement influenced by European conservatives such as Ernst Junger, Carl Schmitt, and Alain De Benoist. At the time, I was hoping the Alt-Right would move in the direction of something like ATS or National-Anarchism. However, things went in precisely the opposite direction, and the Alt-Right eventually drifted into reactionary 1920s style white nationalism, then into Alex Jones-like cartoonish behavior, then into Trumpism, and finally into neo-Nazism. Charlottesville was the worst possible publicity stunt the Alt-Right could have staged, i.e. failure on all counts. R.I.P., Alt-Right. Death by suicide.

By Spencer Sunshine

Truth-Out

Counter-protesters gather in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11, 2017.

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The Establishment in PANIC; They Ditch Antifa; Massive Shift in the Last 48 Hours 2

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For a time the Republicans (except Trump) appeared hesitant to criticize the Antifa, possibly out of fear of being called racist (or maybe they just didn’t know who Antifa are). The Democrats did likewise, probably out of fear of alienating potential constituents (or maybe due to a “never punch to the left” mentality). However, the Antifa did the establishment’s work for them by becoming so outrageous and brazen and that the Republicans naturally had an opportunity to get in a shot at “left-wing terrorist, socialist, blah, blah, blah…” and the Democrats immediately had to take action against Antifa as a potential electoral liability.

By Robert Wenzel

Target Liberty

The establishment has apparently just gotten word to take down Antifa, a group they were singing the praises of as recently as two weeks ago.

This is big. Only weeks ago after Charlottesville, MSM and aligned cronies were supporting Antifa against Trump’s whataboutism in deflecting away from the neo-Nazis.

Even Paul Ryan wouldn’t condemn Antifa. From Dailywire:

And neither would Elizabeth Warren:

 

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The Alt-Right Is Not Who You Think They Are 1

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This is relatively consistent with my own observations of the Alt-Right.

By George Hawley

The American Conservative

In tweets following the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, former President Barack Obama quoted words from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

The sentiment has resonated with millions of Americans and garnered some of the most “likes” in the history of Twitter. It also offered a stark contrast to the reaction of President Trump.

Yet while a moving sentiment, Mr. Obama’s comments, if taken literally, represent an incorrect interpretation of today’s racial challenges and the nature of the so-called alt-right. The statements imply an outdated theory of racism. Among many anti-racists, there has long been a naïve hope that racism is handed down from one generation to the next. If that cycle is broken, this view goes, then racial harmony can finally prevail.

Although scholarly literature provides some evidence for this argument, the alt-right shows that it does not tell nearly the entire story.

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Charlottesville and the Politics of Left Hysteria 7

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Spot on analysis.

The Current Momemt

The murder of an anti-fascist protestor (and the less-noted deaths of two National Guardsmen) at a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia has gripped the United States and many observers elsewhere. It has revived claims about the rise of a “fascist” threat in the West. This is simply hysterical, and symbolises the US left’s incapacity for reasoned political analysis, particularly since the election of Donald Trump.

The most striking aspect of the left’s hysteria over Charlottesville is its failure to understand that it won the US culture wars, not the right. By any reasonable measure, American attitudes have become steadily more liberal over time. A summary of opinion polling since the 1970s shows a “sweeping, fundamental change in norms regarding race”, with steady declines on practically every key measure of racism. Surveys on attitudes towards women reveal an identical decline in sexism. More belatedly, a similar transformation happened in attitudes towards LGBT people. Two-thirds of Americans now support gay marriage, up from just 40 percent in 2009, suggesting that campaigners for equal rights now find themselves kicking at a largely open door. The membership of vile organisations like the Ku Klux Klan has collapsed, from a peak of three to six million in the 1920s to around 6,000 today. Only 10 percent of the US public admit to supporting the “alt right” (only 4 percent “strongly”, while 83 percent say it is “unacceptable to hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views”. Too high and not high enough, one might say. But the fact is that the far-right is a lunatic fringe.

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Hannity: What media get wrong about Charlottesville Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Uncategorized • Tags: ,

Sean Hannity is just a neocon/Zionist/Saudi/Murdoch mouthpiece, but this is an interesting example of the response of the right-wing media to the Alt-Right/Antifa conflict. The right-wing press is usual pretty good at criticizing the left-wing of the establishment (not exactly a difficult undertaking) even if they veer off into the usual “Democrats are the real racists” silliness.

Thinking Strategically About Free Speech and Violence Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Uncategorized

By Nathan J. Robinson

Current Affairs

When it comes to neo-Nazis, the most important thing is to stop them from gaining power. We know that, as brutal as they are are when wandering the streets beating black men with metal poles, if Nazis ever again achieved control of a powerful state, the consequences would be inconceivably horrific for hundreds of millions, probably billions, of people around the world. The growth of white supremacist ideology in the 20th century led to slaughter on an unimaginable scale. It must never, ever happen again.

When there are white supremacists in our midst, then, and we are deciding how to deal with them, the strategy question is of critical importance: what is the best way to actually undermine the political prospects of racist movements? The actions taken by leftists must be discussed in terms of their predictable consequences. The task is to stop the Nazis. A vital question, for any given left-wing approach, should be: “Does this help us, or does it help the Nazis?”

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Enjoy Your Protests: It’s Going to Get Awkward Soon Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Uncategorized

Liberal and left opinion is starting to throw Antifa under the bus as reelection time approaches next year.

Philadeliquency

I feel sorry for leftists.

I realize many of my readers are leftists.  I have to make a distinction here, because “Democrat” and “leftist” are not synonymous terms, as the whole flap over the Rizzo statue makes obvious to people now.

There’s a lot of them in Philadelphia and they pretty-much signal off each other like cattle moo-ing their way across a pasture.  Few of you realize what is coming, but I already see the winds blowing.   You will feel that wind turn gale force as the months go by.

The people I’m feeling sorry for are you guys, gals–and other–who have been out marching in circles around City Hall hoping Trump would give a shit about your Magic Marker signs.   Standing next to you in those crowds were miscreant humanities students and flunkies otherwise known as AntiFa and Black Bloc.  Unfortunately for you, even though you didn’t don AntiFa garb you are going to be lumped in with them; because you’ve been winking and nodding at them and quietly accepting the normalization of extra-judicial unconstitutional violence as if it were protected speech.

That is soon going to come to an end and it’s not because of Charlottesville.  Sorry, that’s how it’s going to be spun.  Own it.  The backspin has already started:

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Berkeley Mayor: We Should Classify Antifa ‘As A Gang’ Reply

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Just as the Trump administration has realized that it’s Alt-Right supporters are a liability, and has subsequently purged its Alt-Lite figures like Steven Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, so has the left-wing of the political class apparently has begun to regard to the Antifa as a liability and call for a purge. Already, Yvette Felarca has been arrested. More state repression against the Antifa is likely to come.

BERKELEY (CBS SF) — Mayor of Berkeley Jesse Arreguin on Monday said it is time to confront the violent extremism on the left by treating black-clad Antifa protesters as a gang.

A large number of masked Antifa activists were seen jumping the barriers at a largely peaceful demonstration in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Civic Center Park on Sunday.

Some began attacking Trump supporters at the rally.

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Charlottesville Car Attack: Full Livestream Reply

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This footage was broadcast by News2Share’s Ford Fischer live. I am inclined to respect Ford Fischer’s viewpoint because he is one of the few journalists or activists to attempt to offer a first person perspective on Charlottesville that offers any insight or depth beyond the usual “Leftist Terrorists vs. Official Bad People” narrative coming from the Left and Right.

Who Do Americans Blame for the Violence in Charlottesville? 4

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What I find most interesting about this poll is that despite the common far left claims that Republicans are merely fascists and Nazis under another name, these results show that a super-majority of Republicans either blamed both sides (64%)or the far right (18%) for the melee, indicating that actual sympathy for the far right among Republicans or mainstream conservatives is actually very minimal.

By Gwynn Guilford

Quartz

Which side—the white nationalists or the counter-protesters—bears greater responsibility for the Charlottesville violence, which directly resulted in the death of a 32-year-old counter-protester? It should be a factual question. And also a moral one, considering that the demonstrators had gathered in the spirit of a homegrown terror group that lynched thousands of blacks and a foreign one that murdered around 6 million Jews.

Yet in the America of the moment, the question is a political one.

Only 18% of Republican respondents blame the white-nationalist groups for the bulk of the Charlottesville violence, according to a SurveyMonkey poll with 2,181 participants, via Axios. (Update: Note that this was not a scientific poll—here is the methodology—and may not be representative of the view of all Americans.) Some 64% think both sides share responsibility equally. Perhaps more alarmingly, only 46% of all the respondents put the blame on the white nationalists, while four in 10 condemn both sides equally.

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Neocons Are Upset With Me 3

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This is an important piece by Paul Gottfried which points out that the fragmentation that is growing the United States is not primarily about race, something that both leftists and white nationalists are constantly missing. Every bit of evidence shows that the political and class divides are wider than the racial divides. The Red/Blue war is primarily, though not exclusively, an “intra-white” war, at least in terms of the leadership of both sides. While a “majority of minorities” tend to side with the Blue Team, and growing “minority of minorities” is siding with the Red Team. What Dr. Gottfried describes in the following paragraph is what the future of the Left/Right divide will look like, albeit in an even more radicalized form.

The most lunatic Cultural Marxists I’ve encountered are Aryan-looking Germans and Swedes, who right now are running their countries, into the ground. I haven’t noticed any black people in Europe pushing radical lifestyle agendas or demanding that Europeans open their borders to more Muslim migrants. For the last thirty years I have been battling PC fanatics, including the ones in conservatism, inc.; and these zealots have been predominantly white. Although I wouldn’t deny that the PC Left has tried to “empower” minorities for revolutionary or political transformational uses, the roles played by these minorities have been secondary. The major war for civilization has gone on among whites.

I am, moreover, delighted that some black commentators are willing to attack black race hustlers with the appropriate contempt. It was black conservative Larry Elders who had the spunk to say what I couldn’t imagine Stephen Hayes, Bret Baier, or Bernie Goldberg ever allowing himself to utter. Elders called Al Sharpton a bigoted thug who managed to start a race war in Brooklyn before becoming Obama’s gray eminence. And he described the raving California Congresswoman Maxine Waters as a “delusional poverty pimp.” Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County was also one of the first interviewees whom I heard on TV openly condemning both sides for the Charlottesville riot. In the war for civilization at least a minority of blacks has been vocally and persistently on the conservative side. Am I supposed to reject such warriors in favor of white leftists who happen to have the approved skin color? I shall happily make common cause with decent people of all races to battle the Cultural Marxist totalitarians, who are taking power in just about every so-called liberal democracy.

By Paul Gottfried

We Seek the Truth

A Polish friend, who reads this website regularly, sent me recently this characterization of my personality and worldview:

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The White Right Rises Reply

by • American Decline, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right, Race and Ethnicity

My prediction is that in the not so distant future there will no longer be a distinctive “American” national identity other than pop culture, fast food, and speaking English with a North American accent. I’m quite sure that present efforts to remove monuments to figures like the Confederate leaders and Christopher Columbus will be followed by calls to eliminate monuments to figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. The Right is correct when they express concern about this, and the far Left will sometimes state explicit intentions of these kinds. I always predicted that as demographic change continued to take place and the general culture moved leftward, white nationalism would, for better or worse, grow as a  movement as well.

I would predict that even the Fourth of July will eventually be attacked as a holiday celebrating white male slaveholders. While the historian in me laments such occurrences, these can actually help to serve the anarchist cause by delegitimizing the existing state. Eventually, there will simply be no “America” at all even if the government continues to exist as an instrument of rule. Instead, the USA will simply be an agglomeration of corporations, arms merchants, bankers, and politicians ruling over a society that is fractured into cultural, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic tribes seeking a greater share of the spoils. Such a society would barely cohere as a nation, and would probably more closely resemble present day India. This could only serve to weaken the existing state, but what comes next matters, and that’s why anarchists need to do a much better job than at present in terms of growing their own movements.

By William S. Lind

Traditional Right

One reason Donald Trump won last year’s election was that he was widely perceived as the white candidate.  This marked something more important than his election: the rise of white political consciousness.  As other racial and ethnic groups have done for some time (“La Raza” means “The Race”), whites are increasingly defining themselves by race rather than class.  Like other groups, they perceive they have group interests as whites and they are willing to work and vote for those interests.  This is entirely legitimate. 

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Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them. Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Race and Ethnicity

I’ve always thought that the Left’s reflexive habit of calling anyone and anything “racist” was going to have a “little boy who cried wolf” effect eventually. Genuine racism is dangerous, and potentially leads to the kind of inter-ethnic violence and oppression that has traditionally been found in many, if not most, societies. Racism is like alcoholism and drug addiction. It’s not something to encourage, but it will always happen anyway on some level in spite of efforts at prevention. As with addiction problems, the appropriate response is harm reduction, and not jihad approaches such as the 1030s Prohibition, the State’s “war on drugs” or the Left’s “war on racism.”

By German Lopez

Vox

In 2016, researchers stumbled on a radical tactic for reducing another person’s bigotry: a frank, brief conversation.

The study, authored by David Broockman at Stanford University and Joshua Kalla at the University of California Berkeley, looked at how simple conversations can help combat anti-transgender attitudes. In the research, people canvassed the homes of more than 500 voters in South Florida. The canvassers, who could be trans or not, asked the voters to simply put themselves in the shoes of trans people — to understand their problems — through a 10-minute, nonconfrontational conversation. The hope was that the brief discussion could lead people to reevaluate their biases.

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