The Little Führer

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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Fri Jan 29, 2016 10:12 am

Populism need not be reactionary, much less fascistic or "white" supremacist. Often there is an overlap, albeit coded and/or plausibly denied, as is much racism and reactionary thinking here at R.I.

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're saying, so here are a few questions:

It sounds like you believe in some kind of teleology where a new wave of "White" Nationalism is pretty much inevitable?

If so, where do you get your news and analysis?

Do you think the main- or perhaps only- alternative to Neoliberalism is actually Ethno-nationalism?

If so, where does that relate to White Supremacy and Global Capitalism, etc.?
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby jakell » Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:24 pm

There is racism and reactionary thinking here at RI?

Sounds like a job for anyone who may consider themselves an antifascist (using my own take on the concept, re dynamism)
" Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism"
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:22 pm

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American Dream » Thu Jan 28, 2016 10:36 pm wrote: Those who do ascribe to Flat Earth Theory are not your regular Alex Jones type crackpots, or even those who believe world leaders to be secret Reptilian Humanoids from the lower fourth-dimension. No, this is the fringe of the fringe, and it would be hard to believe that their numbers are larger than a few hundred in the whole world. Now, they have a few celebrity cohorts.

This began several weeks ago with former reality-star Tila Tequila going to Twitter to post that the earth was, in fact, flat. “I WILL STOP MY #FLATEARTH TALK IF SOMEONE CAN SEND ME A GOD DAMN PHOTO OF THE HORIZON WITH A CURVATURE! OTHERWISE IT IS FLAT!,” read one of these.

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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Fri Feb 05, 2016 4:48 pm

https://itsgoingdown.org/trumpism-pt-6- ... d-wrought/

TRUMPISM, PT. 6: WHAT HATH THE DONALD WROUGHT?
February 5, 2016
Originally posted to It’s Going Down
by Alexander Reid Ross


In the dust of the Iowa stunner, the Don might be bewildered and confused, but he’s not out of the race. The question emerging for the first time is, will he actually lose the primaries, and if so, will he take the Republican Party down with him by running as a third party candidate?

On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats are beginning to sink into that slow and steady malaise that only decades of programmed and uninterrupted establishment politics can bring has begun to set in, as Hillary beat out Sanders in what was supposed to be the primary foothold of Sanders candidacy.

Whether or not Sanders was beaten by the weather, the blizzard that kept his older supporters indoors, the loss in Iowa simply sets reality into clearer focus: Hillary maintains the Super Delegates and will more than likely pull in the South on Super Tuesday.

The presidential race will likely be Hillary versus the Right. Who’s right, though—the right of Trump or Cruz? And why does it matter?

The reality is that whether or not Trump loses, Trumpism has proliferated. Indeed, one could argue that Trumpism remains a mere epiphenomenon of the populist radical right, which composes a majority of the Republican Party. Is Trumpism more blatant, in-your-face, and virulent in its expressions of fascism than the cynicism beneath the traditional family values veneer of the Cruz Campaign? Yes. Does that mean Trump is the singular driving force of those expressions? No. He merely gives voice to them. He is, in a way, their figurehead. The victory of Cruz would likely represent the same movement, but in a more decentralized and guarded fashion.

In his 2009 book The Eliminationists, journalist David Neiwart strikes to the heart of the US conservative movement, exposing the cruel discourses of modern FOX News TV personalities, the punditocracy, and their Patriot connections. Identifying these networks on a range from proto-fascist to parafascist, Neiwart strikes an important chord, “Para-fascism, as it exists now, remains a political pathology, but a manageable one.”

Identifying the distance between the proto-fascist militia movement and actual fascism as the absence of the singular leader, Neiwart has shown that, at least until 2015, the conservative movement slid into increasingly extreme and violent provocations, but lacked a leader to consolidate lone wolf acts of violence.

In other works, like the 2010 book Over the Cliff (with John Amato), Neiwart shows how right-wing populist movements percolate a grassroots base from foundation funding and media representation that garners public support by “wrapping racial ignorance and blind hypocrisy in the trappings of an ‘honest racial discussion’ that only reinforces hoary stereotypes of white nationalism.”

There had been attempts at filling the vacuum of power in the white nationalist movement—first by David Duke under the Populist Party, then by Bo Gritz, his heir apparent, whose failure at populism and romantic turbulence led to a self-inflicted bullet wound that just missed his heart. Pat Buchanan seemed poised to lead the white nationalist movement in 2000 after beating out the Trumpster in a race orchestrated by Roger Stone to undermine Ross Perot’s grip on the Reform Party, but Bush, Jr., stole his luggage.

The fact is that the momentum of the white nationalist movement has not been stronger since George Wallace in 1968, and they found their mouthpiece in Trump. Ted Cruz is something of a different phenomenon. Far from a New York elitist who considers himself disenfranchised and openly calls for the revocation of the 14th Amendment in a way that pricks the ears of the sovereign citizens’ “organic citizens” dogma, Cruz projects the image of a homely middle-class Texas boy whose smarmy attitude points more to Nixon’s Southern Strategy than to out-elite populism.

For sure, Cruz is an opportunist—that’s what his Tea Party record shows. By jumping into the Congressional healthcare feud, undermining the Republican Party’s establishment, and galvanizing radical right resentment against Washington politics, Cruz dug himself a niche for which he is not well loved. Yet Cruz’s politics remain ensconced in the extremes of the Republican Party, and the fact that the Republican race is dominated by the choice between him and Trump shows the depth of that parafascist pathology that Neiwert writes about.

The difference between Trump and Cruz is really the difference between a strong leader who could bind parafascist elements together toward a larger goal, on one hand, and a severely unpopular man who would simply serve as a place holder for a number of competing interests who have to contend with a constantly radicalizing base, on the other. Either way, it would appear that the Republicans’ primary race has brought the party further to the brink of self-destructive madness. And Bernie’s campaign trail may likely be coming to an end, in which case Hillary Clinton stand as the only contestant against the lunacy of the Tea Party and worse.

Whatever the outcome, it would appear that the organizers of protests against both Democratic and Republican National Conventions will have their hands full. For the next installment of this column, Ben Jones has promised to rejoin me for an analysis of the campaigns against Trump thus far, and the potentials for galvanizing both disillusioned Sandernistas and anti-Trumpists for a radical alternative in the streets.
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:22 pm

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2007

An open letter to other white working people

To other white skinned working Americans:

As the election season of 2008 approaches, politics and the ramifications of those elections are topics that are on everyone's minds. I know that other white-skinned working class people feel the same way I do: 2008 could make it or break it for us. However, most people reading this may initially disagree with what I mean by that statement. Hopefully by the end of this letter, I can change some minds.

I start with the assumption that white skinned working class people are tired of living in poverty, tired of living paycheck to paycheck, tired of seeing the products of their hard efforts evaporate before their very eyes. The times are tough for many of us, where we don't know how we're going to survive. Politician after politician makes empty promises, and seemingly there's no relief for us, as white skinned working Americans. So we start to look around at who to blame, and it's easy enough... we blame black people, brown people... "illegals". It's simple enough. We're competing with these people for jobs and resources, in some cases it seems like a logical enough conclusion to come to.

Historically, we've always been at odds with immigrants and non-white peoples. We have seen our allegiance become an allegiance to whiteness, to being white. We can relate to other white people, no matter how poor or rich. They're white like us, and that's something we can identify with, come to terms with. So of course, our natural enemies become non-white peoples.

The only problem with this idea is that we've had it wrong for centuries. We've been kept blind to the true nature of what is afoot here, as to what's really going on. Look around us. Who fills the trailer parks with us? Who works in the factories or fast food restaurants with us? Who is beside us working in the fields, picking produce that we'll never really be able to afford? Is it rich people, especially rich white people? Hell no, it isn't. It's brown people, black people, yellow people. It's people who have different shades of skin than us. They are the people that are in similar situations to us, living paycheck to paycheck, suffering like we do. So why then would we view them as our enemy?

Allegiances, traditionally, are made amongst people who have common interests. In an historical sense, white skinned working people have overwhelmingly believed that our interests are based on skin color. We have to work for the betterment of the race, for our culture, for our identity. The truth, however, could never be further away. Whose interests do these beliefs really serve? White workers? In some sense, the answer may be "yes". Working for the advancement of the white race at the cost of other races does buy us relative privileges and even some luxuries. In the end, however, we're still poor, we're still being used to make other people money. And those people aren't non-white working people.

The true interests of white skinned workers lie with other workers, no matter what their race. This idea is simple enough, but will take much time to understand and really internalize. Other workers, of all races, are exploited. We are exploited. We work to barely meet our needs, while bosses and the people in charge profit from that labor. We are born and we die in squalor or relative poverty while the rich and the politicians live in the lap of luxury. Who are these rich people? Who are these politicians? The truth is that 95% of them are white. They are 95% male. They are 95% English speaking. They are 95% Christian (or at least pretend to be so). Tonight when we go to bed tonight in our overcrowded apartments, our small houses, or our tiny trailers, they are the ones who will go to bed in luxury, in comfort, with no worries at all.

The blunt reality is that for the last five hundred years on this continent, white working class people have been used by mostly white rich people to colonize for, kill for, work for, and then better the living standards of those same white rich people, all the while sacrificing our own needs, wants, aspirations, and even lives. It really is as simple as that. No one denies the history of what has happened at working people's expenses. Wars, poverty, homelessness, wage slavery... these are all ills created by someone, and perpetuated by us... the same workers who suffer these ills.

For some five centuries we've been used by the rich among our own race to promote their agenda and suffered because of it. Yet, somehow, we've still been convinced that our allegiance is to our race, to these same rich whites that would just as soon see us die as they would be to help us as racial allies. Let's get real, how often do these white rich racialists actually just give handouts to us poor white skinned folk? When does this actually happen? Do you really think they care at all about our well being? Where's the allegiance from them, the people that put us in the worst situations we face and also spew out the racialist, pro-white speeches at rallies and gun shows?

The heart of the matter is that for these five centuries, we've been too busy fighting the people who should naturally be our allies against these injustices. The rich whites have used our skin color against us, have used our human nature of fearing living beings different than us against us... they've used us against us. They've blinded us with these racialist ideas of "white supremacy" and "white pride" and "white nationalism" into fighting other working people of other races, while they sit on the sideline and laugh.

When you walk into your workplace tomorrow, where are the majority of the blacks? Or brown skinned people? Or women? Are they in positions of power over us? Sure, some might be. But where are the majority of those that are at our workplace? That's right: side by side with us, experiencing the same drudgery and wage slavery as us. So, logic might tell us that they should also be side by side with us in our fight for liberty and an end to oppression. Wouldn't that make more sense than working side by side with the same people that rob our paychecks and swindle us out of the products of our labor?

For far too long, the ignorant stooges of the rich within our race have thrown up a red flag to these ideas... have spewed words like "pinko" and "communist" and "terrorist" at white folks that may have finally started to awaken to the truth of what's really happening here. I'm not a communist. I hate Stalin. I hate Lenin. I hate Mao. I also hate Bush. I also hate Clinton. I also hate Carter. I also hate Paul. These people, all of them, are the ruling elites that I despise... who live in relative luxury while the rest of us work away our very existence to barely eat.

White skinned working people, the time is now to form the real alliances that will actually better our lives. It's time to see who our real allies must be.

For starters, we have to reject the ridiculous notion that mostly brown skinned immigrants from Mexico or other countries are our enemy, that they are somehow stealing our jobs, that they somehow really threaten us. Let's get real. Who's really stealing our jobs? Well, let's see, even a generous estimate of the number of illegal immigrants working in the U.S. is 6 million (notice I said working, not living). This stands in stark contrast to the conservative estimate that nearly 50 million jobs will have been lost to outsourcing by 2015 since NAFTA came into affect in 1994. Well, let's ask ourselves, who's really stealing our jobs? Poor Mexicans? Or Rich White CEOs?

We're fed ridiculous ideas of the "invading" brown hordes, and the rich whites that make up the upper echelons of organizations like the Minutemen and other similar groups salivate over our reactions. If we're busy fighting the Mexicans at the border, and busy trying to round up all the "illegals" then we're too busy to fight that real enemy, that one that keeps eluding us, those rich whites I keep talking about. Most of us that keep falling for these lines initially might mean well. Heck, we only want to defend our families and our communities... but in reality, we're weakening them even more, by fighting our real potential allies and diverting our attention from the real enemy, the "enemy within" (our own race).

And why are all these brown skinned immigrants coming here in the first place? Why is there this sudden rush in the last thirteen years to get into this country? 80% of all illegal immigrants have entered since 1994. Why is that? What happened in 1994 that affected working people in Mexico just as it affected us? The passage of NAFTA, a free trade program that benefits nobody but the rich people on both sides of the border! If the rich people on both sides of the border are united, despite what race they are, why are we still allowed to be divided and conquered?

The evolution of the creation of the identity of whiteness on this continent tells us everything we need to know about the situation we now find ourselves in. I think that David Gilbert explains this the best, in his essay "Looking at the Working Class Historically":

Up until the 1680’s little distinction was made in the status of Blacks and English and other Europeans held in involuntary servitude. Contrary to common belief, the status of Blacks in the first seventy years of the Virginia colony was not that of racial, lifelong, hereditary slavery, and the majority of the whites who came were not "free”. Black and white servants intermarried, escaped together, and rebelled together.

There were a series of servile rebellions that threatened the plantation system in the period preceding the transition to racially designated chattel slavery and white supremacy. In 1661 Black and Irish servants joined in an insurrectionary plot in Bermuda. In 1663, in Virginia, there was an insurrection for the common freedom of Blacks, whites and Indian servants. In the next 20 years, there were no fewer than ten popular and servile revolts and plots in Virginia. Also many Black and white servants successfully escaped (to Indian territories) and established free societies.

The 20 year period of servile rebellions made the issue of social control urgent for the plantation owners, at the same time as they economically needed to move to a system of perpetual slavery. The purpose of creating a basic White/Black division was in order to have one section of labor police and control the other. As Allen says, “The non-slavery of white labor was the indispensable condition for the slavery of black labor”.

A series of laws were passed and practices imposed that forged a qualitative distinction between white and Black labor. In 1661 a Virginia law imposed twice the penalty time for escaped English bond-servants who ran away in the company of an African life-time bond-servant. Heavy penalties were imposed on white women servants who bore children fathered by Africans. One of the very first white slave privileges was the exemption of white servant women from work in the fields and the requirements through taxes to force Black children to go to work at twelve, while white servant children were excused until they were fourteen. In 1680, Negroes were forbidden to carry arms, defensive or offensive. At the same time, it was made legal to kill a Negro fugitive bond-servant who resisted recapture.

What followed 1680 was a 25 year period of laws that systematically drew the color line as the limit on various economic, social, and political rights. By 1705, “the distinction between white servants and Black slavery were fixed: Black slaves were to be held in life long hereditary slavery and whites for five years, with many rights and protections afforded to them by law.”

We can infer from these series of laws that white laborers were not “innately racist” before the material and social distinctions were drawn. This is evidenced by the rulers’ need to impose very harsh penalties against white servants who escaped with Blacks or who bore them children. As historian Philip Bruce observed of this period, many white servants “...had only recently arrived from England, and were therefore comparatively free from... race prejudice.”

The white bond-servants now could achieve freedom after 5 years service: the white women and children, at least, were freed from the most arduous labor. The white bond servant, once freed, had the prospect of the right to vote and to own land (at the Indians’ expense).

These privileges did not come from the kindness of the planters’ hearts nor from some form of racial solidarity. (Scottish coal miners were held in slavery in the same period of time.) Quite simply, the poor whites were needed and used as a force to suppress the main labor force: the African chattel slaves. The poor white men constituted the rank and file of the militias and later (beginning in 1727) the slave patrols. They were given added benefits, such as tax exemptions to do so. By 1705, after Blacks had been stripped of the legal right to self-defense, the white bond servant was given a musket upon completion of servitude. There was such a clear and conscious strategy that by 1698 there were even “deficiency laws” that required the plantation owners to maintain a certain ratio of white to African servants. The English Parliament, in 1717, passed a law making transportation to bond-servitude in the plantation colonies a legal punishment for crime. Another example of this conscious design is revealed in the Council of Trade and Plantation report to the King in 1721 saying that in South Carolina “Black slaves have lately attempted and were very nearly succeeding in a new revolution – and therefore, it may be necessary to propose some new law for encouraging the entertainment of more white servants in the future.”


We can see the evolution of the creation of whiteness, or a racial identity for white skinned peoples in the Americas, that stood in contrast to the identity of non-white skinned peoples. This created the us against them mentality. Once our allegiances stopped being to other impoverished and servile peoples and were instead changed to allegiances to white people of all classes, we lost track of who the real enemy was. We're still there. The rich people among our own race have us so confused that we'd rather be on the border hunting for brown skinned working people (be honest here, if this was about securing our borders, why aren't we talking about illegal immigrants coming from Canada, or even talking about any white skinned illegal immigrants?) than actually fighting those people that create the social conditions that we all collectively suffer in.

Our blind hatred of non-white people will continue to be the nails in our coffins. Other nails in our coffins will be the continued ridiculous attitudes we show toward women, people with different sexual and gender identities, people with disabilities, and people of different religions.

The rich have been very keen on dividing us up as much as they can, by distorting and magnifying existing divisions and differences among those of us that suffer at their hands. We would rather vote somebody in office that stands against abortion and gay marriage that will still steal our money and exploit us economically than someone we perceive to be on the opposite sides of these issues.

We consistently get used and thrown to the side, just to expand the power of those already above us. We'd rather fight against abortion while we and our five kids go hungry at night than actually organize for better pay, or fight back against those that use us.

It's a sick reality, and yes, the stakes are high in 2008. They're high every year. And deep down, we all know that no matter who of these rich assholes wins this election, we're still going to be screwed, and we're still going to be ranting about the "illegals" stealing our jobs, or the blacks being too criminal, or these crazy hippie liberal lesbians being allowed to marry, while ignoring the rich, white, Christians among us that rake in the profits and power. Wake up! We've fallen for this crap for far too long! No Mitt Romney or Pat Buchanan or Ron Paul or John Edwards is going to save us! Only we can do it... together, as people of all races and backgrounds that are sick of living like this!

This is an open call to all pissed off white skinned working people. This is an open call to ignore the baiting of the Minutemen, to ignore the racialist allegiances that the rich whites try to get us to buy into, to ignore the illogical and ridiculous calls among the ignorant among us! This is a call to reject the idea of whiteness, that is, to reject the idea that our allegiance is somehow determined by what skin pigment we have, no matter whether our real life situations are so different. This is an open call to no longer ignore the fact that our real allies are not determined by skin pigment, but by our social conditions. Our real enemies are mostly white English speaking Christians. Our allies are people of all colors who are forced to work for a living.

Until we get these simple ideas into our head, then we're doomed. Doomed to repeat everything that's happened for the last centuries. We'll still be here trying to climb out of the squalor we find ourselves in, and our children will inherit that destiny as well, and their children after them, and so on... until finally, a generation of white skinned working people realizes that we've been tricked. That we've been used. And by people of our own race. That damned "enemy within".

To meet other white skinned working people (and working people of other skin pigmentation too) who really want liberty and a life worth living, you can reach us at: johnbrowngunclub@gmail.com

Hurry. There's no time to lose. We've been losing for too long.

Signed, respectfully and hopefully,

D.J.
John Brown Gun Club



http://landandfreedom.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... rking.html
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Tue Feb 16, 2016 12:01 am

The violence and hatred being encouraged in various parts of North America are part of a larger ecology:


http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2 ... ry-of.html

Significant Update to "History of Violence" Timeline

We are currently living during a time when Islamophobia is a real danger in this country as the rhetoric targeting Muslims his becoming increasingly heated. In the timeline we've noted that violence towards Muslims and their places of worship have increased in number, especially during the contentious election campaign in which the then governing Conservatives attempted to use both the niqab and the Syrian refugee crisis as political wedge issue. Our concern is that the violence directed towards Muslim-Canadians will continue to escalate. In the meantime, the msm has started to look at the dangers of right-wing violence in the country, however this examination has been ridiculed by some on the right for not focusing on the "real" danger facing Canada: political Islamism.

Looking at the numbers, we would suggest that right-wing, racist inspired, violence is a very real danger. Since 1972 and based on data from the timeline, 40 people have been murdered by individuals tied to far-right extremism. Since September 12, 2001, there have been 18 people killed by individuals who hold far-right and extremist views. During the same period, individuals motivated by Islamic extremism accounted for three incidents in which religious reasons were a prime motivators. We can also discuss the numerous assaults, attempted murders, arson incidents, sexual assaults linked to right-wing extremism to prove that these people and groups really do pose a danger to individuals.

We are not minimizing the deaths of the three who lost their lives as a result of Islamic extremist actions nor are we suggesting that such extremism isn't of concern. We are suggesting that Islamic extremism isn't the only extremism that we should be trying to root out.

A second observation, still on the theme of Islamophobia, is the claim that Muslims are the only religious group (as if "Muslim" is monolith) to use violence which our readers will know is a historically ridiculous claim to make. Though it wasn't a part of our project, we were struck by the number of incidents in the Canadian Incident Database that puts the lie to that claim. Starting on January 27, 1960 and extending to the early 1980s, the Sons of Freedom engaged in a campaign of bombings focusing on both public and private property. Where the Son's of Freedom Muslim extremists? Nope. The Sons of Freedom were Doukhobors, a communal Christian community. And while they really did have some legitimate concerns the provincial government of BC and the federal government ignored, we're not sure that a campaign of bombing was the best way of seeking redress.

With that, we invite our readers to take a look at the improved timeline.



A History of Violence: 1960 - 2016






American Dream » Mon Dec 28, 2015 12:44 pm wrote:
ALL THE NEWS YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WAS GOING DOWN

As we enter into 2016, the brutality of the police and their continued murder spree shows no signs of letting up. Some police associations have thrown their support behind Trump in an apparent bid for protection from the State against potential reforms. The continued baseline of policing seems to be extreme force without fear of reprisal. Navigating and acting within this terrain is pivotal, both in terms of engagement within revolt when it breaks out and also in building capacity within our neighborhoods and cities against the police.

There has been much written and done in regards to police terror, but often we are too removed or silent when it comes to organizing and action happening behind prison walls. This is why this year, as Black December was called, it has been exciting to see the growth of anti-prison projects which involve prisoners at the forefront. Such projects include the Missouri Prison Newsletter, the Incarcerated Worker, Wildfire, and in the ongoing activity of social struggles such as the fight to abolish solitary confinement. With hunger strikes, riots, and work stoppages taking place throughout North America, we are excited about the possibilities of continued connections and relationships formed.

But while we see possibility in struggles against white supremacy both on the streets and behind the bars, we also are seeing an increase of both the autonomous far-right (from militia groups like the Oathkeepers to white nationalists such as the Traditionalist Youth Network) along side the expanding fascist creep in the mainstream, as evidenced by Trump’s campaign. While discussion of widening fascist activity is something we have talked about much in the past here, it’s worth restating that not since the 1990s has the racist far-Right felt so comfortable in the streets. From neo-Nazis protesting in support of the cops in Olympia, KKK and NSM members rallying in South Carolina, to racist Patriot movement supporters shooting at Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Minneapolis, the Right has been emboldened like never before in recent history.

But we have to remember that outside of demonstrations in the big cities, we have a lot of work to do. White nationalist groups try to makethemselves appear to be the saviors (move over Leninists!) of the white poor and working-middle classes in the US. While reading the history of fascism will show that it is an anti-working-class movement that aspires to build ‘cross-class solidarity‘ in order to take the reigns of production away from the ‘capitalists’ and the State from the ‘Marxists,’ this is still a story that has the potential to gain adherents within the wider population.

This is why Trump’s campaign has been successful, because it has coupled anger over jobs (directed at immigrants) and fears of terrorism (pointed at Muslims). At the same time, Trump, a billionaire who has attacked workers of every color left and right, will continue the same economic policies which have lead to a rampaging class war in the US that has increased the wealth gap between rich and poor while production and profits for the wealthy elite (like Trump) have skyrocketed and wages have stagnated and poverty has increased.

But within these statistics are real flesh and blood people, including many whites. By and large unseen or unmentioned in the mainstream media and culture, poor and working-class whites are often made to feel left behind; with only their racial caste position to feel any sense of purpose or position in the world. Ideologies like white nationalism are attempting to speak to and organize within this reality; and they have centuries of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, and colonialism on their side.
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Wed Feb 17, 2016 9:29 am

Immigrant-bashing and Islamophobia are more than just grassroots manifestations of violence and hatred:


http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-projec ... ist-system

It's Not Just Hate Crimes: Islamophobia Is the Outgrowth of a Deeply Racist System

We need to look beyond the individual and at the racist and militaristic structures of American society.

2015 was a horrific year for Muslims. Even CNN noted that it “has been one of the most intensely anti-Muslim periods in American history.” The previous highpoint was 2010 during the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy when there were 53 attacks on mosques. In 2015 there were 63 incidents.

What explains the rise of anti-Muslim racism almost a decade-and-a-half after the events of 9/11? Why has Islamophobia become more virulent even though there has been no 9/11 type attack since then? The number of Americans killed by jihadists in this country since 9/11 is a grand total of 45. This figure pales in comparison to the over 400,000 killed by gun violence during the same period.

The answer to these questions lies in how we understand Islamophobia: what it is, where it comes from, and whose interests its serves.

CNN uses the attacks on mosques as a measure of Islamophobia. While a useful empirical measure of anti-Muslim sentiment, it is also quite limited. One might expand it to talk about hate crimes which include not just the desecration of mosques and Muslim community spaces, but also physical attacks on Muslim and Muslim-looking men and women. Sikh men who wear turbans have come under attack because it is assumed that they are Muslim. Muslim women who wear a hijab or a veil tend to be attacked more than their male counterparts. The outward symbols of Islam—mosques, veils and turbans—have been attacked, and the people in them have been dehumanized, becoming mere vessels of an “evil ideology.”

The FBI defines a hate crime as “a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, Congress has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.”

It is important to count such information and to hold the perpetrators accountable, to the extent that this is possible in the current legal system. But Islamophobia is about more than hate crimes committed by individuals who hold a “bias.” Such a definition fails to explain why individuals hold these views. Why have incidents of hate crimes spiked in the US after 9/11? To what do we owe this rise in bias? To answer these questions, we need to look beyond the individual and at the structures of US society.

Ironically, the progressive scholarly community, which could shed light on such structures, has tended also to focus on individuals. The manifestations of anti-Muslim racism have been viewed through the lens of daily acts of hostility i.e., the daily verbal attacks, insults, and dismissals experienced by people of color. Coined by Harvard professor Chester Pierce to discuss the experience of African Americans, the term "microagressions" has since been expanded along the way to include other people of color, as well as women, LGBTQ people, the disabled and others.

No doubt, Muslims and those who look Muslim endure constant microaggressions, which collectively cause psychological trauma and have impacts on their health and well-being. It is draining to be at the receiving end of such treatment as I am constantly reminded by friends on Facebook. However, Islamophobia is about more than microaggressions.

Daily acts of hostility, hate crimes and even job discrimination (such as the recent firing of NJ school teacher Sireen Hashem), are the outward manifestations of a system that is fundamentally racist.

It is this system we must name, understand,and organize against if we are to put an end to anti-Muslim racism. In my book, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, I set out to explore how the image of the Muslim enemy is tied to a set of practices that sustain and reproduce empire. In an earlier essay in 2010, I had argued that Islamophobia is an ideology that has come to be accepted as normal, as common sense, in the War on Terror era. In this sense, it is not just an individual bias but a systematic body of ideas which make certain constructions of Muslims—that they are prone to violence, that they are misogynistic, that they are driven by rage and lack rationality—appear natural.

But ideas don’t exist in a vacuum. They are part of a larger structure, in this case empire. The current shape and structure of US imperialism, while it has long roots, draws most immediately from the reconfiguration of American society after World War II. The US was one of two hegemons on the global stage and policy makers, particularly Cold War liberals, would shape and realize a national security state. In 1947, the National Security Act was passed which entrenched “security” as a key element of the post-war order. It created the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The top-secret National Security Council Paper NSC-68 laid out a vision for US post-war grand strategy. Written in 1950 and declassified only in 1975, NSC-68 was one of the most influential foreign policy documents of the Cold War. It called for massive increases in military spending, a civil defense program to ensure loyalty among the citizenry, a media propaganda campaign to build and sustain public support, and psychological warfare and propaganda programs abroad. Every aspect of life—social, political, intellectual, and economic—was conceived as playing a role in national defense, and a massive security establishment was constructed, paid for by significant tax increases and cuts in social welfare programs and services not related to the military. US objectives, moreover, could only be met by abandoning any effort to “distinguish between national and global security.” Confronted by the collapse of the European and Japanese empires and the rise of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Revolution, it fell to the US to take on the mantle of world hegemon and to beat back the threat to “civilization.”

However, the growth of the military-industrial complex, against which President Eisenhower warned us on Jan. 17, 1961, did not recede with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Instead, it gained a new lease on life with the War on Terror, as the threat to “western civilization” once posed by communism was replaced by the “clash of civilizations” generated by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Moreover, as was true more than a half century ago, the emergence of this new supposed threat has served as justification for new wars abroad, particularly in the Middle East. It is thus not possible to understand the rise of Islamophobia without placing it in this longer historical context of militarism and US intervention.


It is this imperial system, born in the post-WWII period and strengthened in the War on Terror, which is the crucible of Islamophobia. Drawing on the work of scholars and activists who have examined various aspects of this system, I offer a matrix of Islamophobia in my book. This matrix includes numerous institutions such as federal, state and local governments, the legal system, the electoral arena, the academy, think tanks, the corporate media, and the national security apparatus (from the FBI to local police departments).

In each of these spheres, Islamophobia informs or is generated by a set of practices and serves certain goals, all of which are tied, directly and indirectly, to the war on terror and empire. I will discuss three—the electoral arena, the corporate media, and security apparatus here.

In the political sphere, particularly during an election year, Islamophobia serves to garner political support for candidates which they hope to translate into votes. In recent months, even those not running for office have sought to make hay of the opportunities presented by the ISIS attacks in Paris and the Syrian refugee crisis. The list of government officials making anti-Muslim and anti-Syrian statements is long.

While Donald Trump is the most egregious and visible voice of anti-Muslim racism in this group, the phenomenon is far bigger than Trump. As I have argued elsewhere, this is a bipartisan project. The endless war on terror that has consumed trillions of dollars could not be sustained without the fear of a Muslim terrorist enemy. Indeed, ISIS is the perfect enemy, as its constant attacks on Western targets promotes fear and provides a rationale for continued US intervention in the Middle East and a bloated national security state.

The corporate media cover every attack, or even threats of attacks, with relish on a 24/7 loop because terrorism coverage is good for ratings and good for business, just a wars pad the bottom line. Various terrorism “experts” from numerous think tanks offer the talking points that are then reinforced by politicians, as well as former and current generals and CIA heads and other officials, in order to keep alive the fear of terrorism in the public imagination.

Various agencies of the national security state have targeted Muslims by sending informants into mosques and community centers, and not only for purposes of surveillance. In numerous cases, such as the “Newburg Four,” agent provocateurs have instigated terror plots in an effort to entrap people. Investigative journalist Trevor Aronson, who studied 500 terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, showed that over half of these involved agent provocateurs. Aronson concludes that the FBI, through the use of its 15,000 informants (many of them criminals), creates terrorists out of individuals who otherwise would not have turned to political violence.

The FBI benefits from the process of entrapping innocent people. In fact, every two months or so the FBI announces another high-profile arrest of a Muslim terrorism suspect, keeping the US on its war on terror footing and sustaining the multibillion-dollar homeland security industry.

It is important here to note, however, that the majority of people who are part of the national security state are not self-conscious ideologues as Arun Kundnani shows in his book The Muslims Are Coming. They likely do not have a sense that they play a part in reproducing empire, rather they see themselves as involved in keeping the American public safe. What is significant is that they operate in a climate in which the ‘Islamic threat’ is taken for granted, naturalized and seen as common sense.

This is how ideology operates; while there are ideologues that produce and disseminate ideas, most bureaucrats, media producers, and other agents of the imperial state are largely oblivious to these narratives, they nonetheless reify it through their activities.

Fighting anti-Muslim racism therefore involves not only organizing in the here and now against the far right, pushing back against discrimination, fighting for justice in cases of hate crimes, entrapment, racial profiling, racist convictions, imprisonment and deportations, but also having a long term vision. This vision must of necessity include the dismantling of empire and the class relations that sustain and benefit from it.




[1] Arun Kundnani develops here in more detail and depth the notion of Islamophobia as common sense or a lay ideology.






American Dream » Mon Feb 15, 2016 11:01 pm wrote:
Significant Update to "History of Violence" Timeline

We are currently living during a time when Islamophobia is a real danger in this country as the rhetoric targeting Muslims his becoming increasingly heated. In the timeline we've noted that violence towards Muslims and their places of worship have increased in number, especially during the contentious election campaign in which the then governing Conservatives attempted to use both the niqab and the Syrian refugee crisis as political wedge issue. Our concern is that the violence directed towards Muslim-Canadians will continue to escalate. In the meantime, the msm has started to look at the dangers of right-wing violence in the country, however this examination has been ridiculed by some on the right for not focusing on the "real" danger facing Canada: political Islamism.

Looking at the numbers, we would suggest that right-wing, racist inspired, violence is a very real danger. Since 1972 and based on data from the timeline, 40 people have been murdered by individuals tied to far-right extremism. Since September 12, 2001, there have been 18 people killed by individuals who hold far-right and extremist views. During the same period, individuals motivated by Islamic extremism accounted for three incidents in which religious reasons were a prime motivators. We can also discuss the numerous assaults, attempted murders, arson incidents, sexual assaults linked to right-wing extremism to prove that these people and groups really do pose a danger to individuals.

We are not minimizing the deaths of the three who lost their lives as a result of Islamic extremist actions nor are we suggesting that such extremism isn't of concern. We are suggesting that Islamic extremism isn't the only extremism that we should be trying to root out.

A second observation, still on the theme of Islamophobia, is the claim that Muslims are the only religious group (as if "Muslim" is monolith) to use violence which our readers will know is a historically ridiculous claim to make. Though it wasn't a part of our project, we were struck by the number of incidents in the Canadian Incident Database that puts the lie to that claim. Starting on January 27, 1960 and extending to the early 1980s, the Sons of Freedom engaged in a campaign of bombings focusing on both public and private property. Where the Son's of Freedom Muslim extremists? Nope. The Sons of Freedom were Doukhobors, a communal Christian community. And while they really did have some legitimate concerns the provincial government of BC and the federal government ignored, we're not sure that a campaign of bombing was the best way of seeking redress.

With that, we invite our readers to take a look at the improved timeline.


A History of Violence: 1960 - 2016
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:32 pm

David Duke, former KKK grand wizard: Voting against Trump is ‘treason against your heritage’

White nationalist and Former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, told his supporters Wednesday that voting for any candidate besides Donald Trump “is really treason to your heritage.”

voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage,” Mr. Duke said on the David Duke Radio Program, referring to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Buzzfeed News reported.


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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Sun Feb 28, 2016 1:05 pm

Yeah, Trump and "White" Nationalism are definitely part of a larger ecology:


http://boingboing.net/2016/02/27/violen ... x-kla.html

Violence erupts at Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim, home of Disneyland

XENI JARDIN / 2:46 PM SAT FEB 27, 2016

Image


In Anaheim, California, three people were stabbed, one critically, and several others were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally erupted in violence.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a “small group of people” claiming to represent the KKK put out the word this week they would hold a rally at Anaheim's Pearson Park at 1:30 p.m. today, Saturday. By 11 a.m. today, several dozen protesters showed up at the park to confront the racists.

About an hour later, several men in black garb with Confederate flag patches arrived and were escorted by police around the edge of the park.

Violence erupted and some of the counter-protesters could be seen kicking a man whose shirt read "Grand Dragon." At some point, a counter-protester collapsed on the ground bleeding, crying that he had been stabbed. A Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he "stabbed him in self-defense." Several other people were also handcuffed.

Witnesses said the Klansmen used the point of a flagpole as a weapon while fighting with counter-protesters.


And this part of the LA Times report is amazing:

Brian Levin, the director of CSU San Bernardino's Center for the study of hate and extremism, said he was standing next to the man in the Grand Dragon shirt when a crowd of protesters swarmed the Klansmen carrying weapons.

A brawl broke out and one of the Klansmen was knocked to the ground and kicked, and whose arm Levin said he later saw bleeding.

Levin said he pushed the Klan leader away as the violence continued and a protester was stabbed.

Levin said he asked the man, "How do you feel that a Jewish guy just saved your life?"

"Thank you," the man replied, according to Levin.


In related news, The KKK's longtime figurehead this week endorsed Donald Trump for president. As we've reported here previously, Donald Trump's father was probably a KKK supporter or member. Fred Trump, Sr., was reported by the New York Times to have been a participant at a KKK rally in New York in 1927 in which police officers were injured.

Backstory on today's white supremacist shitshow in Anaheim, at the Los Angeles Times: "Planned KKK rally today in Anaheim brings condemnation: 'It's really sad'"

The KKK has a long history in Southern California, as this Associated Press account of today's violence reminds us. Openly self-identified Klansmen held elected office in the Anaheim city government in the 1920s.

In January 2015, packets containing fliers condemning Martin Luther King, Jr. and supporting the Ku Klux Klan were left in the driveways of about 40 homes in Santa Ana, about 8 miles south of Anaheim. The baggies contained a KKK business card, rock and candy.

The fliers opened with the heading, “On Martin Luther King Day, you are celebrating a communist pervert.” The bottom of the fliers state they came from the “Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby kool maudit » Sun Feb 28, 2016 4:40 pm

So now the loudmouthed Manhattan real estate developer is a Southern Klansman from the Reconstruction era.

It is 'Super Tuesday' soon.

Let him be also an airborne virus, an ISIS commander, a werewolf on the distant moor.

Let him be a solar storm and a wormwood star in our very water.

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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Sun Feb 28, 2016 5:00 pm

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"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."
-Malcolm X
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby 8bitagent » Mon Feb 29, 2016 4:06 am

Reading about that new "Alt right" subculture online literally makes me want to vomit. Hats off to people who can stomach combing through that shit to disseminate
it, but it's just so beyond the pale. Im starting to see their "cuckservative/cucks" neo nazi lexicon being used in some mainline conservative and even some leftist circles online.

As much as I absolutely hate Ted Cruz, least he had the sense to say embracing the Klan and racist ideology(even tho Cruz definitely embraces dog whistle racism)
is abhorrent. What the heck was Donald Trump doing telling Jake Tapper on CNN that he didnt feel it was fair to bad mouth these groups? And then an hour later he's defending Mussolini.
Is this all part of some elaborate performance art prank, the ultimate troll mission to ruin the GOP and saying "psyche!" come the summer? Has there ever been a GOP front runner
in the last couple generations to openly embrace racialist groups? My fellow Bernie/leftist friends who are wrestling with viciously attacking Clinton online versus 'lesser of two evil'
vote choices in November are going to have a lot of soul searching to do
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby jakell » Mon Feb 29, 2016 5:06 am

8bitagent » Mon Feb 29, 2016 8:06 am wrote:Reading about that new "Alt right" subculture online literally makes me want to vomit. Hats off to people who can stomach combing through that shit to disseminate
it, but it's just so beyond the pale. Im starting to see their "cuckservative/cucks" neo nazi lexicon being used in some mainline conservative and even some leftist circles online.

As much as I absolutely hate Ted Cruz, least he had the sense to say embracing the Klan and racist ideology(even tho Cruz definitely embraces dog whistle racism)
is abhorrent. What the heck was Donald Trump doing telling Jake Tapper on CNN that he didnt feel it was fair to bad mouth these groups? And then an hour later he's defending Mussolini.
Is this all part of some elaborate performance art prank, the ultimate troll mission to ruin the GOP and saying "psyche!" come the summer? Has there ever been a GOP front runner
in the last couple generations to openly embrace racialist groups? My fellow Bernie/leftist friends who are wrestling with viciously attacking Clinton online versus 'lesser of two evil'
vote choices in November are going to have a lot of soul searching to do


I find this sort of thing expressed a lot on here, and it seems a bit 'overcooked' for a place that has looked closely at organised abuse of children for a long time (and other bad stuff)

I realise I became a bit inured to it by spending time amongst these folks (I needed to in order to function there), but it's not that difficult to develop a thicker skin, it's mainly ideology and ignorance in the abstract. It's unpleasant, but nowhere near as visceral.
I tend to see these expressions of disgust as a bit exaggerated and possibly about virtue signalling. In this I think we lose some perspective.
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby American Dream » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:09 am

Yeah, Nazis and skinheads can be really nice people, once you get to know 'em a little bit better...


ONE PEOPLE'S PROJECT

Eye-Gouging Nazi To Spend Up To 83 Years In Prison For Blinding Fellow Nazi
Sunday, 28 February 2016


ImageWe will never see Aryan Terror Brigade's Steven Masten (pictured) again. Thanks to him and Frank Casciano, neither will their former friend and fellow bonehead David Phillips!


READ MORE...
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Re: The Little Führer

Postby jakell » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:25 am

If you look closely AD, you will see that 8bitagent** was referring to "the new alt-right subculture online". Not really related to your silly splurge above.

It's called focusing, and is a necessary feature of practical anti-fascism . Your utterly careless handwaving and lack of rigour in accurately identifying issues is representative of what makes anitfa types ineffective and why they get ridiculed on here. You could address this, but continue to perform the haughty 'no platform' routine.

**Now corrected. I keep mixing you up with 82_28
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