Extreme Politics

The Conspiracy Comes Full Circle

2008-08-02T23:13:00.000-04:00

I recently came across this interesting article describing how a group of black criminal defendants in Baltimore have begun using the “flesh and blood” defense in their trial. This defensive legal technique, too complicated to fully describe here, holds that when the federal government charges you with a crime, they are actually charging a “straw man” legal representation of yourself. If you assert your rights as a real flesh and blood man, the government can no longer hold you. Of course, this is all a bunch of horsesh*t, as the federal judge presiding over the case has told the accused many times. What is truly ironic here is that the flesh and blood defense was originally concocted by white supremacists in the 1960’s, as is based on the idea that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution is invalid. If that is the case, according to the defendant’s arguments, the federal government has no right to charge them with crimes that did not occur on federal property. Apparently, white power prisoners in the Maryland prison system told some of their black counterparts about the theory. At that point, black prisoners began using the defense. As the judge in this case has pointed out, if the 14th Amendment is invalid, then the defendants may have no rights at all under the law, as that was the amendment that declared no person would be denied their legal rights on account of their race. Silly or not, the defendants’ arguments have appear to have had some effect. Rather than deal with all of the complications this defense would bring to the death penalty phase of a trial, prosecutors have decided not to seek the capital punishment, and are instead asking for sentences of life without parole.

Bob Barr Tells The White Supremacists Where To Stick It

2008-06-11T22:40:00.003-04:00

As previously mentioned on this page, Republican/Libertarian Ron Paul had become the favored presidential candidate of white supremacists in the US this year. Although of course libertarianism and fascism are about as far apart as two political ideologies can be, white racists admired Paul’s promise to cut all aid to Israel and end government programs such as affirmative action. Paul caught some flak for refusing to return a $500 donation given to him by Don Black, former Klansman and current owner of the white supremacist webpage Stormfront. Now that Paul has all but officially dropped out of the Republican race, some questioned if Bob Barr, another Republican/Libertarian, might pick up some of this support from the radical right. Barr recently won the Libertarian nomination for president, meaning that his name will appear on the ballot in most states. After a white supremacist columnist recently endorsed the Libertarian candidate, Barr’s campaign manager responded with a rather strongly worded statement:

“We do not want and will not accept the support of haters. Tell the haters I said don’t let the door hit you on the backside on your way out!

Anyone with love in their heart for our country and for every resident of our country regardless of race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation is welcome with open arms.”

As might be expected, the folks at Stormfront are not pleased.
Hats off to Barr for taking the strong stand that Ron Paul was unwilling to, but you have to wonder if he just alienated one of the few demographics in America that might have actually gotten behind his candidacy.

Extreme Politics Goes Semi-Regular

2008-06-01T21:30:00.000-04:00

As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I don’t post here as much as I used to. When I first started writing this thing three years ago (jeeze, has it been that long?) I was unemployed and morbidly interested in extremist politics. These days, I have a steady job and stay pretty busy. And while I’m still interested in the subject, I have moved onto other hobbies as well, so I can’t say this is my main interest anymore. As a result I’ve decided to stop regular posting. I will be writing up pieces whenever I come across what I consider to be a particularly interesting story, which could range from once a week to once a month or less. In the meantime, fell free to email me at extremepolitics * hot/mail dot com with any ideas for future posts.

Michael Savage: A Study In Chutzpah

2008-05-27T22:46:00.004-04:00

Michael Alan Weiner has led a colorful life. He grew up in the Bronx in a Russian Jewish family, and later earned a PhD. in herbal medicine. For years he made a living selling books on holistic treatments, spending his spare time hanging out with fellow beatniks like Alan Ginsberg. In the 1990’s Weiner underwent a radical political metamorphosis, and reinvented himself as the uber-offensive right-wing talk show host Michael Savage. Savage has a history of making very provocative statements, ranging from anti-gay (which got him fired from MSNBC) to anti-Jewish (which is not as strange as it sounds, given the history of anti-Semitism among Jews). He continued his over the top style this week by playing songs by the Dead Kennedys on his show in tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Savage has just made an interesting announcement, one that could have some very significant ramifications if he’s serious about it. Bemoaning the decline in conservative values within the Republican Party, Savage has announced plans to form his own political organization, which he is referring to as the Nationalist Party. He says the party’s platform will be based around “borders, language, and culture”, which can be translated as an ultra-nationalist, borderline fascist program. Not surprisingly, the real fascists on Stormfront are not impressed, claiming that this is just another trick by a wily Jew to discredit their movement. I tend to think this is all just another put on by Savage, and no concrete action will actually result. If I’m wrong, however, it could be very interesting, as there is in fact a huge reservoir of racist, homophobic, and Christian supremacist feelings among some white working class persons in America that no recent political party has been able to fully tap. Savage’s party could have the potential to become the Green Party of the right, acting as a spoiler in close contests and denying the Republican Party some victories.

I Take Some Time While Strom Gets His

2008-04-29T19:09:00.000-04:00

Given the extreme level of work I’m dealing with right now, I’ll be taking some time off from the blog. Until I return, comfort yourself with the knowledge that Kevin Alfred Strom (one time right-hand man of William Pierce and leader of the National Vanguard organization) plead guilty to one count of possession of child porn this week and was sentenced to 23 months in prison. See you later.

The Politics Of Desire

2008-04-15T19:19:00.000-04:00

Let’s say you like to be tied up and whipped. In our permissive culture, that’s all well and good. Sure, some of the old folks might give you some flack, but most of us would say “whatever floats your boat”. OK, so you’re a perv, but you have no reason to feel guilty, right? But what if you’re an anarchist? Does giving another person that kind of power over you violate your libertarian principals? What if you’re a feminist and you like having men do terrible things to you? What if you’re Jewish and you like your lover to wear a Nazi outfit while he “tortures” you? (As I’ve noted before, it’s surprising how many people are sexually attached to what should probably repel them.) In this article Liz Highleyman, being all of the above, attempts to determine if her sexual kinks are in line with her revolutionary and feminist outlook. She ultimately seems to decide that the answer is yes, but is still clearly uncomfortable with some of her own desires. One of the beautiful things about human sexuality in my opinion is its resistance to logical analysis, and its refusal to change itself despite the conscious wishes of the person in question. If all of these silly efforts by right-wing Christians to “rehabilitate” gays have shown us anything, it is that sexual preferences (regardless of if they are genetically or environmentally based) are nearly impossible to change, even if the person desperately wants to do so. So leftists like Highleyman eventually must make a choice: Deny themselves the sexual experiences they most desperately crave, or admit to themselves that desire simply does not respond to political arguments.

The Limits Of The Conspiracy Theory

2008-04-08T23:53:00.002-04:00

Extremist political ideologies are, at their core, big conspiracy theories. They describe a malevolent movement bent on world domination, which only enlightened members of the group in question can effectively counter. Who is behind the conspiracy differs depending on which group you’re talking about (Jews, capitalists, the anti-Christ, etc.) but the effect is the same. It therefore might surprise some people to know that extremist political groups in the US have for the most part rejected 9/11 conspiracy theories. In this article, lefty folk singer David Rovics describes his irritation at having members of the “9/11 Truth Movement” (who claim the US government was behind the attacks) show up at his concerts. He also notes that this group often targets well-known radicals like Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman and accuses them of being dupes of the system for refusing to see things their way. The neo-Nazis for there part have similarly rejected the claims of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. It would appear even the paranoia of political extremism has its limits.

Standing Tall Before The Man

2008-04-02T00:53:00.000-04:00

I recently came across this piece about an Earth Liberation Front (ELF) member who was facing some serious time in federal prison as the result of his teaching others how to make firebombs at an ELF gathering. The defendant explained to the judge that he has moved away from radicalism, has a family, and regrets many of his past actions. His statements impressed the judge, leading him to sentence the man to only one year in prison. In the comments section of the story, one anarchist berates the convicted environmentalist for retracting his previous statements when threatened with prison. Others support his actions, noting it was the only way for him to avoid lengthy incarceration. These arguments often spring up in the white power scene as well, when defendants must renounce their racism in order to curry favor with the judge. The hardliners will always claim this is a sellout of conviction. If you recant in the face of prosecution, how committed were you to the cause in the first place? Of course, it’s these same hardliners who upon conviction will have lots of extra time behind bars to consider the value of their ideological purity.

Bill White: Neo-Nazi Rebel Or Protected Informant?

2008-03-25T11:40:00.003-04:00

I’ve mentioned Bill White a few times previously on this site, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has just published a detailed biography on the man. He’s a true rabble-rouser, a white power activist who actually succeeds in pissing off and offending his fellow racists. His website, overthrow.com, has served for years as the Internet’s best source of gossip on the white supremacist scene. Some of what he printed was true, much of it not, but it was always entertaining. White has also acted as a disruptive force within racist organizations, most recently causing trouble within the National Socialist Movement, leading to his censure and resignation from the group. White has recently gained much media attention as a result of his online threats directed against just about anyone who displeases him, as well as the posting or his target’s phone numbers and home addresses. As the SHAC 7 found out a while ago, the federal government has recently shown no compunction in charging political activists with crimes as a result of posting online threats. This raises the question of why White has never been indicted as the result of his activities. One explanation is that he has been very lucky. The second is that he is an FBI informant. Given the recent revelation that the caustic racist Hal Turner was on the fed’s payroll, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a stretch to think that White might be cashing in on the same racket. Even if he is not in fact working for the government, they could hardly ask for a better ally than White, who has succeeded in disrupting the white nationalist movement in the US better than any other single individual.

John McCain Ponders A Running Mate

2008-03-17T19:16:00.003-04:00

Sorry to mention David Duke again, but I just found this bit of weirdness on the Internet and had to share. This site claims to be in favor of putting together a Republican Party “dream ticket”: John McCain and David Duke. There are a couple of ways to interpret this. It could all be a big joke, played by leftists intending to highlight McCain’s “fascist” attitudes. Similarly, it could be meant as an attack on the GOP nominee, hoping that some gullible voters accept the idea as plausible. The thing about satire and political attacks is that they are usually pretty easy to spot. Weather the object is humor or an attack, the writers always push it a little too hard, saying things that no serious author would suggest. Given the tone of this site, it’s either on of the most straight-faced parody pieces ever, or, more likely, it’s completely serious. Assuming they mean what they write, the site’s authors are clearly out of touch with political reality. The idea of McCain even accepting an endorsement from a known racist like Duke, let alone adding him to his ticket, is absurd. And for what it’s worth, Duke has said that given McCain’s stances on illegal immigration, Israel, and other racial issues, Duke would “put his fingers into a fire” before voting for him. So who will Duke support in the general election? He’s leaning towards Ralph Nader.

The Long, Strange Trip Of Chris McIntosh

2008-03-11T17:24:00.000-04:00

Extremist groups tend to attract persons who are somewhat unstable, and many members of these groups will in fact radically change their lifestyles over a very short period of time. Even more amazingly, some will do a complete 180-degree turn in their politics without a second thought. Consider the case of Chris “Dirt” McIntosh. He started off as an Earth Liberation Front/Animal Liberation Front terrorist, and was convicted in 2005 of firebombing a McDonald’s location in Seattle and sentenced to eight years in prison. He received support from the Earth Liberation Front prisoner network (ELP) as well as other anarchist organizations. After a few years, McIntosh began to downplay his anarchist connections while still appealing for correspondence and funds from the outside. He stated that he could not understand “why the foremost natural law – might makes right – is not held paramount [in the anarchist movement]. The fact we have no inherent rights other than what we conquer through our manifest physical will.” This is an unusual opinion within anarchist circles, given most anarchists’ egalitarian beliefs. Perhaps even more ominously, McIntosh stated, “Ignorant behavior finds some way to oppress you no matter where you turn and creates high race tension. I have fought hard and long to combat within myself the anger and hatred caused by this tension.” Given these statements, perhaps it is not surprising that the ELP recently urged its supporters to break off contact with him. The group claims that it has letters from McIntosh in which he “uses highly offensive racist language and referred to black people as ‘fucking mud people’. In his letters McIntosh talks about white supremacy and how he would be prepared to die for white supremacy. We understand he has also talked to other supporters about his belief in white supremacy.” Further, and perhaps most horribly, they claim that he has begun eating meat. The organization therefore declares “on the grounds that McIntosh is a racist, sexist, meat eating, white supremacist, who believes it is okay for the strong to bully the weak and it is okay for a man to rape a woman, ELP is permanently ending our support for Christopher 'Dirt' McIntosh.” Perhaps “Dirt” will find the support he’s looking for among the white supremacists he seems ideologically drawn to. They have their own prisoner support networks, and their women are often a bit better groomed.

In A Shocking Announcement, David Duke Declares He Will Not Support Barack Obama

2008-03-03T20:51:00.005-05:00

In what must be a great letdown for Barack Obama, former KKK leader and noted white nationalist David Duke today declared that he in fact will not be supporting the senator in his bid to become the first black president of the United States. Duke notes that while many persons take Obama at his word when he says he can unite all Americans, “…does Obama really mean it? Or, is it just another lie in what must qualify as the most hypocritical profession on earth: politics.” Duke, a former state representative, as well as a past candidate for the US Senate and presidency, went on to state that: “Compelling evidence shows that Barack Obama is an Afro-American whose ultimate loyalty is not to ‘all the people of the United States,’ but primarily to his fellow African-Americans.” Duke is admirable in pointing out that we must reject candidates for public office who espouse openly racist rhetoric. He rightly implies that a candidate who preaches a vision of racial harmony and togetherness should receive a rousing statement of support from the public, regardless of that person’s race or creed. Indeed, David Duke’s past actions and statements reveal a person deeply concerned with creating a nation in which all persons are equally accepted and loved, regardless of their race, religion, or political viewpoint.

The Changing Face Of Terrorism

2008-02-27T01:33:00.000-05:00

When most Americans hear the word “terrorism”, they probably think of al-Qaeda, and of course with good cause. But as this interesting article from the Associated Press notes, almost all of the terrorist actions carried out in this country after 9/11 were committed by American citizens, not foreign Muslim extremists (it appears likely that this is true even for the yet-unsolved anthrax mailings that directly followed the Sept. 11th attacks). Although none of these domestic terrorism cases come anywhere close to reaching the monstrous impact of the 2001 attacks (most of them are in fact property destruction incidents), they do illustrate that our most potent and potentially dangerous extremist elements come from within rather than from a foreign source.

The above article contains a link to the Terrorism Knowledge Base, an exhaustive listing of every major terror attack that has occurred in the world since the late 1960’s. It is interesting to note that excepting a couple of jihad-inspired incidents and attacks on anti-Castro groups in Florida, every terrorist incident recorded in the US after 9/11 can be attributed to the Earth Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Front, or a related organization. To be fair, none of these attacks involved any sort of personal violence, being merely property crimes. Still, this does make clear that the far left in the US is much more prone to direct action at this point than is the far right.

Extreme Book Reviews: Inside Out by Alexandra Stein

2008-02-19T12:00:00.003-05:00

OK you internet fiends, time to unglue your eyes from your monitor and read an actual print book. Alexandra Stein’s Inside Out: A Memoir of Entering and Breaking Out of a Minneapolis Political Cult is recommended for anyone who has a serious interest in political extremism or cults in general. Stein is a red diaper baby, raised by Communist activists. She drifted into the San Francisco leftist scene in the 1970’s, integrating herself into what was left of the radical underground there. Eventually, she came into contact with a mysterious group called simply the O. The O promised a strict system of internal discipline designed to turn its members into committed Maoist revolutionaries. Impressed with the group’s seemingly high levels of organization and purpose, Stein moved to Minneapolis to immerse herself completely in the O’s teachings. Separated from her family and friends, she soon came to depend on the group for her social as well as political needs. The rest of the book describes Stein’s journey from loyal member to questioning apostate, and her eventual separation from the group. The O was unusual in that it was a cult based on political rather than religious principals, and its leader was not particularly charismatic. (In fact, Stein did not so much as know the identity of the group’s leader until she was already in the process of leaving. Stein suggests that this leader, Theo Smith, may have been able to exert such control over his followers in part due to the fact that they were all white persons while he was an African-American man. The O may have been, to some extent, an extreme example of the power of white guilt.) The book does not only describe the inner workings of the cult, but also delves into Stein’s personal experience, allowing the reader to understand how an intelligent and perceptive young woman could come to surrender herself to a political organization so completely. These personal observations are what make the book such a pleasure to read, and what gives it such value to those studying the psychology of political extremism.

Food Not Bombs Learns The Dangers Of Democracy

2008-02-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

I’m sure Andrew Stankevich is a nice guy. He started a Food Not Bombs chapter in Rochester, NY several years ago with the aim of feeding the poor persons of that city. Mr. Stankevich’s operation became successful enough for him to open a distribution center/store called Friends Helping Friends. Everything went swimmingly until members of a violent black separatist cult called the Nation of Yahweh (NOY) began attending the organizational meetings. Apparently, the cultists were offended by a white activist running a non-profit institution in a predominantly black neighborhood. As Friends Helping Friends is run under a democratic model of organization, it was fairly easy to force Stankevich out. The NOY members simply packed the organizational meetings with their themselves and their supporters, then voted him off of the managing board based on bogus charges of embezzlement and attempted murder (!). If Stankevich was more familiar with how extremists operate, he might have seen this coming. The old Communists Party USA had a long history of taking over unions and other leftist organizations using this method, and recently the Sierra Club had to fend off an effort by anti-immigrant extremists trying to do the same thing. Stankevich has probably wisely decided to move on with his life and not challenge the NOY takeover. This whole episode however might serve as a good lesson for those trying to start grassroots organizations: Sometimes, democracy is overrated.

Richard Cohen Tries To Link Barack Obama to Louis Farrakhan (And Fails)

2008-02-04T18:42:00.001-05:00

I’m up to neck in stuff to do this week, so I’ll have to make due with a quick one here. Richard Cohen recently wrote an article trying to link presidential candidate Barack Obama to the noxious anti-Semitic cult-leader Louis Farrakhan. Obama had the integrity to make it plain that he despises all forms of anti-Semitism, particularly Farrakhan’s. In this he shows more backbone than most black leaders in America, who are usually all too egger to help make excuses for Farrakhan’s beliefs. For those of you who haven’t read it, here’s a piece I wrote many moons ago describing how incredibly complacent most African-American leaders are on this issue. Which might be one of the reasons none of them are serious presidential contenders, and Obama is.

Shunning Makes A Comeback

2008-01-29T11:46:00.001-05:00

I’ve been staying away from the topic of the religious right of late. It’s often times too difficult to differentiate between the true theocratic zealots (who qualify as political extremists) and those who are merely political conservatives who seek to work within the system for change (who are not). Having made that little disclaimer, I recently came across this article, which describes what I feel to be a disturbing and potentially monist trend within many conservative Protestant churches: shunning. Shunning occurs when a person is asked not to attend services at the church anymore, and parishioners are instructed to have no contact with the expelled individual. This sometimes occurs when the person in question has committed a serious sin (homosexuality, adultery, drug use) for which they refuse to repent. This is a very religiously suspect practice in the first place, but it becomes downright creepy when it is applied to persons whose only “sin” is disagreeing with church leaders. The article linked to above relates the story of an elderly lady who was hounded from her church when she insisted that the preacher should appoint a panel of deacons to oversee the church’s monetary affairs. The preacher claimed she was spreading “a sprit of cancer and discord” within the church. As more of the mainstream religious right churches move towards an openly theocratic orientation, this new application of shunning will be used to silence dissent and ensure that the megalomaniacal leaders in question will be able to lead their flocks in spiritual and political matters without question.

Apparently, It’s Now More Acceptable To Be A Pedophile Than To Be A National Socialist

2008-01-20T20:07:00.001-05:00

OK, this page is in danger of becoming the Neo-Nazi Freakshow Blog, so I’ll try to find another group to pick on come next week. In the meantime, I couldn’t help but comment on this one. Kevin Alfred Strom, one time right hand man of William Pierce, plead guilty this week to a single count of possession of child pornography. In return, prosecutors dropped the remaining charges against him. Considering that Strom was at one time a fairly big player in the white power scene (he even had his own group, the now-defunct National Vanguard), this is of course yet another rather embarrassing chapter in the history of the Aryan struggle. Most of the big racist sites aren’t commenting on the affair, although a few sad individuals on Stormfront are still claiming the existence of a dark anti-racist conspiracy in the case. Perhaps most amusingly, Strom has expressed concern that he may be targeted in prison for his political beliefs, and has strongly stated that he has never been a “white supremacist” or a “neo-Nazi”. Strom’s estranged wife Elisha summed it up pretty well when she said, “The thing I kind of wonder more about is that he doesn’t seem upset that he’s being called a pedophile, but he has a problem being called a neo-Nazi”. Last time I checked, white power people in prison usually don’t have too many problems (think of the Aryan Brotherhood). Child-lovers, on the other hand, don’t tend to do as well.

Hal Tuner Is Working For The FBI-Why Am I Not Surprised?

2008-01-15T02:01:00.000-05:00

I’ve rarely mentioned Hal Turner on this site before. He used to run a white power internet radio show out of New Jersey that was know for its especially extreme racist rants. Turner regularly threatened to kill his political opponents, and urged others to do the same. Because of his open calls for violence, he was shunned by most other white power groups, and often operated alone. These other racist organizations were no doubt afraid that they might be caught up in a federal case against Turner if they associated with him. Oddly, despite his strident call for the murder of federal judges and others, he was never charged with a crime. The reason for this legal immunity became more clear last week after a group of unnamed hackers got access to Turner’s e-mail account, where they found messages sent between him and his FBI handler. Turner tells his FBI contact about a threat made against a US senator in the comment section of his website, along with the poster’s ISP address. Turner notes, “Once again, my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy.” In another of the e-mails, he allegedly discusses receiving payment for his services to the feds. There are a couple of reasons to suspect that the alleged e-mails are authentic. First, as already mentioned, Turner has never been charged with a crime as the result of his online threats. Second, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported the story as fact. Not that the SPLC is a completely reputable group, but they usually do a good job with their fact checking. Third and perhaps most important, shortly after this story came out Turner quit his radio show, saying that he would have no more contacts with the “pro-white” movement.

This story has several interesting elements to it. As events over the last few years have shown, federal informants have heavily infiltrated the white power scene in the US. This incident will serve to intensify the already extreme paranoia of the racist right in this country. Also, as some people have pointed out, this is a rather unusual use of taxpayer money. As a result of Turner’s cooperation, the FBI no doubt obtained the identities of a couple of the obnoxious loudmouths who post threats on online message boards. But how many lone wolf racists (the ones who are intelligent enough not to express their opinions online) were influenced or inspired by these radio broadcasts? When this case is finally settled, the FBI may have a bit of explaining to do.

Nazi Skinheads Are Scumbags

2008-01-06T20:55:00.000-05:00

As regular readers of this blog have likely figured out, I’m not a big fan of white nationalists in general. Genocidal ambitions aside, they tend to be a personably unlikable bunch. But I will admit that occasionally a reasonably intelligent white supremacist thinker like William Pierce or James Mason emerges who actually has something interesting to say. However, the neo-Nazi skinhead movement has, throughout its existence, attracted the kind of individuals one is likely to meet at a cockfighting event or a Methamphetamine Anonymous meeting. Consider this story from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report (which is always a good source for the latest racist gossip). It details the sad story of Amanda Crow, a teenage girl of questionable judgment who got tied up with a crew of Arizona Nazi skins. (I’m not sure why, but that state has a history of producing particularly noxious examples of white power skinheads.) When her fellow Aryans suspected she might become a police informant, they severely beat her and slashed her throat in the presence of her children, then left her for dead in the desert. Crow managed to survive the assault, and her attackers have been sentenced (or will shortly be sentenced) to lengthy prison terms. This blazing stupidity and utter lack of respect for human life are typical of the Nazi skinhead subculture. Unfortunately, our society still contains a large enough population of genetically deficient rednecks to ensure that this movement will continue to exist for the foreseeable future.

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

2007-12-31T19:37:00.000-05:00

Last week I talked about the list of the awards the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) gave to America’s worst bigots in 2007. Several persons commented on the Hatewatch site in response to the awards, including a couple posters claiming to be among the recipients. These comments contain the usual amount of venom one sees when white supremacists comment on the SPLC. As I’ve commented before on this page, some of this animosity seems a bit misplaced. Surely, both sides do have some cause for complaint. Members of racist groups do in fact occasionally commit hate crimes, including acts of violence (although these acts make up a tiny percentage of the total violence that occurs in the US). And the SPLC sometimes files civil suits with the aim of putting white power groups out of business, as well as providing law enforcement agencies with information on the groups they monitor. But when you look at the big picture, you see that extremist groups and the SPLC in fact depend on each other to make their operations possible.

The SPLC is, like most “non-profits”, essentially a for-profit business. The group currently has a treasury bulging with $168,000,000, although its expenditures for its various programs were only $19,000,000 last year. Morris Dees and the Center’s other higher-ups pull in yearly salaries of over $200,000. The only reason the SPLC is able to draw in such huge amounts of money is that they are able to convince wealthy leftists that only large donations to the Center will avert an immanent fascist takeover of America. Their alarmist reporting greatly exaggerates the threat posed by white nationalists in the US, while ignoring more serious threats such as foreign-based terrorism and anarchist violence. If all of the white power groups the SPLC regularly criticizes were to suddenly cease to exist, the Center would be unable to effectively raise funds, and its employees would eventually have to go out and find real jobs. The continued existence of a white nationalist underground is clearly in their interest.

The radical right relies on the SPLC and groups like it for something they value as much (if not more so) than money: Publicity. Consider the chapter of Young Americans for Freedom based at Michigan State University (YAF-MSU). This is a tiny organization, with probably about ten active members at this point. The group has attracted some attention through its sheer obnoxiousness. It has invited neo-fascists like Nick Griffin and Jim Gilchrist to speak at the university, as well as distributed semi-racist flyers around campus. However, the YAF-MSU chapter has never been linked to any acts of violence, and confines it activities to the campus grounds. Despite this, the SPLC made a big deal about adding the organization to its listing of hate groups, and even published a lengthy article on them in their latest Intelligence Report. This has done wonders for the YAF chapter, which went from being a fairly obscure white supremacist group to being nationally known. Keeping in mind that most extremist groups see any publicity as good publicity, you can’t pay for this sort of coverage. So despite all of the white power bitching about the SPLC’s actions, theses organizations actually owe them a debt of thanks for bringing their obscure sects to the public’s attention.

So in the holiday spirit of forgiveness and love, let’s see a truce. Why can’t Bill White and Morris Dees sit down at a table somewhere and have some beers? They could acknowledge their debt to each other and plot on ways to drum up even more money and publicity in the New Year to come.

A List Of Our Favorite Bigots Of 2007

2007-12-23T21:51:00.000-05:00

As we get ready to say goodbye to 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center has complied a somewhat amusing list of the most pathetic right wing extremists of this year. The biggest perv award goes to Kevin Strom, who certainly deserves it, although the recently deceased David Lane comes in a close second (strange how the band Prussian Blue seems to bring out the hidden pedophile in racists). Bill White gets the award for most obnoxious extremist, with Fred Phelps as runner up. (When even white power people can’t stand your presence, you’ve crossed some kind of line). Most unlikely white supremacist award goes to H.K. Edgerton, a KKK supporter from Alabama who is, unusually, black. (Check out this clip from the Dave Chappell Show for his send-up of Edgerton.) Creepiest therapist award goes to Richard Cohen, who “cures” men of their homosexuality by giving them “healing touches” (no comment). And finally, the most surprising hate group award goes to the Alabama Christian Klan, who claims to be against bigotry. My only addition to the list would be the best transition from theocratic preacher to full-on anti-Semitic conspiracy-monger award, which would undoubtedly go to Texe Marrs. Happy holidays, everybody.

A Cautionary Tale From Extremist History

2007-12-18T16:06:00.001-05:00

In the early 1970’s the Twin Cities area of Minnesota boasted an impressive leftist scene. A big part of this scene was the network of cooperatively owned businesses (co-ops) that existed in the area at the time. The main thrust of the co-ops was food distribution. They sold bulk foods and health foods at low prices, with the aim of strengthening the sense of neighborhood community and forwarding leftist politics. The Twin Cities even had co-op print shops, hardware stores, and clothing stores. Everything went well until, as so often happens in leftist movements, the Communists showed up. In this case the commies in question were a group known as the “O”, a bizarre and secretive group of Maoists who were led by an enigmatic political con artist named Theo Smith. Smith decided he wanted the food co-ops for his own economic projects and ordered their seizure, thus starting what became later known as “The Co-op Wars”. O members stormed many of the food co-ops in the Twin Cities, expelling the former workers and beating anyone who resisted. Since the co-ops had no official owners, it was difficult for the groups that originally started the collectives to legally force the Communists out. The leftist hippies instead started a consumer boycott of O controlled businesses, which was pretty effective. By the early 80’s, all of the O controlled co-ops were closed. As a result of all of this, the radical potential of the Twin Cities co-op movement was destroyed. The co-ops had to set up a legal structure of ownership to prevent more takeovers, and those who advocated revolutionary politics within the co-ops were discredited by the violent actions of the O. Today, the few co-ops left in the Twin Cities are little different from the mainstream health food stores they compete with. The O continued to exist as a political cult for many years after their setbacks in the 1970’s, sucking in new members and continuing to serve Smith’s megalomaniacal interests. I’ll return to that story later.

Political Cults-Extremism Taken To Its Logical Extreme

2007-12-10T23:10:00.000-05:00

I recently came across this interesting piece by a former member of a Trotskyite sect in the UK called the Committee for a Workers’ International. Now in academia, the author argues that in some cases, fringe political organizations such as the one he was part of can become a cult, similar in many ways to the religious cults most people are more familiar with. If you remember my definition of political extremism (a group with a monistic political outlook that seeks to suppress all other viewpoints), then it becomes easy to see how an extremist group could degenerate into a cultish mindset. These political cults extend their rejection of mainstream culture into a rejection of all personal contact with non-members, leading to the group taking complete control of not only their members’ political lives, but their personal lives as well. Adherence to the groups’ doctrines dictates that all communications with corrupted non-members must be cut off as a sign of loyalty. Soon, the members come to rely so strongly on the organization for social and emotional support that they cannot imagine life outside of it. At that point, the organization can make extraordinary demands on their members’ lives that would be rejected by more casual adherents. Most of the groups that could be described as political cults in the US have been Communist sects such as the Weathermen, the Democratic Workers Party, and the mysterious “O” group of Minneapolis (more on them later). There have been a few exceptions to this, such Lyndon LaRouche’s group (which started out as a Communist organization, and later morphed into a semi-fascist outfit). Several persons who were associated with Ayn Rand’s inner circle later described it as cult-like, and today the Ayn Rand Institute displays some distinctly cultish traits. Christian Identity Churches exist as both religious and political cults in many cases. Political cults, rare as they are, represent the logical end for groups who espouse a “sacred truth” and seek to separate themselves from, and in effect destroy, the corrupted mainstream world.

The Young Americans For Freedom Live To Piss People Off

2007-12-05T23:38:00.000-05:00

Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) was formed in 1960 with the help of National Review publisher William F. Buckley. It was meant to be a youth organization for conservatives on college campuses. Over the years, YAF drifted further and further to the right, embrace a form of ultra-conservatism that alienated it from the Republican Party. By the mid-1990’s, the group had ceased to exist as an organized party, with surviving chapter operating independently. One of these chapters, at Michigan State University (MSU), has been stirring up considerable controversy on campus lately. They have invited speakers such as Chris Simcox (a leader in the anti-illegal immigrant Minutemen Project) and Nick Griffin (leader of the fascist British National Party) to speak on campus. Their website and blog are also designed to provoke, with lots of video clips from speeches by Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo, as well as links to the website of the Jewish Task Force, a terrorist organization. All of this has earned the MSU chapter of YAF the dubious distinction of being the only collegiate organization to be named as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. I myself am glad to know that if communism should raise its ugly head in Michigan, the YAF will be there (as the above illustration from their website shows) to smash the symbols of Marxism with big hammers.

White Power People Are Easily Offended

2007-11-28T01:02:00.001-05:00

I recently found this article online detailing how many middle aged divorced women from Britain have been traveling to Kenya for the purpose of meeting young African men for sex. While reading it, I considered how upset my white supremacist brethren would be when they caught wind of this, seeing as that interracial sex (particularly involving white women and black men) seems to be a sore spot with them. Sure enough, within hours I found this post on Stormfront that has whopping fourteen pages of comments from bitching and moaning neo-Nazis. Some of my favorite quips were:

“Most sickening story I've heard this morning. Those women who do it so they can have sex should be hanged. Old age is about peace and reflecting on his/her past life and being smart. Not becoming a sex fiend/whore.”

Another poster holds onto a tenuous sliver of hope:

“I wonder if any of these women are jewish women?? They may be jews! Jewish people are always described as "White"... so I'm hoping for the best here!”

And finally, one of them points out the obvious conclusion in all of this:

“White women are definitely [sic] the weak link of the white race.”

Maybe the white power people should start advocating an Islamist approach to the problem: Keep these “weak” white women confined to their family’s homes until they can be put into arranged marriages. That appears to be the only way to keep them away from the temptations of black flesh.

Thanksgiving Break

2007-11-20T23:25:00.000-05:00

I’m taking this week off, I’ll be back next Mon.

The KKK Comes Out Against Hate

2007-11-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

This piece has been making the rounds on lefty blogs lately, but it’s just too good a story not to repeat here:

“Days after the Cullman City Council approved a permit request by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to assemble in front of the courthouse, members of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan announced their group's intent to be there as well.

The Times received an email from Ken Mier, who identified himself as an investigator for the Alabama Klan and the national office of the Ku Klux Klan LLC. Mier said his group is different from the Church of the National Knights and is against that organization's protest tactics.

"There are many differences between our organizations that can obviously be noticed," he said in his correspondence. "We are the real Klan and descendants of the original non-violent Klans-people."

Mier said members of the Alabama Klan were part of a silent protest at the National Knights rally held in Athens in September.

"We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment," he said. "We were very vocal and apologetic to the City of Athens' Police Chief in pointing out that we were disgusted that (the National Knights) would interfere with the Trail of Tears ride."

It’s worth noting that I have been unable to track down a website linked to the aforementioned Alabama KKK. It’s quite possible that the group is a joke put on by anti-racist activists (as has been suggested by a few white power people). Even if that turns out to be the case, it’s still a funny.

Fred Phelps Finally Has To Pay Up

2007-11-06T23:16:00.000-05:00

I’m truly surprised this hasn’t happened before. Fred Phelps and his degenerate family have just been slapped with a judgment of almost $11,000,000 as a result of a protest they held at the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. It seems that the jury didn’t by the free speech argument, and believed the dead soldier’s father when he claimed the groups’ vile anti-gay protest had in fact caused him emotional distress. Of course, Phelps doesn’t have anywhere close to that kind of cash, but his church and all of its assets could be seized in order to satisfy the judgment. I would guess that Phelps will appeal the judgment, and may succeed in getting the amount reduced. If not, you can expect him to continue his perverse crusade with a more limited budget, and hopefully with a reduced presence around the country.

Christian Supremacists May Not Get Their Way-Threaten To Throw Fit

2007-10-30T23:32:00.000-04:00

It becomes more and more apparent as time goes on that Rudy Giuliani may in fact turn out to be the Republican Party’s candidate for president in 2008. This does not set well with the fanatical Christian wing of the party, given the fact that Giuliani is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-gun control. When Christian right leaders recently met at a gathering of their secretive organization Council for National Policy (CNP), the consensus was to withhold support from Giuliani if he becomes the party’s nominee, and possibly field a third party challenger against him. More pragmatic members of the GOP point out that such a move would virtually guarantee a Clinton victory. But as James Dobson (a key CNP leader) points out, this a matter of morals for the Christian far right, not one of political expediency:

“Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson's – Dobson's? – choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran – or if worse comes to worst – not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else.”

Randall Terry, a rabid anti-abortion leader, recently stated that he would in fact prefer a Democratic presidential triumph in 2008 rather than see Rudy Giuliani emerge victorious:

“As President Giuliani would be the de-facto head of the GOP; he would systematically destroy the political power of the pro-life movement within the GOP; he would pressure the party to take the pro-life plank out of the party platform; he would declare the "abortion issue" is divisive, and should not be part of federal races; he would make the GOP the mirror image of the DNC regarding child-killing, thus insuring that there is no pro-life party…An enemy outside your camp makes you vigilant; an enemy in your tent makes you dead. Hillary would unite us, and she could be defeated in 4 years; Giuliani would destroy the cohesion of the right wing.”

Pat Buchanan, a key leader on America’s extreme right, perhaps put it most eloquently when he described why he could never support Giuliani, and neither should the GOP:

“A Giuliani presidency would represent repudiation by the party of the moral, social and cultural content that, with anti-communism, once separated it from liberal Democrats and defined it as an institution. Rudy offers the right the ultimate Faustian bargain: retention of power at the price of one's soul.”

Earth First! Is Not Redneck Friendly

2007-10-24T00:37:00.000-04:00

Here’s a short one to hold you over till next week. This is an interesting piece written by an Earth First! (EF) member complaining that while the organization has recently made efforts to make transsexuals feel welcome, regular working class “rednecks” have been forced out by the middle class anarchists who make up the bulk of the membership. As the author notes:

To be an EF!er now (in some circles) apparently you have to be white, middle class, wear black, be angry all the time, shoplift, bathe irregularly, be in your 20s, have no sense of humor and in general walk so lockstep with the new groupthink that you lack that any real diversity or individuality.

He also observes that elitism aside, there are some good reasons to include non-anarchists in Earth First!:

Who is more likely to know how to take apart a CAT dozer? A good ole boy who can field strip a 1970 Ford Engine in his sleep? Or an alienated suburban product of the white middle class?

Of course, the story of what has happened to EF could be used to illustrate the absurdity of the contemporary American anarchist movement in general. Middle class white kids playing dress-up while completely rejecting the working class persons they are supposedly trying to liberate.

The One Thing White Supremacists And Hippie Peaceniks Can Agree On: Ron Paul

2007-10-17T00:08:00.001-04:00

White power people really, really like Ron Paul. Although the libertarian Texan congressman’s presidential campaign has barely made a dent in Republican polls, the folks at Stormfront and similar white supremacist message boards think he’s the candidate who best represents their interests. The American Nazi Party’s candidate for president has even been complaining that American neo-Nazis have abandoned him in favor of the feisty Texan. This may sound a bit odd, as libertarianism and fascism are about as diametrically opposed as two political ideologies can be. It probably has to do with Paul’s distain for the IRS, the CIA, and the war in Iraq, all of which are unpopular among white power groups as well. The borderline racist comments that Paul has made on his blog over the years probably helps too. This is not to say that he’s a white supremacist himself (in fact, he has written anti-racist articles before); he’s just never seen fit to publicly acknowledge or repudiate the strong support he receives from racist groups. Even more strangely, this icon of the far right has recently been drawing some support from persons on the far left who admire his desire for a quick withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, unlike the slow pullout favored by most Democrats. It seems that at least for people on the political fringes, Ron Paul can in fact be all things to all people.

Hail Bill Riccio!

2007-10-09T21:35:00.001-04:00

Back in 1993, I caught a documentary on TV called “Skinheads USA: Soldiers of Hate”. The film focused on the exploits of one Bill Riccio, a rather offish skinhead leader from Alabama. In addition to being a rather unsavory character in general, Riccio had the unusual habit of surrounding himself with pubescent boys, all of who idolized him as their skinhead den father. At the time I thought he looked like a pedophile. Not surprisingly, I was right. Those reliable muckrakers at the Southern Poverty Law Center recently issued an article which includes testimony from the now grown men who were once among Riccio’s circle of skinheads (tellingly, they were all interviewed from prison). They recount several incidents in which Riccio attempted to or succeeded in sodomizing them. Riccio for his part brushes off the claims, stating that they are being made by bitter former associates who are trying to discredit him. Check out this clip from the aforementioned documentary and decide for yourself.

At Last…An Essay That Explains Why Communism Doesn’t Work, Why Capitalism Kind Of Does, And Why The Hippies Were Right

2007-10-03T00:59:00.001-04:00

The ideas put forward in this essay by David Wong are by no means new. People have been suggesting for a long time that human beings just can’t relate to each other on a species-wide level, and we would all be better off living in small communities that have little contact with the outside world. What Wong does is to put this idea forth in an easy to read, humorous article that can be understood and appreciated by persons who do not spend the majority of their spare time studying arcane political texts. Wong notes that Communism was doomed to failure because it asked people to make sacrifices for other people they’d never met, while ignoring their individual needs. Capitalism works on some level because it allows people to keep at least a part of what they create and share it with the people they care most about, their family. Of course, to really live in a way that makes sense in Wong’s worldview, we should probably all move to small-scale communes were we can form trusting, meaningful relationships with a fairly small group of people. Seeing as how the only commune I ever spent time at had no flush toilets, I don’t know if that’s a good solution for me (or for most of the people in this society, who have grown quite used to their expensive technological toys that can only be produced by a huge societal unit like this one). So I guess we’ll just have to get used to the idea that we’ll never come to love all of our brothers and sisters out there, nor they us. The best we can reasonably hope for is that they won’t kill us.

Oh, and for another taste of Wong’s rather depressing take on the human psyche, check out this piece were he pretty effectively demolishes the concept of free will. Later, you automatons.

Bill White May Have Finally Gone Too Far

2007-09-25T22:35:00.001-04:00

Bill White is a man with a twisted past. Starting out in his teen years as an anarchist, he slowly made a political 180-degree tern, ending up as a rabid National Socialist. He now runs overthrow.com, a website devoted to publishing some the most vile racism to be found on the internet. White has never been afraid to push the envelope, but he may have finally taken things a bit too far. He recently posted the home addresses and phone numbers of five of the six young black men referred to in the media as the “Jena 6”. As SHAC found out the hard way, posting people’s personal information on the internet with the intention of causing them physical harm is a crime in the U.S. White may soon face such charges, as the FBI is looking into his website and considering legal action. Even most other white supremacists have distanced themselves from him, feeling he has become an embarrassment to the cause. There should be some kind of special award for people who get kicked out of the white power scene for being too offensive.

Going Undercover Among The Stinky

2007-09-18T23:09:00.000-04:00

I recently came across this interesting article on a young woman who went undercover to spy on anarchists for the FBI. After attending an anti-globalization demonstration dressed in “grunge” clothing for a school project, she was recruited by the Bureau to attend anarchist gatherings and protests and report on any criminal activity she witnessed. To play the part the woman dressed in, as she put it, the “dirtiest, smelliest” clothes she could find and dyed her hair in all of the primary colors. She eventually fell in with a group of young anarchists who were planning bomb attacks on environmentally damaging targets in California. The unnamed young lady collected over $30,000 for her labors, and then disappeared back into the mainstream world. And do you want to hear the really funny part? She met the motley crew of would-be bombers at an anarchist conference in Des Moines, Iowa. The main item on the conference’s agenda was "sharing skills on how to spot undercover law enforcement people."

Nazis Spark Fear, Loathing, And Lust Among Israelis

2007-09-12T22:11:00.001-04:00

I wrote a post a couple of months back on the small Nazi skinhead culture that has sprung up in Israel. Persons from the former Soviet Union are allowed to immigrate to Israel if they can prove they have as little as one-eight Jewish ancestry. This means that there is a group of young persons in the country who have no real connection to Judaism and Jewish culture, and who sometimes harbor anti-Semitic beliefs. The first major skinhead bust in Israel took place this week. Eight young persons were arrested and charges with vandalizing synagogues with Nazi graffiti as well as attacking orthodox Jews on the street. If all of this seems a little weird, take a look at this article I came across detailing the now-dormant genre of Nazi porn that was once popular in the Jewish state. It seems that in the 1960’s, pornography was very difficult to obtain in that country. To satisfy the demand for erotic material, some Hebrew-language publishing houses in Israel began to churn out paperbacks that allegedly described the horror of the death camps. In fact, these fictionalized accounts dwelt of sadistic tortures melded out to male prisoners by female SS officers. The books usually concluded with the male prisoners breaking lose then raping and killing their former tormentors. (These books might well have been the inspiration for the vile Nazi exploitation film genre of the 1970’s). The idea of a Jewish Israeli man being sexually aroused by thoughts of Nazi torture would of course be both ethically and politically bizarre. This just goes to show that sometimes, sexuality trumps politics.

Wiley Drake Calls Down The Wrath Of God

2007-09-03T02:37:00.000-04:00

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is a watchdog group that monitors the activities of the religious right in the United States. As might be expected, some of the Christian Supremacists who are targeted by AU’s investigations are less than happy with the organization. Take Wiley Drake, pastor of a small Baptist church in California. Upon receiving complaints that Drake had endorsed Republican Mike Huckabee for president on the church’s official website, AU asked for an IRS investigation of the church. (Churches can lose their tax-exempt status if they become directly involved in elections.) Rather than directly address the charges AU had brought against him, Drake responded with a call for Christians to engage in an “Imprecatory Prayer” directed at AU’s leadership. An imprecatory prayer is a now little-used Christian prayer intended to bring God’s righteous wrath upon a deserving sinner. That wrath is usually assumed to take the form of the death of the person being targeted. Of course, this only played into AU’s hands, as they now have yet another example of religious right wackiness with which to tar the entire Christian Right. Even Mike Huckabee’s campaign felt obligated to issue a press release condemning Drake’s statement. Last I checked, AU’s staff had not suffered any instances of death or pestilence. Either they aren’t praying hard enough, or God doesn’t feel that this case really warrants a smiting.

It Could Be Worse-We Could Be In Russia

2007-08-26T20:17:00.000-04:00

As much as I bitch about the nefarious acts of political extremists in the United States, I’m the first one to admit that it’s quite a bit worse in other parts of the world. Take Russia for example. The Ruskies still can’t come to grip with the fact that they’re no longer a superpower, so there has been a real explosion of racist and ultranationalist groups in the country in recent years, all promising to return the Motherland to the glory days of the USSR. As absurd as the idea of a Russian Nazi is, there has been a real upsurge in fascist skinhead activity recently, making life even harder on the country’s small population of homosexuals and racial minorities. A group of skinheads recently attacked an anarchist camp in Siberia, killing one person and severely injuring several others. Most disturbing was the fact that the local authorities seemed to be supportive of the attack, as the anarchists in question had recently been launching a series of protests against a nearby power plant. Even more unsettling than these sporadic skinhead attacks is the Nashi organization, which is Vladimir Putin’s own Hitler Youth knock-off. The annual Nashi gathering in Russia this year drew 10,000 nationalist youngsters. The organizers encourage their members to marry early and have many children, in an effort to counter Russia’s rapidly falling population. They even encourage pre-marital sex, while of course providing nary a single condom to the assembled horny kids. Nashi also functions as Putin’s personal thug squad. After the American ambassador to Russia met with political dissidents, Putin’s government gave Nashi a copy of the ambassador’s travel schedule. Nashi members were then present at all of his stops, accosting him on the street and demanding that he “apologize” to the Russian people for his actions. When this generation grows up, the Kremlin will have a dedicated chunk of the population that will be willing to obey their orders without question, and defend their interests by whatever means necessary. I am indeed lucky to be an American.

Prussian Blue Is Very Popular With Imprisoned Pedophiles

2007-08-20T00:13:00.001-04:00

I while back I wrote a piece on the musical horror that is Prussian Blue. The 15-year-old twins Lynx and Lamb Gaede continue to garner mainstream press coverage and rave reviews in white power circles. In my last post on them, I mused that it would be interesting when the girls hit their rebellious phase and began to question the National Socialist drivel handed to them by their mom April. That day has apparently come. For some inscrutable reason, April Gaede allowed a British journalist to film the family at home over a period of several months. The resulting documentary “Nazi Pop Twins” is, as might be expected, rather scathing. It shows a couple of fairly normal teenage girls who are increasing uncomfortable with their family’s weirdness, but unwilling to defy their manipulative mother directly. The creepiest scene comes when the family gets onto a speakerphone with David Lane, the recently deceased white power author who was at the time serving a 190-year prison term. Lane remarks that while he used to regard the girls cute kids, now that they have reached puberty they are his “fantasy sweethearts”. This remark and other suggestive comments elicit no reaction from April or the twins. One might guess that the girls are used to this sort of treatment, having been ogled by drunken skinheads at white power festivals for years now. There does seem to be some glimmer of hope, as the twins appear to be rejecting some of their mom’s more radical positions. They are also beginning to write apolitical pop songs, much to April’s chagrin. Their maternal grandmother also seems to be acting as positive influence, describing how here family’s political beliefs have made her and the girl’s lives miserable. April Gaede has written a missive on Stormfront in which she claims that the film’s director edited several scenes in misleading ways, and that her mother’s comments should not be taken seriously, as the woman is suffering from Alzheimer’s (she seems pretty lucid in the interviews). I for one will most solemnly pledge that if the twins eventually reject their mother and her teachings, I will cease mocking them on this site.

The Debate Continues

2007-08-13T21:27:00.000-04:00

Not satisfied with my response to his last letter (see the previous post), my left-leaning comrade saw fit to write a reply to my reply. An edited version follows:

Firstly, I’m happy that my definition of leftism meets with your approval. However, I’m still curious if these are standard ways of defining left and right within political science, or if political scientists even discuss things on such a level. Although these definitions appear accurate to me, I wonder how right-wing people define the right and left, for to say that the left is that force in history that promotes equality and the right is the force that attempts to preserve inequality sounds like characterizations that right-wing folk might not accept. But maybe they would? What do you know about these things?

Secondly, I think of the left and the right as having to do with values. The left values equality, the right values hierarchies of one sort of another. The right appears to me to be very culturally relative and constantly changing its mind as to the basis of the hierarchies that it accepts. It used to be bloodlines that justified superiority, or sex, or race, or religion, or sexuality. Now, although traces of all of these prejudices remain, they seem to favor the idea of meritocracy…

So if you are criticizing leftists for advocating violence, I think you need to criticize their tactics, but not the values of leftism in general. Personally, I’m for attacking any ineffective, unpractical tactic. Sometimes what is not practical is violence – but sometimes violence is exactly what is called for. Sometimes what is not practical is non-violence – but sometimes that is exactly what is called for…

You wrote, “I think our main point of disagreement is on the historical record of radical leftism. You seem to see it as generally positive. I would describe it as uniformly dismal.” I’m going to need more evidence to accept this… for it seems quite appropriate to me to refer to Quakers, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to cite a few examples, as “radical leftists.” And I guess Gandhi’s and King’s actions were surrounded by violence, but they were not causing violence so much as simply exposing to the world a hidden but very real violence so that it could no longer be ignored and thus accepted.

So anyway, I do not have any problems with “extremism.” Extremism more often than not seems to be a word that refers to logical consistency or the ability to see past the prejudices of one’s culture… Usually when I hear people advocate moderation or a middle ground, they appear to be doing so out of laziness. They don’t want to go to all the trouble of figuring out the merits of various ideas on their own ground, and just seek an easy and thoughtless compromise that would appear to be the least offensive or controversial position to take. In fact, a moderate position is usually one that accepts any number of unjustifiable cultural prejudices. Moderates make me angry as they seem to embody sloth and bigotry, and uphold that as some sort of supreme value that trumps the evil extremism of people who are actually going to the trouble to think things through.

So, to the extent that extremism is relative, it is mostly a meaningless term but tends to indicate people who are more willing than others to think deeply through things and try to be logically consistent. The term, “purist,” however, is not relative and generally indicates very dangerous and simple-minded individuals. A purist is unable to distinguish their heart from their head, their ideals from the practical limitations of the real world. Teenagers tend not to be able to do this and thus you find a lot of dangerous purists among them. Some people never grow out of this stage… Purity is bad, bad, bad. It is counter-productive. It refuses to change its mind, to look at the actual real world around it, to compromise. It could also be called “absolutism.” Those who call for either violence or non-violence at inappropriate times would tend to be, I believe, purists. People who are anarchists because they have leftist values, but refuse to take advantage of the revolutionary power that leftists have given them in the form of a vote, are purists who defeat their overall value system…

One more quick thing: it seems to me that you will never find a categorizable group that does not contain members who make atrociously stupid statements. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans, Right-Wingers, Left-Wingers, Moderates, Whites, Blacks, Women, Men, Humans – every one of these groups contains blithering idiots. In other words, the category, “People Who Do Not Make Atrociously Stupid Statements,” is probably a completely empty category. Conversely, there are probably members of any conceivable group who have occasionally made profoundly wise statements. Just because you find someone who says something stupid and places themself on the left is no reason to turn in your leftist membership card.

I, having been challenged intellectually once again, felt compelled to respond with a retort of my own. And edited version appears below:

…. Let me start off by noting a problem common to both the fields of political science and philosophy: that being the problem of defining terms. It seems to be the curse of us intellectuals to spend as much time arguing over what various terms mean as we do arguing actual philosophical and political points. Take “extremism”. What does it mean? You would use the term to describe any person whose beliefs fall outside of the mainstream. My own definition is a bit more complex. I refer to a person as an extremist if they are a monist (a person who believes they are right and all other viewpoints are wrong) who seeks to stifle or even prevent others from expressing opposing viewpoints. If you look at the actions of anarchists at anti-immigrant rallies, they clearly qualify as extremists under this definition. Obviously, Marxist-Leninists and neo-Nazis would be considered extremists as well. However, persons like Martin Luther King and Gandhi would not seem to be included. This definition seems to be somewhat close to your term “purist”. But while you include anyone with inflexible positions, I narrow it to people who want us all to think as they do and would forcibly silence dissent.

This brings us to moderateism, that bane of the far left and right. Perhaps you’re right in that moderates tend to use their beliefs as a rationalization for their own extravagant lifestyles. But in a democracy, it is rare for any one political group to ever completely get its way. One will always have to compromise with the opposition in order to get things done. It’s fine to advocate an extreme position, such as the idea that animal life is just as valuable as human life. But you may come to the painful realization that most other Americans simply do not hold this view. In such cases, non-purists will find it necessary to moderate their positions if they want to make any advances at all. Of course, the risk of moderation is that you can compromise your positions to the point were it become unclear what you actually stand for (look at the current Democratic Party). Perhaps persons with extreme viewpoints and moderates need each other: The radicals propose unobtainable positions that the moderates water down to something that can actually be implemented.

As for the question of whether political violence is ever justified, I would have to answer in the affirmative. When struggling against a brutal, oppressive state, violent action may be necessary. However, even here we can differentiate between insurrectionary forces that seek to implement or restore democracy (the resistance movements in Europe during WWII) and those which have monist agendas of their own (the Chinese communists under Mao).

You also pose some interesting questions regarding how the right sees the left as well as questioning whether conservatism is time-relative. Firstly, conservatives tend to have a rather warped view of history. Many of them seem to honestly believe that conservatives were at the forefront of the civil rights and suffragist movements. I expect that in a couple of decades they will claim that gay rights have always been a conservative principal. They see liberals and leftists as being well meaning but deluded people who fail to understand that a strict social code is necessary to maintain social order. At the same time, leftism tends to be rather time-relative itself. During the French revolution, the new government passed resolutions condemning the idea of equality for women on the grounds that “natural law” obviously mandated that women be subservient to men. During the debate over slavery in the U.S., some southerners made the argument that to free the slaves would be as ridiculous as feeing their livestock. At that time, not even the most radical liberal advocated actually stopping the killing of animals for human comfort. My point is a hundred years from now leftists will be advocating a level of freedom and equality that would seem absurd to even you today. So as society moves steadily to the left, people on both the political right and left readjust their positions to match the changing times.

You also note that I sometimes pick the stupidest quote I can find by an individual extremist as a way to criticize an entire movement. Your criticism is quite valid. Along with some serious political discussion, a lot of what I do on my blog is shock value entertainment. I often take the “look at what a freak this person is” approach to get a quick laugh or horrified reaction. When I suggested that lefties turn in their membership cards after some stupid statements by anarchists regarding the 9/11 attacks, I was not making a serious suggestion. Rather, I was making a reference to a leftist writer who suggested she would stop being a leftist when she started reading lefty opinions supportive of the attacks. That day has unfortunately come…

OK, enough heavy political theory. Next week I’ll be back with a new update on the world of those weird, wild, and wacky radicals.

A Lefty Writes In

2007-08-05T21:51:00.000-04:00

An old friend of mine whose intellect I greatly respect recently wrote to me regarding this recent posting. He seems to take some umbrage to my frequent criticisms of leftists in general. Seeing as that the letter was intelligently written and contained some valid points, I’ve reprinted an edited version below:

When I think of the left, one of the first things that comes to mind is democracy. In the Spanish Civil War, for instance, although there were anarchists and communists on the Republican side (which I don’t think anyone would argue was anything but leftist), there were also people who wanted to restore and revitalize the democracy that Franco’s coup was overthrowing. I don’t think anyone on the right side of that conflict was in favor of any sort of democracy, but wanted a monarchy or a theocracy or some kind of fascist military state… Socialism is the second thing that comes to mind, from moderate well-fare measures and guaranteed health-care to full blown Marxism… The other things that come to mind are the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and women’s rights, unions and worker’s rights, minimum wage, fighting monopolies and corporate power, gay and lesbian rights, the fight to legalize interracial marriage, civil rights, environmentalism (again, using democratic governmental power to control corporate power), and animal rights. Of course, this is a small list, but it’s just an idea of the first things that come to mind. Oh yeah, how could I forget anarchism?

So what do all of these things have in common? It seems to me like they are all attempts to spread power out as equally as possible among the population. They all seem to be methods of identifying where there is a concentration of power within a small group, recognizing how this concentration comes at the expense of other, larger groups, and attempting to balance and equalize the situation as much as possible… Socialism does this in terms of economic power. Fighting corporations that exploit workers and consumers and the environment is a way to take power from a concentrated source and spread it out. Abolishing slavery took power from slave holders and attempted to spread it out among former slaves. Women’s suffrage attempted to reduce the concentration of political power in the hands of one sex and spread it out equally among both sexes. Women’s rights and civil rights movements seek to correct remaining power imbalances that remain in the form of prejudice. And so on and so on.

…The right, so far as I can tell, is the drive toward preserving and/or increasing existing power inequalities. The right believes it is natural and good that power concentrates itself in the hands of a few. The left sees this as the source of most of our problems… As it is, it appears to me that the left has proven itself the more justifiable path over and over and over again. Of course slavery was wrong, and so were monarchies, and so are racism and sexism and homophobia and speciesism. Of course worker’s rights are good, and environmental controls on corporate power, and marriage rights and health care for all. Yet all these ideas are considered absurd and dangerous and wrong by those who have gone off the right-wing and moderate deep ends - at least until the left has exerted enormous struggle to convince everyone otherwise. Eventually, even most people on the right will come around to accept as natural and good what were not too long ago extremist ideas of the looney left…

It seems to me that anyone who believes that “all men are created equal,” or, much, much more radically, that all human beings – even ones without white skin and penises – are equal, is an extreme looney leftist nutcake. So is anyone who believes in democracy, or worker’s rights, or interracial marriage. Anyone who is not an explicit racist, sexist, or homophobe is a radical leftist freak. Only most people are more comfortable, for some reason that seems to involve a complete lack of historical knowledge, to call themselves ‘moderates.’ Eventually, the moderates will accept gay marriage and animal rights, after a while, so will the conservatives. And then they will turn right around and warn of the dangerous left-wing extremists who are peeling away whatever the next, currently unperceivable, layers of prejudices will be.

My reply to the above letter (again in edited form) is below:

First of all, let me try to clarify my definitions. I generally agree with your premise that leftists have throughout history tried to democratize society both culturally and economically. Conservatives, on the other hand, try to keep economic and social power consolidated in the hands of the few. I would also agree that many of the demands made by the far left in the past, such as for progressive taxation and racial equality, are today considered mainstream, with even most conservatives embracing them. What is a radical leftist idea today will be commonplace politics tomorrow. However, there are two distinct branches of leftist thought. The first is comprised of persons who believe that social change should be brought about incrementally and democratically. These persons range in opinion from welfare state capitalists (today’s Democratic Party is a good example) to democratic socialists (as are commonly found in European parliamentary systems). I generally refer to these persons as “liberals”. Then there are the persons on the left who seek radical, immediate social and economic change, often through revolutionary activity. This group includes communists of all stripes, revolutionary socialists, and anarchists. I generically refer to these persons as “leftists” to differentiate them from liberals, although admittedly “radical leftist” might be a better term.

I think our main point of disagreement is on the historical record of radical leftism. You seem to see it as generally positive. I would describe it as uniformly dismal. One can look back to the French Revolution, which was in many ways the seminal event in the history of both liberalism and leftism. At first, everything went fairly well: The King was deposed, grain was distributed to the people, etc. Then the Jacobins pushed the liberals out of the way, and things got very unpleasant. The reign of terror lead to thousands of deaths. At its height, one could be arrested and executed for the crime of “moderateism”. The radicals tried to push for social and economic change far too quickly and brutally. The resulting chaos led to the rise of the emperor Napoleon. [More examples of failed leftist revolutions follow.]…

Finally, there are some philosophical problems with far left thought. In earlier times, the left was mostly concerned with securing the freedom of peoples from oppression: freedom from slavery, discrimination, sexism, exploitive labor, etc. Over the last hundred or so years, leftism in general has become more of a movement to secure an equality of results rather than a freedom from oppression. There are many anarchists in the US right now who favor a system in which no individual may own any sort of personal property whatsoever. Other more moderate socialists often suggest that all persons receive the same amount of pay for their jobs, regardless of the work performed. This is a recipe for social disaster. Without the incentive to earn additional income or gain more material goods, persons will have no reason to save, work hard, or take on unpleasant jobs. I say that a person who cleans sewers for a living deserves a higher paycheck than someone who writes film reviews. I also maintain that if a person leads a frugal lifestyle and reframes from buying things they don’t need, they shouldn’t be subject to asset forfeiture because they have “too much money”.
In summation: The radical left has some good ideas. Some of these ideas will be eventually be adopted by the mainstream. But left ideals are best put into practice when they are filtered through the moderating effects of liberalism. When the far left is given unfettered political power, dysfunctional and violent societies are usually the result.

So there. My revolutionary-minded friend wrote back with a reply to my reply. If I feel like inflicting some more heavy political theory on the readers of this blog, I’ll post it here after I compose another response of my own.

Texe Marrs Goes Off The Deep End

2007-07-30T02:36:00.000-04:00

When I was a young lad just starting to dip into the bizarre world of extremist thought, Texe Marrs was one of my favorites. He’s a right-wing Protestant preacher from Texas. For years, Marrs supported himself by writing books on business management and similar topics. But in 1987 he published the seminal work Dark Secrets of the New Age. The book described an alleged plot by pagans, businessmen, and world politicians to enact a satanic one-world government. The book also listed 88 signs that the world was going to end in 1988. Luckily, the predicted rapture did not occur, allowing Marrs to hone his conspiracy theories over the following years. As a youngster I also greatly enjoyed Marrs’ book Big Sister is Watching You, an exposé on Hillary Clinton’s alleged lesbianism and paganism (The books’ back cover asks the question “Does she want to be president?” Looks Like Texe may have some great new material come next year.) After being on his mailing list for quite some time, I lost track of Marrs and what he was up to until recently, when I stumbled upon his new website called (appropriately enough) “Conspiracy World”. The site shows that Marrs has gone from being a rather odd right wing preacher to being a full out paranoid anti-Semitic reconstructionist. There’s hours of entertainment here for people who are eccentric enough to enjoy this sort of material. I would particularly recommend reading Marr’s sermons and listening to his podcasts for does of unadulterated wackiness. Some of his links are a lot of fun too. Among the neo-Nazi rants and predictions of the coming apocalypse, you can find “Open Your Mind”, which has got to be one of the strangest and most extreme conspiracy videos I’ve ever seen. Set to techno music (!), it shows how just about every corporate and government logo you’ve ever seen is based on the Satanic pentagram, Wiccan owl, illuminati pyramid, or a representation of the sun god. I’d like to think that it’s a joke, but I know better than that by now.

Lefties: Time To Turn In Your Membership Card

2007-07-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

After the 9/11 attacks, I made it a point to pay close attention to the reaction of extremist elements from across the United States. As might be expected, some of those on both the extreme right and left took a bit discreet pleasure at the carnage. For both groups, it was a blow stuck against the Jewish puppet state or the capitalist corporate order, depending on their point of view. Most of these people had the good sense to keep their positive reactions to themselves, for fear of losing what little creditability they had among mainstream Americans. Billy Roper, head PR guy for the National Alliance (NA), was an exception. Shortly after 9/11, he sent out a group e-mail praising the attackers:

"the enemy of our enemy is, for now at least, our friends…We may not want them marrying our daughters…but anyone who is willing to drive a plane into a building to kill Jews is alright [sic] by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude."

William Pierce, then-leader of the NA, felt compelled to issue a statement making clear that Roper’s comments did not reflect NA policy. Because advocating a National Socialist government is one thing, but hey, let’s not get crazy here. People on the left were much more muted. I recall reading one commentary in The Nation magazine in which the author said that when people on the American left started praising the 9/11 attacks, she would turn in her lefty credentials. It appears that that day has come. Of course, Ward Churchill and Ted Rall have been making supportive statements about the 9/11 attackers for a while, but such admiring comments have begun to become more prominent on the left, especially among anarchists. Consider this recent exchange on Infoshop, in which one of the site’s administrators describes the positive effects of the attack on the World Trade Center:

“The 9/11 attacks, first of all, gave lots of hope to the oppressed around the world, in that they showed that the big bad United States could be attacked and get a kind of comeuppance for its deeds of the past two centuries [Comeuppance? See, this is the problem. He sees the attack in symbolic rather than personal terms.]…I agree with [Ward] Churchill that 9/11 was an effective and justifiable act of resistance. I don't think he was suggesting that this mode of political terrorism be emulated and I wouldn't agree with him if he advocated this. I would also point out that the attacks may have been justified, but I'm against the people who perpetrated the attacks [So you’re fine with massive terrorist attacks, as long as they’re not perpetrated by Muslims]…I explained above why I see the aftermath of 9/11 as containing many positives for people around the world. Obviously, it's a mixed bag.”

Words can’t really adequately describe the sheer madness of the above statements. And to think that I’m still a Crass fan. Did the anarchists change, or did I?

Christian Fanatics Protect Congress From Message Of Peace And Love

2007-07-15T22:58:00.001-04:00

The U.S. Senate, in an effort to be more inclusive, recently invited Hindu clergyman Rajan Zed to offer the opening prayer at the chamber. One would think that seeing that this is the 21st century, this would be no big deal. Of course, one must remember that for the troglodytes that populate the ranks of the religious right in this country, the Salem witch trials are a recent and fond memory. Acting in that wonderful tradition of sectarian hatred, David Barton of the American Family Association urged his readers to contact their senators and ask them to cancel Zed’s invitation. He noted, "This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world". Apparently, he’s never seen a Bollywood musical. At any rate, the senate did not cancel the invitation, but our Christian brethren are known to be sore losers if for nothing else. Accordingly, three of them disrupted Zed’s prayer by yelling, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me!” and “This is an abomination!” The three were arrested and charged with misdemeanor crimes. According to the Congressional Record, the text of Zed’s prayer was as follows:

Let us pray. We meditate on the transcendental Glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of the Heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.

Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening. May no obstacle arise between us.

May the Senators strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world, performing their duties with the welfare of others always in mind, because by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life. May they work carefully and wisely, guided by compassion and without thought for themselves.

United your resolve, united your hearts, may your spirits be as one, that you may long dwell in unity and concord.

Peace, peace, peace be unto all. Lord, we ask You to comfort the family of former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson. Amen.

Wow. Pretty subversive, blasphemous stuff, eh? Given what was actually said, I would say that the word “abomination” could be used more appropriately to describe the actions of the protestors rather than the prayer.

Adolph Hitler Continues To Spin In His Grave

2007-07-09T01:20:00.000-04:00

There’s a great line from the film Spawn in which a minion of Satan expresses his distain for the Dark Prince’s followers: “Why does God get all of the cool people and Satan gets all the losers?” Adolph Hitter, roasting in his own personal hell, must have similar feelings regarding the quality the people who are currently trying to carry on his legacy on earth. Consider for example the group Public Enemy Number One. Even it’s acronym, PENI, tends to invoke a less than serious response. The a neo-Nazi organization started out as an offshoot of the southern California punk scene, but quickly became involved with drug running and other serious criminal activity. PENI formed alliances with the Aryan Brotherhood and other prison gangs, and began to come to the attention of law enforcement. When one of the group’s founders was murdered in 2002 after he discussed the gang’s activities with a news crew, the police executed several warrants on members’ homes. In addition to guns and drugs, the cops found a “hit list” with the names of a judge, prosecutors, and several police officers. A member of PENI is currently on trial in California, accused of the murder the groups co-founder. Some of the testimony given by PENI members is priceless:

"I'm drunk all the time," one young defense witness offered as an excuse for her amnesia on the stand.

"What do you mean?" the judge interrupted.

She said she went nowhere without a bottle of whiskey and a bag of marijuana.

When it was his turn on the stand, a gang member and key government witness testified that he was drunk on vodka when he drove his car through a line of Huntington Beach police cruisers in 2005 and led officers on an hour-long chase to San Diego before his arrest.

"I wanted to finish my drink. And smoke some cigarettes," the witness explained.

But the cream of the crop appears to be PENI member Billy Joe Johnson, who is described in less than flattering terms:

Missing two front teeth and sporting a Mohawk haircut and mutton-chop sideburns, Johnson said he fancied himself "Costa Mesa's True Individual," a nickname tattooed on his upper stomach.

The name is above an eagle and a swastika around his navel, and below lightning bolts and crosses on his neck.

Johnson acknowledged on the stand that he had beaten a man to death with a hammer, a crime for which he is now serving 45 years to life in prison.

With folks like these bearing the banner of National Socialism, I don’t think we need worry about the coming of a Nazi revolution anytime soon.

Farfour Meets His End

2007-07-02T01:48:00.001-04:00

Mickey Mouse is dead-got kicked in the head

-Subhumans

Sorry to keep harping on the Hamas version Mickey Mouse, but it’s just too good a story to ignore. It seems that the last episode of Farfour’s show, Tomorrow's Pioneers, depicts the unlucky mouse as being beaten to death by an Israeli soldier after he refuses to sell his land to the Zionists. This is a fitting end for Farfour, who exposed Palestinian children to violent rhetoric and encouraged them to aspire to martyrdom. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate a clip of the fatal beating on the internet, so I can only guess as to how graphic it actually was (if anyone has a link, please send it my way). I will admit that this whole thing does show that the radical Muslims have one cultural edge over us: they aren’t afraid to send their cartoon characters to a violent death. Just imagine what they could have done to the Smurfs…

Revolutionary Despair

2007-06-24T23:03:00.000-04:00

Joel S. Hirschhorn, contrairian author and former congressional staffer, has written an interesting article on revolution in America and why it isn’t happening. He notes that the approval rating of both the president and congress hovers around the 25% mark, and that polls show 68% of Americans do not believe the country is headed in a positive direction. Despite this dissatisfaction with the state of political affairs, the U.S. remains in a decidedly non-revolutionary mindset. Hirschhorn feels this lack of revolutionary fervor is due to a dumbing-down of the American public:

The rational way to understand this is that ordinary, oppressed Americans are in a deep psychological state of self-delusion. Despite all the empirical, objective evidence of a failed government, they fail to see rebellion opportunities…they are not feeling enough pain to seriously consider rebellion. And it is visceral pain that must drive people to the daring act of rebellion.

In this, Hirschhorn is quite correct. As long as people’s lives are reasonably comfortable and stable, they will see little reason to rebel. There will of course always be revolutionary fringes on the far left and right, but most people will be content to allow the existing political order to continue so long as their material needs are being met. Hirschhorn believes that weaning people away from their petty luxuries and educating them can alter this state of affairs and awaken people to their right to call for a new constitutional convention. I would disagree in that I think Americans as a whole would have no interest in rebellion even if they had less consumer toys to play with. Most people in this country, if not ecstatically happy, are at least content with their day-to-day lives. Revolutions have historically occurred only in nations where people’s basic physical needs are not being met. So long as most Americans have adequate food, shelter, and clothing, they will not want to risk their stable lives for the uncertainty of revolutionary upheaval. Bitching about the state of the American government acts as a safe way for citizens to blow off steam while not seriously risking their comfortable existence. This of course bodes ill for revolutionary groups in general. Until such a time as circumstances make most Americans feel truly desperate, their causes will have little chance of success.

Eric Rudolf: Unrepentant Terrorist

2007-06-17T22:36:00.001-04:00

Eric Rudolph has led an interesting life. He started his path towards infamy by carrying out bombings at abortion clinics, gay bars, and most notably the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Several of these bombings deliberately targeted law enforcement personal, and resulted in two deaths as well as several serious injuries. Sensing that the FBI was closing in, Rudolph fled to the wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains, were he successfully evaded capture (possibly with the help of others) for five years. Rudolph accepted a plea deal in 2005 that spared him the death penalty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Rudolph has put the time to good use, writing several lengthy essays that have been published his website. The articles paint Rudolph as being much more intelligent than one might initially think. His justifications for his terrorist acts as logical and consistent, if rather warped in their premises. He writes an engaging article dismissing pacifism as being an inherently illogical and hypocritical creed, while bashing feminism using good old-fashioned conservative misogyny. Speaking of conservatism, Rudolph is surprisingly hard to pin down ideologically. It would be easy to write him off as a Protestant fundamentalist nut, especially since his website is hosted by the charming folks over at the Army of God website. Rudolph is a practicing Catholic, once attended a Christian Identity church, and peppers his webpage with biblical passages. However, he expresses an admiration for Friedrich Nietzsche, which is to say the least unusually for a right-wing Christian. In fact, his fusion of Catholic thought and his survival-of-the-fittest, pro-terrorist outlook makes him unique in the annals of right wing extremism. Of course, his intelligence and interesting worldview do not lessen the horror of the crimes he committed. Rudolph shows absolutely no remorse for his actions, and in fact offers condescending criticisms to his victims. I for one am glad he will die in prison.

Extreme Politics News Roundup

2007-06-11T00:32:00.001-04:00

Two of the Nazi f*ckwits who took part in the killing that led to the “Skinhead Slayer” story reported on here earlier were both sentenced to more than twenty years in prison a couple of weeks ago. It was revealed that while in jail the defendants made phone calls in which they mocked the murdered boy’s funeral and talked about beating people up in prison. Truly a couple of class acts.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has posted the court documents detailing the charges against Kevin Strom on their website. And let me tell you, it isn’t pretty. Strom apparently stalked a ten-year-old girl, writing her poems and love songs, including the line “my love for her is not a sin”. A secret witness (who can only be Strom’s ex-wife Elisha) has testified that he is in fact an admitted pedophile. As Strom is the former head of National Vanguard and a fairly prominent white power theorist, this is all a bit embarrassing for the white nationalists out there. Perhaps predictably, I haven’t been able to find a word about this on any of the white power discussion boards.

And in one more piece of neo-Nazi news, it turns out that Jason Kenneth Hamilton, the man who carried out the shooting rampage in Moscow, Idaho a few weeks back that resulted in the deaths of three people was card-carrying member of the Aryan Nations. Given that the group probably doesn’t have more than a hundred dues paying members at this point, this says something about the losers who did decide to stick around.

Speaking of losers, the Red and Anarchist Action Network (RAAN) recently announced that they had forwarded the cause of the revolution by injecting industrial adhesive into 150 parking meters in Lexington, Kentucky. The RAAN press release urged readers to agitate “FOR SOCIAL EQUALITY THROUGH SOCIAL UNREST! UP THE NIHILISTIC ATTACK ON SOCIAL ORDER!” OK guys, I’ll get right on that. But could you please not use both anarchist and Soviet symbols on your logo? You stupidity is actually making my head hurt.

The Sad Story Of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom

2007-06-03T18:46:00.001-04:00

Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were an attractive young unmarried couple from Knoxville, Tennessee. On the night of January 7th, 2007, they were abducted, robbed, repeatedly raped, and murdered by a group of four men and one woman. Their mutilated bodies were found shortly afterwards, and all persons involved with the crime were arrested. This might have been just another particularly heinous crime in the annals of American history had it not been for the fact that the victims looked like this:

And the perpetrators looked like this:

Predictably, the white power people picked up the ball and ran with it, claiming that this was clearly a racial crime, and that the media was not classifying it as a hate crime out of political correctness. Even some conservatives got into the fray, maintaining that the national media was not covering the crime as thoroughly as they would if the races of the perpetrators and victims had been reversed. Alex Linder of Vanguard News Network organized a neo-Nazi rally in Knoxville to protest the killings, which led to a small racist turnout, lots of counter demonstrators, and Linder being arrested. It’s worth noting that all of this hoopla has in fact led to the sort of media coverage of the crime that the white power people had been calling for from the beginning. It is also significant that the parents of the murdered couple have publicly stated that they do not believe the killing were racially motivated, and that their children were not racists and would never approve of neo-Nazis using their tragedy for propaganda purposes. Not that the boneheads in question would ever care about the views of the people whose deaths they seem so quick to exploit.

Fascist Mickey

2007-05-27T19:48:00.001-04:00

Some of you may have already read about this one in the right wing press, which is having a field day with the story. It seems that Hamas, a terrorist Palestinian organization based in the Gaza Strip, has seen fit to appropriate the image of Mickey Mouse for propaganda purposes. In the clip provided here, the faux Mickey calls for the destruction of Israel and encourages Palestinian children to help form a worldwide Islamic caliphate. It’s stuff like this that makes this job so much fun. It appears however that the governments of Israel and the U.S. were not as amused with the program as I was, and called for it to immediately be pulled from the airwaves. Even Fatah, the moderate political party in Palestine, asked for the show to be cancelled. At first, Hamas complied, but later began broadcasting the program again. As if we in the West needed yet another example of the degeneracy of radical Islamic culture.

Jesus Wants You To Spank Your Wife

2007-05-20T22:13:00.000-04:00

I love the internet. How else would I have ever discovered the wonder and hilarious beauty that I found on the Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD) website? Practitioners of religious domestic discipline are Christian right wingers who believe the bible gives them permission to dominate their wives and enforce their domination through ritualistic spankings. Most of the people who practice this lifestyle maintain that the spankings are designed to enforce the husband’s leadership in the household, and not as a form of sexual stimulation. The CDD website (which is the largest domestic discipline site on the web) does admit that “Though we recognize by its very nature this subject can be erotic, we will keep this website as clean and wholesome as possible. However, we will not seek to deny the erotic nature of some CDD marriages, as we believe it is a natural consequence of following God's plan. After all, He created eroticism to be enjoyed inside a Christian marriage.” Several Christian family sites have published articles attacking the practice, with one noting flatly that “Domestic discipline is BDSM [Bondage & Discipline/Sadism & Masochism].” The author goes on to state that “Domestic discipline is based on misinterpretations of the bible” and “If you are in a domestic discipline marriage please seek counseling so that you can make an informed, rational decision about your marriage relationship.” It’s difficult to make a guess as to how many persons are involved with this lifestyle, but the fact that Christian advice sites feel the need to write about it shows that their numbers must be significant. It’s also worth mentioning that most of the people who practice domestic discipline most likely don’t qualify as political extremists. Yet it still fills me with a perverse joy to know that at least some of the dominionists and reconstructionists out there are engaging in what they see as biblically endorsed kinky sex.

The Neo-Nazis Just Can’t Get a Break

2007-05-14T01:33:00.000-04:00

An unflattering caricature of the disgraced Kevin Strom

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Hitler’s followers here in the U.S. First, Shaun Walker, the former leader of what’s left of William Pierce’s National Alliance (NA), was convicted along with two other white supremacists on civil rights charges. The crimes occurred several years ago in Utah, when the three got into a couple brawls with Hispanic persons in local bars. The federal prosecutors successfully argued that these fights were deliberately planned in order to prevent minority persons from frequenting those establishments. Walker and the other two defendants are facing up to 20 years in federal prison. Upon Walker’s arrest leadership if the NA passed back to Erich Gliebe, the man who formally headed the organization but was pressured to resign in part because of his marriage to a former stripper. Gliebe doesn’t appear to have shed this predilection, as the cover the current issue of the NA’s Resistance Magazine shows:

The NA also saw fit to rip off a leftist punk band by recently releasing a white power music compilation called “California Uber Allies”, its title taken from the Dead Kennedys’ song of the same name. You know the NA is getting desperate when they have steal ideas from a Jewish lefty.

As if this wasn’t enough, Kevin Strom, former NA member and head of the now-defunct neo-Nazi National Vanguard had more charges added to his already devastating indictment for possessing child pornography. He is now charged with coercion and enticement of a minor, possession of child pornography, obstruction of justice, and four counts of receiving child pornography. The charges seem pretty detailed, and are likely to lead to a conviction. Tellingly, the white power bulletin boards have been removing any posts on this topic from their pages.

And as a final sign that this idiocy is not confined to North America, the New Zealand chapter of the white power Hammerskin Nation recently declared that they would not be holding their celebration of Hitler’s birthday at the local headquarters of the Satan’s Slaves motorcycle club. Cause you know, you have to draw a line somewhere.

Get Ready To Be Offended

2007-05-06T23:06:00.000-04:00

Writing this blog can have something of a numbing effect. Sure, Fred Phelps still has the ability to shock, but most of these guys are pretty predictable in their statements at this point. A neo-Nazi refers to black children as ‘niglets”. Yawn. Some lefty calls for the murder of random police officers. Heard it before. In a way, I’m glad when people like Donald Wildmon (head of the Christian supremacist American Family Association [AFA]) manage to actually get a rise out of me. It means I still haven’t been completely desensitized to bizarre and repugnant political statements. The offending piece in this case is a short video feature entitled “The Day They Kicked God Out Of The Schools”. It is available for sale (for a “suggested donation” of $5) on the AFA website. The clip (viewable here) places the blame for the recent massacre in Virginia along with other school shootings on several factors including:

1. The banning of official prayers in public schools.

2. Dr. Spock

3. President Clinton.

4. Safe sex education.

5. Child pornography (?).

Of course, this is all complete nonsense. Seung-Hui Cho was suffering from severe mental illness of an unknown nature (although autism has been mentioned as a possibility). At least one of the shooters involved in the Columbine massacre was a sociopath, another form of recognized mental illness. Mental illnesses are sometimes environmentally based, but most often spring from genetic causes. No amount of school-enforced prayer would have likely dissuaded Cho from engaging in his rampage. And I really doubt that presidential adultery, child pornography, condoms, or a lack of parental discipline really had any effect on his state of mind during the shooting. What really pisses me off about this is the fact that Wildmon and others like him are willing to use any tragedy in this country as fodder for their call to turn the U.S. into an officially Christian state.

The Sexual Implications Of Protest

2007-04-29T23:58:00.000-04:00

While on one of my seemly endless link treks across the great expanse of YouTube, I came across this clip taken an anti-war protest in Tacoma, Washington last March. It vividly illustrates the bizarre symbiotic relationship that often exists between police officers and persons on the extreme left. The protestors face a line of cops in what appears to be an empty field. They taunt, chant, insult, and generally try to piss off the police. After the protestors try to push back the police line, and cops finally respond with the predictable barrage of rubber bullets and mace. The protestors have the nerve to act shocked, and scream to all who will listen about the outrage they have just been subjected to. In one of the accompanying clips filmed prior to the violence, the lefties claim the cops are violating their rights because their “medics” are not allowed to bring their backpacks into the protest area. The presence of these hippies with first aid training posing medical professionals indicates that they expected to take causalities. So why the shock when the police inflict those causalities? The answer of course is their need for martyrdom. There are all kinds of ways of protesting the war that might be more effective than this one. Yet they choose a method of protest that almost ensures their own injury. This illustrates the perverse pleasure many leftists experience when they are brutalized by authority figures. They revel in their weakness, and in fact seem to enjoy it.

Of course, the cops also play a their own part in this pseudo-sexual drama. They fulfill their own need for power and dominance by cracking the heads of a bunch of unarmed (if obnoxious) hippies. They make no effort to try to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and instead use brutal tactics to sate their sadistic needs. It’s a perverse dynamic. But it is one that is actually quite consensual in its nature.

A Black Nazi? Well, Why Not?

2007-04-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

In what has become a fairly commonplace occurrence within the white supremacist subculture, yet another prominent neo-Nazi has been found to have a less then pure racial pedigree. This time it was William Hoff Jr. (AKA “Wild Bill”), a member of the original American Nazi Party and an active white supremacist since the 1950’s. Hoff had in recent years been an associate of the National Socialist Movement, and was named as the party’s 2008 vice-presidential candidate just hours before being killed in a car wreck outside of Kansas City, MO. Now Hoff’s brother Sheldon has revealed that his genealogical research has shown an unmistakable trace of African-American ancestry in the family’s history. Of course, William Hoff’s old comrades are crying foul, claiming that Sheldon never approved of his brother’s politics, and is now seeking a form of posthumous revenge by releasing false information regarding his racial background. Perhaps. Or perhaps you in fact just never know exactly what lurks in your family background until you look.

Three Weeks Among The Righteous

2007-04-15T20:43:00.000-04:00

I just got through watching the BBC’s hour-long documentary “The Most Hated Family In America”. Reporter Louis Theroux spent three weeks with the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, and in that time he seems to have formed an authentic rapport with several members of that bizzare clan of funeral-protestors. The film is of course interesting on a simple “look at how weird these people’s lifestyle is” freak show level, but Theroux stumbled onto an important truth while doing the film. He came to realize that most of the members of the church are disturbingly normal on a personal level. The Rev. Fred Phelps himself comes across as a bitter, deranged individual who has managed to keep almost all of the members of his immediate family convinced that remaining in his congregation is the only way they can avoid eternal hellfire. The Rev.’s daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper (who runs the church’s day-to-day operations) also comes off as a bit strange, with those staring, unblinking eyes that remind one of the Manson girls. But the rank-and-file members seem like, well, normal people. They where t-shirts and shorts, attend public schools, have cheery dispositions, and generally come across like model white-bread American citizens. It’s only when they open their mouths and start to spew the church’s doctrines that you realize how out of touch these people are. Since they seem at first to be fairly reasonable individuals, Theroux tries to point out the obvious practical and theological problems with their beliefs. Their responses to his criticisms embody the phrase “impervious to logic”. This all proves an important point about religious fanatics and political extremists in general. The people in leadership positions of these organizations, like the Rev. Phelps and his daughter Shirley often are in fact evil, manipulative persons. However, most of the regular members are in fact fairly normal, nice people who just happen to have some very strange beliefs.

By the way, for a quick twisted laugh, check out this South Park-inspired carton created by the Westboro Baptist Church a couple of years back.

P.S. Youtube has pulled most of the clips of Theroux’s documentary from their site (although the first segment is still available at the link posted above) due to “legal action by a third party”. I would assume that party would be the Westboro Baptist Church. Hey guys, if you don’t want him to make a negative documentary, don’t let him hang out with you for three weeks.

The Neo-Nazi Meltdown Continues

2007-04-01T22:13:00.000-04:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to write about my favorite whipping boys, the neo-Nazis. To be truthful, there hasn’t been a whole lot to say of late, but some recent events serve to illustrate how the people in this movement are incapable of even maintaining small organizational structures, let alone leading the white masses into revolution. First came the news that David Gletty, an influential member of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) from Florida has in fact been working for FBI as an informant for the last several years, having collected over $200,000 in taxpayer money during that time. The reveling of Gletty’s true allegiance of course only begs the question of how many other informants are currently active in the groups’ ranks. This is just one more hit for the NSM, a group that has gone from being a serious contender for the title of the most effective white power group in the U.S. to being something of a laughingstock. It’s also worth noting that the city government of Orlando was not happy at finding out that Gletty is a government employee, as last year he led a NSM march through the city that cost the town quite a bit of money in security expenses.

One group the NSM will not have to worry about as far as future competition goes is National Vanguard (NV), which officially packed it in last week. The now-defunct group’s webpage states that: “We regret to inform you that National Vanguard (the organization) has been shut down by the Commonwealth of Virginia”. (?) Inside sources suggest that the NV’s inability to get their publishing projects done on time as well as the arrest of the group’s founder Kevin Strom were factors in the group’s demise. Some NV members have started an even smaller web-based organization called European Americans United (catchy name, guys). NV was considered to be one of the most promising splinter groups to break off from the once great National Alliance, and it’s loss makes it less likely that anything approaching a professional National Socialist organization will emerge in the U.S. any time soon.

SHAC Doesn’t Learn Their Lesson

2007-03-25T15:46:00.000-04:00

Some of you may remember this post from a while back. In it, I detailed the activities of Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC), a group dedicated to shutting down Huntington Laboratories. The labs in question conduct research involving animals, and SHAC maintains that these experiments cause great suffering to the creatures involved. One of SHAC’s more notorious tactics has been the posting of the personal information of Huntington’s employees on their website. They also target the employees of any company that does business with SHAC, right down to the people who mop their floors. This has resulted in some real harm being done to the targeted people, including threats and vandalism. SHAC of course maintains that they are only exercising their first amendment rights by posting this information, and claim ignorance of any harassment that results. Thankfully, the courts didn’t see it that way. They held that SHAC’s activities crossed the line from political protest to terroristic threats, and sentenced six of the persons who maintained SHAC’s website to federal prison terms. As might be expected, SHAC is still defiant, with the convicted persons trying desperately to portray themselves as first amendment martyrs to the leftist press. SHAC has also pressed on with its campaign of harassment, recently publishing the personal information of persons who work for Huntington’s accounting firm. Hopefully, the convicted members of SHAC will soon have some company in the federal prison system.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces Fails to Live Up To Expectations

2007-03-18T22:08:00.000-04:00

I was so looking forward to experiencing a bit of evil fun with the release of the PC game title Left Behind: Eternal Forces. Based on the popular book series of the same name, the game depicts the war between the forces of good and evil that occurs during the end times as prophesized in the Book of Revelations. It is highly unusual for a Christian-themed PC game to depict bloodletting of any kind, let alone the full-scale slaughter described as happening during the tribulation. In a pre-release report, The Southern Poverty Law Center claimed that the game “invites players to roam the simulated streets of New York on a quest to kill ‘non-believers’, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and gays.” The game’s producers also said that in the online version players could take on the role of the general of hell’s armies, commanding legions of heavy metal rockers, secularist college students, and U.N. troops. Now what cynical non-believer (such as myself) wouldn’t take the up most joy in getting online and challenging some holy roller to a game of Armageddon, commanding satanic armies as they annihilated the forces of righteousness and burned every cathedral in sight? Unfortunately according to both published reviews and Amazon’s feedback page, the game fails to live up to its initial promise. There in fact appears to be little killing involved, as the players spend most of their time trying to peacefully convert citizens to their line of thinking. The game play is also (as might be expected) crude and unimaginative, with some reviewers comparing it unfavorably to freeware games. And, to top it all off, the game is apparently riddled with bugs, making it difficult to get through a compete mission without the whole thing crashing. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to live out my fantasies of satanic jihad elsewhere for the time being.

Extreme Politics Goes On Vacation

2007-03-10T00:23:00.000-05:00

I’ll be out of town this week, so there’ll be no post for the coming weekend. Check back next week.

Jews For Hitler

2007-03-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

File this one under news of the weird. This enlightening article describes the growing problem of neo-Nazi skinhead activity in Israel. Most of the young people involved are recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union who possess only a small amount of Jewish ancestry. They are often rejected by other Israelis due to their predominantly non-Jewish blood as well as their inability to speak Hebrew. Focusing their rage on the ultra-conservative Hasidic Jews who they feel are most representative of their persecution, these pseudo-Nazis vandalize Jewish houses of worship and cemeteries, as well as run anti-Semitic websites. They members of this neo-Nazi underground obviously view Judaism to be a religion and a culture rather than an ethnic group, and so do not see themselves as being truly Jewish just because they have perhaps a single Jewish grandparent. Many of them state a desire to return to the former USSR where they can be back among their fellow gentiles. It is of course highly unlikely that neo-Nazis in other parts of the world would accept these persons as legitimate national socialists, given their mixed ethnicity. They might be better off staying where they are, playing the role of the Nazi bogyman to a shocked Israeli population, rather than go back home and be reminded that they are, in the eyes of their fellow white power skinheads, Jewish.

The Council For National Policy Loses Its Mojo

2007-02-25T22:47:00.000-05:00

The Council for National Policy (CNP) is one of those shadowy secret organizations that makes great fodder for internet conspiracy theorists. It is a private conservative organization that meets three times per year to discuss issues affecting the Christian supremacist movement in the U.S. In an effort to maintain an open atmosphere where all of the participants can speak their minds, the membership lists of the organization are secret, and no records are released regarding the discussions that take place (although some of the keynote speeches have been posted on the CNP website). However, as might be expected, persons attending the conferences will often speak to reporters anonymously about what was discussed. From these anonymous leaks, it is known that such right wing movers and shakers as John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell, Alan Keyes, Oliver North, Pat Robertson, Ken Starr (!), James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, and Donald Wildmon are all members. The CNP exerts quit a lot of sway within the Republican party; George W. Bush received the group’s official blessing at a meeting in 1999 prior to his declaration as a candidate for president. So it was with great glee that I read in a recent New York Times article that the CNP is quit despondent over its lack of influence over the current field of major Republican candidate for president. The two major contenders, Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain, have both had major run-ins with the religious right. Giuliani is pro-choice, supports gay rights, and has been married three times. McCain favors a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, and once referred to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as being “agents of intolerance”. Mitt Romney, while supported by some CNP members, was at one point pro-choice, and supported civil unions for gay couples. He is also a Mormon, which probably doesn’t play well with this type of protestant fanatic. All of the other Republican candidates are currently scoring so low in opinion polls as to not be considered to have a credible chance of getting the nomination. The only potential candidate who might win the CNP’s endorsement and have a real chance of getting the nomination is Newt Gingrich, a man who might truly be deserving of the term “unelectable”. It appears even if the GOP’s candidate prevails in 2008, he will have little to thank the CNP for, and the group will not have nearly the amount of influence it had over the current president. For those of us who support a secular U.S. government, this is of course happy news.

Yet Another Reason To Never, Ever Give Money To The Southern Poverty Law Center

2007-02-17T00:10:00.000-05:00

As a lad I often donated money to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), considering it to be a valuable source of information on the racist right as well as a positive social group working to curtail the activities of extremist groups in the U.S. As I grew older and progressively more cynical, I began to see the SPLC as an extremely biased organization that engaged in questionable fund raising practices such as greatly exaggerating the threat posed by white supremacists as a way to scare yet more donations out gullible white liberals. At some point I may write a sweeping indictment of the SPLC as a whole, but for now I will satisfy myself with pointing out one example of the group’s rank hypocrisy. The SPLC worships the non-violent civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s while of course decrying the violent tactics of terrorist groups like the KKK. This is of course all well and good until you realize that the SPLC’s definition of what a terrorist is seems to vary depending on if the acts of violence in question are committed by right or left-leaning persons. Take Bill Ayers. This guy was a member of the Weathermen in the 1960’s and took part in actions such as the bombing of the U.S. capital building. After his girlfriend was killed during a botched bomb-making project, Ayers went underground. He emerged years later and ended up becoming a professor of education at the University of Illinois. If Ayer’s doesn’t qualify as a terrorist, it’s hard to see who would. Yet Teaching Tolerance, the SPLC’s educational wing, saw fit to publish a fawning interview with Ayers on the issue of social justice in education in which they make only a passing reference to his “60’s radicalism”. I guess some people at the SPLC are nostalgic enough for their own longhaired past that they are able to overlook a bombing here or there. The SPLC is still does a great job of digging up the dirt on white power people. I just don’t think I’ll be cutting them any checks anytime soon. Oh, and by the way, if you believe the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives you the right to own firearms, the SPLC says you’ve fallen victim to a bizarre militia legal theory. So there.

The IWW Liberates Landmark Theaters

2007-02-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

A couple of months back, a journalist from libertarian magazine Reason attended a protest being held by the IWW (aka the Wobblies) outside of a Landmark Theater location in Berkley, California. The purpose of the rally was to support a drive by the IWW (an anarcho-syndicalist union) to organize the theater workers at that location. The Landmark Theater chain is a small business that specializes in showing independent and foreign films, and hardly seems a prime example of corporate greed. Despite this, the protesters decried the “exploitation” being inflicted upon the theater’s workers and called for an end to the wage system. Predictably, the libertarian author had quite a bit of fun in the resulting article mocking the protestors as they compared the sufferings of the Landmark staff with those of Joe Hill and the other labor martyrs of the early 20th century. The article is in general is a stinging and amusing attack on the overwhelming stupidity that permeates the contemporary anarchist movement in the U.S. The anarchist website Infoshop reprinted the article on their page, describing the author as an “infiltrator” working for the interests of the capitalist class. I usually don’t recommend reading the comments section of these sorts of postings, as they usually consist of nothing but poorly spelled insults and arguments riddled with logical fallacies. In this case, however, the Infoshop comments are a riot. Some of Reason’s readers caught wind of the anarchist posting and wrote in, defending the libertarian position and pointing out the absurdity of the anarchist position in this case. The anarchists respond with comments that would be laughable if they weren’t so sad. One such comment follows:

"This seems like a good idea to quote Gandhi:

First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you
then they repress you
then you win
obviously the US movement has reached stage 2 -- the advance guard of capitalism (the right-wing "libertarians") are trying to mock us. Good -- shows us they are worried."

To which as libertarian replied, in a manner that could speak for most of us:

"Uh, it might make you feel good to think that libertarians are worried about the kind of folks described in the article. But, trust me, they're really only laughing."

When Satire Comes Full Circle

2007-02-04T20:37:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, The Onion posted an article on their website entitled “Today's Neo-Nazis Have No Respect For Tradition”. The article itself was pretty funny, and was of course meant to be taken as a satire of the neo-Nazi movement in general. But what was really interesting about this piece was how knowledgeable the author seemed to be regarding the white supremacist underground. He mentions obscure historical figures like George Lincoln Rockwell and Matt Koehl, as well as events like the march in Skokie, IL. In fact the author was so knowledgeable on his subject and so strait-faced in his presentation that some white supremacists, while knowing that the article was a fake, considered it to contain many worthy points and commendable ideas. Perhaps I’ve read too much of this white power stuff myself, but I would tend to agree that with a few minor changes this piece could have been posted on a legitimate racist site such as Stormfront or Vanguard News Network. Authors might take this episode as an interesting and instructive lesson on the limits of satire. Given that sarcasm does not translate well in print to begin with, the author should be careful when writing such pieces to ensure that he or she does not unintentionally come to advocate an ideal that they originally intended to lampoon.

William Pierce Continues To Spin In His Grave

2007-01-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

Kevin Strom

When William Pierce died in 2002 his organization, the National Alliance (NA), went from being the county’s foremost neo-Nazi organization to being a group of splintered, bickering factions. One of the more comparatively well-organized of these post-NA groups was the National Vanguard (NV), led by Kevin Strom, a close friend of Pierce’s and the NA’s former resident “intellectual”. Strom quit the NV last year citing personal issues. His arrest this month on possession of child pornography charges deals yet another blow to the National Socialist cause in the U.S. While the white supremacist community is in general claiming Strom has been set up by the government (perhaps with the help of his shrewish, soon to be ex-wife Elisha Strom), anti-racist groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) point out Strom’s strong support of the pre-pubescent Nazi band Prussian Blue as well as his odd habit of holding up images of young white girls as being the ultimate example of “Aryan beauty”. It’s worth noting that while all of this makes for interesting gossip, it also shows the unfortunate habit the SPLC and other anti-racist groups have of attacking their adversary’s personal faults rather than directly challenging their political beliefs. Even if Strom does turn out to be a lover of young children, it doesn’t automatically make his political views incorrect. Perhaps the SPLC feels that addressing and refuting the arguments raised by people like Strom would only give them a legitimacy that they don’t deserve. But until the SPLC moves from personal attacks on their opponents to a point-by-point demolishing of their racist beliefs, it is hard to take these criticisms seriously on an intellectual level.

On a funny side note, the NV has posted a message on their website claiming that the arrest of their former leader is in fact a frame-up, and asking all white nationalists to support him. They also mention that if Strom is in fact guilty, he should be executed. Hmm. We’ll have to see if they stick to that stance if he ends up accepting a plea deal.

More On AK Press

2007-01-22T00:22:00.000-05:00

Last year, I wrote a letter to the staff of AK Press explaining why I will not be purchasing any more books from them in the future. I eventually received a belated reply from a woman who was a former worker at AK. She wrote a very well thought out and detailed reply to my original criticisms. Rather than reproduce her entire lengthy reply or my own complete response, I’ve excerpted a few paragraphs from my letter back to her that pretty well explains the points she brought up and my replies to them:

You mentioned in your letter how Ward Churchill’s calls for violence in his books should be looked at in the context of the rage he feels as the result of our government’s oppression, and that at any rate we shouldn’t take these calls to seriously, as the Bush administration poses must more of a threat to our freedoms than he ever will. In a sense, I agree with you. I worry quite a bit more about the federal government infringing on my freedoms than I do about radical leftists doing so. But you might consider this. Whenever neo-Nazis hold a public rally somewhere, there is usually a vigorous counter-protest by leftists and civil rights groups. Few on the left would criticize these counter-protests (I myself have mixed feelings on this issue, as I think in some cases it might be better just to ignore these racist demonstrations completely). But why is this? Most people in the U.S. consider these white power groups to be an absolute joke. And while there are occasional attacks on minority persons by members of these organizations, I think you would have to agree that a person of color is infinitely more likely to be harassed or attacked by law enforcement officers than by a Nazi skinhead. I would argue that these fascist gatherings are protested with such vigor not because of the direct threat they pose to the public, but because of the sheer odiousness of their message. The spectacle of persons waving Nazi flags, chanting racist slogans, and denying the occurrence of the Holocaust is just too offensive for decent people to bear. In the same way, I am so deeply offended by Churchill’s description of some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks as “little Eichmanns” and his call for the wholesale murder of upper-class persons that I must speak out against him, even though I know these violent fantasies will likely never come to fruition.
This revulsion I feel for Ward Churchill and for other violent revolutionaries like him also explains why I will no longer purchase book though AK Press. At one time, I would also buy books from white supremacist distributors on the grounds that I wanted to get all sides of an issue, and that the small amount of money I was giving them was insignificant in the greater scheme of things. I have since come to believe that it is wrong to give any amount of money to an organization whose beliefs you find repugnant, no matter how small the amount. Given that AK Press has organized public meetings for the purpose of giving Ward Churchill and others like him a platform to propagate their hateful messages, I must sadly put it into the same category as the white power book distributors, and refuse to give it any more of my money.
I might sum up by saying that in general, fanatics scare me. Weather left or right wing, any person who would act as judge, jury, and executioner of their fellow citizens is a person I look on with disgust. In that respect, mainstream book dealers such as Amazon come across as rather benign. They, after all, don’t want to force any one to adhere to their vision of the revolution or put anyone up against a wall. They just want my money. And that I think I can respect.

Nazi Humor

2007-01-14T21:32:00.000-05:00

I’ve found that at almost any social event, nothing gets the laughter going like a good holocaust joke. But seriously folks, even a group of people as repugnant as neo-Nazi skinheads can be good for a laugh if the subject is approached with the proper mindset. Just check out this clip for a good example. I love the bit where the guy answers the phone.

Extreme Politics Goes On Hiatus

2006-08-31T01:23:00.000-04:00

I have over the last year or so endeavored to keep the site updated on a regular basis. However, as of late my life has gone from extremely busy to barely having time to sleep. Hopefully in the next week or two, things will calm down enough for me to write something for this site. Until then, have a look through the archives and check back here every once and a while.

When Extremists Get Serious

2006-08-14T01:37:00.000-04:00

When attempting to determine the threat posed to the public by a certain extremist or extremist group, one sees that there are two types of extremists: The serious ones and the jokers. The jokers will post regularly on extremist discussion boards, and perhaps even attend a few public protests. They will with great bravado declare their loyalty to the cause and their support of revolutionary violence. And they will do absolutely nothing. They will in fact never harm another individual. Most jokers will never even work up the nerve to engage in any sort of direct action in support of their cause. While perhaps annoying and offensive, they pose little threat to public safety.

However, there are some extremists who mean exactly what they say. They're the ones who you'll end reading about in the morning paper. Ironically, while the jokers are invariably loudmouths, the serious ones usually don't make their presence knows until something blows up. Think of the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, and Eric Rudolph. Thankfully, from what I can tell about 99% of the political extremists in the U.S. are jokers; while good for a laugh, they pose little real threat. The United Kingdom is not so lucky. A recent survey conducted by Channel 4 of the BBC sought to determine the level of extremism among Muslims in the U.K. Considering the recent exposure of the plot to blow up airliners leaving British airports for the U.S., the survey was well timed. It's results are been seized upon by both right and left wingers as evidence for (respectively) the grave threat posed to the West by Muslim immigrants, and the inherent goodness of Muslims in general. Both positions hold some merit. The survey shows that the large majority of Muslims living in the U.K. consider the Union Jack to be “their” flag. They oppose terrorism in general, and support the expulsion of imams who preach in favor of it. However, there is a hardcore of 9% of the survey respondents who could be classified as extreme Islamists. They are either ready to engage in terrorist activity themselves, or at least passively support it. 9% is a fairly small sliver of the Muslim population; but at a total of 1.8 million, that means that there are about 170,000 radical Islamists in Britain right now. Given recent events, it seems likely that a fair percentage of these would probably be willing to take part in terrorist acts if the opportunity presented itself. This makes one think that British officials are probably right in their assertion that it is only a matter of time before another major terrorist strike occurs in the U.K.

It is interesting to note that this sort of radicalism among the 525,000 Muslims living in the U.S. appears to be quite less common. This may be in part because they are a smaller population spread out across a much larger area. It may also reflect the greater pressure within the U.S. to assimilate to the larger culture. Whatever the cause, we here in America are quite lucky that most of our extremists are more to be pitied than feared.

Alex Linder Gets Some Free Press

2006-08-07T01:37:00.000-04:00

Alex Linder, operator the rabid white supremacist website Vanguard News Network (VNN), recently got some major media attention after he encouraged his readers to murder a Canadian judge. It seems that the judge in question had sentenced a local white power guy to nine months in jail for contempt of court after said numbskull refused the judge’s order to stop posting racist screeds on Linder’s site. Linder responded to the sentence by writing:

"Killing Warman, 'judge' von Finckenstein, or any of the jews who make up the dictatorial 'human rights' council . . . would be a genuine act of patriotism."

A complaint from the Canadian authorities lead to VNN’s server pulling the plug on the site, but Linder had it back up within a couple of days. There has been talk of a federal investigation into Linder’s comments. But unless my understanding of first amendment law is way off base, I doubt he has done anything illegal. In the meantime, Linder no doubt plans to use this little episode as a means to further promote his website.

Getting Personal

2006-07-25T23:31:00.000-04:00

Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer specializing in first amendment cases, recently penned an insightful article on his blog bemoaning the increasingly common tactic among right-wingers of publishing the names, phone numbers, and addresses of their perceived enemies online. He notes that even if these postings do not result in physical harm to the intended targets, they have a chilling effect on political speech in general:

“It has happened in the past that those who were the target of these sorts of demonization campaigns that included publication of their home address were attacked and even killed. But these intimidation tactics work even when nothing happens. Indeed, these groups often publish the enemy's home address along with some cursory caveat that they are not encouraging violence. The real objective is the same one shared by all terrorists -- to place the person in paralyzing fear. The goal is to force the individual, as they lay in bed at night, to be preoccupied with worry that there is some deranged individual who read one of the websites identifying them as the enemy and which provided their address and who believes that they can strike some blow for their Just Cause by visiting their home and harming or killing them. The fear that they are vulnerable in their own home lurks so prominently and relentlessly in a person's mind that it can be as effective as a physical attack in punishing someone or intimidating them.”

Greenwald singles out in particular the website StopTheACLU.org, which has published the names and personal information of persons who have signed on as plaintiffs in ACLU cases involving church/state issues. According to Greenwald, in one case a Jewish family involved in a lawsuit involving the promotion of Christianity in local schools was forced to move from their hometown due to threats they received after StopTheACLU.org published their identities. Unfortunately, Greenwald is incorrect in believing that these sort of unsavory tactics are the exclusive purview of the right. Leftist sites such as One People’s Project regularly publicize the personal information of anyone they perceive as being too right wing. And the website KnowThyNeighbor.org has published the names and addresses of every person in the states of Florida and Massachusetts who signed petitions to get anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballot. And just in case you think these postings result in no real harm, there have been several reported cases in Massachusetts of persons being harassed by gay activists after their names appeared on the Know Thy Neighbor website.

The fact that both left and right wing ideologs have adopted this tactic of intimidation is a disturbing sign of the personalization of political debate in the United States. As the right and left continue their campaigns of demonization against each other, they have forgotten that a person’s political opinions have very little to do with their value as a human being. I recall that Bill Marr once noted that he was dismayed that when he met his liberal icons like Jerry Brown and Gloria Steinem and found them to be rather obnoxious. He mentioned that in contrast David Duke and Pat Buchanan both seemed genuinely friendly. A person’s inherent decency seems to be unrelated to their beliefs, be they right or left wing. This is not to say that we should not speak out against dangerous political attitudes (as you have no doubt noticed that I regularly do). But sometimes we need to take a step back and realize that even those whose attitudes we despise are people too, and perhaps not deserving of threats or violence.

The National Socialist Movement Makes A Deal With The Devil

2006-07-13T23:42:00.000-04:00

Cliff Herrington

Remember this column from a couple of months back in which I suggested that The National Socialist Movement (NSM) was the new white power group to watch in the U.S.? Well, never mind. The group looks to have suffered a major blow this week as the result of scandal that is being refered to in white supremacist circles as “Satan Gate”. The trouble started when it came to light that NSM member Andrea Herrington (wife of NSM co-founder and chairman Cliff Herrington) is the High Priestess of the Joy of Satan Ministry. Even worse, the satanic sect and the NSM branch in Tulsa, OK share the same P.O. Box. The Joy of Satan seems to be kind of a creepy group even by Satanist standards: There are allegations of borderline pedophilic activities within the group’s “Teens for Satan” program, and other Satanists are quite critical of the Joy of Satan’s obvious Nazi leanings.

In response to this revelation, Bill White, the group’s most prominent member, resigned (or was expelled, depending on who you ask). Predictably, White’s gossip-oriented website is now filled with scurrilous accusations aimed at his former comrades in the NSM. Michael Blevins, the NSM’s media leasion, also quit. Then rejoined. Then quit again. All within a 48 hour period. He now claims that he is out for good and will found a new neo-Nazi organization, possibly with Bill White’s help. The new group, according to Blevins, will have much snazzer uniforms. As for the NSM, you know times are getting tough when the group has to post a promenent notice on their website declaring “The NSM is not a Satanic Organization”. Well, that’s a releif.

Neo-Nazis Go To War

2006-07-10T02:14:00.000-04:00

The Southern Poverty Law Center has published a somewhat interesting report on white power people serving in the United States military. It seems that recruiters are having a difficult time filling their quotas given the unpopular war in Iraq. In response, they’ve lowered their standards, allowing persons with minor criminal records to enlist as well as upping the maximum age for joining. In some cases, they’ve also been looking the other way on people with racist tattoos or those who have clear affiliations with white supremacist groups (government regulations stipulate that persons who are members of extremist political groups may not serve in the armed forces). A few white power organizations have encouraged their members to join in the hope that they will receive training that will be useful in the coming race war. Given the actions of decorated Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh, this may in fact be a problem worth looking into.

P.S. Speaking of neo-Nazis, for a quick laugh check out this article on a recent hate crime in California. It’s good to see that the white power people are still recruiting the best the white race has to offer.

Jack Chick: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

2006-07-03T00:37:00.000-04:00

When I was a young man just starting to explore the darker fringes of American politics, I had the good luck to stumble onto the works of Jack Chick. Chick is the author of hundreds of Protestant evangelical tracts (small comic books) notable for their melodramatic tone and bizarre conspiracy theories. Chick Publications had a deal at the time where you could send in seven dollars and they would mail you a single copy of every Chick tract in print (which was then was around fifty titles). On of my most treasured possessions in my library of fringe publications is my shoebox full of Chick tracts. I can’t even estimate how many hours I’ve spent hunched over one, laughing hysterically all the while. So I was quite thrilled to recently discover that Chick operates a website which allows users to see full versions of all of his current tracts, as well as many that are now out of print. Some of my personal favorites are listed below:

(It should probably be noted that Jack Chick doesn’t really qualify as a political extremist, at least not in the way I use the term on this site. He’s more concerned with saving individual souls than with instituting a theocratic regime in the U.S. However, his monolithic conspiracy theories and extreme Protestant fundamentalism put him close enough to the theocrats to warrant his inclusion here.)

This Was Your Life-This is the classic Chick tract. It lays out his views on sin and salvation, the basic themes that reoccur in all of his writings.

The Beast-The anti-Christ comes to earth and leads humanity down a path of wickedness. Apparently, some people get to become vampires and werewolves too, which is pretty cool.

The Death Cookie-An example of Chick’s extreme anti-Catholicism.

The Last Generation-Another classic. The “New Age Healers”, a group of pagan thugs, help the U.N. to institute a satanic one-world government.

Angels?-Shows how Christian rock is just another tool of the devil. I always wanted write a song whose main chorus was lifted from this tract: “We’re going to rock, rock, rock with the rock!”

Dark Dungeons-You know, I played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. I can’t for the life of me remember ever being inducted into a pagan cult as a result.

The Gay Blade-Self-explanatory. I just want to add that I think the two queens on the fourth panel are hot.

The Hunter-Explains how Satan controls the illegal drug trade. I’ve seen a lot of people on drugs in my time. But I have never seen a person stare off into space for hours at a time while screaming “Yaaaaaaaahhh!”

Chick himself is a mysterious and reclusive figure. He’s currently about eighty years old, and has not granted an interview since 1975. The only known photo of him is from his high school yearbook. It’s possible that after he is gone, his company will close shop, as America’s Christian fanatics look for more sophisticated ways to spread their gospel. Ironically, those who may keep Chick’s memory alive for future generations are the sarcastic non-believers who now collect Chick tracts for their kitsch value. Chick, I’m sure, would not be pleased.

Mocking Ann Coulter Has Become A National Pastime

2006-06-26T00:25:00.000-04:00

I had it all worked out. I was going to write this sarcastic letter to the psychopathic Dragon Lady herself, Ann Coulter, begging to be included in her next book’s list of traitors deserving execution. God knows my blog could use the publicity. Unfortunately, Henry Rollins (that guy who sometimes uses my name) saw fit to beat me to the punch by penning his own letter to Ann. It’s way funnier than anything I could come up with, so you should probably just read it instead.

As for my own take on Ms. Coulter: I think she has become the mainstream equivalent of Fred Phelps. She has discovered that by making progressively more controversial and offensive remarks, she can garner major media coverage, which of course will lead to higher book sales. The most constructive way to deal with such a person is to rob her of the publicity she so desperately seeks. In other words, we should all collectively ignore her.

The National Alliance Takes Another Hit

2006-06-15T20:10:00.000-04:00

Shawn Walker

As regular readers of this blog no doubt know, the National Alliance (NA) has of late fallen on hard times. At one point, it was the largest and best organized neo-Nazi group in the country. A series of management blunders and petty squabbles has resulted membership dropping to less then 200 persons, and the organization is regularly mocked and attacked by other groups within the racist right. The final nail in the NA’s coffin may have been driven this week with the arrest of the group’s leader, Shawn Walker, on federal civil rights charges. According to the indictment, Walker and two other individuals carried out several assaults on minority persons at bars and restaurants in the Salt Lake City area while Walker was the NA unit leader in that city. The feds claim that these assaults constituted a deliberate campaign to intimidate minority persons into avoiding certain establishments; thus the civil rights charge. Most white power people out there feel that the case is fairly flimsy, and is politically motivated. I would tend to agree. But given that Walker has dedicated his adult life to spreading the gospel of Adolph Hitler, he may find little sympathy from a jury.

Sally Jacobsen Gets Off Easy

2006-06-09T01:22:00.000-04:00

It looks like Sally Jacobsen (the feminist professor at Northern Kentucky University who encouraged her students to destroy a pro-life display on campus) may be able to escape criminal charges if she completes successful mediation with the university’s administration and the campus pro-life group whose display she vandalized. It would seem that this whole incident has not impressed the value of the first amendment on professor Jacobsen. As she recently stated:

"If I'd known it would have been construed as a crime, I would never have done it [So you’re just sorry you got caught.]... I never intended to deprive anybody of their freedom of speech [Say what?]. The display was not in the free speech area of the university [“Free Speech Area”. An Orwellian tern if I’ve ever heard one.]... I'm very sorry I did what I did." [Bit late for that.]

Jacobsen’s student followers were lucky enough to get off the hook with community service. I sincerely hope the pro-life group whose display was destroyed is considering civil suits.

“And By God My Name Be Vengeance”

2006-06-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

“The skinhead path leaves a trail of broken trust, lost comrades, and a little love and a lot of betrayal along the way. [...] For the very unfortunate ones it ends behind bars for one reason or another. For these people there is no chance to ever make something of life. And while the "fresh cuts" out there will be gone in a few months or a few years, [those in prison] will still be looking through bars and thinking about what's become ancient history to everyone else."
-excerpt from a letter to New Times from Samuel Compton, one of two skinheads facing capital murder charges in the October 16, 2002, beating death of Cole Bailey Jr.

In most cities in the US, the Nazi skinhead scene has dwindled away. Like all fads, the shaved-headed, combat boot-wearingly look fell out of fashion, to be replaced by new forms of political thuggery (for example, black bloc anarchism). A notable exception would seems to Phoenix, Arizona, where until recently the ultra-violent skinhead crew Unit 88 continued to keep the tradition of goose-stepping idiocy alive. There are three individuals whose personal stories tell the tale of the rise and fall of Unit 88. Their experiences illustrate the devastating effects that the skinhead lifestyle can have not just on the participants themselves, but on anyone unfortunate enough to cross paths with them.

Josh Fiedler was the primary architect of Unit 88, and its undisputed leader. The other skinheads in his crew treated him with an admiration that bordered on worship. Like many political extremists, he seemed oddly concerned with convincing the general public that they had nothing to fear from his followers. Considering the group of losers he was working with, he certainly had his work cut out for him:

Unattractive appearances aside, Unit 88’s violent actions did enough to keep public opinion firmly negative. Along with drug-running and home invasions, Unit 88 skinheads were responsible for several murders, the most egregious being that of Cole Bailey Jr. Bailey had the bad luck to be standing outside of a pool hall that several Unit 88 members had just been kicked out of. Focusing their rage on him, the skinheads beat twenty-year old Bailey (who was white) until his skull was crushed. The killers were all arrested shortly thereafter, and are currently awaiting trial. Fiedler himself was eventually arrested after a particularly brutal home invasion, and will likely do hard time.

The man most directly responsible for destroying the Unit 88 crew was Matt Browning, a cop who spent years integrating himself into the skinhead culture in Arizona. His ten years of fieldwork paid off: Of the group’s 37 active members and affiliates, 18 are currently either in jail or awaiting trial on a variety of charges. Browning’s story illustrates how incredibly dangerous undercover police work can be, and well as how effective it sometimes is. It’s only unfortunate that Browning and the other cops working the case couldn’t get the evidence together to make arrests until after people had been killed.

Which brings us to Cole Bailey Sr. His son was the young man who was stomped to death outside of a pool hall in Phoenix. Consumed with an understandable grief and rage, he began to publicly threaten his son’s killers, and then all Unit 88 members. Referring to his gun as the “Skinhead Slayer”, he swore to exact a revenge on those responsible for his loss. It’s hard to tell how much of this was grandstanding: Bailey has signed on to allow for a film version of his story. Considering how incredibly dangerous the people he is calling out are, I would personally say that that I take him at his word. Seeing as that all of the people implicated in his son’s killing are in jail, as are most of the other key Unit 88 members, Bailey may never get the chance to enact his vendetta. Then again, about twenty years from now a former skinhead in Arizona may step out of prison and see a somewhat unhinged man waiting for him. One can only hope.

Noam Chomsky Has Officially Lost His Mind

2006-05-24T18:44:00.000-04:00

Back in the day, I was a big fan of Noam Chomsky’s political writings. His books exposed and publicized the United State’s government’s support of every brutal third world dictator who claimed to be an anti-Communist. He did an admirable job of questioning whether these dictatorships were in fact any better than the Communist regimes the U.S. sought to contain. Chomsky’s worldview didn’t translate too well to a post-Cold War world. Still convinced that the American government is at its core essentially evil, he could not bring himself to believe that the U.S. interventions in Somalia and Kosovo could be anything other than PR efforts that only hurt those they were supposed to be helping. His book on the 9/11 attacks essentially concluded that America had brought them on itself. Chomsky’s anti-American mania finally reached its fevered crescendo when he recently traveled to Lebanon and met with leaders of the militant Islamic group Hezbollah. He urged the group to keep their arms as a “detterant” against Israli agression.

Even if one accepts Chomsky’s assertion that Israel is in fact a terrorist state that poses a grave threat to its Muslim neighbors, it appers obvious that he has failed to remember the old adage about two wrongs not making a right. Hezbollah has been named as a terrorist organization by almost all western nations. They seek to impose a theocratic Islamic regime throughout Leabannon. And they also hate Jews with a passion, having been implicated in the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994. Given that Chomsky is Jewish, his visit goes from merely offinsive to being a sign of true mental illness.

For Ward Churchill, The Chickens Have Finally Come Home To Roost

2006-05-21T19:07:00.000-04:00

Ward Churchill may finally lose his job at the University of Colorado, but not for the exact reasons you might think. Churchill, a revolutionary Communist and professor of ethnic studies, got himself into some hot water last year when he published an article which suggested that the 9/11 attacks were on some level justified, and refered to some of the victims as “little Eichmanns”. Seeing as Churchill is a tenured professor, the university couldn’t fire him just for making controversial statements. Instead, they commissioned a panel to look into his academic writings. The panel’s final report, released this week, concludes that Churchill has engaged in plagiarism on a pervasive and long-term basis. Churchill predictably claims that the panel’s accusations are groundless, and are being used as a pretext to suspend or fire him. He may in fact be right. But he should have realized that tenured or not, a professor who makes such extremely offensive statements might have be risking his or her employment.

For The National Socialist Movement, It’s Springtime For Hitler

2006-05-12T03:12:00.000-04:00

For a brief period, the neo-Nazis almost made themselves look respectable. From the mid 90’s up to 2002, the undisputed leader of America’s National Socialists was William Pierce, author of the infamous Turner Diaries and one of the very few white supremacists out there who seemed to possess a genuinely above-average intelligence. Under Pierce’s leadership, the National Alliance (NA) became a professional, disciplined organization with an annual operating budget of over a million dollars and a total membership of about 1,500. Eschewing brownshirts in favor of suits and ties, Pierce and his organization put a friendly face on Nazi ideology, and seemed to be on the verge of creating an organization capable of recruiting members from outside the white supremacist subculture. Then it all went to sh*t. Pierce died in 2002 without naming a successor. The National Alliance split into three factions: White Revolution, National Vanguard, and what was left of the old NA. None of these groups can currently claim more than 300 members, and show few signs of future vitality.

The group that has stepped up to take the mantel of largest neo-Nazi group in the U.S. is the National Socialist Movement (NSM). While William Pierce preferred to present a professional image in the hopes of spreading his message of Aryan destiny, the NSM looks back to the example of George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party in the 1950’s and 60’s. Like Rockwell’s group, the NSM enjoying using shock tactics to gain publicity (and hopefully recruits). Parading around in Nazi uniforms while chanting racist slurs is a sure -fire way to attract media attention, and the NSM plays this theatrical role to the hilt. The most dramatic example of their ability to attract media coverage was in October of 2005, when a planned NSM march in Toledo, Ohio turned into a full-scale riot, with local gangbangers burning and looting businesses and attacking police officers.

As might be expected, these in-your-face sort of tactics have attracted some rather unstable individuals to the group. Most notable among them is Bill White, who acts as the NSM’s media liaison. White has for years run the site overthrow.com, on which he posts all of the unsubstantiated gutter gossip about the white power scene he can find. (One amusing recent post sought to publicize an alleged study that proved that white men in fact have on average larger penises than black men. Draw your own conclusions.) Many of these rumors likely originate from White himself. Another mentally challenged NSM member of note of Hal Turner, a former NA member who now hosts an internet radio show. His broadcasts feature some of the most violent and bizarre opinions to be found in the white power subculture (and that is truly an accomplishment).

Many of the old NA people take a rather dim view of these boisterous upstarts. One article posted on the National Vanguard site refered to them as “Nazi Wannabes”. These more professional neo-Nazis likely understand that as long as the NSM remains the foremost purveyors of Hitler’s teachings in the U.S., National Socialism is likely to remain an ideology associated with Jerry Springer-style sideshows rather than a serious set of beliefs worthy of consideration.

Readers wanting a more detailed examination of the NSM might want to check out this article on the group recently published by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

Leftists in Grand Rapids “Out” Local Nazi

2006-05-01T01:27:00.000-04:00

There’s one thing about extremist political groups in the US that I’ve never been able to figure out. Considering how increasingly right wing this country has become, why is it that extreme leftists are for the most part tolerated, but extreme right-wingers are subjected to all sorts of harassment when they appear in public? Rallies held by socialist and anarchist groups are for the most part tolerated by the general public. But when the neo-Nazis hold a march, all hell breaks loose. And look at what recently went down in Michigan. A bunch of lefties discovered the address of a local Nazi activist. They proceeded to hold an impromptu protest in front of his house, holding up a banner reading “Nazis Not Welcome”. Some of them banged on his front door and demanded that he come out. They also passed out flyers to his neighbors informing then of the man’s political affiliations. Not surprisingly, the subject of the protest remained inside his home with a gun in his hand until the police showed up and ran off the leftists. Some of those same leftists later took part in beating up some white power people at a neo-Nazi rally held in Lansing, Michigan a few days later.

Can you imagine what would happen if a bunch of Nazis showed up at some anarchist crash pad and threatened the people inside? I’m sure arrests would have been made. And if some fascists went to a peaceful socialist rally and beat the crap out of some of the attendees? We’d still be hearing about in the media. In many ways, the white supremacists are the last true bad guys in out country, the ones no one sticks up for. And admittedly, they are a bunch of creepy, potentially violent individuals. But I would argue that when it comes to completely mindless violence, the anarchists have the Nazis beat at this point. And the fact that such tactics can effectively silence any political group in the US, no matter how repugnant, does not speak well for our first amendment rights as a nation.

Feminist Professor Sally Jacobson Redefines Free Speech

2006-04-25T00:38:00.000-04:00

Some of the feminists at the Northern Kentucky University have been acting a bit goofy of late, even by leftist standards. When a pro-life group on the campus erected a field of crosses as a memorial to aborted fetuses, English professor Sally Jacobsen encouraged the women in one of her graduate classes to take action. About ten students led by Dr. Jacobsen proceeded to rip up all of the offending crosses and dump them in various trashcans around campus. The act was caught on tape, and Jacobsen was quickly identified. What’s really bizarre here is not just that this event occurred, but the justification offered by Jacobsen:

“I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to.”

OK. But didn’t she feel bad in retrospect, considering that the pro-life group had gone through the long process of getting university approval for the display, and then devoted considerable amounts of time and money to erecting it?

“Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged.”

So when someone feels outraged, it gives them the right to destroy property. Sounds like the basis for a stable society to me.

When it became clear that the authorities were planning on pressing charges against Dr. Jacobsen, and that the pro-life student group intended to sue her, the offending professor did an about face and offered an apology. The apology seems rather disingenuous when one considers that around the same time Jacobsen sent off an e-mail to the students involved in the vandalism urging them to avoid talking to the police, saying “If you have not yet been interrogated, you do not have to talk to them without an attorney. You can make it hard to find you.” She also incorrectly advised them that "The well-funded Right to Life groups that are pushing for this need felony convictions, I believe, in order to file civil suits for damages." Unfortunately for her, no criminal conviction is needed for a person or group to file a civil suit.

As you might expect, the right-wing blogs have been having a field day with this. Dr. Jacobson’s name and phone number have been removed from the campus directory, probably as the result of the harassment and threats she no doubt received from all the pro-life fanatics out there. The school administration handled the situation surprisingly responsibly, removing Dr. Jacobsen from the classroom and declaring that she will retire at the end of this semester (though whether she had already planned her retirement or had it pushed on her by the administration is unclear).

The interesting thing to note here is that in America, the only places you will find lefties displaying this level of complete craziness are the San Francisco bay area and college campuses. Were it not for academia, ideological freaks like Sally Jacobsen, Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky would probably only be able to find gainful employment as the conspiracy-spouting weirdo at your local head shop.

An ALF Member Speaks

2006-04-15T22:26:00.000-04:00

Here’s an interesting first-person account of a break-in committed by a cell of the British Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The author goes into quite a bit of detail into how they staked the laboratory in question and eventually carried out the raid, resulting in the taking of several animals that were undergoing experimentation. It’s surprising how lax security was at the lab when one considers the level of animal rights activism currently going on in the UK. Not surprisingly, the author expresses absolutely no remorse for his actions, and states that he plans to commit similar acts in the future. It kind of makes you wonder if it might be a good idea to mix in some counseling with imprisonment in cases like this, as regular jail time seems to do nothing but harden the beliefs of persons such as these.

The American Taliban

2006-04-08T23:04:00.000-04:00

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently published this rather informative article on Christian reconstrctionists and their efforts to win coverts among more mainstream protestant churches. Reconstrctionists, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, are Christians who believe that our society and government should be run according to a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. For an amusing look at some of the more bizarre laws we would have to obey under such a system, check out this site. (Thanks to Dan for the link.) While you’re at it log onto Texe Mars’ site. He’s an old school reconstructionist, and his newsletter is a hoot. A recent quote regarding mainstream Christian churches:

At any given time you can take a look across the bow of today’s Christian establishment and you’ll see a vast sea of unfathomable, bizarre conduct. Wild men and women everywhere, doing their thing, blaspheming God and His Word, partying, frolicking, laughing like hyenas, wild as loons. God must surely be heartsick at what he is seeing.

Geez, I went I got dragged off to church as a kid there was defiantly no partying or frolicking of any kind going on. I must have gone to one of the uncool churches or something.

The Moral Failing Of Watchdog Groups

2006-04-01T01:03:00.000-05:00

“Watchdog groups”, as they are called, are organizations that devote themselves to monitoring the activities of political extremists. There a quite a few of them currently operating in the U.S., mostly from a liberal or leftist viewpoint. A few, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are large enough to provide a comfortable living to their owners. While providing a lot of valuable information on the groups they monitor, the activities of watchdog groups raise several troubling ethical questions. One of the greatest of these is the lack of any sort of outreach program directed at the persons they keep tabs on. I don’t know of a single watchdog groups that makes any sort of effort to lure political extremists away from their activities. Given that most people choose their political affiliations based on the perceived social relationships they think they will gain as a result, it stands to reason that an outreach program offering a substitute social network might be quite successful. It seems that for whatever reason, watchdog groups would rather mock and disrupt the extremist movements they monitor rather than try to help their members to quit. Of course, an outreach program would also require quite a bit more work and a true desire to help others.

Those Wacky Anarchists Are At It Again!

2006-03-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

The recent release of the film V for Vendetta has created some interesting reactions within the anarchist subculture. Although the film apparently removes most of the source comic’s references to anarchism, our dreadlock-encrusted friends have decided that this is a prime opportunity to educate the masses as to the benefits of living in a society free of cops, laws, and indoor plumbing. Never mind that the protagonist of the Alan Moore comic book is clearly insane, and that the story paints the period after the fall of the state as being one of roving gangs and food shortages. The anarchists are going to pass out flyers outside of the film’s screenings in an effort to get people to visit a website that ties what they’ve just seen with anti-state indoctrination. More entertainingly, they promise to “Engage audience through costumed role playing of 'deleted scenes'—acting out portions of the graphic novel where V speaks in support of anarchy.” Can you imagine how yuppies and teenyboppers would react to such a display? Anyone who can direct me to a video of this hilarity will receive a place of honor in the annals of Extreme Politics.

On a side note, a writer from the Wall Street Journal used the release of the movie as a starting point for an article that provides a well-reasoned attack on anarchism both in its past and present incarnations. The responses given by the anarchist range from the humorous to the bizarre. I especially enjoyed how they quickly distance themselves from Leon Tolstoy’s pacifist interpretation of anarchy, arguing that terrorism will be a completely appropriate course of action once the tactical situation calls for it. And they have the nerve to complain when the very state they seek to violently destroy uses any amount of force against them.

PETA’s Unsettling Truth

2006-03-16T01:46:00.000-05:00

As regular readers of this blog have no doubt noticed, I’m not a big fan of PETA. Although their cause (improving the treatment of animals) is a laudable one, their disturbing fanaticism, questionable tactics, and links to terrorism make them a proper addition to this site’s list of dangerous extremists. Having just said all of that, I have to give credit where it’s due. PETA seems to be the only group in the U.S. with the balls to go undercover and capture animal abuse with hidden cameras, then turn the evidence over to law enforcement and post it for public viewing.

PETA has been engaged in a long-running feud with the circus industry over its treatment of animals. They’ve posted a new secretly shot video depicting the horrendous abuse elephants undergo during circus training. It makes for very disturbing viewing. Take a look for yourself and then see if you agree with me that the bloody climax seems to be in many ways totally predictable.

Anarcho-Punk Imbeciles Riot At British Invasion 2K6

2006-03-08T00:26:00.000-05:00

Rioting-The Unbeatable High

-Jello Biafra

It appears that the British Invasion 2K6 concert recently held in California tuned into a fun night for everyone involved. The Nazi skinheads got to do what they do best (start trouble and then run away), the anarchist punks got to do what they live for (throw bottles at the cops and vandalize local businesses), and the cops got to use all of that cool riot control training they’ve received by terrorizing said punks.

For those of you not familiar with what happened, the concert was a huge show featuring a bunch of second wave British punk acts like Vice Squad and the Adicts. Apparently, there were a handful of Nazi skinheads among the crowd of 1,500. The Nazis started giving white power salutes and yelling at the bands, bringing the wrath of the crowd upon them. At this point, someone got stabbed, and the cops responded by setting off tear gas both inside and outside the venue. The punks then proceeded to use the events as a pretext to generally act like a bunch of fools (check out some interesting videos and photos of the riot here, here, and here). The cops quickly got the situation under control, but not before some major property destruction went down, leaving local civic leader to fret that the whole thing will discourage businesses from coming to the area.

As a wayward youth, I was a pretty heavily involved in the punk scene myself. It was just this kind of blatant, pervading idiocy that made me stop going to shows. In this case, I would have to say that the cops, the Nazis, and the punks were three groups of people who absolutely deserved each other.

One People's Project Does An Ideological Somersault

2006-03-02T02:27:00.000-05:00

One of the hallmarks of extremist thinking is its rigidity. Core values must be maintained, no matter how ridiculous they become. For example, leftists (both here and abroad) make hatred of the United States one of their primary tenants. To maintain otherwise is foolishness. This is why Noam Chomsky attacked president Clinton when he authorized the humanitarian missions to Somalia and Kosovo. He simply could not conceive of the U.S. government actually acting out of benevolent intentions. This brings me to a recent article posted on the One People’s Project (OPP) website which attempts to rationalize the riots in the Muslim world after the publication of the infamous cartoons. Given that traditional Islam is a faith that horribly oppresses women and allows for virtually no freedom of speech, you would think that leftists might be a tiny bit critical of it. But the jihadists are enemies of the U.S., and therefore the “good guys” in the far left’s twisted worldview. The author of the article states, “Freedom of the press does not exist to insult other countries.” Perhaps he should check out some Islamic papers, which regularly insult not only president Bush but also the American people in general. He also suggests that “What these riots are really about, and what the Middle East hatred for the west is, too, is about the Middle East being outraged that the Western World has no respect for its culture [but I love hummus!]/values [like stoning women for adultery]/beliefs [in homicidal god], its people [would that include the suicide bombers?], and its property [I assume you mean their wives].” To top off the hilarity, the main OPP page sports a banner that reads, “Intolerance of intolerance is the only intolerance tolerated”. I would love to see these leftist assh*les go to one of the backwater Muslim counties they venerate and see how “tolerant” the locals are of them.

David Irving Decides Against Martyrdom

2006-02-22T01:08:00.000-05:00

David Irving has long been the respected elder historian of the holocaust denial scene. At one point he was a fairly respected British academic, but eventually fell in with the anti-Semitic far right, and began publishing books which minimized the crimes of the Third Reich. His subtle pro-Nazism lead author Deborah Lipstadt to savagly attack his resarch in her book “Denying the Holocaust”. Irving sued Lipstadt for lible in a U.K. court and lost. In writing his dissmissal of the case, the presiding judge noted that:

"Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism."

After this rather stinging rebuke, Irving busied himself with various speaking tours, mainly in the United States. Last November, he was arrested in Austria and charged with holocaust denial. Yesterday, he plead guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison. Appealing to the court for mercy, Irving stated that “I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz”, and that he had changed his views on the holocaust in light of new documents he had uncovered. The white power people have been surprisingly sympathetic to Irving’s change of heart, correctly noting that the renunciation of his beliefs was the only way for him to avoid what, at age 67, was likely to be a de facto life sentence. I for one will be interested to see if the neo-Nazis will be willing to overlook this renunciation upon Irving’s release, and if he will try to reintegrate himself into that subculture.

Irving’s general creepiness aside, as an American I find his imprisonment for making historically controversial remarks to disturbing. It also, as some have pointed out, makes the European community’s claim that the publishing of anti-Islamic cartoons should be considered a protected expression of free speech seem rather hypocratical. How many of the papers that reprinted the cartoons will protest Irving’s unlawful imprisonment?

On a side note, many on the far right suggest that the Jews are behind the laws in Europe outlawing holocaust denial. This must be an easy connection for anti-Semites to make, but it is a false one. As William F. Buckley recently wrote, if the holocaust had occurred in Missouri, it is likely that the Constitution would have been amended to allow for similar laws here. Nazism is a touchy subject in Europe, particularly in Germany and Austria. The U.S. on the other hand has a much higher Jewish population than central Europe, yet every halfwit racist is still allowed to publicly manipulate historical events as he sees fit.

The Secret Source Of Homophobia

2006-02-16T01:10:00.000-05:00

James Cameron

When some religious right flunky wants to provide “scientific” evidence to back up their anti-gay rhetoric, they usually cite the work of James Cameron. Cameron is a thoroughly discredited researcher whose foundation specializes in publishing bizarre and outlandish materials attacking homosexuals. Among his more interesting claims are that only 1% of the gay population of the U.S. will die of old age (How many people do you know who died of that cause? My grandpa, for instance, died of cancer.), and that lesbians are 300 times more likely to die in car accidents than are straight women (?!). The Southern Poverty Law Center has published an entertaining article on Cameron in its new Intelligence Report. It points out the obvious absurdities of Cameron’s research, and notes how many fairly respectable right wing Christians still rely on his work to buttress their arguments. Perhaps the most interesting thing in the article is its illustration of the confused sexuality one often finds among hardcore homophobes. For instance, there’s this bit from a 1999 Cameron interview:

"Marital sex tends toward the boring end. Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does. If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one's own personal amusement, if all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get, then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men."

Riiiight. It turns out that Cameron was sexually assaulted by both men and women as a child. This may partially explain the arguments he put forth in his 1978 book “Sexual Gradualism”. Cameron suggests that children should be “taught” heterosexuality by being allowed to experience progressively more intense sexual exploration under the direction of their parents. Realizing that many parents would find the idea of allowing young children to explore their sexuality to be repugnant, he notes: “While no parent wants his child starting the sexual process ‘too young,’ better too young than homosexual.”

Let’s just hope James isn’t lurking around some playground right now, hoping to “educate” the youngsters.

Muslims Take Themselves Far Too Seriously

2006-02-09T00:19:00.001-05:00

The best thing that can be said of Christianity is that it’s not as bad as Islam.

-Fred Woodward

As much as I complain about the actions of the religious right in this country, I must admit that compared to radical Muslims, Christian fundamentalist come across as rather benign. For example, the sort-lived network television program “Book of Daniel” was considered by many Christians to portray Jesus and Christianity in general in a sacreligious way. So they proceeded to call for boycotts of the show’s advertisers and started a letter writing campaign directed at NBC. After three episodes, the show was cancelled partially as the result of the boycott, and partially due to viewer disinterest. End of story.

Compare this to the sh*t fit thrown by radical Muslims all over the world as the result of a few badly drawn cartoons that mocked the prophet Mohamed. Let’s not even talk about the embassy burnings in the Middle East. Western Europe is at this point infested with these barbarians, and extremely hostile protests were held throughout the region. Just check out this sign from a protester in London:

We should all be grateful that the number of jihadists residing in the U.S. is still relatively small. I hate to come across as religiously intolerant, but well, I’m religiously intolerant. I think these protests are only the most visible symptom of a sickness that infects the entire Muslim faith. This is after all a religion founded by a man who advocated military conquest as a means to spread his teachings. In many ways, Islam is the largest and most dangerous extremist movement on Earth. This is not to say that there are not many good, law-abiding, friendly Muslims out there. But to put things in perspective, a lot of the rank-and-file members of the Nazi Party were nice people too.

For a good run down of the latest atrocities committed by Muslims worldwide, check out the Western Resistance site. This is also a good piece from the National Review on how Muslims shouldn’t be too surprised that Westerners take a rather dim view of their religion.

Are The Masses Asses?

2006-02-02T00:54:00.000-05:00

“Think of how stupid the average person is. And then realize that half of the people are stupider than that.”

-George Carlin

Almost all political extremists possessing even the most basic grasp on reality eventually come to notice a painfully obvious truth: The majority of Americans are simply not interested in their political doctrines. The usual explanation for this apathy is that a dark cabal manipulates the media in the support of its own goals. Whether the cabal is seen as being comprised of the corporate rich, atheistic liberals, or Jews, the result is the same: The brainwashing of the masses. This mental conditioning prevents the majority from seeing the obvious “truth” of the extremist’s message. Of course, this conclusion leads to yet another question: Considering how easily the average American can be beguiled and led, what are we to make of his or her intelligence level? The conclusion seems obvious. As Paul Craig Roberts, a former Regan administration official turned leftist writes regarding polling data on the public’s view of the war on terror: “What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?” He speaks in particular of the issue of President Bush’s warrantless wiretaps, but the statement could have come from the mouth of any fringe politico.

Interestingly, the far right is not as bothered by this realization. William Pierce, the most notable post-WWII National Socialist thinker considered white Americans to be as a whole a worthless lot, often referring to them as “lemmings”. His view is consistent with the elitist worldview of fascism. Only under the direction of a strong dictatorship could the average person function as a productive member of society. But for anti-authoritarian leftists, the idea of the average person being a dolt is a bit more disturbing, as the whole “Power to the People” chant would become a bit ridiculous. It’s a critical flaw in their thinking that the radical left has yet to come to terms with.

Nick Griffin, The BNP, And Why Hate Crime Laws Are Still A Really Bad Idea

2006-01-25T02:02:00.000-05:00

Nick Griffin

People who advocate the enactment of hate crime laws in the U.S. usually do so with well-meaning intentions. They seek to increase the penalties for bias-motivated crimes so as to discourage others from engaging in similar anti-social actions. Unfortunately, it’s not too far a jump from hate crime laws to hate speech laws, which punish persons for merely uttering hatful remarks. In fact, several universities in the U.S. have already enacted extremely restrictive speech codes on their campuses, and the time may not be far away when we will see such codes being proposed on a statewide or even nation wide level.

For a scary look at where all of this can lead, consider the case of Nick Griffin. Griffin is the leader of the ultra-right British National Party (BNP), and has been on the British government’s sh*t list for quite a while. He and several other BNP members were recently charged with “inciting racial hatred” after an undercover journalist taped a BNP meeting during which racist sentiments were expressed. Griffin himself was charged because he strongly criticized the Muslim religion, declaring it too be “a vicious, wicked faith”. Keep in mind that this was a private meeting, not a public one, and that the participants had no idea their comments would leave the room. It’s also worth considering that quite a few Americans (myself included) have made comments about Islam that are about as harsh as what Griffin said. In Britain, columns like this one, written by American conservative Cal Thomas, are enough to get one thrown in jail.

This is not meant as any defense of the BNP. It’s quite clearly a racist organization, and its membership seems to be comprised mainly of thugs and idiots. But it’s easy for leftists to use such right-wing extremists as justification for passing restrictive speech codes. Then it becomes just as easy to turn those codes against the general public, and thus stifle any constructive debate on topics such as the threat of radical Islam to democracy.

An Academic Look At Anarchists

2006-01-19T01:11:00.000-05:00

Readers of this site have no doubt picked up on my distain for academia and its theoretical pretensions. I must however admit that this paper, penned by a professor of mental health and an Oregon cop and published in an academic journal, is an exception. The authors sought to conduct a threat assessment by which law enforcement officers could better gauge the potential for violence when dealing with anarchists. The paper brings up a couple of interesting points:

The authors suggest that authorities should be cautious of a potential alliance between far left and far right groups acting towards the common cause of overthrowing the existing government (p. 9). Although lots of radicals on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested such an alliance, it seems very unlikely to come about. Extremists have in the past always put their own petty personal differences above the needs of the revolution, and are therefore unlikely to work with people whom they politically despise, even if doing so might help to forward their cause.

This paper introduced me to the term “Anarchist Berserker” (p. 9). That would be the all time coolest name for a punk band.

The example of an anarchist berserker used in the paper is Andrew McCrae (p. 9), an individual I was not previously familiar with. McCrae shot and killed a cop in 2002 in an effort to bring attention to “police state tactics”. The nitwit then posted a full confession and manifesto on the San Francisco Indy Media site. It makes for chilling reading.

Finally, the authors make some very valid points on why people become anarchists in the first place (p. 5-6). They note that most people join primarily out of a need for social contact and a surrogate family rather than true ideological commitment. They also suggest that the anarchist groups who ceaselessly travel the country looking for confrontations with law enforcement are behaving in a manner similar to that of youth street gangs. It all kind of gets back to one of my main conclusions regarding political beliefs in general and extremists in particular: Most of us don’t consciously choose our political ideologies. Rather, they come about as the result of a need to satisfy an emotional or psychological desire within ourselves.

G. Gordon Liddy Meets PETA And Other Strangeness

2006-01-11T00:41:00.000-05:00

G. Gordon Liddy, former leader of president Nixon’s “Plumbers” and current far right talk show host, has done a voice over for a PETA radio ad. No, I’m not making this up. I’m really at a loss to explain this one. I would suggest that this might cause Liddy to catch some flack from his fellow right-wingers, who generally take a very dim view of animal rights groups in general. But then again, they might have to take into account that Liddy is completely out of his mind, and has been since he took the fall for Nixon back in the 70’s.

Staying on the subject of bizarre goings on in the extremist world, someone had the brilliant idea to take Gizoogle’s ghetto translator program and apply it to a white power site, namely the Stormfront discussion board. The result is both offensive and hilarious. In the interest of fairness, here’s what this site looks like using the same program. I can’t decide which version I like better.