The Alt-Right

[Pickman's model]

Internet surveys may be dubious, I don't know how much more dubious than asking randoms in the streets, but seeing as the alt-right is very rooted in the internet I don't think it's a massive problem. Nor do I think it's entirely useless - first there's the point I made before about them not being necessarily as economically marginalised as people think. Secondly, they may have answered questions in a way indicating they are significantly more racist than the average person, but in fact they often get very triggered at the mere mention of the idea that they could be racist. The shift to the language of "identity and culture" was heralded by, among others, Nick Griffin a generation ago.

most internet surveys take as their starting point that people have access to the internet.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not making that mistake, but it's important you emphasise the point. Too often, assumptions are made about poverty and racism which are not only inaccurate but let middle class and elite racists off the hook. These middle class and elitists then strawman by saying that citing racism is evidence of being out of touch with the working class. They mean white working class of course, because they are dividing the class. They don't give to shits that most victims of racism are working class, nor do they include the interests of non white working class in their analysis. Because they are racist.

You are making that mistake - you literally just lumped all those different groups and motivations together exactly as i said was a mistake. But you just used the alt-right to stand in for all far-right groups. The way that you say the alt-right uses of examples of w/c racism to stand in for all far-right groups and to avoid censure and criticism.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

You are making that mistake - you literally just lumped all those different groups and motivations together exactly as i said was a mistake. But you just used the alt-left to stand in for all far-right groups. The way that you say the alt-right uses of examples of w/c racism to stand in for all far-right groups and to avoid censure and criticism.

I'm sure the self-indentifying alt-right are diverse. I have never used the term "alt-left" and am not inclined to, and I don't see how I've used such a body of people to "stand in" for all far right groups. Certainly it's quite common for racists to use phony invocations of class to avoid censure and criticism.

 

[mojo pixy]

It's not a new thing, middle class people have been pretending to be working class for decades. Usually goes hand in hand with pretending to be inarticulate, because obviously working class = stupid.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm sure the self-indentifying alt-right are diverse. I have never used the term "alt-left" and am not inclined to, and I don't see how I've used such a body of people to "stand in" for all far right groups. Certainly it's quite common for racists to use phony invocations of class to avoid censure and criticism.

I meant to say alt-right not alt-left.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Oh dear

Roskomnadzor ceased the delegation of the domain name in the runet of the site of American neo-Nazis The Daily Stormer.

"The Daily Stormer website promotes neo-Nazi ideology, incites racial, national and other types of social strife." In this regard, Roskomnadzor asked the Ru-center domain name registrar to promptly consider the termination of the domain name's delegation in the national domain zone .ru, "- said in a statement of the head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov, who arrived at Interfax on Thursday.

Заблокированный в США после Шарлоттсвилля сайт неонацистов лишили доменного имени в рунете

 

[Lurdan]

Oh dear


Заблокированный в США после Шарлоттсвилля сайт неонацистов лишили доменного имени в рунете

What a shame. Mind you, without the services of Cloudflare, who booted them off yesterday, or something equivalent, they'll be DDOSed to fuck regardless of whether even if they have a domain registration.

Prince wrote that he "woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. It was a decision I could make because I'm the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company."

 

[bimble]

On the other hand whilst everyone is celebrating the demise of the Stormer, David Duke has been having a fantastic time, hugely increased following on social media and his name in the news in a way he could only have dreamt of.

 

[BigTom]

On the other hand whilst everyone is celebrating the demise of the Stormer, David Duke has been having a fantastic time, hugely increased following on social media and his name in the news in a way he could only have dreamt of.

Yeah but half of those people ahve only followed him to tell him to fuck off, and the other half are all Duke sock puppet accounts to tell them to fuck off themselves.

 

[danny la rouge]

Only just had time to get onto this today, Rutita1

Rather than paraphrase, I'm just going to quote some passages from Karen E Fields and Barbara J Fields, (2012), Racecraft: the Soul of Inequality in American Life, London and New York: Verso.

Hopefully that gives a flavour of what its themes are and why it's relevant to the discussion here.

[Definition of racecraft]:

“One among a complex system of beliefs, with combined moral and cognitive content, that presuppose invisible, spiritual qualities underlying, and continually acting upon, the material realm of beings and events.” (pp202/203)


“[…] racecraft is not a euphemistic substitute for racism. It is a kind of fingerprint evidence that racism is on the scene”. (p19)


“In America, straightforward talk about class inequality is all but impossible, indeed taboo. […] On the other hand, divisive political appeals composed in a different register […] enlist voters’ self-concept in place of their self-interest; appealing, in other words, to who they are and are not, rather than to what they require and why”. (p12)


“From very early on, Americans wove racist concepts into public language about inequality that made ‘black’ the virtual equivalent of ‘poor’ and ‘lower class’, thus creating a distinctive idiom that has no parallel in other Western democracies.” (p11)



“To a list of contributors to high asthma rates that includes heavy traffic, dense population, poorly maintained housing, and lack of access to medical care, the article [an NYT article being discussed] adds ‘a large population of blacks and Hispanics, two groups with high rates of asthma’. Racecraft has permitted the consequence under investigation to masquerade under the causes. Susceptibility to filthy air does not depend on the census category to which the asthma sufferer belongs”. (pp40/41).



“Nothing so illustrates that impossibility [that American scholars find in escaping racecraft] as the conviction among otherwise sensible scholars that race ‘explains’ historical phenomena; specifically, that it explains why people of African descent have been set apart for treatment different from that accorded to others. But race is just the name assigned to the phenomenon, which it no more explains than judicial review ‘explains’ why the United States Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, or that Civil War ‘explains’ why Americans fought each other between 1861 and 1865” (pp119/120)


“[racecraft] ties our tongues and plants mines in our language. To many white Americans today, the word welfare irresistibly conjures up lazy Afro-Americans and cheating immigrants, until they need it themselves” (p278)


“Once racecraft takes over the imagination, it shrinks well-founded criticism of inequality to fit crabbed moral limits, leaving the social grievances of white Americans without a language in which to frame them”. (p286).

 

[Treacle Toes]

Thanks danny la rouge I appreciate your time/effort.

 

[andysays]

Only just had time to get onto this today, Rutita1

Rather than paraphrase, I'm just going to quote some passages from Karen E Fields and Barbara J Fields, (2012), Racecraft: the Soul of Inequality in American Life, London and New York: Verso.

Hopefully that gives a flavour of what its themes are and why it's relevant to the discussion here.

[Definition of racecraft]:

“One among a complex system of beliefs, with combined moral and cognitive content, that presuppose invisible, spiritual qualities underlying, and continually acting upon, the material realm of beings and events.” (pp202/203)


“[…] racecraft is not a euphemistic substitute for racism. It is a kind of fingerprint evidence that racism is on the scene”. (p19)


“In America, straightforward talk about class inequality is all but impossible, indeed taboo. […] On the other hand, divisive political appeals composed in a different register […] enlist voters’ self-concept in place of their self-interest; appealing, in other words, to who they are and are not, rather than to what they require and why”. (p12)


“From very early on, Americans wove racist concepts into public language about inequality that made ‘black’ the virtual equivalent of ‘poor’ and ‘lower class’, thus creating a distinctive idiom that has no parallel in other Western democracies.” (p11)



“To a list of contributors to high asthma rates that includes heavy traffic, dense population, poorly maintained housing, and lack of access to medical care, the article [an NYT article being discussed] adds ‘a large population of blacks and Hispanics, two groups with high rates of asthma’. Racecraft has permitted the consequence under investigation to masquerade under the causes. Susceptibility to filthy air does not depend on the census category to which the asthma sufferer belongs”. (pp40/41).



“Nothing so illustrates that impossibility [that American scholars find in escaping racecraft] as the conviction among otherwise sensible scholars that race ‘explains’ historical phenomena; specifically, that it explains why people of African descent have been set apart for treatment different from that accorded to others. But race is just the name assigned to the phenomenon, which it no more explains than judicial review ‘explains’ why the United States Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, or that Civil War ‘explains’ why Americans fought each other between 1861 and 1865” (pp119/120)


“[racecraft] ties our tongues and plants mines in our language. To many white Americans today, the word welfare irresistibly conjures up lazy Afro-Americans and cheating immigrants, until they need it themselves” (p278)


“Once racecraft takes over the imagination, it shrinks well-founded criticism of inequality to fit crabbed moral limits, leaving the social grievances of white Americans without a language in which to frame them”. (p286).

Thanks for this danny.

Here's a link to a PDF for those (including me) who are interested in reading more

 

[danny la rouge]

Thanks for this danny.

Here's a link to a PDF for those (including me) who are interested in reading more

Good find. That's very useful.

 

[teqniq]

Presently there is a march by Nazis to celebrate Rudolph Hess's birthday in Berlin. Here is how the police are dealing with the counter demo



live feed here

Seb Green @sebseb7

 

[DotCommunist]

Presently there is a march by Nazis to celebrate Rudolph Hess's birthday in Berlin. Here is how the police are dealing with the counter demo



live feed here

Seb Green @sebseb7

Why hess? Surely hess let them down badly, fucked them. Hitler had him as a close man and of high rank then he flew to scotland for a fried egg sarnie. Or to broker a peace. Maybe both. The egg sarnie would have been realistically possible I suppose. Either way, why his birthday? Its not making sense to me

 

[J Ed]

Why hess? Surely hess let them down badly, fucked them. Hitler had him as a close man and of high rank then he flew to scotland for a fried egg sarnie. Or to broker a peace. Maybe both. The egg sarnie would have been realistically possible I suppose. Either way, why his birthday? Its not making sense to me

I think that the far-right like stuff like that because it gives them what they think is plausible deniability.

 

[teqniq]

 

[petee]

Why hess? Surely hess let them down badly, fucked them. Hitler had him as a close man and of high rank then he flew to scotland for a fried egg sarnie. Or to broker a peace. Maybe both. The egg sarnie would have been realistically possible I suppose. Either way, why his birthday? Its not making sense to me

they're very fine people who are commemorating his attempt to stop the war.
see, all the violence is coming from the left!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I am too soft, a wet fart in fact, but I do appreciate that you can't turn the other cheek with people like the far-right. We need 'thugs' who aren't 'just as bad' as the fascists (as liberals like to say) but actually people who are better than them at spreading a message physically, politically.

Agreed. IIRC an Urbanite was close to bullied off the board when he mentioned having keyed the car of someone - in their presence - for wearing a British Movement t-shirt. The wiberals didn't like it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Any message worth spreading in a democracy doesn't need to be spread 'physically' in an age of unlimited communication thumping it into someone doesn't seem the most effective method to transmit ideas.

It's worked well the times I've used it, but then I've always suspected that many fascists are wannabes and hangers-on, and that a good thumping scares them out of their stupidity.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Which message has been beaten into society?

Who is talking about "society"?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Und was stimmt nicht, Deutsch zu sprechen?

Ein bisschen, du Arschloch.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's difficult to extrapolate from the UK to the US but it's very clear to me that playing Whack-a Mole with fascists on British streets has always been and I suspect will always be in the mix and part of the way to do it.

To be fair, I've never seen any mallet-wielding anti-fascists.

What happens is that time passes between the fascists deciding to take back the streets. When they do, of course some people, usually too young and idealistic to remember, always ask if meeting violence with violence is the way to go, and those who say 'yes' are the ones who can remember the last time(s). The fash takes a beating and retreats. It works to that extent. Kerb-stones and all that.

As for some of the people from the anti-fascist side who front up; I wouldn't have them home for tea and I imagine that their ideological underpinnings might be questioned by the marchers alongside them. But they looked at the political landscape and decided that their loyalties lay broadly with the left. So it could have easily gone the other way, well it didn't.

Just as history repeats itself with the fascists deciding to have another go at a presence on the streets every so often so is there a sense of deja vu with the left analysing and conducting endless post-mortems about who did and said what. The internet is great facilitator of this. But the fact remains that the fash gets another kicking, which is a part of the cocktail of the things that need to be done. Does it prop up liberal democracy? Does it deal with the deep-rooted issues? Dunno. Does it clean the streets for a while?

IMO what it boils down to is that the left needs to be prepared for street violence from the hard right, and that means fighting back if they start a ruck - which they invariably do - and going in hard. A lot of the greenhorns have been fed tales of skinny lefties who run at the first sign of trouble, so taking a hard kick to the bollocks is sometimes enough to dissuade them from ever marching again. Does it clean the streets for a while? I'd say that it means there's less litter on the streets for a while.

 

[teqniq]

Charlottesville Was a Preview of the Future of the Republican Party

 

[butchersapron]

Why hess? Surely hess let them down badly, fucked them. Hitler had him as a close man and of high rank then he flew to scotland for a fried egg sarnie. Or to broker a peace. Maybe both. The egg sarnie would have been realistically possible I suppose. Either way, why his birthday? Its not making sense to me

Hess was one of the few nazis who were in the nazi party before hitler. His mission - far from letting these people down - was an attempt to stop a brothers war. So they celebrate what could have been.

 

[teqniq]

Also from the same site as my last post is this, which I found pretty amusing

False–Flag Human Alex Jones Gets Bathed in Coffee and Trolled by Seattle Police

concerning the trolling





what a fucking loon

 

[DotCommunist]

.

 

[Idris2002]

Hess was one of the few nazis who were in the nazi party before hitler. His mission - far from letting these people down - was an attempt to stop a brothers war. So they celebrate what could have been.

Aren't there meant to have been shenanigans involving the British Royals in that one as well?

 

[butchersapron]

Aren't there meant to have been shenanigans involving the British Royals in that one as well?

Well there was no end of after-war plans with some of them.

 

[DotCommunist]

ah right. I do recall reading that the idea of accommodation with- and some degree of admiration for- the empiah was real to them. Still, Hess, the timing ffs. There was no way by that point surely.

still seems an odd one to pick as your hero of the day to me, even so.