EXTREME POLITICS

World Socialist may get a lot of flak for being a dogmatic propaganda rag, but the quality of articles — and insight — is high. Even if you’re a right-winger, you can derive useful knowledge from the pulse of their analysis, because they take a larger perspective on history and so show us trends beyond the immediate through the immediate.

Case in point:

We are, in fact, holding this congress in the midst of a major turning point in world history. The collapse of the US housing and credit bubble has rapidly developed into what is widely acknowledged to be the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Governments, central banks and economists can only guess how cataclysmic the consequences of the US financial meltdown will be. But they are forced to recognize that, in the best-case scenario, the world is in for a protracted period of economic stagnation and financial volatility. Whatever the short-term outcome-which must include as a real possibility a financial panic that plunges the world into a new Depression-the current crisis has dealt a massive blow to the credibility of American capitalism, both internationally and, above all, within the United States itself.

The events of the past year have revealed in the starkest manner the vast decline of the United States. Suddenly, before the eyes of the world, the outcome of a decades-long process of internal decay has broken through the surface and revealed a level of financial parasitism and criminality with no historical precedent. Such events deeply penetrate the consciousness of the masses and inevitably lead to profound changes in their political orientation. The rapidity and violence of such changes must have a proportional relationship to the scale of the myths that are being shattered and the scope of old illusions. As the ruling class that most persistently preached the gospel of free markets, private enterprise and individual self-reliance scrambles to bail out Wall Street giants to the tune of trillions of dollars-while millions lose their homes and poverty, unemployment, ill health and illiteracy increase-it becomes impossible to conceal the class divisions that dominate American society.

The ruling class and its ossified two-party system lack any perspective for addressing these problems in a rational and progressive way. Their central concern remains the ever-greater enrichment of a wealthy elite. Elections have been reduced to ritualized and demagogic contests between two right-wing parties of big business, in which the masses of people are effectively disenfranchised. The ruling class does have a response to the crisis of American capitalism: an unending series of wars of conquest and plunder.

World Socialist

While I think the bloviation on the current recession is overblown — it’s a transient issue, brought on by the policies of the 1990s and the consequent over-valuation of America’s “knowledge industry,” and the market is going to undertake a correction for a few years — they have a point: people who thought technology and industry were a firm footing are now opening their eyes to other possibilities.

Between January and October this year 113 people were killed in racist attacks in Russia and 340 were wounded, according to the Moscow Human Rights Bureau.

{ snip }

Prosecutors said the defendants – most of whom were minors at the time of the attacks – had formed a gang to target non-Slavic migrants in the city.

{ snip }

In other words, they targeted people who did not look white, or Slavic, the BBC’s James Rodgers in Moscow reports.

BBC

Interesting to see some figures on the far-right activity in Russia, since we haven’t seen any for a while. Most importantly, is the focus on “Slavic” appearance here: they are apparently targeting white foreigners as well, and only tolerating people who appear Slavic like Russian natives.

As with figures cited for rape, the rule is: multiply by ten and divide by two. For every one victim who reports a crime, nine don’t, roughly; about half of these unreported crimes are fabrications, often used to manipulate others into pitying the “victim.”

From my experience, the far-right in Russia doesn’t stand a chance. They have an autocratic leadership dynasty that is well-liked, and an economy that while stagnant is making the right moves toward health. Extreme political options are only palatable when normal options fail.

Looks like the nationalists have improved their behavior — and, as a result, their public image:

Despite the violence, there were no reports of any serious injuries during the November 30th marches held annually by Swedish right-wing groups to honour the Swedish king who died in 1718.

Violence erupted when members of several anti-racist groups staged a counter demonstration to force the right-wing marchers to change their route and keep them out of central Lund.

“We’re satisfied that the right-wing demonstrators were able to carry out their march, even if the route had to be changed. We are, however, very dissatisfied that the left-wind demonstrators attacked police,” said the police’s HÃ¥kan Jarborg Eriksson to the TT news agency.

Jarborg Eriksson commanded the roughly 150 officers drawn from all over SkÃ¥ne county who arrived in Lund to patrol Sunday’s demonstrations.

{ snip }

Suddenly the counter-demonstrators began throwing paving stones and bottles, and launched a number of fireworks, resulting in the thick smoke covering the area.

The Local

Looks like the Swedish nationalists have been “upping their image”:

“On Saturday, November 22nd, the National Socialist Front (NSF) decided to transfer all of its assets to the newly started People’s Front party as we feel this party has the ability to rebuild a Swedish Sweden. This also means a closing of the books for the National Socialist Front,” the group writes on its website.

According to the magazine Expo, the group has done away with all references to Hilter, but continues to fight for an ethnically homogeneous Sweden.

According to the party’s platform, ethnic Swedes own the right to the country because they share the “same genes and same blood” which belonged to people who “for thousands of years have worked the same earth”.

The party’s aim, therefore, is to “return to the Swedes their power and their rights”.

The Local

It will be interesting to see how this develops in Sweden — a country that has been very open to liberal reforms, but has maintained a strong right-wing presence, since WWII.

The Green Party was forced to admit today that two of its former leading lights were on a list of British National Party members leaked on the internet this week.

The party conceded this morning that Keith Bessant, a two-time parliamentary candidate, and Rev John Stanton, a former local party chairman, had defected to the far-right nationalist organisation.

Doctors, prison officers, teachers and a Buckingham Palace servant were among the 12,000 names published in a blog post on Sunday. The leak has caused recriminations within the party and a nationwide search for members working secretly in the public services.

A spokesman for the Green Party claimed today that Mr Bessant was in the BNP not because he was a racist but because he felt they had better environmental policies.

Times Online

This coalition has been building for some time in Germany and other areas with an active far-right — the far-right has been collaborating with greens because, unlike leftist parties, the far-right accepts the use of strict rule of law to prohibit bad behaviors. This violates the basic leftist tenet of universal freedom, and so makes environmentalism and liberalism incompatible, but not environmentalism and far-rightism.

The tendency of the far-right to mainstream itself as “moderate extremists,” and including family-friendly and environmental policies more in the center of its platform, has been underway for some time:

The first full session of the European Parliament this year gets under way on 15 January, with the inclusion of a new far-right group.

{ snip }

They say they are in favour of the “recognition of national interests”, a “commitment to Christian values… and the traditions of European civilisation”, and the traditional family. They oppose a “unitary, bureaucratic European super state”.

They call themselves Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty – or ITS, for short.

Most of the parties in ITS are vehemently anti-immigration, but they reject the “far-right” label. They say they are near the centre of the political spectrum.

“We got 25% of the vote at the last European election,” points out MEP Philip Claeys of Belgium’s separatist Flemish Interest party.

“We can hardly be described as extremists.”

BBC

With right-wing parties and green parties pairing up in Germany, this is an interesting development indeed.

Not coincidentally, a lot of the science fiction I read during the 1980s had a similar view:

Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

He also cited the “vulnerable political setup”, “lack of unified national laws”, and “divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions.”

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts – the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

GRU

He’s basically right. The coasts may separate because they have dominance over a certain type of economy — opinion work, entertainment, and using paper values changes to make money — while the center of America is where people still manufacture and grow things, the throwbacks. Texas may separate because it’s big and has a history of doing such things, plus has a population contra that in Washington, D.C. It’s probably not likely for 10-50 years if it does happen.

Weirdest news story of the week, followed by why it’s not so weird:

Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zvi Gurfinkel sentenced the teenagers, aged 16 to 19, to between one and seven years in prison for a “shocking and horrifying” year-long spree of attacks that targeted foreign workers, ultra-Orthodox Jews and homeless men.

The court said the group also planned to attack Arabs.

The eight teenagers were immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and court documents cited social adjustment difficulties as a factor behind their involvement in the gang, which posted pro-Adolf Hitler video clips on the Internet.

One of the teenagers was the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

The Star

Most people are going to get hung up on the idea of Jewish Nazis because hey, those are opposites. It’s like Black republicans still get a snicker when mentioned among Democrats. But here’s why Jews and Nazis are coming together: they’re both nationalists.

Let me explain.

In 1896, a lawyer and political writer, Theodor Herzl, formulated his theory of Zionism. It went basically like this: every nation has a demographic majority. Any group that is not of that majority will come into conflict with it, and thus begins the cat and mouse game until they destroy each other or one comes out on top.

The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries—see, for instance, France—so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America. ~ Theodor Herzl

About twenty years later, an apocalyptic “war to end all wars” began. Today we call it World War I. The conflict that started this war is hard to distill, but one of its linchpins was the conflict between nations — formed of one ethnic group — and the empires that tried to lash together several nations for greater political and demographic power. The big empires went to war to keep themselves together and to keep control of their overseas colonies, and the result was that everyone lost.

Only after this did the Nazis (NSDAP, or National Socialist German Worker’s Party) come about. Their big theory was that socialism only works when it has some value higher than money to aspire to, or it becomes either communism or corrupt tyranny. As a result, they bonded nationalism — or love of the ethnic-nation — to socialism and made from it a new form of government. Its political goals were to stop communism and resist liberalism.

When you look at it this way, both Zionists and Nazis are bonded by the same goal: nationalism. It is a travesty of history that they ended up fighting and killing each other instead of good allies, and this travesty is repeated when young Jewish youth turn to Hitler worship instead of Herzl-worship.

However, a few from the Nazi camp are starting to wake up to this possibility, especially as Israel comes under increasing criticism for alleged apartheid policies toward Palestinians:

“Stop the hatred of the Jewish people,” the Web site reads. “The Jews are a healthy, strong nation.”

The organization – whose members have yet to reveal themselves to the public – claims that Israel’s right to exist is anchored in the principles of social Darwinism, the same principles which the Nazis adopted prior to the Second World War.

{ snip }

These unusual statements on the internet compliment the group’s other public campaigns, including the dissemination of bumper stickers. One of the stickers features a picture of Reinhard Heydrich, the senior Nazi official who chaired the Wansee Conference where the Final Solution was hatched. Underneath the photo reads: “As a Nazi, I’m a Zionist.”

Another sticker shows a photo of Israel Defense Forces soldiers during the Second Lebanon War under the heading: “2,000 years of struggling to survive – respect to those worthy of it.”

In terms of the group’s attitude towards the Holocaust, the organization says: “We must view what is referred to as ‘the Holocaust’ within the context of acts of self-defense undertaken by nations under threat.” It added, however, “that there is no justification for it.” Instead, the Nazis ought to have supported the Zionist cause, the group states.

Haaretz

You can read more on the group’s website, National Socialists for Israel. It makes for interesting reading and a curious insight into nationalism these days — instead of attacking each other, nationalists seem to be agreeing to separate and support each other’s right to do so.

These far-right parties are sort of… dare we say… incompetent …?

The British National party tonight vowed to take legal action after its entire membership list was published online in breach of a court injunction.

The party blamed disgruntled former employees for posting details of the names, postal and email addresses and ages of more than 10,000 supporters.

{ snip }

Simon Darby, the BNP’s spokesman, said the membership list, which was password protected and encrypted, had been stolen from the party. “This isn’t a question of us mislaying the information, this is theft,” he said.

{ snip }

“I’m also on the list, what the fuck is going on? I could lose my job,” posted one member on a north-west England BNP forum.

Another wrote: “God help anyone who is in the army, the prison service, health care, police officer or a teacher.”

Since 2004, police officers have faced dismissal if found to be members of the BNP.

The Guardian

This should have interesting repercussions for far-right parties. At some point, it may be impossible for them to have members, which would either force them into leftist-style “cell” arrangements (probably more dangerous for the public) or to operate entirely anonymously except for a cabal of leaders, which would not contribute to their further stability.

Still, I doubt they’re going anywhere if this is the best face of competence they can show us. Can’t protect a membership list? Voters say: LOL, probably can’t protect a nation.

If you start telling people your hobby is politics, they’re going to ask you tough questions. Right now, in America, the question “What do Conservatives believe?” is one of the toughies.

Why is that — well, the conservative movement has gone through many mutations as it has tried to find a way of competing with its more popular liberal opposition. It’s hard to figure out exactly what it stands for at this point.

Historically, Conservatives originated in the ancien regime — the old way of doing things that had worked for thousands of years. This meant an artistocracy, a caste but not class system, a feudal approach to wealth, a unity of religion and science, and so on. When you read about medieval Europe, ancient Rome, ancient Greece or ancient India, you’re reading about this type of society (Plato addresses this in his cycle of civilizations under “Aristocracy.”)

American conservatives tend to define themselves by the oldest regime that country has, which happens to be what in European history would be seen as liberal, just like the French Revolution was. Our Founding Fathers were radicals of the time — Deists not Christians, hell-bent on autonomy of the individual, believers in free speech and No Kings. They weren’t liberals, however, in the modern sense. They recognized that most people shouldn’t have the vote, saw differences between genders and races, did not trust atheism and disliked social welfare. They were a hybrid of the European liberal, the homesteader and the old Conservatives.

The root of the term “conservative” means to conserve, and originally, that included the environment. Usually, it is applied to cultural values, as in conserving the family, the sanctity of marriage, and so on, because in a pluralist society anyone who has a strong values system that isn’t all-inclusively cool with “just do whatever you want man” is at a disadvantage. This applies to both conservatives and, when they demand we take hard action on the environment, liberals, because at that point each group has started demanding individuals sacrifice personal autonomy for collective action. But that’s another story.

Breed conservatism with anarchy and you get libertarianism, which is a type of Social Darwinism that believes that if we just let the markets regulate everything, there will be no need for government. Their critics point out that every single inch of the earth will be covered in advertising at that point, so it’s definitely an issue with two sides.

Today the lovely people at the Republic of Texas, who I’ve been interviewing about beliefs and the direction they’re taking their secessionist movement, sent me a document about the balance between “freedom” and “self-responsibility,” and this is what I think characterizes third-generation American conservatism: an emphasis on the values of the founding fathers with the methods of successful resistance to pluralism, which is a “don’t make me pay for the mistakes of others” attitude derived from libertarians.

The document is linked below.

So there you have it, folks… Conservatism is conservation, which right now means anarchy plus capitalism plus defensive irresponsibility in the name of freedom. If that seems baffling, consider this: conservatism, like extreme liberalism, is incompatible with the “do whatever you want, man” attitude of pluralist societies. Would Stalin or Lenin have agreed to that, either? No, of course not.

And this article is short, and only covered the moderate conservatives. The far-right — are they conservatives? That question in itself is too deeply entrenched to provide anything but “yes and no” right now, but it’s a fascinating one, since when you stop seeing the far right as conservatives, you see the essence of their periodic social appeal — and their willingness to do what conservatives are afraid to say they’d like to. (To be fair, the left has the same affliction, but that’s also a much bigger issue.)

Self-Responsibility

Most of my friends know that my hobby consists of reading Plato and looking for ways his predictions manifest themselves in our current civilization. Plato’s observation was that civilizations have a life cycle, starting with a clear goal and as that fragments, proceeding into an ultra-pluralistic state where eventually the citizens have nothing in common and democracy marches into tyranny.

As he was quick to point out, tyranny never looks like tyranny because if it did it would be wholly ineffective. It approaches instead with kindness. Like all dualistic things, this makes it more fun to try to spot, because its character is positive in appearance but negative in effect. People who know of this reading ignore me except when they’re scared, and then they ask questions.

In the suburban-urban circle of friends — play dates, beers on the porch, volunteering at the recycling center — the overwhelming question asked is: will white nationalists/supremacists assassinate Barack Obama?

My answer is no, for a simple reason. The white power fringe is nowhere near as organized or powerful as portrayed in the media. The two “assassination attempts” so far involved out of work guys high on meth talking big with no follow through. To assassinate a presidential candidate involves planning, deception, skill and knowledge of the subject’s movements; neither of the attempts listed so far had even an ounce of any of that (but they did have several ounces of meth).

When you read in your newspaper about white supremacists, statistics are often cited about how many white supremacist groups there are in the USA. What they don’t tell you is that most of these “groups” are two guys with meth, a computer, a shotgun and a Geocities page. The far-right is in a shambles in the United States and is unlikely to issue forth a coherent statement in the next twenty years, much less manage to even approach a presidential candidate.

Why do we hear so much about white supremacy then? To put it crudely, those who we depend on for our data make their money from overstating the threat. The ADL, SPLC, One People’s Project etc get donations every time they drum up a Nazi threat to minorities and religious minorities, so they turn two guys with a shotgun and a meth habit into an army of jackbooted fanatics. The money comes in. Mission accomplished.

So my verdict is that Obama’s safe. I just don’t see these disorganized, marginalized people mounting an attack. As an addendum to that, I think the people who watch them are pretty good — the law enforcement people, the FBI and secret service. One major reason they’re good is that when your targets can’t stop taking meth and buying illegal guns, it’s easy to turn informants. “Hold up there, Jethro, this looks like an ounce of meth and an unlicensed AK-47. Saaayyy… instead of doing 30 years in Cell Block Sodomy, how about you just keep us informed on what your fellow Knights of the Burning Auslander are doing? Keep it real, buddy.” They even pay off their informants in cold hard taxpayer cash because if you pay them for any rumor, you’ll get lots of tremors if anything real is going on.

There are far-right groups to watch, but generally they’re more of the rationale not race war types. They’re just not the ones to get press. I’ll break the list down for you here.

Groovers and Fakers

• Stormfront

  Not a white supremacist group as much as a giant discussion forum with 100,000 members, most of whom appear to be receiving disability.

• Vanguard

  Not a white supremacist group so much as a humor and news publication from a pro-white angle.

• American Nazi Party

  Moribund remnants of George Lincoln Rockwell’s party.

• National Alliance

  Moribund remnants of William Luther Pierce’s party.

• National Socialist Movement

  More interested in spiffy uniforms than action.

• The Klan

  Unable to achieve any action more organized than beating up Panamanian teens.

These groups, while they achieve the overwhelming majority of the media attention on this issue, are also the least likely to take action — and if they do take action, they’re the least likely to take organized, effective action with a chance of being effective. If these people decide to assassinate Obama, the safest place will be standing next to him.

Movers and Shakers

• American Renaissance

  Scientific race separatists who do nothing more extreme than hold a yearly conference at a major hotel chain.

• Council of Conservative Citizens

  Includes an opposition to multiculturalism.

• Majority Rights

  More displeased intellectuals. Pass the arugula.

• Civic Platform

  More scientific racists, traditionalists.

• Libertarian National Socialist Green Party

  No one is certain if they’re “for real” or not.

• White Aryan Resistance

  This group has been around forever but continues to grow.

In summary, we have some groups that are violent and ineffective, and others whose goal is to spread white supremacy rhetoric at parties and play dates. The former may try to assassinate President-Elect Obama, but will surely fail; the latter will not try, but will write nasty things on the internet about him. The FBI is watching both groups. I’m fairly certain he’s safe.

“I can’t say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it,” said Millner, who is black. “But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they’re capable of and what they’re really thinking.”

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is “a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them.”

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: “I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

{ snip }

_Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: “Let’s shoot that (N-word) in the head.” Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

_At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: “Osama Obama Shotgun Pool.” Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. “Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count,” the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written “Let’s hope someone wins.”

_Racist graffiti was found in places including New York’s Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and “Go Back To Africa” were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

_Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted “assassinate Obama,” a district official said.

_University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. “It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork,” Houston said.

_Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

_Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

_A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted ‘Obama.’

_In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying “now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house.”

Breitbart

Assuming that up to half of these reported crimes are fake, which would be about on the level for crimes that bring dramatic attention to the reporter, that’s still a big surge in racial discontent.