Posted on 12/04/2016 10:22:12 AM PST by Kaslin
During the last election campaign all of a sudden I kept hearing about the Alt-Right. Since I thought I was pretty well read and had never heard of them, I considered them to have the same social relevance as a Miley Cyrus song. I decided to investigate this supposed social phenomenon as soon as the election was over and I was done writing about real issues important to the campaign.
I started by sending emails to mainstream Republicans asking them if they knew anyone who considered themselves members of the Alt-Right. The answer was a universal no. Then I sent emails to my friends who consider themselves conservative Republicans. These are people I respect, but I consider a little more hardcore. The answer was again we don’t know any of these people.
I did get one positive response suggesting I contact Jon Fleischman, someone I have known for 20 years, who in the past five years or so has been the California editor for Breitbart. I have also written for Jon’s publication Flashreport.org.
Jon is Jewish and works for Breitbart which has been accused of being anti-Semitic. Jon is a pretty knowledgeable guy -- doing his own publication and working for Breitbart -- but was totally ignorant about the Alt-Right. I asked him what he knew about Richard Spencer (someone who has gotten recent publicity as supposedly a leader of the Alt-Right) and he said “Who is he?” He then told me that Breitbart has an intercompany communication system called a Slack Network where they exchange ideas about columns and items to be published at Breitbart. He stated “I have never seen once anything indicating any racist or anti-Semitic attitudes, not once.”
I did have an extended email conversation with a gentleman, who said he was a member of the Alt-Right. His name is John Preston though he told me that was a pseudonym. He is with the Council of Conservative Citizens. He stated he used a pseudonym (as most of the people he knows do) because a lot of people who are members of the Alt-Right are afraid of employment discrimination and other factors. John was very forthcoming and seemingly intelligent. He wrote in a very lucid manner and stated he has been part of this movement for 15 years. He also made clear he has no idea how many people are in the Alt-Right because so much of it is underground.
When I asked Preston why he believes his viewpoints are controversial and not just anti-PC, he answered with this statement: “We stick up for white people. We believe white people have interests, too. It's a big taboo to hold that position in our society. Jewish people can advocate for Jewish interests like a pro-Israel foreign policy. Black people can advocate for black interests. There is an LGBT community now with its interests and public policy agenda. White people though ... that's where the line is drawn. It's *racist* to identify as white, to have a positive sense of white identity, and to advocate on behalf of white interests like reduced immigration or, say, law and order. There are groups like the SPLC which exist to get people fired from their jobs for holding our views. That's why our cause is controversial and our movement has been driven underground. I'm not sure how much longer that can continue though.”
When I asked him about immigration he replied, “It's not because we *hate* foreigners - if they stay in their own countries and act like good neighbors, we are fine with them. I don't have a problem with Mexicans in Mexico. I don't mind foreigners coming here and studying at our universities. Personally, I admire Japan more than any other country in the world.”
“It is because we want to maintain the white majority. We don't want to be overwhelmed in our own countries. The cultural, economic and political consequences of mass immigration are disastrous for us. The Left has told us for 20 years now that White Christian America is being overthrown and washed away by their ‘ascendant majority.’ We take them at their word, believe that it is not in our interests to allow this to happen, and we are determined to stop it.”
I will leave that for you the reader to characterize. This is not necessarily representative of all thought from the people who call themselves the Alt-Right. I will say that he is correct that is not acceptable thought in most mainstream circles today. And I will say that I don’t agree with his positions.
Yes, it is racially biased toward people of European heritage, and some people believe that they cannot be prejudiced against them because of the historical fact that whites have been the majority in the United States. Some analyses have shown that it will not be long before white people are no longer a majority in America.
I am not going to dismiss the fact that there are bigots and anti-Semites on both sides of the political spectrum in this country. This is a country of about 325 million people and there are a lot of people who believe weird things. There are people who think graffiti is art. There are people who think Rap music has some social redemption. I live with that every day. This is a free country and people are free to think really stupid thoughts as long as they don’t act out on those stupid thoughts in a violent manner -- you know, like the “protesters” in Portland.
One political party does everything it can to segregate voters by identity group: Black, Hispanic, Gay, Asian, One-eyed monsters etc. Then those people who dislike those groups will identify naturally with the other political party simply because it doesn’t identify potential voters by groups, but simply suggests policy ideas that will hopefully benefit all.
If fringe people identify with the Republicans, then their candidates must spend their day disavowing ever-stupid thing that come out of these people’s mouths. And if Republicans don’t disavow them quickly enough and with the “right words,” the disavowing is discounted. Nice game the Dems and their friends in the press have going here.
I have no idea really who these people in the Alt-Right are and neither do the people I know who have been involved in Republican politics for many years. That includes people who I consider -- and even they themselves would consider -- pretty hardcore conservatives. To me identifying the people who are actually with the Alt-Right with the Republicans is akin to identifying Hillary Clinton with the Communist Party of America who did endorse her.
This is the United States of America; we are either a center-right nation (which I believe we are) or a center-left nation to which we veer occasionally. But extremism has no relevance on the left or the right of this country. So stop trying to pin extremist on either party. It is unbecoming.
Ordinarily I wouldn't even respond to such a childish and inane comment. But since you're defending something you obviously know nothing about . . .
The Birch Society was founded by eleven men, one of whom, Dr. Revilo P. Oliver, was a mouth-foaming anti-Semite who later broke with the Society because they didn't make the anti-Semitism of their conspiracy theory public. He was also an atheist, btw.
The Birch Society's main founder, Robert H.W. Welch Jr., was a member of the Unitarian Church, an evolutionist, and basically a totally secular civilizationist.
The Birch Society for years hawked copies of anti-Semite Nesta Webster's poisonous garbage, and did so with illegal pirate copies because the true copyright holders of her works--Britons Publishing Society--was out-and-out Nazi.
The Birch Society published three books by the Romanian Iron Guard sympathizer Prince Michel Sturdza. The first two actually had to be bowdlerized in order to cover up the anti-Semitism but both these books are still fanatically anti-Israel.
Other than one brief period under Begin, the Birch Society was always hostile to Israel and never at any time supported it the way they did Rhodesia, South Africa, Nationalist China, Franco Spain, Salazar Portugal, Papadopoulos Greece, etc., despite the fact that worldwide Communist propaganda lumped Israel in with all these countries. But Birch commentary always treated Israel and its Communist Arab enemies as being morally equivalent. As far as they were concerned, Zionism was simply part of "the conspiracy."
The Birch Society for years "unofficially" promoted and distributed a nasty attack on Fundamentalist chrstianity entitled The Rapture Cult. There is, of course, a whole chapter on how Zionism and Israel are part of the "conspiracy" (which apparently Rhodesia was not, despite having been founded by an alleged "insider").
The type of people who belong to or support the Birch Society may be learned by going to The New American web site and reading viewer comments: such as references to "Jewish insiders," "matzah munching oligarchs," and claims that we fought on the wrong side in World War II. In fact, TNA is more anti-Israel than its predecessor publications ever were during the time I was a member.
As for "Black Lives Matter," this won't make any difference to you, but I am the biggest critic of Black/Hispanic/"minority" political behavior on this site . . . sometimes going so far that I've wondered why I wasn't banned. I'm absolutely merciless with these Leftist racialists for the same reason I'm merciless with Rightist racialists: they worship something other than G-d.
And finally, I have been defending America's rural white Southern Fundamentalist Protestants and opposing evolution and higher criticism on this forum since the day I first signed up over seventeen years ago. Can you say the same?
So much for you.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Thanks for confirming that you don't know what you're talking about and have no interest in debating these issues.
Run along and play now.
I respectfully disagree with you, and I shall present my evidence.
For instance, here it is a July, 2010 page at View from the Right, where I first encountered it. VFR was run by the late Lawrence Auster, who had many problems with the Alt-Right, but called them that all the time. As they called themselves that at the time, elsewhere.
Note that besides it's use in the title it is used about 10 times in the long series of respones Auster published, many of them by other readers, again demonstrating that it was widely used at least as far back as 2010.
Article from View from the Right: MY PRELIMINARY RESPONSES TO THE ALT-RIGHT SYMPOSIUM ON ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
I wonder if Google is working to suppress "Alt-Right" in some way?
Several people, besides you, have made the same claim.
I have been on these sites (mentioned here and my previous post) and familiar with these terms for many many years. I can assure you they were in common use well before 2016.
ping for later
Yes, because they don't believe in G-d. To them religion is merely an aspect of ethno-culture with no objective truth claims whatsoever.
One of their heroes (and that of the "palaeos") is the notorious H.L. Mencken who referred to Southern fundamentalists as "gaping primates who believe degraded nonsense." This is the hero of people who now claim to be those same people's "friends."
Thanks! I know that he says he coined the term, or jointly coined it with Spencer.
Spencer, of course, claims sole invention. He's an egoist, so not surprising.
A great article about Paul Gottfried was published recently in the Jewish (liberal) periodical Tablet. Here is the link:
The Alt-Right’s Jewish Godfather: How Paul Gottfried—willing or reluctant—became the mentor of Richard Spencer and a philosophical lodestone for white nationalists By Jacob Siegel.
It provides a pretty good history of the Alt-Right, too for anyone else still on this thread who would like a well written piece on them by someone outside the movement who is actually trying to report, not throw rocks.
There is some giant irony there -- that the leading new-age anti-Semitic philosophy has a Jewish godfather. All the fashy neos, worrying about Jewish influence and control are actually echoing an old Jewish professor. Someone upstairs has a sense of humor.
Broad un-substantiated generalizations. The Alt-Right contains many devout Christians. Jared Taylor himself is the child of missionaries and a Christian.
There is a whole line of articles about restoring the Church to pre-eminence in the West among some Alt-Right people. In particular many of the nRX (neo-Reationary) movement make claims for these sort of ideas.
Well, after admonishing me against using the term mainstream media, which I never did use to begin with, you go on to use the very same term at the end of your own comment. Good for you but not for me?
To be clear, I used "MSM" not mainstream media. It stands for Mendacious Spurious Maggots.
As you can see, I have moved on in my terminology already. :-)
personally i view the Alt-Right as a blend of these posts
i always looked at it as the new young right, there are millions of them, definitely not GOPe types, maybe too young to be a TeaPartier but sick to death of the status quo and that just scared the sh!t out of the left so it HAD to be demonized
self identity is OK and they should NOT let the left frame the narrative or the movement
46 posted on Sunday, December 04, 2016 3:27:36 PM by Chode
racist is what the left SAYS it means
look at what they said about the Tea Party, same-same
some racists call themselves Alt-Right, they are also the same ones that call themselves REPUBLICANS
i refuse to let the left frame the narrative
55 posted on Sunday, December 04, 2016 4:03:19 PM by Chode
I’m glad I read all the way through. Just like some of us older folks have embraced “Deplorable” - the younger generation (my kids - millennials) have grabbed onto the alt-right label. I view it as mainly internet stuff (hence the “alt-right” label), often in-your-face, some foul language, but also getting the facts out to the younger generation in a way they can relate to. I haven’t seen any of this “white race” stuff.
“Not your father’s Buick.”
53 posted on Sunday, December 04, 2016 4:01:06 PM by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts It is happening again.)
The alt right is the Politically Incorrect right
We have had a right that has been politically correct..and this political correctness itself is defined by the left
This it root of the term “cuckservative” a hybrid of conservative and cuckold (an emasculated man )
So in effect alt right is the right unchained from PC any PC.
So it is the wild west a new frontier. Mostly good characters..but like any New Frontier there’s some unsavoury characters at the fringes...
In a way is a mirror of the internet when it started or this site when is starting first completely open and later we had to cull out some of the fringe characters.... this is typical of any new movement or Revolution...
54 posted on Sunday, December 04, 2016 4:03:08 PM by tophat9000 (Tophat9000)
If you want to visit a large, thriving and very active community of Alt-righters, just click on the link below (The_Donald subreddit). It may take you a while to get acclimated to them. They are gung-ho conservatives, but not in our mold. They have their faults, but racism/white supremacy isn’t one of them. They are the very antithesis of racism.
https://m.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/?utm_source=mweb_redirect&compact=false
There is nothing linking this tiny, irrelevant group of people with Trump, other than the fact that a few of them said they supported him.
Meanwhile the commies endorse the democrats (as usual) and crickets chirp.
Command-Left doesn’t fit with the PeeCee crowd.
It should be Windoze-Left.
bmfl
Created. The irony is, Pepe, the frog was the image the 4chan millenials adopted in their anti Hillary meme war. Hillary spent millions trolling these kids trying to disrupt their activities. They recognized the effort by the “Correct the Record” trolls and labeled them CRT trolls. The ironic thing about all this, if you spend some time on the board there you realize the CRT trolls are the ones posting the racist stuff. So, in reality, the racist label Hillary’s shills apply is due to the troll disruptors she paid.
If you spend any time on the 4chan board you will realize it.
You mean gossiping with like minded individuals inside your echo chamber is insufficient research for an article about a movement of which they no nothing? Who knew? /s
Thanks, I don’t bother with 4chan, so I wouldn’t know.
Thank you Jack.
I appreciate you relating this to me. Isn’t it interesting the general public doesn’t hear about it until 2016. You and some others have heard of it, but here on Free Republic nobody has. (perhaps a person here or there, but very very few)
When it is aired, the descriptions or implications are these people are racists.
Let me clarify something. There is no such thing as “FAR” Right.
If you go beyond center ground, are you still a Conservative? Are you still backing sound Founding Father, and Founding Documents such as the U.S. Constitution, principles? No. And thus you are not a Conservative.
You have doubled back to thoughts that are not consistent with our Founders, our Founding Documents, or our core beliefs.
You are wound up back on the Left.
Centrist ground is smack dab in the middle of the spectrum. It does conform to our Founder’s beliefs and the documents they provided to us, to frame this nation. It’s very important we stick to them.
When someone starts talking about some sort of ultra this or alternative that, they have veered off the beaten track.
There’s nothing Ultra or Alt about sticking with the Founders and the Founding principles.
Racism is a Leftist ideology. Conservatives consider everyone equal. They don’t back special programs. They back equal access. PERIOD!
In an instance where inner cities have decayed, it is reasoned to focus on them to fix things, but only in so much as their assets (education & opportunities) return to a healthy situation. Then they fend for themselves.
We do this by encouraging investment in the area, reducing crime, getting adults to do productive things such as working and being parents to their children.
Anything that ventures into racism, dividing people, class or racial warfare, is not a Conservative tenet. It is not some sort of Alternative Right.
There is no alt-right. It’s a conflict in terms.
The Alt-Right is just the latest bogey-man that groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League use to justify their existence, and a convenient guilt by association name to invoke when criticizing conservatives who advocate the National Question.
From what I can tell, the alt-right is mostly made up of young, trolling troublemakers online who get a kick out of making remarks that are perceived as "racist and sexist." That doesn't a political movement make, much less grounds for hysteria.
I'm not at all surprised that the Left tries to make a phony threat out of these guys, because it's a great way of distracting attention from genuine radicalism and racism (groups like BlackLivesMatter, La Raza) that are attached to the Democrats. What bothers me is that many in the GOP establishment and "movement conservatism" have started to mimic the Left's hysteria over alt-right, as though alt-right is somehow a greater threat to America than the Left (alt or not).
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