Why I Went on a Nazi's Podcast: Approaches and Goals

Plenty of far leftists have ended up in far right media in one way or another, mostly by accident. One of the hosts of a podcast I have been on twice (holiday episode coming soon!) called 2 Spicy actually got blindsided by Gavin McInnes in 2014 before he had made a name for himself beyond his status as persona non grata at Vice. (Apparently, McInnes only varied by degree from the rest of Vice's leadership.) Heather made the unfortunate mistake of taking an invite to do media without doing background research. Always do background research.

I've done a bit of background on the show I'm set to go on. (I'm writing this in advance of going on the show.) If you haven't heard of Millennial Woes, you're not missing much. His only noteworthy accomplishment seems to be speaking at the 2016 Maggiano's Seige NPI conference. Literally. Millennial Woes (who, despite having been doxxed as Colin Robertson still told me to call him 'Woes') is a 35 year old Scottish white nationalist with a mean antisemitic streak, anti-immigrant views, and a strange ambivalence towards bestiality. After he was doxxed (as a result of his only noteworthy accomplishment), his messaging suddenly became extremely conciliatory with regard to racial violence. You know how fash do.

Every year, Millennial Woes does a month long series of interviews he calls Millenniyule. This year he had designs to do 50 interviews in December. As a result of a fight on Twitter, I became one of them. What I hope to lay out here is how it came about that I got this "opportunity," my rationale for accepting it, my strategy for approaching it, and my goals.

Žižek Don't

I first heard about Slavoj Žižek when he was accused of plagiarizing from white nationalist magazine American Renaissance. By 2014, my research interests had moved from monetary & fiscal policy and business cycles to the political economy of fascism.

I hadn't studied much in the way of esoteric Hegelian idealist philosophers masquerading as Lacanian Marxists, but by virtue of my study of fascism, I happened upon his "work." I'm still not sure whether Zizek considers himself a crypto-fascist, but he sure leads the far left into the arms of the far right a whole lot. Anyway, this happened:

Back from Boston

This past weekend, I attended the Boston Anarchist Bookfair to lead a workshop titled "How to Talk to a Nazi." I first gave the workshop as part of the DC Action Camp put on by #DisruptJ20 in advance of the presidential inauguration. The workshop has since become a zine called "You Can't Punch Every Nazi" that I released in June and updated last month.

Because of some last minute scheduling changes, I was also able to table and sell the zine. I got invited to some parties and met come great people. Learned some stuff about the Boston "Free Speech" rally in August that wasn't reported in the news. Look forward to what happens this weekend.

An Annotated Interview with Gary Snow

I first met (William) Gary Snow as he was about to get into yet a third fight with antifascists, this time at a protest of Richard Spencer at the University of Florida. Snow, wearing a heather gray “Fuck Antifa” T-shirt with the number “45” on the sleeve - a reference to the president - was there to protest Richard Spencer, too, so he said.

Snow came with four flags in all. He had an RBG “Black Lives Matter” flag and insisted to anyone who would listen that he believed that Black Lives Matter. He also had the so-called “Blue Lives Matter” flag - the thin blue line superimposed over a US flag. He was holding these two flags together and turning them to reveal the other with the charisma of a magician, narrating, “Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. Black lives matter. Blue lives matter.”

He also came bearing an antifa flag and a Nazi flag which he would occasionally take out of his back pocket to stand on when talking to press. Apart from the initial altercation when he first walked in that I pulled him away from in order to conduct this interview, he didn’t incite anyone apart from his choice of flags and shirt.

When I approached Snow as he was having words with four local antifascists, he recognized me almost immediately. I had no idea who he was, but the antifascists sure did and they followed us shouting as Mr. Snow directed me toward the line of Highway Patrol where he felt safe to do an interview. The antifascists lined up about five feet away continuing to shout for most of the interview which was helpful because at points they gave me material for questions to ask. I reproduce below the annotated, but unredacted interview with Gary Snow.

Political Economy of Fascism Mini-Course

This mini-course is designed for popular education and to operate as either a series or as individual stand-alone workshops. The course begins with a review of my zine “You Can’t Punch Every Nazi” as a participatory workshop. The following four classes elaborate on the four layers of fascist doctrine I introduce in the first class. The last class takes account of fascist ideology to build a holistic antifascist theory highlighting existing antifascist praxis. I had originally designed this course for open library courses such as those the NYPL holds regularly.

For once, the syllabus and course readings are in one central document. Check it out here!

Class summaries can be found here:

• Class I
• Class II
• Class III
• Class IV
• Class V
• Class VI

What Do Nazis Have Against Hewlett-Packard?

In a weird twist of circumstance, an action planned by the Revolutionary Communist Party is actually drawing some attention. As with most times the RCP generates attention for an action, it is negative attention from an action that is misconstrued.

A benign and, knowing RCP, poorly planned day of protest against the "Trump/Pence regime" called for by their front group Refuse Fascism has been filtered through the far right conspiracy-sphere and come out the other side a coming race war led by antifa. This has been facilitated by fascist ecosystem of fake antifa social media accounts, a broad network of millenarian conspiracy blogs, and a gullible conservative base eager to confirm their biases without auxiliary research. In the fray, the first group seems to have an unlikely target for their planned crossfire: Hewlett Packard?

Universities Are Protecting Free Speech for Bigots at the Expense of Student Safety

"When I see these people on the roofs," said University of Florida (UF) student Ebony Love, gesturing to the groups of snipers on nearby campus buildings, "I understand the reason why they're up there, but at the same time, you have to take my money and pay for that, but I couldn't get an escort to walk me to my classes, and you said you were going to post security outside these classes and you didn't."

When I talked to her, Love was leaning on a police barricade set up outside of the auditorium on campus where prominent white supremacist Richard Spencer was due to speak on October 19. The night before, however, Love was escorting a student to an 8 pm exam. She and another student sat watch outside for two hours in lieu of the campus security she said the university had promised but failed to provide.

Continue reading at Truthout

The One Thing Media Won't Tell You About Antifa

Since Richard Spencer was punched twice at the presidential inauguration, liberal commentators, egged on by their right-wing counterparts, have been pontificating about the ethicality of violence against fascists in light of their grade-school understanding of civic engagement. Confronting fascism is essential to guaranteeing a society free and safe for all of us. It makes no sense to defend the free speech of a movement that, according to a July headline on AltRight.com, wants to “get rid of democracy.” But while physical struggles between antifa and fascists have dominated press coverage since Charlottesville, tackling fascism requires more than confronting them in the streets.

Interview on "The Radical Imagination"

Last week, I sat down with Jim Vrettos for The Radical Imagination on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. We had an hour-long conversation about policing, pedagogy, and antifa. Watch it in full below.

The ‘alt-right’ is an unstable coalition – with one thing holding it together

In the aftermath of Charlottesville, the Associated Press (AP) has updated its style guide to change the standard usage of the term ‘alt-right’. The guide, widely followed across the US media, first added the term in November of last year, after Donald Trump won the presidential election, revealing the alt-right to be more than an electoral flash in the pan.

The update added anti-Semitism to the original definition. It now reads:

‘A political grouping or tendency mixing racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and populism; a name currently embraced by some white supremacists and white nationalists to refer to themselves and their ideology, which emphasizes preserving and protecting the white race in the United States.’

Both the original and updated AP definitions resemble early attempts to explain fascism in the decades following the second world war. Like the style guide versions, early writers focused attention on regime or movement attributes. This approach, often employing lists of various sizes, proved either too inclusive, or not inclusive enough.

Continue reading at Red Pepper

Sculpting the Present

Since the slaughter in Charlottesville by James Alex Fields Jr, of Vanguard America, a flurry of opinion has descended around the appropriate way to confront the various fascist organizations colluding and vying for institutional power. But however well intentioned, most of this commentary is poorly informed.

Rather than interrogating the motive force behind the far right, such debates largely fall along the lines of what the morally proper thing for an individual opposed to fascism ought to do.

Missing from much of this debate is why Richard Spencer’s coalition of Nazis was there in the first place. Spencer and his ilk had come to Charlottesville twice before their reprise on the 11th and 12th. In all three cases, they assembled by a statue of Robert E. Lee due to be removed by the city.

Continue reading at The Leveller

Trump Equilibrium

Impeachment is not going to happen. A Constitutional crisis is not going to happen. Both of these things require the Republican party - or at least parts of it - to commit political suicide by materially opposing Trump.

What Is White Genocide?

Drexel University politics professor George Ciccariello-Maher has come under fire from right wing media outlets for tweeting an incendiary call for white genocide this Christmas.

To those uninitiated to the white nationalist underworld, any call for genocide would be reprehensible. However, the term "white genocide" has an insidious history as a propaganda tool.

Political Economy of Fascism Syllabus

In the wake of the election of an outright racist, sexist homophobe, now seems as good a time as any to debut my Political Economy of Fascism syllabus. This course is designed to take students through the complex of political theories that were grafted together in the early 20th century to become the doctrine of fascism. After familiarizing students with the historical developments leading to fascism, the basic principles of fascist thought are explored.

Given the compelling nature of fascist anti-rationalism, students are provided critical texts to disabuse them of the rabbit holes that fascism builds to pull people in. Instructors using this syllabus are strongly encouraged not to take this lightly. As per the syllabus, students should be instructed to do secondary source readings and debrief readings before reading the primary source (fascist) texts. Please instruct students that if they do not intend to do the secondary source and debrief readings, they should not dip into the primary source texts.

You can download the syllabus as a PDF using the Dropbox link here
Syllabus

The readings are separated by week in this Dropbox folder along with a text list of readings accessible online here
Readings

Instructors feel free to use this syllabus and reading list, but please let me know in the comments below. If you would like to modify the syllabus, I would be happy to provide the source LaTeX file the syllabus was written in.

Sam Hyde Will Never Be Responsible For A Mass Shooting

Sam Hyde is the co-host of a questionable anti-comedy & prank show called Million Dollar Extreme and he is not responsible for a shooting today at UCLA. As with most publicized US shootings for the past year or two, neo-nazis are once again intentionally trying to muddy the information pouring out of developing news stories.

Welcome to The Jungle

In the mess of the hours-long attacks in Paris resulting in over a hundred deaths, a certain well-meaning tweet captured the hearts of well-meaning Anglophone liberals:

To people blaming refugees for attacks in Paris tonight. Do you not realise these are the people the refugees are trying to run away from..?

— Dan Holloway (@RFCdan) November 13, 2015

From our Eurocentric perspective, this tweet is a slam-dunk for the champions of liberal hospitality. Certainly, it would be naïve -- worse, dangerous -- to assert that this attack is the mere consequence of immigration. Of course those seeking refuge in France from the Middle East and North Africa have done so out of fear for their lives and livelihoods. But for all that this tweet (unlikely) illuminates to reactionaries, it still succeeds in obscuring for liberals.

The sentiment of this tweet is predicated fundamentally on two falsehoods. The first is that this event is not unprecedented. The second is that the narrative this tweet presents is largely false.

Community Post on Feministing: Kinda Forget; Maybe Again

A little over a week ago, a piece of mine appeared on Feministing. In it, I review Donald Trump's habit of offending everyone...well, almost everyone. While he has no problem offending various ethnic groups and women, Trump is very hesitant to rebuke his more radical followers:

When pressed about his endorsement from David Duke, Trump gave only a lukewarm repudiation, doing so “if it would make you feel better.” When asked of his opinion on his name being invoked in a racist beating, he remarked, “the people who are following me are very passionate.” When asked when the US is going to get rid of Muslims, Trump responded, “We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”

Read the rest here

Shut Down Neo-Nazis at the National Press Club

Sign the petition

Hate Unchecked

Yesterday and today, there were and are protests happening at mosques across the US to counter-pose Louis Farrakhan's "Justice Or Else" rally happening today. In response, MPOWER - a Muslim racial & economic justice organization - started a "Twitter storm" under the hashtag #HateUnchecked. In keeping with the theme, I've written a piece over on Medium about why these anti-Muslim protests are happening now (as opposed to say, the immediate aftermath of 9/11) and why they aren't merely an election year flash in the pan.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 there was only one public protest of a mosque which became that accidentally. In Chicago, there was a “patriotism” protest on 9/13 that ended up going past a mosque, and the crowd stopped there and rallied outside the mosque. Since then, there were incidents of vandalism of mosques and hate crimes against Muslims (and other brown people), but no organized protests explicitly against Islam until 2010. In the intervening years, two major things happened.

Read the rest at Medium

Neo-Nazis at the Capitol: Three Years Later

Three years ago today, I was part of a group that organized a resistance to a neo-Nazi demonstration. Under the guise of the South Africa Project, under the guise of the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, the Aryan Nations organized a march in protest of the "white genocide" happening in South Africa. Their website featured soft focus stock photos of blond blue-eyed white girls and graphic photos of brutalized bodies.

The text told a story of poor white farmers living in terror in post-Apartheid South Africa, but quickly veered into a antisemitic history of South African Reserve Bank explaining how its Jewish capitalist owners conspired with communist Jews to start the African National Congress and the NAACP to marshal Black folks into extinguishing the white race. With a small amount of link clicking, one ended up on the Aryan Nations' main website, which featured flyers promoting holocaust denial and speeches by a preacher who mixed the Christian bible with Hitler's My Struggle.

What they described was but one part of a much broader problem. The global economic recession of 2008 increased economic desperation of the South African working class, leading to a general rise in violent crime. Far from a reactionary war against white people, what the Aryan Nations were actually pointing out was the social results of the periodic but inevitable crises of the capitalist system itself.

Read the rest at Medium.com