White nationalism in Conservative Guise.

[SocialPhilosophy]

a recent english newscast produced by al jazeera draws solid connections between white supremacists, anti-immigration activists, and tea party protesters. The program, called white power usa, was produced by journalists rick rowley and jacquie soohen in an effort to find out if the election of biracial president barak obama has fueled nazi efforts in the united states

together, rowley and soohen travel from skinhead thrash concerts to secluded areas of the arizona desert, meeting with various members of the national alliance, an admitted nazi group. But more interesting is the fact that the national alliance and other white nationalist groups have clearly used discontent with obama’s policies to subtly recruit new members.

Take j.t. Ready for example. The arizona resident and national alliance member is seen in a video with chris simcox, the co-founder of the minuteman civil defense corps, patrolling near the us-mexico border.
http://www.campusprogress.org/page/-/na.jpg
left to right, simcox and ready.

“what i’m fighting for primarily at this point is the survival of the white race,” says ready, who announced he was a member of the national alliance after obama won the election, according to the video. Ready also says he supports what he calls a “racial holy war.”

the national alliance recently organized an anti-immigration protest in phoenix (http://www.campusprogress.org/page/community/post/erosa/c2cp), where chants of “no niggers! No jews! The mexicans must go too!” were yelled for a few minutes before protest leaders decided to go with “usa! Usa!” instead. Ready was a keynote speaker at the event.

On top of white supremacy ties to anti-immigration activists, there are also connections to some conservative tea party groups.

“for years the anti-immigration movement was the vehicle of choice for white nationalists looking for an impact on public policy,” says the unknown narrator in the 22-minute newscast. But tea party rallies are what “white nationalists see as their best chance in decades to cross over into mainstream american politics.”

the council of conservative citizens, which has organized tea party protests according to the news report, is an organization that a variety of watchdog groups have defined as being white supremacist. The council gets its roots from “a coalition of white-supremacist groups formed throughout the south to defend school segregation (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=487) after the supreme court outlawed it in brown vs. Board of education,” according to the southern poverty law center.

“our nose is being rubbed into the fact that obama's black and we better all recognize the fact that he's a black man and he's the president,” gordon baum, the director of the council, says in the video. “the last year has probably been our most dramatic in growth.”



fuuuuuuuu-

[ComradeMan]

I have never been to America but it seems that far from being modern and enlightened like in the episodes of Friends and Frasier the country is riddled with divisions and racism. People seem to talk more about race than anything else.

Could an American or someone in the know enlighten me on this more....?

[SocialPhilosophy]

I have never been to America but it seems that far from being modern and enlightened like in the episodes of Friends and Frasier the country is riddled with divisions and racism. People seem to talk more about race than anything else.

Could an American or someone in the know enlighten me on this more....?

i want really badly to break it down complexly, but there is no real answer. From economic equality to the bad blood left by reconstruction from 1865 on, to immigration, and the "stealing of jobs." most of these people are Conservative Christians.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have never been to America but it seems that far from being modern and enlightened like in the episodes of Friends and Frasier the country is riddled with divisions and racism. People seem to talk more about race than anything else.

Could an American or someone in the know enlighten me on this more....?

Well "Friends" is "tv reality" since there is no way that 20-somethings working as unemployed actors and baristas could afford any appartment let alone those apartments in New York.

But other than that, "Americans" are not too different from Americans in Canada or Latin America or people in Europe. The difference comes from the conditions here - particularly the lack of an organized left and a legacy of massive repression (compared to other bourgeois-democracies) of labor and social movements.

Racism is a big factor here because of 2 things.

1. Because it has been one of the main tools the ruling class here has used to maintain its power. While black slaves always had it worse than white servants in early and colonial America, originally they were only worse off because of the terms of their service - brought to the US and kept as servants for life as opposed to white indentured servants and debtors who got freedom after a specified length of time. But a small ammount of black slaves were also allowed freedom and they became landowners and even slave-masters themselves. In Virginia, the colonial government - responding to rebellions by poor farmers and servants (black and white) began to enact different sets of codes for white and black servants - blacks could no longer hold property, could not become freemen, could not associate with white servants, could not intermarry. Part of this was in order to "divide and rule" but it also served to ideologically justify the practice of chattel slavery which was becoming more economically viable as farming in the colonies became more focused on cash-crops for export rather than smaller farms. After the Revolution, racism was also the way the ruling elites ideologically justified slavery in a country founded on "freedom". Like the Spanish used "heathenism" as their ideological justification for native slavery and genocide, the US elites justified slavery through the "inferiority" of the people they enslaved and killed-off. The southern slaveocracy depicted blacks as child-like and not fit for freedom; after the Civil War and emancipation there were sweeping changes in the South including public education programs for freed blacks and poor rural whites, black politicians were elected to Southern state governments, (not to mention a huge transfer of wealth in the form of emancipation itself). There was a period of reaction that followed this radical period and this set up the kind of legal segregation that lasted another 100 years. Once again, racism was used to justify terrorism and the mistreatment of blacks and the restrictions on voting rights for freed blacks as well as poor whites.

In the industrial north and west, racism was against blacks but also many other groups of immigrant workers from the Chineese, Irish, Mexicans, Filipinos, Eastern Europeans, Italians, Jews and so on also to justify their mistreatment. In a country where "anyone can become rich" racism is used to justify poverty - the Irish/Chineese aren't poor because they are exploited, they are poor because of inferior blood/religion/culture.

Even today while it is no longer acceptable in mainstream politics to say X group is poor or lacks equality because of blood or some other inherent inferiority, it is unfortunately very acceptable to say that X group suffers in the US because of "inferior culture". If you look at the reader comments section of the website of any major US newspaper you will invariably find some idiot saying that problems of black people in the US are due to "hip-hop" and a glorification of "thug culture". Even Obama says that black students don't do well - not because of systemically poor education funding in urban minority areas, lack of opportunities, and so on - but because according to him, black people think watching "Sports-center" is more important than going to school or teaching your kids.

With the combination of the end of the 60s-70s social movements and the economic crisis of the 1970s, the US ruling class employed racism consciously as a way to divide the population in order to begin to attack many of the reforms made in the civil rights era as well as de-fund social programs. In the Republican Party, this was called the "Southern Strategy" and from Nixon on, the 2 main political parties have cultivated white racism and nativist xenophobia to justify ramping up repression through the police and prison system while also cutting education, welfare, and other programs. They do this through racist myths of "unreprentant and unreformable young black and brown supercriminals" and minority "welfare queens" (even though most people in the US on welfare in the 80s and 90s and probably today are white) and Latino immigrants who come here to have babies and get our wonderful (non-existent) health-care system. So while the ruling class cuts school funding, attack labor unions, and don't allow a universal healthcare system, blacks, immigrants, and so on are blamed for the poor-state of schools and hospitals and loss of jobs.

2. Because of the amazing legacy of fighting against racism. From the abolitionists and resistance by slaves to racial solidarity in the ninteenth-century Populist Party to anti-racist organizing by the Communist Party to the Civil Rights and Black (brown, yellow, and red) Power movements to the immigrant rights marches of a few years ago, people have fought racism and for solidarity.

[ComradeMan]

Jimmie, thanks for the answer. That is fascinating stuff and does show some differences with countries in Europe too. I just notice that Americans seem to talk more about race than Europeans do, and Europe is very mutli-ethnic too. Perhaps it's because modern America is by and large a nation of immigrants, i.e. people who have arrived in the last 300 years or so and people don't have that rootedness to their own country and culture that some people in Europe may feel subconsciously- this in turn may lead groups to vie with each other as everyone is trying to stake their claim for gold so to speak. I am not sure this is the case, but it strikes me as possible.

I would thank your post but people in the gulag can't thank- so thanks here! BTW, what is your take on Native American/Amerindian rights? What are the main issues? I did post but no one answered...:(!
:D

[lines]

Americans seem more race conscious and Europeans seem more class conscious. America is a majority white country and workers movements have not been succesful here because workers movements have been associated with being black... and so white workers typically have identified with what their whiteness means to them and so white workers have often sided with the class of exploiters because they did not want to take up a common cause with the black man.

The result of this is that the American worker of al races is exploited.

[Nolan]

I have never been to America but it seems that far from being modern and enlightened like in the episodes of Friends and Frasier the country is riddled with divisions and racism. People seem to talk more about race than anything else.

Could an American or someone in the know enlighten me on this more....?

It's everywhere. Unlike in the past, its more directed towards Mexican immigrants and "liberals" than anyone else, though it's obvious Obama is the most important factor. There are right-wing paramilitaries springing up everywhere, some simply call themselves conservative or patriot, others are openly Neo-Nazi or KKK sympathizers. However, I'm absolutely certain the "tea party" militias have plenty of open and closet racists in their ranks. I know a lot of people who didn't vote for Obama solely on the basis of race.

[ComradeMan]

.... I know a lot of people who didn't vote for Obama solely on the basis of race.


Really? That's shocking! It's certainly not the Cosby Show then....

I do notice that they tend to stereotype a lot. Many Italians get fed up with the image that Italians are all mafiosi who talk and act like something out of the Sopranos. What's more worrying is that some Italian Americans then take up this negative stereotypes as being cool, come to Italy, act that way and make complete dicks out of themselves.

I remember I was in Palermo, having a coffee and I had bumped into this Italian American dude. He was acting all like the big "Tony Soprano" wannabee---- in fucking Palermo!!! I basically explained to him in English- because his Italian sucked, that if he wanted to cause himself big problems all he had to was continue as he was. His reply? "Hey, I'm jus' bein' Italian man!"- So much for Puccini and Verdi.... :cool:

[Nolan]

Really? That's shocking! It's certainly not the Cosby Show then....

I do notice that they tend to stereotype a lot. Many Italians get fed up with the image that Italians are all mafiosi who talk and act like something out of the Sopranos. What's more worrying is that some Italian Americans then take up this negative stereotypes as being cool, come to Italy, act that way and make complete dicks out of themselves.

I remember I was in Palermo, having a coffee and I had bumped into this Italian American dude. He was acting all like the big "Tony Soprano" wannabee---- in fucking Palermo!!! I basically explained to him in English- because his Italian sucked, that if he wanted to cause himself big problems all he had to was continue as he was. His reply? "Hey, I'm jus' bein' Italian man!"- So much for Puccini and Verdi.... :cool:

Don't they mostly speak Sicilian in Palermo? :confused:

[Skooma Addict]

I know a lot of people who didn't vote for Obama solely on the basis of race.

I know more people who voted for Obama solely on the basis of race.

[Nolan]

I know more people who voted for Obama solely on the basis of race.

In reality, both are proof of how racist American culture still is.

[ComradeMan]

Don't they mostly speak Sicilian in Palermo? :confused:


Lu Sicilianu nu dialettu d' u' talianu este!!! :cool:

These days practically only the old people speak the real dialetct. But it's quite difficult really because people mix dialect and Italian so much. The accent is usually a give away though.

[Jimmie Higgins]

BTW, what is your take on Native American/Amerindian rights? What are the main issues? I did post but no one answered...:(!
:DSorry for the delayed response... what aspect of Native American rights were you interested in? There is a strong tradition of the American Indian Movement but other than that, due to the reservations system, I think the struggle of Native Americans against oppression and racism has been marginalized again since the 1970s. Part of this is the segregation of populations onto rural and remote areas... some of the poorest in North America. Poverty and all kinds of associated social problems are really epidemic on reservations according to people I knew who grew up on them - they are basically like rural ghettos.

Rural areas weather Native American, White, or Latino are very very marginalized in US culture despite all the faux-populist anti-urban BS we get about politicians loving "the heartland".

[ls]

I have never been to America but it seems that far from being modern and enlightened like in the episodes of Friends and Frasier the country is riddled with divisions and racism. People seem to talk more about race than anything else.

Could an American or someone in the know enlighten me on this more....?

Do you think Italy is any better?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I know more people who voted for Obama solely on the basis of race.The same people would have voted for Condelezza Rice?

[ComradeMan]

Sorry for the delayed response... what aspect of Native American rights were you interested in? There is a strong tradition of the American Indian Movement but other than that, due to the reservations system, I think the struggle of Native Americans against oppression and racism has been marginalized again since the 1970s. Part of this is the segregation of populations onto rural and remote areas... some of the poorest in North America. Poverty and all kinds of associated social problems are really epidemic on reservations according to people I knew who grew up on them - they are basically like rural ghettos.

Rural areas weather Native American, White, or Latino are very very marginalized in US culture despite all the faux-populist anti-urban BS we get about politicians loving "the heartland".

That's terrible. Is it true that alcohol related problems are still an issue on the reservations?

[ComradeMan]

Do you think Italy is any better?

How can you ever say one country is better than another. Italy and the United States are incomparable. Italy has her issues and the US others. One main difference is the dynamics of Italian division. Italy was only unified in the mid to late 19th century and people only spoke Italian as a majority home language in the 1950's, it's still not 100%. Italian racism does exist and it is a very ugly side of Italy today, but there are two kinds mainly, 1) racism between north and south, i.e. Italians against Italians and 2) xenophobia towards newly arrived immigrants, especially in light of the recent Calabrian incidents. I see that as being different to America because the US is mostly a nation of historical immigrants and far more heterogenous. Racism is racism but the dynamics thereof differ.

However, I do think that Americans talk more about race than Italians do, if it were not such a big issue then they would not have gone on so much about Obama being black, in a non racist country why would it matter?

[ls]

How can you ever say one country is better than another. Italy and the United States are incomparable. Italy has her issues and the US others. One main difference is the dynamics of Italian division. Italy was only unified in the mid to late 19th century and people only spoke Italian as a majority home language in the 1950's, it's still not 100%. Italian racism does exist and it is a very ugly side of Italy today, but there are two kinds mainly, 1) racism between north and south, i.e. Italians against Italians and 2) xenophobia towards newly arrived immigrants, especially in light of the recent Calabrian incidents. I see that as being different to America because the US is mostly a nation of historical immigrants and far more heterogenous. Racism is racism but the dynamics thereof differ.

However, I do think that Americans talk more about race than Italians do, if it were not such a big issue then they would not have gone on so much about Obama being black, in a non racist country why would it matter?

Exactly, so why are you attacking America so much based on dumb biased soaps? What about the African footballer who recently got signed up, who is constantly being racially insulted? Does that not point to problems that go to the very root of the society?

People here in the UK talk about race all the time and in fact, at the moment, I would say the atmosphere is not too far away from that in the USA or in much of the rest of Europe.

[ComradeMan]

Exactly, so why are you attacking America so much based on dumb biased soaps? What about the African footballer who recently got signed up, who is constantly being racially insulted? Does that not point to problems that go to the very root of the society?

People here in the UK talk about race all the time and in fact, at the moment, I would say the atmosphere is not too far away from that in the USA or in much of the rest of Europe.

I was not attacking American. I was asking Americans for their opinions. Are we to judge a whole nation by its football supporters, in which case the UK would not come out very good at all would it?

Italy had nothing to do with the nature of my question. If you bothered to read a post on Internazionale Italiana you might see that I actually mention these things.

[ls]

I was not attacking American. I was asking Americans for their opinions. Are we to judge a whole nation by its football supporters, in which case the UK would not come out very good at all would it?

Italy had nothing to do with the nature of my question. If you bothered to read a post on Internazionale Italiana you might see that I actually mention these things.

I'm not judging Italy based on its football supporters, you yourself referred to the racial rioting going on as we speak? You made out as if America is so much worse than other places, which is simply not true, we have to put it in perspective instead of being silly about things, because like that you can come out with crap about how Sweden is socialist, as some people do on this forum..

And yeah, the UK doesn't come out very good, I never said otherwise. This country has a fairly a high amount of racism, historically it was just horrifying the amount that existed, even in the 90s.

[ComradeMan]

I'm not judging Italy based on its football supporters, you yourself referred to the racial rioting going on as we speak? You made out as if America is so much worse than other places, which is simply not true, we have to put it in perspective instead of being silly about things, because like that you can come out with crap about how Sweden is socialist, as some people do on this forum..

And yeah, the UK doesn't come out very good, I never said otherwise. This country has a fairly a high amount of racism, historically it was just horrifying the amount that existed, even in the 90s.

Sigh... I did not make out as if America were much worse than anywhere else, the points raised about the TV images of America were to underline the fact that the nation that holds itself up as the champion of freedom and democracy and constantly sells the American dream to the rest of the world via TV like and intravenous dose of cultural imperialism may have deep-rooted problems itself. Seeing as I have never been to America and this thread was predominantly American in flavour I asked some honest questions to Americans.

Sweden????

Who was talking about Sweden? Don't follow.

[ls]

Sigh... I did not make out as if America were much worse than anywhere else, the points raised about the TV images of America were to underline the fact that the nation that holds itself up as the champion of freedom and democracy and constantly sells the American dream to the rest of the world via TV like and intravenous dose of cultural imperialism may have deep-rooted problems itself. Seeing as I have never been to America and this thread was predominantly American in flavour I asked some honest questions to Americans.

Sweden????

Who was talking about Sweden? Don't follow.

And the Italian bourgeois don't just act like best buddies with Libya, getting them to build immigrant prisons in the desert because they respect their autonomy..

[ComradeMan]

And the Italian bourgeois don't just act like best buddies with Libya, getting them to build immigrant prisons in the desert because they respect their autonomy..


Yeah... what's that got to do with America? The disaster in Italy is that this government presently has the biggest majority of any Italian government thanks to the ineptness, I am ashamed to say, of the Italian left. Italy is sorrily on her way back to fascism in many senses- but again, that has no place on a discussion focused on America.

[Kayser_Soso]

This is a bit of a pet issue for me, so I have to weigh in on this. While at times White Nationalists pretend to be something say, more "revolutionary" than conservatives, and indeed there were some WN leaders who at times railed against conservatives, WNs have actually never been severed from mainstream conservatism. Only a small minority of WN pseudo-intellectuals actually pursue an interest in things like fascist or National Socialist philosophy. The vast majority are just pissed-off jackasses who think the world owes them something because they were white. You know, Plato was white, they were white, pin a medal on their chest. Excuse the digression there.

It is that intellectual minority that at least to some extent, rejects mainstream conservatism, including many mainstream conservative values(e.g. Christianity, free market libertarianism). They do this mainly because for one reason or another, they have taken a deep interest in their beliefs and are concerned with being consistent in those beliefs(insofar as it is even possible). These are hardcore believers, who are affected by mainstream conservative propaganda, but have good enough memories to note when the GOP fucked them. It is noteworthy though, that in the struggle for numbers, WN intellectual leaders inevitably pander toward mainstream conservative propaganda, lacking anything else to attract people. Sure there are the National Anarchists, but it seems they can only prey on the tragically confused. If you read Troy Southgate's essays going back through the years, it seems like they were making that ideology up as they went along- and probably still are.

This is generally really hard to explain, so I'll put it this way: During the Bush years, organizations like the National Alliance, EURO, etc. railed against Bush and the conservatives as being shills of Israel. Conservatism was attacked in their publications, conservative pundits were called shills, tools of the Joooooz. If someone popped into one of their forums and quoted say, Hannity, on ANYTHING, they would be attacked as a "CONservative", and in most cases accused of being a Jew. At the same time, a large portion of the mainstream conservatives, including non-race-based extremists, toned down their rhetoric and radicalism when Bush was in charge. With the power Republicans wielded at the time, and despite the fact that conservatives are perpetually afraid and believe they are always persecuted by a liberal elite, somewhere deep down they were satisfied. Republicans were in charge, making speeches, invading countries, and lowering taxes- no need to start marching around with guns on the capitol steps. So when Bush won, the militia movement which was in its hey-dey during the Clinton years practically folded overnight. A lot of people decided that maybe the end of the world wasn't so close after all. Their men had visible power and they went on the defensive. So many people returned to the mainstream while the WNs got angrier and angrier, probably miffed about conservative betrayal.

And don't take my word for it on this shift of extremism- David Neiwert at http://dneiwert.blogspot.com has done extensive research on this.

Once Obama was elected, the opposite effect occurred. Where WNs diverged from pro-Zionist conservatives under Bush, Republican dog-whistle race-baiting(and some overt race baiting) caused WNs to salivate at the prospect of picking up new members. I'm sure if you search, you will see plenty of attacks on republicans and mainstream conservatives from the WN corner, but now they are more and more repeating the rhetoric of mainstream right-wing pundits and trying to poach new recruits from the Tea Parties. Whereas under someone like Bush they pretend to be outside the left/right paradigm, now they are happy on the right.

So the bottom line is, that WNs and conservatives, indeed republicans, are in fact inextricably linked, no matter how much WNs say they loathe Christian Zionists or how much certain "respectable" Republicans find open ties to WNs unsavory.

AMENDMENT: Incidentally, this trend of compromising with the mainstream can be observed on the American "left" as well. Remember when under Bush, mainstream liberals were up in arms constantly, and protests became yearly and in some cases monthly events? Imagine, the reaction of mainstream Democrats if Bush, in his last year in office, sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. There would instantly be a new round of major protests most likely. But the mainstream democrats got their man in the White House, and their majority, so they go on defense and get less radical. You could see this under Clinton as well. Compare the number of Iraq protest, and the attendance, to the number of protests against Clinton's wars on Iraq and Serbia. In fact as far as I remember, major anti-Kosovo war protests tended to be organized in areas with large Serbian populations, no doubt organized by their community organizations. Clinton never faced the opposition that Bush got from the beginning of talk about war on Iraq in 2002.