← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · il ragno
Thread ID: 5057 | Posts: 31 | Started: 2003-02-17
2003-02-17 07:14 | User Profile
*From VNN. Given all the talk here about 'extremism' and 'civil discourse' and the Bogeyman That Is Linder - I wonder how many will object to this essay's appearance, or vehemently disagree with what Steele is saying. *
[url=http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/vnn/showEssay.asp?essayID=962]http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/vnn/sho...asp?essayID=962[/url]
The Last Roundup
by Edgar Steele
February 10, 2003
*First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
-- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945 *
A little over a year ago, when the alarm bells first went off in my head about the current federal administration, I started joking that I longed for the day when I was merely embarrassed by a President who couldn't keep his pants zipped. I honestly didn't believe that Bush, Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfeld and company were evil or that ultimately they would do anything to endanger us - from either within or without the country. I thought they were pretty much just overzealous boy scouts.
And I'm pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool "conspiracy theorist," too. I believe all manner of things, some of which I won't mention outside my home, not even to this list.
I'm not sure whether it was Churchill or Roosevelt who said of national politics: Nothing is as it seems. I do believe it was Roosevelt, however, in a moment of weakness, who said that all national and international incidents and outcomes are scripted.
I was naive. I am no longer joking about Clinton, either.
Ashcroft is evil incarnate. So are Cheney, Rumsfield and the rest of them. I'm still inclined to give Bush a pass, but only because I think he lacks the mental capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. In the legal field, we call it the insanity defense. Even so, I'm one of those rare lawyers who thinks the insanity defense should only moderate the penalty, not the conviction, so Bush the Second goes on the docket with the rest of them, in my book.
I saw Bill Clinton talking on TV last night and was amazed to find myself feeling somewhat kindly toward him. You just don't know what you have until you lose it, as they say. Yes, Clinton was a disgrace. Yes, Clinton was a crook. But I didn't feel my family to be threatened by him, either directly or indirectly, as a result of his foreign policy, as I do with Bush and company.
I didn't vote for either Bush or Gore this last election. Previously, I would have felt fine pulling the lever for Bush, like so many others, feeling that I had selected the lesser of two evils. The problem with doing that, of course, is that one still chooses evil. Think about that for a moment. I suspect that most of the people reading this right now did that very thing after closing the curtain on the voting booth. We have only ourselves to blame for what is now unfolding. Possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, too, given what they pulled regarding the Florida vote.
We all know of the danger that America faces today as a result of the buildup of forces in and around Iraq. We all know of Bush's failure to articulate a single defensible rationale for attacking Iraq, too. Incredibly, many Americans seem to think that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11.
What so many seem to be ignoring is the danger presented by our cavalier dealings with North Korea.
We are literally on the verge of World War III, folks. It just takes a spark from one of the many powderkegs that Bush and company have emplaced around the world. The big difference from the last two major wars is that this time we are going to start it. You have heard them talking about preemptive strikes - on both Iraq and North Korea. You have heard them talk about even using nukes in those preemptive strikes, haven't you? Probably doesn't matter, because we are rapidly eliminating any options for Iraq and North Korea, so that they will feel compelled to attack, just as we literally forced Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor. And that completely ignores Al Quaeda and Osama bin Laden (Osama who?).
Even in Britain and Australia, now, the two countries that have been our most ardent supporters concerning Iraq, there is arising a huge cry against America's warmongering. You would be able to hear it from the streets of America, too, if the media were not so tightly controlled. We are walking this path alone. Well, not counting Israel, of course, for whom all this began, in the first place.
We literally have become the most hated nation on the planet and that is why, when the fireworks begin, a goodly amount of them will go off in American cities. Bush and company are well aware of this. Obviously, they consider America's impending casualties to be "acceptable losses." Think of your children in that category - Bush and Ashcroft do.
The inevitable disruption in America to be caused by those strikes will lead to massive civil chaos and unrest. Thus, the need for Homeland Security and the ill-named Patriot Act. Those weren't implemented to protect us, you see, they were designed to control us when the time comes. Thus, the emphasis on domestic "terrorists." Seeing one's family butchered will make a terrorist of anybody - just ask the Palestinians.
It isn't being reported in the media, but there is a roundup taking place of those deemed most likely to lead insurrections against the American government in a time of civil disturbance. The most visible arrest lately has been that of Matt Hale, head of the World Church of the Creator, taken down on what appear to be manufactured charges of soliciting the murder of a judge sitting on a copyright case in which his organization has been involved (and which, incredibly enough, resulted in a judicial order that the church's bibles be destroyed).
Hardly anybody agrees with or approves of Hale. Most dismiss his church as being no church at all, but merely an excuse to vent racial hatred. That is not the point. Hale vehemently disagrees with the policies of the American government and that is the point. Hale is being held in solitary confinement, with virtually nobody allowed to see him and all letters to him being returned, a la the Patriot Act. They are treating him as a domestic terrorist.
Picked up just last week: Ernst Zundel, Canadian expatriate who has been living in Tennessee. Zundel was central to a notable hate speech trial in Canada, which he lost when the court ruled that he illegally was a "Holocaust denier," because he took issue, in writing, with many of the claims made by jews concerning the Holocaust. It didn't matter that he proved his points to be correct. What mattered was that he disagreed with the Canadian government. What matters now is that he disagrees with the American government regarding many things, though he really watches his step. His misstep? He missed a visa hearing of which he swears he never received notice.
A lady named Christine Greenwood was recently arrested in Southern California. Greenwood ran something called the Aryan Baby Drive, which collected children's clothing for distribution for free, solely to needy white people. Government agents found a couple of things that probably are in your garage right now, things they said could be used in the manufacture of a bomb. What were they doing in her garage in the first place? Greenwood has been openly critical of the government.
David Duke just worked out a plea bargain whereby he does some hard time, allegedly for embezzling contributions. The facts literally do not hold water in his case, but he doesn't dare go before a jury on any charge, because a conviction is as certain as death and taxes.
Testimony was taken last week in Spokane from a woman who claimed she received $2,000 from a North Carolina attorney named Kirk Lyons, in exchange for a box of secret documents, part of a cache of such documents that she and her ex-military paramour had amassed. Lyons is waiting for them to come for him. Lyons is the head of the Southern Legal Resource Center, a public-interest law firm that handles many of the Confederate flag cases that you hear about. Lyons has been openly critical of the government. No, of course he didn't do it. It's a setup.
A number of lesser lights have been taken into custody recently.
Rumors abound of investigations into others who are alleged to be racists and/or antigovernment. Erich Gliebe, new head of the National Alliance, has heard them concerning himself and his organization. The National Alliance has been characterized by Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center as being the most dangerous antigovernment organization in America today.
Dees was instrumental in taking down Richard Butler and the Aryan Nations two years ago, and Tom Metzger before that, and a significant chapter of the Ku Klux Klan before that. Rumor is, had Clinton jettisoned Janet Reno after the Waco disaster, then Dees would have taken her place as U.S. Attorney General.
Used to be, the establishment took down one of these high-profile politically-incorrect types every two years or so. Suddenly, all the stops have been pulled out and they are being arrested and locked away faster than I can keep track. Do you believe in coincidence? I don't.
Given the current temperament of political correctness, none of these people dare appear before a jury. Already tried and convicted in the media before jury selection, they simply don't stand a chance of not doing serious time on trumped-up charges. No, I am not kidding. I have too many clients who already have met the same fate, with whom I can prove that tragic assertion.
Aside from shutting these people up and, in some cases, destroying their organizations altogether, the government is getting them off the streets before things blow up. These are the people that logically could be expected to be leading protests when the time comes, you see.
As if that weren't enough, last week the Justice Department took the wraps off Patriot Act II, a significant extension to the already-draconian provisions of the Patriot Act passed last year. I have yet to do a comprehensive analysis of this lengthy document, but what I have seen so far is very troubling, indeed.
Patriot I allows the designation of an American citizen as a domestic terrorist, a governmental designation not subject to review by any court or, for that matter, anybody. After that, the person can be held indefinitely, without trial or, even, being charged. No, I am not kidding. You haven't been paying attention if you didn't already know that.
Now, here comes Patriot II, which allows that "domestic terrorist" to be stripped of his American citizenship and deported to another country for "further processing" (can you say "summary execution" or "torture," boys and girls?).
I suppose there will come a time when I will need to shut down this modest effort at providing a look behind the curtain. It may even come to my being arrested on some phony charge, though I suspect they will work through a number of other people before they get to me. For now, though, I speak up for the politically incorrect among us who are being led away.
How long before they get to you, do you suppose? Of course, you do realize, don't you, that neither I nor anybody else of a mind to do so will be left to speak on your behalf when that time comes?
The time has come for every single American to speak out in protest. Trust me, this is our last chance. The American government has become truly insane and must be stopped. It is our job to do it. Call congresspeople. Tell your friends and coworkers. Flood the media with letters. March. Speak up in public meetings.
New America. An idea whose time has come.
EDGAR STEELE
2003-02-17 12:00 | User Profile
Il Ragno,
The only people who would object to this are those who control the government. Check out his last paragraph and tell me what that has in common with some of the rantings that goes on VNN?
As for Linder, I still regard him as someone I would trust as far as I could throw him on top of being a vulgarian.
2003-02-17 21:12 | User Profile
Sert:
You know as well as I do how many OD regulars are posting material that originally appears on VNN. Not just the essays by the semi-regulars but the many (and incredibly varied) links to newspaper stories, magazine articles, etc. The site is [and has been for a long time now] an immensely valuable kind of clearinghouse for items that simply can't be found collated in one convenient easily-accessed venue anywhere else.
There are an awful lot of people who will cut and paste items out of VNN with one hand, happy to let Linder do the scutwork - while condemning it as declasse with the other. I think we both know the word for people like that.
2003-02-17 21:52 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 17 2003, 21:12 ** There are an awful lot of people who will cut and paste items out of VNN with one hand, happy to let Linder do the scutwork - while condemning it as declasse with the other... **
Sure but why not take advantage of what your tax dollars have already paid for?? Linder either works for the government direct, or gets his funding indirect. Either way, you paid for it already and may as well use it.
To make VNN a good lure it has to put some goodies up now and then. It was the same with Dr. Pierce and his "National non-Alliance". Did anyone ever question the fact that he was publishing a glossy racist magazine out of West Virginia at a time when most real magazines were folding for lack of cash? Insanity. The FBI printing office probably put those out from Washington D.C. knowing Pierce's average customer was too dumb to ever check.
It's not hypocrisy to utilize what's out there as long as we're not total naifs about the source.
2003-02-17 22:05 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ragnar@Feb 17 2003, 15:52 To make VNN a good lure it has to put some goodies up now and then. **
One can observe the same thing with Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, as well. On the surface are positive messages of self-reliance, economic independence, etc. Only when you dig deeper do you find the goofy stuff about spaceships and Egyptian pyramids.
And then there are the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses.... :(
2003-02-17 22:40 | User Profile
All,
Edgar J. Steele is an Attorney and not a member of the "National Alliance" or part of the VNN staff.
Here is his Home Page.
ConspiracyPenPal.com
This is the only source for the absolutely free, somewhat regular and almost always peripatetic newsletter from Edgar J. Steele, occasionally referred to as "Attorney for the Damned."
Steele always discusses politically-incorrect issues of general import and often illustrates his colorful and lively ranting with aspects of the higher-profile cases being handled by his law firm.
Frequent updates and in-depth reports on some cases, designed to provide a viewpoint rarely afforded those who aren't actually sitting at counsel table during trial.
url: [url=http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/]http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/[/url]
The article on his site
The Last Roundup
by Edgar J. Steele
...
Copyright é2003, Edgar J. Steele
*Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate
among private individuals and groups, post on all Internet
sites and publish in full in all not-for-profit publications.
Contact author for all other rights, which are reserved.*
On-Line link to this article in HTML format: [url=http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/roundup.htm]http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/roundup.htm[/url]
2003-02-17 22:41 | User Profile
You can't answer my original point, so you're reduced to making the darkest of unprovable allusions instead, none of which have a blessed thing to do with what I said.
I've come across this kind of "argument" before - can you prove it's not true? Tell it to the farmer who swears he got butt-probed by the alien invaders in his cornfield, gents.
Jeez, it's no fun when you win this easily.......
PS: Steele has an email link. Feel free to contact him and ask if he personally repudiates VNN or in any way objects to his essays appearing there. Then talk to me.
2003-02-17 22:58 | User Profile
il ragno,
What is your point? Trying to start a Feud? I did not even attack anyone. I got sick of this kind of thing on Free Republic. Mr. Steele does not repudiate people to be PC. And I agree, I do not attack people because the Neo-Marxists do not like them.
2003-02-17 23:26 | User Profile
I'm not attacking you or anyone, Faust.
What I am saying:
** "many OD regulars are posting material that originally appears on VNN."**
True.
"(VNN) is ....an immensely valuable kind of clearinghouse for items that simply can't be found collated in one convenient easily-accessed venue anywhere else."
True.
"There are an awful lot of people who will cut and paste items out of VNN with one hand, happy to let Linder do the scutwork - while condemning it as declasse with the other."
True.
Here are the counter-arguments:
"Linder either works for the government direct, or gets his funding indirect. Either way, you paid for it already and may as well use it."
Unless you can offer any corroborative evidence - I'll settle for a scintilla here! - demonstrably untrue. And ludicrous, given VNN's content.
"It was the same with Dr. Pierce and his "National non-Alliance".ÃÂ The FBI printing office probably put those out from Washington D.C. knowing Pierce's average customer was too dumb to ever check."
See above. And note we are veering further and further from my original assertions into the Land of Delusional Sidebars. Again: one scintilla of proof, please.
"And then there are the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses...."
Frankly, I think this was Tex injecting a little absurdist humor to lighten the atmosphere, so I'm keeping away from this one. But if Tex wishes to correctme on this, he's going to face the same hurdle. Show me what you're saying is true.
As far as Steele goes, he most assuredly is a semi-regular at VNN. (Note that a 'semi-regular' is NOT the same thing as 'staff member'!) His articles have appeared there frequently. His letters have appeared in the Reader Mail section. Mr Steele is an attorney. Trust me on this: a lawyer who stenuously objected to appearing semi-regularly on a site like VNN would take steps to back Alex Linder right off.
Now I'll make a further assertion: "Franco" - an OD regular I have had problems with- is another VNN semi-regular. As am I, NB Forrest, Ruffin, and a few others here. Neither Franco, NB, Ruffin or I am the same person, so I can only speak for myself - but I am not on any sort of government payroll (and I would strongly guess the same is true of them.) We do not think, act or believe the exact same things in lockstep with Linder's Rules Of Order(which do not exist in any case), yet Alex Linder will print all of our letters or submitted articles whether or not we offer opinions that clash with his own. And I ought to know, since Alex has printed a letter of mine that actually contained praise for a Jew (who wasn't Israel Shahak, by the way.) I can't recall him banning anybody for "the greater good"....and the guy gets a LOT of hate mail.
Draw your own conclusions. But open and free debate often leads to contentiousness; it's like that.
2003-02-18 01:14 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 17 2003, 23:26 ** Neither Franco, NB, Ruffin or I am the same person, so I can only speak for myself - but I am not on any sort of government payroll... **
I didn't think you were and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.
The Linder/VNN thing generally is so similar to the Pierce/NA thing (which I did check out) that I consign them to the same bin. This is not irrational because I lived in Las Vegas for awhile as a youngster and I just know how mob towns "feel".
Is it absurd to think that a powerful clique can hold most of the media slots in a country but leave the opposition in peace? TA is most correct about the Nation of Islam; I knew the gal who worked in their video studio and who had direct connections to the local FBI office. She later became a programmer and producer for Christian rock, for those of you who like the sublime.
When Pierce's National Vanguard was coming out more or less regularly in the 80s I was lucky because my work took me to printshops often. Seeing a copy of NV, every printer I showed it to told me the work was too expensive for what it was trying to pull off. I never followed it up and no, it isn't proof but logic suggests money coming from somewhere besides "white nationalists" and Pierce himself admitted he wasn't making money at all till Resistance Records was launched. That was much later -- oddly enough, when all the money came in his magazine languished. A little tip-off that Pierce's real target audience was not composed of readers.
In any other country this would be negligible and I'd diagnose myself paranoid. America's security apparatus, at the moment, operates a lot like a very big mob town. 20 years ago if you were a white nationalist or even very interested in it, you read Francis Parker Yockey's Imperium. Not any more. After the wall came down the old KGB records showed that Yockey was on their payroll. There is more about that strange man, but this time it's the US that won't release the information. I'm betting that Yockey, like lots of disgruntled types, was fleecing our intelligence services and theirs as well.
We know from the "drug war" that America's police set people up all the time and create criminals. We know that the largest distributer of kiddie porn on earth is the FBI, which uses it to set up sting operations. So go one step further and connect the dots. Mob towns work like this, not free countries, so we may as well get used to it.
2003-02-18 01:47 | User Profile
You make a lot of good points...a lot to mull over in what you've said. False "opposition" is a big component to building a False Consensus.
But there's this to consider as well: the propaganda value of such claims. If you extend the Yockey example circumstantially to Pierce, and then again, to Linder, even more circumstantially, it isn't very long before you're on automatic pilot: instinctively mistrustful of anyone or anything that disseminates a message that you strongly agree with. Particularly if that source is attempting to create a groundswell of like-minded individuals.
Paranoid or not, that's a dangerous de facto Rule To Live By. It further atomizes every venue or potential venue of dissent and political change down to individual components too overly-cautious to ever act effectively as a collective. And - as I never tire of saying - this is all a numbers game.
One should always proceed cautiously - but, sooner or later, you are gonna have to make a leap of faith and risk something: whether it simply be looking foolish, or your life & freedom (to cite the two opposite poles of consequences).
Hey wasn't there a thread on FR that warned people that OD was a Black Panther front? (No I am NOT kidding. Ask Tex.)
2003-02-18 19:26 | User Profile
This is why I like FAEM. They don't take money, ask for memberships. They say what they like and don't expect to be paid for it.
Their approach to donations to other sites/orgs is intelligent too- pay for books or other items, but nothing where there's not something tangible.
I believe they called the NA a good book store. No insult intended, but that's what they do.
The FAEMsters have also worked with most of the big shots in the blightwing (as they call it) and can tell some great stories.
2003-02-18 22:05 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ragnar@Feb 17 2003, 20:14 ** Mob towns work like this, not free countries, so we may as well get used to it. **
(Gabby Hayes speaks up): Listen up willye, ye dern fools! Ragnar's right!
O'Brien knew how to push Winston's buttons.
Given some of the rhetoric appearing on VNN of late, particularly the fiction, I think it's possible there could be more at work on that site than what would occur on a simple clearinghouse of information, or even a recruitment/propaganda dissemination activity.
Perhaps Mr. Linder could be invited back to discuss the relative merits of his approach, his goals, and his plans for the future.
2003-02-19 00:09 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 18 2003, 01:47 ** If you extend the Yockey example circumstantially to Pierce, and then again, to Linder, even more circumstantially, it isn't very long before you're on automatic pilot: instinctively mistrustful of anyone or anything that disseminates a message that you strongly agree with. **
You are correct there, and I absolutely hate it. And I can't help but notice that this "alienation" from out own people seems manufactured and utterly false.
(How did the Emperor Julian put it? Ah, I remember: "The Jews are audacious while the Gentiles are indifferent and confused." Some things never change.)
The idea that I have to join up with "fringe" politics and "haters" to protect the interests of my own people and their bloodlines is even more absurd when you compare our dilapidated state with how other nations handle the exact same issue:
I have a buddy from Egypt, prince of a fellow, who interrupted me one evening with a request he thought might be out of line. He'd lived in Egypt when they filmed a miniseries about Anwar Sadat, and wondered if a copy might be around. I checked and sure enough, it was readily available.
I asked him if he'd missed it when it played in Egypt?
"It never played in Egypt and it won't," he replied.
Sure enough: The Egyptians let the company film Sadat in the country, but they were furious that an American black actor Lou Gossett played Anwar. Egyptians, no matter how dark they are, do not think of themselves as negro and they will not argue the point.
That was it! No fuss whatever. A negro plays Sadat? Fine, but it don't play in Egypt. Confident cultures can do that. Which is why we can't. (Let's not even get into the fact that Egypt made a miniseries on the Protocols or we'll go mad for sure.)
2003-02-19 00:23 | User Profile
The Egyptians let the company film Sadat in the country, but they were furious that an American black actor Lou Gossett played Anwar. Egyptians, no matter how dark they are, do not think of themselves as negro and they will not argue the point.
Well, shet mah mouf!
Don't let Richard Poe find this out. He might have Horowitz leave a message on Rove's machine to ask Perle to add a Cairo extension to his Axis of Evil.
"Make me look stupid, willya? We'll soon see about that!"
2003-02-19 00:31 | User Profile
Ragnar, have you ever considered the possibility that Pierce simply found a publisher sympathetic to his politics who "donated" to him by printing his publications at discounted prices?
2003-02-19 06:34 | User Profile
Originally posted by Centinel@Feb 19 2003, 00:31 Ragnar, have you ever considered the possibility that Pierce simply found a publisher sympathetic to his politics who "donated" to him by printing his publications at discounted prices?
Yes. Anything's possible. But if you've ever run a newsstand in a big city, you know about distribution. In Cleveland and vicinity, for instance, the entire distribution for periodicals was run by Klein News, a Jewish outfit that just won't handle what they don't like. They basically ran periodical distribution in Northeast Ohio for fifty years.
To spin this in a more positive direction, the whole thing about these organizations may be less the proprietors (Pierce & Linder et al) than the way they are used by the snoops & snitches.
One example that comes to mind was the Asatru Free Assembly.
When I knew them they had a mimeograph newsletter and they were as harmless as vegetarian nudists. A few years later, Asatru had been picked up by biker gangs and prisoners as the the way to Aryan unity. This despite the fact that Asatru had been started by people who were (and still are, I think) as far away from "haters" as it's possible to get. Their simple desire to revive Odinism was spun into a criminal direction, and I don't for a moment think it was an accident.
Point is, anything that promotes Euro-American unity and identity is going to be "used" the same way. I don't think it happens by itself. Phil Donahue was just about able to paint Jared Taylor as a Klansman for the benefit of the Boob Tube audience for the same reason. Buchanan, ditto. Even Sam Francis got dunked by Time Magazine (it was in the "Buchanan as Dracula" issue, right after Pat won New Hampshire.) There is no possibility of a white American movement if we stay marginal in this way. And it's being pushed in that direction and has been for... well, since World War II.
The only possible solution is that many of us who are white and not ashamed of it have got to rally round a real movement with real pulling power. Right now that means Taylor or Duke. Despite Duke's current fix, he has held public office (ie, played by the rules and won.) Taylor has impeccable Middle Class cred; and American white professionals won't pay attention to much less. It's really down to that unless I'm missing something.
If there's another way, I'm open to suggestions. Seriously. I know white suburbanites who think criticizing MLK Day is racist, so it's an uphill fight no matter what.
2003-02-19 07:04 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 17 2003, 23:26 **Here are the counter-arguments:
"Linder either works for the government direct, or gets his funding indirect. Either way, you paid for it already and may as well use it."
Unless you can offer any corroborative evidence - I'll settle for a scintilla here! - demonstrably untrue. And ludicrous, given VNN's content.
"It was the same with Dr. Pierce and his "National non-Alliance".ÃÂ The FBI printing office probably put those out from Washington D.C. knowing Pierce's average customer was too dumb to ever check."
See above. And note we are veering further and further from my original assertions into the Land of Delusional Sidebars. Again: one scintilla of proof, please.
**
Laugh it you like, but they're at times the real sorts of activities untertaken by government provoceteurs. Remember what we found out about the German National Party, where the leadrship turned out to be government agents? Much stranger things have happened.
Another problem with appealing to VNN's right to free speech is the classic one - they'recomittment to free speech is certainly questionable, and makes any argument you make to that concept ultimately a bit hollow.
As long as we still have really substantially free speech in this country, their legitimate credibility to America will always be somewhat suspect. That's why it doesn't really make a lot of sense at this time to bang their drum.
2003-02-19 07:40 | User Profile
It's still cloud-cuckooland to me. The proof is.... the absence of proof!
Another problem with appealing to VNN's right to free speech is the classic one - they're comittment to free speech is certainly questionable
Huh? By exercising their right to free speech, they show an insufficient commitment to free speech?!? Run that one by me again...
As long as we still have really substantially free speech in this country....
Again I say - huh? You either have free speech or you don't. NO internet site, NO magazine or newsweekly walks into your crowded theater yelling 'fire!' You make the conscious decision to seek IT out first. You must make the decision to voluntarily enter Linder's (or Pierce's, or Texas Dissident's) "theater". So you can't use that hoary old warhorse here. (But tv and radio do come into your home screaming 'FIRE!', if you care to stick to your 'crowded-theater' guns.)
Laugh it you like, but they're at times the real sorts of activities untertaken by government provoceteurs. Remember what we found out about the German National Party, where the leadrship turned out to be government agents? Much stranger things have happened.
Yes - and no offense, Okie - but it brings to mind the classic dialogue from PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE:
"My friend, you have seen this incident based on sworn testimony. Can you prove that it didn't happen? Perhaps on your way home, you will pass someone in the dark, and you will never know it, for they will be from outer space. Many scientists believe that another world is watching us this moment. We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aeroplane, the telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio, and even television! And now some of us laugh at outer space. God help us... in the future."
2003-02-19 08:15 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 19 2003, 07:40 > Another problem with appealing to VNN's right to free speech is the classic one - they're comittment to free speech is certainly questionable**
Huh? By exercising their right to free speech, they show an insufficient commitment to free speech?!? Run that one by me again...**
No, by affiliating themselves with National Socialist ideology they flaunt their ultimate skepticism re: the value of free speech, however much they may be pragmatically willing to invoke it at the present time
> As long as we still have really substantially free speech in this country....**
Again I say - huh? You either have free speech or you don't.... So you can't use that hoary old warhorse here. (But tv and radio do come into your home screaming 'FIRE!', if you care to stick to your 'crowded-theater' guns.)**
I'm not sure I understand your argument here, but basically you just didn't understand mine. Step back a little bit and regroup.
2003-02-19 08:19 | User Profile
My opinion is that VNN is not the brainchild of provocateurs though they may have since worked their way around and past the periphery. There is no point in doing that which would conventionally be interpreted as instilling hate in so large a number (impressive hit ranking) of web surfers. Moreover, the materials they link to and the totality of the effort makes for convincing arguments expressed therein, and the unbridled passion in much of the commentary is indicia of dedication. Il ragnoââ¬â¢s points are sound. Further, for what purpose? Collecting IP addresses? Please. <_<
2003-02-19 08:29 | User Profile
Well, before we plunge any further into the thicket....and in light of the last few days here....I first want one thing clarified.
I in no way am trying to "pick a fight" or "start a feud", or attack you or anybody else here. And I apologize in advance if it seems that way.
I think Faust got that impression the other day, and so did Jay, and I don't want anybody else to read things that aren't there in my responses. This is just spirited argument and debate, not sly name-calling; I'll make my case as forcefully as I can, but always with respect, and even affection, for the other person. (Well, at least [u]here[/u], at OD. FR would be another story....)
Sorry to interrupt the momentum of this back-and-forth, but lately it appears that lively head-butting has occasionally spilled over into bad blood and I don't want to contribute to it, or give that appearance.
Now...where were we...?
2003-02-19 08:40 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 19 2003, 08:29 Now...where were we...?
I'll try to explain better where I'm coming from. But I don't understand exactly where you're coming from. You expressed worry about the Linderites on this forum. Then you rag on us for being wet about VNN.
There's a disconnect there. I find it difficult to follow your position.
2003-02-19 09:29 | User Profile
Because VNN doesn't bar the door to anyone, there is a wide spectrum of readers & contributors. Some are no-neck goons; most are thoughtful, well-spoken folks with valid points to make.
Linder himself has good days, bad days and great days. When he's on he's inspired, a racialist Jim Goad. Savagely funny and as probing as a laser-beam. (It might get lost in the slur-shuffle, but some of his best stuff touches only tangentially upon The People Ya Love To Hate.) When he's on autopilot, he's pedantic. I don't see how you can be a one-man show - as well as a full-time pariah to the Semitically-correct dominant culture surrounding us - and bat .1000. So I don't demand he hits .1000. But nobody can deny that VNN has raised the bar on what the sort of people who publicly disdain VNN can get away with in 'safer' venues regarding open, stinging criticism of Jews and Zionism; to deny that is to deny reality.
Similarly, he's going to run things on his site that run the gamut from brilliant (John Cartney's stuff I find inspirational, but maybe that's just me) to abysmal (I'll leave it to others to pick their own respective poison). Maybe that sort of WN egalitarianism is a tactical error, but maybe it isn't: it's kinda hard to deny that VNN has found An Audience, and a large one at that. Doing It Your Way means trial and error, given that there's no Robert's Rules of Order to consult for the type of enterprise VNN is. Demanding that every item every day meet my criteria for excellence is unrealistic...but I think there is a LOT to be said for his inclusiveness. I also think his high Alexas correspond directly to that inclusiveness.
I want to make one more point. Linder responds personally to every letter and every submission made to him. Given his Rottweiler-on-Ritalin prose style, this might be hard to believe.... but he is unfailingly kind, thoughtful and supportive in every response. He has never minced words about how important feedback is to him, nor has he ever put on ivory-tower airs. Nobody writes anything for public consumption to have it displayed in a hermetically-sealed vacuum, and Alex has stated more than once that reader response is his succor and his fuel; many of the Propaspheroids who hate him and would never acknowledge his existence are reading him and copping as many licks as they can off him nevertheless, which I think makes him that much more grateful for whatever words of support he does get from the rest of us.
All that aside, that doesn't mean I agree with him in lockstep, or adopt all of his rhetoric as my own, or wish to see OD become VNN Jr. But VNN helps sites like this; so long as he's there, breathing fire for all the world to see as Jew Hating Bad Guy #1, we here get to flex our name-the-Jew musculature at a lower impact-level and look mild and reasonable and appealing by comparison. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself. If VNN didn't exist and OD was as it is now we would be Number 1 With A Bullet on the ADL hit parade.
Previously, Wintermute wrote, "I don't remember who said it, but I distinctly remember a post that praised Alex for his obvious intelligence, drive and leadership skills - but went on to say that he was going to have to decide - and soon - whether or not he's willing to grow up and be serious." Well, that was me - although that wasn't my exact phrasing. Still, close enough. If that seems contradictory or inconsistent, I plead guilty with an explanation: said explanation being "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."
2003-02-19 09:58 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 19 2003, 09:29 ** If VNN didn't exist and OD was as it is now we would be Number 1 With A Bulet on the ADL hit parade.
**
My Chief Petty Officer in the Navy held to exactly that point of view. He personally despised the Black Panthers (then quite current) but he said, "Hey, if a bunch of black whackos want to run around saying their going to burn down the country, nobody'll mess with a suit+tie guy like me." Rads take heat so others might get stuff done.
It's "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." Everybody misquotes Emerson. The foolishly consisent are everywhere but you don't have that problem.
2003-02-19 10:02 | User Profile
I stand corrected; humbly so. Thanks for pointing that out, Redbeard.
2003-02-19 17:49 | User Profile
Most intellectuals are cowards, and are too few to ever comprise a mass movement (restricted to intellectuals???). This is why propaganda, or the word, so to speak, in order to attract the numbers it takes to make it acceptable, has to appeal to more than just those who appreciate high-brow theory. Now, I know that folks who revel in publicly separating themselves from "vulgarity" will never admit it, but once the word becomes at least somewhat popular, due in large part to crudity, watch the intellectuals suddenly appreciate the finer points of it - still pooh-poohing the unwholsesome parts of it, though less so per level of acceptance. Linder provides both, as did early NS.
2003-02-20 11:56 | User Profile
Or to be very cynical about it: 99% of people are worthless and the other 1% sure as hell aren't intellectuals ;)
Millions marched against the oligarch's war in Iraq. There is political will left among the people of the West. If dinosaurs like the Socialist Worker's Party, who cannot achieve any electoral mandate whatsoever, can instigate such massive protests surely nationalism, which does have an electoral mandate, can achieve at least the same?
The problem lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are weak and petty men. The conservative rearguard does not have a 'will to power', they are consumed by unwillingness to get their hands dirty. I would employ the term 'noble losers' but there is nothing noble about losing.
VNN vulgarity is not an opportunity to provide censure but rather a clear signal to provide leadership. Intellectual conservatives/nationalists have become little more than generals cowering in their tents complaining about the indiscipline of the troops.
2003-02-20 13:09 | User Profile
A full style spectrum of White nationalist opinion is needed, not just lengthy, erudite discussions, but also free-swinging attacks such as I enjoy making in the VNN Letters section. Ribald laughter & scathing mockery have their places; our jew enemies have long been masters of both. For those delicate souls who find such crudity distasteful, let them read Kevin MacDonald's or Israel Shahak's works. The most intelligent will see the value of both.
2003-02-20 19:55 | User Profile
** I don't remember who said it, but I distinctly remember a post that praised Alex for his obvious intelligence, drive and leadership skills - but went on to say that he was going to have to decide - and soon - whether or not he's willing to grow up and be serious.**
Absolutely agree. There are disquieting and even frightening aspects to much of the most recent Democratic (Clinton) and Republican (Bush) policies with respect to civil liberties and individual freedom. Clinton gave away your right to privacy and medical records, and Bush wants to know whenever you use an ATM or a bathroom for that matter.
But the wholesale panic, run for the hills, were doomed, and look for an assault at every turn mentality is truly counter productive. If you want to protest and make the country truly a better place for future generations, protest the NEA and get the revisionist-history, multi-cultural, marxist lap dogs out of your childrens education, then get the federal government out of it too. Thats a start.
2003-02-20 22:44 | User Profile
If you want to protest and make the country truly a better place for future generations, protest the NEA and get the revisionist-history, multi-cultural, marxist lap dogs out of your childrens education, then get the federal government out of it too. Thats a start.
..and vote with your feet. Get your kids out of taxpayer-funded education and deconstruct the whole public school system.