Alt-Right/White Nationalists

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Bowser, Nov 20, 2016.

  1. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I admit that I wasn't quite sure what the Alt-Right represented when I first heard the term, but it now seems clear it is a White Nationalist movement that is picking up traction around the world.

    --Google

    I believe the Alt-Right is a reaction to Left Wing politics.

    --Google

    The coin seems to be flipping in the political sphere of influence. There is now an Alt-Right lobyist group setting up camp in Washington, DC, in preperation for the new administation. They don't wear sheets, they haven't shaved their heads...they are young men in business suits.
     
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  3. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    For every action there is a reaction . This is to bring to an equilibrium condition.
     
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  5. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    That's what I'm hoping, but I fear it might get worse before it gets better.
     
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  7. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Supreme Dark Lord, Vox Day, has one of the most popular Blogs on the internet regarding the Alt-Right. I believe he's a SciFi writer.
     
  8. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    A liked this from his site...
    http://voxday.blogspot.com.au/
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's stupid. You got that belief from your sources of information, the alt-right based propaganda feed, and you really need to be a little more alert than that.
    Now? You mean you never noticed them before? That's strange - you've been getting your entire political worldview from them most of your life.

    They have been there as lobbyists since 1980, when the K Street lobbying firms expanded under Reagan's utterly corrupt administration. They changed their name then, of course - "John Birch" and "Klan" and "White Citizens Council" were bad for PR - and so they consolidated their hold over a major fraction of the US media in the early '90s under new appellations like "dittohead" and "conservative", later "Tea Party" and "Independent" and "not W, he's not a true conservative". They recently changed the name of part of their propaganda operations to "alt-right", because they have to change their name every couple of years - their names always begin to smell bad, after being associated with their behavior for a while.

    One of their most effective names recently, which I regard as a stroke of genius, is "the American people". I really hope they don't make that name stink as they have all the others. But it might be too late.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2016
  10. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    You're trying to lump all conservatives into one ideology. That would be me trying to lump all liberals into communist ideology. It would be convenient to do so, but I try to be honest with myself and others.

    I'm happy to give it a look. But let's be real, what is more concerning, a few conservative radio and web sites, or something much more ominous...
    http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    No, I'm identifying the sources of your political worldview. These sources told you their behavior, recently rebranded as "alt-right", is new, and now it's in reaction to Left Wing politics. You believed them. And that's kind of embarrassing, frankly - at least, I'd be embarrassed to be suckered like that in public fifteen or twenty times in row by the same schtick from the same people.
    All of their bad stuff is concerning. You don't have to choose - you can be concerned about all the bad stuff they do, including what I mentioned above and you repeat: "and so they consolidated their hold over a major fraction of the US media in the early '90s".
     
  12. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I spend more time here online than anywhere else. My only other source of information is YouTube, which I consider very generous to both sides of the line. I turned off my television long ago. I'm not living in a bubble by any means.

    Interesting. So do you consider mainstream media bias in any one direction? My personal opinion is that it has had a liberal bent, but I'm curious whether that will change soon.
     
  13. birch Valued Senior Member

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    If you give these people their own state based on race, then they will have nothing to complain about.

    The problem is its taboo to base anything on race. It really is a race issue for them and they will continue to be a problem until they get their own completely white town, cities and state. That said, like any group or movement, they still need a check because people have a way of overstepping their own boundaries when they get too much power.

    They believe the white race is becoming a minority like an endangered group and want to breed their pedigree if you will.

    Is there a huge uninhabited island somewhere they may like perhaps?
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You are living in a bubble, if you think in terms of "both sides" of some line being equivalently represented on Youtube. That's straight-up Republican think tank spin.

    And one of the consequences of living in that bubble is that you think the "alt right" is a new thing, just now opening a lobby office in Washington DC.
    The mainstream media has had a strong - almost overwhelming - corporate rightwing authoritarian bent, for decades now.
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    True. They've been around ever since the KKK burned its first cross. They don't like free blacks, or gay rights, or immigrants, or civil rights, or any other aspects of "left wing politics" - and are now emboldened by Trump's win. Which is why you are seeing so many hate crimes today.
     
  16. karenmansker HSIRI Banned

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    Perhaps it's just me . . . . . but it would appear from the 'news' media that most of the hate and destructive agendas are promulgated primarily by the left-wing, anti-Trump crowd.
     
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    There's a lot of hate and anger out there. It seems like the left is gravitating more towards protests and sit-ins, while the right is gravitating more towards spitting on Muslims, attacks on blacks and vandalism.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's not you at all - it's a standard meme of the propaganda branch of the Republican Party's controlling faction. You're a repeater.

    About the political bent of the media:
    last February http://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump...m-reality-star-frontrunner-presidential-race/
    this week: http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/21/media/donald-trump-meeting-tv-networks/
    https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/800754005672689664/photo/1
     
  19. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I wasn't either. I'm guessing that it's a slang-term used in New York newsrooms and Washington DC political offices, not something used out in America.

    But it does seem apt though, if it's used to refer to those on the 'right' (frankly, I don't think that 'left' and 'right' retain much meaning any more) who are alienated from those who purport to be the leaders of the right: the Bush dynasty, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Carl Rove, Bill Kristol, the whole Republican 'establishment'. It's a real phenomenon and it needs a name, and 'alt-right' works as well as anything else.

    I think that's falling into the 'left's' trap: they want to convert every issue into a race issue and all of their opponents into "racists". (If that isn't possible, "fascist" will do.) Then everyone is expected to have a knee-jerk reaction against those words and rhetorical purposes are served.

    I'd prefer to think of it as nationalism. It isn't non-white races that are being opposed by the 'alt-right', but rather 'multi-culturalism'.

    Here in the United States, there's no problem with the American people having all kinds of physical appearances derived from all over the world, so long as everyone who arrives here is willing to assimilate into the common culture. In order for people to think of others as 'us' rather than 'them', they need to have enough things that they share in common. Those can certainly be cultural as opposed to physical traits. Of course in a country of immigrants like the United States, what people share in common is going to be an amalgam of what people from everywhere have already brought to it. We see it most obviously in food: Americans eat Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Italian, Greek without thinking twice, because its all American now. But one needs to recognize that even under the best of circumstances immigration implies cultural change and it needs to happen at a rate that doesn't threaten to subvert the society in which it's occurring.

    That's the "melting pot" ideal, which is seemingly anathema to the "multicultural" vision where everyone somehow retains "their culture" in their new locale (except native born locals apparently).

    In Europe what people want to protect isn't their race, it's their distinct national cultures, which they feel are under threat by homogenization ("ever closer union") into a common European identity (that's still largely an idealistic fantasy) and by open borders and unlimited immigration. People don't want to feel like foreigners in their own cities or have groups like Muslims who are resistant to assimilation setting up shop as little foreign colonies in their midst.

    There's a fundamental contradiction at the heart of multiculturalism. Those who favor open borders and oppose anyone trying to protect their own native cultures are implicitly assuming a cultural unanimity that they are simultaneouly seeking to destroy. Their rhetoric always makes reference to "our values" of progressivism, freedom, tolerance. equal rights, womens rights, religious liberty, openness to gays, and all the rest. All good things in my opinion. But what they seemingly fail to realize is that all of those ideals are historically and culturally situated, and aren't shared by everyone. So the whole idea of turning cities and countries into anything-goes zones without any cultures of their own, where any culture belongs just as much as any other, simultaneously depends on everyone implicitly assimilating into the multiculturalists' own values. But why is a Muslim follower of Shariah going to accept womens's rights or religious liberty? Why shouldn't our 'progressive multiculturalist' adopt Shariah's views on those things? Why should it just be assumed that 'progressive' values will end up on top?

    I think that lots of people all around the world feel that they are being treated like guinea-pigs in a giant utopian one-world social experiment that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them, isn't anything they agreed to and threatens to destroy many of the things they care most about. That's how I conceptualize the "alt-right" both in the US, in Europe and elsewhere.
     
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  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    No. And it's very revealing that you would jump to such a counter-factual presumption.

    It's a self-applied term, by the rebranders of the American fascist movement - the latest in a long string of rebrandings, traceable to the Klan (which may have been the original). They need to change the name of their faction every so often, due to the unfortunate associations that accumulate around their behaviors.

    Guys like Steve Bannon originated and adopted the label for themselves. They informed the New York newsrooms, and all the major media folks dutifully adopted the new name and shelved the old ones - Tea Party, etc. The obedience of the major media to the whims and memoranda of this political faction's every new marketing program is one of the striking features of modern American "journalism".
    The only cultures they object to are the non-white ones.

    And they object to them even if they are part of their very own nation, part of their own culture if truth be told - you will see American "alt-right" objections to American "black culture" and "red culture" and "Jew culture" and "Latino culture" for example. You will even see traces of anti-Catholicism, although the Mormons seem to have become members in good standing - Mormons are white and often racially bigoted.

    It's a "nationalism" that excludes black, red, or brown skinned citizens of their own nation. It's an objection to "multiculturalism" that causes them to slander and suppress and rant against the black people who share what is by any objective measure their own culture.

    So let's be a bit more sensible, and realize that these guys include racism among their many and serious character flaws, and that this political faction they thug for is in fact a fascist movement in the US. It quacks, it waddles, it lays eggs, it has feathers, it's a duck.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2016
  21. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    Um, you have white nationalists all wrong. They want a nation or territory that is only white. It wont matter if people assimilate. Its not even about that, these are just things to complain about but the bottomline is they are die-hard about their race. As a matter of fact, they say they dont mind tourists but that is all. They also do enjoy things of other cultures but they want to learn or just import it. For instance, you dont have to be chinese to cook chinese cuisine etc. They have stated such sentiments. Im not against their nationalism simply because i think it is more trouble to deal with people who dont want to be around you and who wants to be neighbors with people who dont?

    But its whether they will be able to have their own area. Just like the native americans have their territories, they feel they are like an endangered species/culture. They say other countries arent overrun with immigrants as much as white nations but this is a much larger issue than just their concern as countries are either adopting western culture or you could say modernization. Well, this modernization is subverting any semblance of their past culture anyways, worldwide. They may look a certain way and speak a certain language but besides the lesser developed countries, most are not living in tepees or castles or pagodas etc. Everyone's 'modern' life is pretty much the same.

    White nationalists are kind of short sighted and there are larger forces at work that they cant see or wont. They might as well get with the program (we cant stop it) because most of it is based on a warped sense of nostalgia or current changing angst which to some extent is understandable as we all like the familiar or 'used to'. Its a form of security and identity. There is a sense of loss or threat to identity or what we feel is a part of us. What they dont see is they arent the only ones who feel that way!!!! We all have our ideas of utopia or ideal, the right this or that as well as type of people etc we want to be surrounded by. That said, it isnt going to be about culture anymore as we knew it or how we defined ourselves/surroundings. It is about technological advancement of the world and the way we live period.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2016
  22. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think you are being very reasonable. As I read it, Yazata's point is that what appears to give this movement traction at the moment is a reaction against multiculturalism. From what we see in the UK I would not be surprised if that were true.

    However, from what one reads, this Alt Right (or should that be Alt-White?) movement has attracted to it some very unsavoury groups who most definitely are racist.

    So, like a lot of pernicious political movements, Alt White seems to have two faces: a respectable one, based on arguing against multiculturalism, suitable for the broadsheet newspapers and educated people; and also a rather nasty racist appeal, to people that might like to wear pillowcases over their heads at weekends.

    Interestingly, you seem, at least from your remarks above, to have fallen into their trap of conflating racism and multiculturalism. I, and by the look of it Yazata, would be willing to provide a justification for why multiculturalism may not be an unalloyed good. Neither of us would dream of trying to justify racism.
     
  23. birch Valued Senior Member

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    These white nationalists think they are the only ones who are suffering. What they dont get is how banal and simplistic they are. How nice their idea of perfection or ideal life is just surrounded by their race only. Wow.

    Many people's ideal or dreams of a better society is much more complex and we know its next to impossible to expect as its not just about race (hell, there are people in your own race you wont like).

    Most people have to keep it to themself or fantasize etc. At least with white nationalists, the criteria is so narrow they can have some type of cohesiveness to have a following. Like they are all that. Pfft.

    The rest of us have been going about our lives just dealing with the existential angst, much deeper than they are capable of fathoming evidently as we know we have to and dealing with 'others' as well as a host of other life issues we cant control in the world. Uh yeah, they are not the only ones.

    People arent happy just because they choose the lesser of two evils in whatever choices life presents. They seem to think they their movement is the ideal. This vs that etc. The most beautiful real dreams we wish to live usually are comprised of way more higher values and eclectic components than just race or culture. People live amongst their race and culture and cant stand it or see how it should be changed or improved too! Geesh.

    They are idiots in their own way too.
     

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