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The first thing to understand is that racists are quite self-consciously not attempting to create a mass movement that will be able to gain power through elections. They understand that what they are espousing is tremendously unpopular. But they see themselves as being part of a "heroic minority"---the "3%"---who are able to influence history through direct action. This is balanced against the idea of the "Asiatic horde". These are two tropes that have been used over and over again in right-wing propaganda. Take a look at this example, a movie trailer from the 1960s that is commonly seen as being an example of cold-war propaganda.
At about 48 seconds the narrator says that Leonidas and his "faithful 300" fought to "save a civilization and the world". The "world" is being saved from a huge horde of outsiders
from India to Ethiopia, from the Caucuses to Arabian desert they came. A sea of men without a shore, and against them stood the lion and fabled 300. The day the world faced enslavement!It's important to understand this trope, because people often forget that when someone shoots up a Temple (or a Mosque or anything else) they aren't seeking to be "victorious" in any sort of conventional sense. Instead, what they want is martyrdom.
The problem from a public order point-of-view is that modern technology allows a tiny minority of violent people to have a huge impact on everyone else. They are---to use the analogy from the Gospels---the yeast that changes flour and water into dough and bread. An assault rifle, a bomb made from household chemicals or even a truck driving down a crowded street can let one moderately intelligent person kill dozens. Moreover, social media can allow this self-styled "hero" to get his message out to the tiny fraction of the population that are sympathetic to his views---which propagates the message.
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I'll admit that this is a disturbing subject. I've not enjoyed doing the research. But there are some pretty disturbing trends and I think people of good will should look this stuff right in the eye. Some anecdotes. A fellow at work started spending his lunch hours listening to podcasts from Red Ice, and antisemitic remarks started creeping into his conversation. At a family get-together one person opines "those darn Syrian refugees breed like flies", another complains bitterly about having a "trans" option on the "sex" part of the driver's license---"but what do you expect with a "lesbian premier"". I'm sure that all my readers could come up with similar examples. This needs to be understood and opposed or else it will strangle our democracy.
The first stage to solving a problem is recognizing that we do have a problem. I hope that I'm helping with that. But it is a lot of work researching and writing these posts. So if you like this article, please help market it by sharing on your social media feed. (Don't just "like" it, actually retweet or share it!) Also, if you can afford it, think about subscribing through Patreon or tossing something in the Tip Jar. Every little bit helps.
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The idea that there is a heroic individual or small group---the 3%---who are fighting against the "horde" is a inherently racist point of view. But this racist scenario has a built-in contradiction. How can we see the horde as being inferior if they are powerful enough to be a dire threat to "a civilization and the world"? The idea that the "mud people" overcome quality with quantity goes part of the way there. But that raises a bigger question, why are these "subhumans" able to martial such huge numbers whereas the "civilized" people cannot?
This is where the Jews come in. In the racist worldview most "mud people" are too stupid to be able to mount any sort of real threat to the white "superman". But the difference with Jews is that they are also subhuman---but not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack morality. The racist sees the Jew as the "evil genius" behind the behaviour of the---otherwise feckless---"mud people". That's why the keystone for the hardcore racist is ultimately some sort of conspiracy theory that involves Jews conspiring to flood Europe, Canada, and, the USA with immigrants who will "swamp" the white race. This explains the chant that the "tiki torch" crew were using at the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally.
The point isn't that Jews will themselves replace whites, but rather that they are conspiring to bring in masses of immigrant "mud people" who will then dilute and eventually replace the white majority. What this refers to is the concept of the "white genocide".
Key to the white genocide conspiracy is the idea that immigration is destroying our nation. This is especially so when people talk about "illegal immigration". It's tremendously important to see this for what it is, because there really isn't any such thing as "illegal immigration"---instead, it's a trope that populists have pushed so hard that many media organizations and the Conservative parties have accepted as a "real thing". When people cross the border into Canada outside of official boarder crossings, they almost always immediate present themselves to the local police and tell them what they've just done. This is specifically in tune with the United Nations Refugee Convention---which is why what they are doing is perfectly legal.
The confusing wrinkle that populists use to muddy the issue is that for many years there has been a "Safe Third Country" convention between the US and Canada that was based on the assumption that any refugee in the US has the same protections as one in Canada. The idea was that there is no sense applying to Canada as a refugee when you are already in the USA, because you can apply there. But the problem now is that many potential refugees in the USA no longer believe that it actually is a "safe country" anymore, so they are fleeing to Canada. But the Safe Third Country convention doesn't supersede the U.N. Refugee Convention, so this is none-the-less totally legal.
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| Why would refugees not trust the USA? Refugee children separated from their families held in detention camps. Image from US boarder patrol, public domain c/o Wiki Commons. |
The idea that we are at risk of being "swamped" by "illegal immigrants" is a key wedge that white nationalists use to insert their ideas into mainstream discourse. This is not an accident, as the political parties that "play footsie" with them have researchers and experts who know exactly what they are doing. If you want to see a practical example of how these things fit together, consider the example of Faith Goldy. If you don't know who this woman is, take a look at the following "greatest hits" compilation.
What really put the "icing on the cake" was when she went on the Daily Stormer, which resulted in her being fired by Ezra Levant from Rebel Media.
For those of you who don't know, the Daily Stormer simply a totally upfront antisemitic, racist media site. It takes its name from a NAZI era German tabloid newspaper titled Der Sturmer published by Julius Streicher. Streicher was executed in 1946 for his role as "Jew Baiter Number One" in the machinery of the Holocaust.
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| This is the cover of a Der Sturmer "special edition" from 1934. The picture purports to show the extraction of blood from Christian children---the "blood libel". Public Domain image from the Wiki Commons. |
This raises yet another connection for Goldy. For years she worked for Rebel Media's Ezra Levant. He is Jewish and very pro-Israel---what has he got to do with antisemitism? Well, that's yet another complexity. For many years there has been an attempt to suggest that any opposition to the current government of the state of Israel and it's policies is actually antisemitic. This has led to some extremely strange definitions of "anti-semitism". For example, in 2016 Tim Hudak (leader of the Ontario Conservatives and the official opposition) proposed the "Standing Up Against Anti-Semitism in Ontario Act, 2016" which would have made it illegal for universities and their pension plans to participate in the "disinvestment campaign" aimed at exerting pressure on the state of Israel to encourage it to change their current policies aimed at Palestinians. In effect, what has happened is a faction of right-wing, pro-Israeli people---like Levant---have been attempting to change the focus of concerns about antisemitism from people who march around with tiki torches chanting "The Jews will not replace us" and instead place it on folks who want people to not buy SodaStreams until the Palestinians get a better deal.
This is not the first time that Levant and Rebel Media have nurtured an "alt-right" voice only to disengage with him once his antisemitism became too obvious. Gavin McInnes, founder of the "Proud Boys" went on a Junket to Israel for Rebel Media and ended up posting a couple YouTube videos that seemed to go "off the rails" into antisemitism. Why does this happen? I'd suggest that when you try to use racist populism to create a fundraising and political machine you unleash forces that eventually you will no longer be able to control. And when Ezra Levant uses Rebel Media to go after immigrants the end result---no matter how much he tries to fine tune it---will always end up in the same "dark place" it always does. And there will always be a place for antisemitism in the racist cesspit. Rebel Media is just another example of "build it and they will come".
The thing to understand is that bigotry exists on a continuum and it constantly evolves according to individual choices that we make from moment to moment. In each instant in our lives we are like the character in the Matrix. We can choose either the red pill or the blue pill. And what we choose will then lead us to another choice, which will lead us to yet another, and so on until the day we die. And how we make those choices will decide what we believe and where we are in the world. Here's a graphic that explains the way different parts of racism fit together as a complex whole:
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| Image from a University Website. Used under the "Fair Use" Copyright Provision. |
Where you fit on this pyramid comes down to which pill you choose---red or blue---from moment to moment. And how everyone fits onto that pyramid defines how our political discourse manifests itself from election to election.
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This brings me to the Conservative Party of Ontario and Canada. They have both been "playing footsie" with Faith Goldy and Rebel Media---one can only assume because they feel that by doing so they will gain enough votes to win elections. When Goldy was promoting her 2018 mayoralty bid in Toronto by posting a photo of her with Doug Ford, he only disassociated himself from her after a lot of pressure from the provincial parliament. Andrew Scheer's association with Rebel Media is well established---he hired its corporate director, Hamish Marshall to manage his leadership bid and is now working as the Conservative Party's Campaign Manager. People need to understand exactly how scary this association really is. Conservatives, I believe, should take some time and look in the mirror while asking themselves "what exactly is it that I am supporting?"
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One last thing. I go on and on about how important climate change is to our future. I suspect that some people might be thinking "this is a distraction---people have always been bigots". I get that, but a big part of the problem we face is that we have been "distracting ourselves to death", and antisemitism is just one more way we are doing it. I found the following image on the Web. It's vile, but someone made it and someone shared it, and I found quite a few links with it. So it's a "thing". I think it speaks for itself.
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Furthermore, I say to you---climate change must be dealt with!
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