In light of a recent commenter that I personally know making comments on OD I thought it pertinent to comment what not to debate with someone that will never agree with us.
My acquaintance is an intelligent man with a good sense of humor and considers himself to have valid enlightened opinions courtesy of a liberal education that can defeat this so-called racist ethno-nationalist nonsense we represent. You are probably familiar with the type.
Our cause is unique in a sense that it issues of Identity has ramifications that branch out into many different subjects like religion, art, science, and history. All of these topics have something to say about a persons Identity but in debates or arguments of current political importance the role of those topics is actually rather narrow.
I’m sure there will be some that disagree with me or will refuse to heed this advice. My articles are written for those that benefit from them and I don’t mean to tell people what they can or should do but offer practical tips that improve your debating style. I’m short on time so I’m just going to quickly overview what some of these are:
Semantics
The endless debate over words and their meanings or the ignorance or misunderstanding of debaters in a political debate, is the argument of choice for sophomores. Debating about semantics is a straw man designed to take the conversation off topic on an irrelevant thread and score points with whoever it might be judging the merits of each side. The bottom line is don’t beguiled by attempts to sidestep the issues based on semantics.
Understanding the style and purpose of using words to win an argument is an essential life skill. The art of rhetoric will greatly help you understand when this is attempted against your statements.
Science
I remember a book my dad got from a Church from a Pastor turned amateur dinosaur scientist who besides claiming the Earth is 6,000 years old insisted that the tyrannosaurus rex was a fire breathing dragon and he made comparisons to the fire breathing dung beetle to prove his case! Needless to say he was not hailed as a scientific genius.
There is a certain kind of racialist that loves science and pondering the meaning of the vast sets of data available today and I don’t blame them. I’m convinced this sort all had chemistry sets as kids and loved biology or physics in school. But here’s the deal with debating science: most people are ignorant of scientific facts of how it relates to human culture.
Attempting to educate people on the topic is a problem of education and a distraction from issues of political importance. Armchair scientists will never be able to educate the public on facts and figures to justify certain public policy decisions or why current policies need to be changed. You can try, but it won’t work in the long run.
I will make an appeal to science and argue that the public IQ is not high enough to understand that, nor is it likely ever to be! That’s why facts and figures about non white crime, so alarming and troubling to intelligent people, are glossed over by a liberal materialist argument that those crimes are due to poverty and racism rather than any inherent predilection of behavior. What they are doing (and have done, civilization wide!) is claim that their moral stance is of higher value than your science, touche! The end result is that scientific arguments will be trumped by moral ones, even as it appears to us today it comes down to destroying all the diversity of life on Earth as we know it.
Religion
Debating the truth or merit of a religion doesn’t belong in the debaters toolbox. Although there are people out there that will insist what religion you should or shouldn’t be- my family is full of them- debating if someone should or should not be of a particular religion won’t assist your arguments about social and political issues.
Everyone is going to have a religion or practice that is not approved of by others. The role of religion in a persons life however can and should be debated and the loyalties that a religion expects of its adherents should be discussed.
Here is an example of why this line of arguing is ineffective politically. Thesis: “Switzerland is traditionally a Christian country and should not allow Muslims to build Mosques.” Rebuttal: “Switzerland is a democratic country and protecting the rights of minorities is more important than the traditional role of Christianity in Switzerland.”
If the arguer of the thesis crouched his terms that were more in alignment with his real aim, he would argue instead “The national life of Switzerland is undermined by immigration.” The onus on the rebuttal is to prove how immigrants are not harmful to national life, something that would be very difficult to prove.
History
Discussions on issues of social and political importance often turn to history to explain why the problem exists. But for our purposes of winning hearts and minds to our cause, the problem of overemphasising historical events is great. The first issue when dealing with historical topics is that not everyone has a perfect or even functionally useful knowledge of past events. The result of this is that making claims about historical events that your listeners are ignorant of will in all likelihood fail to convince them of the truth of your argument. People’s views on social events are mostly visceral, instinctive, and prone to being guided by emotions rather than reason. Even those who claim that reason is the sole guiding influence of their opinions is either simply unaware of the emotional origin of their views, or using a rhetorical argument that their emotion-based views are based on reason and hence unassailable.
There are many that believe that America started its downward progression to annihilation since the election of Roosevelt and then there are those that argue it was actually Lincoln. But do you see where that line of reasoning brings us? A history debate, say between who was worse for our people, Lincoln or Roosevelt, does not matter to real world events we have to deal with today. You might as well debate about the existence of a fire breathing tyrannosaurus rex.
When you find yourself in a debate with a person that gets heated, preferably before it gets personal do this. Say “Stop. It’s clear that we could debate this issue for weeks straight and neither one of us are going to change our opinions. But you know what? that’s actually okay, I like a person that is not afraid to stand by their convictions. Maybe we can discuss this another time…”
Hopefully that can help short circuit any disagreement from becoming a permanent rift between you and another person.
Thank you.
In a sense, you are right.
If your goal is to change someone’s political opinions, arguing with them about history and religion isn’t the best idea.
If your goal is to educate and inform, internet debates about history, philosophy, and religion can be incredibly productive. You ought to see some of the debates I have had in the past.
I learned more about history from arguing with people on the internet than I ever did in college.
After being a member of Stormfront for four years I learned more about winning an argument from there than anywhere else! But learning how to deescalate a debate from turning personal is something I wish I had learned much earlier in life.
You’re not always trying to persuade the man you’re debating, but those listening. Lurkers abound who are interested. But it is indeed hard or impossible to reason someone into a position.
Heal thyself, Doctor.
“Why can’t we all just get along.” —Rodney King
LOL.
“he would argue instead “The national life of Switzerland is undermined by immigration.”
On internet forums, my tactic is to use the word REPLACEMENT. I say that the deliberate replacement of white people by non-whites is wrong. Sometimes my choice of word is contested: “Are you crazy? No one is being abducted and replaced!” My reply is that it is a collective replacement, and that any addition of “diversity” really comes down to replacement: there are fewer Whites around us, our income is redistributed to non-whites, cities become overcrowded, fewer white children are born as a consequence, official statistics say that the whites will soon be a tiny minority, and so on. There’s a lot to say on the subject. Pointing to the race replacement is a logical approach, not overly intellectual, and the word ‘replacement’ does encourage a visceral, instinctive reaction.
Our opponents have a hard time trying to prove that there is no race replacement! Sometimes they say it’s not really replacement because there is no real difference between Whites and non-Whites, race doesn’t matter. Sometimes they fall back on a passive aggressive reaction: yes, the Whites are becoming a minority. So what? We had colonized the third-world, now it is their turn.
I’d like to say that this site absolutely kicks ass.
I repeat my call for an effort to devise a WN handbook that gives guidance to persuading others toward the WN position. What words, sound bites and themes work, and are attractive to other Americans? What demographics are best targetted? Wouldnt it be useful to get feedback from a large number of WNs, and determine what drew them to the movement, to figure out what works?
The problem with all of the recent essays on “how to debate/get people into WN,” etc., is that all of the authors are assuming a narrow range of concepts wil lwork for everyone. We have heard the discussing the Holocaust will not work, discussing confederate history will not work, talking about Hitler will not work, talking about black crime will not work, talking about IQ will not work, talking about the negative aspects of Christianity will not work, etc., etc.
Well, all of these authors are WRONG.
Mr. Obvious here,
ALL of these subjects attract different people, and a lot of them.
Holocaust revisionism doesn’t work? Really? Then why are there hundreds of sites, books, magazines, articles, threads, etc., devoted to it and why have apparently so many came to race awareness by that rout?
Anti-Christianity a non starter? Really? I’d estimate somewhere around 40 percent, at least, of pro white people hold this view.
Hitler? You kidding me? There are as many Hitler lovers as “Neo-Confererates”
Crime and IQ studies shunned? Let’s move on.
It depends on who you are talking to. All of these subjects work well with different people. That is why a broad range MUST be used.
The average White 8th grader is capable of understanding quite a bit of biology, if it is presented accessibly, so the average White adult surely can grasp the science of racial differences. It all depends on how you present the subject. The real obstacle is the egalitarian bigotry that we’ve been drenched in for decades.
And the best way I know around that bigotry is asking questions. The Reds can’t openly tell the average White their real reasons for doing anything, and rely on intimidation to keep politically inconvenient ideas out of the minds of the masses. So, the only answers the average liberal can come up with are easily debunked, leaving them with nothing but accusations of “racism” to throw at you.
I have learned that many younger people have fantasies about besting a “racist” in debate, defending their imaginary Black friends and looking like a hero. I gather it’s almost as satisfying a daydream as being a rock star or beating up a bully. They’re taught that “racism” is everywhere, threatening their multi-cultural playpen, and some of these people positively ache to destroy us in debate. They are astonished when they can’t, like a Bantu who discovers that drinking a potion of snake brains and monkey testicles won’t stop bullets. It can be tempting, when you’ve got some poor idiot impaled on his own illogic, to flay him, but that is the time to kindly enlighten him instead. It works in math and science classes for teens, it ought work on racial topics with adults.
You’re right, Brutus, that we ought tailor our approach according to the interests and attitudes of the person we’re trying to convince. But I think we ought be cautious about those approaches that excite more negative feelings than necessary, reserving them for one-on-one discussion. We lose more than we gain if, by persuading one person to our cause by criticizing Christianity or the holocaust story, we have also persuaded three others that racial awareness is incompatible with their view of human decency.
OK so what CAN we argue about? If you are trying to make a political point and don’t challenge the scientific, historical, religious or semantic lies and errors which underpin the mainstream multicultural viewpoint, what are you left with?
Brutus-
Those currently in the WN ‘movement’ or otherwise identifying as roughly WN are statistically exceptional. We are a fringe. Holocaust revisionism, anti-christianity, national socialism have plenty of interest within the movement. Note the ‘WITHIN THE MOVEMENT’ part.
A wider audience of potentially convertible white Americans is not receptive to these messages. The wider white audience is Christian, had a dad/grandpa that killed Nazis in the war, and loves America (or whatever they see as the ‘true America’). Talking about holocaust death counts, the virtues of national socialism, the righteousness of past foreign enemies, and the poisonous nature of Christianity is going to get you nowhere with most whites. Not a bid deal if you’re just trying to recruit people like you/us. However, the number of non-WN people that are receptive to these messages is extremely limited- probably not much bigger than whatever fraction of a percent currently identifies with us. This does not constitute the base for a mass movement. Acceptable public discourse does not encompass, or ever border on those topics. A shift in discourse is needed to push things more closely to our way of thinking. Starting out with solidly fringe ideas has at best has zero effect, and at worst bolsters the opposition. Getting ideas about immigration restriction, economic and cultural dispossession of ‘regular Americans’ (which is approximately white in the initial gut feeling of many), talked about more frequently makes those ideas more acceptable, and shifts them towards the center of acceptable discourse.
We shouldn’t stop talking about explicitly racial topics. I’m not proposing that. But peripheral and secondary topics should take a backseat to the primary racial cause of the movement – that bad things are happening to white people, and that it is legitimate for us to care about it and take action to stop it, as a conscious group. That message by itself is already pretty unpalatable to most. Garnishing it with anti-christian and pro-nazi sentiment makes it completely repulsive.
I don’t take issue with talking about crime stats, or IQ, though IQ has a lot of cultural inertia to overcome.
Brutus says…
Holocaust revisionism doesn’t work? Really? Then why are there hundreds of sites, books, magazines, articles, threads, etc., devoted to it and why have apparently so many came to race awareness by that rout?
Who comes to White Advocacy through Holocaust revisionism? Perhaps anti-Semitism, but race realism? What’s the topic got to do with race realism, much like the spirit of stewardship that sparks a realist to dump his Asian girlfriend and become an advocate for his people?
As far as I know, people come to being Jew-wise or anti-Semitic through a variety of contemporary reasons, such as seeing Jewish names on the credits of every subversive movie, seeing Jewish people arguing for the Iraq War, and such. Then, while digging into the issue, they become sidetracked on the history hobby of revisionism, both rendering themselves irrelevant and radioactive. Holocaust Denial isn’t a gateway to WN, it’s a dead end.
I came to revisionism from the left and then to racialism and counter-semitism through revisionism.
The WN handbook is an excellent idea! That should go in the project section of the form.
Andrew says on July 10, 2010 at 7:03 am — “I repeat my call for an effort to devise a WN handbook that gives guidance to persuading others toward the WN position. What words, sound bites and themes work, and are attractive to other Americans?”
The first chapter will have to be how to end the taboo on speaking out of one’s white voice and then how to do that in a white-centric way. And the only way to do that is to demonstrate how to do that in a very public way so that bystanders can see how it is done. You’ll never get to the nationalism part until you get the diverse white American peoples (or a large number thereof) to speak publicly in their white voice and in a white-centric way.
Otherwise the term itself just sounds like a trendy appropriation of a term popularized by some black Americans.
Andrew,
This is absolutely one of the best posts I’ve read on this site. I have encountered many of the exact problems you describe in debating others. My extensive knowledge of history often avails me nothing since most people I encounter, even intelligent ones, have little knowledge of history prior to the mid-20th century. I vividly remember one occasion when I horrified someone by saying that, while the Holocaust was a tragic event, it was no more or less tragic than any of the innumerable genocides that have been waged since the dawn of time. One would have thought I was a member of the fabled ODESSA suddenly revealing myself to the world.
I’m glad the revisionists are taking the holocaust apart precisely because it does trigger such a knee-jerk, irrational, pavlovian response from so many white people, but I tend not to bring up the subject when dealing with normies…
Dr. Pierce had it right when he said that we will need a variety of persuasion styles. Some people are persuaded by scientific arguments. Some people are persuaded by religious arguments. Some people follow what the beautiful people are saying. All methods should be used.
>>>Who comes to White Advocacy through Holocaust revisionism?<<<
At risk of falling prey to a view of mono-dimensional historical causation, (i.e. Monotheism), I will offer myself as an example of someone who has entered the realm of White Advocacy through the portal of historical revisionism.
I was a leftist involved in the Anti-war movement. I learned that it was impossible to criticize Israel or advocate against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine without being ostracized from the "Anti-war" movement. Largely through the work of Alison Weir @ ifamericansonlyknew.org, I discovered the magnitude and azimuth of media distortion in the "news".
I began to wonder how long the distortion had been going on. I realized that today's "news" is tomorrows "history". How could I doubt one and trust the other? When had all this distortion gotten started? Was it's magnitude and azimuth of "historical" distortion similar to what I had discovered about "news" distortion?
I dedicated a serious portion of my energy to investigating these questions. And yes, it has given rise to my White Advocacy.
With regard to azimuth and magnitude, my investigation supports a remarkable consistency in the former and a dramatic increase in the latter, which parallels the ascent of television as the dominant form of media in the immediate aftermath of the European race disaster of WWII.
Jimmy,
You are an exceptional person to come over to our side with that background. I too was part of the anti-war and anti-globalization movement and the double standards of those movements led me to embracing the nationalist alternative to the Left.
Thanks Andrew. And please forgive my seemingly gratuitous opening remark about monotheism. While I realize it is antagonistic to the theme of your essay, I was emboldened by the impressive way in which Kievsky and Nietzche were handling the Christian commentariat following the “BP Gulf Oil Disaster far worse than 9-11” post.
While I’m not well read in philosophy or patristics, by following the same line of reasoning I outlined in my previous comment about media distortion from 1945 to present, it’s not unwarranted to investigate the possibility of subversion and distortion all the way back to the original powerhouse of Western media, The New Testament.
And who will we find sitting at the helm of this media prototype, but the Turkish Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus?
I began to wonder how long the distortion had been going on. I realized that today’s “news” is tomorrows “history”. How could I doubt one and trust the other?
That’s a great observation.
I stand corrected.
While I realize it is antagonistic to the theme of your essay, I was emboldened by the impressive way in which Kievsky and Nietzche were handling the Christian commentariat following the “BP Gulf Oil Disaster far worse than 9-11” post.
I wasn’t “handled” in any way, especially not deftly or impressively!
“Oats and Honey says:
A wider audience of potentially convertible white Americans is not receptive to these messages. ”
Really?
I have been watching and involved in this movement for over 15 years. When I started, I doubt there were much over 1,000 or so people interested. As late as five years ago, that number wasn’t much higher, and topics such as I listed could not be discussed outside of a very few hardcore groups and websites. Today the number of people thinking along racial lines and all that goes with it is exponentially higher. Moreover, the topics are now being discussed on “mainstream” media.
Matt Parrott says:
“As far as I know,”
Right. And that is the operative qualifier of your post and objections.
As far as I know a hydrogen bomb has something to do with nuclear fusion. But I am sure that a nuclear weapons designer and scientist can tell us all a great deal more about these weapons. As far as I know, certain trees provide better lumber for building, firewood, etc., but I know that many people know far more than I about this because they are interested in have taken the time to learn far more than what I know. For that matter, as far as I knew, Michael Jackson was no longer as popular among people. But I was obviously wrong.
BTW, I’m not trying to be antagonistic, just trying to point out certain things.
“Debating about semantics is a straw man designed to take the conversation off topic on an irrelevant thread and score points with whoever it might be judging the merits of each side.”
I think when you said “straw man,” Andrew, you meant “red herring.” A “straw man” is a distortion of your opponents position constructed to make it easier to oppose. A “red herring,” on the other hand is deployed to throw the dogs off the scent of whatever they were supposed to be onto.
I think it’s important to be truthful and informative on all these issues tangential to WN. The enemy’s propaganda is densely layered; and thus mind’s can’t be won from it in an hour or just a single conversation. Minds have to be opened by punching one hole at a time, allowing the many poisons to outgas.
With the vast hoi palloi of rubes, you’re saying things on nearly any of these issues that are against all they know. For example, if you sound racist, their indoctrination in the horrors of Auschwitz or Dachau, about which they’ve heard the learned, credible, etc. speak comes immediately to mind; in fact, they’ll probably bring that up, along with the rest of the tangles you can’t untie in a single conversation, even given days for it. But the entire tangle and system of tangles has to finally be overcome, if people’s minds are to be unchained.
And, we shouldn’t forget, that at some level at least, we’re trying to teach people something about race that they must already know, though they’ve been misinstructed about the fact that they know it, as well as in what to do about it, like to not deny it and to not encourage others into denying it (especially by intimidation, which is just disingenuous treachery and a form of cowardice).
Discard ably described the dynamic that’s killing us: “I have learned that many younger people have fantasies about besting a “racist” in debate, defending their imaginary Black friends and looking like a hero. I gather it’s almost as satisfying a daydream as being a rock star or beating up a bully.” Fashion will always beat argument, and “revolutions” come around due more to a change in taste than “ideas.”
Just tell those who will listen what you think is the truth, while always seeking to be more informed, perceptive and imaginative yourself. It doesn’t help to alienate by provocation. But there are probably sufficient occasions to talk to those who will listen, even where they disagree.
You have to guard against becoming someone’s “sacrificial leader.” There are those who will use you as a reference when trying out your ideas on others, so that you become identified with it rather than them. This has more to do with their personal sociality than with anyone’s “ideas.” And you aren’t serving much purpose by playing some clique’s sit-com bigot, since many people can only think sit-comically, and we know who puts those on–but there goes one of those tangles again.
Be cool enough to not make them think you have a NEED to convert them to your cause! Because of the tangled nature of the thing, it’s meritorious if you can get someone to see just about anything at all, even that 9/11 was an inside job (based on the physics, not the conspiracy theories, which can only come after, and preferably by professional prosecutors). It starts them doubting everything official. Anything that brings them a step closer to seeing how their minds have been poisoned by and about Jews knocks a big hole in the tangle, and I’ve found that people who are hardly ready for any of it respond favorably to my pointing out that if you won the banks and media, well, what else do you need?–and then leaving it; depending on their personal career, that tiny bit might have an effect in another 5-10 years. Heck, even just pointing out the Kosher Tax on most of what they buy at the grocery store might loosen one or two knots when combined with further experience by that person.
Brutus July 11, 2010 at 4:17 am, points out that a lot of people are interested in things that some people in the thread say the public is not interested in. It’s good that Brutus makes the point, otherwise I would go along with the opposite view, because I wouldn’t do any thinking.
Brutus also thinks that Matt Parrot’s “as far as I know” is not a good term. The only thing I would add is that regular language is remarkably poor in ways to express the way in which the speaker is taking a statement to be true or false, or the way in which a statement is likely true, or how the speaker came to believe the statement, and so on. The reality is there is nothing we know except specific instances that we have directly experienced, assuming that we interpret the experience correctly, or what we have got from sources we decided to trust, or what we have deduced from stuff we already believe. Usually though, this is not something to point out in a discussion.
As far as having some central list of information or ideas and facts – that could be super helpful. I’ve thought of the same thing. However, after seeing this thread, I wonder if there might be a couple of different lists based on people’s different interests.
And as far as a list, I thought it was this thread yesterday where someone had put the url
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2010/01/02/swag-six-rules/
but maybe I was mistaken.
See Rockwell’s “On the Art of Propaganda” on this subject.
Brutus says to see Rockwell’s “On the Art of Propaganda”. Just to do my honest job in interacting with OD, I googled it, even though I think most people do not go through the trouble of following such suggestions, especially if the suggestion is to look at a book, and even more, if the book is, as I had some suspicions, by a primary member back in the American National Socialist Party. But modern OD and TOQ etc is about trying to get along with the variety (I don’t like the word diversity) of whites struggling to save their people and civilization, or at least that is one of the things we are working on.
Was I totally comfortable with the request? No. But I am an intellectual, so ok I’ll go and look (by the way, this is the same attitude and approach I had/have toward Christianity – who knows, there might be something of value there, not only in terms of spirituality – which is *very* big among our people even huge numbers who have nothing to do with Christianity. Although I felt less uncomfortable in looking at Christianity).
By chance a storm front entry happened to be near the top of the google list. Somehow, after a little bit of thought, I decided, hey, ok, let’s click on that one.
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t577624/
I barely glanced at the first few paragraphs, and just happened to look more carefully a few paragraphs on where there is “… clever, ivory-tower propaganda designed for the truly intellectual and highly sophisticated academic community, which actually does examine even basic premises. For this latter, elite class, even though it is tiny, the Jews spare no effort or money. ”
So, ok, I’m reading that section. I like the more detailed statement about Boas’ group. MacDonald writes about it and I think even Pat Buchanan writes briefly about the Boas group, but here it is easier to see the outline and details of several important issues. (We should be careful about criticizing MacDonald. He has decided to struggle for truth in an incredibly difficult environment. His writing style is getting much easier to read by a larger audience. On the other hand, he must be very careful, I would think, to maintain high academic credentials because so many are waiting to get him (let’s be honest). So he has to be cautious about his writing style.)
I’ll read the section. Moving on. This is a great segway into your unhappiness with Matt Parott’s repeated use of “as far as I know.” MacDonald, especially in his past writings, was much given to the use of the phrase “I suppose … .” I suppose that this. I suppose that. And on and on. At first I used to skim over these “I suppose”‘s, although somewhere in the back of my mind there grew a tiny discomfort with them. Maybe half a year ago, the issue came out in the open in my thinking. What is going on with this “I suppose”, what does it mean? I don’t know. I don’t understand it.
It is only recently, possibly while getting mentally embroiled in the issues in the thread of comments to “what not to debate” that a hypothesis occurred to me. Here’s the hypothesis that came to me – it is a hypothesis because I really can’t say for sure that it is true, I simply do not know – you know, the academia approach of questioning everything to death. But here is the hypothesis.
When MacDonald says “I suppose X” – let’s use X for whatever statement MacDonald writes there, the “I suppose” means something like the following.
I’m a scientist. I can’t just say X, because I need to explore lots of issues and check lots of analysis and write all of that down too in addition to writing X. So I am presenting X as a kind of hypotheses. But it is not any hypothesis. I have a vast amount of knowledge and analytical expertise, and generally, X is a definite possibility given all that knowledge and expertise. (Of course, I wouldn’t come out and say I have all this vast knowledge and expertise, because thought it would be scientifically true, it would break the required mood with the person reading what I am writing.)
Returning to your comments on Matt Parott’s repeated use of “as far as I know”, you give a lot of examples of what you don’t like about the phrase “as far as I know” – and they’re really good too – but you don’t get around to saying what it is you don’t like about Parott’s specific statements. I could be wrong, but I can’t help have the feeling there is some common thing about the specific statements themselves that you didn’t like. And if you don’t want to dig into it, that’s fine. However, sometimes when we do dig into something going on in our thoughts, we eventually come up with something that gives us a clearer insight into other things that happen in the future.
Bob in Idaho says:
“Was I totally comfortable with the request? No. ”
This has long been the fatal mistake of the Right Wing. But it is finally starting to be overcome. Now, when it appears that a sufficient percentage of folks are ready, and have figured out that “tools” and skills are just that, regardless of who developed and used them, I shall bring up a crucial skill that, so far as I know, has only been very briefly mentioned once several years ago by one well known and long time member of the WN movement.
Would you like to know how about a half dozen guys, by each taking a strategic position in the crowd, can go to and take charge of a crowd of five or ten thousand (think of the Tea Parties) and mold them into ending up enthusiastically chanting, embracing and taking up YOUR talking points?
This is not theory, it was done many, many times just a few decades ago. The technique works.
But right now too many are still not going to care what Gus Hall knew how to do and did successfully.
Thanks for your statement on Hall. The whole discussion thread has been interesting.