Washington
I just got finished listening to the latest podcast of Radio Free Northwest. As I suspected, Harold Covington, a writer of fantasy fiction, had a few words to say about this website, none of which were positive.
I suggest we play a game.
– First, take a deep breath.
– Second, hold your breath like you are underwater.
– Third, count how many seconds you can hold your breath before you exhale.
I can hold my breath for at least 35 seconds.
Now let’s imagine every second you can hold your breath represents a person. By my count, that is at least 30 more people (counting sockpuppets) than there are in the Northwest Front and 35 more than there are who are seriously willing to engage in an IRA-style terrorist campaign to create a Northwest Republic.
According to Gallup, 25 percent of the residents of Washington self identify as “liberals.” There are 6,664,195 people in Washington state. That means Harold Covington has around 1,666,048 “liberal” neighbors.
Can you hold your breath for 19 hrs and 25 minutes?
If every White Nationalist in America (including every sympathizer who reads these websites including antis and monitors) moved to Washington state tomorrow, they would still be dwarfed by the sheer number of liberals on the ground there.
If they followed HAC’s advice, the liberal, moderate, and conservative majority would unanimously react to vanguardist terrorism in the same way that Americans reacted to the Oklahoma City bombing. Local law enforcement alone would be sufficient to squelch any rebellion. Not to mention the FBI and ATF which have snuffed out any number of such groups over the past thirty years.
Mainstreamers vs. Vanguardists
I’ve repeatedly compared “vanguardism” to fool’s gold. It is a rhetorical position that sounds tough and uncompromising. It is a siren song that at first sounds promising. This type of radical posturing is attractive to highly alienated people, but all bullshit aside, it ultimately amounts to nothing more than escapism.
There is nothing of substance to vanguardism. There isn’t a Northwest Front. There is only Harold Covington (see photo above) living in a fantasy world. There is just one alienated fantasist sitting behind his computer, someone who has no real influence in his own community, browbeating other alienated fantasists to move to the Northwest and join his cult to keep him company.
If I were to move to Washington state, I would find myself hanging out with Harold Covington when I got there, thousands of miles away from home and without a job. Instead of being alienated and irrelevant in Alabama, I would be alienated, irrelevant, broke, and homesick in the Pacific Northwest.
The most damning criticism of Harold Covington is that he doesn’t believe his own bullshit. For all his talk of military bravado, Covington himself can’t even find a single unhinged psychopath to take on the local post office. His own followers won’t move to the Pacific Northwest because even they understand at some level that Covington is nuts.
The Pacific Northwest and Vanguardists
Vanguardists have been active in the Pacific Northwest since the 1970s. From the 1970s until 2001, Aryan Nations was based out of Idaho. The phrase “hiding out in a bunker in Idaho” has become a derisive phrase in the movement for that reason.
When Richard Butler died in 2001, Aryan Nations had a worldwide following of around 200 people. The SPLC bankrupted the group with a wrongful death lawsuit. Their property was seized and awarded to the plaintiffs. It was later turned into “a peace park.”
Aryan Nations failed to make any inroads into the surrounding communities. The group has since splintered and relocated to Ohio and Pennsylvania. If Richard Butler and the Aryan Nations couldn’t spark a Northwest Migration, what makes Harold Covington think he would be any more successful?
All of vanguardism is based on the same errors: unrealistic escapist fantasies, a fundamental unwillingness to adapt their rhetoric to the experience of their audience, a radical sense of alienation from White America, wild millenarian expectations of an apocalyptic collapse, a tendency to withdraw from society, a tendency to express that alienation by erecting unnecessary barriers to understanding, an unwillingness to start where people are today, and radical impulse to burn bridges and push people away.
It really doesn’t matter where the vanguardists go: Arizona, Washington, or West Virginia. The effective result is always the same. Stewing in their alienation, they fail to make any progress in establishing a political base in their communities. With nothing else to do, they log on to the internet to vent their frustrations and share their alienation and misery with others.
“The Northwest Homeland” is an abstract republic. It is an imaginary community that is pitched to intellectuals and vanguardists on the basis of their alienation, fantasies, idealism, and abstract reason. For all his prodding to “come home,” Harold Covington must know that he can never compete with someone’s real home.
There is a scene in Gods and Generals that captures the attitude of many White Southerners to a Northwest Migration.
In 1861, Simon Cameron (President Lincoln’s Secretary of War) offered Robert E. Lee full command of the Union Army. It was a major promotion. Lee was then a Colonel. He could have fought on the winning side of the War Between the States. In some alternate histories, Lee might have succeeded Lincoln as President like General Grant, whose war glory propelled him into the White House.
Robert E. Lee preferred to lose rather than accept a promotion and turn his back on his native state.
Admittedly, this is an extreme example. The vast majority of White Southerners have nothing like Lee’s sense of honor and duty. At the same time, they are highly adverse to uprooting themselves (from their friends, families, kinship networks, culture, communities, native climate) and travelling thousands of miles across America to settle in a strange place where they don’t know anyone and probably can’t find a job.
A good example of this is the response of Southerners to devastating hurricanes. It doesn’t matter how many times hurricanes like Ike, Ivan and Katrina strike the communities along the Gulf Coast. It doesn’t matter to the natives who know that the prevailing weather of the region means they are likely to get hit again.
The people who live there rebuild Galveston, Bay St. Louis, and Panama City. They won’t even contemplate moving to Wyoming or Idaho because they want to live in Mississippi and Florida.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 unleashed an epidemic of negro pathologies in the Deep South. The people who live in Alabama responded by adapting to the hated law, not by fleeing to other parts of the country.
The moral of the story: a fantasy world can never compete with a real community.
There has to be some compelling reason and practical benefit to the settler to abandon everything he knows. In the 1840s, the discovery of gold in California sparked a migration. The Mormons traveled to Utah to save their souls. The pioneers went West for freedom and cheap land.
No one is going to move to the Northwest for Harold Covington will have someone to talk to.
The Pacific Northwest and Mainstreamers
In his latest episode of Radio Free Northwest, Harold Covington accused me of “running down the Northwest.” In reality, I have only criticized Covington and his implausible vanguardist scheme, which will only have the effect of making life even more uncomfortable for White Nationalists already living in the region.
There are many valid reasons for White Zionists to move to the Pacific Northwest. I have spent hours analyzing Wyoming and Idaho. Eventually, I plan to take a hard look at Washington, Oregon, Montana, and the Dakotas. I will complete my analysis with a regional summary.
Harold’s real gripe isn’t that I am “running down the Northwest.” It is that I have written positive reviews of the wrong Northwestern states. Namely, those where Harold Covington doesn’t live, which are excluded from his fantasy world.
White Zionists settling in Idaho and Wyoming could have a far bigger impact than they could in Washington or Oregon. Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota are smaller states than Idaho. Their impact would be even larger there.
There is nothing stopping White Zionists from taking over existing communities in the Interior West and creating communities where anti-White taboos are unenforceable. If they moved to Wyoming or Montana, they could demonstrate the potential of the White Zionist model. That would attract more recruits and the publicity necessary to fuel and sustain a real Northwest migration.
In his podcast, Harold Covington denounced the Ron Paul campaign. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign laid the foundation (through institutions like Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty) for Rand Paul’s successful bid to become U.S. Senator from Kentucky.
Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota are smaller than Oregon and Washington. Instead of 4 Senators, they send 10 to Washington. Wyoming has 2 Senators in spite of being 1/9th the size of Kentucky.
If the libertarians can succeed in Kentucky, the home of millions of “Red State Fascists,” why can’t White Nationalists succeed in Wyoming?
This migration plan is perfectly legal. It is not based on a wild fantasist scheme of a successful vanguardist insurrection. The vast majority of White Zionists are just looking for a place to settle down and live a White life.
The Nagging Little Voice
The “nagging little voice” says:
If I moved to Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, or the Dakotas, I could live a fairly decent life, pay less in taxes, own more property, and my kids would have Nordic classmates. I might find myself an attractive, conservative Nordic woman to marry and live with on my ranch or in my cabin in the woods. There would be no Jews or blacks to put up with.
I would be safe. I might have some actual political representation. If more people moved here, seeing how good we have it, we might even be able to live openly as White Nationalists.
Alternatively, I could move to Washington and join the Northwest Front, which would consist of me hanging out with Harold Covington and a few other alienated vanguardists all day. After getting a job, I would be constantly prodded to support “the movement,” which must have some financial base of support.
Any association with Covington might actually prevent me from acquiring employment. In the event I did move there and built up a nest egg, it could be wrecked at any moment by an unhinged fantasist going on a counterproductive shooting spree.
Maybe I ought to just move to the Pacific Northwest and enjoy living a quiet life there. If I want to hear what Harold Covington has to say, I could always listen to his podcast. That way I could enjoy all the benefits of the Pacific Northwest without the liability of having any dangerous affiliations.
HAC responds to his critics:
Jack Ryan wrote:
“I think this comment violates Hunter’s O.D. comment guidelines…”
In what way did the last comment by Will Williams violate our established posting guidelines?
Mr. Williams is urging other White Nationalists to take part in a perfectly legal exercise for the sake of earning some extra cash, which they could then donate to the GOP in order to rescue our nation from peril. It seems to me as if this is all in step with your “mainstream” aspirations.
I have seen at least three posts by you bemoaning the fact that there is now free discussion allowed in the comment section since you were relieved of your role as a moderator there, but I can assure you that we have received no similar complaints from others. Conversely, several readers have noted how liberating it feels to no longer have you standing over their shoulder and deleting their comments according to the vagaries of your fragile constitution.
Robert Campbell says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:21 pm
“Mr. Williams is urging other White Nationalists to take part in a perfectly legal exercise for the sake of earning some extra cash, which they could then donate to the GOP in order to rescue our nation from peril. It seems to me as if this is all in step with your “mainstream” aspirations.
I have seen at least three posts by you bemoaning the fact that there is now free discussion allowed in the comment section since you were relieved of your role as a moderator there, but I can assure you that we have received no similar complaints from others. Conversely, several readers have noted how liberating it feels to no longer have you standing over their shoulder and deleting their comments according to the vagaries of your fragile constitution.”
Jack Ryan replies:
Um, OK – I guess there is an audience for just about anything – Jerry Springer shows about men who lust after 300 pound women, Maury Povich shows about Black women determining the Black male sperm responsible for their latest illegitimate welfare ticket, reality TV shows about Muslims and Gay & Lesbian, transgender activists left alone on a deserted island uniting against RACISM – yeah, there’s an audience for all this.
So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there is a small fan base here on O.D. that can’t get enough of Will Williams’ endless comments whining about the $ he is supposedly owed in some personal insult judgement against Harold Covington. Will Williams’ personal insult suit against Harold Covington has to be the #1, or #2 greatest issue facing our people – much more serious than say – Pakistani Muslims taking over large parts of England or 30,000 plus White American women being raped each year by Black Negroes.
It’s a wonder White American even bothered to vote in recent Congressional elections, when they could have been spending all their time obsessing over the great injustice of Will Williams not collecting on his $200K personal insult judgement against HAC.
🙂
Offering reward in order to hunt Covington down is extreme. Hopefully Hunter institutes a degree of moderation toward crude threats on his otherwise enjoyable blog. Can someone say in a couple of sentences, rather than a 1,000 word essay, what Covington did that so offended? I understand he dissed Saint William, and called Ben Klassen homosexual. Anything else?
Jack,
You said that a comment by Will Williams violated the comment guidelines, so I replied asking for you to clarify in which way it did so, to which you’ve just responded by sidestepping the issue entirely and accusing me of partisanship — of being a “fan” of the “endless whining” of Mr. Williams.
As I’ve written previously, Will Williams and Harold Covington are both free to post comments here as long as they follow the guidelines, just like everyone else.
If they do violate the guidelines, their comments will be deleted, just like everyone else.
SSS,
See my comments here:
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2010/11/19/response-to-harold-covington/comment-page-3/#comment-120236
Robert Campbell says:
November 27, 2010 at 10:19 pm
“Jack,
You said that a comment by Will Williams violated the comment guidelines, so I replied asking for you to clarify in which way..”
Jack Ryan replies:
Solutrean Social Club also noticed the rather extreme W.W. comment she wrote:
“Offering reward in order to hunt Covington down is extreme.”
Here are Will Williams’ exact words and I agree they sound extreme:
Will Williams writes:
“Currently, there’s a $400 reward to the person who can tell me where defendant Covington sleeps at night. Some people want to talk to him.”
Jack Ryan continues:
I just don’t think O.D. comment sections should be used to solicit individuals to go find where people sleep at night, so their personal enemies can show up with un-named “people” to “talk” or do “something else” in the middle of the night.
I think O.D. should be promoting positive activism done in the light of day and let White folks sleep in safety at night.
Jack Ryan: “Solutrean Social Club also noticed the rather extreme W.W. comment she wrote: …”
Jack, you call me a woman one more time and I’ll put a $400 reward out for your whereabouts.
Mea Culpa Mr. Solutrean.
Another reason, why I think some comments should be edited, deleted after they are posted.
For anyone who can edit comments on this thread, please edit out one “s” in my comment posted at 10:31 in front of the correct pronoun “he”
The comment should read:
“Jack Ryan replies:
Solutrean Social Club also noticed the rather extreme W.W. comment he wrote:”
Jack Ryan continues:
see it’s very little things like a one letter typo that can cause bitter, hard feelings, personal grudges that become vendettas. If you write something wrong and hurt someone’s feelings, like I did with this typo, just say “sorry” I made an error. Covington should have done this and he wouldn’t have so many personal enemies.
And let’s really try not to encourage these “$400 rewards” to find where people live/sleep.
🙂
Jack Ryan is probably reading too much into Will Williams’ statement. HAC owes Will Williams a lot of money in that liable action. Chasing down the culprit so that the Sheriff can have a talk with him, doesn’t sound so very bad.
Solutrean Social Club sez: “Can someone say in a couple of sentences, rather than a 1,000 word essay, what Covington did that so offended? I understand he dissed Saint William, and called Ben Klassen homosexual. Anything else?”
Yes, Harold Covington didn’t just call Ben Klassen a homosexual. He called him a rapist and a serial murderer. I checked out two of the names and locations where Covington has alleged these murders and the local police say that no such thing occurred. Covington he has made up similar smears about others, and he has continued this practice for about thirty years now.
I assume that by the Negro-dialect word “dissed” you mean insulted. Covington did much more than insult Will Williams. It was defamation very much in the same vein as what he has directed at Ben Klassen and Matt Koehl. You should be aware of that, because Will Williams has already given a partial list of the accusations that Covington was circulating.
I should say, twenty years. Covington began his obsessive attacks on Ben Klassen, which branched out into attacks on anybody that refused to ostracize Ben Klassen, and then on anybody that was a friend of a friend of Ben Klassen, about 1990. It may have started earlier than that toward some of the other targets like Matt Koehl but I have no documentation of it.
There is a big difference between an insult and defamation. If you call somebody a good-for-nothing son of a bitch, that’s an insult, and it’s just your opinion, and everybody can see that it’s just your opinion. If you tell people that he committed a crime, that’s defamation.
I’m watching rivalry week in college football. I will comb over these threads later tonight.
No more discussion of bounties.
Will Williams is correct that I consider William Pierce’s in reach approach a failure. The National Alliance was built around a cult of personality and swiftly collapsed after the death of its founder.
Duke’s strategy of outreach and electoral politics in Louisiana was far more successful. If it hadn’t been for his vanguardist baggage, Duke would have probably been elected Governor of Louisiana.
Instead of following up on Duke’s breakthrough, White Nationalists retreated to the internet and spent the next twenty years “spreading ideas” in cyberspace.
Yes, there is a big difference between insult and defamation. The only other thing coming to mind pertaining to Covington’s defense is the element of time. Is there a statute of limitation on defamation? Not so much for the people defamed, or his friends, but for people who are only hearing of it 20 years later? For instance, there’s this fairly well known person who was involved in sending the Order up the river. Many of us considered that transgression to have passed its statute of limitation. Is this not similar?
“Instead of following up on Duke’s breakthrough, White Nationalists retreated to the internet and spent the next twenty years “spreading ideas” in cyberspace.”
It’s one of the defining charactistics of Human Beings, to spread ideas. Everything that we have built began as ideas. Certainly, there is great merit in spreading ideas. Why else would the Jews and Leftists want to censor ideas?
Going forward sometimes requires first going backwards to re-evaluate the old and to find the new in ideas. The Internet has been a respite and a reformulating stage in White Nationalism.
“For instance, there’s this fairly well known person who was involved in sending the Order up the river. Many of us considered that transgression to have passed its statute of limitation.”
The only ones who sent the Order up the river, was the Order, itself. After breaking all the top worst laws and getting caught, who else could they blame other than themselves?
Banjo,
The internet could have been used effectively. Just look at how our enemies have exploited the internet. There is hardly a candidate running for office today without a Facebook page and a Twitter account.
Instead, White Nationalists used the internet to create a self destructive, all enveloping, time consuming circle jerk of navel gazing and escapism. In particular, it unleashed the fantasists and gave them the perfect stage to seek attention and act out.
“The only ones who sent the Order up the river, was the Order, itself. After breaking all the top worst laws and getting caught, who else could they blame other than themselves?”
Yes, they were going up anyway, but he did testify in court against their interests. I’ve never considered him a police informer, but he did crack under pressure and behave in a way that Order members denounce to this day . So there was a transgression involved and the question is do transgressions have statutes of limitation, especially for people not involved in the affair to begin with? For instance, Order members should not be expected to forgive M. after so many years, but what about us? Williams should not be expected to forgive Covington after so many years, but what about us? I think 20, 30 years down the road is time enough to move on.
Solutrean Social Club, you seem to be a little slow on the uptake. Will Williams explained what kinds of libels were used against him, and you didn’t pick that up. Now you are failing to take note of the fact, previously mentioned, that Covington’s smears are not something that only happened 20 years ago.
It is still going on. This very year, Covington in his podcast suggested that Matt Koehl was involved in the assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell, and through circumlocution called Will Williams a wife-beater and a destroyer of multiple racial organizations.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, because there is also defamation–at least of William Pierce, that I’ve observed–in Covington’s novels that he currently offers for sale, and in “A Brief History of the White Nationalist Movement” of which he denies authorship although it has his fingerprints all over it, and which he has been aggressively promoting since it first appeared three years ago.
Hadding, I didn’t read Williams 1000 word testimonial. It was easier to ask for a 5 sentence synopsis, which some of you were kind enough to provide. These contemporary “defamations” that you are referencing now are nothing more than internet pissing contests that we all almost without exception partake of. Certainly you do. You guys are now turning into crybabies. Come off it.
Christopher Donovan on the author of “Stuff White People Like”:
Well, I work out often, happen to be wearing New Balance shoes right now and have wine the house like most people, but I avoid these types like the plague if they are the condescending Leftist variety as most Leftists typically are.
My experience has been that Rightists don’t criticize the SWPL culture because these folks drink wine or wear New Balance shoes; rather, they deride them because of their liberal politics which invariably includes both misandry and anti-racism topped off with condescension toward anyone not like them, including other Whites who are not like them. It’s not just non-Whites that these people don’t care for; it’s also all Whites who don’t fit their profile, which includes all Whites with right-wing politics, Whites who might actually prefer beer to wine, and Whites who might not be able to afford good wine or have any idea how to pick one if the could.
I actually picked up SWPL on Roissy’s blog, not on a WN or an HBD Web site. On Roissy’s blog, SWPL is almost universally used a term of derision for pathetic Beta males who cave in to the feminist agenda and undermine other men, all so they can “fit in” with the “right” people and conform.
It seems to me that both inside and outside the WN internet world, the criticisms of SWPL culture have a lot more to do with political orientation than tastes and lifestyle choices.
Solutrean,
Two different situations are difficult to generalize upon. Why try it? If old wounds are going to heal, they can’t be picked at or they never scab over. The Order caused more problems for WN than they solved, brought down heavy attention and harrassment and loss to everyone even remotely associated with WN causes. And HAC continues to cause more problems for WNs and to solve none of them. Two different problems usually require two different discussions and solutions, don’t they? HAC or the Order or FGM, now that’s three situations. The more we can name, the more complicated it gets. So, why not follow Thoreau’s suggestion and “Simplify, simplify.”?
The Order proved to be a dead end. They were defeated. They ended up dead or in a prison cell. What’s the lesson there? Don’t follow their example; that way is not the True Way.
FGM, regardless of what anyone thinks about him, is still fighting for white people and for country. No matter what they did to him or what pressures they put on him, he is out and about and fighting for white people and for country. What’s the lesson there? Never give up because young warriors who can escape the Iron Heel, are never defeated since they turn into old warriors.
HAC, (regardless of his alleged “progess” with his losing strategy of run-away-and-abandon-the-country), attacks, smears and slanders every WN leader that his poison pen can touch. What is the lesson there? A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf and will bite the hand that feeds it. He has a certain talent (and in some ways a great talent) but requires a leash and muzzle for him to be happy sitting next to the stove with the Folks.
All people, as the years go by, find that Life has dealt them different cards than the hand that they had expected. We should not abandon anyone to the rigged deck that we all were given. The Order, FGM, HAC: three different situations and three different solutions. In White Nationalism, there is room for everybody.
FYI, just so you can get a handle on what I am saying, I should warn you that I am not a white separatist. I am a white supremist. Just to let you know where I stand on that particular point to avoid any future misunderstanding.
I’m also wearing New Balance shoes right now. Just got inside from a run around the neighborhood.
New Balance shoes are of above-average quality and are one of the few (if not the only) brand(s) that aren’t made in some Chinese sweatshop. Not sure why they’re pointed out for criticism.
Banjo, White supremacy, as opposed to White separatism, is a bad deal. What would you rather have as the standard, White people farming in a 100% White Kansas, or White overlords sipping mint juleps on the plantation, while the niggers bide their time and sharpen their machetes? Or worse, get integrated with White daughters?
I brought FGM into the conversation because William and FGM are friends, and it seems ironic that one of William’s comrades is also accused of crimes against honor that took place long ago, yet Williams doesn’t have a problem with him.
Ultimately, it is all a question of satisfaction in the old dueling sense. Some of you aren’t getting it, but it doesn’t really concern the rest of us.
“Solutrean Social Club” seems to have no clue whereof he speaks in this matter, despite being given information. He displays resistance to being enlightened.
Is it really necessary to explain that a 20-year career of publishing defamatory material, including a variety of false criminal allegations against half a dozen leading figures in White Nationalism, is not your run-of-the-mill “internet pissing contest”?
Hadding,
No, Covington is not typical of anything. But the contemporary stuff you mention:
“It is still going on. This very year, Covington in his podcast suggested that Matt Koehl was involved in the assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell, and through circumlocution called Will Williams a wife-beater and a destroyer of multiple racial organizations.”
is typical of internet pissing matches. The only difference being you guys all know and hate each other. Look at how you guys attack him non-stop. He’s not to say anything in return? Is that realistic?
Solutrean Social Club: All I can say is that you have very low to nonexistent ethical standards. You act as if there were no difference between the liar and his critics.
You have also quoted me selectively, reproducing only my observations about Covington’s podcasts. Covington’s worst smears, which he still promotes in other venues, are not yet appearing in the podcasts, although they seem to be gradually creeping in.
Solutrean says, “White supremacy, as opposed to White separatism, is a bad deal. What would you rather have as the standard, White people farming in a 100% White Kansas, or White overlords sipping mint juleps on the plantation, while the niggers bide their time and sharpen their machetes? Or worse, get integrated with White daughters?”
And I say to you that you are misrepresenting White Supremacy. White people are the supreme beings on planet Earth, if you want a simple definition. It has little or nothing to do with any or all of your examples. Or is it that you want to offer the only examples from your limited imagination?
You also say, “I brought FGM into the conversation because William and FGM are friends, and it seems ironic that one of William’s comrades is also accused of crimes against honor that took place long ago, yet Williams doesn’t have a problem with him.”
And I say to you that making simple judgements about complicated events, is rather sophmoric of you. The world is not a cartoon cut-out but is peopled with characters who are more five-dimensional than you seem to credit them. Real people will never fit into the comic book that you seem to think represents Reality. How can you hope to understand real people with that kind of attitude?
And you also say, “Ultimately, it is all a question of satisfaction in the old dueling sense. Some of you aren’t getting it, but it doesn’t really concern the rest of us.”
Dueling was forbidden in enlightened societies because all it did was kill off valuable people without solving the problems. You seem to have a rather television-inspired romantic view of arguments and resolutions. None of the people whom you belittle had simple choices to make in their lives. They all did the best that they could under the circumstances. Why demand of them the impossible and then belittle them for not making choices that you think they should have made? It was their difficult choices, not your arm-chair, easy guesses that determined outcomes.
Donald says: “New Balance shoes are of above-average quality and are one of the few (if not the only) brand(s) that aren’t made in some Chinese sweatshop. Not sure why they’re pointed out for criticism.”
It’s not the wine and the shoes that are the problem but the attitude that goes with them in SWPL circles. I wear New Balance because I like them and that’s the end of it. The White people Lander discusses wear New Balance not because of the quality but because wearing New Balance shoes makes them feel superior to Whites who choose other brands, or Whites who wear New Balance but don’t jog. This is an example of the kind of superficiality, small mindedness, and ugly status seeking that dominates the SWPL culture Lander writes about and makes it so repugnant to anyone who is not superficial.
Lander says this about New Balance shoes on his blog (emphasis added):
If Lander is right and there are actually many White people out there who think like that it is disgusting.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/04/20/96-new-balance-shoes/
Resolution: FAIL.
Now back to productive activities elsewhere!
RE: Greg Johnson, Lew, Hunter Wallace, and others about “SWPL” (ought to be pronounced simply “Ess-DoubleU-Pea-El”).
Here is why the term is useful:
#1 — It is a modern Internet-age, racializing form of the old term “yuppie”. When “yuppie” was a neologism, it also must’ve sounded absurd/comical.
#2 — “Yuppie” also only implies whiteness, whereas “SWPL” has an explicit racial association. As Donovan’s essay points out, this is indisputably positive.
#3 — Not every good-job-having under-40er was a “yuppie” in the ’80s; not every urbane sophisticate in 2010 is an “SWPL”. It’s a Weltanschauung rather than a checklist to mark off and get a “score”. In Hunter’s recent writing, one could replace
“SWPL” with “yuppie” every time and the meaning would be about the same.
#4 — Greg Johnson suggested using “liberals” in place of “SWPLs”. The problem: The clumsy term “liberals” is not racial (#2), and it has lots of “faileocon”-baggage. (Think of the insufferable Ann Coulter’s endless rantings about “liberals”; that they are the ultimate Evil; dating nonwhite ‘conservatives’ [D’Souza and others] and remaining childless is Coulter’s solution).
#5 — Stressing again, “Liberals” is race-neutral. Older whites — baby-boomers and older — many of them still view politics in a basically aracial sense. Very few whites under 40 today can possibly do that. Many claim to, but it is impossible to truly be so in most U.S. metro areas today, in light of demograhics and pop-culture. “SWPL”, then, implies someone acting out the “inherent anti-white-ism” that was inculcated in most younger whites in the USA since kindergarten.
.
Discussion of SWPL, what it means, and manifestations: http://onestdv.blogspot.com/search/label/SWPL
As an accepted, widely-used term (on the Internet), “SWPL” has been around under two years. (Early contenders to describe Lander’s “white people” were “whiter people” [from status competition], and the cringeworthy term “Swipples”, which thankfully failed.)
Will Williams,
So yeah, my question was did you sue him because he was causing you to lose money or because he was hurting your feelings?
So he wasn’t hurting your feelings, he was costing you dollars?
That makes more sense.
You ran a business or something like selling t-shirts to racists? Memberships to your club? Little cards that say “congratulations, you’re a racist”? Stuff like that?
There are probably benefits to having an explicitly White label like “SWPL” insinuate its way into the cultural lexicon, regardless of its other connotations. As Greg Johnson points out, discussing the collective characteristics of Whites in any form is highly subversive and perhaps SWPL has value for this reason alone. Greg Johnson and Donovan do have a point here.
Still, the main problem with the SWPL label is that it connects “Whiteness” and “the right kind of White people” with some really ugly attitudes and behavior, in addition, of course, to anti-racist politics, misandry, and anti-masculinity. The stereotype of the SWPL man as an effete, anti-masculine Beta male does not always hold true, but it holds true often enough that it has become a stereotype. Lander himself looks like he needs to go to the gym, drop the cardio, and hit some iron.
The young Whites I have run into in my personal life at various social events who I now realize fit this so-called SWPL profile are definitely not as sophisticated as they hold themselves out to be. Wine, for example, is a big subject, and the SWPL types I have run into who look down their collective noses at Miller Lite drinkers couldn’t identify the five major wine producing regions of France, much less the various sub-regions of Bordeaux, without Googling if their life depended on it. Lander pretty much admits this fact when he makes fun of the SWPL types for feigning wine knowledge they don’t possess in order not to lose status by appearing ignorant. On the other hand, even though Lander makes fun of this behavior and SWPL attitudes in general, it is obvious he has great affection for Whites who adopt these shallow postures.
Tom Wolfe has been writing about these types for decades but without using the label. In Radical Chic (early 70s), Wolfe writes about wealthy New York white people who try to impress each other and boost their status by hiring only White waiters, busboys and servants to clean their toilets and cater their parties, the point being that among this group it would be considered crass and vulgar to hire Blacks or Hispanics for those jobs. Contempt for working class Whites is a strong theme among this group.
There needs to be a collective label for Whites that reflects healthy outlooks rather than superficial ones, and the SWPL label does not do that. The SWPL culture is ultimately about shallowness, so I don’t see how the label has any real value other than as a pejorative even though it is subversive. Maybe anti-SWPL, though if SWPL is an ugly construction, anti-SWPL is even uglier.
“Hunter Wallace” wrote: “Harold Covington, a writer of fantasy fiction, had a few words to say about this website, none of which were positive.”
Here, “mainstreamer” Kevin Hicks, who teaches literature at Alabama State University, reviews the fiction of this phony White Nationalist leader.
—
Smelly Cheese
By Kevin Hicks
In American neo-Nazi circles, Harold Covington is notorious. A long-time member of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA), he has labored for decades to further racist causes, including working in Rhodesia to preserve white rule and advocating a plan to turn the Pacific Northwest into a white homeland.
Along the way, Covington has made many enemies. He is accused of engineering a coup against his former commandant in the NSPA, and he has run smear campaigns against his rivals, including the late neo-Nazi William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries. These disputes have caused some to allege Covington is a government informant; others say he is a homosexual.
But what most don’t realize is that H.A. Covington has another claim to fame. He is a writer of cheesy occult novels.
Of his latest works, the best is The Black Flame, Covington’s stab at a medieval murder mystery, complete with the requisite intrigue, derring-do and debauchery. While at times entertaining, the problem is that he piles on too many plot devices and supporting characters.
The back cover advertises “murdering monks, poisoning prioresses, scheming royal uncles, back street assassins, a mad alchemist, and a beautiful and dangerous Queen of the Witches.” Throw in some child murders, random torture scenes, derogatory references to homosexuality, and generic pagan/devil/demon-worshiping and what you get reads less like a well-crafted novel than a lurid “but wait, there’s more!” TV advertisement.
Making sense of these various narrative elements is the job of Sir Thomas Clave, the Black Knight. Intrepid and unflappable to a fault, Sir Thomas plays the role of a proto-Sherlock Holmes out to solve the mystery of a murdered royal bastard and a secret society called the Black Flame. Like most 15th-century private detectives, he is highly intelligent and supremely analytical, able to predict his opponents’ moves far in advance.
(Note: so can the reader.)
He is also one terrifying guy. The king’s executioner and master of all forms of torture, Sir Thomas dresses only in black, because it “doesn’t show bloodstains overmuch” and he has a patented look so scary that, when practicing it before a mirror, “I frighten even myself.”
Such campiness aside, the “troubling” part of the novel comes when Covington finally reveals the mystery of the Black Flame. He describes with dread the coming of a “demonic new world order” characterized by, horror of all horrors, gender equality, social tolerance and individual rights.
Covington, it seems, prefers the world of 15th-century England with its patriarchal privilege, hereditary rule and ethnic allegiance. But then what should one expect from a neo-Nazi?
Of lesser note is The Stars in Their Path: A Novel of Reincarnation. As the title suggests, this work is based on the idea that human souls do not perish at death, but are reborn. Where Covington gets into trouble is when he takes this ancient Hindu concept, blends it with an apocalyptic Christian vision, and overlays it with trite theories about the powers of “The Light” and “The Dark” and feminine and masculine natures. If it sounds confused, that’s because it is.
The whole story boils down to a cosmic love triangle in which a good woman, Margarita, needs to pick the good man, Aristide, and instead chooses, over and over again, the bad man, a scheming Spaniard named Don Carlos Ramirez. Only in the last reincarnation will she finally get it right. Why she finally sees The Light as a Russian émigré at a tech firm in the Pacific Northwest is a mystery worthy of Carnac the Magnificent.
For a confirmed National Socialist, Harold Covington has always been an amusing character, upbraiding his enemies in the most colorful language imaginable. Surely, his failure to translate that dubious talent into popular occult literature is a small gift for which the human race can feel truly grateful.
—
Hicks wrote that 7 years ago.
Only a stupid fool would rely on anything Covington, in his deluded “fantasy fiction” world, says about any real person. OD has several people who defend Covington’s smears of others in the real world.
In my view as a so-called “vanguardist,” OD, if it is to become an effective vehicle, needs to be culled and culled hard. Those in the vanguard should be in agreement on certain fundamentals. OD is a typical “mainstreamer” blog, all over the board, with way too much identifiable, anti-White dead wood.
LEW:
I don’t see how the label [SWPL] has any real value other than as a pejorative
It is definitely a pejorative. It’s useful as a pejorative, as I try to explain above, post dated November 28, 2010 at 10:03 am.
There needs to be a collective label for Whites that reflects healthy outlooks
“Normal white people”. (Alternatively, “non-SWPL-whites”…hehehe…)
James Edwards likes to use the term “The Founding Stock”, which is problematic in that the majority of “white” genetics in the USA is of post-1800-origin. Nevertheless, the great majority are either of colonial-stock or their closely-related cousins of later arrival.
David Duke uses “European-Americans”.
the main problem with the SWPL label is that it connects “Whiteness” and “the right kind of White people” with some really ugly attitudes and behavior
I think use of the term implies that this is only a subset of whites, and it is more mockery than endorsement.
the main problem with the SWPL label
Actually, the main problem with the term is surely that 98/100 people will not recognize what it’s supposed to mean.
It’s entered the vernacular of a good number of Internet discussion sites that of Steve Sailer. Nationalists have accepted it much less enthusiastically, for some reason, than have the softbellied cowards calling themselves “HBD-ers” (from Human Bio-Diversity, a forum of experts organized by Sailer in the 1990s), and the Misogynist blogs (“R0issy”, et al).
So Will Williams is still hanging out on O.D. ragging on Harold Covington, now going to great lengths to find negative book reviews of Mr. Covington’s novels. How are the book reviews to Will Williams’ novels?
Has Will Williams ever written a book or read a book?
For those folks just tuning in, Will Williams worked a bit in the early 1990s for William Pierce’s Natonal Alliance, the rap against Will Williams wasn’t some huge conspiracy of murder and betrayal – just that he wasn’t a very good dresser and presented a White trashy image that turned off financial contributors and potential Alliance members.
During the early 1990s, virtually all American White Nationalist “leaders”, writers ragged on each other, competed for donations – it wasn’t based on some deep philosophical disagreements, just petty childish squabbles. Tom Metzger ragged on David Duke when Duke had some break through success – Ed Fields ragged on Tom Metzger and Metzger ragging on Dr. Ed Fields saying Fields wasn’t a real doctor. Metzger ragged on Harold Covington dismissing Covington as a “desktop publishing fuhrer” and yes, Covington would return the favor and generally rag on everyone else, especially Will Williams and Ben Klassen WCOTC.
The negativity of the early 1990s American WN “movement” was such that virtually all WN organizations, political candidates were basically one man operatioins because nobody trusted anyone else. I tried to go to work to help David Duke and I did some, but he was also suspicious of bright young people – must be some secret, sinister motive.
As for Covington then and now. I’ve been very honest about HAC’s strengths and weaknesses.
Mr. Covington is an excellent writer – forget about these bad reviews, do people think some professor at a state university is going to give a glowing positive book review to a White nationalist National Socialist writer?!
Come on.
Mr. Covington is now also at times an excellent radio commentator – his radio podcast shows are often very, very good – just the music selections alone are worth tuning it.
And yes, the Northwest Migration and other efforts for Whites to move to whiter areas, for new White communities, work for White seperatist politics – these are plans that can and must work.
But, is Mr. Covington going to organize some big nationalst group to make this happen? NO. Covington is a poor organizer, a poor fund raiser and he is bad at other things, most especially getting along with other nationalists, or just getting along with people period.
I am responsible for linking on O.D. to some of Mr. Covington’s best radio podcasts. Many people here on O.D. said they thought Mr. Covington’s radio podcasts were very good, including O.D.’s top editor Hunter Wallace. But a few/one guy on O.D. personally hated Mr. Covington over some internet personal flaming and yes, I am sure that Mr. Covington said and wrote many unfair, insulting and just plane wrong things. That’s what HAC does.
So now I think folks should move on or else we could all become like Will Williams, some grumpy old man obsessed with some personal insult, some financial judgement from 20 years ago.
Is Will Williams doing any positive activism for our race and culture now in yeaer 2010? No didn’t think so.
We all need to get away from negativity of the past and look for positive opportunities in the here and now – look around you, life isn’t all gloom and doom and yes…
The past is history.
[Note: Although Jack Ryan suggests in this post that Covington’s accusations against Williams were not “some huge conspiracy of murder and betrayal,” Covington did in fact accuse Williams of being a murderer who engaged in betrayal and grand conspiracies, including the assertion that Williams was John Doe #2 from the OKC bombing. — Robert Campbell]
Hail: Actually, the main problem with the term is surely that 98/100 people will not recognize what it’s supposed to mean.
Well, if that’s true then the precise, original meaning and connotations of SWPL have probably been lost in the Internet ether, maybe permanently, even though it’s a new idea.
My interest in this issue is whether it makes good tactical sense or not for WN to use SWPL as a pejorative to describe anti-White Whites given the general lack of clarity you identify over what this idea means (98 out of 100). If not, then WN who use it as such should switch to something else. Perhaps “Disingenuous White Liberal” is better as I think someone further up suggested.
Greg seems to be saying that WN should never use SWPL as a pejorative at all, or as a synonym for White liberal, because SWPL is unclear, clunky and using it plays into the stereotype of WN as not urbane or refined.
jack ryan wrote: I tried to go to work to help David Duke and I did some, but he was also suspicious of bright young people – must be some secret, sinister motive.
I have some hunches as of why David Duke would have wanted to distance himself from you, and I strongly suspect it wasn’t because jack ryan was too ‘bright’.
jack ryan,
I hope you can excuse me for asking a rude question: What is your ethnic background? If, for whatever reason, you do not wish to answer my question, that’s perfectly all right with me, but please don’t lie to me.
If asking a non PC questions is against OD rules for comments, please let me know, and I’ll retract my question – I do not wish to abuse the rules of conduct in the house that was kind enough to have me as a guest.
“Jack Ryan” says: “During the early 1990s, virtually all American White Nationalist “leaders”, writers ragged on each other….” Then proceeds to list examples of ragging, ALL of them involving Tom Metzger.
It is true that Metzger has not shied away from saying some negative things to say about other prominent White Nationalists, but Metzger for some reason never had to go into hiding to escape a libel judgment.
Here’s a nice little soundbite wherein Metzger explains what makes Covington particularly odious. http://67.76.185.229:7555/content/Metzger_on_Covington.pls
“Hipster” is an accurate descriptor of SWPLs and would be immediately understandable by a majority of people.
LEW:
whether it makes good tactical sense or not for WN to use SWPL as a pejorative to describe anti-White Whites
Positives: It is a racializing term, it is political, and carries no baggage (yet).
Negatives: The opponents of the term say it “sounds bad”.
Few people understand it now. But few understood “yuppie” in 1983 (from my dictionary — Etymology: yuppie, coined 1982, acronym from “young urban professional,” ousting competition from yumpie [1984], from “young upward-mobile professional,” and from yap [1984], from “young aspiring professional.” The word was felt as an insult by 1985).
LEW: “Disingenuous White Liberal”
Are we expected to write that all out, every time, in every comment we make? That, to me, would be ultra-clumsy. SWPL is a quick, four-letter (hehe) way to say a lot.
Other choices
— “Liberal” (or “White-Liberal”) is also no good because of “faileocon”-baggage (see above). Fact: Anyone spouting off about “liberals” is pigeonholed as a “faileocon” and people tune them out, except other “faileocons”.
— The term “Yuppie” applies to SWPLs, but it is aracial, is insufficiently political, and is also sort of an anachronism now.
Donald:
“Hipster” is an accurate descriptor of SWPLs and would be immediately understandable
Hipster is more a cultural term (to me), not political (except tangentially), is aracial, and is an anachronism. It bespeaks the ’50s to me. I have very rarely used the word “hipster” in my life.
“Obama’s support base was blacks and hipsters.” Does that sound right?
“Obama’s support base was blacks and SWPLs“. That’s better. (IMO)
jack ryan says:
November 28, 2010 at 4:27 pm
So Will Williams is still hanging out on O.D. ragging on Harold Covington, now going to great lengths to find negative book reviews of Mr. Covington’s novels. How are the book reviews to Will Williams’ novels?
Has Will Williams ever written a book or read a book?
For those folks just tuning in, Will Williams worked a bit in the early 1990s for William Pierce’s Natonal Alliance, the rap against Will Williams wasn’t some huge conspiracy of murder and betrayal – just that he wasn’t a very good dresser and presented a White trashy image that turned off financial contributors and potential Alliance members.
That’s right, Jack, you Mensa genius; the rap against me has never been Covington’s fantasy fiction that I’m a murderer and betrayer, except to fools like you who would believe anything Covington says about me.
I thought you were told to quit promoting Covington here, Jack, because it makes OD look bad. However, every other post of yours is still an explicit promotion of Covington. This thread is about the man pictured at the top of “Hunter’s” essay — defendant Harold Covington — and I’m one of those “nagging voices” you can always depend on to be heard to keep folks honest when it comes to the subject of him, thank you.
BTW, my wife dresses me now so I can’t possibly present that White trashy image you allege I used to present. I even have a $139 pair of New Balance sneakers that a friend gave me so I can fake out all you metrosexual girly men to think I’m one of you instead of the hillbilly I am.
No reviews of my novels, Jack. I’ve never written one and it’s not likely that I ever will. I prefer non-fiction. It looks like I’ll end up being dragged, kicking and screaming, before it’s all over, to write a non-fiction examination of my experience as a race-fighter, perhaps in book form, just to set the record straight after all the bullshit “history” of me by the likes of you, Covington and Lenny Zeskind, the Jew “historian” whose “vanguardist v. mainstreamer” nonsense “Hunter” has hitched his wagon to.
Hadding says:
“Here’s a nice little soundbite wherein Metzger explains what makes Covington particularly odious. http://67.76.185.229:7555/content/Metzger_on_Covington.pls ”
That’s a good one, Hadding. When I Googled that link this other one popped up since that Metzger clip was featured here, too: http://www.vnnforum.com/archive/index.php/t-114472.html
Since you and I are both banned from Linder’s VNN forum, you probably missed seeing that thread. Check out Banjo Billy’s account of things there. He has Jimmy Guiles’ number dialed in.
Good job, Banjo Billy!
Will Williams writes:
“That’s right, Jack, you Mensa genius; the rap against me has never been Covington’s fantasy fiction that I’m a murderer and betrayer, except to fools like you who would believe anything Covington says about me.”
Jack Ryan replies:
No Will, I haven’t wasted a single moment of my life “believing” or worrying about anything Covington says about you. A 4th grade classmate of Harry Covington was probably once called “icky”, another girl in Harry’s Covington’s 4th grade class was probably called “ugly four eyes” – but since it has been 50 years, I think these boys and girls have let it go and are not trying to collect on $200K defamation judgements against Covington now.
Covington has no $ assets, he appears to live hand to mouth and he puts everything he makes/gets in to WN movement activism. You’re simply never going to get any big $s from Covington, why not give it up and do something, ANYTHING productive with your remaining life?
Why not go sue some super rich Jewish abortion doctor who kills White babies? Why not go sue some wealthy Jewish hard core pornographer who corrupts young White girls into horrible lives of prostitution? Why not go do some window washing job at some Jew run casino in New Jersey, take a dive off a ladder and try to collect big $s in a workers compensation suit?
Will, if you want to live the rest of your life trying to live off of legal judgements for mental pain and anguish, why not pick some RICH enemy targets?
Covington is a poor White guy – yes, he had/has issues and has said many unfair and bad things about lots of people. Covington insulted me last week – but I’m not going to waste my life trying to collect on some defamation judgment and take Covington’s last can of Dinty Moore beef stew.
So can other readers here understand why I want our younger folks to MoveON – get away from all the petty, personal negativity of 1990s American White Nationalism?
Boy the title of this article turned out to be prophetic of the discussion thread.
Ivan says:
“I hope you can excuse me for asking a rude question: What is your ethnic background? If, for whatever reason, you do not wish to answer my question, that’s perfectly all right with me, but please don’t lie to me.”
Jack Ryan replies:
Sure, I will share my racial/ethnic/cultural background with you, not a problem.
I am a White American – heavily Midwestern, mostly English but also some German – Christian, Protestant on my mother’s side. My father’s side is George Bush Sr. style WASP – wealthy blue blood WASP, but I had one very interesting Russian grandfather who was a refuge from Russia after the Communist took over. He fought in the White Army against the Reds. My Russian family was Russian Nobility – once very Nordic, German, but there was some inter -marrying with Russian Slavic Whites. My Russian Great Aunt looked very, very Slavic Russian – she lived in Paris France from the 1920s – 1990s.
I look very Nordic, I’m 6’1 210 LBS, have blue eyes, I once had blonde hair up through my 20s; when I visit Germany, folks take me for a straight out German. When I am in England, folks notice that I am not a Paki.
🙂
I promote pan European White solidarity and try to help end foolish White vs White civil wars, religious, regional divisions. I think White Serbs are great and White Latin Americans are fine, great White folks. Argentina never bombed Dresden Germany. And tough Italian American pols in the US like Frank Rizzo are some of my favorite Whites of all time.
We’re all White.