Andrew Anglin has written an article about this over at The Daily Stormer. I’ve responded below with some of my own comments:
“There has been an ongoing debate within pro-White circles about the value of internet activism vs. the value of real life street activism.”
The debate is more about how the internet has consumed the White Nationalist movement since the 1990s than it is about e-activism vs. street activism.
Has this been a good thing? I’ve been around for 15 of the last 20 years that the White Nationalist movement has been dominated by the internet. When I first started posting on messageboards in 2000, the White Nationalist movement in the US was stronger, better led, better funded, and better organized than it is today 15 years later.
“I understand the argument that internet activism is a worthless circlejerk and ultimately an admission of defeat, but I believe that there is a lack of an understanding of what exactly internet activism should be.”
I’ve seen 15 years of it: Yahoo groups, then vBulletin forums, then WordPress blogs, then podcasts, and lately, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. After 20 years of e-activism, we are weaker today than we were in 1995.
“The internet is now where people go to have their realities shaped, in the way that they used to go to the television. The ability to influence someone’s core perceptions of reality is obviously a very powerful thing, if it is taken advantage of. Saying “oh no, no reason to mess with it, let’s go out on the street and hold up signs instead,” then going on to complain that the world is hopeless because not enough people are out in the streets holding up signs, strikes me as much more defeatist than making a genuine attempt to use the vast potential of the internet to influence the minds of potentially millions of people.”
There’s some truth to this.
I agree that the internet has become the public square in America, that it can be used to educate people and spread ideas far more effectively than literature drops, and that it is shaping their identities and core perceptions of reality, BUT it is also misused in the same way that computer games like Minecraft are used by gamers, as a purely masturbatory form of time-wasting and as a substitute for forming real relationships. If the internet is going to substitute for engaging in politics in the real world, why not set up an online forum and christen that “the ethnostate”?
The moral of the story: just as an e-girlfriend is no substitute for a real girlfriend or a wife, online communities are no substitute for a real world ethnostate. Insofar as the internet is misused to blow off steam and avoid conflict with the opposition, the time we spend online can even hold back our cause.
Some people act like reporting Facebook pages are battles like raising the flag over Iwo Jima.
“If you read this site with any regularity, you are aware that I focus on continually pressing certain memes, over and over and over again. This is a method by which, through repetition, you are able to give a person a lens through which they view reality. They then spread these memes both through various different internet outlets as well as in the real world. This exponential dissemination of simple and yet very powerful ideas, as it builds momentum, can continue to expand indefinitely. …
This is the exact method which was used to create the social justice movement. This was done on the internet. Now it is basically the dominant ideology of the entire Western establishment.”
We’ve all been exposed to The Mantra which is undoubtedly the most famous example of pushing online memes. When people post photographs of The Mantra in toilet stalls, when they wear masks in public, distribute literature at 3 AM, and when they throw their hands in the air and quit after they are “exposed” by the media, the message that is sent to ordinary people is that these people are ashamed of their own beliefs and that even these racists must agree that they are doing something sinister.
“The rate at which the internet has accelerated the spread of liberal thought-forms is mind-boggling. Because Jews are clever people, and they saw the end of an age of standing out in the streets with signs, and moved into the age of viral electronic information as a means to shape reality.”
The ascendancy of Jews to the apex of America’s social pyramid goes back to the 1920s to the 1960s – they were firmly ensconced in power and were in the cultural driver’s seat long before the rise of the internet in the 1990s.
Jews are in power. More than any other group, they are overrepresented in the American elite. Why would they take to the streets when they have Harvard, Hollywood, Viacom and Goldman Sachs?
“Along with the basic distribution of memes, the internet provides us with the ability to create massive spectacles which get picked up by the larger media. During the operation against Luciana Berger, the Stormer Troll Army was able to get the words “filthy Jew bitch” printed on virtually all mainstream news sites, and what’s more, the masses of people in the comments sections sided with our right to express our political views on the internet, even while knowing that we were distributing a message of “virulent” anti-Semitism.”
Here’s another way of looking at this: the internet allows people to create anonymous personalities which enables them to avoid conflict with these people in the real world which they substitute for online trolling. In much the same way, men substitute masturbating to online pornography for courtship with real women.
“I can say that I am the only person who has attempted to apply these concepts to right-wing ideology (save for Alex Jones, if you want to consider him “right wing”). It wasn’t some kind of massive connection to make here. Shockingly, no one else has even attempted to get on board with this concept, save my own readers, and instead we have endless moaning about how we need to “get out in the streets.”
This is probably because of a lingering doubt that trolling Jews on Twitter with disposable pseudonyms is just another way of avoiding conflict with them in the real world. It’s not going to change Jewish power in the real world. The same could be said of older tactics like making prank phone calls to the SPLC.
“And yet, there is no plan as to what we are to be doing in the streets. If I was trying to organize street protests – again, I am not trying to do that as I have other goals that I am focused on – the first thing I would have is a clear list of political goals/demands. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” is not an obtainable objective that you can rally people around. At the same time, very few are inspired by the idea of randomly finding trigger-issues and standing up against them with placards.
This is clearly why no one shows up to street protests. They appear to an outsider to have been formulated to purposefully fail.
The real reason that so few people show up at street protests is because our political beliefs are taboo and controversial. It means engaging in conflict and confrontation with the opposition and that means risking something. Most people who subscribe to all these ideas aren’t willing to risk anything, least of all their social status or their middle class lifestyle, for the sake of their identities and beliefs.
That cuts to the heart of what is wrong with e-activism and why 20 years of it had the effect of weakening us: as a platform, the internet is a great tool for educating people, for spreading ideas and molding identities, and we have been successful on that front. It’s far more effective than literature drops, BUT where the internet fails is in cultivating the indispensable moral qualities that shape character.
If you believe all this stuff, but you are unwilling to act on your identity and beliefs because you are afraid of the social and economic consequences, what does it really matter? You’ve been neutralized. No amount of e-activism in cyberspace will ever make up for a conscious decision to avoid conflict in the real world where it counts.
“Again, all you have to do is watch how the other side behaves and repeat that behavior. The homosexual rights movement, for instance, has for 25 years had a list of demands, and they have then proceeded to get these demands met by working out the most efficient possible way to organize their people for this purpose. They were supported by Jewish memes distributed through popular electronic culture.”
The mainstreaming of homosexuality in the United States and other Western countries, much like its predecessor, the Civil Rights Movement, was a social revolution that was imposed from the top down by elites on the masses.
“To be fair, the anti-abortion movement has followed this pattern of street organization correctly, and yet been overwhelmed. The reason that they were overwhelmed was that the Jews are the only people using the reality-shaping media technologies for the purpose of framing the issue in the minds of the masses with simplified memes. “Right to choose” won out over “right to life” because the meme was better disseminated and attached to larger emotional triggers. It never mattered which was more moral or truthful or best for society, because that isn’t the way this game works.”
The Christians who oppose the legalization of abortion are in a similar predicament: they are facing a hostile elite at the apex of the social pyramid, and they are locked out from key institutions of cultural power.
“Both internet activism and street activism are valid methods of resisting the hell that is coming down on us and I think the goal needs to be for them to work in tandem with clear objectives. I wish more people were involved in the use of memes to spread our ideology on the internet, but I believe it will pick up. On the street side, both National Action in Britain and National Youth Front in America are making good progress.”
The paradox of the internet is that we have never been more connected than we are today through social media, but strangely enough we have never been more atomized and isolated from each other, even in our own cities and towns. Because of the internet, which in theory should be a great networking tool, we have never been more disorganized, more risk averse, and easier to dominate.
We have replaced real world relationships with pseudo-relationships which are low trust, more fragile, and easier to disrupt. We’ve created a habitat where trolls and all kinds of idiocy flourish, but that is a topic for another day.
“I see a lot of reasons to be positive. And I am certain that no one ever got anything done by talking about how no one is doing anything.”
If no one is doing much of anything, there is a probably a reason.
I think we should distill the message: pluralism doesn’t work, nationalism does. All the other stuff falls into line after that. Interesting article.
It won’t take me long to prove why HW is correct here.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2013/02/01/nra-winning-the-influence-battle-over-gun-control/
https://countenance.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/this-time-megan-mcardle-keeps-it-nice-and-simple/
What is the moral of this story?
On one issue, the script is flipped. The “right” is disciplined, and as the Forbes article says, “military coordination with laser focus” is the order of the day, and the “left” is acting like WNs usually do, internet bickering, a thousand little pieces all hustling for its little slice of the pie (the Gabby Giffords Foundation is all about giving jobs to people named Giffords and people married to people that are or used to be named Giffords).
It just happens to be the one issue that I don’t think is quite the most important.
But it proves that it can be done against some disadvantageous odds.
I forgot to add, the NRA has figured out how to dig deep into the culture. Something that which “we” (if “we” are WNs) have not yet. The NRA figured out long ago that if you teach a man how to fish, you teach a man how to fish, but if you teach a married woman how to fish, you teach a married woman and her kids and her simp husband how to fish.
The bottom line is, if you are proud of being White, as WNs like to say, WPWW, then don’t act like you are ashamed of it. If you really are proud of being White, you shouldn’t fear being “exposed” for it by the opposition.
These are all excellent points and should be read by everyone. Thanks for writing this.
To sum things up, e-activism can help stimulate racial consciousness, white identity, and spread awareness of other problems, but it crashes on the shoals of morals.
Giving people information isn’t the same thing as molding their character. If you don’t believe in and practice the classical virtues, things like honesty, integrity, loyalty and courage, you will never act on the ideas that you are exposed to online.
You might nurture a white identity, but you will be neutralized because you will outwardly conform to the taboos in the real world, and substitute confronting those taboos with taking potshots at the status quo.
Another problem with internet activism is the concept of homeostatic equilibrium. When applied to sociopolitics, it means that the political center always readjusts. If our movement is only one of our people living in tight virtual circles with each other, we’re going to start fighting with each other because the political center readjusts in our own tight virtual circle. However, it’s a political center that does not exist in the real world.
Avoid not cultivating strength. Cultivating strength involves cultivating the strength of one’s offspring, which involves cultivating their inclination to cultivate the strength of their own offspring, in turn.
Avoid not cultivating mathematical power. Math is the martial art.
How does one cultivate mathematical power? Avoid not learning the answer to that question.
Hunter,
If you don’t believe in and practice the classical virtues, things like honesty, integrity, loyalty and courage, you will never act on the ideas that you are exposed to online.
Civil rights activists were not paragons of virtue, but they did show tremendous determination. I think that’s the main quality you want, and it’s probably the easiest to nurture. By itself it’s no guarantee of anything – Craig Cobb was determined – but if you hit upon a theme or a message that resonates then magic can happen.
Bonaccorsi,
You’v really gone off the deep end.
If you don’t believe internet activism is effective or worthwhile then why are you even here? Why not spread your message on “the street”?
Good question.
It’s mainly because I enjoy blogging. I also like to chat with people who I know in real life.
All public political activity has to be sanctioned by some segment of the elite or it’s dead. The democratic concept of the masses organizing to make demands of the power structure was maybe a little true centuries past, but in reality “activists” and “organizers” are sock puppets for some elite agenda. Public political action works for leftists because the people in power want it to work.
What is cyberracialism? My dictionary says that “racialism” means “abusive behavior towards members of another race”. The White Nationalist objective is to avoid racial obliteration, it has nothing to do with abusing non-whites.
The “cyber” word is used to make fun of everything that happens on the internet, but I think what happens on the internet between White people is more real than the jewish garbage we get from TV and from politicians. And most people spend more time watching TV than interacting on the internet.
To win against the Jews, what we need is a WN TV station. We need a billionaire to fund the project. Even without that, as technical progress continues on the internet, it will soon become possible to have an internet WN TV that will be almost as good as real TV.
Most cyberactivists are not White Nationalists. The internet is filled with conservative activists, leftist activists, feminist activists, environmentalist activists, people who want to improve schools, people who want to improve their neighborhood, and so on. So, if you want to be sarcastic, you could use some irony on them too. They are in a worse situation than we are. They don’t understand that they are not going to achieve anything until we get rid of the jews, and separate from the non-whites.
There are also many people who organize activities in the real world: sports, theater, walking clubs, music schools, and so on. But what will happen in the next decades is that their associations and clubs will get less and less active as White society gradually gets buried under the rising tide of color. The White Nationalist movement is one of the rare things that will get stronger.
“The debate is more about how the internet has consumed the White Nationalist movement since the 1990s than it is about e-activism vs. street activism.”
Does that debate exist anywhere other than at Occidental Dissent? E-activism looks like a good replacement for most street activism. (I’m not sure if a protest against Tim Wise counts as street-activism, or as college activism…) There is certainly a need for “real world” organizations, and their main objective will probably not be to do “street activism”.
“When I first started posting on messageboards in 2000, the White Nationalist movement in the US was stronger, better led, better funded, and better organized than it is today 15 years later.”
How can you tell the decline was caused by the internet, not by the neocon takeover of the former conservative movement, for example?
“After 20 years of e-activism, we are weaker today than we were in 1995.”
But the country was also in worse shape in 1995 than in 1975, even though people didn’t have the internet. William Buckley founded the National Review in 1955. At that time, it must have been easier to advocate racial separation and tell people about the jewish problem. But from what I understand, Buckley ended up selling out to the jews! All was not perfect.
“when they throw their hands in the air and quit after they are “exposed” by the media”
I think the organizer of the White March was temporarily demoralized by the criticism coming from fellow White Nationalists.
“Civil rights activists were not paragons of virtue, but they did show tremendous determination.”
And what did they accomplish? Nothing. Half a century after the supposed triumphs of those activists, the complaints of blacks are unchanged, as is their condition. Affirmative action is the bulwark they defend against even the slightest attack, because they know it’s the only thing that preserves any illusion to the contrary. They’re weak. If they were strong, they’d leave America and fashion polities that suit them; instead, they resort to chronic carping, in the white civilization of which they wish they could be a part.
The only persons who profited from the civil rights movement were the jews who used it to break up white power, the jews whose strength had been cultivated over generations. That sort of thing is pretty clear to those of us down here at the deep end, Silver; I’ll leave you to splash around in the shallows.
People like RAMZPAUL have had a huge impact; also the folks over at Takimag. Massive, millions-strong street protests worldwide didn’t stop the disastrous Iraq War. And you correctly marked above that the Depravity Revolutions were imposed top-down by elites in control of power centers.
The internet is a communications tool, nothing more, or nothing less.
A “cyberracialist” or “e-racialist” is a figure who is only seen or encountered on the internet, who subscribes to racialist or pro-White ideas, who may or may not believe in the ethnostate at the abstract level, but whose character is unaffected by exposure to those ideas.
The movement is much fappery simply because it never aims to degrade the authority of the opposition who spent decades undermining what was once our authority. Basic premise of 4GW warfare.
It’s why I’m positive for the future our opposition has a facade of authority and the feckless leaders of our side who spent decades assisting them build that facade are slowly being set aside.
Of course many of you doubt me but our opposition is exactly like the Rainbow Confederates, nobodies
“The internet is a communications tool, nothing more, or nothing less.”
Correct–and avoid forgetting that you’re paying someone for the use of it.
The issue isn’t street vs. internet, it’s broadcasting vs. narrow-casting. Both the internet and low-level street activism are narrow-casting. Street activism is direct narrow-casting because it is seen by relatively few people for a relatively short period of time. It’s indirect narrow-casting as well because it’s at the mercy of the media for coverage. In order to be direct broadcasting it would have to be large enough and persistent enough to be un-ignorable, and even then most people would get their image of its message through the media. Look at how the media has “non-evented” massive demonstration from un-PC groups like the Tea Party. (I will say that I do believe in vanguardism, that advancement comes from a fanatical minority throwing themselves at the system: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man – G.B. Shaw.)
The internet is also narrow-casting because like minded people flock together and usually ban those who don’t agree. You can’t carry on even the most reasonable conversation on race on, say, Free Republic because they fear it will have an adverse effect on electing Republicans and on the quarterly drive. The general news sites are increasingly eliminating comments so that politically incorrect views won’t piggy-back on their more broad dissemination of ideas.
If you had just one Congressman, just one man, who was suited up and on message, who was tough, uncompromising, and intelligent in combating the left’s white-hating, genocidal racism from the House floor it would do more than all the internet and street activism has done to date, because he would be broadcasting and could not be ignored.
Which is part of the reason that the system is desperately flooding white areas with non-whites so that such a person won’t ever be elected. It doesn’t matter what form your protest takes, if it can be ignored it will be ineffective.
Because of mass immigration you are already on the cusp of disenfranchisement. Neither method will work because there will be nobody left to appeal to or influence. Certainly the haters and parasites of the leftist/non-white coalition will show you no consideration or mercy. Then it will be fight or perish. Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly [Republicans and conservatives], you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Fred Reed has an interesting take on the break up the USA in a March 29th piece.
John the Second is way off base he in effect is legitimizing the opposition but that is understandable because that is the usual conservative default response.
I agree. We need a balanced approach between online and street activism. All is important in the survival and advancement of our people. Deo Vindice
Bonaccorsi,
And what did they accomplish? Nothing. Half a century after the supposed triumphs of those activists, the complaints of blacks are unchanged, as is their condition.
What did they accomplish? Oh, merely getting racial equality legally enshrined. What does it matter that such equality is the stuff of purest fantasy? Racial equality being the law of the land means that no matter how devastating the effects of niggerfuxation no lasting solution to it can be posed – hell, the problem itself can scarcely be acknowledged.
There is a lot to be said here.
For starters, the System takes Internet based operations quite seriously, so much so that each branch of the US armed forces has organized major commands to conduct cyberwarfare.
There are some useful studies in print. “Networks and Netwars” and “The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico,” both by David Ronfeldt & John Arquilla, published by the RAND corporation. There’s also Winn Schwartau’s “Information Warfare.” These are handbooks on how to utilize the Internet for political-activist purposes. They are worth reading–and applying. And much more is out there.
Nonetheless, HW identifies a real shortfall with the White Nationalist/Alternative Right seeing a decline in strength since they went over to the Internet. I believe this is in part due to a failure of the WN/AR movements to understand the tactics of Information Warfare.
Compare this with how the Left has operated over the last century. Leftists read, discuss and apply various subversive and agitprop methodologies. Lenin, Mao, Marighella, Che, Alinski–they are all in the Leftist repertoire. Where are the comparable Alternative Right forums for political theory and practice? Is it any wonder that the Right makes little progress when it does not recognize–much less practice–the proven methods for mobilizing cadres, fronts and mass organizations?
And now the Internet has opened up a new front.
One thing I would like to see is more discussion online of actual methods of networking, organization, spreading the message, raising money, and getting people into the streets for actions. Certainly, we can see some successes in the demonstrations which HW has publicized here on OD.
But too often, websites degenerate into “clever” comments, personal attacks, and conspiracy theories that nobody in the realworld cares about. Webmasters need to maintain discipline. That’s what the “delete” key is for! They need to guide the discussion towards activism in the realworld.
Consider the recent incident of the student at Ole Miss’ being persecuted for raising the CSA flag. Now supposing Southern Nationalist websites mobilized over it, sending thousands of emails to everyone from the college administration to the White House. And then getting lawyers and conservative civil liberties groups involved. And even getting people onto the campus flying the flag. This is how the Zapatista support network did it back in the 1990s, when the Internet was nowhere as developed as it is today.
You can not underestimate the Internet. How many of here would even be aware that there is an embryonic Alternative Right/White Nationalist movement were it not for websites like this one and its many allies? There is a real value in networking. I got started with the old South Africa Sucks site, which eventually led here. There are millions more potential recruits. It’s a matter of getting them online, on board–and into the streets.
If internet activism is so ineffective, how come countries such as Iran and China are so scared of it – to the point that they imprison bloggers? I think sites such as this one are hugely important: the thing is to reach a wider audience. I don’t mean by compromising, but advertising. Gay rights brigade is powerful because – although a teensy minority – they have massive financial backing, and key positions in the media and government.
Iranians and Chinese are not extremely individualistic like Americans.
White Man March / March Against #WhiteGenocide: https://volkischpaganism.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/white-man-march-march-against-whitegenocide/
“…and when they throw their hands in the air and quit after they are “exposed” by the media…” links to here: http://tinyurl.com/lkep5eb
^ Throw their hands in the air and quit? Did Kyle Hunt sign some sort of legal contract when he created and promoted the concept of the White Man March? Another point, how do you figure that he was “exposed”, exactly? That’s a rather odd statement considering he gave interviews under his real name prior to the event in the process of promoting it.
From the article you linked to:
“I expected the White Man March to a success, but I did not foresee the incredible amount of attacks that would be launched against me from all sides. Of course animosity was to be expected from the anti-White media, but sadly many alleged pro-Whites have been launching vicious assaults upon me, trying to discredit the message and methodology of the White Man March by attacking my character and reputation. Sure, the aspersions are being cast by cowards and incompetents, but such tactics still help to discourage others from joining the cause. At this point, I consider having myself as a “leader” to be more of a hindrance to our cause than a help. I do not want to be a liability. I previously wrote that this is not an organization and there is no leader and now I am just making it official.” -Kyle Hunt
Sounds like he is describing the person who wrote this article and others like him.
I never attacked him and supported their activism two years in a row, I even mentioned him being in Knoxville for the last one. I was very supportive of Kyle the first time around.
He did publicly quit the White Man March and lots of mainstream media sites picked up the story to ridicule him.
The White Man March has shown that concepts like “leaderless resistance” and e-activism are no substitute for traditional structures. The biggest event in the US this year was in Florence, KY and that was due to the cell that Trad Youth has built there.
Alec,
The internet is a great medium for reaching new people and spreading ideas. It’s not enough to educate and convert new people though. That’s only a first step.
Was it the mainstream media’s attacks on Kyle that he didn’t anticipate, or Rodney Martin’s?
I seem to recall the latter. I have held back on this but since it’s come up have to say that I personally consider Martin’s pathetic attempt to promote lies about Kyle, whom he clearly regarded as the up and coming competition, to be an utterly vile act. In my mind it disqualifies him from having anything legitimate to contribute. Period. There is no room for claiming to be pro-white, and then attempting to torpedo and sabotage other activists out of sheer petty territoriality. It’s even worse that Martin’s ‘source’ lied but would have been niggardly regardless in that context and time.
You have a way, Hunter Wallace, of casting stones that you yourself can’t field so easily. Like issuing judgments about people worrying about their livelihoods while failing to let everyone in on exactly how you support your family. And then doing interviews on someone’s radio show who goes around sabotaging ‘the cause’ while decrying that exact behavior.
1.) I’m not fighting with either of them.
2.) Anyone who broadcasts their employment information on the internet, regardless of whether or not they are involved in the cause, is a fool.
Only because he was mentioned…
Rodney “Wounded Knee” Martin: Amerindian Tribal Administrator: http://tinyurl.com/nq656eu
P.S. This year the biggest showing I am aware of took place in Christchurch, New Zealand. The only footage of their participation that I am aware of, though, is pretty bad: http://s24.photobucket.com/user/FightWG/media/IMG_0214_zpsc3h5fbno.mp4.html
Here it is not so glitchy and slow to load: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoCUkzOc6M
Maybe so.
In the US, most of the people who participated in 2014 and 2015, particularly those who did something in public, were established activists who have done other stuff in the past.