As with many things, the word is it all began in a bar in Rome.
The pub was one of those well-worn places with stickers and memorabilia hanging from the walls. In the Nineties, punk bands came through, played loud, and the crowds would raise hell. One day, a handful of Italian friends came in, sat down, and put their heads together. Rome had housing problems and no one was doing anything about it. Something had to be done. But what? How?
In 2003, talk became action, and with the squatting “occupation” of Via Napoleone III, CasaPound Italia was officially born.
Since the establishment of its initial headquarters, the group has expanded its reach to not only bars, “squats,” and a music scene, but to bookstores, restaurants, hostels, publications, radio and TV, pro-bono tax and legal counsel, housing services, disaster relief, and clubs for activities and interests ranging from sports to motorcycles, boasting thousands of members.
In a 2011 interview, CasaPound’s leader, Gianluca Iannone discussed its strategy:
…CPI works on dozens of projects and with various methods: from conferences to demonstrations, distribution of information, posters. The important thing is to generate counter information and to occupy the territory. It is fundamental to create a web of supporters other than focusing on elections. For election, you are in competition with heavily financed groups and with only one or two persons elected, you can’t change anything. Politics for us is a community. It is a challenge, it is an affirmation. For us, politics is to try to be better every day. That is why we say that if we don’t see you, it is because you are not there. That is why we are in the streets, on computers, in bookshops, in schools, in universities, in gymnasium, at the top of mountains or in the newsstands. That is why we are in culture, social work and sport. That is a constant work.
While CasaPound primarily operates at the social level, it does so with an eye directed toward influencing real world policies other than housing. Their 18 point platform advocates the following:
- FOR PUBLIC CONTROL OF THE BANKS; “The issue of money was snatched from the national community in favor of private groups hostile to the public good with piloted privatization, and has strangled our citizens, destroyed savings, multiplied the debt, and devastated the welfare state…” State control over the Bank of Italy, local credit institutions, “the complete outlaw of usury,” etc.
- FOR A CLOSED EUROPEAN TRADE AREA; Integrated Autarky, protectionism.
- FOR THE RESTORATION OF REAL DIVERSITY; Ending immigration, expelling illegals, block support funding, etc.
- FOR WORK AS A SOCIAL DUTY; Apprenticeship, revaluing Blue Collar sector.
- FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE COMMON GOOD AND THE STRATEGIC SECTORS; Nationalization of natural resources (water and gas) and critical sectors of the economy (energy, telecom, etc.), regulation of pharmaceutical industry.
- FOR SOCIAL RIGHTS; Protection of Social Security and pensions, pro-family tax plan, property tax reform, etc.
- FOR THE RIGHT TO MOTHERHOOD AND LIFE; “The actions of multinationals and large financial institutions provide, among other things, the demographic death of Italy and Europe. The high cost of living, the devaluation of wages, and the impossibility of finding accommodation has initiated the emergence of negative birth rates.” State-sponsored pregnancy pediatric care, when needed, economic incentives for large families, custody reform, etc.
- FOR ENERGY SOVEREIGNTY; Nationalization of energy, support of sources from nuclear to “clean energy” research.
- FOR THE RIGHT TO HOME OWNERSHIP BY SOCIAL MORTGAGE (MUTUO SOCIALE); Incentivize home ownership, state-sponsored buildings sold at cost only to families living there, etc.
- FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION; increased support of public schools, student participation on school boards, increased physical education.
- FOR A REVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGICAL PROGRAM; increased rail and ship transportation, heightened conservation programs, etc.
- FOR A FREE CULTURE; State to foster “a virtuous circle of spiritual growth of its citizens” via promotion of arts (most specifically, cinema) celebrating European and Italian heritage.
- FOR REAL JUSTICE; Reform Judiciary. “Decriminalization of all ideological crimes, all crimes of association.”
- FOR THE DEFENSE OF OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY; Replace/dismantle NATO, removal of foreign military presence within borders, restoration of mandatory conscription (Swiss model).
- FOR FUNCTIONAL POLITICS; “Democracy” has been, to date, the name of a fraud. Politicians are the waiters of bankers and the popular sovereignty is flushed in favor of economic, criminal, sectarian or supranational powers.” Chamber of Labor to replace Senate; Municipal Advisory Council, reform seeking to streamline/harmonize relations between the State, unions, entrepreneurs, craftsmen, etc.
- FOR A REAL APPLICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION; Use of Article 46; “right of workers to collaborate…in the management of enterprises,” and others concerning labor issues, monopolies, and private property rights.
- FOR SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY, NOT THE POLICE STATE; Reform of prisons and security services.
- FOR A NATIONAL POLICY OF SOBRIETY; “expenditure restraint;” prevent tax evasion, restructure subsidies, “eradicate the parasitic oligarchies that vampirize state coffers,” etc.
Seeking to break ranks from the orthodoxies of contemporary Left/Right distinctions, CasaPound has made identity and the welfare of the flesh-and-blood nation the foundation of its platform. However between their embrace of Italian Fascism (“neither Left nor Right,” but simply ‘Fascista.’”), and the Identitarianism associated with Alain de Benoist’s Nouvelle Droite, they have inspired first-rate pearl-clutching by Leftist watchdog groups lamenting them as the dangerous evidence of “the rise of the radical and extreme right.”
CasaPound has yet to make inroads sufficient to capture a majority share of Italian politics, however, they appear to be an important node in emerging European Populist and Right-Wing movements, serving as a kind of vanguard laboratory for young activists. And considering that the young people in their ranks will inherit a world that is shaping up to be more unstable and violent, with their own leaders and institutions actively working against their chances of having homes or families of their own (let alone countries), for dissident groups such as CasaPound, the sky is the limit.
CasaPound is, however, an Italian movement. What they do belongs to them.
I believe they have a great deal to teach Southern Nationalists, though there is much that would be lost in translation. The open embrace of Fascism, for instance, would no doubt find more fertile soil in Italy than Georgia, Tennessee, or Alabama. (With the exception of the occasional pockets of “Jerryboos” of course.) However, Populism, as evidenced in the recent presidential election, is practically made for Southern clay. Likewise, whereas CasaPound, for the most part, runs Atheist, Southerners tend to possess an innate religiosity to a higher degree, and any Southern movement should take such realities into account.
For all of that, after a brief survey of CasaPound, it seems to possess several qualities and practices that I think merit consideration by Southerners.
- Take up Space (“occupy the territory”); “A key point for the CPI is to have a constant visible presence and strong image in the neighborhoods that it regards as its own. This street profile often means using posters and street art to visually ‘claim’ areas they believe are theirs.” While I am a fire-breathing supporter of what Silas Reynolds coined, “The Kriegzahn Doctrine,” for now The Urbanite is still with us. They are committed to destroying us; what if we had boots on the ground in their safe space? Supporters and fellow travelers in cities could not only continue to engage in sticker/postering campaigns on streets, but research bars and restaurants catering to clientele amenable to our world view (country music joints, college bars, etc.), and become regulars, building relationships with staff, management, and fellow patrons, and recruiting when possible. Make those places synonymous with us (similar to the way gentrified quarters are linked to Hipsters). If anything, enterprising souls could start not only bars, but other services and stores; things that would provide spaces for our sort of people, as well as assets and revenue streams. Imagine dissident-run coffee shops or barber shops throughout The South where you knew as soon as you walked through the door there’d be Shitlords on the other side.
- Link to Real World Goals; CasaPound began by addressing housing in Rome. Understand what specific “roof-over-our-heads-and-food-in-our-bellies” issues are confronting Southerners, what can be done about it, and apply pressure in a dynamic way.
- The Usury Question; the movement is so critical of the economic basis of many of the problems confronting us that it took its name from Ezra Pound: “Usury is the worst thing,” Iannone states. “It is the head of the octopus. It is it that initiated the wars that are starting around the Mediterranean Sea, which generates illegal immigration and destruction. It is it which creates unemployment, debts. It is it that threatens the future of our children, which make them weak and ready for the massacre.” As to what constitutes usury in a modern economy and what to do about it is a subject outside the scope of this article. For now, it is enough for me that they are making the issue known. Considering how much of The South is in the pocket of the Chamber of Commerce, that in itself would be a start. And as Colin Liddell wrote of their position, “CPI’s anti-usury stance is so strong that one wonders how they would ever manage a complex economy if they succeeded in gaining total power. But perhaps that is the point: seeing themselves as political outsiders allows them to give full rein to populist utopian notions more as an article of faith rather than worrying about the practical implications.”
- Meta-Politics, Counter-Culture, and Fun; as someone once said, “Before you seize the palace, you must first seize the culture.” Through trolling via social media, the AltRight has exposed the degree to which American politics has been a sucker’s game due to “Political Correctness,” and has made great strides to changing that. However, it is still in its infancy in terms of translating its meta-political victories to meatspace, whereas CasaPound has managed to carve out a sub-culture that functions both at the meta-level as a kind of Right-Wing Gramscianism, as well as one in which people actually live out in their daily lives to the point that some have noted it’s almost a nation within a nation. With the recent popularity and proliferation of phenomena from internet-based content (podcasts, youtube videos, etc.) to MMA, weightlifting, and CrossFit, as well as Southern mainstays such as hunting and shooting, fishing, country and bluegrass music, racing, etc., a Southern-based movement has a broad range of potential linkages that could harnessed toward the end of cultivating a cohesive collective culture, that would in turn, change our political fortunes.
- Health; the issue of culture is related to another aspect of CasaPound in that it is marked by a strong presence of heathy people, the majority of which are young. The South, like much of The Western world suffers from a range of maladies ranging from obesity to social alienation and substance abuse. A counter-culture that attracted people to activities and lifestyles in which they met people who reinforced healthy behavior would go a long way to correcting these trends.
- Organization/Network; in addition to providing a space for people to live and think outside of the modern social and political paradigm, the sum of CasaPound’s cultural activities and political activism create a loosely organized network. This allows for a broad range of people to gravitate towards where their natural talents and inclinations guides them while still remaining under its banner, as well as offering leadership within the organization the means to coordinate members more effectively to further achieve the movement’s ends.
- Offer Struggle; A critical feature of CasaPound is that it offers young men a place in which they can struggle and sacrifice alongside a peer group. (This is perhaps the result of its roots in that punk bar.) Furthermore, it does this all the while framing their efforts within the very real context of defending their people, place, culture, and heritage. This lends an ennobling effect to their actions in the eyes of themselves and their admirers, separating them from common street thugs, and provides a kind of dramatic tension that attracts young women (who then further raise the status of the group and inspire the men to greater ardor). Whether through seizing buildings through squatting, poster campaigns, MMA training, or mass demonstrations, CasaPound provides young men with the chance to take risks and binds it to public action. For instance, in the 2008 “Piazza Navona Clashes,” CasaPound’s student group fought it out with Antifa when a demonstration went violent. Last year, following “a 10,000-strong anti-invasion march and demonstration in Rome,” residents of Ostia asked them to help remove hundreds of invaders who had been terrorizing the town and living in a makeshift camp in the park. CasaPound sent a detachment, who with many of the locals, conducted a demonstration. “After more than three hours of confrontation, which took place with police present, the invaders decided to flee in the face of the angry crowd.” Applying this to The South would be a challenge. (This is to say nothing of the debate concerning the ultimate effectiveness of Populist/Right-Wing efforts to “take it to the streets” in America, let alone The South.) However, any effective Southern social and political movement will need to have a Männerbund at its core and a means by which young men can test their mettle.
- Offer Assistance; CasaPound assists in disaster relief both in Italy and abroad. This is not only a good thing in and of itself, but also enhances their reputation and serves a diplomatic function. Between last year’s fires in Tennessee and the ever-present bouts of floods, tornados, and sundry acts of nature, creating a means to offer aid swiftly and effectively should be paramount to any Southern movement.
- “There is a time to LARP and a time to refrain from LARPing”; CasaPound has carefully cultivated its image in such a way that it appears dynamic, militant, and revolutionary enough to appeal to the young, while being sufficiently accessible and supportive to find a home amongst The Normie set. This is perhaps their secret ingredient. As Mao observed, every successful guerilla campaign had “the active support of a significant portion of the population.” (That means cultivating relationships with average people. That doesn’t happen if all they see are Edgetarian Space Monkeys.) CasaPound seems to understand this deeply. Their iconography runs from the gamut from Classical European works to Italian Futurist imagery, all of which provides an anchor point that both activist and Normie can share. However, rather than solely trying to resurrect the past, they seek to draw from it and adapt it to the present day. “We are fascist and proud of our heritage,” says CasaPound’s international spokesman Sébastien de Boëledieu. “But we have to face different problems than the original fascist regime had to solve. The spirit is there, the example of courageous ancestors that made this possible but it would be shameful to try to make a copycat. We are not nostalgic. CasaPound militants have enough respect to not put Mussolini’s face on lighters, wine bottles or underwear like you can sometime see. We don’t wear uniforms that the historical fascists wore with their courage, not because we want to cut with them but for respect for their fight.” You can see this theme play out with them in all sorts of ways. For instance, their flag offers an interesting juxtaposition of a bold red field with a black and white turtle in the middle. A turtle. A Fascist turtle. And yet it works. No one is scared of turtles. Women and children think they’re cute. However, thousands of people tear-assing around Rome with big red turtle flags is a whole other thing, and one gets the sense that Leftists get wildly frustrated trying to explain why that’s important and how it’s evil. As to how this relates to The South, broaching conversations concerning aesthetics and flags (let alone the Vanguard vs. Normie question) is a good way of winding up getting challenged to a duel, so I shall leave that debate to others for now and retire to the porch.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I believe we are in the midst of an unfolding crisis period. There are destructive trends that have been left to fester for far too long, and while it was encouraging to witness the ascendency of Mr. Trump to the presidency, it isn’t enough by a damned sight. To truly begin to right things, we will have to become better. We will have to become masters of ourselves. Toward that end, I would encourage further study of European movements, as well as exploring older American and Southern ones. In the meantime, I believe CasaPound is on to something, and we would be wise to learn from them.
“What are your future objectives,” the man asked CasaPound.
“Retake everything.”
– By Jedidiah Van Horn at identitydixie.com
Sources:
http://www.casapounditalia.org/p/who-we-are.html
https://app.box.com/s/m8jmw7uaai8vx0op1n4v3a8njh3trkxy
http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/11/sound-as-a-pound/
http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/03/casa-pound/
http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/03/we-are-the-real-subalterns/
http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/11/courage-is-an-exercise-lessons-from-casapound/
http://altright.com/2016/02/22/interview-with-casapound/
https://www.hate-speech.org/make-it-new/
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/casapound-new-face-fascism
http://www.sicherheitspolitik-blog.de/2016/05/09/casapound-italia-the-fascist-hybrid/
https://www.rt.com/news/343912-rome-protest-migrants-casa/
https://redice.tv/news/italy-invaders-flee-from-casapound
https://evropaevigila.blogspot.se/2016/09/n-interview-with-sebastien-from.html?m=1
All fine and good. However, the South is politically vulnerable. SJWs in the North and on the Pacific coast, keep the South under constant surveillance. They immediately pounce on any kind of grassroots Southern political movement that’s not controlled by them or their Kosher bosses. If the SPLC isn’t sufficient, then bus loads of activists from Minnesota or New Jersey can always be brought in. The media and even the Federal Government can ultimately be mobilised, along with the bulk of Northern public opinion, to stop any attempt by Southrons to improve their lives, or regain their sovereignty.
The average White Man in the North is mostly programmed into his own life, he really doesn’t think about whats going on around him. Like Archie Bunker he’ll complain but nothing comes out of it. Yes he hates the SJW”s but he thinks if he opposes them he’ll lose his job home etc. The Southern Man was in the 1950s almost always poor, he had nothing to lose. Although wealth has declined in the North and increased in the South the mindset is still there. How the SJW’s always got by in the North was making sure they kept the peasants eyes off them with distractions, like showing a child candy. Thus the Northern peasant is of no consequence to them.
That’s About what I thought.
All you have to understand is the mind of the average Northern Peasant. These peasants largely came from German and Scots Irish from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. All they ever wanted to do was farm and be left alone. They weren’t deep thinkers like the Southern aristocrat, weren’t really concerned with the rest of the world just as long as no one tried to take the farm they were hunky dory. Thomas Jefferson thought this was the model for the USA a bunch of freeholding farmers with no real interest in the outside world. The Indian worry was largely gone from the Old Northwest by 1830 except for the lake indians up in Wisconsin and Michigan, they weren’t fighters. Predatory animals were pretty well controlled by 1830 too, except in Michigan and Wisconsin.
The South had completely the opposite going on. It was a land of mountains swamps canebreaks, predatory Indians, renegade slaves, renegade whites, full of poisonous snakes and predatory animals. Life in Dixie meant living with DEATH every single day and it was like that even when my dad grew up though as he told me, you dont really realize it. The Plantation owners were largely greedy Jeffersonians, who didn’t give a crap about internal improvements except if it meant better river navigation and occasionally a rail line linking them to the big river.
Alabama was probably the least developed state in the Deep South next to Florida as it had almost no railroad infrastructure, Miss had the river and Georgia had multiple rivers and roads to the ocean. The worst place was probably Appalachia, except for East Tennessee, where the main rail line to Virginia went through, most of Western NC, Eastern Ky and Western Va and (West Virginia) were almost completely cut off from the outside world.
Extreme isolation, renegade Indians and slaves, bushwhackers feuds and everything else sharpens a mans senses. When you live with DEATH you’re just a different man. Think of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. What did Barry Corbin say, THIS COUNTRYS HARD ON A MAN. Uncle was gunned down by Injuns on the front porch. That was West Texas, but think about it from East Texas all the way to Virginia, the idea that a Negro revolt could start was ALWAYS in the back of a mans mind. People forgot about the Negro rampage in Gregg and Longview Co Tx in 1919
Excellent article with very good observations.
The solution you are offering sounds a lot like that being offered by Mr. Heimbach and Flowers of Traditional Workers Party.
There is a variety of this in Russia that seems to be linking political movement with action sports, entertainment (via music videos) and ancestral religious pride.
These are interesting in their one common thread: Culture Link.
Christian Youth rallies and these fascist oriented organizations have that Culture Link in common.
The idea of Culture Link may be an avenue in which we can operate in instead of Culture Pride which is always attacked if you’re European.
I could envision Culture Link activities being offered to Southern youth, while not being officially segregated, its activities would not be appealing to outside the group think.
The Alt-Right and Identity movements are working, but they need a real world interaction beside fighting Antifa if it is to be engrained in the culture.
Some Alt-Right movements would be great. The problem is that we seem to have extreme difficulty with getting anything rolling; lack of organizational skill and lack of (sufficient) money seem to be the main obstacles.
Germany should cool it with the Anti-Russian rhetoric
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LvCdSk6z7Sc&ebc=ANyPxKrl5uydgD68CX5Q5zbO68HZMBJqP29zL_K74f5oW4mBUzVA0hx84lho63qhMTZ5AGkuExlN
There’s a guy who ran for President last time who has some excellent ideas that are exactly like CasaPound.
http://www.scottsmith2016.com/
The thing is they are a plan that’s been worked. We need to address “what comes next”. How do you replace the money supply from a debt based system? How do you tax income or what do you tax? This guy has a plan and while I’m not sure all of it works it’s damn interesting. It cuts taxes of most people, replaces the banking system and ends all US debt in five years. He’s not some crazy person he is the actual person that invented “Mortgage Backed Securities”. In his original version they had normal valuations for housing and he had extra fees accounted for any housing that couldn’t be paid for. You can say the non Judophile version. It worked great because it provided money for housing and a stable known quantity investment for large pension funds, insurance companies and big investors.
Our money supply system is stupid. A child can see it’s stupid. All money is created as debt so to pay off the interest you have to have more money…created with more debt. Simple arithmetic will show you that the interest portion will grow to unsustainable levels as the debt compounds. Maybe this is the reason we are suffering so. Mass interest and debt accumulation. The people in control of the FED and other central bank owners are allowed to create any amount of currency while sticking us with the debt. Nice racket if you can get it. Since money is based on debt if we pay off all the debt…we would have NO MONEY!
There’s another way of thinking about this. If all the goods and services in the economy were backed or shadowed by an equivalent amount of currency we would have a situation were there would be debt but it would be owed to no one in particular. The cash would be a direct substitute for goods and services. Benjamin Franklin wrote about the currency in Pennsylvania that worked like this but based on land. It worked very well and provided prosperity for the whole community. Of course when the Bank of England found out about it the King made them stop causing the whole community to crash into a downward spiral. Possibly being one of the reasons for the revolution.
http://www.philadelphiafed.org/publications/economic-education/ben-franklin-and-paper-money-economy.pdf
Since the debt is compounding it can’t be sustained. They’ve already got this figured out. They’re going to Special Drawing Rights SDR’s. There will be a big financial crisis and SDR’s will come in to save the day. It will of course be the same rip off but on a bigger scale.
We should go to a money system that’s based on total goods and services. It could be inflationary, or not, but not necessarily any more than what we have now. All debt these days (bonds) are essentially monetized or currency anyways. You just borrow money on the value of the bonds. So doing away with bonds would not necessarily cause a cash inflation spiral as the bonds are likely monetized (cash) as it is.
For revenue instead of getting most from income taxes he would get revenue from settlements. Like every time you buy something or deposit a check in the bank, etc. The value of this is it massively raises the tax base so that the amount of each transaction is minuscule. I read, “For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization” by Charles Adams a book on taxes and it talked a lot about raising the tax base in order to lower the percentage taken from each transaction and to spread out where revenues came from.
Let’ look at the numbers he quotes.
Payrolls total $15 trillion.
Not much for filling a $4 trillion federal spending.
The base for what he calls payments, (transactions), is 3,600 Trillion. Big difference. So using this big difference he would only take a tax rate of just 1/8 of a percent.
He also would stop charging interest as the money is made and backed by the taxpayers. He would only give banks a service fee. (I don’t agree with this. I think a small interest paid to the Federal Gov. would be helpful providing the majority of it went to the treasury and bypassed the FED and banks.)
He’s got some great ideas on lots of issues. He’ll never get any publicity from the media with his cut out the FED ideas but they’re worth thinking about. My biggest problem is just how, even with such small percentage of tax, he would keep corporations and the 1% from gaming it so they pay none.
Another thing Smith wants to do is pay the debt off. He points out that all the debt pays interest so it gets bigger and bigger. There’s a not so evident twist to the debt. Here it is…as soon as the debt is issued it is financialized. It becomes money. It may be debt but in today’s world you can use this promise to pay to raise cash. Therefore the money supply is already inflated by the debt. Get it? Debt becomes cash through financialization.
He says,”…Coupon stripping would not be inflationary
because it would replace our existing supply of interest bearing
money with non-interest-bearing money…”
When he says coupon stripping he’s talking about the old time bonds. Here’s a picture.
http://www.coxrail.com/images/bond&coups.jpg
Each bond has coupons that when torn off at a certain date become money. He says we pay all the bonds off with non interest bearing CASH now instead of letting the debt inflate further. The bonds have become cash already so it’s not necessarily inflationary to turn them into cash.
Here’s another quote,”…Ironically, we would have inflated the money supply less if we had issued new money to pay for the deficit each year rather than selling Treasury bonds. At least ordinary money does not accrue interest…”
That being the case he says we should pay off all debt within five years.
Here’s a link to his pay off the debt page.
http://www.scottsmith2016.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Pay-Off-the-Debt.pdf
I think he’s somewhat right about turning debt into cash not being inflationary but not 100%. Some debt is parked and if they were forced to accept cash I have no doubt they would buy assets for cash causing some inflation. His point over all I believe is sound. That printing cash is less damaging to the economy than continuously expanding debt. Yes there is a limit to this. The damage is less when you have instant inflation than the delayed case of delayed debt. When you have instant feedback from printing cash you also can see the damage and correct it faster. The debt is hidden as it takes some money out of circulation while NOT extinguishing it. When debt is turned to cash it’s influence can’t be stopped as easy.
http://www.scottsmith2016.com/
I apologize for the length but some of the things discussed in this excellent post of Hunters are great but if you have no idea how to implement them people will just ignore you. Here’s a thought out plan that at least shows a way to get from point A to point B.