Update 6:23pm CT,July 8: PayPal deleted both accounts associated with Owen Benjamin. We regularly assess activity against our Acceptable Use Policy and carefully review actions reported to us, and will discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate our policies, a company spokesperson told the Daily Dot in a statement.

Update #2 8:41am CT, July 9: On Thursday, a YouTube spokesperson said that the company had begun deleting the accounts. Only one of the seven which was inadvertently left out of an inquiry to the companyremains live. A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement,All users agree to comply with ourTerms of ServiceandCommunity Guidelineswhen they sign up to use YouTube. When users violate these policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts.

The original post follows below.

Owen Benjamin has called internet bans a joke. Yet he seems unwilling to accept them.

Last year, Benjamin, an alt-right comedian, was banned by the major platforms. In short order, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, PayPal, and Patreon permanently booted him for violating their policies against hate speech. Hes suing Patreon for $3.5 million over its ban.

The alt-right is a loose collection of conservatives that harbor white supremacists.

In March, the Daily Dot reported that hed apparently launched at least seven YouTube channels in an attempt to circumvent the ban. All seven were subsequently removed by the platform.

Now it looks like hes back.

The Daily Dot has found seven new channels that seem to belong to him, though they also may have been launched by fans doing his bidding. Benjamin is never shy about asking his followers, whom he calls Bears (he calls himself Big Bear), for favors and cash.

Theres Owen Benjamin Big Bear (21,000 subscribers), Owen Benjamin Big Bear v1 (1,400 subscribers), Owen Benjamin Big Bear v2 (80 subscribers) Mountain Bear 2.0 (2,600 subscribers), Anchor Bear (4,800 subscribers), and Big Bear Music Reconbear (560 subscribers), and Im Not Owen Benjamin v5 (7,400 subscribers).

Previous mirror channels, as the duplicates are known, were named Im Not Owen Benjamin v3 and v4, respectively.

Most launched after the Daily Dot reported on the seven mirror channels. Big Bear Music Reconbear is an exception; it launched in 2013. Videos on the channel date back just 10 months to shortly before Benjamin was banned from YouTube last December.

Benjamin did not respond to an email inquiry sent to an address listed on his DLive channel this afternoon.

As before, the content on these channels looks to be exclusively Benjamins.

YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether these channels violate the ban, or if it would violate Benjamins ban if they were created the channels by others.

YouTubes community guidelines broadly prohibit channels and content that impersonates others or is intended to look like someone else is posting it.

Channels claiming to be a fan account, but actually posing as anothers channel and reuploading their content, are specifically prohibited.

So even if these channels were created by Benjamins fans, they could still be in violation of YouTubes rules.

The channels could also violate other policies. Benjamin has a track record of repeatedly making anti-Semitic and other bigoted statements, as well as spreading conspiracy theories and lies.

In a June 28 video Benjamin calls it preposterous to say the Union freed slaves in the Civil War, and implies that Black slaves supported the Confederacy.

Why were so many Blacks fighting for the Confederacy you might ask yourself, Benjamin said.

Have you ever tried to shoot a gun in chains? Have you ever tried to pick cotton in chains? The lies are becoming absurd.

In other videos he speaks pejoratively about grabblers, a derogatory term for Jewish people that he invented in part to avoid getting flagged for hate speech.

The three versions of the Owen Benjamin Big Bear channels include a contingency plan in case YouTube shuts them down.

One says, Youtube try to shut down our channel. Please, Subscribe to our second channel. [sic]

The main channel describes itself as Owen Benjamin Channel.

All three use the same icon for an avatar.

Two of the channels link to a Facebook group also called Owen Benjamin Big Bear. In a video from June 15, he says that his Instagram is now closed.

I will be not adding any more people.

The three Big Bear channels and the Im Not Owen Benjmain v5 link to PayPal accounts named Owen Benjamin Big Bear and Papa J. Bear, respectively.

In a recent video, Benjamin bragged, PayPal takes a few months before they figure out whos doing it.

PayPal is among the companies that banned him. In response to the Daily Dots inquiry, a PayPal spokesperson said that the company will look into whether the accounts are linked to Benjamin.

Given that Benjamin has joked that being kicked off platforms doesnt bother him, that he thinks its funny, it may seem strange that heor his fanswould bother to circumvent bans, never mind sue over them, especially considering that he still has other platforms to post content and fundraising streams available.

But money doesnt make itself, and Benjamins preferred way of making money is having his fans give it to him. The more ways he can reach them, the more money he presumably makes.

As the Daily Dot reported earlier this week, lately hes been begging followers to give him millions to buy a ranch in northern Idaho, which hes calling BearTaria. On DLive, a video hosting platform with more permissive terms of service than YouTube, he directs people to a fundraising page set up specifically for this purpose.

Donors are promised access to the campground, space permitting, of course.

All donations are non-refundable.

READ MORE:

Excerpt from:

Banned by PayPal and YouTube, this alt-right comedian is back on PayPal and YouTube (updated) - The Daily Dot

When Rachel Maddow published her recent book, Blowout, claiming that Russia in confluence with the oil lobby had conspired to bring Donald Trump to power in revenge for the US punitive measures in response to the annexation of Crimea, I had taken an issue with her central premise based on two arguments: timeline and the rise of white nationalists. By the time the annexation of Crimea and the following opprobrium could have policy implications. several developments like the rise of populist leaders like Modi and the strengthening of white nationalist groups were already in motion. I do not think Maddow has done justice to that aspect. But one of her self-confessed admirers, Stephen Bannon, Trumps former chief strategist, might be of some help.

Bannon believes in dharma and is a fan of the Bhagavad Gita. It is funny how these white nationalists and fringe ideologues take what suits them from the sacred book. For instance, his faith in his own dharma (righteous duty) owes itself to an interaction between Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu) and Prince Arjuna. The prince is refusing to fight a war and Vishnu through Krishna reveals his true and imposing form. This is also the source of Oppenheimers famous line, Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. We will return to Vishnu and the alt-rights fascination with this deity and his destructive powers. Let us keep our eyes on Bannon for now.

Mumbai-based libertarian writer and podcaster Amit Verma has written a blogpost recollecting his meeting with Bannon and an unnamed woman (most probably Rebekah Mercer) in 2015, in New York, where he was asked if he would be interested in launching Breitbart India. Breitbart, originally a conservative online paper, has become a breeding ground for the alt-right. When Verma refused the offer Bannon told him, Well, we think that Modi is Indias Reagan. This is when Bannon had not joined the Trump campaign and barely personally knew the man. It is interesting how everyone who stands in Bannons way is destroyed. Bannon wants Andrew Breitbarts job, he drops dead. Bannon wants Paul Manaforts job, he is disgraced and forced to resign. He is wary of Roger Ailes stealing his thunder, he drops dead.

Bannon claims he is not a racist or a neo-Nazi but his views resonate with Hitlers propaganda. Hitler would blame the political elite of Germany which betrayed its countrymen in consonance with global moneyed Jewry. Bannon believes that Americas permanent political elite has betrayed its people in consonance with what he calls the party of Davos (international business elite). Like Hitler, he is an accelerationist who wants to bring everything down to build it anew and is renting an 800-year-old monastery in Italy to train gladiators to fight the coming wars at an annual cost of 100,000 per annum from his own pocket. That is where Vishnu the destroyer of the world fits into his narrative.

Speaking of Vishnu and Hitler, I told you two weeks ago that Savitri Devi, a Hindu convert of European origin and of Nazi persuasion, believed that Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu. Savitri Devis works have worked as the Rosetta Stone of neo-Nazism and Hindutva connection. Her book, The Lightning and the Sun, led me back to Turner Diaries publisher National Vanguard Books and to its recent publisher Counter-Currents. Her book, A Warning to the Hindus, led me to Hindutva philosophys founder VD Savarkar whose brother SD Savarkar wrote the foreword of the book. The Nazis believed in the fundamental inequality of humanity but did not have a religious philosophy. Savitri Devi provided them one by deifying Hitler and through effective exploitation of the cast-ist theology of monism. The only problem with this invention is that todays Nazis neither consider Indians as their equals or Aryans. It is a disaster waiting to happen as we will show you.

Interestingly, the man responsible for bringing Savitri Devis work to Counter-Currents is one John Morgan, who before coming to this publishing house, had co-founded another neo-Nazi house Arktos media in Budapest with Swedish white nationalist Daniel Friberg in 2009. In 2010, Arktos moved to India where it remained till (surprise surprise) 2014. During this period Friberg had a frequent truck with the RSS and BJP leaders and explored ways to work with them. Soon, Arktos would start publishing Hindutva books with equal fervour hitherto reserved for white nationalist literature. When in 2016 Morgan and Friberg split and Morgan joined Counter-Currents, Friberg combined forces with white nationalist and one-time Trump supporter Richard Spencer to establish AltRight.com.

The alt-rights online presence needs some closer scrutiny. It is commonly believed it emerged from gaming-related imageboards and websites like 4chan and Reddit. These websites, by the way, are infested with both neo-Nazis and Hindutva extremists. These origins are also important because Bannon in the documentary American Dharma made on his life let slip an illuminating anecdote. He talks about a nobody called Dave who one day dropped dead in his office and nobody, not even his family knew him well. However, in the gaming community, he was known as Ajax. And in a multiplayer game, thousands gathered to pay tribute to Ajax at his funeral. What it tells us is that the real meetings and planning of alt-right activities might be taking place in virtual and possibly gaming space.

And no wonder, the number of alt-right and neo-Nazi inspired groups keeps increasing. A recent group to emerge is called Boogaloo Bois which seems to be preparing for the second civil war. It calls itself libertarian not white nationalist, but the tactics employed are textbook Turner Diaries. What if like Bannons this is an attempt to obscure the truth and they all are separated pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that are assembled together whenever a race war and violent overthrow of the system is imminent. Bannon talks against the system, Alex Jones talks against the system and Boogaloo movement does so too. In Turner Diaries, the system is the name of a corrupt Jewish ruling elite that wants to turn whites into a minority. Bannon talks of the coming violent disruption as if it is imminent. Neo-Nazism 101.

One last piece of the puzzle: money. When Access Hollywood tape was leaked, everyone thought Trumps campaign was over and donors were ditching, who came to his rescue? An Indian billionaire Shalabh Kumar. Is it too much to suggest that instead of Americas deep state the very same people who came to Trumps rescue might be responsible for the tapes leak so that they can isolate and have Trump for themselves? This money must have gone to some alt-right groups as well.

If a race war is being planned in America and Europe it cannot be anything for the immigrant population including the Indian expatriates. Here is a quote from Turner Diaries: They have us vastly outmanned and outgunned, but not one of their leaders is motivated by anything other than self-interest. They are ready to betray the System the instant they can see an advantage in doing so. For now, we mustnt let them know that they are all inevitably headed for the gallows. Let them think they can make a deal with us and save their necks when the System falls.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2020.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.

Original post:

The saffron swastika - The Express Tribune

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand police and security services were warned of a threat against another mosque for the same day that a gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch in 2019, an Islamic womens group told an inquiry into the shooting massacre.

FILE PHOTO: Armed police officers stand guard outside Al Noor mosque where more than 40 people were killed by a suspected white supremacist during Friday prayers on March 15, in Christchurch, New Zealand April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su

The Islamic Womens Council of New Zealand said it warned police and security services repeatedly about threats from white supremacists, including when they received a Facebook message threatening to burn the Quran outside a mosque in Hamilton on March 15, 2019, the same day as the Christchurch attack.

Although the threat was not directly connected to the mass shooting, extra security measures could have been taken at all mosques, said the submission to the closed-door inquiry which was made public on Tuesday.

The police had enough intelligence to warrant a coordinated national strategy, the group said in the 130-page submission

If there had been such a strategy, then the message would have alerted every mosque in the country to a threat to one mosque on Friday 15 March 2019 and for all mosques to take extra security measures. Whether or not the threat was connected to the Christchurch killer is irrelevant.

Armed with semi-automatic weapons, Australian Brenton Tarrant, a suspected white supremacist, attacked two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019, broadcasting New Zealands worst mass shooting live on Facebook.

Tarrant has pleaded guilty and a court will begin his sentencing on Aug 24.

The Islamic Womens Council submission said police, security services and government representatvies were focused only on combating terrorism by Muslim extremists, leaving the community vulnerable to the rising alt-right movement.

Evidence indicates that public sector employees were, at best, asleep on the job and, at worst, intentionally

ignoring our pleas and actively undermining our work, Aliya Danzeisen, who leads the groups government engagement, said in a statement.

Police said no comment would be made until the Royal Commission had concluded. However, on the specific threat in the report it said the person was identified and formally warned.

A government spokesman said the government will wait for the Commissions report before making any comment.

The Royal Commission inquiry into the shooting massacre is due report its finding by end of July.

Threats to the Muslim community have continued since the attack, with a threatening social media post appearing earlier this year.

New Zealand, unlike the United States or Britain, has never recorded specific hate crime offences, raising questions about what signs security agencies may have missed.

Islamic Womens Council estimates there would not be a Muslim woman in New Zealand who wears the head scarf who has not been abused in public at some time.

Read more:

New Zealand police warned of another mosque threat before Christchurch shooting massacre - Reuters

For as long as I can remember, Ive participated in church services and prayer meetings where I prayed fervently for revival. We cried out for another Great Awakening. It was through repentance and reconciliation that wed truly heal our land. I must confess, I wasnt sure Id ever live to see a truly large-scale religious awakening. But here we are. Here it is. Theres just one catch.

Its not Christian.

It is, however, quite fundamentalist.

Look, I know full-well that there is nothing original about observing that many Americans have transformed politics into a religion. The phrase Great Awokening is a direct callback to arguably the most significant Christian religious revival of our nations past. Its not original, nor is it surprising. Were hard-wired for a spiritual purpose. After all, Ecclesiastes 3:11 declares that God put eternity in the hearts of men.

The signs of political-religious fervor are incandescently clear. Heres John McWhorter, writing in The Atlantic, describing the religious elements of what he calls third-wave antiracism:

[T]hird-wave antiracism is a profoundly religious movement in everything but terminology. The idea that whites are permanently stained by their white privilege, gaining moral absolution only by eternally attesting to it, is the third waves version of original sin. The idea of a someday when America will come to terms with race is as vaguely specified a guidepost as Judgment Day. Explorations as to whether an opinion is problematic are equivalent to explorations of that which may be blasphemous. The social mauling of the person with problematic thoughts parallels the excommunication of the heretic. What is called virtue signaling, then, channels the impulse that might lead a Christian to an aggressive display of her faith in Jesus.

McWhorter was discussing anti-racism, but his analysis applies to elements of the intersectional left more broadly. Heres Andrew Sullivan with a similar analysis:

[Intersectionality] is operating, in Orwells words, as a smelly little orthodoxy, and it manifests itself, it seems to me, almost as a religion. It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., check your privilege, and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay. The sin goes so deep into your psyche, especially if you are white or male or straight, that a profound conversion is required.

Make no mistake, political religious fervor is not contained to the left. There are times when Trumpism veers directly onto religious turf. Sometimes quite explicitly. Observe the First Baptist Church of Dallas choir sing a hymn called Make America Great Again:

Spend any time around the new Trump right, and youre immediately seized by how closely it tracks that ole time religionwith Trump serving as the charismatic circuit-riding evangelist. People wonder about his deep bond with so many millions of rural Americans, but its obvious to observers who grew up in the Southeven if Trumps a New York reality star, hes still connecting with a deep (and idealized) rural cultural memory.

The result isnt just enthusiastic political support (political rallies and preacher-style rhetoric are nothing new in American politics) but a sense of identity, fellowship, and religious passion thats syncretistic with Christianity, with Trump serving as the Lords mighty instrument of justice and righteousness.

So, yes, secular religion is breaking out across the land. Thats old news. Heres whats newits growing so very dark. We dont need to repeat all the recent excesses of cancel culture to know that many anti-racist progressives are in the midst of a hunt for ideological heretics, and even the oldest sins cant be forgiven. Consider that on Friday a Boeing executive resigned after an employee complained about an article he wrote 33 years ago opposing women in combat.

(For the record, Im now ineligible to work at Boeing because I wrote against Pentagon policy changes permitting women to serve in ground combat roles a mere five years ago, and I stand by my argument.)

And if you think religious Trumpism is sweetness and light, you havent been paying attention. In fact, right-wing Trumpism is trying its best to build its own cancel culture, aimed at purging right-wing institutions of anti-Trump voicesor at abusing them and hounding them online and in real life.Cruelty isnt just a means to an end. Its often the point.

At the edges of Trumpism sit the racist alt-right and the followers of Q, a conspiracy theory so bizarre, incomprehensible, and paranoid that you strain to understand how anyone can believe its claims. Yet its growing in strength, and it occupies a deeply spiritual place in the lives of its adherents.

This darkness requires us to circle back to a word in the opening paragraphs of this essayfundamentalist. The more I experienced the extremes of both left and right, the more I felt like words such as illiberal or authoritarian or even religious didnt quite capture the totality of the devotion and the darkness of the world view. Fundamentalist is a better match. Our nations secular revival looks and feels very much like the fundamentalism Ive seen with my own eyes. It looks and feels like the fundamentalism Ive experienced. And so, on Friday, I tweeted this:

I want to be clear what I mean when I say fundamentalist. The word isnt a mere synonym for religious or evangelical or orthodox or devoted. Each of those words (hopefully) describe me! One or more of those words can describe members of many faiths, including revivalists in the Great Awokening. Ive met many secular, woke, intersectional, pronoun-announcing folks who are also open-hearted and open-minded.Politics may be their religion, but their practice is not grim.

To understand the distinction between fundamentalism and, say, evangelicalism or other forms of devotion, I want to go back to Ecclesiastes 3:11 and quote the entire verse: He has made everything appropriatein its time.He has also put eternity in their hearts,but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.

Let me quote another verse, this one from the New Testament: Fornow we see in a mirror dimly, butthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even asI have been fully known.

Both of these passages speak to the existence of an immovable, irreducible amount of uncertainty in this world, including mysteries about God Himself.

Recall the end of the book of Job, when the righteous, suffering man demands an explanation for his plight from the God of the universe, and the God of the universe responds with an extended soliloquy that essentially declares, Im God, and youre not. And what is Jobs response? Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

As a consequence, while there are many, many things we can know about Godand many things we can learnwe must approach our faith and our world with a sense of existential humility.

And that is exactly the quality that the fundamentalist lacks. Its the fierce existential certainty of the fundamentalist that is so often the root of authoritarianism and illiberalism. Im reminded of the old religious maxim, Error has no rights. That impulse lies at the heart of much of the Christian nationalist/integralist critique of classical liberalism. That impulse lies at the heart of the speech code and the metastasizing intolerance of woke capitalism.

In a culture stripped of existential humility, the only valuable speech is the speech of those who speak existential truth. Dissent harms the body politic by introducing error. Thus free speechas an independent liberty interestcannot possibly be in the common good. The common good is advanced only by truth, and thus only truth has rights.

And what is that fundamentalist truth? Strangely enough, it can shift. A fundamentalist can be both absolutely certain of their faith and endlessly adaptable to new revelation. Opinions held one year ago can be an anathema today. New leaders can rise and make new spiritual demands. Indeed, fundamentalism can be just as much about whom to follow as what to believe.

The deeper the fundamentalism, the more inscrutable its language, culture, and beliefs to those outside the circle of trust. At the extreme edges, like QAnon, the belief system can seem so nonsensical that youre tempted to wonder about the emotional and mental health of its adherents. But even the practices of more acceptable or mainstream fundamentalism can seem both strange and cruel.

Try explaining to someone outside the faith the idea that its necessary to destroy a mans career over a 33-year-old essay expressing an entirely mainstream political position.

Try explaining to someone outside the faith the idea of paying up to $2,500 for two women to come to your home and berate you to the point of tears for your alleged racism and white supremacy.

Try explaining to someone outside the faith well, this:

Fundamentalism is the disease, and illiberalism and authoritarianism are two of its political symptoms. Fundamentalism purports to fill that eternity-sized hole in the human heart, and it thus provides a person with a sense of burning purpose and meaning. It is not a grift (though grifters do prey on fundamentalists). It is not malicious (though a sense of righteous certainty can justify and excuse malicious acts). It is an identity.

What is to be done with our nations toxic fundamentalist revival? Heres a short but difficult list: First, reaffirm our nations commitments to pluralism. It is central to our classical liberal founding that error does, in fact, have rights. Second, construct and cultivate opposing institutions that model the values of humility, charity, and free inquiry that we seek to advance. Third, maintain a wide-open door to converts. And fourth, pray without ceasing for our nation and its people.

As longtime readers know, I grew up in a church that had strong fundamentalist roots. Ive seen many people leave fundamentalism and enter religious communities that were rich with the fruits of the spirit, including love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness. I have not, however, seen people battered, mocked, and berated out of fundamentalism. Indeed, anger and intolerance directed at the angry and intolerant often only serve to deepen the fundamentalists sense of conviction and purpose.

In other words, the fight fire with fire logic of the competing fundamentalist strains of the American secular revival is precisely wrong. One flame doesnt eradicate (or even permanently defeat) the other. They both feed each other, until the conflagration spirals out of control. Instead, fight this fundamentalist fire with water, the living water from the Holy Spirit of a loving God.

One last thing ...

Our present national crisis should make us angry, but that anger shouldnt focus on our friends and neighbors. They are not the enemy of our souls. I like this new song from We the Kingdom. Ive highlighted the group before (theyre from my church), and theyre a reader favorite. Their new song is fierce and defiantand aimed at exactly the right target:

Photograph by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images.

See the original post here:

America Is in the Grips of a Fundamentalist Revival - The Dispatch

Stock image of a woman in a mask.

On July 8, 2020, during a special meeting of Mendocino Countys Board of Supervisors, the board voted unanimously for penalties to individuals who refuse to comply with facial coverings guidelines.

According to a draft of the proposed ordinance, the fines range from one hundred dollars ($100.00) for the first violation; two hundred dollars ($200.00) for the second violation; and five hundred dollars (500.00) for third or subsequent violations if the subsequent violations occur within one year of the first violation.

The ordinance says fines will apply to any individual person to willfully or negligently refuse to wear a Facial Covering after an Enfofrcement Officer has informed the person that a Facial Covering is requiredunless the individual articulates a truthful, valid reason for not wearing a facial covering that is also one of the exceptions provided below.

The ordinance will take effect immediately as an urgency ordinance, and shall be applicable as of July 8, 2020, the date of approval of this ordinance.

As to those that can enforce the masking requirements, the ordinances language allows for both law enforcement personnel and anyone designated by the Health Officer including county employees, contractors, or anyone designated by Mendocino Countys Chief Executive Officer.

Exemptions from wearing facial coverings range from children under the age of two years old, persons who are hearing impaired, incarcerated individuals, and makes room for medical exemptions as well. The ordinance does specify that anyone claiming medical exemption bears the burden of proof through appropriate evidence that their medical condition qualifies them for the exemption.

The ordinance defines when facial coverings are required: All individual persons must wear a Facial Covering before they enter, and at all times while inside an indoor facility or any enclosed space, besides their residence, and outdoors when unable to maintain a six-foot distance from other persons outside of their own household or Non-distancing Stable Group.

The draft ordinance makes room for those issued citations erroneously to appeal their fines. An individual who wants their citation reviewed would document their appeal in writing and then the County Health Officer or a designee would determine whether the fine was issued appropriately or not. The model allows for, Any Responsible Party aggrieved by an administrative decision of a Hearing Officer or by the decision of the Hearing Officer may obtain further review by filing a petition for review with the Mendocino County Superior Court.

Mendocino Countys 5th District Supervisor, Ted Williams, explained, The state already made it law to follow the health orders including facial coverings. Under state law, its a misdemeanor. None of us seem willing to find individuals $10,000 or send them to jail. Today, we passed a separate offense that is only an infraction. Section 7 makes it clear that this new offense applies to persons, not a commercial activity. Commercial activity is still covered under the state misdemeanor.

In a presentation to the board, Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall compared the utilization of an infraction citation for eschewing facial coverings to those issued when seatbelt ordinances were first enacted. He said the fines and fees are a little stiff but it gets the point across and protects Mendocino Countys District Attorneys office from increasing the countys already-backlogged court system.

Sheriff Kendall also expressed concern that I have concerns that a person who wont sign a citation when that occurs, an arrest is a remedy. He hoped to not see use of force issues stemming from infractions, however, the violator will be the person that makes ultimately makes the decisions about their fate in these encounters.

Read this article:

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Approves Issuance of Fines for Refusing to Wear Facial Coverings - Redheaded Blackbelt

On May 4, far right personalities Milo Yiannopoulos and Michelle Malkin published what they call their America First reading list as a Google Doc that they then promoted through their social media accounts. Yiannopoulos has recently gained attention for promoting conspiracy theories about both COVID-19 and the recent anti-police brutality protests across the United States. Malkin, who might be best known for writing a book arguing that Japanese internment during World War II was justified, has similarly promoted dangerous disinformation about COVID-19 and reduced Movement for Black Lives protesters to invaders [and] ransackers. None of this is out of character for a pair whose recommended reading list is rife with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, paranoid invasion fantasies, and at least one prominent fascist philosopher who explicitly denied the notion that he should rely on empirical evidence.

It might be tempting to dismiss the list as another stunt by attention-hungry provocateurs or an attempt to give a racist and misogynist worldview an intellectual veneer. However, it is worth paying attention to what their literary choices reveal about their ideology, the narratives that underpin it, and the connection between those narratives and real-world violence.

The first thing their list attempts to do is establish just what constitutes American literature. This holds true despite the fact that many of the titles were not written by Americans at all: the lists creators are invested in defining the United States strictly as an outgrowth of pre-modern Europe, so it should come as no surprise that it includes older canonical texts by figures like Homer, Ovid, St. Augustine and Shakespeare in addition to Americana like Huckleberry Finn and Paul Reveres Ride. The publication dates for most of its more modern literature by U.S. authors peter out by the early 1960s (Ray Bradburys 1963 novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, for instance) with only a small handful of more recent novels, such as the self-published, remarkably poorly written 2019 accelerationist novel Harassment Architecture by Mike Ma.

Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.

In a tab on the Google Doc marked HOW TO READ, Yiannopoulos and Malkin address their readers directly, writing, The purpose of this list is to help you build a library that will give you a firm basis in history, politics, religion and theology. That firm basis manages to exclude the entire wealth of Black and Indigenous perspectives. Their understanding of modern American literature leaves no room for a Toni Morrison or a Leslie Marmon Silko, and their classics certainly have no place for a Frederick Douglass or a W.E.B. DuBois. Instead, they opt for a virtual how-to manual for white resentment and violence.

Having established that what they understand as American literary culture is innately and almost exclusively derived from Europe, the next thing their list does is reassert the narratives of invasion, resistance and expansion that have fueled the far right imagination for decades. Possibly the lists clearest example of an invasion narrative is recently deceased French author Jean Raspails 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints, a book Yiannopoulos and Malkin indicate is a must read and that has been championed by far right figures from Steve Bannon to leaders of Europes identitarian movement. The Camp tells of a ramshackle armada of boats carrying an undifferentiated mass of impoverished Indian migrants who literally eat feces and invade Europe like zombies, displacing its white inhabitants in the process. It begins with an anecdote about a pedigreed university professor who murders a young hippie for supporting the migrants (in 1973, it was still possible for the far right to characterize academics as upholders of Western superiority, rather than its destroyers). In fact, throughout the novel, the real villains are less the migrants than the media, political and religious elites, as well as the hedonistic activists who advocate for the nameless, faceless, brown-skinned horde. In all, the novels plot amounts to an updated stab-in-the-back myth.

Many on the far right have described the book as prophetic since a new wave of migrants began arriving on Europes Mediterranean shores in 2015 and renewed attention has been focused on undocumented immigration at the southern border of the United States since Donald Trumps election campaign began that same year. Pat Buchanan, who recently used The Camp of the Saints as a metaphor for an article about Syrian migrants on the white nationalist website VDARE, has two titles on the reading list, one of which is another must read; VDARE founder and white nationalist Peter Brimelow has one title on the list as well.

In case all of that is still too subtle, invasion narratives also dovetail neatly with the great replacement theory that motivated, among other things, the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. Shooter Brenton Tarrant titled his manifesto The Great Replacement and wrote, We must crush immigration and deport those invaders already living on our soil.

Over the past year, Yiannopoulos and Malkin have been working closely with the groyper movement, which is essentially an alt-right (white nationalist) rebrand since the old label became too toxic following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. In fact, it is groyper-in-chief Nick Fuentess podcast that gave the movement and the reading list the America First slogan. (Fuentes, one of the very fine people who attended Unite the Right, borrowed the phrase from Donald Trumps inauguration speech.) Groypers are a constituency already moved by the overheated rhetoric of invasion and replacement, and so attacking or, as they would say, resisting the classes of people they regard as responsible for facilitating the invasion is a logical next step.

The reading list includes both Italian fascist intellectual Julius Evolas Revolt Against the Modern World and Unabomber Ted Kaczynskis manifesto Industrial Society and its Future, which Yiannopoulos and Malkin describe as a rejection of the modern world. Either one of these texts is toxic enough by itself, but in conjunction with one another, they amount to a further indication that the list provides both a theoretical rationale and a moral justification for violent attacks on such modern notions as democracy, egalitarianism, feminism and multiculturalism. Where Evola draws on a mythologized past of undiluted elitism and authoritarian, masculine heroism that, he argues, needs to be reclaimed (while explicitly rejecting any need for empirical evidence), Kaczynski, whose 17-year bombing campaign killed three people and injured 23 others, rails against a leftist psychology that he claims is symptomatic of a sick industrial society. Like many contemporary reactionaries, Kaczynski despises political correctness, which he says has its stronghold among university professors. Not coincidentally, it is university professors who were the most frequent targets of Kaczynskis mail bombs.

The list also included more overt resistance narratives. It initially featured The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce (it has since been removed with no explanation given). The Turner Diaries is a novel about a clandestine movement of white men who use racialized terrorism and nuclear warfare to take back the United States from Jewish usurpers and what Pierce portrays as the mindless, sex-crazed Black and Latino men who act as their enforcers. Pierce was the leader of the militant white supremacist organization National Alliance and his novel inspired neo-Nazi terror group The Order, which was responsible for murdering talk radio host Alan Berg in 1984. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh evangelized the book, traveling to gun shows to sell it (and its sequel, Hunter) to like-minded people; his bombing attack on the Murrah Building closely resembled a similar act described in detail in Pierces text. Investigators found portions of it in his getaway car. Germanys National Socialist Underground (NSU), which murdered 10 people and injured others in a years-long terror campaign against a mostly Turkish immigrant population, also took inspiration from The Turner Diaries: NSU member Uwe Mundlos translated several chapters of the book into German and a digital copy was found on a hard drive in an apartment Mundlos and his two primary accomplices had rented while underground.

The list also supports narratives of expansion, a central theme of classical fascism. It includes multiple titles that seek to [set] the record straight about the Crusades, a historical reference point that is ubiquitous in online far right discourse and invokes images of violent confrontation between Western warriors and Muslim Saracens. Moreover, the reading list and the compilers commentary constantly refer to a theme of Christian superiority and its inseparability from Western identity. They describe one must read title as explaining why the noblest virtues all rest on Christian principles and another as articulating how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination. At the same time, Willa Cather, the lone female author on the list who isnt a post-civil rights-era right-wing polemicist, may well be a fine writer, but Yiannopoulos and Malkin summarize their interest in her books by emphasizing her focus on the resilient women who settled the Great Plains. By constantly emphasizing the heroism of the colonizer while completely excluding any voice of the colonized, they make it clear that a certain kind of invasion is, in fact, acceptable to them. In brief, the sum total of the outlook supported by these texts is a justification of all past (and, presumably, present and future) colonial efforts by virtuous Western Christians at the expense of whatever Other is at hand.

The list is also heavy on anti-Semitic literature (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Kevin MacDonalds Culture of Critique, and yes, Hitlers Mein Kampf, although the latter has also been removed without explanation); masculinist or anti-feminist texts (Jack Donovans The Way of Men or several titles by Camille Paglia); and overt white nationalist screeds by the likes of Jared Taylor, Vox Day and Ann Coulter. Yiannopoulos and Malkins commentary is revealing here. They acknowledge that the Protocols are a hoax, but they say nothing about why they felt a fraudulent text produced in Tsarist Russia should be included anyway. They describe Culture of Critique as a highly controversial historical survey of the roots of anti-semitism [sic]. This is, at best, a grossly misleading summary. MacDonalds book is not so much an exploration of why other people have turned on Jews in the past, but rather why he believes Jews should be hated. His focus on what he believes is Jewish culpability, rather than other peoples attitudes toward Jews, is evident right in the books subtitle: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements. In fact, Culture is the final book of a trilogy and the subtitles of the other two, Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy and Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism only emphasize MacDonalds presumption that Jews are inherently, indeed genetically, predisposed to maintaining a subversive communal identity separate from whatever other populations they encounter. His analysis seldom rises above the level of condemning the clannish nature of international, cosmopolitan Jewry.

Yiannopoulos and Malkin have a history of brushing off claims of racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism by invoking their own genre of identity politics. Yiannopoulos could not possibly be anti-Semitic, because he is part Jewish; Malkin obviously cannot be misogynist because she is a woman. And neither of them could ever be racist because he claims he is married to a Black man (whose name he has never revealed and whose face has never been seen publicly) and she is Filipina and married to a Jewish man. Yiannopoulos, however, was banned from Twitter for leading a viciously racist and misogynist campaign against a Black actor and notoriously filmed singing America the Beautiful while his erstwhile friend Richard Spencer and others gave Nazi salutes. For her part, Malkin has openly supported anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and the white nationalist aspirations of the groyper movement.

One of the major tools of contemporary far right movements like the alt-right, Europes identitarians, and now the groypers is what they call metapolitics. It is a concept borrowed from mid-century Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci that was introduced to far right circles by Armin Mohler, a post-WWII German apologist for fascism, in a 1946 dissertation that codified what he called Germanys interwar Conservative Revolution. The concept gained popularity in the European far right through the work of Mohlers mentee Alain de Benoist and his notion of right-wing Gramscianism. De Benoist, the intellectual leader of Frances Nouvelle Droite (New Right), co-authored a Manifesto of the New Right for the Year 2000, which described metapolitics as, not another way of doing politics. It has nothing to do with a strategy that aims to impose an intellectual hegemony any more than it claims to disqualify other possible approaches or attitudes. It rests solely on the observation that ideas play a fundamental role in collective consciousnesses and, more broadly, in the entire history of men. In practice, far right metapolitics is a process of using cultural means to make far right ideas more palatable, or what many of its practitioners refer to as shifting the Overton window, which represents the outer limits of acceptable discourse.

The America First reading list clearly falls within the metapolitical sphere. It is nothing if not an overt attempt to instill a very narrowly defined conception of American culture in the minds of a young, overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male constituency that is already predisposed to racialized and gendered resentment. As we have seen from Christchurch to El Paso, Oslo to Pittsburgh, their cohort is already prone to explosive and deadly violence.

It is possible to dismiss the America First reading list as just another manifestation of the far right echo chamber and the urge for people like Yiannopoulos and Malkin to keep drawing attention to themselves. However, it also provides useful insights into the mindset of their groyper constituency and related far right sects, as well as the pathways that lead from their exclusionary ideology to violent action. Three years after Unite the Right and in the midst of both a pandemic and a rapidly evolving push for anti-racist social and political change, understanding the process by which the far right propagates narratives of invasion, resistance and expansion in the interest of establishing its own sense of legitimacy is still a necessary precondition for effective opposition to their objectives.

Original post:

Far Right Reading List Shows Link Between Its Literature and Real-World Violence - Truthout