REPORT: NATIONAL-ANARCHIST MOVEMENT CONFERENCE (DAY TWO)

by Keith Preston

Troy Southgate: "Oswald Spengler's 'Der Mensch die Technik'"

On the second day of the conference, Troy Southgate opened with a very far-reaching discussion of Oswald Spengler's work “Der Mensch die Technik” (“Man and Technics”), originally published in 1931, and which contains a discussion of Spengler’s view of the role of technology in modern societies.

Spengler argued that contrary to the assumptions of Enlightenment-derived thought, which tends to regard technological development as linear, unbreakable, and optimal, the historical record actually indicates significant periods of technological regression. The most well-known were those which occurred in Egypt following the era of the Great Pyramids, in Western Europe following the collapse of Rome, and in China following its high point in the Middle Ages.

Spengler argued that modern Western civilization may well suffer a similar fate, and suggested that a fatal flaw in technological progress is the tendency of civilizations to engage in a technological overextension that ultimately becomes self-defeating. Spengler was particularly concerned about the combination of tremendous technological advancement with materialism and economism in the Western world of modernity.

Troy pointed out that Spengler was not an anarchist, but an advocate of dictatorship where the leader would assume the role of an orchestra conductor (hence, Spengler’s enthusiasm for National Socialism). However, his critique of technological evolution as representing a cyclical process is one that may have much relevance if indeed modern civilization were to experience a technological regression of the kind that prior civilizations have witnessed. Such occurrences would require massive adjustments by modern peoples regarding their ways of life.

Sean Jobst: "Zionism and Globalism: A Threat to All Communities"

Sean Jobst discussed the relationship between globalism and Zionism, and his talk explored a range of different issues pertaining to these, including the influence of Israel in the United States and the role of Israel in the Middle East. Sean has described himself as "a consistent supporter of indigenous rights and self-determination, including for Native Americans, ‘Third World’ victims of imperialism, and for my own European peoples" and notes his "support the preservation of cultures, communities, and tribal identities in the midst of the consumerist monoculture of Globalism." Sean offers a very far reaching critique of the relationship between Zionism, US imperialism, and global capitalism, between "big business" and "big government," the false dichotomy of the "left/right" political divide, and in the inadequacy of a range of supposed "radical" movements to fully grasp the all-encompassing nature of the global system.

Sean Jobst

The picture that emerges is one where an international ruling class or power elite can be identified as operating by means of governments, big banks, telecommunications corporations, private contractor or consulting agencies, elite think-tanks, and intelligence agencies.

The power elites foster statism as a means of social and political control, and corporatism as a means of economic domination, thereby rendering meaningless the usual left/right postulation of an alleged conflict between the forces of the state and the forces of capital. The triangular relationship between Zionists, Wahhabists, and adherents of American exceptionalism provides a core ideological foundation for these power elite. However, the ranks of the global capitalist ruling class also includes the elite of Eastern nations, contrary to the view of Russia as representing the vanguard in the fight against globalism, held by many conventional nationalists. Russia is, after all, a member of the G20, and Russia failed to oppose NATO's war against Libya.

Likewise, Trumpism represents simply another development in the advancement of globalism as Trump’s recent visits to Saudia Arabia and Israel illustrate. The conventional Libertarian movement has not been immune to cooptation by global capitalism, as the presence of figures such as Peter Thiel and Jim Rogers among the ranks of Libertarians indicates. The Left is likewise impotent in the fight against globalism because the Left shares what are essentially the same cultural values and philosophical presumptions of the globalists.

The Orb Masters

The picture that subsequently emerges is one where the ruling class of all major powers is essentially united in a global front against all peoples everywhere, and where nationalists, libertarians, and leftists alike are incapable of mounting an effective opposition. Sean describes the relationship between Zionism and globalism in the following way:

"Let me make clear what I mean by Zionism as a threat to communities. This is not a simplistic identification of Zionism with all Jews, or solely pointing out specific Jews in powerful positions and extrapolating from that they must automatically be Zionists. But what I do is point out verifiable and open links with Zionism or the State of Israel, to demonstrate a nexus or pattern connecting Zionism to the globalist power structure.

We can define Zionism as Jewish chauvinistic nationalism…Zionism is a global threat. One merely has to cite the ongoing oppression and genocide of the Palestinian Arab people, the Israeli activities against neighboring Arab peoples, and the profitable role of the Mossad and Israeli arms merchants historically throughout the conflict zones of Africa and Latin-America."

A principal tactic that is utilized by Zionists is to deflect attention from themselves by labeling critics as anti-Semites on a reflexive basis pointing out, for example, how Manuel Gerstenfeld, the Dutch-Israeli author and former Chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, lambasted the Norwegians as "a nation of antisemites," and "a barbaric and unintelligent people" after the Norwegian government issues mild criticisms of Israel.

The influence and power of organized Zionism in the United States is particularly significant given America's military power, and Sean points out how "the Zionists have a stranglehold on Congress, the White House, and other political institutions, at least down to the state level, via the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and such Zionist political pressure groups as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Zionists have likewise harnessed the forces of Big Business and Wall Street."

Much of this stranglehold is due to the “role of billionaire donors, who have made Israel their raison d’etre, such as Sheldon Adelson over the Republican Party and Haim Saban over the Democratic Party – categories of 'right' and 'left,' 'conservative' and 'liberal' who are in turn "united when it comes to the twin pillars of making money and lobbying for Israel."

Sean also describes how what is now called the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States has its roots in the relationship between the Zionist movement and the United States that began even before the state of Israel was founded.

In 1939 the Zionist leader and future Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, gave a speech entitled "We Look Towards America," wherein he said the Zionists had "no more effective tool at our disposal than the American Jewish community and Zionist Movement." Around the same time, Moshe Shertok, the future Foreign Minister of Israel, predicted:

"America will have a decisive influence at the end of the war….and the question of our strength in America is a very real and important one. There are millions of active and well-organized Jews in America, and their position in life enables them to be the most dynamic and influential. They live in the nerve-centers of the country, and hold important positions in politics, trade, journalism, the theater and the radio."

Sean also described the role of organized Zionism in the global banking system, pointing out how, for example, the "former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, made a career lobbying for Israel within the French Socialist Party," and who in 2011 remarked to the Tribune Juive: "I wake up every morning and think about how I can help Israel." Influential Zionist billionaires have also been intricately involved with a range of financial crimes, and the role of Tel Aviv as a major financial center. Sean identifies what he calls a "nexus of finance, Marxism, and Zionism."

Mikhail Bakunin

"As Anarchists, we naturally oppose any centralization or concentration of wealth or power, which is coercive and exploitative by definition. In his 1871 rebuttal to Karl Marx, the great Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin pointed out Marx's support for "a strong centralization of the state. And where there is centralization of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, speculating with the labor of the people, will be found."

Bakunin’s use of the word "Jewish nation" is significant, for this coincided with the rise of Zionism, which redefined Jews as a nation. It's no accident that Moses Hess, the so-called "Red Rabbi" who was a close collaborator of Marx, also wrote one of the earliest Zionist texts, Rome and Jerusalem, in 1862.

To those accustomed to seeing an antithesis between Zionism as nationalism and Marxist Socialism as internationalism, the self-professed “Marxist Zionist” and founded of Labor Zionism, Ber Borochov, said in 1897: “The socio-economic structure of the Jewish people differs radically from that of other nations. Ours is an anomalous, abnormal structure.” It doesn’t take a proverbial leap down the conspiratorial rabbit-hole to recognize a tripartite nexus between International Finance, Marxist Revolution, and Zionist-Jewish nationalism. We need only consult the words of Theodor Herzl, the official founder of the Zionist movement: “When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of all revolutionary parties; and at the same time, when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse.”Alluding to his own connections to powerful Jewish bankers, Herzl also wrote: “If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finance of Turkey."

Sean also discussed links between the Mossad and the global banking and media systems, the challenges to Zionist power issued by the rise of anti-capitalist movements in Latin America, and the hypocrisy involved in the Left’s failure to criticize the racist nature of Zionism.

"This has a parallel in the way that mostly upper-class, guilty white liberals and Marxists often project their own inherent racism in a hatred of everything white. As a corollary to this, AntiFa proclaims all of its political opponents – including National-Anarchists – of being 'Fascists' or 'Nazis.' Yet you will never hear these Marxist street thugs attack the Zionists – quite the contrary, they recently attacked an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. against U.S. involvement in the Syria war (contrary to Israeli interests, who want to implement the Oded Yinon Plan of destabilizing and destroying Syria) and even more recent than that, attacked the anti-Zionist Jewish leftist Gilad Atzmon. Is it not strange that AntiFa never attacks Zionist interests or even Israeli policies which are racist and fascistic?"

Israel's nuclear arsenal is particularly problematic given the Israeli military doctrine that is known as the "Samson Option."  The Dutch-Israeli military historian Martin van Crevald has observed:

"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.'…Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but the second or third. We have the capacity to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under." 

Books for sale.

Other issues of concern involve the support of Zionist organizations for mass migration as a means of facilitating the cultural and demographic transformation of Europe, a measure that is utilized as a means of revenge for Europe’s perceived anti-Semitic legacy.

Sean likewise pointed out the inadequacy of "the Statist-nationalist parties and leaders such as the English Defence League, Marine Le Pen's Front National, PEGIDA, and Geert Wilders." While these conventional populist nationalist leaders "may oppose mass-immigration" this opposition is hypocritical and self-defeating "because they champion the Zionist wars using European and American cannon-fodder, and the Capitalist social conditions which create the conditions for migration in the first place." Similarly, these leaders decry the "real terrorist threat of Wahhabi extremism" and yet they "ally with Saudi Arabia and the Israeli-Saudi destabilization in the Middle East."

Welf Herfurth: "Traveling the World as a National-Anarchist"

Welf Herfurth described the parallel trajectories of his extensive travels, including visits to 80 countries, and his own political evolution. Welf grew up in Germany, moved with his family to Iran in 1976, and was subsequently present in Iran during the Khomeini revolution of 1979. It was due to this experience that Welf realized the power of people to change or overthrow their political leaders in an instant.

Upon returning to Germany, he became interested in the cause of reuniting West Germany and East Germany, and subsequently joined the National Democratic Party. This led to his earliest confrontations with leftist rioters, and Welf described being pelted with eggs during the first NPD demonstration he attended. He also began traveling in Latin America where he encountered members of the Shining Path, the Maoist guerrillas of Peru, and became increasingly aware of the role of American imperialism in Latin America. Welf subsequently traveled behind the Iron Curtain, and in China and Mongolia, before settling in Australia and becoming active in nationalist movements there, even working in the Australian parliament at one point, all the while becoming a successful businessman and later relocating to Brazil.

A core feature of Welf's presentation was the way in which his decades-long odyssey through different opposition movements led him to the conclusion that attempting to reform the system by using the system's tools is a futile effort. Liberal democratic capitalist states are oligarchies ruled by and for the elites and their interests, and conventional political opposition forces are, at best, merely controlled opposition. This is an immensely important lesson given the rise of populist movements in many different parts of the world that purport to be taking a stand against "the globalists," and the failures that these movements will likely represent.

For example, the neoconservative journalist Niall Ferguson (citing the work of Henry Kissinger in this area) has described how, far from representing a counterforce to global capitalism, the rise of populist "strongman" or even "strongwoman” leaders heading the states of the major powers could in fact be easily be coopted into a global system of neocolonialism where each power retains its sphere of influence, but where the international plutocracy retains its hegemony.

Conclusion

This conference was enormously successful given that it was the first ever of its kind, involving two years of preparation, and encountering a range of setbacks in the process. Hopefully, the conference in Madrid will be the first of many, and I’m told there are already plans in the works for a similar conference next year. Many fascinating ideas were discussed, and even many people who do not identify as National-Anarchists, or who even find N-A objectionable in some ways, would likely gain from the presentations that were made. It is regrettable that many other anarchists approach N-A in such a closed minded way, as much of what was said was highly relevant to the ideas of the libertarian-left and the libertarian-right alike, as well as those affiliated with anti-globalization, environmental, anti-imperialist, indigenous, anti-state, and anti-corporate movements generally. Indeed, of the varied events where I have previously spoken, I found the National-Anarchist Movement conference of 2017 to be the most substantive thus far.

Also published at Attack the System