THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

by Keith Preston

In a few decades, perhaps sooner, the American political landscape will likely look something like the following:

The “intellectual dark web” circle around Dave Rubin will be considered the “far right” (the way Richard Spencer is considered “far right” at present).

VIDEO: HOW THE SYSTEM CO-OPTS ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT MOVEMENTS

Keith Preston joins Andrey R. Bens to discuss how the establishment deals with radical opposition  movements through a combination of force, infiltration, disruption, and co-option. Among the examples cited are the Hard Left, Black Nationalism, the Native American movement, and Quebec Nationalism.

THE ALT-RIGHT AMONG OTHER RIGHTS

This is the text of a lecture Keith Preston delivered to the H.L. Mencken Club on November 4, 2017.

by Keith Preston

Speaking about the intricacies of different ideological tendencies can often be a bit tedious, and certainly a topic like the Alt-Right can get very complicated because there are so many currents that feed into the Alt-Right. I know that when I spoke here last year I was speaking on the right-wing anarchist tradition, which is a highly esoteric tradition, and one that is often very obscure with many undercurrents. The Alt-Right is similar in the sense of having many sub-tendencies that are fairly obscure in their own way, although some of these have become more familiar now that the Alt-Right has grown in fame, or infamy, in the eyes of its opponents. Some of the speakers we have heard at this conference so far have helped to clarify some of the potential definitions of what the Alt-Right actually is, but given the subject of my presentation I thought I might break it down a bit further, and clarify a few major distinctions.

THE USA IS BECOMING LATIN AMERICA IN CLASS RELATIONS

by Keith Preston

It’s interesting how the US is developing a class system similar to Latin America. I don’t think the reasons for this can be traced to a singular cause. It probably has several dozen causes.

It’s also interesting how all the different political factions have their proposed ideal solutions. Liberals and social democrats want a more progressive tax code and a larger welfare state. Nationalists want restricted immigration and high tariffs. An-caps want to abolish central banking. Conservatives want to abolish welfare to the inner city. Libertarians want to reduce taxes and regulation. The far Left wants some kind of socialist revolution. Probably none of those by themselves would produce the results they want even if a general political and popular consensus for their implementation could be developed, which is unlikely given the ongoing fragmentation and polarization of US political culture.

SOME INITIAL THOUGHTS ON CHARLOTTESVILLE

A battle of different psychological types.

by Keith Preston

I’m still trying to find out more about what happened in Charlottesville on Saturday. But from reviewing news reports on the incident from across the ideological spectrum, and speaking with people on “both sides” who were present at the melee, here are my initial thoughts.

HILAIRE BELLOC: THE SERVILE STATE AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DISTRIBUTISM

July 27th is the birthday of Hilaire Belloc, one of the great radical traditionalists.

by Keith Preston

From the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century until the era of the Great Depression immediately preceding the commencement of the Second World War, the most enduring internal conflict within the nations of the West was rooted in what was then called the “social question.” The growth of industrialization and the dispossession of the agrarian peasant classes during the time of the enclosure movement had created within the industrializing nations a massive proletarian class of permanently pauperized laborers and the deplorable social conditions which accompanied the growth of this class.

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.

REPORT: NATIONAL-ANARCHIST MOVEMENT CONFERENCE (DAY ONE)

by Keith Preston

Special thanks to Peter Topfer, Adam Ormes, Thom Forester, and Sean Jobst for their assistance in the writing of this summary.

On June 17 and 18, the first ever conference of the National-Anarchist Movement (N-AM) took place in Madrid. The process of arranging this conference was certainly not without its difficulties, and the organizers deserve much praise for their diligence in this regard. Originally, the conference was supposed to be hosted by the Madrid section of N-AM, who dropped out of the project shortly (and out of N-AM altogether) before the conference took place. This led to the irony of a conference being held in Spain where no actual Spanish people were among the attendees. Because National-Anarchists are widely despised by leftists who mistakenly regard N-A as a “fascist” tendency, security was a paramount concern.

The conference was held at a hotel in Madrid, and while no leftist disrupters were present, on the morning the conference began a group of Madrid police officers showed up at the hotel. The officers subsequently followed the organizers to a pre-arranged meeting point where attendees were in the process of arriving.  Although I was not personally present when this incident occurred, I am told the officers began asking the arrivals for identification, almost comically claiming “anti-terrorism” as a motivation. Apparently, Big Brother is indeed always watching. However, the situation was resolved and the conference continued without further difficulty.

AGAINST THE "ANTI-FASCIST" CREEPS

A Review of Alexander Reid-Ross’s “Against the Fascist Creep”

by Keith Preston

For decades, a minor cottage industry of professional “anti-racists” and “anti-fascists” has existed for the purpose of perpetually sounding the alarm about the imminent threat posed by supposed “far right extremists.” The most well-known and influential of these is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has raked in millions of dollars largely by frightening elderly liberals and Jews old enough to remember the Holocaust with hobgoblin tales about the supposedly persistent rise of neo-Nazism in America.

HERBERT MARCUSE AND THE TOLERANCE OF REPRESSION

Leftists are OK with this because of books they haven't read.

by Keith Preston

“I am not bound to defend liberal notions of tolerance.” –Left-wing anarchist activist to the author

The rise of the New Left is typically considered to have its origins in the student rebellions of the late 1960s and early 1970s when the war in Vietnam was at its height and cultural transformation was taking place in Western countries with dizzying rapidity. Yet scholars have long recognized that the intellectual roots of the New Left were created several decades earlier through the efforts of the thinkers associated with the Institute for Social Research (commonly known as the “Frankfurt School”) to reconsider the essence of Marxist theory following the failure of the working classes of Western Europe to produce a socialist revolution as orthodox Marxism had predicted.

DEFINING POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

by Keith Preston

A FB friend recently asked me to provide a definition of “political correctness.” Here’s the definition I would use...

I would define “political correctness” as the common term for the institutionalization and enculturation of progressive moral norms in such a way that their transgression generates ridicule, disproportional feelings of outrage or indignation, ostracism of the supposed offending party, an inclination towards persecution on the part of the offended, and the possible imposition of social, economic, professional, institutional, or legal sanctions against the alleged offender, perhaps accompanied by mendacity, dishonesty, hypocrisy, or double standards on the part of the offended.

DONALD TRUMP AND THE RETURN OF LIBERALISM

by Keith Preston

"Let me give you a definition of the word 'liberal.'…Franklin D. Roosevelt once said…It is a wonderful definition, and I agree with him. 'A liberal is a man who wants to build bridges over the chasms that separate humanity from a better life." – Richard Nixon

"Richard Nixon was our last liberal president." – Noam Chomsky

"Imagine a president who expands affirmative action, actively promotes school desegregation, enacts important new laws in social welfare, environmental protection, occupational health and safety, and consumer protection, supports comprehensive health insurance and a system of guaranteed income for all citizens, and whose Justice Department opposes the RICO Act on the grounds that it gives the government powers that are much too broad and sweeping for prosecuting criminals. In 2011, such a president would be considered far to left of Barack Obama and far to the left of almost everyone in Congress. Forty years ago, such a president was called Richard Nixon."-Matthew Lyons ("Right-Wing Movements 101")

Now that Donald Trump has won an upset electoral victory and will be assuming the office of the presidency in a couple of months, I am going to offer the unconventional and, certainly to many people, counter-intuitive opinion that it was Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton that was the most left-wing of the two major party candidates.

EQUALITY HAS CONSEQUENCES

The Consequences of Equality
by Matthew S. Battaglioli
106 pages
Buy at Amazon.com

Reviewed by Keith Preston

For the political Left, there is no value that is more important than “universal human equality.” To be against equality is to be reactionary, regressive, benighted, bigoted, unenlightened, unseemly, and anti-human. And while previous generations of leftists were concerned primarily with legal equality, and then economic equality, today’s leftists demand equality in every sphere of human activity. Every profession must have an exact proportion of males and females (“gender parity”). Every institution must have an equitable proportion of ethnic groups. Any statistical disparity among races, genders, ages, sexual orientations, or classes is thought to be the result of mere oppression, exploitation or greed on the part of those who seem to have a leg up in life. Hence, the popularity of “privilege theory” among fashionable social justice warriors who equate the fact of having been born straight, white, male, “cisgendered” or some combination of these to be the equivalent of original sin.

THE PARALLEL GROWTH OF “BIG GOVERNMENT” AND “MOVEMENT CONSERVATISM”

A slightly modified version of this article originally appeared in The Great Purge: The Deformation of the Conservative Movement, edited by Paul Gottfried and Richard Spencer, and issued by Washington Summit Publishers in 2015.

by Keith Preston

Among the few successes the “conservative movement” can reasonably claim is having established the descriptive epithet of “big government” as a term of opprobrium in American political discourse. Indeed, a review of the literature, websites, and broadcast media associated with American conservatism reveals “big government” to be an ongoing and consistent target of rhetorical invective. For example, an August 15, 2014 piece of commentary appearing on the Townhall.Com website bears the title, “Dismantling Big Government One Step at a Time.”[1] Two days earlier, a post with the curious title of “How to Transcend Obamacare” appeared on National Review Online, and discussed the widely held conservative view that Obamacare “represents our best opportunity to roll back Big Government” largely because of the “less entrenched” nature of this “newest entitlement.”[2] Even the most casual conversation with rank and file conservative movement activists, dutiful Republican voters, fans of “conservative” talk radio, and loyal viewers of the FOX news network will reveal a mentality that regards “big government” as a primordial evil approximating that of original sin. It is therefore fascinating to compare the striking difference between the movement’s rhetoric and stated ambitions, and the reality of what the conservative movement has actually produced when it has had access to power in the political realm.

FASCISM: GOOD, BAD, OR INDIFFERENT?

Todd Lewis and Keith Preston discuss the most controversial ideology of all. Listen here.

It's also interesting to compare Todd's analysis of fascism with that of Paul Gottfried.

ROBERT STARK INTERVIEWS KEITH PRESTON ABOUT "THINKERS AGAINST MODERNITY"

Listen here: Stark Truth Radio
Robert Stark and co-host Alex von Goldstein interview Keith Preston about his book Thinkers Against Modernity

GOOGLE HANGOUT: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE ALT-RIGHT

Andy Nowicki and Colin Liddell join Todd Lewis and Keith Preston at the Praise of Folly podcast for a round table discussion on the nature of the alternative right. Among the issues raised are the movement's intellectualism, race realism, attitude to religion, and troll culture. 

BEING AND BECOMING AT THE NPI CONFERENCE

Richard Spencer

BECOME WHO WE ARE: THE IDENTITY AND SPIRIT OF OUR PEOPLE
OCTOBER 31, 2015, 10 AM — 9 PM
THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON, DC

by Basil Benton

I had the good fortune of being able to attend my first NPI conference, which took place on this last All Soul’s Eve, or Halloween—a fact cheaply exploited by liberal media hacks.

According to NPI’s President and CEO, the charming and mild-mannered Richard B. Spencer, the media reported attendance at upwards of 175, including a rather unprecedented number of Millennials (those under 30). It was refreshing to see so many young faces, who, despite the mass pressure from the politically correct, the education system, and social media, have apparently developed a healthy skepticism of what they have been told, something that favors dissident modes of thought. It is heartening to see this group developing a modicum of self-interest that looks towards a post-capitalist and post-liberal America. In short, they have been "red-pilled," which was one of the themes – or memes – of the conference. Happily, there were also many women in attendance.

THE WHOLE OF THE LAW

The Political Dimensions of Crowley’s Thought

by Keith Preston

The fame of Aleister Crowley is principally derived from his reputation as a notorious occultist. It is this reputation that has made his name legendary in numerous counter-cultural and youth culture circles, ranging from contemporary enthusiasts for witchcraft of varying sorts to purveyors of certain shades of heavy metal music.

Yet for all his status as a legendary figure, Crowley is not typically regarded as a political thinker. To the degree that his ideas are considered relevant to political thought at all, Crowley is frequently caricatured as a shallow nihilist or merely as a debauched libertine. Extremist political subcultures of varying stripes have attempted to claim him as one of their own. Whether they are neo-fascists, egocentric individualists, or nihilist pseudo-anarchists, many with an extremist political outlook have attempted to shock the broader bourgeois society by invoking the name of Aleister Crowley. This state of affairs regarding Crowley’s political outlook is unfortunate, because an examination of the man’s political ideas reveals him to be a far more profound and insightful thinker on such questions than what is typically recognized.

NEO-REACTION AS A "LIMIT EXPERIENCE"

The New Reaction
by Rachel Haywire
Arktos Media, 66 pages
Available for purchase from Amazon here

Reviewed by Keith Preston

Rachel Haywire’s The New Reaction is a collection of fifteen relatively short writings offering amusingly iconoclastic bits of cultural criticism from the perspective of someone with a well-developed taste for pushing the limits.

With an interesting forward by Mark Dyal, this book is not a work of political philosophy, although it could reasonably be classified as a work of political psychology. Rachel Haywire is principally concerned with questions that involve perception, specifically, how people perceive themselves and others in relation to their social circumstances. Her principal aim is to dispossess of their own self-image conformist fools who fancy themselves smart and enlightened while pursuing political and cultural fads. A great deal of much deserved bile is directed towards the politically correct “progressives” who have achieved the remarkable feat of engaging in mindless conformity, while considering themselves to be some kind of avante-garde elite. Indeed, this is the central theme that runs through most of the book.