*Alt-Right Building White Nationalist Mass Movement with 'Operation Homeland'
The Alt-Right is Building a White Nationalist Mass Movement with Operation Homeland, Shane Burley, Truthout, 2/20/18
The "alt-right" didn't really enter the spotlight of mainstream US culture until it dropped back into the gutter. For the first years of its infancy, from the founding of "AlternativeRight.com" in 2010 until the popularization of the #AltRight hashtag in early 2015, members had focused on trying to rehabilitate the image of white nationalism. A bad public image, terrorist violence, a history of mass genocide and vulgar racism had understandably made white nationalists pariahs, and Richard Spencer, the essential founder of the movement, wanted to wash all that away.
Instead, the "alt-right" would take the example of the European New Right and focus on making a pseudo-academic movement that could influence what Spencer identified as "meta-politics" -- ideas and identities that are "pre-political."...As the "alt-right" movement tries to move from its online world, which has largely kicked members off of their web platforms and into real-world activism, members are having a tough time reconciling their online persona with practical organizing. Spencer is trying to repair that with a new project coming out of his National Policy Institute nonprofit and its tabloid "AltRight.com." This project, aptly titled "Operation Homeland," was launched in the beginning of December 2017 by Spencer and is taking its inspiration from the "identitarian" movement in Europe.
"Identity Is Our Movement" The European New Right helped build a philosophical fascist system that was more appealing to Baby Boomers raised on New Left and post-colonial rhetoric, but it was usually separated from practical political organizing. Starting in the late 1960s, far-right philosophers led by Alain de Benoist worked decided to reframe fascist values and ideas in the language of popular national liberation struggles that were erupting across the colonized Global South. Instead of vulgar racism, they would talk about the "right to difference," and argue for "Ethno-pluralism," which they called a "nationalism for all people." ...
The European New Right opposes wars because of isolationist views that reject intervention in foreign nations. This fascist movement is anti-capitalist, as members view international trade as culturally homogenizing, and have a vision of communities trading and living in mono-racial exclusivity. They even buck Europe's historically Christian character for its distant pagan roots -- all in an effort to reclaim a romantic mythology about their own heritage and identity. Out of that philosophical tradition emerged a movement that was more radical than the nationalist parties known throughout Europe, and looking to build a ground-up grassroots movement rather than winning seats in parliament.This has broadly been called the "identitarian" movement; a well-crafted brand name for a movement that members claim is about identity rather than racial animus...
"Identity America" The "alt-right's" Operation Homeland will be a further attempt at reviving the "identitarian" movement in the US, bringing Generation Identity's format to a broad-based far-right US audience. Operation Homeland will stake its claim on immigration, just as Generation Identity has -- an issue the US far right pursues since it has popularity with the mainstream GOP electorate. "Our positions are clear: we support immigration restriction and free speech, and we resolutely oppose more wars fought in the interest of foreigners," wrote Richard Spencer in his announcement on AltRight.com. "Homeland is not a broad-based membership organization or social club. Rather, it is a core of part- and full-time activists who provide leadership to the movement as a whole." From here, the "alt-right" wants to take the atomized world of young, mostly anonymous activists and train them to be leaders in the movement. Con't...
Read More, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43598-the-alt-right-is-building-a-white-nationalist-mass-movement-with-operation-homeland
- Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press). His work as appeared in places such as Jacobin, AlterNet, In These Times, Political Research Associates, Waging Nonviolence, Labor Notes, Think Progress, ROAR Magazine and Upping the Anti.
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