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Pat Based Spartan Washington: I look over there and I just want to smash. Photograph: Jason Wilson/the Guardian

A much-anticipated alt-right rally in Portland, Oregon has ended in police using stun grenades and tear gas against the most militant segment of a counter-protest.

At 3.30pm, police began pushing antifascist or antifa activists out of Chapman Square, just across from the rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza, in downtown Portland. Officers discharged grenades and gas as missiles were thrown. Portland police said on Twitter that they had closed the park due to criminal behavior including the use of bricks, mortar and other projectiles.

As the antifascists were pushed out, alt-right activists interrupted their schedule of speakers to rush to the edge of Schrunk Plaza and taunt them. Police said they had confiscated makeshift weapons and shields from protesters in Chapman Square, and said that at around 2pm protesters there launched marbles and other projectiles towards Schrunk Plaza.

Hours before, as the opposing activists gathered, tensions in the city were high, a little over a week after two men were killed and one wounded in a stabbing on city transportation.

Jeremy Christian, 35, was charged in the attack, in which Rick Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, 23, were killed after they intervened to help two young women who were the target of racial abuse. Christian was found to have expressed far-right views and to have attended a similar free speech rally in the city in April.

Portland mayor Ted Wheeler sought to block Sundays event, while on Saturday the leader of the Oath Keepers militia organisation told the Guardian members of his group were on their way to the city, to support and if necessary defend the rightwing protesters.

In the event, the alt-right rally was surrounded on three sides by separate counter-protests. Antifa activists occupied Chapman Square, to the south of the plaza. Portland United Against Hate, organized by 70 community and political groups, occupied the forecourt and sidewalk outside City Hall to the west. To the east, a protest organized by labor groups occupied the street outside a federal building.

At the City Hall rally, Seemab Hussein of the Oregon Council on Islamic Relations, a rally sponsor, said he wasnt surprised to see an alt-right gathering in the city.

Its part of Portland, he said, its part of Oregon, its part of society. He added that he didnt take seriously disavowals of the racist politics of older far-right movements.

I dont think they actually moved away from that, he said. Its the same ball of yarn the hate, the prejudice, the violence. It just finds a new victim. If its not Muslims, its immigrants. He was heartened, he said, to see so many Portlanders show up to oppose the rally.

All told, there were some 3,000 counter-protesters and only a few hundred at the free speech rally, where Kyle Based Stickman Chapman, who became a movement hero after physically attacking antifascists in Berkeley, California addressed the crowd. So did Joey Gibson, the organizer of the event. On the fringes, Pat Based Spartan Washington, a so-called alt-right celebrity, held an impromptu press conference.

I believe in freedom of speech, he said. Our speakers have a right to say what they want, and not be exposed to this shit across the street. I am definitely willing to use violence to make sure my family is safe and my patriot family is safe. But do I want it? Not necessarily. Until antifa learns not to use violence God, I hate them. I look over there and I just want to smash.

Members of the Oath Keepers and another patriot militia group, the Three Percenters, were present, identifiable by their insignia. Also present were members of the Proud Boys, associated with Vice founder Gavin McInnes and identifiable by their uniform Fred Perry T-shirts, and members of Warriors for Freedom, a group led by Gibson.

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes gave a late afternoon speech, referring to growing links between established rightwing groups and internet subcultures.

We just went to Boston not too long ago, Rhodes said, and it was run by 4chan kids who put the rally on. They were standing there with pale skin, cos they dont go outside too much, but they had homemade shields in their hands and they were there. Its my job as a paratrooper veteran to teach those kids everything I know.

Tusitala Tiny Toese, a member of Warriors for Freedom, told the Guardian he was present to stand for free speech.

If you look all around America, he said, theyre trying to take away free speech silently. He also said that the group had ejected Jeremy Christian from the 29 April Portland rally. We heard what he was doing, he said, we heard he was doing [Nazi] salutes, and we said we dont like that, so we told him, you gotta leave.

Earlier in the day, as protesters gathered, two members of the Rose City Antifa group, wearing masks, spoke to the Guardian. Weve got hopes for what we want to happen and were preparing for the worst, one said, adding that their goals were being here, being a visible opposition.

These guys are mostly not interested in free speech, theyre interested in fighting us, the activist said. If they come over here, were going to respond in self-defense, but our plan is not to take that path. Our main goal is the defense of the community, and to reveal their actions for what they are: fascist street violence.

At one point Brian Fife, an alt-right protester, walked up to Chapman Square in an attempt to speak. He was surrounded and drowned out with air horns. Earlier, on the grass at Schrunk Plaza, Fife, who said he ran a small business in Salem, Oregon, said Jeremy Christian did everything right up until the point he started killing people.

I do not support killing people, he said, I dont think anyone does. But calling out the changing elements of our culture, I think thats something I wish more of us would do.

As police and DHS officers dressed in riot gear kept the groups apart, the rally passed without full-blooded confrontation between protesters. Police also announced that any movement between Chapman Square and Schrunk Plaza would be considered a criminal act. The plaza was cordoned off with yellow tape and police SUVs partially blocked traffic. Before the decision to clear Chapman Square, a small number of arrests were made.

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'Alt-right' Portland rally sees skirmishes with counter-protesters - The Guardian

Jeremy Christian, right, seen during a Patriot Prayer, allegedly stabbed three men, two fatally, in Portland last month. During a subsequent courtroom appearance, he exclaimed: "Free speech or die, Portland. You call it terrorism I call it patriotism." John Rudoff/AP hide caption

Jeremy Christian, right, seen during a Patriot Prayer, allegedly stabbed three men, two fatally, in Portland last month. During a subsequent courtroom appearance, he exclaimed: "Free speech or die, Portland. You call it terrorism I call it patriotism."

Alt-right. White nationalist. Free speech. Hate speech.

A number of labels involving the far right have been tossed about once again after a white supremacist allegedly stabbed three people who tried to keep him from shouting at two teenage girls, one wearing a hijab, on the Portland metro.

Fearing trouble because emotions are running high, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler asked the federal government to revoke a permit for a "Trump Free Speech Rally" on Sunday, describing the organizers as "alt-right." But a rally organizer rejected that characterization, insisting he didn't even know precisely what the phrase meant. Left-wing groups also are planning rallies this weekend.

Here's a look at some of the phrases being used to describe the people involved, and what's behind them:

Alt-Right/White Nationalist

White supremacist Jeremy Christian, who has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder, attempted murder and intimidation in the second degree, began his courtroom appearance last week shouting about free speech. "Free speech or die, Portland. You call it terrorism I call it patriotism," Christian shouted. "If you don't like free speech get the f*** out of my country."

So what exactly was Christian ranting about? Was it nonsensical ravings or something more an exclamation of his political ideology? Was he saying he allegedly stabbed the three men, two of them fatally, because he believed they were interfering with his right to speak to the young women?

Understanding the language of the far right is a good place to start. There's plenty of disagreement and debate about what language to use to describe far right politics and the groups that operate there.

These days, the labels white nationalist and alt-right have become ubiquitous. Radical right and ultra-right are older terms from the 1950s and 60s, and other terms include paleo-conservative, the militia movement, identity movement, American fascists, national socialists, neo-Nazis. But according to Mark Potok, a leader at the Southern Poverty Law Center for the last two decades, essentially these groups can be broken down into two main categories those who focus primarily on issues of race and those who focus primarily on conspiracy theories. One idea that courses through nearly all of them is the belief that healthy societies are dependent on racial, ethnic and cultural purity that for the white race, diversity is the path to political and cultural extinction.

The thinking is that each racial/ethnic group should get their own country, but the USA (and Europe) is for white, European, Christian culture. It's why language like Christian's "get out of my country" is prevalent among the far right.

This supremacist vision is what separates alternative right/white nationalists from others on the political spectrum. It's an enormous leap ideologically from mainstream conservatism and the main reason why alt-right membership remains relatively low. Where does the term alt-right come from? Paleo-conservative philosopher Paul Grottfried first used the phrase in 2008 but white nationalist Richard Spencer ran with it and helped make alt-right ubiquitous.

Spencer is a new face of the extreme right movement. Well educated at the Universities of Virginia, Chicago and Duke, he is a world away from old images of the Ku Klux Klan. According to Pete Simi, professor of Sociology at Chapman University ant the co-author of the book American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate, the term alt-right was a successful attempt by Spencer to rebrand himself and his followers as something fresh, young and smart for a new generation.

Among its allies, the alt-right embraces President Trump advisor and former Breitbart editor Steve Bannon. Bannon has called the site a "platform for the alt-right."

Free Speech or Hate Speech?

Free Speech has grown into a major issue for both mainstream conservatives and the alt-right. For mainstream conservatives, the belief that the left is more intolerant of dissent than the right is evidenced by the protests against right-wing speakers on college campuses.

White nationalists believe their First Amendment rights go further: that they should have the freedom to say whatever they like and not suffer consequences for example, getting fired from their job for posting something hateful on Facebook.

The alt-right has developed its own language and symbols on the Internet. Parentheses around a person's name means they are Jewish. "Cuckservative" is a particularly ugly racist and derogatory term describing establishment Republicans who aren't considered conservative enough.

Professor Simi says a key feature of white nationalist belief is seeing themselves as victims. "We're not the haters, we're the victims of white genocide," Simi says, describing the alt-right mindset. Marginalized, oppressed, and fighting an uphill battle against the powers that be, they view themselves as noble, courageous, even heroic warriors.

"Patriot" or Terrorist?

A second category of the extreme right in the American militia movement, which can be characterized by its belief in conspiracy theories. On his Facebook page, Christian praised Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, "May all the Gods Bless Timothy McVeigh a TRUE PATRIOT!!!"

Former SPLC director Potok said the movement's fundamental idea is that the federal government is involved in a conspiracy against its people's liberties. The imposition of martial law will be followed by the forced confiscation of guns and Potok explains that in the end, the U.S. government will be forced into a one world government, the so-called "New World Order" that will be run to serve the global elite. Elements of these conspiracy theories recently made a prominent appearance in Texas in 2015 during an armed forces military exercise, which stoked fear among some worried Texans that President Obama was about to use Special Forces soldiers to confiscate guns and round up resisters. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded by ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor the Special Forces soldiers while they trained in Texas.

Martin Kaste contributed to this story.

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Alt-Right, White Nationalist, Free Speech: The Far Right's Language Explained - NPR

Several prominent alt-right leaders are planning on attending a massive rally in Portland, Oregon, where a white supremacist allegedlystabbed two men to death when they stood up to a man verbally harassing two girls over Memorial Day weekend.

The lineup includes an individual who was deemed to be even too offensive for the general group that assumes the alt-right moniker, a man who was arrested at a protest in Berkeley after he attacked anti-fascist protesters, and a self-proclaimed journalist who has been showing up at alt-right rallies across the country and producing propaganda for the cause.

That such a rally would even take place in Portland, which has branded itself as a liberal city in the recent past, may be surprising for some. The Oregon city is known in pop culture for a liberal culture, where residents are seen as more likely to eat kale chips and concern themselves with politically correct verbiage rather than host ostensibly racist movements.

But the rally, and the planned attendance of those alt-right leaders, underscores a history there of nazi and fascist ideologies clashing with more liberal ideas. Even as recently as the 1990s, individuals sympathetic to those ideologies freely roamed the streets and intimidated anti-racist youth there, according to the Guardian.

Two men were stabbed to death on the Portland light rail system last week after they stuck up for two girls (another man was also stabbed but survived the attack). One of those girls was black, and the other was Muslim.

The killing has thrust Portland into the centre over the debate between the alt-right and antifascist groups. That debate has been broiling in the United States and was elevated by the election of President Donald Trump, who has brought a former official of Breitbart News, a conservative outlet that is seen as sympathetic to the alt-right, into the White House.

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Alt-right leaders head to Portland as white supremacist faces trial for murders of men who defended Muslim and black ... - The Independent

Every time I look on my phone and see a lot of activity on Twitter I think: right, this is the moment when they come for me, says Angela Nagle. Shes talking about the army of Pepe-the-Frog-avatared trolls who often bombard female writers with offensive messages and threats.

Nagle is the author of an excellent new book Kill All Normies: The Online Culture Wars from Tumblr and 4chan to the Alt-Right and Trump.

Seven years ago she began tracing the evolution of a range of weird and offensive online communities, from the nihilistic trollish denizens of 4chan to more bitter anti-feminist communities scattered around the internet. Back then it was a niche interest. When I explained to people what I was writing about they always seemed baffled and thought it was such an obscure thing to be interested in.

More recently, however, she has watched as these groups adopted anti-immigration ethno-nationalistic obsessions and coalesced into a Trump supporting alt-right (many accurately observe that they should be called the far right).

They have developed a surprisingly high profile. Mainstream columnists use their terminology when they discuss Social Justice Warriors and Generation Snowflake.

Trump parrots their talking points (his concern with migration in Sweden, for example) and has gone so far as to hire the head of Breitbart, one of the alt-rights online hubs, as a key adviser.

Nagles initial interest in these groups, she says, was piqued by their style of engagement, which utilised the sort of irony-filled transgressive tactics formerly associated with left-wing counterculture. They were to the right but they didnt have any conservative politics. They trolled and pranked people and were good at making funny memes and using shock tactics.

In those days, she says, when congregated on webpages like 4chan they seemed wilfully apolitical. They often did horrible things. They trolled memorial pages and bullied suicidal teenagers. They thrived on anonymity and they targeted those who dared to be sincere or, indeed, female.

They were totally morally degenerate but they were nihilistic about it. They didnt have any politics other than some vague sense of being anti-establishment.

But the politics were already there in a nascent form. Even in the more goal-focused web groups of pick-up artists there was a seed of ideology. Their view was basically that irrational female brains were like systems they could hack. Its a short journey from that to racism because theyre not viewing people as human beings. And its a pushback against the [left wing] idea that gender and race are socially constructed.

Over time a general anti-liberal politics began to take shape. They used the transgressive style of the countercultural left but they changed the content. Their view was that the dominant ideology now was liberalism, so if you wanted to be transgressive thats what you transgress against.

Before long this mutated into a virulent strain of white male identity politics predicated on the notion that feminism and immigration were destroying civilisation.

The use of the term red pill became widespread, referring to the scene in The Matrix where a character takes a red pill and sees reality as it really is. Here it is used, says Nagle, to mean waking up from the liberal reality you didnt realise youd been indoctrinated in by your parents and teachers.

The event that made many of them more explicitly political and brought them mainstream attention was Gamergate in 2014 where, Nagle explains, feminist games creators and critics [like Anita Sarkeesian] became the target of abuse because they were seen as trying to destroy video games with left-wing propaganda.

The guys said [some of the creators] were sleeping with the reviewers and thats why their games were getting good reviews. Even if you took everything that they were saying as true it was still this absolutely outrageous and absurd overreaction.

It became a key battle in an online culture war (later battles included the racist and misogynistic targeting of the all-female cast of the 2016 Ghostbusters film). It was, says Nagle, the crucible of their movement.

It made the reputations of several people who later became figureheads, most notably the now-disgraced former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos and others, like the former mens rights activist and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich and Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, wrapped their more offensive opinions in slippery layers of irony, and Nagle refers to them as the alt-light.

These are the figures who were, indeed, misogynistic and racist, but not so much as to bar them entry from mainstream talk shows or, in some instances, the White House.

I have no idea what someone like Milo really believes, says Nagle. But I feel like hes very useful for people to the right of him. He helped to break down taboos around speaking about race and gender in particular ways.

As did, a couple of years later, another major figure now associated with the alt-right: Donald Trump. The appeal of Trump to the online trolls made total sense.

A guy who was chanting build a wall and lock her up is so appealing to them and so shocking to the rest of society, she says. Essentially he broke a taboo around immigration and around how we talk about women, and he did so and managed to become the president

And Trump is reading Breitbart and [the Breitbart writers] are reading stuff to the right of them, so the connection is close enough.

This feedback loop is giving the so-called alt-right their current cultural moment. But Nagle isnt interested only in right-wing groups. Her book also covers a more-liberal-than-thou culture of public shaming found among some smug and complacent elements of the online left (she writes about vicious squabbles that ensued after the late Mark Fishers essay on the subject, Exiting the Vampire Castle). And she argues that the relationship [between the online left and right] is symbiotic in some ways.

However, she stresses that she doesnt think that theres any moral equivalence. She was taken aback by a recent headline about her book that read Kill All Normies is about the alt-right but the left ends up looking worse.

The book is sometimes as bleakly entertaining as it is disturbing. Its hard not to roll your eyes at the male separatist, sex-avoidant Men Going Their Own Way movement (They feel like feminism has destroyed society too much to have any part of it... What do they do if they work in an office?) or the Gavin McInness founded pro-western Proud Boys who crave traditional marriage and forgo masturbation. No wanks! is apparently one of their rallying cries.

Nagle credits the latter with at least being coherent. One of the interesting contradictions of a lot of these groups is that on the one hand theyre saying they dont like feminism and they want a traditional marriage and a subservient wife but the way they live clashes with that they watch porn all day and play video games and harass people on the internet.

This is the trend shes seeing now. The more transgressive irony of the original 4chan trolls is giving way to no less offensive but more conventional far-right ideologies. She also thinks the time of figures like Yiannopoulos are over.

They were good at taboo-breaking and were really good at media.... The problem is they didnt actually have any ideas.

Unfortunately, the people who do have ideas are more explicitly racist figures like Richard Spencer (who famously gave a Nazi salute in honour of Trump at a conference), who are increasingly taking their activism into the offline world with rallies and violent campus protests.

The Overton Window [the window of political acceptability] had moved more than [the alt light] realised, says Nagle.

Things move quickly online. She had to rewrite parts of her book after Yiannopouloss downfall (a recording was uncovered in which he praised pederasty). She notes that many other alt-right figures have turned on Trump since she finished the book.

Ultimately these online right-wing movements are a destructive perversion of identity politics coming from young men who feel disappointed with their lives. Nagle thinks this is an ineffective prescription for what ails them.

A lot of these guys are saying How come my grandfather was able to have a house and a car on a one-income household? But thats an economic problem I think a lot of the answers to the problems theyre looking at should actually come from the left.

She also thinks that society will tire of transgression as a tactic. Weve inherited this avant-garde sensibility where we value shock and transgression but when those aesthetic sensibilities are at their peak with fascists, at that point you have to say, Hasnt this outlasted its usefulness?

She is curious how the book will be received. She was recently discussed offensively on a far-right website, she says, but they seemed largely perturbed that she hadnt mentioned them in her book (Theyre not that significant). She has received some harassment online (I just block them now) and some right-wing Tweeters have quibbled with details. I wanted to say, Yeah but its not for you its for other people to look at your weirdness.

She thinks that dwelling on these subjects isnt necessarily good for her, but it hasnt really damaged my faith in humanity, because [these people are] not representative. I just go outside my front door and realise the world doesnt look anything like the online world theyve constructed.

Continued here:
'Kill All Normies': the alt-right's new turn - Irish Times

The mayor of Portland, Oregon, is asking the federal government to cancel the permit for an "alt-right" rally scheduled for Sunday, saying it could make a difficult situation worse, after two men were stabbed to death as they tried to intervene when a pair of women were targeted by a man yelling what authorities have described as hate speech.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler also said he is trying to ensure that a permit is not issued for a June 10 protest, which ABC Portland affiliate KATU reported is called March Against Sharia.

The city has not issued any permits for either of the two events, which are planned for Terry D. Shrunk Plaza, Wheeler said. The federal government controls permitting for the venue and has issued a permit for the June 4 demonstration, called the Trump Free Speech Rally, he said.

"I am calling on the federal government to IMMEDIATELY REVOKE the permit(s) they have issued for the June 4th event and to not issue a permit for June 10th," Wheeler wrote on Facebook. "Our city is in mourning, our community's anger is real, and the timing and subject of these events can only exacerbate an already difficult situation."

Wheeler urged the organizers of the demonstrations to cancel the events and asked their supporters to "stay away from Portland."

On Friday afternoon, Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, of North Portland was allegedly hurling insults on a commuter train at two young women, one of whom was wearing a hijab, when three men intervened.

Christian reportedly attacked the three men identified by police as Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23; Ricky John Best, 53; and Micah David Cole-Fletcher, 21 with a knife. Namkai-Meche and Best died. Cole-Fletcher was treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Christian was arrested in connection with the stabbings.

Cole-Fletcher released a statement on Sunday, saying, "I want the Muslim community to know that they have a home here in Portland and are loved. I want to honor the families who lost their brave fathers, sons and brothers, and I want the media and the country to honor those families. I want to send my condolences and honor those families."

Wheeler said he hopes the victims of the attack will inspire "changes in the political dialogue in this country," according to The Associated Press.

"Their heroism is now part of the legacy of this great city, and I want future generations to remember what happened here and why, so that it might serve to both eradicate hatred and inspire future generations to stand up for the right values like Rick, Taliesin and Micah did last week," Wheeler said.

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Portland mayor asks federal government to revoke permit for 'alt-right' rally - ABC News