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The alt-right started 2017 strong.

Donald Trump, hero to the white nationalist movement, was inaugurated as president. Richard Spencer, would-be head of the movement, launched a new website and announced plans for a national tour. And the Reddit channel /altright/, a main congregating point for the largely-online movement, saw 5,000 new subscribers in just one month.

We started at 11,870 and as of this posting, we have 16,445, wrote the Reddit user TomorrowBelongsToUs. Keep spreading the word. This is the place to red-pill people.

Red-pill is a term used by the alt-right to signify ones political awakening to white nationalism.

Act like your posts and responses are reaching thousands of people whom you want to red pill, because they are! Be welcoming to new people and always follow reddits rules, TommorowBelongsToUs went on.

On a thread dedicated to the surge in alt-right subscribers, users debated what it meant that there was an uptick in interestamong a wider range of groups than some had expected.

I am strongly in favor of welcoming people who can be an asset to our movement, and even welcome blacks to discuss with us, wrote One_Winged_Rook, but Jews simply have no place here.

The user went on: They are not welcome by me, and its something I feel we should all agree on.

The alt-right has conflicted and complex views of Jews and Israel. The question of how Jews fit into the movement and the white nation more broadly is a source of division within alt-right ranks.

Other users were surprised that their alt-right sub-Reddit had not been shut down.

TBH its shocking we havent been shoahd, the user LeoMacht wrote.

Shoah is a reference to the Holocaust. The term is used here as a verb and has taken on meaning in the alt-right to mean killed or shut down.

Another user shared that they were one of those thousands of subscribers who had recently been drawn to the alt-right.

I came here on a whim because I kept hearing people refer to the alt right like some kind of nazi hate group and I wanted to see what it is all about, wrote Revrant. Needless to say, it isnt a hate group. I feel like the SJWs and BS like that basically created the alt right, or the need for the alt right.

SJW, or social justice warrior, is a is a pejorative term used to refer to progressive activists.

Revrant went on: People get tired of them trying to re-define reality.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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White Nationalist 'Alt-Right' Celebrates a Banner Month - Forward

The University of California, Berkeley has cancelled a speech by rightwing internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos after thousands of students gathered in protest and a group of black-clad anti-fascist activists shot fireworks at the speech venue.

The Martin Luther King Jr student union was heavily fortified behind several layers of police barricades when protesters began gathering outside at 5pm on Wednesday, three hours before the event was scheduled to start.

The gathering was boisterous but peaceful until about 6pm, when several dozen protesters wearing black face masks and carrying glittering flags arrived. The group quickly attacked the police barricades, then began shooting firecrackers at the building. Some used barricades to smash windows.

After about 15 minutes, a police officer announced that the event was cancelled.

Some cheered when the police announced the cancellation, but others continued to jeer and call for the police to send Milo out to face the crowd. Milo isnt here, one police officer shouted amid the din. Milo isnt here.

Around 6pm local time, Yiannopoulos posted a statement on Facebook claiming that the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.

After the event was cancelled, and after the crowd watched a light pole that had been set aflame burn itself out, the atmosphere in the crowd quickly turned festive.

A large sound system was turned on, blasting music. The first song played was YGs Fuck Donald Trump.

At one point riot police on the student unions second floor appeared to fire non-lethal weapons at the crowd, but it was unclear what kind.

We wont put up with the violent rhetoric of Milo, Trump or the fascistic alt-right, said a Berkeley history student who declined to give his name. The student, who was dressed in black and wore a face mask, carried a banner that read Queers bash back. He said he identified with the antifa (anti-fascist) movement.

We are willing to resist by any means necessary, he added.

Lana Wachowski, another protester, defended using extreme tactics to deny Yiannopolous a platform. The moral imperative is to win, she said. Theres something to be said for fighting according to a code, but if you lose, people are going to die. People are going to get deported.

Its absolutely acceptable to use violence. They are 100% certain to use it against us.

Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Berkeley in a tweet sent early on Thursday morning:

The Yiannopoulos event, which was sponsored by the Berkeley College Republicans, has divided the former home of the free speech movement in recent weeks. Many students, alumni and community members demanded that action be taken to stop Yiannopoulos from spreading his racist and transphobic views.

Last week, university chancellor Nicholas Dirks defended Yiannopouloss right to speak on campus, though he described the Breitbart editor as a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in parts to entertain, but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas whose act [is] at odds with the values of this campus.

Dirks also addressed Yiannopouloss tendency to single out individual students on stage such as a transgender student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for mockery and abuse, which the chancellor said does not justify prior restraint on his freedom of expression.

The Berkeley College Republicans said in a statement that the opportunity to invite Yiannopoulos was too good to pass up, though it disclaimed that the group does not agree with everything Milo has said or done, and totally disavow [sic] any violence or hurt that could result from this event.

Just hours before the protests, Reddit banned an alt-right subreddit page, r/altright, that had become a community for white nationalists. The page now reads: This subreddit was banned due to a violation of our content policy, specifically, the proliferation of personal and confidential information.

Yiannopoulos is a well-known figure in the rightwing internet, though he was permanently banned from Twitter in July 2016 for instigating racist and sexist abuse of Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones. Since 2015, Yiannopoulos has traveled to university campuses as part of his Dangerous Faggot tour, frequently provoking student protests.

A protester was shot and seriously injured outside a Yiannopoulos speech at the University of Washington on 20 January, reportedly by a Trump supporter who was seeking Yiannopouloss autograph.

This article was amended on 2 February 2017. An earlier version referred to the University of Wisconsin Madison where the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was meant.

Link:
UC Berkeley cancels 'alt-right' speaker Milo Yiannopoulos as thousands protest - The Guardian

Its just a piece of cloth, thats really what it is.

Foxler Nightfire is calling me from his home in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over the last few days, the 29-year-old has faced a torrent of online abuse after posting a picture of himself dressed as a fox on the social network Twitter.

Though furries people who dress up as animals, occasionally for sexual purposes often face criticism, it is something other than Foxlers fur-suit (known as afursona fur persona) that has drawn the internets ire. The problem? On his left arm he is wearing a red armband, emblazoned with a white circle, in which sits a black symbol.

Foxler and his armand, via Foxler Nightfire

The accessory looks like a Nazi armband.

Its obviously not a swastika, claims Foxler who also insists hisfurry name is a portmanteau of Fox and his real surname, Miller, not Hitler, as many online argue. Foxler says he first began wearing the armband which features a paw print in place of a swastika after he dropped out of high school and started playing the online role-playinggame Second Life, in which the band was available as a character accessory.

I didnt take any consideration because of my lack of World War Two knowledge, he says.I dont think I could ever take it off at this point, its so ingrained into my character, my fursona.

After Foxlers tweet of his picture went viral, he was quickly branded a Nazi furry. He is currently getting ten notifications every ten seconds on Twitter, and is attempting to fight back.

He is half-Thai and half-German, and describes his boyfriend as black, noting that his mother is from Singapore. He claims that he in no way identifies with the Nazi Party. If you want to put a political stance on me Im kind of right down the centre, he says.But because of this huge push of people saying Im a Nazi and they dont want me to exist, I started to feel I need to protect my position. You could say that Im starting to feel a little bit more right [wing].

Foxler'sstory sounds very convenient, and I searched his name on Twitter along with the word "Jew"to see if he hadmade hateful comments. Although I initially found nothing, some other furries - who are against Nazi furries - message me some screenshots of comments they claim Foxler has made on YouTube, in which he says "I hate black people" and "I stand by Hitler".

Foxler admits he made these comments but tells me he was just "trolling".

"When people started calling me out few years ago, I started to troll real Nazis and see how would they react to furry that aligns with them," he says over Twitter. "What I got out of it was 'go die you mutt', reason I could never support people like that." I ask him, does he hate black people?

"Their [sic] two parts to that one, in my normal day life not at all," he says."But in my personal sexual life 'I don't like any race', which means I wouldn't sleepwith black man [sic]. Now my boyfriend is mix black/asian. I sleep with him just fine, when I was young I use [sic] to be anti-gay. So why the change? It's because he [sic] not a 'human'; to me when I look at him. He [sic] a blue wolf."

When I say I feel misled by the fact that, over the phone, Foxlerdenied having any Nazi views, he says: "It'shard, we are talking about my whole life story here."

***

But just because Foxler claims not to identify as a Nazi furry, it doesnt mean they dont exist. In 2005, a LiveJournal page was created for those who were both furries and fetishised Nazi uniforms. Since then the group has spread, with illustrations and roleplays across the internet. There is now even an erotic novel, The Furred Reich, available to buy on Amazon.

Illustrations from The Furred Reich, viafurredreichblog.com

Yet although all of these furries seem to tick the box labelled Yep, definitely Nazi, no doubt about it, many in the community allegedly dont actually align themselves with Nazi beliefs. Theyre very interested in World War Two history and they like to re-enact,Foxler claims. Theyre just kinda cosplay in attitude, but when people look at it they dont see that.

In fact, the author of The Furred Reich initially refused to identify as a Nazi furry, as he disliked their incessant apologising and disclaimers that they arent actually Nazis.

Its worth noting, then, that beneath their costumes, furries are humans and thus have as diverse a range of opinions as any other subsection of society. Some Nazi furries, therefore, are white-supremacists, and others are simply into kinky costumes. Others, like Foxler, might hide in plain sightby wearing costumes but then denyholding Nazi beliefs.The whole thing, then, is incredibly complex.

Yet if Nazi furries are sometimes more innocent than their name would make them seem, there is now a new right-wing contender on the block.

There is not one thing that people refer to when they say #AltFurry, says Qu Qu, a man in his late twenties who identifies as a Pooka (a shapeshifter) and considers himself leader of the alt-furry movement.

Over the last week, #AltFurry has gained attention on Twitter after Foxler used the hashtag to thank the group for supporting him. Qu Qu says that the origins of the term alt-furry are confused, and to avoid it being co-opted or used wrongly, he decided to turn it into an explicitly right-wing movement.

I rule with an iron fist and crush dissenters beneath my footpaws, he tells me over Twitters direct messaging service.

Alt-furries have now been rejected by Richard Spencer, awhite supremacist andfounder of the alt-right. Yet although many #AltFurries do hold extreme right-wing views (Qu Qu often retweets anti-semtic jokes)the movement should not simply be defined as the furry branch of the alt-right. More accurately, it isthe alt-right branch of furries in that its right-wing doctrine is designed with the furry community in mind.

Progressives enjoy shrinking the Overton window until the window of acceptable discourse is but an inch wide, says Qu Qu, who calls himself politically grey but has become more right-wing because of this. Anything that falls outside the acceptable window of discourse becomes labelled alt, extreme, or radical.

The movement, he says, is about standing up for furries, and forming a right wing within a traditionally very liberal group. We would more accurately be described as a furry supremacy movement, although many of us believe that there is a place for furries within Richard Spencers ethnostate.

Foxler in costume, via Foxler Nightfire

Just like Nazi furries, then, many alt-furries hold differing beliefs, and, from the outside, it feels incrediblyconfusing. For many it seems to bea place to fight for furry supremacy or purge the furry community of those who are seen as too liberal and free. For others, the movement is a place for people who are both alt-right and furries, like the author of The Furred Reich,who is an American man in his twenties. I consider myself in the alt-right, he tells me over Twitter. Although a lot of people in the alt-right don't want me around because I wrote erotic furry literature. Many in the alt-right think I am a degenerate, although that isnt true at all. The author was approached by the alt-furry movement and decided to join.

The furry community is a fandom that has been overrun by liberal tolerance and acceptance and as a result it's become sanctuary to hardcore paedophiles and people with serious mental problems, he claims. The furry fandom needs to become more vigilant, and having a right wing is a big part of that.

A furry who wished to be identified only as Mink agrees. He tellsme that the #AltFurry movement is about bringing a new line of hope within the degenerate filth that is the furry fandom. They want to cleanse furries to be less heretical and degenerate and thus bring furs into a new light.

The only degeneracy that will be acceptable is getting gay married someday,he adds, though other alt-furries can behomophobic. But that isn't the only thing we are fighting for, we are fighting against systemic speciesist oppression.

Unlike the internet assumes, then, alt-furries arent alwaysfurries with an alt-right white supremacist agenda (though, like The Furred Reich author,some align with this), but are more focused on purging parts of their own community. If you had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be: Make Furries Great Again.

So are alt-furries and Nazi furries anything to be afraid of? The fact remains that this is all a bit silly.There is undoubtedly a heavy undercurrent of irony in the whole thing, which is more about using meme culture to mock social justice movements than starting a new world order.

You cant easily tell how many layers of irony we are on, says Qu Qu. This is by design, and you will start to see more and more political movements which bury themselves beneath layers of irony and yet still manage to get things done.

I can assure you though; we are on more layers than just five or six right now, my dude.

This article was updated to include new information unearthed after publication.

Continue reading here:
The Furred Reich: The truth about Nazi furries and the alt-right - New Statesman

Chronicle Staff and News Services

Library of Congress photo, circa 1888, of Abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.

Library of Congress photo, circa 1888, of Abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.

A Bud for immigrants; Reddit hits alt-right; Trump history fail

Top tweet

I used to teach 7th grade. This would get an Incomplete and a have-your-parents-sign-it-so-I-know-they-read-this-crap.

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, responding to a post from Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star that contained President Trumps entire speech about Black History Month. Also not exactly impressed was ESPNs J.A. Adande, who tweeted: Total words used to praise MLK, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman & Rosa Parks: 53. Number of words used to praise Omarosa: 51.

This Buds for immigrants

Having a Super Bowl commercial that touts the American dream wouldnt seem to be controversial, but Anheuser-Busch InBev might find out otherwise. Its spot for Sunday, called Born the Hard Way, tells the story of Adophus Buschs emigration from Germany to St. Louis, where he shares a beer with businessman Eberhard Anheuser. The ad, released online Tuesday, shows Busch navigating the new world against the headwinds of prejudice and hardship which might hit a bit too close to home for people passionately for or against current U.S. policies.

Reddit bans alt-right forum

Reddit has banned a forum for white nationalists from its social news website, citing the companys rules against posting personal information and harassment. Spokeswoman Anna Soellner said in a statement that the company banned the r/altright forum on Wednesday for repeated violations of content rules, but didnt mention specific examples. Thousands of users subscribed to the forum named for the alt-right, an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism.

Compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at http://www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techbriefing

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A Bud for immigrants; Reddit hits 'alt-right'; Trump history fail - SFGate

In November 2015, Stephen K. Bannon then the executive chairman of Breitbart News was hosting a satellite radio show. His guest was Montana RepresentativeRyan Zinke, who opposed President Obamas plan to resettle some Syrian refugees in the United States.

We need to put a stop on refugees until we can vet, MrZinke said.

Mr Bannon cut him off.

Why even let em in? he asked.

Mr Bannon said that vetting refugees from Muslim-majority countries would cost money and time. Cant that money be used in the United States? he said. Should we just take a pause and a hiatus for a number of years on any influx from that area of the world?

In the years before MrBannon grabbed the worlds attention as President Trumps chief White House strategist, he was developing and articulating a fiery populist vision for remaking the United States and its role in the world.

Mr Bannons past statements, aired primarily on Breitbart and other conservative platforms, serve as a road map for the controversial agenda that has roiled Washington and shaken the global order during Mr Trumps first two weeks in office.

Now, at the centre of power in the White House, MrBannon is moving quickly to turn his ideas into policy, helping direct the biggest decisions of Mr Trumps administration. The withdrawal from a major trade pact. A ban on all visitors from seven majority-Muslim countries. And in an echo of that conversation with MrZinke, who is now Mr Trumps nominee for interior secretary there was a temporary ban on all new refugees.

The result has been intense fury from Democrats, discomfort among many Republicans, and a growing sense of unease in the world that Mr Trump intends to undermine an America-centered world that has lasted 70 years. This sense of turmoil, welcomed by many Trump supporters as proof that the new president is following through on his vow to jolt Washington, reflects the sort of transformation that MrBannon has long called for.

That worldview, which MrBannon laid out in interviews and speeches over the past several years, hinges largely on Mr Bannons belief in American sovereignty. MrBannon said that countries should protect their citizens and their essence by reducing immigration, legal and illegal, and pulling back from multinational agreements.

As nationwide protests against President Trumps immigration mandate rage on, he reshuffled the National Security Council and put chief strategist and former Breitbart News chair Stephen Bannon in an unprecedented national security role (Washington Post)

At the same time, MrBannon was concerned that the United States and the Judeo-Christian West were in a war against an expansionist Islamic ideology but that they were losing the war by not recognising what it was. MrBannon said this fight was so important, it was worth overlooking differences and rivalries with countries like Russia.

It is not yet clear how far MrBannon will be able to go to enact his agenda. His early policy moves have been marred by administrative chaos. But his world view calls for bigger changes than those already made.

In the past, MrBannon had wondered aloud whether the country was ready to follow his lead. Now, he will find out.

Is that grit still there, that tenacity, that weve seen on the battlefields... fighting for something greater than themselves? MrBannon said in another radio interview last May, before he joined the Trump campaign.

That,said MrBannon, is one of the biggest open questions in this country.

Mr Bannon, 62, is a former Navy officer and Goldman Sachs banker who made a fortune after he acquired a share of the royalties from a fledgling TV show called Seinfeld. In the past 15 years, he shifted into entertainment and conservative media, making films about Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin and then taking a lead role at Breitbart News.

At Breitbart, MrBannon cemented his role as a champion of the alt-right, the anti-globalism movement that has attracted support from white supremacists and found a home on the far-right website.

Mr Bannon also forged a rapport with Mr Trump, interviewing the businessman-candidate on his show and then, in August 2016, joining the campaign as chief executive.

Now, MrBannon has become one of the most powerful men in America. And he is not afraid to say so.

In interviews with reporters since Mr Trumps election, MrBannon has eschewed the traditional it-is-all-about-the-boss humility of presidential staffers.

Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. Thats power, he told the Hollywood Reporter in November, embracing the comparisons of him to those figures.

Donald Trump's closest advisor Steve Bannon thinks there will be war with China in the next few years

In the same interview, MrBannon compared himself to a powerful aide to Englands Henry VIII an aide who helped engineer a world-shaking move of his era, the split of the Church of England from the Catholic Church.

I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors, MrBannon told the Hollywood Reporter.

To explore Mr Bannons world view, The Washington Post reviewed hours of radio interviews that MrBannon conducted while hosting a Breitbart radio talk show, as well as speeches and interviews he has given since 2014.

MrBannon did not respond to a request for comment made on Tuesday afternoon.

In his public statements, MrBannon espoused a basic idea that Mr Trump would later seize as the centrepiece of his campaign.

While others saw the world rebounding from the financial crisis of 2008, MrBannon just saw it becoming more divided by class.

The elites that had caused the crisis or, at least, failed to stop it were now rising higher. Everyone else was being left behind.

The middle class, the working men and women in the world... are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos, MrBannon said in a 2014 speech to a conference at the Vatican in a recording obtained by BuzzFeed. Davos is a Swiss ski resort that hosts an annual conclave of wealthy and powerful people.

Mr Bannon blamed both major political parties for this system and set out to force his ideas on an unwilling Republican leadership.

What he wanted, he said again and again, was sovereignty. Both in the United States and in its traditional allies in Western Europe.

Steve Bannon calls liberal women 'a bunch of dykes'

On one of the first Breitbart Radio shows, in early November 2015, MrBannon praised the growing movement in Britain to exit the European Union. He said that the British had joined the EUmerely as a trading federation but that it had grown into a force that had stripped Britons of sovereignty in every aspect important to their own life.

Mr Bannon has been supportive of similar movements in other European countries to pull out of the union. Mr Trump has echoed those sentiments in his first few days as president. It is a remarkable shift in USpolicy: After decades of building multinational alliances as a guarantee of peace, now the White House has indicated it may undermine them.

Mr Bannon, in his 2014 speech at the Vatican, cast this as a return to a better past.

I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbours, MrBannon said. And that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think its what can see us forward.

In the case of the United States, MrBannon was sceptical of multinational trade pacts, saying that they ceded control. In a radio interview in November 2015, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions agreed with MrBannon.

We shouldnt be tying ourselves down like Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians with so many strings a guy cant move, said Mr Sessions, who is now Mr Trumps nominee to become attorney general. He was referring to a scene from the novel Gullivers Travels in which the hero is tied down by a race of tiny men. That is where we are heading, and its not necessary.

One solution put forward by MrBannon: the United States should pursue bilateral trade agreements one country at a time rather than multi-country agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership supported by Obama.

He suggested as much to Mr Trump himself, when the candidate appeared on his show in November 2015.

Trump brings [a deal] back to the Senate and gets his bilateral trade deal with Taiwan or with Japan approved by two-thirds of the Senate, MrBannon said. And you have to go argue, Hey, this is why its a good deal. And thats the way the Founders wanted it.

On a March 2016 episode, MrBannon said that restoring sovereignty meant reducing immigration. In his radio shows, he criticised the federal H-1B visa programmes that permit UScompanies to fill technical positions with workers from overseas.

Sean Spicer defends Steve Bannon sitting in on national security council meetings

The progressive plutocrats in Silicon Valley, MrBannon said, want unlimited ability to go around the world and bring people back to the United States. Engineering schools, MrBannon said, are all full of people from South Asia, and East Asia... Theyve come in here to take these jobs. Meanwhile, MrBannon said, American students cant get engineering degrees; they cant get into these graduate schools because they are all foreign students. When they come out, they cant get a job.

Dont we have a problem with legal immigration? asked MrBannon repeatedly.

Twenty percent of this country is immigrants. Is that not the beating heart of this problem? he said, meaning the problem of native-born Americans being unable to find jobs and rising wages.

In another show, MrBannon had complained to Trump that so many Silicon Valley chief executives were South Asian or Asian. This was a rare time when Mr Trump normally receptive to Mr Bannons ideas on-air pushed back. I still want people to come in, Mr Trump said. But I want them to go through the process.

So far, Mr Trump has made no changes to the high-skilled visa program. This week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the Trump administration may reexamine the program.

Even as MrBannon was calling for a general retreat from multinational alliances, however, he was warning of the need for a new alliance involving only a subset of the worlds countries.

The Judeo-Christian West was at war, he said, but didnt seem to understand it yet.

There is a major war brewing, a war thats already global, Bannon said at the Vatican in 2014, at a time when the Islamic State was gaining territory. Every day that we refuse to look at this as what it is and the scale of it, and really the viciousness of it will be a day where you will rue that we didnt act.

Mr Bannon has given few details about the mechanics of the war he thinks the West should fight. But he has been clear that it is urgent enough to take priority over other rivalries and worries.

In his talk at the Vatican, MrBannon was asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr Bannons answer was two-sided.

I think that Putin and his cronies are really a kleptocracy, that are really an imperialist power that want to expand, he said. But, MrBannon said, there were bigger concerns than Russia and there was something to admire in Mr Putins call for more traditional values.

However, I really believe that in this current environment, where youre facing a potential new caliphate that is very aggressive that is really a situation Im not saying we can put [Russia] on a back burner but I think we have to deal with first things first, MrBannon said.

If MrBannon succeeds, MrBannons own comparison, to Englands Thomas Cromwell, might be apt to a point.

The analogy if its going to work is that Bannon has his own agenda, which he will try to use Trump for, and will try to exploit the power that Trump has given him, without his master always noticing, said Diarmaid MacCulloch, a professor of history at Englands Oxford University.

But Cromwell was later executed, after Henry VIII turned against him. For a man like that, MrMacCulloch said, power is always tenuous: Its very much dependent on the favour of the king.

Washington Post

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Steve Bannon: The unelected 'alt-right' figurehead running the White House - The Independent