Category Archives: Alt-right

Virginias Spotsylvania County School Board this week voted unanimously to have books with sexually explicit material removed from school library shelves. For two members of the school board, this didnt go far enough; they wanted to see the books incinerated. Im sure weve got hundreds of people out there that would like to see those books before we burn them, said one of the members, Kirk Twigg. Just so we can identify, within our community, that we are eradicating this bad stuff.

This was just one example of an aggressive new censoriousness tearing through America, as the campaign against critical race theory expands into a broader push to purge school libraries of books that affront conservative sensibilities regarding race and gender. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom, told me that during her 20 years with the organization, theres always been a steady hum of censorship, and the reasons have shifted over time. But Ive never seen the number of challenges weve seen this year.

In Texas and South Carolina, Republican governors have called for action on obscene content in school libraries. Public schools in Virginia Beach have pulled books including Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye out of their libraries pending the results of a challenge by conservative school board members. Schools in North Kansas City, Mo., have done the same with books including the acclaimed memoir Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and All Boys Arent Blue, a book of essays about growing up gay and Black by George M. Johnson. In Flagler County, Fla., a member of the school board filed a criminal report over the presence of All Boys Arent Blue in her districts school libraries, claiming it violated state obscenity laws.

With the rush to ban critical race theory, conservatives already gave up posturing as defenders of free speech. Still, this sudden mania for book banning is striking. Its part of a broader attack on public schools, one that draws on anger over critical race theory, mask mandates and sometimes even QAnon-inflected fears about pedophile conspiracies.

What Ive started to call more and more frequently the war on books, its getting wrapped up in all kinds of anti-school activities, said Richard Price, an associate professor of political science at Weber State University who runs the blog Adventures in Censorship.

Its important to acknowledge that some amount of parental shock at envelope-pushing young adult literature is understandable. As in the days when the Christian right tried to rid libraries of Judy Blume, books whose frankness about taboo subjects intrigue teenagers can horrify their elders.

One frequently targeted book is the 2019 graphic memoir Gender Queer. Its author, Maia Kobabe, wrote an illustrated column about the uproar over the book in The Washington Post, with a thought bubble saying, Why are they mad about the book? Because I said nonbinary and trans people exist? Perhaps, but Id guess that some parents are also mad about the images of fellatio. Its easy to imagine Gender Queer being a great comfort to a confused and lonely 16-year-old, but its just as easy to see why conservatives would find it outrageous.

The transgressive nature of some recent young adult literature, however, isnt enough to explain the current nationwide campaign to cleanse libraries of works seen as unwholesome. For one thing, at most schools, parents can already block their own kids access to books they object to. And many of the works the right is now up in arms about have been out for years. The Texas lawmaker Matt Krause recently sent school districts a list of around 850 books that he wants information on. Among the titles to be investigated are William Styrons The Confessions of Nat Turner and Jeffrey Eugenidess Middlesex.

Ashley Hope Prezs award-winning Out of Darkness, about a romance between a Mexican American girl and a Black boy set against Texas 1937 New London school explosion, came out in 2015. Until this year Prez, a former high school English teacher who is now an assistant professor at Ohio State University, hadnt heard of any controversy around it. But now her book is regularly denounced by school culture warriors. The group No Left Turn in Education, which was founded last year to fight critical race theory in schools, has it on a list of books that are indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology.

In September, a Texas anti-mask activist named Kara Bell read a passage from Out of Darkness at a school board meeting. The scene she chose was one in which a gang of racist white students sexually demean the Mexican heroine.

Bell quoted the characters making a slang reference to anal sex, words that left her appalled. I do not want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school! she cried. Ive never had anal sex! I dont want to have anal sex! I dont want my kids having anal sex!

Video of Bell went viral, and Prez was deluged with furious and sometimes violent messages, often accusing her of promoting pedophilia. Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, told me he was accused of being a pedophile simply for defending the presence of Out of Darkness in school libraries. Theres definitely some kind of QAnon element taking place here, he said. After all, the paranoid belief that liberalism is a front for pedophile cabals is a staple of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

This spreading moral panic demonstrates, yet again, why the left needs the First Amendment, even if the veneration of free speech has fallen out fashion among some progressives. Absent a societal commitment to free expression, the question of who can speak becomes purely a question of power, and in much of this country, power belongs to the right.

What were seeing is really this idea that marginalized communities, marginalized groups, dont have a place in public school libraries, or public libraries, and that libraries should be institutions that only serve the needs of a certain group of people in the community, said Caldwell-Stone. The fight about who controls school libraries is a microcosm of the fight about who controls America, and the right is on the offense.

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Opinion | Conservatives Are Trying to Ban a Growing List of Books - The New York Times

Donald Trumps former adviser Steve Bannon has been charged with contempt of Congress after failing to appear before a committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

The justice department said Bannon had been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts: refusing to appear for a deposition and refusing to provide documents in response to the committees subpoena.

The CNN channel reported that an arrest warrant for Bannon had already been signed by a judge, while MSNBC said he was expected to give himself up on Monday and appear in court that afternoon.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the indictment reflected the justice departments steadfast commitment to ensuring it adhered to the rule of law, no matter who is accused of a crime.

Since my first day in office, I have promised justice department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law, Garland said.

Each count carries between 30 days and a year in jail. The indictment the first for criminal contempt of Congress in nearly 40 years will come as a relief to Trump critics who feared that Garland was being overly cautious and moving too slowly.

Bannon, 67, is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he once described as the platform of the alt-right, a movement that embraced racism and antisemitism. He became chairman of Trumps 2016 election campaign and then his White House chief strategist but lasted less than a year.

Bannon pushed false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and prophesied on his podcast on 5 January: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. That evening he was part of a gathering of Trump allies at the Willard hotel in Washington that the House of Representatives committee has called the war room.

That naturally made him a person of interest but Bannons lawyer told the House committee in October that he would not cooperate, citing an assertion of executive privilege by Trump. Legal experts were quick to point out that Bannon was a private citizen at the time of the insurrection so this argument had little merit.

Last month the House voted 229-202 to hold Bannon in contempt. Nine Republicans supported the resolution.

The 6 January committee was created by the House to investigate the attack, in which a pro-Trump mob rampaged through the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Bidens 2020 election victory over Trump.

Some of the committees work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from top Trump administration officials who have refused to comply with subpoenas to testify or turn over documents.

Earlier on Friday, Trumps former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows failed to appear before the committee. He also faces a criminal referral to the justice department for contempt.

The committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, and vice-chair, Liz Cheney, said in a joint statement: Its unfortunate that Mr Meadows has chosen to join a very small group of witnesses who believe they are above the law and are defying a Select Committee subpoena outright.

The Select Committee has talked with more than 150 individuals who are engaging and cooperating with our probe and providing critical details. And while were determined to get all the information were seeking, Mr Meadows, Mr Bannon, and others who go down this path wont prevail in stopping the Select Committees effort getting answers for the American people about January 6th.

Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican on the committee, told CNN he hoped the indictment of Bannon would send a chilling message to other subpoena recipients.

It sends a really important message to future invited witnesses You cannot ignore Congress, Kinzinger said.

Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary, tweeted: The only way to make the indictment of Bannon truly meaningful and a strong message to the others defying the law is to remand him prison, no bail available. That will send the message. Hope the Judge has been watching all this.

Bannons attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

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Steve Bannon indicted for refusal to comply with Capitol attack subpoena - The Guardian

French commentator Eric Zemmour has risen to political notoriety off the back of anti-Muslim hatred and anti-migrant incitement before even officially announcing his candidacy in the 2022 French presidential elections.

One recent poll placed Zemmour at 16% which would translate into a second-round run off between him and current president Emmanuel Macron, knocking out far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

Zemmour sits firmly to the right of his rival Le Pen. He has convictions for inciting racial hatred and is an open proponent of the great replacement conspiracy theory. This suggests white people are being ethnically cleansed by Muslim migrants and Jewish puppet-masters, and has emerged as the ideological underpinning for attacks including the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting in 2018 and the Christchurch Mosques shooting in 2019.

Zemmour has made various ahistorical comments, including that Vichy France, the regime that collaborated with the Nazis during the second world war, actually protected French Jews. He has also questioned the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, who was falsely convicted for treason in a notorious example of 20th century antisemitism. His stock in trade has become to give oxygen to antisemitic conspiracy theorists.

It may therefore seem surprising that Zemmour is himself of Jewish heritage. He is the descendent of Algerian Berber Jewish immigrants.

Yonathan Arfi, vice president of the Representative Council of French Jews, describes it all as a double punishment. First, French Jews have to hear the false narratives Zemmour espouses, then they have to deal with the fact that these words have come from someone who is identified as coming from Jewish heritage himself which adds a false air of legitimacy to the claims.

There are questions over how much Zemmour actually engages with his Jewish identity but, as philosopher Bernard-Henri Lvy argues, that has become irrelevant. Despite rigorous criticism from the Jewish community, "what Mr Zemmour does, whether he likes it or not, [is] in the Jewish name.

Zemmour is not the first Jewish person to engage with far-right politics, or to run for election. In federal elections in Germany this year, for example Marcel Goldhammer, vice-chairman of Jews in the Alternative for Germany - an organisation aligned with the far-right party - stood as a candidate representing a tiny but vocal collection of radical-right German Jews.

Jewish people sign up to far-right parties for many of the same reasons as the wider population. They might oppose immigration or be ultra-nationalist in their thinking. But the fact that these movements so often thrive off the back of antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism makes Jewish involvement a puzzling hypocrisy.

Collective identity theory helps explain this puzzle. Sociologist David Snow notes that everyone carries multiple collective identities, some of which are prioritised over others. This is what is termed an identity salience hierarchy. In this case, some Jews appear to have constructed collective identities which include the far right and prioritise political ideology over other aspects of Jewish identity.

Some buy into deliberately skewed assertions that Muslim or migrant communities are the sole cause of rising antisemitism. Instead of combating far-right antisemites, they they are espousing their ani-Islamic message.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, backing Zemmour over his own daughter, reflected that the only difference between Eric and me is that he is Jewish. It is difficult to call him a Nazi or fascist. This gives him more freedom. Whether it is Zemmours intention or not, he is being presented by the French extreme right as a champion of their cause. They are absolutely clear that his Jewish identity is a helpful tool to deflect accusations of racism.

In the course of my research, I came across multiple illustrative comments on right-wing forums on 4chans politics boards, where Zemmour was described as 100% /ourjew/. One user praised Zemmour, who despite being Jewish, seems to truly love France. Another added that he recognises his Jewish identity but he doesnt let that stop him from speaking out again [sic] Jewish influence and mass immigration.

However, other extreme-right figures view Zemmour as a trojan horse for Jewish control. To them, he is living confirmation of great replacement conspiracy theories. Eric Striker a US-based alt-right propagandist (who is widely believed to be a persona) posted to his large Telegram following that Zemmour is hostile to French racial and Catholic-centred nationalism, is an open Jewish supremacist, and is using throwing out some red meat about ethnic decline to mask his actual policy proposals, which are liberal, globalist, and Zionist neo-conservativism. Despite attempts to cosy up to the far right, Zemmour will still only be seen by some as an immigrant and a Jew.

Overt Nazism is often still seen as the only indicator of far-right sentiment. But a careful public relations transformation is underway. Extremists such as Zemmour have the capacity to attract votes from portions of the electorate who support his policies, but do not consider themselves to be fascists or racists. His identity reassures them of this belief.

He has helped high-profile far-right figures in their quest to move the Overton window, making it politically acceptable to espouse hateful views in mainstream politics. Whether Zemmour ever does really end up making an electoral impact, the precedent is already being set. The strategic use of far-right philosemitism (a suspicious love of Jews based on stereotypes) remains an urgent threat for Muslim and Jewish communities alike.

The rest is here:

Eric Zemmour: Jewish heritage is a useful tool for the French far right - The Conversation UK

In terms of using jaywalking as a metaphor, taking such a shortcut requires timing and knowledge of ones surroundings.

For example, alternative-rock band Silversun Pickups arrived on the scene more than a decade ago channeling a heavy 90s and, specifically, Smashing Pumpkins vibe. Had the Los Angeles-based group at that time decided to record with famed 120 Minutes-era producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth), the move would have been too much on the nose.

However, enough time has passed for the band with its roughly 10 top-20 alt-rock hits and a handful of records that no one batted a Lazy Eye when the outfit decided to work with Vig for its latest album, Widows Weeds.

Weve never consciously tried to go to a sound or go away from it, said bassist Nikki Monninger, calling from Milwaukee. This is how we sound, and Butch is just fine-tuning wherever were at.

Were not afraid because hes worked with so many bands who have been influential to us. Instead, its like were embracing that, and hes just a calming influence on us. Hes just got so much going on in his head. He really knows what hes doing.

Theres a good argument to be made that Widows Weeds represents a fully realized Silversun Pickups with its guitar-heavy jams such as lead single It Doesnt Matter Why as well as the string-heavy, catchy title track, Dont Know Yet.

Conceptually, the bands fifth studio effort is an extroverted affair that delves into rebirth and renewal. Little did the group know that nine months after its release the material would provide a perfect pandemic soundtrack.

Relistening and replaying songs on the album, were realizing these are very timely right now, Monninger said. Some of the lyrics feel like they were written right now as opposed to a couple of years ago. There are a lot of things to relate to whats happening in the world.

Whats happening right now in the world of Silversun Pickups is not only finishing up its next studio effort with Vig its due out next year but also completing a proper tour supporting Widows Weeds that began roughly two years ago.

On the road prior to the world shutting down in early 2020, the band was a week away from playing Cleveland when the tour was cancelled. After more than 18 months, Silversun Pickups returns to Cleveland Nov. 14 for a gig at the Agora Theatre.

We were looking forward to seeing you guys in 2020 but things happened, Monninger said. Were so happy to be coming to see you. We really do have a soft spot for Cleveland.

As for the aforementioned jaywalking reference, thats related to a previous Silversun Pickups visit to Cleveland, when a guitar tech ran into some late-night trouble. After a night of partying, the bands former crew member was arrested for jaywalking.

A lot of times when weve gotten in trouble, its been the crew, not the band, Monninger said. Its kind of funny. Also, now were always paying attention to the rules in Cleveland.

Actually, Jaywalking in Cleveland sounds like a great song title just waiting to be written.

I think so, Monninger laughed. Well see if it comes out on our next album.

When: 7 p.m. Nov. 14.

Where: Agora Theatre, 5001 Prospect Ave., Cleveland.

Tickets: $35 to $50.

Info: agoracleveland.com.

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Silversun Pickups Agora-bound in support of Widows Weeds - News-Herald.com

In fact, Mr. Reagans welfare reforms just made the poor poorer. When a three-year recession hit in 1980, six million more Americans fell into poverty. By 1989, employment recovered, but a weak social safety net meant that workers were an illness or an accident away from hardship.

Democrats were complicit. In 1992, although he would try (but fail) to pass national health care, Bill Clinton promised to end welfare as we know it. Looking to a second term, he later blasted big government. The bipartisan Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 put mothers to work at low-wage jobs without health care benefits, linked food aid to work, established a five-year lifetime limit on benefits paid by federal money and funded sexual abstinence programs, not reproductive health. By 1999, single mothers on workfare had sunk deeper into poverty.

Progressive Democrats did only marginally better. In 2012, Republicans accused President Barack Obama of unwinding decades of welfare-to-work provisions, with a new system of waivers, work requirements and block grants that states had to follow. And while his Affordable Care Act passed narrowly, under pressure from both parties, he abandoned universal health care.

Today the poverty rate hovers around 11 percent, about where it was in 1973, and economic insecurity now envelops the working poor and middle class. Some economists now argue that the misery caused by decades of failure to support working families paved the way for Donald Trumps presidency.

That may be true. Left to fend for themselves in poorly regulated markets, by default, working Americans do care for themselves often on credit. Medical debt was recently pegged at $140 billion and student loans at over $1.7 trillion. Thirteen million workers have more than one job.

Americans work hard, but in the United States it costs money even to go to work. Child care, if parents can find it, can cost more than a mortgage payment. Elder care? Even more. Despite the Affordable Care Act, 28 million Americans are left uninsured.

Cutting social programs failed, yet this ethic dogs us to this day. Why? First, since the New Deal, conservatives have promoted the falsehood that universal welfare programs reward Americans for not working. Second, when Great Society programs failed to eliminate poverty, rather than make federal aid more accessible and inclusive, some liberals implicitly tied welfare to work and implied that the inability to make ends meet was a moral problem.

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Opinion | The Shadow of Ronald Reagan Is Costing Us Dearly - The New York Times

But in that case, we are not exercising for at least four days of the week, which can be problematic. There are a number of health benefits, most of them related to better blood sugar and blood pressure levels, he said, that occur only on days when we exercise. When we skip working out, even if we did HIIT the day before, our blood sugar and blood pressure control may slip, undercutting the long-term metabolic gains from those earlier intervals. So, if you decide to do HIIT, plan to schedule other types of exercise, he said, such as moderate walking, cycling, swimming, jogging or calisthenics on most other days of the week.

Perhaps the biggest impediment to HIIT for many people, though, is that name.

I wish we would start using the more-encompassing term interval training, rather than HIIT, Dr. Gibala said. So many people are intimidated, because they think HIIT has to be this all-out, hard-as-you-can-go, gut-busting workout. It does not, he said. On a green-yellow-red spectrum of physical effort, he said, it is yellow.

You should be able to have short conversations with another person during a typical interval, Dr. Wisloff said. But if that person asks you to sing, you should not be able to.

In practice, this level of effort could mean walking up a hill instead of on level ground, Dr. Wisloff said. Interval walking, in fact, can be an ideal introduction to this kind of exercise. In a large-scale experiment a few years ago in Japan, almost 700 middle-aged and older adults walked for 30 minutes, some at their usual pace, while others alternated three minutes of up-tempo walking with three minutes of strolling. At the end of five months, the interval walkers were considerably fitter and stronger than the others. And when the researchers checked back in with the volunteers two years later, 70 percent of the interval walkers were voluntarily continuing with their interval program.

Interested in trying HIIT now? Good, Dr. Wisloff said. I would say that everyone should aim for at least one HIIT session per week, for the sake of health, he said.

Choose whichever variety of HIIT appeals to you. You might try one minute on, one minute off, meaning you push yourself for 60 seconds, rest for 60, and repeat, or the four-minute interval workouts employed often in Dr. Wisloffs research, with four minutes of strenuous effort followed by four minutes of rest. Other researchers use four-second intervals, and I have tried and enjoyed the 10-20-30 approach, which was pioneered by scientists in Copenhagen, during which you jog or otherwise exercise gently for 30 seconds, ramp up the effort for 20 seconds and then sprint for 10 seconds, before returning to the easy half-minute jog.

But lately, I have settled into frequent fartleks. Swedish for speed play, fartlek workouts involve picking a goal, such as a tree or light pole up ahead, and speeding up until you reach it. No need to check your heart rate or track each intervals length, in time or distance, said Dr. Wisloff, who also trains with fartlek. Use the natural contours of the landscape to shape your exercise. This is perfect to do outside the gym, he said, with little expense or experience needed. Just dash toward the tree until it recedes behind you, pick another landmark ahead, and youll be HIITing health and fitness goals.

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What Is HIIT and How Does the Training Benefit Your Health? - The New York Times

The credo of owning the libs reads a lot like the traditional comedians defense of his right to insult and offend.

When McInnes founded the Proud Boys in 2016,he used TGMS as a recruitment tool. In his monologue and call-insegments, he laid out the organizations principles and customs, chief amongwhich was its ideology of Western chauvinism: a belief in the superiority ofWestern civilization and the white people supposedly responsible for it. Whitemales are a big part of what made the West great, he told a caller withquestions about joining. The Black contingent [of the Proud Boys] is pro-whitemale, the same you would be if you were an expat living in Japanyoud bepro-Japanese and youd take your shoes off.

Despite his concerns that the openly Nazielements of the far right were bad for his brand, McInnes didnt hesitate toassociate with them. His guests were a whos who of the contemporary far right:Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, Unite the Right rally organizer JasonKessler, Crying Nazi Christopher Cantwell, Mike Cernovich, Sal Cipolla, FaithGoldy, Roosh V, even former KKK leader David Duke.

The Gavin McInnes Show was more than the white power hour, however. In the years before andduring his show on Compound Media, McInnes tried his hand at live comedy,performing in New York City venues like the Upright Citizens Brigade Theaterand The Creek and The Cave. He recorded a podcast, Free Speech,at the club Stand Up NY; in 2016, McInnes said he was banned from a club calledThe Stand after he exposed himself onstage. (He later recalled the managertelling him, I have to turn my back on you now.) He used his platform onCompound Media to mingle with a revolving door of respected, even mainstreamcomics: people like Big Jay Oakerson, Tim Dillon, Justy Dodge, Mike Lawrence,Larry the Cable Guy, Joe Matarese, Tom Shillue, Dave Hill, Alonzo Bodden, LuisGomez, and Dave Smith, none of whom were deterred by McInness friendliness withwhite supremacists.

Some stopped by for a one-off appearance.Others were repeats, like Gomez and Smith, who hosted their own Compound Mediashow,Legion of Skanks, with Oakerson. Gomez laid out McInness influencequite explicitly in 2016. The reason I love Gavin is because he has said n----rand faggot so much that thats not even a big deal, he said. When you come towatch the Legion of Skanks show, you should be hearing racist, sexist,offensive shit. If youre upset about that, dont watch the show.

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The Comedy Industry Has a Big Alt-Right Problem | The New ...

The military is investigating whether a hand gesture displayed by cadets and midshipmen during television coverage of the Army-Navy football game on Saturday was meant to express racist sentiments.

The hand sign that was flashed on camera is one that has had a benign meaning for generations: It is commonly used to signal OK, or all is well. But in recent years, it has also been appropriated for other purposes, most notably as a way to signify white power. It has become an extremist meme, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Officials at West Point and Annapolis are trying to determine the cadets motives. Here is how the hand gesture became a fraught one.

Where did the sign come from?

Touching the thumb and index finger to make a circle, with the remaining three fingers held outstretched, is a gesture that people around the world have made for centuries, mostly in positive contexts. It is used for several purposes in sign languages, and in yoga as a symbol to demonstrate inner perfection.

Members of the ShieldWall Network, a white nationalist group, burn a swastika and cross during a party outside Atkins, Arkansas, U.S on March 9, 2019

Reuters

Members of the ShieldWall Network hold up balloons decorated as the face of Adolf Hitler and give a white-power hand signal as they celebrate the German fascist's birthday outside Atkins, Arkansas

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Billy Roper of the ShieldWall Network attends a party at a home outside Atkins. The group primarily operates in Arkansas and includes three other members who were recently charged with assault in connection with the beating of a gay man, according to police reports

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Members of the ShieldWall Network march to a rally opposing legal abortion and supporting gun rights at the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas

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Jeff Schoep, former chairman of the National Socialist Movement, speaks during a rally at the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas on November 10, 2018

Reuters

Crosses lit by members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan burn outside Yanceyville, North Carolina, U.S., November 4, 2017. The Loyal White Knights is one of the largest Klan groups in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks extremist groups

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Members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan prepare for a cross-burning outside Yanceyville, North Carolina, U.S., November 4, 2017

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Members of the ShieldWall Network perform a Nazi salute as a swastika and cross burn during a party outside Atkins, Arkansas, March 9, 2019

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High chairs are seen in a building owned by The Knights Party, a white nationalist group formerly named the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, outside Harrison, Arkansas, March 10, 2019. The organisation is opening an education center for the children of white nationalists

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Chris Barker of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan addresses an audience before a cross-burning outside Yanceyville

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A figurine of a black man being lynched inside the home of Chris Barker of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Yanceyville

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John Carollo, a member of the ShieldWall Network, holds up a photo montage of (clockwise from top left) Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Adolf Hitler, founder of the American Nazi Party George Lincoln Rockwell, Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof and Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, while attending a party at a home outside Atkins

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Symbols of white nationalism are displayed on the jacket of a member of the National Socialist Movement as they gather in a parking lot before attending a rally at the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas

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Members of the ShieldWall Network prepare a swastika for burning to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday outside Atkins

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A new member of the ShieldWall Network, Nicholas Holloway, and other members of the white nationalist group go boating to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday outside Russellville, Arkansas

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Courtney Calfy, wife of Julian Calfy, helps to prepare a meal as members of the ShieldWall Network gather to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday outside Atkins, Arkansas

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John Carollo, a member of the ShieldWall Network, on the phone during a celebration of Adolf Hitler's birthday outside Atkins, Arkansas

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A plaque on top of a flagpole with the number 1488 is carried by members of the National Socialist Movement as they attend a rally at the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, November 10, 2018

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Members of the ShieldWall Network John Carollo, Julian Calfy and Nicholas Holloway gather at a member's home before departing to disrupt a Jewish Holocaust memorial event in Russellville, Arkansas

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Members of the ShieldWall Network burn a swastika to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday outside Atkins, Arkansas

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Chris Barker of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is seen inside what the group calls its church, next to his home in Yanceyville

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Members of the ShieldWall Network go boating to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday outside Russellville, Arkansas

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Members of the ShieldWall Network, a white nationalist group, prepare to burn a swastika and cross during a party at a home outside Atkins, Arkansas

REUTERS

The widely understood modern use of the sign for approval or assent seems to have arisen along with the term OK in the 19th century. Some researchers have traced the word to 1839, when Charles Gordon Greene wrote jokingly in The Boston Morning Post about it being an intentionally misspelled abbreviation for all correct. The term caught on, and the hand gesture, with the fingers forming something vaguely like an O and K, became closely linked with it.

How did it become connected to white power?

It started in early 2017 as a hoax. Anonymous users of 4chan, an anonymous and unrestricted online message board, began what they called Operation O-KKK, to see if they could trick the wider world and especially, liberals and the mainstream media into believing that the innocuous gesture was actually a clandestine symbol of white power.

We must flood Twitter and other social media websites with spam, claiming that the OK hand signal is a symbol of white supremacy, one of the users posted, going on to suggest that everyone involved create fake social media accounts with basic white girl names to propagate the notion as widely as possible.

The 4chan hoax succeeded all too well and ceased being a hoax: Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white nationalists began using the gesture in public to signal their presence and to spot potential sympathisers and recruits. For them, the letters formed by the hand were not O and K, but W and P, for white power.

Brenton Tarrant made the symbol at his trial earlier this year

(Getty Images)

The gesture is not the only symbol to have been appropriated and swiftly weaponized by alt-right internet trolls. The Southern Poverty Law Centre has identified memes featuring the hoax religion of Kek and cartoon character Pepe the Frog, among others, as being at the forefront of white nationalists efforts to distract and infuriate liberals.

Where else has the gesture surfaced?

A number of high-profile figures on the far right have helped spread the gestures racist connotation by flashing it conspicuously in public, including Milo Yiannopoulos, an outspoken former Breitbart editor, and Richard Spencer, one of the promoters of the white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that resulted in the death of a 32-year-old woman.

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The gesture was in the headlines again after Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser to US president Donald Trump, met with a group of white nationalists known as Proud Boys in Salem, Oregon, in 2018 and was photographed displaying it with them.

Critics expressed outrage when a former White House aide, Zina Bash, appeared to be flashing the sign as she sat behind Brett Kavanaugh during his televised Senate confirmation hearings for his appointment to the Supreme Court. Defenders of Ms Bash insisted that she had not intended any racist connotation and was merely signalling OK to someone.

That the gesture has migrated beyond ironic trolling culture to become a sincere expression of white supremacy, according to the Anti-Defamation League, could be seen in March 2019 when Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist accused of killing 50 people in back-to-back mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, smiled and flashed the sign to reporters at a court hearing on his case.

Some people who have used the gesture publicly in a way that seemed to suggest support for racist views have faced consequences. In 2018, the US Coast Guard suspended an officer who appeared to use the sign on camera during an MSNBC broadcast. Later that year, four police officers in Jasper, Alabama, were suspended after a photo was published showing them flashing the sign below the waist.

The New York Times

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How did the OK sign become a symbol of white supremacy ...

Touted tougher punishments and expansion of the death penalty:

Fighting Crime

Democrats believe governments most basic duty is to establish law, order, and freedom and keep citizens safe from crime.

Bill Clinton and Al Gore put in place tougher punishments - including the death penalty - for those that dare to terrorize the innocent, and smarter prevention to stop crime before it even starts. . They funded new prison cells, and expanded the death penalty for cop killers and terrorists.

With Al Gore as President, America wont go back. We will move forward. We believe that in death penalty cases, DNA testing should be used in all appropriate circumstances, and defendants should have effective assistance of counsel. In all death row cases, we encourage thorough post-conviction reviews.

Praises the Republican Congress for enacting an effective deterrent death penalty and supports capital punishment for drug traffickers who take innocent life:

Justice And Safety

Most Americans over the age of fifty remember a time when streets and schoolyards were safe, doors unlocked, windows unbarred. The elderly did not live in fear and the young did not die in gunfire. That world is gone, swept away in the social upheaval provoked by the welfare, drug, and crime policies of the 1960s and later.

[W]e recognize the crucial leadership role the president and the Congress should play in restoring public safety. The congressional half of that team, in cooperation with governors and local officials who are the front line against crime, has been hard at work. Within proper federal jurisdiction, the Republican Congress has enacted legislation for an effective deterrent death penalty, restitution to victims, removal of criminal aliens, and vigilance against terrorism.

Children At Risk

in a Republican administration the Department of Justice will require all federal prosecutors to aggressively pursue drug dealers, from the kingpins to the lackeys. We renew our support for capital punishment for drug traffickers who take innocent life.

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Political Party Platforms and the Death Penalty | Death ...

In this Aug. 12, 2017, file photo, a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. A trial is beginning in Charlottesville, Va., to determine whether white nationalists who planned the so-called Unite the Right rally will be held civilly responsible for the violence that erupted. Ryan M. Kelly/AP hide caption

In this Aug. 12, 2017, file photo, a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. A trial is beginning in Charlottesville, Va., to determine whether white nationalists who planned the so-called Unite the Right rally will be held civilly responsible for the violence that erupted.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. A woman who was pushed out of the way as a car slammed into counterprotesters at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville described a scene of "complete terror" as she testified Monday to seeing her fianc bleeding on the sidewalk and later learning a friend was killed.

Marissa Blair took the stand in the third week of a civil trial in a lawsuit that seeks to hold the white national organizers of the Unite the Right rally accountable for the violence that erupted. Nine people who were physically injured or emotionally scarred, including Blair, are suing the organizers of the rally, alleging they conspired to commit violence during two days of demonstrations in Charlottesville.

"I was confused. I was scared. I was worried about all the people that were there. It was a complete terror scene. It was blood everywhere. I was terrified," said Blair, breaking down in tears several times during her testimony.

The driver of the car, James Alex Fields Jr., a self-proclaimed admirer of Adolf Hitler from Maumee, Ohio, is serving life in prison for murder and hate crimes. One woman was killed and dozens were injured in the car attack.

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages from two dozen white supremacists, neo-Nazis and organizations the plaintiffs allege participated in a conspiracy to incite violence.

Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, 2017, ostensibly to protest city plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Clashes between the white nationalists and anti-racism protesters broke out both days, prompting authorities to declare the gathering on Aug. 12 an "unlawful assembly" and to order crowds to disperse. It was after that announcement that Fields rammed his car into a peaceful group of counterprotesters.

The violence shocked the nation, and a political firestorm erupted after then-President Donald Trump failed to strongly denounce the white nationalists, saying there were "very fine people on both sides."

The lawsuit is being funded by Integrity First for America, a nonprofit organization formed in response to the violence in Charlottesville. Some of the country's most well-known white nationalists are named as defendants, including: Richard Spencer, who coined the term "alt-right" to described a loosely connected band of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and others; Jason Kessler, the rally's main organizer; and Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacists who became known as the "crying Nazi" for posting a tearful video when a warrant was issued for his arrest on assault charges for using pepper spray on counterdemonstrators.

The plaintiffs include four people who were hurt in the car attack and others who were victims of violence during a torch rally at the University of Virginia on Aug. 11 or during demonstrations the following day.

The plaintiffs' lawyers have shown the jury a large collection of chat room exchanges, social media postings and other communications in which the defendants use racial epithets and discuss plans for the demonstrations, including what weapons to bring.

They're also relying on a 150-year-old law passed after the Civil War to shield freed slaves from violence and protect their civil rights. Commonly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, the law contains a rarely used provision that allows private citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations.

The defendants claim their language in many of their chat room exchanges was hyperbolic and is protected by the First Amendment. They also say their talk of weapons and combat was meant only in the event they had to defend themselves from counterprotesters.

Michael Tubbs, chief of staff of the League of the South, a Southern nationalist organization, acknowledged that he helped league president Michael Hill organize the group's participation in the Charlottesville rally. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who called Tubbs as a hostile witness, showed the jury a video of Tubbs leading a group of league members and associates into a crowd of counterprotesters. Fighting breaks out between the two groups, and Tubbs is shown body-slamming someone.

Tubbs, who testified via video, claimed counterprotesters were beating members of his group and its associates and throwing objects at them. "We were coming to the rescue of our friends and allies that were being beaten by the communists," Tubbs said.

Blair said she received minor physical injuries when her fianc pushed her out of the way as the car sped toward the crowd. But she has suffered from flashbacks, panic attacks and depression from witnessing the attack and from grief over the death of her friend, 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

"My emotional scars were way worse than my physical ones," Blair said.

Blair and her fianc, Marcus Martin, who received serious injuries when he was struck by Fields' car, got married nine months after the attack. But Blair said the physical and psychological impacts of the event took a toll on their relationship and they are now divorced.

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Woman recalls deadly car attack in United the Right rally in Charlottesville - NPR