on the AR conference, David Duke, and whether anti-Semitism has any place in the legitimate racialist right.
I enjoyed the conference very much except for the David Duke outburst which was accurately described in Lawrence Auster’s website today. While I am not Jewish, I do have Jewish friends in attendance, and was sickened by Duke and his supporters. These sorts of people discredit our entire movement.
Posted by Jack J at 9:56 PM on February 27
Duke’s little speech was a low point of the conference for me too. It’s unfortunate the Post did not quote speaker Dan Roodt’s remarks about dress in the new South Africa. It seems members of parliament show up in traditional tribal outfits complete with spears and clubs. Maybe that would have been more to the taste of our simian “protesters.”
Posted by F. Roger Devlin at 11:06 PM on February 27
Jack J: You mentioned that David Duke discredits the movement. I would generally agree; though I don’t know the man, and he may well have reformed his ways since his KKK days, I don’t think white nationalists need to be associated with unapologetic defenders of an organization that once lynched people. Not a good idea. I’d like to think that contemporary white nationalism-or whateverone might call it, is simply a reassertion of the rights of a people, of a race, of a broad culture. As long as we define our movement as such, we are unassailable. More importantly, we are RIGHT (as in within our rights, and just). A code of conduct must eventually be required. Honor is a very important thing. No movement succeeds without it. Thanks
Posted by Orion at 2:43 AM on February 28
I also attended the conference. My kudos to Mr. Taylor for all the hard work involved. The speakers were uniformly excellent. Particularly so was a chap from South Africa (unfortunately, his name escapes me), and Mr. Philipe Rushton who delivered his presentation with great intelligence leavened with humor. What was very disheartening to me, was the predominance of conspiracy theorists and hard anti-semites at the conference. Never attending an Amren event before, I didn’t know quite what to expect. Sadly, it was a very chilling experience to this conservative, racially aware Jew. Additionally, it doesn’t further the interests of serious academics like Mr. Rushton who have worked manfully for many years.
Posted by Steve the Conservative Jew at 8:16 AM on February 28
I feel the same way,Rob. Although it wasn’t my first AR conference, it was definitely my least favorite. I really enjoyed the speakers, but definitely not that Jew-bashing bunch that I avoid like the plague. I wonder why they allowed Duke to show up? It seems that Jared Taylor has worked hard to give AR an air of legitimacy in the media & I feel that the mere presence of Duke & his clowns completely negated all that JT has worked to do.
Posted by at 1:46 PM on February 28
I believe that everyone has free speech, even Mr. Duke, but that does not mean that we have to take him seriously. It is true that Jewish people like Jacob Javitts and some Jewish organizations were pushing Lyndon Johnson to do away with the immigration restrictions, but then it again it was Johnson himself, a white gentile, who opened the doors. I do not doubt that there are many Jewish people in the media business, but I have a very hard time believing that they control all of the media. People like Duke say that Jews alone are responsible for all the problems of the white race, but this is not true. It was a whole string of factors that started the racial revolution, and the Jews that were involved were only a tiny minority. I do not believe that that tiny minority of Jews spoke for all Jews any more than all of the white gentile idiot politicians speak for me.
I have known many Jews and I think that their opinions are just like that of any other group, and by that I mean that they are on all sides of all issues, in other words they are not all out to destroy white people, that is just a very tiny minority like Tim Wise, and Leonard Zeskind.
I agree with many of the other posters when they say that people like David Duke do a great disservice to the white nationalist movement. To begin with he was in the Klan, and I think that everyone can agree that it is a bad organization. Also he denies a lot of things about the Holocaust, once I heard him say that there were no gas chambers. It is interesting that people like him never seem to question the fact that Stalin killed tens of millions of people, or that Communism in China killed up to sixty million people. The only massacre in history that he questions is the Holocaust, and I think that should tell everyone something about his real agenda. Mr. Duke also does not seem to care about the fact that there are Jewish people like Michael Levin and Lawrence Auster who write for American Renaissance. He probably does not pay any attention to this fact because if he did he would not have someone to place all of the blame on.
I think that anyone with common sense could understand why initially a lot of Jewish people are suspicious of any form of white identity or racial ideology, since Hitler dealt with the idea of race, and he killed millions of Jews for his ideas. For that reason I cannot blame the Jewish people that are afraid of white conscioussness. However, the truth is that HItler was the very, very extreme form of racial ideology, and most definately not the kind of racial consioussness that people like Jared Taylor advocate. [LA note: Hitler was not at all a white racialist. He was a German racialist, whose program included the enslavement and destruction of whites peoples including not only the Poles, but the English.]
Up until a few decades ago virtually all white Americans held some form of racial conscioussness, and there were never any massacres of Jews anywhere in America. I think that it is sad that there were Jews at the conference and that their experience was ruined by Mr. Duke. I do not know what the majority of people on this website think, but Duke and his conspiracy theories do not speak for this commentator. I only pray that the vast majority of people on this site do not harbor any form of hatred for Jews or anyone else. This site is about promoting the legitimate interests of white people, not hating anyone. I also pray that this episode with David Duke will not make any Jews who are interested in American Renaissance turn away from American Renaissance. If I were Mr. Taylor I would purposely keep people like Mr. Duke out of the next conference. He can have his free speech some place else, rather than at an American Renaissance conference.
Posted by Billy Bob at 4:40 PM on February 28
Thanks for the nod, Old Victorian.
Bannister, I think many of the Jewish conference attendees and subscribers might surprise you in the degree to which they would be willing to ruefully agree with you that their community has done all those things.
The problem is that the Dukes of the world take that ball and run with it over a cliff, putting too much blame on Jews for things whites Gentiles were indispensible in doing to our race, and blaming Jews for things they were not responble for at all.
Yes, Jews are clannish, disproportionately successful all over the world, influential and enamored of racially liberal ideas. So are blueblood WASPs. Nobody seems to obssess about those pernicious WASPs though. And the Jews have Israel, a place where they can farm and fight and grow attached to the land and develop a healthy nationalism rather than fear it in others.
Posted by Irish at 8:49 PM on February 28