The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 2 March 99
Vol. 3, Number 17 (#226) ______________________________________________________________________
FASCIST PROPAGANDA ON THE NET: THE S.P.L.C. REPORT
by tallpaul
The article below, citing Southern Poverty Law Center statistics on hate groups using the internet, provides quantified proof of what we've been saying for years: that the internet is the main source of fascist propaganda.
Potok, the Center's researcher, noted an interesting point about the increase in net-based hate: "Typically, hate groups go down when the economy is doing well. Just the opposite has happened."
The "leading economic indicators" show the U.S. economy is doing well. The problem occurs when the same indicators no longer provide valid information about the *entire* economy, particularly for those outside the corporate structure. Past assumptions were based on things like the "trickle down theory" or the notion that "a rising sea lifts all boats." That is, the assumption was that an economy improving at the top ultimately meant an overall improvement for those in the middle and bottom of the economic scale.
Today this is no longer true and we see political and historical oddities of the sort Potok identified. Inflation-adjusted family income is still below the late-80s high, small businesses in many areas are hurting, and family income levels conceal the fact that both adults in the household are now working. Meanwhile, youth unemployment levels continue to remain high. There's even trouble at the top given the tremendous amount of speculation and capital-bloat in internet stocks.
All of this creates a climate for poorer whites to adopt fascist explanations and solutions.
Interestingly as well, the situation develops from almost two decades of conservative, not liberal, economic policies. The process started during the Reagan presidency and continued, unaltered, under Bush. Today Clinton, demonized as secret socialist by the far right, presents some policies indistinguishable from that of traditional mainstream Republicanism while in other areas like "ending welfare as we know it" is even further to the right.
Surprisingly -- or not given the relative weakness of the U.S. labor movement -- one popular response to the rising tide that does not lift all boats and swamps the lifeboats of the poorest is to provide even more of the same failed economic policies. Yesterday's conservative heros are today attacked, as are Gingrich and Lott on Usenet news groups, as "socialist infiltrators" in the Republican Party.
Past theories of fascism, based on Italian and German events, have stressed that fascism develops under social crisis when left and non- fascist right are almost evenly balanced.
While the nature of fascism has not changed, we must consider the possibility that tomorrow's fascism may develop under different conditions, not through successes of the labor movement but through the continued decades-long failure of mainstream conservative economic policies.
Sinclair Lewsis's wrote "It Can't Happen Here" to show how an "all American" fascism might develop, almost as a polemic against those who stated the phrase he used as the novel's title.
Equally, many anti-fascists say "It Can't Happen Now." They are of course good activists, fighting things like anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia whenever they appear. But their notion is a sort of fascism as bad head cold or mild flu, not a deadly disease capable of killing millions.
Fascism *can* happen here and it can happen *now.* It may not. We have no crystal ball. But we must not lessen our activism on the grounds that fascism can not be on the national agenda.
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NET INCREASES HATE GROUPS
Ashel Estes (Associated Press)
25 Feb 99
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- White supremacists are relying on the Internet to find potential recruits, fueling dramatic growth among the nation's hate groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"The Internet is allowing the white supremacy movement to reach places it has never reached before - middle- and upper-middle class, college- bound teens," said Mark Potok, a researcher for the center, which released its 1998 Intelligence Project report this week.
"The movement is terribly interested in developing the leadership cadre of tomorrow," he said Wednesday. "As a rule, they're no longer interested in recruiting street thugs, people to beat up blacks and gays in bars."
While the number of hate groups in the United States increased to 537 in 1998, up from 474 in 1997 - about 13 percent - Internet hate sites increased by 56 percent, from 163 to 254, the center said.
Groups also used tools such as radio broadcasts, periodicals such as WAR, the newspaper of the White Aryan Resistance, and telephone hot lines, the report said.
"The Internet has, in a sense, empowered the white supremacy community," Potok said. "Very often, a 'hater' was an isolated person, standing in their living room and shaking their fist at the sky.
"That same person, instead of feeling like an isolated retrograde, wakes up in the morning, turns on the computer and he's got 25 messages," Potok said. "He feels like he is part of a movement that is happening."
The report counts Klan, neo-Nazi, skinhead, Christian Identity and black separatist groups as hate groups. Included on the list were 33 chapters of the Council of Conservative Citizens, which gained attention last month following reports that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., was a speaker at one of its functions.
The CCC in the past has denied it is a racist organization. Lott has denied any affiliation with the group.
Florida led the nation in 1998 with 38 hate groups, followed by California with 36 and Texas with 31, the report said. Pennsylvania had 27 s groups, Alabama 25, Michigan 24, North Carolina and Ohio 22 each, and Georgia 20.
"Typically, hate groups go down when the economy is doing well," Potok said. "Just the opposite has happened."
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WHAT'S WORTH CHECKING
stories via <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/story3/>
Associated Press (no author), "Neo-Nazis Arrested in Denmark," 14 Feb 99 <story761.txt>
Michael Fischer (Associated Press), "5 Germans Accused in Nigerian Death," 14 Feb 99 <story762.txt>
William Claiborne (Washington Post), "Violence Hits American Indians at Highest Rate Among Ethnic Groups," 15 Feb 99 <story763.txt>
Associated Press (no author), "Neo-Nazis Battle Police in Hungary," 14 Feb 99 <story764.txt>
Associated Press (no author), "City settles lawsuit in police shooting caught on videotape," 26 Jan 99 <story765.txt>
[London] Guardian (no author), "Britain should not act as a puppet of the US over Iraq. France doesn't," 28 Jan 99 <story766.txt>
Agence France Presse (no author), "Paramilitaries kidnap human rights workers in Colombia," 29 Jan 99 <story767.txt>
Agence France Presse (no author), "Turkish policemen acquitted in re- trial of child torture case," 27 Jan 99 <story768.txt>
Paul Lashmar and D. Usborne (Hindustan Times), "British Spies Were In UNSCOM In Iraq," 30 Jan 99 <story769.txt>
(ANNOUNCEMENT) Leonard Peltier Organizing Conference June25-27,1999 in Lawrence, Kansas <story770.txt>
John Aravosis (Wired Strategies), "Straight-Only Contest Linked to Microsoft and US Airways," 1 Feb 99 <story771.txt>
People's Tribune (no author), "America's Shame: Children On Skid Row," Feb 99 <story772.txt>
David Bacon (California Studies Conference, University of California Berkeley), "Unions and the fight for multi-racial democracy," 6 Feb 99 <story773.txt>
Tim Weiner (New York Times), "FBI Helped Chile Search for Leftists, Files Show," 10 Feb 99 <story774.txt>
BBC (no author), "Italian High Court Rules: Women wearing jeans cannot be raped," 11 Feb 99 <story775.txt> ______________________________________________________________________
FASCISM:
We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget.
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