By David Futrelle
White supremacist blogger Matt Forney certainly picked a dramatic way to announce he would no longer be affiliating with the alt-right. In a Facebook posting several days ago, which he subsequently deleted, Forney declared that the internet-enabled fascist movement had become “a coven for homosexual pedophiles.”
Repeating accusations from a podcast that he said had been proven “100 percent true,” Forney charged that self-declared “fashy faggots” associated with the website The Right Stuff were
using … pool parties (IRL meetups) to groom teenage boys into sleeping with them, which [one alt-rightist named] Ghoul did to a 17-year old … at the Chicago pool party. Oh, and Ghoul had been grooming this poor kid since he was 15.
Forney said that others associated with The Right Stuff “knew what Ghoul was doing but didn’t say or do anything.”
Meanwhile, Lucian B. Wintrich of the far-right Gateway Pundit blog has been using Twitter to publicly question alt-right celebrity Richard Spencer about his alleged “degeneracy” — seemingly basing his “reporting” on DMs from second-hand anonymous sources.
.@RichardBSpencer so tell me about your degeneracy – I'm v curious…. pic.twitter.com/XqU7dq5vz6
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) June 17, 2017
.@RichardBSpencer we're writing a story – comment? pic.twitter.com/uJIdl7ho6g
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) June 17, 2017
In other tweets Wintrich gives up the pretense that he is practicing journalism entirely:
"Let's save the white race." — Richard B Spencer pic.twitter.com/FXz2a7OrNw
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) June 18, 2017
It’s worth pointing out that the “evidence” here is vague and second-hand, and that even if these charges are true it’s not clear that the accused have broken any laws. We don’t know the ages of the “younger men” referred to by Wintrich’s source. As for the “pool party” referred to by Forney, the age of consent in Illinois is 17, so Ghoul’s alleged sexual encounter would have been legal — if skeezy as hell.
It’s clear that both Wintrich and Forney expect others on the far-right to be at least as outraged by the idea that prominent alt-rightists have been having gay sex as by the possibility that they have committed statutory rape. In his deleted Facebook post, Forney repeatedly refers to allegedly gay alt-righists as “sodomites” and “homos,” and indignantly complains that
the people who freaked out about me living in the Phillipines and sleeping with non-white women were aiding and abetting sodomites who groomed teenage boys into sex. They’re worse than the left. …
If the alt-right is unwilling to expose, denounce, and cast out the homosexuals within its midst, then I am an enemy of the alt-right and I will work from this day forward to destroy it.
Forney and Wintrich’s accusations have been met with a good deal of skepticism amongst alt-rightists, most of whom seem far more concerned by other, more public, signs that their movement in on the verge of a virtual civil war.
Spencer, for his part, has devoted much of his time in recent days to attacking “alt-lite” troll Jack Posobiec and Rebel Media’s Laura Loomer for their instantly infamous disruption of a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
The first time this rube attends a play, he tries to shut it down. https://t.co/gO7OTmDsGK
— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) June 17, 2017
I absolutely support the arrest and imprisonment of Laurie Loomer and other "Alt-Light" activists who behave like antifa.#FreeLaurie
— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) June 17, 2017
In other tweets, Spencer has kept the feud running, calling Posobiec “an outright liar and hypocrite,” “Cuck Posobiec,” and “Crooked Jack Posobiec, lion of the Fake Right.”
Posobiec has responded by signal-boosting the accusations against Spencer and The Right Stuff.
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/876511244945117186
Spencer and other alt-rightists have been organizing for a “Free Speech Rally” in Washington on June 25th. Originally, both Posobiec and Loomer were scheduled to speak. Both have bowed out because of Spencer’s attacks.
Now Posobiec has decided to organize a competing rally — also on the 25th, also in Washington — to protest “Political Violence.” Both Loomer and Wintrich are scheduled to attend.
The dueling rallies neatly symbolize the current state of animosity between the alt-right and the alt-lite. Forney and Wintrich’s accusations didn’t create these divisions, but have certainly helped to cement them.
I hope this is just mud-flinging and nothing more.
These evil extremist groups never really bothered me because sooner or later, they turn on each other.
With a vengeance.
So the enemy of my enemy is my friend…
@wwth (aka my internet crush) excellent point. Check mate
Winner winner chicken dinner.
Seriously, fuck these people. The amount of hate they generate is so unbelievable, it doesn’t surprise me at all that it would consume them eventually.
I really hope that there aren’t any rape victims, though.
@Leftwingfox, off topic, but is your avatar from Oglaf? Asking cause it seems familiar
Antifa don’t go around trying to shut down Shakespearean plays, dumbass. They shut down hate speech. Julius Caesar isn’t hate speech.
Signed,
An Anti-Fascist English Major Who Actually Studied That Damn Thing.
@ bina
At some stage, if there’s an appropriate open thread, I’d love to hear any thoughts you have about Coriolanus if you could spare the time.
@Four P’s
The trouble is, before they turn on each other, they encourage others to think terrorism might be a good idea. Just one terrorist is all it takes to make things bad for lots of people, especially if the governments go overboard with “security theater” to pretend they’re stopping it from happening again.
I’m with Sister Bat’leth of Rational Discussion here – so many reactions all at the same time. This is just so deeply, awfully, sordid and sad. Both ‘sides’ are equally despicable.
As for the Shakespeare dramas (ha ha), I’m reliably informed that this play has run before, but with (1) JFK and (2) Obama as the presidential character who gets assassinated. So why the outrage now?
(rhetorical question – I know why, obv)
@Alan, I didn’t get a chance to study Coriolanus…yet. But I always could read it and see if there are any performances on YouTube to judge by…
Checkmate, I can answer that; it IS from Oglaf. (I was just reading it again the other day.)
Thanks to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, every time I read the word “sodomites,” I think of what happened when Mac and Dennis walked around dressed like fops.
It was only a matter of time before these guys turned on each other. I only hope that no actual kids have been harmed by them.
@ bina
The 2011 film version is really good if you can track that down. It’s the only Shakespeare play I like. It’s hard to believe it was written by the same guy as all the other ones; it’s just so different in terms of style, plot, narrative etc.
But the reason I’d love to hear your input is that it’s been seen as both pro fascist and anti fascist. It also always seems so contemporary, whatever time period it’s applied to. You could easily, and plausibly, claim “Oh it’s clearly an allegory about (insert any political situation of the last 2,000 years)”. I guess some aspects of human nature are just universal.
I think that’s deliberate. People say, understandably, that it’s about the early Roman Republic. But recently someone pointed out to me that the setting is in fact “…a place calling itself Rome.” so it could be any state with pretentions of greatness. And yes, it’s very hard not to see Trump’s America in there at the moment.
@Alan — is this the one?
I have read that Antigone (a Greek tragedy about a Theban princess who defies the decree of her uncle King Creon by attempting to bury her rebel brother) was surprisingly popular in Nazi Germany. They managed this by empathizing not with Antigone, but with Creon – a leader who puts his duty to the state and the law above even his family by condemning his own niece to death. (Plus it’s Ancient Greek and therefore an example of Superior Aryan Culture.)
E: Jean Anouilh’s version of Antigone (produced and first performed in Nazi-occupied France) plays with this interpretation by making both his Antigone (who’s usually considered to represent the French Resistance) and his Creon (who represents the Nazi collaborators) sympathetic.
@ bina
Yes indeed. Enjoy!
@ mrsobedmarsh
Coriolanus was banned in France in the 1930s for similar reasons.
I really liked the 2011 Coriolanus. It is certainly the most shippable Shakespeare play.
@ katz
Heh, isn’t it just? 🙂
Tom Hiddleston played Coriolanus? Daaaaamn.
Yup.
http://img31.mtime.cn/pi/2016/03/24/151503.25408857_1000X1000.jpg
Dumb question about Oglaf: is that comic just a series of one-off pages set in the same faux-Medieval setting, or is there an overriding story there? It looks like something I’d enjoy (based on what’s been posted here over the years), but if there’s an overriding story(ies), I’d like to start it at the beginning if possible.
And speaking about ancient texts being relevant to the modern day, I read something about The Iliad once about how selective editing changed the meaning of the text. There was one version circa the 1920’s that made it sound like Homer was glorifying war (the version Gen. Patton read while young, I believe), while the full text was actually anti-war.
I’ve also heard that The Iliad has been recently used to help US veterans recover themselves via having them do a public reading of it. Apparently the idea behind it was showing them that stuff like PTSD had existed for as long as humans waged war against each other, even if those ancient poets weren’t using the same phrases that people used today to describe war.
Interesting stuff, at least to me.
ETA: how exactly do I update my Gravatar? I uploaded some pics for one, but it’s not showing up. Yet.
My thanks in advance.
@Alan:
— Cole Porter, “Kiss Me Kate”
@Redsilkphoenix
I think there was a over all story at the beginning but I think that was concluded and now is mainly one off gags with the occasional multi page story .
Redsilk,
What Fabe said. It’s fun to start at the beginning, anyhow; you’ll see a lot of the recurring characters that way.
As an aside, Ossoff lost. Not unexpected, but tiresome, all the same. I am pretty disgusted with the tenacity in which people cling to party instead of progress. I’m at the point where I want to just throw up my hands and say “Fuck it! This is what you assboles wanted. Be careful what you ask for, lest it becomes your reality. Enjoy!”
I don’t like what I’m feeling right now.
@Troubelle