By David Futrelle
Lefty media site Unicorn Riot, which is doing a bang-up job exposing the so-called alt-right — recently obtained a virtual treasure trove of chat logs and audio files in which members of Patriot Front, a self-described “American fascist” group that split off from Vanguard America last year, talk about how much they hate Jews and love guns and all the assorted other things that the shithead Nazis of today like to talk about.
Some of the most hair-raising discussions in this vast pile of terrible concern one group of human beings that the current generation of Nazis especially hate: women. Nazis and white supremacists have always been sexist, but in the past their sexism always had a paternalistic side to it. Nazis and Klansmen claimed to want to protect and even celebrate white women, and many women found this appealing. In the 1920s, the women’s auxilliary of the KKK had a half million members.
The alt-right of today, by contrast, is overwhelmingly male — and overwhelmingly misogynistic, with an anti-woman ideology not that far removed from your average incel.
Take a listen to how these guys talk about women when they think no one is paying attention. If anything, their comments are even worse than the descriptions below suggest.
(Content advisory: sexual assault)
Patriot Front members are told that in an American ethnostate, rape is OK "as long as you're raping.. your own race." "Ethnostate rape gangs" would target unmarried white women who didn't adhere to "traditional values" https://t.co/lEVX6Izuzn pic.twitter.com/nIoL9skbNn— UNICORN RIOT (@UR_Ninja) March 5, 2018
In the recorded Discord voice meeting, Patriot Front members expand on their vision of 'White Sharia' in America. They discuss a desire to return to gender roles from the 1890s & share their admiration for Hitler's family planning policies in Nazi Germany https://t.co/lEVX6Izuzn pic.twitter.com/f5dqQCFCyB
— UNICORN RIOT (@UR_Ninja) March 5, 2018
It’s probably not much of a surprise that these guys are also violently homophobic.
Patriot Front's vision of 'White Sharia' also involves an extremely homophobic component. The only gay people that would be allowed to live in their American ethnostate would be those who "don't ever speak about it" https://t.co/lEVX6Izuzn pic.twitter.com/VqsB3RSOSp
— UNICORN RIOT (@UR_Ninja) March 5, 2018
Check out the rest of this twitter thread to hear the Patriot Front boys’ thoughts on the relative merits of different guns, the alleged racist evil of Black Lives Matter, and their alt-right rivals The Traditionalist Workers Party.
For more on the brief but still pretty awful history of Patriot Front, check out Unicorn Riot’s feature on the group, which also contains links to UR’s archives of the 26,0000 Discord messages they, er, obtained from these lovely lady hating fascists.
@EJ
I have a difficulty switching gears to be honest.
@everyone who replied to my query
Thank you for the insights. I’ll read those articles now, so thank you for those. I will try to find the specific source of the information, as I recall it was a documentary they were citing.
@dust bunny @female yid
I’m really sorry for the shit you’ve had to put up with pursuing your careers. Sadly, it does not surprise me. I don’t know what I can say except thank you for putting up with horrendous stuff no-one should not have to and telling your stories, giving your evidence, paving the way for future generations to put up with a little less and less injustice over time.
That goes for everyone here fighting the good fight and supporting each other. I don’t post often but the comments here always mean a lot to me and make me feel less isolated in my beliefs
Is Female Yid Janet Bloomfield’s slightly more progressive cousin or something?
This shit’s getting old.
@Female Yid,
Allow me to rephrase as well, please.
Consider being less aggressive to my friends and my community, or I’ll be requesting the banhammer from David. We don’t need that here.
You’ve been asked not to use this phrase before. And seriously reconsider acting like that to Scildy, she’s very highly regarded here with good reason. No one wants that kind of toxicity here.
@Starfury
That’s just the tip of the sword. Homphobia and racism are rampant, and gay men and men of color have it just as bad as I if not worse.
I run a diversity in oil and gas organization that fights sexism, homophobia and racism in the industry. I’m the bane of bigoted jackasses.
@Scildfreja
Alright then. Sorry. The material discussed here raises my blood pressure significantly. I have to deal with this on a constant basis. Many of the manospherians discussed here are my co workers.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Unlike Andrea Hardie, I’m a productive human being that has a productive job that doesn’t rely on bullying rape victims and acting like a colossal Aunt Tammy.
Maybe you might want to not act like Hardie if you think you’re so superior to her? Because the proud assholery along with the apologia for traditionalist misogyny makes you seem like twins.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Nothing wrong with proud assholery so long as its against the right people. Treating manospherians with respect is utterly futile.
I’m not apologizing for traditionalist misogyny. I’m differentiating it. See my comment about Muslim petroleum engineers.
What the fuck? No one is saying you can’t be an asshole to manospherians. That’s not what anyone was talking about.
And saying benevolent sexists aren’t misogynists is a form of apologia.
Just knock this crap off.
Blunter wwth
Learn. Fast.
@Female Yid,
I understand. Working with MRA’s and manospherians is utterly infuriating! If anything is worthy of raising blood pressure and generating anger, it’s their smug, aggressive posturing.
We all work alongside them. We all live alongside them. I’ve worked oil and gas, and now I work with the techbros that claim to have rational-science-reasons for their disgusting misogyny. Others here work in every field that the assholes claim as theirs. They’re our brothers and fathers and uncles.
You work beside them, great. Doesn’t give you special entitlement to offload your frustration on people here. Want to rant? Great, rant about them. Don’t turn your teeth on us.
Point your spear outwards, for fuck’s sakes, or you’re just as bad as they are.
Speaking of benevolent sexism, I was trying to find the study where researchers compared how men are viewed when receiving/refusing help in the workplace with how women are viewed when receiving/refusing help in the workplace, and I stumbled across wikipedia’s page on Ambivalent Sexism. I was wondering what you guys thought about it, in particular this part;
@Yid
Let’s not. That way lies bullshit…
@Scildfreja
What’s your line of work?
Female Y*d,
she just told you. oil and gas. it is no need to be specific. what she said is true. her experienced are true.
Female yid: I can be tactless, so to be clear this is friendly advice, not an attack. Your attitude/demenour are so harsh and forceful, they make me feel uncomfortable. I’m not even sure exactly why. And it seems to be unpleasant to other people too.
I think you’ve made more than 1 interesting and/or valid point, but the way you make them seems to be making a bunch of people feel uncomfortable, offended or disrespected. If that’s not your intent, then please take the advice people gave and think about it. If it is your intent, I think you should take a step back and figure out why before you post here again.
Also, Scild, if you have time and don’t mind, could you please give me your opinion on the query I posted last night? I really enjoy your takes on things because they are always comprehensive, detailed, and well thought out. Plus, you always bring up at least 1(sometimes a bunch)aspect of the subject that never even occurred to me. Ive always been impressed with the breadth of your intelligence. You seem to know something about everything?
Lastly, Mish I mentioned you not for education, you fall into the”was always really kind and supportive of me from jump, even though some of my early posts could be kinda problematic, and/or tactless. So thanks for that. You’re awesome. I’m gonna check out some of the other articles I’ve missed, and the new ones now. Goodnight and have a lovely Friday everyone! Xoxo?
@Fluffy Spider,
*catlady fist-bump*
Tom-Tom sounds adorable. My three are like kids, too (maybe more so than my actual kid, who is not really a kid anymore)
Sorry to hear about the other kitties 🙁
Here’s my baby girl, Mei-Mei – although if you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ll have already seen her, as I tend to over-share!
http://i64.tinypic.com/331n2c9_th.jpg
@WWTH
WaPo today noted the dogwhistling re “globalist” – so, good call on your part, as usual.
@Female Yid
We don’t actually have to get used to it. This is a community, not a free for all. Also, your constant elitism (& condescension) is really getting on my nerves.
@Female Yid
There kinda is a feminist discussion/paradox around “being a bitch”, isn’t there? On one hand, women are shoved too tightly into the “be polite” box, on the other, too much aggressiveness tears apart communities, and makes people afraid to communicate, as Scild mentioned a few weeks ago. :/
I was baptized into a brand of feminism in which “bitch” is a complement, so I know where you’re coming from. Unfortunately, I eventually realized that my pride in my bitchiness, and lack of flexibility with it, didn’t make me the “good, strong, outspoken” kind of bitch, but the “hammer that only sees nails, abusive” kind of bitch. Which was NOT what I wanted, or what feminism is all about.
So where is the boundary between “good” bitchiness and “bad” bitchiness? Hell if I know, but I will say this.
In my case it was hard to switch gears because there was nothing to switch gears to. I was raised by angry, aggressive people, and when I grew up I hung out with angry, aggressive people. I live in an area known for it’s aggressiveness. But honestly, the more I develop a softer side to me, the happier I become, feminist or not.
@Female Yid
You can’t simultaneously defend your aggressive behavior with “hey, I’m just an asshole to everyone, get used to it” and “there’s nothing wrong with being an asshole to those who deserve it!”
Unless you are implying that either the commentariat here or people in general are ALL deserving of having others be assholes to them. Do you think that we deserve to be subjected to assholery? If you do not, please attempt to cut it out.
Going to stick my neck out and say maybe the point has been made by now? No need to keep hammering it, bar further input by Female Yid, eh?
@Female Yid, I work for a university artificial intelligence research lab right now! Used to do some really interesting work, but times are tough so now I’m doing boring corporate contracts to help the lab pay the bills (while other people do the interesting stuff, of course). Before this I worked in the Canadian tar sands. Miserable work, that, but it certainly paid better. I was working for a wholesaler, providing parts and materials for the constant construction and maintenance that went on up there, plus occasional design work for them. The work itself was fine, but the environment was, uh, not my slice of cake.
@KatieKitten, “how did we get here” is a really interesting question. I don’t have a whole lot of actual evidence for my opinions either, so they aren’t worth a whole lot! But I’m happy to talk about it. You’re very flattering, you :3 Thank you.
I think there’s a bit of a perfect-storm of factors going on here. Others (Shadow I think?) have suggested this is an extinction event. The fascists know they’re in the minority and they’re getting fewer in number, and they’re angry about it. I think that’s probably true, but I think it’s both incomplete and insufficient. That’s sort of the starting point, ’cause they’ve been in that situation for awhile now.
Two other things are factoring in to “activate” that latent anger, in my opinion. First is ubiquitous internet. Back in the early 2000’s, the major newspapers and news outlets saw a huge decline in their profits. People were getting their news, for free, on the interwebs; their efforts to launch online subscription services as promised by the dotcom bubble failed to bring them the revenue they needed. So they broke their central rule, and tore down the wall between marketing and journalism. It started innocently enough – newspapers offering businesses to write articles about them in positive terms for money. It was fairly obvious it was a paid article, so it seemed reasonable enough. But it’s a slippery slope between restaurant reviews being paid-for by restaurants and gas companies paying for climate-denial editorials. In my opinion, this is why the news is so “both-sides’ey” these days. One side’s right, and the other side is paying a pile of money to get equal footing.
The end result of all that? News isn’t as trustworthy anymore. They do still report honestly, but just as often something untrustworthy is given the same platform and priority as something that is. People can sniff that sort of deception out. The attitude I hear from those around me now is “Yeah, my news sources are biased, but at least they’re honest about it.” (I’ve heard this as a defense of Breitbart, Rebel Media, etc.) As if choosing your news was literally about finding a news source with a bias you agree with. And they don’t see how this might be a problem to finding the truth! Boggles the mind, but there you go.
Second contributing factor relates to this. Right wing groups are actively recruiting right now. Stormfront has openly admitted to using Reddit, the Chans, MRA spaces and others as recruiting grounds. Russian government forces (i.e. the oligarchs) have been doing similar in recent years. Right wing authoritarians have seen the destruction of truth in the media and have pounced on it to gain a voice. Their ideas have seeped into discourse, at first in those spaces, then others. GamerGate has been documented as an attempt by Steve Bannon to weaponize misogynistic gamers; he used Breitbart to signal amplify a small, sexist dispute. And it worked. The same techniques worked during the 2016 presidential campaign. And right now Mueller’s investigating Russian links to both Breitbart and the NRA, and no doubt many other organizations.
I won’t call this an extension of the Cold War, because it’s not. It’s about rich assholes of many nationalities, spending money and influence to get more and more power. A lot of it seems like it’s coming from Russia, but it’d be wrong to say it’s the Russians. There are americans, turks, germans, etc – rich assholes all over the world that are helping this horrible thing roll along, because they are all profiting from it.
I realize that description has gotten really messy at the end there, and sounds sort of conspiratorial. It’s really hard to talk about global forces without sounding conspiratorial, though! I think “rich assholes using social media dishonestly to try to gain more power” is pretty straightforward, though. They’re now at the stage where “more power” means more than just getting money, though. They want the power to do whatever they want. That’s autocracy.
Sorry for the ramble! Hopefully there’s at least one or two good ideas in that mess.
@Scildfreja
*Sigh*
I can understand why there would be so much misogyny.
Privileged white male rationals with a storied history of sexual frustration and the woman-hate that usually acompanies it discussing human intelligence and how they believe women have less of it.
It’s like what neuroscience used to be before the sixties.
It sounds like a more intellectualized version of the pipefitters who used to catcall me.
—-
It’s worth noting that more and more of these rich assholes are women and minorities. They don’t seem to be taking this racism/sexism lying down.
@Mish
She’s so beautiful! I don’t mind cat oversharing since they are my favorite animal. They’re wonderful in every way (including as repellent for mra guys which are common where I live)