"This is right out of the far-right, white supremacist playbook...The Turner Diaries"

[Budi]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/how-the-turner-diaries-changed-white-nationalism/500039/

Alt History
How a self-published, racist novel changed white nationalism and inspired decades of violence

J.M. BERGER
SEPTEMBER 16, 2016

Before there was an alt-right, there was The Turner Diaries.

First published nearly 40 years ago, the infamous dystopian novel depicts a fictional white nationalist revolution culminating in global genocide.


The events of the book open 25 years ago today—September 16, 1991, the date of the first entry in Earl Turner’s diary.
The fictional diary describes a racist’s vision of a nightmare world, in which “The System”—African American enforcers led by Jewish politicians—attempt to confiscate all guns in the United States. A secretive organization known as The Order rises up to take back the country for white supremacists, eventually winning an apocalyptic insurgency and nuclear war, first taking over the country and later the world.

The Turner Diaries was created in the 1970s by William Luther Pierce, leader of the neo-Nazi group the National Alliance. Crudely written and wildly racist, The Turner Diaries has helped inspire dozens of armed robberies and more than 200 murders in the decades since its publication.

SNIP

The most important movements to emerge from this dynamic were neo-Nazism and Christian Identity. Neo-Nazism is heavily focused on Holocaust denial and symbolic identity markers, while Christian Identity is based on an elaborate religious justification that evolved out of a 19th century religious conspiracy theory called British Israelism, which claimed Anglo-Saxons were the lost tribe of Israel. Both movements trafficked heavily in anti-Semitism, but their animus was directed to all non-white people.

These movements, along with the Ku Klux Klan, became the face of white nationalism, resulting in further marginalization due to their flamboyant racism and increasing scrutiny from law enforcement, as their views and rhetoric became increasingly extreme...

SNIP

The manifesto itself was soon reduced to the simple phrase “white genocide,” which proliferated at the start of the 21st century and has become the overwhelmingly dominant meme of modern white nationalism. The theme was promoted by white nationalist Robert Whitaker, who added what he called “the mantra”—“Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.” These two phrases were deliberately repeated and spread widely online, among white nationalists of various ideological persuasions.


White nationalist Richard B. Spencer moved the bar even further with the latest iteration of white identity politics, creating the “Alternative Right” website in 2010, the seed of the broader movement is now known as the alt right. Even more amorphous than its predecessors, the alt right includes a variety of anti-social attitudes, including racism, misogyny and religious bigotry, offering many points of entry for new adherents who are frustrated with some aspect of society or politics.
Many who identify with the alt right continue to promote the white genocide theme.

While it would be a mistake to credit The Turner Diaries for the entirety of this transition in white nationalism, the novel demonstrated how to successfully leverage racial fears and resentments in the service of violence, without a call to a specific ideology, and the book remains widely influential today.

(Trump's Base)

Link to tweet

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Cutline for the photograph in the link to the articel in The Atlantic:

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh speaking with his attorneys in 1995. (STR NEW / REUTERS)

The one on the right is Stephen Jones. I'd like to meet him and shake his hand. He's not scared of anything.

Stephen Jones (attorney)

Born: July 1, 1940 (age 79); Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.

Stephen Jones (born July 1, 1940), is an attorney best known for taking on a series of high-profile civil rights cases beginning with his defense of a Vietnam War protester, including Timothy McVeigh, and continuing with the fraternity involved in the 2015 University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon racism incident.

Biography

Stephen Jones was born on July 1, 1940 in Lafayette, Louisiana. His father was an oil field supplies sales manager and his mother was the bookkeeper for a wealthy financier. Jones grew up in suburban Houston, received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1966 and settled in Enid, Oklahoma where he still lives. Jones was a member of Phi Alpha Delta and served as Associate Editor of the Oklahoma Bar Journal from 1979 to 1986. He has been married to his wife Sherrel for the last 40 years and they have raised four children.

Legal career

On May 5, 1970, the day after National Guardsmen had shot and killed four students at Kent State University, Keith Green was arrested at the University of Oklahoma for carrying a Viet Cong flag in violation of a state law prohibiting the display of a "red flag or emblem of anarchy or rebellion". After 12 lawyers had refused to defend the student, Jones took the case and was promptly dismissed from the Enid, Oklahoma law firm where he was employed. Jones argued in court that the disloyalty statute was unconstitutional and the judge dismissed the case, overturning the statute. Later Jones would go on to represent Abbie Hoffman, the radical Yippie, when Oklahoma State University refused to let him speak on campus.

In 1975, Jones defended Bobby Wayne Collins, who was accused of the worst mass killing in Oklahoma history at the time. Mervin Thrasher (28), his wife Sandra (27) and their two young children, Penny (5) and Robert (18 months) were murdered in their four-room farm home one mile north of Woodward, Oklahoma. Collins was found guilty and sentenced to death for the brutal crime. On appeal in 1977, Jones successfully had Collins' death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Bobby Wayne Collins was denied parole in both 2009 and again in 2015. He currently remains in custody at the Lexington Correctional Center.

Jones ran unsuccessfully for public office four times, including a U.S. Senate race against David Boren in 1990.

In 1997, Stephen Jones was the lead defense attorney for Timothy McVeigh, who was on trial for the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh wanted to use the "necessity defense", but Jones took a different tack, even traveling to other countries in search of evidence because he believed that McVeigh did not act alone in the bombing. McVeigh was convicted on all counts and executed in 2001. Defense attorney and law professor David Bruck uses Stephen Jones' post-trial actions as an example, though, of what lawyers should not do in representing a client or guarding attorney-client privileges.

Jones served as the attorney for a former House page involved in the Mark Foley scandal. He also served as the defense lawyer for Raye Dawn Smith in the trial concerning the rampant abuse and eventual murder of her daughter Kelsey Smith-Briggs.

In 2015 Jones was hired by the fraternity chapter involved in the 2015 University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon racism incident to explore the chapter's legal options.

[Midnight Writer]

2. Just a note. Richard Spencer and Stephen Miller worked on "projects" together in college.

Spencer publicly praised Miller when he was appointed white House Adviser.

[dalton99a]

3. Yep