AltRight.com: ‘Greg Johnson’s Attacks And How To Deal With Them’

Posted on June 2, 2017 by Luke Ford

Over the years, I’ve often noticed Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents.com criticize Richard Spencer but I don’t recall Richard answering back (at least not in writing).

This week that changed.

Back in 2015, Greg interviewed Daniel Friberg.

Daily Beast Dec. 5, 2016:

The French Ideologues Who Inspired the Alt-Right
Elderly Frenchmen Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye are far from household names in Europe and the U.S. But their ideas have fueled white nationalism across both continents.

…Greg Johnson, who runs the Counter-Currents website, and other white nationalists told The Daily Beast they’ve met de Benoist at conferences in the U.S. and Europe, and have communicated with him over the years while overseeing translations of his books. Yet Benoist said their names were barely familiar to him.
“The French New Right has been a big influence on me and the alt-right,” Johnson told The Daily Beast. “Benoist and Faye come up with great stuff. Europe’s being colonized by Islam. They replicate their forms of society within our forms of society, and the end result is that we will lose our homelands. Faye tries to understand why people won’t defend their own. After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the French were more concerned with Islamophobia than with those who were massacred for their opinions.”
Benoist and Faye owe one white nationalist in particular for the spread of their work outside the French-speaking world.
Daniel Friberg, 38, a Swedish-born former mining executive, began Arktos, now the biggest alt-right publishing company in the world, seven years ago. Friberg grew up happily in a small, homogenous town in Sweden with what he said were “leftist liberal” parents. All that changed, he said, when at 13 he went to junior high school, where there were many immigrant students, part of the first wave of the large-scale immigration that began in Sweden in the mid-1980s.
“I had been taught to think multiculturalism was great until I experienced it,” Friberg told The Daily Beast. “But the reality was a culture shock. The media and everyone else told me that it was all good. It was a rude awakening. It wasn’t good. There was a lot of chaos, crime, drugs, bringing guns to school, you name it.”
Feeling he’d been lied to “by everyone” and wanting to “understand this transformation Sweden was undergoing,” Friberg started reading political-science books voraciously, in particular Benoist and Faye. Even though Friberg had only a schoolboy knowledge of French, he understood the texts.
“The French New Right books were the first I read, and they were an eye-opener for me,” Friberg said. “I couldn’t find anything in them I disagreed with.”
In 2009 Friberg left his day job to start Arktos and Right On, a blog for the alt-right. One of the first things he did was approach Benoist and Faye, and buy the rights to publish their most popular books in English—and later other languages.
“We’ve red-pilled people all over the world, even China and India, with these books,” Friberg said, using the term favored by the alt-right to describe the process of turning others on to their ideas. “Many of our customers are surprisingly young and surprisingly well-educated. Many are former leftists who as we like to say [are] former members of the ‘regressive left.’ A lot are disenfranchised libertarians.”
Friberg has written his own book, The Real Right Returns, and like pretty much everyone in the alt-right universe, he is thrilled with Trump’s election.
“We’d be growing with or without him,” Friberg said. “But now it’s clear. Right-wing populism is here to stay.”

Carol Schaefer wrote in The Atlantic May 28:

Prior to Arktos, Friberg also had long-standing and prolific ties to far-right extremists in Sweden. As a teenager, he was heavily involved with neo-Nazi groups and, at the age of 28, helped construct and manage the online forum Nordisk.nu, a 22,000-member-strong gathering place for Scandinavian national socialists, including Anders Breivik. Friberg also served time in prison for various offenses from 1995 to 2010, including for possession of a stolen AK4 rifle (a rifle formerly used by Swedish army) and other illegal weapons.

More recently, Friberg has sought to obscure his violent transgressions under a cover of intellectual legitimacy. With an MBA from Göthenberg University and work experience at Wiking Mineral, a company founded by far-right political backer (and fellow Budapest resident) Patrick Brinkmann, Friberg now sports a “fashy haircut” and suits. He prefers to mingle with coiffed intellectuals and politicians in lieu of skinheads. He has spent his far-right career repackaging eugenicist ideology by rebranding the same or similar material with words such as “identitarian,” “traditionalist,” or “archeofuturist.” His partner, U.S. white nationalist Richard Spencer, has been criticized for doing the same thing by hate-watch groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.

While Gyöngyösi admits to knowing Friberg, he claims he knows nothing of Friberg’s criminal history. Gyöngyösi was skeptical before I read from his arrest record, and ultimately admitted that he is “not particularly happy … about any criminal from any country living in Hungary.” But most important to Gyöngyösi is “that nobody from outside imposes on Hungary some social model that is not welcome in Hungary.”

In Budapest, Arktos is surrounded by alt-righters who have made the trek to the increasingly illiberal Hungary. Michael Polignano, co-founder of Counter-Currents, moved to Budapest in 2016, and joined the nationalist scene. After moving to Hungary in January 2017, men’s rights activist Matt Forney wrote: “Imagine there’s no leftists. It’s easy if you try. No protests in the streets, and in front of us, only cute white girls. That world exists, and it’s called Hungary.” Ferenc Almassy, a French nationalist, has worked as a translator for Jobbik. He helps other French nationalists new to Hungary acclimate to their haven. Popular American far-right YouTube and Twitter personality RamZPaul, who has lived in the Hungarian capital off and on since 2013, tweeted in February to nearly 35,000 followers: “Budapest is like Paris of the 1920s. #Hungary.”

Greg Johnson wrote circa May 24:

The claim that I made an ultimatum that I would not speak at the Scandza Forum unless Daniel Friberg was excluded is 100% false and malicious. This is what happened. The Scandza Forum was a private, invitation-only event. The Scandza Forum’s organizers and donors include people who have been burned financially and personally by Friberg in the past. So of course he was not invited. When he heard about the event, he asked to be invited. When the organizers mentioned it to me, I urged them not to change their minds and told them that if they wanted to blame anyone, blame me. When Friberg was told that he would not be invited, he went ballistic, gave them an ultimatum to reverse their decision by 22:00 hours, and threatened to sabotage the event if they did not. At that point, any possible doubt about excluding Friberg vanished.

Now, to put this in perspective, Kevin MacDonald and I flew half-way around the globe to help the Scandza Forum get off to a good start by speaking there. Guillaume Durocher flew in from the continent. Jonas de Geer flew in from the UK. And Daniel Friberg was threatening to sabotage the event because he was not invited. Now, at this point, every decent, right-thinking White Nationalist has everything he needs to know to conclude that Daniel Friberg is a piece of shit who should be flushed from this movement forever, simply because he puts his own petty personal ego issues before the greater good of the movement.

Friberg’s sabotage consisted in making up a story about me that is a complete inversion of the truth. He threw a fit, not me. He issued an ultimatum, not me. Then he put this story out there to various movement people (I heard about it from Kevin MacDonald and Seventh Son, but I am sure they are not the only ones), posing as an aggrieved victim of Greg Johnson and asking them to intervene on his behalf. Of course, the request to intercede was entirely bogus. It was just an attempt to defame me with the added obscenity of pretending to be a victim. Beyond that, Friberg doxed the organizers of the Scandza Forum to antifa, which is further reason to completely shun Friberg and anyone who sanctions his behavior. Finally, Friberg threatened to organize another event at the same time, and tried to get people to cancel and demand refunds. When only one person did that, and the Forum was a resounding success — with more than 100 people in attendance — he organized a rival dinner after the Forum was over. This was a topic of great mirth to many people present.

If you did not attend the Scandza Forum, or if you are angry at me based on a completely false story, you are being manipulated by Daniel Friberg. You missed a great event because of a lying piece of shit. Take your anger and direct it at him.

Daniel Friberg, European Editor of AltRight.com, and Richard Spencer, American Editor of AltRight.com, write:

For obvious reasons, an anonymous person can never lead anything, let alone an identitarian movement for the future of European peoples. Instead of humbly accepting this fact, Greg Johnson builds up a toxic resentment towards those who outshine him, who are willing to take risks and be public figures.

In a thread on the TRS Forum, Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Publishing leveled a number of serious charges against Daniel Friberg, one of our Founders and Editors—without offering any evidence. Furthermore, Greg urged the entire Alt-Right movement to “shun” or “expel” Daniel and Arktos Media based on these unsupported—and sometimes illogical and contradictory—accusations.

The controversy centers around the Scandza forum, which held a recent conference at which Greg was a speaker and guest. Before the conference began, Greg issued a request that Daniel should not be allowed to attend (effectively, “it’s either him or me”). Greg’s actions have been confirmed by multiple people on the Altright.com Board who’ve spoken with the conference organizers and others. Bringing this level of divisiveness to Swedish nationalism is bad enough, but Greg made matters worse when, after receiving criticism, he brazenly lied about what occurred, claiming that the conference organizers, and not him, disinvited Daniel, and that, in fact, he urged them not to take these actions. Apparently, Greg has little compunction over throwing his hosts and sponsors under the bus.

More potentially damaging than Greg’s petty lies are his claims that Daniel Friberg,

  1. Doxxed the organizers of The Scandza Forum to the Antifa, apparently in revenge for being disinvited;
  2. Was an “embezzler” of funds from his own company, Arktos;
  3. Destroyed “an endless list of people both personally and financially.”

Greg must either present evidence supporting these allegations or retract them and apologize. Who are the people on this “endless list”? What evidence exist that a man who’s been a leader in Swedish nationalism for 20 years is actually a collaborator with antifa? If Daniel has been so destructive to Arktos, why is the company so productive?

We won’t hold our breath . . . The fact is, no evidence for Greg’s accusations exist; and if any did, Greg would have obviously already published it.

Secondly, it must be made clear that this behavior from Greg is nothing new. In recent years, he has attacked the following individuals, making unfounded accusations, sometimes demanding denunciations, or just randomly kvetching:

  1. Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer;
  2. Hunter Wallace of The Occidental Dissent;
  3. Richard Spencer of NPI and Radix;
  4. Matt Parrot and Matthew Heimbach of The Traditionalist Workers Party.

The repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks on Daniel, along with the people above, stem from Greg’s wish to be THE leader and guru of the Alternative Right (or nationalist opposition or whichever term you prefer). The problem with this ambition is that Greg is afraid to show his face publicly, or perhaps has some reason to hide his identity, and imposes a complete ban on photos at every conference at which he speaks. Moreover, his generic name makes it difficult to do a proper background check on him.

For obvious reasons, such a person can never lead anything, let alone an identitarian movement for the future of European peoples. Instead of humbly accepting this fact, he builds up a toxic resentment towards those who outshine him, who are willing to take risks and be public figures: Andrew Anglin, for running the most popular website among nationalists; Richard Spencer, for becoming the icon of the international Alt-Right and getting the most media attention; Matt Parrot and Matthew Heimbach, for managing to build a real organization, instead of merely hosting small meet-ups; Daniel Friberg, for succeeding where Greg failed, building a successful publishing house, Arktos, hosting the biggest Alt-Right conferences in Northern Europe, as well as co-founding AltRight.com with Spencer and others, etc.

Greg’s disruptive behavior is bound to continue. Until now, Daniel and Richard’s strategy has been to ignore Greg and resist playing his game.

Daniel Friberg writes May 29:

In Response to the Fake News Revenge Article in The Atlantic

The article by Carol contains so many malicious errors, outright lies and misconceptions that it needs to be addressed, which I will attempt to do below:

1) I’ve always been clear that I am neither a permanent resident in Hungary nor affiliated with any Hungarian political parties or groups: not even Jobbik, as Carol claims. If anything, I would say that the Hungarians seem to be doing a good job at handling their interior and exterior politics themselves, and I have no wish to engage in Hungarian politics whatsoever. I certainly live part time in Budapest, just as I live part time in Sweden, Poland and Germany, but I don’t identify myself as being part of any ”alt-right expat community,” even if any such thing existed. Furthermore, I have zero interest in party politics but work solely as an author and publisher, focused on spreading traditionalist ideas to Western Europe and the U.S. rather than central and eastern Europe, both of which are healthier.

2) I’ve never been involved in any “neo-Nazi” scene or “group” in Sweden whatsoever. On the contrary, I have called myself a nationalist, a conservative, and an identitarian, meaning one who emphasizes the importance of national and cultural identity. I have often been criticized by the more radical elements in the Swedish scene for this; indeed, I’ve been called everything from a “Zionist” to a “Secret Service agent.” This is a well-known fact in Sweden, well documented online, and something that should have been fact checked.

3) It is true that I created a forum called Nordisk.nu in Sweden (meaning “Nordic.nu”), with the tagline “a portal for Nordic identity, culture and tradition,” with not 22,000 but rather 27,000 members. The vast majority of members were people interested in Nordic culture and identity, traditionalists or regular nationalists, and certainly not ”neo-Nazis” as Carol claims.

4) Regarding her worst accusation, which serves to portray me as some sort of criminal, anti-social element, I’ve been convicted three times in my entire 39-year old life, of which two are misdemeanours:

Once in 1995 for possessing a tear gas spray that is legal in most European countries.
Once in January 1996, at the age of 18, for possessing two firearms I was storing at my family home for a friend, rendering me three months in a low-security prison.
The third and final time in 2010 for a misdemeanour: specifically, for taking back something a thief stole from me. I did not serve any prison time for this and was given a minor fine.

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How’s Trump Doing?

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Luke Ford

The president is doing as well as I expected. I think he’s doing fine. I am not disappointed.

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* A president can’t get much done without some support in Congress and inside government offices. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this president has support just because the Republican party has majorities in both houses. He doesn’t.

Remember: He won the nomination against the wishes of those in power in “his/our” party. They would be almost as happy as the Left to see him fail or go.

He needs to somehow help, where he can, to get Trumpists elected to Congress in 2018. (And Trumpists need to step up and run for Republican nominations for those upcoming congressional races.) He also needs to remind himself every day that his enemies wear both letters, D and R.

With or without party elite support, President Trump needs to get back to the basics of why we voted for him, in order of importance:

1) Immigration: For we his supporters — we who are more numerous than media and social norms will allow to be heard — for us the past half-century has been a disaster. For President Donald J. Trump to truly accomplish what he has been chosen by history to do, he must reverse the demographic trends that have been changing the United States since The Immigration Act of 1965.

Trump needs to realize that his people and his nation are engaged in an existential struggle to assert the same right to existence that pretty much every other nation of people on Earth takes for granted: namely, the right to be who we are, without shame or doubt, distinct from others.

If he and we do not assert this right, we will suffer the same fate as a herd of sheep in a world of wolves, for every other people are doing what is best for their posterity. Only our kind holds onto relativistic illustions.

2) Trade, or as I like to call it, Imports = Cheap Foreign Labor: Trump is now president because he won votes from Americans in places like Michigan, where good jobs were exported to foreign countries. Part of Donald Trump’s support comes from the victims of over-importation of foreign goods. He knows this. This was the part of his campaign strategy that everyone else overlooked. Well, Donald, you need to focus on those good, American workers who put you in the White House. You need to hang tough on imports. If you can do this, those folks will vote for you again in 2020.

3) Foreign entanglements: Here is a conundrum. So far, we Trump voters kind of like Donald’s give ‘em hell attitude and realpolitik, but we see him continuing America’s expensive “Invade the World” strategy. He needs to show us that defending the likes of South Korea and Israel is really in our national interest. Otherwise, he needs to show us that he is just working with this existing order in the most advantageous way possible.

4) PC culture and the Racist Campaign Against White Americans: Trump needs to continue to insert tweets and other things often enough to let us know he still cares about his own kind. This includes continued support for cops, border patrol, etc. Keep being Donald Trump. Don’t listen to those who would tell you to stop. Be yourself. You won, remember?

* Apparently Trump’s poll numbers have improved after his first world trip, something I find remarkable since from the European perspective it seems to have been a complete and unprecedented disaster. To his credit Trump is certainly “putting America first”. Whether it is really in America’s long term interest to buddy up to Saudi Arabia and alienate the Europeans is a different question. The funny thing is that Trump is actually executing the pivot towards Asia that the Obama team kept talking about but couldn’t really pull off.

Trump’s foreign policy moves make no sense if he were really a “white nationalist” but make a lot of sense if he and his team are cynical realists who see the world this way:

1. China is clearly the next world power.
2. Europe is in terminal decline, and the EU is doomed to failure
3. Russia will remain a strong regional player but has no hope of regaining superpower status and becoming an equal player with China and the US.
4. China’s Achilles heel is energy. Controlling energy resources will keep the US dominant for the foreseeable future.

If you accept those premises than Trump’s seemingly crazy actions all makes sense. It makes sense to cozy up to Saudi Arabia and Russia in order to keep them out of Chinese orbit. It also makes sense to cut Europe loose in order to strengthen ties with Russia.. If you need Erdogan to help keep order in the Middle East and watch Saudi Arabia’s flank, then you make friends with Erdogan and let him continue to blackmail Europeans with refugees and to fund Islamic cells throughout Germany.

This suggests Trump has really been a great power conservative all along, which is probably why the military seems to be solidly behind him. If true then Trump is going to disappoint idealists – both leftists who want the US to stand for human rights and “progressive” values, as well as white nationalists and fundamentalist Christians who want the US to stand up for “traditional” values.

* I think it’s becoming clear that Trump is not the great managerial force he claimed to be during the campaign. The perceived chaos in the WH scares traditional GOPers who are always on edge with the media. It causes them to retreat even more.

Trump needs to allow skilled advisors to take greater reins in his administration. That would mean jettisoning his son-in-law and allowing Bannon to reassert control. The Sessions/Miller/Bannon wing have been consistent and have delivered results. Their one perceived misstep, the travel ban, really wasn’t one.

* Trump needs to firmly internalize the fact that the MSM will screech every day of his administration about something or other.

The MSM will screech on the beaches, they will screech on the landing grounds, they will screech in the fields and in the streets, they will screech in the hills; they will never surrender.

Once he admits this to himself, he can stop trying to make them like him.

Most importantly, when he is planning something, the strategy discussion will be “what do we do when they screech about this,” rather than “how can we play this so the media won’t screech about it?”

Yes, there are a few things the MSM won’t screech about, but if they don’t screech about Trump-move A, they will find an imaginary flea of an issue to screech about instead.

I recommend Trump specifically start referring to MSM reactions as “screeching”. It’s a pithy Trump-style label.

* Trump is going slowly from being the hunted to being the hunter. I think we will look back at the Comey firing as the beginning of the end of the soft coup. Both Brennan and Clapper have washed their hands. The Democrats are still throwing rocks but are rhetorically backing away from impeachment knowing that is a loser. Pretty soon we will see the very public frog marching of culprits, both in the government and the press, who were smoked out by a combination of Trump Trolling and counter espionage. There is still danger to Trump because of the uncontrollably of the Special Counsel but it is now a problem for Democrats tied to the past administration as well, probably even more so. Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, and the rest might finally get their rewards, not to mention their boss who so skillfully insulated himself by using them as foils.

The Russians were a good straw man but by throwing false allegations as a way of smearing Trump means that the Democrats have done their worst and they will be no further real harm other than General Flynn’s scalp. In the big picture, he is quite expendable. In fact, by inadvertently stumbling into the minefield first, Flynn probably saved a lot more casualties within the Trump administration.

* Not one single person who believed in the Trump campaign should be satisfied with his performance. You ought to be infuriated. You ought to be leading the charge to remove him from office. Why? Because he stole our last chance. We had one, final opportunity to change the system from within. We organized, we networked, we campaigned, we gave money, we voted—I know I and many of you as well did literally everything we could to drag Trump over goal line because we understood what was at stake in this election. And against all odds, we did it. We actually won. It never ceases to fill my heart with pride and hope when I think about what we accomplished on November 8th. On that fine day, the Nationalists actually defeated the Deep State and the Globalist cabal. Did you have tears in your eyes at 2 AM when President Elect Trump appeared on television? I know I did. I still do.

But then our candidate cucked out on us. It was not even 24 hours before he said that he “did not want to hurt” Hillary Clinton and was therefore backing off his promise to investigate her. This is literally unsupportable. Anyone with an accurate sense of law and justice knows that it would not be at all hyperbolic to say that Hillary Clinton’s head belongs on a pike in front of the White House. The state has not only the right but the duty to prosecute crimes such as hers, especially when the head of that state wishes to be known as the “law and order president.” To simply let her off the hook is not magnanimity but dereliction of duty, and this cannot be tolerated. But in the afterglow of the election, we were all too willing to interpret Trump using the hermeneutic of 4D chess. “He just needs to play it safe until he consolidates his power,” we thought. “Then he’ll throw the book at her.”
Sadly, that situation has still not been remedied, and it was only the first in a long line of Trumpian cuck-outs. I won’t belabor the point by going through the whole litany, but suffice it to say that the hermeneutic of 4D chess died an ignoble death the moment the 59 cruise missiles flew at Syria. That was a crushing blow to all hope that Trump would be a sane, nationalist leader. It was also outrageous, incompetent, criminal, and deeply immoral. Now add to that the hundred-billion dollar arms deal with the despicable House of Saud. Add to that the fact that not one, not two, but three carrier groups (a significant fraction of the entire US Navy) have been sent to menace North Korea, who simply laughs it off. I am imagining at this moment a parody of the old “this is your brain in drugs” public service announcements. It begins with an aerial shot of the Pentagon and the voice-over saying, “This is fecklessness and corruption.” Then it cuts to a video of Trump swinging swords with Saudis and the voice-over saying, “This is fecklessness and corruption on steroids.”

Our situation, at the moment, is dire. If we are to have any hope of salvaging the opportunity afforded by the Trump presidency, the effort cannot be left up to Trump. It is in ourselves, the captains of the True Right, whom we must repose confidence. We won the previous battle and we can win this one as well.

One is not thinking politically unless he has a clearly definable goal and the reasonable means of attaining it. The goal must be to take over the Trump presidency. Not to “support the president,” but to make Trump our bitch and force him to do what we elected him for. The means of attaining it is for the “Deplorables” (God I hate that word) to rise up with one voice and let Trump know that he’s on notice. The expression of that voice must be a primary challenger who will run against Trump from the Right, and congressional and local candidates who will run on the Trump platform but actually mean it. Their message should be very simple: “I mean what Trump says. I believe in it, but I was let down. He isn’t doing it, I will.”

We’ve already seen that this approach would work. It is the only thing that will work; it is the right thing to do; and it’s our next, best hope.

* Trump got himself a little bit of breathing room with his “big trip” away from the terrible press around the Comey sacking, the appointment of Mueller as special counsel, and the mishandled meeting with the Russians. It’s hard to tell, however, how much of this reprieve was just because of fewer opportunities for either Trump himself to commit another gaffe, or maybe possibly one or several people on his staff less able to leak something to the press (it could be possible, if anyone in the White House had enough sense, that the trip provided an opportunity to identify leakers: see if a source drops off from anyone on the trip being less willing to chance things to overseas communications).

(As far as the supposed falling out with Merkel, et al, on the trip, a couple things to keep in mind are (1) Merkel has an election to deal with this year, so some of what she says and does is for domestic consumption; and (2) Trump has been, in this and likely many other ways, accelerating trends that would have been coming anyway. 25 years after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has much less reason to be interested in NATO, given that the enemy it was established to face no longer exists and its successor is a paltry military threat to the rest of Europe, and the fact that the major European members of NATO show no interest in protecting themselves from the actual threat posed by mass Muslim and African immigration.)

Now that Trump and his camp are back in Washington, and there’s talk of a “shake-up,” we will have to see what happens in the next couple of weeks. The big question mark with this presidency has always been Trump’s ability and character, and that was clear even as far back as the campaign, when he would regularly drag his campaign off into the weeds with one or another provocative public statement or controversy. It seems clear that he needs to change at least in some respect, even if to the minimal degree of appointing a few key core staffers whom he will listen to when they tell him “no” about something, whom he won’t publicly cut the legs out from under, who are able to do the heavy lifting he either can’t or won’t, and who want the job. The problem is still that probably anyone with the competence and ability to get this presidency (and this President) on a sounder footing who isn’t already working there probably already has a decent job, and probably isn’t interested in what has come to look like a toxic work environment under a toxic boss that is likely to leave their career and reputation damaged (and likely with both terrible hours and a government-level salary to boot, not to mention an ongoing Justice Department investigation that has everyone lawyering up). Somebody needs to be there to tell him to STFU, stop with the off-message tweeting, the weird and inappropriate statements to foreign dignitaries, etc. Hopefully, maybe, the special counsel investigation will have lawyers necessarily taking charge of the communications to some degree, so it might be a blessing in disguise.

Politically, Trump is going to have to deliver something to his base, probably on immigration, this year, in order to avoid the Democrats taking over at least one house of Congress (which will kill any hope of legislating anything stone dead and will open up the floodgates of investigations). I can’t imagine how anyone who watches the immigration issue didn’t have steam coming out of their ears last week with the announcement of the increase in refugee admissions by the State Department this year. Nate Silver last week or so at Fivethirtyeight wrote up some poll findings that Trump’s base was softening, mostly by a shift of “enthusiastic support” towards “somewhat support,” and I have to see that as failures to deliver and stumbles on issues like immigration (which has been the core of Trump’s “enthusiastic support” from the beginning). If his base shrinks or loses interest significantly as the midterms approach and Republicans in Congress and establishment conservatism feel the leash slackening, Trump will have some major problems.

Bottom line: still Flight 93, the cockpit was breached, but still not clear whether the guy in the seat can fly the plane.

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The Collapse Of The West

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Luke Ford

Here’s an interview with military historian Martin Van Creveld:

JF: Professor van Creveld, why is the West always being defeated?

MvC: There are several answers to this question. First, the way we Westeners educate our children, guarding them against any possible danger, preventing them from growing up, and actively infantilizing them. Second, the way we do the same with our troops; through most of the West, „millitarism,“ meaning a healthy pride in one‘s pofession of a soldier, has become taboo. Third, the way women are incorporated into the military, often turning training into a joke and creating a situation where male soldiers are more afraid of being falsely accused of „sexual harassment“ than of the enemy. Fourth, the way post traumatic stress disorder is not only tolerated but encouraged and even enforced. Fifth, the spread of the idea that war is the greatest of all evils and nothing is worth dying for.

JF: But aren’t the West’s armed forces the most powerful in the world? By right, they should have been invincible.

MvC: That is true. But the facts speak for themselves, don‘t they?

J.F: Several contrary examples offer themselves. Including the 1982 Falkland War, 1991 war with Iraq, 1991, and the Arab-Israeli Wars. How do these cases fit into your theory?

MvC: The Falkland campaign was a conventional one fought by two „Western“ powers among themselves. Israel did indeed use to be an exception—until the performance of its troops during the 2006 Second Lebanon War showed otherwise. As to the 1991 war, yes. But that war was a conventional one of a kind which is very, very unlikely to recur

JF: Could you elaborate on the Israeli case? Is there anything there the West might learn from it?

MvC: To repeat, there was a time when the Israeli Army was indeed a fighting force that used to command the admiration of the world. But that was long ago. Starting with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, on no occasion did the Israelis defeat their enemies. Not in 2006, not in all their attacks on Gaza. Currently, all its „fighters“ know how to do is gun down a fifty-year old Palestinian woman, the mother of eleven, who came at them with a knife. Judging by the 2006 campaign, indeed, there is good reason to believe that, should Israel ever again come under attack by a real enemy, its troops will turn tail and run.

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Why Conservatives Still Attack Trump

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Luke Ford

Dennis Prager writes today:

They do not believe that America is engaged in a civil war, with the survival of America as we know it at stake.
While they strongly differ with the left, they do not regard the left-right battle as an existential battle for preserving our nation. On the other hand, I, and other conservative Trump supporters, do.
That is why, after vigorously opposing Trump’s candidacy during the Republican primaries, I vigorously supported him once he won the nomination. I believed then, as I do now, that America was doomed if a Democrat had been elected president. With the Supreme Court and hundreds of additional federal judgeships in the balance; with the Democrats’ relentless push toward European-style socialism — completely undoing the unique American value of limited government; the misuse of the government to suppress conservative speech; the continuing degradation of our universities and high schools; the weakening of the American military; and so much more, America, as envisioned by the Founders, would have been lost, perhaps irreversibly. The “fundamental transformation” that candidate Barack Obama promised in 2008 would have been completed by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
To my amazement, no anti-Trump conservative writer sees it that way. They all thought during the election, and still think, that while it would not have been a good thing if Hillary Clinton had won, it wouldn’t have been a catastrophe either.
That’s it, in a nutshell. Many conservatives, including me, believe that it would have been close to over for America as America if the Republican candidate, who happened to be a flawed man named Donald Trump, had not won. Moreover, I am certain that only Donald Trump would have defeated Hillary Clinton.
In other words, I believe that Donald Trump may have saved the country. And that, in my book, covers a lot of sins — foolish tweets, included.
The Never-Trump conservative argument that Trump is not a conservative – one that I, too, made repeatedly during the Republican primaries – is not only no longer relevant, it is no longer true.
Had any Never-Trump conservative been told, say in the summer of 2015, that a Republican would win the 2016 election and, within his first few months in office, appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court; begin the process of replacing Obamacare; bomb Russia’s ally, Assad, after he again used chemical weapons; appoint the most conservative cabinet in modern American history; begin undoing hysteria-based, economy-choking EPA regulations; label the Iranian regime “evil” in front of 50 Muslim heads of state; wear a yarmulke at the Western Wall; appoint a U.N. ambassador who regularly condemns the U.N. for its moral hypocrisy; restore the military budget; and work on lowering corporate tax rates, among other conservative achievements — that Never-Trump conservative would have been jumping for joy.
So, why aren’t anti-Trump conservatives jumping for joy?
I have come to believe that many conservatives possess what I once thought was a left-wing monopoly — a utopian streak. Trump is too far from their ideal leader to be able to support him.
There is also a cultural divide. Anti-Trump conservatives are a very refined group of people. Trump doesn’t talk like them. Moreover, the cultural milieu in which the vast majority of anti-Trump conservatives live and/or work means that to support Trump is to render oneself contemptible at all elite dinner parties.
In addition, anti-Trump conservatives see themselves as highly moral people (which they often are) who are duty-bound not to compromise themselves by strongly supporting Trump, whom they largely view as morally defective.
Finally, these people are only human: After investing so much energy in opposing Trump’s election, and after predicting his nomination would lead to electoral disaster, it’s hard to for them to admit they were wrong. To see him fulfill many of his conservative election promises, again in defiance of predictions, is a bitter pill. But if they hang on to their Never-Trumpism and the president falls on his face, they can say they were right all along.
That means that only if he fails can their reputations be redeemed. And they, of course, know that.
But there is another way.
They can join the fight. They can accept an imperfect reality and acknowledge that we are in a civil war, and that Trump, with all his flaws, is our general. If this general is going to win, he needs the best fighters. But too many of them, some of the best minds of the conservative movement, are AWOL.
I beg them: Please report for duty.

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Conservative Judaism 2017: ‘God Is Without Boundaries’

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Luke Ford

The Hebrew word for holiness, kadosh, means “separate” or “boundary.” The essence of Judaism is boundaries between Jew and gentile, between the Sabbath and the other days of the week, between man and women, human and animal, adults and children, etc.

From the Temple Beth Am Shuvuot program: “God is without boundaries. Torah, too, can be accessed through limitless windows. As we accept Torah, on Shuvuot, we will do so with every soul. Every perspective. Every faith.”

“Please bring diapers and school supplies (backpacks, notebooks, pens and pencils) to TBA, to be made available to refugees, immigrants…”

Interfaith Panel 8:45-10:15 p.m.: “How God’s Voice Sings Through Your Tradition” (Ballroom)

Andrea Hodos is the Director of Moving Torah, and the Program Co-Director of NewGround: a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change. She is a strong believer in the power of both ancient and personal stories to help us understand ourselves and one another better, and brings her beliefs and passions together in a performance project called Sinai & Sunna: Women Covering, Uncovering & Recovering.

Atilla Kahveci is currently the Vice President of Pacifica Institute, that is dedicated to interfaith dialog, and improving social cohesion among different segments of the society. Pacifica Institute has been organizing interfaith conversations, lectures series, luncheon forums and panels of Muslim Voices Against Extremism and Combatting Cancer of Extremism. Mr Kahveci is sitting on the board of various Interfaith Organizations like Christian Muslim Consultative Group, Interreligious Council of Southern California and Southern California Muslim Jewish Forum. In the summer of 2016, Mayor Eric Garcetti awarded along at City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission Interfaith Dinner Pacifica Institute’s efforts to organize panels of Muslim Voices Against Extremism and Combatting Cancer of Extremism.

Reverend Dr. Najuma Smith-Pollard is program manager for the USC Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement. The Rev. Najuma Smith-Pollard combines her experience as a pastor and expertise as a community leader to run programs that train pastors to take on civic engagement work. Rev Najuma is the founding Pastor of Word of Encouragement Community Church, in Los Angeles.Smith-Pollard also is a inspirational speaker and trainer, author, radio personality and community activist. Her areas of expertise Preaching, Women Clergy, Sexual Violence, Faith Leadership, Black Church and Civic Engagement.

Randolph Dobbs was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Salinas near Monterey where he attended Hartnell College. Mr. Dobbs is a member of the Regional Bahá’í Council of the State of California. He was elected to the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Los Angeles in the mid-90’s and serves as its secretary. He is a past president of the Inter-Religious Council of Southern California and serves on its Executive Committee as well as the Advisory Board of the Guibord Center – Religion Inside Out. He also serves as a Religious Director in the Office of Religious Life at USC, as a member of the Board of Directors of the University Religious Conference at UCLA and is part of the Interfaith Collective in the Mayor’s Office for the City of Los Angeles. His articles on religious matters appear on various websites including Examiner.com, Beliefnet.com and Iranian.com.

Marium F. Mohiuddin From the local mosque to national organizations, Marium F. Mohiuddin has dedicated her life to working toward helping and advocating for the American Muslim community. Professionally, she has worked in communications and publishing for the past 15 years. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, she joined the staff of the Austin American-Statesman as an editor in the Features department. In 2013, Marium launched her communications firm merging her two passions – nonprofit work and communications – and in 2016, she took that passion one step further when she went back to school to get her MBA in nonprofit management.

At 10:30 pm: “Nazis in Montana: Lessons from a Jewish community under attack. A group of rabbis from across North America traveled to a small rural town in Montana this spring. They came with the intention of comforting the Jewish community and left with a deeper understanding of the beauty of tight-knit communities, the strength of the leadership, and the distressing power in the hands of virulent anti-semites. Cantor Chorny will share Torah, stories, and opportunities that have arisen in the wake of the troubling events.”

Also at 10:30 pm: “Creating Transgender Inclusive Jewish Spaces Dr. Patrick Rock, Director of Education at the Youth and Gender Media Project (Chermisqui Hall) This interactive workshop will discuss the ways in which Jewish spaces can be both inclusive, and alienating, to transgender individuals. We will discuss best practices around transgender inclusion and concrete ways for you to make your own community more affirming.”

At 11:30 pm: “A Jewish Response to the Refugee Crisis: Mark Hetfield President & CEO, HIAS (Hersch Hall) Join Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of HIAS, for a Tikkun L’eyl Shavuot session about the global refugee crisis. Participants will explore how Jewish text, values and history call on us to respond – both here in the U.S., and internationally”

* “The Others: Igael Gurin Malous Talmud Teacher at Temple Israel of Hollywood (Chermisqui Hall) How the invisible, the ugly, the marginalized and the weak become strong, beautiful, sexy, important and respected. A journey of self exploration through the Talmudic texts or how this boy became a man…”

* “The Space Between: Reverend Kirsten Linford Senior Minister at Westwood Hills Congregational Church (Kopelove Hall) Often, God is found most presently and most powerfully in the spaces between – between human beings, between us and God, between the sound and the silence, between the lines, and even between spiritual traditions. For me, the connection to Jesus is one of inbetween and has been greatly informed and deepened by Jewish voices and experiences. I would love to share my stories with you, to hear your own, and to offer up the labyrinth as a way of in-between prayer that is meaningful to my community.”

* “Building a Stronger and More Inclusive LGBTQA Community One Unique Voice at a Time (Panel Discussion) Rabbi Rachel Bat-Or Director, JQ International Helpline Services and Members of the JQ Int’l Speakers Bureau (Dorff Nelson Chapel) The LGBTQA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Ally) community often speaks with one voice about the ever-present danger to all of us. But we each have a unique voice, which adds increased nuance and texture to the whole community. Those of us on the panel will share our process of finding our own voices and how each one blends into and, at the same time, changes the community as a whole.”

12:30 am. “What does the Torah teach us about today’s refugee crisis? How do we respond? Tyson Roberts Temple Beth Am Refugee Task Force (Pilch Hall) Text study and discussion, update on what Jewish communities have done thus far, and brainstorm what we can do in the near future. Step one: Please bring diapers and school supplies for refugees and displaced families in the LA area! (Note: Notebooks and pens/pencils should be brought before 5pm; backpacks and diapers can be brought any time.)”

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