Counter-Currents
Leader-ful Resistance:
The Predicament of the Right Today
John Morgan
1,978 words
The concept of “leaderless resistance” was popularized on the Right through the writings of Klansman Louis Beam in the 1980s and 1990s, after having allegedly been invented by American intelligence officers in the 1960s as a possible strategy for resisting a theoretical Communist takeover of the United States.
It is really just an adaptation of the cell structure, in which an insurgent group divides itself into units of no more than a few members each, with the cells being completely unaware of the others, and with only one individual in each cell who has contact with a higher authority, who in turn transmits instructions from the central leadership. In this way, even if individual cells or even the central leadership of the group are captured and interrogated, the organization itself can survive since there is no one who actually knows everyone else involved.
Many groups have used this technique, successfully or unsuccessfully, over the last century, including the IRA, the French Resistance, the Algerian FLN (as depicted in the classic film The Battle of Algiers
Leaderless resistance takes this a step further and dispenses with the concept of an organization altogether, instead advocating that small groups or individuals should, on their own initiative and utilizing nothing but whatever resources they can muster on their own, carry out attacks on the enemy. Since nothing would unite these individuals or groups apart from a common ideology, there is no way for the enemy’s security forces to track them or anticipate their moves. Eventually, once the number and intensity of attacks becomes high enough, and the sympathies of the masses are swayed, a mass movement will somehow emerge and take the struggle to the next level.
On paper, it sounds brilliant, but in practice it is always a dismal failure. Those on the Right who have carried out “lone wolf” attacks, such as Timothy McVeigh (if he can really be classified as a Rightist, which is debatable), David Copeland, Benjamin Smith, Buford Furrow, James von Brunn, and Anders Breivik all carried out acts of violence which they viewed as the starting point of a struggle that would be continued by others who would pick up their banners.
Their actions are all characterized by an equal mix of the grotesque and the pathetic, as well as a complete failure to introduce any lasting change into society apart from a sense of revulsion. The fact is that, even if such an end were desirable, the majority of people in any society are abhorred by random violence, and it is only because the worldviews of these would-be guerrillas were so distorted that they believed they were acting on behalf of a larger struggle.
Similarly, as is evinced in the writings of its strategists, it is clear that Al Qaeda was hoping that 9/11 would be the spark that would set off acts of leaderless resistance throughout the United States, Europe and the Muslim world. They had marginally greater success than did their Right-wing counterparts, at least in terms of body count, although they also failed to realize any of their goals or to establish a trend that large numbers of people would emulate. Many of their attacks only succeeded in killing the attackers themselves.
Essentially, leaderless resistance is an act of desperation which a powerless group adopts in the face of an enemy that seems invincible. Leaderless resistance only appears to be a good option when no unified or trustworthy leadership exists, and when the surrounding culture is completely hostile. That is the situation the Right has been in, in the United States and to a lesser degree in Europe, for decades.
The fact is, even in the unlikely event of so many people carrying out independent attacks that they could turn the United States into Iraq circa 2006, causing large numbers of Americans to become sympathetic and in turn overthrew the government, who would assume the mantle of leadership? There is certainly no group on the true Right in the U.S. today that is anywhere near to approaching the level of sophistication needed to take power over the entire nation – or even part of it, for that matter. Nor is there any group whom everyone would agree to follow.
Such a strategy also adds to the perception of our weakness, as Alex Kurtagic cogently explained in his essential “Masters of the Universe” address at NPI last month, as opposed to projecting an image of power. Only the weak resort to strategies of desperation.
Unfortunately, however, in spite of its repeatedly demonstrated pointlessness, many on the Right still advocate this approach. It can only be a waste of time and resources, not to mention suicidal. Not that Rightists shouldn’t have at least basic knowledge about firearms, martial arts, strategy, self-defense techniques and such, but those are inherently useful skills at any time or place, and should not become something that is emphasized to the exclusion of everything else as if it were a solution to all problems.
I would argue, however, that the primary problem with the Right today isn’t the romance of leaderless resistance, but the much more concrete reality of a leader-ful resistance.
The correct solution, especially in a democracy where such things are well within our reach, is to organize, and this requires leaders. Unfortunately, people on the Right are all too eager to become leaders. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t receive an invitation on Facebook or by e-mail to join some new Rightist organization which claims to offer the solutions to the ills of Western civilization. Many of these groups have some interesting ideas, and I believe that most of them are sincere. But typically their achievements don’t go beyond Facebook and/or a blog or website of some kind. Perhaps they manage to turn out a few issues of some sort of newsletter or journal, most of which are dedicated to attacking other groups.
You can tell from the scope of the discussions, however, that the membership of most of them doesn’t go beyond the “leader” and the few of his friends whom he persuaded to sign up. And typically, 90% of these groups vanish within a few weeks or months for one reason or another (usually either laziness or internal squabbles), littering the Internet with their dormant textual remains. “And another one bites the dust” plays in my head whenever I come across such sites.
Although the Internet itself is still relatively new, the phenomenon that is now occurring in cyberspace is just the latest manifestation of an old problem: the Right is its own worst enemy. Our movement is riven with enormous egos and obsessional people. So many among our ranks are convinced that only they hold the correct solution, and are so much in love with their own ideas that they will not tolerate even a slight disagreement over matters of philosophy or policy. I’m not a psychologist and will not attempt to speculate on why the Right is so prone to this phenomenon, although it seems endemic to all social movements, even if the Right in recent decades clearly suffers from a particularly acute case of it.
This problem isn’t restricted to those who start organizations, either. Whenever someone starts something that enjoys even a little bit of success, the jangling chorus of detractors and conspiracy theorists begins to make itself heard, eager to rip it apart. A common way to do this is to attack the characters of the people behind it, often, but not always, based upon information from dubious sources. In this way, we do our enemies’ work for them. It’s no wonder that few intelligent or talented people can stomach being involved with the Right for very long before they go away in frustration.
The fact is that, unless we want to remain eternal hobbyists on the margins of society as we are now, we are eventually going to have to agree to put aside our differences and unite behind specific causes, leaders and organizations, and get to work in the real world. Having dozens of tiny groups advocating different messages and techniques, and spending much of their energy trying to win over the same, tiny number of people who are already in our “scene” by defaming all the other groups, has accomplished nothing. If we are serious about playing a significant role of any kind in the future life of our civilization, we need to identify those points which are the most fundamental and figure out how to actualize them. A concern for the future of the European/White identity is clearly one of them. The need for some sort of restoration and resacralization of our culture along traditional lines is another.
I am not saying that we should squelch dissent or discussion. Such is crucial to the healthy life of any movement, and as circumstances change, the goals and strategies may need to be adjusted as well, and this can only occur if diverse viewpoints are allowed to be fostered. But ultimately, we need to figure out exactly what our “political minimum” is in terms of a platform, something which will appeal to a broad base of sympathizers. Once that is done, the next task is to figure out how to realize it.
At the same time, I do not believe the time is yet ripe to establish a political party whose intention it is to enter the American political mainstream and fight in elections. The cultural foundations are simply not there yet. As the European New Rightists correctly observed, the cultural groundwork and the accompanying changes it will inculcate must be accomplished among our people before there can be any thought of a political struggle. I believe that Counter-Currents is setting a good precedent for this, as are a handful of others, by presenting a wide range of possibilities which can be pruned and developed until we arrive at something like a coherent ideology.
This is also what my own organization, Arktos, is attempting to achieve by offering intellectual and cultural resources to stimulate the type of new thinking, new myths and new symbols that will need to be embraced if a successful movement dedicated to our principles, and which is capable of motivating a large number of people, is ever to be born.
This doesn’t mean that only intellectual or cultural work is desirable, or that other types of activism aren’t possible here and now. As I mentioned in my earlier essay on Islamism, successful revolutionary social movements start at the grassroots level by doing things like providing basic services such as food, education and housing. If we can find the funds to do this, it would be an excellent way to start building something on the local level which could later grow into something of nationwide significance, as well as generate a lot of good will among people who might not presently regard themselves as our allies.
I admit that what I am asking for is quite ambitious. There are occasions when I wonder if the hour might already be too late to get such a project underway. If there was one thing I would want readers to take away from this essay, however, it is this: don’t start a new group. Don’t write yet another manifesto. Don’t waste your time attacking somebody else’s group. Rather, do something constructive. Create something that embodies what you stand for, or else get to work supporting an effort by someone else that’s already underway. And we all must recognize that, sooner or later, it will be our task to submit to someone else’s authority and follow orders. Not unthinkingly or without judgment, of course, but with humility. No movement can thrive consisting entirely of leaders. What we need most are people who can be good followers.
25 comments
There are models to address one of the points you make – everyone wanting to start their own little group – in Catholicism and even in pop culture fantasy worlds. Our greatest blessing is also our greatest curse – hyper-individualism. Therefore our people need avenues for tighter self-definition within the greater framework of an organization with a recognized authority.
In Catholicism (I’m not Catholic so forgive me if I’m getting this wrong) there are numerous “orders” for Catholics of various flavors, i.e. Benedictines, Franciscans, Opus Dei. All of these Orders however, are obedient to the pope whatever their minor differences.
As a younger nerd I dabbled in table top games such as Warhammer 40,000. Perhaps hundreds of Orders existed within the world of the Space Marines and the Imperial Army. Why? The makers of this game could have easily forced the players to play with pieces that were identical but they knew these gamers, who also happened to be modelers, wanted an avenue to express their own individuality.
Even the Harry Potter series revolves around a campus for wizards with four different houses; each house with its own personality. Ah well, it sounds simple on paper anyway. Always the hard way with this bunch. Aren’t we due for another AmRen conference soon in which all the details of the meeting are posted for our enemies to capitalize on?
What’s stopping Amren from hiring security? Well dressed men (no shaved heads!) forming a wall to ward off liberal fags. Photographs of the protesters show nothing but a pack of weak, mewling creatures.
That wouldn’t help. If it were only protests they’d be fine. It’s the bomb threats, cancelling of venues, being made fodder for local news outlets, etc., that is the problem. All of this is unnecessary . . . the hard way, if you will.
This concept can be effectively used as well as intellectual movement – as army of jewish publishers, journalists, academics and film producers has proven by subverting hostile western societies…
The history of Resistance Records is instructive.
The Jews have particular advantages of extreme verbal intelligence, extreme social aggressiveness, and unparalleled hyper-ethnocentricity. Because they have these special advantages, their pens are even mightier than one might expect.
Currently the ease with which content can be copyright-infringed makes media companies a tricky proposition. If one sells an mp3 to a True Believer, that True Believer might post it on a torrent site just to spread the word.
Churches have their own problems.
The medium of cynical humor deserves special attention. Whites who are pushed to the limits of their endurance will want to make bitter jokes. Perhaps a few racially aware white comedians could do wonders.
Your remark about cynical humor reminds me of a question I’ve had in mind for a long time: why is there such a dearth of jokes about the Jews? I haven’t heard any original and genuinely funny jokes about the Jews for a long time. I find this very strange, for the Jews are a remarkably ugly, grotesque, and absurd people, and they provide many targets for mockery, satire, and irony. Consider their physiognomy and appearance. Consider their crooked noses. Consider their penchant for male genital mutilation (some Romans called them “penis-pruners”). Consider their conceited belief that they are “God’s Chosen People” and “a light unto the nations.” Consider the bizarre beliefs and customs of orthodox Jews (incidentally, it should be emphasized that orthodox Judaism is orthodox Judaism and not fringe Judaism). Consider their avarice and materialism. Consider their vulgarity and ostentation. Consider their dishonesty and their hypocrisy. Consider their delusions of grandeur and persecution. Consider their tall tales about the “Holocaust.” Consider their pretensions to be a uniquely creative people . . . One recalls Voltaire’s remark: “I never made but one prayer, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
We are in the theater of the absurd, in which we take seriously what we should mock, and mock what we should take seriously. If we had our wits about us, we would laugh at the Jews, then run them out of our countries. But as Léon Daudet wrote: “When farcical idols and obscene and tottering fetishes are raised on every hand, it is natural that laughter be banished from the temple.”
I greatly appreciate the wit that, like an axe wielded by an executioner, combines levity with gravity.
why is there such a dearth of jokes about the Jews?
Because the Jews make a habit of curtailing the freedom of Gentile speech, of course.
However, the Internet has allowed a certain degree of proliferation. Unfortunately, there is no good incubator for creative humor. For a while I had hoped that 4chan might serve that end, but Jewish moderators shut down counter-Jewish speech.
However, before 4chan became a judeolatrous zone, it linked to images such as the following:
http://img.moonbuggy.org/gief-moniez-plox/
I think that censorship is only a partial explanation for this dearth of jokes. The censorship that marginalizes such humor by driving it from the “public transcript” into the “hidden transcript” can also increase its potency. Ridicule of the authorities is an important element of counter-hegemonic discourse and the “hidden transcript” of subordinate groups — as Roger Mucchielli and James C. Scott respectively show in La subversion and Domination and the Arts of Resistance — and it can flourish despite repression.
One might consider the scurrilous literature churned out by the literary underworld of France during the ancien régime. Robert Darnton has contended that such literature was more influential in undermining respect for the ancien régime than the philosophical tracts written by the philosophes. This was probably true at the popular level: it is not surprising that half-seditious, half-pornographic libelles about the doings of the rich and powerful had a much larger audience than recondite treatises on politics or religion. The former and the latter were in fact sold by underground book dealers under the rubric of “philosophical works.”
One might also consider the jokes that were told about communism in eastern Europe under communism. The leaders, institutions, principles, slogans, and workings of the system were the subject of jokes that showed that people clearly recognized the perversity of these things.
Some people might think that humor is frivolous and that we should be more serious. I would reply to them that (1) humor can be fundamentally serious; (2) ridicule is, as previously noted, an important element of counter-hegemonic discourse; (3) we live in an age in which, as Juvenal remarked, it is impossible not to write satire; and (4) humor is an irrepressible part of our character and we should make the most of it, exercising it in proportion rather than trying to suppress it. We should exercise esprit in every sense of this French word: spirit, mind, and wit.
Carl, I agree with you, but at the same time there is always a temptation to get lost in the abstract realms of art, culture and scholasticism. That’s the fate that befell GRECE in France: they have been developing an elegant philosophy for almost half a century through a loose confederation of writers and artists, but its impact on French society has been close to zero. Naturally I am not opposed to the cultural project, since that is where both Counter-Currents and Arktos are focused, but at the same time, if we’re really serious about these ideas, ultimately it’s not enough on its own.
And look at the more practical organizations like the BNP or the National Front. In the end they begin to conform to that which they’re supposed to be against. During the last election, the National Front featured an ad of a Black Girl, thumb down and underwear out saying “This country stinks”. Of course it does – she’s there. If it gets to the point where you need to pander to minorities to win, isn’t it really too late for the Democratic Process? Brevik thought so. I think he is right.
Yes, exactly. I agree with this article. There are too many people who believe that they’re willing to pay the debts that one must pay to be a great leader (easier said than done), and most of them lack the skills necessary anyhow.
To use a pop culture analogue: people need to recognize that the great model for decent people of the 21st century isn’t Batman or the Joker — the real man to emulate is Alfred, because he does something that no one nowadays is willing to do. Alfred recognizes his own physical and intellectual inferiority to Batman and looks up to him, because he realizes that Batman looks up to a higher principle than himself.
People won’t do this because the so-called alternative right and its vast, vast amount of resources on the internet allow people to live in their own self-created virtual world where the slightest difference seems far greater than it is. I’ve said this elsewhere (on the article by “eugenicist” on alternativeright.com for one example) and I’ll say it again: for the more angry, hateful, curmudgeonly, and sabotage-prone or conspiracy-theory-prone people on the so-called alternative right, the decision to ABSTAIN from politics for a while will prove more politically effective in the long run. Let these angry folks work full-time jobs with regular, normal full-time friends and speak daily with their families, and then once they’ve fully immersed themselves into an actual real-world community of some kind, ask them if the tiniest difference on an economic policy is really all that damned relevant. The answer will most likely be: no, because they have enough self-assuredness and internal clarity to not feel the need to start squaking at everyone in grandiloquent and cryptic attempts at inward self-persuasion.
I’ve heard this joke from you before, and it wasn’t funny the first time. (Pop-culture reference right back at you.)
This is the same drum that Kurtagic beats, and it’s always wrong. Alex Kurtagic is right about a great deal, but anytime he, or you, or anyone starts badmouthing the people on the right because of a dislike of their personality or style, this, I find, is where the most futile schisms of all exist.
At least policy differences are about something, trivial though they sometimes may be. But to be against someone for being “curmudgeonly” is triviality taken to a whole new level.
I think the “angry, hateful” curmudgeons, misogynists, and whatever other dour personalities du jour are being shown the door from an already tiny movement are often giving it its most vigorous energy. And frankly, their critiques are usually on a sound basis.
I’d rather have more so-called “angry, hateful, curmudgeonly” types in the movement. The Left certainly doesn’t expunge the angry and the hateful, and these personalities give the Left a great deal of its energy and strength, and pull the rest of the Left inexorably toward them.
One of Nietzsche’s truest formulations: “I love the great despisers, because they are the great reverers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.”
I agree with this. The “first, let’s have a purge” plan strikes me as futile and self-defeating. However, I ran John’s article because on balance it is constructive. My reply to the “first, let’s have a purge” crowd is: “First, build something better.” John makes that point very well.
But still, there is Hunter Wallace.
Why is advocacy of purges often idle, self-defeating, and suspicious? There are several answers:
1. Those advocating purges usually have little or no power to conduct purges. Expelling someone from a groupuscle or banning them from posting on an internet forum is hardly a purge.
2. When purges are conducted, they are sometimes both unnecessary and destructive. John Tyndall observed that troublemakers have sometimes labored to create schisms between “hardliners” and “moderates” when the divisions between these groups were artificial or reconcilable, it was imperative for them to work together, and it was ruinous for them to oppose each another. The schisms and purges that took place in the National Front in the 1980s — in which a certain Welshman played a prominent role — appear to have been of this nature.
3. Those advocating purges sometimes seem to view them as a cure-all, as a quick-fix, as the order of the day. They sometimes seem to think that they can reach their destination much more quickly simply by throwing people under the bus. Although it can be difficult to throw people under the bus — such people are often so rude and inconsiderate as to resist — it can also become habitual. It seems that those who cannot build often denounce those around them as wreckers. It gives them something to do. It’s much easier to vilify competitors than to attack real enemies.
It is not enough to expel, shun, or marginalize grossly dysfunctional elements from our movement. These elements are intrinsically weak and are not really holding us back. Using them to rationalize failure and to excuse doing nothing is absurd and shameful.
I think the failure to use available people and resources effectively is a much greater problem than the presence among us of elements that should be expelled, shunned, or marginalized.
There are many things in this article on which I could comment. Right now, I want to introduce the concept of “infrapolitics,” of which James C. Scott writes in Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 183, 184:
“In a social science already rife — some might say crawling — with neologisms, one hesitates to contribute another. The term infrapolitics, however, seems an appropriate shorthand to convey the idea that we are dealing with an unobtrusive realm of political struggle. For a social science attuned to the relatively open politics of liberal democracies and to loud, headline-grabbing protests, demonstrations, and rebellions, the circumspect struggle waged daily by subordinate groups is, like infrared rays, beyond the visible end of the spectrum.”
“The term infrapolitics is . . . appropriate in still another way. When we speak of the infrastructure for commerce we have in mind the facilities that make such commerce possible: for example, transport, banking, currency, property and contract law. In the same fashion, I mean to suggest that the infrapolitics we have examined provides much of the cultural and structural underpinning of the more visible political action on which our attention has generally been focused.”
We need to engage in the small-scale activism without which large-scale activism is impossible. Without small-scale activism, we will have no social base to mobilize, no social cohesion to bind us together, and no fund of practical skill and experience to apply to our work. Exactly what small-scale activism should involve is something I intend to examine in detail leter, with reference to authors such as François Duprat, Jean Ousset, Roger Mucchielli, James C. Scott, and Everett M. Rogers. I intend to pay particular attention to the relationship between metapolitics and infrapolitics.
How’s this for a joke told to me by a Jewish psychologist.
“How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?”
” None; “That’s alright children, don’t worry abut me. I can take care of myself. I’ll just sit here, all alone, in the dark.” ”
For you who don’t understand this joke, it’s about how Jewish mothers in particualr, and Jews in general to a lesser extent control by guilt.
Ever hear of White Guilt?
It’s not even a Chinese concept exclusively — we knew it during the medieval period. Just look at the order of the estates and note how closely it resembles the caste systems of the ancient Hindus.
This idea that European man is inherently individualistic is a half-truth. Our people as a whole got that way only after the secular humanist philosophies of the Renaissance poisoned our thinking, but before that,we had caste-based societies. See Greece, Rome, Ancient Persia, Ancient India, and yes, Medieval Europe for very clear examples.
Cultural Leaderless resistance is what we are applying at whiterabbitradio.net.
It is called “Practical Politics”. It’s about talking to neighbors and posting on the internet the basic line that white’s are being systematically eleminated by mass immigration and socially coerced integration/assimilation.
Here is a good presentation of the subject of the on going white genocide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfB_F936bU8
Our first educational conference was held in East Tenn last month.
We are also being trained to constantly use “anti-white” in any discussion of government and NGO policies destructive to whites and our culture.
I have great interest towards LEADERLESS RESISTANCE both in theory and practice, being Louis Beam` friend and his corresponding essay` main translator into Russian – coining the Russian term БЕСКОМАНДНОЕ СОПРОТИВЛЕНИЕ. Louis has sent me this letter recently after your article` reading, and I decided to share:
“Interesting read. The guy writes very well. He does however, miss the point: there is no higher leader that “each cell which has contact with a higher authority.” That is not my work or concept. Leaderless Resistance is a child of necessity not choice would be my answer to his theme. Fifty years of leaders has led us to defeat. I would love, if it were possible, to have a leader. But they are destroyed as they emerge by the system. Thus in the end we must still resist by any tool available. LR is such a tool nothing more. Also, the ineffectual acts he lists as examples were all counter productive and perhaps government ran operations. So it would be a misstatement to characterize them as acts of LR. My guess is that there are many thousands of small acts carried out yearly by common people that we never here about because they were not counter productive. While the first act of resistance by an individual may be small, I believe they will lead each person to consider and perhaps carry out bigger acts of resistance. There is nothing like success to encourage one to further acts of resistance.
The “occupy wall street” movement is successful in so far as they continue to refuse leaders. Once they accept a leader they will be destroyed. They must also not let the enemy define their friends and enemies for them. That attempt is being made by the establishment media now. Attempts are made here to define them as “kids” or left-wing socialists.” They are that but much more. They are also right-wingers, conservatives, and a general cross section of the nation as a whole. They must make ever effort to stick with broad terms such as the “99” percent slogan and remain nonexclusive.
The protestors are on the street instead of in front of the television. That is the first step, and a big one at that for many of them. The first step to resistance is to decide to resist. No mater how ineffective you may be at the start. You learn as you go. They will learn what works and what does not. At least they are no longer passively watching life go by them. Think how hard it would be to get your neighbors to go downtown with you and camp out for a week to protest the banks. Impossible you say. No, you just have to decide to resist at some point. They are at that point. I will delve into this topic later as I have time”.
Another review is from JB Campbell:
“Good, hard-hitting piece (https://counter-currents.com/2011/10/leader-ful-resistance-the-predicament-of-the-right-today/) . Louis Beam is a close friend of mine. When I was starting the militia movement in ’89 he made contact and eventually told me about his advocacy of LR some years earlier. I encouraged him to put it out again in combination with what I was doing, which he did. I made sure that the militia movement had a leaderless structure, and for those six years, there was no one man who could speak for the movement, which was really just a militant, anti-government state of mind. But it was a big one and getting bigger.
There are naturally going to be leaders, secret ones, but the idea is to keep their identities from the feds as long as possible. Leaders are always wanted by the feds since they have traditionally been bought off or blackmailed or killed, leaving the followers in bad shape. A leader with baggage, such as Louis’ Klan past, taints the movement. OKC was an act of federal desperation to discredit and destroy the militia movement, which it did do overnight. William Colby had just written that the militia movement had to be dealt with, justly or otherwise, because it was made up of average, successful citizens and because there were so many of them. The fact that it was based on guns was an added worry.
I think the new movement should just be referred to as the resistance. I only called it the militia due to the very bad wording of the Second Amendment, which had been used by judges to send men to prison for possessing guns the judges said had no connection to “a well-regulated militia.” I just jammed “the militia” up the government’s ass. There was never such a thing as a well-regulate militia, which was inserted by Federalist types to control us. No one was ever authorized to regulate the militia, so the wording was deliberate nonsense. But the militia itself has baggage and the movement must be more generalized to include the Occupiers and anyone who is interested in revolution, left, right or whatever. It can’t be controlled but it can be guided somewhat.
http://www.jbcampbellextremismonline.com“
Alexander, thank you for posting these two very interesting responses to what I wrote. I was quite intrigued that Mr. Beam himself responded. Although I didn’t write that each cell in a leaderless resistance movement has contact with a higher authority – that was when I was describing the more traditional, pyramidal insurgency structure, not leaderless resistance, by way of explaining the differences. I’m not sure I agree with him about leaders, however, simply because I’m not aware of any leaders who have arisen in the past half-century who were really capable and only stopped by external forces. I also am more skeptical about the prospects of Occupy Wall Street than he is, but we’ll see. If the movement manages to keep going and enter the political conversation in the same way that the Tea Party has, then I’ll change my mind about it. Although I think its lack of specific goals will be a big hindrance in trying to move it forward.
I agree with much of what Mr. Campbell wrote, however. Guillaume Faye and Michael O’Meara, in “Why We Fight,” also advocates for using the term “the resistance” to loosely refer to the European/White movement.
The following excerpt from Lenin’s What is to be Done? is relevant to our situation:
“The fact is that society produces very many persons fit for ‘the cause,’ but we are unable to make use of them all. The critical, transitional state of our movement in this respect may be formulated as follows: There are no people — yet there is a mass of people. There is a mass of people, because the working class and increasingly varied social strata, year after year, produce from their ranks an increasing number of discontented people who desire to protest, who are ready to render all the assistance they can in the struggle against absolutism, the intolerableness of which, though not yet recognised by all, is more and more acutely sensed by increasing masses of the people. At the same time, we have no people, because we have no leaders, no political leaders, no talented organisers capable of arranging extensive and at the same time uniform and harmonious work that would employ all forces, even the most inconsiderable.”
I similarly think that although there is no shortage of work to be done and although there are many people who are fit for our cause, there are very few people who are working for our cause. It is as if there is no shortage of work and no shortage of workers, but businesses are short of workers and workers are unemployed. There is little connection between the former and the latter.
How can we solve this problem? I think we need to put more thought and effort into putting work within the view and the reach of people. Most people are followers rather than leaders. They need to see others do work in which they can participate or which they can emulate. People need to be able to combine their efforts with those of others if they are to work confidently, continuously, and effectively, and they need work which is appropriate to their interests, capacities, and conditions. In these matters, most people don’t know where to start and don’t know where they might fit in.
We need to engage in the kind of organizational and activist work indicated in the excerpt above. Such work is usually small-scale, but this should not mean that it is petty or inconsequential, only that it is small relative to the size of the movement and its historical tasks. We need more leadership at the level of cadres. (Incidentally, the word “cadre” means “framework.”)
THEIR GOAL IS GENOCIDE. OURS. WHAT’S YOURS?
White Republican:
A message from a Mr. Harold Covington might be helpful. Again, the importance of local development, local support, local development, starting tonight, starting where you are, can not be overemphasized. Acting, no matter how small the act may seem, beats listening.
Harold Covington in blockquote:
After all, where will the “Leaders” come from, if we don’t work to develop and nurture them, starting with our selves, if only as examples?
As always, remember: all we wish to accomplish – ALL – can and MUST be done in an “apple pie, strictly legal, sort of way.” (HT: Jim Giles)
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.