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Editor’s Note:
George Lincoln Rockwell was born on March 9th, 1918. In honor of his birthday, we commissioned the following essay by Gregory Hood. See also the following excerpts from Rockwell’s autobiography This Time the World: “Rockwell was Right” and “Rockwell was Right, Part 2,” about his experiences with conservatives and “mainstreamers,” and “George Lincoln Rockwell Discovers the Jewish Problem.” Also see William Pierce’s classic essay, “Rockwell: A National Socialist Life.”
The Left usually understands the Right better than the Right understands itself. In the dominant progressive narrative, conservatives are simply more “respectable” racists that use rhetoric about anti-Communism, free markets, or limited government to disguise their bias. They may not even be aware of it, but American conservatism is, in this telling, an inherently racist ideology.
Commander George Lincoln Rockwell in many ways shared this analysis. His National Socialism was not an ideology so much as a tactic, an attempt to build a fighting conservatism capable of defeating the militant Left. Rather than Nietzsche, Baron Evola, or even Alfred Rosenberg, the greatest influences on George Lincoln Rockwell were Senator Joe McCarthy, Douglas MacArthur, and even William F. Buckley.
His inability to rally the American Right marks a milestone in white political activism, as George Lincoln Rockwell is the bridge between patriotic racial conservatism and revolutionary White Nationalism. Commander Rockwell was above all a tactician, but he failed to reveal some new method for white patriots to achieve political power. Instead, his strategic importance is that he demonstrated, perhaps inadvertently, the bankruptcy of American conservatism. Rockwell’s hope for “street fighters of the American conservative movement” was always doomed to fail. One does not need to be a “Nazi” to see that conservatism is designed to lose, not to fight.
George Lincoln Rockwell began his turn to the Right at Brown University, where he dissented against the “blank slate” teachings he encountered in his sociology class. He notes in his autobiography This Time the World
Commander Rockwell’s first political activism was on behalf of General Douglas MacArthur, who was fired by President Harry Truman because of his willingness to expand the Korean War into “Red” China. General MacArthur would receive a dedication in This Time the World, and the Rockwell would adopt MacArthur’s habit of chewing on a corncob pipe. According to Rockwell, it was in the midst of his efforts to book a hall for General MacArthur that he was introduced to the Jewish question. Further research led him to conclude that Bolshevism had Jewish roots and that there was a preponderance of Jews among Communists in the United States. Thus, Rockwell’s opposition to Jews was rooted in his conviction that “Jewish traitors” were sabotaging the Cold War. However, this did not extend to questioning the American Establishment as a whole – when Commander Rockwell wanted to attend a speech by Gerald L. K. Smith, he first asked the local FBI office for permission.
In the early 1950s, Commander George Lincoln Rockwell served in Iceland, where he met his second wife and obsessively re-read Mein Kampf, as well as other works like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. He even took his new wife Thora on honeymoon to Berchtesgaden to visit Hitler’s mountain retreat. However, bizarrely, it was after the work of Adolf Hitler “stripped away the confusion” from his mind that Rockwell began his involvement with mainstream conservatism. He worked as an independent contractor for William F. Buckley and his National Review.
Commander Rockwell refers to William F. Buckley as “Bill” in This Time the World and notes that he is “square-dealing” as a man. This exaggerated familiarity explains the wildly different interpretation of Buckley’s character that men who knew him far more intimately have claimed, as in Peter Brimelow‘s devastating obituary for him. Perhaps more importantly, even after becoming at least a philosophical “Nazi,” Rockwell says of Buckley that “There is more pulsating brain-power and genius surrounding Buckley than in any place else on earth, where I have ever been” and Buckley himself is “brighter than all the rest.”
After (by his own admission) failing to obtain many subscriptions for the magazine, Rockwell tried his hand at organizing “The American Federation of Conservative Organizations” and a newspaper to be called the “Conservative Times.” At this time, Rockwell believed that conservatives could “sneak up on the Jews” by rallying conservatives behind a militant (but publicly philo-Semitic) organization. Rockwell later mocked his own restrained approach and declared that liberals had to be fought using their own tactics – “force, terror, and power.” He was further disgusted by the “human content of the ‘right-wing’ – ninety percent cowards, one-track minds, tightwads, and worst of all, hobbyists” that were unwilling to jeopardize their possessions.
Interestingly, however, Rockwell also credits the John Birch Society with “[doing] what I planned then” (This Time the World, 87). Jewish entertainer Bob Dylan would later mock the Society in “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” wherein the paranoid narrator proclaims that the only “true American” is “George Lincoln Rockwell.” In his own way, Commander Rockwell confirmed Dylan’s intended smear by declaring a shared purpose between the John Birch Society and himself.
Nor was Rockwell alone on the “radical” Right in believing such a strategy could work. Revilo Oliver was a founding member of the Society and admitted that he continued to work for it even after all mention of Jews was eliminated. In the end, Oliver only abandoned the Society because of his contempt for Robert Welch, writing in America’s Decline: The Education of a Conservative that “one does not abandon a lost cause before one knows the cause was lost because the general is a traitor” (200). Like Oliver, Rockwell’s chief gripe with the Right wing was that the people involved were flawed and that the American Right was essentially cowardly. Instead, Rockwell would build a fighting faith of Nazism as the only “alternative to communism.”
Even so, Rockwell’s Nazism was still couched in conservative forms for years afterward. Rockwell worked for Russell Maguire of the American Mercury, later writing scathingly about Maguire as someone who was actively hurting the cause. However, as Andrew Hamilton has pointed out, Maguire may well have had good reason for his caution and in any event, was far better ideologically than the “brilliant” William F. Buckley.
Rockwell had fonder memories of his partnership with DeWest Hooker, and notes warmly that he wasn’t a “patriot or a right-winger or a conservative but a fighting, tough, all out Nazi.” Rockwell’s justification for this was Hooker’s creation of the Nationalist Youth League, which rallied “tough kids” in New York City to fight “Jewish Communism” and inspire them with “fanatical loyalty to the United States, the White Race, and Adolf Hitler” (100). Rockwell also quotes Hooker’s retelling of the Jewish role in bringing down Joe McCarthy’s crusade against “Jewish Communism.” Aside from the questionable background of Hooker highlighted by Andrew Hamilton, what is significant is that Rockwell identifies “Nazism” with a militant anti-Communist struggle that simply does not allow Jews.
George Lincoln Rockwell’s “coming out” was his protest to “Save IKE from the KIKES” along with Harold Arrowsmith in May 1958. This led to a minor media frenzy surrounding him after a synagogue was bombed in Atlanta a few months later, when it was revealed that Rockwell had corresponded with the bomber. Rockwell’s response was revealing. His writing shows that he thought that bombing a synagogue was a mistake “because it relates to the religious rather than political.” Rockwell’s focus on “atheist Jews” rather than religious Jews would be a constant of his later career, even while being interviewed in uniform standing in front of the swastika banner. Furthermore, Rockwell issued a statement that “I am anti-Zionist and anti-Communist Jews, and any other form of treason. I’m pro-American republic.”
Also at this time, Rockwell began printing literature for what he called the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS), which shows the Commander’s determination to fit National Socialism into the pro-free market mold of American conservatism. Rockwell denounced fascism as an economic doctrine of state ownership and promoted “international racism” as opposed to “racial nationalism.” Rockwell’s pro-Americanism was complemented by his vision of white unity between “Aryan” countries, a precursor to his later strategic contribution of “White Power.” However, Rockwell’s National “Socialism” largely neglected the economic aspects besides repeating general conservative themes. It is revealing that following the failure of WUFENS, Rockwell would create the American “Nazi” Party in 1959 instead of a “National Socialist Party.” Rockwell thus claimed the one term slur of “Nazi” for his own purposes, and said that it “means that we are racists.”
The American Nazi Party was notorious for its flamboyant use of street theater. The Commander had his critics on the Right, with members of the National States’ Rights Party charging that he was simply continuing his father’s “vaudeville” acts. Rockwell justified his tactics on the grounds that he needed to appeal to the masses with spectacle and easy to understand propaganda. Rockwell pointed out Jews on Wall Street funding the Bolshevik revolution, protested the film Exodus, and even staged activism against Sammy Davis Jr. With blacks, he was more creative, as he used “hate buses” to parody the so-called Freedom Riders, created “hatenanny” country songs, and in one notable instance, tried to enroll a monkey in a public school.
Lost in the debate over the appropriateness of the Commander’s tactics was the strategic purpose. In his speeches and writings, Rockwell blasted the “Communist-Negro” revolution, arguing that blacks were simply following the marching orders of their Jewish funders, with occasional independent blacks such as the Nation of Islam breaking free of Zionist control. Rockwell also appealed to spiritual idealism, proudly claiming himself and his followers as “fanatics” because only fanatics can truly create something. However, though Commander Rockwell bemoaned American civilization’s “unwholesomeness, love of money, and love of luxury” as a sign of decline, he rarely (if ever) turned his fire on the American economic or political system per se (William H. Schmaltz, Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party
If anything, Commander Rockwell had a truly naive faith in certain institutions of the American government. From the time he asked permission from the FBI to attend a Gerald L. K. Smith rally, he kept the Bureau constantly informed of his activities, and even those of his members. According to Frederick Simonelli, author of American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party
During a meeting with Ed Fields, Rockwell went so far as to call the FBI while Fields was in the room. Though internal memos credited Rockwell with being “very cooperative with Agents,” it did the Commander no good. FBI reports on the ANP were scathing about Commander Rockwell as a person. More importantly, COINTELPRO specifically targeted the ANP for harassment, sending both Rockwell and his enemies fraudulent letters designed to sabotage the party’s operations. On one occasion, the FBI sent Rockwell a phony letter from a “supporter” designed to make him mistrust a subordinate. Fearing it violated federal law, an unknowing Rockwell promptly reported the letter – right back to the FBI.
The great strategic failure of George Lincoln Rockwell was the assumption that the vast majority of Americans (and especially conservatives) already agreed with him, but they were too cowardly to say so. In a 1965 interview, Rockwell said, “I think the majority of Americans think the same way I do, most of them don’t care to say so. Most of them are fed up with Negro pushing, they’re fed up with the Jewish-communists who have been time and again exposed as selling us out to the Soviet Union; they’re fed up with the cowardice of our administration. I think they’re grateful that we’re finally fighting in Viet Nam, but . . . I think we’ll lay down like we did in Korea and quit. In other words, I think the people are with me. They don’t like the name [Nazi] but they believe what I believe” (Hate, 251).
Campaigns against “peace creeps” were a staple of ANP activities. In November 1965, Commander Rockwell personally ripped a Viet Cong flag from a peace march and tore it to pieces. He recounted the incident with pride in White Power
In 1965, George Lincoln Rockwell ran for governor of Virginia. His platform was firmly focused on race and dismantling Jewish organizations. He advocated teaching “white supremacy” in the classrooms for an hour a day, deputizing white men to carry guns, and outlawing the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP. Insofar as he spoke about economic concerns, Rockwell supported eliminating the income tax (Hate, 250). Rockwell’s focus on abolishing welfare for blacks, condemnation of the federal government, and promises to use the power of the state against Leftist radicals align naturally with the hard Right of the American conservative movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He only won a few thousand votes, as most of the segregationist supporters in the state broke for other third party candidates.
Though Rockwell was scathing in his treatment of “Right-wingers” and launched protests against Barry Goldwater, his writings reveal that he considered them somehow closer to his own positions than any alternative. In White Power in 1966, he bashes Barry Goldwater as the “Zionist-capitalist Jew ‘friend of the [Jewish] Captain’” engaged in a shell game with the “Red Jew labor leader” on the “other side.” He also has a detailed analysis of why “economic conservatives” cannot win, focusing mostly on tactical issues. He points out (accurately) that the masses will not vote for an economic conservative without the issue of race. However, these are essentially tactical criticisms, alternately criticizing conservatives as either being phony or tactically stupid.
In terms of ideology, Rockwell now praises fascism, using the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary definition of fascism as “the movement towards nationalism and conservatism as opposed to internationalism and radicalism.” For Rockwell, race will be the glue that binds together a nationalism and conservatism that can win. Occasionally, Rockwell even made this explicit, with a forlorn hope that conservatives would rally behind him. The Rockwell Report and National Review exchanged barbs, which eventually led to a strange exchange of letters between Commander Rockwell and William F. Buckley. Rockwell challenged Buckley to convince him that he was actually doing harm; in response, Buckley dispatched a priest. During the meeting, Rockwell offered the American Nazi Party as the “street fighters of the American conservative movement” (Hate, 209). Needless to say, Buckley did not take up the Commander on his generous offer.
None of this is to say that Rockwell’s approach did not occasionally pay dividends. In August 1966, Commander Rockwell successfully rallied thousands of blue collar white Chicagoans to resist a desegregation effort led by Martin Luther King, Jr. After giving a well-received speech, Rockwell was showered with applause, as Chicagoans chanted “White Power” and waved the swastika. Overcome with emotion, “Rockwell was moved to tears” (Hate, 291). In September, he would lead a march through the streets of Chicago – though he had predicted 3,000 people, Rockwell’s “failure” still rallied 250 people to march under the swastika and slogan of “White Power.” Clearly, Buckley-style conservatism had nothing to say to blue collar whites fighting to defend their communities, and their rage and fear has only been vindicated by what Chicago has become today.
That said, Rockwell found that he could not capitalize on his tactical successes and that old style “Nazism” was unsuited to rallying white workers of Southern and Eastern European stock. This was an important factor in the transformation from the American Nazi Party to the National Socialist White People’s Party. The new ten points of the NSWPP also included nods to economics and social policy, although it was mentioned far after smashing “Jewish domination,” “Communism,” “Zionism,” “crime,” and “riots.” The ninth point stated “every productive, working American must have a decent job, life-time economic security and wholesome living conditions for himself and his family.”
Rockwell’s last major work, White Power, shows the Commander caught between Cold War conservatism and a more fully developed National Socialism. The opening of the book is a recitation of various outrages taken from the headlines, from sexual depravity to draft dodging. Most of these could have come from the pages of any conservative magazine of the time. Rockwell also gives an extended treatment to various charges of the Cold War American Right, detailing the “loss” of China to the Reds, the Marxist ties of Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of “our President” John F. Kennedy, and the government’s hesitation in fighting our “deadly Communist enemies” in Vietnam. In his famous “Nightmare” chapter, Rockwell posits a non-white takeover of America where the white police and armed forces are defeated with the help of international Communists from China and Cuba.
At the same time, White Power shows an important evolution in Rockwell’s thinking. Though Rockwell condemned Francis Parker Yockey’s work as a new form of “Strasserism” in 1964, in White Power he predicts an eventual alliance between white Russians and white Americans. Years before the Sino-Soviet split, Rockwell notes the alliance between anti-Soviet Trotskyites and the Red Chinese, Maoism being the preferred form of Communism for campus radicals and non-whites. Going further, Rockwell condemns the repeated “wars of racial suicide,” calling for a white racial unity in foreign policy that transcends even nationalism. This vision of race as the critical basis of identity, loyalty, and state policy, with nationalism as purely secondary, goes beyond anything Rockwell could have taken from German National Socialism. Furthermore, Rockwell writes, “The center of Jewish power and money is here in New York City, U.S.A., not Moscow and not even Jerusalem.”
By the time of White Power, Rockwell is also willing to criticize conservatives for substantive rather than tactical reasons. He goes so far as to say, “there are dozens of ‘socialistic’ operations in any decent nation, operations not for profit, but for the benefit of all.” Rockwell condemns the wealthy, “the managing class,” for neglecting their workers and falling into the Jewish trap of attacking the people they depend on. “The working people of America want ‘social security’; they want ‘medicare’; they want a paternalistic and welfare-conscious government. That is a fact.” This is a more accurate reading of political reality than anything you will get from a well-paid GOP consultant.
Ultimately, however, Rockwell comes off as frustrated with conservatives, rather than seeing them as enemies. He is trying to explain to them why they need different tactics in order to defeat the Left, rather than crusading against them. Though he is critical of economic conservatives, he does not outline an economic alternative with the same passion for detail and documentation that he marshals in chronicling Jewish perfidy. Rockwell sees conservative voters – if not the leaders – as his base. He writes, “It is a matter of life and death that we find the energy, will, wisdom, and diplomacy to reach the millions of ‘conservatives’ who are spiritually on our side, but who are still blind to the issue on which all the others depend – breed, race” (218).
Whatever his criticisms of conservatives, Rockwell still saw himself as the logical progression of their better ideas, once the reactionary nonsense was cut away. Speaking in California only a few months before his death, George Lincoln Rockwell praised the newly elected governor of California, Ronald Reagan. However, he thought that Reagan might not be Right-wing enough because he was an “ex-pinko.” Rockwell noted in a campus interview, “For a state that could elect Reagan, it’ll be ripe for me in a few years.” (Hate, 318). One of the last street demonstrations Rockwell participated in was a counter-protest of a vigil at an execution of a black cop killer. Rockwell’s sign said “GAS – The Only Cure for Black Crime and Red Treason.” Even in the midst of ideological transformation, Rockwell’s propaganda was much the same as it was in 1967 as it was in 1961.
George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated in August 1967, cut down by one of his former followers. Ironically, John Patler was a Southern European, one of the non-Germanic whites that George Lincoln Rockwell was working to bring into the “White Nationalist” fold in opposition to the Northern European faction as represented by men like William Luther Pierce. The transformation of the swastika from an image of German National Socialism into a rallying point for a pan-European National Socialism is generally regarded as George Lincoln Rockwell’s greatest strategic contribution. Even White Nationalists who have never heard of him unintentionally echo his viewpoint by positing white racial identity as the critical rallying point for anti-System resistance. In America, there is no other way forward.
However, George Lincoln Rockwell was cut down at perhaps the very moment when ideological transformation was most needed on a much deeper level. James Mason writes in Siege that the stormtroopers of Rockwell’s party took beatings to defend the honor of an all but dead Republic. He believes that Rockwell, had he lived, would have eventually adopted the more underground, guerrilla style of leaders such as National Socialist Liberation Front founder Joseph Tommasi. There is little to suggest this would be the case – Rockwell himself confidently predicted that he would be President of the United States by 1972. His writings even through White Power posit that most ordinary white working people and conservatives were secretly on his side.
Rockwell’s critical shortcoming was a failure to understand that even non-Jewish opposition to him was largely sincere. Though Rockwell championed “White Christian America” (though he was agnostic), critics such as Buckley were more likely to use Christianity as a club to attack Rockwell than to defend their supposed faith against Jewish attackers. The American government and its FBI were not besieged anti-Communist bastions but active agents in the effort to destroy Commander Rockwell and his values. As for the conservative movement, groups such as Young Americans for Freedom were far more active in protesting the relatively safe target of George Lincoln Rockwell than they were against Black Panthers.
While Rockwell (accurately) saw the white race as the necessary root of America’s achievements, conservatives identified the secondhand products of Constitutionalism or limited government as paramount. The idea that these values were doomed to destruction in a non-white America simply did not register. Though Rockwell recognized the impotence of the conservative approach, he didn’t have an effective response other than calling them stupid or cowards.
Commander Rockwell missed two critical opportunities. First, though he recognized the need for racial and class unity, Rockwell never presented a concrete program that outlined an economic and governmental alternative to American conservatism or progressivism. His National Socialism was almost exclusively focused on race, and his campaign for Governor in 1965 did not offer anything besides a promise to defeat the Civil Rights Movement. Though the later NSWPP program made a nod towards an “honest economy,” George Lincoln Rockwell never gave white workers a reason to support him besides opposition to integration. Attacks on financiers, corporate fraud, and capitalist sponsorship of the Civil Rights Movement were largely missing from his propaganda, which made it easier to paint the party as a publicity student, rather than a serious ideological movement.
Second, George Lincoln Rockwell never broke with the System as such. Even after the fiasco of his 1965 campaign, Rockwell believed that the existing democratic system could be made to work for whites, and that the American people would somehow rally to him en masse. He neglected the long, slow period of growth that the NSDAP experienced during the Kampfzeit and expected a sudden propaganda victory. Even his “Nightmare” scenario posited a foreign invasion of a white America suddenly overcome by Communist forces aligned with non-whites. This is not terribly far removed from the super-patriotism and anti-Communism of Cold War kosher conservatives.
Despite his realization that New York and not Moscow (or Jerusalem) was the center of Jewish power, Rockwell never took this insight to form a critique of the American system of government. Rockwell still wanted to defend the existing American system. The Commander believed that by simply plugging away, members of the NSWPP would somehow manage to seize the machinery of state through legal means and simply dissolve enemy institutions. In the end, white conservatives could eventually wake up and save the country from itself.
What George Lincoln Rockwell failed to understand is that American conservatism is designed to fail. The Commander was a combative conservative. He took Cold War rhetoric seriously, was outraged by moral depravity, and worried about military defeat abroad and even falling standards in the Marine Corps. Indeed, he believed American conservative propaganda more sincerely than the people who came up with it, and they hated him for it.
While liberals contemptuously connected Rockwell to conservatives, they failed to understand that American conservatism by its very nature defends the products of the nation, rather than the nation itself. Conservatives value the existing System and the people in power (regardless of who they are) far more than any eternal principle or ethnic group. Therefore, any “revolutionary” force will inspire more conservative hatred than even the most progressive fanatic, as long as the latter pledges to play by the rules of the system. No matter how rigged the rules of the game, conservatives will keep wanting to play.
Though George Lincoln Rockwell recognized America’s white racial core, he didn’t fully understand the nature of his enemies or the System they employed. The American state was not something that needed to be defended from Communists; it was an aggressor whites needed defense from. The System was already completely in the hands of his foes. Furthermore, American conservatism and its deluded followers cannot be shamed by courage, dissuaded by logic, or cowed by attack. They have to be eliminated by providing a systematic alternative on policy grounds.
Despite uniforms, swastikas, and dedication, George Lincoln Rockwell did not build a real alternative. He talked Revolution, but never broke with the System. He bashed conservatives, but spoke as one of them. He recognized the flaws of capitalism, but didn’t provide another option. He went too far for the conservatives, but not far enough to win anyone else. Finally, he simply didn’t realize the obvious reality–you might eventually get white Americans to fight for their interests as whites, but they’re never going to do it as “Nazis.”
30 comments
I hope that times have changed on the american far right because this guy appears to have been a caricature of himself, a buffoon and an embarassment. I can’t see any any former real NS leader seeing this as anything other than a bad joke. NS was never intended for export like marxism; all of Germany’s allies developed their own national movements as part of an ad hoc creative process. I can’t imagine anyone with any self respect resorting to wacky and insulting goofball tactics like taking a monkey to school.
Also, all of his rhetoric and sloganeering is now used by the left as a kind of caricature of nationalism. Because there is an inherent malice and arrogance to terms like “white supremacy”. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to think he was hired by the ADL as some kind of controlled opposition.
Looking back at some of the things like this that have been done, it is not hard to understand why no far right movement has had any success in the last while. All that is required now are some dignified and thoughtful leaders that have a sense of style and creativity. The powers that be insist that white gentiles need “diversity and tolerance” for themselves while we support a Jewish ethnostate on the necks of the palestinians. This is a common belief but it should not be that hard to overturn it.
I hope that figures like this will be known within nationalist circles only as cautionary tales, or forgotten.
You should read Rockwell’s autobiography THIS TIME THE WORLD before you take such a dismissive attitude. I used to think he was a buffoon too, but he was a brilliant man who decided on tactical grounds to go the “Nazi” route. If he hadn’t, you and I never would be having this discussion, because nobody would have ever heard of him.
As for the monkey stunt: I laugh every time I think of it. Rockwell had a brilliant sense for satire. We could all stand to be less stuffy.
Agreed,
THIS TIME THE WORLD completely changed my perspective of GLR. I went from viewing him as a buffoon, to fiercely admiring the man. Unfortunately many within the movement still let the jewish media shape their opinion of the man.
His brown university speech is also quite good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxl7wjBliN4
The fact is, Rockwellian Nazism IS America’s domestic fascist movement. It began 15 years after Germany’s fall, over 70 years ago. Nothing prior fits the bill; Pelley’s Silvershirts and Huey Long’s campaign are the closest but the former had no impact and the later barely developed beyond wealth redistribution. The People’s Party was in the same boat as Long, and existed too early. The Bund was much more explicitly Germanic than the ANP.
Also, anyone who thinks fascism doesn’t have comical elements isn’t familiar with the Futurists.
You should read Rockwell’s autobiography THIS TIME THE WORLD before you take such a dismissive attitude. I used to think he was a buffoon too, but he was a brilliant man who decided on tactical grounds to go the “Nazi” route. If he hadn’t, you and I never would be having this discussion, because nobody would have ever heard of him.
It’s not quite true that theatrical “nazism” was his only outlet but I’m not surprised that, after feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders for so long, he came to think so. Like many of the most devout WNs, I suspect, he never really recovered from the emotional devastation of that terrible moment when a man reluctantly flings back the curtain and, at long last, sees the Jew*, and this too, I’m sure, added to his desperation.
(*Of course, I’d dispute the nature of what he’s seeing, but that he’s seeing something and not nothing cannot seriously be questioned.)
We could all stand to be less stuffy.
That’s true. The attitude of so many WNs to racialism is like Khomeini’s attitude to his religion: “There is no fun in Islam.” While that attitude is arguably appropriate for a religion, race encompasses such a wide variety of aspects of life it’s surely absurd to rule out a bit of levity on principle.
As for the monkey stunt: I laugh every time I think of it. Rockwell had a brilliant sense for satire.
A better example of that sense of satire is the cheeky fable he says he wrote during a college examination about a team of scientists who set off for Africa to discover what makes ants ants, concluding that “when ant eggs were hatched in tunnels in a certain kind of hill in Africa and grew up among six-legged creatures called ‘ants,’ they themselves were so affected by this strong environment that they became, themselves, ants and waved their antennae like ants, scurried around aimlessly like ants, looked like ants and were ants!” Unlike the distasteful (and assuredly counterproductive) monkey stunt, this really does make me laugh.
Thanks for your response. This whole idea of nazism as a pose brings to mind the current Charles Krafft affair and the interesting mainstream discussion of his ‘ironic’ use of NS imagery. The consensus (amusingly) seems to be that if it Krafft is truly far right his work is no longer ironic. It seems that today, in contrast to yesteryear, the cutting edge of our movement is working in the ironic mode rather than the romantical tragical one. The guy from death in June seems to have made this ironic pose, with all the ambiguity, confusion and plausible deniability that goes along with it into an art form of very subtle humour and mockery.
This is apparently one thing that the current pavlovian system of moral hysteria cannot really handle. This would also account for the dry sardonic tone of Whitaker’s mantra. I would say that this is one of the most interesting developments within the far right scene, but this change is rarely noticed of discussed.
From the very small amount that I know, GLR appeared painfully ernest. The ‘ironic’ side to him may have gone over my head.
Kilroy, I think the Nazi “pose” adopted by musicians actually predates Douglas P. of Death in June. It first began to appear in the punk bands of the 1970s. The Sex Pistols used to wear swastikas sometimes, and they sometimes gave the Roman salute. Of course, they also used photos of Karl Marx. Like everything the punks did, its only purpose was to shock people. This was picked up by many of the punk bands of the time. Unfortunately, however, given the fear and loathing of the Third Reich that continues to be pumped into the Western popular psyche, it continues to shock just as much today, which is why many bands continue to flirt with Nazi imagery and aesthetics. The band which, to my mind, really gave rise to what I will term the “aesthetic Nazi” bands of today was Genesis P-Orridge, whose original band, Throbbing Gristle, was contemporaneous with the birth of the punk movement in 1975. He used to use song titles such as “Zyklon B” and they would flash concentration camp photos on a screen during their concerts. By the early 1980s, this aesthetic gave rise to a whole subculture of musicians who began to use Nazi imagery in an ambiguously ironic way and who often worked together, including Douglas P., David Tibet, Tony Wakeford, Boyd Rice and others, all of whom continue to be subcultural luminaries in our circles today. While I enjoy the music of some of these people myself, I see them as having no value for those of us engaged in serious political and cultural activism. The public statements, histories and lifestyles of these people shows that they are not really allies, and they most likely continue to use the aesthetic because it continues to attract attention. One can see this in the music of Der Blutharsch, which was originally seen as a sort of NS band, until Albin Julius, its founder (who has worked with Douglas P. and Tibet) decided that he was a “hippie” (his own word) and took the band in an entirely different direction. At most I will admit that this type of music has contributed to the rise of a unique aesthetic for our “scene,” although in some ways I suspect this has done more harm than good. But I digress, as this has already been discussed elsewhere at CC.
Rockwell, for all his flaws, was a seminal figure, although he has unjustly overshadowed James Madole and his National Renaissance Party, which actually predated the ANP by a decade, and also outlasted it. Madole seems to have been intellectually superior to GLR, and he also had a wider vision of what needed to be done than the ANP ever had (Madole was friends with Francis Parker Yockey and embraced his Third World strategy against the U.S., whereas the ANP always remained strictly anti-Communist). But Madole was never as much of a publicity hound as GLR was.
Why is it that so called normal people, are always amazed that those individuals in history who become leaders of great movements or radical change, are always off beat types or sometimes even considered abnormal. These ARE the kind of people that have a real impact on society, not the so called “normal” folks. It’s always been that way without exception.
It’s also a sad commentary on the Americans of today. If Rockwell was motivated to try and do something about the problems of his day, how much more should Americans of today be motivated, when the decay and degradation all around them is a hundred fold what it was in Rockwells time?
Thanks for this. He was THE MAN. He took up the torch left by Adolf Hitler, and to this day, the people he touched, diligently work for the salvation of Our Race.
Counter-Currents is a place he would have loved.
Gregory Hood in blockquote:
This is the most accurate, succinct summary of why we are the only hope the self-defined “Right” has. It also explains why “conservatism” has never succeeded, not once.
I often wonder what Rockwell would have done if he had it to do over. We know he had one Initiatic experience, where he met, or want of a better term, the most recent Incarnation of Vishnu. That moment, where he had proved his faithfulness in the face of scorn, mockery and poverty, is where he demonstrated the stuff of greatness.
After all, he was trying to save the people who mouthed the words he understood. Sadly, he did not understand they were only used as substitutes for effective analysis and meaningful action. The substitutes fulfilled the purpose for which they were formed, acting to insure no meaningful conservative organization ever gained effectiveness.
I wonder if any of you have heard the debates between him and Stokely Carmicheal? Actually both were respectful of each others views and it was actually a very lively debate. I believe Rockwell was an admirer of Malcom X, El Haj Malik Shabazz.
Commander Rockwell refers to William F. Buckley as “Bill” in This Time the World and notes that he is “square-dealing” as a man. This exaggerated familiarity explains the wildly different interpretation of Buckley’s character that men who knew him far more intimately have claimed, as in Peter Brimelow‘s devastating obituary for him
Gore Vidal said Hell is bound to be a livelier place with Buckley in it. As for Brimelow’s obit, I found it disingenuous, hypocritical, self-serving and cowardly. As usual, he lied by omission by failing to name the JEW as the hand behind Buckley’s purges.
It’d be good to see a piece like this on James H. Madole.
Dr. Kerry Bolton wrote an entire book, titled “Phoenix Rising,” on Madole.
More reading to do!
“George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated in August 1967, cut down by one of his former followers. Ironically, John Patler was a Southern European, one of the non-Germanic whites that George Lincoln Rockwell was working to bring into the “White Nationalist” fold in opposition to the Northern European faction as represented by men like William Luther Pierce.”
Who was this Patler guy, why did he kill Rockwell, and what became of him afterwards?
Was Pierce a Nordic exclusivist?
Although this essay contains some good information, author Hood fundamentally does not understand Lincoln Rockwell. GLR was not an anti-communist conservative who adopted a “Nazi” pose for tactical reasons. Rather, he was a sincere and profound National-Socialist thinker who seized upon anti-communism as a tactical approach during the Cold War.
Rockwell’s role as an NS theorist comes to the fore in his “Seven Principles of the National Socialist World View,” which he published at the very outset of his career as an open National-Socialist. Here he mentions “Jewish Bolshevism” only once, placing it in the context of the overall National-Socialist struggle.
Hood’s assertion that Rockwell all but ignored economic concens and issues is also incorrect. The program of the American Nazi Party contained detailed proposals for an American NS economy in its sections entitled “Economics” and “Business, Farm Labor.” The program also addressed such non-racial issues as “Social Sanity, “Family, Home, School, “Crime, Vice,” and “Government.” An article in The Rockwell Report entiled “Are We Socialists?” further explained his economic theories. There was even a leaflet designed for mass distribution which explained the difference between National-Socialism and Marxist Socialism.
Lastly, I am aghast that he cites the discredited and thoroughly unreliable Simonelli biography “American Fuehrer” as a source. Mr. Hood should have spent more time reading Rockwell’s own words, rather than those of mainstream critics whose agenda is character assassination rather than enlightenment.
Hood cites only Simonelli’s statements about Rockwell and the FBI. These statements are based at least in part on Ed Fields, and I verified them from Fields directly.
Simonelli’s book is so riddled with falsehoods and mistakes that it is bad form to cite it for any reason. To do so only lends credibility to a work which deserves no credibility or respect. “American Fuehrer” was Simonelli’s doctoral thesis. The professors who sat on the board when he defended it should hang their heads in shame. It is flawed scholarship at its worst. The very basic skill that any historian or biographer must possess is the ability to distinguish among what is true, what may or may not be true, and what is a self-evident lie. This is a skill not in evidence in “American Fuehrer” to any degree. “Dr. Simonelli,” indeed!
Whatever problem you have with the book is not relevant to the article in question.
@ Martin Kerr:
Why not do a book review of American Fuerher for counter-currents?
It would add a lot of light to a discussion that might otherwise degenerate into meaningless heat.
Thank you.
That’s a great idea. I would welcome reviews of the Simonelli and Schmalz biographies from an informed writer.
I wouldn’t have exactly called (and I’m not saying you are) Joe Tommasi an alternative to Rockwell. These so – called “revolutionaries” lacked any real creditably and talent to anything worthwhile at all. Infact, this was the reason they opted for the easy way out by pretending to fight a system they never did. Was not Tommasi shot over a disagreement in bringing females back the barracks? Please correct me on this if I’m wrong.
George Lincoln Rockwell believed that America was on the verge of a Bolshevik revolution. This, I believe, was the reason for his all-out Nazis stance. But to be honest, the reds nearly pulled it off. However, their counter-culture attack in weakening American society, failed. They are now doing it incrementally and slowly. Their Freudian attack of replacing the reality principle with the pleasure principle is having a devastating effect on peoples will to resist. We have to find a way to counter this. Not an easy task.
From the article: “The great strategic failure of George Lincoln Rockwell was the assumption that the vast majority of Americans (and especially conservatives) already agreed with him, but they were too cowardly to say so.”
It would be better to specify what was the disagreement about between American conservatives and Rockwell. Today, White people overall agree with White Nationalists, even though they still vote for Jewish-owned political parties. If most White people are against race-replacement, and they are, it means that they agree with us on the main point. Saying otherwise is defeatist.
I see two problems with today’s conservatives: the lack of courage, and the fact that their leaders have been co-opted by the Jews. The phony conservative leaders are traitors: they have agreed to implement the race replacement agenda.
The situation isn’t the same today as in Rockwell’s days. It has become much, much worse. People in the 1960s could not have guessed how the government would soon start letting in millions of third-world immigrants and giving them welfare money. It was much easier back then to still trust the government to do its best. And it must have been harder to rally people around the White cause. Today, we still have to tell White people that the government is deliberately killing them. They are reluctant to admit the truth. But still, it has become much easier to open their eyes. For us, the WN agenda has become much more obvious: it has to be about racial separation and stopping race-replacement. The rest is less important. It is alarming that there are not more WN websites like this one, but I still expect a pro-white movement to develop quickly in the near future.
My internet has been down for a while and I just saw this. Very interesting piece.
The main point here, and one which needs to be considered in more depth, is tremendous good faith that Americans had in their own government. After reviewing the early decades of racial integration it became apparent to me just how blind everyone was to the fact that the government was set against their interests. They didn’t like what the government was doing but they assumed it would all be remedied by honest debate and voting. Epic miscalculation. Revilo P. Oliver gives an embittered but detailed account of these efforts in America’s Decline.
Dr. Oliver admitted his mistake only years later. One can find the same blindspot in General Edwin A. Walker, the commanding officer of the 101st Airborne during the forced integration of Little Rock. Even John O. Beaty, whose understanding of these issues went far beyond his contemporaries, seemed limited by his faith in the American people and their political system. If Rockwell fell victim to this delusion then he was certainly not alone.
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