Counter-Currents
5,197 words
Arktos CEO Daniel Friberg (left) getting chummy with Swedish antifa founder Mathias Wåg (right)
In “Greg Johnson’s Attacks And How To Deal With Them,” Daniel Friberg and Richard Spencer claim that I made a series of accusations against Friberg in a thread on the TRS Forum. Then they demand that I substantiate these accusations or retract them and apologize. After that, they allege that I have a pattern of launching divisive and baseless attacks on important movement people, and they hypothesize that my motive is envy and thwarted ambition.
I hate this sort of drama. But with heavy heart, I drafted this reply shortly after Friberg and Spencer’s attack was published on June 1. I would have preferred to post it in the comments thread at Altright.com, but Friberg and Spencer preemptively blocked my Disqus account. I eventually decided not to publish it at all, because the more I thought about their statement, the more ridiculous it seemed. So I thought it best to just let the controversy die and focus instead on The White Nationalist Manifesto.
But that was a mistake. Ignoring even transparently idiotic charges allows your attackers to frame your silence as guilt or weakness. Beyond that, ignoring bullies just encourages more attacks, which is exactly what Friberg launched in recent days, both on Facebook and again on the front page of Altright.com, in an article originally signed by Friberg, Jason Jorjani, and Tor Westman. Friberg has also used Matt Forney as a proxy in this battle. (Forney, by the way, is Friberg’s most vocal character witness in the present drama.)
What follows is my defense against the specific attacks on me. John Morgan will release his own statement rebutting the attacks on him. I will also happily publish the responses of people involved in the Scandza Forum and Friberg’s former Arktos colleagues, should they choose to write them.
Daniel Friberg & the Scandza Forum
The passage below is a quote from Friberg and Spencer’s article. The authors accuse me of saying that Daniel Friberg:
- Doxxed the organizers of The Scandza Forum to the Antifa, apparently in revenge for being disinvited;
- Was an “embezzler” of funds from his own company, Arktos;
- Destroyed “an endless list of people both personally and financially.”
The first point is mostly correct. I did accuse Friberg of doxing the organizers of the Scandza Forum. He did dox them. But Friberg had not been disinvited. He was never invited in the first place. The doxing was simply Friberg making good on a threat to sabotage the Scandza meeting if he was not invited.
The second point is false. Nowhere in the thread did I use the word “embezzler,” which Friberg and Spencer put in quotes. I did, however, mention that some of Friberg’s former business associates refer to him as “Madoff,” which is true, and I invited people to draw their own conclusions. Interestingly enough, Friberg’s latest article, “The Attacks on Arktos,” confirms my statement. Apparently, he was accused of embezzling £88,000 from Arktos.
The third point is also false. Nowhere in the thread did I claim that Friberg “destroyed” anyone. Nor did I use the words that Friberg and Spencer also put in quotes (apparently to trick the casual reader into thinking I had indeed said them): “an endless list of people both personally and financially.” I did, however, make the truthful claim that Friberg has burned a number of people backing the Scandza Forum, both personally and professionally, which is why he was never invited in the first place.
Friberg and Spencer’s demand that I offer proof of my claims to the whole world is, frankly, astonishing, because Friberg really did try to sabotage the Scandza Forum, and he really did dox its organizers. Friberg really has burned people over the years, some of whom refer to him as “Madoff.” It is all true, folks. Which means that Friberg has, in effect, put his head on the chopping block and dared me to cut it off. It seems bizarre. What’s he counting on?
Friberg’s reasoning becomes clearer, however, if we back up a bit. So bear with me.
In February of 2017, a long-time friend invited me to speak at the inaugural meeting of the Scandza Forum, a metapolitical organization inspired by the London Forum, in Stockholm on May 20th. I did my best to promote the event, and I was delighted to watch the registration numbers climb to more than 100 people, which is excellent for the first meeting of any organization.
Like the London Forum, the Scandza Forum is an invitation-only event. Daniel Friberg was not invited because he had mistreated some of the backers over the years, and they did not want him around. I was not privy to any of this, though, until Wednesday, May 10th, when I was informed that Friberg tried to register for the conference. I advised the organizers not to change their policy, for I too had good reason not to want Friberg around. Since they were reluctant to engage with Friberg (they did not want to veto his registration, because knowing Friberg, they knew they would never hear the end of it), I also told them they could tell Friberg that I insisted he not be invited. “Nail me up,” I said, “I’ll be the fall guy.”
So what was my beef with Daniel Friberg? We first met in April of 2015, on my first visit to Budapest. By that time, I had been a longtime supporter of Arktos Media. I regarded it as one of our most crucial metapolitical ventures. Although some urged me to see Arktos as a rival, I have never done so. I believe in cartelization, not competition. In a movement like ours, competition is simply the duplication of efforts and a waste of scarce resources and talent. Besides, there is no shortage of important books to publish for our cause. Thus, I sold and reviewed many Arktos books at Counter-Currents, promoted the Budapest conference they co-organized with the National Policy Institute, and even promoted their Kickstarter campaigns (here and here).
After meeting Friberg, I did a very warm interview with him, authored a blurb for his book The Real Right Returns, and published Ann Sterzinger’s positive review of it. Later, when Arktos launched its Right On webzine, I supported it by steering authors their way and by appearing on one of their podcasts. I also ran reviews of Friberg’s Identitarian Ideas conferences (here and here). Finally, I agreed to speak at a dinner that Friberg organized in Budapest on April 2, 2016. The last time I saw Friberg was in April of 2016. We parted on friendly terms.
In the summer of 2016, John Morgan left his position as Editor-in-Chief of Arktos to work with me at Counter-Currents. But relations with Arktos remained cordial, and John kept his seat on the Arktos Board of Directors. However, in late February of 2017, I began hearing ominous stories. John Morgan flew to Stockholm to speak at Identitarian Ideas IX on February 25th but was disinvited by Friberg once he got there.
Then I was sent a recording of a bizarre interview with one of Friberg’s girlfriends, conducted by Friberg and Forney, in which John is accused of resenting Friberg and manufacturing grievances against him. The whole proceeding had the atmosphere of a madhouse.
I was also informed that Friberg was telling people that I was spreading the false rumor that Friberg had been accused of being an embezzler, in an attempt to sabotage Arktos, which I thought of as a rival company. Naturally, I wanted to get to the bottom of what was happening at Arktos. I was told that some of the shareholders of Arktos had looked over the books and concluded that Friberg had embezzled large amounts of money from the company. Friberg’s latest attack, in fact, confirms this statement. But he offers zero evidence for this accusations against me, because his story is a complete tissue of lies and/or paranoid delusions.
But why would Friberg invent a story about me that would only elicit laughter within Arktos? Clearly he had another audience in mind. Here’s my hypothesis: Word of Friberg’s Arktos troubles would inevitably leak out, and since Friberg was in the process of lining up new investors for new business ventures — like Altright.com, for instance — it would make sense for him to muddy the waters and deflect blame by concocting the story that any rumors of his malfeasance were made up by Greg Johnson.
Now, to be perfectly clear, I am simply reporting what people told me — though now Friberg himself has published the evidence that these accusations were indeed made by others, and not made up by me. I trust these people. I believe them 100%. But accusations on their own do not constitute proof in a court of law, which is where the matter would need to be proved. Whether or not these claims ever appear before a court is up to the aggrieved parties and/or the state prosecutors in the appropriate jurisdictions. I am not going to say anything more about this matter. Indeed, I would never have known or said anything about it if Friberg had not decided to connect me to the scandals in Arktos by claiming that I made them up out of whole cloth.
Naturally, I was outraged at Friberg’s lies. So now you understand why I did not want Friberg at the Scandza Forum. Put yourself in my place and tell me: would you have responded any differently?
On Sunday, May 14th, Friberg was told that he could not attend. On Tuesday, May 16th, Friberg issued an ultimatum. He wanted to be invited to the Forum by 22:00 or he would sabotage it. Of course, this removed any lingering doubts about whether Friberg should be excluded.
Now, at this point, you have a pretty good sense of how Daniel Friberg operates. Just to sum up: A new metapolitical organization was being launched in Scandinavia, on a proven model for success. People put time and money into organizing it. Kevin MacDonald and I agreed to fly half way around the world to help the new venture get off to a good start. Aside from two nights at a hotel, the trip was entirely at my own expense. Guillaume Durocher also agreed to fly in from elsewhere in Europe. More than 100 people had set aside time, laid out money, and made plans to attend. Some of them had even purchased non-refundable airline tickets and pre-paid for hotel rooms. And Daniel Friberg was threatening to sabotage the whole thing because he was not invited. That is a pretty clear-cut case of putting personal ego before the good of the movement and the race.
But it gets worse.
Naturally, the organizers did not give in to blackmail, so an hour after the deadline passed, Friberg started making good on his threats, and continued into Wednesday the 17th.
- A story was concocted saying that I had thrown a fit and issued an ultimatum to the Scandza Forum that I would not speak unless Daniel Friberg was disinvited. This is a complete inversion of the truth. Friberg threw a fit, not I. Friberg issued an ultimatum, not I. And Friberg had never been invited in the first place. Frankly, I found this outrageous. Not only was Friberg slandering me, he was simultaneously painting me as the aggressor and himself as the victim. It is utterly shameless. The Friberg cries out as he strikes you. Of course no proof of Friberg’s story was ever offered, because it was completely made up.
- The story was spread around the Swedish movement, for instance on Facebook, to stir up drama and get people to cancel their tickets to the Scandza Forum and demand refunds. Friberg clearly wanted to financially ruin the Scandza Forum and its backers.
- Through an intermediary who calls himself Boatsinker on the TRS Forum, Friberg spread his story to movement people (I heard back from Kevin MacDonald and Seventh Son), apparently under the guise of expressing concern for this unfortunate situation, but in fact merely spreading a completely concocted story to slander me. (Boatsinker mentions being the fellow who contacted MacDonald in the TRS Forum thread, and Friberg mentions having a proxy in the TRS thread in the comments to the Altright.com article.)
- Swedish antifa founder Mathias Wåg published an article at Stockholms Fria on the Scandza Forum outing the organizers. Friberg and Wåg have been “frenemies” for more than 20 years. The article mentions that Friberg was excluded from the upcoming Scandza Forum event. How did Wåg know this? The inclusion of this little detail is, of course, Friberg’s thumbprint on this despicable betrayal. Furthermore, Wåg’s article repeatedly says that the Scandza Forum was a “rival” to Friberg’s Nordic Alternative Right organization. That was clearly Friberg’s viewpoint, and Friberg’s alone. But why would Wåg say that, unless he was simply repeating what Friberg had told him? The precise nature of Friberg’s relationship to Wåg has been a source of much anxiety and speculation in the Swedish movement. It is a joke in Sweden that when someone wants information about the movement, they are told to “Ask Mathias Wåg.”
If this were a serious movement, of course, we would have zero tolerance for doxers.
Swedish antifa founder and Friberg associate Mathias Wåg offers his support in comment to Friberg Facebook post attacking Greg Johnson
When I visited Stockholm, several veterans of the movement told me they had no doubt Friberg was the source of the antifa article. He has done similar things in the past: In 2009, Mattias Karlsson, a high-ranking Sweden Democrat, agreed to give a candid interview under the pen-name Anders Lundgren to Motpol, a website co-founded by Friberg. In 2014, Karlsson temporarily took over as leader of the Sweden Democrats when Jimmie Åkesson was ill. In 2015, Friberg and Karlsson quarreled, so Friberg revealed that Anders Lundgren was in fact Mattias Karlsson to the Left-wing Arbetarbladet (Workers’ Newspaper), archived here, in an obvious attempt to harm Karlsson.
The pattern is clear: In 2015, Friberg revealed the real name of a movement author to the Left-wing press, simply out of a desire to harm him. In 2017, Friberg revealed the names of the Scandza Forum organizers to a founder of the Swedish antifa, simply out of a desire to harm them. But I am sure that people who write for Altright.com and Arktos under pen names are perfectly safe. Friberg only doxes people who make him angry. And surely they won’t make that mistake.
Despite Friberg’s best efforts to sabotage the Scandza Forum’s inaugural meeting, it was a smashing success with more than 100 people present. By contrast, it took the London Forum years to break the 100 mark, and the New York Forum and Northwest Forum have not yet reached it.
But Friberg would not let this die, so a few days later his proxy Boatsinker started a thread on the TRS Forum, in which he repeated Friberg’s slanders of me, this time with the pretense of just searching for the truth. By this point, I’d really had enough, so I responded in a take-no-prisoners style. At that point, the principal organizer contacted me and told me that since the Scandza Forum and its organizers were the primary targets, they would like to issue their own statement. I agreed and bowed out of the discussion. I had taken my own side, and it was their turn to take theirs.
Once it was announced that Scandza would issue a statement and that I was bowing out, Friberg sued for peace, appealing to the greater good of the movement. Obviously, he did not want any statement corroborating mine to be issued. Thus, Scandza and Friberg worked out a deal to release anodyne statements and put it all behind them. (The Scandza statement does, however, corroborate my claim that Friberg was never invited in the first place.) Then, a day after Friberg’s final conversation with the principal organizer, who said he would make no further statements, Friberg and Spencer published the first article attacking me. Obviously, Friberg and Spencer only dared me to prove my claims after they were reasonably certain that no corroborating statements would be forthcoming. This speaks volumes about the characters of both men. Of course, the Scandza organizers are no longer bound by any agreement with Friberg now that it is clear that his peace offering was just a ploy to neutralize them before attacking me.
Daniel Friberg has built organizations and websites, written and published books, and put on conferences, all for the greater good of the movement. But he has a dark side, which threatens to undo all his good work. I believe he is an egomaniac and a loose cannon who slanders and doxes honest movement activists and tried to sabotage the Scandza Forum. Daniel Friberg is a net negative to our movement and a danger to anyone who associates with him.
What you do with this information will depend on who you are.
People who have invested ego or money in Friberg need to listen the most, but they are the least likely to do so, for the same psychological reasons that people hold on to losing investments and keep fighting losing wars: the more one has lost, the more resistant one is to admitting defeat, which means that one will keep losing until nothing remains — or reality breaks through one’s denial. They’ll pretend this is a court of law, or a philosophy class, or one of those corners of the web with no standards at all. Anything, really, to evade the problem.
Those whose sole involvement in the movement is passively consuming titillating online information obviously have nothing vital at stake here, so they are free to think what they want.
If you are like me, however, you think that we are fighting for all that is good and holy — the future of our race and with it life on this planet as a whole — and if you have actually staked something on this cause, then you have sufficient motivation and information to decide: compare the coherence and tone of my narrative to Friberg and Spencer’s, add in your sense of my character vs. those of Friberg and Spencer, remind yourself what is at stake, calculate the odds, and decide.
This is all I am going to say publicly about Friberg and the Scandza Forum. If you’ve got something at stake in the movement, I am happy to talk privately. But the only way to “win” these sorts of public battles is not to get involved in the first place. And since I obviously failed at that, the second best option is to stop them before they escalate any further. So, for my part, it stops here.
The Question of My “Attacks”
As for the allegation that I “attack” other people in the movement: this charge completely ignores three crucial distinctions:
- principled intellectual disagreement vs. personal invective (It is not “divisive” to sincerely disagree with someone.)
- defending oneself from attacks vs. launching attacks on others
- calling out people for harming the movement vs. pointless personal vendettas
Every one of my public battles — including the present statement — has been about intellectual issues, defending myself from detractors, or calling out people for harming the movement. But Friberg and Spencer would have you believe that whenever I disagree with someone in the movement, I am attacking people personally out of the blackest of motives. Of course, this is precisely what they are doing to me in their article — crying out as they strike me — and precisely what they provide a platform for in the comment threads of Altright.com.
Criticism is essential to an intellectual movement. Right now, more than 90% of our movement’s activity is a battle of ideas. But we can only win if our ideas are true and effectively presented. Criticism is how we improve the content and delivery of our ideas. And since criticism is inevitable, isn’t it better to get it from our friends now than from our enemies later? Isn’t it better to know the weaknesses of one’s positions before one goes into battle with them?
In my articles “Punching Right” and “Alt Right vs. Alt Wrong” I argue that criticizing each other’s ideas is how we differentiate our positions from one another and bring normies closer to White Nationalism. Thus it would be self-defeating to shut down such criticism out of a fear of divisiveness or an inability to distinguish intellectual debate from childish bickering and vicious personal attacks.
And although I grant that there is definitely a place for barbs and mockery in driving home a well-argued point or skewering pretense and folly, I have also taken a stand against substituting mere bullying, trolling, and name-calling for substantive arguments. Such an ethos creates a madhouse atmosphere that repulses normal people. Again, see the comment threads at Altright.com.
People should defend the movement from those who harm it. Furthermore, people have the right to defend themselves and their friends when attacked. To me, it is a point of honor. However, I prefer to ignore the vast majority of attacks, simply because responding would bring my attacker undue attention, and although I have no problem “punching right,” I see no point in “punching down.”
But if someone with a significant audience attacks me or a friend, or simply behaves in a way that harms the movement, yes, it is my policy to respond.
But no good deed goes unpunished.
Thus, Friberg and Spencer criticize me for taking Matt Parrott and Matt Heimbach to task for launching a completely dishonest and calculatedly destructive attack . . . on Richard Spencer and NPI, namely their assertion that Heimbach was disinvited from NPI because it is controlled by a “gay mafia.” I also called out Parrott for launching equally dishonorable attacks on Nathan Damigo and Mike Enoch. But now, apparently, all is forgotten, and Heimbach is palling around with Spencer at protests.
Apparently, there are no real consequences for wrongdoing in this movement. A movement that seeks the renewal of white civilization should, at the very least, try to maintain a few minimum standards of civilized behavior. But the movement today resembles a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which warlords and their gangs fight for spoils. These self-proclaimed “leaders” seem to have an understanding with one another: they are all rogue enough to attack each other when it suits them — but also rogue enough to team up when that is convenient as well. Frankly, these people deserve each other. But the movement deserves better.
Friberg and Spencer attribute my alleged mean-spirited personal attacks to my frustrated desire to be “THE leader and guru of the Alternative Right,” as they so sophomorically phrase it. Then they assert that this ambition is obviously incompatible with my desire to lead a private life. Yes, it is so obviously incompatible that they really should have doubted their initial premise. I don’t want to be the leader of a political movement or the “guru” of anything.
But I think everyone, supporters and detractors alike, is aware that both Spencer and Friberg have grandiose self-images and very much want to be seen as “leaders.” They delight, in other words, in receiving attention. So it is only natural that they should project that desire on others and assume that I must be eaten up by resentment because I don’t receive as much press as they do. Their accusation reveals, in short, much more about their psychology than mine.
Plato and Aristotle drew a clear and bright distinction between the private life of a philosopher and the public life of those who strive for acclaim. This is true even of philosophers who write about politics. I don’t wish to be a political leader or a guru, because first and foremost, I aspire to be a philosopher. My main activity is the pursuit of wisdom through appreciating the great achievements of civilization. I want to surround myself with independent minds and free spirits, not flunkies, flatterers, minions, shills, and cultists. The North American New Right is not a political party. It is an intellectual movement, devoted to metapolitics: both the creation and propagation of ideas and the formation of new models of white communities.
I recognize that our movement needs activists and agitators. But I am not one of those people, nor have I ever aspired to be one. If Richard Spencer wants to organize protests against the removal of Confederate monuments and shout “We are a people!” through a bullhorn, more power to him. But that’s just not me. For someone to think that I aspire to be a public figure, much less “lead” anything, reflects not only complete ignorance of me as a person, but also a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of Counter-Currents.
Some Afterthoughts
Now, as I write these words, I am acutely aware of my own failings as a philosopher. After all, did Plato allow himself to be goaded into writing barbed and embittered diatribes? Rousseau and Nietzsche certainly did, but only because they failed to detach themselves sufficiently from their prickly senses of self-worth. There are aspects of my character that I do not admire. I get murderously angry over matters of honor, and I take delight in verbally skewering the offenders.
But people today reflexively draw back from such battles. The ultimate reason is because the founders of the modern world spent generations pathologizing a sense of honor as mere pride and vainglory or contentiousness and quarrelsomeness, which are threats to the bourgeois world they wished to create in which long life, comfort, and security come before matters of principle or personal honor. Women especially think of every manifestation of male honor as childishness, vanity, and “ego.” One of the most important educational tasks of Counter-Currents is helping recover the ability to think in terms of honor, for bourgeois man is a natural slave, and only men who put matters of principle and honor over comfort and security will be able to break the system that is destroying us. That said, there are still reasonable criticisms of fighting about honor.
Part of growing up is learning that other people simply cannot take you as seriously as you take yourself. So even if you feel deeply wronged, at best only your family and two or three of your closest friends will ever care enough to hear your side of the story, much less come to your defense. So really, it is just a selfish imposition to ask other people to take sides in these matters. “Go cry to your mommy,” is a perfectly reasonable response to 99% of public displays of righteous indignation over personal honor. But you can and should care about other people’s fights when they have implications for your personal interests, not to mention groups and causes you care about.
Moreover, even if you are completely in the right, it is seldom possible to win battles over honor, because since when do people stop just because they are in the wrong? For the other guy, at least, it really is just about “ego.” So tit begets tat, and cycles of reprisal can spin out of control and endanger the larger community. At a certain point social peace becomes more important than individual justice, which is why, as René Girard argues, societies are willing to blame innocent scapegoats simply to halt destructive cycles of violence.
There is another sense in which it is impossible to “win” these sorts of movement battles. If you force people to take sides in these fights, 20% might take your side, and 20% might take the other side. But of the 60% who don’t take sides, some will declare a pox on both houses; some will get disgusted and depressed and leave the movement entirely; and some will stick around, but they will become cool and distant and hesitant to work with either party. Nobody really wins, then, when all parties and the movement as a whole become weaker.
However, if you don’t force people to take sides — for fear of losing friends or putting them in an uncomfortable position — you will observe your friends and colleagues associating with your enemies, and inevitably you will begin to question their character and judgment; your respect will curdle and your affections will cool, and in the end you will lose your friendship anyway. All things considered, though, it is better to sacrifice personal friendships than to weaken the movement as a whole.
If we were a healthy race, our self-confidence, both demographic and cultural, would not be collapsing as savage enemies pour in and beset us from all sides. If we had a healthy movement, we could have reversed this long ago. But our movement too is sick. As Yeats put it so beautifully in a poem that prophesied our race’s descent into nihilism: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” That disparity alone will allow the forces of evil to destroy civilization. When “the center cannot hold” — ultimately the moral center — then “things fall apart”: “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”
If the best among us had any conviction, people like Daniel Friberg would have never grown into the menace that he is today. If the best among us had any conviction, they would speak out against him. If the best among us had any conviction, then the worst among us — people like Friberg, Spencer, and Forney — would have no audience for their lies and no platform from which to broadcast them. They would have no credibility, no friends, no supporters, no authors, no podcasters, and the sole audience of the tabloid freak show at Altright.com would be the chan nihilists and Left-wing press they so eagerly cultivate.
But aside from a precious few, the best among us lack all conviction, remain silent, and do nothing. It took me more than two weeks to overcome my reluctance to say anything about vicious and entirely dishonest attacks directed at me personally, and a good part of that reluctance was the knowledge that even my closest friends would probably say and do nothing to support me. If you do nothing, this whole controversy is a waste of my time and yours.
Plato rose above such squabbles by focusing on eternity. I try to do the same, but my focal point is somewhat closer. The lies of Friberg, Spencer, et al. don’t seem all that important when compared to the question of whether our race will exist on this planet in 200 years’ time. Since there really are no consequences for those who betray, sabotage, or retard the movement, these behaviors will simply continue and get worse, and the rest of us will just have to work that much harder. But we have to fight on, even if sometimes we think it is hopeless. So I am not going to let Spencer or Friberg or my own sense of outrage steal one more moment from the real struggle.
78 comments
The infighting is quite frankly disgusting, but something that everyone should have been expecting. If the “alt-right” as a movement grows (and I desperately hope it does), then this will become an even bigger problem. It’s practically inevitable. Large movements mean power, and power attracts vultures.
I will continue to support Greg Johnson, Richard Spencer, and Daniel Friberg. I have no personal issues with any of you, and I think all three of you play your parts quite well. There is and must be room for both philosophers, leaders, and ‘agitators’ as you say. Movements have to have all three. As an example, those of us who have been enthralled with Jared Taylor for some time can recognize that even if your arguments are iron clad and your manner impeccably genteel, your movement still won’t get off the ground without people actually ON the ground. The media responds to right wing intellectuals by denying them media time, so even if you’re a brilliant debater, it doesn’t really matter if you’re shut out from the public sphere by hostile mainstream media sources.
I know a lot of people will claim that “the right has always had this problem” but as a former leftist I can assure you that despite your best efforts, you still have nothing on SJW/Antifa squabbles and infighting. The reason you never hear about them is the same reason the average leftist never hears about squabbles like this: the “footsoldiers” on both sides generally don’t give a damn about the ‘elite’ of the other side infighting.
At the end of the day, I hope this gets resolved and you can all get over it, shake hands, and have a beer or two together. You’re ALL needed.
SJWs/Antifa are irrelevant, unreasonable people that are ignored by most portions of society. Whether they have infighting within their ranks is quite irrelevant(you’re quite right though, I’ve seen a lot of arguments about whether violence against “Nazis” is justified).
We are not the opposite of SJWs and Antifa, nor should we strive to be. How much infighting is there amongst Bernie Bros and Corbynites? That is the comparison that should be made.
From one of your hyperlinks to their site (asterisks added to substitute for italics) – “The AltRight.com Board of Directors—myself, Henrik Palmgren from Red Ice TV, Jorjani, Daniel Friberg, and Tor Westman from Arktos—is *the* team of intellectual entrepreneurs who will be setting the tone for the movement for the next quarter century, at least.”
I can’t believe this made it into the final draft of the article. Actual “intellectual entrepreneurs” would wilt in shame before publishing this type of statement.
It’s difficult to decide to support one side or the other. I’m here because I support ethnonationalism – particularly for Whites – and this site is by far the most intellectual I’ve encountered in the arena. It’s troubling to think of the great writers – Quinn, Hood, etc. – who will be caught in the crossfire and be pressured to discard one side or the other.
Forcing people to choose between me and him is Richard Spencer’s game, not mine. For the reasons outlined in this very article.
Greg — I have read the piece and I find it totally convincing. Individuals who dox others in our movement and try to undermine their efforts out of ego and vanity cannot be tolerated. It is a shame that you have had to waste so much time and energy dealing with these lightweights. They come off as vain, entitled, and attention hungry — to say nothing of unscrupulous and conniving. We don’t need “leaders” like these.
To soldier on is a great quality of yours, Greg (and a personal inspiration to me). I consider you doing so here again as a great and highly painful sacrifice. You demonstate greatness. I thank you for it in the spirit of the movement and of the task to save the White Race. I hope you may once be rewarded approprietly.
I agree completely.
I attended the Scandza Forum.
One thing that has concerned me of late is the age of my intellectual heroes. Kevin Macdonald, John Derbyshire, peter brimelow, pat Buchanan, steve sailer are all getting up there in years, and I see no scholars of the younger generation poised to replace them. Greg is also older than I thought, but he should have many vigorious years left. These people, like Sam Francis and joe sobran already ascended to god-hood, are sui generis, and there is not enough redundancy on the right to replace them. When one dies an irreplaceable voice is lost. I can perceive no young people under 40 who show any of the intellectual heft of these gurus. I fear the system simply has not instilled in the snow flake generation the necessary foundation in verbal depth and academic rigor to create original thought. I suspect this was by design, of course.
Fearing for what I will have to read in later years, I ask the community, how do such people come about? Might there be great minds waiting in the shadows to spring forth suddenly, or is the future as bleak as I fear?
I think going forward the lack of people willing, or able to do, -proper-, groundwork and activism(which includes internet activism as well, remember, there is really no other goal of a political movement in the short term outside of growing it) is more worrying. Proper being a keyword. You still raise a good point though.
While perhaps not intellectuals, given there are a lot of young people doing a lot of good for WN, specifically Tara Mccarthy, MW, Ryan Faulk, James Allsup, Nathan Damigo(although he seems to be, imo, surrounding himself with the wrong people), I’m not really worried about a lack of future intellectual leaders.
Derbyshire shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as Kevin MacDonald.
Your take on this is quite convincing to be honest.
Now, if you can explain why you gave the sermon depicting yourself as a christian here:
http://geewhizlabs.com/swedenborg/Sermons/LaySermons/20101219-GJ-StillAndAlways.mp3
I would be mostly convinced. But this one could deserve some final explanation. Thank you.
Swedenborgian churches are filled with people who are interested in Traditionalist and Perennialist spiritual ideas, the kind of ideas that are one major tributary to the New Right and which discussed all over CC. Swedenborgians are very open-minded like Unitarians, but actually religious or spiritual. They regularly invite all sorts of people to give Sunday “messages”: Buddhist monks, Jungian analysts, rabbis, William Blake scholars, and sometimes even Christians. I have given four or five such sermons because I did a lot of research into Swedenborg’s theology. Instead of just giving a lecture on a topic of my choosing, I acted like a guest in their house and thus actually did a sermon according to the practices of their church. I always chose to follow the church lectionary and construct a sermon based on the assigned readings from the Old and New Testaments using ideas from Swedenborg’s theology, as well as from my reading in philosophy and other spiritual traditions. I wanted to show them the richness of their own spiritual tradition. Swedenborg’s theology is a remarkable blend of mysticism with Enlightenment rationalism, and his biblical hermeneutics is basically a attempt to find something saltuary in the Old Testament, or at least quarantine it from having any cultural effect. His writings on Christology actually deal with all the theological issues more successfully than any other approach. But in terms of my own beliefs, I am not a Christian, and in recent years, I have come to reject the idea that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are consistent with Traditionalist ideas. In that, I have been very much influenced by Jan Assmann’s writings, which I have discussed here at Counter-Currents.
Actually I liked your sermon. It was nice of Spencer to share it. Are there more such recordings availible on the web?
No but I will publush the texts of the sermons I have done. The others were better in my opinion.
What happened to Richard Spencer? He used to pride himself on being the “Hipster whisperer”, someone who was charismatic, convincing but also moderate and reasonable, able to communicate with normal people. Recently he’s become obsessed with “not punching right”, personal attacks instead of arguments(specifically in regards towards the Alt-Light), edgy hail Trump toasts infront of media and associating with the Heimbach(who also once did good with his whole white student union covered by VICE, now runs the “Traditional Youth Workers Party” which feeds all the stereotypes the left actually want White Nationalists to uphold) and the Daily Stormer types. Spencer also has a false sense of grandeur and winning. The Alt-Light is far more popular than the Alt-Right, along with the fact that the more moderate Alt-Right types like your Jared Taylors, VDares, RamZPauls, Tara Mccarthys have much more conversion potential, yet he acts as though the opposite is true.
That being said, I have no idea who to believe in this whole conflict. On one hand, I trust Greg more based on agreeing more with his politics than the other side’s, but at the same time, accusations without solid, concrete evidence are rather foolish and accomplish nothing.
These kinds of conflicts have been extremely common in nationalism, from the 60s. British National Front, French National Front, you name it. It usually does involve differences in ideology/strategy and leadership controversies(Nick Griffin being accused of mishandling money, for instance). Reading the comments on the altright dot com article about GJ/Arktos, I doubt this ideological(or perhaps motive) rift will mend. Shame.
He’s mentally unstable and has a criminal record. He’s engaged in an aggressive campaign of pure lies and slander against me. Like all sociopaths and con artists, he exploits people’s idealism, trust, and sense of honor. What possible point would there to be meeting with him in public?
In archaic honor cultures, you treat honorable men honorably. You don’t treat with con artists and liars. You drive them into the wilderness, which is where Friberg would have been driven long ago.
Wasn’t it AltRight.com who started with the article-writing though? They wrote some huge “We hate Greg and so should you” piece about something Greg said on a fucking forum.
History is a great teacher. In this case, the relevant history is Bergen, Norway, August 1993. We should all learn a lesson from Varg that nothing good comes from an honorable European man giving an audience to an unstable person. Greg, please do not meet up with this person.
Thank you for your lucid work Greg. This defense was probably a bit later than it could have been, but I’m glad it’s finally here, and I don’t see how anyone can follow these links and think Friberg and his supporters are the more trustworthy and stable of the two sides. My own interaction with Friberg on Facebook reminded me strongly of Vox Day’s commentary on the “Gamma,” in terms of compulsive dishonesty and simultaneously pretending not to care while going to extraordinary lengths to make a point, usually in an intolerably condescending tone.
I am a neutral observer. I admire the work you are doing and I admire the work Spencer is doing. I do wish that you, Greg, would show your face publicly. I think it is well past time for you to do so.
The very best way to get past squabbles is to focus on moving forward in a postitive way. Focus on the important work we do. Focus on our goals. Focus on the 14 words. Focus on our people and what is best for them. Terrible public rifts between important people in our movement are damaging us.
As a neutral observer, I think the best that can come out of this is everyone stop fighting, return to their corners and put some thought & effort into damage control before this battle of the titans hurts this movement.
In Hungary a corporation called “Arktos Publishing Kft.”, founded in 2014, was declared a phantom firm and removed from the registry by the authorities. In connection with this Daniel Friberg was slapped with a prohibition to work in corporate management positions until 2020.
“Arktos Hungary Kft.”, founded in 2013, is still in the records but has never filed financial statements, so its fate will likely be the same as of Arktos Publishing.
(It’s mandatory to file once a year even if the company hasn’t produced any revenue. It’s also mandatory to register anyone doing any business on behalf of the company on Hungarian soil and pay his taxes, social security, etc.)
Johnson is one of the best spokesmen we have. TRS need to tone it down. Spencer shld know better. Friberg sounds like a drama queen.
It is mind boggling to me why Johnson has been receiving such bullshit. Spencer, of anyone shld understand. He lost a lot of chaff in heilgate but was backed to the hilt by the movement wheat [wheat from the chaff doesn’t really fit but I’m running with it]. Come on ladies can’t we get along. Greg Johnson & Counter Currents are vitally more worthy than this spat
I don’t know much about any of these guys. But I never liked Matt Heimbach. To me, it appears him and his bunch are Russian fetishists rather than real white nationalists. I recall somebody quoting him where he said a black Christian was more welcomed than a white pagan. Needless to say, Russia is a morally corrupt country that hides behind the veil of Christianity and uses it as a noble motive to create a society of robots. Christianity as a cover and noble motive for White Nationalism is just as silly at this point. Considering Spencer is/was married to a Russian propagandist and Trump’s actions in Syria motivated him to protest rather than something like the Evergreen incident, it makes me wonder where their heads are.
They’ve also all spoken out against Atomwaffen, which I think are great and know for a fact aren’t shills for anyone. But anybody who takes real action outside of holding signs or allowing themselves to be used as propaganda for the enemy (see Spencer doing CNN interviews or allowing himself to be made a fool of with Charles Barkley, as if they wouldn’t cut the interview up to make him look stupid and misguided), is accused of being a shill. Been that way since the days of the American Nazi Party.
There are young, talented leaders in the White Nationalsis Movement! Quite a few indeed!… But unfortunately, it seems that their main preoccupation today is slinging mud at each other. Sad, but true! I will have the politeness not to mention any names…
I was starting to have second thoughts recently that the Alt-Right might be ‘sort of okay-ish’ after their horrendous blunder with Trump and the endless childish bungling in the media – not to mention all the stupid rubbish with memes. Now I regret it – they are idiots, plain and simple. Arktos were stupid to ever get involved with Spencer, and now with Friberg’s gossip salon we have Tweedle Dumb And Tweedle Dumber. Piteous and an embarrassment to the Right. I’m embarrassed by the fact that I ever associated with these people. The Alt-Right website has become a trash mag that needs to be set alight with gasoline and never read again by anyone with an IQ over 50. Let the Cro-Mags have the website for kiddies and dummies. It’s just vulgar, full of vanilla articles, padded with utter crap, and now full of idiotic gossip to boot. Total embarrassing rubbish.
We are the Alt Right dude, like it or not. It’s not about abandoning the brand, it’s about getting the house in order.
And what do you have against memes? I’m gonna take a gander you are over 40. No offense, I just notice that the slightly older crowd just doesn’t get what appeals to the younger crowd (which is proving more effective in the war of ideas lately.)
I don’t identify as Alt-Right – after all it isn’t an organised movement and has no clear manifesto, it’s a free for all of undisciplined rabble. It’s perfectly possibly to be Right wing and not Alt-Right. I think you find that the majority of Right wing people would never associate with such a trashy bunch of people. Teenagers might enjoy memes, but I think you will find that the adults have all the money, and without that everyone is utterly screwed. Cold hard cash talks louder than everything, and right now my bank account is shunning Arktos and Richard Spencer. Also Friberg’s book is is trash, and Greg Johnson writes better than him, which I suspect is the real issue here…that and the fact that we all know John Morgan did all the intellectual work whilst Friberg loafed around as ‘Mr. CEO’ like a character from a American Pyscho.
Call yourself what you want, but you are part of the Alternative Right whether you like it or not. White nationalist? Your Alt-Right. Fascist? Your Alt-Right. National-Socialist? Alt-Right. Race-realist? Alt-Right. It’s a brand with recognition that is slowly appealing to the mainstream and making White Nationalist ideas tenable to people. But because you don’t like the predominance of younger people and youth culture, you defame the name and act like your too good for it. Your like a Hispanic person who says “I’m not Hispanic! I’m Colombian!”
The Alt-Right website has become a trash mag that needs to be set alight with gasoline and never read again by anyone with an IQ over 50.
That’s ridiculous.
I’m sure Greg Johnson is right in this dispute. But there isn’t any reason to disparage other WN sources of information and ideas.
I actually had great hopes for the union of alternativeright.com and Arktos, but the resulting website seems to have only three authors and is as boring as all Hell. Has Arktos itself published anything this year?
Should I pretend I like them and lie? Must I be forced to like everything simply because it is WN? That’s my honest opinion, that the whole site is crap.
I wasn’t talking about the site AltRight.com, I was talking about the Alt Right movement (of which we are a part) in general.
Well said Greg. Like others, I have too of course been following Richard Spencer’s growing public visibility with great interest. I give him a B for this work as a public relations figure for the new right. He’s smart, but you are right to draw a line between the ethics of philosophy and the ethics of political action. Spencer is a good sponsor and spokesman for the intellectual right, but he is not as well versed in philosophy, and I can see him putting politics and calculated self-interest before perfect integrity on this matter at issue. Frankly, when it comes down to it, I am more inclined to trust your words on the matter, as I know the quality of your own philosophical work on this site, which is what foremost drew me toward this movement.
Sorry! I meant *NPI*…
Never having met any of the three involved in this quarrel, I can’t say anything particularly informed about personalities alone.
It seems to me that Greg Johnson is by far the most formidable intellect of the three (almost incomparably so, in fact), that he produces and publishes a great deal of superb content which indicates great clarity of thought and range of scholarship and that he’s an immensely tenacious and committed individual without any perceptible interest in self-glorification.
Spencer, though also persevering and energetic, comes across as a somewhat brittle, effeminate and occasionally clownish figure (the image of him standing, shirtless and flabby, in a tweed waistcoat at the last NPR conference will linger long in the mind for all the wrong reasons) with a regrettable contempt for the tribal loyalties and enmities of the old continent, which really have to be taken seriously by anybody who claims to care about identity.
I know practically nothing about Daniel Friberg, though Arktos media appears to have published a lot of good stuff–anybody who publishes Ricardo Duchesne must be on the right track.
All three have unquestionably *done* good things and appear to be basically sincere, so taking sides in a personal dispute among them (in which I’m instinctively inclined to take Johnson’s part) is sort of beside the point. All should be supported in persisting in their respective activities as long as they remain valuable–personalities be damned.
As an observer from Europe, I must say it is hard to see through all this and somewhat annoying as well.
However, one thing seems clear to me: ever since Spencer became a popular media villain, the Altright are making themselves the story too much (and that includes the tedious infighting dramas), while the actual content is being increasingly neglected. Altright.com until now is disappointing, predictable and rather boring (even the lame Right On site was better). There is a substantial lack of good, unique writers and engaging content which could reach out beyond “the scene”. There are very few altright sites engaged in producing serious intellectual content (CC, OO and Amren, and occasionally the Liddell/Nowicki branch but that’s it), and I’d say that is the thing that matters most. All went downhill since Heilgate, which was an ominous sign that narcissism, stupidity and megalomania were on the rise.
I have two questions for Greg: 1. Is there any proof of Friberg’s ultimatum, like an E-mail? 2. How does the mail Friberg reproduced at altright.com where you offered to buy Daniel’s Arktos shares tie in with your version of the story?
https://altright.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Greg-offers-to-buy-DFs-shares-of-Arktos-300×265.jpg
Friberg and Wag look like brothers on that pic, especially their face expressions, which is rather funny.
Great comment. I second all of your points as well as your questions for Greg.
Thanks for this.
RE your questions.
1. I can put you in touch with the guy to whom Friberg issued his threats and ultimatum.
2. I learned that Arktos shareholders had accused Friberg of embezzlement and wanted him gone only after catching wind of Friberg’s entirely false and malicious narrative that I had created a rumor of about his wrongdoing. I wrote to him immediately to confront him about the lies, and on the off chance that it would be possible to rescue the company, asked him if he wanted to sell. It never hurts to ask. The reply I received was bombast and boilerplate.
@Petronius
The story of Spencer/NPI, from the beginning of the original Alternative Right site, to the peak of its usefulness to White Nationalism at the 2015 NPI conference, to its downfall because of “Heilgate,” combines to create a coherent narrative with obvious implications that few want to point out.
As Johnson notes above, this isn’t a court of law. Even though one may not be able to “prove” anything to the standards of a criminal or civil trial, some common sense informed by the history of radical movement paints a damning picture. “Heilgate” provided a convenient opportunity for the Trump administration to distance itself from an important constituency, nationalists, and the perpetrators of “Heilgate” were later exposed as, frankly, suspicious operators. James J. O’Meara’s comments on the AltRight.com thread came closest to getting to the heart of the matter although he chose to sabotage his own argument for reasons I cannot comprehend.
Quoting Johnson:
Present company not excluded, this opportunism has been noted for a long time and it does not bode well for anyone considered a leader in the movement.
The recently departed Bob Whitaker has been vindicated once again, and his tactics have proven to be the only effective ones – leveraging the new communication medium of the internet to constantly call out the double standards of anti-whites. Neither “shout[ing] … through a bullhorn” nor publishing philosophical essays have proven to be effective, while Whitaker’s strategy has. His strategy is the only play that has actually moved the ball down the field in the last decade.
So I’ll remain a pragmatist and stick with what has proven to work.
“James O’Meara’s comments on the AltRight.com thread came closest to getting to the heart of the matter although he chose to sabotage his own argument for reasons I cannot comprehend.”
And yet, judging by your references to the history of radical movements, I think the message was received. You sound like you do know the score, compadre.
@James OMeara
Yes, I do know the score, but I can’t understand why you would use the performance artist/comedian Matthew Mathis to make the point, taking what was a timely and accurate observation and turning it into a farce open to ridicule.
It’s an open secret that many have noticed in the past, which – if looked at in the correct light – is a good thing, not a bad thing. Nationalism has friends in high (and “Deep”) places. Isn’t that something to celebrate?
Develop your point, sir, and send it to Counter-Currents!
Altho I must say, for a “farce open to ridicule” the lady doth protest a good deal.
Both sides want people to pick a side. But the fog is too thick, the grey area to large. For nearly everyone but those immediately involved, all that’s left is uncertain probabilities.
Actually I don’t require people to choose. But of course I hope they choose my side.
An utterly convincing and reasonable response to these hysterical teenage-girl-style attacks.
So,
Rebel Media is destroying the Alt Right with their Jew-infested Civic Nationalist push (“Alt Lite”).
Daily Stormer, the one site you can’t find any flaws in the message they pass, is being attacked by Richard Spencer.
Richard Spencer self-proclaimed “leader” of the “Alt Right” not because of his ideas, but because of some stupid name.
So, we’re having a three-sided thug of war with the Alt Lite vs “Alt Right” vs Originals.
This is ridiculous, that’s why the movement should never have organized. The best course of actions was what it always did: constant redpilling. We should have been spreading redpills all over the internet, and specially on youtube, under a cover – that way we could never have been attacked or subverted.
In fact all this boost in exposition and attention that the Trump election gave us just worked to:
1. Flood our ranks with Falses. Be them declared Alt-Liters or r/The_Donald stupids, you name them – they are louder than our best and by absorbing them, we’re just like the West self-destructing with immigration.
2. Making the general public being aware of us without knowing us firsthand by our own sources. You see, we were presented to the general people as the worst people on the planet. A potential person prone to being redpilled with our content is now aware of us, avoid us and even speaks badly of us, because they bought the fale narrative.
3. Pushed for YouTube censorship. People here don’t understand how nuking videos on YouTube hindered us deeply. It was by watching videos, and their “Related” that people pushed forward, but now this bridge from the “Normiesphere” and us is lost. Many channels were destroyed, such as Oscar Turner’s Omniphi and Alerta Judiada.
4. Exposed the Chans. 4chan was already a cesspit of shills after the great Moot betrayal, but now even 8chan is worthless because of the exposure and flooding of attention and operations to undermine it. If you go there today, you’ll see that most posters say things like “We’re not National Socialists”, or “Race doesn’t matter” or “We’re Capitalists” or “We came from Atlantis” or “Based Niggers, Based Chinks, Here’s my Asian wife”. It’s lost. The Chans are lost, our greatest brainstorming and sharing asset, now filled with retards and shills that prevent any meaningful discussion.
One huge benefit of staying completely anonymous and just redpilling people through anonymous videos and articles is that people can’t attack your character, they can only attack your ideas. If they don’t know who you are then there is nothing for them to attack except what you present (although they’ll probably call you a coward for staying anonymous but that can easily be ignored and just laughed at.) It should always be about a discussion of ideas. Not “this guy is a gay so don’t listen to him” or “this guy is fat and has no kids so we shouldn’t listen to his ideas.” Because ultimately it doesn’t matter who says 2 +2 = 4; it’s true no matter what. You find the truth through examining ideas; you don’t find the truth by attacking someone’s character. That’s just petty games.
This is the grand leader of the movement, Mr. Spencer, in the Atlantic website. The source’s link is within the name.
“…I asked whether I, as someone who is half-Chinese but had a classical Western education, would fit within his group, and he hedged, impishly. “I’m a generous guy,” he told me. “If you truly identify with our people, I would not have any problem with that.” But there were genetic deal breakers. “A full-blooded African, no matter how wonderful he might be—I’m not sure that would really work.”
Kazakhs are White too! Hooray 🙁
It is very disheartening that people outside of Sweden isn’t fully aware about Friberg’s past.
For example the time when Friberg broke in to an appartment and pointed a gun at his former partner?
“Natten till den 8 februari 2008 bröt sig – enligt Uddevalla tingsrätts förundersökning – Daniel Friberg, Anders Lagerström och andra ledande personer från Nordiska förbundet in hos Lars Lindén, och lade under pistolhot beslag på hans dataserver.”
http://guldfiske.se/2015/03/13/identitar/
The last article on Altright.com is ptetty rich. Friberg makes fun of Hare Krishna and that one of the men is married with a dark woman. Do you know who started Arktos? Two Danish Hare Krishna and AUTONOM aka Tommy Floorabally aka Tord Morsund. He’s part Norwegian and part Indian. Friberg screwed these men too.
”Arktos”, Autonom sin egen ide og hjertebarn, som han hadde utviklet og samarbeidet med danskene om, ble unntatt fra ”kravet” om å ”gå fra Motpol”.
https://www.flashback.org/p22985768
I attended the last II. Imagine sitting and waiting for three hours without a single announcement from the organizer Friberg. He’s not good at organizing or keeping people together. That’s why he has new people around him in every project.
You might have heard that Friberg was a CEO for a mining company. Did you also know that he missmanaged that company so badly that they had to take down their listening on the stockmarket?
https://www.aktietorget.se/NewsItem.aspx?ID=71469
He banned Kim Petrusson from Motpol when Petrusson criticized Dugin.
“I didn’t expect such anti-intellectual nonsense from you. Motpol is a place for debate and analysis, and publishing an article is not necessarily the same as promoting each and every idea in it – something which you as a long-time contributor should be well aware of. Show some proper respect and adult behaviour.”
https://motpol.nu/dugin2014/2014/04/18/some-suggestions-regarding-the-prospects-for-the-fourth-political-theory-in-europe-by-alexander-dugin/#comment-1355203123
Daniel Friberg, alcoholic and a childless 39-year-old, is not the man Spencer should form a partnership with. Friberg isn’t a leader in the same sense as Spencer who has been speaking for years at conferences and been in the frontline of demonstrations. Friberg is the true drama queen and it wont be long until Spencer sees his true colours.
Greg, you do good sermons. Perhaps you missed your calling.
Without the lunatics out there on the fringes of Counter-Currents I would be denied these interesting articles (and comments) which keep me up to date. I thoroughly enjoyed the read but frankly, Greg, I don’t know how you can be bothered with all the malcontents. Rather sad that some monthly donors would drop out because of something antifa would say.
Keep up the good work and a small donation is enclosed .
I live in Stockholm and I have shaken hands with both Greg Johnson and Daniel Friberg. They would probably recognize me.
I agree 100% with Greg Johnson.
This is not personal. All it takes is eyes to see. Daniel Friberg is the problem.
” although he chose to sabotage his own argument for reasons I cannot comprehend.”
Sorry, the habit of the highly talented.
“Paul can be a terrible enemy, but a much worse friend, Alexander claimed, although one imagines the same could be said of him. “He has skewered a former sister-in-law, lampooned his former in-laws, his own children’s grandparents, and, never without loud exclamations of denial later, undisguisedly mocked in print even members of his own family.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/who-is-paul-theroux-1262143.html
Team Greg. Friberg appears to be a psychopath and is quite possibly irredeemable. Spencer and Forney need to be slapped around until they realize their error. Brilliantly articulated piece, Greg.
It seems to me that the Spencerian ‘alt-right’ has run its course: the rather tabloid eponymous web-site being a case in point.
For serious philosophical appreciation of our European logos, techne & ethnos in the light of its demographic trajectory there remains Counter-Currents. I believe the seeds sown here by Greg Johnson and other writers will take time to germinate — let alone flourish.
The rebirth of Europa as a beacon or refuge for our people will come when the time and conditions are right — that is to say when the collapse of the present order, by climate change or population pressure, is further advanced.
Until then it is wise to eschew web-tantrums and physical violence, for the near future holds only the fall of the Trump phenomenon and a backlash against those deemed to have enabled it.
Comment from Alex Linder on VNN, which I wouldn’t have expected:
https://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=126967&page=6
If one has basic social skills and interact with Daniel Friberg, or watch him interact with other people for more than ten minutes, you will clearly see that there is something wrong with him. He’s a person that would not get influence or power anywhere but in fringe movements.
Great article Greg, you are a man of honor; If you lost subscribers because of Friberg’s attacks you gained at least one subscriber with me. Thank you for your sacrifices.
I have to admit I did not read the article through and more or less glossed the main content. I don’t have in-person association with Alt-Righters because of my location out of the US (as much as I might like to)(South America). Therefor, I cannot imagine what the politics is like in the meetings and such. I am a monthly contributor to Counter Currents because it is clearly the best source of information with which to educate oneself. The presentation is to my liking given its intellectualism.
I begin to have some questions about Spencer’s methods. I do not know what an alternative would be to one with his desire to be so much in the hot lights. I genuinely appreciate many aspects of his ‘work’ but he could easily be manipulated and end up doing harm. But really, I am not one to judge.
More important is to continue in the reworking of perspective on and about our strange present and working to suggest to people, incrementally, that there are many important issues to examine with new eyes and deeper concern.
Someone above spoke of Europe and rebirth: the idea resonates in me. And it resonates because I have exposed myself to new patterns of ideas. And this particular site Counter-Currents has been instrumental in that process. It is essentially an idea-movement.
I remember Greg’s thoughtful critique of Spencer’s salute-episode. I remember some said ‘They will judge us anyway’ and this I have confirmed when I have broached certain ideas in certain fora: they come at you with knives. But in the end I would say it is important to avoid handing over easy victories and sensationalism tends to have that effect. I did like Spencer’s recent appearance and the message ‘You Will Not Replace Us!’ Quite tot he point!
In any case, I merely want to say my support for CCs is solid and I deeply appreciate the good work being done. I have steered many people to the site.
Spencer is still not quite over Greg vetoing his dream of recreating Czechoslovakia.
I actually thought the same thing. He seemed to take that veto rather harshly.
For what it is worth Zero Hedge ran an article pointing out that “extremist experts” are now looking at the violence coming from such left wing groups as antifa. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-20/extremism-experts-who-used-fear-right-are-now-worried-about-left
Count me as one more to balance any that just cucked out of the donor pool; I never even heard of “Friberg” until this dispute, and Spencer sadly displays a significant amount of his dark side of jealously towards other potential leaders (See his Twitter account for his grasping at straws method of attacking other dissidents). Sadly the “TRS” forum seems against Counter-Currents now and is attempting to make this a ‘gay’ thing. Maybe Counter-Currents will take the intellectual leadership and leave Spencer/TRS with the “direct action” real-life role? That could be how it turns out, without any overt agreement between them. Hopefully no one will give up the ‘movement’ because of this.
ps Friberg’s physiognomy confesses all.
Thanks for these comments.
Yes, you have noticed the pattern: an increasingly catty and nervous Richard Spencer says “X is through” for the 1,000th time.
It’s a good article Greg but I really think you should have read it out and made it a podcast. You are a very good speaker and more meaning can be injected into the spoken word than text on a page. Your slightly world-weary, bemused tone would have suited this material very well and made it much more personal, which it should be. It is a highly personal situation. The Alt-Right isn’t a Party, there is nobody to arbitrate and no membership to be withdrawn. People like you who have leadership roles whether you like it or not have to get along, or politely ignore each other. There is a lot to be done and few to do it. Even people with character faults, perhaps severe faults, can achieve a great deal although they might not make many friends along the
A podcast? How about this:
https://youtu.be/3Xz7WfVYxok
Regardless of the veracity of the allegations made in this dispute , Counter-Currents remains the most valuable WN resource around- in terms of writing quality and philosophical scope. In fact, the present state of the “Alt-Right” makes C-C more relevant than ever, given that the former appears to be in a state of pseudomorphosis, with a markedly middlebrow strategy (altright.com,TRS) which has all of the hallmarks of “premature populism”, and a prevailing sub-cultural climate which seems intent on regression into old-right dogmas, methods and modalities (which are perhaps rendered even more ineffective by the additional nihilism, paranoia and juvenility which characterize chan culture).
As a result, the number of potential higher calibre recruits turning to the kind of traditionalism which only produces anchorites, or to a more sophisticated alt-lite position ( informed by the likes of Jordan Peterson), or into outright ironism , is only going to increase. Seizing the moral, ideational and cultural high ground is the only fight that matters. With this in mind, WN 2.0 cannot be allowed to become WN 1.5. The stakes are too high.
As long as Counter-Currents continues to “pitch its ideas at the highest intellectual level possible”, as Jonathan Bowden advised, it will remain the metapolitical vanguard of our movement. Thank you for all that you do, Greg.
Excellent response Greg, sorry to see such disagreements but the political space we inhabit is a very jealous space and often filled with foolishly sensitive egos. Your response is reasonable, well articulated and mature. Good wishes to you.
Daniel Frieberg is the Jew who has been destroying metapedia since 2014.
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1096869-2/
No, he’s not a Jew, unless you believe that Jewish is as Jewish does.
Hostility, bitterness, feelings of betrayal and rage, fallings out, are uniquely painful experiences, and the negative emotions often seem to cling to you forever. I feel bad that I don’t get along with everyone, but I keep telling myself that it’s unrealistic. I sympathize with Greg. I have just a few comments that might make him feel a tiny bit better.
I believe that periodic conflict and fallings out are the rule, not the exception, in almost any group endeavor. My mother used to work at our church, an Episcopal church in Memphis, and she was shocked at the back-biting and malicious gossip and rows. So I figure that if even they can’t get along, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Obviously it depends on where you draw the line, but generally speaking, it seems to me that at least half the people in the world are morally worthless. And personality flaws and psychiatric problems short of psychosis are distributed across all classes and IQ ranges and political stripes. Also, some people are taught “good manners” as children, while others are not, so they may tend to get offended more easily.
Raymond B. Cattell, brilliant IQ and personality theorist (now dead) said that people who are high achievers in creative fields of all kinds (politics, science, architecture, etc) are highly intelligent, introverted, have high “ego strength,” and tend to be high on the trait of dominance, a combination of traits which, he added, is not everybody’s cup of tea (meaning they aren’t always a breeze to get along with).
I don’t get along with Richard Spencer either. I will grant that he’s intelligent, good-looking, and an excellent speaker. But several years ago, he promised to publish my paper about the anti-eugenics hoax in a month or two, but then after a year of waiting I got fed up. Also, I told him at the outset, and repeatedly, that I didn’t want to change ANYTHING in the paper, so he could either accept or reject it the way it was, which he agreed to, and then he told me (repeatedly) about all the things he wanted me to add and delete, like entire paragraphs, all of which only made it worse. I thought to myself, “Is this guy DEAF?” Finally I told him “Never mind!” and sent it to Greg, which was very fortuitous.
In addition, I was listening to a podcast several years ago with several people, when Richard Spencer joined in. He said something to the effect that he was there to save the day, like Babe Ruth, with his charm/brilliance/whatever. I don’t recall his exact words, I just remember that I felt terribly embarrassed that he was such a shameless braggart.
Don’t sweat the Warlords, Sweat the ZOGbots
“Apparently, there are no real consequences for wrongdoing in this movement. A movement that seeks the renewal of white civilization should, at the very least, try to maintain a few minimum standards of civilized behavior. But the movement today resembles a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which warlords and their gangs fight for spoils. These self-proclaimed “leaders” seem to have an understanding with one another: they are all rogue enough to attack each other when it suits them — but also rogue enough to team up when that is convenient as well. Frankly, these people deserve each other. But the movement deserves better.”
========
Dr. Greg Johnson declaims [bowel] Movement reality. “. . . a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which warlords and their gangs fight for spoils” indeed! Where us warlords have temporary arrangements to gang up on the weaker and split the spoils, indeed. Indeed, indeed!!!
This is exactly the state of affairs not only within the bowel Movement but with ZOG/Babylon overall. In fact for this ZOG Age Collapse shall resemble the First Intermediate Period in Egypt, The Bronze Age Collapse of 1180 BC and the Dark Ages from 476-1492 AD. In fact the most accurate prediction of the future is the warlordism of The Walking Dead in which leadership is by warlords,. both relatively benign and despotic.
What you are complaining about is infiltration by ZOGbots. The old school was TraitorGlenn Miller. The newer school is Richard Spencer and Baal Finck who show up and have “Hal Turner Financing”.
Back in the old days of the 1980s and 90s Order Loot from the armored car robbery financed TraitorGlenn Miller for $250,000 and William Pierce for $400,000. They would function as a ‘tard corral’ for rootless maniacs and keep ZOG well informed while they wrote papers railing against the jews. First Pierce, then later TraitorGlenn Miller financed Alex Linder and Linder’s Virtual Colostomy bag, while Pierce’s loot was stolen away by connected thieves.
Just a few years ago, TraitorGlenn Miller would publish two issues of his tabloid per year, anounce that it cost him $20,000 per issue to publish and distribute, then shame Linder’s colostomy-bag likkers to coontribute $400-500 per issue. Someone would pay out the $19,500 difference per issue, $39,000 per year. TraitorGlenn Miller would claim that on his Army pension and that as a truck driver that he paid it all. Yeah right.
Likewise the lying mischling Hal Turner got $100,000 salary per year, its Internet and shortwave bills paid by ZOG and $10,000 per head of tard caught. Eventually the FBI cut Hal off and Hal threatened three federal judges and went to prison and is back broadcasting. “Hal Turner Financing” of the bowel Movement goes back a ways.
See: “ZOG Will Fuk-U-Up”
http://whitenationalist.org/useful/audio/TMT/LP/ZOGll-fuk-U-up.mp3
Now I am not one to attend these forums for pointy-headed intellectuals, certainly not in Sweden or Norway or Hungary or jew York or London where I would be deported. I bought a laptop with a videocamera two weeks ago for $140 with tax which came with a $70 program. But if you want to do a Klan rally around Kansas City in my Church building or in my mother’s cow pasture on the cheap we can talk.
Richard Spencer received one-third of $2 million last year from the US Department of Agriculture for cotton price supports on his 5400 acre family cotton plantation which he shared with his mother and sister . That cums to $666,666.66, which is appropriate. Plus as ringleader of the Regnery Circus Spencer pulls in more. So why does Spencer need $50,000 in bowel Movement whiggaz-mites & geezer-gelt any more than Hal Turner needed to pay for its shortwave and Internet bill ten years ago?
Don’t sweat the bowel Movement Warlords as some of them are real and inevitable and most of them are waiting for the time being right. Rather sweat the ZOGbots who are looking to find the revolutionary talent before it is fully born when the time is right.
Hail Victory !!!
Pastor Martin Luther Dzerzhinsky Lindstedt
Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations of Missouri
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