Counter-Currents
1,175 words
2019 was Counter-Currents’ best year in terms of traffic and overall performance:
- We published 895 pieces on the site.
- After being plateaued for more than a year, our traffic began to rise in June. In November, it was basically double what it was in May.
- We had a total of 4,205,172 visits to the site in 2019.
- We had 1,966,053 unique visitors for the year.
- These visitors viewed 19,101,390 pages.
- Our fundraiser exceeded our goal of $100,000 by more than 10%.
- I published 74 pieces at Counter-Currents, 86 if you include newsletters, 100 if you include various fundraiser updates and short announcements. And that does not include commemorations and holiday pieces that I repeat annually, much less translations into other languages.
But 2019 was also our worst year in terms of the opposition we faced:
- We were censored by two giant corporations — Amazon and Barnes & Noble — that together control 80% of the global book trade. Both companies decided to stop selling our books, for political reasons, in many cases removing even the product pages — with their customer reviews and ratings — so it is as if our books never even existed.
- We were dropped by five credit card processors and politically blacklisted in the credit card industry.
- Our YouTube channel and my personal Facebook pages were deleted.
- I was arrested in Oslo to prevent me from speaking at the Scandza Forum, based on fake news created and circulated by Communists, which was acted on — out of malice or sheer incompetence — by the Norwegian Police Security Service.
But in spite of these obstacles — and in some cases, because of them — we still had our best year ever.
So what can you expect in 2020?
80/20 in 2020
One of the intellectual godfathers of fascism was Italian sociologist and political theorist Vilfredo Pareto. One of Pareto’s most enduring discoveries is the so-called “Pareto principle” or “80/20 rule” or “law of the vital few.” Basically, Pareto discovered that in most human endeavors, 80% of the effects — both positive and negative — come from 20% of the causes — and, conversely, 20% of the effects come from 80% of the causes.
One of the traits of successful people is to focus first on the 20% of their efforts that produce 80% of the rewards. And if you can be satisfied with 80% of the rewards, you can knock off after putting in your 20% and enjoy a great deal of leisure time — or do more of the kind of stuff that produces most of the rewards.
One of the traits of self-defeating people is to focus on the 80% of efforts that produce 20% of the rewards. Such people are always stressed out and treading water — or simply failing — because they expend enormous energies to little effect.
One of the patterns of ineffectual people is not to know about the Pareto principle at all.
Over the course of 2019, the various waves of persecution and de-platforming have forced me to take a good hard look at Counter-Currents in terms of Pareto’s principle.
The Webzine vs. Book Publishing
Originally, I conceived of Counter-Currents as a publishing company with a webzine on the side. But the webzine rapidly became the focus of my attention, simply because it had a much greater and more immediate impact than book publishing. In Pareto’s terms, the webzine became the 20% of our work that produced 80% of the impact, whereas book publishing became the 80% of our work that produced 20% of the impact.
Furthermore, our book publishing efforts always simply broke even, which means that what kept Counter-Currents afloat were donations, which were primarily drawn by the webzine.
But I like books, and I was willing to put in the effort to produce them, as long as I had a reasonable expectation that they would at least break even. Furthermore, if our titles could reach the global book market, there as always a chance that some of them could become hits.
The decision of Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble to censor Counter-Currents titles has changed that.
- Henceforth, I am going to focus almost all of my energy on the Counter-Currents webzine.
- Counter-Currents will no longer take on new book projects.
- We will keep our back catalog in print.
- We will continue to honor agreements with existing authors.
- We will finish our three-volume Francis Parker Yockey edition. (The first two volumes of which, The World in Flames and The Enemy of Europe, will be in print this year. Imperium will come out in 2021.)
- We will continue to publish my books, in limited editions, for sale exclusively from Counter-Currents, essentially as fundraising tools.
The upshot is that Counter-Currents will be a lot more like American Renaissance and VDare, which are webzines that also do occasional print publications on the side.
I don’t like this turn of events, but I honestly believe that book publishing has only a fraction of the impact of online publishing, so by spending less time on book publishing, I can spend more time on online publishing, which will make me and Counter-Currents far more effective.
Public Events
Live speaking events definitely fall into the 80% work/20% rewards category. They are expensive, time-consuming, disruptive of my writing routine, and — unless I manage to get arrested — they have comparatively little impact. Thus in 2020, I am planning to attend only one public event: I will be at the American Renaissance Conference at the end of May, where I will be selling copies of my book White Identity Politics.
Private Events
In 2020, I will be organizing and speaking at only one private event. On Thursday, June 11, in New York City, Counter-Currents will be celebrating our 10th birthday with a party, including a banquet with an all-star lineup of speakers. This event will be open only to long-time Counter-Currents donors, authors, and friends. This party will inaugurate our second decade, unveil a completely redesigned webzine, kick off our annual fundraiser, and also be the start of a new tradition. I want the annual Counter-Currents party in New York City to become the most prestigious and sought-after invitation in our circles. So mark your calendars.
Podcasting
The weekly Counter-Currents Radio podcast was sidelined in the runup to and aftermath of the Oslo incident. We will be starting again this week.
* * *
I believe that the 2020s are going to be the decade when National Populism really roars. The 2020 US Presidential Election is going to be a historical turning point. It is not going to be a referendum on Donald Trump, who is ideologically muddle-headed, or on his policies, which are mostly disappointing. The Left will make this election a clear-cut referendum on the principles of populism vs. elitism, nationalism vs. globalism, white identity politics vs. multiculturalism and white demographic decline. The 2020 election will put National Populist issues at the center of a global conversation, and Counter-Currents will be in the intellectual vanguard, grabbing as much attention as we can by tearing apart globalist lies and illusions and defending White Identity Politics as inevitable, necessary, and morally imperative.
It’s going to be glorious. It’s going to be fun. It may just help turn the world around. Thus I want to thank all of you — our readers, writers, and donors — for making it possible.
Greg Johnson
21 comments
Thank you for serving in this great Culture War. Out of all the present authors on the right you are my favourite. What appeals to me most is your concise, clear and simple style with emphasis on logical arguments and convincing examples and analogues. Alas, too many writers get muddled up with “metaphysics” or write long, ornate and eloquent but meaningless chapters.
100%
Greg, with the nearly 2 million unique visitors to CC in 2019, and the specific mention of amazon banning your books, I thought your readers might like to see the verbatim response I got from amazon when I asked them about banning books – actually sent to bezos’ personal email. The following email string is the result of that enquiry in May, 2019.
—– portion of my original email to amazon —–
I’m disappointed to learn of amazon’s “selective” banning of books. It seems to be a change in policy regarding freedom of speech which I don’t condone….
Sincerely,
Richard Smith
—– Harish-bot responded with this email —–
I request you to provide us with more information about the books that you think are banned on Amazon. If you can provide the name of the books we can check and update you with the details about them.
Warmest regards,
Harish
—– my follow-up to the request for a book title —–
There are many banned books, please do some research in this area before responding. I suggest trying a search on “amazon bans books”, there are plenty of examples to choose from. Here’s one I copied and pasted below:
“With the news last week that Amazon has banned Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims Kill for Islam, co-authored by British activist Tommy Robinson and Peter McLoughlin, Amazon has crossed a very dangerous and precarious line.”
I visited amazon books and could not find the title. Is it banned or not banned?
Richard
—– looks like Harish-bot handed off to Liz-bot —–
Hello,
My name is Liz and I’m with the leadership team at Amazon. Thank you for being a valued Prime member [I was never a Prime member]. Without you, we wouldn’t be who we are today.
I’ve checked the website for the referenced book, Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims Kill for Islam, co-authored by British activist Tommy Robinson and Peter McLoughlin. The item you referenced are not available for sale. Thank you for contacting us.
Best regards,
Liz G.
Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.
Thank you.
Amazon.com
—– my final frustration with this Customer-Centric Co. —–
The question was do you ban books or don’t you? You haven’t answered the question, your email statements are gibberish.
I’m no longer a customer of amazon. In fact, I’m ashamed I bought anything from amazon!
Richard
—–
Thanks for sticking up for us.
I want to make a public offer of cash for whistleblowers at Amazon, B&N, PayPal, YouTube, and Stripe for provable intelligence on just who decided to censor us, and who was pressuring them. All these evil corporations have plenty of disgruntled employees. If you want to stick it to your bosses, reach out.
Happy New Year, Counter Currents readers, writers and publisher, and thank you so much.
Indeed, it is “inevitable, necessary, and morally imperative.” I believe (and I hope and pray) that CC and WN will see enormous growth in support in 2020: meaningful, realized, and deeply arrive at support. A year ago, two years ago, prior to all these kicks in the teeth, I don’t think I could have said this so confidently, nor would I have greeted “inevitable” with the same optimism. I’m seeing it already.
Still, much work to do.
Dr. Johnson,
Well presented, and probably the correct path (though I don’t know much about publishing). Nearly 2 MILLION unique visitors. That’s a lot of red-pilling! Only two thoughts:
1. I don’t have your experience in public speaking, or putting on events. But I do know that identitarian and nationalist gatherings, whether activist or intellectual in content, are very important, but more for the intra-movement networking opportunities they offer than for any new ideas presented (attendees can always read the substance online, which is what I do for the AR, Scandza talks, etc). We cannot stay huddled online forever. I attended an AR conference in the 90s, and several John Randolph Club conviviums. I made two good movement friends out of them (one each from AR and JRC). I intend in a decade or so to retire/relocate to where one of those friends lives.
We need more such meet-up opportunities, and high quality speakers are the selling point. If a no-name puts on a White Identity conference, who will show up besides antifa criminals? And how hard is it to speak about matters ones writes deeply about anyway?
2. You mention a “completely redesigned webzine”, and my heart sinks. What’s wrong with CC right now? I love CC not only for content but also layout. In terms of user-friendliness, this may well be my graphically favorite site of the many ideological ones I peruse. In our world, I religiously read three pro-white sites: CC, AR, and The Occidental Observer. I agree that AR’s redesign a decade or so ago marked a huge improvement (though I had been a near-original print subscriber, and rarely visited the site, especially in the couple of years between the rollout of CC and the demise of the AR print edition). But I despise TOO’s redesign. I find it hard to navigate, and the comments section sucks (compared to both CC’s and AR’s).
In your redesign, please keep something like the long column links you have at right: “Authors”, especially “Archives”, “Departments”, etc. I find that feature very helpful. Thanks.
Good luck for the next decade.
I share your trepidation. Web designers seem completely out of touch with usability. I’ve seen a couple of web sites that underwent renovation just basically turn to crap in terms of usability. As for the comments sections, when I triage my attention-time, those sites with decent content and comments sections are first in line. There are very few places on the Right side of the internet where the authors of articles on the site will respond to comments.
I hate most current webzine designs. The new design will be similar in appearance and usability to the present one, but somewhat simpler in appearance. I plan to spin the bookstore aspect off to another site, so the webzine will just be a webzine. We will keep the simple blog roll structure, which is best because you can immediately see what is new.
Occidental Dissent is a mess now because you see the same thing multiple times as you scroll. I know I visit it less now.
What’s going to happen to the English translation of Saint-Loup’s Hitler or Judah? Will the rest of it be published online?
I will publish online.
As a young white Frenchman, I wish you all the best and my gratitude for your outstanding work. Thank you Mr Johnson!
Thank you. France is now regularly our second country after the US in terms of visits. I expect great things.
It’s a tired point but a lot of us really appreciate the work you and others do given our situation. A bit of hope for us to rally around and discuss things and learn. Nothing worse than thinking you’re the only one whom has “dissenting” thoughts and trying to constantly quell it. Thanks. Showing appreciation to those that stick their neck out in our circles is important.
Thanks so much for your kind words.
Hey Mr. Johnson, question here:
While I’m definitely going to be switching my party affiliation to Democrat to vote in the primaries, and for OpSec reasons (voter rolls are public info), I’m kinda apathetic about voting for Trump again in 2020.
What it basically boils down to is: is it better to slow the decline and work towards keeping Trump in for another 4 years, or will conservative normies be better radicalized and galvanized if we opt for a more ideologically consistent Third Party candidate and let the normies put a Democrat in office, who will throw the proverbial frog directly into boiling hot water?
Based on this post, I assume you’re in favor of re-electing a Trump despite his lackluster record as president, is this a correct analysis?
I will give a more detailed answer to this in an article. One thesis I want to defend though is that acceleratonism is a psychological coping mechanism that has mutated into a “strategy.”
Greg, I am a long time reader of Counter Currents, and I would like to say that this massive traction that your website is getting is well deserved. Everytime I read a Counter Currents article I either learn something new that I Can apply to personal activism or I learn something that is critical for our future as a movement. I also think that the transition to webizine is great one; most websites in our circles do that because it seems efficient for getting our ideas out there.
The one question I had was about articles to convince people to join us: perhaps this topic has been discussed over and over, i.e. to win “normies”. but I think it’s as critical as it is ever has been because from what I can tell things will only get better if we all plan collectively on a national level here in the states. Do you think article guides would be a good idea so that people can continuously go back to them as resource for convincing others of our cause?
Thank you very much,
Dane
Thanks so much for your kind words.
I would like to publish more primers like the recent pieces by Roger Devlin.
I also want to do more pieces on talking points for normies, like my “Answering Normie Questions” transcripts.
We will also resume doing podcasts where we have roundtables dealing with reader questions.
If there are topics for primers and talking points, please list them below.
Greg, thank you so much for responding to me ! It is quite an honor. I love this idea.
The one thing that I ask of you is this: please don’t give up. I believe persistence and faith ill help us through this, and I am not going to quit on ANY group of Europeans.
Thank you
Coltrane Dane
Keep the good work!
Was not alex kurtagic planning a book on Bowdens life?
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