I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Anarchist Party. I sometimes find it amusing to see its members engaging in self-destructive behavior. On the other hand, some of them sometimes do useful things, like fighting for the poor, the environment and so on. So it’s sad to see how they never learn.

Political correctness has always been useful to the state. During the Vietnam War, the government paid provocateurs to accuse anti-war activists of “racism”. This worked, because activists are worried by this unfounded allegation.

It’s the same with “sexism”, and so on. Despite inhabiting the most egalitarian section of the least sexist, racist and homophobic society in history, anarchists are easy prey for provocateurs.

Several anarchists and environmentalists are doing decades in prison because of police informants. At an anarchist conference in Portland, Oregon, May 9-11 2014, some presenters tried to address this. But the presentation was disrupted by radical feminists shouting “we will not be silenced by your violence”.

Reading through the discussions about what happened, it’s easy to see the mistake the anarchist milieu has made. There have been numerous cases of false allegations of violence, particularly from black women ^{i ii iii}. The mainstream media tend to take their side (for example the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, FT Magazine, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Daily News, Newsday, the Post-Gazette, Salon, the Daily Beast, NBC and Cosmopolitan). This is evidence that this society isn’t as “racist” and “patriarchal” as anarchists believe. But the p.c. left don’t do evidence – they do blackmail:

Please come and support the survivors who Kristian Williams has targeted, support the feminists and survivor-supporters who Kristian Williams has deemed as “divisive”, support a rad community that supports survivors and values women.

Replying to Kristian William’s article criticizing “the politics of denunciation”, an activist writes

The article is also unbalanced in its emphasis on doubting survivors.

It should read “doubting alleged survivors”, but it doesn’t occur to the writer to doubt allegations by feminists. Though he is a seasoned campaigner for victims of the legal system, in this case, he rejects the presumption of innocence, a presumption which the “capitalist courts” extend to defendants.

Notice also the vagueness of the allegations. It’s impossible to defend oneself against them:

(My friend was one: she was accused of violating the venue’s “Safer Space” policy, “triggering” audience members, and employing “patriarchal mechanisms” in her statement.) Others were called out for unspecified abusive or sexist behavior.

The feminists were so loud and obnoxious, there was a danger that the police would be called to restore order. So the speakers abandoned the meeting. This is their explanation:

When we were notified that the police were preparing to intervene, we decided it was best to end the event and leave. To be clear — no one on the panel called the cops. And we also didn’t tell anyone else to call the cops. This should be obvious to anyone who was present at our panel, as none of us used our phones or in any way communicated with anyone else who used a phone during this time. We did everything within our control to prevent this from happening and were assured prior to the event that no one would call the cops and that no one would be arrested. We would not have agreed to speak if not for these assurances. As speakers, we have had two security priorities throughout this entire experience: 1) ensuring that the cops did not get involved, and 2) ensuring our ability to speak about an issue we believe is critically important to our struggles. In the end, we resigned ourselves to sacrificing our second priority (our ability to speak) to ensure that the first was achieved. Our exit from the room was the only way we knew of to ensure the safety of others who were present — including those who were being disruptive.

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/anarchist-conference-devolves-chaos-nsfw

So, in effect, the feminists, chanting “we will not be silenced by your violence”, used the threat of state violence to silence the speakers.

The solution is simple. When someone claims to be a “victim”, ask for evidence. When so-called “survivors” try to shout down a speaker, they should be thrown out of the meeting.

But there’s no chance of this. The fact that an attempt to talk about how to resist infiltration is so easily sabotaged shows something about this movement. It has no chance of succeeding.

But the p.c. left isn’t an isolated bubble. It can be used by the authorities to undermine resistance to war and economic hardship. It has also been used to undermine the boycott of the products of Israel.

But that’s another story.

Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/ukip-haters-desperately-seeking-fascism

The anti-fascists and Zionists of AFA and Hope not Hate have made a big mistake in attacking the United Kingdom Independence Party. So long as they harassed obnoxious outfits like the British National Party, they were on safe ground. But UKIP has the support of millions.

Another good article on Spiked Online about UKIP:

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/ukiphobia-the-prejudices-that-dare-not-speak-their-name

The self-styled progressive sections of the politically switched-on classes, whose visceral contempt for the white working class makes every other prejudice in 21st century Britain pale into insignificance in comparison.

If the Duke University false-allegation-of-rape case of 2006 were nothing more than the persecution of three students by a university, solely because they are white, male, and allegedly wealthy, and that their accuser is black and female, it would show nothing more than the corruption of one university by political correctness – the reverse of discrimination against minorities, women, etc..

But the fact that the district attorney, the local police department, and most of the media, joined eighty-eight academics at the university, in stating or implying their guilt, long after it was clear that no crime had taken place, shows that it’s not just academia. Political correctness is more deeprooted and widespread.

Though they were proven innocent – rather than merely “not guilty”, the DA who prosecuted them was imprisoned for misconduct in the case, and their accuser convicted of murder, much of the mainstream media, for example, the New York Times, Salon, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, the Daily News, Newsday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, FT Magazine, and the Daily Beast, continues to try to convince the public that they were in fact guilty of something: How the Media Again Failed on the Duke Lacrosse Story.

 The Washington Post is an honorable exception.

The continuing saga of the Duke lacrosse three contradicts the hypothesis of professional anti-racists that the USA’s dominant culture is white supremacist, etc..

P.S.  K.C. Johnson’s blog “Durham in Wonderland” about the Duke scandal has shut up shop. Its author now writes for Minding the Campus.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, known to its admirers by the initials $PLC, has exceeded its normal bounds of logic and reason. Reacting to the murder of three attendees at a Jewish Center in Kansas City on April 13th, the $PLC argues

The fact of the matter is that more people have been killed domestically by radical right extremists than Islamic extremists since 9/11

Since September 11th, 2001, more people have been murdered in the USA by white extremists than by Muslims. But if you choose September 10, 2001, as your starting date, the opposite is true.

Notice also that the $PLC distinguishes between ‘radical right extremists’ and ‘Islamic extremists’. Despite their medieval views, the latter can’t be classified as ‘radical right extremists’, because most of them aren’t white!

P.S. Good news – the $PLC and the “Anti” Defamation League have been dropped by the FBI.

P.P.S. The above comment was too hasty: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/hate_crimes/overview

Mrs Hampson and one of her accusers

Taking advantage of the fact that, in anti-racism legislation, the burden of proof has shifted toward the defendant, a gang of gypsies falsely accused a British schoolteacher of racial harassment.

Mrs Hampson found herself involved in a clash with a family of travellers who had illegally established themselves on green-belt land and had blocked her way home one day, you might have expected the grandmother to receive a decent hearing from the authorities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10747065/Gipsy-attack-widow-finally-wins-back-her-good-name.html

She was eventually acquitted, but not before her life was ruined.

Click to access cs05.pdf

In a response to my review of her recent book, “Against Our Better Judgment“, Alison Weir writes

Knott’s accusations against me are a bit schizophrenic. On the one hand, he chides me for not discussing “Jewish power.” At the same time, his inaccurate descriptions of me and my motivation echo Zionist mistruths about me.

But in regard to Jewish power, I merely argue the book hints at it, “doesn’t take this further”, and “we need a theory” which explains it. My review starts by lavishly praising her book, and her skill in holding a conference against Zionism in the occupied territories.

However, I have valid criticisms. Alison is correct that, unlike her, I don’t take the State Department’s statements seriously. Its secretary recently lectured the president of Russia, to universal derision:

You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext

She is also right to say that I am wrong to say that her book mentions the USS Liberty, attacked by Israel in 1967. However, her organizations and websites distribute a patriotic version of this tragic story. But a naval spy ship is a warship, even in peacetime, and this was during the Vietnam war. Weir says claiming it was a warship is “echoing Zionist mistruths”, but in this case, they are telling the truth.

Same with the Zionist attack on the King David hotel in 1948: it’s not a war crime to bomb a building partly occupied by enemy soldiers. Civilians staying in that hotel were idiots.

More seriously, an important part of my critique goes like this:

Patriotism also leads Weir to quote opponents of the Lobby within the Pentagon as follows: ‘no group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point where it could endanger our national security‘ without realizing that this could imply the suppression of any movement which endangered US imperialism.

She responds:

Knott foolishly writes, “Patriotism also leads Weir to quote opponents of the Lobby within the Pentagon”

This misses out the sinister quotation from the Pentagon, which I found in her book, implying the suppression of all unpatriotic movements, not just Zionism.

In response to my sarcastic remark

Weir gives the impression America is inhabited by well-meaning, simple, Christian folk, who are manipulated into supporting the oppression of the Palestinians by dishonest, clever Jews

she says I have ‘missed an important point in the book: “Zionist” is not synonymous with “Jew.”’. But my interpretation of her book does not imply that. “Manipulated by dishonest, clever Jews” does not imply that I think that she thinks that all Jews are dishonest, or clever, or Zionist. Why does she get defensive when I mention the J-word? I’ve consistently argued that the Palestine solidarity movement should not dignify the allegation of “anti-semitism” with a response. To Zionists, this concern surely looks like a weakness. It only reinforces their elitist attitude.

P.S. 5/28/14 – Read Alison’s latest over-the-top tribute to the USS Liberty:

http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/legion.html

An article on Counterpunch ⁱ, says that Shlomo Sand, the Israeli historian who produced evidence that most Jews have no ancestors who lived in Palestine, has gone to ground. Another ⁱⁱ,  in the New York Times, reports an attempt by scientists to analyze DNA to find out how much relatively recent African genes are mixed in with European (we’re all Africans if you go back far enough).

“In some sense we don’t want to talk to historians,” Falush said. “There’s a great virtue in being objective: You put the data in and get the history out. We do think this is a way of reconstructing history by just using DNA.”

Why not talk to historians? Falush is too polite to say so, but historians are in the section of academia known as “humanities”, which has been corrupted by political correctness. In the West, this leads to unscientific “anti-racist” narratives. In Israel, it’s the opposite.

German anti-fascists celebrate the bombing of Dresden

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/01/legacy-of-grandmas-war

“German discussion of their own suffering has also been taboo. The fear that to acknowledge it would appear sympathetic to the Nazi cause”.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24626-inside-the-minds-of-the-jfk-conspiracy-theorists.html

To believe that the US government planned or deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks, you’d have to posit that President Bush intentionally sacrificed 3,000 Americans. To believe that explosives, not planes, brought down the buildings, you’d have to imagine an operation large enough to plant the devices without anyone getting caught. To insist that the truth remains hidden, you’d have to assume that everyone who has reviewed the attacks and the events leading up to them – the CIA, the Justice Department, the Federal Aviation Administration, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, scientific organisations, peer-reviewed journals, news organisations, the airlines, and local law enforcement agencies in three states – was incompetent, deceived or part of the cover-up.

Note this at the top of the article:

• For similar stories, visit the Mental Health Topic Guide

The biggest mistake in this article is using the term “conspiracy theorists” for 9/11 truthers. As the truthers point out, ad nauseam, the official story of September 11th, 2001, is a conspiracy theory. But “9/11 truth” isn’t a theory at all. It’s not subject to falsification. If the authorities could do that, they can do anything, and cover it up. This means that any evidence against the 9/11 truth “theory” can be explained away by the “theory” itself. It is self-insulating against disconfirmation.

There’s a lot of faux “anti-racism” in football. Players are obliged to hold up signs saying “No to racism” before games. English fans can be arrested for using the traditional word ‘yid’ for Tottenham supporters, even if they are Tottenham supporters. Nicholas Anelka of West Bromwich Albion is being called “anti-semitic” for making the “quenelle” gesture.

But there is one kind of anti-racism which is not encouraged by the football authorities – opposition to the racial oppression of the Palestinians: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/01/palestinian-incident-semitism.html

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/13127#.UuWsVPbTnZt

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/24/blasphemy-in-secular-france

I have had several articles published on the radical website Dissident Voice, including a critique of Noam Chomsky’s views on the Israel Lobby, and an examination of the idea that nations are “imagined communities”: “Invention, Imagination, Race and Nation“.

Recently, I wrote “Probing Max Blumenthal’s Goliath” ⁱ for Dissident Voice and Kim Petersen, one of the site’s editors, responded with “Is the West Comparatively Racism-Free?” ⁱⁱ.

I promote Gilad Atzmon’s ideas and recently helped organize a reading group followed by a talk by him in Portland. However, I don’t agree with everything he says.

His recent article “We better move on” makes good points. He reiterates many of his insights into identity politics, links the failure of the Palestine solidarity movement to its domination by “anti-Zionist Jews”, etc..

It’s also funny. He’s good at taking the piss.

John Smith, an English bus driver from Liverpool is proud to be English and ‘as an Englishman’ he opposes the war because John actually believes that peace is patriotic. Can he join an anti-war protest and, while he’s at it, carry a Union Jack to demonstrations? I leave the answer to you.

Tony is a ‘Jewish Socialist’ – certainly not religious but an ethnic Jew who identifies ‘as a Jew’ racially and ethnically. And by the way, Tony also operates politically within Jews-only anti-Zionist groups. Now Tony is hugely welcome at most Left and progressive gathering. But can the same be said for Franz who identifies as an ‘Aryan socialist’? Again, I leave the answer to you.

Gilad points to some of the inconsistencies of the left  – you can be a Jewish socialist but not a self identified white socialist. But he’s wrong to accuse the left of excluding Muslims.

Left-wing kowtowing to Islamic reactionaries goes back to the Baku conference of 1920.

Since then, there have been numerous marriages of convenience between left-wing progressive intellectuals and reactionary Muslim godbotherers.

Britain’s largest left-wing party, the SWP, has been in an alliance with Muslims for ages. it was the basis of the Respect coalition, which succeeded in electing a leftist politician for the first time since the sixties.  These leftists join forces with Koran literalists to police the morals of London East Enders, and turn a blind eye to homophobic violence and the exploitation of girls. Richard Seymour’s “Lenin’s Tomb” blog is as fond of making excuses for the worst aspects of islam as it is of making inaccurate attacks on Gilad Atzmon. Both errors are products of political correctness.

Any attempt to question this opportunist pro-Islamic policy is dismissed as ‘racism’. It uses the same p.c. techniques to defend its alliance with Islamic reaction as the Jewish left does to weaken Palestine solidarity.

Muslims don’t necessarily reciprocate the left’s support. Lynne Stewart, a leftist lawyer who defended Islamic murderers, was recently released from prison in the USA. As Counterpunch pointed out: “Some Muslims may quietly admit that Lynne was their champion during the 1990s; yet they remained silent and few US Muslims joined the long, hard campaign to free her. Note: I have yet to see any announcement from a US Muslim organization welcoming Stewart’s release.)”.

No, the left generally supports Muslims. But Islam, like any religion, is infinitely opportunist. To genuine Muslims, their leftist supporters are unbelievers. Logically, their attitude toward secular leftists must be analogous to the Bolsheviks’ attitude to moderate socialists: they regard them as useful idiots. The “9/11 Truth Movement”, which tries to defend Muslim terrorists by claiming their attacks are really carried out by Western governments, is perhaps less useful, but no less idiotic.

Arguing that the Western countries are the biggest terrorists, and that Islamic terror is to some extent a reaction to this, is a completely different argument to the view of the truthers, that Western governments actually carry out the Islamic extremist war crimes. Drone attacks by the US-led coalition on wedding parties in Afghanistan is no excuse for Muslims trying to blow up transatlantic airliners, but it is a major part of the explanation of Islamic hate and violence.

Yes, the West does far more damage to Muslim countries than the other way round. But this is no excuse for advocating even more tolerance of religion.