Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

We have a theme today, growing out of the horrific events in New Zealand.

Amanda Sakuma discusses the failure of tech companies to weed out  far right- wing hate speech and violent content, following the latest example of the white supremacist who used social media platforms to upload his "manifesto" and video of his murdering 50 Muslims worshiping in Christchurch, NZ:

At this point, in theory, tech companies should be well-practiced in the art of blocking far-right hate speech and violence from their platforms. They’ve been having to deal with it for years.

After the 2017 Unite the Right rally of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia — where a woman was mowed down and killed by an avowed Nazi sympathizer — tech companies faced intense public pressure to block prominent instigators of explicit far-right extremism. Twitter suspended a bunch of white supremacists and prominent provocateurs — including Milo Yiannoppolis, Alex Jones, and Gavin McInnes — but was hesitant to target other alt-right leaders like Richard Spencer. Gab and the Daily Stormer, two havens for neo-Nazis, were similarly banished to the darker recesses of the Internet. Reddit quarantined hate-fueled subreddits, while other companies like PayPal, GoDaddy, Squarespace blocked white supremacists from using their services.

In effect, individual leaders and groups were targeted in response to a high-profile flashpoint in American politics and culture. But for many critics, those actions were hollow in addressing the underlying proliferation of racist and white supremacist ideas that are peddled online.

Sakuma highlights an issue with self- policing right- wing hate speech, ignoring the danger it presents (our emphasis):

Friday’s massacre exemplified a larger problem that’s plaguing the internet. Platforms are struggling to self-police problematic content created by its users, while the lawmakers who would ostensibly impose regulations are either too reluctant or ill-equipped to do so — and many in both camps are predisposed to treat far-right rhetoric less seriously than other forms of extremism, to boot.

Will Bunch discusses the rising tide of white nationalism, enabled by certain familiar players:

It’s ironic that -- in a time when the American political debate centers on Trump’s made-up emergency about a border wall -- there ain’t no mountain high enough to keep the most vile, racist propaganda from spreading from Europe to the United States to Australia and echo back again in a matter of nanoseconds, and to keep that bile from inspiring the kind of deadly violence you’d never see from Central American immigrants.

After the banality of the wanton violence and the killer’s live broadcast, the second most shocking thing about the New Zealand massacre was how well versed the perpetrator was in right-wing tropes that aren’t just common on the American internet but find their way to “mainstream” venues like the Fox News Channel or the halls of Congress.

The Australian gunman said he wanted to spark more debate about our Second Amendment, invoked (perhaps sarcastically) the right-wing media celebrity Candace Owens, and spewed a range of warped theories about the threats to Western civilization from “invaders” that -- while horrible -- were only a degree or two more extreme than what we’ve heard from an Iowa congressman, Steve King, or from the good citizens of Old Forge, Pa. Or from certain quarters at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Speaking of Steve King,

Just white supremacist congressman   Steve King joking about civil war pic.twitter.com/AqpXkzIvRC

— Brian Tashman (@briantashman) March 17, 2019

How many more strikes does this vicious clown get before he's expelled from Congress?

Adam Serwer takes a deep dive into the antecedents of neo- Nazi white supremacist ideology in the U.S., and one of its most influential 20th century purveyors:

The seed of Nazism’s ultimate objective—the preservation of a pure white race, uncontaminated by foreign blood—was in fact sown with striking success in the United States. What is judged extremist today was once the consensus of a powerful cadre of the American elite, well-connected men who eagerly seized on a false doctrine of “race suicide” during the immigration scare of the early 20th century. They included wealthy patricians, intellectuals, lawmakers, even several presidents. Perhaps the most important among them was a blue blood with a very impressive mustache, Madison Grant. He was the author of a 1916 book called The Passing of the Great Race, which spread the doctrine of race purity all over the globe. 

Serwer discusses the pseudoscience behind Grant's "race purity" crackpottery and "race suicide" alarms, which is echoed today by the knuckle- draggers talking "white genocide" in relation to the current immigration debate:

...to recognize the homegrown historical antecedents of today’s rhetoric is to call attention to certain disturbing assumptions that have come to define the current immigration debate in America—in particular, that intrinsic human worth is rooted in national origin, and that a certain ethnic group has a legitimate claim to permanent political hegemony in the United States. The most benignly intentioned mainstream-media coverage of demographic change in the U.S. has a tendency to portray as justified the fear and anger of white Americans who believe their political power is threatened by immigration—as though the political views of today’s newcomers were determined by genetic inheritance rather than persuasion.

The danger of Grantism, and its implications for both America and the world, is very real. External forces have rarely been the gravest threat to the social order and political foundations of the United States. Rather, the source of greatest danger has been those who would choose white purity over a diverse democracy. When Americans abandon their commitment to pluralism, the world notices, and catastrophe follows.

Finally, please check out Infidel 753's blog round- up for the best survey of interesting recent posts from around the Internet.  It's always worth the time, in our opinion.