A Despicable Hypocrite

It's Gaslighting Greg!

Greg JohnsonAugust 7, 2021 at 3:42 am

As I recall it, the “optics war” started with a Tweet after a rally at a different ‘ville. Not Charlottesville but Shelbyville or Pikeville. The Tweet came from Nathan Damigo, who said that the footage of the rally was “cringe.” This set off a debate about “optics” that took place on enemy social media platforms as well as some movement platforms. 

The juvenile Alt Right “Optics War” (a name that, ironically enough, was and is bad optics) may have started like that, but we were talking about “optics” as far back as the mid-1990s, and likely people in the “movement” were debating these issues long before that. Don’t pretend this is anything new, just because Millennial jackasses don’t acknowledge any history before their own personal life activity.

I am told the major thread was at the TRS Forum, but I did not see it or participate because I was banned there. 

Ho, ho, ho…Johnson banned.  What goes around comes around.

Still, I have a sense of the major issues and parties, and why they went at it.

Time for gaslighting.

It is impossible to endorse all aspects of the optics war, because many people took part in it, at all levels of intelligence and seriousness, and some of them behaved very badly…

Greg Johnson?

…offering bad arguments…

Greg Johnson?

…arguing in bad faith…

Greg Johnson?

…making it all about personalities rather than principles…

Like calling critics “insane?”

There were, however, real issues that needed to be hashed out about strategy, tactics, and ideology, and the people on the American Nationalist/good optics/metapolitics rather than protests side had the best arguments. Many of those arguments were developed and/or refined at Counter-Currents.

Easy to “develop” and “refine” arguments when you “ban” and defame critics.

Some people, however, seized on these questions simply because they wanted to separate themselves from other people (principally Spencer and Parrott-Heimbach), and instead of air out their real reasons (some of which were personal, others of which were connected to private, “inner party” disagreements that probably should not have been aired), they decided to make litmus tests out of issues that separated them.

"Airing” such as publicly calling people “insane” who have been involved in pro-White activism longer than you have?

Sometimes people cut intellectual and moral corners — for instance, jumping on the whole “cuckbox” incident with Parrott and Heimbach and mercilessly ridiculing them — but I definitely understand why they wanted to be rid of those people, because they were dishonest, cynical, embarrassing, and most probably collaborating with the enemy. 

Feds!  Feds!  Do we remember when Johnson was doing podcasts with Parrott?

Unfortunately, there was a lot of snobby bashing of poor white people, which I censored with a heavy hand around here. (Heimbach comes from an upper middle-class family and only LARPs as working class.)

Greg Johnson the working class hero. Working as a plumber in European men's rooms. Clearing out those clogged pipes, so to speak.

Since we are a metapolitical movement, I don’t think we should fear intellectual debate about philosophy and strategy/tactics. 

That’s why Johnson “bans” critics from Counter-Currents, refuses to debate them, and libels them as “insane.” What a despicable hypocrite.

We should never be dissuaded from such discussions by henpecking arguments about “infighting.” 

Or by purse-swinging, handbags-at-dawn accusations of “insanity.”

Since this is a serious movement, we must also call out bad actors when they appear, even if it is not “nice.” 

Yes, let’s call out the bad actor Greg Johnson. Let’s call out mophead and his $340K+ “executive compensation.”

Otherwise, the scum will rise to the top, then run the movement into the ground.

The story of the Alt Right, including Counter-Currents.

But Jim is right to suspect that some people in the movement push the optics debate and other sectarian wedge issues simply because they want to polarize the movement, fragment it, then build up their own following from the fragments at the expense of the health of the movement as a whole.

Look in the mirror, Johnson.

For instance, Richard Spencer turned on a dime from being “gay friendly” to pushing the retarded meme that gays are a race that reproduces by child molestation right around the time he was sucking up to TRS and trying to take down Milo. 

Well, it didn’t help “the gay cause” when you started attacking Spencer every five minutes.  We can of course rewrite Johnson’s sentence thus:

For instance, Greg Johnson turned on a dime from being “pan-European friendly” to pushing the retarded meme that ethnonationalism is good and empires started the world wars right around the time he was sucking up to HBD-Nordicists and trying to take down Richard Spencer.

That of course is not a defense of Spencer's behavior. Back to Johnson:

The American Nationalist crowd started chanting “Christ is king” right about the time they wanted to drive away atheists and pagans and National Socialists.

I thought Amnats were good, Greggy?

The common denominator of sectarians is they want to create a smaller movement that they control by making litmus tests out of side issues instead of uniting people around the common issue of racial survival. 

Like Johnson with pro-homosexuality, ethnonationalism, traditionalism, hatred of Richard Spencer, and hysterical reactions to any criticism.

It’s all so transparent and tiresome. It came from both sides in the optics war, and it is not healthy for the cause.

Hermansson, Lewis, The Pilleater Chronicles, The Homo and the Negro, and My Nationalist Pony are all good for the cause – and great optics too!

But I don’t think that the optics war was a net loss for the movement. It was the beginning of the end for some very bad characters..

Unfortunately not for Johnson.

…and it did clarify some real intellectual issues. 

Like?

But it did leave a very bitter aftertaste, which certainly contributes to the perceived malaise that people are talking about today. Is the movement malaise the PTSD of optics war veterans?

No, it is because your “movement” has been an utter failure for decades due to inept affirmative action losers like you.

The good news is that a quarter of our audience has come to us since 2018, and the optics war to them is as hazy as the battle of Iwo Jima. 

Sure!  People for whom 2018 is as hazy as WWII are just the types we need!  Well informed clear thinkers with a solid footing in a sound historical perspective!

They can benefit from the intellectual and tactical gains, as well as sidelining bad actors, without the hangover.

And then they can give “D’Nations.”

More:

…Being pro-white should be the litmus issue, and compared to it, all other questions shade away toward insignificance. 

Including if you are a pervert, fraud, grifter, etc.

That takes care of the big question of who belongs to the broader cause. 

White ethnics and dogs not allowed.

But when it comes to smaller questions, such as who you want to bring into your particular organization or movement, other questions apply. 

Indeed.

It is not enough to be pro-white if one lacks the character and skills necessary for a particular role in the movement. 

Greg Johnson, for example.  Also, he’s never answered the question as to what “character and skills” did Richard Spencer have to be made President of NPI?

A lot of the optics war was just a parting of the ways between people with differing visions who tried working together when things got exciting in 2016 and 2017.

And who was it back in 2016 and 2017 who had the foresight to point out that the Alt Right/WN 2.0 was a  disaster and that the “big tent” was a mistake?  That was the “insane” Sallis, while people like “big tent” Johnson were 100% on board the Alt Right train.

Greg JohnsonAugust 8, 2021 at 1:11 am

I’m flattered to be put on the same rung as Jared Taylor…

The affirmative action program marches on.

…The reason we will never successfully go from a decentralized movement to one with even a broad umbrella organization is that anybody can just say he is a white advocate. 

Indeed.

There are no standards and barriers to entry. 

Well, we can’t say that about Hermansson. There, the “standard” and “barrier” was “are you Swedish?”

Some of the people who have nominated themselves as one of us have turned out to be crazy…

If you criticize Johnson, then you are crazy and bitter – you insane paranoid piece of crap!

…or to have severe personality disorders, including drug and alcohol problems. 

Or do strange things in European men’s rooms.

Others are criminals. Others are informants for law enforcement or public and private intelligence and police agencies. 

Didn’t Goad write that folks who accuse others of being Feds are themselves Feds?

Some are well-meaning people who just have not accomplished anything. 

Other than being of the “right” ethnicity.

Have you noted that Johnson doesn’t list as faults such things as decades of endless failure, chronically poor judgment, tin cup grifting, sexual perversion, etc.?

One wonders why.

The idea that we would somehow benefit from cooperating with these people boils down to thinking that sane and sober people are more effective when working with their opposites, as well as criminals, informants, and amiable do-nothings. To me, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, and a miserable experience on the way.

Yes, my miserable experiences with the likes of Johnson.

I think the best model for the movement is simply for different people with different visions to build their own platforms. These parties can cooperate with each other to the extent that it is possible and beneficial, without sacrificing their autonomy to some sort of hierarchy.

But then why does Johnson always "punch right?"

Ideally, the best way to deal with people with conflicting visions of the movement is just to ignore them. 

Failing that, obsess over Richard Spencer and call Ted Sallis “insane.”

If you want to compete with them, do it by improving your own work rather than running down theirs. 

That from the person who has for years defended “punching right,” who has obsessively attacked Richard Spencer, and is known for feuding with anyone and everyone.

Trying to build your following through schisms seldom works and is bad for the movement as a whole, because people who are just arriving on the scene don’t want to take sides in old wars, and people who were around a long time will eventually check out from exhaustion.

What a hypocrite.

That said, even if you choose not to have enemies, enemies will choose you, and you will inevitably be drawn into battles. 

Like Johnson deciding to attack me and call me “insane.”

You may think that principles are more important than people and wish to criticize ideas, but others are not so broad-minded. You may not want to name names, but people will name themselves.

Johnson named himself.

Greg JohnsonAugust 8, 2021 at 12:51 am

Principles are more important than personalities. But principles don’t practice themselves. That requires people, which means that personalities come into play. That means that you are going to have judgments of good and bad, sincere and insincere, suitable and unsuitable people. 

This guy talks about judgment? Pilleater? Hermansson? Lewis? At one time he was associated with Spencer, Parrott…and if I am an “insane paranoid piece of crap” then why did Johnson first recruit me to Counter-Currents and then had me write for the site for several years?  Judgment?

Some of them are revealed as petty-minded and uninterested in anything but personal aggrandizement (themselves judgments about characters).

Personal aggrandizement – like mophead’s $340K+ “executive compensation?”

Note the inconsistency and hypocrisy in all of this. First he writes: “I think the best model for the movement is simply for different people with different visions to build their own platforms…Ideally, the best way to deal with people with conflicting visions of the movement is just to ignore them.” And then he avers that one should “punch right” and not only not ignore opposing people but "Since this is a serious movement, we must also call out bad actors when they appear, even if it is not 'nice.” and “…even if you choose not to have enemies, enemies will choose you, and you will inevitably be drawn into battles…You may think that principles are more important than people and wish to criticize ideas, but others are not so broad-minded. You may not want to name names, but people will name themselves.”

Am I wrong in thinking this conflates to – “Greg Johnson can punch right and criticize whomever he wants, but if you disagree with Johnson just ignore him and do your own thing.” The latter advice, besides being hypocritical, of course ignores the fact that the affirmative action stranglehold of “movement” niche space means that others cannot really just “do their own thing” without first clearing the field of Quota Queen debris.

The bottom-line – criticism is fine if is authentic, but criticism is most justified when the critic offers a solution, offers an alternative to what they criticize.

I for one do so.