Losers, Hobbyists, and the “Movement”
Editorial by Dr. Pierce from National Alliance BULLETIN, March 2000
An interesting psychological phenomenon on which I have commented on in several issues of the BULLETIN is that displayed by people who send hostile letters to the National Office saying, in effect: “You people claim to be Christians, but you ignore the teachings of the Bible, which says that all races are the same. Don’t you even know that Jesus was a Jew?” They have had the idea planted in their heads that the Alliance is some sort of Christian organization, presumably by Jewish propaganda linking us to Christian Identity and Catholic traditionalist groups, which also are on the Jews’ hit list. Reading our material or listening to one of my broadcasts should persuade them otherwise, but it doesn’t. It probably took quite a bit of effort by the Jews to pound the idea into their heads, and it’ll take dynamite to get it out.
Unfortunately, one can observe a similar phenomenon in many people nominally on our side, even in some Alliance members. I have announced over and over again our policy toward other organizations, and I nevertheless continue to receive letters to the effect: “All of us in the ‘movement’ must stick together. We should unite with all of the other patriotic organizations, and then we’ll be much stronger. Etc.” To me this view indicates either hobbyism or a serious deficiency in the writer’s powers of discrimination. If you don’t remember what hobbyism is, re-read section 3.c.iii.2 of your copy of the Membership Handbook.
The Internet has given many inadequate people the ability to pretend to be more than they are. Any troubled teenager or unemployed alcoholic can get a web site, set himself up as a phone-booth Fuhrer, and begin collecting “followers,” and many do. They are the ones to whom the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center are referring when they announce that “the number of ‘hate groups’ on the Internet is now 457, up 23 per cent since 1999.” Two outstanding examples are a teenaged Jew named Andy Greenbaum, who used the name “Bo Decker” and set up an “organization” he called “Knights of Freedom”; and a professional disseminator of disinformation named Harold Covington (a.k.a. “Winston Smith”). Greenbaum self-destructed last year, when he announced a giant march in Washington and only two of his “followers” showed up for the march. Covington occasionally still makes Internet attacks on the Alliance, but he is far less prolific than he was a year or so ago.
There are dozens of others who are still active, however. One is a TV repairman in California named Tom Metzger, who publishes a tabloid addressed primarily to skinheads and prisoners called “White Aryan Resistance’ (“WAR”). Metzger promotes an ideology that is a blend of racial nationalism and class resentment, commonly called “national bolshevism.” Another, also in California, publishes a newsletter called “The Nationalist Observer.” Both are proponents of an “strategy” known as “leaderless resistance,” according to which, at the appropriate time, hundreds or even thousands of revolutionary cells, consisting of one to five patriots each, will materialize spontaneously and will overthrow the government by sabotaging or bombing government and media facilities and assassinating politicians, leading Jews, collaborators, and other enemies of our people. All of these cells will operate independently, without centralized organization or direction or infrastructure, so that it will be nearly impossible for the government to infiltrate them or spy on them, and the government never will know where or when they will strike next.
Actually, Metzger and other “leaderless resistance” advocates are not so much in favor of “leaderless resistance” as they are against any sort of organized activity. Their thesis is that any organized activity is certain to fail because it will be infiltrated by government informants and provocateurs, and that any racial patriot who joins an organization is a fool who is allowing the government to get his name on the blacklist for unspecified, but presumably severe, reprisals.
All of this theorizing takes place in the make-believe world of revolutionary hobbyism. In the real world, “leaderless resistance” is simply an excuse for losers, cowards, and shirkers to do nothing except talk to each other. Building an effective organization of any sort is difficult work, and those who don’t like work or who have tried to build an organization and failed often are resentful of any effort that shows signs of success. Their reasoning is, “I tried it and wasn’t successful; therefore, it can’t be done.” And the reason that nearly every organizational effort has failed has not been government spies or provocateurs; it has been the low quality of the human material in the organization. Certainly, the Alliance has never had any damage done to it by government agents. Every major difficulty we have had has been the consequence of bad judgment or bad behavior on the part of a member.
It’s always difficult working with people. It must be a real nightmare trying to run an organization that has no quality standards for membership and that maintains a flamboyant and sensationalist public image attractive to hooligans, drunken brawlers, criminals, sociopaths, and other losers.
The latest issue of Resistance Magazine (of which I am the publisher) had an article written by a professional soldier who pointed out the unworkability of “leaderless resistance.” Unfortunately, he mistakenly used the “Order” organized in 1984 by Robert Mathews as an example of why it doesn’t work. In fact, the “Order,” based on the fictional organization of the same name in The Turner Diaries, was a centralized organization with a strong leader. Because of the author’s slip, a few of the phone-booth Fuhrers, who already were resentful of the Alliance’s progress and were stung by the article’s undiplomatic treatment of their favorite excuse for their own failure, saw an opportunity to criticize the Alliance and seized it. They Xeroxed dozens of copies of the offending article and mailed them to everyone on their mailing lists, including the imprisoned surviving members of the “Order.” They wrote a letter to go with the Xeroxed article, and although Robert Mathews is not even named in the article, their letter said, in effect: “Look, look! Pierce is attacking Bob Mathews, our martyred hero! Isn’t that shameful?”
Seeing the article described as an attack on Robert Mathews led some of the readers to look at it that way, and they duly registered their own indignation. The phone-booth Fuhrers then posted everything to the Internet, where it was the most titillating subject for gossip among the hobbyists for several weeks. The term “movement” was frequently used by the hobbyists, as in: “Pierce has shown disrespect for a martyr of the ‘movement.’ He should be expelled from the ‘movement.’” Or: “No, no! We must have unity in the ‘movement.’”
It’s a little hard to say exactly what the term means to the Internet gossips. To most, it seems to be a clubby sort of concept which includes all of “us” and excludes everyone else. Although I have found the term useful in some contexts in the past, it probably should be abandoned because it has been so badly misused by the hobbyists. Really, what self respecting racial nationalist wants to be considered part of a “movement’ which includes all of the phone-booth Fuhrers, the Internet gossips, and an embarrassingly high quota of born losers?
It’s easy enough to understand this club mentality. As our society disintegrates under the onslaught of Jew-instigated multiculturalism, people look for something to hold onto: a sense of belonging, of community. We feel more secure when we have a sense of solidarity with others of like mind. A comforting sense of security is not the primary thing that Alliance members should be seeking, however. We want strength. We want new capabilities. We want to gain an advantage over the enemies of our people. We want anything which brings us closer to victory, whether it is comfortable or not.
The truth of the matter is, there’s not much advantage to be gained inside the “movement.” It is too heavily freighted with chronic losers, incurable hobbyists, phone-booth Fuhrers, and other defectives. Perhaps the “movement” is no worse than the general public in this regard, but we’re looking for the best and strongest people we can find, and we find them much more often outside the “movement” than inside it. It is time for all members who have been focused on the “movement” either to reorient themselves in an outward direction or to find another organization to devote themselves to. As our tempo and our work load increase, being in the Alliance will be less and less fun for those whose primary aim is to amuse themselves with “movement” gossip. And I will have less patience with hobbyists and with those who believe that the Alliance is part of the “movement.” Our aim is not to be the biggest and best organization in the “movement”; it is to leave the “movement” to its clubby introspection while we get on with the job of building a revolutionary infrastructure.
We respect our martyrs, and all of those who have shown courage or made sacrifices for our people, but we’ll build monuments to them after the revolution. Meanwhile, winning is all that we care about, not the fun of playing the game by “movement” rules.
W.L.P
Leaderless resistance seems to have a lot in common with libertarianism. Faith in the individual! Such positions are naive but since they are also very American they may be sincerely held by Americans. I heard Metzger say matter-of-factly in a recent podcast (Fourth Position, on Talkshoe) that in all his years of activism he really hadn’t accomplished anything. This shows sincerity on his part. The fact that he was using a faulty approach doesn’t mean that he didn’t believe in what he was doing.
And he may have done some good after all, with all his publicity-seeking in the late 80s. John Metzger’s appearance on Larry King Live got me thinking about the Jewish Problem, since that was the only thing he’d said about which I had doubts.
Do we really want to put Tom Metzger in the same “hobbyist” category as some people that are patently insincere? It seems a bit rash to me. Would Dr. Pierce have made such a statement for public consumption? I doubt it.