This is a guest post by Modernity
Apparently some members of the UCU activist list are having problems discerning which material is fit for inclusion in civilised and academic debate; sadly one of them made the very egregious mistake of posting information from David Duke’s web site.
In mitigation another UCU activist commented “This has made me crucially aware of how difficult it is to set out rules, even guidelines, for avoiding errors. “
I can’t think why academics can’t apply some critical thinking to material found on the Internet; however, for the benefit of Mr. Cushman and other UCU activists here’s a very simple guide:
“For UCU Activists – How To Avoid Re-posting from Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan or White Power Web Sites.”
A word of warning: modern day neo-Nazis, Holocaust revisionists, White Power freaks and certified Jew haters do not always advertise their loathings so conspicuously, they have learnt to dress up their hatreds and make them more acceptable, more palatable to the undiscerning reader.
So initially you won’t necessarily see “we love Hitler” plastered all over their web sites, rather they will push a few dissident Jewish anti-Zionists in the hope that it fools the gullible, and make their diet of vile anti-Jewish racism somehow more palatable.
Don’t be fooled.
Broadly speaking there are five stages:
Preliminary scan.
Checking the initial link.
Verifying the author.
Examining the article.
Watching out for telltale signs.
Scanning the Symbols.
The preliminary scan of any dodgy web site is fairly simple, just look out for the obvious neo-Nazi insignia or Celtic symbols, combined with some lurid stories or references to Jews.
The Link.
1. Find a link on the Internet.
2. Go to the home page of that particular link.
3. If it says “David Duke”, “White Power”, “Aryan Nation” “Hitler”, “National Socialism is good” or “KKK”* then bin that link, it is from a neo-Nazi web site or one of their friends and go to step 1again.
The Author.
4. Having found a link, verify the author.
5. Throw their name into Google with the selection of the following key words:
9/11, New World Order, supremacy, revisionism, Serbia, truth, Illuminati, Israel, etc.
6. Read the results and if the links are predominately to places like Jewish Tribal Review, Jew Watch, Stormfront, National Vanguard, Ziopedia, Rense, or sites that talk about National Socialism a lot then bin that link and go to step 1 once more.
The Contents.
7. Having found an article, look up the author’s previous works and ask the questions: does he/she essentialise different ethnic groupings? Does he/she appear to be paranoid? Or use conspiracy theories? Is there an overriding fixation?
8. Now read the article and look for discrepancies: is one work quoted a lot? Does the author entertain counter arguments? Does the article read like a screed? Try to cross reference any works cited and see if the article represent the arguments accurately?
9. Is the article consistently negative towards Jews, no matter how they are characterised, whatever euphemism or insult is used (“Cosmopolitan”, “Hebrew”, “Zionist” **,”Red Sea Pedestrian”,”Israeli, etc).
10. Does the author argue that the witless Goy/Goyim/Gentile has been fooled by the wily “Zionist” **? Or suggest that the media is controlled by manipulative “Zionists”?
If so, then you’ve probably hit jackpot, it is antisemitic filth and shouldn’t be recycled or passed on to others, particularly on union-sanctioned email lists.
11. At this point, by using the above method and some common sense, you probably will have filtered out 95% of the neo-Nazi filth from the web.
That wasn’t so hard was it?
Warning Signs.
Finally, watch out for lurid colours, multiple fonts, etc.– that’s a big of a give way of a crank web site.
If these web sites use words like “International Jewry” or have references to mind control, tentacles,etc., then watch out. Oh, and if they post stuff from David Duke that is really, really a no no!
Finally, it is best to avoid sites that promote or approve of thetruthseeker, zundelsite, natvan, conspiracyplanet, ihr, codoh, adelaideinstitute, vho, zionistswatch ***.
If in doubt, don’t use the material. Email one of the many anti-racist/anti-fascist organisations and ask advice.
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* Extending on to include any sites that rant about Jews, New World Order, 9/11 and dancing Jews, etc.
** Don’t be fooled if some neo-Nazi site uses the transparent tactics of switching “Zionist” for the word “Jew”, they really really mean “Jew!”, but think they’re being smart.
*** This is not a complete list, use own discretion.
PS: If you still don’t know anything about David Duke, read this article:
“WunderkindDavid Duke’s preoccupation with racist ideology dates back to his youth. At 17, he became active in right-wing extremist groups. While attending Louisiana State University in the early 1970s, he founded the White Youth Alliance, a group affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Socialist White People’s Party in Arlington, Virginia. To protest a speech by attorney William Kunstler at Tulane University, Duke picketed wearing a Nazi brown shirt and a swastika armband and carried a placard that said “Kunstler is a Communist-Jew” and “Gas the Chicago 7” (referring to the well-known leftist activists). Duke now describes the event as a folly of youth.
Shortly after graduating in 1974, Duke covered his swastika with a Klan robe and founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He first came to broad public attention during this time: the young Imperial Wizard successfully marketed himself in the mid-1970s as a new brand of Klansman – well-groomed, engaged, professional: the Klan leader as a corporate manager. And as a progressive: for the first time in the group’s history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership.”