Anti-Racist Action Conference, Portland, July 22 thru 25

Some friends and I tried to go to this conference. They wouldn't let us in, though it was hardly overcrowded. It was amusing to see their 'security guards' in their anti-fascist uniforms (British mod revival, late seventies). One of us heard them talking about us on their walkie-talkies. They must have been disappointed it was just a few peace activists outside to oppose them rather than 'Nazis'. We plastered the place with the following flyer. One correction - it says the director of 'If Americans Knew' was trying to address the disparity in reporting children's deaths when Zionists attacked her at an anti-racist meeting. In fact, she was also raising the issue of Israeli organ theft - that's what got the Zios going, and because it sounds anti-semitic, anti-racists won't tolerate it, regardless of its accuracy.

(Original post, 26 June):

Some of us would like to attend this event and provide a critical perspective:

- The Far Right and the Ecology Movement
- Anti-Semitism and Holocaust-Denial
- White Supremacy and the Police
- Anti-Racist Organizing in Rural Communities
- Left-wing Anti-Semitism and Left/Right Overlap

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2010/06/400509.shtml

This list mentions anti-semitism twice, and holocaust denial and white supremacy once each. They seem to think that the Klan are on the march, and Obama has just been JFKed. You'd think that America supports a white, rather than a Jewish, apartheid state. They don't mention Jewish power in the media and its connection to Islamophobia. We - me and my vast underground army of supporters - would like to talk about this. This perspective is certainly a valid one at a conference which claims to be 'anti-racist'.

'Holocaust denial' is a Zionist phrase. It is of no benefit to anyone except Jewish supremacists to slander, harrass or imprison the likes of David Irving. ARA claims listening to such voices of opposition to Jewish power is 'fascist organizing'. As if listening to a talk about the Frankfurt School, or code-breaking during World War Two, would inspire someone to go out and kill an Ethiopian with a baseball bat, or make a Jew into a lampshade.

They will not allow anyone to present a Palestinian perspective on 'left/right overlap'. They talk the same way as mainstream Zionists do - there is a danger of left-wing and right-wing critics of Israel talking to each other. ARA's message to Palestinians is, in effect - 'we would rather see you dead than compromise our precious little politically correct principles'.

Anti-fascism is incompatible with opposition to the only significant form of racism in the Western world today. Real opposition to real racism means challenging the views of ARA.

dont-rock-the-boat-a-critique-of-a-pamphlet-defending-zionism-in-the-american-left

The ARA and similar groups opposes the ideas put forward in my pamphlet 'The Mass Psychology of Anti-Fascism', but are too sectarian to openly explain why. They won't talk to people who talk to people who talk to people whom they claim are 'fascist' or 'anti-semitic'.

They are aware of my pamphlet and other writings, but avoid answering them directly. They should say "here are Jay's arguments, and this is why he's wrong", but instead, they criticize 'those who pretend' that anti-semitism is any less harmful than other forms of racism. This slyly implies two things, neither of which they attempt to demonstrate:

• Anti-semitism is as bad as other variants of xenophobia
• Jay Knott knows this to be true, but pretends otherwise
  

Obviously, they cannot know whether the second of these is true, so they are lying when they say they do know. As for the first, its debatable. I and other like-minded comrades are up for debate about it. We do not defend freedom of speech because we are 'liberals' as well as 'fascists', but because this is how we acquire knowledge about the world.

ARA sectarianism is convenient - by placing me, and increasingly, anyone who supports the Palestinian cause, beyond the pale, they escape the obligation to answer their critics and defend their arguments. This is a road well-travelled, and it leads to a self-referential cult. In contrast, the Western tradition accepts that any theory can in principle be falsified.