League of the South Looks to Street Theater to Increase Visibility
You will know the League of the South鈥檚 street demonstrators by their flags 鈥 a variety of Confederate flags, yellow 鈥淒on鈥檛 Tread on Me鈥 Gadsden flags and stark, black-and-white so-called flags. If the league鈥檚 organizers see their hopes realized, such demonstrators will be a common sight on city streets and plazas in the South.
The league鈥檚 leaders have developed a street demonstration strategy they hope will increase their public profile in the coming months. At a last month, they unveiled some of the details of that program, including a protest of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery in May.
The Alabama gathering, held at the league鈥檚 meeting hall in Wetumpka, near Montgomery, featured speeches by president , Georgia chapter chairman Ed Wolfe, South Carolina chapter chairman Michael Cushman and Brad Griffin, editor of the Occidental Dissent blog, who writes under the nom de plume 鈥淗unter Wallace鈥. Griffin recently wrote about the league鈥檚 strategic shift in a post titled, 鈥.鈥
The shift appears to be primarily Hill鈥檚 idea, as he made clear in his opening remarks, and seems to be connected to the increasingly belligerent and radical positions he has staked out in recent years 鈥搒ymbolized by his exchange with a black reporter in Tallahassee . Upon being asked if he minded if the league was depicted as a 鈥渂unch of racists鈥, Hill responded: 鈥淪o what? I鈥檓 standing up for my people 鈥 white Southern people 鈥 no one else.鈥
Several of the conference speakers celebrated Hill鈥檚 response, including Griffin, who added: 鈥淲e鈥檙e standing up for our people. It is the right thing to do, it is what we ought to do. We should have started doing it a long time ago. The fear of sticking our necks out has long been one of our worst enemies, and that more than anything has to be overcome before we can gather the numbers to move forth.鈥
Griffin and the other speakers argued that street demonstrations will provide people with a clearer view of their choices. They presented a disparaging view of counter-protesters, typically describing them, as Griffin did , as 鈥渁 bunch of queers and lesbians gyrating on a sidewalk with tambourine.鈥
Cushman celebrated the shift toward unapologetic racism by observing that the league was 鈥渟mashing that taboo鈥: 鈥淲e鈥檙e supposed to be embarrassed to talk about race. We鈥檙e supposed to turn red in the face and kind of turn away and whisper if we say anything at all about race. We鈥檙e smashing that taboo as well.鈥
Wolfe, meanwhile, demonstrated that the league is of Posse Comitatus/sovereign citizen theories of government, describing at length how the United States is 鈥渘ot a nation, but a corporation.鈥 Wolfe then argued that the Southern states more naturally made a true 鈥渘ation鈥 since the white people in it were 鈥渂ound by blood鈥.
Hill, in a video made at the gathering, elucidated Wolfe鈥檚 point even farther, explaining that while people mistakenly believe 鈥渘ationalism鈥 relates to political borders, it actually relates to 鈥渂orders that distinguish a people, a blood people.鈥 He then went on a rant about those borders:
And who are our people? Our people are white European Southerners. Now, we鈥檙e mainly from the British Isles, but we鈥檙e also from other parts of northern and western Europe, and even parts of central Europe. But we are a distinctive people, based on blood. And from that blood comes culture. And from that culture comes our political institutions, and from the political institutions come our borders, and our nations 鈥 our nation-states, as we call them.
Germany, France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden 鈥 Dixie. They鈥檙e all the same. We are a people. We are a nation. We are a blood, with the land.
Predictably, Hill鈥檚 remarks at the gathering were all about whipping up ethnic fears, warning that the white majority population of the United States was on the verge of becoming a minority, which 鈥渨ill mean the end of our civilization.鈥 He went on: 鈥淭here comes a time when you got to get just pure mad-dog mean. If your civilization is worth fighting for, that鈥檚 what you will 鈥 you will let nothing deter you from it.鈥