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For the last year, researchers and journalists have speculated about whether the mostly-online alt-right movement would ever coalesce with real world action. They excelled with memes and trolling, but was there more to it?

Its happening now, with the proliferation of street gangs inspired by the alt-right who are showing up at rallies across the country.

The New York Times recently described such groups as part of a growing movement that has injected a new element of violence into street demonstrations across the country.

One such group is the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, founded by Kyle Chapman, known online as Based Stickman. The name comes from a widely-circulated video in which Chapman hits a counter protestor with a stick. Based is slang for not caring about how you are perceived by others. The Proud Boys is another prominent group, spearheaded by Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes.

These alt-right inspired groups are part fight club, part Western-pride fraternity, the Times writes, which recruit battalions of mainly young white men for one-off confrontations with the left-wing anti-fascist protestors who have also become fixtures at protests in recent months.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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'Alt-Right' Gangs Like Proud Boys Ramp Up Activity The Forward - Forward

Pro-Trump demonstrators at the rally on Sunday. The event sparked controversy in the wake of a racially charged killing. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Republicans have used a controversial alt-right rally in Portland, held in the wake of the the killing spree allegedly perpetrated by a local white supremacist, to recruit new members to the party.

The effort was led by James Buchal, chair of the Multnomah County Republican party, who urged attendees at the rally on Sunday to join to the GOP. Details of his efforts were uncovered in a recording from the rally.

I want to say, since I am involved in the Republican party, that the structure to change the government officials in a party, a political party, Buchal told the crowd . And we are looking for young conservatives to get active in the Multnomah County Republican party.

He added: Were looking for young conservatives to step up and run for local offices. We need to get control of local school boards and every other local district. We need people on the streets talking to people, knocking on doors, making phone calls. The party is there, the party is open. Come and help us win America back.

On Monday, Buchal confirmed to the Guardian that he used the controversial rally to recruit new GOP members, and said the effort paid off. I have had a handful of calls from people, but I do not know whether or not they are rally participants, and I did not ask them.

Buchal shared a platform at the event with Kyle Based Stickman Chapman, who became a cult figure in the far right movement after wielding a stick in a skirmish with anti-fascist protesters in Berkeley.

Not long after Buchal spoke, the leader of the militant Oath Keepers group, Stuart Rhodes, publicly swore Tusitala Tiny Toese into the organisation. Toese was filmed punching an anti-fascist demonstrator to the ground during a confrontation last month, later defending the move as an act of self-defense.

Buchal and the organisers of Sundays rally, which was ostensibly a protest over free speech, have distanced themselves from Jeremy Christian, who is accused of fatally stabbing two men in Portland when they tried to shield young women from his anti-Muslim tirade.

However the decision to press ahead with the rally, so soon after the racially-charged murders, has inflamed tensions in Portland.

Buchal is the same senior local Republican that the Guardian previously reported was considering using the Oath Keepers and a similar group called The Three Percenters as security, because of what he called belligerent, unstable people who are convinced that Republicans are like Nazis.

The same militant groups provided security for the Sundays rally in downtown Portland, where anti-fascist counter-protesters had tear gas and rubber bullets deployed against them by riot police.

Buchal praised the Oath Keepers in his speech on Sunday, comparing them to the two men who victims who were allegedly murdered by Christian.

Now, theres been a lot of attacks on people like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. People say that theyre racist and theyre evil, well you know what? I think theyre acting from the same moral impulse that Rick Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche had.

He continued: They are there to protect. They see that wolves are on the rise, and they step forward like sheep dogs to protect us. The people who cant see that, the people sitting in that office over there who cant see that? They are morally blind.

Buchal said he did not attend the event in any official capacity. His main purpose was to investigate whether some of the media claims concerning the event were correct: that the rally would consist of hate speech uttered by bigots and white supremacists.

Asked about the impression he formed following his investigation, Buchal said: I did not find that to be the truth.

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Republicans use 'alt-right' Portland rally to recruit new members - The Guardian

A newDaily Beast report reveals that members of a European alt-right group aim to defend Europe by chasing down boats full of Libyan refugees off the coast of Italy.

After successfullyraising more than 50,000 poundsfor boats andequipment, the Defend Europe project led by a group who call themselves Identitarians wrote thatthey are on a mission to rescue Europe by defending the Mediterranean Sea by stopping illegal immigration.

The illegal immigrants they claim to be stopping are, according to theBeast, the thousands of migrants and refugees who arrive in Italy from Libya every week. Their methods include attacking humanitarian ships and they have claimed they will protect Europes borders at sea at any cost.

Although most of the Libyans who make the dangerous journey to Italy via the Mediteranneando not do so legally, many humanitarian groups aim to help them and according to the Beast,those groups are also the targets of Identitarian ire.

When the governments fail, we step in because this land is ours, the Identitarians said in a video describing their Defend Europe mission. It starts and has to end here.

Last month, Defend Europe members hit a humanitarian ship owned by a French organization calledSOS Mditerrene. The Identitarian ship reportedly bore Canadian activist Lauren Southern, a supporter of American President Donald Trump.

TheBeast report also suggests the tiny boat of fringe activists might have been gained access to the SOS Mditerrene due to either overt or implied help by Sicilian prosecutorCarmelo Zuccaro, an official well-known for his stance against immigrants and the nongovernmental organizations that aid them.

The Identitarian movement began in France in the early 2000s, but has spread through Europes wealthier nations where anti-immigration sentiments are strongest. They are reportedly close with the American alt-right so much so that they often fly the same flag bearing the Greek lambda.

Watch video of the attack on the SOSMditerrene below.

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European alt-right activists 'protect Europe's borders' by chasing refugees away at sea: report - Raw Story

(CNN)There are many different types of artist, but if you were going to distill them all into just two groups you could say that there is the interior artist -- the one guided by nothing but their own dreams and visions -- and the exterior artist, who looks at the culture around them and finds inspiration within it. Television presenter, transvestite, tapestry-weaver and ceramicist Grayson Perry is very much one of the latter.

It may have taken him 20 years to break into the public consciousness (his household name status confirmed by attending his 2003 Turner Prize win in a crinoline party frock), but ever since he's been the closest thing Britain has to a truly public artist in the mold of Dali or Warhol.

"Oh god yeah, I'm definitely a populist artist", he proudly declared. "I make art for as wide an audience as possible. I'm interested in increasing the amount of people that come through the doors here."

"The title of the show came about because it made me laugh really," he says. "The art world struggles with popularity and populism, which has been brewing over the last few years as a current political force."

Photos: 'Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!'

"Matching Pair" (2017) by Grayson Perry

Photos: 'Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!'

"Death of a Working Hero" (2016) by Grayson Perry

Photos: 'Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!'

"Animal Spirit" (2016) by Grayson Perry

Photos: 'Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!'

"The Digmoor Tapestry" (2016) Grayson Perry

Photos: 'Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!'

"King of Nowhere" (2015) by Grayson Perry

What do these terms mean to him? Surely he -- a fine artist in a dress -- has little in common with the likes of Farage and Trump?

"Populism is the version of popular that other people don't like," he says. "It's used as an insult. It's like, 'When loads of people like me, it's popular. But when loads of people like you, it's populism.'"

Time will tell how just how popular the show turns out to be, but it's already generating considerable interest. Sitting next to Serpentine director and cultural sultan Hans Ulrich Obrist in front of a throng of press, Perry seems very much the celebrity.

Yet his work itself is deeply rooted in the everyday, depicting themes and subjects that wouldn't usually make it into a major art show in a big city, such as the Brexit voters whose photos form the basis of the show's centerpiece: two ceramic vases named "Matching Pair."

"I call this part of the exhibition the mantelshelf of Britain," Perry says, surveying his creations. "One vase reflects the likes, the emotions, the interests of the Leave voter, and the other the Remain voters. I asked them over social media to send me their photographs of things they liked about Britain and portraits, their favorite brands, figures from history and our popular imagination who stand for what they believe in."

However for Perry, it's the connections between the two vases, rather than the differences, that ring true.

"Interestingly, they've come out quite similar because they both chose blue as the dominant color, as well as many similar images as well ... I haven't labeled them, but you can work out which one's which on closer examination. I think that reflects the layered identity we have as British people," he says. "Brexit isn't necessarily in the foreground. We've got many more identity issues when it comes to Brexit."

When it comes to the bitter rifts of generation, location, race and gender that Brexit did it's best to deepen, Perry is optimistic that they can be patched up -- in the long-term at least.

Grayson Perry at the press preview of "The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!" at the Serpentine Gallery

"I think in the heat around the referendum we saw this sort of new version of culture wars that happened in Britain. But I think it is not necessarily the headline of our identity -- and it will subside. It is just around the Brexit debate and the fallout from that and then into the election," he says.

"Brexit is still a hugely important issue, but I think as long as we address the underlying ... grievances that motivated people around the debate, then hopefully the poison will be lanced."

The show opens on the eve of the general election, a schedule clash that seems to suit his mirror-holding sense of chaos. How does he feel, hosting a major exhibition about British culture, on the eve of the most polarized election since the '80s?

"I love opening my show on the eve of a general election. It's perfect timing," he cackles, before getting serious again. "Some of the issues involved in the election are in my show, and it creates a febrile atmosphere where people are interested in the state of the nation, and that's something I've been interested in for a very long time."

"Also there is that difficult lull between going to vote and the results coming in, a perfect time to come to the opening," he adds, surely only half-joking.

Continued here:
State of the nation: Grayson Perry on Brexit, Britishness and culture wars - CNN

Internet providers should be able to experiment with giving subscribers free stuff, such as access to Wikipedia and other public information and services on their smartphones. Unfortunately, confusion about whether todays net neutrality regulations allow U.S. providers to make content available without it counting against your data plana practice called zero ratinghas discouraged many companies from doing so, even though zero-rating experiments are presumptively legal under todays net neutrality regulations.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already taken steps to clear away the discouragement of such experiments. After Ajit Pai took over as FCC chairman in January, he moved to end theinvestigations, begun under his predecessor, into companies that have tried to go down that path. And of course Chairman Pai also opened a rulemaking proceeding in April aimed at rolling back those rules, which invited and allowed the FCCs Wireline Bureau to start those investigations. But these steps alone havent sent the kind of staunch, affirmative encouragement thats really needed.

The lack of clarity about zero-rating could change overnight, however, and it wouldnt require any new laws, any new regulations, any new quasi-formal inquiries from the commissionersor even Pais proposed rollback of the 2015 regulatory order. All it would take would be for Pai to call openly (in speeches or interviews, say, or other public appearances) and frequently for internet providers to experiment with adding zero-rated public information to their offerings.

Zero-rating experiments can be a win-win-win: Customers get access to more useful content for the same price; companies have more options for attracting users and expanding their business; and society at large benefits when greater numbers of people are exposed to valuable resources such as Wikipedia, public-health information, and other noncommercial apps and websites.

But the big fear among some net neutrality activists is that commercial zero-rating will favor well-heeled incumbents over lean new innovators. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)put itin 2016, The most dangerous of these plans, such as the AT&T and Verizon offerings, only offer their users zero-rated data from content providers who pay the carriers money to do so. Such pay for play arrangements favor big content providers who can afford to pay for access to users eyeballs, and marginalize those who cant, such as nonprofits, startups and fellow users. Even noncommercial zero-rated offerings may a problem, EFF argued. These include the risk of distorting content consumption in favor of already-popular nonsubscription services (think Googles search engine or Facebook) or the walled garden effecti.e., that some price-sensitive customers may choose never to venture outside of the zero-rated services sponsored by the internet provider.

But what evidence we do have suggests that zero rating enablesnet new traffic, because people visit destinations that they would not otherwise. Roslyn Layton of Aalborg University has shown that at least10 million peoplein developing countries use free data to access pregnancy and AIDS information.

The fact is, information sources like Wikipedia regularly drive traffic to the larger internet. A zero-rated, stripped-down, low-bandwidth version of the free online encyclopedia, called Wikipedia Zero, is already offered in dozens of developing countries around the world, which actually makes it easier to find relevant information and services on the non-zero-rated web. For instance, theWikipedia entry for Wikipedia Zeroincludes links pointing users to both nonprofit sites and for-profit, advertising-supported sitesincluding many sources that are themselves critical of the Wikipedia Zero platform for being inconsistent with certain conceptions of network neutrality.

As Ivewritten herebefore, I favor both net neutrality as a general principle, understood as an evolution of the common-carriage rules that have long governed telephone service and traditional mail as well as an evolution of the internets history as an open platform that anybody can provide new content or services for. But Ivealso writtenin favor of a zero-rating as a tool (though hardly the only one) that I believe could help bring the rest of the world online in my lifetime.

I can hold both positions because I reject the prevalent view that net neutrality means internet providers have to treat different types of web content absolutely identicallyespecially if it stops someone from giving free but limited web access to those who wouldnt otherwise have internet access at alland who could learn about the larger internet through the external links embedded in free, open resources like Wikipedia.

The digital divide isnt just aglobal problem. Its also an issue much closer to home: Pew Research Centerdata indicatethat Americans who rely on their mobile devices for their sole or primary source of internet access are disproportionately from the lowest income groups. Pew identifies a broad group of Americans (about 15 percent) as smartphone dependent, and concluded in a comprehensive 2015 paper that even as a substantial minority of Americans indicate that their phone plays a central role in their ability to access digital services and online content, for many users this access is often intermittent due to a combination of financial stresses and technical constraints.

Editing or otherwise contributing to Wikipedia may crowd your data cap, because if you write or edit an entry, you typically have to reload (and maybe keep reloading) it to see how the changes look. This can require two or more orders of magnitude more bandwidth than just consulting Wikipedia does. But Wikipedia as an informational resource depends on ongoing contributions from everyonenot just users who can afford to pay for unlimited data.

The best-case scenario is a world in which every American is motivated to take advantage of the internet, in which we all have access to the whole internet, and in which internet providers can afford to offer that level of service to everyone. The best way to get to that point in a hurry, though, is to get more people online and sampling what the web has to offer. Encouraging noncommercial services like Wikipedia Zero and FacebooksFree Basicscan help make that happen.

Pai and, ideally, other commissioners should come out strongly and expresslyvia speeches and other nonregulatory forums, including responses to press inquiriesin favor of internet providers offering zero-rated services, especially those that arent pay-for-play. Repeatedly sending the right message can do as much as deregulation to encourage innovation of this sort.

Id also want the commissioners to urge U.S. internet providers to share their data about whether zero-rated services improve internet adoption, both among smartphone-only users and in general. With more information, the FCC can make more informed decisions going forward about what kinds of open-internet regulations to adoptor to remove.

Image byM-SUR

http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/04/everyone-should-be-getting-wikipedia-for

Reason

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Everyone should be getting Wikipedia for free - R Street