Comments by Trainspotter, 1

With this entry I’ll start collecting some of the insightful comments authored by a blogger who uses the penname of Trainspotter. This one comes from a C-C thread:

Today, white nationalism at least has the beginnings of a meaningful intellectual scene. Since the intellectual side has to come first in any truly revolutionary movement, this is a damn good thing to have. For right now, it’s the only thing that matters, though in time that will change.

I suspect that a lot of our brightest people got their start with [William L.] Pierce, who offered insightful and incisive analysis in a way that nobody else was. Perhaps some of you are old enough to remember the sort of floundering Right of the 90′s. I was pretty young then, fresh out of college, and wasn’t even online. Every now and again I’d come across some right wing, racially oriented material—you know, real paper and ink. It was invariably awful. The huge captions, the photos of snarling blacks, text written at about a sixth grade level. It was, in a word, tacky.

Yes, we know that niggers commit lots of murders. Yes we know that they commit lots of rapes. So… let’s put on white robes and burn a cross in somebody’s yard. After all, it’s 1995. Bound to work. Why change a winning formula?

Looking back on those strange days, it strikes me as almost kitsch. So hopelessly ridiculous and out of touch with the real trends that were sweeping society.

Now, maybe simple material has its place, and some will even need to be targeted at a middle school level. But first, you’ve got to have some really bright people who can put together a credible movement. Without that, you’re just lowbrow losers in the minds of most. People don’t follow lowbrow losers. Everyone “knows” that you don’t say certain things in public. Therefore, by definition, if you do say those certain things, or pass those words out in the form of a leaflet—you’re weird. You’re a loser. Unless… you obviously aren’t. Pierce obviously wasn’t, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Then, around 2000, I got online. So great was my thirst for the white perspective that I immediately sought out racialist sites. After seeing the nineties up close and personal, I had already largely radicalized on my own. But I didn’t really know where to go with it, and there were still a lot of connections that I had yet to make.

So, literally within seconds of my first getting online, I took a beeline for white nationalism—no passing go or collecting $200. I remember bopping around a bit. I had already heard of Stormfront, so I went there. Eh, it was o.k. I still go there just to see news links, but it never really had much influence upon me (until much later with poster The Old Man, from whom I learned a thing or two—no longer at Stormfront by the way, he’s moved over to Kelso’s forum with the username Edmund Ruffin). I also remember an Alex Curtis, and checking his site out. A few interesting posts, but again… eh. Frankly, I was disappointed.

Then I found Pierce and his weekly broadcasts. It was like striking gold. Nothing tacky or kitsch about it. Just a very intelligent white man with an uncanny knack for addressing contemporary issues, yet with a perspective that seemed inclusive of all the ages, from the primordial mists to a future unseen. Timely but timeless. I could dig it.

It would be the first thing on my to do list on Saturday mornings, and I would lay in my bed and listen to the broadcasts. I really looked forward to it. A lot of these things I had figured out myself during the disheartening nineties, but Pierce connected the dots in a way that I simply hadn’t at that point. He was clearly a lot further along than I was, a total reversal of what I was used to. Pierce actually made it nice to be the student and not the teacher—he was that good.

It was Pierce that convinced me that this could be a real movement at some point, that this could be something significant. I’ll always appreciate him for that. Before, I had almost felt pity for those that I had seen speak out. The nineties were a transitional decade. At the beginning of the nineties, I don’t think I had ever seen a black/white couple. Then all of a sudden I saw them everywhere. It was soul crushing (it wasn’t envy per se, I was quite the ladies man myself, but it bothered and offended me on a very deep level, even though I myself meet the SWPL profile in many ways).

There were still some white working class types who had not learned to keep their mouths shut according to the new social norms, and spoke out at inappropriate times and places. They won over precisely zero converts. They were right, their instincts were good, and they had courage of a sort. But they were completely outclassed, literally and figuratively. This was painfully obvious. They could not articulate their vision, because they simply didn’t have one. Didn’t they get the memo? They were going nowhere fast. I wanted to protect them, and tried as much as I could. Since I’m reasonably effective socially, I usually was able to extricate them without much damage. I just wanted to tell them (and pretty much did, once in private) to STFU, I agree with you but your approach isn’t working, and no I don’t know what will work, just teach your none too bright working class daughters to not fuck niggers, try to hold it together and maybe we’ll get a break down the road, and that was the best we could do for now. That’s how I felt. It was friggin hopeless.

There had been a war of ideas, and our side had lost—plain and simple. A redneck with good instincts but no education or credibility wasn’t going to make any headway at all—unless and until this thing gets really big time and he can be put to other purposes… but that’s another issue altogether. In the nineties, such a man was truly a lost soul, and yet his betters were doing precisely nothing. What a stain upon all of us. The disgust has never left me, though today I am far more optimistic.

After a decade of seeing inarticulate whites fumble the ball and get absolutely nowhere, enter William Pierce. This guy could take on the best that the System had to offer. There was zero need for pity, only respect and admiration. That’s his importance. That’s what he did… nothing else matters. I could definitely dig it.

Then came Linder (who also was clearly influenced by Pierce), who in his own way redefined white nationalism, moving it even further away from the lame nineties, and gradually more and more capable and intelligent people began populating the net. Today, I think the quality of intellectual white nationalism is better than ever—far and away better than ever, though even now there is some of the one step forward and two steps back variety. I practically gagged earlier today when I saw Hunter Wallace on the byline for an article at Altright. What is [Richard] Spencer thinking, further insinuating that creature into a promising movement? Up until today, I thought well of Spencer. I still do, but am seriously questioning his judgment. Yes, let’s make a pathological liar [Chechar’s note: cf. this long exchange], and that’s one of his better qualities, more prominent in the movement. Great call. Spencer, can you dig it? I wonder.

In any event, gaffes and blunders aside, the intellectual momentum is clearly gathering steam. A flesh and blood movement is bound to follow—sooner if we shun the kooks. Pierce was in many ways the fountainhead of the good things that we now see around us. Yes, it’s a pity that he wasn’t able to take it any further than he did, but for those of you who have at least some memory of the nineties, you’ll appreciate how far ahead of his time Pierce really was. Very strange decade—good for me personally, but terrible for my race. Trust me when I say that in those odd times, he didn’t have much to work with. He showed us a different path, or at least the beginnings of a path. A path that could in time lead to victory, if we start playing our cards right.