A new book “Klan War: Ulysses S Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction” sheds light on widespread American domestic terrorism that has been far too often overlooked or forgotten. The Guardian gives it a nice report.

“[The organized terror movement after Civil War] stock-in-trade was violence – intimidation and violence. People were beaten, people were flogged, people were lynched, people were shot. People’s homes were raided, they were dragged outdoors and flogged in the streets.”

And, he says, the violence often included “truly horrifying sadism”.

“It liberated the absolute worst impulses among” its members, Bordewich says, adding: “You can see this in today’s terrorist movements in other parts of the world – al-Qaida, IS. These are the organizations the Klan should be compared to. We think of terrorism today as something happening in other countries. It happened here in the 1870s.”

This is an intriguing and accurate perspective. However, it’s important to note that Fergus Bordewich, the author, claims that the Ku Klux Klan was the “first organized terror movement in American history,” which could be misleading as it overlooks the actions during Andrew Jackson’s 1830s Presidency as well as earlier examples.

To provide further clarity, one can view the Ku Klux Klan as an extension of pre-existing organized terror movements in America before the Civil War. It’s worth noting that Abraham Lincoln also spoke about these organized terror movements during his campaign for office. Additionally, it’s important to remember it was nation-wide organized terror movements that were cited as the “Casus belli” in John Brown’s famous pre-war defensive actions.

Bordewich’s analysis of the KKK’s prosecution also highlights that this wasn’t a sudden change following the Civil War; rather, a more rational view is to see the continuation of tactics long used by figures like George Washington. It was no coincidence he recruited white immigrants into an American “revolution” with the expressed aim to violently take control away from Native Americans, Black slaves, and especially monarchies who were abolishing slavery. A long-standing pattern of organized white nationalist terror in America is evident throughout its history from its very creation.

Why hadn’t local or state authorities intervened before? Often, it was because they were themselves members of the Klan. It was up to the federal government to step in, and that’s what it did under Grant and capable subordinates including the attorney general Amos Akerman and Maj Lewis Merrill of the seventh cavalry.

Akerman, a New Englander who moved to Georgia and joined the Confederate army in the civil war, saw Reconstruction as a way to reform his adopted home. He turned in invaluable work as Grant’s top prosecutor. In arguably the epicenter of Klan violence – upcountry South Carolina – Merrill was the point man who used troops and espionage to bring the Klan to bay.

“Akerman personally went to South Carolina and worked hand-in-hand with Lewis Merrill, a heroic military figure,” Bordewich says.

As Grant’s administration dismantled the Klan, it suspended habeas corpus in nine counties of South Carolina. To Bordewich, this was essential. “Why was this necessary?” he asks. “Because the so-called judicial system in the states was so infected by the Klan, so co-opted by the Klan … Akerman mobilized federal prosecutors to prosecute the Klan and the army to arrest members of the Klan.

“Without the suspension of habeas corpus, it would have been impossible to bring them to justice,” Bordewich concludes…

Similar to the invasion and occupation of Germany to remove Hitler after World War II, it’s inconceivable to imagine the U.S. occupying army using Nazi courts for justice. Likewise, we shouldn’t expect Grant to have asked the KKK to investigate and prosecute itself.

The name “Washington and Lee University“, for simple example, was created to make a clear statement by Americans committed to white supremacist goals. Imagine being in Ukraine and asking why a school is named Stalin and Putin. There are many other cases, such as the obviously racist slogan “remember the Alamo,” and Texas asserting itself to be the “lone star” of white supremacy by forever denying an abolition of slavery.

To bring it into modern context, considering AI companies engaging in repeated instances of racism and bias while claiming support for government regulation, it’s worth contemplating what strategy President Grant would take on matters rather than repeating the gross mistakes of another Andrew Jackson (or his protegee President Woodrow Wilson, who restarted the KKK in 1915).

That’s why I’ve been giving presentations for years on the premise that Grant’s establishment of the Department of Justice to combat the KKK on paper, and Roosevelt’s 1934 creation of the Federal Communications Commission to counter Nazism on the airwaves, provide valuable frameworks for addressing white supremacists on the Internet.

If we still can’t directly address antique racist propaganda like a university being named Washington and Lee, we can at least work towards regulating on the Internet those who seek to continue America’s long history of organized campaigns of white nationalist terror. What would Grant do?

Sergej Sumlenny, the Russian-born managing director of the European Resilience Initiative Center in Berlin, says this morning’s bomb-dropping drone video in Israel has Russian fingerprints.

The reported widespread electronics jamming, effectively disabling countermeasures, coupled with such a single precision anti-armor bomb does seem a bit contrived to be just Hamas.

Marko Mihkelson, Chairman of Estonia’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has also pointed out the relevance of Russian attempts at destabilizing regional security.

The timing and reasons for the Hamas attack are linked to Russian and Iranian interests. Hamas is known to be strongly supported by both countries. Hamas leaders have twice held consultations in Moscow in the last 12 months and it is quite obvious that Russia has a wider interest in both distracting attention from Ukraine and, on the other hand, complicating Israel’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia by creating tension in the region.

It’s worth noting that while the majority of the world is quick to condemn Hamas for initiating terrorist attacks on Israel, Russia is officially adopting a “both sides” narrative.

We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides to implement an immediate ceasefire…

Already in three ways you should be able to see the problem.

We have tactical evidence showing the sophistication of an invisible bomb-dropping drone, political evidence indicating recent consultations between Hamas and Moscow, and then we see Russia taking a weak-kneed stance on terrorist attacks.

Moreover, as if three ways weren’t enough, there is additional evidence of Russia’s hand in the form of unusually sophisticated attacks targeting civilians.

…planned, coordinated and large-scale attack by militants, which resulted in dozens of victims in the first hours of the attack. At the same time, the victims were civilians who were shot by Hamas militants in towns near the Gaza Strip.

Hamas suddenly demonstrated unusually coordinated (loud) multi-front incursions and immediately started shooting to kill any civilians they encountered anywhere. One reporter described nine Israelis simply waiting at a bus shelter being gunned down in cold blood. A music festival for peace was ambushed, with at least 240 people murdered in a “killing field“. Another report described Hamas targeting and killing a civilian paramedic in a marked ambulance while he was engaged in medical duties.

The unfortunate twist to these escalating terror attacks, before we delve too deeply into Russia pushing such horrible events, is that Hamas also may have been pulled into Israel’s far-right extremist strategy of provocation and wait.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as head of the most far-right Israeli government the country has known and signaled an intention to strengthen cooperation, the Kremlin said.

Israel’s newly elected PM had “chosen Putin over Biden” and refused to arm Ukraine against Russia. Meanwhile he instructed his government to “pursue” full annexation of the West Bank and put a “professional extremist troll” in charge of police. A former chief of staff for the Israeli leader revealed in April 2023 that Netanyahu was aligning himself with Russia’s “win at all costs” mentality, seeking unilateral undemocratic control much like Putin.

He wants to be like Putin, is seeking unlimited power.

And so earlier today we heard of Hamas throwing themselves abruptly into a brazen attack, and then the phrase…

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared earlier: “We are at war and we will win”

Netanyahu was facing heavy and growing domestic political resistance before this massive terror campaign erupted. What does Russia have to lose by throwing Israel’s leader a sad excuse to end democracy, attack Hamas and invade Gaza (let alone annex the West Bank)? Russia is desperate for allies, and Israel’s increasingly far-right extremist political government seems willing to oblige for a small favor — starting a war.

The most straightforward argument against any notion that Putin and Netanyahu have conspired to manipulate this situation, with the aim of cornering Hamas militants in an untenable position of killing hundreds of civilians, is that this war is being reported as a significant intelligence failure on Israel’s part.

How is it possible that, on the most heavily surveilled border in the world, equipped with cutting-edge defensive technology and an extensive intelligence network, Israel was caught off guard by a group of gun-waving irregulars on tractors, motorboats, motorcycles, and paragliders?

Yes, I said paragliders, for those who remember the 2014 Malaysian-trained Hamas arrests followed by a very strange July 2023 German diplomatic gaffe.

Israel has condemned the EU’s outgoing envoy to the Palestinians after he paraglided over Gaza’s coast to draw attention to the blockade of the strip. A video showed Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff declaring he had carried out “the first Gaza paragliding flight in history”. “Once you have a free Palestine, a free Gaza, you can do exactly the same thing,” the German diplomat adds. Israel’s foreign ministry said it was a “provocative action” that served as propaganda for militant groups in Gaza.

And now, surprise!

Historians also will undoubtedly highlight and contrast today with Prime Minister Meir’s situation on October 6, 1973. She had intelligence suggesting an impending attack on Israel but, based on her military advisors’ counsel, chose not to launch a preemptive strike. This controversial decision led to an establishment of the Agranat Commission of Inquiry to investigate “military failings” and ultimately resulted in her decision to resign.

She is shown taking the fall for the egregious errors of her military leaders — in particular Chief of Military Intelligence Eli Zeira and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan — to protect the public’s faith in its army. Documents declassified in 2020 showed that Zeira ignored intelligence warnings that Cairo and Damascus were poised to attack, withholding the communications from the government in his belief that the chance of imminent war was “lower than low.” Meanwhile, Dayan objected to fully mobilizing troops in the hours before the war, according to his testimony to the Agranat Commission, which was declassified in 2008.

That article about the war of October 1973 was published only a couple months ago in August. It concludes with an interesting prediction.

…leadership blinded by hubris and power can poison a society. He referenced the current political crisis in Israel, in which Prime Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court have triggered mass protests that have been ongoing since January. “It’s kind of crazy that today we see the Yom Kippur of democracy in Israel,” said Nattiv. “The blindness again, the same debacle that happened in 1973 is returning now.”

Here we are, witnessing a situation that mirrors the events of 1973. Some people speculate now whether Netanyahu will face consequences for either knowingly or unknowingly allowing a Yom Kippur War II, but historically his reputation has been marked by a lack of accountability.

One has to wonder whether Netanyahu (in consultation with Putin) has planned this whole thing, including of course how to avoid a fate similar to Meir’s through various means.

Firstly, Netanyahu has shown no intention of stepping down for any reason. Furthermore, the element of surprise could enable Netanyahu to gain control over the military and enforce military service through declarations of war. This is especially important given recent protests against his leadership and refusals to serve in the military. Additionally, it might contribute to the growing normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel by forcing them to choose sides in a conflict. Lastly, it fosters radicalization among Israelis, pushing them into an “us versus them” mindset that undermines compromise and moderation, which aligns with the goals of Netanyahu (and Putin).

Hamas is Iran so that’s the obvious part for me, but too few are talking about the gift from Russia. Iran gives basic munitions stock to Russia for their ongoing occupation of Ukraine, Russia then gives sophisticated operations training and coordination to proxy Iran’s intentions of… Israel’s occupation of Gaza?

I can hear now the Russian Wagners laughing cruelly as they say “sure, yeah our mercs in Belarus can get your Hamas across that line and blow stuff up, sure yeah whatever you want Iran. We’re sick of Ukraine too. Just show us the money”.

Electronics jamming and high precision anti-armor attack drone? That’s Russia practically begging to be recognized. The only thing more Russian is trolling the world with an official statement for “both sides” to ceasefire in a terrorist attack.

It’s fascinating to read how everyone always knew the Dutch prince was a Nazi, yet he kept lying about it anyway as if harmful failures were his carefree badge of honor (a common Nazi trait).

Bernhard went to his grave swearing he had never been a paid-up member of Hitler’s party. “I can declare with my hand on the bible: I was never a Nazi,” he said in an interview published (in Dutch) after his death in 2004.

[…]

Flip Maarschalkerweerd says he stumbled on the prince’s NSDAP membership card while carrying out an inventory of the prince’s archives when he died.

[…]

Journalist Jan Tromp, who interviewed the prince in depth over several years, said that the revelation was not a surprise, but it would come as a shock and a betrayal to those who had taken part in the Dutch resistance and had commemorated the liberation with the prince for years afterwards.

It kind of begs the question why he was never held accountable for such obvious lies, let alone lies involving murderous treason.

In the fall of 1944, the immediate future of many people in The Netherlands looked distinctly grim [especially given Prince Barnhard’s efforts to prevent liberation].

[…]

In early September 1944, Queen Wilhelmina had ensured his appointment as commander of the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Domestic Armed Forces), a recent union of several previously separate Dutch resistance groups. Bernhard’s leadership was stained by controversy, as he proved unable to fully control the forces under his command. The Domestic Armed Foreces quickly acquired a bad reputation for unruly behavior and occasionally resorted to pillage and plundering. As Bernhard did not publicly distance himself from unsavory incidents, he suffered some reputational damage as a result.

…rumors about his licentious lifestyle circulated in London. His decision to remain in the British capital in late Spring 1940, when his wife and their baby daughters moved to safety in Canada, had raised a few eyebrows. But then, Queen Wilhelmina had also decided to stay in London and she could use his support. However, it was publicly known in the Dutch community in London that other matters also took up some of the Prince’s time. “Of all the people I know, Prince Bernhard was the only one who enjoyed the war,” King George VI reputedly said.

[…]

On September 6th, when most of France and Belgium had been liberated, the Prince and his staff crossed the English Channel by plane to set up his headquarters in Château Wittouck, a stately home south of Brussels. Formerly the house of the Belgian fascist politician Léon Degrelle, it provided the luxury surroundings that Bernhard had a penchant for, including a well-furnished wine cellar.

One of the regular visitors to Wittouck was Christiaan Lindemans, a member of the Dutch resistance, known for his reckless actions. His heavy built and waddling gait gained him the nickname King Kong, after the giant gorilla of the 1933 American movie. Lindemans managed to gain the trust of the Allies, including Prince Bernhard who offered him a position on his staff. Suddenly, in October 1944, Lindemans was arrested at Wittouck on suspicion of spying for the Nazis. Subsequent investigations proved that King Kong was in fact a double agent, crossing the frontline under cover to convey information to his German handlers.

So the lying, philandering, plundering prince treated the Nazi Holocaust as his joyous playtime. He drank and danced, working for Hitler.

Perhaps Dutch “resistance” was more of a myth than reality, a ruse and cover for collaborators?

How many of the more than 300,000 Dutch killed were victims of the Nazi Prince?

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte [in 2020, twelve years after Bernhard’s death] apologized for the first time on behalf of the government for the war-time persecution of Jews, saying little was done to protect them from the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. … “Too many civil servants carried out the orders of the occupiers,” said Rutte [without specifying the Prince’s role].

It’s a good reminder that the story of Anne Frank is really about her murderous selfish neighbors, the many Nazi-loving Dutch who thrived from occupation like their always lying, cheating, scoundrel Nazi Prince.

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands acknowledged a second illegitimate child before his death… Prince Bernhard and the former queen had four daughters including Queen Beatrix, Holland’s reigning monarch. […] He told De Volkskrant: “It doesn’t matter if people think back on me as a nice guy or a philanderer. If the image is that I was a scoundrel now and again, I’ll give people that…”

The image? When Anne Frank was arrested, two Dutch police (Gezinus Gringhuis and Willem Grootendorst) accompanied the Austrian Nazi officer. Here’s the image:

The article that captures the Prince’s hope it “doesn’t matter if people think back” is old, yet still very relevant today. It does matter if we think back. It’s accountability. Some now call it “woke”. Either way it means respect for law and order, the opposite of Nazism.

Bernhard’s daughter Beatrix has long since abdicated the throne to her son, a man widely mocked by Germans as Prinz Pils (Prince of Beer). The carefree Dutch monarch’s lifestyle seems to resemble his grandfather, the infamous and “unusually popular” Nazi card-carrying bible-swearing liar Prince Bernhard.

First, the Nazis in AfD love saying they are definitely not the thing that they are.

There is a long list of cases with a neo-Nazi connections in the AfD – and it runs right up to the national executive committee.

AfD literally oppose law and order — want to undermine the Constitution — so they can plunge Germany into fascism.

Can you form a coalition with those people and make them accepted as normal partners? And there’s a huge understanding right now, or was a huge understanding: No, you may not, because they don’t play according to the rules. And the rules are the content of our Constitution and the rule of law. […] And it’s becoming clearer and clearer that [the AfD] is in huge parts, or in part, against the Constitution, and could [therefore] be prohibited.

German domestic intelligence has even warned publicly against voting for the anti-Constitution AfD.

“[P]arts of the AfD spread hate and agitation against all kinds of minorities in Germany, especially migrants … We see that parts of the AfD also hold and promote an anti-Semitic attitude. We see that parts of the AfD are very much influenced by Moscow and continue to spread Russian narratives”, particularly with regards to Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine, [chief of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV)] Haldenwang added.

German language reports say it most clearly and without hesitation, because it’s important: AfD are the old Nazis.

“Die alten Nazis sind wieder da”. Der ehemalige FDP-Innenminister Gerhart Baum blickt mit Sorge auf den Rechtsruck in Deutschland. Im Video erklärt er, weshalb er die AfD für demokratiegefährdend hält.

Second, guess who loves “die alten Nazis” in the AfD and why.

Elon Musk shares a post calling for the AfD to be elected.

Yup.

Elon Musk, already being sued for obvious racism, is without question using his platform to put Nazis back in power.

Related: Why are he and South African businessman Peter Thiel, close friend of South African businessman Elon Musk, both apparently trying to restore Nazism in Germany?

Clue: Their families were on the side of Hitler in WWII and fled to South Africa in order to avoid accountability (e.g. Thiel and Musk failed to attend mandatory Holocaust education — Nazi atrocities of 1933 to 1945).

To be even more clear, Musk’s grandfather J. N. Haldeman was a chiropractor in the nineteen-thirties and forties who became director of a “Technocracy” pro-Hitler political campaign in Canada.

To be fair, Technocracy was a political movement that claimed it wasn’t political because politicians were not allowed, just like it was a fascist movement that claimed being anti-Semites opposed to fighting against Hitler didn’t mean they supported Hitler.

Perhaps you can smell the crazy. Technocrats in the 1940s tried to promote a single Technate (destroying national borders to form a massive empire) by claiming to have a technological army in grey uniforms, driving grey cars, greeting everyone in military salutes and pledging allegiance to a single white man as the supreme leader over the entire continent… all based only on inflated resumes with false engineering degrees or work experience.

In 1950, given his run-ins with the law during WWII for supporting Hitler, not to mention his continued spread of anti-Semitic hate speech, Haldeman fled to South Africa to promote a new white supremacist Apartheid regime.

An examination of Joshua Haldeman’s writings reveals a radical conspiracy theorist who expressed racist, anti-Semitic, and antidemocratic views repeatedly, and over the course of decades—a record I studied across hundreds of documents from the time, including newspaper clips, self-published manuscripts, university archives, and private correspondence. Haldeman believed that apartheid South Africa was destined to lead “White Christian Civilization” in its fight against the “International Conspiracy” of Jewish bankers and the “hordes of Coloured people” they controlled. “Instead of the Government’s attitude keeping me out of South Africa, it had precisely the opposite effect—it encouraged me to come and settle here,” he told a reporter for the South African newspaper Die Transvaler shortly after his arrival. The far-right Afrikaner newspaper treated Haldeman’s arrival as a PR victory for apartheid. (“PRAISES ACTION OF NATIONALIST PARTY REGIME: Canadian Politician Settles in South Africa,” the headline read.)

They meant Canadian Technocracy anti-politician politician.

Elon’s grandfather pivoted his track-record of rabid anti-Semitism towards boosting Apartheid racism. In 1960 he self-published a manifesto called “The International Conspiracy to Establish a World Dictatorship and the Menace to South Africa.” Presumably bed-time reading to his grandson Elon born in 1971, this text updated Nazi “Dolchstoßlegende” propaganda about WWI used for blaming Jews for everything to also blame them for Germany losing WWII; an unhinged rant about achieving a white supremacist dream state.

Back to AfD in 2023: Perhaps now you see why little Elon has grown up to fulfill his grandfather’s conspiracy-filled hate campaigns, for a small group of white supremacists (with fake or inflated engineering degrees and experience) to rule via abuse of technology, and of course publicly campaign for “die alten Nazis“.

“Challenge accepted, Elon” Mehdi Hasan says as he lays out in gory detail the increasing hate speech (Xcrement) on Musk’s eXTwitter: