Greg Johnson (publisher)
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Greg Johnson | |
---|---|
Born | 1971 |
Residence | Seattle, Washington |
Nationality | American |
Other names | Trevor Lynch |
Education | Catholic University of America (Ph.D. in philosophy) |
Occupation | Editor-in-chief of Counter Currents Publishing |
Known for | White nationalism |
Notable work | The White Nationalist Manifesto |
Website | Counter-Currents |
Greg Johnson is an American writer and publisher,[1] known for his role as editor-in-chief of Counter-Currents Publishing, which he founded in 2010 with Michael Polignano.[2]
As a result of Counter-Currents' popularity, Johnson has gained prominence as an advocate for white identity and nationalism, and is regularly invited to give talks in Europe. Through the imprint he has published at least 48 books, eleven of which he authored himself under either his real name or the pseudonym Trevor Lynch, and at least five of which he edited.[3][4]
Johnson is a regular contributor of articles to Counter-Currents' website and has also written for the online publication The Occidental Observer.[5]
Contents
Life and education
Johnson has revealed little about his personal life, and few photos of him have been published.[1][6] He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of America, and subsequently taught philosophy at the historically black Morehouse College from February 1994 to December 1997.[7] In 2002, he joined the faculty of the Pacific School of Religion as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Swedenborgian Studies. He left in 2005 after college authorities were bothered by his refusal to teach from a social justice perspective and bought out his contract.[8][9]
He states that he has a low resting heart rate and body temperature.[10]
Views
In an introduction to his book New Right vs. Old Right (2014), Johnson defines ethnonationalism as "the idea that every distinct ethnic group should enjoy political sovereignty and an ethnically homogeneous homeland or homelands."[11] Johnson supports this as opposed to multiculturalism, which he considers inherently dysfunctional. He has written that "Blacks don’t find white civilization comfortable," explaining that they feel oppressed by laws and social norms developed by white people.[12]
Johnson distinguishes white nationalism from white supremacy as "...it is not our [white nationalists'] preference to rule over other groups. Although if forced to live under multicultural systems, we are going to take our own side and try to make sure that our values reign supreme."[12]
Johnson has written that "The organized Jewish community is the principal enemy — not the sole enemy, but the principal enemy — of every attempt to halt and reverse white extinction. One cannot defeat an enemy one will not name. Therefore, White nationalism is inescapably anti-Semitic."[13]
Johnson calls for eliminating "all voluntary birth control," as it "means that people who are far-sighted and responsible restrict their fertility, and people who are impulsive and stupid don't. So you can't leave birth control up to the individual." He supports incorporating birth control into the criminal justice system for some; "If somebody gets arrested for a violent crime, you should offer them a reduced sentence if they get sterilized."[14]
Although he considers gay marriage "a mockery of...what was a serious institution," Johnson believes that the institution of marriage has been severely cheapened and that banning gay marriage would do little to restore it. Instead he advocates for banning no-fault divorce and adultery. Johnson argues for tolerance of homosexuality, arguing that it is not inherently threatening to the norm of the heterosexual nuclear family.[10]
Johnson calls himself "transphobic", explaining that "transsexualism is a ghastly, insane phenomenon in America today, or in the white world today" and that sex-change surgery performed on children constitutes child abuse.[10]
He rejects trends such as fat acceptance, noting that "Pretty much everything rotten in our society today is basically people who fall short of the norm - who deviate - trying to tear down the norms of society so they can feel good about themselves all the time." He connects this to Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of slave morality, a set of values born out of the resentment of the weak towards the strong.[10]
White Nationalist Manifesto
One of Johnson's best known titles is The White Nationalist Manifesto, published in September 2018. Before being removed from Amazon in February 2019, the book was Counter-Currents' best-selling title.
The Manifesto argues for white nationalism "as a logical extension of endangered species conservation policies to the human realm." Johnson argues that like all species and subspecies, the white race is at risk of extinction if it succumbs to certain pressures. He cites the four causes of extinction historically as loss of habitat, invasive species, hybridization and predation, arguing that these are all at play currently with regard to the white race, along with ideological, economic and technological factors to the same end, and further argues that whites are being intentionally driven to extinction in a type of slow genocide. In order to protect against these threats, it is his view that every white ethnic group should have the right to live in their own ethnically homogeneous country. This would be accomplished by sending non-whites in white countries back to their nations of origin, which he argues can be done peacefully and gradually.[4]
The book also provides advice for like-minded readers on how to ensure that the white nationalist movement includes the highest-quality people and how to alter public opinion through nonviolent means.
Censorship and Deplatforming
In the spring of 2015 Amazon shut down Counter-Currents' affiliate marketing account, which Johnson estimated was bringing in $6,000 per year. He attributed the decision both to efforts by Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center and to a March 17 Washington Post story[15] by Caitlin Dewey which highlighted Counter-Currents' use of Amazon affiliate marketing. A petition on Care2 had also collected over 90,000 signatures asking PayPal and Amazon to deplatform Counter-Currents and other "neo-Nazis and white supremacists."[16][17]
In February 2019 The White Nationalist Manifesto was removed from Amazon listings, shortly followed by 16 other Counter-Currents titles and four titles from American Renaissance.[18][19][20][21] American Renaissance was informed that their titles' "subject matter" was "in violation of our content guidelines," but was given no further information on the reasoning for the move.[18] Counter-Currents was given similar notifications.[22] Both Johnson and American Renaissance consider the move to be political censorship.[18][19]
On 21 June 2019 Johnson announced that the YouTube channel CounterCurrentsTV had been permanently disabled. [23] The ostensible cause was "multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech."[24]
In October 2019, Counter-Currents was deplatformed by two credit card processors. In the process of applying to two other processors which rejected their application, Counter-Currents learned that they had been placed on a credit card industry blacklist known as the MATCH list, which identifies "vendors with high rates of chargebacks and fraudulent transactions." Greg Johnson argues that this classification is a politically motivated slander.[25]
On 29 October 2019, Counter-Currents was informed that "the Counter-Currents Kindle Direct Publishing account had been terminated." On 13 November they found that Amazon had purged over 20 additional Counter-Currents titles.[25]
Greg Johnson was detained by police on 2 November in Oslo, Norway, where he had intended to deliver a speech to the nationalist Scandza Forum on the concept of white privilege.[26] This was done on the orders of the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), who claimed that his speech was likely to incite political violence and that it would "help give the Alt-Right/Identitarian milieu a stronger foothold in Norway."[27] John Christian Elden, Johnson's attorney for the case, criticized the move, noting that Norwegian law does not allow anyone to be detained on the basis of their political views, nor had anyone previously been deported from the country for this reason.[28] Johnson attributed the claims on violence to posts made the day before the PST order on an Antifa blog, Filter Nyheter, which accused Johnson of condoning the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik and of calling for the murder of politicians. The quotes included from Johnson used to support these accusations were taken from an essay in which he agreed with some of Breivik's comments at trial concerning multiculturalism and hoped for him to develop into a respected political commentator but rejected both terrorism and the political polarization and radicalization which Breivik hoped for.[27][29][30]
Johnson was not formally charged with any offense, although the authorities originally intended to deport him as a threat to Norwegian security.[28] After being moved to a deportation facility, he was informed by his lawyer that he was no longer being deported and was free to leave the country on his own, which he had informed the authorities he wanted to do as soon as possible. However, this information was received at the last minute, so he left on a "deportation" flight rather than making new arrangements.[29]
On 22 November 2019, Greg Johnson announced that his Facebook account had been removed. A second account which he then created was also deleted within 48 hours. In his estimation this was simply because of his political views. He responded by discouraging readers from using Facebook and removing Facebook's recommend function from the Counter-Currents website.[31]
On 13 December 2019 Johnson announced that Counter-Currents had been deplatformed from American bookstore chain Barnes & Noble.[32]
On 9 March 2020 Counter-Currents announced that they were again unable to take credit card or automated clearing house (ACH) donations due to a "de-platforming attack" on their payment processor.[33]
On 9 June 2021 Greg Johnson noted that Counter-Currents' account had been removed by Twitter.[34]
References
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External links
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- Living people
- American white nationalists
- People from Seattle
- Philosophers from Washington (state)
- Catholic University of America alumni
- Morehouse College faculty
- Identity politics in the United States
- Pseudonymous writers
- Year of birth missing (living people)
- American political commentators
- American political writers
- American social activists
- American social commentators
- Anti-immigration politics in the United States
- Critics of multiculturalism