Reconstituting The National Alliance

Reconstituting The National Alliance

by Bill White

The National Alliance headquarters in Hillsboro, West Virginia is about to be sold for unpaid taxes—the end of an organization that has essentially been defunct for the past ten years. The National Alliance’s passing leaves a hole in the White landscape. No organization today has reached the influence the National Alliance enjoyed under William Pierce. Reconstituting the National Alliance is a worthwhile goal, and one the American Free Press is uniquely positioned to achieve. What follows is a proposal to do so, and while I do not speak for either party, I hope to spark ideas that help all.

Post-Mortem

The National Alliance failed for lack of leadership. William Pierce was the linchpin holding the organization together. Erich Gliebe took over when Pierce died and Erich Gliebe was incompetent and dishonest. Unwilling to place the organization above himself, Gliebe looted and abandoned it.

Normally, the first option in healing a failed organization like the National Alliance would be to try to rehabilitate the leadership. Gliebe, though, is too dishonest to rehabilitate. He has been printing CDs off books, evading taxes, and misdirecting membership dues while not producing for a decade, and he is the only thing really preventing the group from re-organizing. Removing Gliebe by sidestepping him is the correct way to proceed.

The National Alliance was really three businesses. One was its membership and activist cadre. Two was its book and print media arm. Three was Resistance Records. The best thing the National Alliance could do is sell off the latter two to an existing media company, and receive assistance in reconstructing the first. The natural buyer is the only White nationalist publishing company capable of using these assets and assisting, the American Free Press.

The most valuable asset the National Alliance has left is its people and their relationships. Obtaining the mailing and customer lists of the National Alliance and Resistance Records should be a priority. There are numerous copies of the 2003-era list around; if Gliebe will not sell his list, someone out there is certainly willing to. More important, almost, is bringing on board the final two dozen National Alliance cadre members who hang in to the bitter end. Without them, the National Alliance is not being reconstituted, it is being created anew. Lastly, if someone who worked in Resistance Records and who had the relationships and the knowledge of the contracts and products is available, they should be located. Bringing two or three of these people on board, at first, would be enough.

Obtaining the second most valuable assets, the National Alliance and Resistance Records brands, is trivial. The names aren’t trademarked. Gliebe has no resources to defend them. Just take the names. Frankly, Gliebe’s legal right to the names was always questionable. Set up a National Alliance LLC, National Alliance Books LLC, and Resistance Records LLC, and challenge Gliebe to contest it in court. He won’t.

The least valuable assets of the National Alliance are its headquarters and inventory The headquarters has symbolic value, but it requires a live-in staff to operate and maintain. No one is willing to do that. Buying the headquarters and shuttering it would be a good idea if it were possible, but it would be an act of charity. Similarly, Gliebe is unlikely just to dump the inventory for what it is worth, which is very little.

The best thing to do with the inventory is to obtain copies of the books and magazines the National Alliance and Resistance Records have published, and scan them, and republish them. As for the CDs, renew relationships with the bands and re-press them. More valuable than the physical inventory is one person who played a role in creating them.

National Alliance Books and Resistance Records

Even if the National Alliance itself cannot be reconstituted, its literature and music arms should be. Both were profitable, so assuming their titles and brands is a no-brainer. Resistance Records grossed $1 million a year ten years ago, and since then, most of its competition has dissipated. Resistance music easily a $5 million a year industry, and it is an opportunity the American Free Press has passed up for too long.

The only reason to keep National Alliance Books as a separate entity is to support a rconstituted National Alliance. Otherwise, the American Free Press should simply absorb titles like Hunter and Which Way, Western Man? and issue them under its own imprints.

However, if the National Alliance leaders want to work with the American Free Press to rebuild their organization, National Alliance Books should be reconstituted as an imprint within the American Free Press family. What is needed to print and distribute the books is a shipping staff, a warehouse, a phone line, and an e-mail address, merchant accounts, order tracking and inventory software, and the like. AFP has this infrastructure, and the NA cannot afford to replicate it. Thus, AFP should take over a majority stake in a reconstituted National Alliance Books, share profits with a reconstituted National Alliance activist organization, and allow the National Alliance to use its books arm to generate and print literature for mass distribution as well.

The American Free Press would do well to outright buy or organize Resistance Records as a separate unit. The unit should be staffed by someone involved in the original and financially overseen and managed by AFP. If the National Alliance is to be reconstituted, then AFP should also engage in profit-sharing with it, in exchange for its blessings, assistance, and promotion. The core music distribution business requires the same infrastructure as AFP’s existing book distribution business. What is needed is a staff member who is familiar with White musical trends, who has industry connections with the bands, and who can organize and arrange concerts. The projected revenue would probably justify three to five such staffers. Further, such a musical unit would draw younger customers into the AFP family of products and provide new AFP promotional venues.

With Resistance Records comes Resistance magazine. AFP has needed a youth-market-oriented publication for several years—something lighter on content, image-driven to compensate for many if not most young White Americans’ functional illiteracy, with more of a younger edge to compete with products like Alex Jones’ Infowars, and to broaden AFP’s customer base in general. Resistance is an ideal product for this. Its focus will be band interviews, White movement “celebrities,” and promoting Resistance music, and can then segue listeners as they mature into the American Free Press and Barnes Review. AFP has little risk in reviving a profitable venture, and the NA will benefit from capital income and infrastructure it cannot recreate.

The National Alliance Itself

There are two ways the National Alliance can be reconstituted. One, it can be rebuilt on a foundation of former members. Two, it can be reconstituted by AFP from the top down. The former will be easier and more likely to be successful.

AFP and its predecessors have attempted to organize activists before. These organizing attempts have universally failed, and AFP has lost its investment, because the organizations have come under the sway of lunatics, incompetents, or on rare occasions, very creative people unable to work within AFP’s bounds. The National Alliance began as the third type of organization, the National Youth Alliance.

Here, greater control and interdependency is proposed to prevent such a betrayal. First, the National Alliance’s primary revenue centers are to be separated and placed under AFP majority ownership. Thus, the investment AFP is putting in will stay under AFP’s control. Second, it is proposed that AFP nurture, but not control, the National Alliance activity organization, so its leaders will have autonomy and not be motivated to bolt from excessive interference.

The National Alliance’s business model is that it provides organization, coordination, and resources to empower local activist cadres. Organization and coordination are provided by a national staff. Resources, such as literature, are handed down from a national level. Activist education, such as training seminars for community organizing, would be useful as well. In exchange for this central coordination, members pay dues and contribute to the national organization.

To do this effectively, a national staff is needed, This staff is needed to handle member relations, including fee and donation processing, background checks, and handling member concerns, to organize and coordinate local units, and organize national activities. The keystone to a national staff is a chairman who should be selected by the organization’s board.

The best way to organize a new National Alliance would be to make contact with the true heirs of the organization, the leaders of the various surviving splinter factions and particularly those true believers who remained to the very end, and have them meet to select a new board chairman. Those opposed to AFP’s involvement and the board seat or seats it would rightfully receive should be excluded. An ad hoc chairman, selected from the true believers would coordinate this process.

AFP’s original contribution to this process would be to provide the headquarters and office space the National Alliance no longer has, plus the infrastructure, like phone lines and a receptionist. AFP would also operate and manage the revenue centers that make the National Alliance possible. In exchange, the National Alliance would owe rent payable initially from Resistance Records revenue.

The new National Alliance members would then have to rebuild and recover their organization, rebuilding local units, rebuilding relationships, re-attracting organizers, and restoring what they allowed Erich Gliebe, Kevin Alfred Strom, and others to destroy. However, they would have a professional media organization providing their literature, cheaply and in bulk, providing them with office space and keeping them financed.

The advantage to American Free Press is obvious as well. The National Alliance activist cadre would be actively pushing AFP literature in their communities, boosting sales and other AFP-related products.

Conclusion

The final collapse of the National Alliance is an opportunity—not to sit and grumble about how Erich Gliebe took all the toys and left the sand box, but to finally side-step Gliebe and get the National Alliance back on track. Everyone at the American Free Press is always busy, but nobody should be so busy as to overlook the opportunity.

If AFP and the NA holdouts were wise, they would seek each other out and make the deals necessary to make this merger happen. The American Free Press should find someone familiar with Resistance Records and reconstitute it, and should work with the old National Alliance leadership to take over their media operations and use these operations to re-build the National Alliance activist network.