Jaenelle Antas: The StormFront photos (nifty white hate cheesecake!)

Ed.--I captured these photos from StormFront posting from Jaenelle Antas's account ("Tristania," allegedly taken from a very bad Norwegian metal opera band's name), I doubt they'll stay up for much longer, but who knows? After all, she's pretty shameless about her stupidity as must idiots are. Frequently, when you want to attract foolish young men to hate movements, you use a little honey, countercultural and anti-establishment posturings, and a good dose of deception.

As a matter of obvious fact, deception is what Antas appears to be all about: she was a Libertarian, but not a Libertarian; she wasn't a white hate activist, but she is one, and so on. The real question here is whether the Indiana Libertarian Party knew she was what she in fact was and is: an ally of neo-Nazis internationally, a kind of adjutant of Holocaust denier and Mosleyite-styled figure David Irving, and probably someone the Indiana Libertarians wouldn't notice since they're far right wackos themselves. Not all of them are openly-racist, but many of their social postions could easily lead to inflaming racial tensions, and their connections to the miltia movement through people like Lew Rockwell are telling.

So, if you have a crappy ideology that the public would never buy in a million years unless they were independently wealthy, nuts, or both, you have to sugar-coat it with appeals through the tired iconography of rebellion, wrapped-in various cultural forms like music, flags, empty rhetoric, highly charged-imagery, and sex-appeal.

This all reminds me of the fallacy of an old countercultural conceit that was always wrong: "If so-and-so likes the same music as I do, they must be cool." Utter crap. Her tastes in music are an oxymoron, she has poor taste, if any, and I'm leaving-out Beethoven and Bach, everyone with a working brain-stem likes that shit.

Antas has confirmed that she's "Tristania," so there you have it, corroboration. By the way: it doesn't matter whether she's a fan of Richard Wagner or not, she's still directly or indirectly influenced by him, that's how culture works, often invisibly.

Welcome to public life, kiddo, I sure hope your parents didn't teach to think and act this way.

Bach in Black

Postscript: I showed these photos to my 65-year-old mother who immediately stated, "She looks like a hooker." Indeed, circa 1933...


Postscript, June 29, 2013: You can find a few of the photos that were removed here, from a simple Google search:  https://www.google.com/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=Jaenelle+Antas&oq=Jaenelle+Antas&gs_l=hp.3...13075.18449.0.19120.14.10.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1c.1.18.psy-ab.fp3RncHNloI&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48572450,d.cGE&fp=7281391dcddcbf5d&biw=1366&bih=648

Jaenelle Antas: Indiana Libertarian and personal assistant to UK Holocaust denier David Irving

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"Well-behaved women rarely make history."
--"Tristania," StormFront bulletin-board member since 2005.

Indianapolis, Indiana--This tip comes to me from a source in Oregon. I don't believe that this is unknown--that Jaenelle Antas is the American assistant to UK Holocaust denier David Irving--but I don't think that many out there in the public know that Antas has also served as Assistant to the Chair of Indiana's Libertarian Party (2007-2008), certainly not within the state itself. Yet, she has.

Antas was spotted and identified in Portland last week for a speaking engagement of Irving's, reputedly even being seen with different clothing on to cloak her identity.

Did the Libertarian Party of Indiana know who she really was when she served as an assistant to State Chair Todd Singer? They have some explaining to do. Some online posts have stated that she was once on the home page of the Libertarian Party of Indiana and was given a college scholarship by them, but it appears that this has all been pulled.

Antas is rumored to post on Storm Front's bulletin-board under the identity of "Tristania," a seemingly Wagnerian name from Teutonic legend, and also a band that she likes within the genre of "metal opera." A look at Antas's Myspace page notes:

An abridged, but representative list of bands and musicians I like:

After Forever
Agalloch
Ambeon
Apocalyptica
Ava Inferi
Bach
Beethoven
Blut Aus Nord
Cecilia Bartoli
Chalice
Darkwell
Deathspell Omega
Diablo Swing Orchestra
Draconian
Emperor
Ensiferum
Epica
Evoken
Falconer
Handel
How Like a Winter
Leaves' Eyes
Limbonic Art
Madder Mortem
Mar de Grises
My Dying Bride
Nightwish
Nokturnal Mortum
Peccatum
Pelican
Penumbra
Purcell
Renee Fleming
Sins of Thy Beloved
Sirenia
Soulslide
Star of Ash
Theatre of Tragedy
Therion
Thou Shalt Suffer
Tristania
Turisas
Without Face
Venin Noir
Verdi
Virgin Black (http://www.myspace.com/jaenellesings)

And there's more, much more on this account that corroborates who she is. The photos on what appear to be Antas's StormFront account almost certainly have to be the same person as the Myspace account. "Tristania's" fixation on a Wagnerian-moniker is interesting, possibly even adulatory. Yet, Wagner--now incontrovertibly established as a rabid anti-Semite--is missing from her online list of "influences" on the Myspace account, and it appears to be a disingenuous move on her part. Why hide who you really are? Considering the company that she keeps outside of the Libertarian Party of Indiana, it's not hard to understand why.

Is she some form of "Trojan Horse"? The Wagner connection is telling if this is the same individual.

Indeed, as recently as last week, a German scholar has confirmed from the composer's personal correspondence (and of his half-Jewish wife, Cosima, the daughter of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt) once-and-for-all that Wagner was an anti-Semite. For many, this was a forgone conclusion long ago, inside and outside of neo-Nazi and white hate circles.

Letters between German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883), his wife Cosima and musicians at the Bayreuth opera house showed more consistent anti-Semitism than had previously been known, a music history researcher has said. In a interview with the German Press Agency dpa, music and theatre researcher Stephan Moesch charged that materials showing anti-Jewish attitudes of the Wagner family had been 'glossed over' by the academic community.
("Researcher highlights 'ignored' anti-Semitism in Wagner letters," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 07.21.2009)

The late German historian Joachim Fest, and numerous other musical scholars, cultural historians, and world historians have contended this all along. Fest and many other international historians have contended that Wagner's operas informed Adolph Hitler's own brand of anti-Semitism, and could very likely have inspired the concept of the Holocaust, the wiping-out of European Jewry. Again, for the sake of context, Antas is currently the assistant to the Mosleyite Holocaust denier David Irving.

Fest wrote in his sprawling biography of Hitler:

For the Master of Bayeruth was not only Hitler's great exemplar; he was also the young man's ideological mentor. Wagner's political writings were Hitler's favorite reading, and the sprawling pomposity of his style unmistakably influenced Hitler's own grammar and syntax. Those political writings, together with the operas, form the entire framework of Hitler's ideology: Darwinism and anti-Semitism. ("I hold the Jewish race to be the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble in man"), the adoration of barbarism and Germanic might, the mystique of blood purification expressed in Parzifal, and the general histrionic view in which good and evil, purity and corruption, rulers and the ruled, stand opposed in black and white contrasts. ...Here he found the "granite foundations" for his view of the world. (Fest, Joachim, Hitler. P.56)

A reasonably thorough combing of the web shows that Ms. Antas goes to a fair amount of trouble limiting and possibly obscuring her Internet and public presence as well as obviously racist statements. I'm sure she's not the only one to pull her name and photographs off the Internet. She's good, possibly even clever, but that hasn't stopped others from noticing her.

It all fits very nicely: her Myspace page has Libertarian friends--even at this writing--as well as a number of fans of Norwegian metal and the like. That's not a real indicator of a far right connection in itself, but the restraint there speaks volumes. Comments are very carefully worded on "Tristania's" StormFront comments just as they are on the Myspace account, by Antas, and her "friends."

But why would anyone care to use one of the few operas as an online identity in redacted form, a spin-off of the name of a Norwegian metal opera group? Sure, she's probably a fan, but what of the rest here? The strong possibility is that someone told Antas this very interesting fact: Tristan and Isolde was one of the very first operas by Wagner that Adolph Hitler attended, and it was a seminal influence on him that lasted to the very end of his life. It all fits too nicely to be a coincidence. Yes, it appears someone has problems behaving alright.

Joachim Fest's "Hitler": http://books.google.com/books?id=qnnlUEDZZIAC&pg=PA56&dq=Joachim+Fest+Wagner+anti-Semitism+Siegfried

"Portland, Oregon says David Irving Not Welcome: Some Notes on July 19," Portland Indy Media, 07.21.2009: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/07/392889.shtml

"Jaenelle Antas, Personal Assistant, Indianapolis, Indiana Area," Linkedin.com page: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jaenelle-antas/7/784/9aa

"Researcher highlights 'ignored' anti-Semitism in Wagner letters," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 07.21.2009: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1490988.php/Researcher_highlights_&quotignored&quot_anti-Semitism_in_Wagner_letters_

"Tristania's" Stormfront page with images: http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=5586983&postcount=1205

Jaenelle's Myspace page (try not to be eating, drinking, or driving while viewing/listening): http://www.myspace.com/jaenellesings

The Urban Dictionary's page on "metal opera" (w. Wagner & Tristania featured prominently): http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=metal+opera

The Libertarian Party of Indiana: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_of_Indiana

GOP convention's closing music...

St. Paul, Minnesota--What was that music? It wasn't Aaron Copland. It wasn't George Gershwin. Was it John Williams? It wasn't good. It wasn't inspiring. It was boring, but at least it wasn't that dumbass Fleetwood Mac song the Clintons picked several-years-ago. Daft.

I know, I know. It wasn't like either party is going to pick something like Phil Ochs, Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem," or something inspiring like John Lennon's "Working Class Hero," or something from Woody Guthrie--that wouldn't kitschy and meaningless, like most life lived under the (not-so) New Fascism of consumerism.

But hey, it appears this order is dying anyway. Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" states that all countries have their time at the top power-wise. That time is ending for America, and nothing can stop it. That doesn't mean it has to be a catastrophe either, yet if we keep fighting this reality that Smith wrote of, we'll ensure it. That's what the GOP's for--wrecking things in the service of the "big money." Why wouldn't they have shitty taste in music? So did Hitler. Ever try to sit-through an entire opera by Wagner? It's excruciating. Boring.

Suggestion: play the Three Stooges theme next time.

The Birth of Pop: Ken Russell's "Lisztomania" (1975) review

To many, this film is the stunning proof that director Ken Russell never had it and that idiocy and egotism were mistaken for genius. You could say mistaking idiocy and egotism for genius has been the appeal of rock music all along!

Others might say that Russell is simply childish or immature, and that his films are the "masturbatory fantasies" of an overgrown-adolescent. This belief is unfounded. Consider this film part-autobiography and the problems faced by most artists who have to battle for control over the direction of their work with their backers, their "patrons." Before there was even a notion of "capitalism," artists have had to fight to protect their visions from the very people they're dependent on to realize those dreams.

Is this film over-indulgent? Yes it is, dear readers, very-much-so, because it is art and not entertainment. That said, if you chuck any expectations, this is also a funny film and allegory about the rise of pop culture in the 19th Century.

Russell's Lisztomania ( phrase coined while the composer was at the height of his powers) draws parallels between Liszt's fame and that other generally hollow spectacle known as "rock." That's not to say Russell dislikes Liszt's music or that he views it as meaningless--the contrary is true. What Russell hates is the empty spectacle. But this is great filmmaking, and it should be noted that it has similarities between itself and another film of the same year, "Rocky Horror," and even "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," as they examine and explore the relationships between sexuality and pop culture. It really is true that women threw their underwear at Franz Liszt during his performances and that he had many-many lovers, 19 th century "proto-groupies."

Lisztomania is also that very odd bridge between "classic" arena rock and the emergent punk movement of the time. The film can be seen as a statement that "rock" is not really subversive or rebellious at all, but ultimately arch-conservative and repressive. Amen. It's just a hilarious, wild romp that will make your guests extremely nervous, which films all great films should do. Movies should challenge people to think and reflect, at least occasionally.

Ironically (or perhaps not-at-all), Mr. Russell had previously contracted Malcolm MacLaren and Vivienne Westwood to design the S&M costumes for his film, "Mahler." It should also be noted that "Liszt-O-Mania" was released exactly the same year that MacLaren's shop "SEX" shop opened on King's Row; the rest is, as they say, history. It couldn't be more camp considering it has Little Nell in it, but it would be without her.

Basically put, this is about the the ins-and-outs of "why" we want and need pop culture and WHAT we generally want from our "pop idols" (sex and some form of wish-fulfillment, naturally). One could say this film criticizes the absurd spectacle that rock had become by 1975, and this theme pops-up often throughout the film, but Russell was never a fan. No, this psychological comic book portrait goes much deeper into the relationship between artist and patron. Nowadays, the patrons are the mass audience, something that was just emerging from the industrial and commercial age. Once, it was just the aristocracy, now the mob has been added.

Sexuality is about mass psychology, so Wilhelm Reich gets-his-due here in some areas, and there is a plethora of Freudian imagery, which is something you expect from Russell. Lisztomania is certainly a very personal film for the director and probably amuses him as much as it does myself that it enrages so many critics (definitely a "get-screwed" message to all of them), but it should be noted that some of the absurdity and excess came from the producer of the film, not Mr. Russell. The enfant terrible director has complained about the opening country song in his autobiography "Altered States," and that there were other aspects of the production he didn't want in the film. Perhaps. Yet Russell tends to enrage all the right people, and that's what at least some film-making should be.

God love this lapsed Catholic, and God love his ways. Lisztomania is a flawed part of his canon, but a very watchable and educational one. As Russell began his career doing documentaries and impressionistic films on composers for the BBC, it makes a kind of sense that this is considered one of his most heretical works since it goes well beyond his work for television in the 1960s...until one becomes aware of his banned "Dance of the Seven Veils" about Richard Strauss.

Critics of the film tend to trot out the BBC documentaries as a yardstick, yet this isn't so far removed from "Dance of the Seven Veils," a film that also utilized the same psychosexual comic book approach of Strauss's and Hitler's fateful relationship. Liszt and Wagner's fateful relationship is portrayed in similar terms and imagery, namely that of National Socialism. Dance of the SevenVeils got him booted from the BBC for nearly twenty years. It's hard to generalize about Russell's career, except perhaps on a thematic level, but he's always willing to rile.

It's interesting to note that the 1980s was the period of his purest work, due mainly to a three-picture deal with the now-defunct Vestron pictures. But the standard view of many of his sharpest critics is that it was a fallow decade. The opposite is true.

The 1970s were actually a very mixed-bag for Russell, as evinced by Lisztomania and Valentino, and he continued to struggle for artistic control over his films as the decade rolled-on. He isn't entirely pleased with Lisztomania, but Russell definitely had some fun with the material, and so, there it is. This is hardly one of his best films and surely not his worst. What it is is a real laugh riot. I think it's a hoot, which means it isn't on DVD.