05/31/2021
In the last year alone, VDARE.com powered through six major deplatforming attempts: Facebook, YouTube, our domain registrar, our back-office fundraising software, our third email marketing service, and our second online payment processor.
The hate-filled Woke Left want us silenced, and they will not stop until they get their way.
VDARE.com is right up there among the most targeted organizations out there today for one simple reason: we never shy away from educating people on the negative consequences of mass immigration, or the beauty, richness, and fragility of America’s national identity.
When we fight for what is right, we are targeted. I wear it as a badge of honor.
But on a practical level, what am I to do? Buy our own domain registrar? Build our own Facebook? Create our own banking system?
Well, sometimes, the answer is “yes.”
That is why I’m counting on your immediate financial support to help VDARE.com FIGHT BACK.
With bills piling up for our extensive technical development, legal work, and the digital communications acrobatics we must endure, I am concerned that I won’t be able to fully fund ALL of the bootstrapping necessary to continue as the voice of the Historic American Nation.
Late last winter, after a string of conference cancellations, I realized the way forward for safe and secure in-person meetings:
Opt out entirely from the endless game of chicken with hotels who thought they lived in a free country but then caved under pressure from the hate-filled Woke Left.
Opt in to controlling our own destiny with the purchase of the beautiful Berkeley Castle in Berkeley Springs West Virginia.
Thanks to donors like you, we bought a literal fortress and we have spent the last year building it up: improving the facilities, moving our offices, and laying the groundwork for a major construction project to turn this the castle into an ideal conference venue.
But we are also working hard on our invisible fortress: the infrastructure which keeps VDARE.com online.
In one my regular phone calls with a good friend and committed contributor, I was shocked when he asked, “so does VDARE.com have a full-time tech guy?”
We have a whole TEAM of tech guys! We have web developers, on-site tech support and special consultants. Some are full time, some part time, and there are even some who donate their time (thank you!).
Startled as I was to be asked this question, it made me realize: we here at VDARE.com spend so much of our time talking about the important issues critical to our mission — patriotic immigration reform and American national identity — and I very rarely tell you what is happening here in our offices: building the institutional fortress.
So it is time to pull back the curtain and show our supporters how VDARE.com continues to grow behind the scenes.
As a friend and donor to VDARE, you are entitled to know what your donations directly support, what we have built with your funding and what we can do together in the future.
Our enemies know that if they can sap our resources enough, we will go away forever, leaving them free to remake the country to fit their radical vision for the future.
After all, if your donations are tied up in developing an online payment processor from scratch because we have been kicked off the others, those same donations cannot be used to examine the American Worker Displacement Index produced by Peter Brimelow and Edwin S. Rubenstein. Our enemies want us to be forced to choose between defending ourselves in legal battles, or paying for Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire, Lance Welton and our other important writers.
Reevaluating our budget at this precarious time for our country is not something I want to do. I rely entirely on your donations to avoid it.
As you read this, we have five major functions and initiatives underway, which I have listed here in order of priority:
This is the most visible part of our work. This is of course, where we started, and it remains the core of what we do. com publishes numerous items every day including blogs, articles, letters, and videos that inform the fight to keep America American.
We believe the truth will set you free. The Main Stream Media elites and their Big Tech allies are not interested in the truth. They are interested in one thing, and one thing only — helping their political cronies tear down and then remake America into something you and I would find utterly unrecognizable.
Our base of over 200 (genuinely diverse!) writers and reporters continues to dig into the facts of the news, to analyze them and to share perspectives. From this, we will never be distracted.
How can we continue to distribute our message and build the patriot community when we are barred from email marketing services, database management software, Facebook, YouTube and other digital distribution channels?
[A] We work hard to use the tools we still have at our disposal. Starting in 2019, we dedicated resources to round-the clock-social media coordination. Making sure VDARE.com accounts on alternative platforms are nurtured, while constantly on the lookout for new channel opportunities, keeps our news and information from being buried alive by Big Tech censorship.
[B] We network tirelessly with other patriots to strengthen our “distribution by proxy” opportunities. Distribution by proxy, a term now being pushed in particular by Project Veritas as it fights many of the same censorship battles that we do, means establishing networks of supporters who can amplify messaging across multiple platforms.
For example, VDARE’s YouTube accounts were purged last summer, but many of our allies remain on the platform. If VDARE.com’s concepts can be distributed by other YouTube users — it will have to be a mention, because YouTube won’t let you post a link — then it is still accessible to YouTube viewers. We amplify the messaging of our allies on our platforms, and they do the same for us, creating resilience for everyone.
[C] Most demanding, our web developers and special advisors are well into the process of building and deploying "hardened" access modes such as TOR pages and proprietary email solutions that are, at a minimum, well insulated from the PC-driven attacks by Big Tech.
I will not go into detail about the growing intensity of attacks and hatred directed toward VDARE.com and our allies. It is enough to say that the hate-filled Woke Left think the only thing better than blocking us from receiving online donations is the actual seizure of our monies and property — and the only thing better than silencing us online is depriving us of our rights in real life.
For example, Laura Loomer is not a criminal, but she is barred by the FBI from owning a firearm. Nick Fuentes is not a criminal, but he is barred by TSA from air travel in the United States. Andrew Torba is not a criminal, but Gab, his social media platform, was kicked out of four different banks over the course of four weeks earlier this year.
VDARE.com has not yet experienced firearms, travel, or banking crises although we are actively preparing for them. What we have experienced, professionally and even personally, is the denial of services time and time again — from online donation processing to CPA help, from conference rentals to internal software providers and social media, because of our political opinions.
Just before the 2020 election, for instance, Microsoft updated its “Code of Conduct” for Microsoft365 Users, including the prohibition of “Hate Speech.” In this case, if you are suspected of “communicating Hate Speech” or “helping others break the rules,” then Microsoft can
stop providing Services to you or we may close your Microsoft account. [We] may also block delivery of a communication (like email, file sharing or instant message) to or from the Services in an effort to enforce these Terms or we may remove or refuse to publish Your Content for any reason.
Of course, “Hate Speech” is an offense unknown to U.S. law. It’s just Orwellian coinage used to silence truth-tellers. Nobody knows what “helping others break the rules” means. The entire policy is just a license to censor and kneecap political enemies who happen to use Windows’ ubiquitous products.
It is not enough that Left want our website shadow-banned, demonetized and ultimately taken down. They want our whole back office wiped out, too. That is why VDARE.com is working toward open-source back-office solutions and away from Big Tech.
The precedents have been set. Planning and executing defensive measures is expensive in time and money, but absolutely essential for the survival of our organization.
Between 2016 and 2019, we contracted with some ten different hotels for conferences, and were later canceled by every single hotel because of hate-filled Woke Left harassment. We were willing to proceed, but the hotels could not take the heat. With this beautiful new facility, Cancel Culture cannot cancel VDARE.com’s meetings, parties or conferences!
As would be the case with any historic property, we have had our hands full getting the space in order, and we experienced a dramatic setback last summer when our main conference room was smashed by a falling tree. While we repair the extensive damage done to the roof and interior, we are taking the opportunity to improve and beautify the room, expanding its capacity and upgrading the presentation space.
Design and approval processes and critical labor shortages, as well as the Covid epidemic, have delayed completion by several months. However, we are comfortable in saying that sometime in the fall of 2021 we will be able to invite you and other like-minded people to meetings and conferences in security, comfort, and beauty.
Every day, headlines around the country broadcast a sad reality: Equal Justice is not guaranteed in America anymore.
Robust legal defenses (and offenses!) have become an absolutely critical element of our plans for the future. VDARE.com has taken legal action against PayPal for kicking us off their online payments for no cause, the New York Times for slander and defamation, Colorado Springs and Mayor John Suthers for violating our civil rights to freely assemble, and most recently against Facebook.
But lawsuits are not the only legal needs we have. Our legal work must be agile and proactive. Without thinking strategically now, we keep ourselves open to vulnerability later, and without legal guard dogs ready to challenge the onslaught we withstand, we will never be allowed to carry on our mission.
So, what does it take to push these five initiatives forward? It takes your support.
Most of the work I have described here is behind the scenes, but without it, VDARE.com, and the media we produce, and the community we have built, will die.
Vertical integration to keep VDARE.com online is not cheap. Neither are legal battles, or the building up our conference venue. But all of these initiatives are necessary for survival, and the bills are piling up.
I worry about our ability to keep fighting if we are hamstrung by growing costs, and I do not have the funding to fight back.
That is why I am counting on your financial support today. If I have your support, I will never, ever stop fighting to keep America American. So please, give your most generous contribution today. All donations are fully tax deductible.
Gratefully and stalwartly yours,
PS: This really is a battle for survival of the Historic American Nation. Your donation means the world to me as we build a fortress — visible and invisible — to ensure an American future as our forefathers intended, “for ourselves and our posterity!”
Please visit vdare.com/donate or mail a check with your donation today!
A native Texan, Lydia Brimelow graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 2006. She is President and Publisher at VDARE.com. She and Peter married in 2007 and have three daughters together.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.