On the same page

From the 24Ahead blog, we read that Rupert Murdoch of Fox News has testified in favor of ''comprehensive immigration reform'', which in English is 'amnesty for illegal aliens.'' This is no surprise, and it will also be unsurprising when the liberals/leftists continue to identify him as a ''right-winger''. Will any of the avid Fox News cult members finally realize that Fox is not a ''conservative'' news source? And that Murdoch is not on the side of majority White Americans?

Murdoch, with his extensive media holdings and concomitant power is almost the living example of what I envision in my mind when I think about the globalist elites. He and his soul-mate Soros. Speaking of the devil, there was. from 1997,  this interesting article about Soros, linked on the WTPOTUS blog recently.

He and Murdoch seem to worship at the same altar on the subject of immigration.

From the discussion of the Soros article:

THE EMMA LAZARUS FUND

It might strike a person as odd that one of America’s richest men would decide to take a leading role in calling for a more tolerant, open attitude toward immigration. But when one learns the man is George Soros, perhaps this is not surprising. Soros, profiled earlier this month on the popular television newsmagazine 60 Minutes, has a reputation for being a tough businessman, but also one of the world’s leading philanthropists. Until recently, he was best known for giving money to help promote open societies in Eastern Europe.

But recently Soros chose to tackle the issue of immigration. Soros knows first hand the importance of an open immigration policy. He is, after all, a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust and knows that for many, the right to immigrate can be a matter of life and death.

Recently Soros created the Emma Lazarus Fund, an initiative of Soros’ Open Society Institute. Emma Lazarus was the 19th Century Jewish-American poet whose famous words from her poem “The New Colossus” welcoming impoverished immigrants to American shores are on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty. The poem, beginning with the famous words “Give me your tired, your poor…” is one of the most famous in American literature and is now synonymous with America’s welcoming historical attitude to immigrants.

According to Soros, the Fund has the following goals:

“First, in appropriate instances, it will pay the cost of applying for citizenship for legal immigrants who wish to become naturalized Americans; second, it will assist community and social service organizations that help legal immigrants by providing English-language instruction and other services that help them qualify for citizenship; finally, the Fund will assist organizations conducting efforts, both in the courts and through public education campaigns, on the issues of naturalization and immigration.”

Soros does not intend the Fund to promote open borders. Rather, he says the issue is one of justice – equal treatment and the rule of law, regardless of immigration status.''

Compare the above with the comments of Murdoch on immigration, quoted in the 24Ahead blog entry:

''It is nonsense to talk of expelling 12 million people,” testified Murdoch. “Not only is it impractical, it is cost prohibitive."

Murdoch cited a study that gauged “the price of mass deportation at $285 billion over five years,” which amounts to $57 billion per year, adding that “there are better ways to spend our money.”

“A full path to legalization--requiring unauthorized immigrants to register, undergo a security check, pay taxes and learn English--would bring these immigrants out of a shadow economy and add to our tax base,” said Murdoch.

He continued, “According to one study, a path to legalization would contribute an estimated $1.5 trillion to the Gross Domestic Product over 10 years.”

One thing these men have in common is that they are both men of no fixed allegiances; they breathe the rarefied air of those above common loyalties such as the rest of us share. Neither of them seem to have loyalty to any particular country, though they are happy to profit from, and use, and manipulate Western countries.

Soros is the darling of the left, and their biggest money patron, while many on the ''right'' think that Murdoch is on our side. It's clear that Soros, Murdoch, and the rest of the lesser-known elites are on nobody's side but their own. Even the illegal immigrants they are advocating for and lobbying for are not of any real concern to them, merely weapons to be used or fodder for some plan to benefit themselves and their own little group.

Names

When I saw this news story, my attention was caught by the fact that the surname, Osgood, is one of my ancestral names, and secondarily, I was struck by the incongruity of the first name which was paired with the English surname.

I am not a football fan, so I wouldn't know the Osgood in the news story from Adam's housecat, but I did think of this piece which appeared on the Occidental Observer blog a while back.

It's titled The Decline of Old American Names. The writer also had the experience of seeing, in a news story, a similarly unlikely name, an Anglo-Saxon surname with an 'exotic' first name, borne by a young murder suspect.

It's a no-brainer these days that if you have an English or British Isles surname paired with an Arabic or faux-Arabic first name, the person so named is likely to be black.

Blogger Thomas Stewart says

"...every time in America someone in the news pops up named Robinson, Smith, Clark, Davis, Williams, Johnson or Randolph I automatically assume that the person is black. But these were apparently the names of the wealthiest slave-holding families of WASP descent. Where are their white descendants? They haven’t completely disappeared, as a Jackson or Johnson of clearly North European ancestry isn’t unheard of, but they are a minority among their namesakes.

The most common surname in the NBA is Williams, shared by twelve players. Of them, only one is white and he appears to be a blond tattooed freak who’s known for having drug problems. The league also claims three Wallaces, seven Johnsons, four Joneses, and three Youngs, all of whom are black. Obviously the NBA isn’t a representative sample of the population but from my experience I would bet the results would be around the same if one looked at the country as a whole, with a 7- or 8-1 or higher ratio of per capita old wealthy white names among American blacks compared to whites.''

I've thought the same thing. When was the last time you heard of someone surnamed Washington or Jefferson who was not black? Many other names, like those mentioned in the quote, are also primarily associated with blacks nowadays. I suppose that simply indicates that blacks have been much more prolific at reproducing than the descendants of the original bearers of those surnames.

My family surname is one that nowadays is borne by more blacks than whites, especially where I now reside. When I am in certain Southern states, notably Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, and the Carolinas, the ratio tilts more towards the White bearers of the name. Still it's somewhat unfortunate to open up a newspaper or turn on the news and see one's own surname associated with criminal activities. I wonder what my ancestors would think about that?

I know exactly what the liberal type thinks about it: first of all, it's ''racist'' to even notice that black criminals share my surname or my ancestors' surnames, much less, feel discomfort about it. And the liberal would likewise say it's my ''karma,'' because of my ancestors' evil ways. that our name has to be shamed by association with crime -- after all, weren't those old Virginia families (Randolph, Jefferson, Bland, et al) ''criminals'' too by virtue of having held slaves?

Actually though it is not just criminals who share those surnames, but also a few black celebrities and household names have the surnames of some of my ancestors, to such an extent in certain cases that the name is forever associated with those bearers of the family name.

One more factor that the blogger did not mention, but which I've noticed, is that some names which originated in the British Isles are now associated with immigrant Jewish families, by virtue of their having adopted those names when they arrived. This misleads some people into thinking the names are in fact Jewish -- names like Ross, Irving, Robinson, Stone, Lee, and many others.

The cliche has it that immigrants who changed their names were often forced by some heartless immigration official to change their foreign-sounding names to something Anglo-Saxon. I think that story is rather over-used. It appears that many immigrants chose an Anglo-sounding surname so as to better blend in, at least on paper. But rarely do the descendants of those ''forced'' to adopt an English surname ever change it back to the original old-country name. Why not? Ethnic names have become quite trendy now. Why not discard the English or Scottish name and take back the original?

Back during the Civil Rights revolution, militant blacks, usually black Moslems, adopted names that were faux-Arabic or real Arabic names, or adopted names like 'X' because their original African names had been lost, or ''stolen'' from them.

I think that is a move in the right direction; I would not want to retain a name which belongs to an utterly different ancestry or race, especially if I thought the original owners of the name were evil racists who oppressed my ancestors. I am all for the casting off of 'slave names' or imposed English surnames.

A name should tell us something about the ancestry of the person bearing it -- as should a first name, for that matter -- in my opinion. We live in a Babelesque society in which even our names have become confused and muddled, and which obfuscate our origins and our ties of kinship. But maybe that is all part of the overall plan. Names are divisive, aren't they? Just as nationality, race, and religion are divisive, and we can't have that.

Diversity, coming up

Over at Hoosier Nation, Jake Jacobsen asks why, in his city with a single-digit percentage of Hispanics, there are ads in Spanish on the sides of city buses?

Good question. I asked the same question about help-wanted ads by McDonald's in my town, which also has (so far) a small percentage of Hispanics. I got some kind of form response back by e-mail from Mickey D's, but no plausible answer.

On a recent shopping errand in my town, I noticed that in my local bookstore's clearance bin, they had three children's books: one about Crispus Attucks, the lone black 'Revolutionary hero', one about black tennis player Arthur Ashe, and one about none other than Beck's idol, MLK. I wonder why these books did not sell? Likewise, in a local shop there were black Santa Clauses among the early Christmas merchandise. Aren't these all examples of bad marketing choices in a town which is so far rather diversity-deficient?

Again, in my neighborhood Rite Aid, I saw many posters of 'diversities' but none of people who looked remotely like 95 or so percent of the people who live here. On the shelves, the boxes of disposable diapers all displayed images of either black or Asian babies.

On the clearance shelves in that same store, there are always black hair care products and skin-lightening products. Who orders these products for which there is very little demand or need in this town? Why? Aren't they losing money on it?

The grocery store where I do most of my shopping displays a big poster on their walls, boasting that they honor and promote 'diversity'.

For a long time I wondered why these things are so in-our-faces here. In the city, where there is more than ample 'diversity' (oops, I forgot that you can never have too much diversity), I could understand all this emphasis as a way of pandering to non-Whites, and saying ''look, we welcome your business! We are not racists, honest!" But in the small towns where even the diversicrats haven't caught up to us yet, I wondered what sense it made. What imaginary clientele are they appealing to? I think a good bit of it is meant as just a way of reminding us, the majority, that diversity is inescapable, and that it's coming our way, and we can't do a thing about it. Surrender, Dorothy!

It's a way of priming us, conditioning us. It's like they are using mere pictures of diversities to stand in, for the time being, for the flesh-and-blood kind, which they are feverishly working to bring to us. Maybe a load of refugees with our town's name on it is heading our way, but until then, we can look at the pictures of all those nice, smiling, diverse people and comfort ourselves that we haven't been forgotten or overlooked; vibrancy is coming our way, just as fast as they can rustle up a fresh batch.

Shine, Republic

The quality of these trees, green height; of the sky, shining, of water, a clear flow; of the rock, hardness.
And reticence: each is noble in its quality. The love of freedom has been the quality of Western man.

There is a stubborn torch that flames from Marathon to Concord, its dangerous beauty binding three ages
Into one time; the waves of barbarism and civilization have eclipsed but have never quenched it.

For the Greeks the love of beauty, for Rome of ruling; for the present age the passionate love of discovery;
But in one noble passion we are one; and Washington, Luther, Tacitus, Aeschylus, one kind of man.

And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom.
You did not say "en masse," you said "independence." But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.

Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel.
You will tame it against it burn too clearly, you will hood it like a kept hawk, you will perch it on the wrist of Caesar.

But keep the tradition, conserve the forms, the observances, keep the spot sore.
Be great, carve deep your heel-marks. The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.

  -Robinson Jeffers

Feminism, left and right

There is an interesting post and discussion thread at Chronicles,  in which Thomas Fleming discusses how feminism has undermined, to the point of destruction, our most basic social institution, marriage and family.

He notes how there are now few defenders, even among ''conservatives'', of the ''patriarchy'', as feminists have labeled our former traditions.

''The recent decision to deploy women on submarines has been hailed as a victory in the continuing struggle to liberate women from the oppression of the domineering male sex. Conservatives have generally deplored the move, citing the inevitable sexual tensions and lowering of morale that will result from putting young males and females in such close quarters for long periods of time. (And, think of all those poor male homosexuals who find the submarine service so attractive because of the lack of female competition!). Some conservatives even go so far as to declare their opposition to women serving in any military capacity, but they are a species on the endangered list: Even the great nemesis of women in uniform, James Webb, has backed off, proving once again, that no honest man can be a US senator.''

It is a worthwhile piece, and the discussion following is also good. I recommend reading it.

This piece particularly caught my interest, especially the first paragraph, which I have quoted above. In a recent post titled 'A little leaven', I mentioned the degree to which feminism (as well as leftism in all its manifestations) has captured 'conservatives', especially Republicans. Women in the military seems to be one idea which conservatives, despite strong opposition in the early days of feminism's propaganda onslaught, have now embraced.

As I mentioned in that earlier blog entry, those ''conservatives'' who argue for a co-ed military and women in combat, often do so on the basis that there are patriotic women who want to fight for our country, and they should not only be permitted to do so, but applauded and praised for it.

If one counters that women are simply not the equals of men in the realm of physical size, strength, and aggressiveness, the feminist 'conservatives' fall back on the old familiar liberal response: they will cite some exception which supposedly disproves the rule. Example: "I know a young woman who is as fit and strong as most young men, and she can fight alongside any man. Would you forbid her from doing her part to defend her country?"

The fact that women like the one described above are pretty rare does not deter these people from making a broad generalization that women can be the equals of men in battle, just because there are a few isolated examples of strong, brave, tough women.

Never mind, also, the fact that there is more than one way to ''serve one's country'', as in previous World Wars when women had auxiliary groups and occupied support roles, rather than going into combat in co-ed units with the men.

The other large faction of 'conservatives' who argue for women in combat and for a co-ed military is a group that seems to be mostly men, who argue from an egalitarian perspective: ''If women want to be equal, let 'em be 100 percent equal, and pull their own weight. Draft 'em. Make 'em serve. Make 'em fight and die just like the men. It's unfair to send only males out to fight and die for their country.''

I've heard that one more than a few times, and true to form, someone on the Chronicles thread says something similar.

Let's look at that argument. In a way, it's a concession to feminism. It posits that men and women are, or should be, for fairness' sake, equals in all things, and that women can just toughen up and take it like men, never mind that most women would be not fit nor willing to go into combat.



Now, is that the case because women are too cowardly or too lazy or too privileged to want to go to war, or because women are not fitted for such roles?

Should 'conservatives' be arguing from egalitarian principles like 'equality' and 'fairness'? Do those arguing these things actually believe the sexes are equal in ability to fight and in the aggressive traits needed to be an effective warrior? Do they believe that women and men can actually share living quarters, with little privacy or room for modesty, without problematic situations arising?

Do these egalitarians really believe that, or is their profession of belief in equality disingenuous? I think, obviously, that they believe no such thing; their arguments exhibit a desire to punish women, or feminists at least, by forcing them to endure the hardships of combat.

I can concede that the anger towards women is legitimate and justified. Feminism is and has always been a hostile, misandrist movement, which on its part has had punitive instincts toward males. So it is understandable that many men respond in kind.

But to go as far as to argue for women in the military and in combat just out of spite is going a little far. Firstly, does the conservative who makes these arguments believe that the presence of women in military roles in co-ed situations does not have a deleterious effect on male bonding and camaraderie, which is a big part of the effectiveness of the soldier and the military generally?

The presence of women in these situations generates sexual tension, sometimes jealousy and squabbling amongst the men. Men also feel the need to tone down their normal male group behavior because of the presence of females. Women, too, probably develop rivalries and squabbles with other women in the group, who may be romantic/sexual competition for them.

It's an established fact that pregnancies in the co-ed military are a problem, which anybody with common sense could have foreseen.

There is also the possibility during warfare for captured female soldiers to be raped, which possibility most of us who have daughters would take very seriously. But the hard-nosed egalitarian 'conservative' says ''so what? Men get raped too, why are women considered too delicate to risk that? Don't we value our sons just as much as our daughters?"

I tend to doubt that male prisoners are as likely to be raped by captors, although I could be wrong about that.

To return to the question of differences in muscular strength, stamina, and plain old grit, can the average female offer fellow male soldiers the same kind of physical back-up in a combat situation as another male would? To say 'yes' is being unrealistic, I think.

A while back, I mentioned a fire we had here at home, and the fact that one of the firefighters was a young woman who looked to be all of 5'3'' and rather small-framed. There is no way she could perform on the same level as her fellow firefighters who were all young men in their prime, most of them well over 6 feet tall, and solidly built. Sorry, but I want the strong young men here in the case of emergency, and if that hurts the girls' feelings, so be it.

I have heard that the physical requisites for these jobs have been lowered so as to give women a 'fairer' chance to qualify, and that in itself is wrong. It's the same with our military.

Women and men are not equals in all respects, certainly not in strength and size. To even have to say that is ridiculous; it used to be a given, something that even young children could see.

While acknowledging that there are no doubt some women who acquit themselves pretty well in the military, I still believe that these rare exceptions do not disprove the rule.

It does seem as though there is a fairly large group of people on the right who seem to think the idea of female soldiers is perfectly acceptable, whether through cynicism or because they have simply bought the egalitarian, leftist thinking that argues for overturning traditional male-female roles. It's ''progress'', or ''things are just different now; nothing stays the same forever''.

The larger question here, though, is why have so many conservatives bought into the egalitarianism of the left? Just as in the earlier blog entry I wrote, I will say that even some of us stubborn right-wingers have succumbed to the propaganda and to that old devil, peer pressure. These ideas are popular, and nobody wants to be an old fogey or a 'reactionary' or the dread 'sexist.'

That's the real issue that must be dealt with: how do we discourage or avert this insidious leftism, and once having found it, how do we excise it from our midst?

'They never asked us...'

A very powerful monologue.

Another persistent myth

Several posts ago, I mentioned that I had been reading a book called Saints and Strangers, by George F. Willison. As I said, it's about the Pilgrim fathers, those who were the original Massachusetts colonists.

Before I go on, let me reiterate that I am not a descendant of that group of people, but I'm descended on the maternal side from the later Puritan colonists who arrived with Winthrop's fleet around 1630. So though the Pilgrim fathers were not my ancestors, I feel a connection with them.

The pop-culture view of history which is accepted by most people, unfortunately, envisions these Puritans as being grim-faced, overly pious, joyless, ''repressed'' (to use Freudian jargon) people, who were nothing but a blight on the development of our American society.

Willison addresses this biased image of Puritans in the first chapter of his book.

"The Pilgrims were not nineteenth-century pietists, or quietists. They were not pale plaster saints, hollow and bloodless. They were men -- and women, too -- of courage and conviction, strong and positive in their attitudes, prepared to sacrifice much for their principles, even their very lives. Far from being Victorians, they were children of another and a greater age, the Elizabethan, and in their lives reflected many of the qualities of that amazing age -- its restlessness and impatience with old ways, its passionate enthusiasms, its eager curiosity and daring speculation in all fields, its boldness in action, its abounding and apparently inexhaustible energies.

Never did the pilgrims quietly resign themselves to defeat, no matter what the odds against them. They launched themselves upon the most hazardous ventures not once but many times, and no obstacle or untoward circumstance could stay them or divert them from their course. Far from being humble and soft-spoken, they were quick in their own defense, fond of controversy, and sharp of tongue, engaging in many a high-pitched quarrel with their friends and foes alike, even among themselves. Given to speaking their minds plainly, they expressed themselves in the language of Marlowe and Shakespeare, in the torrential and often rafter-shaking rhetoric of Elizabethan England, with no slightest regard for the proprieties and politic circumlocutions of a later day.
[...]
The Pilgrims were Elizabethan, too, in their acceptance of the simpler joys of life. They practised no macerations of the flesh, no tortures of self-denial. They appreciated the pleasures of the table and the bottle, liking both ''strong waters'' and beer, especially the latter, never complaining more loudly of their hardships than when necessity reduced them to drinking water, which they always regarded with suspicion as a prolific source of human ills. They were not monks or nuns in their intimate relations as their usually numerous families and more than occasional irregularities attest. Fond of the comforts of connubial bed and board, they married early and often and late, sometimes within a few weeks of losing a mate. Only on the Sabbath did they go about in funereal blacks and grays. Ordinarily they wore the russet browns and Lincoln green common among the English lower classes from which they sprang."

A few years ago, I think I wrote about this false image of Puritans and Pilgrims in a blog entry. However, it doesn't matter that occasionally, rarely, very rarely, somebody offers a defense of the much-defamed Puritans, people will still go on believing their cartoon image of the Puritans as the ultimate killjoys, and the source of everything that is wrong with America today.

This, to me, is bizarre in the extreme, given that we live in one of the most libertine ages in Western history.

That eternally bitter cynic and misanthrope, H.L. Mencken (who occasionally said something true, by accident) conducted a one-man war against the Puritan fathers, and has since been quoted endlessly, usually by the secular cynics, hedonists, and Anglophobics.

In his 1917 book of Essays, he wrote of the Puritan influence:

But perhaps the most important, and certainly the most outspoken essay was entitled "Puritanism as a Literary Force," during which he alleged that William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Mark Twain were victims of the Puritan spirit.

'The Puritan's utter lack of aesthetic sense, his distrust of all romantic emotion, his unmatchable intolerance of opposition, his unbreakable belief in his own bleak and narrow views, his savage cruelty of attack, his lust for relentless and barbarous persecution-- these things have put an almost unbearable burden up on the exchange of ideas in the United States.'

Mencken had criticized Puritanism for many years, famously characterizing it as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy," but through World War I his criticism became increasingly outspoken, in part due to the rising tide of Prohibition.''

There you go: he was unhappy that his favorite substance was illegal. In the Prohibition days, when Mencken wrote the above, America was hardly a puritanical country: think the flappers, ''flaming youth'', short skirts, cocaine usage, bathtub gin.

To turn Mencken's cynical phrase on its head, Mencken and those who follow him are afraid that somebody, somewhere, may not share their views on life. To them, even a small voice here and there disagreeing with them is intolerable. Mencken and his ilk were intolerant as well, but intolerant of different things, that's all.

Mencken was Anglophobic also, not just a hater of Puritans, and that too is hardly a recommendation, in my book. He considered Anglo-Saxons 'cowardly.' In the Baltimore Evening Sun he wrote:

This reluctance for desperate chances and hard odds, so obvious in the military record of the English-speaking nations, is also conspicuous in times of peace. What a man of another and superior stock almost always notices, living among so-called Anglo-Saxons, is (a) their incapacity for prevailing in fair rivalry, either in trade, in the fine arts or in what is called learning--in brief, their general incompetence, and (b) their invariable effort to make up for this incapacity by putting some inequitable burden upon their rivals, usually by force.

Mencken seems to have quite a following on the left and among paleoconservatives, so he seems to be an influence even today.

In connection with the popular slander of Puritans, though, I think of this passage from C.S. Lewis:

"The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere “understanding.” Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism..." - C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Really, in this libertine age, in which something called Lady Gaga is a household word, it's absurd to worry about ''puritans'' keeping people from indulging whatever urges they feel. Today's proponents of modesty and chastity are utterly marginalized and powerless, hardly a threat to any dedicated libertine.

We do have in our day 'puritans' on the left, who are busybodies not about sexual matters, because they believe sex in whatever form is an unqualified good, but about what we eat. Today's 'puritan' busybodies are the nannystate types who outlaw trans-fats and insist that we all conform to government guidelines for food consumption.

In any case, it's a shame that the name 'Puritan', which describes many of our forefeathers, is now a slur, and it's an even greater shame that the politically correct view of history, false as it is, is so uncritically accepted on both left and ''right.''

Not-so-new World Order

In a recent blog entry, titled In their words, I simply posted a number of quotes from various individuals, all of which spelled out the rationalizations for internationalism, and for this 'global governance' agenda which is being forced on us. The very last quote in that post was by Samuel Zane Batten, from a work of his called The New World Order.

Batten was rather an interesting character; he was not the originator of the ideas he promoted in the New World Order; he was merely writing on a theme which was being sounded from various quarters, even as early as the latter part of the 19th century when he wrote some of his works.

It is notable that in his work ''If America Fail', he delineates the idea of America as 'proposition nation', which was an idea which was already in play. If the country had deemed it useful to admit millions of people of disparate origins, as was the case since the mid-19th century, then it was necessary to remake the image of America to accommodate and rationalize the presence of so many aliens. So the 'proposition nation' and Israel Zangwill's ''melting pot'' were pressed into service as a justification for altering this country.

Batten, in If America Fail, says

''America is not a country merely, not primarily a form of government. America is a gospel, an ideal, The Mission of America a faith, a spirit, a state of heart, a set of principles, a trinity of ideas, an interpretation of the kingdom of God, the far-off goal of history.''

At this point, Batten addresses the question of why nations decline and fall. His recounting of the cycle of nations recalls the work of Sir John Glubb about which I posted recently.

''There are causes and conditions which make nations great and strong; and there are conditions and causes which weaken and destroy nations. What are the causes which have destroyed nations in the past? This question is not easy to answer for the reason that the records are incomplete. Many nations have perished, leaving only a name and a memory. Of some of these nations and peoples we have no written record; all that remains are a few fragments like the fossils of some long-perished mastodon.''

The first cause he cites is prosperity, or luxury.

''There is another aspect of this question which we may notice. The growth of luxury always leads to social vices which rot the moral fiber of a nation and cause national decay. For one thing the blight of luxury is felt earliest and most fatally in the home. In the early history of Rome the family life was held in high honor, the marriage bond was respected, and for five centuries divorce was unknown in the Roman world. But the time came when all this was changed.

Under the Empire marriage came to be regarded with disfavor and disdain. Women, as Seneca says, married in order that they might be divorced; and were divorced in order that they might marry. There were noble Roman matrons, he tells us, who counted the years not by the consuls but by the number of their husbands. As might be expected, to have a family was regarded as a misfortune, and all kinds of methods were used to prevent the birth of children. The rich and aristocratic, intent only on their own pleasure and gratification, chafed under the restraints of marriage and grew reluctant to rear children. The poor and servile classes, imitating their superiors, became unwilling to marry and found a family. This suggests the next cause.

The time was when men divided the race into two great classes, the superior, made up of the cultured and the prosperous, and the inferior, made up of the uncultured and the slow-witted. It has been assumed that these two classes possessed very different powers and capacities, that the so-called superior were made of finer clay than these so-called inferior persons. The anthropologist and sociologist of our time no longer accept any such classification as this. In fact the scientist seriously maintains that there is as much real capacity in one race as in another.''

In this area of his thinking, Batten seems to be a curious ''missing link'' between the old, race-conscious thought and the new, increasingly egalitarian, one-world mindset. He wrote a good deal about the Anglo-Saxon origins of this country in some of his works, praising the accomplishments of the founding stock. He acknowledges differences among nations and races of people, but he then reassures us that the races are equal in capacity. 

''It is true that the characteristics of one may differ greatly from another; but this is a question of aptitude and not of capacity. Further than this, the sociologist seriously maintains that capacity is practically the same in all classes of people; that there is as much real capacity in what we call the submerged tenth, as in the emerged tenth. It is not a question of capacity but of opportunity.

We believe in the value of man as man; we believe also in what is called the democracy of birth and the essential equality of all men. But the fact remains that men do not possess the same traits and qualities; and further, some qualities and characteristics make for national progress and strength, while certain other qualities and strains make against national progress and vigor. These qualities are not abstract or impersonal, but are always incarnated in persons.

There are persons possessed of unusual forethought, great vigor of mind and body, with initiative and self-control. We shall not call those who do not possess these qualities inferior classes and lesser breeds; but we do say that these are superior qualities so far as the race is concerned; and we do say that no people can be great, progressive, strong, enduring, unless it develops and contains a large number of persons possessing these qualities.

A people rises or falls, it grows or declines, as the proportion of people possessing these qualities increases or decreases. We may illustrate this principle from the experience of Greece and Rome. In ancient Greece there was a time when the family was honored and men and women considered it an honor to raise children. Then Greece advanced to the front rank and rose to the highest greatness. But with prosperity came luxury, and with luxury came a love of pleasure and a softness of temper. In the patrician families the birth-rate declined, and the race was drained of its finest qualities.''

Here, he touches on the theme of declining birth rates as a sign, if not a cause, of the fall of nations.

''The same process is seen in Rome with hardly a change of terms. The greatness of old Rome was built upon the family; so long as the family remained intact and it was an honor to rear children, Rome ruled the world and was invincible. But as the family declined and patricians no longer were willing to bear the burden of children, the foundations of the Empire were undermined and the beginning of the end had come.

In vain did Greek philosophers construct in imagination ideal states where only the best members should have offspring to be supported and reared by the public wisdom and at the public cost. In vain did Roman emperors bestow special privileges on fathers of three children or more. The duties and responsibilities of family life fell into disfavor among many of the best men and the ablest and most attractive women. The stock deteriorated and the fruits of centuries of magnificent civilization were cast away.

The conclusion is certain; the decline of a nation is due in large part to the fact that the proportion of the people with certain necessary superior qualities decreased, and the proportion of people without these necessary survival qualities increased.

It is not possible here to consider all of the causes that have produced these changes and have brought a decline of the better strains. The time was when men explained it, or thought they had explained it, by saying that the stock ran out and the people died of old age. But these things are themselves results and do not touch the causes; in fact they are the very things to be explained.''

[Emphasis mine.]
It is interesting that he uses terms like ''the better strains'' and ''superior qualities.'' Of course he would be shouted down as a bigot and an elitist and a hater if he used such loaded terms today. Although he carefully avoids calling certain people, or groups of people superior, he does allow that some possess ''superior qualities'', although one might take away the impression that he sees these ''superior qualities'' randomly distributed across human populations, and this is not evident according to our common sense and our powers of observation.

At this point, he uses the familiar argument that any differences in circumstances or ability are due to 'social and economic causes.'

''Today it has become very evident that the causes of these changes are largely economic and social. First, note the economic cause of race decline. In every nation, soon or late, as we have seen, there has arisen the problem of land monopoly. The land fell into the hands of a few; the soil was over-worked; the cost of living rose higher and higher; the people left the farms and crowded into the cities; the social pressure became intense; the more prosperous and luxurious classes were unwilling to bear the trouble of raising children; the social pressure greatly reduced the birth-rate among the middle classes.

As a consequence the less provident, the more shiftless classes, taking no thought for tomorrow, following impulse only, were the only people that produced many children. In this way the vigor and stamina of the nation were reduced, and a steady national decline began. That is to say, the economic pressure meant a proportionate decrease in the more vigorous, thoughtful, successful, and progressive stock, and a proportionate increase in the less provident, less thoughtful, less self-controlled and successful people.''

It sounds very much like he is making eugenic arguments. Nowadays, most 'conservatives' have knee-jerk response to the idea of eugenics, as if it is not simply common sense to choose a mate of sound health and character, and to want our children to do likewise. The ''conservatives'' who jeer at eugenics (because it conjures up associations with Margaret Sanger and Hitler) can't actually believe dysgenics is preferable. But much of the reproduction in our day is in fact dysgenic, in exactly the way that Batten says in the following paragraphs:

''The other cause is more social and personal. The prosperous and successful classes were unwilling to bear the burden and strain of a family, and so they ceased to have their proportion of children. In all times one fact appears with monotonous iteration: In the so-called upper classes, the nobility, the people of culture and ability, there has been a decline in the birth-rate and number of children. In this way there was a decrease in the number of forceful personalities, men of foresight and ability, men of self-control and self-reliance. This then is the result of it all: With the decreasing number of children in the more successful, more restrained classes, and the increasing number of children in less successful and more shiftless classes, there has followed a decline in the national strength and cohesion.

However powerful a society may seem to be, it is doomed if it so organizes itself as to breed the wrong sort of people and to favor the survival of the least desirable at the expense of the more valuable. Any society that does these things is a failure — a failure in the degree in which these results are attained.

No people can prosper and grow and endure where the less vigorous and less successful outpropagate the more vigorous and more successful. Historians and sociologists have named many causes, poHtical and economic, to explain the decadence of nations. Slavery, civil war, foreign conquest, bloated armaments, lust of gold, loss of martial spirit, the decay of religion, the decline of the national strength, these have all been summoned to ac- count for their fall. But beyond all, more insidious than all, more fatal than any, in large part the cause of all other causes, is a wrongly selected birth-rate leading to the proportionate decline of the more thrifty and stronger stock and the proportionate increase of the more thriftless and weaker strains.

We may state the law of national progress or decline in the following terms: If from any cause there be a proportionate decrease in the number of people with marked qualities of thrift, vigor, initiative, and ability, and a proportionate increase of the people with the traits of shiftlessness and weakness, there follows an inevitable decline of the national life. If by economic and social conditions children be made too heavy a burden on the more desirable elements of the population, there is a danger that the thrifty and the far-seeing members of the community will postpone marriage, and when married restrict the number of their offspring. Thus while the weak and careless elements grow at an increasing rate, the good stocks of the people check their rate of growth or even diminish in number, and the selective deterioration of the race is hastened in two ways.''

In our age of massive migrations of peoples from the Third World, we see exactly what he describes in action. It's uncomfortable for many people to acknowledge this because there is just no denying that the 'careless elements' are in many cases immigrants and those of the Groups Who Must Not Be Criticized.

Batten's viewpoints, in many cases, would be condemned today for their political incorrectness, but in the long run, he was very much a part of the move towards the multiracial/multicultural, ecumenical, egalitarian One World system.

In fact he was one of the Founding Members of a group called the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, which more or less developed what Christians now refer to as the Social Gospel movement. That movement was in great part a forerunner of the Civil Rights revolution, which has now brought us to our present situation.

Again, this is another example of how the ideas that shaped our present dystopian world order started long, long before the 1960s. It all came out in the open then, whereas it had bubbled beneath the surface for many decades prior to that fateful era.

Comment system problems

As I was posting replies to comments, my connection to the Intense Debate system was broken and I have been unable even to log in as of now.

If some of you are experiencing problems with posting comments, it's because of the issues with Intense Debate. Sorry.

I hope it will be back to normal soon.

A little leaven...

From an anonymous post at AmRen:

''Consider this. One cannot turn on a television for five minutes without seeing sophisticated brain washing techniques that often have a blatantly anti-white message. The tsunami of this brainwashing is both relentless and insidious. And quite sophisticated….evolving over time. And TV is just one of the sources we all come into contact with every day.

I propose that the ONLY difference between a liberal and a conservative, a communist and a white nationalist, is that person’s innate resistance to brain washing. Further, resistance is not immunity. You might want to think about that, CAREFULLY, when noticing that others are brainwashed. They don’t know it. And neither do you. A big part of doing something about this is first noticing it in yourself and dismantling attitudes, philosophies and beliefs (not to mention behaviors) that were put there by someone else. You won’t like the amount you find.

Divide and conquer is a technique as old as warfare itself. And part of the point of this brainwashing is divide and conquer.''

We've discussed these things here repeatedly, but it is still worth talking about.

I think the comments are true, obviously.

However, the hypothetical leftist/multiculturalist would counter (if he made any argument at all, beyond shouting 'racist!') that in fact it is not his side which is brainwashed, or which is actively brainwashing the public. He/she/it would say that it was in fact the older generations who were brainwashed into believing in race, especially in racial differences, and brainwashed into living by the old standards and loyalties. No, he would insist that today's schools and media are simply deprogramming people from their old-fashioned, atavistic, 'sexist, racist, and homophobic' delusions.

I often refer to the content of most of the media as being propaganda, and its relentlessness is getting more and more obvious by the day. And I've wondered if the theory this anonymous commenter posits is true: how is it that some seem to fall prey to all the propaganda, behaving like prey 'charmed' by a cobra, while others -- like those of us here, presumably -- seem resistant to it? Is there just an innate personality type that is resistant to propaganda and behavioral conditioning?

I would guess that it is not a resistance to being taught as such; it does not represent an inability to learn. It seems to be an independence of mind, or a stubbornness, as opposed to the gullibility of those who sit transfixed watching Oprah or CNN or yes, even Fox News, and simply absorbing everything fed to the audience.

Perhaps too it could represent the more ''dependent'' personality type, the type which is more susceptible to peer pressure or to following leaders. There is certainly no shortage of that personality type in our country today.

But the fact that those who follow the prevailing belief system see the world in such a radically different way than those of us who have resisted the 'brainwashing' is the source of the intractable differences between the two factions in this country.
The 'divide and rule' strategy is obviously at work here.

The media's message seems to have been ratcheted up considerably; are the media masters simply oblivious to the growing resistance that their aggressive propaganda is starting to provoke, or is this, too, part of the plan? Are they hoping to provoke some kind of rash behavior, or are they attempting, just short of violent provocation, to flush out and identify those who won't be 'assimilated' and who are therefore the enemy?

If they want to continue their insidious shaping of people's thoughts and opinions and feelings, they would seemingly want to make it more low-key so as not to arouse resistance and antagonism. But I don't think they are that inept. I think there's a method to their madness.

It does seem that some are just naturally more resistant, but what, then, explains the few who suddenly wake up to the fact of their being conditioned and manipulated?

I can only really speak for myself, but in my case, there was a strong core of the old ways of thinking and believing, instilled by my parents and the society that prevailed in my early years, and that basic core re-asserted itself when things reached a certain tipping point for me. I don't know if something similar is possible among those who never had the old-fashioned ideas and ideals imparted to them in early life. There are generations who have known nothing other than the present order of things.

Our anonymous friend from AmRen also makes the point that resistance to the propaganda is not the same as immunity. I do believe that many people on our side still harbor vestiges of the post-1960s politically correct mindset, and that it is so all-pervasive that those who retain these ideas are not conscious of it, just as Anonymous says. I've made this argument before among certain people, namely those on the right who detest 'baby boomers' yet whose language, attitudes, and lifestyles are all straight from the Woodstock tribe's playbook. Example: people who have libertine lifestyles (casual sex, cohabitation, support for abortion, porn, and 'deviant' sexual preferences), and people who generally loathe their elders and all things pre-modern.

If the baby-boomers were the fount of all evil, why not renounce everything they believed in and promoted? But no; the baby-boomers have whole generations following in their misguided footsteps.

Libertarianism, with a small or large ''l'', is also something that really had little widespread influence before the babyboomers' era. Before that, it was rather an obscure philosophy. And lest someone tell me that libertarians are insignificant in the overall picture, they have had an enormous influence on Republicans; for instance many FReepers believe in legalized drugs, tolerance of homosexuality, open immigration, etc., based on libertarian principles. This would have been unthinkable even back in Reagan's day. It isn't your father's Republican party anymore.

A more obvious example of people retaining vestiges of the propaganda is the racial fawning among Republicans. Much as most of them denounce liberals, they agree with liberals in more ways than they seem to recognize, and they are thus at odds with their own forefathers' views, and any kind of 'conservative' principles.

Another example: feminism is now defended fiercely by many ''conservative'' and Republican women. I am always stunned by the number of ''conservatives'' who approve of women in combat, or who will defend the co-ed military generally, making it a question of patriotism: ''There are some wonderful patriotic women who want to defend their country, and some of 'em are just as strong and courageous as men; would you deny them the right to serve their country?"

I am afraid Anonymous is right. I suppose most of us have some remnant of the propaganda that has taken root in our minds, and which we unconsciously cling to, without thinking about it.

But suppose we could, somehow, miraculously, have our heart's desire, and have all the forced innovations and social experiments reversed. Suppose we could push the reset button. With as much of the PC propaganda now firmly established in our minds, and in our customs and institutions, I think we might easily return, by degrees, to where we started, in this multicult dystopia.

Of course there is a very vocal faction among us that always insists ''there's no going back. The past is dead and gone, and good riddance to it.'' Of course we can't enter a time machine and go back to the past. But is it not possible to at least look to our past, and reclaim those things that worked so well for us, the essential things that made our people and our country such a good place? Obviously I believe that it could be done. What I believe is not possible, nor desirable, is to start out with a totally new social experiment, in which we wipe the slate clean like the Jacobins did, jettisoning all the old traditions. I am afraid that is what a number of people on our side desire.

But that dispute is a topic for another post.

Thoughts?

Some illuminating quotes

At Iron Ink, there is this post which includes a number of illuminating quotes by R.J. Rushdoony on race, culture, and faith, followed by Bret McAtee's thoughts.

This seems to be appropriate, as on a recent thread the subject of 'Christian globalists' has been mentioned, and I seem to keep coming across discussions on Christianity and multiculturalism, immigration, and so on, for example, here.


What the current version of globalist churchdom has to say about these issues, and what previous generations understood, are two very different things.

What you hear the likes of Keyes, Beck, et al saying is based more on cultural Marxism than on any religious faith.

Child labor

Here's a question that occurred to me, after I recently read this Daily Mail article about child labor:

Why did it take so long to pass laws limiting child labor, and actually forbidding children under a certain age to work at all?

For instance this article lists the Massachusetts law of 1842, limiting the number of hours of work for children to 10 hours a day. In those days, I believe in most places, the standard work week was a six-day one, with only Sundays off. So the idea was that a 60 hour work week was permissible for children.

Compare and contrast the way people regarded slavery vs. the way they looked at child labor.

To be sure, up until my parents' generation, all children were expected to do household chores and to help with the child care of their younger siblings, unless they were very spoiled children from wealthy families. Many families in earlier times relied on their children to help earn money, and it may be that many of them resisted child labor laws because they could not survive without their children's earnings. Still, who believes that such destitute families could wield any real clout with their lawmakers? I suspect the employers were the main lobbying force which helped preserve child labor.

It was only in 1938 that Federal laws were enacted, limiting child labor.

Our society of today may have gone too far in the opposite direction. Most children of today seem not to have any household responsibilities, and maybe that, too, plays a part in the ''childhood obesity'' we are always being scolded about by our nanny-state government. Having sedentary children, who are not allowed to play outdoors in an unsafe environment, and kids who prefer TV or video games and internet to active play, is not a prescription for healthy development.

Though kids do need to learn responsibility and a work ethic, I think none of us would ever want child labor brought back; look at some of the photos of child laborers from the early 20th century. It was unquestionably a brutal practice, and many children suffered by it.

Yet it was allowed to exist for much longer than slavery.
It seems to me that the same activists who agitated, even in violent ways, for abolition should have taken a thought for the poor children who were working 60 and 70 hour work weeks, being stunted, injured, and sometimes even killed at grueling jobs.

Why was there not more effort to end it? Was it then, even as now, a question of race? Does the Other evoke more compassion from some of us than our own children do?

Our town, USA

This is a video montage of a town called Lorain, Ohio. I've never been there (to my recollection) but the scenes of this town could be your town or mine, back in the old days. The people could be your neighbors or mine.

I can't tell you who the singer is, singing the accompanying song, but it's very touching.

The comments at You Tube are the usual combination of ignorance and profanity, and many of them indicate that Lorain has deteriorated. It looks like it's the familiar story: changing demographics, according to this page.

So in a way, it is a prototypical American town. Lorain's story seems to be the story for too many of our towns today.

Still, the scenes of the town in its better days show us the America that once was, just as a reminder of what we have lost, or are losing.

What the United States is supposed to do

According to one immigrant:

When asked why the taxpayers should be burdened with her needs, the feisty Zeituni said, "This country is owned by almighty God. You people who preach Jesus Christ almighty God and the rest of it, you are here to help people, help the poor, help other countries and help women. That's what the United States is supposed to do? And you have to give me my right light, [sic] every person's right."

[Emphasis mine.]
This kind of attitude is far too common among the immigrants who come here today, whether they come legally or illegally, or whether they are 'refugees'.

Further:

"Do you want to become an American citizen?" Elias asked.

"If I didn't why the hell would I have been here all this time?" she responded.

“If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen.”

The above quotes are from one version of the interview, which is here.

Further, from a variant version of the article:

 For two years Onyango said she lived in a homeless shelter, before she was assigned public housing despite thousands of legal residents also awaiting assistance.

"I didn't take any advantage of the system. The system took advantage of me." "I didn't ask for it; they gave it to me. Ask your system. I didn't create it or vote for it. Go and ask your system," she said unapologetically.

I suspect there are many other comparable stories, featuring equally arrogant attitudes of entitlement, that might be told, from around the country.

The system is set up to favor people like this lady, and at the expense of others perhaps more deserving, including, and especially citizens.

I really don't think she is being given special treatment or VIP status because of her family links to those in high places; I think she is just one more being given privileged status as all third-world immigrants are.

Do check out the comments on the article; there are some surprisingly frank ones, some laugh-out-loud ones, but who knows how long before they are deleted for honesty.

Real patriotism

"When was public virtue to be found where private was not? Can he love the whole who loves no part? He be a nation's friend who is, in truth, the friend of no man there? Who slights the charities for whose dear sake, that country, if at all, must be beloved?"
- Cowper

Thinking about the Tea Party movement, and the disagreement that exists on the right about it, it seems to me a shame that many on the pro-White side regard the Tea Partiers in general as what they disparagingly call ''patriotards'' or sheeple.

I've certainly been critical of the deluded efforts of the Tea Parties to scurry away from any sign of political incorrectness, and their need to quickly grasp at some evidence of their lack of 'racism.'

However, I don't want to leave the impression that I look down on the many White Americans who are involved in, or sympathetic to the Tea Parties. For many people this seems the only opportunity to express a growing sense of unease, at the least, if not a sense of outrage about what is being done to our country and to the soon-to-be-dispossessed majority. Having been propagandized into believing that there is no option other than the TP, they are grasping at it as a drowning man reaches for a lifeline.

It does disturb me that there is so much rancor for those people, many of them good and decent Americans, who are not racially conscious enough for some people on the pro-White end of the spectrum.

We've all been subjected to the propaganda of the existing multicult system, with its taboos and shibboleths, and with its relentless methods of shaming and punishing those who violate its ubiquitous rules. Some of us were among those 'patriotards' not very long ago, and some of us have, nevertheless, made our way past the hedges and barriers of political correctness to a more realistic and honest point of view. Some of us are still on that path, and those who are farthest along might have a little more patience and empathy with the stragglers and strugglers who are moving towards truth, however slowly.

This piece, by Samuel J. Phillips, from TOQ deals with the Tea Party movement. It's a very good piece, and in it he says:

''It is tempting to simply dismiss such people as saps or fools. Unfortunately, we have no choice but to at least try to engage. Our numbers are too small and our forces too weak to write off any potential allies.''

Lest I be considered one of those who dismiss the Tea Party attendees as 'saps or fools', I second what Phillips says there. In a recent piece in which I disparaged Glenn Beck and the rest of the self-appointed 'leaders' of the movement, my intention was simply to point out the suspect motives of the 'leadership'. Does this mean I think that the Tea Partiers are not potential allies? Not at all, provided they are able to take off the blinders and listen to something outside Fox News and 'conservative' talk radio. As always, there will only be a small minority that is really seeking the truth; unfortunately most will not go against what they perceive to be the tide of popular opinion among their Republican friends. But some can be led in the right direction.

Phillips implies that it will be necessary to engage with the people that many on our side look down on as dupes and fools, to 'reach out' to them, in the cant phrase that is so much used nowadays.
I think he may be right.

'Intellectually, there is the beginning of an alternative right that is capable of confronting and destroying the premises of the system that oppresses us. We have to build on this foundation and create institutions that are capable of real political action. This will require compromise, sacrifice, and innumerable defeats. It will also require many white advocates to leave their comfort zones and engage with people that they may regard as mistaken or even immoral. However, there is no other way forward.''

Phillips also links to this piece by Mark Hackard at Alternative Right.
Towards the end of that piece, he says

''What then is the core of American identity? It is a point of hope that throughout the land there are still many Americans of strong faith and generous heart. They love their country without conditions, as they love their family. And they would see America as a Christian nation, though its ideology belies the notion. These positive qualities and instincts are exploited in the service of democratic pluralism, a pseudo-religious creed.''

That is the point at which we have to try to engage with the people some write off as 'patriotards.' I have to say, sadly, that there are some on the pro-White side who really don't like most of their fellow Americans very much, and that is a huge problem. Without the 'strong faith and generous heart' and the love of country (which to me, means the love of the people) we will not reach many of our kinsmen with our message. As Hackard's essay implies, these good qualities of our people have been misused and exploited to turn us into a people without a country, a people who are afraid to assert their own interests, and instead put everyone else's interests first.

Hatred of a common enemy can only unite people for a brief time, and the alliance will be an uneasy one. A common love for our people and heritage and yes, the land which is our birthright is the only thing that might truly unite us.

Love of country, as in love of our people and the land itself, is a good thing, , despite the cynicism with which many have come to view it. If we can connect with these lost sheep, who at least have some vestigial love for their people and nation, we might salvage this country and the future of our progeny. We will not prevail if we neither like nor respect our fellow Americans, even those who are bewitched and exploited by unscrupulous 'leaders.'

Music

Fiddling by Danny Knicely and some wonderful flatfooting by Matty Olwell.
There are some fine young dancers out there these days, which is really heartening to see, for those of us who love flatfooting, and want to see these traditions kept alive.

I came across the video on the Rebellion blog.

The fruits of intelligence

At Steve Sailer's blog, there is a post on National Merit Semifinalists, and of course the Asian issue becomes the main point of discussion in the comment thread.

At the time I am writing this, there are 164 comments, and only one or two of them seem to come to the obvious conclusions.

It's rather ironic that a number of posts accuse the regular posters of anti-Asian bias, which is amusing to me because I see just the opposite among that group of commenters: they admire Asians, specifically East Asians, to an almost fawning degree. They are very much in awe of the high IQs of East Asians (although usually credit is given to 'Asians' in general) and of their superior academic skills and study habits.

It seems to be widely accepted, even on the pro-White right, that East Asians are much more intelligent than Whites. Fine; credit where due. But as one or maybe two commenters imply, if  high IQs and academic prowess don't result in a people's homeland  being more liveable and more well-functioning, then are they really as super-intelligent as most seem to think them to be?

Why are so many of the people from the high IQ East Asian countries bound and determined to leave and to come to the West? Oh yes, we know, for ''opportunity'' or ''a better life.'' But why not use that superior brainpower to create opportunity and a better life in their homeland?

As always, I am a big believer in results. Intelligence will out. The highly intelligent, or those of ''superior'' minds, should be able to create countries that are liveable, countries where people are not eager to escape. Of course, the Japanese have created a very liveable and safe society, given that no society is perfect. All credit to them.

However the rest of East Asia hardly looks like the work of intellectually superior people.

Having high intelligence on paper is insignificant if no proof is shown in the kind of environment these superior intellects create for themselves.

Or maybe, as some commenters suggest, something besides IQ is at work in making successful countries -- or individuals.

One thing that exasperates me (still) is the almost-universal belief that 'culture' shapes people; to me, this idea is a cop-out, a way of avoiding the elephant in the room: race, and the differences in abilities among the various races. Perish the thought that we might consider that the people themselves produce the culture, and it reflects their innate qualities and strengths and weaknesses. Where, for heaven's sake, does the vaunted Asian culture, with its emphasis on learning and academic success, come from?

The people make the culture, not vice versa. And genetics, to a great extent makes the people.

But it seems many Americans are wary of any such thoughts. So we go on pretending that, exposed to the right cultural influences, all races could achieve at the same level. Right.

In their words

"We are in the midst of a great transition from narrow nationalism to international partnership." - Lyndon B. Johnson

"Sept. 11th must spur us to launch a new era of American internationalism. Let's not squander this opportunity." - Robert Kagan, January 2002

"There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization." - Oscar S. Straus

"As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education and world-mindedness can produce only rather precarious results. As we have pointed out, it is frequently the family that infects the child with extreme nationalism." - Sir John Huxley, father of the U.N. education program

"It is, if people will but think steadfastly, inconceivable that there should be world control without a merger of sovereignty, but the framers of these early tentatives toward world unity have lacked the courage of frankness in this respect. They have been afraid of bawling outbreaks of patriotism, and they have tried to believe, that they contemplate nothing more than a league of nations, when in reality they contemplate a subordination of nations and administrations to one common rule and law." - H.G. Wells, The Salvaging Of Civilization

"We are at present working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands." - Arnold Toynbee, "The Trend of International Affairs Since the War", International Affairs, Nov 1931

''I think the subject which will be of utmost importance politically is mass psychology. ... Various results will soon be arrived at [including] that the influence of home is obstructive ... in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can reach the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment. ... Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. ... Educational propaganda, with government help, could achieve this result in a generation. There are, however, two powerful forces opposed to such a policy: one is religion; the other is nationalism.'' - Bertrand Russell, 1953, The Impact of Science on Society

"Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissonance and stress." - Thorstein Veblen

"The root of the problem is very simply stated, if there were no sovereign independent states, if the states of the civilized world were organized in some sort of federalism, as the states of the American Union, for instance, are organized, there would be no international war as we know it...The main obstacle is nationalism." - Norman Angell

"It is our clear duty to strain every muscle in working for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by international consent. This goal undoubtedly requires the establishment of some universal public authority acknowledged as such by all and endowed with the power to safeguard on the behalf of all...." from Vatican II document, 'Pastoral Constitution On the Church In the Modern World', 1965

“…You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians! There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast immanne, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars………It is the international system of currency that determins the totality of life today……There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the Nations of the world  today……..We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations……our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine….one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit…..all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”  - from the movie 'Network', 1975

"The old order passes from view; the new world rises upon our vision....We have vindicated the right of social control....There must be developed a national spirit of service....Society must break the stranglehold of capitalism....The natural resources of the nation must be socialized....The state must socialize every group....Men must learn to have world patriotism. World patriotism must be a faith....There is no more justice for the claim of absolute sovereignty on the part of a nation than on the part of an individual....The only alternative is World Federation...with a world parliament, an international court, and an international police force....Men must have an international mind before there can be a world federation. They must see and affirm that above the nation is humanity. Internationalism must first be a religion before it can be a reality and a system." - Samuel Zane Batten, 'The New World Order'

Roar of laughter, hiss of contempt

"As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable....Armies cannot protect it then; and walls that have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt." - Edwin P. Whipple

I am just beginning a book called Saints and Strangers, by George F. Willison. It's about the Pilgrim fathers and the Plymouth colony. This post is not about the book, however; I may blog about that when I finish reading it. But one part of the book describes the conflicts in England that led to the Puritan separatist movement, and the subsequent flight to Holland and then to Massachusetts.

The Puritans, as dissidents in their country (remember, church and state were one) were very harshly regarded by those who held the power. One tactic the Puritans used against the ecclesiastical authorities was satire. The writer of the book describes how Puritans, using pseudonyms of course, disseminated tracts or broadsides, some of which were very humorous and which ridiculed those in power relentlessly. Some within the Puritan movement thought that the humor was ill-advised because they thought it diminished the importance of the evils they were up against, but the method seems to have had some success.

Every now and then somebody on our side asks why we don't use more such techniques, such as music, films, videos, and satire. If anybody is ripe for ridicule, it is the humorless and fanatical bunch of zealots on the left. They do employ something they call humor in service of their ends; look at the TV programs and movies that use heavy-handed and over-the-top ridicule against conservatives and anyone that is not sufficiently subservient to their all-devouring multicult cause.

Personally I find little that's funny about Saturday Night Live or any other such 'comedy'. I was young when that show first aired, and even then it seemed crude, stupid, and witless.

Most people would agree that humor has its limits; some things should not be made the subject of jokes. An example: one of the reasons I stopped watching SNL (other than that it was crude and stupid) was a sketch about child molestation. This episode was in the days of Gilda Radner and John Belushi. But somehow I can't laugh about child molesters; doing so does make light of something that has no intrinsic humor in it.

Apparently, though, I was in a distinct minority because Saturday Night Live went on for decades, and as far as I know, is still on TV. So apparently some think child molesting is joke fodder. Maybe this also illustrates my point of the last post, about how our minds and attitudes were being primed for this Orwellian world that was in the making.

But notice that today, one thing cannot be ridiculed or made fun of. We cannot lampoon or ridicule anyone who is of any certified 'victim group', even if the lampooning is fairly harmless. What does that say? Once upon a time, people could not blaspheme the name of God without being ostracized by polite society at least. Nowadays we can utter the most vile things about God but not about 'victim groups', or individuals within those groups. Does not that say something? Cambria Will Not Yield often uses the term 'worship' when he talks about this exaltation of certain victim groups, and I really don't think the term is an exaggeration.

The Puritans could ridicule people in high places -- aristocracy, church officials, government officials -- even if they had to do it under a nom de plume. We cannot use ridicule as a defense as they did. Who was freer?

A frequent criticism that comes up among people on the right when minorities are discussed -- for example, Hispanic illegal immigrants. Somebody usually says ''they aren't the problem. They are just the symptom. We need to blame our own, the people in power who are promoting mass immigration.'' Well, yes, we need to. And we do. But if someone hires a criminal to harm me or threaten me, is the actual perpetrator not to blame as much as the many who hires him? Both are wrong and both are responsible. The man who instigates the crime apparently cannot or will not carry out the crime himself, but the man who carries out a criminal act does so willingly, and is just as much a criminal as the instigator. No innocent person would cooperate to harm others. So the illegals and the Moslems may be enabled by our treasonous kinsmen, but they are not innocent. They are willing co-criminals, motivated by their own covetousness or desire to 'conquer' or plunder us. No innocents there.

Notice too that minorities are free to ridicule and insult us in the name of ''humor'', often in the most vile terms, but we cannot reciprocate, even in a mild way.

So who can we lampoon and ridicule? Sure, some mainstream comics make feeble jokes at the expense of politicians of both parties, but even the politicians are 'a symptom, not the problem.' They are just as much pawns or cat's-paws as the illegals for whom our elites have thrown open the gates. 

The elites themselves, though we know a few names, are mostly a shadowy group of people. Most of them we would not recognize by face or even by name. How can we confront anybody who will not show himself, or admit to his obvious complicity?

If we can't, or mustn't, blame the people who are invading our country, and we don't know who, specifically, is colluding to make this possible, then we have no convenient object to whom we can address any satire -- or any complaints.

In the Puritans' day back in England, they at least had some place to go to escape what was happening, and while still in their own country, they could use ridicule and humor to make their case. We lack even those options.

This post sounds rather pessimistic. The only thing that is to be remembered, though, is that the elites, whatever their names, are  just human beings. The TakiMag piece I linked to the other day made one point with which I could agree: conspiracists are ultimately human beings, and as such, fallible and flawed. Money and influence do not spell invincibility. Their plans may not work out as intended. Remember what Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men.

When it all started

In discussing popular culture, we often identify the 1960s as the decade in which everything began to change, and countercultural (leftist) ideas began to flood the media and particularly Hollywood movies. However, thinking back on the overall picture, I think a case can be made that the Left was at work over many decades, not just circa 1960 and onward.

Today, an oversimplified view prevails in which ''the hippies'' or the baby-boomers (for many they are synonymous) were the fount and origin of all the bad trends which flowed together to form the upside-down world we inhabit today. The baby-boom generation played their part, but they were mostly just picking up the torch passed on by their elders, who, if not liberal themselves, failed to recognize the liberal incrementalism that transformed things gradually .

Karl Marx and his ideas date back to the mid-19th century, and even before Marx, we can look back to the Jacobins of the French Revolution, who were the forerunners of today's leftists. However the ideas that we call leftist or Marxist or socialist became more popular particularly around the time of the Great Depression. This is understandable, given the harsh economic conditions of the time; people were then more likely to listen to pseudo-populist radicals who preached redistribution of wealth.

The 'hippies' or counterculturists came along in the late 60s, not the early part of the decade. By the way, I don't remember ever hearing the word ''hippie'' until 1966, and the San Francisco 'flower child' movement appeared in earnest circa 1967.

The direct predecessors of the hippies were the beatniks, who were into Zen, existentialist philosophy and a freewheeling lifestyle. They differed somewhat from their hippie successors in being more intellectual and less interested in 'back to nature' movements.

But when both these groups were either not yet born, or wearing diapers, the Old Left was busy trying to bring on the Revolution, the uprising of the Proletariat, and usher in the socialist worker's paradise. The Communist Party had been active earlier, around the World War I years, and mass immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe brought many people with radical anarchist or communist ideas into this country, thus strengthening the leftist ranks.

During World War II, one can see how the government began to emphasize the proposition nation idea: we are all Americans if we believe in freedom and tolerance. And the war effort demanded that people of all races and creeds be united in order to win the war. There was considerable effort made towards integration of the races, and the promotion of what has become a shibboleth of our time, 'tolerance.' We can see this in some of the wartime movies and posters. We see the beginnings of multiculturalism in some of the images and rhetoric. See a video here illustrating what I mean.

While on the surface, the ideas seem benign, we can see around us the extremes which are pushed in the name of 'tolerance'.  The idea that we are all the same, and differences don't matter, except to 'Nazis', is not true.

The movies of the 1940s seemed to show an increase in ethnic characters -- especially the war movies, in which every platoon or ship's crew had to be a cross-section: an Irishman, a Pole with a name ending in '-ski', an Italian, a plain generic 'American'. Optional: an American Indian talking in slang, a wisecracking Jewish character or a Southerner with a funny drawl, any of which provided 'comic relief.'

The postwar years saw movies dealing with interethnic 'prejudice,'  like Gentlemen's Agreement.

The 1950s brought an increase in movies which dealt with the seamy side of life, specifically drug addiction, such as The Man With the Golden Arm, Monkey on My Back, and A Hatful of Rain, the latter two being released in 1957.

At the time, movies on such subjects were touted as 'frank, honest' or 'shocking.' Perhaps they were more reality-oriented than the relatively wholesome entertainment of the previous few decades, but this fixation on sleaze and ugliness became a permanent one in Hollywood as time went on.

Much as we think the 1950s were the decade of Sandra Dee and Doris Day, wholesomeness personified, Hollywood was leaning more towards the 'frank' type of film, with increasing portrayals of the dark side. Even teen films began to focus on illicit sex, pregnancy, and abortion, such as Blue Denim, in 1959, or A Summer Place in that same year.

Films involving bigotry became quite the vogue in the 50s. There were movies about racial deception, or ''passing for White'', films like Pinky, (which actually was a 1949 movie), Imitation of Life, and Showboat.

Other movies that explored the racial theme (from a leftist, politically correct angle, of course) were, oddly, a couple of science fiction movies, notably The World, The Flesh, and The Devil, from 1959. That movie had three survivors of a nuclear attack -- one White woman, played by Swedish actress Inger Stevens, one White man, and one black man. Dilemma: who gets the girl?

I had incorrectly remembered Sidney Poitier as the black man, but reading the IMDB page shows that it was calypso singer Harry Belafonte who played the role.

This comment from IMDB shows the typical PC reaction:

A very thought provoking movie that was not accepted at the time, but in retrospect, way way ahead of its time. In a racially charged world it put forth the premise that race, in the final analysis, is superficial and meaningless. Once you strip away the layers of conditioning and socialization, you find, at the core, good and evil and the age old struggle as to which will prevail. A simple story, told directly and honestly. On a scale of 1 to 10, its an 11.''

Yes, so even in 1959, those Hollywood writers (who were not really communists, honest) were busy little bees promoting radically different ideas, ideas which were in sharp conflict with traditional America. But it was all done with noble motives, you see, so it was for our good that our brains have been washed.

Another movie dealing with 'bigotry' was Pressure Point, in which singer/actor Bobby Darin played some kind of right-wing extremist. His performance was hailed, but the message was sledge-hammer subtle.

Stanley Kramer was kind of a one-man message-film industry in the 50s and onward, with movies like The Defiant Ones, with Sidney Poitier (or was it Belafonte again?) and Tony Curtis handcuffed together in mutual hate, but they learn to get along to survive. Very subtle symbolism there; about as subtle as Star Trek's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."

Movies of both the 50s and the early 60s had pushed the envelope regarding sexuality, and there were early explorations not only of illicit heterosexual relationships (adultery, incest, even 'child brides' as in Baby Doll) but the subject of homosexuality was brought in in movies like Suddenly, Last Summer.

All of this was done under the guise of 'frankness' and 'honesty', and much was written and said about how the Europeans were ever so much more advanced and enlightened than the inhibited and repressed Anglo-Saxon Christian countries. The Scandinavian countries in particular were much admired by the left and the sophisticated urban set for their open and loose sexual mores.

I can remember, as a teenager, reading articles about how in Denmark and Sweden, sex crimes were few and far between, so if we adopted their free-and-easy sexual attitudes, we would have few to no sex crimes. Everybody would be so free of inhibitions and Victorian repression, and thus nobody would feel the need to commit rape or to molest anybody. We all know how that worked out.

I can't leave out the other prominent them of movies in the 50s and 60s: atomic warfare or nuclear annihilation; World War III. These were the days of 'mutually assured destruction', of talk of nuclear strikes and red phones and the possibility of a mistaken launch of nuclear missiles. Those themes were explored in movies like Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe, On the Beach, and others.

Science fiction movies of the time often dealt with post-nuclear holocaust scenarios, or 'atomic mutations' with human beings exposed to radiation becoming giants ("The Amazing Colossal Man") or monsters of some sort.

The Day the Earth Stood Still, a favorite of liberal peaceniks, has a benevolent and wise alien coming to teach erring humanity to behave themselves, and stop all that fighting, or else -- or else the benevolent, peaceful aliens will blast us all to smithereens, which is no more than what we human warmongers deserve. There is a little irony in the message of that film which seems to escape the lefties. Actually, I enjoy the movie, despite its odd message.

Most of the trends and ideas which have come together to make our present-day world the crazy place that it is are present and very visible by the 1950s, and in fact had their origins much further back than that.

1960, however, is sort of an identifiable turning point for popular culture, in which we see things taking shape much more clearly, and by the mid-60s, around the time of the JFK assassination and the emergence of the Beatles, we see the budding counterculture coming into position.

When it comes to watching movies, I find the 1960s, if not the latter 1950s, as being the time when the old America truly began to vanish, bit by bit, and the new 'America' began to take its place.

I tend to avoid movies made from the 1960s onward. I often find it hard to understand how anyone who is not a dedicated leftist multiculturalist can endure watching much of what has been produced in recent decades. I admit to being a purist, but too often I detect the scent of decay about popular culture after the early 1960s.

Of conspiracy-mongering

In a previous post I mentioned the article on TakiMag regarding conspiracy theories, and expressed my intention to write a blog piece about it.

The subject of conspiracy theories is a complex one, and I can't begin to do it justice in a blog post, so let me just offer some thoughts about the subject in general.

We are all familiar with certain popular conspiracy theories. I am sure we can all name several of them, such as the JFK assassination theories (multiple assassins, possible involvement of everybody from the various Mafia families to the CIA), the recent 'Truther' belief system, which believes there is a conspiracy to hide truth about 9/11. Then there are those who doubt that man has ever landed on the moon; the moon landing images were all created on a cheap set or in the California desert somewhere, so the story goes.

Then there are the UFO conspiracy theories, and the issue of 'chemtrails.'

These are seldom covered by the 'respectable' media, except in a derisive fashion.

A few years ago, talk-radio host and writer Michael Medved spent quite a bit of energy and time ridiculing and vilifying those who believed that a North American Union is in the works -- even though talk of it has been quite open, with North American summit meetings involving the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Still, some people seem determined to deride and discredit anyone who writes about it or believes the planned NAU is real.

Even today, half a century and more after the 'Communist scare' of the 1950s, even after documents have been released verifying that there were Communists in positions of power, and that there were Soviet agents who passed information to that government -- we still read in the dishonest media the assertion that the Communist conspiracy was all in the 'paranoid' minds of McCarthy and other right-wingers. Many people today believe that the Communist conspiracy was not real at all, only a pretext by McCarthy and others to deprive 'progressives' of their rights and freedoms.

Obviously there are conspiracies.

Our own country came into being as the result of what was actually a 'conspiracy' among English colonists.

The Venona Papers establish that there was a Communist conspiracy to subvert this country. Can anybody look at today's events and doubt that they succeeded to a great extent? The left of course celebrates their 'change', but still deny that any subversion by their side existed.

Not everything is random chance or coincidence, any more than everything is a conspiracy. The truth is somewhere in between.

Similarly, skeptics tell us that they don't 'believe in UFOs' when what they probably mean is that they don't believe in extraterrestrials visiting this planet in some kind of spacecraft. Of course there are Unidentified Flying Objects; many people see things in the skies that they can't identify with certainty. Some may be natural phenomena, some ordinary aircraft which are unrecognized as such. But to categorically state that there 'are no UFOs' is rather silly. There may not be any space aliens flying around our earth, but there are unidentified flying objects, whatever their origin.

It is facile to be skeptical for skepticism's sake, and while skepticism is a good thing to an extent, it can be closed-mindedness and arrogance, because it seems to assume that there are no mysteries in our world, no unknowns. Likewise, 'the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God', believing somehow that he himself knows all that is in the universe. No atheist can prove that God does not exist, though they seem to have an unfounded certainty -- a faith, shall we say -- that He does not exist. Skeptics, including atheists, claim to be people who rely on empirical evidence and proof, but they can offer no real proof that the theist is wrong.

Skepticism can be good but when it means reasoning backward from existing beliefs in order to exclude or to deny anything unknown or novel or unfamiliar is not in the least scientific. Skepticism is not good when it consists of knee-jerk scoffing at anything that does not fit within existing categories. That kind of skepticism is not healthy, but is presumptuous.

Some skeptics can be notoriously credulous when it comes to accepting at face value anything said by 'debunkers', official spokesmen, or whoever they regard as reliable authorities. But yet we know that we have been lied to and deceived in many instances by various authority figures; surely nobody would deny this.

Skepticism is useful when it is directed also at authority figures, and not just at those who hold unorthodox opinions.



Many people use the website 'Snopes' to try to discredit certain stories as hoaxes or 'crazy conspiracy theories.' That website is not an infallible source, and is rather blatantly biased in a liberal direction, yet many cite it as an unimpeachable source of truth. Wikipedia, which I cite occasionally, is likewise biased, and I take that into account. Trusting such sources shows credulity on the part of many self-professed skeptics.

Others take as gospel whatever their favorite TV talking head or blogger says about something. If Coulter or Beck say that ''birthers are nutjobs'' -- to mention another 'conspiracy theory' -- well, that settles it for some people.

There are many people who will not believe something until it becomes fashionable and acceptable to believe it. Sometimes the left and the right converge in believing in the same conspiracy theories (such as the 'Truthers') but they differ in their beliefs as to who is responsible. For the left, it is the old Bush/Cheney axis of Evil. For the right it is -- the Bush/Cheney axis of Evil.

Many, left and right, believe that there is a globalist cabal, trying to corral us into a New World Order. The left, of course, believes it's 'right-wing global capitalists' at the bottom of it, while it seems to the right that left-wing internationalists and Third World admirers are at the root of it. They are both right. Left and right converge when it comes to this globalist agenda. Both sides are complicit, working hand in glove towards the same ends, maybe wittingly, maybe not, but it's all coming together because factions on both sides desire it and are determined to create it.

But many still scoff at any talk of a globalist agenda.

It's all too easy to dismiss something by labeling it in a derisive and dismissive way: ''birthers'', ''truthers'' and the all-inclusive ''conspiracy-mongers''. Even the term ''conspiracy theory'' has become a condescending label which summons up images of paranoid fringe-types muttering to themselves.

A conspiracy is nothing more nor less than two or more people planning, and ultimately acting in concert towards some end. Usually this planning and colluding is done clandestinely for various reasons: it may be for fear of heavy-handed authorities, or, in the case of those in authority, for fear of ''the people'' rebelling against the plan.

And can anybody honestly believe that the very wealthy and powerful, who are used to exercising great power in both business and social circles, are content to sit quietly in the background and not use their wealth and power to attain their ends? Money does buy influence. The elites are used to having their way. They could hardly be content to passively wait for ''the people'' to determine the course of the country.

We all cynically accept that money buys influence, even with our supposedly representative system, and our supposedly open and transparent government. 

As for the 'secret societies' that are so much discussed in this context, it's hard to believe that they are just a lot of powerful and influential people meeting to have a meal and shoot the breeze together. These groups are becoming quite open about their role in influencing policy; there is hardly any pretense of their being mere social clubs for the rich and powerful. In any case, there is often a public face, the exoteric side, that is all about harmless 'networking' and socializing, while the esoteric side stays behind closed doors, among the few.

I consider it far more prudent to be open-minded yet cautious. I don't believe everything I read or hear; none of us should, but neither should any presume we know all, and that everything is only what it appears on the surface. The world is a stranger and more complex place than that. And as far as human nature goes, ''the heart of man is deceitful above all things'', so watchfulness is always in order.

It's also worth remembering that wild speculations which may become 'conspiracy theories' flourish best in an atmosphere of secretiveness and deceit. At the very least, those in the media and in elected positions 'conspire' to keep much from us, and to distort and shade what truths they dispense to us.