It's a little late, but...

It's a little late for a Thanksgiving video, but I didn't get around to posting this when I meant to -- so here it is. Thanksgiving in old America, along with a little irony in the message, in light of what is going on in 2010.

A problem

We've got a problem on the right.
The American people as a whole are sorely divided in many different ways: one generation against another; the social classes (which do exist, though not in the European sense) are divided, and of course race is the biggest and most serious source of division. The deep rift between left and right, which has become a chasm in recent decades, is largely centered on race, even more than on class conflict. The left have worked themselves up into a frenzy over how 'racist' most of their racial brethren supposedly are, and they are willing, it appears, to see open conflict over this.

Bring religion into the mix, and you have one more source of deep division. So with the Islamic population that has been imported into our country, bringing with them religious and racial disparities, you have a very volatile combination.

The events over the last several days in Oregon, with the Somali immigrant attempting a bombing at a Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony, have caused something of a revival of discussion of the Islamic question. On several genteel conservative blogs there is actually rather tentative talk about curbing Moslem immigration, and -- imagine! -- sending them home.

A few years ago, I asked why we are so afraid of the 'd' word (deport). We were not always afraid of it; Eisenhower, who was hardly a right-wing nativist, actually did deport a good many illegal Mexican migrant workers. But now, the word deportation has, thanks to the left and their media, been associated with phrases like 'cattle cars' or 'tearing families apart.' But all 'deport' means is to send somebody back to their place of origin, otherwise known as home. Imagine that.

I still think we ought to use the simple phrase ''sending them home''. The left are diabolically good at finding emotionally-laden words to use against us; we can respond by refusing to let them dictate the terminology and the words used to frame the debate.

About this time, someone will suggest that it is horrifying to send people back to some pestilential and dangerous country like, say, Somalia. But pray tell, how did Somalia, or other such places get to be cesspits? And will those same conditions not eventually develop here as we import the authors of all the chaos to live among us?

But back to the question of Islam specifically: there are many on the right who believe that Islam is not a threat except insofar as we cause that to happen. We, with our evil foreign policy and our War On Terror, have caused terrorism. Actually I can't help but remember that my far-left friend, whom I have known since college, said the exact same things. You might say in response, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Leftists might be right about Islam and our wars in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, I always stop and think twice if I start to agree with my lefty friend.

For the record I opposed the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's one of the things (immigration being another) which sent me running and screaming away from the GOP. I started this blog as a way of examining some of these issues and also as a way of exploring where I belonged on the political spectrum, as I was not an average Republican nor was I a paleoconservative -- because I did not agree with many paleos that Islam was not a threat if we simply leave them alone.

I am all for leaving them alone, but to say that they are not our enemies is not possible for me.

Here we read a frequently-quoted right-wing writer scoffing at the idea that Islam is a threat.

Consider that ten minutes before the first tower got hit in New York, the thought had occurred to practically no one in America that Islam constituted a mortal threat to all that we hold holy, chiefly chain restaurants and iPods. But Islam afterwards offered to fill this void that the Russians had wimped out on. For a brief period after the implosion of the Soviet Union, Americans had no threat to worry about. They found it deeply puzzling. Weren't we supposed to be afraid of something? It didn't feel right.

Then came New York, and suddenly we saw it: The Clash of Civilizations. Islam was out to get us. Why hadn't we noticed? A roaring hatred for Moslems sprang up from people who had never met a Moslem, who had a garden slug's grasp of history. A deep satisfaction came over the land. We had been made whole again.

Battling Mohammedans quickly became an industry. The government at first tried to peddle Terrorism as the enemy, not Islam, but it didn't stick. Something more robustly flackable was wanted.

I find Buchanan, of the American Conservative, proclaiming that Islam is a Culture of Jihad, and most militant. No doubt. Very. Would it be poltroonish of me to note that just now Christian armies are busily annexing and wrecking Afghanistan and Iraq, having recently bombed Somalia?
[...] Those Moslems. Militant, they are. The bastards.''

I don't know if Reed is a Christian; I don't read his stuff often, but it appears he is not. I also know he is an expatriate who is married to a Mexican and who has Mexican children, so I consider that as having abandoned his American identity. Fine; he's done the right thing to move to Mexico.

But I think his writings are very influential among some on the right, and there are many around the right-wing blogosphere who say things much like Reed says above.

I don't see what solutions he offers except to leave the poor Moslems alone, but what would he have us do about those who are in our midst, like the Christmas bomber-wannabe? Oh, perhaps he'd say that the incident was ginned up by the powers-that-be, that it was a sting, that the boy was lured and baited into a trap.

Honestly, I acknowledge the basis for a lot of the cynicism on the right; I have a certain degree of it myself. But do those who scoff at the idea of an Islamic threat believe that everything (like 9/11) was an 'inside job' or a 'false flag operation'? I have a feeling that when/if another major incident happened, most on the hard right would say that it was  a false flag deal. Is it not even possible that there might be genuine terror attacks?

I am just trying to understand the mindset; do people believe that Moslems in general do not hate us or consider us their enemies? It's easy to rationalize their militancy by blaming it on our government, but doing so ignores the long history of Islamic hostility towards Christendom, and their repeated attempts to conquer our forefathers or convert them forcibly. Moslems not only invaded, repeatedly, our ancestors' homelands, but often kidnapped and enslaved numbers of Christian Europeans. We have a long, troubled history with them which starts long before any of our current foreign policy mistakes.

And leaving the question of 'terrorism' aside, there is the very real problem of the gradualist approach wherein Islam colonizes Western countries with the express purpose of Islamizing them. They don't even need violence to attain their ends, as they simply immigrate en masse, bring their relatives, and have many, many children at their hosts' expense. All the while, as they reach a critical mass, they get a foothold in influential positions, and agitate against the host country's culture and religion. We see what is happening in Europe; how can one blame this on our foreign policy?

No, they've always been hostile to us and always will be. We cannot coexist in the same country, not without losing our identity and being absorbed into their race, culture, and religion. It can't be done.

But the fact that the right is divided on this issue is a big problem.

I wonder if some on the right see Islam as a weapon to be used against Christianity, much as the Christ-hating left sees them? The left is so consumed by their hatred and resentment of Christianity that they will submerge their own agendas (feminism, gay rights, atheism) and take their chances with Islam rather than co-exist with Christianity.
The left are playing the game of siding with ''the enemy of my enemy'', and hoping to make common cause, dancing with the devil. They are doing this at their peril, as they may well see someday -- or maybe not.

Incidentally, Chris Roach has a very good piece discussing the potential for the 'suicidally liberal' people in Oregon to wake up to reality.

''It’s not clear if an event like this, even if successful, can remove the politically correct scales from the eyes of Portland’s leaders.  Theirs is a web of deception that will likely detect, even in this, a clarion call to redouble their efforts of outreach, tolerance, and the like.  Liberalism like that of Portland’s mayor renders intelligent people stupid and blind to basic reality.''

I tend to think that the true-believer liberals would actually rather die and feel good about themselves while doing so, than to violate all that they believe in and identify with. I just hope that our whole society isn't taken down with them.

Myths and madness: immigration

At American Thinker, there is a piece on immigration, called The Dangerous Mythology of Immigration, written by Frank Burke.

This is a pretty good article, especially when contrasted with the usual party-politics theme of AT. And the writer actually discusses the negatives of immigration -- immigration per se, not just illegal immigration. I am actually surprised that this appeared at AT.

It's actually not that far off from what we have discussed (I and my readers) in the beginning days of this blog. Back then it seemed that immigration was the focus of many of my pieces, and I was intent on discussing the forbidden topic of legal immigration, and of reminding people that the problem, contrary to the politically correct view, was immigration of all kinds, not just the illegal kind. I was intent on discussing it because it was not being sufficiently discussed, and it was not on the table for discussion in many places.

The subject of legal immigration and its problems did receive considerable attention on VDare and a couple of paleoconservative websites and blogs back when I first started blogging, but even many of the immigration-skeptic blogs and forums were very adamant about legal immigration being absolutely off limits for discussion. Some groups, though their stated mission was to defend our borders and so on, would eject commenters from their forums if the taboo against criticism of legal immigration was violated.

One blog in particular, run by an activist, not only banned violators, but did so in a most public way by openly shaming the violator as a racist, and warning others to avoid offending. There are others of the same type that I am sure you know of.

So it is a sign of progress, I suppose, that AT, which is a very middle-of-the-road site, runs a piece which takes a skeptical tone about legal immigration as well as illegal.

The writer of the piece, Frank Burke, mentions the sentimentalization of immigration which somewhat clouds rational discussion:

''Adding to the difficulty of crafting a just and effective policy is the amount of mythology and emotionalism surrounding the entire immigration question. Some of this is understandable. Immigration is a central facet of the American identity and is reflected in one of our most cherished icons: the Statue of Liberty. Virtually all our family histories boast chapters on immigration.''

Now, stop right there. Not all of us have family histories involving immigration. My ancestors were all colonists; none came to an established country called 'America'. The idea that everybody is descended from immigrants is one of the biggest and least-questioned myths on the subject; I am surprised Mr. Burke did not pick up on this.

I might quibble, too, that the Statue of Liberty is not a cherished icon for me; why should it be? In any case, it was not intended from the beginning to be a symbol of immigration nor was it meant as a sort of pre-modern neon sign announcing ''come on in; we never close'', like a sign on a greasy spoon along the highway.

But other than that, the article makes good points.
Burke mentions the three mistaken beliefs about immigration:
Myths:

1. "Give me your tired, your poor.."
2.  People come because they want to be Americans
3. .Everybody wants the same thing

The first one we recognize as Emma Lazarus's overwrought poem on the base of the Statue. But as Burke mentions, America did examine immigrants for things such as communicable diseases and other undesirable conditions. Some people were sent back; there was no ''we take anybody'' policy, as there seems to be now.

The second myth is one we've talked about here a lot. Most people who immigrate today are, in my perhaps cynical opinion, economic migrants or just plain opportunists, who recognize our weakness and come here to get what they can before the carcass is picked clean.  Most have no interest in becoming 'Americans' and openly say so. I've heard many immigrants brazenly say that they have a 'right' to come here, because this is a country for everybody, not for Americans.

The third myth, that we all want the same thing, is also pretty obviously false. It is based on an idea that I've tried to discredit here: the idea that all peoples are basically the same, with the same needs (yes, we all need food, water, and oxygen, but beyond that?) and the same desires. We are not all the same under the skin, although this sentimental twaddle lives on.

Burke quotes JFK's words:

In June of 1963, in delivering the commencement address at American University, John F. Kennedy sought to advance a nuclear test ban treaty by equating the attitudes of the United States and the Soviet Union, stating, "For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

Those commonalities, which could also be applied to animal species as well, are not enough to bind us together in any kind of common purpose.

In all, it's a good piece, with some fairly savvy comments. Inevitably, though, there always has to be at least one of these:

''Posted by: Concord Bridge Nov 28, 02:59 PM

Despite the unemployment problem we now have, I have far less concern for immigration than I do for the lack of assimilation. [Full disclosure: my father came to the US as a child.] I welcome anyone who wants to become an American and achieve the American dream of providing for a better future for one's children. Further, I welcome those who are willing to work for what they want and don't look for handouts. They have been the strength of America and there is no reason why they should not be welcome. That being said, I believe in an immigration system that puts America first. That means we do not allow immigration of Muslims and others who seek to do harm to our American way of life. ''

Some of my readers don't accept my belief that recent immigrant origin tends to bias people in favor of new immigrants and immigration in general. Yet I see this kind of comment all the time. It's depressing that some people are so rigid in their defense of immigration, even in the face of all the problems associated with it, because they have so sentimentalized, or personalized, the issue. Any criticism of immigration or immigrants is seen as threatening or hostile, or an outright attack on their own 'right' to be here.

Immigration leads to more immigration, and on and on.

And the commenter's mention of assimilation as being the main criterion for whether immigrants are beneficial is not challenged. This notion of the melting pot and 'assimilation' is another unchallenged popular belief. Many, many Republicans think, still, that oh, say, the Somali who was arrested in the attempted 'Christmas Tree bombing' was just not assimilated enough. Has everybody forgotten the Lackawanna terrorist group who were born and raised in this country? And the '7/7' bombers in the UK? They were "assimilated."

Besides, it is not just a matter of whether people want to assimilate (many don't) but whether they can -- many can't. But it apparently is not politically correct to recognize this.

Why do Republicans, who so often express disdain for much of the politically correct dogma and speech restrictions, fail to see their own political correctness in believing in egalitarian blank-slate-ism?

Maybe, given another 9 or 10 years, Republicans will have moved another inch or two to the right and they will come around to actually rejecting leftism as a whole. Maybe. If we have that long.

One last bit of irony: if you click over to the article, you may see an ad placed right in the midst of the article which shows several 'diverse' individuals and says 'We Are America.'

The ad is "Paid for by the Center for Community Change''

''The Center typically works in urban areas, especially communities of color, and attempts to form autonomous citizen-based groups to work on local issues of concern. It has, for example, had projects in New Orleans, Columbus, Ohio, and Kentucky.
[...]
CCC launched the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) as its immigrant rights project in 2000. FIRM has acted as an advocacy umbrella for many organizations, helped build coalitions, and provided technical assistance. In January 2007, FIRM collected signatures from 250 organizations nationwide supporting comprehensive immigration reform, addressed to majority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid."

As to its funding?

''Center for Community Change is funded in part by individuals who are members of the Democracy Alliance.''

"At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades," The Washington Post reported in August, 2005.

Rob Stein's PowerPoint presentation on how the Right built a strong infrastructure of think tanks, non-profits, non-profit groups, scholarship recipients, academics, lobbyists, right wing activists and the media led to the founding of the Democracy Alliance, and also a separate organization, the New Progressive Coalition founded by entrepreneurs Andy and Deborah Rappaport.

The Democracy Alliance tries to keep a low profile and its wealthy donors prefer anonymity. According to published reports, organizations funded by Democracy Alliance are asked not to reveal the funding.''

So even in the middle of an article examining immigration critically, we get an ad promoting immigration, an ad by one of the left's many 'activist' groups, funded by the usual suspects.

On and on.

Is it a precursor?

Does this presage a crackdown on the Internet?

Is it possible that this might lead to moving against sites or blogs that, say, excerpt from copyrighted media materials? Of course it would probably involve those who express unpopular or dissident views (which of course would exempt the Left; much as they like to posture and preen as being 'dissidents', they are the establishment now).

And what about the significance, if any, of the government agency that is doing this? What on earth does this kind of thing have to do with the purported role of that department?

Thoughts?

An open admission

Here's an article which asserts that without organized crime (which largely got started through the late-19th century wave of mass immigration), America would be a dull old place. So we ought to be grateful that the immigrant wave brought us such great cultural benefits as jazz, smutty movies (beginning with the 'nickelodeon), the gay movement, Las Vegas, and interracial clubs which made our country a 'better place.'

Lew Rockwell.com occasionally has articles which are of some worth. I don't agree with libertarians on many things, but I can see eye-to-eye with those who oppose and sound the alarm about a too-powerful central government, and about the decline in our civil liberties.

But this article which was apparently posted originally at HuffPo is one which illustrates the other side of libertarianism, which is nothing more than the adolescent hedonist argument framed in academic or pseudo-intellectual terms. The first libertarian I ever knew in real life was simply a druggie-hedonist who was still rebelling against his wealthy, conservative father and 'whatever else you got.'

Libertarians, being ideologues, are thus brothers to the liberals, who believe in fairy-tale constructs, utopian castles in the air, mythical lands where everyone is free from any external (or internal) restraint, and everybody is happy and harmonious.

The implication behind this particular article is that the original founding population of this country were a crowd of fuddy-duddies who did not want anybody to have any fun, and thus made this country a joyless, repressed place where (horrors!) there were vice laws and social mores that -- imagine! -- discouraged and occasionally punished antisocial and/or self-destructive acts.

So the false dichotomy is set up: which would you rather live in: a repressed, puritanical place where all pleasure is outlawed, or a wide-open lawless place in which libertinism is given free rein?

Most younger people would unhesitatingly choose the latter, the country with no restraints. Sadly, now even the older generations, who usually uphold the traditional, have fallen for the same influences. The fact is, though, that as I said, this is a false choice; it is not an either/or choice. No country existing now is perfectly libertarian (I doubt that such a place could exist) nor is any country as strict and oppressive as to curtail all vice and self-indulgent, self-destructive behavior. Such a place would, of course, be a police state -- unless the majority of the populace were devout people who exercised a great deal of self-restraint, and did not need to be coerced into behaving well. Even then, though, people are subject to the same temptations as any other human being, and it is this inherent weakeness that the libertines and those who profit from vice of whatever sort exploit.

At least the article verifies what I have generally believed about the unhappy effects of the promiscuous immigration policies of the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as the post-1965 wave of immigration. If you import people who have differing mores and ethics and behavioral standards, there will be a cultural clash and a disruption in morality as people are offered conflicting messages from different sources.

For years the media have been promoting sleaze and corruption, and the article not only notes the influence of certain cultures and ethnicities, but praises them for doing it, and calls it the 'betterment' of our country.

Pretty shameless.

Thanksgiving 2010

Watching our language

Maybe this should have been included in a recent post of mine called 'And you are a gentleman'', which had to do with certain influences on our youth culture. I had been intending to write a blog entry on slang, which is all too often influenced these days by 'gangster' culture.

I happened across this piece by Selwyn Duke which focuses on the term 'junk' as used in its present slang sense, and of course what with the TSA searches (what Vox Day calls 'gate rape') the term 'junk' is being heard a lot. Duke speculates that the term may have originated with feminists (presumably White feminists, as it is mostly White leftist women who constitute the main adherents of feminism). Duke believes the term may be a misandrist term, meant to disparage men. I don't doubt there are misandrists aplenty these days. However that origin had not occurred to me.

Like Selwyn Duke, I have lately been musing about how this usage of the word got its slang meaning. My hunch was that, as commenters on the AT article say, its origins are elsewhere:

" What's with this youth-culture tendency to refer to male genitalia as "junk"?

It is not youth culture, it is specifically black, gangsta thug slang and many Whites are psychophants for this worthless gangsta life style. It is very prevalent in the U.S. military, as are gangsta tattoos, tribal tattoos and many other things that would have gotten me (and anyone else of my age group) an article 15 or worse when I did my service time in Viet Nam.''

(Incidentally, the word 'psychophants' in the above quote may have been a malapropism or misspelling, but it seems to fit. Maybe that is a new word that is needed for a certain type of person today.)

I would say to this post that 'youth culture' these days is all too often synonymous with what is euphemistically called 'urban' culture, or as the above comment puts it, 'gangsta thug', and I agree with his assessment of its baleful influence.

From other comments:

''It didn't start as "youth culture" vernacular it started as "urban speak". Like the contractions "s'up" and "a'ight". They are the products of ignorance and poor education. The mangling of the English language has heightened since "hip-hop" culture came to the fore. This has been exascerabated by the advent of "chatspeak" on blogs and "texting" where forms like "ur" and "h8er" have come to the fore.''

and:

''...it is not a feminist invention but a prison culture/gangsta slang which has infiltrated our society and dumbs it down. Another in a long, horrendous list of "My bad" and "You go girl" used by those desperately seeking "Cool."

When contemplating this topic, I thought of a number of slang terms which have crossed over to middle-aged, middle class, White people, such as the ones mentioned in the paragraph before this one, and other such nonsense as 'talk to the hand!' (I had to ask a more pop-culture-wise relative just what that connoted, and having heard the answer, it still makes no sense.)

A somewhat stale term that was once confined to adolescent boys of the diverse kind is ''Word!'' or ''word up.'' Again, after having that one explained to me, as it is not self-evident what it means, it likewise makes no sense -- and you find it being used by middle-aged White FReepers and others. Whatever happened to articulate, well-spoken adults, adults who did not emulate their teenagers' argot and fashions? The ultimate question, though, is why do our teenagers slavishly adopt so much that they see and hear from the diversities?

Duke responds to some critics on the thread who seem annoyed that he is even posting about something as irrelevant and trashy as slang, but I agree with his response that words matter. Semantics matters. The left and their constituent groups seem to exert the greatest influence on society, including our language, these days. As to why that is, I suppose it is for the same reason that minority groups are in the drivers' seat and the White American majority is so demoralized. Everything to do with minorities and ''diversity'' is glamorized by our media. This includes television, movies, music, even the so-called 'fine arts' in which ugly wall-scrawlings are labeled 'alternative art' or something.

Words do matter; our vocabulary, including our slang, says a great deal about our culture. Does language shape thought? I've heard that argued; perhaps it does, and if so, we need to be more mindful of using language that does not debase us or lead to corrupted communication.

Again, I think that we need to maintain the integrity (what is left of it) of our own culture, which is quite rich enough and creative enough that we should not have to resort to mining slang from the underclass in order to be considered hip or up-to-date.

Let's make it acceptable and desirable first, to be adults, and second, to be gentlemen and ladies again, and set the standard for our children.

They need to follow our lead, not the other way around.

Thanksgiving Day 1869

From Harper's Weekly, 1869. (Click on picture for larger view.)

Remembering

When November 23 rolls around, which is the anniversary of the Battle of Lookout Mountain during the War Between the States, I usually post a little piece about that event. I do that in honor, mainly, of my great-great grandfather, who died in that battle, near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He was one of some 500+ Confederate soldiers who died during that battle, which lasted from November 23rd to the 25th. The South lost that battle, and took heavier losses than the Union army did in that battle.

It may not have been a crucial battle in that devastating war, though some say that if the battle had not been lost, the war might have had a different outcome. We will never know.

Right now, it seems as if we descendants of those ill-fated soldiers are still engaged in a continuation of the war, with our history, our way of life, and our symbols under attack. Our children are taught that their forefathers of the Confederacy (and all Southron people, really) were bad and immoral people, because of slavery and because of their 'rebellion'.

''There are those who despise us, who wish to stamp us out, or worse still, to use us as a milk cow so they can live lives of ease. There are those who believe us to be evil, and demand we repent at the alter of the damned while they sup at the table of the blessed. There are those who fear us, and so continually try to strip away all reminders of what we once were.

But we are still here, still living in our land, the land of our forefathers, more numerous than ever and though tyrannized, abused, and dispirited, poised to renounce our oppressors and reclaim what is rightfully ours.

For nearly 200 years, from George Washington to George Wallace, our people acted with a singleness of purpose. Even though defeated in a great war in 1865, we stood as one people to the outside world, defending our lives, land, homes, and inalienable rights with remarkable solidarity. But since our defeat in the Civil Rights War of 1965, we have been betrayed by many of our natural leaders in government, in the church, in business, and in the university.''

The above quote is from the late Dennis Wheeler, whose writings I have quoted here before. He was an eloquent defender of the Southron heritage, and he spoke truly there in that quote.

We are now seeing the fruits of the War's outcome; the defeat of the Confederacy meant the victory of an ever-stronger central government and the stripping away of state's rights and regional autonomy. The events of the day emphasize that fact unequivocally.

I am sure that my great-great grandfather, who was only one of several in my line of ancestry who fought for the Confederacy, was fighting not for abstractions, but for home and land and kin and faith. And for the right to live our lives in freedom, without an overbearing government to make us fear and cower.

It is time that we speak up in defense of our forefathers and our heritage, as we owe them that much. I believe in honoring my father and mother, and to me, that means all my fathers and mothers who
preceded me and gave me life.

And let me honor, too, the names of some other of my kin who served in the army of the Confederacy.

Benjamin Farrar Eddins - he was mortally wounded during Coxton's Raid in Alabama.

Zadoc Mitchell Holloway - killed at Shiloh.

John Allen Barksdale - died in battle, Spottsylvania, Virginia.

Lewis Summerfield Scruggs, and Joseph Howell Scruggs.

And there are others, your ancestors (perhaps) and mine,whose names are probably meaningful only to their descendants and kin.

Let's not forget our Confederate forefathers,nor let their names be slandered by those who are enemies of our heritage.

What's next?

The question was raised in a comment the other day about why there was no searching and body scanning involved in traveling by train or bus or boat.

We all expected this, sooner or later:

''The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose."

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”

The writer of the article, Jordy Yager, mentions that others, like Joe Lieberman, have already suggested similar measures for those entering federal buildings.

''Napolitano said she hoped the U.S. could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.''

'Guarded against terrorist attacks?' Who? Where? How? By leaving our southern border wide open to narco-traffickers and gangs and basically anyone who strays across the erstwhile border? Or by purposely admitting people from lawless countries like Somalia, and planting them in small towns across the U.S.? Who does she think she is fooling?

She mentions promoting research to try to understand the psychology of how terrorists develop. Typical blather about ''root causes'' and 'understanding.'

Even if we can psychoanalyze those who mean us harm, that would be a long term strategy, not a way of protecting American citizens here and now. The cliche about 'understanding' malefactors is a longstanding obsession with leftists and silly females. We used to hear the bleeding-hearts talking about how we should not execute murderers, but try to get at why they do what they do, so that we can prevent such acts in the future. Well, suppose we could see into the minds of violent people of whatever kind, and suppose we spot these theoretical telltale signs of a budding maniac. Do we then lock him up just in case? Medicate him? Put him in an institution for re-education? Drug him into harmlessness? The whole notion would not be allowable in a free country, and thus it is probably exactly what these lefties would like to do. I suspect they would not be as interested in the real threats, but in what they are now casually calling 'domestic extremists', formerly known as 'normal Americans', or perhaps just Americans who are being goaded to do something 'extreme' so as to justify abridging our rights even further.

So what's next? Internal passports? Searches at state borders, or other random places?

Whatever is next, it will not be to ensure our security, but to extend the government's power.

Corraling 'conservatives'

Recently in the post 'The cost of respectability' I wrote about the 'respectable conservatives', or the 'respectables.'

Obviously that isn't a phrase of my own coinage; its been current for some time.

I've also used the term 'castrated conservatives', but that too is not mine; it was Carleton Putnam's coinage, as far as I know.

In this discussion centering on William F. Buckley at AltRight, a commenter TS1709 provides a good description of 'respectable conservatism':

The most odious doctrine of his (much lauded by the left) was to keep the conservative movement "under control" and "respectable" by exiling and /or excoriating those who dared to go beyond a certain line of discourse. I cannot even begin to conceive why one would be deferential to the sensibilities of those whose objective is to destroy you and your beliefs. However, for a social fop such as WF Buckley whose vanity required the acceptance of the "Eastern Establishment" it was sufficient justification for the purges.''

The above is pretty much the same as my own idea of 'respectables', as the first sentence describes. The respectables are very image-conscious, and very quick to 'shush' and censor and even pronounce anathema on those of the right who violate the 'respectable' norms, as per liberal standards. Violate political correctness in any important way, and you will be drummed out of 'conservatism' and labeled a racist. The respectables worry lest your political incorrectness taint them and their spotless image.

And again, why should anyone on the right care what those hostile to us think or say of us?

Jack Cashill also writes an article in which 'Respectable Conservatives' are the subject. In his context, the 'respectables' are those who were either outright supporters of the president or apologists for him in some way. I suppose that these qualify as respectables in that they react to the criticisms of the left and tailor their message and their actions to the standards of what the left deems acceptable. These people Cashill alludes to are obviously cowards when it comes to racial issues, and afraid to mention that the emperor's clothes are conspicuously absent.

The readers who comment on Cashill's article seem somewhat confused by Cashill's use of the term 'respectable conservatives', seeming not to catch the irony or sarcasm in it.

''Good article but since when are Kathleen Parker, Jonathan Last, and for crying out loud, David Brooks "respectable conservatives"? They were, and apparently still are, being hustled by a narcissistic, man-child would-be fascist street agitator. How does that earn any thinking person's respect? ''

The idea is not that they should be respected, or respectable, but that they are courting respectability with the liberals and perhaps their media peers (who are, after all, mostly mad-dog liberals.)

In my own usage of the term, one need not be a major media figure or a visible leader of the party in any sense to be a 'respectable conservative'. Anybody who is more concerned with how we are viewed by the left than with truth and right fits the definition.

The purge-happy 'conservatives' among the bloggers, the ones who are ready to denounce and point the finger at anyone who strays from the acceptable line are an example. I think it's obvious that some, if not all, of them are people who are perhaps acting as some kind of gatekeepers and their job is to cull out those who are too far outside the narrow bounds of what is acceptable.

Whether they are cast in this role by the real powers in the GOP or the media, or whether they are simply self-appointed censors, doesn't matter; the part they play is the same.

They keep the 'right' corraled and steer them away from thoughtcrime -- otherwise known as uncomfortable truths.
Sometimes, however, some of the more 'edgy' conservatives (like Michael Savage or Glenn Beck) also fulfill the same role as the mild-mannered 'respectables', in a way. They are an alternative way of keeping the right from getting too radical. They act as an outlet, a way to channel and divert the anger that exists out there. They are a way to release some of the pressure, while still keeping people within acceptable bounds.

The respectables use the power to ostracize or anathematize the people who are too politically incorrect, too right-wing, and the 'edgy' personalities, who are geared to appeal to the more hard-core right, play along, and act as though they share the concerns of their listeners or viewers, all the while re-directing the energy towards safe ends. Beck seems to act as a means of reinforcing political correctness among the Republicans who are his followers. Witness his emphasis on black icons and heroes. The image of MLK which is shown every day alongside the Founding Fathers is a way of Politically Correcting his viewers. And it seems to be working.

The carrot and the stick both have their place in corraling the right.

Not just Glenn Beck but Fox News in general is a kinder, gentler reinforcer of PC for the Republican viewers. Over at Free Republic there are men who ogle Harris Faulkner (who is a female, despite the male name), and who thus find the 'diversity' more palatable at FoxNews than at CNN.

The media are just in the business of serving up differerent varieties of the same old, same old; one flavor for the 'right' and one for the liberal. For the Republicans, just wave the flag and make the liberalism less blatant, works like a charm.

Since what we now call conservatism has been so compromised and co-opted, we need a new term to describe the politically incorrect right. I think we discussed this here a couple of years ago, and we never found a term we could agree on.

Some on the ethnopatriot right say that conservatism is discredited; that may be true, but I still believe that there needs to be a concern for preserving or conserving what is good from the past. It's all very facile to say 'there's nothing left to save'. In my occasional cynical moment, I've probably said that, but it is not true. Our people are still here, though in a bad way, and our way of life is weakened and marginalized, but it is not dead and gone, despite the efforts of the enemy.

I don't know if I consider myself 'conservative' any longer; perhaps I'm a restorationist or a reactionary, or just an ethnoloyalist. The labels don't matter as much, but if we discard even the idea of preserving anything of tradition, we will become nothing more than ideologues with some utopian pipe-dream of a re-invented West, or Jacobins, who tried to destroy and remake everything.

As useless as 'conservatism' has become, and as much as it is the salt which has lost its savor, we still need to try to salvage what we can, and not raze everything to the ground in our zeal to reject what is bad in our world.

'Of Another Time'

A pretty good montage of old movie scenes -- although I'd leave out the 1970s ones.

Lost America

I just came across this post, which is from several months back, on Stuff Black People Don't Like. The subject is Turner Classic Movies.

Pre-Obama America (POA) is gone, dead for the ages. Acting as celluloid mausoleums interning and memorializing a long dead nation, movies depict this era that has passed into the pages of history, haunting all those who view the images and forever taunting them with a glimpse of stability and an uncompromising belief that tomorrow would be better than the next day.
[...]
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is a channel devoted to showcasing the glories of Pre-Obama America, as chronicled in film. Timeless classics that still resonate with viewers who watch them today (look over the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films ever made and notice this startling truth – that POA is immortalized in motion pictures and they will forever plague those who bemoan that era for wanton cruelty) realize all that has been lost in the span of a few generations by the vivid reminder that John Wayne, Cary Grant and James Stewart provide.
[...]
Turner Classic Movies represents a window into a past that few could ever believe existed, were it not for films starring such men such as Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and Charles Bronson among others.

No, these films remain vestiges of a time that taunt us with simplicity, reminders of a greatest generation that dies daily and would rather cling to memories of a past then remain agitated by glimpses of a horrific future broadcast on the nightly news.

And that, is the most potent weapon that Disingenuous White Liberals and those who find employment and promotion thanks to BRA fear. Memory, remembrance of things past and that could be once again.''

Overall it's a very good piece, with the comments being the weak point, degenerating into arguments and straying off topic, unfortunately. It should have been a good discussion, sadly.

The blogger implies that because of the nature of the films shown on TCM, and because of the fact that old movies keep alive the memory of a vanished era, it would be subversive to today's powers-that-be. It is too ''hideously White'', and it shows a past that is greatly at variance with today's moral dictates as delineated in politically correct dogma.

Regular readers here know that I am an old movie fan, and that I was a watcher of TCM since the 1980s, and in more recent times, a frustrated observer of the changes that have been taking place at TCM over the last several years.

I am not sure if the blogger is aware that TCM is doing its own little PC soft shoe, with a great to-do about 'Black History Month' every February, and occasional marathons of old movies with all-black casts, those movies being made for black movie theaters way back when. And TCM has also prominently featured the black movie critic, Elvis Mitchell, probably to fulfill the 'diversity' mandate and avoid charges of being 'racist.'

One way in which TCM seems to be trying to evade the 'subversive' charge from blacks and the PC left is by showing increasing numbers of newer movies, those from the era when political correctness and 'diversity' became mandates. Starting in the late 60s, or even the earlier 60s, suddenly it became de rigueur to have a certain number of black characters in movies. Movies of that era, overall, began to carry counterculture messages and leftist themes, as well as sexually explicit and profane content.

Was this just a reflection of a changing America? It should be evident to anybody who pays attention that the movies from the 60s onward depict an America, or a world, that bears little resemblance to the old America as seen in the true classic movies. Someone who had never seen America might think that the post-1960s movies depicted another country altogether. Yet to my surprise few people born after the start of the PC era seem to notice the sharp divide between the old movies and the later post-60s movies.

I often wonder if TCM will slowly phase out the old movies altogether, or show them occasionally as museum pieces, for historical interest. I've noticed when certain very politically incorrect movies have been shown in the past, especially movies which involve blacks, there will be some sort of interpreter from the 'African-American community', who will tell us in professorial tones how the movie was racist, and how such unfortunate attitudes were extant in those day. We apparently need to be lectured and given warnings about the violations of taboos with certain movies.

TCM has also made a great show of having 'gay and lesbian' themed movies, with similar sermonettes by some guest representing the GLBT (did I get that right?) ''community.''

In other words, TCM, instead of just showing us some wonderful old movies, feels the necessity of telling us what to think about the movies, or issuing caveats about the naughty content.

I think it's well to remember the example of American Movie Classics, or AMC, which once showed uncut, no-commercials, old movies, most of which were from the 30s through the 60s. Slowly AMC morphed into a commercial-ridden channel which shows third-rate movies from the 70s and 80s, along with their own series like 'Mad Men' which seems to be highly popular. But it is no longer the home of the classic old movies, as its name once indicated.

TCM, with its increasing emphasis on post-70s movies, is in danger of becoming AMC's twin.

TCM is, I think, subversive in a good way, a necessary way. Just as I've written in other posts, I think that we are being manipulated to forget the past, the old America which was not shackled by political correctness and contrived 'diversity.' It's vital that we keep some visual reminder of that past, or we will lose our moorings, and become more and more an amnesic people.

I asked a few paragraphs ago if the movies merely reflected a spontaneously changing society, or if they actually played a part in engineering those changes. Obviously I think the answer is the latter. The movies -- and the other arts -- have given birth to this upside-down world in which we live.  Life comes to resemble art, not vice versa. As people become dumbed-down and passive they become something resembling blank slates on which the manipulators can write what they choose.

Mindless, sensationalistic, shocking entertainment dulls the sensibilities and creates a jaded, cynical populace. What we take in through our senses while we passively watch entertainment can have a real impact on us. This is why many billions are spent on advertising and media: it works. It leads and shapes our attitudes and preferences and wants.

As long as TCM still does its innately subversive thing in showing old America in enjoyable and well-made movies, it is or can be a force for good. I hope it is not censored off the air, or given the death of a thousand cuts like AMC, making it a shell of its former self.

One last thing: there are always the cynics and curmudgeons who say, of old movies, that ''the world was never like that. It's all fantasy. It's a whitewash.'' I say no, there once was an America much like that in the movies. Of course some things are prettied up, as with all movies, but the movies for the most part captured the old America as I know it from experience and from the stories told by my elder relatives. It did exist. The naysayers simply want to have us believe that it never existed because they want people to think there is no alternative to this dystopian world in which we now find ourselves.

Don't believe them.

The cost of respectability

Check out this discussion from American Thinker.
The subject is, of all things, the John Birch Society.

From the AT article:

''The Birchers were repudiated by the American center-right soon after they appeared -- most famously by William F. Buckley, who read them out of the movement with comments about their "paranoid and idiotic" behavior. Even Ayn Rand, no friend of Buckley or other conservative leaders, was dismissive of the Birchers: "I consider the Birch Society futile, because they are not for Capitalism but merely against Communism."

But repudiation didn't work. Throughout the '60s, American liberals succeeded in connecting Birchers with the center-right, convincing the public at large that everybody from Buckley on down was a nascent Jack Ripper, crazy as a rat in a can, and ready to go off at a touch. Their crowning victory was the trashing of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. After the organization endorsed Goldwater, the media ran with it, depicting the senator as a demented extremist even though he was not a Birch Society member, had no contact with them, and disagreed with them in detail. The "Bircher" accusation went on to serve the left well for nearly twenty years.''

I am not sure why Mr. Dunn is in such high dudgeon over the JBS. From what he implies in the piece, it seems that in the comments section of a previous article, somebody had the temerity to suggest that the Birch Society was right about some things. I gather that he read this as an attempt to smear AT by association with 'far-right' extremism and general nutjobbery. Smear them with whom? The left, presumably.

Firstly, I think it's generally understood by readers of any given blog that on a blog with a degree of free speech (and few blogs have a 100 percent unmoderated comment section) there will be comments made that the blog author or owner does not necessarily agree with. I don't always agree with all comments that are left here, although in general I am blessed with a good group of commenters who write intelligent comments. However I may not agree with any or every comment I get here. If I disagree, I may or may not attempt to respond to comments made, to indicate where I stand.

This blast against the John Birch Society seems a bit of an overreaction. A few pro-JBS comments among dozens does not amount to a resurgence of John Birchery, or 'right-wing extremism' of whatever sort. And if it did, given today's insanely left-wing culture, would that be so shocking? Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction.

The second thing I would like to point out is that I am not very  knowledgeable on the JBS, although I am considered far-right by many people. The John Birch Society was a little before my time. Being a child who read newspapers and had an interest in politics and current events ever since I could read, I was aware of JBS, because there was quite a bit of criticism of it from the mainstream media back in the early 1960s. It was the bogeyman of the 'respectables' back then. I didn't understand what the issues were. I knew that communism was bad, so it rather confused me that those who opposed communism could also be bad. I kept hearing the term ''right-wing extremist'' then. Actually it seems that as the left began to solidify its dominance of the media in the 60s, I began to hear that term 'right-wing extremist' with increasing frequency. I gathered that there were right-wing people who were supposedly akin to the Nazis and fascists -- or so said the respectable news magazines and TV panel hosts of that time. I trust them far less now than I did as a child.

Dunn uses the left-wing Stanley Kubrick's movie Dr. Strangelove to ridicule such organizations --- as if such cartoonish characters as Jack D. Ripper were anything but a caricature.

And to get right to the heart of the issue of the supposedly extreme anti-Communism of the JBS, can we deny that they were right in warning about Communism? Even now, our media ridicule and vilify Joe McCarthy and the 'red-baiting' anti-Communists, the so-called 'witch hunters' who sounded warnings. Perhaps their warnings were too insistent, but if you saw your country in danger would you not shout a warning? That's what motivated this blog.

It looks very much to me as though the anti-Communist warnings were valid, and that we ignored those warnings to our great harm and detriment. We would surely not be where we are today had we taken the warnings seriously and acted accordingly.

The whole Communist conspiracy thing perhaps sounded fantastic to many people, who being naive, could not believe that something could be so insidious, so far-reaching, and so relentless. How anyone today of even a slightly conservative bent, can dismiss the warnings or scoff at the idea of such an overarching plan is incomprehensible. After all, it's coming to fruition before our eyes.

The left did a superb, bang-up job of fostering in the American public a knee-jerk reaction to any talk of a conspiracy, as if conspiracies per se are impossible, and anyone who warns of them is automatically an 'extremist' or a nutjob. To be fair, the 'respectable right' does its own part in encouraging this attitude, too.

The left, meanwhile, has been quite brazen lately with their talk of one-world governance, their celebration of minority status for White people in this country, and their triumph over traditional America.

Dunn creates a straw-man here, describing the Bircher's beliefs:

'' Bircher beliefs can be summed up quite simply:

    * A) That everything that occurs in public life, without exception, is caused by the communists.
    * B) That everybody who is not a Bircher is a communist.

Moving on, here are some choice elements of Bircher thought: That Dwight D. Eisenhower was a communist agent, that the civil rights movement was a communist plot, that the Vietnam War was a communist plot (I know, I know -- I don't get it either). That the Christian ecumenical movement was a communist plot, that the mental health establishment was run by communists. That free trade was a communist plot. (I'd like to hear somebody try to square that circle.) That the collapse of the Soviet empire was bogus, a ruse designed to make us let down our guard. Birchers were also opposed to every war the U.S. was involved in since the organization's founding in 1958, on the grounds that they were fought on behalf of guess who? (All they need is a few posters saying "God hates fags" and they'd be all set.)''

Points A and B are obviously caricatures of their position, especially point B. I do not know any Birchers (although some open-borders Republican accused me of being one) but I doubt they think everybody but Birchers are Communists.

The Christian ecumenical movement is certainly fostered by people with liberal political views and liberal 'Christian' theology. Some of the mainline churches have been quite open about supporting third-world revolutionary communists. This is fact, not conjecture or conspiracy theory. Gramscian communism quite openly prescribes infiltrating the churches and all other institutions. That is no fantasy. I need not spell all this out.

As far as his citing William F. Buckley's and Ayn Rand's condemnations of the JBS, I hardly consider them as authorities on things conservative. Rand was an ideologue, no conservative, and Buckley was an elitist who craved respectability among a certain social circle. Their opinions hold little weight with me.

I also don't look to Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and the other talk-radio figures he cites as exemplars.

They, like respectable conservatives in general, stay within the bounds of political correctness, and their quest for respectability (and employability) is based on their not being labeled 'right-wing extremists', though they are labeled as such by the media and liberals generally.

It seems to me that the quest for acceptance by the left wing or the ''middle'' is a futile one; if you are the tiniest bit to the right of 'center' you are a right-wing crazy in our narrow-minded political society today. In fact, the much-praised ''middle'', which seems to pride itself on its moderation and lack of right-wing nuttery, is in reality moving ever-leftward as the center of political gravity is pulled in that direction by the left moving the boundaries constantly. Can anyone deny or doubt that the whole political debate has moved, drastically, to the left even in the last 10 years? The 'center' now occupies what was once extreme left-wing territory. That's how it works.

And that's how the left wants it to work.
They want Republicans to continue letting them define the terms politically, and letting them control the discourse and the language and the definitions. They want to keep the right on the defensive, constantly insecure and scrambling to prove how not-extreme they are, and how respectable, diverse, and inclusive they are. That way, the left continues to move everything towards their goal, and the respectables get towed along, willingly.

I got slammed, and lost some readers recently because I criticized Glenn Beck. I was told that I was violating Reagan's 11th commandment. Well, I only know of ten commandments. Reagan said that we should not criticize other conservatives -- and I generally don't condemn people to MY right. In the quest for appearing respectable, many will throw genuine allies overboard, people who are in agreement with the basic goals. That is unwise. We are not so many, those of us who try to defend our cause, that we can afford to turn up our noses at someone just because we think they will embarrass us or make us look bad to hostile third parties.

And if we do manage to reverse the catastrophic events that have happened over the last few years, it will likely be because of the efforts of the ones who are not afraid to step outside the bounds of political correctness.

Whose respect are the respectables courting, anyway? The left, and that of the media, all of whom are hostile to us and to all we believe in. Why seek the respect of those who oppose and loathe us?

As for the John Birch Society, those of you who don't know about them might check the facts. I know all of you can do your own research and decide for yourselves what you think of them.

Common sense about our enemies

On the subject of airline 'security', this editorial acknowledges the concerns many have about the new procedures:

''Led by agitators and sober commentators alike, the public is distressed and angered by the TSA's new procedures, implemented just in time for the Thanksgiving rush. They include imaging that essentially reveals nude portraits of those who pass through the scanners, and highly intrusive pat-downs.''

The first sentence in that quote gives away the writer's tack, which is one that ultimately leads to a justification of the scans and intimate searches, or at minimum, dismisses profiling.

The editorialist mentions the 'underwear bomber' of 2009, and the fact that passengers thwarted his attempt to carry out his plan, but he fails to note that the would-be bomber was on a no-fly list, and was inexplicably allowed to board. Profiling would have made it far less likely that he would have boarded, even if he were not on a no-fly list. He fit one or more categories: his name, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, indicated his likely religion, and he also had a one-way ticket if I remember correctly.

Now, doubt is being cast on whether his bomb would have been powerful enough to bring the plane down, but that is just hair-splitting, as far as I am concerned.

The editorial mentions also the ink-cartridge incident on a cargo plane, but passenger security would not have prevented such incidents.

So no, profiling would not eliminate any and all threats but it would go a long way, and it would simply be the most straightforward and most honest way of confronting the threat.

Profiling, and making it much harder for people from certain countries to immigrate and even to visit would be the best security measures we might have. As long as our government flatly refuses and rules out these common-sense measures, they are not serious about security or about the lives of citizens. Their rigid and dogmatically PC approach shows reckless disregard of the safety of the citizens whose safety they are supposed to defend.

The editorialist uses a cliched argument against profiling, one which we started hearing a few years ago. The claim is made that terrorists are getting smart. Supposedly they know we are scrutinizing airplanes and at least looking with some caution at Moslem travelers (though not profiling, perish the thought), so now they are going to change tactics. I've seen a number of articles over the last few years about how the next tactic will be to use Western White people or non-Moslem people to carry out attacks, or  to act as accomplices.

However I can't think of any major terror attack in which White non-Moslems were involved. Can any of you? I think this is just propaganda that is being sown in order to further discredit the efficacy of profiling. The fact is, with any generalization, as with profiling, there will always be the rare exception, but that never invalidates the general rule.

This leads to the larger question of how we regard the terror threat as such. First of all, the so-called 'War on Terror' is a colossal joke, for the reasons I mention above. We are still letting people from terrorist-producing countries and backgrounds enter our country freely. We are still promiscuously open in our immigration policies. Political correctness trumps common sense, and takes precedence over preserving American lives.

However I am aware that many on the right dismiss outright the potential for terrorism. They believe the threat is an invention of our corrupt government, being used as a pretext for stripping us of our liberties and rights in the name of 'security.'

Actually I agree there is likely truth in that skeptical belief. At least, I can see that the government is exploiting the potential for terrorism, using it to justify totalitarian measures which ultimately make us no safer, but leave us less free.

However, unlike some on the right, I don't believe that the Moslems would be our friends were it not for Middle East politics or our pro-Israel policies. I do think we should abstain from taking sides in  Middle East disputes. I don't think we should be in Iraq or Afghanistan or any of those countries. But I don't go so far as to say that we and the Moslems could get along just fine if we minded our business. Just look at the history of Europe, and it's clear that Islam has always been at war with White, Western countries, or against historic Christendom -- even when we refuse to see ourselves as at war with them.

And quite apart from that, they are just not compatible with us.
We do not need immigration from those countries. Their interests and ours do not coincide.

On this subject, inevitably someone will recite the rote phrase one hears about all minorities: ''But they're not all like that." Usually that inane statement is followed by some anecdote about a friendly colleague or co-worker. Irrelevant. The fact that less than 100 percent of some group are a direct threat to our lives does not mean that they, or their influence, are desirable in our country. Moslems pose a threat to us in other ways besides clumsy and sometimes successful attempts to kill us. They tend to undermine our culture and our freedoms (complaining about our national and religious symbols displayed in public), demanding special concessions and privileges, and generally displaying a hostile attitude toward us.

And then there are the stories like this one which don't always get national coverage. These things are happening here and there.

I think we need to guard against knee-jerk reactions against our political enemies -- for example, the neocons want to stir up animosity towards Islam so we should turn a blind eye to the threat, or even defend Moslems, as some do. To believe that the neocons 'want us to hate Moslems' should not cause any of us to perversely defend Moslems. They are not our friends. Neither are 'neocons,' of course, but we are stuck with them, for the most part.

But to regard Moslems insouciantly as 'no threat' is not wise.
Whenever we start to find ourselves agreeing with the left, that should give us some pause.

Our dysfunctional family

An interesting article about senior citizens being the fly in the 'progressives' ointment.
Are older voters blocking social policy changes?

What this article boils down to is that older Americans are not fully brainwashed in favor of the left's agenda. As some of the posters at AmRen point out this is an echo of what the inaptly-named Mr. Wise said in that infamous rant of his. Old folks are a thorn in the side of the left, and the leftists want oldsters to hurry up and die. I am sure the government-run health ''care'' system will have some solutions to the dilemma, as implied.

It's interesting, this new article, in that it somewhat gives the lie to the frequently-heard complaints from some younger Americans that 'the baby-boomers are a bunch of old hippies who caused all this trouble; they created this mess. They killed America." Actually it seems many younger people on the right agree 100 percent with the leftists who want older people gone. It's often stated in explicit terms.

So the discussion of this article at AmRen is rather uncharacteristic of that place, though post #15 suggests cutting Medicare and Social Security, saying that deep cuts are needed to balance the budget.

I would like to ask the people who often propose this, ''what would you have senior citizens do when you cut Social Security, or take it away altogether as some flatly propose?"

I always wonder if these zealots have living parents and grandparents, and if so, are the old folks independently wealthy and set for life? Can they afford to pay for their own medical care? Can they obtain medical insurance in their old age and with the chronic ailments that accompany old age in many cases?

Honestly, those who bluntly suggest taking an axe to old age benefits, are the ones who give 'conservatism' a bad name, and who give the impression that conservatism=materialism. These kinds of conservatives echo what Ebenezer Scrooge said about 'decreasing the surplus population.'

There are other issues at stake besides 'balancing the budget.' Human life has a value. These 'surplus population' elders are human beings that have made contributions and earned their way for the most part.

We can argue about whether or not FDR should have started Social Security. Probably not, but it's here. It should, in any case, have been limited to the people who had no relatives to help care for them, and no ability to work any longer.

Suppose we stopped Social Security now. It would leave many older people with no income and would likely, given this 'everybody-for-himself' society, result in many senior citizens living in their cars or on the streets. What then? In the name of balancing the budget (which is likely not to happen even with the cuts) we would be creating more homelessness and poverty and misery.

Would these burdensome seniors be conscripted into some kind of volunteerism like the administration threatens to do with young people? What about those too infirm or cognitively impaired to work? Would there be places for them in institutions, which will probably also be cutting their budgets?

As far as paid employment, there is not even enough work for healthy, able, fit young people today, let alone senior citizens who are not desirable employees in the estimate of many employers. So it won't do to just advise the old folks to get off their posteriors and get back to work.

This kind of conservatism is not worthy of that name, seeing, as it does, the older members of society as burdens, too costly and too inconvenient. The people who propose these things are, for practical purposes, on the same side as the leftists, who do not value life as such. They and Ezekiel Emanuel would be de facto allies.

If cutting budgets is to be done, start by limiting Social Security to people with few assets and no other income. Make it means-based. No wealthy or propertied people need to have a social security check. Is that punitive toward the rich? I don't think it is; the better-off people surely should not wish to receive government help; they should be too proud to do so, and should want to pay their own way.

Secondly, we must stop giving benefits like Social Security, SSI, Medicare/Medicaid to non-citizens, or perhaps non-native-born people, even those who are citizens on paper. Give it only to native-born Americans, and those who have lived x number of years in this country, worked, and paid taxes here. Discriminatory? Sure, but so what? The system discriminates now, by age. 

This alone would save an enormous amount of money. We all intuitively know that, but even on a 'race-realist' forum like AmRen, there are more people who want to cut off benefits to their own people, than are willing to say 'cut benefits to non-citizens first.' Apparently it is still more acceptable to lambaste your own elders than to criticize foreigners.

But to return to the main point of the linked article, yes, older people (including the much-criticized baby-boomers, my age cohort) are more conservative than is widely believed. We are the last ones to be born into the old America, and the last ones who have a memory of it, who actually lived in it. Once we, and the last-remaining members of the WWII generation are gone, there will be no witnesses left, nobody who experienced America as it once was. All the better for the left when that happens.

Some of my age group -- and even the generation just before mine, the ''silent generation'' did get taken in by the counterculture, but many of us, or most of us, turned back to our roots. Our parents taught us the old beliefs and standards. As Proverbs 22:6 says, ''train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.''

The older generations are not all drug casualties, old hippies, or mad-dog liberals. There are many of us who were 'trained up' in the way we should go, and we are doing our best to save what little is left of our people. Many of us are doing this for the sake of our children and grandchildren, not for ourselves, because the younger ones are those who will have the hardest future should we fail.

So can't there be a truce between the younger people and the older? We really cannot afford the division and the family conflicts.

Soft tyranny?

At Iron Ink there is a very good post, titled 'It is no longer soft tyranny.'

''I understand the metaphor of “soft tyranny” but I think it is time that we give it up for something harsher to describe what we are currently being subjected to in this country. We are long past the gentle coastal regions of “soft tyranny” that was in place when Woodrow Wilson and FDR were the Tyrants in Chief. Today we are well into the rugged highlands of tyranny and we really must altar our language to reflect that.''

Read the rest at Iron Ink.

Grim anniversary

Over at Moonbattery there is a post about the fact that November 18 is the anniversary of the awful Jonestown events -- whether you call the 900+ deaths suicide (as many do) or a massacre, it was a shocking scene.

Van Helsing at Moonbattery emphasizes that cult guru Jim Jones was a collectivist, a leftist, and not simply some crazed preacher as he was depicted in most of the media coverage. He was, first and foremost, a leftist, not a Christian. There is every evidence that he did not believe in Christianity, or religion in any form, unless he was to be its 'god.'

The Moonbattery piece links to a post by Petr at the old Original Dissent forums; it makes for interesting reading.

I know I've alluded to Jones and his 'People's Temple' in previous blog entries, but it is uncanny how closely his ideology resembled 21st century multiculturalist ideals. I don't say this in a flattering way, but he was ahead of his time. In our time he would not have fled the United States (which he believed was a thoroughly 'racist' country where he and his followers were hunted people). He would have stayed here and found a comfortable niche among his kindred souls on the multicult left. Maybe he would even be the revered grey eminence of that movement.

He was ahead of his time in that his obsessions and fetishes match those of today's cultural Marxists. He preached to his very diverse group of followers that America was a racist country, a fascist regime, in which their lives would be in constant danger. It sounds very similar to what the state media imply in many of their stories about 'racism.'

Jones was obsessed with the idea of 'rainbow families' much as today's trendy liberals are. He adopted 'diverse' children, and he pressured his followers to participate in interracial intimacy, which he told them was an act of love and charity.
He encouraged, shall we say, intergenerational relationships - the young with the elderly. This was recounted in a book written by a follower -- I have it in my possession somewhere,  but at the moment I can't cite the name of the writer or the book. It's lost among my stacks of books for now.

The whole disastrous episode which ended in hundreds of people dead in Jonestown is a cautionary tale about the all-too-American tendency to blindly follow charismatic personalities, and to accept what authority figures say without examining it. There is no reason why his early followers, who were Christians, should have followed this deranged pied piper over the cliff. If they had done what  Christians should do,  and examined his 'teachings' from a Biblical perspective, as the Bereans of the Bible did, they would not have had a tragic end.

Why are many Americans so willing to follow false shepherds, and to uncritically accept the authority of these people? This seems to be a trait that is more common than it should be in our country. And the last couple of years seem to show us that it is ever more common.

What is most appalling about figures like Jones is that their compliant followers come to believe that they are serving 'God' or the cause of 'right' and justice. Totalitarianism in the name of do-goodery is the worst kind.

As I think I said before, Jones is something of a founder of postmodern 'America'; his ideology is the offical one, the default one, the one which most leftists today will fight for and maybe even die for. The leftists' 'America' should be renamed in honor of their inspiration, Jim Jones.

Maybe one of these days he will in fact be revered and his birthday honored. Maybe he will be the co-honoree on that January holy day that honors another leftist.

The non-existent past

In an earlier blog post I wrote about how Hollywood began pushing the politically correct agenda after the middle of the last century. The propaganda really was stepped up around that time, but in looking through some of the images from older movies and magazines, it's obvious that it was already there in incipient form, and just intensified as the 20th century moved along.

The 'forbidden love' storyline was a popular one back in the silent film era. For example, in the above film.


The same theme of 'forbidden love' is found in the movie The Bitter Tea of General Yen, and just as in the above movie, a European-descended actor plays an Asian man. In Broken Blossoms, Richard Barthelmess played the Chinese man, and in 'The Bitter Tea of General Yen', the title character was played by a Swedish actor, Nils Asther.

Notice the somewhat lurid nature of the poster.

Another film, 'The Pagan' has another European-descended actor, Ramon Novarro, (born in Mexico, but European in appearance) playing a mixed-race Polynesian/White man. In this case, though, the love interest is another half White/half Polynesian character. This movie, like Broken Blossoms, also has a villainous White male character, but in The Pagan, the White villain is also Christian. So you get two for the price of one.

The Pagan is also about the conflict between the idealized 'carefree' culture of the Polynesians and the corrupt ways of Whites. Of course the romanticized Eden of pagan Polynesia is the winner. So the Rousseauian 'noble savage' image was current in the 1920s just as it is now.

Jump ahead a few decades, to 1957, and we have this movie.

The poster mentions the 'forbidden love' storyline, and the movie has lots of that; all the main characters carry on 'forbidden' affairs. Marlon Brando's character,  as well as Red Buttons' and James Garner's characters all marry Japanese girls. And Brando's spurned (White) fiancee takes up with a Japanese kabuki actor -- with the oddly-cast Ricardo Montalban playing the actor. He looks particularly unconvincing as a Japanese man; his features are all wrong. His nose is too prominent, and his facial structure just does not look Japanese. But of course race is merely a social construct, isn't it?

By the time Sayonara was released, the multicultural PC propaganda was shifting into high gear. Since then, even in the last few years, it's increased to the point of being ubiquitous and more intense, more insistent, and more open. It's as though they don't even feel the need to disguise it or soft-pedal it. It's blatant and heavy-handed.

But when we stop and consider just how long these ideas have been promoted, it impresses on us just how firmly embedded some of these ideas are in our society.

I continue to try to discover why so many of our people have absorbed these messages like sponges. It seems there is some kind of deep-seated need to idealize others. Most of us, left and right, feel disillusioned with the world we live in, and many people believe that there was some kind of golden age, before we became civlized, in which everybody lived like happy children in a lush Eden, where nobody had to toil or struggle. Everybody just enjoyed life and lived spontaneously and freely. There is some kind of utopian longing for a simple and childlike world. The left in particular idealizes the primitive and even what we would (in non-PC fashion) call the 'savage' way.

I've been accused at times of idealizing the past, and perhaps to some extent I do, but in no way do I claim that any era was perfect or idyllic, as many true utopians do. I can see the past with its flaws, warts and all, and weigh that against the good. On balance there was more good than bad. But those who idealize exotic cultures and peoples, and eras which are only dimly known by today's people, are idealizing something that they have only the slightest knowledge of, or perhaps idealizing something strictly of their own invention.

The myth of the golden age of noble savagery seems to be cherished by many Western White people, even some on the far right, however, they idealize the pre-civilized era in Europe.

Perhaps some of the pull towards mingling with the idealized ''others'' is a misguided attempt to return to some mythical paradise where there is no complicated civilization and above all, no Christianity to say 'Thou shalt not.'

The real truth is that this Edenic 'golden age' everybody seems to long for was a time when life was 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' And this is what our future is to be if we succumb to the urge to try to return to "noble" savagery.

Defying the terrorists

An American blogger says she was sexually assaulted during the airport ''security'' screening.

The article, posted on an Australian news site, drew many comments, some of them very stupid and some more reasonable. I am always dumbfounded by people of whatever nationality who think there is absolutely nothing wrong with being subjected to intimate body searches or ''naked scanners'' just to board a plane.

One comment says if we get to our destinations safely, then it's worth it. I surely hope Americans won't be so ovine and passive as to simply shrug their shoulders and acquiesce to this. I hear a lot of people saying they just won't fly (which has been my resolve for a while now) but I wonder if they'll get over that and decide they 'need' to fly after all.

One cliche that we have heard ever since 9/12/2001 is that ''if we change our lives and habits just because of terrorists, then they will have won. So let's just do everything we did before 9/11 and defy the terrorists.''

That kind of thinking exasperates me. Who started that silly meme, anyway? As far as I can discern, the terrorists are not just looking to 'change our way of life' or 'destroy our freedom', they are trying to kill people, specifically Americans and infidels. If we are wise enough not to take chances, and avoid high-risk situations, the enemy will not have won; we will have won by eluding the traps set for us. We win by staying alive and foiling their designs, not by "defiantly" dying in an avoidable attack.

I don't believe they ''hate us for our freedom''. They hate us just because of who and what we are and what we represent.
So if we 'defy' them by taking risks that are usually avoidable, and we end up dead because of it, I would think that THEN, they would have won.

So why take unnecessary risks?

I don't believe these intrusive and probably unconstitutional measures make us one bit safer. They are not really intended to make us safer. If our government wanted to protect us, it would have closed the borders on 9/11 and radically tightened our immigration laws, excluding people from terrorist-producing nations. Profile. That's the best way of making us safer. And fix our wide-open borders and our lax visa regulations.

Some have declared that these new security regulations are 'theater' to make the gullible public believe that our government is protecting us. I doubt that; I think most people are past believing that our government has our interests at heart, or that they are really serious about actually performing the main duty of government -- to protect our lives and safety, particularly from foreign invasion or attack. No, I think it's simply a show of power, and an attempt to get us more accustomed to just shuffling along obediently, and giving up more of our rights and liberties in the name of 'security.'

Personally, when I have to travel, I will choose some other method than flying.

Tampering with the past

Frank Ellis on multicultural societies:

''It is the power of the charge of "racism" that stifles the derision that would otherwise meet the idea that we should "value diversity." If "diversity" had real benefits whites would want more of it, and would ask that yet more cities in the U.S. and Europe be handed over to immigrants. Of course, they are not rushing to embrace diversity and multiculturalism; they are in headlong flight in the opposite direction. Valuing diversity is a hobby for people who do not have to endure its benefits.

A multicultural society is one that is inherently prone to conflict, not harmony. This is why we see a huge growth in government bureaucracies dedicated to resolving disputes along racial and cultural lines. These disputes can never be resolved permanently because the bureaucrats deny one of the major causes: race. This is why there is so much talk of the "multicultural" rather than the more precise "multiracial." Ever more changes and legislation are introduced to make the host society ever more congenial to racial minorities. This only creates more demands, and encourages the non-shooting war against whites, their civilization, and even the idea of the West.

How is such a radical program carried forward? The Soviet Union had a massive system of censorship the Communists even censored street maps and it is worth noting there were two kinds of censorship: the blatant censorship of state agencies and the more subtle self-censorship that the inhabitants of "peoples democracies" soon learned.''

Subtle self-censorship: this is what I referred to as 'democratic censorship', done of people's own volition more or less, but subtly promoted by the powers-that-be. And then there is the use of the arts and the media:

"A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bartold Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men. This is almost a direct borrowing from Soviet-style socialist realism, with its idealized depictions of sturdy proletarians routing capitalist vermin.''

The post I wrote yesterday dealt with this kind of thing, with the use of entertainment (so-called) deployed to provide fictional role models for minorities, feminists and so on, and at the same time to diminish and defame majority Whites -- and to alter the past in our minds.

It could be called a form of 'gaslighting', couldn't it?
Some of you may have seen the 1944 movie Gaslight, with Charles Boyer as a husband attempting to manipulate his young wife into insanity. He changes and alters things in their home in order to make her doubt her own sanity. He denies her perceptions and slowly convinces her that she is mad, and that she is the culprit in the mysterious things that are happening. He plays on her vulnerabilities and soon has her believing the opposite of reality.

That's what the leftists in the media and their masters are doing to us. They fill our heads with lies and distortions. They deny us the right to feel what we feel about what is being done. They make us out to be psychotic and paranoid if we notice what is happening, and if we object to the changes that are being forced on us all.

''What changes?'' they ask. According to the media and the rewriters of history, we have always been a multicultural nation. It was recently, was it not, that our president said that Moslems and Hindus had always been part of America. Any denial of these newly-minted 'facts' is met with an accusation of conspiracy-mongering and paranoia. Some years ago I said that legal immigrants came mostly from the Third World, and someone challenged me very angrily on that statement. ''That's crazy! That's not true.'' So I had to decide who to believe, and I chose my lying eyes -- and statistics. But lots of people begin to doubt their lying eyes, and to doubt the old history books or the statistics they may come across. There are many people who don't seem to be able to stand up to the subtle conditioning and 're-education.'

People who 'gaslight' others in personal situations usually go about it by undermining the self-confidence and the perceptions of the gaslight-ee. They make the target doubt himself, and doubt the rightness of his feelings. That is what is being done to us. It is being done by the news media as well as by the 'entertainment' media and by educators who toe the politically correct line. We are told (as Mr. Wise told us in that seething letter a couple of weeks ago) that the world we remember from the pre-PC era never existed. This is a frequent device used by the left; they try to undermine even our memories. We are told that we are misremembering, that we are re-framing the past to view it through rose-colored lenses, or that we are confabulating the whole picture of old America. Some leftists make whole careers on 'debunking' pre-PC America.

From Publishers Weekly
The golden age of the American family never existed, asserts Coontz ( The Social Origns [sic] of Private Life ) in a wonderfully perceptive, myth-debunking report. The "Leave It to Beaver" ideal of breadwinner father, full-time homemaker mother and dependent children was a fiction of the 1950s, she shows. Real families of that period were rife with conflict, repression and anxiety, frequently poor and much less idyllic than many assume; teen pregnancy rates in the '50s were higher than today. Further, Coontz contends, the nuclear family was elevated to a central source of personal satisfaction only in the late 19th century, thereby weakening people's community ties and sense of civic obligation. Coontz disputes the idea that children can be raised properly only in traditional families. Viewing modern domestic problems as symptoms of a much larger socioeconomic crisis, she demonstrates that no single type of household has ever protected Americans from social disruption or poverty.''

This is gaslighting. The message is that your memories and my memories are false and mistaken. In reality, the world was always a grim and ugly place, so if you find today's America grim and ugly, well, the world has always been just like that. Things have not worsened; you are just crazy or senile to think so.

And America was always multicultural; all those old movies and still pictures that show White people just prove that the racist Whites kept minorities out of sight, just as with gays and lesbians.

Perhaps it comforts some people to believe this kind of thing, because if they (like most young people) believe that the past was horribly flawed, full of sexism, racism, and homophobia, then they can congratulate themselves on how much 'freer' we all are now than we were then.

The rewriting of history books, along with the rewriting of long-established legends and lore, is part of this gaslighting program. The idea is to efface the memory of the real past, and substitute a politically corrected past, one in which Britain was 'always a multicultural/multiracial nation' or to establish the idea that Britain is populated today by people who are descendants of many races all mingled together. There is no ''White race'', as I have heard many leftists say. In fact, there is no ''race'' at all. It's all your imagination.

Glenn Beck and his 'black Founding Fathers' also fit in with this kind of agenda.

I've already noted on this blog that people, the public at large, anyway, seem to be more and more 'fuzzy' on the concept of race. I wrote of my bewilderment at hearing many White Americans claim that the president is ''not really black'' or ''just as White as he is black.'' That would never have been said just a couple of decades ago. And I was baffled at people saying that the president ''looked just like his mother'' or his maternal grandfather. What? How did we all come to see things so differently? I can only conclude that this increasing confusion about race is the product of many years of hearing 'race is a social construct' and 'we are all one race.'

The obvious social divisions (and racial divisions) in our society are not news to anybody, but it seems that the younger generations and even many of the older generations are actually starting to see, to physically see, race differently -- or perhaps not to see race at all. Can programming really alter people's perceptions so radically? Or is this something like what we have all seen in depictions of night-club hypnotists convincing their subjects that they see pink elephants in the room.

I am lost for an explanation. I do know that many people are very suggestible and easily manipulated, and I don't doubt that there are some very sophisticated and well-planned efforts to alter people's thinking and perceptions. And I don't doubt that they are very pleased with the apparent success of their efforts.

But of course that's just paranoia, isn't it?