European? Asian?

An ethnicity? A religion? A religio-ethnic group?

There's an interesting -- or perhaps telling -- discussion amongst the commenters at Steve Sailer's blog. The article was about the surnames of the PSAT semifinalists in California this year. As Sailer specifically looks for Jewish surnames on the list, the commenters discuss whether Jews are, in fact, European or Asian, or whether Israel is in Asia, or the Middle East.

Somehow this discussion is interesting because it highlights how much confusion and ambiguity surrounds the whole question.

When I was in school and in college, the textbooks and our teachers generally said Israel is in West Asia. Now, somehow, this answer seems to be politically incorrect, because some people hotly contest it, though some sources agree.

I also remember, incidentally, being taught that Europe is really an extension of Asia, which should be called 'Eurasia', but that has never really appealed to me; I don't like the blurring of distinctions inherent in calling Europe 'Eurasia', though I can see they are contiguous on a map. That leads to the next point: is 'the Middle East' an identifiable place, as many refer to it as the home of Jews? Or is the whole notion of 'The Middle East' a cultural one mostly?

Those who call Israel a 'Middle Eastern' nation seem to be numerous, but what is 'the Middle East'? Is there a defined geographic area with clear boundaries that corresponds to 'the Middle East'? It seems that region is more defined by culture, and includes mostly the Islamic countries, including those in North Africa. Are Jews culturally part of this? Perhaps as they've become more acculturated to that part of the world since the establishment of Israel in 1949, and since the experience of Ashkenazis in Europe has become somewhat discredited as part of a shameful 'ghetto' past, being associated with oppression and persecution.

Others assert that Jews are European for all intents and purposes, and cite the DNA similarities. But are Jews European? As someone asks, why is their homeland in the Middle East then? It's a natural question, though somebody downthread plays the antisemitic card.

The language of Israel is not an Indo-European language; that argues for a non-European origin for the people of that area.  I suppose those who insist on a European identity for Jews would say that they became more European while they sojourned in Europe and intermarried with local people, but then that might conflict with the claim to a homeland in the Middle East. 

In a recent post, I alluded to the common idea among Americans that the term 'Asian' is limited only to East Asian people, those who look like the stereotype Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.  And incidentally I can see distinctions among those peoples; they are not all homogeneous. Yet most Americans consider Asia to be synonymous mostly with these countries; they don't seem to think of West Asia as existing at all. Or even 'Central Asia.' Asia to most Americans is East Asia, plain and simple.      

And regarding another point, nobody on the discussion thread mentions the old 'but it's a religion, not an ethnicity' line in regard to Jews; I suppose HBDers would not tend to believe that idea, though probably most Americans believe it to be fact.

If Jewish identity were strictly a religion, would it even then be possible to identify Jewish surnames from a list? If it were just a religion, theoretically anyone could convert and become part of the 'community'. But this has not generally been so; it has been an exclusive community for the most part.

As surnames can be (and have been) altered, and people's ethnic origin thus be obscured, identifying who is Jewish can be very difficult. Even asking the question: 'is so-and-so Jewish?' can be considered 'anti-Semitic.' I don't believe this is so with any other ethnicity or population.

Incidentally whether Jews are an ethnicity or 'race' or just a religious group, I brought this up in an anthropology class in college years ago, and my professor told me that Jews were not an ethnic group. To this, I answered 'what about genetic conditions like Tay-Sachs or Gaucher's Disease?' His answer was that though Jews are not an ethnicity, they are a 'breeding population' among whom genetic disorders could be spread more easily because of their (past) tendency to marry within the fold. I thought the answer was evasive or ambiguous.
I still think so.

Although the politically correct view, the safe view, is that Jews are a religious community and (sort of) an ethnic group, but yet they are of us, (European, Caucasian, White, or whatever), and any further questions come from 'hatred.'

But as all the evidence indicates that their ethnocentrism is one that does not include non-Jews, it is only logical to see them as they are described: 'a people dwelling apart.'

And then there is a further question: are the words 'Jews' and 'Israelites' interchangeable? I suppose that is only of interest to Christians, and to Christians who read their Bibles very carefully. So I won't go into that one.

Why this is not good for us

Canadian employers are seeking workers in Ireland. I would guess that most of us would find no problem with this arrangement. After all, Irish people have been immigrating to Canada for centuries. Canada is (partially) an English-speaking country, dominated historically by people with roots in the British Isles. What could be bad about this?

Certainly Irish people should have a 'right', if one can say anyone has a right, to emigrate to Canada. Apparently the economy in Ireland is such that jobs are hard to come by -- which only makes it more vexing to read how Ireland is now receiving large numbers of immigrants from the so-called 'developing' (read: backward) countries. In a sane world, mass immigration would not be allowed to proceed when a country has large numbers of unemployed, and in fact, would not be allowed even in healthier economic times. But this is not a sane world, a fact which most of us can't fail to notice these days.

Emigrating to Canada for employment may be a good deal for the individual from Ireland who has a needed skill. But what of the unemployed Canadian citizen? As usual, it seems that the imported labor will be paid less than a prospective employee who is a native. Cheaper labor is one of the factors which entices business to support mass immigration.

Also, there are plenty of unemployed Americans with good skills who would be happy to be offered the chance to work in Canada; why not hire closer to home?
I believe the powers-that-be are intent on playing this game of scrambling the world's populations to the maximum. They want to bring the peoples of the Third World to live in the First, so as to level everyone down, eventually, and even more, it seems they want to genetically scramble everybody together into an amorphous mass, with a worldwide uniculture (hailed as 'enriched').

From an Irish point of view, this scheme should be viewed suspiciously. The more native Irish people who are scattered to the four winds, the weaker the national culture of Ireland becomes, and the more attenuated national identity and heritage becomes. The fewer native Irish people in Ireland, the better to accommodate the numbers of immigrants from various places. Ireland becomes less Irish, and the people who remain behind there will be all the more quickly swamped by the immigrants and 'refugees' who are arriving daily.

From the Canadian point of view, will the arrival of Irish workers help shore up their traditional European-based culture?

The Globe and Mail article says

''With its steady economy, common language, similar training and work standards – not to mention shared history – Canada is one of a handful a popular destinations for Irish workers.''

Nothing is mentioned in that quote about culture, much less race or ethnicity (as we would expect). But as Canada is trying to transform itself into some showplace of diversity, it would not seem that the Irish would feel any more at home there than in some other 'diverse' Western country, all of which increasingly show a drab sameness in their 'enrichment.' The Irish will be swallowed up by all this diversity there, as they may be in Ireland, unless things change.

So the game of musical chairs, choreographed by the powers-that-be, goes on everywhere. Eastern Europeans leave their countries in droves, going to the British Isles, where they set up enclaves.

I suppose this is the point where I diverge sharply with the average WN. If I believed that skin color trumps ethnic origins and loyalties, I might think this is all just fine. But as I don't believe that all people who fall under the category of White are interchangeable, I don't see this game of mix and match as a good thing. The powers-that-be, the people in charge, see this as a desirable thing; that's why they are promoting it. The fact that they are promoting it should give us a clue that it is not in our best interests.

Ethnicity, kinship ties, culture, all of these things matter. Every time there is a mass movement of people from one part of the world to another, or even from one region to another (as in our country, North vs. South), kinship ties are weakened. The culture is weakened. Our heritage becomes attenuated and threadbare. People can't be moved around like furniture.

The globalist agenda would like to transfer populations everywhere, creating a sense of anomie and rootlessness and a lack of cohesion and attachment to place.
We are aiding the globalist agenda when we go along with this, and behave as if we can uproot and choose flight from our problems.

And although some believe that we should drop all distinctions between all peoples who are roughly the same race, I don't see the merit of this; I see mostly the downside. The smaller and narrower allegiances are more natural. We can only closely identify with a relatively few people, those closer to us, those who speak our language and who also have some common experiences and history with us.
Some White ethnic groups are naturally more compatible with us, and some far less compatible. We only have to look at the various ethnic conflicts in Europe and in our country -- among Whites -- to see that skin tone is not enough to give people a sense of unity.  Let's not erase all distinctions, and thereby unwittingly help the globalists accomplish their designs.

A couple of symptomatic stories

Even the more remote parts of Ireland are not exempt from the 'cultural enrichment' from afar, brought to them courtesy of the EU. Granted,every country has its own homegrown 'services' of this type but why import more, especially when such services are associated with various exotic gangs and vice rings?

We might laugh at some aspects of the story, but it's sad to see this kind of thing proliferating. If this is 'enrichment' then it's better to be culturally 'impoverished.'

And in ''our'' country, it seems the cable TV giant is going to become even more 'diverse' than it already is, if such were possible. At what point does 'diversity' become just a new homogeneity, just the mirror image of the thing it supposedly rectifies?

If you ever see that cable provider's own commercials, you will notice that one group of people is conspicuously absent from the picture.

And I'm not sure just what this weird story is symptomatic of, except for the general loss of civility, order, and standards in our society. But it certainly provoked a lot of discussion over at Free Republic yesterday, in which the libertarian or libertarian-inclined 'FReepers' (who seem to be the majority now) lined up against the more law-n-order conservatives of the old school. Me? I think when you check into a hospital, you are agreeing to the rules of that institution, barring some very bizarre situation which would morally require disobeying. If following the rules is onerous, have the baby at home. Plain and simple. Especially if you are from a wealthy, powerful, and celebrated family. Maybe that was the root of the whole problem: the attitude that having a famous name and connections means that one gets carte blanche to flout all the rules that the 'little people' have to live by.

But it seems conservatives today are becoming more libertarian and less patient with authority generally.

Sweet Sunny South

Norman and Nancy Blake, with the Irish group Boys of the Lough, do 'Sweet Sunny South.'

The role of morality

 "In every culture of the past, everywhere in the world, the principal source of a culture's mores—its traditional customs, its way of regarding the human condition, its principles of morality—has been religious belief" - Russell Kirk, America's British Culture

What place, if any, does the subject of morality occupy in any movement to restore our nations? I think most Christian believers (those who are more than just nominal Christians) believe that the root of our problems in this country, and in former Christendom generally, is spiritual. We can't restore the outer forms of what our countries once were without trying to fill the huge spiritual void that exists now.

This piece addresses the issue, and while it is written about Britain, it is also applicable to us. The writer alludes to the Victorian era, in which there was a great crusade to 'clean up' Britain, both outwardly and inwardly. There was a great Christian revival that occurred during that time period.

'' During the last half of the nineteenth century the crime rate declined markedly and so did the incidence of illegitimacy and drug and alcohol abuse. "It was a period of striking moral reform in personal behaviour which transformed Britain from being a violent, dishonest and addicted society into a peaceable, lawabiding, respectable and essentially moral realm...." But during the last generation or two that process reversed, and the prevalence of dysfunctional behavior has grown dramatically. [...] There seems to be no correlation with the usual materialist explanations--poverty, bad housing, urbanization and so on--and Davies shows how those explanations fall short.''

Of this widespread revival and moral restoration, we read

There was in fact a marked change in standards of morality, which could easily be misinterpreted by the young or the superficial. But a long-lived and perceptive observer like the radical Francis Place, friend of the Mills and Bentham, who remembered the bad old days understood what had happened:

The progress made in refinement of manners and morals seems to have gone on simultaneously with the improvement in arts, manufactures and commerce. It moved slowly at first, but has been constantly increasing in velocity. Some say we have refined away all our simplicity and have become artificial, hypocritical, and on the whole worse than we were half a century ago. This is a common belief, but it is a false one, we are a much better people than we were then, better instructed, more sincere and kind-hearted, less gross and brutal, and have fewer of the concomitant vices of a less civilized state. [Quoted in George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century, 18. For more material on this see Toynbee, The Industrial Revolution, 120f.]''

This same movement was mirrored, to some extent, in the United States.

 Of course now such a movement would be marginalized from the beginning, considering what an anti-Christian media establishment we now have, and the general hostility of academia and government to any public manifestation of Christian belief.

Also, bad as the condition of the Church was in the pre-revival era, it must surely be worse now, as Christian denominations everywhere seem to be given up to promoting not the Gospel of Christ, but the gospel of Marx: condoning of vice, as well as promotion of the one-world, socialistic, atheistic, Babelistic worldview, albeit in flimsy Christian guise.

Such a revival would be less likely in today's decaying environment. Libertinism and hostility to Christianity in particular is at a peak, it seems, though things always seem to get worse, even when you think they couldn't possibly be worse.

The comments on the British Resistance piece are not overall hostile to the idea of a return to Christian morality, though there is the ubiquitous and persistent skeptic or atheist who cannot abide the thought of Christian morality returning. In my opinion (based on my real life experience of atheists) the sticking point for them with Christianity is the ''thou shalt nots.'' That's what it boils down to. They never denounce Eastern religions like Buddhism or Hinduism; those religions take a more laissez- faire attitude to personal morality, and this suits the secular libertine. But oddly, this same militant secularist has few gripes about Islam, despite its many (and harsh) thou-shalt-nots. Obviously the problem is not religion per se, but Christianity, for the non-believers.

But could we rebuild our society in former Christendom without Christ? I doubt it.
And even if we could persuade the militant secular libertines that Christian morality, based on Biblical precepts, would not cramp their style or spoil their fun too much, just adopting outward forms without the inner conversion would never work.

There would have to be a sincere conversion on the part of a critical mass of people in order for things to be restored. That's apparently what happened in the 18th and 19th century, and that's why society was able to be transformed for the better during that time. Was it perfect (I hate to even have to repeat this, but someone always says 'but it wasn't that good!')? Of course it was not perfect, because of human imperfection. Even the most ardent Christian is still flawed. But things were definitely improved after the spiritual awakening that took place, as witnesses of that time testified.

Nevertheless, our society is now so mired in decadence and corruption that many of us have become quite comfortable with it, and prefer it over any alternative, even one which promised to clean up the squalor and depravity we see every day. 'Better the devil you know,' as they saying goes, and many people like the ugliness that they know so well. ''We will not have this man (Christ) to reign over us'', people have said, down through the centuries.

But we cannot just paint over the evils that have become embedded in our surroundings; we can't change the outside unless the inside is first transformed. So, short of a move of God, we will be destined to 'wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.'

And part of the problem is that in Western countries, people have had just enough of Christianity to think (mistakenly) that they know it, and therefore they reject it as having any relevance to their lives. 'Christianity? We tried that; it didn't work. It's old-fashioned. Nobody wants to live that way.' Leslie Dixon Weatherhead is quoted as saying "The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing."

My conclusion is that the majority will not be spiritually renewed; they are too caught up in the present system, and like living in the moral pigsty, believing it to be exciting and glamorous. But there will be the faithful remnant, always.

And again, I have to say it does not require a majority to bring about great change. We've heard the saying that 'one plus God equals a majority.' It's also demonstrably true that a relatively small group of people have driven most big changes throughout history. The 'majority', the mystical, magical majority, are inert and passive in most cases, and are followers, not leaders, not movers or shakers.
We need not get 'the majority' on our side. They will go where they are led. The question is simply who will be doing the leading?

"When a nation rises up ardent to fight for its freedom and honour, it is always a minority that really fires the multitude." - Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West 

On family

 On family and kin:

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one." - Jane Howard

"We begin our public affections in our families... we pass on to our neighbourhoods.'' [...] "To love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.'' - Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." Edmund Burke. ibid.

"He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections." - Samuel Adams

"A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestry will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered by remote descendants."  - Thomas Babington Macaulay

''The antiquary of tradition is the preserver of all that is right and good and true. It is the wisest and most progressive of all the human impulses—for it guarantees continuity for the uncertain days of the future. Let every man and woman warmly embrace the lessons of the past.'' - Calvin Coolidge

One of the important uses of genealogy is that it roots us in our past. It gives us a sense of belonging, of being part of an unbroken chain. It connects us to our family across time, as we are more obviously connected to our living relatives who are scattered geographically.

Our society is excessively focused on the individual, and this is part of our problem, part of the reason why our Western countries are all in dire straits. We have been trained to believe that family, kin, ancestry, community are less important than our sacred individuality. The idea that each of us is an island entire to himself, that we are all self-created, unique individuals who owe little to our ancestors or to our genetics is an attractive idea in our time, as it has been ingrained in us in many ways. The deluded people we call 'liberals' or leftists take this idea of the autonomous, self-contained Individual to twisted extremes, denying any genetic givens, denying that we owe anything to our ancestors or to the collective past. The people we call 'libertarians' are generally even more obsessed with the sacred Individual, and preach against any form of 'collectivism', whether among our living tribe or kin group, and, by implication, with our own ancestors.

We need a corrective to these attitudes, which are harming us as a people. Connecting ourselves to our ancestors is one way to make us more integrated (in the original sense) and more 'whole' as individuals who are part of something much greater.

I could say that there is no conservatism without regard for our past and our ancestry. I have said that, as have others in various ways. Sadly, though, the very idea of 'conservatism' is held in low regard by many, who say that there is absolutely nothing left to conserve, nor should we even wish there to be. These people believe that neither can we restore that which has been lost, nor should we try. We should start over from scratch -- but how, as a collection of atomized Individuals, can we do anything? Like it or not, no man is an island, and collective effort, inspired by a sense of connectedness and genetic bonds, is necessary.

Just as we need to be rooted in our collective history to fully realize our destiny as a people, we need a sense of rootedness in our own personal past, our ancestry. And the two are related; as we learn of our own family's story, or the invididual stories that make up the whole, we feel ourselves to be a part, at least vicariously, of the events of the past as we learn our forebears' part in that history. My own immersion in family history has sharpened my appreciation for the history of our folk. I know that others have expressed the same sentiments.

However, I know that there are always those who are indifferent to the study of their family tree, just as there are those who hate history as being dry as dust, and lacking any relevance to today. There are some people who cannot be induced to take any interest. So be it; you can lead a horse to water, as the saying goes, but...

I only hope that I might induce a few people to take up an interest in their ancestry, and I hope to write a piece or two about genealogy in the next several days.

If any of you have any stories to tell relating to your own study of genealogy or your family history, I would be interested in any comments you have.

What's in a name

What's in a name?
Names and labels are all-important to the PC powers-that-be.
In my lifetime (and probably in most of yours, even if you are of the younger generations) names for various ethnic groups have changed, in some instances, more than once in living memory.

When I was a young child, the name 'colored' was the desirable label for black people; it was the name they apparently preferred to be called. I was taught that it was the polite label. Politeness was all we had back then; political correctness as we know it today did not exist to 'guide' us and shape our language and thoughts.

Later on, the term 'Negro' was preferred, and those who have seen speeches by MLK himself will notice that he used that term, though it is now considered taboo. Later on, the term 'Afro-American' enjoyed a brief vogue, but was later supplanted by the more prestigious-sounding, multisyllabic 'African-American', which at the moment bears the PC seal of approval.

For some bizarre reason, the noun 'Jew' is considered rather rude, although the adjective 'Jewish' is appropriate. 'Jewish person' or 'Jewish people' are terms that are deemed preferable to the simple plural 'Jews.' Why? I don't know.

But the term that causes the most confusion for Americans, for some reason, is the British usage of ''Asian'' as a descriptor for South Asians, that is, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, or perhaps Hindus. Just read any discussion of ethnic issues in the UK from the British media, and you will see American commenters getting very irate because the UK media refer to generic 'Asians' rather than saying Pakistani Moslems or whatever more specific label.

Americans seem to have a fixed notion that the term 'Asians' is strictly limited to Chinese, Japanese, and perhaps Koreans, that is, Northeast Asians. Somehow it angers them that the term is applied differently on the other side of the Atlantic. Why?

Many Americans insist that the term 'Asian' is a way of hiding the Moslem religion of said 'Asians', and indeed, in some cases the people in question are Moslems. (Incidentally, the name 'Moslem' is now obsolete, since the Black Muslims declared it to be incorrect. That itself was one of the earlier coups of political correctness, but is now forgotten, or never realized, by most Americans.)

But surely not all those named 'Asians' in the British media are Moslems; is the term not applied to Hindus, Sikhs, or other Asians?

Those of you who are a little older, or who perhaps read old literature or history books will know that the word 'Oriental' was once widely used in our country and in other English-speaking countries to describe mostly East Asians, but it was in fact applied to just about any Asian, including West Asians, now known as 'Middle Easterners.' However, the term 'Oriental' suffered the same fate as the word 'Moslem' or 'Mohammedan', being declared 'bigoted' or 'a slur', and being replaced by a new term chosen by the group so labeled.

What was 'bigoted' about the term 'Oriental'? A Japanese-American professor of mine in college informed all of us round-eyed students that the word was forbidden in his class, and neither were we to repeat the term 'Jap', as it was a 'racial slur', nor were we to abbreviate Japanese or Japan in our class notes as 'Jap', because that was racist.

I've always wondered: why is it racist or hateful to abbreviate a name? Isn't the term 'Brit' analogous? It's simply a one-syllable abbreviation of the word 'Briton' or British. Actually when I was young I remember that the word was frowned upon by some British people, since it seemed disparaging, and indeed, it is often employed by those who dislike British or English people as a disrespectful term, as in the slogan ''Brits Out'', which one saw on walls and button badges when I was in Ireland.

Many of our cousins in the Anglosphere refer to us Americans as 'Yanks', which is not acceptable to Southrons. 'Yanks' or Yankees are historically the enemy. But we can't always assume that others know this.

But why is the term 'Oriental' (as opposed to 'Occidental') now taboo? It can, I think, still be used in a directional sense but even then it is seldom heard. There used to be an airline called 'Northwest Orient Airlines'; I don't think it exists anymore. Or has it been renamed to something more PC?

There used to be a phrase used in the bad old days, ''the inscrutable Oriental', referring to the enigmatic nature of Asians, at least from the perspective of Westerners. That phrase and the sentiment behind it are now not acceptable.

But when many Americans become irate at calling South Asians 'Asian', they seem to feel that the term 'Asian' belongs exclusively to East Asians, a group who are regarded more highly among most Americans of today (though it was not always so). The HBD crowd are especially partial to East Asians.

I am not sure who coined the term 'NAM', which is in usage among HBD types, and personally I don't care for it. It reminds me of coinages like 'non-Hispanic Whites'. Think about that one. We are to be defined only in contrast to Hispanics (and Hispanic Whites, who are pretty thin on the ground in our country).

As for the NAM thing, I can only think every time I see it of Viet Nam. I don't quite see the need for the NAM label. Does it not mostly refer, in our country, to blacks and Hispanics along with a very few others? Why not just say 'blacks and Hispanics'? Oh , I forgot; the term 'Hispanic' is hotly contested by some people who claim that it is not a race (all right, it isn't). The fact is, in our country, despite the presence of small numbers of apparently White Hispanics, most Hispanics are mestizos or mulattos, depending on where you are, East Coast or West.
The fact that there are blondes on the telenovelas does not alter the fact that most Hispanic immigrants are not White. And I wonder what term is proposed to replace 'Hispanic'? Will we have to call each nationality by its own label? That can get very complicated back East, where there are people from many Latin American countries, some of them mutually antagonistic.

As for the term Asian, it is not factually incorrect to call a Pakistani Moslem 'Asian'. I wonder if it is because of the counter-jihadist element in our country that there is a wish on the part of Americans to emphasize the Moslem part of the identity of the Pakistani Moslems. Granted, it's not irrelevant, but to me, the relevant factor is that they are not part of the English people ethnically.

And I suppose I become irked by many of my fellow Americans, who, let's admit it, are very insular, and who just don't grasp that people in the rest of the Anglosphere do not use the same idioms or have the same word preferences that we in America have. We have our own terminology which probably seems just as odd to our cousins across the oceans as theirs seem to the more insular of us here in the States. I'm always surprised that, even after decades of greater exposure to British TV programming and movies and media, Americans can often be generally clueless about British idioms and word usage. It can work the other way as well, but we Americans often expect others to fall in line with us rather than vice-versa. Why not just accept the differences?

If anything, the differences in the way we express ourselves make for a more interesting interaction. I only lament that there has been so much merging of our various dialects. Let's respect the differences and preserve them. I feel the same about the various American dialects as well.

Events in the UK

There is news coming out of England about 'disturbances' related to the ongoing news of the pedophile rings.

There is not much in the controlled media about this; apparently many of the initial reports were coming through the social media. Drudge had something up about this, but it seems not to be there now.

We all know how the media will slant this, if they even acknowledge it at all. But I hope the public does not fall for any spin the media may put on their reports.

Companion pieces

Here are a couple of articles from the UK Daily Mail. The first has to do with ''how Labour decided to destroy Britishness.'' The second is a nostalgic piece about life in England in the halcyon 1950s. Even allowing for the possibility that the writer is seeing the past through rosy-colored lenses, I think most people would find it hard to say that the 21st century world is an improvement, and few people would miss the connection between the obvious dystopian trends and mass immigration.

The article by Simon Heffer about the 'destruction of Britishness'' (it really should say 'the destruction of Englishness', but such is the parlance of today) is another one of those articles like the one I linked to the other day, in which government officials claim to be concerned about multiculturalism, and to be born-again believers in a 'common culture', to which newcomers will be required (under pain of, what, exactly? Harsh language?) to adapt. It may be so much smoke and mirrors as I tend to think, but the interesting thing is that the article at this time has 500+ comments, most of them very emphatic, and rather politically incorrect. Some of the comments reflect a great deal of awareness, and a sense of ethnpatriotism; some are still under the spell of the multicult somewhat, but there is definitely a lot of high emotion around what is happening to the UK.

If only we had that much feeling about our situation here. I get a feeling that there is more apathy here, in part because of our longstanding immigrant mystique, and the proposition nation myth. But no doubt some will disagree with me about which nation is closer to an awakening. The lies can't prevail forever.

Washington's Birthday

Just a reminder that today, February 22, is the actual birthday of George Washington, and the artificial holiday of 'President's Day' -- (or is it ''Presidents' Day''?) -- is not Washington's birthday.

It used to be, when I was a child, that February 12 was remembered as the birthday of Lincoln, and 10 days later was the day commemorating the birth of Washington, the 'Father of Our Country.' But when the birthday of our new National Baby Daddy was made a January holiday back in Reagan's administration, the two February holidays had to be combined as a joint holiday.

Personally I find little to honor on Lincoln's birthday, but I would like the birthday of George Washington to be commemorated for just what it is, and not have the combination 'holiday' which serves to give us a three-day weekend and an occasion for 'President's Day Sales' every year at this time.

Cajun Mardi Gras

It's the time of year for Mardi Gras again. The old-fashioned rural Mardi Gras is a little different from the big-city multicult debauch that most people think of when they hear 'Mardi Gras', as this web page points out.

It's all part of the old America, and of the 'diversity' that was home-grown, not imposed from above.

Make-believe 'truth'

More than ever, advertising is ''artificial truth'', which is the phrase used by Steven Heller in the book 'The Golden Age of Advertising: the 60s.'

His description, which is somewhat paradoxical, leaves me unsure of just what he meant to convey, but when I say that today's advertising is artificial truth, I mean that it masquerades as being an accurate portrayal of the real world, when it is so far off everyday reality that it has a truly surreal quality in most cases. And that surreal quality is not an artistic effort to make the advertisements more entertaining or memorable; it is the jarring effect of creating advertising to shape reality in the politically correct, multicultural, One World image.

The blog entry I posted last night, about politically incorrect ads of the past and the ritualistic way most post-moderns denounce those ads, brought to mind this book I refer to above. The book is interesting to look at for someone who is interested in old ephemera, including advertising. I collect a great deal of ephemera of various kinds: postcards, greeting cards, restaurant menus, sheet music, magazines, and advertisements of all kinds. it really is a social history of the era it represents. I collect things from the turn of the 20th century onward, mostly.

Advertising has changed over the decades, of course, but by the mid-20th century, which is the earliest era that I have any experience of, advertising mostly consisted of catchy, cheerful little jingles or patter describing the merits of the product or service being sold. Now, advertising has to be 'edgy', often weird so as to be memorable, but above all, it must be multicultural, diverse, and politically correct in all particulars. Past advertising was usually innocent of political propaganda (except for political ads of course) and philosophical messages. Now, advertising seems to exist more as a vehicle for globalist/leftist propaganda more than for the more mundane reason of selling something to consumers. Now it is ideas that are being peddled, often in sneaky or subliminal ways, sometimes with heavy-handed, blatant images and messages.

The book I cited at the beginning of this blog post, The Golden Age of Advertising: the 60s,  is an interesting book consisting of actual ads from that era. It's a thick book, colorful, and fun to page through. In it, Steven Heller says of the ads of the 60s:

''If the advertisements in this volume were the sole artifacts a historian used to examine & analyze the turbulent Sixties, a picture of American culture would emerge that bears scant resemblance to social and political realities of the times.
Where are the blacks, Latinos, or Asians?

Viewed from this vantage point, the Sixties had no civil rights protests, Vietnam War, or sex, drugs, and rock and roll, at least not in any meaningful way.''

First, it's bizarre that it is now a given that advertising, originally meant to sell a product or service, is now expected to include political events, wars, social upheavals, and society in general. Such was never part of the expectations of advertising in the pre-PC era. How could we expect advertising to depict the anti-war protests of the 60s, or marches and riots in the South, or the counterculture youth movement of the late 60s? How was advertising, formerly a mostly light-hearted medium, supposed to portray such things? That is the province of first, the news media and secondarily, of such 'artists' as choose to create political art or propaganda.

In the old Soviet Union, although advertising in our sense was not used, the government used posters to put across its ideology and to indoctrinate and lecture the people on their duties. Our advertising has become just about as ideological as the old Soviet propaganda.

Anyone who watches TV or reads print advertising is familiar with the propaganda: note the prevalence of 'diversity' everywhere, from the advertising inserts that arrive in your newspaper or in your mailbox. Wal-mart, Target, all the retailers feel compelled to include mostly non-white faces in all their advertising, even in areas which have few nonwhites. The images of smart, competent women alongside dumpy, inept beta males are ubiquitous, with TV advertising being the worst. All authority figures in commercials on TV as well as in TV series and movies are likely to be black, and often black females. White judges, doctors, or scientists are fewer and farther between, which is greatly at odds with reality.

So is our advertising ''artificial truth'', as the book says, or is it a substitute for truth, like aspartame is artificial sugar? Advertising is often meant to mimic a kind of reality, but those with eyes to see can't help noticing that it is not like the reality we see outside our doors. It is a contrived and false and lying simulacrum, and yet somehow many people are fooled by it, or manipulated into thinking: the world I live in is not like the TV world, but my world SHOULD be like that world I see on my screen. That is the ideal reality, where everyone lives together harmoniously, blacks are well-adjusted, educated, and wise, while White people know their place and step aside gladly. White males in the pretend world of the small screen have stepped down from their positions of prominence and made way for the super-competent, wise women. Everybody is slim (except for the pudgy White males) and relatively young. Everybody is middle-class or better, and lives in a trendy home.

The critics of the ads of the pre-PC era complain that the ads did not show 'minorities' like the aforementioned 'blacks, Hispanics and Asians.' That complaint shows the ignorance of the critics, who seem to believe that ''diversity'' was always at its present level, and that White society simply kept the poor minorities hidden in a corner, and did not allow them to be seen, except in inferior roles. The fact is, the America of the pre-1965 days was still close to 90 percent White overall. Asians were present in small numbers, and tended to live in certain areas (parts of the West Coast, or New York City, for example) while Mexicans were seldom seen outside the Southwest. Post-moderns cannot grasp this reality. They have been so conditioned to think that America was always a Tower of Babel, a polyglot, multiracial free-for-all, that they resist the idea of a different America ever existing. Why, if such an America did exist, it shouldn't have!

So while the ads of the pre-PC era did not depict ''enough'' minorities, the advertising to which we are subjected now does nothing but depict 'blacks, Hispanics and Asians', in numbers which are flagrantly skewed. Which era's advertising had more verisimilitude? I say the pre-PC era; yes, it depicted a ''whitebread'' America, but that was much more accurate than the ''all sorts'' commercials which are de rigueur today.

And by the way: why are all advertising agencies seemingly in lockstep with the diversity mandate? Will the PC secret police kick down the doors of the agency if they have too few minorities, or if they accidentally depict a competent White male in a flattering light? What are the legal penalties for doing so? Will offenders be 'blacklisted' as the lefties complain of the Communists in Hollywood in the 1950s? Or perhaps 'Whitelisted' would be more accurate?

Why are the ad agencies and all of the entertainment media as well so monolithic in the way they cast their productions and the worldview they present us? Should there not be more ''diversity'' of ideas and atmospheres portrayed? Why the dreary sameness everywhere? I thought these ad people were ''creative''.  Creativity, if it is worthy of the name, should show us a great many original and unique visions in our entertainment and our advertising. But these 'creative' people present us with dull and predictable scenarios and characters. The same is true of entertainment. You've seen one show, you've seen them all. I don't watch TV anymore, except for streaming non-mainstream movies and shows, but even I can predict exactly what will be on offer. Everything has to be multicultural, even movies set in medieval Europe (Africans and Arabs; what? no Eskimos, I mean, Inuit? No Polynesians?) or in Tolkien's Middle Earth. I understand multicultural hobbits will now be required. Nothing is safe from the Babelizers.

The 1960s in advertising developed the ''Big Idea'' concept. It appears that we are being sold the ''Big Idea'' of globalism, multiculturalism, and feminism. We are not being sold a product like detergent or toothpaste, as in the old days. We are being sold a whole worldview, self-concept, and philosophy, if not an outright religion.

Again: 'multiculturalism is dead'

How many times has the 'end of multiculturalism' been proclaimed by Western politicians? About a hundred? Why do people fall for it? Every time one of them (Sarkozy, Blair, Cameron, Merkel, Howard of Australia, and others) makes this ''announcement'', the news media hail it as some kind of new approach.

The English language and Christian faith will be restored to the centre of public life, ministers are to pledge today.
Eric Pickles will praise the traditions and heritage of ‘the majority’ and describe multiculturalism as the politics of division.
Public bodies should no longer ‘bend over backwards’ to translate documents into dozens of languages and migrants must be asked to learn English and understand the British way of life, the Communities Secretary will say.

But wait: in the very next paragraph, he says that children should be educated in a common culture, crossing ''class, colour, and creed.'' And what is the common term for such a system? All together now: multiculturalism.
What's most vexing is that even people who know better fall for it. I mean, even the FReepers should know that this is a ruse, and even more so, ethnopatriots should recognize that this is just manipulation and deception.

After all, has anything changed since these politicians first began (circa 2008, as best I can remember) to say these things? Has immigration stopped? Has political correctness, which is a method of coercion to try to suppress dissatisfaction in a multiracial state, given way and disappeared? Is there any real move toward ''integrating'' the immigrants to the host societies -- as if they really could, anyway?

Obviously nothing has changed since 2008, at least not for the better. If anything, things have become decidedly worse, and yet people still grasp at straws, hoping that the politicians now in power will suddenly repent or see the light -- I suggest we should not hold our collective breath until that day.

So, ''multiculturalism is dead -- long live multiculturalism,'' is the message to take away from this.

Shocking! Politically incorrect titillation

There is a lot of this sort of stuff on the Internet, especially on blogs that focus on retro/vintage ephemera. The attitude displayed by the writers and commenters is generally one of self-righteous 'shock' and almost a kind of perverse relish in looking at the taboo advertisements displayed for your (dis)approval in the article.

People often disparage the Victorian era for their 'prudishness' and what is called 'excessive' modesty today. The reticence of Victorians on sexual matters is ridiculed and mocked, with emphasis on how the Victorians sought out titillation in the sights and behaviors they condemned as sinful. The modern PC prudes are guilty of that very thing; they get some kind of thrill from seeking out the forbidden, that is, the politically incorrect. This kind of thing is a sort of perverse pleasure for the PC crowd. They get a chance to show off their 'tolerant and enlightened' attitudes and to have a laugh at the expense of those backward and disgraceful people who were our parents and grandparents.

The whole message inherent in this kind of thing is: thank 'the gods' that we are so much more enlightened and so much more sensitive than those troglodytes of a few decades ago.

What a lot of pious PC prigs. The world will be a better and much more relaxed place once 'political correctness' is a thing of the past.

Chicago, 1929

Comments

The spam filter has for some reason trapped quite a few comments, and so if you posted a comment which did not show up, it was simply caught in the filter; I haven't deleted comments recently. I have approved a number of comments that were stuck in the filter.

Emma West in court

Emma West was in court yesterday, and initially I read only that she had pleaded not guilty. However the Daily Mail tells us that she said in court that she had taken a 'double dose of medication', apparently some sort of psychiatric medication, and that she had just been to see her psychiatrist.

Perhaps this is some kind of defense strategy -- so often the mental issues card is played. And maybe she was under psychiatric care; so many people in our countries are these days, and most of those who are, are also on some kind of psychoactive medications.

Sadly, though, this will only reinforce the leftist lie that being 'nativist,' having 'xenophobic',  or indeed any sort of politically incorrect opinions is a sign of a 'mental illness' -- or of a low IQ, as was recently claimed in a 'news' article.

If this will enable her to go on with her life and be reunited with her children, then it's what she has to do, but I hope this will not further discredit her and make her life more difficult. I wish her well, but I also want to see a world in which people are not subject to arrest and imprisonment for saying impolite things or holding opinions which are not ''allowed.''

On this day in 1861

On February 18, 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated President of the Confederate States of America.

"Davis will be pilloried in Northern histories as an ''arch-rebel,'' and traitorous to the core. So much for the truth of partisan history! While on the contrary his whole history will show that he was a calm, clear-headed, and large-hearted man, chosen in the hour of need for his known merits, and on the strength of his history, which was not obscure nor ignoble. That he failed was not extraordinary; that he held out so long, was the marvel. I write from knowledge of the man. If you would understand him and the history of his times, read his book, "The Rise and Fall of the Southern Confederacy," unanswered and unanswerable, as we of the South think.'' - Richard A. Wilmer, Bishop of Alabama, in The Past from a Southern Standpoint. Reminiscences of a Grandfather, 1887

My two cents

There is an interesting discussion at Spirit/Water/Blood, in which Andrew Fraser comments and receives a few responses in return. The issue in dispute is whether the American Republic was flawed from the beginning, in that it was based on a 'constitutional faith' that replaced a more organic ethno-religious tradition, based on Spirit as well as Blood. The American 'constitutional faith' as Dr. Fraser terms it encompasses -- if I understand correctly -- the 'proposition nation', the nation founded on assent to ideas, not a nation which grew up organically based on blood ties.

As I see it, since this nation included peoples from the British Isles -- English as well as Scottish, Welsh, and later, Irish, it could not be a strictly Anglo-Saxon nation. Different Christian denominations made it necessary to guarantee that no one form of Christianity was to be an established state religion, as the Church of England was, or the Catholic faith in Ireland. The result was the 'separation of church and state', although as we know, it is nowhere mentioned in our founding documents, only in a private letter from Thomas Jefferson to a citizen.

The colonists from the British Isles were not the only inhabitants of the colonies at the time of the founding; as we know, there were Swedes, descendants of original Swedish colonists, Dutch descendants of New Amsterdam colonists and Huguenots of French descent. John Jay was the son of such, as was Paul Revere.
Even here we can see how multiculturalism was incipient in our country.

So from the beginning this country was majority Anglo-Saxon but as more colonists from Scotland and Ulster began to enter in the 18th century and later, the character changed somewhat, and later waves of immigration altered the character further. Still, the majority of immigrants assimilated to the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture, and the animosities that today mark the relations between the descendants of the Irish, say, and the English, were not so pronounced. I would say that the mid-20th century marked a change for the worse, with various ethnic groups stepping up the conflict; old grievances (battles fought in Ireland and Scotland in the 17th century, the 19th century Famine in Ireland, etc.) were stirred up anew.

Dr. Fraser says

''Unfortunately, most American WASPs continue to lie to themselves about who they are, where they came from, and where they are going. They cling to the hope that “Americans” (or at least “white Americans”) can still unite as a tribe.

But the bitter truth is that the American Republic has never been, is not now, and never will be an ethnonation.

America is a nation of nations.

For centuries, however, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants pretended to be the sole avatars of homo Americanus. In recent decades, Jews, Negroes, and Hispanics (with a good deal of help from WASP women) have stripped bare that constitutional conceit.

Old-stock Americans must acknowledge as well that the novus ordo seclorum created by their ancestors delivered a fatal blow to the unity of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. The American Adam was tainted by original sin.''

If the meaning is that the less-than-homogeneous mixture which existed at the founding was ultimately a death sentence to the old-stock Anglo-Saxon, I will agree to that, although I think that, had inflammatory rhetoric not worsened relations later among the various British Isles peoples, there might be a more cohesive society here now -- if we had not Ellis Island-ized the country and then opened the floodgates in earnest in 1965. I think I've expressed the view before that the initial seeds of our multiculturalism  were sowed early on, long before the mid-20th century. It would have been better had more homogeneity had been maintained, though many people will object loudly to a statement like that.

Dr. Fraser recommends that Anglo-Saxons can and should re-invent themselves as a global confederation -- something that I could get behind, but before such a thing is even a possibility, Anglo-Saxons need to discover their identity as such. I've described White Americans generally as sleepwalkers or amnesiacs, too often out of touch with their origins. Too many of us have only the vaguest notion of our ancestry, or worse, have mistaken and garbled 'oral traditions' about who their ancestors were. Witness the popular 'Cherokee princess' story which is especially prevalent in the South. Ironically, the South is probably the area, even now, where the greatest concentration of Anglo-Saxon Americans live.

Some Anglo-Americans don't know their genealogy, many don't want to know. Being an Anglo-Saxon American has no cachet, no social desirability for many people, perhaps because of the popular stereotype of the 'rich WASP blueblood' who lives in some lily-white enclave with other rich WASPs. Such people probably exist though they are few and far between. Still, most people do not want to identify with such a group.

In his book The WASP Question, Dr. Fraser refers to a phenomenon I've alluded to before; he refers to the 'social decrease' of WASPs in America. He notes that, according to estimates of descendants of Anglo-Saxons, according to 'natural increase' should mean that there are many more millions of WASP descendants than there actually appear to be, while the numbers of German-descended and Irish-descended Americans seem over-inflated, based on past immigration plus natural increase. The reason? Many Americans have a mixture of different ancestries, and when one of those ancestries is English, the modern-day descendant is drawn to identify with a more socially popular group, like the Irish or the Germans. Or the Scots-Irish. Or almost anything else. English-Americans are seen as being people of no ethnicity, hence the phrase that a hostile European commenter on this blog used to describe White Americans: 'a people of no race and no culture.'

Mind you, I am embellishing on what Dr. Fraser said, not citing him directly in that last paragraph. I don't want to misrepresent his statements in the book, which I don't have at hand just now.

In any case, for Anglo-Saxon Americans to rally and form some kind of confederation with our kinsmen worldwide -- which I would heartily support, should it be feasible -- we first have to remember who we are, and reaffirm the worth of our identity. We have to start to speak up when people malign our ancestors and our culture and history. Every other ethnicity -- especially those with historical animosities against the English -- speak up for themselves, while we meekly pass up our chance to speak for ourselves. We let everybody, including our enemies, define us, and to define us mostly as the bad guys who wronged their sinless ancestors.

Again, though, so many Americans are a mixture of different ancestries. I once posed the question on this blog: if you are of mixed ancestries, whose side do you take? If you are half-Irish and half English or some other combination, do you hate your English side? It seems many do; it's so much more socially desirable to identify with Professor Mel Gibson's view of history a la Braveheart, or The Patriot, where the English were the foppish and effete villains, or treacherous tyrants.

So we have a problem with rallying and uniting with our brethren. Even our cousins in England are not all conscious that they are English, not 'British.' If only we could get the world to distinguish between those two terms, that would be half the battle.

And now that I've written this piece as my small contribution to the discussion started at SWB, this post will probably receive a few comments only, because most of my posts on WASPs draw little comment. I've been told such posts are 'divisive', when in fact the divisions have already been drawn by others.

So if the three or four of you out there who identify with your Anglo-Saxon ancestry comment, I will consider this post somewhat worthwhile.

Meantime, for those who are not Anglo-Saxon, is it possible to see how the fate of Anglo-Saxons might be pivotal to the future of the West, or at least the Anglosphere? Even if you are not English by blood, this should matter to anybody who cares about the future of 'our' flawed America.

But I definitely believe that while we should focus on our closest ethnic ties, we can -- and must -- still ally ourselves with our more distant kinsmen.

Enticements for 'asylum seekers'

Australia's 'home starter pack' of goodies for 'asylum' seekers waiting for their claims to be processed.

What is this but enticements for these people to settle in Australia?
The UK lavishes handouts and special privileges on 'refugees' as well. This is not giving people just the basics; it is setting them up in cushy circumstances, in effect placing them above the born citizens of the receiving country.  Why is this met with such indifference on the part of the citizens of the countries?

Our country -- so far -- is slightly less generous in the handouts given to 'asylees' or 'refugees' but they are definitely given benefits which are not available to American homeless people, or those unemployed Americans who have run out of benefits.

The Western countries are essentially luring people with these goodies and luxuries. They are paying people to colonize Western countries and become long-term recipients of handouts. Why? Apparently our countries have money to burn, and are in effect making an open-ended commitment to support the world's ne'er-do-wells, at taxpayers' expense.

What is going on is a policy of population replacement, apparently.

And here's an article about the topic of refugee resettlement in our country and its many attendant problems. In it, Don Barnett of the Center for Immigration Studies is quoted. It's depressing and exasperating to read of the effects of these programs on our small towns and rural areas, but it's worth reading.

What times we live in.

In Austin? Texas?

The Republicans who love to play the race card (''Democrats are the REAL racists!") are really reaching with stories like this non-story.

''Some of the uglier features of the Jim Crow South are alive in Austin, Texas. Just ask Scott Henson, an Austin resident who describes himself as "an almost stereotypical looking Texas redneck." In his popular "Grits for Breakfast" blog dealing with the criminal-justice system, the political consultant and former journalist tells how he was a victim last Friday of "baby sitting while white." He was guilty -- he relates in a post that's attracting national and international coverage --  of walking hand-in-hand with his black granddaughter -- 5-year-old Ty who is the daughter of his goddaughter.''

Well, first of all, the daughter of your goddaughter is not your granddaughter, but nowadays family means to mean whatever the PC  ideologues want it to mean; forget about hard-and-fast biological definitions of family.

Secondly, anyone who knows Austin, Texas would laugh at the notion that 'Jim Crow' and its ''ugly features'' are likely to be found in Austin, which is known as 'Berkeley-on-the- Brazos' and/or 'Moscow-on-the-Brazos' for a reason.

And the probable reason for the report made to the police is that someone feared the child (apparently unrelated to the 'grandfather') was being abducted by a stranger. Nowadays, what with so much emphasis on child abductions and Amber Alerts, many people are hyper-aware of men in the company of children who appear unrelated. And much as we pretend we have a 'colorblind' society, or that we should have one, the fact is, when two people are patently of different races, it's simply a common-sense assumption that the two racially different people are UNrelated. Granted, as the media tout interracial pairings and celebrate the mixed offspring, we see more racially ambiguous children, but it is usually obvious if a child is mixed, even though the resemblance to the White grandparents (or parent) is not discernible.

The article falls back on the usual PC cant about how 'racist' even liberal Austin folk are.

''Austin, ironically, is a bastion of liberal politics where the political ideology of diversity is given much lip service. Yet it's also a place where in some areas, a white grandfather can't hold hands with his black granddaughter without arousing the sort of suspicions that once occurred in in the Jim Crow South.

In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared: "I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls."

It's a dream that Scott Henson is living every day - and, sadly, some in Austin hate him for that.''

American 'Thinker' is one of those sites that revels in playing the race card, usually with the 'Liberal plantation' theme featured, and plenty of obligatory diversity among the writers. It seems to have a more multicultural cast of writers than the New York Times or MSNBC, and definitely an equally PC slant on issues like this.

No wonder that the Republicans are sounding more and more like the Democrats, with each side taunting the other side as 'racist.'

Real progress.

As for me, I have a dream that one day we will be free from busybodies in the media re-defining family, race, and nation for us, and calling down anathemas on anyone who dares to hold to the time-honored definitions.

'Nothing to be refused...'

In recent years we've read and heard a lot about the prevalence of 'eating disorders' among Americans, and we certainly never get a rest from the stories and sermons about obesity. But I wonder if the problems we refer to collectively as 'eating disorders' don't also include good old American food faddism, something I mention here occasionally.

Lately I've noticed that a lot of Christians are obsessing on what is called 'The Daniel Diet', supposedly based on the diet adopted by Daniel in the Bible. He and other young Hebrew captives (remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?) chose to shun the King's wine and food when they were captives in Babylon.

I had always understood this choice on Daniel's part to be based on the desire to eat according to the Levitical laws regarding food, but the proponents of the diet would have us believe that Daniel and his companions wanted to show the benefits of 'a natural diet', versus the diet eaten by the King and his court.

In Daniel, chapter 1, Daniel himself takes on a challenge to show the value of a natural diet (v12) and goes on to prove its success (v15). His regime is the basis for Daniel’s Diet.''

You can read Daniel Chapter 1 here and see if there is any mention of such motives on Daniel's part.

Personally I think someone is 'adding to' God's word here; Daniel was not prescribing his diet as a universal practice. He was, seemingly, attempting to show that God could keep him and his compatriots healthy even on a limited, meager diet.

It seems Christians are not immune from the food faddism and diet obsessions that so plague many Americans. It seems every other person I meet these days is on some sort of self-chosen dietary regime, according to the fads of the moment. Low carb, high protein, gluten-free, 'natural' or 'raw, whole foods', vegetarianism, veganism, and on and on.

Few Americans seem to be able to eat a meal and enjoy it without counting carbs, trans-fats, protein grams, fiber content, calories, gluten, food additives, antioxidants, probiotics. Few Americans, it seems, are willing to let their fellow Americans eat what they please without offering recommendations of their own chosen food regime or diet, which they always see as THE only way to health and attractiveness.

This tendency to obsess about food and health is something that is not new.

''About a hundred years ago John Harvey Kellogg persuaded a great number of fluent and well educated Americans to sign themselves into his sanitarium at battle Creek, Michigan. Here they submitted to a regime that included all-grape diets and almost hourly Bulgarian yogurt enemas and of course whole grains. At this same time millions of Americans became convinced that "Fletcherizing" was the cure to their ailments. Horace Fletcher, known as the Great Masticator, preached the importance of chewing each bite of food 100 times.''

The writer offers his opinions of why this food faddism is so prevalent in America:

''These proponents of healthy eating marked the beginning of an era of food faddism that has not ended. Why are Americans so vulnerable to these fads? I think it has to do with the diversity of cultures that exists in the US. We do not have a stable national cuisine as do other cultures. Other cultures have found over hundreds and even thousands of years what is a healthy diet for their area. Since we have no dietary traditions to follow we are more easily subject to the latest "scientific" approach to eating.''

Studies have tried to examine the kinds of people prone to food faddism and the use of 'fad food products' including supplements, vitamins, 'health foods', etc., and have not found consistent patterns.

''One possible hypothesis concerning fad food use is that it is in some way associated with a middle-American value system which embraces such beliefs as the need for preventive maintenance and the utility of technological innovation to solve potential problems such as aging or future illness.''

It does seem many Americans, compared with those in other countries, are especially preoccupied with youth and the fear of aging, and fitness, as well as outward physical attractiveness. Much of the food faddishness revolves around avoiding illness and maintaining youth. Not a few of the food-obsessed people I know were people who despite their finicky eating habits were not particularly healthy and hearty.

Another aspect of this obsession with food, health, and youth, is the vegetarian 'lifestyle.' It does seem that vegetarianism is more common now than it was when I was a vegetarian in the 1980s, and the so-called 'vegan' diet is certainly more common, especially among younger people.

In some surveys, Americans displayed a more fearful attitude about food than their French counterparts:

 According to Rozin, the U.S. medical establishment’s preoccupation with what foods constitute a healthy diet also has added to American women’s “normative discontent” about weight and body image. He cites his recent survey of college students from six campuses across the U.S. In that study, more than 10 percent of the female respondents admitted that they are “embarrassed” to be seen buying a chocolate bar, while 30 percent said they would be willing to take a nutrition pill—and forgo eating. “About one quarter of Americans, mostly women,” Rozin adds, “if asked for the first few words that come to mind when they think of chocolate, mention both a positive and a negative word: ‘delicious’ and ‘fat.’ They’ve taken this incredibly delicious food, and they’ve made it into something like a toxin.”

I've often commented on how just about the only thing that is called 'decadent' or 'sinful' these days is food, specifically the tasty foods like chocolate.

Ámericans in the survey seemed to connect certain foods with the idea of 'poison' and to connect health with food more than they connect pleasure with food.

'“We tend to think about what’s in the food that’s either good or bad for us,” explains Rozin, “and the French think about it as an experience: It’s eating. They’re thinking about it in the mouth, and we’re thinking about it in the bloodstream. Ironically, recent studies show that life expectancy is about the same in France and the U.S. The French eat a higher-fat diet, have higher levels of blood cholesterol, and do not worry about a healthy diet, yet still have a rate of cardiovascular disease that is about one-third less than Americans.''
 

This is the mindset that creates the food fads; the search for the perfect diet which will insulate us from illness or obesity or aging. There is also the fact that foods are often viewed as indicators of social status; 'unhealthy' foods are often associated with lower-class people while the healthy 'whole' foods are associated with the wealthy and trendy people. Remember the president's remarks a few years ago about the 'price of arugula'? Arugula is one of those status-conferring kinds of foods.

Recently there has been a discussion of vegetarianism on several blogs, beginning and continuing at OneSTDV and carrying over to Inductivist, among others. It was an interesting series of posts, bringing even the Jewish Question into the mix.

From OneSTDV:

A non-exhaustive list of meat currently stigmatized by the nutritional establishment reads like a traditional white Christian dinner: pork, ham, bacon, lard, and gelatin. Butter and oil, staples of down-home Southern cooking, are out too. And ever hear Dean Ornish or Andrew Weil encourage people to start eating hunting game like deer, rabbit, bird, and wild boars?''

This would be consistent with what I've said about the class bias in food attitudes, as well as an ethnic/regional element; I also alluded to the latter in my post a few weeks ago about Paula Deen and her nutritionally incorrect Southern cooking. It has all the forbidden elements.

Another element in the food faddism in our country is that we are spoiled for choice. We are presented with a staggering array of foods to eat, often many brands of the same foods, all competing in their claims to being a 'healthier' choice or, subliminally, appealing to our desire for prestige or status.

We have so much abundance that we can afford to be finicky and fussy about what we eat, and to make a fetish of denying ourselves good things, perhaps as a mark of our superior character. Few believe in old-fashioned morality these days, even Christians, but most people like to show their morality by eating the 'right' foods.

Now is the cue for someone to claim that we can blame this all on the Puritans, who somehow passed on to most Americans their tendency to prudery. The difference is that we've made food a kind of moral test. One has to eat the 'right' foods, and having backslidden, to make atonement by a rigorous exercise program. We Americans are not prudes in the old sense, but food prudery is everywhere.

More Russian people needed?

Vladimir Putin, the favorite of many pro-Whites for some reason, has made a controversial statement about the need for his countrymen (and women) to 'start having more sex' in order to halt the population decline.

Well, that's one way of trying to address the problem, but 'more sex' is not the solution as long as the abortion rate is high in Russia, which it has been for many decades.

''Since Putin first came to power in 2000 the population has decreased by 2.5 million Russians so the Prime Minister has made increasing the country's birth rate through Government incentives one of his key election pledges.

He vowed to offer more free kindergarten places, cheaper housing, and a £140 a month benefit bonus to mothers who have a third child, in a bid to boost the population size to 154 million people.''

I assume that the numbers quote reflect the population of actual Russian people, that is, people of Russian descent, Russian ethnicity, rather than just warm bodies of any origin inhabiting Russian territory.

I wondered how many people -- Russian people, that is -- are leaving Russia every year. I reasoned that the numbers must be pretty large, considering the large populations of Russians who live in certain parts of this country (not just Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, aka Little Odessa).

According to this webpage, migration out of Russia since 1989 has been only 1.1 million.

That seems to be an undercount, considering the great numbers of Russians who are established in various Western countries.

I have to wonder if the numbers are inaccurate. I do realize a great many of those who are considered 'Russian' in our country are Ukrainian or some related people, and also a great many are actually Jewish -- which was considered a separate ethnicity in the old Soviet Union. Certainly there seem to be more migrants from Russia than those numbers indicate.

Why is there no effort seemingly aimed at keeping Russian citizens at home, rather than seeing them off to the United States, Canada, or wherever else they settle? Can it be that, as with the Third World countries, it's in the interests of the governments to have their citizens emigrate and send home 'remittances' extracted from our economy?

Remittances, too, are generally acknowledged to encourage 'chain migration' as they finance the emigration of remaining family members to the 'magnet' countries.

Russia, according to the statistics provided on the linked website, is a magnet country itself for certain Third World countries, while its own people migrate elsewhere, hence the decline in overall population despite immigration.

Russia seems to be a popular place for Western men to find 'mail-order brides', despite the known problems associated with that business.

If Putin and his government are serious about increasing the birth rate of the ethnic Russian people, they should address the problem of out-migration, and the practice of Russian women seeking men outside the country. In order to increase the population of Russian people, both Russian men and women are needed. The old cliche that a country's real resources are its people is a true one. Russian women should not be encouraged to seek greener (in more senses than one) pastures abroad. This does not benefit Russia or the Russian people.

Though many of those who identify as pro-White think it's fine for any and all White peoples to intermarry and/or emigrate where they will, it simply adds to the globalizing and deracinating trend for people to cross boundaries of culture and nationality; just having the same or similar skin tone is not enough to mix and match -- at least not for anyone who is a real ethnonationalist or a lover of his own kin and kind. As is often pointed out in other contexts, it isn't 'just about skin color', and above all, people are not interchangeable. If we are, then we should just embrace globalization, multiculturalism, and 'propositional nations' , because ethnicity is meaningless; only broad racial categories matter.

Meantime, is Putin a real ethnonationalist? He speaks out of both sides of his mouth, occasionally sounding very nationalistic while later advocating tolerance and multiculturalism, and easing curbs on immigration as he has done.

But a real nationalist would recognize the unique qualities and value of their own people, and would not want to see the distinctions blurred away.

Just an empty spectacle?

Just after Super Bowl Sunday, I posted a short piece about the bizarre Madonna halftime performance, in which I linked to a lengthy discussion of it on Vigilant Citizen. Now, at AltRight, Mark Hackard has written a good piece , Spectacle in Babylon, analyzing that show and its symbolism.

The same people who are habitual critics of Christianity will scoff at the idea that this kind of thing is significant in any way, but scoff as we may, there are people -- more of them than ever, by the look of things -- who take this stuff very seriously indeed, and some of these seemingly deluded people are in places of great influence where have the capacity to manipulate many people. Some are in show business -- Hackard points out the prevalence of cults and their followers in Hollywood.

''Having built her fortune on blasphemy, Madonna is also a high-profile practitioner of Kabbalah, Judaic magic rooted in the mystery schools of Babylon and Egypt. One reason among many for Hollywood’s suspension in unreality is that “the industry” has an extensive history with cults, so it should come as no surprise that a number of stars and their handlers might be participants in such activity.''

Politicians, too, are no strangers to these kinds of groups. We've all been reassured by those who profess to 'know' that groups like Skull and Bones or the Bohemian Grove gatherings are just fun and games, just harmless pranks and a means of depressurizing for the wealthy and influential.

While I don't profess to have any secrets to share, or any inside knowledge of these things (though I have attended functions of one well-known group back East in the past) I think it's foolish to dismiss the importance of this kind of thing; it's better to maintain a degree of wariness and not be quick to scoff.

As much as some people on the ''right'' despise Christianity and blame it for just about everything that is wrong with our world, especially globalism, open borders, the 'One World' delusion, and anything else that menaces us, why not look at the influence of the so-called 'New Age' movement on all these trends? Various religions, sects, and cults which have flourished since at least the middle of last century have been promoting all the above delusions and lies heavily, and their fingerprints are all over the One World/globalist/multiculturalist agenda. It is their jargon and catchphrases that fill our media: 'empowerment',  'enlightenment' 'global citizenship' 'transformation' 'global governance' 'unity in diversity' and all the rest of it.

The problem with tracing these things to the New Age movement is that it is, by design, a rather nebulous philosophy, weaving together bits and pieces from many religions and philosophies, and even managing to feign respect for Jesus Christ (aka 'The Christ') in their propaganda. But mostly they exalt all things non-Western above all, and while they employ pop psychology as part of their belief system, they are mostly averse to real science when it comes to their worldview.

Many people in this movement will disavow the term 'New Age', saying that it means nothing, or that it is too all-inclusive.
However, there is a widespread belief among many Western people these days in New Age-derived ideas like 'karma' including group karma, national karma and racial karma; past lives/reincarnation beliefs also figure prominently. How many people do you know who are interested in, or avidly believe, in some of these things? I've known many. Even some of those who profess Christ believe in some of the above ideas, sad to say.

The most common belief among people who embrace some form of 'New Age' or Occult belief system is the idea that 'all is one.' There is no good, no evil, in an absolute sense; all is one, and the idea of a dichotomy between good and evil is just mistaken thinking; it's all based on illusion. Mankind and all life forms are just aspects of One being, so the belief goes. All human beings are essentially one. God and man are aspect of this unity too, and man can become God, supposedly -- or is already a god with a small 'g', if he but knows it.

Madonna and her Hollywood peers supposedly practice some homemade version of the mystical tradition known as Kabala. This kind of thing is very much under the New Age umbrella.

Hackard seems to see a move toward openly leading people into this arcane believe system, via manipulation of occult symbols. He seems to see this kind of formerly hidden ('occult') system coming out into the open. It would seem that this is culminating as people have become sufficiently disarmed via having their traditional faiths subverted and discredited, and all their suppositions about themselves, their history, and the world, challenged and/or remade. We can certainly see this happening, even if we insist on attributing it to some random process or to some more mundane kind of agenda.

I've mentioned how, that in my liberal and unregenerate days, I used to be steeped in New Age thoughts and practices, and I've certainly seen it up close and have been involved in it. So my acquaintance with it is not mere book-knowledge or something I saw on Oprah -- although Oprah herself is a prime example of someone who promotes this belief system to the female population on a large scale.

But these increasingly open attempts to bring the formerly hidden out into the open remind me of what I read in the writings of New Age 'writer'/channeler Alice Bailey, when she wrote of the 'Externalisation of the Hierarchy.'

"The externalised Ashrams will be active along four major lines:

    1.Creating and vitalizing the new world religion.

    2.The gradual reorganizing of the social order - an order free from oppression, the persecution of minorities, materialism and pride.

    3.The public inauguration of the system of initiation. This will involve the growth and comprehension of symbolism.

    4.The exoteric training of disciples and of humanity in this new cycle." (The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 700)

     "The preparatory work of externalisation falls into three phases or stages, as far as relation to mankind is concerned:

     First. The present stage in which a few isolated disciples and initiates, scattered all over the world, are doing the important task of destruction, plus the enunciation of principles. They are preparing the way for the first organised body of disciples and initiates who -- coming from certain Ashrams -- will proceed with the next phase of the work.
     Second. The stage of the first real externalisation upon a large and organised scale will succeed upon the above endeavours. These disciples and initiates will be the real Builders of the new world, of the new civilisation; they will assume leadership in most countries and take high office in all departments of human life. This they will do by the free choice of the people and by virtue of their advanced and proven merit. By this means, gradually the Hierarchy will take over the control upon the physical plane -- subjectively as well as objectively -- of the direction of human affairs.''

[Emphasis mine.]
Does any of the above describe what we see happening to our world ? The above  words (supposedly from an 'Ascended Master' from Tibet, dictated to Alice Bailey) were written decades ago, long before many of the pieces were in place. No doubt they sounded more far-fetched in the mid-20th century, but they sound very much like what is happening now, what with all our 'elites' seemingly on the same page as regards the direction 'our world' is taking. Bailey, in her extensive writings, described how nationalism had to go, because it was 'separative' and all separative philosophies and people would have to be removed, because they hindered the wonderful Unity which would characterize the coming 'New Age'.

Some will no doubt scoff at the notion that these kinds of belief systems are anything but harmless fantasy or well-intentioned fluff, but I assure you they are taken seriously by some important people, and we dismiss them at our own peril.

Hidden history?

It's no surprise that certain events of the past have been covered up. This story from The Australian is an interesting example. Since we don't think of politically correct censorship as having existed so much back during WWII, one wonders why this story was hushed up.

Was it to quell any fears on the part of the local populace in Queensland, where the incident is said to have happened? Or was it to stifle any potential criticism back home in the United States of the idea of integration, which was already in the planning stages back then?

Certain people, even on the ''right'',  insist that incidents such as this one were rare to nonexistent before the radical changes of the 1960s and later, but such things did happen, even before our current 'liberal' regime was fully in place.

How many more such incidents have been kept quiet, so as to perpetuate the cultural Marxist egalitarian worldview?

'Hardwired' to vanish?

The UK Daily Mail presents us this propaganda piece, telling us via the headline that 'Humans are hardwired to fancy other races.' 

However, read down further and this sentence appears:

''The scientists discovered that white men prefer the facial features of Asian women while white women go for the faces of black men.''

So supposedly White people of both sexes prefer outlanders to their own. If this is true, then how on earth have White people survived as a distinct race all this time? Why have they not been absorbed into the much more numerous Others? Of course the media and those whose views they inculcate into the unthinking public wish for such an outcome; we can all see how they are working overtime on it for the past few decades especially.

The claim made by the article is certainly supported by reading many of the comments at sites like AmRen and other such blogs.
And despite the constant complaints by many male commenters at such sites about White women outmarrying, statistics show

''...while East Asian women statistically prefer East Asian men for marriage, they show no discrimination against White men, causing Asian women/White men pairings to consistently become the prevalent form of interracial dating & marriage in the United States.''

[Emphasis mine.]
Further,

''...25 percent of married Asian American women have Caucasian spouses, but 45 percent of cohabitating Asian American women are with Caucasian American men—higher than the percentage cohabitating with Asian men (less than 43 percent).''

Not so surprisingly, the Daily Mail article uses as an illustration a picture of John Lennon with Yoko Ono. I wonder about their choice of a photo in which the couple are wearing identical unisex jeans and black pullover shirts, and sport identical unisex cropped haircuts.

In the photo, Lennon with his hooded eyes appears rather Asian. What is the message here?

The people who dominate the media and who decide on the overriding message that we are fed every day seem absolutely obsessed with the idea of racial blending and mixing, and they are on a campaign to wear down any remaining resistance to the idea among the younger people. One of the claims made by those who are avidly advocating outmarrying is that peoples need to outmarry to keep from being 'inbred' and passing on birth defects (including 'idiocy' as it used to be called) to their descendants. This idea is greatly overemphasized by those who propound it, but it seems to have caught on, judging by the frequency with which the uninformed pro-miscegenists repeat it.

Some months back I blogged about the apparent advantages of cousin marriage -- between cousins who are not of the closest degrees, of course. It's reported here also, which surprises me, given the leftist bias of psychologists generally. But it appears that marriages within a certain degree of cousinship are more fertile. From that article:

George Darwin, Charles's eldest son and a fine mathematician, did the first known surveys of the supposed deleterious results of (first) cousin marriage and, despite sharing his father's concern about his own marriage, found them to be exaggerated and even found a lower incidence of insanity in cousin marriages. He was also the first person to find that close-cousin marriages were more fertile than others, but that this was offset by a slightly higher infant mortality rate. (See Kuper) No studies since have shown close cousin marriages to be more than slightly more risky than the marriages of unrelated people; they pose about the same risk as a woman having children after forty. Nevertheless, the idea persists that such marriages always lead to defective and diseased offspring, and 30 US States forbid first-cousin marriage to this day. The stereotype of the inbred idiot fostered by such films as Deliverance is still predominant.''

And even if the vast majority of us are very unlikely to marry a cousin, even, say, a fourth cousin, (though our ancestors did so) there is still no reason to believe that we have to outmarry or produce idiot children or defectives, or that we will 'stop evolving' as some idiot implies on the Daily Mail thread. We need not marry our cousins but even less do we need to marry people genetically distant from us in order to ''evolve'' or 'improve the stock' or any such nonsense.



The rising rates of outmarriage, though trumpeted and touted by the media and our lords and masters are probably due in some part to the apparent alienation between the two sexes among our people, due in great part to the manipulation of people's minds over the past couple of generations at least. Yet the message keeps being repeated that this rising rate is a sign of 'progress' toward harmony, or a decline in 'bigotry and hate' or above all, that it is inevitable, and we have to join the trend or be found on the 'wrong side'.

As for the Daily Mail article, it's heartening that the majority of comments openly scoff at the claims made and the multicult agenda so obviously on display. So perhaps not everybody is buying it; one can only hope that the people out there will have finally had enough of this stuff and rebel against it. The powers-that-be are overplaying their hand very badly.

Time will tell -- and very soon -- whether human nature wins out, or whether propaganda is stronger than human nature.