Another day, another 'leftists are the real racists' article by a Republican.
The writer asks the well-worn old question of why the left does not embrace the 'diversity' they gleefully inflict on everybody. The usual 'conservative' explanation of this disconnect is that liberals are the world's biggest hypocrites; they flee from diversity to 'Whitopias' like Vermont or Maine.
Republicans usually complain about this liberal White flight, and some of the article's comments bitterly suggest that liberals should be forced to live in, say, Detroit, or that they should import some diversity to enrich their lily-White communities.
Wait a minute: don't conservatives pretend to believe in freedom of association? It sounds as though they are advocating the exact thing the Labour government (and the rest of the anti-White pols) did in Britain: import millions of immigrants to 'rub the right-wing's noses in diversity.' That'll learn 'em.
Certainly it is hypocrisy if someone promotes multiculturalism, multiracialism and social mixing of disparate races, religions, and ethnicities, and yet shuns the fruits of those things. But how is it 'fair' to accelerate the demographic changes just to punish or perhaps 'educate' the naïve liberals -- or the 'disingenuous' liberals, if you adopt Paul Kersey's lingo?
Do good 'conservative' Republicans propose Babelizing small-town Vermont or other such majority White areas? If so, this is unfair to the many people who find such places congenial or even essential to their peace of mind and their safety. These kinds of communities usually have better schools and less crime, along with a more agreeable way of life, a sense of community. Yet I truly believe the 'colorblind conservatives' would fly in more Somalis to 'enrich' New England, as has already been done in Lewiston, Maine and other such formerly-White bastions. Would these conservatives want the children in those areas deprived of good schools, or exposed to more crime?
And do the 'liberal' residents of those places become more 'conservative' following an infusion of 'diversity'? Maybe, sometimes, as witness the controversy in Lewiston over the numbers of Somalis who arrived. Yet I think their presence is gradually being accepted; they have established a colony there, and it seems as though their presence will evoke resignation if not a hearty welcome. It seems to work that way in most places.
Another point: are the liberals in Vermont or Maine or Utah all people who are fleeing diversity? I do understand that most such areas are the recipients of 'White flight' from other more multiculturalized cities and communities -- but more often, these places are liberal precisely because the people who have always lived there have little or no experience of the 'joys of diversity.' They can believe in the Huxtable Family or the Wise Black Man they see in the commercials because their real life education has been lacking. Lack of diversity often leads to lack of common sense on such matters.
And do the transplanted Californians in Colorado or Texas bring a more informed view to their new home because of their previous education in 'diversity'? No' most often, their liberal, supinely-tolerant views remain intact despite their experiences with racial displacement and anomie. They just want to turn the clock back by going to an area that resembles the past as they knew it, and continue with the liberal presumptions that led to the destruction of their home state or town. This is stupidity and cussedness more than hypocrisy, I think.
So it seems that the 'conservatives' just want to shift the blame for the 'racism' which they accept exists, just as the leftists believe it exists. They just want to put the shoe on the other foot, the liberal foot, rather than rejecting the whole race-baiting, White guilt scenario.
They themselves are being hypocritical in not admitting that they and we need areas that are refuges from encroaching 'diversity' and all the woes that follow in its train. They would prefer, though, to punish liberals for voting with their feet, and compel them to live in a Detroit or a barrio in the Southwest. Misery loves company. The conservative idea is to make everybody suffer equally, rather than to defend freedom of association, and the right to live among one's own. That would require taking a politically incorrect stand, and the hypocritical conservative wants no part of that.
The subject of the linked AT article is the 'Origins of leftist racial orthodoxy', and what I'm concerned with now is the ''origins of 'rightist' racial orthodoxy''. We get a clue in an article like this one, relating Al Sharpton's latest allegations that Republicans are like Hitler, and plan to eliminate blacks.
Read the comments by conservatives and you get the picture. Colorblind conservatives are, more than ever, running scared from the unhinged rantings of Sharpton et al. Rather than just rejecting his prattle for the hysterical and ignorant nonsense that it is, they continue to treat these charges as serious, and try to protest their innocence. The result is that we have two, count 'em, two parties that try to outdo each other in political correctness and squabbling over who is the real 'racist' and who is the best friend of blacks.
What seems obvious to me is that the origin of right-wing 'racial orthodoxy' is -- leftist racial orthodoxy. Both parties are caught up in this nonsense, and the 'right wing', who pride themselves on being commonsensical and realistic, can't even see the absurdity and the futility of their position.
More proof, if needed, that the majority of Whites will never ''get it'', no matter how much things deteriorate. As the country goes up in smoke, they will still be squabbling over who is the real racist, and who is blacks' best friend.
Worse, it would appear, is definitely not better. Best not hold your breath for the majority to 'get it' or 'wake up.'
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Old scores
I recently posted a reply on a thread at SWB which dates back to February of this year. The thread had recently received another comment, the subject being the role of Anglo-Saxons, or specifically Anglo-Saxon Americans, in our national decline.
Another comment followed mine. I am going to address it here, rather than add to a thread which is already months old and which may be off-topic from the original post in any case.
Commenter Caradoc says:
I agree that sin is at the bottom of all human woes, including the inter-ethnic conflicts and grievances among European-Americans, especially among those of different British Isles ancestry. Caradoc, whose screen name indicates he is of Welsh descent, names the English as having done 'horrible things to the Irish and the Welsh' among others.
However, in fairness, we never hear another side to this story. I frequently read bitter diatribes on various comment threads (mostly on the alt-right blogs) about how the Celts were oppressed and victimized for centuries by the English, but is the English side ever heard?
Obviously I can't begin to give a full account of that side on a short blog post, but it seems to me that the score has been more than evened, what with various acts of mayhem by IRA or other such groups during the last several decades. I used to know people who served in the British army who had stories to tell about their time in Ulster. And terrorist acts were not unknown on English soil in recent decades. The Anglophobe will counter that the British or the English began it all by invading Ireland centuries ago.
Most Americans who moan about this invasion of Ireland are unaware of the fact that divisiveness within Ireland among the various kings was what led to this invasion. Strongbow et al were invited by an aggrieved Irish king who had scores to settle with other Irish kings or clan chiefs. Internal disunion led to vulnerability to conquest -- just as with the American Indians on this continent.
It's simply a fact of history that the strong and capable tend to win, and the weaker or more disunited people fall prey to invasion and subjugation. We might take a lesson from that here; there is too much bitterness over centuries-old losses and squabbles to unite against the threat we face now, of conquest by demographics and subjugation by 'others' who are within our gates.
Right now, the English or the Anglo-Saxons are in disrepute in all the countries which they once founded or dominated. Now the 'underdog' and the 'victim' with ancient scores to settle are in the driver's seat.
I am afraid most of us in former Christendom have been infected with the leftist victimolatry, in which the weak and conquered peoples have established a spurious moral superiority based simply on having been bested in the past. We see this with Mexican revanchists who are taking 'their' land back in 'Aztlan' and we see it with every group which chooses to revel in their victim status.
This website about Scottish history indirectly invokes Hitler and 'genocide' in phrases like ''final solution'' in the following:
And by the way: that supposed quote from Queen Victoria is usually attributed to a Times article, cited by Chesterton, which spoke of Irishmen becoming 'as rare on the banks of the Liffey as a Red Man on the banks of the Manhattan.' It's often quoted in various mutated forms, but who knows what its provenance is?
And did it happen as predicted? Obviously not; were the English too incompetent to carry out their 'genocide' or were they perhaps just not so 'genocidal' as their enemies allege?
And speaking of the 'Red Men', if we 'keep score' of the supposed horrible wrongs done by the English to various vanquished enemies, then we Americans leave ourselves, as 'invaders' of the Native Americans' land, vulnerable to the exact same charges as those laid to the English. If the Normans/English were evil for subjugating much of Ireland, and robbing the indigenous Irish of their culture and language, then we have not a leg to stand on as regards American Indians. The situation here is much the same.
If the English were morally wrong in what they 'did' to the Welsh, the Irish, the Scots, then how do we defend what the early colonists and settlers did here on this continent?
The same criticisms that are constantly made against the English in regard to their ruthlessness and appetite for conquest are made against White men in general. Constantly.
If you concede the guilt of the English, you are assenting to the anti-White charges made by leftists and minorities every day.
The Anglo-Saxon, like it or not, is the arch-White man. He was the most successful among the Europeans in terms of Empire and influence. If you call that evil, so be it. If you dispute it because your ancestors were on the other side, so be it. But if the Anglo-Saxon is guilty, so is the White race generally, because the White race is, vis-à-vis the other races what the Anglo-Saxon was in a smaller sphere.
One more problem I have with the score-keeping against the English; I simply find it irrational and exasperating that the people who hold bitter grievances against the English or the 'Brits' or the Sassenachs, are willing to see 'diversity' engulf their homelands. The English as overlords will seem harmless compared to Moslems or others who will one day dominate the former British Isles, should things fail to turn around.
But yet the 'nationalists' in Scotland, that is the SNP, and Wales, and Eire seem to be just fine with a multicultural, multiracial Babel in their countries. What a strange brand of nationalism and 'ethnic pride.' The antipathy towards the English overrules any genuine nationalistic impulse they have; the SNP would rather make common cause with Moslems, than with the English. That's little more than cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
Another comment followed mine. I am going to address it here, rather than add to a thread which is already months old and which may be off-topic from the original post in any case.
Commenter Caradoc says:
I have given some thought to the issue of white tribes and white “intramural” competition. The root of the problem I think is, as always, sin. The English have done absolutely horrible things to the Irish and Welsh to name two. The Yankees have done horrible things to Southerners. We are at a crossroads of survival now, and the Other is not going to ask if you are English or Irish or Welsh or North or South. Keep your identity, learn your old tongue. Be proud. But the old hatreds have to go. If a Yankee or an Englishman (or a German, or French, etc) serves the Lord and wants to stand shoulder to shoulder in common interest, wonderful. Think of the twelve tribes.''
I agree that sin is at the bottom of all human woes, including the inter-ethnic conflicts and grievances among European-Americans, especially among those of different British Isles ancestry. Caradoc, whose screen name indicates he is of Welsh descent, names the English as having done 'horrible things to the Irish and the Welsh' among others.
However, in fairness, we never hear another side to this story. I frequently read bitter diatribes on various comment threads (mostly on the alt-right blogs) about how the Celts were oppressed and victimized for centuries by the English, but is the English side ever heard?
Obviously I can't begin to give a full account of that side on a short blog post, but it seems to me that the score has been more than evened, what with various acts of mayhem by IRA or other such groups during the last several decades. I used to know people who served in the British army who had stories to tell about their time in Ulster. And terrorist acts were not unknown on English soil in recent decades. The Anglophobe will counter that the British or the English began it all by invading Ireland centuries ago.
Most Americans who moan about this invasion of Ireland are unaware of the fact that divisiveness within Ireland among the various kings was what led to this invasion. Strongbow et al were invited by an aggrieved Irish king who had scores to settle with other Irish kings or clan chiefs. Internal disunion led to vulnerability to conquest -- just as with the American Indians on this continent.
It's simply a fact of history that the strong and capable tend to win, and the weaker or more disunited people fall prey to invasion and subjugation. We might take a lesson from that here; there is too much bitterness over centuries-old losses and squabbles to unite against the threat we face now, of conquest by demographics and subjugation by 'others' who are within our gates.
Right now, the English or the Anglo-Saxons are in disrepute in all the countries which they once founded or dominated. Now the 'underdog' and the 'victim' with ancient scores to settle are in the driver's seat.
I am afraid most of us in former Christendom have been infected with the leftist victimolatry, in which the weak and conquered peoples have established a spurious moral superiority based simply on having been bested in the past. We see this with Mexican revanchists who are taking 'their' land back in 'Aztlan' and we see it with every group which chooses to revel in their victim status.
This website about Scottish history indirectly invokes Hitler and 'genocide' in phrases like ''final solution'' in the following:
'[The English] followed through their victory with arson, rape and murder so that England could achieve its centuries old ambition to get a final solution to the Scotch problem by destroying the language and culture of the oldest nation in Europe.''
As Queen Victoria said of the Irish "I look forward to the day when an Irishman on the banks of the Liffey will be as rare as a Red Indian on the banks of the Mississippi. " And so with the Scots.''
And by the way: that supposed quote from Queen Victoria is usually attributed to a Times article, cited by Chesterton, which spoke of Irishmen becoming 'as rare on the banks of the Liffey as a Red Man on the banks of the Manhattan.' It's often quoted in various mutated forms, but who knows what its provenance is?
And did it happen as predicted? Obviously not; were the English too incompetent to carry out their 'genocide' or were they perhaps just not so 'genocidal' as their enemies allege?
And speaking of the 'Red Men', if we 'keep score' of the supposed horrible wrongs done by the English to various vanquished enemies, then we Americans leave ourselves, as 'invaders' of the Native Americans' land, vulnerable to the exact same charges as those laid to the English. If the Normans/English were evil for subjugating much of Ireland, and robbing the indigenous Irish of their culture and language, then we have not a leg to stand on as regards American Indians. The situation here is much the same.
If the English were morally wrong in what they 'did' to the Welsh, the Irish, the Scots, then how do we defend what the early colonists and settlers did here on this continent?
The same criticisms that are constantly made against the English in regard to their ruthlessness and appetite for conquest are made against White men in general. Constantly.
If you concede the guilt of the English, you are assenting to the anti-White charges made by leftists and minorities every day.
The Anglo-Saxon, like it or not, is the arch-White man. He was the most successful among the Europeans in terms of Empire and influence. If you call that evil, so be it. If you dispute it because your ancestors were on the other side, so be it. But if the Anglo-Saxon is guilty, so is the White race generally, because the White race is, vis-à-vis the other races what the Anglo-Saxon was in a smaller sphere.
One more problem I have with the score-keeping against the English; I simply find it irrational and exasperating that the people who hold bitter grievances against the English or the 'Brits' or the Sassenachs, are willing to see 'diversity' engulf their homelands. The English as overlords will seem harmless compared to Moslems or others who will one day dominate the former British Isles, should things fail to turn around.
But yet the 'nationalists' in Scotland, that is the SNP, and Wales, and Eire seem to be just fine with a multicultural, multiracial Babel in their countries. What a strange brand of nationalism and 'ethnic pride.' The antipathy towards the English overrules any genuine nationalistic impulse they have; the SNP would rather make common cause with Moslems, than with the English. That's little more than cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Doc Watson, 1923 - 2012
Doc Watson has passed away at age 89.
R.I.P., Doc.
The video is of Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs (who passed away just about two months ago) and Ricky Skaggs. The first song is 'Who Will Sing For Me?', which I think is fitting in the circumstances.
Doc was a true national treasure -- though I know that is said about a lot of people, it is truly apt in his case.
My lying eyes, thank you
Remember that series of articles recently about the majority of newborns in America being non-White? Articles such as this one?
Well, forget about worrying over that story. First of all, it's racist for you to even think about such things; shame on you! Secondly, the fact is, so I read here, that half of Hispanics in this country are White; that is, they are of European descent and are no different from the Irish or the Russians or the Poles or the Greeks. And remember when those nativists like Henry Cabot Lodge said those groups were unassimilable? Racism. For shame. Ben Franklin too held such absurd -- and racist -- ideas. He thought even the Germans were non-White. Or so says Jacoby.
But let's get this right; Ben Franklin did not describe Germans as non-White. In his 'Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind', he said simply that the Germans, like several other European peoples (Italians, French, Russians, and Swedes) were 'swarthy'. Read his words here. Many people scoff at his descriptions of such people as 'swarthy' but there is no doubt that there are variations in complexion among all the people mentioned. Still, that's neither here nor there; he did not say the Germans were 'not White' or that they were not assimilable. He simply stated his preferences that people who were most similar and compatible should be welcomed here.
As for the idea that half of the Hispanics in this country are European-descended and White, who shall we believe? I prefer believing my eyes. And I think I have more experience among Hispanic people than many White Americans, especially those who live in urban areas where relatively few typical Latin immigrants live. The East coast has many Caribbean Latins, who are not the same as the Mexicans and Central Americans. In whichever case, however, most are mestizo, that is, not White.
Jacoby cherry-picks examples of typical White Hispanics like Rita Hayworth -- who was, for the record, half Spanish (her father was from Spain) and half English/Irish. Then he cites Martin Sheen, born Estevez, who, like Hayworth, was half Spanish and half Irish. Then following the same pattern, he names Raquel Welch, who was half-Bolivian (Spanish? Mestizo?) and half English/Irish American. These are assuredly not typical examples. The Latinos, legal and illegal, who we see in increasing numbers on our streets, look very little like any of the above examples.
Actually similar arguments to Jacoby's, pooh-poohing concerns about demographic change, were already deployed by New York Times writers 11 years ago, when Orlando Patterson chides those who are concerned and assures us that no significant change is coming because after all, half of Hispanics are White.
So pay no attention to your lying eyes. Whites are and will remain a majority. There is no reason to fear change; embrace it. Celebrate it, as your betters are telling you to do.
Well, forget about worrying over that story. First of all, it's racist for you to even think about such things; shame on you! Secondly, the fact is, so I read here, that half of Hispanics in this country are White; that is, they are of European descent and are no different from the Irish or the Russians or the Poles or the Greeks. And remember when those nativists like Henry Cabot Lodge said those groups were unassimilable? Racism. For shame. Ben Franklin too held such absurd -- and racist -- ideas. He thought even the Germans were non-White. Or so says Jacoby.
But let's get this right; Ben Franklin did not describe Germans as non-White. In his 'Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind', he said simply that the Germans, like several other European peoples (Italians, French, Russians, and Swedes) were 'swarthy'. Read his words here. Many people scoff at his descriptions of such people as 'swarthy' but there is no doubt that there are variations in complexion among all the people mentioned. Still, that's neither here nor there; he did not say the Germans were 'not White' or that they were not assimilable. He simply stated his preferences that people who were most similar and compatible should be welcomed here.
As for the idea that half of the Hispanics in this country are European-descended and White, who shall we believe? I prefer believing my eyes. And I think I have more experience among Hispanic people than many White Americans, especially those who live in urban areas where relatively few typical Latin immigrants live. The East coast has many Caribbean Latins, who are not the same as the Mexicans and Central Americans. In whichever case, however, most are mestizo, that is, not White.
Jacoby cherry-picks examples of typical White Hispanics like Rita Hayworth -- who was, for the record, half Spanish (her father was from Spain) and half English/Irish. Then he cites Martin Sheen, born Estevez, who, like Hayworth, was half Spanish and half Irish. Then following the same pattern, he names Raquel Welch, who was half-Bolivian (Spanish? Mestizo?) and half English/Irish American. These are assuredly not typical examples. The Latinos, legal and illegal, who we see in increasing numbers on our streets, look very little like any of the above examples.
Actually similar arguments to Jacoby's, pooh-poohing concerns about demographic change, were already deployed by New York Times writers 11 years ago, when Orlando Patterson chides those who are concerned and assures us that no significant change is coming because after all, half of Hispanics are White.
''In any case, the suggestion that the white population of America is fast on the way to becoming a minority is a gross distortion. Even if we view only the non-Hispanic white population, whites remain a robust 69.1 percent of the total population of the nation. If we include Hispanic whites, as we should, whites constitute 75.14 percent of the total population, down by only 5 percent from the 1990 census.''
So pay no attention to your lying eyes. Whites are and will remain a majority. There is no reason to fear change; embrace it. Celebrate it, as your betters are telling you to do.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Daily Mail: 'Shock report!'
The Daily Mail asks:
Is Britain a racist nation?
Well, it doesn't take much to be accused of this horrendous crime.
But look at the generational aspect of it.
Several years ago, I remember an article in a UK news source which quoted a government official as saying old people were a problem because they were 'a bit racist.'
But, lest people hail the 18-24s responses as proof that this age group will be the salvation of the West, remember this post of mine recently, in which the opposite trend was noted in more than one poll or survey.
I would love to think that the younger generations will save the day, but the poll results noted in that post of mine contradict the hints of a politically incorrect sensibility among the young adults. After all, that age group is most often the one in which young people like to outrage the sensibilities of their elders and say things meant to shock, annoy or to set themselves apart from their ignorant parents. Being politically incorrect is just part of that; witness shows like South Park, which, politically incorrect as they are, are not expressions of healthy ethnocentrism.
But I hope this age group does grow out of their social liberalism/libertinism and their tendency to 'colorblindness', noted by one commenter on the Daily Mail article, who boasts of her friends interracial relationships.
The group 'Hope Not Hate' announce they were not surprised by the results (of course not; they see racists under every bed and around every corner). And as always in these articles, the PC crowd declares that they are disappointed and that we still have a ''long way to go'' to eliminate backward attitudes. Yes, it's the perpetual revolution Mao Zedong spoke of. There is always ''a long way to go'', and no change is ever enough. Ever.
The comments are not as bad as might be expected on that article; but I must agree that there is a ''long way to go''. We have to go a long way to go -- but in the direction of realism, and emboldening people to acknowledge what they know deep in their gut: that truth is truth, and that what is being denounced in our media every day is nothing more than a natural ethnocentrism, a healthy preference for our own, for the familiar, the known, and for the pleasant associations that are attached to everything associated with home.
That's the 'long way' that we still have to go: back to an acknowledgement that what was once taken for granted is, in fact, just as true and valid as in our grandparents day, and that it is more vital than ever to reclaim it, to accept human nature as right in this case.
Human nature can't be fought forever, and that is just what the left is busy doing.
Is Britain a racist nation?
"A third of Brits admit they are racist, a shock report has revealed.
The worrying figure emerged in a poll of 2,000 adults who were asked to honestly express their feelings about foreign nationals living and working in this country.
[...]
Additionally, more than one in ten admitted they had been accused of being a racist by someone close to them.''
Well, it doesn't take much to be accused of this horrendous crime.
But look at the generational aspect of it.
"Age-wise, the over 55s were found to have the biggest chips on their shoulders, with the 18-24 age range close behind.
The younger of these two brackets were also more likely to admit making racist comments or partaking in behaviour which could be deemed racist."
Several years ago, I remember an article in a UK news source which quoted a government official as saying old people were a problem because they were 'a bit racist.'
But, lest people hail the 18-24s responses as proof that this age group will be the salvation of the West, remember this post of mine recently, in which the opposite trend was noted in more than one poll or survey.
I would love to think that the younger generations will save the day, but the poll results noted in that post of mine contradict the hints of a politically incorrect sensibility among the young adults. After all, that age group is most often the one in which young people like to outrage the sensibilities of their elders and say things meant to shock, annoy or to set themselves apart from their ignorant parents. Being politically incorrect is just part of that; witness shows like South Park, which, politically incorrect as they are, are not expressions of healthy ethnocentrism.
But I hope this age group does grow out of their social liberalism/libertinism and their tendency to 'colorblindness', noted by one commenter on the Daily Mail article, who boasts of her friends interracial relationships.
The group 'Hope Not Hate' announce they were not surprised by the results (of course not; they see racists under every bed and around every corner). And as always in these articles, the PC crowd declares that they are disappointed and that we still have a ''long way to go'' to eliminate backward attitudes. Yes, it's the perpetual revolution Mao Zedong spoke of. There is always ''a long way to go'', and no change is ever enough. Ever.
The comments are not as bad as might be expected on that article; but I must agree that there is a ''long way to go''. We have to go a long way to go -- but in the direction of realism, and emboldening people to acknowledge what they know deep in their gut: that truth is truth, and that what is being denounced in our media every day is nothing more than a natural ethnocentrism, a healthy preference for our own, for the familiar, the known, and for the pleasant associations that are attached to everything associated with home.
That's the 'long way' that we still have to go: back to an acknowledgement that what was once taken for granted is, in fact, just as true and valid as in our grandparents day, and that it is more vital than ever to reclaim it, to accept human nature as right in this case.
Human nature can't be fought forever, and that is just what the left is busy doing.
National character
But where's the diversity? Surely ''British'' is not just limited to one skin color or kinship group, is it? It's an ''inclusive'' civic identity these days, just as ''American'' is. So we are told.
Still, despite the efforts on the part of the people who rule over us to erase nationality and to blur away, both culturally and genetically, all distinct peoples, we can still recognize the truth of some of the stereotypes in the cartoon pictures above.
But is there still a recognizable American character? After all, America has been a ''proposition nation'' longer than Britain has. Is there still a national 'type' as once used to be assumed? If you read the article I linked (and there is a translation here) the American 'type' is somewhat recognizable. But is there a type that includes both Yankees and Southrons? There are still wide cultural gaps between the two regions. Or is there a type that crosses racial lines? I would say not.
What do you think? Is there still a distinct national character in America, encompassing all this 'diversity'? Or has it been successfully dismantled, and replaced by deracinated, mass-media-influenced 'everyman'?
I've noticed in all my recent travels, even within this country, that the differences between regions are eroding away, in great part because of the 'diversity' which is inflicted on us. The presence of so many strangers has had its effect. It's as though we've forgotten how to be ourselves.
Thoughts?
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Music=politics
Everything is political nowadays, at least everything connected with the media. Our 'entertainment' is very political now, and the monotonous message is always about diversity, global unity, one world, one human race, and so on, ad nauseam.
The Eurovision Song Contest is a prime example. I suspect not many of my American readers have much interest in that TV tradition. On one of my sojourns in Ireland I first heard of the Eurovision Song Contest; I was surprised to see that people seemed to be glued to their TV sets for what seemed to be nothing more than an international or pan-European talent show. But it had a nationalistic element to it; everybody cheered for their country's entrant(s), and winning meant a big celebration.
Nowadays, of course, that just is not acceptable, because all the individual European countries are supposedly subsumed into the 'European Union' and nationalism or ethnopatriotism is so 20th century. Not to mention, a thoughtcrime.
This year's contest was held in that great European country, Azerbaijan. Yes, Azerbaijan.
The CNN article here admits that the contest is 'soft politics' -- and I suppose that fits with the 'soft totalitarianism', so-called, which is engulfing our former Christendom now.
A far cry from what the contest was at its inception. More and more countries are participating, Turkey, for instance. Though the contest officially bars any political content from the event, is it not political to bring non-European countries into the contest? 'Diversity' is a political notion. The idea that all and sundry must be brought in subverts the original idea of "European-ness."
Topping it all off, the winner was Sweden, but the 'Swedish' performer was a Moroccan Berber woman. Is that what 'European-ness' means in 2012?
All the meaning and content of nationality is being drained away when Berbers represent Sweden in a pan-European song contest. Repeat after me: We are all one. There is no such thing as nationality.
I saw a clip of the Turkish entry, and the music was like some kind of Middle-Eastern hip-hop hybrid. The whole look of the event was dark and sinister. Bring back the wholesome, bland Europop of the past; even Clodagh Rogers singing Jack-in-the-Box is far preferable to this sort of scifi Multicult circus which has replaced the old contest.
The Eurovision Song Contest is a prime example. I suspect not many of my American readers have much interest in that TV tradition. On one of my sojourns in Ireland I first heard of the Eurovision Song Contest; I was surprised to see that people seemed to be glued to their TV sets for what seemed to be nothing more than an international or pan-European talent show. But it had a nationalistic element to it; everybody cheered for their country's entrant(s), and winning meant a big celebration.
Nowadays, of course, that just is not acceptable, because all the individual European countries are supposedly subsumed into the 'European Union' and nationalism or ethnopatriotism is so 20th century. Not to mention, a thoughtcrime.
This year's contest was held in that great European country, Azerbaijan. Yes, Azerbaijan.
The CNN article here admits that the contest is 'soft politics' -- and I suppose that fits with the 'soft totalitarianism', so-called, which is engulfing our former Christendom now.
In recent weeks, the Eurovision Song Contest finals, which take place Saturday, have inspired clashes on the streets of the capital, Baku, between Azerbaijani police and opposition activists, and accusations by state-controlled media in Azerbaijan that a German "conspiracy" was waging an "information war" against the hosts.''
A far cry from what the contest was at its inception. More and more countries are participating, Turkey, for instance. Though the contest officially bars any political content from the event, is it not political to bring non-European countries into the contest? 'Diversity' is a political notion. The idea that all and sundry must be brought in subverts the original idea of "European-ness."
"Host nations typically use the intermission between performances and the results announcement as an opportunity to "perform their 'European-ness' to one of the biggest television audiences of the year..."
Topping it all off, the winner was Sweden, but the 'Swedish' performer was a Moroccan Berber woman. Is that what 'European-ness' means in 2012?
All the meaning and content of nationality is being drained away when Berbers represent Sweden in a pan-European song contest. Repeat after me: We are all one. There is no such thing as nationality.
I saw a clip of the Turkish entry, and the music was like some kind of Middle-Eastern hip-hop hybrid. The whole look of the event was dark and sinister. Bring back the wholesome, bland Europop of the past; even Clodagh Rogers singing Jack-in-the-Box is far preferable to this sort of scifi Multicult circus which has replaced the old contest.
Words not to use
A list of words and phrases that supposedly draw scrutiny from the Powers That Be have been released. These key words are used, apparently, in monitoring 'social networking sites' and online media.
Some of these are not very uncommon words, and just about all of us will have used them online as well as in other situations.
Wouldn't it be so much easier for security's sake to control who comes and goes in this country? Or to keep an eye on the most likely individuals or groups? Oh no; can't do that. It would be discriminatory and oh-so-unfair.
But like just about everything these days, none of it makes sense. It's not supposed to; it may in fact be disinformation to keep us mindful that we had better not get too free with our 'free speech.'
Some of these are not very uncommon words, and just about all of us will have used them online as well as in other situations.
Wouldn't it be so much easier for security's sake to control who comes and goes in this country? Or to keep an eye on the most likely individuals or groups? Oh no; can't do that. It would be discriminatory and oh-so-unfair.
But like just about everything these days, none of it makes sense. It's not supposed to; it may in fact be disinformation to keep us mindful that we had better not get too free with our 'free speech.'
Saturday, May 26, 2012
The P-word and other slurs
Another tempest in a teapot: someone says a word that is considered an ''ethnic slur''. Of course, the fact that Marion Barry, Washington, D.C. politician and ex-convict, said it is enough to make it newsworthy.
The headline is 'I Misspoke When I Said Polack.'
Has anybody ever been excused for using 'racial slurs' on the grounds that they misspoke?
The first comment at AmRen is from a lady who says she is Polish, and refers to Barry's words as a 'nasty comment.'
Here's my problem though, which perhaps some Polish-speaker can clear up for me. Is not the word 'Polack' the Polish word for a Pole? I've been informed previously that it is. So I checked with Google Translate, and lo and behold, the word 'Pole' translates as 'Polak.'
Unless I'm mistaken the same word is the standard term in other Slavic languages.
Sure, it's fun to call the professional victims 'racists' when they themselves utter a word that's perceived as a slur, but to me, it makes the Polish-American complainers, in this case, look foolish if they don't know the language of their own ancestors.
Personally I'd like to see all this politically correct linguistic game-playing end. It's especially unbecoming when practiced by White people.
And even if someone claims that 'well, it's perceived as a slur nowadays by Polish-Americans' or 'the intent is to demean Poles' or whatever, I still don't see the need to make it a PC crime.
The word 'cracker' is now perceived by many if not most Southron people as an insult, as this page explains, though it originally meant simply the English-descended or Anglo-American settlers of Florida.
The way things are going, the very term 'Southerner' or 'Southern' to describe a person will soon be considered a slur, as the people so described are being villainized.
However, I don't think Poles or Polacks are negatively stereotyped in this country, despite the silly 'Polish jokes' that made the rounds some decades ago. When I was in England some years ago, the same jokes were told about the Irish.
And admit it: every ethnic group probably tells jokes about other nationalities, and sometimes the jokes are harmless. Slang terms to describe other nationalities are ubiquitous and nobody need be 'hurt' by them unless there is true animosity behind them -- as is not the case with the P-word.
The word 'cracker', however, is not quite so benign, considering the sentiments behind it these days.
The headline is 'I Misspoke When I Said Polack.'
Has anybody ever been excused for using 'racial slurs' on the grounds that they misspoke?
The first comment at AmRen is from a lady who says she is Polish, and refers to Barry's words as a 'nasty comment.'
Here's my problem though, which perhaps some Polish-speaker can clear up for me. Is not the word 'Polack' the Polish word for a Pole? I've been informed previously that it is. So I checked with Google Translate, and lo and behold, the word 'Pole' translates as 'Polak.'
Unless I'm mistaken the same word is the standard term in other Slavic languages.
Sure, it's fun to call the professional victims 'racists' when they themselves utter a word that's perceived as a slur, but to me, it makes the Polish-American complainers, in this case, look foolish if they don't know the language of their own ancestors.
Personally I'd like to see all this politically correct linguistic game-playing end. It's especially unbecoming when practiced by White people.
And even if someone claims that 'well, it's perceived as a slur nowadays by Polish-Americans' or 'the intent is to demean Poles' or whatever, I still don't see the need to make it a PC crime.
The word 'cracker' is now perceived by many if not most Southron people as an insult, as this page explains, though it originally meant simply the English-descended or Anglo-American settlers of Florida.
The way things are going, the very term 'Southerner' or 'Southern' to describe a person will soon be considered a slur, as the people so described are being villainized.
However, I don't think Poles or Polacks are negatively stereotyped in this country, despite the silly 'Polish jokes' that made the rounds some decades ago. When I was in England some years ago, the same jokes were told about the Irish.
And admit it: every ethnic group probably tells jokes about other nationalities, and sometimes the jokes are harmless. Slang terms to describe other nationalities are ubiquitous and nobody need be 'hurt' by them unless there is true animosity behind them -- as is not the case with the P-word.
The word 'cracker', however, is not quite so benign, considering the sentiments behind it these days.
Mixed feelings
I know it's tempting to point out the hypocrisy in the recent 'nativist' protests in Israel. After all, Jews as a group, and organized Jewry in this country, have been among the most avid promoters of mass immigration, multiculturalism, and 'diversity' in the Western world.
The 'respectable' right loves to call political opponents 'racist' and ends up essentially arguing for political correctness and multiculturalism by doing so.
Can we call out the hypocrisy of this nativist sentiment in Israel without reinforcing the idea that it isn't 'fair' to object to mass immigration? I can understand the schadenfreude of seeing Israel having to cope with mass Third World immigration and the inevitable problems that accompany it. But the fact is, if we condemn their 'nativism' or 'xenophobia' then we thereby accuse ourselves, which the Left is no doubt very pleased to see us doing.
This immigration crisis in Israel should be an opportunity to discuss the situation, and to point out the double standards at work: Israel for Jews, White (Christian) countries for everybody. However I highly doubt that such a discussion can take place, any more than Eric Holder's 'conversation about race' can happen in the highly charged and politically corrected atmosphere in which we live.
But I do think it's important to resist the temptation to play the race card, neocon-style.
Ethnoloyalty should be the healthy, normal situation for every people, and every country, if it is to be a country in any sense, has the right to limit immigration and to control who enters and who stays.
But we should stop letting ourselves be blackmailed into open borders and open-ended commitments to 'diversity', at the expense of our own survival.
The 'respectable' right loves to call political opponents 'racist' and ends up essentially arguing for political correctness and multiculturalism by doing so.
Can we call out the hypocrisy of this nativist sentiment in Israel without reinforcing the idea that it isn't 'fair' to object to mass immigration? I can understand the schadenfreude of seeing Israel having to cope with mass Third World immigration and the inevitable problems that accompany it. But the fact is, if we condemn their 'nativism' or 'xenophobia' then we thereby accuse ourselves, which the Left is no doubt very pleased to see us doing.
This immigration crisis in Israel should be an opportunity to discuss the situation, and to point out the double standards at work: Israel for Jews, White (Christian) countries for everybody. However I highly doubt that such a discussion can take place, any more than Eric Holder's 'conversation about race' can happen in the highly charged and politically corrected atmosphere in which we live.
But I do think it's important to resist the temptation to play the race card, neocon-style.
Ethnoloyalty should be the healthy, normal situation for every people, and every country, if it is to be a country in any sense, has the right to limit immigration and to control who enters and who stays.
But we should stop letting ourselves be blackmailed into open borders and open-ended commitments to 'diversity', at the expense of our own survival.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Which party is on our side?
And lest you think things have changed since the pamphlet above was printed, read this piece from NRO. It's the usual argument defending the Republicans as the real champions of 'freedom and universal justice' and Democrats as 'the real racists.' Both parties are "anti-racist," and as we know, anti-racist is just another word for anti-White.
Distress over DNA results
Recently I blogged about the Melungeons, who are a people of obscure origins, who mostly live or originate in Appalachia. Now there is a new DNA study which contradicts some of the previous research, and some of those of Melungeon ancestry are not happy with the results.
The AP article here states that some of the more exotic speculations about the Melungeons -- such as descent from ancient Phoenicians -- have been discredited. The results seem to show that the group is descended from African males and European-descended females.
As usual the story is used as a vehicle for the usual multiracial propaganda, the message being that the Melungeons are us, essentially. We are all multiracial, says the man speaking in this video, who is quoted in the story.
This 'we are all' statement is an extravagant one, and not one that is provable. But it's typical of the kind of thing the media tell us repeatedly these days. If they say it often enough, it will be so, seems to be the idea, and they may be right, as the average American somehow believes that race does not exist, yet we are all multiracial. So let's do away with all the divisions between us.
The media seem to spend a lot of time writing and talking about a non-existent subject. But there is a method to their madness.
The AP article here states that some of the more exotic speculations about the Melungeons -- such as descent from ancient Phoenicians -- have been discredited. The results seem to show that the group is descended from African males and European-descended females.
As usual the story is used as a vehicle for the usual multiracial propaganda, the message being that the Melungeons are us, essentially. We are all multiracial, says the man speaking in this video, who is quoted in the story.
This 'we are all' statement is an extravagant one, and not one that is provable. But it's typical of the kind of thing the media tell us repeatedly these days. If they say it often enough, it will be so, seems to be the idea, and they may be right, as the average American somehow believes that race does not exist, yet we are all multiracial. So let's do away with all the divisions between us.
The media seem to spend a lot of time writing and talking about a non-existent subject. But there is a method to their madness.
Doc Watson ill
Doc Watson is reportedly in critical condition as a result of a recent fall. He is 89 years old.
He is considered the greatest flatpicker of our time, and his extraordinary life, starting with his blindness in infancy, is an inspiration.
"Watson was blinded by an eye infection shortly after birth. His talent gave him a way to earn a living, a career he said he probably wouldn't have embarked on without his eyesight limitations.
He toured with his son Merle and has won seven Grammy awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award."
Prayers up for his recovery, and our thoughts go out to his family.
'..claims Cherokee ancestry...offers no proof'
But that's always the case. I wish I had a dollar for every American I've met who claimed 'Native American' (usually Cherokee) blood. None of those I've met can substantiate it beyond family legend and the usual 'high cheekbones' or in this case, 'Grandma's ''beaked nose'' and black eyes.
This has all gone so far into absurdity, that I don't know whether it's comical or pathetic. Both, I would say.
I've heard it conjectured by a few people of those (White, black, or whoever) who claim the fabled 'Cherokee great-grandmother', that the claimants are seeking some kind of legitimacy as a genuine, bona fide American. No descendant of mere 'white genocidal invaders', they are descendants of Cherokee 'princesses', or other such legitimate 'first Americans.' This is all part of the White guilt complex, maybe -- but I have to wonder why it seems to have started long before the present-day romanticizing of the 'Native American', which began in earnest in the 1960s and 70s. In the Northern states, this 'Cherokee ancestry' thing seems to have been less common, especially in areas where many actual Indians lived. It seems to have really flourished in the South. Why, I wonder?
So what is the motive for this latest story of the elusive Cherokee ancestry? Maybe to quell the 'birther' controversy, perhaps? After all, who could be more 'natural-born' than a descendant of the Cherokee? At least by modern standards, that is.
The Americans who claim that 'high cheekbones' or 'black eyes' or 'beaked noses' are clear marks of Native American ancestry surely must not have ever been to Europe, or seen the great variety of facial features that exist among European peoples. There are many different European ethnicities who are known for high cheekbones. Many Europeans have 'black eyes' or very dark brown eyes, many of them actually Celts, notably the Welsh. Many Europeans have a slightly 'beaked' nose. I gather these Cherokee descendants never heard of a Roman nose or an 'aquiline nose', which means "eagle-like."
And the most famous real Cherokee of them all, Sequoyah, who devised a Cherokee syllabary, could pass as a native of some European countries, judging by his portrait.
When will all this nonsense about ancestry and ethnicity stop? I think it's all part of the agenda to confuse everyone thoroughly and to convince us that we're all 'Heinz 57' with no real ethnic identity. We're all one, after all.
Read David Yeagley's take on this story here
This has all gone so far into absurdity, that I don't know whether it's comical or pathetic. Both, I would say.
I've heard it conjectured by a few people of those (White, black, or whoever) who claim the fabled 'Cherokee great-grandmother', that the claimants are seeking some kind of legitimacy as a genuine, bona fide American. No descendant of mere 'white genocidal invaders', they are descendants of Cherokee 'princesses', or other such legitimate 'first Americans.' This is all part of the White guilt complex, maybe -- but I have to wonder why it seems to have started long before the present-day romanticizing of the 'Native American', which began in earnest in the 1960s and 70s. In the Northern states, this 'Cherokee ancestry' thing seems to have been less common, especially in areas where many actual Indians lived. It seems to have really flourished in the South. Why, I wonder?
So what is the motive for this latest story of the elusive Cherokee ancestry? Maybe to quell the 'birther' controversy, perhaps? After all, who could be more 'natural-born' than a descendant of the Cherokee? At least by modern standards, that is.
The Americans who claim that 'high cheekbones' or 'black eyes' or 'beaked noses' are clear marks of Native American ancestry surely must not have ever been to Europe, or seen the great variety of facial features that exist among European peoples. There are many different European ethnicities who are known for high cheekbones. Many Europeans have 'black eyes' or very dark brown eyes, many of them actually Celts, notably the Welsh. Many Europeans have a slightly 'beaked' nose. I gather these Cherokee descendants never heard of a Roman nose or an 'aquiline nose', which means "eagle-like."
And the most famous real Cherokee of them all, Sequoyah, who devised a Cherokee syllabary, could pass as a native of some European countries, judging by his portrait.
When will all this nonsense about ancestry and ethnicity stop? I think it's all part of the agenda to confuse everyone thoroughly and to convince us that we're all 'Heinz 57' with no real ethnic identity. We're all one, after all.
Read David Yeagley's take on this story here
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Is this even news?
Mayor Bloomberg of New York city made some 'controversial' proposals about immigration; all in the interest of 'saving cities', of course.
The article goes on to tell us that Ricardo Salinas, a Mexican multibillionaire, helped fund the "research" behind this study and its brilliant conclusion.
Bloomberg makes the ridiculous accusation that the present regime has outdone the last several administrations in deporting illegals. If only. The 'news media' have been flogging that story for some time now, but I am not buying it; it is just a matter of juggling statistics and twisting verbiage to make it seem as if there are more illegals being sent home.
The quote from Bloomberg -- himself a sterling example of how Ellis Islanders are rarely on our side -- of how the federal government should force some cities or localities to take in immigrants. has drawn some attention, but why? Isn't this already the existing policy of the government? Seems to me as if this idea isn't news at all, because it's just what we see going on every day. So Salinas should have kept his dinero and Bloomberg should have saved his breath. It's already an accomplished fact.
Ratcheting up his controversial proposal for revitalizing America’s cities, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday suggested that the federal government “deliberately force” large municipalities to take in immigrants as the only hope for salvaging their battered economies.
[...]
Bloomberg spoke at a Midtown forum, timed to the release of a new study titled “Not Coming to America: Why the US is Falling Behind in the Global Race for Talent.”
The article goes on to tell us that Ricardo Salinas, a Mexican multibillionaire, helped fund the "research" behind this study and its brilliant conclusion.
Bloomberg makes the ridiculous accusation that the present regime has outdone the last several administrations in deporting illegals. If only. The 'news media' have been flogging that story for some time now, but I am not buying it; it is just a matter of juggling statistics and twisting verbiage to make it seem as if there are more illegals being sent home.
The quote from Bloomberg -- himself a sterling example of how Ellis Islanders are rarely on our side -- of how the federal government should force some cities or localities to take in immigrants. has drawn some attention, but why? Isn't this already the existing policy of the government? Seems to me as if this idea isn't news at all, because it's just what we see going on every day. So Salinas should have kept his dinero and Bloomberg should have saved his breath. It's already an accomplished fact.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The not-always-good old days
Found on a Russian-language blog, the above photo is one of a number of photos of child laborers in America in the early 20th century, before the child labor laws were established. The photographer was Lewis Hine, a former teacher and social worker, who worked later for the National Child Labor Committee, documenting the harsh reality of child labor in our country.
See the rest of the photos at the link. Most of the children in the pictures are White, and one thing that is brought home by the pictures is that yes, we did 'pick our own cotton' back then. It was not a job that was done exclusively by blacks, as is commonly asserted. Nor was it one of the 'jobs that Americans wouldn't do' back in the early 20th century. Later on, in many areas, actual migrant workers (who actually came only for the season) from Mexico did much of this work, as child labor was no longer available.
But it should not be forgotten that our folk once did this work, and that whole families traveled around picking various crops. So the next time some smart-aleck says 'we should have picked our own cotton', remember that we did. Our folk did, and worked as hard as any of the other ''hard-working'' groups did.
Even the children.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Vanishing, 'now more than ever'
I suppose Rich Lowry has to protect his job at National Review. So I will conjecture that he is trying to prove himself to be no John Derbyshire, and to try to pour oil on the troubled racial waters of this present day.
But this article of his, which is about America's attempt to do the impossible, is a rather useless argument in favor of America being able to absorb the Third World population.
Someone says 'but he's only talking about absorbing finite numbers of immigrants, not the entire Third World.' But let's be realistic; it's hard to deny that there are practically limitless numbers of potential Third World immigrants. Africa's population continues to grow by leaps and bounds, which is strange for a supposedly starving and disease-plagued continent, and the populations of Asia and much of Latin America are growing too. Add to this the fact that our borders are wide-open, and that our government has made a de facto pledge to welcome as many as wish to come, and you have a never-ending influx of mass immigration.
Lowry, as with most pro-immigration xenophiles, mentions that America always assimilated the immigrants of the past (pre-1965) era of our history. Well, to an extent, yes. And that's a very qualified 'yes' on my part. But the fact that made any assimilation possible was that, by far, most immigrants then were from European Christendom. Plain and simple.
He invokes the ever-popular-among-respectables 'Judeo-Christian heritage' as another factor that made assimilation succeed. But there is no 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. Judaism and Christianity were not Siamese twins then, and even less so, now.
Most Jews who did immigrate here were fleeing from Christian Europe. Where was this 'Judeo-Christian heritage' then? It had not been invented yet; that was to come with the 'Ecumenical Movement' of the Cold War era, an attempt to establish 'brotherhood' among all Western faiths.
Along the way to his shaky conclusion, Lowry cites some oddball 'facts', such as that in recent surveys, many Hispanics identified themselves as 'White.' Well, people can self-identify as anything, as we've seen with Elizabeth Warren. Even 50 years ago, before the Reagan Amnesty and the flood of Hispanic illegals, many Hispanics identified themselves as White. A small percentage in this country do have some European ancestry, but honestly, few are White enough to be objectively called such.
Again, Lowry cites a poll response (which I believe I cited on this blog recently):
But what does that mean? It is true that many Latin Americans are adamant that everybody in both North and South America are just as much 'American' as citizens of the USA. They resent that people from our country call ourselves just 'Americans'. And I feel sure that even if they think they are 'typical Americans' they remain as ethnocentric as ever. Lowry is grasping at straws here, as most pro-Hispanic Republicans do, arguing that Latinos will all become super-patriots as soon as they 'arrive' financially.
Do people like Lowry really believe that people are interchangeable and that if we just rally around a flag, a document, and a 'common culture', that we can all blend happily together?
I suppose if you add intermarriage to the mix, which is what Lowry subtly promotes in his article, citing with apparent approval that many Asian women marry out, usually with White men.
Lowry's ideal America, then, would be one of indeterminate mixed race, one vague ecumenical religion, and apparently, a common language -- probably Spanglish.
In what real sense would this be 'America'?
And to whose culture would this amorphous group of people be assimilated? I am 100 percent certain it would have little of the original ingredients of this country at its founding.
But if you are a Lowry-style Republican, or even a Glenn Beck style 'conservative' or Republican, that would be just fine with you.
As for the rest of us, we've never been consulted.
But this article of his, which is about America's attempt to do the impossible, is a rather useless argument in favor of America being able to absorb the Third World population.
Someone says 'but he's only talking about absorbing finite numbers of immigrants, not the entire Third World.' But let's be realistic; it's hard to deny that there are practically limitless numbers of potential Third World immigrants. Africa's population continues to grow by leaps and bounds, which is strange for a supposedly starving and disease-plagued continent, and the populations of Asia and much of Latin America are growing too. Add to this the fact that our borders are wide-open, and that our government has made a de facto pledge to welcome as many as wish to come, and you have a never-ending influx of mass immigration.
Lowry, as with most pro-immigration xenophiles, mentions that America always assimilated the immigrants of the past (pre-1965) era of our history. Well, to an extent, yes. And that's a very qualified 'yes' on my part. But the fact that made any assimilation possible was that, by far, most immigrants then were from European Christendom. Plain and simple.
He invokes the ever-popular-among-respectables 'Judeo-Christian heritage' as another factor that made assimilation succeed. But there is no 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. Judaism and Christianity were not Siamese twins then, and even less so, now.
Most Jews who did immigrate here were fleeing from Christian Europe. Where was this 'Judeo-Christian heritage' then? It had not been invented yet; that was to come with the 'Ecumenical Movement' of the Cold War era, an attempt to establish 'brotherhood' among all Western faiths.
Along the way to his shaky conclusion, Lowry cites some oddball 'facts', such as that in recent surveys, many Hispanics identified themselves as 'White.' Well, people can self-identify as anything, as we've seen with Elizabeth Warren. Even 50 years ago, before the Reagan Amnesty and the flood of Hispanic illegals, many Hispanics identified themselves as White. A small percentage in this country do have some European ancestry, but honestly, few are White enough to be objectively called such.
Again, Lowry cites a poll response (which I believe I cited on this blog recently):
"A Pew Hispanic Center survey found that the longer Hispanics are here and the more money they make, the more likely they are to call themselves “typical Americans.”
But what does that mean? It is true that many Latin Americans are adamant that everybody in both North and South America are just as much 'American' as citizens of the USA. They resent that people from our country call ourselves just 'Americans'. And I feel sure that even if they think they are 'typical Americans' they remain as ethnocentric as ever. Lowry is grasping at straws here, as most pro-Hispanic Republicans do, arguing that Latinos will all become super-patriots as soon as they 'arrive' financially.
Do people like Lowry really believe that people are interchangeable and that if we just rally around a flag, a document, and a 'common culture', that we can all blend happily together?
I suppose if you add intermarriage to the mix, which is what Lowry subtly promotes in his article, citing with apparent approval that many Asian women marry out, usually with White men.
Lowry's ideal America, then, would be one of indeterminate mixed race, one vague ecumenical religion, and apparently, a common language -- probably Spanglish.
In what real sense would this be 'America'?
And to whose culture would this amorphous group of people be assimilated? I am 100 percent certain it would have little of the original ingredients of this country at its founding.
But if you are a Lowry-style Republican, or even a Glenn Beck style 'conservative' or Republican, that would be just fine with you.
As for the rest of us, we've never been consulted.
Lack of diversity creates...
...people like the Tinley Park attackers, who committed their crimes out of motives of 'anti-racism' and 'anti-fascism.'
Odd, isn't it, that people who described themselves, from what I've read, as 'dogmatic pacifists' would attack strangers with hammers and batons. Odd that these attackers come from 'white bread' towns in the heartland of the USA. These young men came from small towns in Indiana whose demographics are more representative of 'vanishing America' than of the Diversi-dystopia that has replaced it.
It would appear that in order to develop realistic attitudes, one has to live in a realistic environment, not a 'diversity-starved' area where people might just believe that the media propaganda they see every day is ''reality''. Ignorance does not always mean bliss.
I read on one blog -- whose name I don't recall, as I read a number of sources earlier -- that these brothers have a diversity-enriched family, however, which apparently set them off on their crusade against 'racism' and fascism. This is one element of outmarriage/miscegenation that is often not taken as seriously as it ought to be: it divides families, or if not, it sets the family, oftentimes, against the community if the community or extended clan. It creates a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude regarding racial identity and destroys cohesion. I've seen it happen in certain families.
And leftists, above all, are people who have grievances against the majority, against 'average' people, normal people, and against conventional society, which today is a sort of holdout (at least in small, heartland American towns) against the kumbaya, politically correct neverland in which lefties dwell.
Oddly enough, too, most leftists with a utopian bent (dreaming of a world like that of John Lennon's ''Imagine'', are such bitter, angry, resentful, hostile people, with grudges against everybody who does not share their cracked vision of what the world ought to be.
So these creatures are charged with serious crimes, but will they be judged justly, or will they get a wrist-slap, a light sentence -- if any?
Read the comments on the Sun-Times article, and you will see some people who think that the victims of the attack got what was coming to them, and that the attackers were doing a good deed for 'society.' There are some warped individuals out there.
But there are also some who see things as they are. And it should be obvious to everyone that those who turn on their own people, or who collude with 'others' against their own, are the lowest of the low.
Odd, isn't it, that people who described themselves, from what I've read, as 'dogmatic pacifists' would attack strangers with hammers and batons. Odd that these attackers come from 'white bread' towns in the heartland of the USA. These young men came from small towns in Indiana whose demographics are more representative of 'vanishing America' than of the Diversi-dystopia that has replaced it.
It would appear that in order to develop realistic attitudes, one has to live in a realistic environment, not a 'diversity-starved' area where people might just believe that the media propaganda they see every day is ''reality''. Ignorance does not always mean bliss.
I read on one blog -- whose name I don't recall, as I read a number of sources earlier -- that these brothers have a diversity-enriched family, however, which apparently set them off on their crusade against 'racism' and fascism. This is one element of outmarriage/miscegenation that is often not taken as seriously as it ought to be: it divides families, or if not, it sets the family, oftentimes, against the community if the community or extended clan. It creates a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude regarding racial identity and destroys cohesion. I've seen it happen in certain families.
And leftists, above all, are people who have grievances against the majority, against 'average' people, normal people, and against conventional society, which today is a sort of holdout (at least in small, heartland American towns) against the kumbaya, politically correct neverland in which lefties dwell.
Oddly enough, too, most leftists with a utopian bent (dreaming of a world like that of John Lennon's ''Imagine'', are such bitter, angry, resentful, hostile people, with grudges against everybody who does not share their cracked vision of what the world ought to be.
So these creatures are charged with serious crimes, but will they be judged justly, or will they get a wrist-slap, a light sentence -- if any?
Read the comments on the Sun-Times article, and you will see some people who think that the victims of the attack got what was coming to them, and that the attackers were doing a good deed for 'society.' There are some warped individuals out there.
But there are also some who see things as they are. And it should be obvious to everyone that those who turn on their own people, or who collude with 'others' against their own, are the lowest of the low.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Open season continues
How is this kind of thing happening, given the amount and the level of surveillance of troublemaking groups?
The trouble is, the groups that pretend to be 'watchdogs' for 'hate groups' have their sights aimed in the wrong direction, and knowingly so. The people whose violent acts are announced in advance and boasted about afterwards on the Internet are given free rein, carte blanche, to do as they will. From what I have read, though, their website (one of them, anyway) has been hacked, so their boasting was short-lived.
The comments at The Blaze are surprisingly not as bad as might be expected.
And here is Kyle Rogers' report of the incident.
The 'people' who strangely designate themselves as 'anti'-fascists are conscienceless people, who still somehow fancy themselves as occupying the moral high ground. They, like others who are carrying out wanton violence these days, are being goaded and egged on by the media with their constant propaganda barrage, though that does not absolve them of responsibility for the ugly things they do.
The troubling thing is that such people are apparently being allowed a free hand, if not outright encouraged, while TPTB keep watch on law-abiding people who express a politically incorrect opinion online or in print.
The trouble is, the groups that pretend to be 'watchdogs' for 'hate groups' have their sights aimed in the wrong direction, and knowingly so. The people whose violent acts are announced in advance and boasted about afterwards on the Internet are given free rein, carte blanche, to do as they will. From what I have read, though, their website (one of them, anyway) has been hacked, so their boasting was short-lived.
The comments at The Blaze are surprisingly not as bad as might be expected.
And here is Kyle Rogers' report of the incident.
The 'people' who strangely designate themselves as 'anti'-fascists are conscienceless people, who still somehow fancy themselves as occupying the moral high ground. They, like others who are carrying out wanton violence these days, are being goaded and egged on by the media with their constant propaganda barrage, though that does not absolve them of responsibility for the ugly things they do.
The troubling thing is that such people are apparently being allowed a free hand, if not outright encouraged, while TPTB keep watch on law-abiding people who express a politically incorrect opinion online or in print.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Computer issues
Over much of the past week I've been tied up with computer problems; a nasty virus or malware has infested my computer, and it's proving very difficult to root out. Things are still not quite normal with this computer, despite many hours spent trying to get everything in good order.
So that's where I am at the moment.
So that's where I am at the moment.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
One more time
I write as I write on this blog. I am told now and again that I write too much, I am too verbose.
I've often been told so in a less than polite fashion.
I am not going to be defensive about it. I can say truthfully that there are many bloggers who write blog posts longer than mine, by far, and there are many who do short, terse blog posts. Many out there seem to like that. So be it.
For me, as I read very fast, short posts don't provide much substance. But to each his own. I write what I write, and do little self-editing mainly because I have very limited hours to do this. If you notice the time stamp on my posts, I am burning the midnight oil to do this blog, and it is actually faster to write in a rambling fashion than to go over and over the post to edit it down.
What you see is what you get. I can never please everybody.
I write with a feeling of compulsion to say what I have to say. My style may not be the preferred and officially approved style, but this is it, at least as long as I persist with this blog.
As I am facing eye surgery (due to a vision-threatening condition) I have considered branching out to doing podcasts, if there is any interest.
(P.S.: My notoriously over-long posts take less time to read than would be spent listening to a podcast.)
I've often been told so in a less than polite fashion.
I am not going to be defensive about it. I can say truthfully that there are many bloggers who write blog posts longer than mine, by far, and there are many who do short, terse blog posts. Many out there seem to like that. So be it.
For me, as I read very fast, short posts don't provide much substance. But to each his own. I write what I write, and do little self-editing mainly because I have very limited hours to do this. If you notice the time stamp on my posts, I am burning the midnight oil to do this blog, and it is actually faster to write in a rambling fashion than to go over and over the post to edit it down.
What you see is what you get. I can never please everybody.
I write with a feeling of compulsion to say what I have to say. My style may not be the preferred and officially approved style, but this is it, at least as long as I persist with this blog.
As I am facing eye surgery (due to a vision-threatening condition) I have considered branching out to doing podcasts, if there is any interest.
(P.S.: My notoriously over-long posts take less time to read than would be spent listening to a podcast.)
What's in a name
I've posed the question before on this blog: what label do you apply to yourself? There are various names being used by different people on our side.
John Derbyshire touches on this in asking 'Who Are We? The "Dissident Right"?The discussion at AmRen produces various choices for names. White advocate? WN? 'The White community'?
It still seems as if, for 'mainstream' as well as liberal Americans, the mere mention of the word 'White' is enough to convince them that there is 'extremism' at work. Then they go into attack mode.
As I've said many times, six years ago I started this blog while I was still a 'conservative' albeit a more politically incorrect one than most. Like others I was more focused on mass immigration which today is almost completely from Third World nations. There is no escaping the racial issue when looking honestly at the 'immivasion.'
At that point, I was verging on a paleoconservative point of view, but soon found that I was not in step with many paleos. So I didn't feel quite at home in that camp.
At some later point, I considered myself a 'realist', as with Jared Taylor and many of his readers. Lately, the term 'White advocate' is one I am comfortable with. 'Pro-White,' as an adjective or noun, is satisfactory for me, but then there is that troublesome word 'White.'
At some point, we need, I think, to break through the barrier and make the term White acceptable again.
I am an ethnopatriot, and an ethnoconservative. But I am no 'civic patriot', as I was some years back; ideas and ideologies do not make a nation.
I consider myself primarily a Southron nationalist though I am obviously a bit of a maverick there, as I don't hold with the 'rainbow Confederacy' nonsense, nor some of the other quirks of various factions within the Southron movement.
I also consider myself a generic kinist, holding to most if not all tenets of their belief system.
Am I a WN? I have this problem with WNism: I don't believe that Whiteness can trump our allegiances to our nearer kin. I have a problem with those WNs who believe, for example it is wrong to object to people immigrating en masse from other White countries. There are many Russians and Ukrainians in my area, and they do not assimilate or socialize with us, yet the WN viewpoint is that because of their color, they have a right to be here.
Skin color can't unite people except in a defensive way; we should make common cause with people of European origins, of former Christendom. But we do not belong to a common 'White nation' with everybody in Europe. I doubt seriously that many Europeans would subscribe to that idea, though they and we might and should make common cause against the globalist multicult.
I am a loyalist when it comes to my kin and kind, but my first allegiances are to those closest to me. Still, I feel that many of you out there are my brothers and sisters, though you may come from a different region or country. I am not exclusivist based on regions or countries.
That's where I am at this moment; I don't fit most categories a hundred percent, but I accept that there are many different names and labels, though they don't negate the commonalities we have, all of us on our side, and we must not let differences on minor points divide us.
What label do you claim for yourself? Where do you stand on this?
John Derbyshire touches on this in asking 'Who Are We? The "Dissident Right"?The discussion at AmRen produces various choices for names. White advocate? WN? 'The White community'?
It still seems as if, for 'mainstream' as well as liberal Americans, the mere mention of the word 'White' is enough to convince them that there is 'extremism' at work. Then they go into attack mode.
As I've said many times, six years ago I started this blog while I was still a 'conservative' albeit a more politically incorrect one than most. Like others I was more focused on mass immigration which today is almost completely from Third World nations. There is no escaping the racial issue when looking honestly at the 'immivasion.'
At that point, I was verging on a paleoconservative point of view, but soon found that I was not in step with many paleos. So I didn't feel quite at home in that camp.
At some later point, I considered myself a 'realist', as with Jared Taylor and many of his readers. Lately, the term 'White advocate' is one I am comfortable with. 'Pro-White,' as an adjective or noun, is satisfactory for me, but then there is that troublesome word 'White.'
At some point, we need, I think, to break through the barrier and make the term White acceptable again.
I am an ethnopatriot, and an ethnoconservative. But I am no 'civic patriot', as I was some years back; ideas and ideologies do not make a nation.
I consider myself primarily a Southron nationalist though I am obviously a bit of a maverick there, as I don't hold with the 'rainbow Confederacy' nonsense, nor some of the other quirks of various factions within the Southron movement.
I also consider myself a generic kinist, holding to most if not all tenets of their belief system.
Am I a WN? I have this problem with WNism: I don't believe that Whiteness can trump our allegiances to our nearer kin. I have a problem with those WNs who believe, for example it is wrong to object to people immigrating en masse from other White countries. There are many Russians and Ukrainians in my area, and they do not assimilate or socialize with us, yet the WN viewpoint is that because of their color, they have a right to be here.
Skin color can't unite people except in a defensive way; we should make common cause with people of European origins, of former Christendom. But we do not belong to a common 'White nation' with everybody in Europe. I doubt seriously that many Europeans would subscribe to that idea, though they and we might and should make common cause against the globalist multicult.
I am a loyalist when it comes to my kin and kind, but my first allegiances are to those closest to me. Still, I feel that many of you out there are my brothers and sisters, though you may come from a different region or country. I am not exclusivist based on regions or countries.
That's where I am at this moment; I don't fit most categories a hundred percent, but I accept that there are many different names and labels, though they don't negate the commonalities we have, all of us on our side, and we must not let differences on minor points divide us.
What label do you claim for yourself? Where do you stand on this?
Friday, May 11, 2012
Ignorant, judgmental extremists
I saw this, was disgusted by it, and then passed it by as a topic for a blog post, but the topic has been brought up here and is still being heatedly discussed here and there. It's surprising how vehemently some people are defending this behavior.
First, my immediate reaction beyond 'ick' is that Time is trying to gin up some controversy; it's publicity, and all these PC 'mainstream media' mouthpieces are failing financially. If they are not, they deserve to be. But any publicity is good for business, is the general rule.
The story -- although it represents a rather aberrant practice -- ties in with a lot of social trends, mainly the sexualization of nearly everything in our culture, including children. Most commenters -- or commentators (by whom I mean paid media figures) seem to avoid or miss this aspect of it. Breastfeeding women are obviously sexualized in our libidinous culture. And the child in the picture, by extension, is also part of that, repellent as the idea is (or should be).
The woman seems to be luxuriating in the attention. It's trite by now to say that she is a 'look at me', narcissistic type. The fact of her adopting and breastfeeding a Third World child, as well as her natural child, is also part of the 'look at me; I'm so wonderfully special' attitude.
But behind all this is the feminist movement, which in turn is part of the whole counterculture circus which has dominated our society for the last half-century. And it's all part of the larger picture of deconstructing our society, turning everything on its head, calling evil good, and good, evil. It's all Frankfurt School theatrics.
Just to look back culturally at attitudes on breastfeeding, I remember from my childhood that many women breast-fed in the late 50s and early 60s, before the Counterculture reared its ugly hairy head. However, breast-feeding, while dealt with matter-of-factly, was not something that respectable women would do in public. It was private, (just as childbirth once was, unlike today when the whole family, in-laws and all, are watching mothers give birth, whether via video or in person). But breast-feeding was done discreetly, only among other womenfolk if there was a group present, or with only younger children present, not the whole family.
The post-modern take on the above is that people back then were oh so 'repressed', so inhibited, so ashamed of bodily functions. How backward; how uptight. How mid-Victorian. Nowadays, of course, we are so much freer and more honest and open. Aren't we deserving of praise, we 21st century enlightened people, enlightened by Oprah, Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, and Abraham Maslow.
But though many women back in 1960, BPC (Before Political Correctness) breast-fed, they did so privately and with modesty. Were they uptight, or just too classy to flaunt their breasts publicly, or give birth before an audience?
But even before the hippie movement, an advanced stage of the social revolution, happened, with its promotion of natural everything (natural childbirth, children sharing a bed with parents, breastfeeding) there was the La Leche League, which, founded in 1956, grew to be an international organization with a degree of influence. Who exactly was funding them is not clear to me.
At the time of the campaign to encourage breast-feeding, many women bottle-fed their children with evaporated milk, mixed with sweetener and water. Although some today cringe in horror from the idea of that, it did not seem to have harmed the generations of children who were brought up on it. In my opinion, the advent of commercial baby formula, which was a much more expensive option, brought a great many problems of its own. By the late 60s or so, it seemed most women fed their children commercial formula, though there were problems: melamine found in formula, contamination by insects, and so on. Yet its use was widespread, and hospitals pushed the use of it. Marketing and advertising seemed very effective in establishing this as the alternative to the old-fashioned evaporated milk formula mixed at home.
At the same time that breast-feeding was being touted as the only choice for caring parents, the feminist movement was on the march, promoting the idea that women should postpone, if not avoid, marriage, and keep their families as small as possible if they did marry. And then, as the 60s and 70s rolled on, the message was that if you must have children, by all means put them in day care or persuade your 'partner' to be a house-husband so you can go out and make a career for yourself. Domestic life, homemaking, cooking, tending to children, was unworthy of any woman with a brain or with any 'self-esteem.' So they said.
So there was very much a mixed message: on the one hand, marriage and childbearing is demeaning. It's slavery. It's unworthy of women. It's boring and stultifying. Yet the other message was that women should emulate Third World women and adopt Third World child-rearing habits, such as breastfeeding to a later age as more 'natural' cultures were said to do. Breastfeeding was touted as the best choice for the health-conscious mother. The counterculture tended (and still does) toward food-faddism and food prudery. Natural, raw, organic.
Yet breast-feeding poses its own health issues. We do live in a society in which a great number of people are on prescription antidepressants and other medications. This poses a hazard with breast-feeding. We also have a number of heavy drinkers and drug users, especially among the younger age groups. How many of these breast-feed? Obviously there are cases where it is not a healthy option.
I am not sure how women who follow these trends reconcile their desire to compete with men in a men's world, with the domestic life, in which they are busy breastfeeding their child and/or preparing organic, healthy meals for everyone. The two images of domestic bliss along with the feminist idealization of the working world are not reconcilable.
The catchphrase is always 'quality, not quantity', and many of these driven women talk of 'quality time' with their kids while they also seek to 'take time for myself' and have 'girls' night out' with female friends, and still pursue the career.
Perhaps this 'extreme breastfeeding' fetish (and it is just that, a fetish in some case) is a way of trying to compensate for not devoting full time or attention to the small-and-ideal family.
To return to the public reaction to the sensationalized Time story, the majority seem turned off by it, while a sizeable minority, mainly of women, fiercely defend breast-feeding, even of the 'extreme' and atypical kind shown in the photo. To them, breast-feeding is such an absolute good that it is wrong to put any curbs or social sanctions on any manifestation of it. Public breastfeeding? Why not? these women say. "Don't sexualize it!" they say, but the fact is, it is alreadly sexualized because that is the nature of our lascivious society. Once upon a time, it was thought of as a natural function, though innately private, to be kept discreet. But now, our society seems to balk at any limits and boundaries, seeking absolute 'freedom' to do whatever we like, even if our public standards suffer by it, even if many people are offended or 'grossed out' by the less modest among us.
Just as with so many normal and natural things, this breastfeeding issue is being distorted out of all recognition. And the extremists and exhibitionists seem to be winning the day, as in most things, while the normal and sane people are marginalized. Just read the comments on the Time website, and you see yet another example of how divided we are as a society; we no longer share widely-accepted standards of propriety, morality, or even simple public manners and courtesy.
Notice how the clashing commenters call each other 'ignorant' and 'judgmental.' Those terms are almost always the retorts preferred by the liberal types. The latter label, "judgmental", is ironic when the very fact of calling someone 'judgmental' is itself a judgment.
But such is life in the world through the looking-glass, in 2012.
First, my immediate reaction beyond 'ick' is that Time is trying to gin up some controversy; it's publicity, and all these PC 'mainstream media' mouthpieces are failing financially. If they are not, they deserve to be. But any publicity is good for business, is the general rule.
The story -- although it represents a rather aberrant practice -- ties in with a lot of social trends, mainly the sexualization of nearly everything in our culture, including children. Most commenters -- or commentators (by whom I mean paid media figures) seem to avoid or miss this aspect of it. Breastfeeding women are obviously sexualized in our libidinous culture. And the child in the picture, by extension, is also part of that, repellent as the idea is (or should be).
The woman seems to be luxuriating in the attention. It's trite by now to say that she is a 'look at me', narcissistic type. The fact of her adopting and breastfeeding a Third World child, as well as her natural child, is also part of the 'look at me; I'm so wonderfully special' attitude.
But behind all this is the feminist movement, which in turn is part of the whole counterculture circus which has dominated our society for the last half-century. And it's all part of the larger picture of deconstructing our society, turning everything on its head, calling evil good, and good, evil. It's all Frankfurt School theatrics.
Just to look back culturally at attitudes on breastfeeding, I remember from my childhood that many women breast-fed in the late 50s and early 60s, before the Counterculture reared its ugly hairy head. However, breast-feeding, while dealt with matter-of-factly, was not something that respectable women would do in public. It was private, (just as childbirth once was, unlike today when the whole family, in-laws and all, are watching mothers give birth, whether via video or in person). But breast-feeding was done discreetly, only among other womenfolk if there was a group present, or with only younger children present, not the whole family.
The post-modern take on the above is that people back then were oh so 'repressed', so inhibited, so ashamed of bodily functions. How backward; how uptight. How mid-Victorian. Nowadays, of course, we are so much freer and more honest and open. Aren't we deserving of praise, we 21st century enlightened people, enlightened by Oprah, Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, and Abraham Maslow.
But though many women back in 1960, BPC (Before Political Correctness) breast-fed, they did so privately and with modesty. Were they uptight, or just too classy to flaunt their breasts publicly, or give birth before an audience?
But even before the hippie movement, an advanced stage of the social revolution, happened, with its promotion of natural everything (natural childbirth, children sharing a bed with parents, breastfeeding) there was the La Leche League, which, founded in 1956, grew to be an international organization with a degree of influence. Who exactly was funding them is not clear to me.
At the time of the campaign to encourage breast-feeding, many women bottle-fed their children with evaporated milk, mixed with sweetener and water. Although some today cringe in horror from the idea of that, it did not seem to have harmed the generations of children who were brought up on it. In my opinion, the advent of commercial baby formula, which was a much more expensive option, brought a great many problems of its own. By the late 60s or so, it seemed most women fed their children commercial formula, though there were problems: melamine found in formula, contamination by insects, and so on. Yet its use was widespread, and hospitals pushed the use of it. Marketing and advertising seemed very effective in establishing this as the alternative to the old-fashioned evaporated milk formula mixed at home.
At the same time that breast-feeding was being touted as the only choice for caring parents, the feminist movement was on the march, promoting the idea that women should postpone, if not avoid, marriage, and keep their families as small as possible if they did marry. And then, as the 60s and 70s rolled on, the message was that if you must have children, by all means put them in day care or persuade your 'partner' to be a house-husband so you can go out and make a career for yourself. Domestic life, homemaking, cooking, tending to children, was unworthy of any woman with a brain or with any 'self-esteem.' So they said.
So there was very much a mixed message: on the one hand, marriage and childbearing is demeaning. It's slavery. It's unworthy of women. It's boring and stultifying. Yet the other message was that women should emulate Third World women and adopt Third World child-rearing habits, such as breastfeeding to a later age as more 'natural' cultures were said to do. Breastfeeding was touted as the best choice for the health-conscious mother. The counterculture tended (and still does) toward food-faddism and food prudery. Natural, raw, organic.
Yet breast-feeding poses its own health issues. We do live in a society in which a great number of people are on prescription antidepressants and other medications. This poses a hazard with breast-feeding. We also have a number of heavy drinkers and drug users, especially among the younger age groups. How many of these breast-feed? Obviously there are cases where it is not a healthy option.
I am not sure how women who follow these trends reconcile their desire to compete with men in a men's world, with the domestic life, in which they are busy breastfeeding their child and/or preparing organic, healthy meals for everyone. The two images of domestic bliss along with the feminist idealization of the working world are not reconcilable.
The catchphrase is always 'quality, not quantity', and many of these driven women talk of 'quality time' with their kids while they also seek to 'take time for myself' and have 'girls' night out' with female friends, and still pursue the career.
Perhaps this 'extreme breastfeeding' fetish (and it is just that, a fetish in some case) is a way of trying to compensate for not devoting full time or attention to the small-and-ideal family.
To return to the public reaction to the sensationalized Time story, the majority seem turned off by it, while a sizeable minority, mainly of women, fiercely defend breast-feeding, even of the 'extreme' and atypical kind shown in the photo. To them, breast-feeding is such an absolute good that it is wrong to put any curbs or social sanctions on any manifestation of it. Public breastfeeding? Why not? these women say. "Don't sexualize it!" they say, but the fact is, it is alreadly sexualized because that is the nature of our lascivious society. Once upon a time, it was thought of as a natural function, though innately private, to be kept discreet. But now, our society seems to balk at any limits and boundaries, seeking absolute 'freedom' to do whatever we like, even if our public standards suffer by it, even if many people are offended or 'grossed out' by the less modest among us.
Just as with so many normal and natural things, this breastfeeding issue is being distorted out of all recognition. And the extremists and exhibitionists seem to be winning the day, as in most things, while the normal and sane people are marginalized. Just read the comments on the Time website, and you see yet another example of how divided we are as a society; we no longer share widely-accepted standards of propriety, morality, or even simple public manners and courtesy.
Notice how the clashing commenters call each other 'ignorant' and 'judgmental.' Those terms are almost always the retorts preferred by the liberal types. The latter label, "judgmental", is ironic when the very fact of calling someone 'judgmental' is itself a judgment.
But such is life in the world through the looking-glass, in 2012.
Is this what it comes down to?
A CNN 'legal analyst' is prepared to absolve George Zimmerman of 'racial motives' in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.
Why? Because of his 'roots.' The legal points involved apparently don't matter.
Oh, well, that's all right then. If he were White, as the media originally decreed him to be, or even ''White Hispanic'', the label they invented just for him, then he would still be a 'bigot', and guilty.
How blatant can it be that race is the be-all and the end-all in this case? There's no pretense otherwise at this point.
And from now on, it will be a given that only one group of people, belonging to that 'social construct' they call the White race, will be considered capable of 'bigotry' and 'hate crime.'
Of course that was always so, but now it's open.
Why? Because of his 'roots.' The legal points involved apparently don't matter.
''Joining Piers Morgan for a live interview, the CNN legal analyst shared an exclusive photograph which suggests Zimmerman has black heritage:
"The man in the middle is apparently George Zimmerman's great-grandfather. The woman above him, is in fact his grandmother who is half black," explained Nejame. "And the little child in the gentleman's lap, is his mother. So we see that he really has signifcant multiracial, multicultural roots."
Oh, well, that's all right then. If he were White, as the media originally decreed him to be, or even ''White Hispanic'', the label they invented just for him, then he would still be a 'bigot', and guilty.
How blatant can it be that race is the be-all and the end-all in this case? There's no pretense otherwise at this point.
And from now on, it will be a given that only one group of people, belonging to that 'social construct' they call the White race, will be considered capable of 'bigotry' and 'hate crime.'
Of course that was always so, but now it's open.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
'Making a choice'
The recent attack on concert-goers in Newark, N.J. as they left after a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert follows the well-established pattern for many such attacks lately. We all know about who is attacking whom in these various mob attacks.
Maybe the 'mainstream' media assume we don't need to be told anything about the physical description of the attacker, because they exclude such information from their ''reports'' of late.
But yet when a suspect -- or a known assailant, not even just a suspect -- is White, there is no such coyness about race or complexion. Headlines trumpet that 'White male suspect sought'.
Are there still any local news outlets that report race when describing a suspect? All those with which I'm familiar pointedly omit it, unless the race is White. All the newspaper reports seem to follow the same protocol, and a few years ago I seem to remember an article in which various editors and publishers admitted that they think race is irrelevant, or that revealing it leads to 'profiling', which must be avoided even at the cost of human life, apparently. We know that it is a widespread practice, if not quite universal yet.
So the article by Kyle Rogers, in which the 'news reporter' from the local Newark rag, the Star-Ledger, defends withholding racial information, is not a surprise. But it seems that the reporter was especially surly and insolent in justifying his omission. His photo reveals him to be a typical young urban liberal, at least if looks mean anything. I maintain, of course, that looks do mean something. When a crime is committed or even attempted, and a suspect or suspects sought, the public should be given every possible detail about the appearance of the suspect(s). Otherwise the news media reveal themselves to be less than honest, as well as totally careless with the safety of the public they pretend to cater to.
The police departments, even more so. I think the police departments often hold back from telling us anything that might lead to 'profiling', which shows them, too, to be reckless with the safety of the public. I remember when the Brian Nichols courthouse rampage happened in Atlanta in 2005. At that time, when Nichols was still on the run and still committing crimes, the media bizarrely described him as having a 'medium complexion.' Look at the photo at the link in the previous sentence. Is that a 'medium complexion'? No racial descriptor was offered, and I thus wondered if he was a 'diversity', though his name sounded 'White.' But it appeared that the police and the media wanted to avoid telling us his race, and lo and behold, when he was arrested he was shown to be -- not White. But we are not supposed to think about such things; if we do think of them, we are de facto thought criminals.
Since that case it seems that a suspect's race is deemed private information, and we get only vague descriptions, so vague as to be useless, such as 'the suspect is described as a male, about 25 years old, 5'9'', wearing a black jacket.'' But if he's White, we are told so.
In the Kyle Rogers article, he relates his conversation with an employee of an NBC affiliate station, wherein she explains their policy:
Fair enough. ''Making a decision'' is just what I would call ''profiling.'' If I make a decision to avoid people of a certain demographic because of their known proclivity for violence or other crime, that, too is a valid and justifiable 'decision.'
There is a one-word synonym for ''making a decision'': the word is 'discriminate.'
Discrimination has been made out to be an evil thing, when in fact it is just discerning and making an informed choice.
The media and the other politically correct stooges in our society feel justified in 'making a decision' that affects us adversely, and we should feel equally entitled to make decisions of our own, and to look out for our own safety, despite their efforts to thwart us in that respect.
Maybe the 'mainstream' media assume we don't need to be told anything about the physical description of the attacker, because they exclude such information from their ''reports'' of late.
But yet when a suspect -- or a known assailant, not even just a suspect -- is White, there is no such coyness about race or complexion. Headlines trumpet that 'White male suspect sought'.
Are there still any local news outlets that report race when describing a suspect? All those with which I'm familiar pointedly omit it, unless the race is White. All the newspaper reports seem to follow the same protocol, and a few years ago I seem to remember an article in which various editors and publishers admitted that they think race is irrelevant, or that revealing it leads to 'profiling', which must be avoided even at the cost of human life, apparently. We know that it is a widespread practice, if not quite universal yet.
So the article by Kyle Rogers, in which the 'news reporter' from the local Newark rag, the Star-Ledger, defends withholding racial information, is not a surprise. But it seems that the reporter was especially surly and insolent in justifying his omission. His photo reveals him to be a typical young urban liberal, at least if looks mean anything. I maintain, of course, that looks do mean something. When a crime is committed or even attempted, and a suspect or suspects sought, the public should be given every possible detail about the appearance of the suspect(s). Otherwise the news media reveal themselves to be less than honest, as well as totally careless with the safety of the public they pretend to cater to.
The police departments, even more so. I think the police departments often hold back from telling us anything that might lead to 'profiling', which shows them, too, to be reckless with the safety of the public. I remember when the Brian Nichols courthouse rampage happened in Atlanta in 2005. At that time, when Nichols was still on the run and still committing crimes, the media bizarrely described him as having a 'medium complexion.' Look at the photo at the link in the previous sentence. Is that a 'medium complexion'? No racial descriptor was offered, and I thus wondered if he was a 'diversity', though his name sounded 'White.' But it appeared that the police and the media wanted to avoid telling us his race, and lo and behold, when he was arrested he was shown to be -- not White. But we are not supposed to think about such things; if we do think of them, we are de facto thought criminals.
Since that case it seems that a suspect's race is deemed private information, and we get only vague descriptions, so vague as to be useless, such as 'the suspect is described as a male, about 25 years old, 5'9'', wearing a black jacket.'' But if he's White, we are told so.
In the Kyle Rogers article, he relates his conversation with an employee of an NBC affiliate station, wherein she explains their policy:
Recently I called WYFF Greenville, an NBC affiliate. I found two articles on their website about attempted burglaries, where a home owner scared the suspect off. One of the stories has detailed information about the perps' clothing, but omits his race. The other story lists the perp as white. I asked why one was censored and not the other. The woman who answers their main phone said that employees of the studio have staff meetings and decide which stories to censor race and which ones not to censor race. She said she wouldn't characterize it as "censorship," but as "making a decision."
Fair enough. ''Making a decision'' is just what I would call ''profiling.'' If I make a decision to avoid people of a certain demographic because of their known proclivity for violence or other crime, that, too is a valid and justifiable 'decision.'
There is a one-word synonym for ''making a decision'': the word is 'discriminate.'
Discrimination has been made out to be an evil thing, when in fact it is just discerning and making an informed choice.
The media and the other politically correct stooges in our society feel justified in 'making a decision' that affects us adversely, and we should feel equally entitled to make decisions of our own, and to look out for our own safety, despite their efforts to thwart us in that respect.
Taking His name in vain
Isn't this an example of taking the Lord's name in vain, and worse, implying his approval of same-sex ''marriage''?
Will there be any response from the supposedly conservative American electorate on this?
Sadly, I think there will be very little.
Most of us are not surprised by this announcement, but it still makes your head spin to see how fast things have moved in the last 3+ years.
“This is something that, you know, [Michelle and I have] talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated…”
Will there be any response from the supposedly conservative American electorate on this?
Sadly, I think there will be very little.
Most of us are not surprised by this announcement, but it still makes your head spin to see how fast things have moved in the last 3+ years.
Vandalized America
A small glimmer of hope:
There's some good news here in that there is a little resistance to the outrage of these immigration lawsuits. The outlook for this amendment is not good, realistically, but at least there are signs of life in Congress.
I continue to like what I have seen of Lou Barletta, now a Congressman from Pennsylvania. There are too few like him.
And speaking of immigration, someone at Free Republic re-posted this piece by Victor Davis Hanson. It appeared last December, and it describes how his area of central California is entering a 'dark age', with vandalism and destruction that the 'authorities' seem powerless to stop. But then this was predictable to anyone who had a realistic attitude about the demographic tsunami of illegal (and legal) immigration in California.
Hanson describes the destruction here:
When these 'mysterious' copper thefts were first talked about widely some years back, my first thought was that it was being done by immigrants. But few people were willing to mention that possibility, because it would be 'racist', wouldn't it? Hanson, to his credit, notes that the vandalism is mostly being done by Mexican immigrants, and that people are mostly silent about this fact.
Hanson says:
He just can't suppress his liberal impulses, the desire to issue a hasty disclaimer that the culprits are 'a criminal subset' who do not represent the 'largely successful, increasingly integrated' Mexican population.
Really, this kind of thinking hampers us enormously in dealing with the ongoing disaster of mass immigration. Problems accompany mass third-world immigration; the crime rate inevitably rises. Neighborhoods, then whole towns and cities, deteriorate. Flight of productive citizens is next, and whole areas fall to the interlopers, as things start to crumble, in some cases, physically so, as in the instances cited by Hanson.
I don't know why liberals, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, refuse to see that they are resigning themselves to this prolonged disaster by choosing to believe that 'oh well, it's just a few bad apples, and the rest are good, hard-working people.' It's not fair to profile or to blame the 'good ones' for the devastation wrought by the supposed 'few' bad ones.
We are resigning ourselves to destruction by playing this game of 'see no evil,' feeling that we have to redouble our efforts to be 'inclusive' and 'welcoming' toward the immigrants who are not out visibly vandalizing our neighborhoods. Never mind that there are many ways to destroy a town or a state or a country, some of them more insidious and therefore easier to sweep under the carpet.
We can't keep on accepting the destruction of our country and our livelihoods and our folk just for the sake of being 'fair' to the 'hard-working, law-abiding' immigrants.
As I've said before in the context of Moslem immigration, no, they are not all terrorists but the ''few'' who are, are using the apparently benign ones as cover. The many who seem 'integrated' are in effect creating good PR which helps those who are not well-intentioned.
By degrees, people come to accept the destruction caused by mass immigration as an inevitability, a force of nature, and they convince themselves that it is worth it because some of them are not so bad, after all. Not all of them are criminals or terrorists. The implicit meaning of that phrase, ''not all of them'' is that yes, some of them are criminals or terrorists. And that this is OK.
Why don't people ask themselves: how much crime or terrorism or destruction is tolerable? A little? Can there be a 'moderate' amount of crime and destruction and displacement that is acceptable? It seems people are willing to compromise, and say that yes, we can tolerate a certain level of such disorder and chaos. If a few of our folk, or we ourselves, end up being victimized in some way, well, that's just life. There's no avoiding it.
This is the way it happens; not with a bang, but a whimper.
Are political means, like the measure just passed by the House, a solution to this crisis? Sadly, probably not, but at least there is life enough in some of us to try to solve the problem, and to deal with it before it is completely irreversible.
''The House voted early Wednesday morning to stop the Obama administration's lawsuits against state immigration laws.
The amendment, which strips funding so that the Justice Department cannot pursue the lawsuits, passed 238-173. Twelve Democrats voted for it, while six Republicans voted against it.
The amendment specifically applies to laws in Arizona, Oklahoma, Missouri, Utah, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Indiana. The Obama administration and immigrant-rights groups have sued to block laws in each of those states.
"Instead of using tax dollars to sue states, the Department of Justice and other branches of this government should start focusing on enforcing existing immigration laws," said Rep. Lou Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican who as mayor of Hazleton oversaw a city ordinance cracking down on illegal immigration. "Until they do, the Department of Justice should not receive one federal tax dollar to sue states."
There's some good news here in that there is a little resistance to the outrage of these immigration lawsuits. The outlook for this amendment is not good, realistically, but at least there are signs of life in Congress.
I continue to like what I have seen of Lou Barletta, now a Congressman from Pennsylvania. There are too few like him.
And speaking of immigration, someone at Free Republic re-posted this piece by Victor Davis Hanson. It appeared last December, and it describes how his area of central California is entering a 'dark age', with vandalism and destruction that the 'authorities' seem powerless to stop. But then this was predictable to anyone who had a realistic attitude about the demographic tsunami of illegal (and legal) immigration in California.
Hanson describes the destruction here:
''The city of Fresno is now under siege. Hundreds of street lights are out, their copper wire stripped away. In desperation, workers are now cementing the bases of all the poles — as if the original steel access doors were not necessary to service the wiring. How sad the synergy! Since darkness begets crime, the thieves achieve a twofer: The more copper they steal, the easier under cover of spreading night it is to steal more. Yet do thieves themselves at home with their wives and children not sometimes appreciate light in the darkness? Do they vandalize the street lights in front of their own homes?
In a small town two miles away, the thefts now sound like something out of Edward Gibbon’s bleaker chapters — or maybe George Miller’s Road Warrior, or the Hughes brothers’ more recent The Book of Eli. Hundreds of bronze commemorative plaques were ripped off my town’s public buildings (and with them all record of our ancestors’ public-spiritedness). I guess that is our version of Trotskyization.''
When these 'mysterious' copper thefts were first talked about widely some years back, my first thought was that it was being done by immigrants. But few people were willing to mention that possibility, because it would be 'racist', wouldn't it? Hanson, to his credit, notes that the vandalism is mostly being done by Mexican immigrants, and that people are mostly silent about this fact.
Hanson says:
''In the vast majority of cases, rural central California is being vandalized by gangs of young Mexican nationals or Mexican-Americans — in the latter case, a criminal subset of an otherwise largely successful and increasingly integrated and assimilated near majority of the state’s population.''
He just can't suppress his liberal impulses, the desire to issue a hasty disclaimer that the culprits are 'a criminal subset' who do not represent the 'largely successful, increasingly integrated' Mexican population.
Really, this kind of thinking hampers us enormously in dealing with the ongoing disaster of mass immigration. Problems accompany mass third-world immigration; the crime rate inevitably rises. Neighborhoods, then whole towns and cities, deteriorate. Flight of productive citizens is next, and whole areas fall to the interlopers, as things start to crumble, in some cases, physically so, as in the instances cited by Hanson.
I don't know why liberals, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, refuse to see that they are resigning themselves to this prolonged disaster by choosing to believe that 'oh well, it's just a few bad apples, and the rest are good, hard-working people.' It's not fair to profile or to blame the 'good ones' for the devastation wrought by the supposed 'few' bad ones.
We are resigning ourselves to destruction by playing this game of 'see no evil,' feeling that we have to redouble our efforts to be 'inclusive' and 'welcoming' toward the immigrants who are not out visibly vandalizing our neighborhoods. Never mind that there are many ways to destroy a town or a state or a country, some of them more insidious and therefore easier to sweep under the carpet.
We can't keep on accepting the destruction of our country and our livelihoods and our folk just for the sake of being 'fair' to the 'hard-working, law-abiding' immigrants.
As I've said before in the context of Moslem immigration, no, they are not all terrorists but the ''few'' who are, are using the apparently benign ones as cover. The many who seem 'integrated' are in effect creating good PR which helps those who are not well-intentioned.
By degrees, people come to accept the destruction caused by mass immigration as an inevitability, a force of nature, and they convince themselves that it is worth it because some of them are not so bad, after all. Not all of them are criminals or terrorists. The implicit meaning of that phrase, ''not all of them'' is that yes, some of them are criminals or terrorists. And that this is OK.
Why don't people ask themselves: how much crime or terrorism or destruction is tolerable? A little? Can there be a 'moderate' amount of crime and destruction and displacement that is acceptable? It seems people are willing to compromise, and say that yes, we can tolerate a certain level of such disorder and chaos. If a few of our folk, or we ourselves, end up being victimized in some way, well, that's just life. There's no avoiding it.
This is the way it happens; not with a bang, but a whimper.
Are political means, like the measure just passed by the House, a solution to this crisis? Sadly, probably not, but at least there is life enough in some of us to try to solve the problem, and to deal with it before it is completely irreversible.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Some disturbing stories
A few disturbing news articles involving babies, symptomatic of the evils of our time.
In order of their disturbing-ness, in reverse: first, babies are racist, as if we hadn't already heard this 'news' from other 'scientific studies' in the past.
Actually it was called to my attention, when I was a young mother, by a helpful 'youth' who more or less accused my child, (then, about a year old) of 'racism'. Because my child was looking at the 'youth' over my shoulder when we were out in public, this young man of about 18 years old, said loudly to my child: ''What's the matter, little White baby? Ain't you ever seen a [N-word] before?'
The message -- meant for me, of course -- was that my ''little White baby'' was a bigot. So now there is science to back up that accusation. Yes, little White babies who cannot talk yet are bigots, and the article quotes the experts saying ominously that it was vital to 'understand the nature of these biases in order to reduce or eliminate' them. The speaker talking dispassionately about -- what? Indoctrinating or conditioning babies? -- was Lisa Scott, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
This is scary. It seems that more and more, parents are encouraged if not pressured to leave their children in day care and to start them in theindoctrination centers schools as early as possible, during their toddler years.
Parents, raise your young ones yourselves, and homeschool. Even more important, avoid TV and Hollywood movies, as well as advertising propaganda. We are subjected to far too much propaganda and manipulation as adults; it should horrify us to have our children's minds and natural reactions tampered with.
The second story involving babies is this one, involving a baby mill in India, with its product being artificially conceived White children, carried in the wombs of poor women in India who are being paid for the use of their wombs. Everybody, but everybody, in this scenario is being dehumanized.
I can hardly describe how revolting this whole process sounds, with people requesting babies created to order, and others selling ova or sperm, while the surrogate mothers sell or rent their wombs out.
Could Huxley have imagined anything this depraved?
Are our reproductive cells, and the lives of our children, now just one more commodity, created to order, sold for a price? This makes me think of Revelation 18, where it describes the merchandise of Babylon, including human souls for sale.
This story reflects what happens when an overweening and amoral scientific establishment caters to the soulless demands of corrupt people who are desperate to acquire a baby by whatever means.
And please don't tell me that there are pitiable childless couples who have a 'right' to pay someone to produce a baby to order for them. There are many more human and humane ways to do so, and does everyone have a ''right'' to be parents, anyway?
The last and most troubling is this story in which South Korea has seized shipments of capsules containing the powdered flesh of dead babies -- which in China is believed to have curative powers. Nevertheless, despite the appalling nature of this, there are people commenting on the Internet who refuse to believe that such practices exist in China -- surely not! But there is plenty of evidence that such things are happening. I suppose if you believe that human beings are mere conglomerations of cells, not created by God in his image and likeness, then why not treat aborted babies as a source of raw materials? Was it Dostoevsky, through one of his characters who said ''without God, everything is permitted"?
And then, if you live in countries where people are piled one on top of another, as in teeming China, or India, life is cheap. Life means little.
But have we lost our regard for life as well? It seems we are well on the way to treating human beings as products or commodities, to be created at whim and destroyed in the same way.
In order of their disturbing-ness, in reverse: first, babies are racist, as if we hadn't already heard this 'news' from other 'scientific studies' in the past.
Actually it was called to my attention, when I was a young mother, by a helpful 'youth' who more or less accused my child, (then, about a year old) of 'racism'. Because my child was looking at the 'youth' over my shoulder when we were out in public, this young man of about 18 years old, said loudly to my child: ''What's the matter, little White baby? Ain't you ever seen a [N-word] before?'
The message -- meant for me, of course -- was that my ''little White baby'' was a bigot. So now there is science to back up that accusation. Yes, little White babies who cannot talk yet are bigots, and the article quotes the experts saying ominously that it was vital to 'understand the nature of these biases in order to reduce or eliminate' them. The speaker talking dispassionately about -- what? Indoctrinating or conditioning babies? -- was Lisa Scott, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
This is scary. It seems that more and more, parents are encouraged if not pressured to leave their children in day care and to start them in the
Parents, raise your young ones yourselves, and homeschool. Even more important, avoid TV and Hollywood movies, as well as advertising propaganda. We are subjected to far too much propaganda and manipulation as adults; it should horrify us to have our children's minds and natural reactions tampered with.
The second story involving babies is this one, involving a baby mill in India, with its product being artificially conceived White children, carried in the wombs of poor women in India who are being paid for the use of their wombs. Everybody, but everybody, in this scenario is being dehumanized.
I can hardly describe how revolting this whole process sounds, with people requesting babies created to order, and others selling ova or sperm, while the surrogate mothers sell or rent their wombs out.
Could Huxley have imagined anything this depraved?
Are our reproductive cells, and the lives of our children, now just one more commodity, created to order, sold for a price? This makes me think of Revelation 18, where it describes the merchandise of Babylon, including human souls for sale.
This story reflects what happens when an overweening and amoral scientific establishment caters to the soulless demands of corrupt people who are desperate to acquire a baby by whatever means.
And please don't tell me that there are pitiable childless couples who have a 'right' to pay someone to produce a baby to order for them. There are many more human and humane ways to do so, and does everyone have a ''right'' to be parents, anyway?
The last and most troubling is this story in which South Korea has seized shipments of capsules containing the powdered flesh of dead babies -- which in China is believed to have curative powers. Nevertheless, despite the appalling nature of this, there are people commenting on the Internet who refuse to believe that such practices exist in China -- surely not! But there is plenty of evidence that such things are happening. I suppose if you believe that human beings are mere conglomerations of cells, not created by God in his image and likeness, then why not treat aborted babies as a source of raw materials? Was it Dostoevsky, through one of his characters who said ''without God, everything is permitted"?
And then, if you live in countries where people are piled one on top of another, as in teeming China, or India, life is cheap. Life means little.
But have we lost our regard for life as well? It seems we are well on the way to treating human beings as products or commodities, to be created at whim and destroyed in the same way.
Mysterious origins
In the wake of my recent posts about ancestry in our age being a 'social construct,' and the whole issue of Elizabeth Warren and her high cheekbones, I was reminded of the story of the Melungeons, classified by some as a 'tri-racial people.'
The Melungeons, for those who are not familiar with them, are a group of people centered in Appalachia, whose origins are something of a mystery. Just as many Southern Whites claim Indian (usually Cherokee) ancestors, so there are some who claim Melungeon ancestry, particularly when there are 'dead ends' in the family tree, ancestors whose parentage or origins are not documented. Most family trees have such 'brick walls', and I've found it's not uncommon for Southron people with a mystery ancestor -- even if that ancestor has a common Anglo-Saxon name -- to speculate that the mystery ancestor was 'full-blooded Cherokee', or in rarer cases, Melungeon. People are quick to jump to fanciful and exotic conclusions in such cases.
The other day I blogged about the mystery of the Roanoke Colony of the 1580s, and their unknown fate. As it happens, some people speculate that the Melungeons are the possible descendants of the Roanoke colonists and the local Indian tribes.
But that doesn't quite fit the established theory about their origins.
One source says this about their origin:
Further, from the same webpage:
Not surprisingly, there is a popular belief in Cherokee ancestry among many. The Wikipedia entry says
There are discussions about them on various genealogy websites and forums, with this one having some rather exotic claims about Melungeon traits.
Among the physical traits that are said to typify Melungeons are 'shovel teeth', or what my anthropology teachers called 'shovel-shaped incisors', commonly thought to be a hallmark of Asian ancestry. Other Melungeon traits are said to include something called the 'Anatolian bump' on the back of the head, and an extra digit, a sixth finger. Other people on the online forums mention traits like 'Melungeon feet' or high cheekbones.
This site mentions evidence of 'Rom' or gypsy origins for the Melungeons. If only half these conjectures and fanciful theories are true, then the Melungeons must have a very strange story to account for their long presence in the New World.
There are certain names associated with Melungeons, at least in Appalachia. Several such surnames include Collins, Gibson/Gipson, Goins, Mullins, and Bowlin. Of course there are many people of British Isles origin who share those surnames, so the names alone are not proof of Melungeon origin. So, for many people looking to find Melungeon ancestors, the search for some kind of identifying physical trait is important.
But what has been determined about the origins of Melungeons?
From the above-linked article,
Later studies were done in the 1980s:
Dr. Kennedy, whose book was mentioned in the first linked article above, is of Melungeon ancestry, and does not believe that Melungeons are a 'race'. Here, he is quoted as saying:
In other words, there is a political element to his view on Melungeons. He is very adamant that they constitute a culture but not a race. He seems to see them as a kind of a prototype of a more enlightened (read: less tribal and less exclusive) people, a group that is multiracial from the beginning. They, in politically correct terms, are our superiors because they have transcended 'tribalism' and exclusiveness.
In that sense it would seem that they are the people of the future, from the multiculturalists' point of view, the optimum or the ideal for us all.
The Melungeons, for those who are not familiar with them, are a group of people centered in Appalachia, whose origins are something of a mystery. Just as many Southern Whites claim Indian (usually Cherokee) ancestors, so there are some who claim Melungeon ancestry, particularly when there are 'dead ends' in the family tree, ancestors whose parentage or origins are not documented. Most family trees have such 'brick walls', and I've found it's not uncommon for Southron people with a mystery ancestor -- even if that ancestor has a common Anglo-Saxon name -- to speculate that the mystery ancestor was 'full-blooded Cherokee', or in rarer cases, Melungeon. People are quick to jump to fanciful and exotic conclusions in such cases.
The other day I blogged about the mystery of the Roanoke Colony of the 1580s, and their unknown fate. As it happens, some people speculate that the Melungeons are the possible descendants of the Roanoke colonists and the local Indian tribes.
But that doesn't quite fit the established theory about their origins.
One source says this about their origin:
MELUNGEONS:[NB: the WikInfo page denies that there are genetic diseases found among the population.]
If you have been researching your family in the Cumberland Plateau of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee, during the early migration years, you may be able find them through a connection to this newly re-discovered group of people. The Melungeons are a people of apparent Mediterranean descent, typically dark complexioned, who may have settled in the Appalachian wilderness as early or possibly earlier than 1567.
Dr. N. Brent Kennedy author of, ‘The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People,’ started the recent research into this group of people.
[...]
Dr. Kennedy documents his own family tree in the book and gives some startling theories which are being confirmed by current researchers. He mentions the need to hide the family connection to the Melungeon community as the main reason our Melungeon ancestors are so hard to find. Dr. Kennedy believes the Melungeons were a people who almost certainly intermarried with Powhatans, Pamunkeys, Creeks, Catawbas, Yuchis, and Cherokees to form what some have called, perhaps a bit fancifully, ‘a new race’.
They appear to have been in the southern Appalachias with mining as a common occupation before the English settlers explored the area. One theory is they are descended from people of mixed ancestry in Spanish settlements in the South East who kept moving into the interior to avoid English colonists. This is supported by genetic evidence. Genetic diseases appear in Melungeon populations which only seem to appear elsewhere in populations from the Iberian peninsula and north Africa.
Further, from the same webpage:
The Melungeons were ‘discovered’ in the Appalachian Mountains in 1654 by English explorers and were described as being ‘dark-skinned with fine European features, (meaning they were not black) and as being a hairy people, who lived in log cabins with peculiar arched windows, (meaning they were not Indians). They practiced the Christian religion, and told the explorers in broken Elizabethan English, that they were ‘Portyghee,’ but were described as being ‘not white,’ that is, not of Northern European stock, even though some of them had red hair and others had VERY striking blue or blue/green eyes. Where did these people come from? Recent research is answering that question. And it appears that they may be a combination of Turks, Spaniards, Portugese, Moor, Berber, Jew and Arab.''
Not surprisingly, there is a popular belief in Cherokee ancestry among many. The Wikipedia entry says
''Given historical evidence of Native American settlement patterns, Cherokee descent is highly unlikely for the original Melungeon families, who came from Tidewater areas. Some of their descendants may have later intermarried with families of Cherokee ancestry in East Tennessee. Melungeons in Graysville, Tennessee claimed Cherokee ancestors. The anthropologist E. Raymond Evans (1979) wrote regarding these claims:
"In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Many of the local whites also claim Cherokee ancestry and appear to accept the Melungeon claim...''
There are discussions about them on various genealogy websites and forums, with this one having some rather exotic claims about Melungeon traits.
Among the physical traits that are said to typify Melungeons are 'shovel teeth', or what my anthropology teachers called 'shovel-shaped incisors', commonly thought to be a hallmark of Asian ancestry. Other Melungeon traits are said to include something called the 'Anatolian bump' on the back of the head, and an extra digit, a sixth finger. Other people on the online forums mention traits like 'Melungeon feet' or high cheekbones.
This site mentions evidence of 'Rom' or gypsy origins for the Melungeons. If only half these conjectures and fanciful theories are true, then the Melungeons must have a very strange story to account for their long presence in the New World.
There are certain names associated with Melungeons, at least in Appalachia. Several such surnames include Collins, Gibson/Gipson, Goins, Mullins, and Bowlin. Of course there are many people of British Isles origin who share those surnames, so the names alone are not proof of Melungeon origin. So, for many people looking to find Melungeon ancestors, the search for some kind of identifying physical trait is important.
But what has been determined about the origins of Melungeons?
From the above-linked article,
In 1965, Pollitzer and Brown made a health study of 72 individuals, identified as Melungeons by a local doctor. [...] In a later article, Pollitzer concluded that, based on comparisons of blood types, the Melungeons were “about ninety percent White, almost ten percent Indian, and relatively very little Negro in their origin. The analysis is not capable of differentiating between English versus Portuguese as the White component.” Pollitzer did not specify what he meant by “relatively very little.” By comparison, the Lumbees were determined to be “about forty percent White, forty-seven percent Negro, and thirteen percent Indian.” Pollitzer concluded that the Melungeons were an ethnic group of the verge of dissolution through intermarriage with whites.''
Later studies were done in the 1980s:
''In short, the DNA study indicates today’s Melungeons are primarily of European descent, with some Native American and African-American ancestry.
Some Melungeons have genetic sequences matching the Siddis of northern India, others reflect a Turkish or Syrian ancestry. Some of those who consider themselves “Melungeon” possess all of those “exotic” genes; others have some of them – and others reflect only the “generic” European genes.
The Melungeons are by no means uniform in their genetic backgrounds; they are a mixed-ethnic population with varying degrees of mixture within that population.
The surprising revelation in Jones’ study is that some of these Turkish- and northern Indian- like sequences have been passed through the Melungeons’ maternal lines, indicating that their overseas ancestors included not only male sailors and explorers, but females as well.''
Dr. Kennedy, whose book was mentioned in the first linked article above, is of Melungeon ancestry, and does not believe that Melungeons are a 'race'. Here, he is quoted as saying:
''...contrary to what some have said on the lists and elsewhere, the "Melungeon Movement" has nothing to do with championing one theory of origin over another. Those who see it this way once again miss the broader picture. The "Movement" is entirely about accepting diversity and recognizing human kinship, regardless of skin color or hair texture or DNA results. It emphasizes a global, versus tribal, view of humanity.
One need only look at Afghanistan to grasp the ultimate chaos of unbridled, narrowly defined tribalism, where a few families on one mountaintop somehow constitute a nation - and ethnic group - unto themselves. Once this occurs, it becomes far simpler to separate oneself from others and, yes, to commit acts of prejudice and worse. This is NOT what the earliest Melungeon families were about.
The Melungeon Movement draws its name in honor of these early pioneers - a prime example of a multi-ethnic population which put aside its racial and cultural differences, came together and survived as one people (literally, the source of the slogan, "One People, All Colors"). The "Movement" is not concerned one bit with who - or what - the Melungeons were, are, or will become. Instead, it honors their dignity as human beings and presents these early settlers as a model for others in this strife torn world on how human beings ought to behave toward one another.''
In other words, there is a political element to his view on Melungeons. He is very adamant that they constitute a culture but not a race. He seems to see them as a kind of a prototype of a more enlightened (read: less tribal and less exclusive) people, a group that is multiracial from the beginning. They, in politically correct terms, are our superiors because they have transcended 'tribalism' and exclusiveness.
In that sense it would seem that they are the people of the future, from the multiculturalists' point of view, the optimum or the ideal for us all.
Monday, May 07, 2012
Sarah of Albion on 'Reassigning races'
See Sarah of Albion's blog post on how the media are arbitrarily and crazily reassigning race to individuals in their news 'reporting.' The powers-that-be are also practicing this insanity, and have been for years with their irrational classifying of many criminal offenders as 'White' when they are clearly and obviously not.
After all, if race is a mere social construct, why not just make up racial identities for people at whim, according to politically correct demands? Why not just blur the lines beyond all recognition, and convince the large numbers of gullible people out there that race is whatever 'they' declare it to be -- insofar as it exists.
Unfortunately, the powers-that-be, while declaring race to be nonexistent, are painted into a corner in which they still use race as a bludgeon, and base much of their irrational policy on a supposed 'social construct.'
They are attempting to confuse us, as I've said, making us doubt our very senses.
Sarah's post does a good job of showing visually how bizarre this is. It bespeaks either insanity on the part of those perpetrating this, or some kind of calculated attempt to 'gaslight' the public.
After all, if race is a mere social construct, why not just make up racial identities for people at whim, according to politically correct demands? Why not just blur the lines beyond all recognition, and convince the large numbers of gullible people out there that race is whatever 'they' declare it to be -- insofar as it exists.
Unfortunately, the powers-that-be, while declaring race to be nonexistent, are painted into a corner in which they still use race as a bludgeon, and base much of their irrational policy on a supposed 'social construct.'
They are attempting to confuse us, as I've said, making us doubt our very senses.
Sarah's post does a good job of showing visually how bizarre this is. It bespeaks either insanity on the part of those perpetrating this, or some kind of calculated attempt to 'gaslight' the public.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
'Lost colony' found?
Possible new evidence has been found regarding the Roanoke Colony, which was the earliest English settlement in North America. This colony, established in 1585, is described as the 'Lost Colony' because the settlement seems to have moved elsewhere, and the colonists seem to have disappeared during a period when there was no contact between the colonists and mother England. I've written of the colony here on this blog because it is an intriguing question: what happened to the colonists?
The mainstream media are promoting this 'new evidence' in some cases as the mystery solved. The colonists are speculated to have moved inland. But in actuality it seems, when reading the article linked at the top of this post, that the mystery is hardly solved. Nonetheless, it's an interesting find, for those who are curious about the early history of English colonization of this continent, and the beginnings of our country.
To me, as a descendant of many Jamestown colonists, it's intriguing because I also feel a kinship with those earlier colonists. And it intrigues me because it seems to have taken on a poignant meaning in our day. Those colonists were few, and presuming they survived and did not succumb to disease, hunger, exposure, or death at the hands of the Indians of the area, one possibility is left: they, or some remnant of them, may have been 'absorbed.' I've posed the question in past blog posts about this subject: will we be another 'lost colony'? Will archaeologists (if such exist) in the future find evidence of us, and wonder what became of us? Or will we be 'absorbed' as well, and our fate a question mark?
The mainstream media are promoting this 'new evidence' in some cases as the mystery solved. The colonists are speculated to have moved inland. But in actuality it seems, when reading the article linked at the top of this post, that the mystery is hardly solved. Nonetheless, it's an interesting find, for those who are curious about the early history of English colonization of this continent, and the beginnings of our country.
To me, as a descendant of many Jamestown colonists, it's intriguing because I also feel a kinship with those earlier colonists. And it intrigues me because it seems to have taken on a poignant meaning in our day. Those colonists were few, and presuming they survived and did not succumb to disease, hunger, exposure, or death at the hands of the Indians of the area, one possibility is left: they, or some remnant of them, may have been 'absorbed.' I've posed the question in past blog posts about this subject: will we be another 'lost colony'? Will archaeologists (if such exist) in the future find evidence of us, and wonder what became of us? Or will we be 'absorbed' as well, and our fate a question mark?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)