Vanishing American

The Vanishing Englishman

2012-01-30T02:15:00.000-08:00

Along the lines of my earlier post 'What it means to be diverse', this piece from the UK Independent shows the massive confusion that apparently exists among citizens of the UK. The notion that 'the English don't exist' is one that has apparently been promulgated by the regime over there, and those who feel at odds with the English (who do exist, by the way) are seizing on this idea of Englishness being a 'social construct' or a fictitious label for a 'race of mongrels'.

The author of this piece says he is English, and advocates some form of English nationalism, though how he can reconcile that notion with the delusion that Linton Kwesi Johnson ("Inglan Is a Bit*h'') is ''English'' is more than I can fathom.

Still, the writer expresses a longing for a feeling of pride in England and a ''guilt-free positive sense of belonging' to his own country. Coming from someone who is evidently very liberal and 'multicultural' by ideology, that is a hopeful sign.

The comments, as always, are worth reading; there are definite strains amongst the commenters, based on whether or not they are English, or whether they have swallowed the multicult kool-aid.

'Rollingstone' writes some good comments, in my opinion.

David Hewson says:

England and the English are fast disappearing thanks to the divisive nonsense that is Multiculturalism, I loved England, but it doesn't really exist any more, in just 13 years labour open the immigration floodgates and destroyed the make up of the nation, wanna know what the future looks like? see the East End of London now, a totally foreign country.''

'King Baratheon' asks:

Do you HAVE to believe in Multiculturalism to be considered an "acceptable patriot"? I believe in a multi ethnic society, not a multicultural society.
However, if you believe in neither of those things, does that mean you have to be lumped together with the skinheads? Can we accept there are SOME decent White English patriots that love English folk music, love English Literature, love the English landscape and all of English culture...but perhaps do not believe in Multiculturalism? Is that form of patriotism utterly unacceptable in certain nations, yet promoted in others?''

The above commenter apparently doesn't see that multiculturalism and 'multiethnic societies' go together, and moreover, that it should not be compulsory for anyone to give assent to 'multiethnic society' in order to be acceptable, either.

Notice that the 'Scottish' commenter tartanse says this:

Scots come in many forms. Have you not seen Hardeep Singh Koli on telly recently? He's been on quite a lot.
[...]
Think Hardeep Singh Koli in a kilt. We both know he's not descended from Scots, but to me he is a Scot.''

This is apparently the SNP's idea of 'Scottish nationalism' ("One Nation, Many Peoples") illustrated for us. Take note.

The following is an illustration of what happens with people of mixed (though related) ancestries:

''I think that the concept of the United Kingdom is helpful in that it makes it easier for those of differing cultural and sometimes racial backgrounds to become part of the whole. I am English of Irish and Scottish descent so it is easier for me to think of myself as British than of the English who were the sometimes cruel conquerors of my ancestors. The term British is all-embracing. If I am English then I have to take on that identity alone, which would not feel comfortable, though I have many of the characteristics of an Englishman. I am sure this is just as true of other British people from the Indian subcontinent, the West Indies, China, Africa etc etc.''

Confusion twice confounded. "British" includes absolutely everybody born on, or inhabiting, the soil of the United Kingdom. English people do not exist, and/or they are a mongrel, multiracial people. Britain has always been multiracial -- so the party line goes. And people now believe this. How can a people who are not a people reconstitute themselves?

We have a parallel situation here, but ours, of course, is worse because we have so much ethnic confusion here, even more than in the UK.

More and more, I believe that 'smaller is better', in terms of ethnic and kin allegiances; it is a mockery of 'nationalism' to try to forge disparate peoples -- even people of close kinship like those of the British Isles -- into one agglomerate of people under a political ''Union.''

We have a similar situation with our North/South divide.
Let each people be distinct. Peoples with historic grievances against each other should not be thrown together and kept together in shotgun 'marriages', as multiethnic societies tend to be.

Same old 'new man'

2012-01-29T22:50:00.000-08:00

The Library of Congress recently announced their annual list of films added to the National Film Registry, which is a list of those films selected for preservation ''as cultural, artistic and historical treasures...''

Read through the list of films here. Just as I would have expected, it's obvious simply from reading a few of the titles that the films are selected in large part because of their 'politically correct' content and messages.
See the list at the link, and the descriptions of the titles as well.

For example:

''Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)
Robert Drew was a pioneer of American cinema-verite (a style of documentary filmmaking that strives to record unfolding events non-intrusively). In 1963, he gathered together a stellar group of filmmakers, including D. A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock, Gregory Shuker, James Lipscomb, and Patricia Powell, to capture on film the dramatic unfolding of an ideological crisis, one that revealed political decision-making at the highest levels. The result, "Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment," focuses on Gov. George Wallace’s attempt to prevent two African-American students from enrolling in the University of Alabama—his infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" confrontation—and the response of President John F. Kennedy.''

and:

El Mariachi (1992)
Directed, edited, co-produced, and written in two weeks by Robert Rodriguez for $7,000 while a film student at the University of Texas, "El Mariachi" proved a favorite on the film festival circuit. After Columbia Pictures picked it up for distribution, the film helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s. "El Mariachi" is an energetic, highly entertaining tale of an itinerant musician, portrayed by co-producer and Rodriguez crony Carlos Gallardo, who arrives at a Mexican border town during a drug war and is mistaken for a hit man who recently escaped from prison. The story, as film historian Charles Ramirez Berg has suggested, plays with expectations common to two popular exploitation genres—the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns.''

Then there's this one:

Growing Up Female (1971)
Among the first films to emerge from the women’s liberation movement, "Growing Up Female" is a documentary portrait of America on the brink of profound change in its attitudes toward women.''
Enough said about that one.

Hester Street (1975)
Joan Micklin Silver’s first feature-length film, "Hester Street," was an adaption of preeminent Yiddish author Abraham Cahan’s 1896 well-received first novel "Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto." In the 1975 film, the writer-director brought to the screen a portrait of Eastern European Jewish life in America that historians have praised for its accuracy of detail and sensitivity to the challenges immigrants faced during their acculturation process.''

A few more examples: The Iron Horse, a silent film which ''celebrated the contributions of Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants although the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country legally was severely restricted at the time of its production.''

Further, 'The Negro Soldier', from 1944. 'Stand and Deliver', from 1988, I am sure is familiar to most of you. Likewise, 'Porgy and Bess.'

I am not sure how films like Forrest Gump and Silence of the Lambs qualify for this list; do they have a PC angle of which I'm not aware? I did not see either of those movies but I have heard plenty about them. Neither of them would qualify as great artistic achievements by my standards, but then I am not on the same page with the people who select these films, obviously.
The 'Librarian of Congress' says of the films, generally:

"These films are selected because of their enduring significance to American culture," said Billington.

It's clear that 'our' government is very much in line with the cultural Marxist agenda, and very committed to furthering that agenda and the multicultural viewpoint, celebrating anybody and everybody except old-stock Americans. All governmental bodies that supposedly have to do with preserving our history or promoting the arts in this country exist, apparently, only to push the cultural Marxist, anti-White, anti-traditional agenda.

It's all redolent of the Soviet propaganda promulgated via the arts in the days of Stalin, described here.

''The visual culture of the Stalin era was both a façade and an instrument of power.
[...]
Because of its realistic form, this art seemed to be agreeable, unproblematic, and easy to understand for the masses, yet it was a completely ideological venture both in terms of contents and objectives. It does not present itself as a portrayal of life but visualizes the collective dream of a new world and a new man.''

[Emphasis mine]

It seems the 'hopes and dreams' are not unlike those of the Stalin era, in which the goal was to promote the idea of 'a new world and a new man.' The 'new Soviet man' was to be part of ''a new Utopian mass culture that comprises all mankind.''

Here, the 'new man' is described:

This man was to be free from ethnic affiliations, see no sense in private property, be always ready to sacrifice himself for the benefit of society, have no doubts that he originated from an ape or something like it (certainly from a beast) and that nothing will remain of him after his death. In other words, he was to be a one-hundred percent materialist and atheist and must know that the meaning of life is in the person's usefulness to society and the supreme goal is in a better, wealthy and happy life of future generations. Recognizing this, he would necessarily be happy.''

However, as certain classes of people would impede such plans, they were made objects of vilification:

''They were made a bugbear, an object for mockery, incited against each other by encouraging their mutual denunciations and accusing them of deviating from the ideology.''

It seems that the powers that be, via subtle means in many cases or by flagrant and obvious means, wants to recast our society and people into the utopian one-world mold. It is now identified by catchwords and phrases like 'diversity and inclusion' or multiculturalism, or 'global citizenship.' But it's all the same old 'new man' effort to recreate human nature along lines that are anything but natural.

If the LOC and other governmental bodies wanted to show real ''diversity'' and ''tolerance'' they would choose materials that represented more than just the 'celebrate diversity or else!' school of thought. They would not be attempting at every turn to rewrite history with our ancestors either airbrushed out, or cast only as hateful villains.

Usually when I bring up the subject of propaganda in the arts and popular culture, there are a few people who object that ''it's just entertainment', and that I should 'lighten up and just enjoy it.' But it is obviously taken seriously by the powers-that-be, or they would not go to such lengths to present a monolithically PC point of view, and to disparage and exclude all differing points of view. They take it seriously, and so must we.

Christianity accused

2012-01-29T02:37:00.000-08:00

I really grow tired of the constant allegations that Christians, (usually described as 'Evangelicals' or some derisive approximation of that word) are big proponents of 'diversity', mass immigration, and other anti-White policies. If you read AmRen, there is a constant chorus of people who say these things about 'Evangelicals' or Christians, or Protestants generally. Of course none of these comments ever cite any supporting statistics or polls or any evidence beyond their say-so, and they seem to go unchallenged every time.

There are a few ethnonationalist or WN blogs where the same refrain is heard all the time; sometimes the accused are called ''Rapture Bunnies'' or other such mocking apellations, and again, it is enough for them to say that Christians are culpable, regardless of their lack of evidence that such is the truth.

I remember this by the Center for Immigration Studies, which gives some actual data on what members of various religious groups think about immigration, vs. what the leadership of the religious groups say. Just as with politics, it seems that there is a disconnect between the rank-and-file members and the 'leadership.' It's evident that many religious leaders are of the elitist mentality, just as our elected officials are.

According to this poll, it is 'born-again Protestants' who have the most ''right-wing'' views on immigration and immigration laws.

Born-Again Protestants: 76 percent support enforcement; 12 percent support conditional legalization.''

Born-agains are more likely than mainline Protestants (traditionally very liberal churches), Catholics, and Jews to support enforcement of immigration laws and not to support legalization of illegals. Born-agains are the most conservative among the groups surveyed.

But according to the internet's self-professed experts, ''born-agains'', who are probably considered ''Rapture Bunnies'' in most cases, are the most PC and liberal of all groups. And I am sure that any data to the contrary will be ignored or denied by these people.

The survey reported here says

Yet, among evangelicals, three out of every four (72%) describe themselves as mostly conservative and a mere 2% say they are mostly liberal. Just one out of four evangelicals (24%) says they are in the ideological middle ground.''

It has to be said, though, that many people who describe themselves as ''conservative'' today are raving liberals on issues like immigration, and are becoming more liberal on racial matters, in response to the leadership of many denominations becoming ultra-liberal and globalist.

Despite those unfortunate trends, I think it's still accurate to say that the more religiously conservative Christians tend also to hold old-fashioned, politically incorrect views rather than being diversity-philes as so often alleged.

I maintain that the people who constantly rail against Christians on AmRen or other similar blogs and forums are people who already have an antipathy to Christianity. These people, in my opinion, are seizing on a convenient pretext to further accuse and discredit Christians, the pretext being that Christians are dimwits and dupes who are aiding and abetting the globalist/anti-White agenda.

The remark is also often made that ''rapture bunnies'' or Evangelicals are people who are indifferent to what is happening in the world because they expect to be 'raptured' at any moment. Some ignorant critics claim that rapture-believers think that they should hasten the end times so as to force Jesus' return. This is simply not true, but it's another handy weapon to use to bash Christians.

If my own personal beliefs are relevant (an unfriendly commenter a few years ago accused me of being a ''rapture bunny'') I am not convinced of the notion of the 'rapture'. It is not a view that is held by all Christians, contrary to what critics and accusers of Christians say.

I truly wish that those who rant about 'Evangelicals' would tell us what, exactly, that term means in their minds. It is evident that they often do not know the meaning of the word; it is their curse word to be used against Christians whom they find bothersome. I also wish they would show some evidence that they know anything at all about the 'rapture' business, which they delight in condemning. Misunderstandings of such beliefs are rife, and most people who condemn those beliefs know next to nothing about them.

As for AmRen, I've concluded that they consciously allow and thus encourage anti-Christian comments. They seem to exercise tight control over comments, even more so since the revamping of the website and the new commenting system. So any anti-Christian comments are there because the AmRen folks want them to stand.

I have to wonder, frankly, if the free rein given to the critics of Christianity is meant to try to placate potential Jewish members. It seems that Christianity is like kryptonite to many Jews, even when the Christians in question are pro-Zionist and philo-Semitic. In the past, I wondered why that was so; why they didn't reciprocate the admiration. I just accept it as fact now.

Another paradox about many of the anti-Christians on various blogs: they often oppose Christianity because they say it is 'Semitic' or 'Jewish', never explaining why Jews would oppose a religion which is supposedly so Jewish. It seems that the same pople who oppose one of those religions opposes both. Odd, because the two religions are very different, not Siamese twins by any means.

But the Christian bashing will go on at AmRen because it suits somebody; it serves some purpose, though I am not sure what.
And the critics and bashers will go on doing their thing. It would be nice if sometimes, someone would speak up in defense of the faith of our fathers. Or perhaps any such comments just would not pass moderation on most such blogs.

What it means to be diverse

2012-01-29T01:32:00.000-08:00

What it means to be Australian

A sickly-saccharine piece about how diverse, vibrant, colorful, inclusive, and lovey-dovey today's Australia is, in honor of Australia Day. See the pictures for examples of textbook political correctness; all races in happy harmony, mixed groups of people featuring the 'vibrant' newcomers alongside the now-obsolescent European-descended Australians. Celebrate diversity! Celebrate cultural suicide, as the graphic above says, ''because your ancestors were evil anyway.''

In other words, 'Surrender, Dorothy!'

The comments on the article are not much better than the propaganda churned out by the journalist who wrote the article. See below (spelling errors as they appeared in the original comment):

''Anyone who defines Australia in racuial or cultural terms knows little. The so called 20 years "endured" does not understand post war immigration at all nor the fact that immigration was the start of Australia anyway. Even a superficial understanding of history would show the constant change. Even the flag has not always been there as it currently stands, and even though England ruled the range of ethnicity in Australi has been broad since teh first fleet. To be an Australian has always been about acceptance, diversity, equal oportunity and people being judged by what they do not what they look like or class or creed. Australia day is neither about an invasion nor about a static ancient culture. Australia is young and free. The challenge of any immigrant is to make a new life. This requires change - all aroyund but change with the basic principle of making it better! Being a proud Aussie requires omething to be proud of. Australi has much to be proud of and tolerance and an open mind should be one of them.''

colin g of southbank:

"listening to the young australian of the year, what it means to be australian is being sexist and self interested. . we need more immigration of all persuasions because that is what made australia. wish we could get rid of the flag and the monarchy and be a real nation without sexism, racism and discrimination. full equality for ALL including marriage.'

Tick of Melbourne:

At the end of the day the flag is just a symbol and it is up to the Australian people to create a country which is truly fair and inclusive of all who live here. We are a nation of immigrants occupying a land that was stolen from its indigenous population. Rather than adopt the failed Gallipoli campaign as a dominant symbol of Aussie perseverance and pride, it makes more sense that we all work harder to build a nation which acknowledges cultural diversity and forges strong links with indigenous communities so they too can share in the opportunities and wealth that many Australians have come to enjoy. So what does it mean to be Australian? It means different things to different people and one persons barbie is another persons stir fry. And if we are truly proud of this nation, lets welcome people from all backgrounds, especially refugees arriving on boats. If we can't do this, then we must admit that our call for a 'fair go' is just a marketing exercise without any substance. Australia is now a multicultural nation, so let's embrace our differences and get to know each other better so that we can build a nation that we can all be proud of today and everyday.''

'Tonza of Geelong:

An article about what it means to be Australian and not one mention of a culture that's been here for 70'00 years. No, let's just celebrate a culture imported from the other side of the world 200 years ago. If you want to know what it means to be an Australian, ask an indigenous person living like a squatter on their own land.''

Liz of Geelong:

"australia day to me doesn't mean invasion day or a day for protests and unrest, it means a day of celebrating the fact that each and every one of us who live in this great country has come at some stage from somewhere else in the world and have joined together to make the greatest nation around. we are all unique and have an incredible blend of cultures, but at the end of the day, we are all australian. it doesn't matter the colour of your skin or the religion you follow, we are australian. stand up and be proud that we live in the lucky country where there are no wars and with hard work and determination you can be anything you want to be. we are the luckiest people on this planet and that is something to be proud of and celebrate. happy australia day everyone.''

The propaganda masters have done their job thoroughly; these people know the script by heart.

Meanwhile, we read that also on Australia Day, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were assailed by aboriginal protesters and were forced to flee for their safety.

''About 200 protesters trapped Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott in a Canberra restaurant, where they were attending the inaugural national emergency medals ceremony, before police arrived to clear a passage for the pair.

The protesters, from the nearby Aboriginal Tent Embassy, banged on the three glass walls of The Lobby restaurant chanting "shame" and "racist". '

Ah, the old, reliable race card. All that's required is to shout 'racist' and that wins the argument.

I wonder if any of the people with the smarmy multiculturalist party line in the comments section on the Australia Day piece have any second thoughts about the beauties of 'multiculturalism' and 'embracing differences'?

Probably no more than their counterparts in America or Britain would have second thoughts; the brainwashed and indoctrinated are like parrots who know a few rote phrases which they recite mechanically on cue. The zombified multicultists are not capable of re-thinking or reconsidering anything; they are simulacra who have been divested of their brains and souls by the multicult, just like the 'pod people' in the Invasion of the Body-snatchers.

I am sure that when the Diversity Hits the Fan, they will still be reciting their rote phrases in praise of 'embracing differences' with their last breaths.

The comments are depressing; I've heard it said by some Americans on various blogs that the Australians will stand up for themselves even if the rest of the European-descended people give up and give in. I had hoped that would be so; I've always had a high regard for Australian people. But it looks as though they are just about as indoctrinated as many in the UK and elsewhere in former Christendom.

We Americans, perhaps because we've stopped believing in our fellow Americans, keep searching the horizons for somebody else who will take up the banner and 'preserve the West' or show the way for the rest of us. Many people look to Russia as the 'future' for European people. I disagree, but people seem to have a need to invest their hopes in some other country, somewhere. It would be nice to see Australia be that country which will show real backbone. But as it stands, I am not so sure.

Perhaps we Americans sell ourselves or our fellows short, thinking that we can't be standard-bearers or leaders. The typical paleocon cynicism about our own country seems to have infected the whole politically-incorrect pro-White right. Or have we grown too lazy to roll up our sleeves and try to preserve what is left? Is that why we look elsewhere for our hope?

Most people seem to have written off Britain (or at least England) and to relish the act of doing so. Likewise with some other countries on that side of the Atlantic. But I think it's premature to do so. And I still believe that there is a remnant in this country who should not be counted out just yet.

I hope the same for our cousins in Australia and in the rest of the English-speaking world, especially.

Big government or big business?

2012-01-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

While I was away from the computer for the past several days, there has been considerable discussion over the ''anti-piracy' legislation, namely the 'Stop Online Piracy Act' or SOPA, and the 'Protect IP Act' or PIPA. It appears that the proposed legislation is now in limbo, but it undoubtedly will not go away.

The one thing I've noticed when reading around the Internet about this issue is that it has been covered mainly by leftist bloggers, especially those with non-political blogs (blogs about popular culture, the arts, and so on). I've seen very little conservative commentary about this issue, and yet does it not seem that conservatives should be just as concerned about this? After all, it may be on the surface about 'piracy' such as file-sharing involving copyrighted material, but it ultimately concerns freedom of expression for bloggers as well as others on the Internet.

This piece notes that there are some conservatives working with the liberal opponents of SOPA and PIPA, but this is one of the few mentions that I've found of any conservative involvement.

I know that many conservatives see this issue strictly in terms of people 'stealing' someone's so-called 'intellectual property' or artistic output (as in music or other copyrighted material) but it is really not as cut-and-dried as these pro-business 'conservatives' like to make it.

For instance, there is some dispute over whether those (such as bloggers or possibly people posting Internet comments) are liable for linking to copyrighted material, including embedding videos and linking to written materials under copyright. That kind of thing would apply to most bloggers, including this blogger.

And there is the ever-present possibility that all these kinds of proposals to regulate content will lead inevitably toward the imposition of controls over free speech and free expression on the Internet. The idea of a universal ''internet ID'' for individuals is troubling. And yet few of us, probably, would doubt that the powers that be would love to impose such controls.

Why, then, are conservatives and others on the politically incorrect right not more vocal in opposing these measures? I read blogs by many libertarians and yet even they have been pretty quiet about the proposed legislation. Why? Why is it only the leftists and liberals who are speaking up?

As for the more obvious examples of so-called 'piracy' on the Internet, it seems that the RIAA and others have been excessively harsh in targeting a few offenders, with one person being fined $1.5 million for downloading and sharing a couple of dozen songs. If the guilty party is unable to pay the fine, jail time will be imposed. Call their acts 'theft' if you like, but the punishment does not fit the crime. And those who care about any sort of principles of justice should question why the music moguls should have such clout in getting harsh laws enacted and excessive fines imposed.

With all the outrage among some on the right about the evils of the 'State' or 'big government', what about the excesses of 'big business', which are very real? And why should the government be in the pockets of business, which they undoubtedly are? Conservatives often err in seeing 'business' and capitalism as an unqualified good, which it is not, necessarily. Business which is too big and too powerful politically is just as onerous as 'big government.'

But in the case of Internet free speech, the government and business are working together as an unholy combination to try to control thoughts and ideas which are not permitted, sometimes under the guise of trying to protect business interests.

Back again

2012-01-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

I hope to be back to a regular posting schedule soon; I recently had some surgery done (due to an injury) and it may take me a few more days to bounce back.
Stay tuned.

'This will ever be your story'

2012-01-22T21:25:00.000-08:00

The video is from the movie Zulu, depicting the besieged British at Rorke's Drift, singing the song 'Men of Harlech.' I thought this was appropriate to post today because in the battle of Rorke's Drift,on this day, January 22, in 1879, 160 British soldiers successfully defended their garrison against thousands of Zulus. Some sources put the number of Zulus at 4000; some say 5000. Eleven soldiers were awarded Victoria Crosses.

Whether they fought off 4000 or 5000, it's an inspirational story, in that the British soldiers prevailed despite their being greatly outnumbered. Something to ponder.

Note: The Mad Monarchist gives a detailed account of that battle here.

'Hired Hands', 1961

2012-01-22T03:11:00.000-08:00

For a Sunday morning, here is a video of a TV show out of South Carolina, featuring old-time gospel music. I am very partial to these old songs, and the video itself brings back memories of my childhood. Though I didn't live in S.C., I can relate to this TV program, having watched similar ones where I grew up.

This video is a real piece of vintage Southern Americana. I enjoy the hymns and the singers performing them. I love how they read the dedications from viewers; is that done anywhere anymore?

Even the live commercials brought a few chuckles; I love how the car dealer boasts that his used cars are ''all local cars'', no 'salt-eating Yankee cars.' In those days it seems there were more 'characters' around; real individuals, colorful people.

Last but not least I love hearing the accents, as those kinds of regional accents seem to be fading away. If you have a good ear, you can tell that there is not just one kind of 'Southern accent'; there were regional variations.

I hope some of you will find this enjoyable.

Paging English-Americans

2012-01-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

At AmRen, Robert Henderson writes a piece called
Where are the English-Americans?

Good question, and one which I periodically write about here. Henderson says:

Let us imagine a United States in which every citizen was hyphenated, one in which no group was without of a sense of victimhood. All that would be left was racial and ethnic competition. There would be no stability or sense of social cohesion. The English-descended and English-assimilated part of the population that sees itself as simply American is the ballast that holds their society upright. It is the group with no grievances, with no ethnic axe to grind, and that endlessly submits to discrimination and dispossession. That will eventually change, as whites see their most basic interests threatened, but it is the forbearance of American-Americans that allows the United States to continue to function.
[...]
Unhyphenated Americans, whether of English descent or not, must defend the way of life that starts with English roots. They should reflect on how American society was created and by whom, and consider what it would mean if the customs and institutions of its founding culture are thrown over.''

The rest of the article is at the link, and well worth reading, if you haven't yet done so.

Henderson is right about the role and place of English-descended Americans in this country. And I agree that 'unhyphenated Americans', the only real Americans in my opinion, must defend the English-derived way of life that first formed what we know as American society.

But how is this to happen if the majority of Americans of English ancestry do not even know their genealogy or origins? This is the case now. Most people, despite a recent surge in the popularity of genealogy, do not know their roots past their grandparents. Most Americans do not know their great-grandparents' names or birthplaces. Many people know only vaguely what their origins are; I've talked to so many, mostly in the Northern states, who say they are 'mutts' or that they don't know their ancestry for certain. They will say 'I'm German and maybe part Irish and part Cherokee.' Or something along those lines. Those of more 'ethnic' origins usually know their family roots. But it is true, as Henderson says, that most of those with colonial English roots have lost any sense of their origins, and therefore can't claim them. Some know that they are of English ancestry but feel no connection, because for generations their families have identified as simply 'American', unhyphenated 'American Americans.'

Some who are of English ancestry scorn that side of their ancestry because of the popular idea of Anglo-Saxons as bland, lacking any real 'culture', or as oppressors of everybody. The arch-Whites, as I've said. Then there's the rich, evil WASP who controls everything, so beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters and others with an axe to grind.

So how can English-descended Americans or American-Americans be mobilized or motivated to defend our common American heritage?

Many in the pro-White movement scorn the idea of any common American heritage, increasingly coming to see America as a sham, or as an Illuminati plot, a mistake, a failed experiment that is better left to perish, and to be forgotten. And I suppose this does not help the cause of the English-descended American; after all, if we were the ones who started this whole 'failed experiment' then it must be largely our fault. Or so I've been reading lately.

So Henderson's proposals are problematic, given the current troubled situation in our country, and the fact that we are increasingly divided along ethnic lines. Everybody claims his ethnicity proudly except for English-Americans, as a rule.
America is approaching the phase Henderson predicts, wherein there is only ethnic competition and rivalry, with everybody claiming to have been the biggest victim, and with no cohesion and no common bonds to hold the atomized ethnic groups together.

The answer? I don't have one, but it seems that we are hurtling toward disintegration, and that 'the center cannot hold.' Perhaps that is for the best, if it can occur with a minimum of turmoil, as with the old Eastern bloc countries. But the outcome could be rendered less chaotic if only the unhyphenated Americans who still have a feeling of kinship with their fellows could pragmatically work together as allies instead of dredging up past grievances and stoking ethnic rivalries amongst ourselves.

Speaking of ethnic rivalries, the comments that are posted on the article at AmRen so far are not as bad as I expected, with only a few critical comments. I expected more of the ''WASPs persecuted my immigrant ancestors'' complaints, but they haven't shown up just yet. But it's still early.

And lately I've been reading extravagant claims about how the American Revolution was won by the Scots-Irish who made up the bulk of the troops. I'd like some concrete proof of that, please. There's no need to resort to that kind of hyperbole in the name of ethnic pride or centuries-long grudges against the 'Sassenachs.'

The Henderson article links to a website about Presidential ancestry. When it comes to the great number of American presidents who are said to be Irish or Ulster Scots -- well, I won't dispute Woodrow Wilson; you can have him. I also disagree with the linked website claiming Scots ancestry for Thomas Jefferson. As a Jefferson descendant, I know the family tree, and English ancestry predominates by far, with some Welsh and one Scots line that I know of.

One quibble: in the article, a picture of a number of Confederate generals is posted, with the question "How many non-English names can you find in this picture?" Firstly, the names are not legible, though I recognize a number of the men by their faces. But of course someone protests that many of the names are Scottish or Welsh, which in some cases is debatable. Lately it seems that many of these men are claimed as Scots-Irish/Ulster Scots, when they were in reality English. In fact, the great Christian gentleman whose birthday we just noted, Robert E. Lee, is claimed as 'Scots-Irish' by anonymous comments on the Internet. I've corrected this, noting that he was of English ancestry, and I know this to be a fact. But those who want to believe otherwise will continue to believe as it suits them.

The South is probably the home of most of the English-descended Americans in this country, and since the South was not affected as much by mass immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, such people were more likely to remain somewhat unmixed, unlike any remaining Anglo-Americans in New England or the Northern states generally. But since being Anglo-Saxon has gone out of fashion, few people will still claim it.

Henderson's article is one that needed to be written; English-Americans are the real 'vanishing Americans' of today, and although everybody else's ethnicity is honored and trumpeted proudly, and everybody else's group is accounted for, where, indeed, are the English-descended Americans?

Natives growing restless

2012-01-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

At the UK Telegraph website, there are 3900+ comments on an article there about immigrants claiming benefits.

There are quite a few sensible comments as well as the usual drivel from the usual suspects.

A few examples:
'edithcrowther' says:
The benefits stats are shocking, but they are a bit of a red herring really. The horrible truth is that the white British and white Irish proportion of UK population is falling fast and we are losing everything that matters to the human mind and spirit, simply by being outnumbered - just as China would lose its Chineseness and everything that makes it special and precious to all (not only Chinese people) if it were 60 per cent European.

Liars are telling us that there never has been a British race composed of the English, Welsh, Irish and Scots.

Liars are telling us that our population is getting too old and we need young immigrants who will have babies themselves.

Liars are telling us all sorts of things. But the truth always wins in the end. So carry on lying if you want to destroy your own selves, it will all get sorted out on judgment day anyway.''

Well said, 'Edith.'

A few others:
London is a foreign country to most English, secession will formalize an already existent situation.
-john fitzgerald

Most people can see what is patently wrong. Are the politicians wholly evil or simply the most stupid people ever?
-outlander 58

I think if you were able to do a survey in some way on a reliable basis in half a dozen different countries of Europe you would find that there are tens of millions of what mostly the pc and generally leftist or obvious leftist posters here choose to call 'racists'.

And increasingly they care not a whit about the moralising of the Left.
-robnorthlondon

Someone with the monicker 'm8' says

In America and in the New World generally, the Immigration system works better. No handouts, a pull-yourself -by-your-bootstraps mentality and all that. You slacken off, its off to the poorhouse.''

'm8' is obviously very misinformed as to how it works in America, as most of us here are well aware. For those readers who are not Americans, immigrants certainly can and do receive handouts here in the USA, and they are most certainly not packed off to any mythical 'poorhouse if they don't work or have other means of support. Many states forbid social service workers from requiring proof of legal residence or citizenship when they request benefits, and they can thus receive many forms of assistance. They can also receive benefits because of their 'anchor baby' children who are born in this country, regardless of their own status. Many work 'under the table' and claim benefits as well. Many have multiple (false) IDs under which they can receive benefits -- often while they are earning money by working.

So we in the USA cannot criticize the British for giving away benefits to various cheats and frauds. We do the same, and our media do not even cover the issue as the UK Telegraph and others in Britain are doing. Our 'news' offers only immigrant sympathy pieces and sob stories.

Overall, the comments at the Telegraph, by their sheer number and vehemence, show that pressure is building, and that average British people are exasperated enough to speak their minds, despite the curbs on free speech in the leftist UK. Some people claim that Americans are showing similar signs of being fed-up with 'political correctness' and with the bullying of the PC gestapo and their 'democratic censorship.' I see a rise in more outspokenness on certain issues (like the recent 'flash mob' violence and the massive coverup surrounding such incidents) but I see a deeper exasperation among some of the comments on UK websites. Of course they have their brainwashed and traitors as we do, but perhaps because they are farther along the road to race-replacement and more subject to oppressive laws, they are reacting more strongly than most Americans.

Even some of the Americans who speak harshly on racial matters on web comment sections are still enamored of the 'nation of immigrants' notion, and are prone to use lots of PC disclaimers (citing their 'diverse' friends and co-workers as proof they are not racist, etc.) Our folk are not ready to give up some of their 'rainbow nation' rationalizations just yet.

But there are signs that people all over the Western countries have had it with the ideological terrorism of the ''anti-racists'', so-called.

He has to...he can't...

2012-01-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

AmRen has a post about Ron Paul's remarks in a past debate, in which he describes the justice system as racist against blacks. His evidence? That blacks are more likely to get the death penalty, and the claims of the disproportionate punishment of minorities in drug crimes.

In the Republican presidential candidates’ debate on Jan. 7, Rep. Ron Paul said: “I’m the only one up here … that understands true racism in this country is in the judicial system.”

The linked article, by Dennis Prager, reports on what Paul said in a recent debate, and many of the comments dispute the veracity of the report, based on the fact that Prager reports it. Prager, being a Jew with neocon leanings, is declared to have written a 'hit piece' by many commenters at AmRen.

To me, Prager and his conflicting interests are not the issue, despite the claims at AmRen that he is out to 'get' Paul. The problem with that line of 'argument' is that Paul has said the same things previously, as this discussion from October 2011 indicates. A commenter in this discussion from last month says that Paul has "repeatedly said" that the justice system is biased against blacks. And the fact is, I remember reading/hearing similar comments attributed to him well before Prager wrote the WND piece that is being attacked at AmRen.

Paul's supporters, whether left or right, will not be deterred from supporting him, regardless of what he has or hasn't said. The left and the libertarians believe he did not say anything ''racist'' in the notorious newsletters that have been used against him, believing that he naively lent his name to ''racist'' newsletters that some unidentified somebody wrote years ago. Paul, in their eyes, is one of them: aracial and innocent of any bigotry towards blacks. On the opposite side, his right-wing and even WN supporters believe he did in fact write the ''racist'' newsletters but that he must now pretend not to have written them in order to maintain his credibility with the left and the aracial libertarian faction. Which side is right? Is he a closet racialist who ''has to'' hide his real beliefs in order to ''maintain viability within the political system'' as Bill Clinton once said? Or is Paul an aracial, orthodox libertarian who believes (as he says in a video) that libertarianism is anti-racist?

Each side wants its view of him to be true; it seems as if his actual words or actions have no effect on the opinions of either faction of his supporters. He has become a blank screen for many upon whom they can project their own wishes for the ideal presidential candidate.

I supported him back in 2008 when he was considered even more of a 'fringe' candidate than he is now, but the cumulative effect of all his statements (like the ones in the video) plus his about-face (sort of) on amnesty, and his promise to ''increase legal immigration'' finished that for me.

So I don't kid myself that I will change anyone's mind on Ron Paul; the leftist supporters and doctrinaire-style libertarians will see him as their anti-racist anti-neocon, anti-war champion, while the racial right sees him as a crypto-WN who ''has to'' say the correct things on race and immigration to keep his political career alive, and who ''can't'' reveal his real stance on the most important issues of our time. The majority of the (mostly heated) comments on the AmRen thread I linked at the top are staunchly pro-Paul, and they express a lot of anger at anyone who does not agree with them. That, I find troubling: the idea that after all we have been through with politicians who are on everybody's side but ours, we are willing to rally around one who has openly opposed the things we supposedly care most about --- all on the strength of a belief that he is secretly one of us, and is dissimulating.

Do we need another dissembling politician? I am sure many people would answer a resounding YES! Why? Because ''they have to...they can't.''

How long do we think we can wait for the permission to speak honestly and forthrightly? Who has the right to withhold or to give such permission? Why do we continue to grant them this power over us?

And yes, I know that another stock answer (which the Bush supporters used, too) is that ''no politician is perfect; we have to settle for the lesser of the evils...politics is the art of the possible...you are a purist, and we can't afford to be purists'', etc. And I have heard all about how Paul's stance on ''limited government'' will cure all our ills, including our immigration tsunami. But that presumption rests on the notion that Paul will be able to single-handedly bring the present self-perpetuating system to a halt. And what is the evidence that he will be able to reverse all the damage of the last several decades?

For myself, I am only more convinced that voting will not solve anything; the system is too hopelessly corrupted and the electorate is apparently desperate, traumatized beyond being able to make sensible, responsible choices. The system is broken, as it was intended to be when the forces of subversion got the helm some decades ago.

About this time someone will pointedly ask me: ''well, what's your answer? What do you think will fix things?" Short of divine intervention I don't know, really, but I do know we have to go beyond the realm of blind faith in 'leaders' of whatever stripe, at least those who are part of this present broken system, and we have to seek the truth, and avoid thinking wishfully.

Remembering Robert E. Lee

2012-01-19T02:56:00.000-08:00

This day is the 205th anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Lee. It's good to remember one of the great heroes of our people, at this time of year when we are called to pay homage to others.

Some quotes attributed to him.

"True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels them — the desire to do right — is precisely the same." From a letter to General P. G. T. Beauregard, October 3, 1865

"You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right ... Above all do not appear to others what you are not.'' - from Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography (1986) by Robert A. Caro and William Knowlton Zinsser

"I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity."

''Our country demands all our strength, all our energies. To resist the powerful combination now forming against us will require every man at his place. If victorious, we have everything to hope for in the future. If defeated, nothing will be left for us to live for. My whole trust is in God, and I am ready for whatever He may ordain."

Here is the New York Times obituary for General Lee.

'Thou shalt not be judgmental,' except...

2012-01-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

Readers of this blog know how annoyed I occasionally am by the 'food prudery' and diet faddishness that is common among Americans now -- paradoxically at a time when we have an 'obesity epidemic' and the White House itself is on the march against obesity. It seems there is a 'war on obesity' -- the government always declares 'war' on anything it deems evil. Remember LBJ's ''war on poverty''? A comedian of that time joked that when he heard that 'we' had 'declared war on poverty', he went out and threw a hand grenade at a beggar. Well, now as the government declares war on obesity, people are throwing verbal grenades at transgressors of the 'food laws.' People like Paula Deen, for example.

In the case of the 60s ''war on poverty,'' it looks like poverty won. Jesus Christ himself told us 'the poor you have always with you', after all.

Similarly the fat we have always with us, though undoubtedly more of them than we used to have within recent memory. But in a rather mixed-up society like ours, we have people who get up in arms in a moral sense about other people's food choices, while warning against judgmentalism in regard to sexual morality and personal morality generally. We live in a society which uses terms like ''decadent'' or ''depraved'' (see this Free Republic thread) solely in connection with food. Food can be 'decadent', sinful, or 'depraved', but all manner of sexual perversions are 'a matter of personal preference'. Lying and cheating are winked at by many people, including those at the highest levels of society, but food and diet are areas in which people are quick on the trigger with their condemnation. What does that say about us?

That Free Republic thread I link above actually has a sensible post or two or three; not bad for the FReepers. There is another article at HuffPo about the same subject, Paula Deen and her recent diagnosis of Diabetes. [Sorry but I don't like to link to HuffPo]. But the people there are much more judgmental regarding Paula and her 'depraved' food choices than the FReepers. Many conservatives gripe about liberals and their anti-smoking bias; perhaps following Limbaugh's lead, they defend cigarettes as a matter of personal liberty and choice, while at the same time, they condemn people who make 'sinful' food choices, including Paula Deen.

But did she cause her own diabetes by her 'decadent' cooking and eating habits -- high in carbs, fat, and overall calories? The consensus seems to be a definite yes.

Somebody elsewhere on the Internet says that Paula Deen is being picked on because of her Southern food habits; today's Southern food is not known for being 'nutritionally correct.' Actually, my grandparents' and parents' generations ate 'unhealthily' by today's prissy standards. My grandparents ate fried breakfasts most of the time (bacon, sausage, eggs -- with tomatoes on the side to ''cut the grease'' -- along with country gravy.)

Incidentally my dear grandma lived a healthy 94 years, and was active and alert all her life on that 'unhealthy diet.'

The older generations partook of a lot of 'sweet tea' as well as 'cokes' as do the younger generations. The older folks didn't seem to fare too badly on it. But then again they were much more physically active, and had far less stress in their lives,, though their lives were more arduous in many ways.

Diabetes showed up in our family in my father's generation, and my one aunt who has it is as thin as a rail, and has never, ever had a ''weight problem.'' I know there are many people like this who do not fit the profile of the fat, lazy Type 2 diabetic, yet that stereotype has stuck. There are some who fit that pattern, but some who do not.

However this writer offers a dissenting opinion as to why Diabetes develops. The simplistic consensus is that people gorge themselves into Diabetes, whereas the writer points out, (I'm paraphrasing somewhat) that correlation does not mean causation. Diabetes is connected with sleep apnea, chronic stress, inflammation, excess weight -- but none of these can be said to be the cause or the origin of it. They are all part of a pattern.

We live in strange times in which real immorality is ignored, winked at, excused, justified -- even glorified and glamorized yet people are ready and willing to condemn those who are nutritional criminals, if you will. Postmodern Americans who believe it is a great evil to 'judge' people for their personal sins, even perversion, are willing to condemn those who don't fit the idealized model of fitness and 'correct eating habits.' Hence we have our political 'leaders' passing laws as to what we can and should eat (trans-fats, for example) and indoctrinating our children about healthy eating and weight issues.

I've pondered about why this upside-down morality has become dominant; much of it, I think, stems from our over-valuing of youth, physical perfection, and beauty. Pretty, young trim people are idealized and admired; conversely, the old, the less-than-svelte, and the infirm are devalued because they are deviants from the required standard. We find them unsightly and unappealing. Someone on a conservative forum said that 'fat people should be incinerated.' That kind of blanket statement, directed at a whole class of people, should be seen as 'extreme' yet it is not; it's not challenged by many people.

Support for euthanasia for the old and chronically ill is growing, and many people, especially with the anonymity of the Internet, are emboldened to speak their minds in favor of it. That is worrisome.

In connection with this, I read some discussions about the cruise ship disaster in which the captain did not 'go down with his ship', but left passengers to their fate. On one blog, various commenters denounced chivalry, even asking why they should value the life of an old woman more than that of a 20 year old. Well, when you perceive people only as 'attractive' or 'unattractive' objects, why, indeed, should we honor old people? They've outlived their usefulness in many cases, and they are unsightly, at least when judged by shallow 21st century standards. Those who are not young, beautiful, fit, and sexy should not be consuming oxygen and taking up space. That's what we've come to.

When 'Star Trek, the Next Generation' came along in the 1980s, I actually watched several episodes before swearing it off. One thing that jumped out at me about the series, especially in comparison with the original Star Trek was that the crew members on TNG were all 'physically perfect', more or less, in their spandex Federation uniforms. It appeared that people were chosen for Starfleet (or whatever it was by that time) on the basis of having perfect physiques, and being esthetically pleasing by the current standards. Older people (over 40 or so) were not in evidence. Had society euthanized the old, fat, and infirm by the time of the TNG universe? It appeared so. Everybody was 'diverse and multicultural' and politically correct, as well as physically perfect.

It used to be said by ''black activists' circa 1970 or so that Whites displayed their 'racism' by excluding blacks from advertising and department store displays. After that, diversity became the be-all and end-all, and now dominates our 'advertising'/propaganda. The blacks claimed that the lack of 'people who look like' them meant that Whites envisioned a world which did not include blacks or other 'diversity.' Well, it would seem, now that diversity is enforced strictly, that those who are excluded are not those of different skin tones, but people who are less than perfect physically: the infirm, the old, and the esthetically deficient.

As to Paula Deen, the only way she can salvage her career, probably, is to change her evil ways. She will have to publicly recant her nutritionally incorrect recipes, repent of her obesity and lose 50+ pounds, or lose her place in the spotlight. She will have to get PC religion, in other words. It's very much like those who are politically incorrect; the gods of nutritional correctness have to be appeased, as do the gods of political correctness. Confession, repentance, and atonement have to be made.

The advertising and promotion of foods deemed 'decadent' and 'sinful' will probably be banned from TV, as with smoking and alcohol.

Meanwhile our government scolds us about our food choices and our waistlines, supposedly in the name of our 'health and well being', while they gleefully welcome in immigrants with incurable new diseases. And meanwhile they make it near impossible for us to obtain local foods, or processed-in-America foods, forcing us to consume unsafe products from China, and foods containing bizarre and unhealthy substances.

Just one more instance of governments gone mad, and a society that is conditioned to acquiesce to it all.

The father of...

2012-01-15T22:55:00.000-08:00

I've wryly used the appellation ''father of our [post-American] country'' but now he is the 'Father of America's Conscience'. How much more fawningly over-the-top can it get, and this from a ''conservative'' website.

And speaking of which, see this thread on Free Republic about Tea Party
''conservatives speaking out so that all Americans can be truly 'free at last' -- free, specifically, from 'liberal policies' that 'keep down' certain populations.

Why, then, was the aforementioned 'Father of America's Guilt'', I mean 'America's Conscience' not marching against liberal policies then, instead of advocating for more liberal policies?

What say the politically-corrected FReepers about that, I wonder?

Every year around this time it's more and more noticeable how the two parties look more and more alike. And the scary thing is that the 'conservatives' don't even see that they are sliding leftward.

Independence or 'union'

2012-01-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

Many Americans seem to be under the misapprehension that England has somehow imposed the Union on Scotland. It wasn't true 300 years ago and, apparently, is not true now. Polls show that more English than Scots want Scotland to be independent.

''There is more support in England for Scotland leaving the United Kingdom than there is north of the border, according to a poll for The Mail on Sunday.

Scots do not want the English to meddle in whether they end their 300-year union with England, but English voters are much keener to have a say in the matter.

And the main worry of Scots appears to be that cutting their ties with England and Wales will leave them with less cash.''

The comments on the Daily Mail website show that there is strong sentiment on the part of some English people that the union is a lopsided one; England has no parliament of its own, while the Scots, Northern Irish, and Welsh have. The Scots also benefit in matters of tuition and prescriptions.

To me, this looks a little like the situation of White Americans vis-à-vis minorities. They can 'celebrate' their own heritage and fly their flags, while we cannot. Or they get privileges -- such as affirmative action -- which belong only to them.

Would it not be great if in our country, we held a referendum on keeping our (coerced) union together?

I support the same idea for the UK. What good is a union in which the partners are unequally yoked, and in which a majority no longer wish to continue?

Diversity at all costs

2012-01-14T02:41:00.000-08:00

Here, the victim of the recent TriMet transit attack in the Portland, Oregon area speaks about the incident.

The news media in general are downplaying any racial aspect to the attack, and sadly the young victim seems to be trying to downplay it as well.

''Her step-grandfather is African-American, she says, and she even downplayed the racial overtones of the attack, saying she was unsure that’s what the attack was about.''

Many op-ed writers and bloggers in area newspapers are scolding online commenters who don't observe politically correct taboos in voicing their opinions. As if the writer's liberal platitudes and PC smarm were not enough, a commenter gets up on his liberal high horse and dispenses 'historical truth' to the ignorant readers who don't toe the PC line.

If you can take it, read his several long comments giving us the Wikipedia version of history. This person is the typical self-righteous PC pharisee, a type that is found in profusion in the urban Northwest.

My own experiences in Northwestern cities does not tally with the media description of places like Portland, Oregon as 'White cities', where diversity is scarce. I don't know where the statistics come from that make Portland and Seattle out to be 'lily-white cities' with a tiny smidgen of 'diversity.'
Read this thread, where White people and others decry and tsk-tsk the lack of diversity in Portland. Behold the results of decades of multicult propaganda.

But no; a visit to either of those cities will show you that they are not the bastions of Whiteness that many believe them to be, or the 'boringly White' wastelands some xenophiles bemoan. The two largest urban areas in the Northwest are rife with 'diversity' and "vibrant enrichment" of the kind beloved of the allophiles everywhere.

There must be some serious undercounting going on in recent censuses, because there is plenty of 'diversity' in the urban Northwest. There is plenty of homegrown 'diversity' as well as immigrants aplenty, newly dropped into the Northwest by refugee agencies, or via illegal immigration through Canada (Chinese, South Asians, or whoever) or from Latin America.

I've had my own bad experiences on public transit while in a big city in the Northwest; in fact, I had multiple bad experiences, including being threatened physically. The bus driver in that incident did nothing and said nothing, although the man threatening me was a man about 6'5'' in height and 250+ pounds. The driver was a 'diversity' as was the man threatening me; it seems that blood was thicker than water.

I witnessed many incidents of casual violence among bus passengers, black-on-white threats and violence, and one curious incident in which a large black woman and her son of about 10 years of age got into a dispute over fares with the (White) driver. The woman, who was tall with a large build, began to punch and pummel the driver while he was driving the bus. He stopped the bus, and hit her back; they traded blows for several minutes until she and her son retreated and left the bus. And the general reaction from passengers in every case was always a detached indifference. Everyone seemed oblivious to what was going on unless they were directly threatened. Or perhaps they were afraid to even watch; they averted their gaze and reacted not at all.

I saw a near-altercation between a black woman and an apparently Ethiopian man who was handing out Christian tracts on the bus. The driver did break that tussle up, however.

Most of us remember the video that went around the Internet a couple of years ago in which a black man boarded a Seattle bus, and immediately began punching a blind woman in the face. To their credit, passengers did come to the blind woman's assistance, and stopped the attacker. It was one of several such attacks recorded on Seattle buses over the last several years. From what I remember, the bus driver did nothing to help the blind woman as she was being assaulted. I suspect that drivers are warned to stay aloof from any altercations or attacks among passengers. Either that, or Northwesterners are so low-key as to be near comatose. No offense to Northwesterners, but I've noticed the laid-back-to-a-fault style of many people in that area.

I feel sorry for the young girl who was assaulted by the baying mob on the Tri-Met, but I feel even sorrier that she has been taught political correctness and self-abnegation in matters involving 'diversity.' To that extent, she's been disarmed and rendered vulnerable, as have we all.

I hope these recent attacks in the Northwest help to destroy the erroneous idea that the Northwest is some kind of haven for Whites, or a bastion of civilization. Diversity+political correctness is a deadly combination.

Where it started?

2012-01-13T00:10:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to find the source of the recent 'Puritan/Yankee/Anglo-Saxon' vs. Celtic South fervor. One of the earlier internet pieces I could find was this one, by libertarian Thomas DiLorenzo, who basically covers all the main points in the linked piece, which cites Clyde Wilson extensively.

Murray Rothbard is also cited in the piece, so he has apparently been grinding the same axe previously. But I simply wanted to know why this theme has suddenly become so all-important and has been written on so extensively on a few blogs.

Also apparently a source for this idea is Colin Woodward, with his recent book 'American Nations'.

As I said before in another blog entry, I am still baffled by how 'Yankees', in the currently trendy sense of New England utopian radicals, are still exerting some kind of hypnotic influence on the people who now inhabit what was formerly Yankee territory. Apparently the present residents of New England, though majority non-Anglo Saxon and non-Protestant, are possessed by the spirits of the departed Yankee Puritans. Maybe there was some kind of voodoo witchcraft going on in old Salem after all, since the ghosts of those Puritans are still casting spells on people.

Who could have guessed that the old-line Yankees, who have long since spread out across the country, or been absorbed by the Ellis Island wave of immigrants to the Northeast, would still be exerting such an influence in the 21st century?

Could it not be that the later waves of European immigrants exerted considerable influence themselves, and that their influence was greater than is now being admitted? Remember the events that were taking place in Europe in the mid-1800s; many of the immigrants of that era and later brought considerable utopian/revolutionary ideas, and yet somehow they are absolved of wielding any influence on the progressive/utopian ideas that flourished in the Northeast and the Northern states generally.

It makes more sense to me to look for influence by living people, rather than trying to blame the ghosts of Puritan Yankees, or to attribute to their descendants some kind of genetic predisposition to wild utopian ideas. I believe in genetics to a great extent, but I don't believe people become utopian fanatics by heredity.

But again, the label 'Puritan' or 'Yankee' has been applied so carelessly in these debates that it isn't clear just who is being discussed. The original Yankee Puritan Anglo-Saxons have been scattered across this country. They no longer dominate the Northeast. I've cited statistics on demographics, and I am not going to keep repeating those stats; they can easily be looked up by doubters.
And those 'Yankees' who did not go West in the 19th century remained to intermarry with the later waves of immigrants and hence to lose their identity. I have New England-born distant cousins with French-Canadian, Irish, and Italian surnames, though they share a few English Puritan ancestors with me.

Those who wish to blame the Anglo-Saxon Puritans and their descendants for all of our current ills are fighting against ghosts; there is no 'there' there.Those descendants who have not been melted down in the melting pot wield no special political power; there is no cabal of 'Boston Brahmins' who are controlling the world behind the scenes. The Kennedys, the John Kerry Ellis Islander types, those are the 'elites' of Massachusetts now. The Bushes? They are a mixed-European family who have Hispanicized themselves. There are no WASP elites, though it seems people really, really want there to be. You know the old saying that if so-and-so did not exist, they would have to be invented? Well, the Boston Brahmin/New England Yankee/Puritan/WASP elites are more or less extinct for all intents and purposes, but why rob people of a favorite whipping boy by pointing that out?

I am sure the old WASP Puritans will continue to be exhumed from their figurative graves for a posthumous 'execution', as arch-Puritan villain Oliver Cromwell was.

On 30th January, 1661, the twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I, the body of Oliver Cromwell was exhumed from Westminster and posthumously executed. His corpse was hanged in chains at Tyburn. The body was eventually thrown into a pit, while Cromwell's severed head was exhibited on a pole outside Westminster Abbey until 1685.''

I could declare the 'Puritan Yankee WASP' extinct as an identifiable group, but no doubt they will be given the Cromwell treatment again and again; it's so satisfying to beat up on a scapegoat who is no longer alive to object.

'No doubt but ye are the people'

2012-01-12T02:48:00.000-08:00

I've just been reading several different blog discussions in which the 'Baby Boomer' generation is being denounced as the root of all evil, or at least the besetting evils of our day.

I know it's a waste of time, bandwidth, and effort on my part, but once more into the breach: the boomers, the hated boomers, were not adults when the Civil 'Rights' Revolution happened.

The 'boomers' that so many love to hate were young schoolchildren when 'Brown v. Board of Education' came down. They were children in grade school when the schools in the South were forcibly integrated. They were still schoolchildren when the sainted MLK was marching in various places, and even further back, when the 'freedom riders' were crisscrossing the South in buses.

Friends, the boomers are generally those who were born during the Post-War baby boom, when the GIs came back home after the end of WWII (and for those whose history is weak, that was in 1945), hence they were born beginning around 1946. The 'boom' is generally considered to have gone on through the 1950s, and according to some, into the early 1960s, as the 'greatest generation' (now fallen from grace with a cynical, scapegoating public) raised their families.

Do the math, folks; the boomers did not come of age until circa 1967. Many of the young men were fighting (and dying) in VietNam around that age. They were not all 'hippies' and campus leftists, not by a long shot.

''In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations.''

As far as their influence in destroying this society, remember that people could not vote until age 21 in those days, hence boomers did not vote until 1968 and later. Do I need to tell you that the die was already cast then, the rot already well-advanced?

I myself first voted in 1972. Now, considering that many boomers were voters by 1972, and considering their reputation for being crazed leftists, why didn't George McGovern win by a landslide? Instead, he lost by a landslide, by a very wide margin.The boomers were touted as being a very large demographic, remember. The 'greatest generation' had large families by today's standards.

So why did the boomers, once reaching voting age, not elect McGovern rather than Nixon? How did the popularity of George Wallace fit into the scenario of the leftist Baby Boomers?

Remember too that most people in high elected office and in positions of power in business and the military back in the 60s and 70s, and into the 80s for that matter, were of the 'greatest generation' or the 'silent generation', not boomers. Recall, too, that the first President of the United States who was of the Baby Boom generation was (sadly) Bill Clinton -- and that was in 1992, folks. So before the first boomer president, somebody else was busy destroying our society. Bush the Elder and Reagan were 'Greatest Generation' guys, as were Nixon and Ford. Eisenhower, who was president when the Civil Rights Revolution really kicked off, was of an even earlier generation, born around the turn of the 20th century at the latest.

I've said before and will say again: the post-boomers who loathe and detest their 'boomer' elders, have been even more liberal in their politics and social lives than their hated elders have been. Why, given the seeming resentment and loathing of 'boomers', have people continued to emulate the worst excesses of 'boomers'? The hatred becomes hypocritical when we see how very liberal or radical most of the post-boomers are, even as they condemn boomers for being dissolute hippies and communists.

The post-boomer generations continue the worst excesses associated with some 'boomers.' Why do they emulate what they profess to hate?

In a past post, I cited the demographics of the last presidential election, and noted how the boomers were the least likely to have voted for the current regime, while the millennials and the younger groups were the most likely. Yet this fact goes ignored, while these critics condemn their boomer parents and elders.

Some of the younger members of the 'movement' who write and speak are vitriolic in condemning the older generations; there is something wrong and misguided about this. This kind of feeling, the idea that each generation sees itself as the source and origin of wisdom, ends in Jacobinism, and I fear that kind of sentiment on the 'right' as much as on the left. There is a kind of hubris and arrogance of many on the 'right'. As Job said of his comforters, 'No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom will die with you.' Some among the younger generation believe that wisdom will die with them, because they believe wisdom was in fact born with them. Nobody but they can see the truth, and they think they have nothing to learn from their elders.

Rather than this attitude of casting off the past and disdaining it as all bad, we need a movement to restore that which was good in the past; trying to raze everything and build from scratch will end in grief; we may go from the frying pan into the fire.

I see an increasing hatred of elders which will probably enable the social engineers on the left to carry out euthanasia on the oldest generations, who have been criticized for being more 'racist' and 'too conservative' for the 'progressives' and their agenda. The left recognizes that there are in fact more people among the older generations who resist the multicult, and this is because these groups are the only surviving people who actually lived in the old America, the pre-madness, pre-PC America. The rest know it only through biased history books and popular misconceptions. Even the more 'right-wing' younger people believe much of the leftist propaganda, and are more likely to have a cynical attitude about the past, based on what they learned in corrupt government schools (and corrupted 'Christian' schools, even, where political correctness also holds sway).

I don't delude myself that the elder-haters will change their minds after having read what I have to say; my past efforts have been in vain and there are those who need a scapegoat, as I said. Old people, (which includes anybody over 45 for the younger ones) are considered unattractive and useless in a youth-and-beauty obsessed culture, so why not make the old a scapegoat?

One thing I do know; younger generations always think that they know more than their "stupid" elders, and they foolishly believe that had they themselves lived in the past, they would have made better choices and created an ideal society, based on their greater enlightenment. This is absurd. Nobody can say for certain that if he lived in some past era, he would not have followed the spirit of the age as most people did. Young people who preen themselves, saying that if they had been born 50 or 100 years ago, they wouldn't have been 'racist, sexist, and homophobic' don't know what they are talking about. They would have conformed to the majority, just as they are doing in their own age. Left or right, our age worships novelty, youth, 'fitness', wealth, beauty, and 'success.' Left or right, many younger and middle-aged people dislike the old, and see no value or worth in them.

And the most absurd idea abroad today is that old people somehow rule the world; that they have enormous political clout and power. I talked to a doctor a year or so ago who scoffed at my concerns about government health care being established. He said, 'the senior citizens have the most political clout of any group; they won't let the health care system be changed.' Well, he should be eating his words, because the all-powerful old folks were not able to stop the government health care bill, though they have the most to lose by it.

Boomers or the last few 'greatest generation' members are mostly oldsters in the declining years of their lives, and are dying off daily. They are also the Whitest demographic, and probably the least politically correct, definitely the most knowledgeable about the pre-PC era, having actually lived their early lives in that long-gone country. Those who hate the oldsters may dance on their graves when the last one passes, but their passing will be cold comfort, as the White population will be in the minority by then, and having rejected any wisdom their elders might have offered, will be on their own, as they avidly wished.

How well will these younger generations who have ''all wisdom and all knowledge', unlike their very human elders, fare then?

Excuse me for not having high hopes in this future governed by people who have never known anything other than the multicult dystopia that is growing around us.

Connections

2012-01-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

Over the past several years of blogging here, I've alluded to my avid interest in genealogy. I've done a lot of work in putting together our family tree file over the last dozen or so years, and it has been fascinating. It has deepened my interest in the history of this country as well as that of England. It adds more depth to your perception of history when you know your ancestors by name, and you know where they lived and died, as well as how they lived and died. It gives more meaning to history when you know that your forebears lived in certain places at certain momentous times. It personalizes history for you.

I often find it unfathomable that many people have no interest in their ancestors. Although it seems that genealogy has become more popular since the advent of the Internet, there are still people who are indifferent to the idea of knowing their ancestors, or even their general ancestral origin. The people who often say ''I'm an American and that's all I need to know'' are often the ones who disdain genealogy.

Some people see genealogy as elitist, believing it holds interest only for people with aristocratic pedigrees -- or those who wish for such a background.

Most of the same people who lack interest in their own family tree are the same people who say that they feel no affinity for their ethnicity/race; they are often the aracial, deracinated types who have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the idea that people are people, and any differences are only skin deep. We all bleed red, etc.

One of the interesting things about having one's family tree posted on the Internet as I do is receiving messages noting that so-and-so in the United Kingdom, or Australia, or New Zealand, shares some ancestors with me. These people are able to check their information against mine, and, ideally, to fill in some of the gaps that inevitably exist when you are putting your family tree file together. In any case, these distant cousins can verify the information I have in many instances, as well as vice-versa.
Occasionally these people message me. That's always interesting.

When I read news stories, or blog pieces, relating the news of what is happening in the countries of our kin, such as the UK and the rest of the Anglosphere, it becomes all the more personal to me, realizing that I have cousins -- albeit unknown to me personally -- in those places. The destruction that is being done in Western countries everywhere is being done not to random strangers, but to people who carry some of the same DNA as my own. They are my kin, not just in a vague, metaphorical sense, but in a real way, a flesh-and-blood way.

Maybe some people find that connection too tenuous or too abstract for them to care about it, but I find it compelling.
I wish that others could feel the same connection to our cousins across the oceans as I feel.

To many 21st century Western people, their family consists only of their immediate family circle, of parents, children, and spouse, with a few others included. However in my generation growing up in the South, the family included many, many people. It included third and fourth cousins as well as closer relations, and it extended to the older generations, great-grand-aunts and uncles. The family reunions were lively gatherings that I looked forward to, and anticipated happily, when I was a child. Now as the older generations pass on, the extended family has less cohesion as the younger ones drift away geographically as well as emotionally. This is sad, and it's part of what is happening to all of us as a people.

We've become so atomized, and this is part of the reason why we are so easily dominated and possibly to be conquered -- unless things are reversed soon.

There is strength in numbers. We need to regain our connections to our larger family, as well as to our folk. And this means not just the living generations who may be scattered, but the generations that came before us. Our family and kin group means those more distant in time as well as those distant in space.
Genealogy and the sense of who we are, specifically, in the context of our family and folk, is something that we are in sore need of today.

Can't, or daren't?

2012-01-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

The story about Pat Buchanan's troubles with MSNBC is yet another occasion for people at AmRen, for example, insisting that the answer to this kind of censorship is to tread carefully, and not be too controversial.

The same kinds of stories have had other paleocons (Tom Tancredo, for example) and other ''conservatives'' like Glenn Beck at the center. Whenever any such figure or spokesman, who is considered by many ethnopatriots to be 'one of us', kisses up to political correctness and says the requisite phrases (''of course I have no problem with legal immigration' or ''I admire many African-Americans; look at Sowell or Clarence Thomas...') then the response is always ''well, he has to say that. If he didn't say that he would lose his job. His career would end. He would be raked over the coals in the media.'' And so on.

And likewise, when someone like Beck gushes over MLK, Rosa Parks, and the elusive 'African-American Founding Fathers', people say, ''well, he has to say those things; it deflects the charges of racism. Now they can't call him a racist.''

In other words these kinds of statements from those who are covertly ''on our side'' are considered a kind of verbal formula which, like magic incantations, are supposed to protect us from misfortune.

All the evidence is that such magic incantations, such rote appeals to the gods of PC, do not work. Look at the numbers of men (and a few women) who, despite their making obeisance to PC, despite their treading carefully, ended up being tarred as bigots, haters, and '-phobes' of some sort.

Nonetheless, the thread at AmRen had the first comment recommending a 'neutral' kind of advocacy for our people; something along the lines of the BNP and their policy of 'inclusion' and diversity. The EDL has also taken that path. And has it bought respectability for those groups?

I ask rhetorically; we all know it has not; they are still called 'haters' and 'vile.'

Many of the faithful who say that we have to avoid explicit advocacy for our people seem to think such a stealth approach is needed, and that it will disarm critics. So far there is no evidence (zero, none, nil) that this has ever worked, much less that it ever will. But the idea of hiding our real opinions and our real agenda is still one that seems sound, for some reason, to many people who profess to be on our side.

I have written about this over the years, and I've never had anyone make a good case for why this tactic is a good one. I mean, if ''the average people'' will be scared off by any open disregard for political correctness, or by the failure to spout the usual PC shibboleths, then are they even potential allies? If they are that indoctrinated, can they ever be persuaded, even if we speak in the softest voices, using careful language? If they are that easily spooked, they cannot be of any help to us, in my opinion. So why do we worry so much about getting the clueless masses on board? My inclination at this late stage of the game is to say 'the devil take the hindmost.' If they don't get it by this time, after all the 'flash mobs' and other attacks and atrocities, and after the blatant bigotry of the media, then they truly will never get it.

Worrying about the timid and the clueless is like teaching a class aiming it the slowest and most obtuse students -- which is exactly the way our schools work now, and we can see how that approach serves nobody, and harms the brightest students, holding them back. So why should it work in political or social contexts? Target the people who are the farthest along, the ones who are capable of having an epiphany, or who are on the very verge of really 'getting it.' This group of people is probably still fairly small, despite the increasingly obvious peril that we are in. Don't waste time on the wishy-washy, middle-of-the-road people who never form an opinion unless it is expressed by some celebrity first, or the leaders in their social group. Many people -- and I hate to say this about my countrymen -- are not capable of thinking for themselves; they can only imitate, parrot, and follow the unthinking crowd. Yet this is the group that everyone worries about winning over.

There is the strange school of thought that we need leaders who can conceal their real allegiances and feelings and feign loyalty to the cultural Marxist orthodoxy (the MLK cult, for example) while all the while being ethnopatriots. So the politicians who bow down to the altar are at some point supposed to speak their minds and reveal their real thoughts. At what point will it be safe to do so? For years people have said 'they (politicians and other public figures) can't say what they think. They have to go along.' But at what point can they speak truth? Next year? Next decade? Never?

I think just about everyone on our side sees that we are weakening in terms of numbers every year, and everyone can likewise see that the PC Marxist system is growing more oppressive, and free speech dwindles as totalitarianism grows. This is rapidly getting worse. So how much longer will we be able to speak relatively freely without facing imprisonment just for our words and thoughts? Do we expect it to be easier next year to speak up, or will it be harder? Any bets?

If we don't use what free speech we still possess while we still possess it -- at least, on paper -- then we may no longer have the opportunity to speak up, or the right. We are waiting until the cost of standing up becomes impossibly high, it seems. The longer we wait, the more it will cost.

And yet some people are still counseling silence and dissimulation on the part of our ''leaders.''

What is a leader? In my book, it is someone who is bolder than the rest, who has the confidence and the valor to speak up when the rest of us cannot or will not. A leader is someone who does not wait for permission to speak the truth. A leader is one who does not take the pulse of the public before he speaks or acts. An example of the opposite kind of person was Bill Clinton, who was said to have consulted focus groups about his smallest decisions, and who seemed to be forming his opinions only after putting his finger to the wind. Where are the leaders who actually lead, who step out in front of the crowd rather than following along, or saying ''Mother, may I" before they speak or act?

And yet most of us seem content with 'leaders' such as these, who ask 'do I dare to eat a peach?'

And what is the worst case scenario if a Pat Buchanan or a Tom Tancredo or a Ron Paul takes the initiative and defies political correctness, denouncing it? Would it end their political or media careers? If so, what of it? It would inspire and embolden many, probably millions of people out there who are longing to see somebody stand up to PC and to the powers-that-be. It would make many more people willing to follow suit. It would break the ice in a big way. It would be real news. And so what if the enemy media would lambaste them? Even some of the dullest wits among us recognize the bias of the media these days.

Or what else would be the worst that could happen to a truth-teller in the public spotlight? He might be called names. He might be threatened through hate mail, phone calls, and e-mails. These things have happened to many of us who trod on the wrong victim group's toes. In the majority of such cases, the offender apologizes and grovels, or slinks away in disgrace.

At this point, however, people are not being put in gulags for speaking politically incorrect truths, nor are they being executed. But people behave as if these things are an immediate possibility, though they are not, as yet.

The silence is mostly self-imposed, it seems to me. We are censoring and imposing taboos on ourselves in anticipation of meeting with opposition. We are doing the enemy's job for them.

And we, the public, we timidly hang back and make excuses for the failure of any of our public figures to speak up boldly. Remember in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, it was a child who spoke up and stated the obvious. Children are known for speaking their minds without weighing the 'costs' to them, or for couching their thoughts in careful language. Who among our leaders fits that description? None. And yet everybody excuses them: ''they have to...they can't.''

And what is someone who perpetually ''has to'' or ''can't''? Such a person certainly is not free. A free man can speak his mind. A brave man is willing to take the consequences of speaking his mind. It appears we have neither free nor brave men/women in 'leadership' positions -- at least not on the issues that are most pressing for us as a people.

So if our leaders 'have to' bow to PC and if they 'can't' speak up for us and themselves as of now, when will they be able to?
Time is a-wasting.

More commenting woes

2012-01-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you have had a problem with posting comments, but it seems that my Intense Debate account has, well, vanished into thin air; it tells me that I do not have Intense Debate installed on any blogs, and it shows no comments whatsoever on my 'dashboard' there, nor do I have a profile in existence, though I did try to re-establish it.

I can only read your comments on the blog page, and it seems the comments are getting posted, but Intense Debate does not recognize me or this blog. Can anyone make sense of this? I have sought help in the past from Intense Debate but got no response to my query.

This may require some kind of change, because the current situation is not ideal.

The Eighth of January - Hank Williams

2012-01-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

Hank Williams and friends with an instrumental version of the tune ''Eighth of January'', traditionally a fiddle tune. Many of you will remember that the tune is also known as 'The Battle of New Orleans'', commemorating the event of that name on January 8, 1815.

For the music trivia buffs, the song Battle of New Orleans was written by Jimmy Driftwood, but made popular circa 1959 by Johnny Horton.

''Peaceful'' women leaders

2012-01-08T01:23:00.000-08:00

In my previous post, I mentioned the tendency of feminists (and even some women who would not own the label ''feminist") asserting that women would be better leaders because of their pacific nature. Then I happened across this post, somewhat apposite to my point, on the blog 'Full of Grace, Seasoned with Salt.'

The title is Women as ''Instruments of Peace and Security", in reference to this news item wherein Hillary Clinton expresses hopes that women in negotiating positions around the world can help defuse and prevent conflict.

Read the whole thing at the first link above. It's a good piece.

Thoughts

2012-01-07T02:31:00.000-08:00

These are a few questions that recur in my mind, and I've never heard anyone address them:

Why are most White people unwilling to defend their own, or even to identify with their own folk, while at the same time, many people have fierce allegiances to people of their own sex. It seems almost as though the natural ethnocentrism or ethnoloyalty has been superseded by the loyalty to one's sex. Women in general are militantly pro-female, for example, always touting the idea that ''it's time for a woman president.'' Women are often, dare I say it, female chauvinists, who believe females are morally superior and naturally ''wise'' and peaceful, therefore they should be in leadership positions.

Why is this loyalty to one's sex not considered 'sexism', as loyalty to one's race is ''racism''?

Again, many people in our society these days identify more with their favorite sports team than with their actual folk or tribe or clan or ethny. Do these things take the place of kin loyalty or clan/tribe loyalty?

Another thought: why is it OK for homosexuals to be averse to the opposite sex, and prefer only those of their own sex and appearance, while it is called 'xenophobic' to prefer our own people or kin group to those unlike us?

It almost seems as if there is something awry with the 'wiring' of many people today. The natural order of things is overturned, and people call it good.

'Out of many', part 2

2012-01-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

The discussion thread at this post by Vox Day, called The insidious aspect of immigration, has it all. It is, again, an illustration of the point being made in the blog post, but it seems the irony is lost on most people.

The thread has all my ''favorite'' ingredients: a tour de force of Anglo-Saxon bashing by one persistent troll, and it also features statements like this one:

''the scots were the ones who established the united states and led the revolution against the english...

People, this is the White equivalent of Afrocentrism. Everybody wants to cheerlead for their own ethnicity -- which is fine, but can't it be done without disparaging someone else's or playing fast and loose with the truth?

Those of you who are older will remember that it was not always this way; the tendency to 'embrace multiculturalism' is now ingrained in the ''right'' as well as the left, largely thanks to our promiscuous immigration policies down the centuries.

Emma West latest

2012-01-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

Apparently Emma West is being charged with an additional offense:

Emma West, 34, of New Addington, has been charged with two racially aggravated public order offences, one with intent to cause fear.

She gave Croydon Magistrates' Court no indication of her plea and said she wanted to face a Crown Court trial.

Ms West was given bail and will appear at Croydon Crown Court on 17 February.
[...]
She was charged with intent to cause fear or provocation of violence after a passenger, Ena-May Eubanks, said she hit her left shoulder with a "closed fist".''

Why was this allegation not made from the beginning? And is there surveillance camera evidence that it happened? Or did the person who made the video seen on You Tube not record this incident?

Is the justice system of the UK so far gone that the testimony of one person is enough for a charge to stick, or is there no need for other witnesses? And what chance has Emma West got when the alleged 'victim' or 'victims' are of the protected and coddled class?

Culture areas

2012-01-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

I found this map online via this page, and though the map seems fairly self-explanatory, I did not locate a page that elaborated on the map and the interpretation thereof.

What with all the discussion lately of 'Yankee culture' and its prevalence (or absence) outside New England, I thought this might be relevant. It looks to me as though 'Yankee culture' is confined to a couple of rather narrow geographical areas. I would even question the placing of the New England states, all of New York state, and parts of some adjoining states into that grouping. New England is not exactly home of Anglo-Saxon Puritan descendants now, as much as the descendants of 19th and 20th century ethnic immigrants (Italian, Portuguese, Jewish, French-Canadian) and recent immigrants from the four corners of the earth.

The '19th century European' culture area covers a bigger swath of territory; these would be the descendants of mostly Scandinavian and German (as well as a few pockets of Slavic and Dutch) immigrants in the Midwest and Northern plains states. I notice central Texas has a pocket of the 19th century European culture; that would be the German Texans who settled in that area, and who have maintained their language and culture down to the present time, though it's weakening.

Out of many, many.

2012-01-02T23:33:00.000-08:00

I've just been reading some long discussions at a couple of the high-traffic blogs where the posts run into the dozens or hundreds. The thing that strikes me most is the divisions that are so glaringly evident on those blogs, where there is a more 'diverse' crowd of people, though ostensibly all on the 'right' end of the political spectrum.

As we fret and stew over why our people are in the predicament we are in, and as we wonder why there is no apparent way to stem this tide of destruction that is washing over us, in all Western countries, it seems to me that diversity is at the root of it. And I don't mean the multiracial kind, necessarily; that is just part of it. What I mean is that on many blogs where ethnonationalists, WNs, paleoconservatives, etc. gather, there is a clash among different European ethnicities/regional groups, and religions/belief systems.

It seems the die was cast whenever our country allowed in more disparate groups of people, disparate religions, languages, and cultures. The seed was sown at least in the 19th century in our country with the mass immigration that began in that era. For a time we pretended that we would all blend together into one big happy American 'family', but today we can see that it did not happen, and any apparent 'assimilation' was illusory. The melting pot was a failure, and so here we are. E pluribus, pluribus, as someone said.

If only Dr. Who's tardis was available to transport us back to the crucial eras and see that the seeds had not been planted. But alas, that can't happen. So now we have to think our way out of this, will our way out of it. Is secession or a breakup into more 'natural' units the answer, or is a spontaneous falling-apart in the cards?

I am not sure, however, that it is possible to vote our way out.
I don't know what the answer is; does anyone else have a notion as to how it can be resolved?

In the country of the colorblind...

2012-01-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

You can run, but you can't hide, Whitey.
If you notice the obvious differences amongst the races, you are a racist. If you deny that any such differences exist -- you may think you are off the hook. Think again.

No, if you deny the racial differences, and proudly claim your 'colorblindness', you are -- a racist. Still.

There is no winning. Resign yourself. White=racist. Plain and simple.

Now, the multicultists tell us that 'there is no such thing as race. There is just one race: the human race.' Then there's the old standby: 'race is just a social construct.' Wasn't that the agreed-upon script? We've certainly had those ideas rammed down our throats for several decades. But alas, there's a new version of political correctness: colorblindness, once the ultimate virtue, is just 'racism' by any other name:

''Colorblindness creates a society that denies their negative racial experiences, rejects their cultural heritage, and invalidates their unique perspectives.

Let's break it down into simple terms: Color-Blind = "People of color — we don't see you (at least not that bad ‘colored' part)." As a person of color, I like who I am, and I don't want any aspect of that to be unseen or invisible. The need for colorblindness implies there is something shameful about the way God made me and the culture I was born into that we shouldn't talk about. Thus, colorblindness has helped make race into a taboo topic that polite people cannot openly discuss.''

Well, it's a taboo topic mainly because the 'people of color' have made it such a minefield that we dare not step anywhere near it, unless we are absolutely fearless -- or reckless, and think we have nothing to lose by daring to mention it.

It's the people 'of color' who have tried to make the 'dialogue on race' into a one-sided harangue, consisting of endless accusations and condemnations of Whitey. Poor old James Watson paid the price for mentioning racial differences, and now we are told that to pretend not to see the differences is equally 'racist.'

I hope the respectable Republicans have seen this article, and taken note that they can't hide behind their professed 'colorblindness' anymore; the jig is up. They have your number, you respectables.

Notice the picture in the article, with the White woman covering her eyes, in a 'see no evil' pose. If we see evil and speak up about it, we are racist. If we pretend that we don't see it, we are racist.

The article implies that we have to 'talk about race' in order to 'fix it.' Well, the lefty multicultists have been blathering endlessly about the evils of noticing racial differences for at least five decades now, but things have only gotten worse, and drastically so since January, 2009. I wonder why that is?

The other side (the multicultists and their clientele) demand a 'dialogue on race' but the truth is unwelcome at the discussion table. What, then, is there to talk about? Do they expect Soviet-style public confessions from us guilty people of non-color? That seems to be the only kind of 'racial dialogue' they are willing to accept. And we've had more than enough of that for the last several decades.

When the truth is no longer proscribed and punished, then we can talk. Until then, guilty Whites will have to continue walking on eggshells and biting our tongues whenever tempted to notice the uncomfortable truth that Must Not Be Named.

And one more thing: Psychology as a 'scientific' discipline should be objective and value-neutral, should it not? Instead, it seems to glory in preaching morality at us in the guise of 'science.' Psychology is now just another arm of the leftist orthodoxy.

'Prettiness' gone the way of goodness

2012-01-01T22:03:00.000-08:00

A recurring lament of mine on this blog has been the replacement of goodness with smarmy 'niceness.' This article, titled The Death of Pretty at the National Catholic Register, is described by its writer as 'a lament':

This post is intended as a lament of sorts, a lament for something in the culture that is dying and may never been seen again.

Pretty, pretty is dying.

People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.

Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue.''

The writer contrast prettiness with 'hotness', seeing the two as different.

Read the whole article at the link.

I agree with the point of the article, and I've noticed for some time the difference between female attractiveness or the feminine 'persona' as seen today and as seen in almost any past era.

Some of this ties in with the loss of feminine modesty in recent decades, and of the loss of modesty generally in our culture.

The feminist hand is to be seen in all of this, of course; the feminists of 40 or so years ago insisted that they wanted to 'liberate' women from the need to 'conform to external standards of beauty' and especially to 'liberate' women from the need to appear attractive at all. 'Beauty' was an artificial standard, and it was innately 'sexist' as well as 'racist', or so they said, as it was devised by the White sexist male, and it was oppressive to women. So they said.

In the decades since feminism began to dominate our public discourse, women have become more masculinized in some ways (women in the co-ed military, women taking part in many traditionally masculine professions and pastimes, like firefighting and bodybuilding) and women affecting grotesque 'styles' involving over-provocative clothes, tattooing and body-piercing. Hence we have the likes of Janeane Garofalo and other such women who seem to embody a kind of anti-beauty sentiment.

But as the writer of the NCR piece says, the point is not just about changing external appearance, but about the loss of the quality of innocence, and I would add, wholesomeness. Nowadays, wholesomeness is jeered at as being 'boring', bland, hypocritical, and as innately 'sexist' because it involves the sexual double standard: women used to be expected to be wholesome (clean-living, demure, ladylike) whereas men could get away with bolder behavior.

The charge of hypocrisy is one of the favorites of feminists, and of leftists in general. They seem to relish calling normal people 'hypocrites' because it is an article of faith with them that nobody is really decent and wholesome; people are by nature sluts and sleazes, and anyone who does not appear to be so is just hiding it, and pretending to be innocent or wholesome. By this convoluted rationalization, the ''liberals'' justify their own corruption and lack of standards in personal behavior.

The fact that standards of beauty have taken a sharp turn away from innocence and prettiness toward a kind of wantonness and sluttiness is evident when we look at pictures from the past compared to today's female celebrities and even average women on the street. We can see it in advertising; although granted, the world of commercials is a bizarre caricature of real life; watch how women who are deemed 'hot' are shown with sullen or outright snarling faces, rather than with sweet smiles as yesterday's beauties often posed. Today's 'sex symbols' look angry, hostile, and defiant. They look hardened and corrupted.

Today's women, and not just celebrities, are more likely to have had some kind of cosmetic surgery like breast augmentation (even teenaged girls are having this done at a fairly early age in some cases) or facial plastic surgery -- pumped-up lips, cheekbone augmentation, tattooed-on eye makeup. Today's celebrity females have almost all had some kind of procedure done to alter their faces, and generally this gives them a grotesque appearance, if they but knew it. The women generally thought to be beauties in the past were far more likely to look natural, and even though they wore some make-up, were pretty much as God made them, no artificial add-ons or implantations.

Mary Pickford, (above) once known as 'America's sweetheart', was noted for her sweet, demure persona. Now, that may have been just an image, and not her real self, but that image influenced many young girls to emulate her sweet qualities. Nowadays, look at the celebrities young girls look up to and imitate. The difference is stark.

But the crucial fact is that the beauties of the past often had a softness, a sweetness, and a feminine demeanor that is mostly absent today.

Modesty and sweetness are far rarer today than they were even a couple of decades ago.

Some of the dissenting commenters on the article make the criticism that the writer wants girls to adopt a false innocence, and seem to assume that the women of earlier times were feigning their own innocence. And yes, we are all born sinners, and yes, corruption and vice have always been with us. But the difference is that in earlier times, vice was not given the seal of approval that society gives it today. It was actually looked down on; it was not given pride of place. Neither was it whitewashed, or excused on the basis of 'dysfunctional families' or other such rationalizations. It was stigmatized. It used to be thought of as 'trashy'. It was not necessarily poverty that made people 'trashy', but lack of standards and morals; lack of shame. Now, goodness is stigmatized and sneered at. It's boring. It's old-fashioned. It's repressive. And so on, and on.

When we come right down to it, though, innocence or wholesomeness or sweetness can be feigned, but in order to produce the real beauty as described in 1 Peter 3 -- it's vital to know that the such beauty comes from the inner person.

So the real issue here is how to return to the older standard of feminine character and conduct; if we pay heed to that, then the real 'prettiness' will take its place again as something to be aspired to, rather than 'hotness' with its emphasis on raw sexual attraction.

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
- William Shakespeare

New Year, 2012

2012-01-01T01:29:00.000-08:00

Wishes and prayers for a better year for us all in 2012, despite the doomsayers.

Those predictions

2011-12-31T22:43:00.000-08:00

I have no predictions for 2012, as I am not a seer, but it's a little unsettling to see so many people taking one prediction so very seriously: the 'end of the world' on December 21, 2012.

The prediction, made by Mayan Indian astronomers in their 'Long Count calendar' has certainly generated a lot of talk, in the old media as well as among bloggers and other denizens of the Internet. Even a Christian web forum which I used to frequent has been caught up in speculation and even some nervous anxiety about the possibility of the world ending as predicted by the Mayan 'prophets.'

The History Channel, long known as a repository of very little 'history' and a lot of sensationalism, has hyped the 'End of the World' story for some time now. I have wondered why the History Channel devotes so much time these days to the supernatural (Nostradamus' cryptic 'prophecies', Bigfoot and alien stories, ghosts, etc.) rather than to actual scholarly information about real history.

Why is this prophecy being treated by many people with such earnest seriousness?

This article addresses the question of whether people are actually becoming more superstitious (and perhaps more credulous, in my own opinion) than in past eras, popularly thought to be 'backward' by comparison to our time.

''Just how strong the world resurgence in superstition and magic is was made evident by a report published by professor Steve Smith, historian at Essex University in England. For many years both China and Russia went to great lengths to eliminate popular beliefs in such things, yet today the Chinese are investing lots of money in ancestral temples while sorcery and faith healing are gaining in popularity at weddings.

Tarot cards were once banned in Russia, yet today fortune telling has become very fashionable indeed and there are many reports of a dramatic increase in the incidence of witchcraft. White witches were, for many years, regarded with deep suspicion in the west, as evidenced by the witch trials of medieval times; yet in the USA and other western societies today, especially amongst the young, there is a growing interest in it.''

I've read of a number of studies which indicate that, despite the fact that today's Western people have more education (in terms of years of schooling, at least) than our ancestors, we are not necessarily smarter or more rational and logical. Much of today's education is dumbed-down and is loaded with propaganda and bias, so I would argue that today's people are actually less intelligent than our predecessors in many ways, and the fact that many of us are pleased with our supposedly superior intellects actually makes things worse.

According to this article the fact that the world is becoming more 'frightening' to many people makes for more superstition, and in the opinion of the writer, more 'mental disorders' like 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder'.

''A recent report from the Mental Health Foundation found that fear levels are rising in the UK, and more than seven million of us currently suffer anxiety problems severe enough to affect our health.

A huge 77 per cent of us are convinced that post-9/11, the world has become a more frightening place.

That might explain why, increasingly, we're taking refuge in small rituals, much as the ancients did, to ward off bad luck. If we can't control the wider world, we feel perhaps we can at least exert some power over our small corner of it.''

Now, I am a skeptic when it comes to things like the belief in 'mental illness' and putting credence in modern witch-doctors known as 'mental health experts', but I think there may be some truth in this explanation for the apparent growth in superstitions.

Much of the basis for superstition is that human beings can either know events in advance by some kind of divination (as with the so-called 'Mayan Calendar') and that they can change their 'fate' or ward off certain events by doing various rituals or rites. Though those who dislike Christianity insist on calling Christianity superstition, Christianity flatly denies that human beings, under their own powers, can actually know the future, and also denies the idea that people can 'create reality' by means of 'visualizations' or rituals, such as using spells or fetishes or talismans.

It does seem that the more our society has rejected Biblical Christianity, the more superstitions thrive, what with people subscribing to New Age/occult beliefs like astrology, fortune-telling, 'creative visualization' and so on.

G.K. Chesterton is often quoted as having said that those who stop believing in God do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything. Actually, the quote is based on a passage in one of his Father Brown stories, The Oracle of the Dog:

"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.''

Is it possible that the Mayan Calendar is valid and accurate? I suppose almost anything is possible, although the Bible tells us that 'no man knows' the day or the hour of the return of the Lord, if that is how we understand the 'end of the world.' Actually the Bible does not say that the world will be ended, as in obliterated, but it will be transformed. There will be 'new heaven and a new earth.'

As for the Mayans, how are we to be sure that the translations of their peculiar ideographs or pictographs (they had no alphabet in our understanding of that term) are accurate? Surely there is much room for the possibility of error in translation or interpretation.

Even if we believed that the predictions in those 'calendars' could possibly be accurate, what good does it do to believe that the world will end next December? It seems to me that such a belief would lead to despair, to a feeling of futility and nihilism. It might lead to the fatalistic 'let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.' Perhaps that's the actual philosophy of many of the 'believers' of the Mayan prophecy; they simply want something to validate their fatalism.

And it helps that the Mayan prediction has the stamp of 'noble savagery' on it; to the typical post-modern, secular Westerner, Christianity is superstition while the Mayan Calendar has the cachet that is accorded only to non-White cultures. The post-modern, post-Christian Westerner's stance is always incredulity and scoffing towards our own oracles of God, but absolute credulity towards anything that comes from witch-doctors, shamen, gurus, and all sources that have the air of the exotic and 'primitive' about them.

Zazie's New Year greetings

2011-12-31T02:50:00.000-08:00

Zazie in France again sends us this card, wishing us a 'year of music and of flowers.'
Thanks, Zazie! It's a gorgeous card and a nice sentiment. We wish you the same.

Back again

2011-12-31T02:05:00.000-08:00

I trust you all have had a happy Christmas with those near and dear to you, and I hope all my readers haven't deserted me during my absence.

I've been silent lately because what with Christmas/New Year's, I've had little time or opportunity to blog. I hope to be back in the swing of things soon.

Meanwhile, Michael at Southern Nationalist Network links to an article about the New Year's Day culinary traditions of the South. It is interesting reading; anyone with roots in the South is familiar with the tradition of eating black-eyed peas for good fortune. There's also the belief that greens bring good fortune, representing money.

This page ties the tradition to the time period near the end of the War Between the States, and it makes for interesting reading.

The Real Story is much more interesting and has gone untold in fear that feelings would be hurt. It’s a story of war, the most brutal and bloody war, military might and power pushed upon civilians, women, children and elderly. Never seen as a war crime this was the policy of the greatest nation on earth trying to maintain that status at all cost. A unhealed wound remains in southern states even today, on the other hand the policy of slavery has been a open wound that has also been slow to heal but ok to talk about.
The story of THE BLACK EYED PEA being considered good luck relates directly back to Sherman's Bloody March to the Sea in late 1864. It was called The Savannah Campaign and was lead by Major General William T. Sherman. The Civil War campaign began on 11/15/64 when Sherman 's troops marched from the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia and ended at the port of Savannah on 12/22/1864.''

Read the rest at the link.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

To all my readers: I wish you and yours a happy and blessed Christmas.

Questions

2011-12-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

It's Christmastime, and I'm not in the mood to write any 'heavy' pieces on the usual themes on which I write; I'd rather wind down for Christmas, and my free time will be scarce over the next week.

But I will throw out a couple of questions for those of you who are interested in the North vs. South controversy, which continues to be discussed here and there in the blogging world. Specifically, I'm referring to the issue of 'Yankees/Puritans' as a separate people from the Southron people.

If the two peoples are distinct ethnically, as seems to be the case being made by numbers of commenters as well as bloggers, are we then saying that there is some kind of genetic division between 'Yankees' (of the New England old stock) and people from the states of the old Confederacy? If so, can DNA tests back up this belief in ethnic distinctiveness? Should such tests not be able to identify the two peoples as separate?

On the other hand, if the two peoples are basically the same, or close kin, how are the apparent differences to be explained? Does 'culture' make the people, or vice-versa, as I generally say?

Actually I believe it is not as clear-cut as that; environment and genes interact. But how did the 'Yankee' colonists become a 'different people' from their brothers (or cousins) in the South?

I have to say, though, that given the fact that there are few people today who are of pure 'old stock' descent from either the New England states or the South, it would be hard to find real examples on which to base arguments.

Ultimately it appears to me that people believe what they like to believe, or what suits their ends, not what the evidence may show.

Quakes in N.Z.

2011-12-22T20:44:00.000-08:00

I've just been reading about the latest quakes (three of them in quick succession, apparently) in New Zealand. I'm sorry to hear of this happening especially just at Christmastime. Prayers up for everybody in that part of the world. Hope you and yours are all safe -- including our reader 'New Zealander.'

It's a ''pitiful dreadful life''?

2011-12-22T01:08:00.000-08:00

The following is a repost of a blog entry from three years ago, for those of you who were not reading this blog back then, or for whoever may have missed it.

"It's a pitiful, dreadful life" is the message of a New York Times article, dissecting the classic Christmas movie "It's a Wonderful Life."
The writer is a Wendell Jamieson, who declares his affection for the movie, while saying:

Lots of people love this movie of course. But I’m convinced it’s for the wrong reasons. Because to me “It’s a Wonderful Life” is anything but a cheery holiday tale.
[...]
Was this what adulthood promised?

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife.
[...]
I’ve found, after repeated viewings, that the film turns upside down and inside out, and some glaring — and often funny — flaws become apparent. These flaws have somehow deepened my affection for it over the years.

Take the extended sequence in which George Bailey (James Stewart), having repeatedly tried and failed to escape Bedford Falls, N.Y., sees what it would be like had he never been born. The bucolic small town is replaced by a smoky, nightclub-filled, boogie-woogie-driven haven for showgirls and gamblers, who spill raucously out into the crowded sidewalks on Christmas Eve. It’s been renamed Pottersville, after the villainous Mr. Potter, Lionel Barrymore’s scheming financier.

Here’s the thing about Pottersville that struck me when I was 15: It looks like much more fun than stultifying Bedford Falls — the women are hot, the music swings, and the fun times go on all night. If anything, Pottersville captures just the type of excitement George had long been seeking.''
[...]
Gary Kamiya, in a funny story on Salon.com in 2001, rightly pointed out how much fun Pottersville appears to be, and how awful and dull Bedford Falls is. He even noticed that the only entertainment in the real town, glimpsed on the marquee of the movie theater after George emerges from the alternate universe, is “The Bells of St. Mary’s.”

Now that’s scary.

I’ll do Mr. Kamiya one better, though. Not only is Pottersville cooler and more fun than Bedford Falls, it also would have had a much, much stronger future. Think about it: In one scene George helps bring manufacturing to Bedford Falls. But since the era of “It’s a Wonderful Life” manufacturing in upstate New York has suffered terribly.

On the other hand, Pottersville, with its nightclubs and gambling halls, would almost certainly be in much better financial shape today. It might well be thriving.''

Jamieson says that his first viewing of the movie was at age 15, when his high-school teacher showed the film to his class. So, doing the math, it looks as though he would now be 42, but his comments seem to indicate that he is still 15 emotionally. At that age, one thinks that nightlife and pleasure-seeking are the height of glamor and fun. But can one build a satisfying life, and raise a family in a town which depends on human weaknesses and lusts for its sustenance? Man does not live by bread alone, even if vice is lucrative.

The America represented in Frank Capra's movies, including this one, is an America that is a foreign country to many of the younger generations.

Liberals usually ignore the fact that ''the past is another country." We cannot judge "another country" by the standards of the country that is post-American America.

The younger generations, sadly, have essentially grown up in the ugly Pottersville of postmodern America. So I suppose it is only natural that someone born in the mid-60s and coming of age in the 80s might sneer at old America, as represented by Bedford Falls, as 'stultifying' or boring. Pottersville, with its bright lights, materialism, and raucous pleasure-seeking would be more to the tastes of those brought up in post-60s, urbanized, X-rated, 'new' America. It's what they know; it's what is celebrated in today's media.

Jamieson shows how little he understands the motivations or the character of George Bailey when he says that Pottersville represented the 'excitement' George Bailey had been seeking, and had missed. I have watched the movie many times, and I don't read George Bailey that way at all; he wanted travel and adventure, new experiences. But if the 'bright lights' and sleazy flash of Pottersville represent the only kind of excitement worth having, why wouldn't George have simply headed for the nearest center of nightlife and joined the revelry? I understood his desire for excitement to be the excitement of a more wholesome kind: new places, new challenges, a chance to test his wings out in the wider world. The kind of manly adventure that earlier generations of boys often aspired to.

It may be hard for post-Americans to understand that excitement and adventure, let alone happiness, are not to be found in dissipation or thrill-seeking and self-indulgence. But earlier generations knew that. George Bailey, or his real-life counterparts, knew that.

As for the writer's comment that Pottersville would be ''in better financial shape'' than boring old Bedford Falls, is that not the kind of thinking that liberals often attribute to greed-driven capitalist Republicans? The writer's liberal leanings seem apparent, as he seems to think that George Bailey might better have walked away from his hometown and set off to ''find himself', sixties-style, or 're-invented himself', unfettered by family bonds, personal obligations and other such old-fashioned concerns. But I suspect he is more likely one of those libertarians who worships 'free markets' and individual freedom as the two greatest goods in the world.

I know that many very liberal people truly love this film, and it's interesting how conservatives and traditionally-minded people see certain things in it, while liberals see other things. Liberals, of course, see the villain, the rather caricatured Mr. Potter, as the symbol of rampant greed which of course is ''conservatism" in their view. George Bailey, though he owns the Savings & Loan, is a liberal ''good guy'' because he puts the interests of the working classes and noble immigrants, like the Martini family, first. Bailey is the ''little guy'' who is the victim of capitalism, and as such liberals can see him as a sympathetic character and a hero.

On the other hand, conservatives see that the movie presents our traditional Christian Anglo-American ways as good and as the bedrock of our country. I don't see how liberals and other cynics can fail to see that. It is as though they believe that the George Baileys and the all-American small towns just grew out of nowhere, having no basis in our Western Christian heritage.

The cement that held small-town old America together was our shared Christian values and our Anglo-American idea of neighborliness and civic spirit and plain old decency. Destroy that, and you destroy the potential for the kind of community and wholesome living that was the core of old America.

Somehow liberals are unwilling to see this. They think in terms of class struggle, rich versus poor. Along these lines, is Potter merely a cartoon villain, meant to represent capitalism, as liberals think? No; I think he represents greed and avarice, which may be distortions of the reasonable desire to make a profit. His desire for gain is unchecked by any concern for his fellow man; he is selfish and unprincipled. Capitalism per se is not bad, but it can be, if unmoderated by a concern for others, for neighbors, kith, kin, and community. Potter seems bereft of any such feelings. As such, he is a reprehensible person.

George Bailey, on the other hand, is a basically decent and honest man who nonetheless has his dark side, as we see as his life unravels. He is not a goody-two-shoes or a plaster saint. He is capable of selfishness, self-pity, and anger. But ultimately he is redeemed, and it is his concern for his friends, family, and community that testify to his essential good-heartedness.

Overall, the tone of the movie is uplifting and inspiring, and it leaves us with a hopeful feeling about fallen human nature. It is possible to rise above our own self-centered concerns. It is possible to learn to accept the limitations with which life presents us, and to find the good in whatever situation we find ourselves. We all have to play the hand we are dealt, but on the other hand, we can make choices; we need not be victims of circumstance, embittered by life's difficulties. We can love and forgive even the flawed people around us, like George's Uncle Billy.

We can find beauty and fulfillment even in a ''boring'' small town like Bedford Falls.
Now, we find ourselves in a world which overall looks very much like Pottersville, and towns like Bedford Falls are becoming harder and harder to find. It is very easy to be cynical and hardened in this postmodern America, as Jamieson shows us by his article.

The post-American, post-Christian generations have a hard time understanding that you can't undercut the Christian, Anglo-American foundations of this country without destroying the whole edifice, including the things that even liberals recognize as good.

Once you take away our traditional faith and culture, Potter has won; it's all reduced to money, cheap entertainment, and selfish individualism.

Bedford Falls and the people therein were artifacts of a certain place, time and value system. It's no accident that as those values fade, as the traditions and the habits of mind fade, so does the particular kind of 'wonderful life' celebrated in Capra's film.

As I've said before, it's possible to be homesick for the old America, even for those who never experienced it. The fact that many young people, even liberal young people, are moved by "It's a Wonderful Life" shows that perhaps they feel a sense of loss which they fail to recognize.

We might all try to re-create that kind of life in our own individual sphere, but it can't be done in a vacuum, without a congenial world in which traditional ways are once again acknowledged and preserved.

"Hate" and honesty

2011-12-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

John Derbyshire at TakiMag writes about the Ron Paul controversy, in which his political enemies have re-discovered the politically incorrect newsletters which were put out in his name over his years in Congress. Those newsletters were a factor in the 2008 campaign, which many of you may remember.

At the time, Rep. Paul disavowed authorship of the newsletters in question, in which he made 'controversial' statements on racial matters. When a CNN 'personality' brought the subject up in a recent interview with Paul, he responded testily, and is reported to have ''stormed off.''

Derbyshire highlights Rep. Paul's accusing Michelle Bachmann of 'hate':

''The sort of generalized group hatred that inspired Homer’s heroes and which is usually what’s being alleged in remarks like Ron Paul’s has been largely tamed and corralled into a small number of socially acceptable areas. The definition of “socially acceptable” varies—an Occupy demonstrator hates bankers, a social conservative hates abortionists, etc.—but generalized mass hatred is not a significant feature of modern Western society.

Accusing people of it sure is, though, as Ron Paul’s remarks illustrate.''

I agree that his remarks about Bachmann's alleged hatred of Moslems are the kind of thing that leftists specialize in, and should not be employed by people on the right -- or libertarians.

As for the issue of the newsletters, I remember being rather dismayed when he first denied authorship of the newsletters back in '08. I recall, though, that many of his supporters believed that he had not written the offending statements, and that many on the pro-White right rationalized that he probably had written those 'controversial' statements but he ''had to'' disavow them if he wanted his political career to continue. My readers know how irksome I find that argument -- you know, that so-and-so ''has to'' say certain things or ''can't'' speak certain truths
''if he wants to keep his job'', etc.

Perhaps he really didn't write those controversial passages about MLK or about crime and race; it seems possible that someone else wrote them because in my observations, it appears that Rep. Paul really does not have any innate ethnocentrism or ethnic consciousness. I think he is one of the aracial types of libertarian, or the anti-collectivists who really sees people as individuals, from a 'colorblind' perspective.

If so, then that tells me that he would probably not be the president who would take on the PC establishment -- something we sorely need.

If he did write the 'controversial' material, then he is less than honest to disavow it, and is perhaps afraid of the firestorm from the leftist and 'colorblind conservative' establishment which would follow if he owned up to writing the newsletters.

And if you still don't realize that the 'conservatives' can be just as politically correct and just as intolerant of honesty as the left, read the Free Republic thread discussing the CNN incident.

In that thread, one lone voice, probably an old-time FReeper, says:

''I never thought I’d find FReepers so “concerned” about racism. Did Jesse Jackson take over the website from JimRob? Did Kweisi Mfume sign up?''

I've been noticing the 'change in outlook' over at FR in recent years; notice that some FReepers deny the MLK 'allegations', a far cry from the prevailing attitude there in the 1990s.

But PC is making definite inroads on the ''right.'' So the window is closing for an honest politician to stand up to the PC vigilantes; if Rep. Paul is not the man to do it, it's good for us to know that.

Somehow, though, I sense that this whole controversy involving Rep. Paul will have little effect; his supporters on the left and in the 'middle' are happy to accept his denial of authorship of the offensive words, and his supporters on the pro-White right believe that his denials are just for public consumption; they believe he is really 'one of us' or close enough.

George Washington's eggnog

2011-12-21T02:25:00.000-08:00

in my recent post about Christmas in Virginia, there was mention of George Washington's famous 'potent' eggnog. Just in case anyone wants to try it, here's the recipe:

1 pint brandy

1/2 pint rye whiskey

1/4 pint Jamaica or New England rum

1/4 pint sherry

12 eggs

12 tablespoons sugar

1 quart milk

1 quart whipping cream, whipped

Mix liquor first. Separate eggs. Beat yolks, add sugar. Mix well. Add liquor mixture slowly, beating constantly. Add milk, then whipped cream while slowly beating. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold slowly into mixture. Allow to stand in a cool place for several days. ''Taste frequently'', the directions conclude.

Serves about 50.''

[from Recipes from the Old South, by Martha L. Meade, Bramhall House, 1961]

Christmas greetings

2011-12-20T02:03:00.000-08:00

Reader and commenter Zazie sends us this card from France. Thanks, Zazie, and a Merry Christmas to you too.

From a past Christmas

2011-12-19T01:34:00.001-08:00

Ernie Ford had a wonderful voice, for which he was not sufficiently recognized.
This is a beautiful rendition by the two men, in my opinion.

New fronts in the War on Christmas

2011-12-19T00:03:00.000-08:00

It looks as though the lefties, though generally not in favor of Christian holidays, have found them useful occasions for propaganda lately. For instance, making 'protest carols', with political lyrics, out of Christmas carols. And now, in Canada, Santa is making political statements.

Santa Claus will touch down on Sunday afternoon to celebrate International Migrants Day and join in a protest calling for the Mexico government and its Vancouver consulate to stop the blacklisting of Mexican migrant farm workers in BC suspected of being union supporters, according to a statement from United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW).

Still, those examples are not quite as disgusting as the pornifying of the Nativity story as seen in these examples.

Look at the photo at the last link to see a little extra sensationalism added to the mix. Nothing is sacred now. And it's not that many people are now indifferent to the meaning of Christmas, it's that they are actively hostile to it. There is an obvious effort to affront and insult Christians and to mock Jesus Christ.

And the perpetrators, shameless as ever, deny that there is any 'war on Christmas.' It's all paranoia, they imply. As always, they have to 'gaslight' us while they are working to tear down our traditions.

Christmas in colonial America

2011-12-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

From Christmas in Colonial and Early America, (ed. Peter Andrews, 1975):

Compared to the jubilant ways with which we keep Christmas, many of the colonial practices were something less than convivial. The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, founded in 1620, reflected their faith's stern edict against what were called "Bacchanalian Christmases." For the Pilgrims, the first December 25th in America was just one more day of work.

A few daring souls attempted to make merry the following Christmas, claiming that work would be 'against their consciences.' Governor Bradford retorted that it was against his conscience that they should play, and others, work. "If they made ye keeping of it a matter of devotion, let them keep their houses, that there should be no gaming or revelling in ye streets."

The Pilgrims belonged to the Puritan sect of the Church of England, and had left their mother country to sail to the New World, where they hoped they could practice their beliefs in their own way. As their name implies, the Puritans were determined to lead lives that were 'pure' of anything which was not specifically written down in the Bible. And the Bible made no mention of Christmas parties or celebrations.
[...]
A decree issued in 1659 formally banned the observance of Christmas, and all other like holidays, with a penalty of five shillings to be levied against any lawbreaker. Although the decree was repealed in 1681, the Puritan clergymen kept up their opposition in fiery sermons.
[...]
Christmas in the colonial era of Virginia was something else, however. There, Christmas was not simply another day, but a long, rollicking season. The holiday season was a natural extension of rural life in Virginia. The fall plowing was done, crops were harvested, and the tobacco was gathered and stored. It was time to celebrate. The great homes were thrown open to all, and guests came and went as they pleased. No one bothered with invitations, and a Virginia hostess had no idea how many guests she might expect for dinner, or to spend the night, or even a few weeks.

In 1746, a London magazine declared, ''All over the colony, an universal hospitality reigns.'' And despite a nose-in-the-air comment from the aristocratic Thomas Jefferson, that their activities showed them to be in a ''state of deplorable barbarism,'' Virginians enjoyed themselves immensely.

By day, the men rode to hounds, or hunted the plentiful game: turkeys, ducks, pigeons, and geese, that abounded. At night, parties were made gay by music, dancing, and games, that often went on until nearly dawn. Philip Fithian, a young divinity student from Princeton University, who served as a tutor for the offspring of the wealthy planter Robert Carter, has left us one of the few early accounts of a Virginia Christmas party. Carter's lands sprawled over 75,000 acres of countryside, and he could well afford to offer lavish entertainment.

After breakfast -- parties in Virginia started early in those days -- Mr. Fithian tells of entering a large ballroom and seeing several minuets danced ''with great ease, and propriety, after which the whole company joined in country dances, and it was indeed beautiful to admiration to see such a number of young persons, set off by dress to the best advantage, moving easily to the sound of well-performed music, and with perfect regularity, though apparently in the utmost disorder. The dance continued till two; we dined at half after three. Soon after dinner we repaired to the dancing-room again. When it grew too dark to dance, the young gentlemen walked over to my room, and we conversed till half after six. Meanwhile, the great hall was lit with hundreds of candles, and looked luminous and splendid. Everyone then returned for more dancing and parlor games, until supper was served."

Although the good squires of Virginia were mostly English-born, as were the Puritans of the North, they chose to re-create the merry Christmas customs of medieval England as best they could. No Puritan asceticism for them.

The Yule log, usually of oak and of immense size, was cut in the forest, hauled to the house, and set afire on the hearth. Originally a Norse custom, the burning of the Yule log was adopted by the English many centuries ago. Among other superstitions, it was thought to bring good luck to the house, for the year to come. Masses of fir, holly, and mistletoe decorated doors, halls, and ballrooms.

Virginia was a land of huge plantations, and the affluent owners were expected to be generous with their tenants and the poor in general. Servants and slaves were given Christmas presents, and, unless they were needed for the great parties, they were given the season off.

While the Christmas celebration was largely of English derivation, Virginia's Christmas Day began with an American accent. On the morning of the 25th, a great roar would resound throughout the countryside, as every man fired off his musket to announce the start of the big day. Strings of firecrackers were set off. Cannons would boom out a salute. And if a man had nothing else to make noise with, he would set up a clatter with pots and pans from the kitchen. This noise-making became a tradition througout the South. Religious services, if any,
were generally brief. As with most people in those days, Virginians read their Bibles daily. They knew what day it was.

The next major event of the day was dinner. A Virginia Christmas repast might well extend to seven or eight courses. That prestigious landowner, George Washington, set a holiday table typical of the era. Turtle soup, oysters, crab, codfish, roast beef, and Yorkshire pudding, venison, boiled mutton, suckling pig, and hickory-smoked ham, were most likely served, along with the roast turkey, with stuffing. At least five vegetables, hot biscuits and cornbread, and a variety of relishes followed. For dessert, there were often as many as a dozen choices, pies, tarts, puddings, cakes, ice cream, and fruit. And so that no one could possibly complain of hunger, dishes of nuts, raisins, and candy rounded out the impressive display.
[...]
An old Virginia saying claimed that if you lost all of
your senses except that of smell, you would still know when it was Christmas. Certainly the kitchen at [George Washington's home] Mount Vernon poured forth a wealth of glorious odors: mince pies, fruitcakes, plum puddings -- the joyous fumes of Christmas, they were once called. The traditionally English wassail bowl, a punch of spiced wine or ale, with apples, was traditionally offered at some point in the festivities, as well as port and Madeira. In addition, genial host Washington enjoyed concocting a particularly potent eggnog from his own recipe, which was always popular among the most iron-stomached of his guests.

Although gift-giving to tenants and servants was considered obligatory, the idea of bestowing heaps of presents upon friends and members of the family at Christmas did not come to the South until well into the next century. A kiss and a small toy were usually the limit of parental affection for children. For friends, best wishes for the New Year were considered sufficient.

More on the NDAA

2011-12-17T01:00:00.000-08:00

The other day I linked to a post by David Yeagley regarding the National Defense Authorization Act. That act is further discussed in this piece:

Rights Activists 'Appalled'' as Senate Passes Prison Without Trial Bill

Despite protests that the legislation will negate centuries old rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the Senate Thursday passed a bill authorizing the arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial of terrorism suspects, including American citizens, anywhere in the world.''

This is pretty serious stuff, and it is not being reported or discussed as it should be.

Unsurprisingly, Lindsey Graham has been involved in supporting this bill.

Among those supporting the bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has been a leading proponent of viewing the entire world, including "the homeland" as a battlefield.

"If you're an American citizen and you betray your country, you're not going to be given a lawyer," Graham said. " . . . I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad."

This shows another reason why ''our'' government has been so willing to import millions of potential terrorists via our open borders and insane immigration priorities: if we have potential enemies sown in amongst American citizens, and if our government is determined to make us all 'equals', regardless of origin, then homegrown, native-born, old stock Americans are fair game as well.

There is a method to the madness.

Meanwhile, one ray of light, possibly: HR 3676

H.R.3676 - To amend the detainee provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 to specifically state that United States citizens may not be detained against their will without all the rights of due process afforded to citizens in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution of the United States.

Let's hope this countermeasure succeeds.

The 'good news' of unbelief

2011-12-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

Vox Day comments on the passing of journalist Christopher Hitchens, a dedicated atheist. Some of the responses from readers seem not to 'get' the irony in Vox's comments. It seems to me that he is simply stating the atheist point of view put in its starkest terms.

If there is no Deity, no Creator-God, then everything is a matter of chance and accident, including the existence of any individual human being, who is extinguished forever upon the withdrawal of the life-force.

I don't have much to say about Hitchens, except that he was a good writer, though his politics did not agree with mine, and his very vocal atheism did not endear him to me.

I've known atheists intimately and many of them, rather than being simply people who find the idea of God implausible, are militantly, aggressively against God and against believers. It frustrates them that they are not able to convert everybody to unbelief. Many of them outdo Christians when it comes to being intolerant.

The missionary impulse for Christians is understandable if you look at it from the believer's point of view. If you believe that there is a God, a God to whom we will have to account one day, and if you believe that those who reject their Creator and his offer of salvation are condemned, then it makes sense to want to bring the 'good news' of God's salvation through his Son to the unbelieving world.

However, why do atheists try to proselytize for their unbelief? Christians want to deliver what they earnestly believe is 'good news' to the world: the good news being that there is a God who wishes you to believe and be saved, and to escape condemnation.

The atheist who proselytizes wants to deliver you the ''good news'' that there is no God, that there is no afterlife, and that, absent a God who judges, there is no right and wrong, no inherent meaning to this world. Some 'good news.' Why would someone trade belief for atheism, for the belief, held apparently by Carl Sagan and Christopher Hitchens, that life is essentially meaningless and purposeless, except for an animal existence that is snuffed out after a paltry threescore-and-ten? We are simply 'naked apes', descended from primate ancestors by way of freak mutations, who live to eat, procreate, work, maybe ''think'', then die and disappear.

Life truly is a 'tale told by an idiot', for the believing atheist.

Atheism is much evident in WN circles as well as among others on the 'alt-right' end of the spectrum. The constant refrain is that Christianity must be stamped out among White people because it is killing us, literally. Christianity is blamed for the perverted altruism that causes many soft-headed people to want to import 'diversity' en masse. Christianity is blamed for the (related) sickly-sweet criminal-hugging mentality that causes many deluded Christians to seek out the very worst in human nature and coddle it, caress it. So say the enemies of Christianity.

So the nonbelieving proselytizers on the various ethnonationalist sites are on the march, never missing a single opportunity to slam Christianity and Christians. I realize this is all foretold in prophecy; Christians know we will be hated, and we know, too, that there will be counterfeit Christians out there who follow various liberal heresies that now masquerade as Christianity. This fake Christianity serves the purpose, also, of drawing hatred toward the small remnant of real Christians, who will suffer for the doings of the false Christians.

Few critics of Christianity are willing to admit that the faux-Christianity that causes so much evil in the world is an aberration, a mutation, a perversion. It is liberalism/Jacobinism in a clerical collar, not the real thing. And I think the most rabid critics do realize this, but they want to extinguish Christianity not because it is a liability to us as a people -- but simply because they don't like the ''thou shalt nots.'' They don't want to account to God or anyone else for their moral choices. They don't want any morality at all, except for the Aleister Crowley anti-morality of 'do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law.'

And I think that's the same rebellious attitude of many of the intellectual atheists. It all boils down to ego, self-centeredness, arrogance, and unwillingness to even accept the idea of a greater Being, to whom we will have to answer.

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau:
Mock on, mock on: ‘tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
-Willliam Blake

Wave that (white) flag

2011-12-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

Are 'civic nationalists' happier than ethnonationalists? According to the study reported in the UK Daily Mail, civic nationalists are happier, though people who reported being proud of their ethnicity were happier than those who felt no such pride. Still the message of the article is that 'civic nationalists' who identify with a flag and a government or system were the happiest. The academic 'experts' quoted in the piece say that civic nationalism is more ''inclusive'', being open in theory to 'minorities and immigrants'. They take it as a given that the feelings of 'minorities and immigrants' are of paramount importance, not the feelings of the actual native peoples, or the indigenous peoples of the various European countries. European countries were the focus of the study.

''It added: ‘More national pride correlated with greater personal well-being.

‘But the civic nationalists were on the whole happier, and even the proudest ethnic nationalists’ well-being barely surpassed that of people with the lowest level of civic pride.’ ''

If 'civic nationalists' are in fact happier, can we be surprised, when this is the only kind of nationalism that is respectable in the Western countries today? Our leaders throw a few sops to people who wave the flag and express patriotism toward the government and the establishment. The typical American patriot has a sort of mystical reverence for the Constitution and the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance, while not caring explicitly for his ethnic/racial kin who are his neighbors and fellow citizens. The typical patriot recites the rote nonsense such as ''I don't care where you are born, as long as you believe in free enterprise and the Constitution, and as long as you play by the rules, you're as American as I am.'' Yes, these people are the backbone of the current regime, as they are willing to play the game and to go along with the propaganda about how 'America is a nation of immigrants' and about how assimilation can make Americans of anybody from anywhere. There are people like these in all European countries as well, I suspect, though it seems as though Europe seems to have more innate ethnocentrism than is found in the United States.

And is it any wonder that ethnonationalists are unhappy when the outlook is so bleak in many of our countries? All Western countries seem to be besieged to some extent or other by mass immigration, legal and illegal, and all Western countries seem to be in the death grip of the globalists and their political puppets who are acting in opposition to the legitimate citizens of their respective countries. Anyone in the West who is a normal, ethnopatriotic, ethnoloyalist person, can only be chagrined or alarmed at what is happening to our countries and peoples.

But the article and the study are not meant to inform us; they are only meant to further promote 'civic nationalism' and to make invidious comparisons between civic and ethnic nationalism. Civic good, ethnic bad.

Wave that flag, and celebrate diversity, if you know what's 'good' for you.

On borders and state sovereignty

2011-12-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

David Yeagley writes on the issues of borders and state sovereignty, in connection with the federal suit against Arizona regarding their immigration law.

The United States Supreme Court is ready to start a second American Civil War, only this time, the war is not between the states, but between the federal government and the states. It is more like a second revolution.
As of today, December 12, 2011, we are told that the judiciary branch of our federal government, the highest court in the land, will decide whether a state has the right to protect itself from foreign invasion.

Dr. Yeagley also discusses the National Defense Authorization Act, which Forbes is calling the 'greatest threat to civil liberties'.

There is a great deal of alarmist talk about this; is it in part deliberate fear-mongering, or are the worst case scenarios really a possibility?

As others see us

2011-12-13T01:25:00.000-08:00

The opinions are not all bad, despite the first couple of minutes.
I find it interesting that the respondents have a very definite American 'type' in mind when they respond; American identity can't be as fluid and amorphous as the 'proposition nation' cultists make it out to be.

More mayhem

2011-12-11T18:49:00.000-08:00

I can't say I've ever seen a headline like this one from the UK Telegraph:
Charity carol concert attacked by Congo protesters

Given the policies of our governments, things like this will become more commonplace. I just hope that people don't increasingly accept this kind of thing as just another day in the multicultural West.

''Shops were attacked, passers-by threatened and car windows smashed during a demonstration in central London against the election result in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The carol concert was raising money for MacMillan Cancer Support. It was organised by a group of friends whose loved ones had been treated for cancer.
Masked teenage boys ‘stormed’ the singers, throwing bottles of water and hot drinks into the crowd. A woman in her 40s, said to be undergoing treatment for breast cancer, was pulled to the ground. A youth attempted to set light to the Christmas tree, an annual gift from the city of Oslo since 1947, one witness said.''

Stuff Who likes?

2011-12-10T23:06:00.000-08:00

I've just come across this blog called Stuff WASPs Like. I followed a link from somewhere and found it, and I am still not sure whether the blog is parody or for real.

The title, obviously, is inspired by the well-known Stuff White People Like, and many of the things WASPs like, apparently, are the same sorts of things preferred by the SWPL types: designer brand names and various upscale items and habits.

I suppose you might say that Stuff White People Like is just a more ''inclusive'' version of Stuff WASPs Like (SWL). However I think of SWPLs as very urban, hip, and trendy in a granola kind of way, the kind of people who inhabit Portland, Oregon, Seattle, San Francisco, or Austin.

One reason I ask whether SWL (Stuff WASPs Like) is serious is the fact that as a WASP icon, they name Ina Garten, she of Food Network fame. You know, the 'Barefoot Contessa.' The blogger at SWL refers to Ina Garten's ''secret Jewish ancestry''. Secret? She is open about it, and she is often seen preparing dishes with Jewish origins (challah, for example). But if being a WASP is a matter of living in an upscale Northeastern suburb and furnishing one's house in a certain way, driving a certain kind of car, wearing certain brands of clothing, then why not Ina Garten as a WASP?

But even as I take a skeptical tone about the blog, the post at the top of the blog's page as I write this is titled 'Majoring in Art History', as one of the things WASPs like. My family would laugh knowingly at this, as I myself came very close to majoring in Art History, though I ultimately chose History as my major, only because the college I attended did not offer a major in Art History. (I also came very close to majoring in English Lit, and in fact minored in it). So I have to admit that I fit the stereotype in that respect.

Other than that, though, I can't say I identify with much of the 'Stuff WASPs Like', which seems to me to be associated mostly with living in the Northeast, and moving in rarefied 'old money' circles. As I always say, my maternal family had the bloodline but not the wealth that went with it. Shabby genteel, I believe, is the old term given to families like my mother's.

But if the term WASP is defined by only those people from old money Northeast backgrounds, does that exclude the many people of Anglo-Saxon Protestant origins who live elsewhere in the United States, and who don't connect with the old-stock New England families, as my mother did? It would seem so.

Much of the South is now fully convinced that the South is Celtic, so they seem to have abandoned their Anglo-Saxon roots. The rest of the descendants of the early English settlers seem to have 'settled' into amnesia, themselves, so it appears on the surface as if WASPs have all but disappeared from the country they founded. Perhaps they are the true Vanishing Americans.

Some quotes

2011-12-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

Some quotes related to things that have been on my mind:

From John Crowe Ransom:

"I will propose a thesis which seems to have about as much cogency as generalizations usually have: The South is unique on this continent for having founded and defended a culture which was according to the European principles of culture; and the European principles had better look to the South if they are to be perpetuated in this country."
[...]
The nearest of the European cultures which we could examine is that of England; and this is of course the right one in the case, quite aside from our convenience. England was actually the model employed by the South, in so far as Southern culture was not quite indigenous. And there is in the South even today an Anglophile sentiment quite anomalous in the American scene.''

Obviously things have changed since he wrote the above, which was circa 1930. The essay appeared in the collection of essays titled I'll Take My Stand, written by various Southern Agrarians, as a sort of manifesto.

Another quote, this one from Richard Weaver, another Southern scholar:

[The Southerner] accepts the irremediability of a certain amount of evil and tries to fence it around instead of trying to stamp it out and thereby spreading it. His is a classical acknowledgment of tragedy and of the limits of power. This mentality is by nature incompatible with its great rival, the Faustian. Faustian man is essentially a restless striver, a yearner after the infinite, a hater of stasis, a man who is unhappy unless he feels that he is making the world over… For different opinions and ways of life he has not respect, but hostility or contemptuous indifference, until the day when they can be brought around to conform with his own."

And:

"The saying of John Peale Bishop is worth recalling, that the South excelled in two things which the French deem essential to civilization: a code of manners and a native cuisine. Both are apt to suffer when life is regarded as a means to something else. Efficiency and charm are mortal enemies, and Southern charm indubitably derives from a carelessness about the efficient aspects of life."

One last one:

“In the last analysis, provincialism is your belief in yourself, in your neighborhood, in your reality. It is patriotism without belligerence.''

Henry Timrod

2011-12-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late with this posting, as Henry Timrod's birthday was December 8.
For those who don't know the name of Henry Timrod, (born in 1829), he was known as ''the poet laureate of the Confederacy.' He was born in Charleston, South Carolina.

"A fierce Southern patriot -- almost, some might say, an instigator -- whose poetry and song lyrics inspired many a Confederate soldier and civilian during the course of the War, Timrod is best remembered today for his magnificent "Ode at Magnolia Cemetery," possibly the finest memorial verses to come out of the four-year conflict.''

The Past

To-day's most trivial act may hold the seed
Of future fruitfulness, or future dearth;
Oh, cherish always every word and deed!
The simplest record of thyself hath worth.

If thou hast ever slighted one old thought,
Beware lest Grief enforce the truth at last;
The time must come wherein thou shalt be taught
The value and the beauty of the Past.

Not merely as a warner and a guide,
"A voice behind thee," sounding to the strife;
But something never to be put aside,
A part and parcel of thy present life.

Not as a distant and a darkened sky,
Through which the stars peep, and the moon-beams glow;
But a surrounding atmosphere, whereby
We live and breathe, sustained in pain and woe.

A shadowy land, where joy and sorrow kiss,
Each still to each corrective and relief,
Where dim delights are brightened into bliss,
And nothing wholly perishes but Grief.

Ah, me! -- not dies -- no more than spirit dies;
But in a change like death is clothed with wings;
A serious angel, with entranced eyes,
Looking to far-off and celestial things.

Conditioning

2011-12-09T21:15:00.000-08:00

The UK Daily Mail ran an article on how running marathons could permanently damage the heart. It makes sense to me, so I was surprised (though I probably shouldn't have been) to read the responses at the Daily Mail website. Most of the people were irate if not downright angry at the idea that this article should have been written. They responded, in many instances, with comments like 'so I guess that means we should all just sit on the couch and never move.'

Is it really a matter of either/or? Is there not some middle ground between the exercise zealot and the couch potato?

Why, I wonder, do people get so worked up over something like this article? It's true in this country as well as the UK, apparently. I notice that when any article questioning the health establishment orthodoxy is posted, the FReepers often react just the same way, scoffingly. They cling very tightly to the common 'wisdom' about health/diet, even though much of it has been debunked. For instance: salt is evil and bad for you. Trans-fats will kill you. Exercise will help you live decades longer.
Sugar makes children ''hyper'' and contributes to ADHD and violence. And on and on. Look up those 'truisms' and you may find they are not backed up by evidence.
But tell someone that, and watch them explode. These are cherished beliefs for many people, and they are very self-righteous about them.

But why is the issue of health/diet such an emotional one for many Americans in particular? I've noticed for some years that Americans almost all claim to be experts on diet and health, with each one claiming to have the last word on what people should eat and how they should exercise. Americans seem especially prone to food faddery, and this has been true for generations, dating back to the 19th century at least.

Now, it seems we can't read the news without having some government official preaching to us about diet and exercise, warning us that if we don't eat more fiber or less cholesterol, and if we don't get plenty of strenuous exercise, we will all die before our time. Most Americans don't take their religion (if they have one) as seriously as they take the diet and exercise gospel that is preached everywhere.

Granted, it does matter what we eat, and exercise of some sort is generally beneficial, but is running marathons a reasonable form of exercise? Remember, the 'marathon' run was inspired by the famous 26-mile run by the Athenian messenger Pheidippides, who ran to ask help from the Spartans. P.S.: Pheidippides collapsed and died following the completion of his run. Some people say the story is apocryphal, and that's as may be. Somehow the idea of running 26 miles appealed to many people despite the fact that it didn't seem to help Pheidippides live a long life.

Now we read of everyone from senior citizens to pregnant women running marathons, and just about everyone thinks it's an admirable thing, a good thing.

As I said, it seems plausible to me that doing that kind of demanding and (let's face it) grueling exercise could be damaging to the cardiovascular system if done repeatedly. So I don't get the anger on the part of the pro-marathon commenters.

Recently we've had the nanny state government officials preaching in schools against obesity, and local governments in various places banning 'trans-fats.' Why is the government so interested in people's eating and exercise habits? We live in a time in which there are many unemployed people, some by choice and some not, and in which there are not enough jobs to keep everyone employed. We no longer have a draft for the military, so we can't use the excuse that the government needs lots of healthy young conscripts to 'keep our country safe.' Our government is not interested in protecting the lives of its citizens anyway, at least when it comes to borders and immigration screenings. So why is the busybody government busy indoctrinating us about food and exercise?

Is power and control the end goal of all this nanny state preaching and haranguing?

The vehemence with which average people react when somebody challenges the offical orthodoxy on health/diet matters reminds me very much of the way they react when someone challenges the orthodoxy on matters of 'political correctness.' It seems very much like a conditioned response, and it has something of the feeling of heresy-hunting.

Someone I know, when we were discussing the health busybodies in the media and government, suggested that perhaps the powers-that-be want to get us used to consuming less (since we constantly hear how we greedy first-worlders consume way more than our share) and ultimately to reduce our standard of living. The way to do this is to persuade us that it's for our heath and (appealing to our vanity) that it will improve our looks, and help us live to a hundred or better.

And could it also be that they are using the same methods of conditioning our beliefs and thoughts with the propaganda regarding diet/exercise as they use on ''diversity'' and race? Maybe it's just a way of keeping in practice with the propaganda technique. Who knows. All I know is the nannystate thought police are overstepping their authority, whether they are 'shaping' our ideas about what we eat and how we exercise, or what we read and think. It's all about control, and teaching us what to believe, rather than letting us decide for ourselves.

A few thoughts

2011-12-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

Just a thought or two that I've been ruminating over: I've mentioned my issues with libertarianism before, but one thing that I am very uncomfortable with is the way many libertarians have of identifying with our sworn enemies, present or historical.

For instance, most libertarians oppose our foreign adventurism and intervention. Fine; so do I. We can agree on that. But where I can't go with the libertarians and many paleoconservatives is the point where they take on the old 'the enemy of my enemy' attitude. For example, since 9/11 many libertarians and paleocons have been fairly sympathetic towards Islam. This makes no earthly sense to me. Yet the tendency seems not to be reasoned, or reasonable, but mostly a knee-jerk reaction: 'neocons' hate Islam, Jews hate Islam, so therefore let's be sympathetic to Islam and pretend they could be our friends if we stopped being so hostile to them.

I am seeing more and more a tendency to cheer on anybody who is opposed to America, whether past or present America, because we dislike the State, or the Yankee government. Another example of this is the idolizing of Russia by many on the far right; another case of knee-jerk reacting.

We can tell ourselves that the Cold War was wrong and evil, but might it not be that both sides were guilty of fomenting it and keeping it going? Why is the other side automatically cast in the role of the good guy? Is it always a case of either/or?

I feel sometimes as if I had gone through the looking glass with Alice, and now I am in a world in which the 'right' is now in agreement with Howard Zinn's version of history. Where does this kind of thinking comport with ethnopatriotism or ethnoloyalty?

I don't believe in the credo 'my people, right or wrong', at least not fully; but wherever there is a doubt, I will always give the benefit of that doubt to my own folk and not their enemies.

Talk, and action

2011-12-07T00:04:00.000-08:00

The Emma West case is a launching point for some interesting pieces; first, this one by Christopher Pankhurst at Counter- Currents. Pankhurst discusses English nationalism --- that's English nationalism, not British. The distinction is still lost on most people on this side the Atlantic, and even on a few in the UK.

At the moment, it seems as if British nationalism is the only kind which gains any notice in the media, and whatever notice it garners is negative, thanks to flagrant media bias. But there are a few English nationalists who speak up here and there, though their voices fall on deaf ears among the many who still think 'English' and 'British' are interchangeable.

''For the present British establishment Mrs West is an embarrassing anomaly: an English woman who won’t turn a blind eye and keep quiet. It is likely that with the ongoing censorship of the native English, and their further displacement, this dying breed will be wiped out once and for all.

For the situation to have any chance of being reversed it is imperative that any nationalist movement in England must be an unashamedly English Nationalist movement. British nationalism is, to begin with, an oxymoron, as it seeks to exploit nationalist sentiment for a multi-national project. The problem with this is that vast numbers of foreign people now see themselves as British and have the documentation to prove it. British nationalists tend to be hamstrung by their attachment to the Union, as that very Union is the entity responsible for the threateningly high levels of immigration that assail us.''

Pankhurst mentions the little-acknowledged fact that immigration has concentrated much more in the portion of the UK that is England. It's also a fact that the English as a nation within the UK traditionally vote much more conservatively than the other ethnicities within the United Kingdom, and if the English had a choice there would be far less immigration into England. However, in the UK, they are the most marginalized of peoples, ironically, and do not have their own parliament. Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have their own nationalist movements, but only the English are prevented from having a legitimate nationalist movement. The St.George's flag of England is proscribed, while the Celts within the UK are permitted their own national symbols.

Pankhurst is surely right that the 'Union', with its leaders coming from mostly non-English roots, apparently have an anti-English agenda, and this is why England and its people seem to be in the cross hairs.

There should be some support from the millions of Americans of English descent, but those who are not amnesiacs about their origins seem to be unable to grasp the idea of the English as a distinct people, not as a 'proposition nation' as are the ''British.'' And we here in America have been force-fed this proposition nation lie for too long now to question it, in many cases. Many Americans know of no other kind of 'patriotism' except the civic kind, centering on a flag and a set of ideals.

Anglo-bashing is the favorite pastime of many Americans these days, so little sympathy is forthcoming from our side of the pond.

Here, Sean Gabb writes about Emma West and 'How to Argue with the Ruling Class.'

''One of the ways in which a ruling class keeps control is its insistence on rules of debate that place opposition at a regular disadvantage. I cannot think of any time or place where opposition voices have been listened to on fully equal terms. In modern England, however, the ruling class and its various clients and useful idiots are particularly rigid in their shepherding of debate. This is so not only because England is an increasingly totalitarian place, but also because the main legitimation ideologies are all obviously false and cannot be exposed to open criticism.''

Gabb notes how the linguistic rules are arbitrary, such as the demand for new words to describe the favored groups:

''Quibbling over words may sound petty. But to control the words usable in debate really is to have a very great if subtle advantage in debate.

A similar advantage is had by taking real or pretended offence, and calling on an opponent to apologise. When those crying out in horror have numbers or the power of government on their side, they can avoid the danger of arguing with an opponent by smashing his reputation. People are led to believe that he is a bad person.''

These demands for apologies, which are a regular occurrence on the part of privileged groups claiming victimhood, are a staple of the politically correct ritual.
The cries of 'offense', as I've said before, strike me as being calculated, feigned, in order to assert power, put the 'majority' Whites in their place, and to gain some new concession. Nobody's feelings are really hurt; it's all just a way of cracking the whip, showing who is really in the driver's seat.

If only more of us could see it this way, we might stop feeling the need to apologize and grovel.

Gabb mentions the harsh comments made by Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, wherein he called for having strikers shot in front of their families. These remarks, though certainly far worse than those of Emma West, were not considered a cause for arrest. But the ritualized demand for apologies took place, and Clarkson and the BBC acquiesced.

''Or there are demands for “historic apologies.” The Celtic peoples are rather good at this. So are the Indians. [...]But demanding apologies for alleged ill-treatment in the past is a good way to advance present interests. It smooths the way to actual financial or legal advantages. Or – as with the Irish – it just wins battles in a long-term vendetta.''

When are people -- that is, our people -- going to see through this ploy, and treat it as what it actually is: just cynical manipulation of our sense of 'fairness' or justice, and an appeal to our 'compassion'? We are being played. And too many of us fall for it, though people grumble about it.

Gabb recommends not bowing down to their rules of debate, and refusing to argue according to the rules they lay down. As he says, we need to withdraw consent.

Regardless of what some think of Emma West and her behavior, it should be agreed that she has provoked some thinking and discussion among ethnonationalists.

As for Emma West herself, still in jail, she does have supporters who are trying to organize some activism on her behalf. I think it's the least that her kinsmen can do.
Loyalty is all-important.

An outbreak of prudery

2011-12-05T22:37:00.000-08:00

As I've been reading so many criticisms from 'right-wing' or nationalist people about Emma West's shocking language, I thought it might be good to look at the issue of profanity or obscenity today.

First, we live in what is probably the most profane of societies, at least in regard to our everyday speech. Even the professing Christians I know give themselves a lot of leeway in regard to their language. Most of today's self-identified Christians use some kind of profanity, even if mild, and some are just as given to using four-letter words as the worst non-believers. Even those who avoid using the crudest four-letter words often discuss lewd subjects, tell crude jokes, or discuss subject matter that in our grandparents' day would be considered shocking: for example, discussing personal sexual matters in public.

So where did this latest wave of outrage about 'bad language' come from, suddenly?

Christians are warned numerous times in the Bible against not only cursing or blaspheming, but against bad or coarse language, for example:

"Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and cries and all evil speakings." - 1 Peter, 2:1

"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." - Ephesians 4:29

However many of the Christians I know seek a loophole by saying that it doesn't count if you are not taking the Lord's name in vain. Just saying ''sh*t" or other four-letter words is apparently all right with God, according to these people, because it is not disrespecting God himself or mentioning his name.

But back to Emma West: what reason do we have to assume she is a Christian? And can we expect those who are not to follow Biblical commandments or warnings?

I marvel, too, at the non-believing people who use profanity themselves, often copiously, still condemning Emma West for using bad language in front of her child.

Personally I think that sets a bad example and it's not good parenting, but in this day and age it is really near-impossible to shield our children from all the obscene language that can be heard anywhere and everywhere. I have been in public places in various cities and heard the most disgusting language and subject matter in public conversations -- at which nobody, including sweet little old ladies, bats an eye. Only once in recent years have I heard anyone chided for foul language in public, and the one doing the scolding was a 60-something schoolteacher, who was brought up in more genteel times. This was about 15 years ago, and that lady, who may be deceased now, was surely one of a dying breed even back then.

I suppose I should be cheered by the apparent revival of morality, and the fact that suddenly so many people are incensed by foul language. Surely that means some kind of spiritual revival or renewal, doesn't it? Is everybody getting religion on this issue?

I wish it were so; I'd love to live in a society once again in which only longshoremen or drunken sailors curse in public, and a society in which I might not have to hear coarse, crude conversations by everybody from elementary-school age children to senior citizens, male and female. I long for the day when the word 'lady' was not considered a pejorative, nor was it a generic word for any female over 21, but it actually connoted a high standard of gentility and comportment. And ladies did not swear, curse, blaspheme, or talk about sex or bathroom functions in public.

But that world is dead and gone -- yet it seems a lot of people are condemning poor Emma West because she does not speak like a lady from the long-dead past, from the time when there were standards. She is a product of our profane and ugly age, and her anger -- justified anger -- was expressed according to the custom of our time, in the strongest language.

Her critics and self-designated judges are not suddenly getting religion and heeding what the Bible says about language; I am afraid they are just the latest manifestation of a particular school of thought on the racial right (and the aracial right): the school of thought which places 'respectability' above all other considerations.

''She makes us look bad to the 'average' people out there.''
''If we want to attract more people to our cause, we have to act like civilized and reasonable people. We have to watch ourselves and be on our best behavior.''
"We have to show everybody that we are normal, decent people, not ignorant racists.''

And on and on. You all know how it goes. There are people with this 'respectability' obsession in every segment of the 'right', from the 'respectable Republicans' to the suit-and-tie nationalists who believe it's essential to 'win over the majority' or 'not appear too scary' to the masses.

I get more and more exasperated by these people as time goes by. There are so many errors in their thinking that it's hard to list them all. Most importantly, the idea that we have to appeal to the majority, or win over 'most people' is a delusion. And then there's the idea that 'one size fits all', that one approach is THE key to 'winning people over.' Not everybody responds to the suit-and-tie, scholarly, reasoned approach. It hasn't exactly worked like a charm heretofore, has it? Has it?

How did you, my readers, come to your present way of thinking? Were you persuaded by debate or logical argument? Or was it a matter of life experience, common sense, and observation? Was it intellectual, or visceral?

The less-educated or less polished members of our society do not care about intellectual arguments; they may not identify with intellectuals and those speaking in academese. There are all kinds of different people with differing backgrounds and life experiences who bring different presuppositions. They will not all be reached with debate, reasoning, and an appeal to upper-middle-class sensibilities.

In any case, the kind of thinking that leads us to constantly fret about 'what they are saying about us' or 'what they think of us' will not lead to any kind of success; it bespeaks self-consciousness and lack of confidence, an over-dependence on the opinion of strangers -- and enemies. Or it hints at an arrogant sense of superiority towards those deemed less than 'respectable'. This is not a helpful attitude.

It seems that some of these respectability-seekers crave the approval of 'mainstream' society or the 'cool people' more than they love their folk, more than they care about truth or justice.

And where is ethnic loyalty in all this?

Meanwhile, Emma West languishes in jail, and her children are in custody of lefty social workers. That's what should trouble us, not her language. Priorities.

Marine Le Pen interview with RT

2011-12-03T01:32:00.000-08:00

In the interview, Marine Le Pen talks, among other things, about immigration as a means of 'replacing the French population.' This is something that very few politicians are willing to say. I may not agree with 100 percent of what she says but she is head and shoulders above most Western politicians.

Foul, fouler, foulest

2011-12-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

It seems that the authorities in Britain have taken Emma West's children from her. Frank Ellis writes an indignant letter to the British Home Secretary in protest against Emma's arrest and the removal of her children from her.

This is all troubling, and it's all gone as most of us expected it would. It's pretty easy to predict the moves of the totalitarian multicultists by now; they are nothing if not predictable, these madmen; almost like automatons.

As I implied the other day in my initial post about the incident, the most disgusting thing about it is the torrent of ugly, malicious, inhuman comments from the diversity-mongers from the 'anti' commenters on YouTube and other 'social media' sites. Why is it that YouTube seems to attract and harbor the most pig-ignorant and loathsome of commenters, the worst of the worst on the Internet? And these creatures have the gall to say that people like Emma West are 'vile' and 'ignorant'?

And speaking of ''vile'', I wonder how many of you read those horrifying comments left on YouTube and elsewhere, and I refer to the comments condemning and threatening Emma. Some of those comments were unspeakable. I would not repeat them or describe the content of them, except to say that some of them contained threats of unnatural acts toward her child, her toddler son, and this in the most obscene language possible. Yet the really repellent comments like that are perfectly acceptable at YouTube; one sees them even on innocuous music videos and other non-controversial videos. This, friends, is the face of leftism: they defend and champion the most unnatural, immoral, gross, and inhuman words and actions possible, while vilifying someone who simply said 'you ain't English' and 'you don't belong here.' And yes, Emma used some four-letter words, but those words are now heard everywhere in our popular entertainment, in our public squares, in our 'literature', and these words are uttered by 'ladies', old folks, and children nowadays. The leftists worked mightily to make the formerly obscene words 'respectable,' and to remove all censure against those who used them publicly.

And since we're discussing the use of those words, where did all these nationalists come from who suddenly found those words shocking and beyond the pale? I've seen so many nationalists and others denouncing her language, when they never before saw fit to complain about the plague of vulgar and obscene words in our society? Why are people suddenly objecting to the words she used? As if the situation does not call for such vehemence? As if ''niceness'' will ever get us anywhere -- has it, so far? Has it impressed our opponents one whit?

But think about this: we now live in a world in which one can write or utter truly vile and shocking things, threats toward an innocent child and his mother, and face not even social disapproval -- yet a woman who speaks obvious truth ('you ain't English') is ''vile'' and deserving of losing her freedom and the custody of her own children. Think about it.

This is the measure of the left: perverted threats, the foulest and most insulting language is just fine -- but if you breathe one word against the 'protected victim groups' then you are 'vile' and deserving of death and worse. This state of things is unconscionable, and it should make us stop and think, again, of how upside-down things have become. Evil truly is 'good' these days. How much more depraved can it be before some of the dull-witted and willfully blind among us realize how bad things are?

Whenever I think of our present order of things, and of the leftists/multicultists who preside over it all, I keep thinking of one of the phrases H.P. Lovecraft used, in describing the horrifying aliens he wrote of: "As a foulness shall ye know Them."

Foulness personifed, and yet they are the self-righteous pharisees of our time.

Like minded people, or 'free-for-all'?

2011-12-02T00:18:00.000-08:00

This is a subject that I was thinking about earlier, and it's one that comes up with some regularity on blogs like this one. Over the years, I've seen other ethnonationalist/non-PC bloggers being accused of ''censorship'' for not welcoming posts by hostile people or even those with opposing viewpoints, expressed somewhat civilly. I've been accused before of wanting an ''echo chamber'' on my blog, or desiring only an 'Amen chorus.''

Here, Ryu discusses this subject, in a post titled 'Rethinking the Echo Chamber.'

''Our critics often point out that our forums and sites are echo chambers. This is true in the same way that churches are full of the faithful, that football stadiums are full of football fans and that schools are full of those who wish to learn. One of the big principles that WNs discuss is being surrounded by men who are similar in character, race, and culture. It is natural to want to be around people who resemble oneself.''

That, after all, is what motivates us; the desire to be with those who are 'our own,' with whom we have important commonalities. Still, the criticism persists that if we do not welcome even our most strident enemies and their obnoxious rants, then we are 'totalitarians' or that we don't allow freedom of speech.

I've noted before that when I come across a blog that I like, I am eventually turned off by the presence of hostile and abusive commenters, who are given free rein by the typical blogger who believes in ''total freedom'' of speech. The presence of odious and aggressive commenters is demoralizing, depressing, and it contributes nothing to the overall purpose of the blog, in my opinion.

I think there are some bloggers who truly do welcome trolls and disruptive commenters of various kinds; sometimes they claim that these commenters have instructive value, in showing just how repellent our enemies and their ''ideas'' actually are. Or some bloggers like to flex their debating muscles and show how they can demolish their antagonists with words. I find that it's generally a waste of time for all involved, and again, it deflates morale, as Ryu points out.

The chance for us to communicate with like-minded people among our own is a valuable opportunity to build up our spirits and to enjoy a little of the camaraderie that is so lacking for many of us dissidents in the increasingly straitened public discourse.

And we are not all in lockstep on every issue; there is a certain amount of divergence of opinion among us, so that 'iron sharpeneth iron', and we receive intellectual stimulation within our own groups, without having to spend our energies and precious time wrangling with our sworn enemies, most of whom are too dimwitted to bother debating with.

It's possible to enforce some rules on a blog without using too heavy a hand in censoring or deleting posts. I believe in free speech within limits, but again, the purpose of this blog is not to provide a forum for ''ideas'' or people who are inimical to what we live by. The purpose is to provide a discussion for those of us who are of like origins and like minds, and in so doing to help our cause.

Freedom of association is a right that has been taken away from us in 'the real world' but we can exercise that right in the blogging world.

Vile snitches object to ''vile'' speech

2011-11-29T01:19:00.000-08:00

By now you've all seen the video or read about the 'Tram Lady' in London who said some rather unflattering things to her fellow passengers on a tram in London.

Very shortly after, it seems, there were calls to have the woman arrested and charged,
and it appears she has been charged with a 'racially aggravated public order offence.'
The people on You Tube and the 'social networks' who have been baying for blood
should be satisfied now, or are they? The authorities will likely make an example of this woman, and make her out to be public enemy #1, because of what the supposedly objective 'news media' are calling her ''vile rant.''

''There are now calls across social networks in London to identify the woman, calling on the police to charge her.''

Was her ''rant'' vile? She used bad language, not language I or many others would use, but we hear worse than this in any city in the Western world nowadays, and few people bat an eye. But this woman criticizes immigration and speaks rudely to the sainted immigrants who incidentally, outnumber her and a few other British or English passengers by quite a margin. The very scene that the video shows us verifies the truth of her complaints about immigration. She has legitimate grievances, as do the rest of us who live in countries which are now declared to be open to all who wish to come here, regardless of the will of the people.

She merely spoke what a lot of people have thought, but feared to speak. Maybe she was ill-mannered, but is that a crime? Maybe she was unwise, considering how outnumbered she was, and considering the fact that she held her young child in her lap at the time. I suspect she was exasperated like many people in our countries are. As of now, we can't go to prison for our thoughts, but we certainly have no freedom of speech in many Western countries.

The truly disgusting thing, the thing that really is ''vile'' is the way in which her fellow English and British brethren are ready to condemn her and shout 'off with her head' because she spoke words that violate the codes of 'political correctness.' The way in which many White citizens of Western countries will rabidly side with Others rather than with their own is creepy and unnatural in the extreme, as are the people themselves who behave in this fashion. It's worse than what has been depicted in so many dystopian novels, the way that people will turn on their own. That's the ''vile'' behavior that healthy people should condemn and reject.

Method to their madness?

2011-11-27T23:41:00.000-08:00

August Pointneuf writes about the incredible comments by British political candidate Sandy Walkington:

''Sandy Walkington, liberal democrat candidate for St Albans has said, “We are all mongrels. I mean this country is the most mongrelled (sic) country in the world. In 200 years we will all be coffee-coloured – and I have got no problem with that”.

This grandiloquence and cultured bravado is naïve. Underlying this man’s thesis is a peculiar (in the sense that it is not consistent with the views of humans for millennia past) implied undercurrent of contentment. This contentment seems to arise from the illusion that if there is genetic homogeneity, there will be less strife and consequently the population will be safer, more content, and “happier”.

He is mistaken in believing that stirring genes in a pot of miscegenation will produce a uniform product. At a genetic science level he is wrong, because there will still not be a homogeneity. This is because the different expressions of various gene pools in mulattos will repeatedly force out differences.''

Pointneuf is right, of course; we can see the process he describes at work in countries like Brazil. There will not be real homogeneity as quickly as the promoters of mingling and mangling believe.

It's hard to believe that the powers that be are peddling this idea of Britain as a 'mongrel island' or a nation of immigrants, but the younger generations seem to be accepting it, and a troubling number of those who are old enough to remember things as they really were -- just as in this country.

Walkington's bigoted views are shocking, though we've all become inured to hearing such outlandish statements from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. It's incredible to me that so many people are still determined to deny that there is a larger plan afoot; that's 'crazy conspiracy talk' and all conspiracies, of course, are rumors only, and the product of paranoid minds -- or so the coincidence-mongers say. It's just a coincidence that all Western politicians are speaking off the same script, and saying the same obvious lies on both sides of the Atlantic, and in far-flung corners of the Anglosphere as well.

But apart from these points, one commenter makes remarks that tie in with something I've been mulling over myself. A commenter called 'Heechee' says:

''The NWO goal is the destruction of western society not just white people. I believe the mixing of races is just a bi-product of the plan. For total capitalism to work the western welfare system must be destroyed. It is part of our culture created through our Christian based philosophy of fairness and compassion It could be any people they flood in as far as they are concerned, colour is not real issue as it is numbers and differing values that cause internal stresses to appear. Western people will be forced to abandon our core values in the struggle to survive.

Our own welfare system is already buckling under the pressure and when we add 10 or 20 million extra it will fail. Eventually all our nations will become massively over populated and living standards will plummet worldwide as each economic block strives, through necessity, to be the cheapest producer.

Europe and the other westernised nations would do well to remember that in many parts of the world it is dog eat dog and only the strong or ruthless survive.That is the NWO future planned for us all!''

I've been thinking about this as well. It's often said by many on our side that the powers-that-be want to blend us out of existence, or in starker terms, to carry out genocide against us. The idea is that they want us gone, not just because of longstanding resentments and grudges against those of European/Christian origin, but because they see us as formidable rivals or potential resisters to the One World Order.

But I wonder if it is just this; it does seem to me that 'Heechee' is correct that they want to destroy the cultural habits associated with us: things like altruism towards the weaker (children, the elderly) and the infirm and disabled. The capitalist faction of the New World Order types want to do away with any such sentimental nonsense as compassion for the old, the unborn, and the infirm, and they want to dispense with social programs. On this issue, many 'conservatives' have come to agree with the elites on this score, thanks to overuse and abuse of the system by many 'victim groups' who claim entitlement not on the basis of old age or disability, but simply by virtue of being born into a certain group of people.

Glenn Beck and many of the neocon types talk about the Cloward-Piven strategy of the left and the goal of bringing down the system by bankrupting it. I think the left and the ''right'' among the globalists agree on destroying social services and so-called entitlements. Many 'conservatives' today class Social Security for the old as the same as welfare for the able-bodied young, for 'refugees', immigrants (including illegals), drug addicts, and people who claim to have 'mental disorders.'

I've often wondered: if the powers-that-be are moving millions upon millions of needy and demanding Third Worlders into our countries where they expect to be taken care of, how does this benefit the 'elites'? The idea that these immigrant hordes supposedly answer a need for more 'cheap labor' seems insufficient and unconvincing. There are too few jobs now for our native-born citizens; how will millions more unwashed illiterates fit into our economy? Obviously the elites have some purpose for this insanity, or do they? Are these people meant to help wear out our compassion and to harden our hearts, so that we don't even want to help our fellow citizens who are in need of help? It looks that way, judging by the increasing numbers of stony-hearted comments posted on Free Republic and other such sites; they increasingly view old and infirm Americans with the same cold indifference as they view welfare queens and mendicant illegals. Stop all assistance, they say. Let the old folks die off; we don't like their politics anyway. Baby boomer scum.

'The love of many shall wax cold', says the Bible, of the times we live in.

For years we've heard of 'compassion fatigue', ever since hordes of 'homeless' people were deposited on our streets, thanks to the closing of many mental hospitals. We've all become somewhat jaded as we've become used to seeing ragged people roaming our streets.

Now, with immigrants, refugees, and the professional poor attaching themselves to our overburdened social services, we have become positively hard-hearted.

So in a sense, our 'rulers' have succeeded in killing off much of the altruistic spirit which enabled us to care for our own people in genuine need. It used to be the case that neighbor helped neighbor, kinfolk helped their own. Now that family ties have been weakened if not outright dissolved, there is not much of a support system.

In a sense, our compassion, which distinguishes us from much of the rest of the world, has already been killed off. This serves the One World crowd as well; as the weaker members of our society die by neglect, there will be fewer 'useless eaters' for them to have to deal with. They apparently want to reduce the world's population drastically, and turning our society into a dog-eat-dog Darwinian struggle serves their purpose.

We say often that the culture is the people; the people create the culture. It seems, though, that our culture and traditions will be extinct before we ourselves are, as we are manipulated into abandoning our former core values and standards.

Southerners, diversity and nationality

2011-11-27T20:45:00.000-08:00

Michael at the Southern Nationalist Network speaks about 'Southerners, diversity, and nationality.'

I've noticed the trend he talks about, of Southron people (not necessarily those who fall into the nationalist category) who have bought all the 'diversity and multiculturalism', proposition nation rhetoric. But, as Michael rightly indicates, there are people who claim to be advocates for Southern heritage who have adopted the 'we are the world' United Nations, Tower of Babel ideas that have gotten the country (and all Western countries) into the crisis we are in now. What exactly can ''heritage'' mean, or be worth, if we can just declare that it belongs to anyone who wants to claim it? What can it mean if we say that it has no particular content, just as the people who may claim it have no particular origin?

If the 'proposition nation' nonsense is false for the country as a whole, it is doubly so for the South, considering that the South was not part of the 'nation of immigrants' that resulted from promiscuous mass immigration to the North. There may be subcultures in the South, but the overall Southern culture is not a crazyquilt made up of a little bit of anything and everything. It was discrete and identifiable, and still is, and the challenge is to preserve it as much as possible. Capitulating to the multicult is a way to doom our way of life and heritage. Guaranteed.

Hmm...

2011-11-25T23:54:00.000-08:00

Where have I heard this line of thought lately?

'' The New England Puritans, those quintessential Anglo-Saxons, he cites as God's own people are the emigrant version of the most self-righteously vicious, blood-thirstily destructive of traditional Christian cultures, arch-Judaizers ever to have gained control of a once Christian kingdom. Everything has its telos, and the telos of WASP culture is some form of the Germanic Gotterdammerrung.''

And:

''In addition to their turn to socialism, the ancestors of the Puritans invented many odd little cults- the Oneida Free-Love movement (where two future presidential assasins [sic] spent time), the Shakers, the Seven [sic] Day Adventists, the abolitionists, the feminists, the Barn Burners and the Mormons. No wonder that Anglo New England supports homosexual "marriage". And what oddity will Anglo New England come up with next?''

The quotes above are from commenters on a Chronicles thread from 2009. The discussion is about a Sam Francis piece on H.P. Lovecraft; Francis, a Southerner, was a great fan of H.P. Lovecraft, an arch-New England Yankee.

I am a fan of both men. But I wonder what H.P.L. or Sam Francis for that matter would have to say about the above comments?

And here's a question that occurs to me: if those 'damYankee' New England Puritan Pilgrims are responsible for the rampant, insane leftism that threatens our very existence now, how do we account for the parallel developments in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and Scandinavia? Were the Puritans somehow responsible at a distance for the slide of those societies into crazy leftism, even crazier, in some cases, than our American variety?
Thoughts, anybody?

English lament

2011-11-25T18:09:00.000-08:00

This is a very moving song, with the words being based on remarks made by an 80-year old Englishman in a conversation with the songwriter. It's long, but the lyrics are worth hearing, and I think most of us here can relate to them.

There's also a version with text lyrics here.

Thanksgiving a century ago

2011-11-24T02:00:00.000-08:00

A happy Thanksgiving to you all!

On Thanksgiving Eve...

2011-11-23T21:04:00.000-08:00

Pilgrims are an apt subject, but Dick Morris may not be the best expert on the subject: watch him explain how the migration of the 'Pilgrims' led to the War Between the States. This video was posted at OD and the discussion follows.

First, Morris does not seem to understand that the terms 'Pilgrim' and 'Puritan' are not interchangeable. The distinctions are explained here, but a brief answer is here.

But if we are to paint with extremely broad brushes, or if the specifics are considered unimportant, then maybe Morris can get away with it. In any case, he is an Ellis Islander, so I don't expect him to appreciate the nuances or distinctions.

On the OD thread the distinction between Puritans and Yankees, too, is not drawn. Did I fall asleep, like Rip Van Winkle, and wake up in a world where the meanings of words have changed? In my childhood, the term 'Yankee' meant all Northerners, not just Anglo-Saxon Protestants of colonial ancestry. Hands up, who agrees with me? Or am I in error all these years?

The commenters also bring up the idea that the Puritans believed themselves to be 'the New Jews' because they read the Old Testament. To my knowledge, all Bible-believing Christians read and believe both testaments. The Puritans may have believed they were 'spritual Israel' or the 'children of Abraham' but that is straight out of the New Testament. All Christians traditionally believed that they were Abraham's heirs at least in a spiritual sense, though not necessarily in a genetic sense, as British Israel adherents believe.

And even if they believed they were spiritual Israel, that does not mean they considered themselves 'Jews', new or otherwise. I believe that the Puritans, whatever we might think of them, were Biblically well-versed, and knew that the word 'Jew' was never applied to Abraham or Moses, and does not even appear until rather late in the Bible. Surely they understood that the terms Israel and Jew are not one and the same in meaning, just as 'Puritan' and 'Pilgrim' are not. A couple of the OD commenters point this out, but I am not sure their point is taken.

The idea that the 'Pilgrims', as Morris has it, caused the War Between the States, is an oversimplified one, to put it mildly. Sometimes, in trying to be brief, we paint in broad brushes, but if we are trying to be precise and get at the truth, we need to be a little more careful.

But the Massachusetts colonists arrived later, and they actually started arriving in 1620, not 1640 as Morris says. As I have ancestors among both the Massachusetts colonists (mine arrived circa 1630) and the Jamestown colonists, I think I can walk a line between the two, though my allegiances are 100 percent with the South.

Morris seems to say that the two groups of colonists were almost two separate nations. This is a popular view these days, albeit very oversimplified. Some popular historians and writers on the South's side say that the difference was ethnic: the South is ''Celtic'', fiery and hotblooded, while the North is 'Anglo-Saxon'', cold and hard-hearted. This is stereotyping run rampant, though stereotypes often have a kernel of truth, in most cases.

Were the Northern and Southern colonies founded by two completely different peoples? It's often said (and I've said it, myself, speaking in broad terms) that the Puritan colonists were from East Anglia, mostly, while the Cavaliers in Virginia were from the South and West of England. Yet that is not a hard and fast rule; I have ancestors on each side who were from the North of England. There were in fact Puritans in all parts of England, as well as in Scotland (yes, Scotland was very Calvinistic; how does that fit into the stereotype?). Morris states that the Cavaliers in Virginia were all English aristocrats, and a good many were, though not all. How do I know this? Not from reading unreliable history books written in recent years, but from years of genealogical research and reading documents of colonial Virginia.

Likewise the Massachusetts colonists represented a varied group; things are not as cut-and-dried as Morris would have it. They represented people from 'good families', landed gentry, as well as small farmers, merchants, and others, but they were generally chosen for good character, contrary to what some historians claim, that they were 'rejects' in their country of birth.

So the idea that the colonists in the two colonies were two separate nations is an oversimplification. The Puritans represented a sect in English Protestantism, but even they were not a monolithic group; there were differing varieties of Puritanism, some more 'extreme' than others. But it's good to remind ourselves that in today's very secular and irreligious age, anybody who reads the Bible and holds to its teachings is a dangerous fanatic and 'extremist' to much of 21st century America, or the Western world generally.

But if we believe, as I do, that the English colonists who settled Massachusetts and Virginia respectively were essentially, still, one people, how did it happen that they came to diverge so much? Because I do believe that North and South did come to be two different peoples by the time of the War Between the States, certainly, though the difference is not all 'ethnic' as pro-Celtic Southrons believe. Somehow the two sides came to differ greatly; maybe conditions in each region led to an exaggeration of existing differences. Morris seems to say that the South, being settled by English nobility with a bias towards a rigid social hierarchy, was thus favorable to slavery and other such 'un-democratic' ideals.

I wonder how much the different development of the North is attributable to the influx of immigration from non-English speaking countries in the era before the War. We must remember that the influx began in the 1820s and continued for decades after the War. The Northeast, particularly, and later, the Midwest, began to receive millions of immigrants from countries far more dissimilar than the Puritans were dissimilar to the Cavaliers. This influence is too often ignored or minimized.

The South, on the other hand, received relatively little immigration in that time period. And ironically the influx of immigrants to the North played a big part in how the War turned out, as many immigrants fought for the Union.

And, oddly, even after the flow of immigrants began to ethnically cleanse the old Puritan colonial-stock descendants from the areas their ancestors settled and built, somehow they are credited/blamed for the extreme liberal politics of New England? Those old Puritans/Yankees must have had some powerful mojo, to still be dominating the Northeast and its politics long after they are moved on to the Midwest and Far West, and/or blended out of existence, by intermarrying with the Ellis Islanders.

And if their 'culture' is somehow now being carried on by those immigrant progeny -- how does that work? No, the extreme liberal politics owe at least as much to the Jewish 'Tikkun Olam' as to some purported Yankee Puritanism. Puritanism, like all forms of Calvinism, does not believe human beings are perfectible, or that society is capable of being made perfect. It was enlightenment ideals that first introduced those notions, and sadly, I can see how the non-believing descendants of the old Puritans began to swallow those utopian ideals whole, hence the decline of Christianity in general in our country which we see in its end stages now. If the old Puritan fathers could have seen the outcome of their endeavors, I wonder if they would have bothered. Maybe they'd have stayed in England, or gone en masse to Holland, and the world today would look very different.

But don't let us become so embittered that we wish away our ancestors and their efforts; an alternative history might even have been worse. History is what it is; it's pointless to 'point fingers' at our predecessors.

A nation of invalids

2011-11-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

Since I was a child, I've constantly heard that so-called 'mental illness' is widespread among Americans especially, and this article from several years ago states that the rate of such 'illness' in our country is 'staggering.'

''Overall, the survey of more than 60,000 adults in 14 countries showed a 27% rate of mental disorders in the U.S. population for a list of diseases. That list includes: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse. The U.S. rate was substantially higher than that of any other country measured, including other industrialized nations such as Belgium, which showed a 12% illness rate.''

In the past I've alluded to the troubling prevalence of antidepressant use, along with the use of other psychoactive drugs in our society. I've speculated whether this pattern plays any part in the crisis we face. We often talk about the change that has come over many White people in recent decades, and discuss the role played by propaganda, and the media's role in dispensing it.

Could it be that the use of antidepressants and other psychoactive drugs play a greater part in what is happening to us than we realize?

We talk about the sense of apathy and aimlessness that seems to prevent many people from taking in the seriousness of what is happening in our countries. We talk about the 'dumbing down' and the crudeness and vulgarity of our society. We talk about the loss of inhibitions, the slovenliness and moral laziness. Then there is the obviously shortened attention span that is so noticeable these days.

The much-discussed 'obesity epidemic' is often mentioned in the media. Might this too be partly caused by the increasing use of psychoactive drugs, particularly those given for ''depression'' and for ''bi-polar disorder''? These medications are known for contributing to weight gain, and they are being increasingly prescribed for Americans, even for children.

''In a paper published in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health,Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston examine the evolution of the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and its dramatic increase since the mid 1990s, after the criteria for diagnosis broadened. They emphasize that there is vigorous debate in pediatric psychiatry about whether symptoms in children accurately reflect the criteria for bipolar disorder, particularly for mania.

The increase in cases has led to concerns about accurately defining psychiatric disorders in children as well as the safety and efficacy of resulting pharmacological treatment.''

And then we've read for decades about the increase in 'mental illness' among Americans and everyone just accepts that this is a fact. Might it not be that there is just an increase in diagnoses of 'mental illness' and not a real increase in such 'illness' after all? Are 'psychology' and 'psychiatry' real sciences like other genuine sciences? Some of us are skeptics on that issue. But most Americans are avid followers of 'pop psychology' and willing consumers of most of these psychoactive medications. Personally I know a troubling number of people who are on one or many medications given for various 'disorders' such as depression, 'bipolar disorder', and even once-exotic 'illnesses' such as multiple personality disorder -- now more politically-correctly known as 'dissociative identity disorder.'

Someone I know of who was diagonsed with 'dissociatve identity disorder' claims that one of her personalities has allergies that the other personalities lack, and that one personality requires prescription glasses, while the others have 20/20 vision. Right.

How long before someone has multiracial 'identities', with one personality being White, another African-American, and one which speaks Spanish while the others don't? If your 'personalities' are all White, that's racist, right?

Speaking of race, this article notes that antidepressants are most frequently prescribed among Whites, while blacks and Hispanics are less frequently medicated for 'depression.'

Between 1996 and 2005, the rate of antidepressant treatment increased from 5.84 percent to 10.12 percent or from an estimated 13.3 million to 27 million individuals. "Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans, who had comparatively low rates of use in both years (1996, 3.61 percent; 2005, 4.51 percent)," the authors write. "Although antidepressant treatment increased for Hispanics, it remained comparatively low (1996, 3.72 percent; 2005, 5.21 percent)."

Here, we read that blacks have lower rates of depression than 'non-Latino Whites' but there seems to be consternation that all ethnic groups do not receive equal rates of medication or other treatment.

''Mexican American and African American individuals with depression consistently had lower odds of receiving any type of care or care in concordance with treatment guidelines during the year prior. "The proportions of Puerto Rican and non-Latino white individuals who used concordant therapies in the past year were nearly twice those of Mexican American, Caribbean black and African American individuals," the authors write.

The findings illustrate the importance of breaking down large ethnic and racial groups into smaller sub-categories, they note. "Failing to do so obscures depression care research, especially for the largest and fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, Latino individuals, and especially Mexican American individuals.

"With the recent passing of a U.S. Mental Health Parity Act, our findings should provide guidance to better-enabled mental health to improve the depression care of all Americans and for reducing disparities among ethnic/racial minorities," they conclude.'

I never knew there was a 'U.S. Mental Health Parity Act'. Presumably there is a 'mental health treatment gap' that had to be corrected by law. Equality in all things.

Whether or not the use of these psychoactive drugs (and the diagnoses of various 'disorders' among many Americans) are part of a conscious plan to control or condition populations, or whether this is just a 'side-benefit' to the elites who seemingly want to make us into docile livestock, the fact is, it appears these drugs are not helping, but hurting.

This article (granted, from an 'alternative health' site with a bias) says that psychoactive drugs cause mental illness, as does psychiatry.

Whether or not you accept that claim, it seems that the ever-growing numbers of supposed mental illness seem to indicate that present methods of dealing with such 'illness' are at best, not helpful to the individuals being treated -- and they may be harming us as a people, contributing to our inability to find our way out of our present crisis.

My perception, based on what I've seen in real life, is that the idea of 'mental illness' and the blind faith placed in 'experts' has diminished people's sense of moral responsibility and has made people more fatalistic and passive; they can't help themselves, but must rely on 'experts' to fix their problems in living. Having an 'illness' that prevents one from functioning is making victims of many Americans, and popping pills, or spending years in 'counseling' or 'therapy' is a way of evading adulthood, and remaining childlike.

Nothing new under the sun

2011-11-18T22:55:00.000-08:00

The discussion of the Marie Claire article on Asian 'trophy' wives continues at James Edwards' blog.

As shown by old ephemera such as the sheet music cover above, the image of the exotic 'cherry blossom' Asian woman has been around for a long time, possibly since men from Western countries first arrived in the Far East.

The fact that the positive stereotype (and that is what it is, a stereotype) of Asian women has been in existence since long before the current estrangement between White men and White women suggests that it cannot be attributed to modern corruptions like feminism, sexual license, egalitarianism, or even to the so-called 'obesity epidemic' among Americans of both sexes. The latter, along with the ubiquity of the 'uppity feminist' are most often cited as ''reasons'' why White men seek out Asian (or Russian, or Hispanic) women in preference to their own.

It's certainly true that many women, under the influence of feminism, have become misandrist, to some extent or another, and more than a few have 'let themselves go' in appearance, dress, and manners -- but to be fair, men are also not immune to the latter trend, the trend toward slovenliness in personal habits.

But the fact that White men have been drawn to Asian women for many decades, perhaps centuries, indicates that it cannot be blamed entirely on the influences usually cited. There seems to be some kind of primal attraction on the part of many White men towards Asian women -- possibly because of the ultra-feminine stereotype of supposedly demure and pliant Asian females. It may apply in some cases, but it certainly does not apply to all. Perhaps being married to a female who does not know your language or culture limits the potential for quarreling, and makes the Asian woman appear more submissive than she might otherwise be.

And it is not just Asian women; there are likewise many positive stereotypes of Hispanic women (think of the image in the media of the hot-blooded, sexy 'senorita' with a flower in her hair, and hoop earrings), Islander women (hula girls gyrating) and American Indian women, the 'Indian princess' falling in love with the cowboy or pioneer. We've all been fed these stereotypes for a long time, and they seem to have some kind of primal appeal.

In any case, the reasons run deeper than apologists for the trend would have us believe.

I believe it was Ernest van den Haag who used the term 'the sexual power of the stranger', and in the Bible, we read of the perverse desire for 'strange flesh'. There's nothing new under the sun.

Unguarded Gates

2011-11-18T01:02:00.000-08:00

UNGUARDED GATES

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West;
Portals that lead to an enchanted land
Of cities, forests, fields of living gold,
Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow.
Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past
The Arab's date-palm and the Norseman's pine
A realm wherein are fruits of every zone,
Airs of all climes, for lo! throughout the year
The red rose blossoms somewhere — a rich land,
A later Eden planted in the wilds,
With not an inch of earth within its bound
But if a slave's foot press it sets him free.
Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage,
And Honor honor, and the humblest man
Stand level with the highest in the law.
Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed.
And with the vision brightening in their eyes
Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword.

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
And through them presses a wild motley throng —
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav,
Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn ;
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.
In street and alley what strange tongues are loud,
Accents of menace alien to our air.
Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew !

O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well
To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate,
Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come
To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn
And trampled in the dust. For so of old
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,
And where the temples of the Caesars stood
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Speaking ill of the 'dead'

2011-11-17T22:41:00.000-08:00

I've delayed reading the comments on the Andrew Fraser piece called The Lost Soul of WASP America until now, and the following examples remind me just why I postponed reading them.

''My own genetic heritage is 75% German and 25% Scots. And if it’s a question of recovering lost patrimonial heritages there is a different and in my experience healthier one for me and mine to seek out. And the same applies to the estimated 50 million other “Americans” who are primarily of German descent. We are the largest single “white” sub-group in the USA.

Nor do I see any reason for any Nordic, central or eastern European descended person in North America to join a quixotic and meaningless quest for the dead soul of a failed WASP culture. That is as pointlessly ‘propositional’ and ‘intentional’ as everything up to now.

This is what was urged by Jewish Zionist supremacist Israel Zangwill with his propaganda of “melting pot” for the goyim and an apartheid nationalist Jewish state for Jews.

Rather than engaging in necromancy it’s time to give the WASP identity its deserved burial in an unmarked mass grave and then move on.''

[Emphasis mine.]

Exactly what I expected to find there.
First, a minor point, though maybe not so minor: I reject the idea that Americans are in majority, of German descent. Where's the proof? Show it. Show me. Show me data. Evidence.

Likewise with individuals who claim they are mostly German or Scots. Do they even know for sure? As most Americans do not know their family line past their grandparents, it's unlikely.

I maintain there is more Anglo-Saxon blood in America than is generally believed. Can I prove it? No, absent extensive genealogical research. But again I say that if we go by evidence such as surnames, it's been historically true that the most common names in America were English or at least British Isles surnames. The feeble argument that 'the German immigrants were all forced to Anglicize their names', such as German 'Schneiders' being turned into 'Taylors', is just speculation and grasping at straws.

Later in the comment thread, commenter 'okiereddust' gives a good response to the idea that Germans outnumber English-descended Americans, but he is a voice crying in the TOO wilderness.

But somehow it happens that, as with everything else, there are fads and trends in ethnic identity, and just as in other fads and fashions, some identities are seen as cool and desirable, and just now, 'anything but English' is the flavor of the month. It's cool to be Scottish, post-Braveheart, for example. All thanks to Mel Gibson's fantasy-history.

This comment starts out somewhat promisingly, but degenerates into another English-bashing comment:

''The only reason why WASP complicity in the destruction of America is so obvious is because there are more WASPS than Germans, French, Swedish, etc. overall. If America had been founded by any of these people they would have been just as easily duped and walked over as the WASPS were.

Now, if America had been founded by Italians or Slavs then it’d be a different story entirely.''

Meaning, apparently, that Italians or Slavs are not such pushovers, and are more ethnocentric and tough than wimpy WASPs.

Funny, I read a number of articles lately to the effect that Italy has a huge immigrant problem now, mostly African and Middle Easterners, along with Roma gypsies.

Then there's this comment:

''Time to give WASP identity a well deserve burial and move on

FYI many of us already have. Thank God! …(Nature)''

Further:

''The people of back country USA are not the descendents of the effete Puritans or haughty “Anglais” landed gentry … we are the descendents of the mixed race mongrels (pict-celt-roman-german-whomever else served the late Roman Empire guarding the farthest northwest frontier) beyond The Good Emperor HADRIAN’S WALL, beyond the power of London Tower and Edinburgh, forced to solve our problems the old way – through blood feud, and personal violence.''

This stereotyping of English people as ''haughty'' and aristocratic vs. the 'mongrels' as being tough, fearsome, and generally superior to the English is popular these days.

''There are, effectively, NO LONGER ANY AMERICAN ANGLO-SAXONS in the United States. Done. Kaput. Bred out. Pulverized. Atomized. Intermixed and disappeared. Sure there are remnants, artifacts, interspersed among the 320 million population of the United States, and there are perhaps groups of older Americans, no longer of reproductive age, who might be said to constitute a coherent group or culture. But they are already the past, just dying embers.

It’s over. This author either has very little experience with the United States, is from an elderly generation, or is delusion. Anyone who has any contact with the population of Americans 45 years old and younger cannot harbor any expectation of “WASPs” reasserting themselves. A broader ethnic group, maybe, the diverse white Americans as a whole, perhaps. But there are no more WASPs in this country in any meaningful sense.

It’s over. I regret it. There was much to admire about the founding Anglo-Saxon stock of this country, and no justifiable criticism can be made of them except that they have fallen victim to a conquering force, having had some of their greatest virtues exploited and used against them. But every other group of European ancestry on this board is also succumbing to conquest, as is Rehman and his people although they are putting up a fight. There really are not grounds to single out “WASPs” for any particular opprobrium. It’s unfair and it’s pointless.''

This commenter, though wrongly proclaiming Anglo-Saxon Americans extinct, at least says a few non-hostile words. I do appreciate that he speaks against the constant scapegoating of Anglo-Saxon Americans, though I am 100 percent certain his words will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes.

One commenter with the monicker 'wasp and proud' questions the idea that WASPs are dead and extinct, and rightly takes TOO to task for encouraging or at least tolerating Anglophobia on their forum.

''It is due to the support of books s/a this and the kind of posts on this thread, and a growing reputation, quite frankly, for not publishing people on the threads who would (and without using bad language) defend their sub-group, that one wonders at TOO and its association with American 3rd Position. While many might desire an involvement with American 3rd Postion, they may not support it due to its association with what’s perceieved as an “anti-wasp” website.''

I rarely read TOO for the precise reason that it often publishes anti-Anglo-Saxon and anti-Christian comments, thus hinting at an anti-Anglo, anti-Christian bias. They are free to provide a place for such bias, and I am free to avoid reading it.

As if all the above were not enough to make my blood boil, somebody mentions the Jefferson-Hemings slander, and states as fact that Jefferson and others 'miscegenated' and fathered children with their slaves, etc. Does anybody dispute that? No, not as far as I can see. Why do the board moderators not take issue with obvious untruths, or at least with very questionable and highly-disputed statements? Does nobody care about truth anymore?

The commenter 'wasp and proud' does contribute some very good comments as the thread goes on. In reference to the comment declaring that WASPs are dead and gone, he says:

''Imo, this is a genocidal statement (by ex-pro-white activist above):Nor do I see any reason for any Nordic, central or eastern European descended person in North America to join a quixotic and meaningless quest for the dead soul of a failed WASP culture. That is as pointlessly ‘propositional’ and ‘intentional’ as everything up to now.”….

Our sub-group culture (language, history, trajectory to the country, watching its denoument with immigration, our bonding over the hatred of our enemies especially in north america, folkways, dances, arts, and more) is —like any other on earth— viable and worth preserving, imo.

Look at what the other groups have REPLACED IT with. Now, is that better? (lol)

To suggest that we should not exist, is to justify genocide. To say we should not seek what has been attempted to be taken away– is a wish in the direction of our genocide.

The concentration in the quote was northern europe, and only protestant northern europe. (“no need for nordics…)

Well, to side with the minority narrative (as this poster) and say wasps are nothing more than extinct and failed, and there’s no use even trying to save anything left (of their own heritage, one supposes he is saying–) —is just to show what side this person is on, lol.

Perhaps, now that the wasp genocide is accomplished, the poster would like to tell us who he thinks SHOULD take us forward here (somehow i bet it is him, lol).

If other groups ever decide there is something worthwhile about us, and that maybe we have had some good ideas, and that in fact, we have seen strangely blessed (evil heretics though we are), then maybe wasps would not have given up on THE OTHERS.

WASPS DID NOT destroy American, nor abnegate responsiblity, lol—

in their point of view, they created a way of life that could have led the others out of the problems of europe— but the others could not take that path, and replayed the europe they came from. Whatever happens, is just a judgement on those who saw no room at the table for the children of the founders.

It’s a matter of God and the soul, not money, for many of them. The petty power mongering that goes on now is an embarrassment to their higher ideals.''

All the criticism that are made of Anglo-Saxons are pretty much identical to the criticisms that can be, and are, made against European-descended peoples in general: they are too altruistic toward outsiders; they were arrogant and oppressed the 'lesser breeds without the law', they were weak and not ethnocentric enough. The Anglo-Saxon, like it or not, (and the TOO commentariat doesn't like it, plainly) were the most successful of European peoples. They were too successful. Success breeds envy and resentment and the desire to pull down the stronger individual or group. Everybody wants to fight the champion. We might say that the Anglo-Saxon is viewed as the arch-White man, and is hated and resented as such. A lot of the sneering, and the wearisome verbal attacks on 'WASPs' is a result of the attitude of those who have adopted the victim pose. Not pretty. Also not very 'White.'

I can't say I agree with Andrew Fraser's comment here:

The term WASP is indeed derogatory and abusive; but those who bear that label must accept that they deserve much of the contempt heaped upon them by other racial, religious, and ethnic groups.

How have Anglo-Saxon Americans deserved this? Why? I understand that Fraser is a scholar, while my viewpoint is that of a partisan, a defender of my ancestors and my heritage. I make no pretense of being a detached observer with no emotional investment in this subject.

Somebody on the Anglo-bashing thread asks where the WASPs are, if they are not extinct, and why none of them (if they exist) speaks up in defense of his people. Well, there are a handful of us who identify mainly as such, and do speak up for our folk, but then we are not big-name, high-traffic bloggers or noted scholars. We are standing up for ourselves and few are listening. Now and then I feel like one of Dr. Seuss's fictional creatures in Horton Hears a Who; if you remember, nobody believed the small Who creatures existed until their voices, amplified, were heard. ''We are here!" We, those of us whose ancestors lie mostly in English soil, have to shout to make our voices heard. We are here!

Stop talking of us in the past tense. Stop slandering us behind our backs, or behaving as if we don't exist. It's easy to slander the 'dead', apparently, and the Anglo-Saxon Americans are supposed to have died sans progeny. Reports of our demise, however, are greatly exaggerated.
We are still kicking.
We are here.

Multiculturalism bad, assimilation, good?

2011-11-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

David Starkey, the British historian who created such a controversy when he blamed the 'thug culture' of the rioters in London, is at it again.

This time, he is in hot water for saying the simple truth that Britain was a ''monocultural'' country, which is 'unmitigatingly white' apart from London.

''Historian David Starkey has become embroiled in controversy again after referring to Britain as a 'mono-culture' that is 'absolutely and unmitigatingly white' outside of London.

His comments came during a debate on history teaching in schools, which the TV historian was accused of politicising.

The debate was a result of education secretary Michael Gove’s announcement that he wanted to make "our island story" a fundamental part of the national curriculum.
Dr Starkey advocated for "a serious focus" on British culture, before arguing against the idea of Britain’s diversity by saying: "You think London is Britain. It isn't".

Here's the Daily Mail's report on Starkey's remarks, with a little more detail.

The comments seem to be running in favor of Starkey, with the usual obnoxious responses from the multicult fanatics.

I'm sure my readers easily recognize where Starkey goes wrong, however. Read what he says about ''assimilation.'' The fact that the commenters seem not to notice the fatal flaw in his remarks is not a good sign.

The brainwashing seems to have the same effect both here and across the Atlantic: the proper PC attitude from the so-called 'right' is to say one favors assimilation. Usually, among Americans, this is expressed in statements like ''they just need to learn English and become good citizens like previous generations did.'' The politically correct script has people denouncing multiculturalism yet reluctant to denounce or even criticize the reason for multiculturalism: mass immigration, mainly from incompatible and very alien countries. There need be no discussion of 'multiculturalism' without the presence of large and ever-growing numbers of immigrants, asylum-seekers, 'refugees' and border-jumping looters.

Right about now, somebody usually says, ''well, can't you read his remarks and see the glass as half-full? Isn't he on our side? Isn't he helping to get our message across?' My answer is no, I can't see the glass as half-full. Half a truth is a whole lie.

The fact is, assimilation of tens of millions of alien peoples with drastically different cultures and habits is the death knell for the host peoples and their cultures. Assimilation means absorption and loss of identity, both cultural/linguistic and genetic. We will be absorbed into the multicult masses and be lost as a distinct people. Assimilation is not to be wished for.
If we 'assimilate' these people (which is actually the reverse of what actually happens) we guarantee that we will have a multicultural, polyglot country, and we and our ancestors will be the ones who will be written out of the new 'histories', if any, that will be written. Starkey mentions the fact that 'British history' is not taught in the UK as it once was -- and that's because the regime there has decided that the past is irrelevant, given the fact that millions of assorted aliens have been enticed to enter the country and become a new mixed majority. Why teach British history when the majority of the people will one day be in no way related to those who made Britain what it was?

In a generation or two, unless things change, the 'new majority' of the UK will no longer know nor care about the history of Britain, or the history of England. The history books (if any, that is, if people are literate at all) will tell that 'Britain was always diverse and multicultural', just as our 21st century American textbooks contain drivel like: 'America was always a nation of immigrants; America has always been diverse. America has always had Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims.' This has happened precisely because we embraced the 'proposition nation' and declared that anyone could be an American, if we just encouraged them to 'assimilate.'

The people who are cheering Starkey and saying that they agree 100 percent with him should think twice about it.

It's the hot 'new' trend!

2011-11-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

At first I was surprised to see that the subject of Asian trophy wives (for White men) was being written about in Marie Claire, which is one of those stereotype ladies' magazines. But I should not have wondered; it all proves to be yet another occasion for the usual propaganda.

''...I suspect there's something else about the East that's seducing business bigwigs at this very moment: globalization. Consider that, stateside, Mandarin classes have spiked 200 percent over the past five years (apparently, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was an early adopter; he taught Mandarin classes in his Dartmouth days), and China has claimed status as the world's top export nation. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell theorizes that Asian kids' intrinsic work ethic makes them outsmart American kids in math. (In the latest Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development international education survey, Taiwanese students were tops in math, while the U.S. placed 35th.) It's as though these Western men are hungry for a piece of that mystical Eastern formula. As such, Asians (in addition to African orphans) are hot commodities right about now — status symbols as prized as a private Gulfstream jet or a museum wing bearing your name (neither of which goes so well with a frumpy, aging first wife).

Tellingly, most current trophies of choice are far more than exotic arm candy. They are accomplished musicians and journalists, they have Ivy League MBAs and hail from prestigious political families (Mrs. Wasserstein's older sis is former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao). Why, then, are these women falling for rich white patriarchs?''

There are plenty of obvious reasons why these women pick White men, and they are probably as much the choosers as are the ''White'' men in many cases.

First off, though, many of the examples cited, such as Rupert Murdoch, George Soros, Bruce Wasserstein, and Les Moonves, are not of us. So their marriages to Asian women are no concern of mine; let them marry as they wish. Unfortunately, people in prominent and influential positions, especially in the media, have a way of inspiring the dimwitted and servile among us. These weak links copy the ''elite's'' behavior and gobble up the propaganda these 'movers and shakers' serve up every day.

Skepticism aside, the new trophy trend does have its benefits. We're already seeing a positive impact on global politics, economics, and the arts: The Chinese became privy to online social networking in 2007 with the launch of MySpace China under the News Corp. umbrella; contemporary Chinese painters — including Xiaogang Zhang and Minjun Yue — have rung up nearly $400 million in sales on international art circuits since 2006, thanks to well-connected supporters like Ziyi Zhang; and almost 43 percent of international adoptions, which have more than tripled since 1990, now come out of Asian countries (more playdates for Pax and Maddox). What's more, perhaps a proliferation of gorgeous, mixed-race, multilingual offspring (assuming a classical Mandarin tutor is on the Chen-Moonves registry) is just good for our landscape. However you look at it, one thing's for sure: We're going to have to get used to this new international power family — aging mogul and foxy Asian wife flaunting a double-wide with newborn and adopted Malawian tot.''

Most of the comments at Marie Claire either denounce the ''racism'' of the story, which was supposedly written by an Asian woman, and/or they praise Asian women as being superior to European-descended women. Sad to say, that kind of comment can just as easily be seen on many ''pro-White'' blogs and sites.

However, the trend of White men, that is, European-descended men, marrying or fathering children with Asian women is not a new trend, though it may have accelerated. During World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, many White American men either fathered children with or married Asian women. Even going back in the early part of the 20th century, looking at ephemera and the popular entertainment of that time, there is the image of the demure and beautiful Japanese or Chinese girl luring American or English sailors. Such men brought home many Asian and Pacific islander brides, going back half a century and more. During WWII, this may have been frowned on a little more because of the anti-Japanese feeling of wartime America, but in general, it's been much more accepted, and it seems to have gone on despite many states' anti-miscegenation laws in the pre-PC era.

Today, as mixed-race marriages (and less permanent pairings) increase, Asian female/White male couples are more commonplace than black male/White female couples, but the latter draw much more disapproval and ire than the former.

It's well-known that many Asians frown on miscegenation, but yet there seem to be almost as many who see Asian/White marriages as being beneficial for economic reasons as well as genetic ones. It seems many Asian families are happy to even sell their daughters to White male sex tourists, as in Thailand and elsewhere. The White husband, if nothing else, is sometimes seen as a ticket to America for not just the bride, but for extended family members, and then as a way to get green cards.

Notice how the Marie-Claire writer rhapsodizes about ''gorgeous, mixed-race, multicultural offspring'' as well as ''foxy Asian'' wives. No bias there, is there?

Why is it not ''racist'' to go racial fortune-hunting among Whites and to see Asian women as superior physically and intellectually to Whites?

Beauty, it's said, is in the eye of the beholder. I believe each race should be attracted to members of their own folk, so what can we say about those who are primarily, or only, attracted to Others? Is it self-hate? Treason to our folk, our contemporaries -- and especially to our ancestors and our progeny?

Whatever we may say about it, it's not the natural order of things, except for the highly suggestible, the easily led, and those with no consciousness of who they are.

Introvert vs. extrovert blogs?

2011-11-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

Vox Day blogs about the subject of introversion and blogging, linking to an article on introversion in The Atlantic.

Vox's comments ring very true for me, when he discusses the differences between 'introverted and extroverted blogs.'

''It has never bothered me that more people might prefer other blogs to this one, nor did I ever wish to imitate them, but I did find it puzzling that so many people like to regularly read blogs that essentially say nothing, and say nothing so succinctly. I'm not talking about aggregators like Drudge and Instapundit, you understand, but the sort of blogs where the commentary on the Republican debate is four lines or the contents of their meals is a frequent topic of conversation. I've tried reading several very popular blogs on occasion, and to be honest, I not only could not read them regularly, I couldn't even figure out why anyone was reading them. Ever.''

I've often been taken to task for writing overlong blog entries. All I can say is: to each his own. Personally I prefer to read longer posts because I am a very fast reader. But the length of some of my posts belies the fact that I am not a talkative person. At all.

Those who know me in person know that I am a woman of few words, at least spoken words. And like a true introvert, my verbosity diminishes, the greater the number of people present. I am at my most talkative only when with one (or very few) good friends, with whom I can speak my mind with 100 percent freedom, and in the company of those who care about the things I care about. So much of socializing wears me out, just as the article about introversion implies. The reason it wears me out is that so much socializing is obligatory small talk, chatter about mundane things, and so much of what passes as conversation or even 'wit' is predictable and tedious. I understand the social function of small talk; not all verbal interaction has to be profound or of cosmic significance, but it shouldn't be rote patterns. I know of one woman in particular who is like those old talking dolls, the ones who had a string you could pull, making the doll repeat certain phrases. There were usually only five or six phrases in the doll's programming. My acquaintance is just about that limited in her conversation.

As Vox's blog piece indicates, the introverted blogger does not write in order to attract huge numbers of readers or followers, or huge numbers of hits. I'd rather reach a few discerning, thinking people who have something interesting or valuable to say, and above all, people who will carry the dialogue on the important issues into their daily lives and conversations.

When it comes to daily life, introversion is somewhat of a social handicap, and as an introvert from a very extroverted Southern family, I am something of an exception. Still, my family members are very accepting of my style; there are a few of us introverts in the extended family, and the extrovert majority in the family just accept us as we are. I believe that most Southern families are more tolerant of varying personal quirks, including introversion, than my mother's Yankee family, who were mostly extroverts given to a lot of superficial interaction.

American society generally is extroverted, meaning, probably, that introverts have a harder time than they might in, say, Japanese society, where shyness or introversion are less aberrant.

The fact that Americans, in general, seem extroverted, is interesting in contrast to the description of the English by Geoffrey Gorer in 1955:

A second assumption I made about the English character, is that most English people are shy and afraid of strangers, and consequently very lonely. This assumption was developed less from literature than from observation.
[...]
I can find very little evidence from literature or other sources to show whether this shyness and fear of strangers has long been a specifically English trait. For Jane Austen, such shyness is a sign of ill-breeding (Sir William Lucas and Maria, for example), but so was its opposite, 'ease' (perhaps Mrs. Elton's most damning characteristic); and for Dickens shyness was a sign of near-imbecility (Toots and Georgina Podsnap are striking examples); but there can be few people temperamentally less fitted to understand this emotion than Dickens was. On the continent in the eighteenth and nineteenth century the English milord had a great reputation for reserve, for phlegme; and this reserve is mirrored in a number of the characters whom Jane Austen asks us to admire, and quite a number of the aristocrats (Sir Leicester Dedlock, for example) whom Dickens asks us not to admire, at least not without many reservations. But this is usually portrayed as an aristocratic, an upper class, type of be- haviour; and I wanted to know about the whole population.
[...] Psychologically, shyness is a type of anxiety which is more or less, but never wholly, rational. With most people probably the fears, the anxieties, are not wholly articulate and may not be wholly conscious.''

But again, the Atlantic article linked at the top, as well as Vox Day's blog piece, distinguish between 'shyness', usually thought of as fear of strangers, or ''social anxiety disorder'', and introversion, which may not be fear so much as simply being worn out by interacting with lots of people. As indicated in the pieces linked, my introversion means that I feel drained by being in large groups of people, especially those I don't know well, and my batteries are actually charged by being with a few congenial friends and/or kin.

Flight or fight, revisited

2011-11-09T23:15:00.000-08:00

The issue of ''flight or fight'' has come up on this blog before, and this article from Business Insider tells us that there is a 'growing number of Americans who want to move abroad.'

At the time when I first blogged about this issue a few years ago, I was somewhat on the fence on this question of leaving the United States for greener (or at least less 'diverse') pastures across the ocean. Now I find that I am very much of the mind that turning tail and leaving the country is not the right thing to do, at least for anyone who is an ethnopatriot.

At AmRen many people seem to think fleeing abroad is a good move, and a desirable one. However there are back-to-back comments by the ubiquitous poster 'Anonymous' which make good points, with which I fully agree:

10 — Anonymous wrote at 7:59 PM on November 9:

This is nothing more than liberal propaganda to convince the conservative strongholds here to abandon this country. Expats by their very nature are not conservatives. They tend to be urban, unpatriotic liberal “we are the world” types that like to live in socialist nations like those in Europe.''

And:

11 — Anonymous wrote at 8:03 PM on November 9:

Both the UK and Holland have middle class white flight as well - this actually is not a ‘problem’ to globalists - it accelerates their agenda.''

The second comment makes a point that I think is not often acknowledged: this trend serves and accelerates the globalist agenda -- the better to repopulate this country with Third Worlders, and also the better to mix up the populations of every country, to blur the very idea of nationality and rootedness, to obliterate the historic links between people and their homelands.

The first 'Anonymous' comment says that expats tend not to be conservatives, though I am sure there are many who would dispute that, claiming to be conservative while appearing to be nonchalant about the idea of uprooting oneself and moving to someone else's country. But is this not the flip side of the Third World economic opportunists who arrive in our country en masse and behave as if they own the place? In what sense is that 'conservative'? I would think a conservative who is not merely a fiscal conservative would believe in heritage, would have a bond with their native soil and their kinsmen. Granted, most ''conservatives'' today are above such things, hence my use of scare quotes around the word ''conservative'' in many cases.

I've noticed (and you can see it on the AmRen thread) that many expatriates and potential expatriates are apparently of recent immigrant origin, alluding to their ties to a European country. I suppose this is to be expected, as many such people have very shallow roots in this country. However I believe many of the younger generations, having been brought up in a world steeped in the 'global village' 'we are the world' mentality are quite cosmopolitan, and pride themselves on being able to traipse around the world and feel at home anywhere. So with such people, I have to say that their decision to desert what they believe to be a sinking ship is not any real loss to those of us who have real bonds and roots in this country.

''They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.'' 1 John, 2:19

And yes, that quote is meant in a spiritual context, but it seems to apply here, too.

No offense is meant toward expatriates generally, or people who enjoy sojourning or traveling in other countries; when I was young, I was very much of that type, though I was also very liberal politically then, and took my country very much for granted.

And I realize that many expats are such because they are assigned to work abroad, but I am speaking of the people who are fair-weather Americans. Now that it seems our backs are to the wall, these people prefer to desert, and leave the rest of us who, by choice or by circumstance, must stay behind and tough it out.

I find I really can't fathom the thinking of those who seem to be able to change countries and 'nationalities' and allegiances as easily as changing their clothes. For some people, such things are easily shed and adopted, apparently.

So, while I was of two minds a few years ago regarding 'flight or fight', I am very much in favor of staying and making a stand.
However, those who feel inclined to flee should probably do so; they will not be people who would have our backs should they stay behind with us.

And then, there's the practical issue of whether fleeing does any good; our ancestral homelands -- even if they would admit us, which is a big ''if'' these days -- are in worse shape, or scarcely better shape as regards multiculturalism, mass immigration, and the leftist/globalist plague generally. Fleeing to a European country may only buy a little time; it is no guarantee that we will escape the fate that we face here.

Which to choose?

2011-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

Many on our side watch with amusement when two favored minority groups clash, and the multicultural leftists are faced with a dilemma: which favored group to side with? It's easy when a victim group member accuses a White; it's a given that Whitey is always the culprit, and the ''minority'' group member the victim.

Similarly, it seems as if the right is tying itself in knots with this Herman Cain sexual harassment story. On this thread, it seems as if many people are leaning towards defending Cain because the sexual harassment charge is associated with radical feminists, and because a loathsome lefty feminist ambulance-chaser is involved in this case.

What will happen here? Will anti-feminism trump racial/kin loyalty, or will kin loyalty win out vs. the temptation to play the 'race card' against the 'real racists on the left', and against the ''feminazi'' faction?

Decisions, decisions. I vote that the right will in large part go with defending Cain, because anti-feminism/anti-leftism seems to hold the edge at this point, against ethnoloyalty.

What that says, if true, I am not sure, but it doesn't seem good, even to an anti-feminist female like yours truly.

Loving what we defend

2011-11-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

[This post is mostly for my actively Christian readers; it will mean little to anyone else, so I suggest skipping it if you are not a believing Christian.]

I make no secret of the fact that I admire the writings of Cambria Will Not Yield. And when I saw that he was being criticized by a commenter at SWB, I felt impelled to say a few words in his defense. And the principles involved apply in other areas, hence my need to say something.

The criticism is thus:

I might mention that I am not quite so enamored with CWNY as you are. In my opinion, this writer sometimes skirts dangerously close to that idolatrous “Confusion” I talked about – identifying the cause of Whites with the cause of God – and strongly implies that Europeans have had some sort of special relationship with God that other peoples could not possibly share.

Frankly I find the very notion that true Christian faith could not survive the disappearance of White peoples (which I of course do not desire) as “implicitly idolatrous”, as if God could not manage without Whites. This is way self-adoring Talmudists view the Jewish people, that they are indispensable to God. But as John the Baptist put it, Lord could raise for Himself new peoples from stones if necessary.

Moreover, he deals with race issues in a naive, literally Black-and-White manner, acting as if these two were the only races existing in the world, with nothing in-between them (like the Chinese or Turks for example). This is an annoying Americo-centric worldview that I have seen in both racialist and anti-racialist Americans. One does not have be a relativist to see that sometimes the concept of “Whiteness” can be a difficult thing to define.

I also get sometimes a bit nauseous at CWNY’s sugary-romantic views of the past as well. By comparison, the OT usually depicted the life of the chosen people with harsh realism. Well, here endeth my constructively-intended criticism.''

And in another comment by the same individual:

I believe that God MIGHT potentially indeed back some earthly causes against other ones, but the implicit idolatry lies in the presumption that it must be “necessarily” so, that God is automatically going to back us up and we can take His sympathies for granted.''

Well, if you believe the Bible, then you know that God does back some earthly causes against others, and some people against others. That's a given. It's repeated in various ways throughout the Bible. God has ''his people'' throughout time, and he does not totally forsake those who are his even if they forsake him for a while.

As for the criticisms in the first comment quoted above, the European people have historically had a 'special relationship' with God because they are, as CWNY says, the Christ-bearers. And the Admin at SWB is correct that we have no evidence that other peoples, despite being introduced to Christianity and the Bible,
have ever shown themselves capable of becoming the standard-bearers of Christianity. No non-Western country has ever been a shining light for Christianity, nor even established a truly Christian-inspired government and society. Not even close.

I think the idea that the Third World will assume the mantle of ''civilization'' when and if former Christendom is destroyed is based on mere wishful thinking or delusion, inspired by politically correct sentimentality. And this goes for the belief that once the European-descended peoples disappear or are blended away, that the rest of the peoples will carry on the Christian Faith and become the new Christ-bearers.

I agree with those who say that our Western countries have forsaken God and debased ourselves, and that we've actually invited, perhaps unwittingly, this fate that seems to be bearing down on us. However, the Bible tells us that there is always a remnant who remain faithful among God's own, and that these people, turning to God, can avoid destruction by their repentance and prayer. Our fate is not sealed as so many WNs and others insist. If it is, why are we even talking about it? Best just resign ourselves and eat, drink, and be merry while we wait for doom.

But don't let's leave God out of the equation.

CWNY's critic gets ''nauseous" (by which he evidently means to say ''nauseated") at CWNY's "sugary-romantic" views of old Europe . I've been accused similarly of presenting a sugar-coated view of old America (and Christendom, generally). Do I believe it was a paradise on earth? Certainly not, but sometimes over-emphasizing the goodness of the past is a necessary corrective to the relentlessly condemnatory views of the past. Everywhere we turn in the media, whether it's a Hollywood movie or a commercial, we see our people and our past being disparaged, ridiculed, condemned, and lied about. We cannot counter this unremitting negativity with a lukewarm, half-hearted defense, or by doing as even some on our side do, by starting our defense with some conciliatory agreement with our critics on some point. For example, when the subject of slavery comes up, saying ''of course slavery was an abomination...'' or ''of course we were harsh on the Native Americans when we took their lands, but..."

This is the kind of mealy-mouthed defense we often see. We need to overemphasize the positives -- and there were positives and praiseworthy things in our past -- in order to balance out all the smears and slanders. We also need to praise our past and our heritage in order to rally people to the side, and to provoke them to realize that our past was good and worthy of being defended. Extremes on one side elicit extremes on the opposite side. We can never right the balance by a tepid, watered-down ''defense'' of our heritage and our folk.

Another reason why I (and possibly CWNY) show the past in somewhat of a rosy glow is that I am writing in part out of emotion. I get the sense from CWNY's writings that he truly loves what he writes about: Christ and antique Europe as it was inspired by faith in and love for Christ. He cares about our folk, and about us at our best, so he presents us with an image of what we could be, not necessarily what we are now, which would be a ''warts-and-all'' image.

CWNY's critic says that the Old Testament presents a harsh image of the 'chosen people,' which it does, but the Old Testament and the Bible in general were not written with the same purpose as my blog or CWNY's blog.

And about those ''chosen people'' -- do we know who today's descendants of those Biblical tribes were? I put it to you that we do not, though it is assumed by almost everyone that we do know. But where is the evidence for the majority's belief?

One more thing I've come to know over the years is that the ''majority'' can be counted on to be in the wrong on almost everything of importance, always. It may sound cynical, but it appears true to me. Perhaps that's why representative government cannot maintain itself for long.

So perhaps the 'majority' orthodox beliefs of the Christian denominations are not founded in reality, as far as the identity of the peoples of the Old Testament. Prophecy is very clear that many of God's people are 'sifted' throughout the nations, with their origin unknown both to outsiders and to themselves.

Critics notwithstanding, I think CWNY is to be commended because he seems to express a deep love for our heritage and people, and this is something that is sorely lacking among us today. We have enough of the intellectual advocates who seem to hold themselves detached in an odd way from what is happening. Bloodless intellectual discussions will not save us; only a real love and passion for our faith, our folk, and our heritage will motivate and strengthen us.

We are living in an age in which the ugly, the base, the crude, and the grotesque are emphasized. Our age seems obsessed with showing everything in a gritty, harsh light, in stripping everything bare, in thinking the worst and showing the worst of everything about ourselves. We need to rediscover truth/beauty, faith, and love, and to focus on the good in order to defend it from its many attackers.

Contrasting dance styles

2011-11-06T01:35:00.000-07:00

I love traditional dance styles. It's interesting to watch these two women trading off dance steps to ''old time'' music, with one woman dancing traditional Appalachian buck/flatfoot style and the other doing Irish step dancing. Considering that the American style is derived from British Isles step dancing/clog dancing, there are similarities but the differences are noticeable.

The Irish style is more disciplined and it looks more elegant, with the dancer's upper body held straight and somewhat rigid. The American style is more expressive and freeform, more spontaneous-looking.Both styles are enjoyable, and put the lie to the cliche that 'White people can't dance'' or ''have no rhythm."

But inevitably, the poster of the video tells us that the Appalachian style owes its characteristics to ''African-American slaves'', etc. etc. Isn't it a fortunate thing that someone taught White Americans how to dance? Imagine an America in which the South would have no cuisine (no ''soul food from Africa") no dialect (because that too came from African slaves) and no music or dance. Whatever would we do without diversity?

Finally, somebody says it

2011-11-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

I can't begin to count the number of times that some idiot on the Internet (and in the ''real world'') has said that the European colonists on this continent were ''illegals''.

At Steve Sailer's blog, Svigor gives a very good, and very thorough reply to that particular piece of idiocy.

Your ancestors were the original illegals, please keep that in mind.

I know leftoids love to conflate the colonists and pioneers with illegal immigrants, but I am mystified as to why enough normal people buy into it to have it repeated so often. It never seems to be met with the derision and scorn it deserves.
No, the Germanic tribes that ate the Roman Empire from within (and without) were not colonists and pioneers. No, the mestizos (and other immigrant groups) eating America from within are not colonists or pioneers.

Show me where in Native American Law ca. 1607 our settlement here was considered illegal.

Yes, one of the first things that struck me about the actual history of the Indian Wars was how little resemblance they bore to the Leftoid Narrative of Indian Victimization by The White Man. Indian tribes were constantly teaming up with White settlers against other Indian tribes, for instance. The fact that banditry was a way of life (one insufferable to the settlers) for the Plains Indians, for another. The fact that it was essentially impossible for the settlers and Indians to get along (in most cases), for another; how is a relatively orderly, law-abiding, people supposed to get along with a relatively very disorderly, disparate, non-law-abiding people? You make an agreement with one tribe, and guess what? The other 5 are still robbing you. You make an agreement with one of the 5, and guess what? You just pissed off the tribe you previously had an agreement with. Indians kidnapped your family? Guess what? You got NO way to redress this grievance without hunting them down yourself. Reading about it reminds you of trying to police the ghetto, squared. Then there's the fact that a nomadic people must claim vast swathes of land to support them at low density; what, sedentary peoples are supposed to just sit on the borders so claimed and not make vastly more efficient use of the land? All a farmer needs is a few acres. A nomadic bandit and scavenger needs miles and miles of territory.

The distinctions that I find important here are civilized vs. barbarous, and pioneer vs. immigrant. An immigrant comes into an established system and, as you point out, there was no established system so classifying the colonists, pioneers, and settlers as immigrants is nonsensical. They're both migratory, and that's the end of the relevant similarity. Today's immigrants are pioneering and settling precisely nothing. They're hitching a ride on someone else's legacy. They could be argued as colonists, though. And then there's civilized vs. barbarous; the CPEs brought a drastically technologically and culturally superior system with them. Mestizos bring nothing.

11/5/11 1:57 PM

Civility lost?

2011-11-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

Occasionally on this blog I've lamented the loss of civility in our society. Over the course of my lifetime it seems that manners and 'good breeding' have been destroyed, not just 'lost'. The same forces which have force-fed us ''diversity'', the ''proposition nation'' and the idea that ''there is just one race, the human race'' have worked at destroying our social graces. Why? Because leftists/progressives/Jacobins or whatever we may call them loathe distinctions, loathe standards and detest order and tradition. Manners, courtesy, chivalry, etiquette, are all seen as ''elitist'' or snobbish; they are exclusive and they ''stigmatize'' those who fail to live up to the standards that were once implicitly or explicitly acknowledged by most people.

Manners and civility are products of an old, hierarchical order and are thus ''unfair'' and undemocratic. They must go, because they belie the idea that we are all the same. So say the destroyers.

Manners and civility are ''social constructs'', varying from one culture and race to another; what passes as good manners in other countries is not the same as what we consider good manners. Therefore, reason the leftist/levelers, there are no absolutes, so nobody has a right to have expectations regarding acceptable behavior; it's all relative and in any case manners are reflective of a snobbish social order.

All my life, it's been accepted as common knowledge that the South excelled in manners and courtesy. Northerners, despite the many negative stereotypes they hold about the South and its people, rarely contested the belief about Southern courtesy. But just as with the rest of America, the South is no longer the hospitable and mannerly society of renown.

James Kirkpatrick at VDare writes about the loss of Southern civility:
Diversity Is Strength! It's Also the End of Southern Civility...And The South

Kirkpatrick cites a New York Times article on the subject. The New York Times writer attributes Southern manners to a need to maintain a hierarchical and oppressive social order which kept ''women and blacks'' down.

''To be sure, strict rules regarding courtesy and deference to others have historically been used as a way to enforce a social order in which women and blacks were considered less than full citizens.

In the Jim Crow era, blacks and whites lived with a code of hyper-politeness as a way to smooth the edges of a harsh racial system and, of course, keep it in place, scholars of Southern culture say.

As those issues faded, proper manners remained an important cultural marker that Southerners have worked to maintain. Since the Civil War, any decline in Southern civility has largely been blamed on those damn Yankees.''

The impression left by the above paragraphs is that manners in the South were simply a tool of oppression, a means to an end, and not an original part of the culture of the South. However, if we read older sources, like Yankee Henry Adams ''The United States in 1800'' we see that courtesy was always part of the culture, long before 'Jim Crow'.

''I blush for my own people,' wrote Channing from Richmond in 1799, 'when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yankee with the generous confidence of a Virginian. Here I find great vices, but greater virtues than I left behind me.
[...]
Even forty years afterward, so typical a New Englander as the poet Bryant acknowledged that 'whatever may be the comparison in other respects, the South certainly has the advantage over us in points of manners.'

Even popular culture alludes to the surviving courtesies of the South, as in Hank Williams Jr.'s lyrics 'We say grace, and we say ma'am.' All of us who grew up in the South were taught to call our elders and betters (yes, I mean 'betters') 'Sir' or 'Ma'am', and that included our parents, grandparents, and so on.

Respect for elders and betters was part of the culture, and family came first, including extended family. People took care of their own. Loyalty was important, as well as honor: keeping one's word, maintaining integrity, acting justly. Being hospitable and treating guests well, acknowledging everyone and making them welcome, was all-important. Chivalry was part of the value system, and that was not limited to surface habits like opening doors for ladies or the old and infirm.

Having lived in the North, one thing that I noticed that struck me as very odd was the distance many Northerners keep from their own relatives. I met a number of people who would not even greet their cousins or other kinfolk in public. I've seen people of my acquaintance actually try to avoid their kin and turn away from them in public places. One woman I know even declined to be introduced to her second cousin living in the same town, whom she had never met. To me, this is bizarre behavior, but I met a number of such families in the North. The people mentioned above find it curious that I know many of my own distant cousins and extended family members, out as far as fourth cousins, while they seemed to see no value in knowing kin outside their immediate family circle.

Some of this may be attributed also to the rootlessness common in America today, but the people I mention above lived in the same county all their lives, as did most of their relatives.

Despite the baneful influences of the media which undermines local and regional culture, and despite the Yankee invasion of the South, the South does still preserve many of the distinctions which demarcate the two cultures, North and South. The problem is that the younger generations, having been influenced by the media more than previous generations, are no longer absorbing the elements of the Southron way of life, the distinctions that make a difference.

The Kirkpatrick article is being discussed at OD here and there are some good comments. Among them, these observations from 'Joe Schmoe'

Southerners really seemed to have a reference for history. I’m a big Andrew Jackson fan, so while in Nashville I asked the court reporter for directions to the Hermitage, although I did not have time to visit it. He went on about it for a while and then mentioned that Andrew Jackson’s family still lives in Nashville. This floored me because Andrew Jackson lived almost 200 years ago! You never, ever hear Northerners say things like that. I’m sure I’ve encountered descendents of famous Northerners, but no one ever speaks about their ancestors that way. My own family has ancestors who came over on the Mayflower, and we are proud of them, but only amongst ourselves and amongst friends, it is not something I would mention to a stranger. But Southerners talk about stuff like that in public, and it’s great.

You can tell that families, and history, really mean something to Southerners. I have a sense that the reverence for history is somehow associated with the reverence for manners, although I could not say why. But this is one of the things that most impresses me about the South.''

I agree that a sense of the past, of history and heritage, is part of the old way of life in the South, though it is not universal these days. This relates to what I was saying in a post yesterday about how a knowledge of our ancestors and their lives ties us to the past and to the 'unbroken chain.' Not many people in the North have a similar outlook. I think this difference is in part what causes discord on issues involving the Confederate heritage; most Yankees do not see why it still holds such power for many Southrons. To them, it was many generations ago, and it's all over, the South having lost, and thus the Southron people should all forget it and put it behind us. No, it has a great deal more emotional resonance and power for many of us, while the Northerners in general have little emotional investment in that whole sad episode in history. Many of them simply cannot understand the viewpoint of the South.

And it's the respect for the past and for tradition, in part, that keeps the old codes of courtesy and chivalry alive in the South. As that respect for the past and for the old days and old ways diminishes, much is lost. And as ''diversity'' and domestic migration begins to supplant the original Southern people, manners will surely decline, along with all that was worth preserving.

Scene from the past

2011-11-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Since I touched on the subject of the War Between the States in the previous post, I thought I would post this image, which I came across some months ago at the Library of Congress website, I think.

If you can make out the caption, it says ''Tarring and feathering of Ambrose I. Kimball, Editor of the Essex ''Democrat'', Haverhill, Mass., a rebel sympathizer journal.''

This incident is described here:

It was a war like no other. “After the Civil War began,” write scholars Thomas Tedford and Dale Herbeck, “officials in both the Union and the Confederacy permitted a surprising degree of freedom of expression.” President Abraham Lincoln allowed his critics — including Northerners opposed to the war (“Copperheads”) — wide latitude in railing against his policies. Thus, the “Copperhead press” was routinely antagonistic and even vitriolic in its protests. Of course, sometimes Union soldiers and others sympathetic to Lincoln took matters into their own hands, as when Ambrose Kimball, editor of the Essex County Democrat, was tarred and feathered by a frenzied Massachusetts mob for printing anti-Union stories and editorials. Hence, Lincoln’s toleration co-existed with occasional flurries of intolerant mob rage.''

This incident, of course, proves only that there were a few 'Copperheads' or Confederate sympathizers even in the heart of Yankeedom, in Massachusetts, though obviously the hapless Mr. Kimball was outnumbered by the ''intolerant mob.''

This picture was of interest to me more because Mr. Kimball was a distant relative on my mother's side, and I had not known of this story until I found the picture.

Incidentally, this is where learning one's genealogy makes things more interesting; it enables you to know many of your kinsmen by name, and to learn some details of where and how they lived. Thus, when you are reading old history books or old newspapers or records, or even perusing images on various online image archives, you come across your kinsmen unexpectedly. It's good to find your own family members in historical accounts or other records; it gives a feeling of real connection to past events, a knowledge of how and where our own ancestors may have fit into things, and thus a greater sense of who we ourselves are, as a link in a long chain.

More complex than it seems

2011-11-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

I have to commend Hunter Wallace on his recent series of blog pieces on the North-South issue, especially on Reconstruction, a little-known and less understood topic. Readers have, in the past, asked me to recommend some sources on Reconstruction, but I had little to offer in the way of books. HW has presented a lot of material which provides good information on those important parts of our history. He is doing a great job.

One issue I have, though, is HW's recent thoughts on 'Yankees'. Perhaps using the Woodward book American Nations as a reference, he states that the term 'Yankee' refers specifically to the descendants of the Anglo-Saxon Puritans who settled the Massachusetts colony. He says it does not refer to Northerners of 'ethnic' ancestry, in which case it does not refer to most Northerners, past or present. Woodward's dicta notwithstanding, 'Yankee' always, in my lifetime, meant any native of a Northern State, and that includes people from the 'left coast' or the Midwest, the Mountain States, and the Southwest (AZ, NM, etc.).
Anyone not from a state of the Confederacy, and/or south of the Mason-Dixon Line is a Yankee, according to the definition I've known all my life.

The fact that we seem to have differing notions of who is a Yankee is not the most important issue; it's the idea, much-loved by many non-Anglo-Saxons as well as non-Whites, that 'WASPs' or 'Yankees' are a kind of super-elite, and the locus of most evils in this country, past and present. The world is not that simple or cut-and-dried.

Another problem I have with the idea of WASPs and/or 'Yankees' as the arch-villains in the play is the assumption that there is some kind of cabal made up of scheming Anglo-Saxon elites who work hand in glove with Ashkenazis. I don't see any evidence that there is a coterie of powerful and wealthy Anglo-Saxons who are pulling the strings. Occasionally I ask people point blank to name me some influential 'WASPs' who wield inordinate power today. Few people have any names to throw out there. Sometimes people like the Rockefellers and the DuPonts are mentioned. They, like so many of the Northeastern 'old money' families, are of continental European origin. The Rockefellers were of Palatine German origin, if I remember correctly. Is the name Rockefeller English-sounding? How about Du Pont? Yet there is the idea that they are somehow 'WASPs.' How does that work? Is the term 'WASP' based on something non-genetic, a kind of abstract proposition nation identity?

The Romney family, I am afraid, are of true Yankee (old-line Anglo, Northeastern) lineage. The Bush family, often mentioned as such, are only partly so, and they have become an international or global ''family'' via outmarriage, but yet somehow still get blamed on the 'WASPs.' Is Jorge Prescott Bush, the Mexican son of Jeb, still a 'WASP'? It would seem so, if we define it as loosely as it is being defined.

Andrew Fraser, author of the book The WASP Question, touches on this question in the early part of this video.

My readers will know that I disagree with the popular and novel notion that the old-stock Southron people are mostly Celts. I think that idea was popularized by a few books, most notably those by Grady McWhiney and the Kennedy Brothers, and lately, Jim Webb. It's interesting that in a generation or two this 'Celtic South' idea has caught on and is now unshakable. In my childhood it was not the popular idea that it is now. Most old-stock Southrons have (or did have, in the days before recent demographic changes) English surnames, not Celtic ones. But don't let this get in the way of a feel-good myth. Celtic is so much cooler than Anglo-Saxon, and the same is true in the UK apparently, with the Celtic identities held up as admirable while Englishness is downgraded and is the 'invisible race', as Andrew Fraser puts it in his book.

As for whether the Yankees of New England are to blame for, say, the liberal plague of the Northeastern States and the Midwest/Far West, I think it has been some time since the Puritan-stock Yankees dominated even their original territory in New England. Immigrants first began arriving from Scotland before the Revolution, and then later came waves of Irish, Italians, Portuguese, and French-Canadians, and now it seems that names of those ethnicities are more likely to be heard in the New England states than English surnames. There are pockets of English Americans in rural areas but now the real 'diversity' from the Third World is rampant in much of New England.

The Midwest has long been dominated by people of German and Scandinavian origin, and those ethnic groups tend to be far more socialistic than Anglo-Saxons.

Yet somehow residual influences from those vanishing Yankees are responsible for today's rampant liberalism in the Midwest and Far West?

As far as the War Between the States is concerned, it's noteworthy that immigrants made up a considerable proportion of the Union Army. Some time ago I blogged about the immigrant presence in the Union Army,
and the fact that their numbers may have made a Union victory possible. Without them, would the Union have prevailed?

This piece deals with the immigrants in the Union Army, and their motives for joining, quoting an Irish immigrant called Peter Welsh:

Peter Welsh enlisted during the second year of the war. His letter to his wife after the Battle of Fredericksburg expressed the strong belief of many immigrants that the preservation of the Union was the only way to insure that democratic government had a chance to flower in the world?

Welsh had to respond to his obviously anguished wife, soon to be a widow. His brigade had been mauled just weeks before, losing nearly half of its men. She had asked him why he could not just let the Americans “fight it out between themselves.” Peter Welsh replied with words that should still inspire new citizens today:

This is my country as much as the man that was born on the soil and so it is to every man who comes to this country and becomes a citizen…I have as much interest in the maintenance of the government and laws and integrity of the nation as any other man… This war, with all its evils, with all its errors and mismanagement is a war in which the people of all nations have a vital interest. This is the first test of a modern free government in the act of sustaining itself against internal enemies and matured rebellion. All men who love free government and equal laws are watching the crisis to see if a republic can sustain itself in such a case. If it fail then the hope of millions fail and the designs and wishes of all tyrants will succeed…There is yet something in this land worth fighting for.

Peter Welsh, the immigrant construction worker turned soldier, who used his carpentry skills to build coffins for his friends’ corpses, understood what Americans sometimes forgot. In 1861, America was the only force for democracy that could transform the lives of ordinary people around the world.

Welsh also makes it clear that he is also fighting for the right of immigrants in the future to claim a full place in America. His letter was written knowing that many native born did not consider him a real American. Their bigotry did not lessen his demand that he, and immigrants to follow, be treated no differently than “the man that was born on the soil.”

So it's obvious that the 'proposition nation' propaganda was already in play and that immigrants did a great deal to propagate it, because it was in their direct interests to do so; they did not understand the premises on which our government was designed, and wanted a strong 'Union' to guarantee immigrants a place here in perpetuity.

No doubt it will be argued that the WASP old stock Americans were behind the scenes promoting mass immigration for the sake of cheap labor. No doubt some did, but there were plenty of ordinary Anglo-Americans who objected to the mass immigration which was under way before the War Between the States.

''Arriving in America mainly to escape social and economic deprivations in their homeland, the Irish flocked to our shores in the two decades preceding the Civil War. Settling for the most part in the urban centers of the North, they formed a most powerful minority. The Irish were to be found mostly in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and the urban areas of other Northern states. Although they spoke English, they were often the object of scorn and hatred from the native born population due to religious, cultural and class differences. In addition, the native born Americans feared they would form a cheap labor source and take away jobs.''

Anglo-Saxon Americans are often condemned as having been bigoted towards the new immigrants, yet at the same time they are supposedly in favor of the 'melting pot' and 'nation of immigrants.' Which was it?

If you watch the Andrew Fraser video I linked above, you will notice that he talks about Anglo-Saxons as having some kind of pathology; he sees in them the tendency (apparently genetic, he seems to imply) to be ethnically non-assertive and self-sacrificing. This rather reminds me of the accusation by many anti-Christians that Christianity is the reason why the West, erstwhile Christendom, is being swallowed up by the Third World. Yet they never mention, or account for, the fact that up until this century, Christendom did an admirable job of asserting itself and keeping invaders at bay. If Christianity was intrinsically destructive to Europeans and their descendants, why did this take almost two millennia to manifest itself?

Similarly, if Fraser is right that Anglo-Saxons have some kind of pathology that makes us self-destruct, why did this too take many centuries to show itself?

The fact is, in the case of Britain and the United States, plus Australia and New Zealand, it was only as these countries became less Anglo-Saxon and more open to disparate peoples as immigrants that they became infected with the supposed pathology.

There are just too many other factors in the case of the United States to say that the old Puritan fathers and their vanishing descendants were the cause of all the ills that beset us today. Saying so nullifies the influence of so many other people who have had their part in this destruction.

"Surrender, Dorothy", Canadian version

2011-11-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

This ''surrender, Dorothy" piece of multicult triumphalism, from the Washington Post
finds a counterpart in a series of pieces from the Vancouver, B.C. newspaper. Note the clichés and the recurring PC themes and buzzwords.

From the third in the series, titled 'Europeans in peaceful Tsawwassen':

Tetreault and his English Canadian-Polish wife were drawn to the “quiet, laid-back atmosphere” of Tsawwassen after the hustle and security concerns of living in a condominium complex near St. Paul’s Hospital in downtown Vancouver. He said it’s nothing to do with wanting to live among fellow Caucasians.

“I’ve never heard anyone say they came here because it’s mostly Caucasians,” Tetreault said.

In addition to the hundreds of aboriginals living on the nearby Tsawwassen reserve, Tetreault says the well-off suburb of large houses, mini-malls, playing fields, golf courses and beachfront has a significant number of Iranian, Chinese, Japanese and South Asian people.

“Most of the adults who live here are professionals and business people. They’re sophisticated. They travel. They’re comfortable with people of all cultures.”

Meaning what? People who are not 'comfortable with people of all cultures' are unsophisticated (read: 'ignorant')?

''As her child played with the child of her friend Karen Zbitnoff, Germaine Wong said she has never experienced any “blatant” difficulty growing up in Tsawwassen as one of the relatively few ethnic Chinese.

But Wong, 36, wonders about how tolerant people are below the surface. She recounts hearing about a gay couple who once asked a Tsawwassen realtor if they should expect any discrimination if they bought a house in the suburb.

The story goes that the realtor replied: “It’s not a problem. As long as you’re not Chinese.”

Whether the story is accurate, Wong and Zbitnoff, a second generation Tsawwassen resident with Russian and Croatian roots, say racial relations are generally excellent in the suburb, although they wonder if there could be some suspicion among older generations.

Whatever the case, Wong and Zbitnoff believe it’s great for their children to grow up with friends of different ethnicities. They only had two visible minority students in their classrooms when they were youngsters in Tsawwassen.''

Would it be amiss to suggest that 'Wong' and 'Zbitnoff' might be prejudicced in favor of 'visible minorities', being as they are not of founding Canadian stock themselves?

And here comes the capper:

''For his part, Tetreault supports that open-minded point of view.

The only downsides to Tsawwassen, he said, are its dearth of movie theatres and concert venues, plus a shortage of diverse restaurants.

“It would be good to have a few more Chinese restaurants.”

By all means! In order to have 'diverse restaurants', whether Chinese or some more exotic type, then let's open the borders wider. After all it is a devout belief among multiculturalists that ethnic ''diverse'' restaurants are not possible without importing great numbers of people of those ''diverse'' countries.

At least the conclusion to this series offers a few kernels of truth, however inadvertently:

''The Sun’s interviews fully backed up University of Victoria scholar Zheng Wu’s recent study, which found immigrants say they feel “comforted” and “protected” by settling into enclaves of people of their own ethnicity.

At the same time, however, Wu saw a downside, concluding that life in ethnic enclaves reduces immigrants’ “sense of belonging to Canada.”

Few Metro Vancouverites suggest trust and mutual reliability have disappeared among the city’s disparate residents.

But suspicion often comes out in whispers – over which ethnic group is making housing unaffordable, why schools are so ruthlessly competitive, how store signs are often appearing in languages other than English and whether employers, white or Asian, are willing to hire outside their ethnic group.

Around the planet, Canadians, and especially Metro Vancouverites, are often complimented for their broadminded approach to living together in the same cities as people of multiple ethnic origins.

Like London and Toronto, Metro Vancouver is becoming a mass laboratory for globalization, an experiment in whether cooperation can flourish in a major metropolis made up of people from different backgrounds.''

[Emphasis mine]
An admission that this is in fact an experiment? That is a flicker of honesty there, however small. I am surprised.
But wait:

''No one knows how Metro will turn out a few decades from now.''

Although that last sentence sounds like uncharacteristic frankness from the mainstream media parrots, it is not exactly honest. Anybody with eyes and a brain and a consciousness of history and human nature knows how 'Metro will turn out a few decades from now.' Diversity always ends up with a loss of liveability, a fragmenting of the original community along with a displacement of the original ''non-diverse'' residents, and it usually ends up in strife and tears. The pattern is established everywhere, especially when the diversity is orchestrated and coerced by government. But the multicultists will, like all good cult members, hold fanatically to their received 'truths', even when all the available facts contradict the belief system. Cults, when challenged on their beliefs or under fire, always rally to the cause and double down on their fanaticism. The multicult, as shown by the media efforts, is simply reinforcing their ideology not only to counter any ''suspicion'' and ''whispering'' from the restive subjects of the experiment, but trying to reassure themselves that they are in fact right, and that the dissenters who are murmuring against their gods are wrong. So they hope.

Meantime, we who are the guinea pigs in their social experiment are getting more and more restless.

Hard times in the country

2011-11-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

Halloween

2011-10-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

From the Shotgun Barrel Straight blog, a defense of Hallowe'en.
It's good to read another side to the story, what with the observance being attacked from every side (religious Jews and Christians, health fanatics who hate the idea of children eating candy), and now the move to merge it with the Hispanic 'El Dia de los Muertos'/Day of the Dead.

Vanishing American

The Vanishing Englishman

Same old 'new man'

Christianity accused

What it means to be diverse

Big government or big business?

Back again

'This will ever be your story'

'Hired Hands', 1961

Paging English-Americans

Natives growing restless

He has to...he can't...

Remembering Robert E. Lee

More on the Scottish independence question

'Thou shalt not be judgmental,' except...

The father of...

Independence or 'union'

Diversity at all costs

Where it started?

'No doubt but ye are the people'

Connections

Can't, or daren't?

More commenting woes

The Eighth of January - Hank Williams

''Peaceful'' women leaders

Thoughts

'Out of many', part 2

Emma West latest

Culture areas

Out of many, many.

In the country of the colorblind...

'Prettiness' gone the way of goodness

New Year, 2012

Those predictions

Zazie's New Year greetings

Back again

Merry Christmas

Questions

Quakes in N.Z.

It's a ''pitiful dreadful life''?

"Hate" and honesty

George Washington's eggnog

Christmas greetings

From a past Christmas

New fronts in the War on Christmas

Christmas in colonial America

More on the NDAA

The 'good news' of unbelief

Wave that (white) flag

On borders and state sovereignty

As others see us

More mayhem

Stuff Who likes?

Some quotes

Henry Timrod

The Past

Conditioning

A few thoughts

Talk, and action

An outbreak of prudery

Marine Le Pen interview with RT

Foul, fouler, foulest

Like minded people, or 'free-for-all'?

Vile snitches object to ''vile'' speech

Method to their madness?

Southerners, diversity and nationality

Hmm...

English lament

Thanksgiving a century ago

On Thanksgiving Eve...

A nation of invalids

Nothing new under the sun

Unguarded Gates

Speaking ill of the 'dead'

Multiculturalism bad, assimilation, good?

It's the hot 'new' trend!

Introvert vs. extrovert blogs?

Flight or fight, revisited

Which to choose?

Loving what we defend