0 comment Thursday, November 13, 2014 | admin
I've been trying to avoid discussing the subject, but it's one that riles me. When I've addressed it in the past, I've taken criticism from those who thought I was being 'exclusionary' or 'divisive.'
But during this past week, it seems that every other blog or forum of a right-wing nature that I've visited has had nasty comments directed at Anglo-Saxon Americans. To cap it all off, in my inbox at Intense Debate yesterday was an ugly comment on an old blog entry of mine. The diatribe from someone with a Hispanic or Italian name, culminated in the statement, in all caps, that Anglo-Saxons needed to be completely removed from the face of this earth.
But watch: my reaction here will be the one called ''divisive''.
Wait -- there's more: over at TakiMag -- to my surprise they are accepting comments again -- there was an unpleasant exchange among commenters on this John Derbyshire article.
The instigator, whose name I seem to recognize as one of the old-time Taki regulars, spewed venom about the ''Anglo-Saxon rejects'' who created this country. Apparently those founding Anglo-Saxons are responsible for everything wrong with this country, including, somehow, the bullying of a gay student at an Eastern college. Never mind that the two main principals in that story were Hindu and Chinese, if I remember correctly.
One commenter posted in response to the Anglophobe:
''I am guessing that you aren't Anglo-Saxon. Why did your ancestors come here? They came because the Ango-Saxon rejects created such a great country. Non-Anglo Saxons from Europe from the far reaches of Ultima Thule to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic to the Urals brought their socialist-proletariat sensibilities to the voting booth and screwed everything up.''
Well said, in my opinion. And it's a rare day when anyone says anything in response to the railing Anglophobes. Once in a while I have seen 'Svigor', who posts at a number of ethnopatriot blogs, give a good comeback to the slurs and insults over at Steve Sailer's blog. But that is something of a rarity.
I was brought up, as many of you were, in a day when we said ''sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never harm me.'' Sure, sometimes it's best to just let it roll off your back and ignore these things as what they are, namely, the impotent rantings of people who are steeped in resentment and who have some kind of ''issues''.
Somehow, though, it seems unjust to let all these things go unchallenged. First of all, there are factual inaccuracies bandied about in these kinds of rants, which seem to be increasing in frequency. The idea that the founding stock of this country, (mostly English) were 'rejects' and rabble is just false. I've read such nonsense as the charge tht the Pilgrim fathers were expelled from their home country. Wrong. They actually had to slip away under cover of darkness and made repeated attempts to get away to Holland or elsewhere, and succeeded only after several tries. There was no freedom to emigrate for them. This is all described in detail in the Willison book, Saints and Strangers.
Yes, there were some prisoners sent to some Southern colonies later, but the Jamestown colonists were not deported or transported criminals. Most of the colonists were decent and honorable people. I will put my ancestors up against anybody's in terms of their lineage and character and honor.
Perhaps it makes the Ellis Island crowd feel better about themselves to lie about the origins of the first colonists but those lies should not be unchallenged.
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, as the old proverb says.
I cannot count the number of times I have read slurs against WASPs because they are 'rich elites' who are either do-gooder liberals or self-hating Whites. Then I read that the WASPs are fat, gluttonous White trash. Can both be true? Sure, there are extremes at one end or the other in every group, but to caricature only Anglo-Saxons in this fashion is bizarre.
Most people on the racial right seem to stereotype WASP Americans as 'elites' like the Boston Brahmin types -- but do they even exist anymore? Who are they? Where? What are their names? The only New England elite I hear about are the likes of the Kennedys or John Kerry. Kerry, it is true, has some colonial ancestry, but he is also of much more recent immigrant stock, and Kerry is an adopted name as we know, as his family has no Irish ancestry.
Every time someone brings up the 'WASP elites sold this country out' mantra, I have to ask them: who are they? Name me some names. Specifically. I never get an answer.
The New England upper crust from colonial times rather quickly intermarried with people of other origins. The moneyed classes in the Northeast are -- or were -- all quite inbred among their own social circle, but if you examine their names and origins you will find they are not all WASPs, not by a long shot. Some are of continental European origin, and they are no longer a monolithic group, religiously or ethnically. I would say most of the people with the money and influence today are johnny-come-latelies, nouveau riche types, with money but no breeding.
There is not a WASP cabal running this country, in complicity with Jews or otherwise. In fact, the old WASP gentry were accused of being anti-Semitic, as well as xenophobic in general.
So again, which is it? Cosmopolitan? Or xenophobic and exclusive?
May I just throw out a few names here? Madison Grant. Wilmot Robertson. Henry Cabot Lodge (who was as ''Brahmin'' as you can get). Carleton Putnam, who was a kinsman of mine. Most of you are familiar with those names, if not, you might wish to google them.
They were not men who were self-hating, or liberal, or 'selfish elite rich WASPs'.
And somebody may counter with names of liberal New Englanders in our history. Fine. But the fact is, there are far more everyday people in this country who have roots in England than there are 'liberal WASP elites' or ''poor (Anglo-Saxon) White trash.''
I am convinced there are many more Americans of predominantly English roots than are even aware of it. Most such people had ancestors who came as colonists centuries ago, and have lost track of where exactly their ancestors came from. Those of more recent immigrant stock know that their grandparents or great-grandparents came from some Southern or Eastern European country, or Central Europe, so we have skewed statistics on ancestry. Most such polls are based on what the respondent says, not on any verifiable facts as to origins. If people do not know the full story, they can't report it to a poll-taker.
And again, who can blame them if they choose not to identify as English or Anglo-Saxon? If they hear nothing but venomous comments about Anglo-Saxons, they tend to disassociate themselves from it. So at this point, there are too few that know their origin and fewer still who will speak up in defense of their ancestors or their Anglo-Saxon brethren. The ''WASP'' is now the favorite whipping boy for people on the racial right, oddly. Some complain of anti-Jewish sentiments on the right, but Jews get better press than the WASP.
There is one thing that unites the far left and the far right: they often seem to blame every woe of the world on Anglo-Saxons. Not just on Whitey, mind you, although there is a lot of Whitey-bashing, but Anglo-Saxons. Few other groups can be criticized so viciously with so little response.
And here's one other thing to chew on: the nature of the attacks on Anglo-Saxons is pretty much the same as the accusations against White men in general. The Anglo-Saxon, whether you like him or not, is sort of the arch-White man, in the popular imagination. Those who hate Whites are guaranteed to hate Anglo-Saxons intensely. If the White man is thought guilty of being too rapacious and too 'ethnocentric' and oppressive and dominating, then the Anglo-Saxon is the epitome of such evils, in most Anglo/White-haters' minds.
I don't relish saying it, but when I hear people from various ethnic groups grumbling about how the English or the Anglos oppressed their forebears, it sounds exactly like the complaints from American Indians, Hispanics, and other victim groups. It is sad and pathetic that people on our side will play the victim card.
It's easy to wonder if those who revile Anglo-Saxons are not, in great part, motivated by envy. The United States was, in its prime, the strongest country in many ways, and the wealthiest. Likewise the British Empire at its peak. Even now, with our countries in decline and our people in danger of being demographically obliterated, millions upon millions of people seek to gain entry to both the UK and the United States. That says a lot. Unfortunately it is not admiration that brings them here, but envy and covetousness.
Envy and covetousness beget resentment and hatred. So perhaps in a way the hatred is a backhanded compliment, but nonetheless it's one that we could do without.
There is a perverse streak in human nature, too, that causes those who have received help and charity to hate their benefactors. There is more than a little of that at work in this assault on Anglo-Saxons. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say, and people do bite the hand that fed them.
Too, everybody wants to topple the man at the pinnacle, and it looks like the envious are succeeding. And I think many of those of more recent immigrant origin scent blood; they see that the formerly dominant Anglo-American has become weakened, and they are taking advantage of the situation to claim power for themselves, although they could have done no such thin unless the Anglo-American majority was severely wounded.
I hope I may be forgiven for asking if the Ellis Island immigration wave helped or hindered this country, or if the divisions that were introduced were in fact just the beginnings of the multicultural regime. This is not a slam at any of my readers; if you are a regular reader, I assume you are pro-White and that you know that this country was by origin an Anglo-Saxon Protestant country. That much is fact, it's history, regardless of anyone's feelings about it.
Somebody has to do the thankless job of defending the people who made this country, just as somebody has to defend our larger kin group as it is under attack. It's all part of the same struggle.
The divisiveness that comes from those who have a need to slander the founding group of this country is something that has to be addressed, or it will be our downfall.
But during this past week, it seems that every other blog or forum of a right-wing nature that I've visited has had nasty comments directed at Anglo-Saxon Americans. To cap it all off, in my inbox at Intense Debate yesterday was an ugly comment on an old blog entry of mine. The diatribe from someone with a Hispanic or Italian name, culminated in the statement, in all caps, that Anglo-Saxons needed to be completely removed from the face of this earth.
But watch: my reaction here will be the one called ''divisive''.
Wait -- there's more: over at TakiMag -- to my surprise they are accepting comments again -- there was an unpleasant exchange among commenters on this John Derbyshire article.
The instigator, whose name I seem to recognize as one of the old-time Taki regulars, spewed venom about the ''Anglo-Saxon rejects'' who created this country. Apparently those founding Anglo-Saxons are responsible for everything wrong with this country, including, somehow, the bullying of a gay student at an Eastern college. Never mind that the two main principals in that story were Hindu and Chinese, if I remember correctly.
One commenter posted in response to the Anglophobe:
''I am guessing that you aren't Anglo-Saxon. Why did your ancestors come here? They came because the Ango-Saxon rejects created such a great country. Non-Anglo Saxons from Europe from the far reaches of Ultima Thule to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic to the Urals brought their socialist-proletariat sensibilities to the voting booth and screwed everything up.''
Well said, in my opinion. And it's a rare day when anyone says anything in response to the railing Anglophobes. Once in a while I have seen 'Svigor', who posts at a number of ethnopatriot blogs, give a good comeback to the slurs and insults over at Steve Sailer's blog. But that is something of a rarity.
I was brought up, as many of you were, in a day when we said ''sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never harm me.'' Sure, sometimes it's best to just let it roll off your back and ignore these things as what they are, namely, the impotent rantings of people who are steeped in resentment and who have some kind of ''issues''.
Somehow, though, it seems unjust to let all these things go unchallenged. First of all, there are factual inaccuracies bandied about in these kinds of rants, which seem to be increasing in frequency. The idea that the founding stock of this country, (mostly English) were 'rejects' and rabble is just false. I've read such nonsense as the charge tht the Pilgrim fathers were expelled from their home country. Wrong. They actually had to slip away under cover of darkness and made repeated attempts to get away to Holland or elsewhere, and succeeded only after several tries. There was no freedom to emigrate for them. This is all described in detail in the Willison book, Saints and Strangers.
Yes, there were some prisoners sent to some Southern colonies later, but the Jamestown colonists were not deported or transported criminals. Most of the colonists were decent and honorable people. I will put my ancestors up against anybody's in terms of their lineage and character and honor.
Perhaps it makes the Ellis Island crowd feel better about themselves to lie about the origins of the first colonists but those lies should not be unchallenged.
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, as the old proverb says.
I cannot count the number of times I have read slurs against WASPs because they are 'rich elites' who are either do-gooder liberals or self-hating Whites. Then I read that the WASPs are fat, gluttonous White trash. Can both be true? Sure, there are extremes at one end or the other in every group, but to caricature only Anglo-Saxons in this fashion is bizarre.
Most people on the racial right seem to stereotype WASP Americans as 'elites' like the Boston Brahmin types -- but do they even exist anymore? Who are they? Where? What are their names? The only New England elite I hear about are the likes of the Kennedys or John Kerry. Kerry, it is true, has some colonial ancestry, but he is also of much more recent immigrant stock, and Kerry is an adopted name as we know, as his family has no Irish ancestry.
Every time someone brings up the 'WASP elites sold this country out' mantra, I have to ask them: who are they? Name me some names. Specifically. I never get an answer.
The New England upper crust from colonial times rather quickly intermarried with people of other origins. The moneyed classes in the Northeast are -- or were -- all quite inbred among their own social circle, but if you examine their names and origins you will find they are not all WASPs, not by a long shot. Some are of continental European origin, and they are no longer a monolithic group, religiously or ethnically. I would say most of the people with the money and influence today are johnny-come-latelies, nouveau riche types, with money but no breeding.
There is not a WASP cabal running this country, in complicity with Jews or otherwise. In fact, the old WASP gentry were accused of being anti-Semitic, as well as xenophobic in general.
So again, which is it? Cosmopolitan? Or xenophobic and exclusive?
May I just throw out a few names here? Madison Grant. Wilmot Robertson. Henry Cabot Lodge (who was as ''Brahmin'' as you can get). Carleton Putnam, who was a kinsman of mine. Most of you are familiar with those names, if not, you might wish to google them.
They were not men who were self-hating, or liberal, or 'selfish elite rich WASPs'.
And somebody may counter with names of liberal New Englanders in our history. Fine. But the fact is, there are far more everyday people in this country who have roots in England than there are 'liberal WASP elites' or ''poor (Anglo-Saxon) White trash.''
I am convinced there are many more Americans of predominantly English roots than are even aware of it. Most such people had ancestors who came as colonists centuries ago, and have lost track of where exactly their ancestors came from. Those of more recent immigrant stock know that their grandparents or great-grandparents came from some Southern or Eastern European country, or Central Europe, so we have skewed statistics on ancestry. Most such polls are based on what the respondent says, not on any verifiable facts as to origins. If people do not know the full story, they can't report it to a poll-taker.
And again, who can blame them if they choose not to identify as English or Anglo-Saxon? If they hear nothing but venomous comments about Anglo-Saxons, they tend to disassociate themselves from it. So at this point, there are too few that know their origin and fewer still who will speak up in defense of their ancestors or their Anglo-Saxon brethren. The ''WASP'' is now the favorite whipping boy for people on the racial right, oddly. Some complain of anti-Jewish sentiments on the right, but Jews get better press than the WASP.
There is one thing that unites the far left and the far right: they often seem to blame every woe of the world on Anglo-Saxons. Not just on Whitey, mind you, although there is a lot of Whitey-bashing, but Anglo-Saxons. Few other groups can be criticized so viciously with so little response.
And here's one other thing to chew on: the nature of the attacks on Anglo-Saxons is pretty much the same as the accusations against White men in general. The Anglo-Saxon, whether you like him or not, is sort of the arch-White man, in the popular imagination. Those who hate Whites are guaranteed to hate Anglo-Saxons intensely. If the White man is thought guilty of being too rapacious and too 'ethnocentric' and oppressive and dominating, then the Anglo-Saxon is the epitome of such evils, in most Anglo/White-haters' minds.
I don't relish saying it, but when I hear people from various ethnic groups grumbling about how the English or the Anglos oppressed their forebears, it sounds exactly like the complaints from American Indians, Hispanics, and other victim groups. It is sad and pathetic that people on our side will play the victim card.
It's easy to wonder if those who revile Anglo-Saxons are not, in great part, motivated by envy. The United States was, in its prime, the strongest country in many ways, and the wealthiest. Likewise the British Empire at its peak. Even now, with our countries in decline and our people in danger of being demographically obliterated, millions upon millions of people seek to gain entry to both the UK and the United States. That says a lot. Unfortunately it is not admiration that brings them here, but envy and covetousness.
Envy and covetousness beget resentment and hatred. So perhaps in a way the hatred is a backhanded compliment, but nonetheless it's one that we could do without.
There is a perverse streak in human nature, too, that causes those who have received help and charity to hate their benefactors. There is more than a little of that at work in this assault on Anglo-Saxons. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say, and people do bite the hand that fed them.
Too, everybody wants to topple the man at the pinnacle, and it looks like the envious are succeeding. And I think many of those of more recent immigrant origin scent blood; they see that the formerly dominant Anglo-American has become weakened, and they are taking advantage of the situation to claim power for themselves, although they could have done no such thin unless the Anglo-American majority was severely wounded.
I hope I may be forgiven for asking if the Ellis Island immigration wave helped or hindered this country, or if the divisions that were introduced were in fact just the beginnings of the multicultural regime. This is not a slam at any of my readers; if you are a regular reader, I assume you are pro-White and that you know that this country was by origin an Anglo-Saxon Protestant country. That much is fact, it's history, regardless of anyone's feelings about it.
Somebody has to do the thankless job of defending the people who made this country, just as somebody has to defend our larger kin group as it is under attack. It's all part of the same struggle.
The divisiveness that comes from those who have a need to slander the founding group of this country is something that has to be addressed, or it will be our downfall.
Labels: American History, Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Ethnic Division, Multiculturalism, Victimolatry
0 comment Thursday, July 31, 2014 | admin
I find it interesting and encouraging that there has been recent attention paid to writers of the past, such as Lothrop Stoddard, about whom I blogged recently, and now Madison Grant, who is the subject of a piece at VDare.com:
Madison Grant: Preserving Buffaloes, Redwoods -- And Founding Stock Americans
by F. Roger Devlin
Madison Grant (1865-1937), conservationist and architect of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, is finally the subject of a biography: Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant
The author, Prof. Jonathan Spiro, recounts that
During the course of my research, if I told people I was writing a biography of a leading conservationist, they would delightedly exclaim "how wonderful!" On the other hand, if I told people that my subject was a leading eugenicist, they would invariably respond: "How dreadful!"
Yet Madison Grant had similar motivations for both of these endeavors. Having worked to save buffaloes, antelopes, eagles and bears, it seemed only natural to him to turn to the preservation of his own kind, viz., Americans threatened by the flood of foreign immigration of the early twentieth century.
[...]
In 1908, Grant came under the influence of physical anthropologist William Z. Ripley, author of The Races of Europe. He learned that the rise of mass immigration correlated with a drastic decline in the fertility of the older American population. As a result, immigration amounted not to a re-enforcement of the American population but to a replacement of native by foreign stock.''
From a 1997 AmRen article:
Grant concluded that America should abandon a largely open-door immigration policy. He favored a eugenics program that would promote the Nordic race and discourage the expansion of the colored races in the white world. In particular, he condemned miscegenation.
It is worth noting that one of the reasons Grant and other racialists opposed the new immigration was that it brought alien ideologies. The First World War had seen the triumph of Bolshevism, and continuing immigration from Eastern Europe brought Marxists. Like most racialists, Grant saw socialism as unfit for Nordics. When he was helping found the Galton Society in 1918, he wrote to the other organizers: "My proposal is the organization of an anthropological society � confined to native Americans, who are anthropologically, socially, and politically sound, no Bolsheviki need apply."
Again, though Grant is now anathema to the usual suspects, being generally mentioned as having been an inspiration to (who else?) Hitler, we can see that he was held in much higher regard in his own time, when people did not cower in fear of something called 'political correctness':
The Passing of the Great Race became an immediate best-seller, with new editions in 1918, 1920, and 1921, multiple printings, and translations into German, French, and Norwegian.
It was reviewed favorably by Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and by periodicals as diverse as the Journal of Heredity and The Saturday Evening Post. The editor of the Post commissioned a series of articles on immigration in a similar vein, and in an editorial in the May 7, 1921, issue wrote: "Two books in particular that every American should read if he wishes to understand the full gravity of our present immigration problem: Mr. Madison Grant�s The Passing of the Great Race and Dr. Lothrop Stoddard�s The Rising Tide of Color� . These books should do a vast amount of good if they fall into the hands of readers who can face without wincing the impact of new and disturbing ideas."
You can find several of Grant's works online here, though they are not very readable due to many typos. Amazon.com also has several of his books available in addition to the new book by Jonathan Spiro.
From Henry Fairfield Osborn's preface to Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race:
Thus conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country, of a true sentiment which is based upon knowledge and the lessons of history rather than upon the sentimentalism which is fostered by ignorance. If I were asked: What is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic to-day ? I would certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our people of those hereditary traits through which the principles of our religious, political and social foundations were laid down and their insidious replacement by traits of less noble character.''
It seems to me that these words represent ideas whose time has truly come; in his day, they were important, but today, they are crucial ideas.
And here, an excerpt from an interesting review by R.E. Prindle of Grant's 'A Conquest of a Continent'
In the immediacy of the moment one frequently overlooks or forgets the history leading up to the moment. One might think for instance that the current flap over Diversity and Multi-Culturalism is a recent occurrence. While the two terms are of recent provenance the argument under different names goes back much farther while the protagonists are essentially the same.
The story of immigration into America is almost always told from the point of view of the immigrant. Few books tell the tale from the Nativist point of view and they are universally and viciously derided as a tale told by bigoted idiots. While charity is demanded from the Nativists none is to be expected from the immigrationists.
Thus we get volumes like Strangers In The Land by John Higham and Carl Wittke�s We Who Built America that distort the issue in favor of immigrants while deprecating the Natives.
Gustavus Myers� History Of Bigotry In The United States on the other hand appears to be a willful misunderstanding of the nature of the relative status between immigrant and native resulting in a slanderous approach like that of the contemporary Greil Marcus.
Conquest Of A Continent has been placed on the Jewish Index Of Anti-Semitic Books. Based on that I expected a detailed derogatory examination of the Jews from their entry into America perhaps being the conquerors referred to. The President of the American Jewish Committee sent a letter to every Jewish publisher in the United States demanding that they refrain from either reviewing the book or noticing it at all. Dynamic silence was to prevail.
[...]
Grant�s book should prove useful to any unbiased reader. If his attitude of Nordic superiority offends you, ignore it. His history as history is sound. For those of you reared on Myer�s History of Bigory attitude you will probably be surprised to find that there is another point of view. Bigotry is not a matter solely of American destestation of immigrants as the program of Diversity and Multi-Culturalism indicates, bigotry is a red herring and not the issue. The issue is who will be Top Race. The contestants for the Top Spot have turned out to be the Africans, Semites (both Jews and Arab Moslems) Hispanics, Chinese and Euro-Americans. (Grant�s Nordics) As you can see race has replaced nationalism.
The contest is real and ongoing. Peace is merely another form of war. The prize will go to who wants it the most. If you don�t see the contest in these terms I suggest you remove your rose colored glasses.''
Madison Grant: Preserving Buffaloes, Redwoods -- And Founding Stock Americans
by F. Roger Devlin
Madison Grant (1865-1937), conservationist and architect of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, is finally the subject of a biography: Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant
The author, Prof. Jonathan Spiro, recounts that
During the course of my research, if I told people I was writing a biography of a leading conservationist, they would delightedly exclaim "how wonderful!" On the other hand, if I told people that my subject was a leading eugenicist, they would invariably respond: "How dreadful!"
Yet Madison Grant had similar motivations for both of these endeavors. Having worked to save buffaloes, antelopes, eagles and bears, it seemed only natural to him to turn to the preservation of his own kind, viz., Americans threatened by the flood of foreign immigration of the early twentieth century.
[...]
In 1908, Grant came under the influence of physical anthropologist William Z. Ripley, author of The Races of Europe. He learned that the rise of mass immigration correlated with a drastic decline in the fertility of the older American population. As a result, immigration amounted not to a re-enforcement of the American population but to a replacement of native by foreign stock.''
From a 1997 AmRen article:
Grant concluded that America should abandon a largely open-door immigration policy. He favored a eugenics program that would promote the Nordic race and discourage the expansion of the colored races in the white world. In particular, he condemned miscegenation.
It is worth noting that one of the reasons Grant and other racialists opposed the new immigration was that it brought alien ideologies. The First World War had seen the triumph of Bolshevism, and continuing immigration from Eastern Europe brought Marxists. Like most racialists, Grant saw socialism as unfit for Nordics. When he was helping found the Galton Society in 1918, he wrote to the other organizers: "My proposal is the organization of an anthropological society � confined to native Americans, who are anthropologically, socially, and politically sound, no Bolsheviki need apply."
Again, though Grant is now anathema to the usual suspects, being generally mentioned as having been an inspiration to (who else?) Hitler, we can see that he was held in much higher regard in his own time, when people did not cower in fear of something called 'political correctness':
The Passing of the Great Race became an immediate best-seller, with new editions in 1918, 1920, and 1921, multiple printings, and translations into German, French, and Norwegian.
It was reviewed favorably by Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and by periodicals as diverse as the Journal of Heredity and The Saturday Evening Post. The editor of the Post commissioned a series of articles on immigration in a similar vein, and in an editorial in the May 7, 1921, issue wrote: "Two books in particular that every American should read if he wishes to understand the full gravity of our present immigration problem: Mr. Madison Grant�s The Passing of the Great Race and Dr. Lothrop Stoddard�s The Rising Tide of Color� . These books should do a vast amount of good if they fall into the hands of readers who can face without wincing the impact of new and disturbing ideas."
You can find several of Grant's works online here, though they are not very readable due to many typos. Amazon.com also has several of his books available in addition to the new book by Jonathan Spiro.
From Henry Fairfield Osborn's preface to Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race:
Thus conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country, of a true sentiment which is based upon knowledge and the lessons of history rather than upon the sentimentalism which is fostered by ignorance. If I were asked: What is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic to-day ? I would certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our people of those hereditary traits through which the principles of our religious, political and social foundations were laid down and their insidious replacement by traits of less noble character.''
It seems to me that these words represent ideas whose time has truly come; in his day, they were important, but today, they are crucial ideas.
And here, an excerpt from an interesting review by R.E. Prindle of Grant's 'A Conquest of a Continent'
In the immediacy of the moment one frequently overlooks or forgets the history leading up to the moment. One might think for instance that the current flap over Diversity and Multi-Culturalism is a recent occurrence. While the two terms are of recent provenance the argument under different names goes back much farther while the protagonists are essentially the same.
The story of immigration into America is almost always told from the point of view of the immigrant. Few books tell the tale from the Nativist point of view and they are universally and viciously derided as a tale told by bigoted idiots. While charity is demanded from the Nativists none is to be expected from the immigrationists.
Thus we get volumes like Strangers In The Land by John Higham and Carl Wittke�s We Who Built America that distort the issue in favor of immigrants while deprecating the Natives.
Gustavus Myers� History Of Bigotry In The United States on the other hand appears to be a willful misunderstanding of the nature of the relative status between immigrant and native resulting in a slanderous approach like that of the contemporary Greil Marcus.
Conquest Of A Continent has been placed on the Jewish Index Of Anti-Semitic Books. Based on that I expected a detailed derogatory examination of the Jews from their entry into America perhaps being the conquerors referred to. The President of the American Jewish Committee sent a letter to every Jewish publisher in the United States demanding that they refrain from either reviewing the book or noticing it at all. Dynamic silence was to prevail.
[...]
Grant�s book should prove useful to any unbiased reader. If his attitude of Nordic superiority offends you, ignore it. His history as history is sound. For those of you reared on Myer�s History of Bigory attitude you will probably be surprised to find that there is another point of view. Bigotry is not a matter solely of American destestation of immigrants as the program of Diversity and Multi-Culturalism indicates, bigotry is a red herring and not the issue. The issue is who will be Top Race. The contestants for the Top Spot have turned out to be the Africans, Semites (both Jews and Arab Moslems) Hispanics, Chinese and Euro-Americans. (Grant�s Nordics) As you can see race has replaced nationalism.
The contest is real and ongoing. Peace is merely another form of war. The prize will go to who wants it the most. If you don�t see the contest in these terms I suggest you remove your rose colored glasses.''
Labels: American History, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Demographics, Ethnoconservatism, Mass Immigration, Nativism, Political Correctness, Race Replacement, Racial Dispossession
0 comment Tuesday, July 1, 2014 | admin
Regarding the royal wedding, from the Daily Mail (UK):
'Audrey Jones our producer was looking for the black people in the wedding and we found our Rosa Parks moment, because we were like 'where are the black people'?' she said.
'It was like where's Waldo, where are the black people?' she added.
'We found one little black child in the choir but where's the black people at this wedding?' she continued.''
Lately I've taken to saying indignantly, when viewing any kind of image of a public gathering with 'diversity' conspicuously absent ''But--but where's the diversity?'' It's laughable and yet tragic that this is the main concern of so many people today.
I don't know who 'Sherri Shepherd' is, and I suspect I'm better off not knowing. I have seen snippets in the past from that show, The View, with its panel of cackling harridans. But they are diverse, so I guess that's the important thing.
I've mentioned here before of how, when I was looking at old photos on Shorpy.com, a picture of a grade school class from the Old America was posted, and the first comment was ''Where are the African-Americans and Hispanics?' The poor soul who asked that question so earnestly was evidently ignorant of the fact that back when that picture was taken, Hispanics were hardly omnipresent, even in California or Texas then. Imagine.
And blacks, being a mere 10 or 11 percent of the total population, could not be everywhere either. So many schools, sadly, were diversity-starved. But we can thank our lucky stars, they are working to correct that now, in Britain as well as in this country.
As of now, Britain has a black population apparently in the single digits still, though looking at scenes of London, that's hard to believe. And if you believe the BBC, there once were blacks and 'Saracen Turks' roaming Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, and then there was the black Guinevere. I wonder what happened? But not to worry; it's all going to be corrected as quickly as possible.
I did not see the Royal Wedding which has been the center of so much hype. I have seen snippets and read about aspects of it on the Internet. I hear that the wedding vows were somewhat altered to politically correct them in accordance with 21st century sensibilities, and that's not surprising. I saw a shot of Elton John and his man/wife there, prominently positioned.
I note, as always, that many ''conservatives'' on the Internet forums are engaging in their usual anti-royal, anti-monarchy diatribes, which I find misguided. To the FReepers: our revolution was not fought to overthrow monarchy as an institution; I think you have it confused with the French Revolution. And our aim was not to shake off alien rule; ''the British'' were our flesh and blood, and the Colonists regarded them as such. The Colonists claimed their own English origins.
So I don't share the loathing for royalty or for social classes that seems to animate many 'conservatives'. Our Founding Fathers did not regard 'democracy' as a desirable form of government, and spoke of it with disdain. They warned of the dangers of democracy, which can easily become mob rule, and can lead to rule by demagogues and tyrants.
Monarchy is as good as the people who are at the top, or as bad. Just as with our system.
Having said that, I have no particular admiration for the Windsors; it seems that they are part of the corrupt world system that is behind the slow and agonizing death of the West. The Queen, sadly, recites the multicultural propaganda these days, and it seems as if the royals care nothing that the English people, those who are the core of what is called Britain, are now second-class citizens in their own country. The English alone have no flag, no parliament of their own. The St. George's flag is now considered 'divisive' if not racist.
Still, despite all that, I can't help but regard the historical England, traditional England, with great fondness. I've felt that way since childhood, and just as with my loyalty to the South and to the best in America, it's the people to whom my fondness and loyalty belong, not a governmental system or the changing faces who 'rule' the country, or even a flag, historic though a flag may be. I somehow find the pageantry and the ceremony and the pomp to be stirring. It seems to awaken something in many people who have ties to that people and that land. It draws us to the past, and to our kin, living and dead, and to come.
We seem to have less and less of that in America as time goes by; not many of us seem to care about the past, and few even know our history. We have few symbols, except for our flag, which is trivialized in many ways.
As our country becomes ever more fractured and factionalized, made unrecognizable by the whirlwind of demographic change, there is little to hold us together, little common heritage and national memory. The monarchy, the institution and all that it represents, represents continuity, and history, extending back in the case of Britain for many centuries.
It's sad that the royals are now becoming little more than characters in soap operas, or tacky celebrities. I read that Prince William says he enjoys 'rap and hip-hop.' That in itself speaks volumes.
Despite all this, I know there is still a core there of the old England or the old Britain if you insist. Personally I think the Welsh and Scots should have full independence, and England be free to go it alone, all of them freed from the EU.
In the meantime, I am glad there is still a vestige of the England that was, even if it's a rather threadbare one. And in parting, I'll ask Sherri Shepherd, whoever she is, ''where are the English?'' That's the pertinent question.
'Audrey Jones our producer was looking for the black people in the wedding and we found our Rosa Parks moment, because we were like 'where are the black people'?' she said.
'It was like where's Waldo, where are the black people?' she added.
'We found one little black child in the choir but where's the black people at this wedding?' she continued.''
Lately I've taken to saying indignantly, when viewing any kind of image of a public gathering with 'diversity' conspicuously absent ''But--but where's the diversity?'' It's laughable and yet tragic that this is the main concern of so many people today.
I don't know who 'Sherri Shepherd' is, and I suspect I'm better off not knowing. I have seen snippets in the past from that show, The View, with its panel of cackling harridans. But they are diverse, so I guess that's the important thing.
I've mentioned here before of how, when I was looking at old photos on Shorpy.com, a picture of a grade school class from the Old America was posted, and the first comment was ''Where are the African-Americans and Hispanics?' The poor soul who asked that question so earnestly was evidently ignorant of the fact that back when that picture was taken, Hispanics were hardly omnipresent, even in California or Texas then. Imagine.
And blacks, being a mere 10 or 11 percent of the total population, could not be everywhere either. So many schools, sadly, were diversity-starved. But we can thank our lucky stars, they are working to correct that now, in Britain as well as in this country.
As of now, Britain has a black population apparently in the single digits still, though looking at scenes of London, that's hard to believe. And if you believe the BBC, there once were blacks and 'Saracen Turks' roaming Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, and then there was the black Guinevere. I wonder what happened? But not to worry; it's all going to be corrected as quickly as possible.
I did not see the Royal Wedding which has been the center of so much hype. I have seen snippets and read about aspects of it on the Internet. I hear that the wedding vows were somewhat altered to politically correct them in accordance with 21st century sensibilities, and that's not surprising. I saw a shot of Elton John and his man/wife there, prominently positioned.
I note, as always, that many ''conservatives'' on the Internet forums are engaging in their usual anti-royal, anti-monarchy diatribes, which I find misguided. To the FReepers: our revolution was not fought to overthrow monarchy as an institution; I think you have it confused with the French Revolution. And our aim was not to shake off alien rule; ''the British'' were our flesh and blood, and the Colonists regarded them as such. The Colonists claimed their own English origins.
So I don't share the loathing for royalty or for social classes that seems to animate many 'conservatives'. Our Founding Fathers did not regard 'democracy' as a desirable form of government, and spoke of it with disdain. They warned of the dangers of democracy, which can easily become mob rule, and can lead to rule by demagogues and tyrants.
Monarchy is as good as the people who are at the top, or as bad. Just as with our system.
Having said that, I have no particular admiration for the Windsors; it seems that they are part of the corrupt world system that is behind the slow and agonizing death of the West. The Queen, sadly, recites the multicultural propaganda these days, and it seems as if the royals care nothing that the English people, those who are the core of what is called Britain, are now second-class citizens in their own country. The English alone have no flag, no parliament of their own. The St. George's flag is now considered 'divisive' if not racist.
Still, despite all that, I can't help but regard the historical England, traditional England, with great fondness. I've felt that way since childhood, and just as with my loyalty to the South and to the best in America, it's the people to whom my fondness and loyalty belong, not a governmental system or the changing faces who 'rule' the country, or even a flag, historic though a flag may be. I somehow find the pageantry and the ceremony and the pomp to be stirring. It seems to awaken something in many people who have ties to that people and that land. It draws us to the past, and to our kin, living and dead, and to come.
We seem to have less and less of that in America as time goes by; not many of us seem to care about the past, and few even know our history. We have few symbols, except for our flag, which is trivialized in many ways.
As our country becomes ever more fractured and factionalized, made unrecognizable by the whirlwind of demographic change, there is little to hold us together, little common heritage and national memory. The monarchy, the institution and all that it represents, represents continuity, and history, extending back in the case of Britain for many centuries.
It's sad that the royals are now becoming little more than characters in soap operas, or tacky celebrities. I read that Prince William says he enjoys 'rap and hip-hop.' That in itself speaks volumes.
Despite all this, I know there is still a core there of the old England or the old Britain if you insist. Personally I think the Welsh and Scots should have full independence, and England be free to go it alone, all of them freed from the EU.
In the meantime, I am glad there is still a vestige of the England that was, even if it's a rather threadbare one. And in parting, I'll ask Sherri Shepherd, whoever she is, ''where are the English?'' That's the pertinent question.
Labels: Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Britain, Christendom, Royalty Tradition
0 comment Saturday, June 28, 2014 | admin
It seems to me that I recently wrote a post on this subject, but it never seems to go away.
Upfront, I will say that this is my definitive statement on the subject. If it is raised in the future, I will just refer readers to this post, rather than saying it all again.
Yet again, I am being challenged as to why I focus on Anglo-American or WASP roots on this blog.
The implication is generally that I am excluding others, and failing to foster general American unity by focusing on one group, even if that group is the founding stock and the creative force behind the Republic that was established here in 1776.
The argument is made that Americans are all mixed, deracinated people who identify only as Americans, and that to identify with any particular ethnicity is to be divisive.
To what extent that is true, I don't know. I know that the 'generic American' identity is embraced by many people of mixed European ancestry, and I know that in many areas people are rather hopelessly mixed so as to identify with no particular ethnicity. That's a problem.
Is it possible to identify as just American when everybody else, especially minorities, have a strong ethnic identity?
Do I have to bring up yet again that many people outside the U.S. sneer at us because we are 'a people of no race or identity'? That is a common view of us in Europe. To expect Europeans to acknowledge us as cousins or even distant kin is often to be disappointed and rebuffed, as they hold us in low regard in many cases, and consider us mongrels, compared to themselves. Yes, there are Europeans who are more welcoming of us, but there are also many who regard us with a blend of scorn and condescension -- because we are a mixed people of no fixed origin.
The word 'American' once meant something. I was quite happy to call myself just American for many years, although I have had a strong Southron identity too. But over the years, the American 'brand' has been cheapened and made meaningless for many people because we are told that the many alien peoples residing here, who speak not a word of English in most cases, are ''new Americans''. Being an American is just a geographical condition, just an address, which tells nothing about who a person is. Remember those 'Ad Council' spots that ran on TV after 9/11, with many foreign people saying 'I am an American'? That's what 'American' has come to mean: anybody who is occupying some spot on American territory.
If America consists of an idea or a proposition, what then are Americans? Just anybody who says they believe in 'freedom' or 'equality'? Is it just a matter of pledging allegiance to a flag or a political system, as many Republicans would have it?
People need more than that. People need roots. They need a sense of kinship and belonging, a sense of who they are in a biological sense, where their actual ancestors came from, how they lived, what they accomplished. They need a sense of their place in history and in the human family.
I put it to you that Americans who feel themselves to be of no particular race or ethnicity, identifying only with a flag or a geopolitical entity, are a people prone to be deracinated, to lack an anchor, to lack confidence. Deracinated and confused people are ripe to be colonized and subjugated, as is happening now.
Such a people, I believe, are also more prone to miscegenation, to want to lose their weak 'identity' by interbreeding or intermarrying with any exotic group of people with an aggressive sense of ethnicity and race, hence you have young people becoming 'wiggers', talking Ebonics, or intermarrying with Hispanics and raising their children as Hispanic. Hardly ever do intermarriages result in the transmission of any kind of White identity. I can think of many cases, and all of them result in Whites becoming renegades to their own race, and 'going native', along with their children.
I firmly believe that we are in a time of re-tribalization. The world will become more ethnically divided, with smaller groups asserting, or re-asserting, their tribal or clan identities. If 'America' in its present form falls apart, which many have predicted will happen, what, then, will be left of an 'American' identity?
People may choose to align with some kind of regional identity. The South has a strong regional identity, or has had, until the recent immigrant influx, along with an earlier migration of Yankees during the Reagan era.
And as to the South, the fact that it had, before the recent Latino invasion, received relatively few immigrants meant that the people of the South were far more homogeneous than those in most of the Northern states. The Northern cities in particular had received most of the Ellis Island immigrants, and the heartland North had many Northern European immigrants (German, Scandinavian, some Dutch) who later formed the sort of generic White European core group.
However, the South had experienced less demographic change than the North. Southron Whites were fairly cohesive, perhaps partly in reaction to the presence of many blacks, and because of the history involving the War Between the States and Reconstruction.
Most of the old-stock Southron people were of British Isles descent. Many colonial stock Southron people identified as Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Saxon. It was understood among most people that there was no racial division between those two groups of people; the Angl0-Normans were generally thought of by Southrons as being the more aristocratic strain, although now there is a negative image of Normans as being some sort of foreign interlopers, with whom few want to claim a connection -- much the same as with the WASP identity in America, ironically.
My particular family line is mostly Anglo-Norman, with some Huguenot French and Ulster Scots roots, but by far, mostly Anglo-Norman. In this, I think my family tree is quite typical of old-stock Southron families. The idea that all areas of these United States are equally mixed in terms of descent is erroneous. The South preserved its original makeup for considerably longer than the North.
The much-criticized New England WASP colonial stock was actually 'ethnically cleansed', to a great extent, from New England as the Ellis Island immigrants fanned out across the East Coast. Many of my Yankee family members went West, settling the vast wilderness that awaited. Some stopped in the Midwest, settling there, others went far West, as far as they could go. The idea that there is some powerful yet strangely invisible 'WASP elite' in New England is persistent but lacking in basis. The old WASP colonial stock moved West, for the most part, preferring not to live in an overpopulated Northeastern megalopolis as the immigrants kept arriving.
A commenter asked why I had alternately referenced and criticized 'Albion's Seed' by David Hackett Fisher. It is an interesting book with much good information, but I find fault with it because I think it has fostered an oversimplified view of Southern ethnicity. Fisher I think has done a great deal, along with writer Grady McWhiney, to popularize the unproven notion of the South as being mostly Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish, it is claimed, gave the 'warrior spirit' to the South. And were the Anglo-Normans not likewise formidable warriors?
This kind of thing, this unwillingness to credit Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman people with any accomplishment or talent (other than 'oppressing' the victim groups of the world) is one of the things which prompts me to champion the Anglo-Saxon heritage of America. It's only fair to give credit where due.
And for some reason, perhaps because of media portrayals (Braveheart, for example) the Scots are seen as a glamorous, tough, admirable people, while the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman is seen as sneaky, cold, ruthless, and vicious. That pattern is repeated time and again in movies and novels. The same kind of stereotype of the English was seen in another Gibson movie, The Patriot. That movie, like others, takes liberties with history.
For the record, quite a few of my ancestors lived in the area of Carolina where the story took place, and they were in the thick of the revolution. Some of my ancestors died fighting the British, but I don't accept the stereotype of the British as being evil and cold-blooded -- and foppish, as well.
It's no wonder that few Americans want to identify with any British ancestry they may have; who wants to be connected to the bad guys, the perpetual villains? We see similar stereotyping in recent PC movies in which White Americans are the villains: remember 'Dances With Wolves', with its ugly stereotypes of dirty, bloodthirsty American cavalrymen? The only good Whites were the renegade Whites who went native.
This kind of propaganda has led to Americans being so reticent to defend themselves in the face of relentless attacks by all and sundry. We are a demoralized people who have been schooled to think we have no defense to offer for ourselves and our ancestors; they were bad people who oppressed and plundered the poor weak peoples of the earth, and we are equally bad, because we have a unique kind of original sin called 'innate racism.'
It's 'racism', supposedly, for us even to feel an identification with our White kin group. All other groups can be aggressive in their identity, while we alone can only safely call ourselves ''Americans'', and even that is now considered hateful and 'nativist.' Latin American interlopers in our country tell us that they are just as 'American' as we are. Some liberal educators propose we call ourselves 'United Statesians' so as not to wrongly appropriate the label American, which belongs to everybody from the North Pole to Cape Horn.
Where to, America? Our identity is too exclusive, and it doesn't really belong just to us -- just as America 'belongs to everybody' as many immigrants brazenly claim.
And our European cousins tell us, as one European commenter haughtily told me on this blog, we are neither a race nor a people. We are nonentities. We are ciphers. It's no wonder many of us are eager to lose ourselves in some exotic new culture or identity.
Where to, in this re-tribalizing world, where ancestry and race will become more important in deciding where we stand? Those Americans who think they can sit it out by declaring that they are 'world citizens' or cosmopolitan planetary citizens, are mistaken. They will have to pick a side, and even if they decline to, they will be assigned a side in the conflict, based on their skin color.
Yes, I agree that White people should unite and feel kinship. We are a dwindling proportion of the world's peoples, and some predict our demise, one way or another. Were it not for my religious faith, I think I would predict that European-descended peoples would be blended away in a few generations. However I believe there is a reason why 'peoples, nations, kindreds, and tongues' were created, and it is not in the Divine plan for the Tower of Babel to succeed this time, or ever. The hubristic plan to create one mingled race will not succeed. That's just my personal faith, and I cannot prove it. I believe we, our kin group, will continue, but we are under siege as apparently our rulers want to eliminate all inequalities, including and especially innate racial inequalities.
I am all for uniting with all ethnic groups in the European family. However I cannot unilaterally make that unity happen. I don't have that kind of influence or power.
There are a great many people whose ethnic grievances against Anglo-Saxons make them hostile towards anyone who claims descent from that group. Just check out any message board where Irish, Ulster Irish, or English people congregate. There is an incredible amount of bitterness over the Irish 'troubles' and remote historical events. Irish-Americans in many cases who have never been to Ireland hold grudges and curse the English. That has got to stop if there is to be any unity.
If I am hard on the ethnic 'Ellis Island' descendants, it is because all too often they tend to be open-borders sentimentalists who identify with immigrants more than Americans. and in many instances they hold grudges towards old-stock Americans (which as I've said includes more than just English.)
If they are willing to stop accusing America I am willing to accept them as brothers. The animosity does not start with me; my animus toward grudge-bearers is defensive, not offensive.
So, do I, and this blog, have enough influence to 'unite' Americans or White people generally? This is not one of those mega-blogs which gets thousands and thousands of hits, and which wields considerable influence. What I write here is unlikely to 'divide' Americans (who are already quite divided, thank you) nor to unite Americans. I am just one isolated voice, and I don't particularly wish to be anything else. I write what I write for the few; you, the readers, decide if you are one of the few I write for. If my words speak to you, then this blog is for you. If my words antagonize you and irritate you, perhaps you are looking for something I don't provide.
This blog is my individual attempt to cry out against what I see happening to this country, and to my people, and as I seem to have to repeat often, 'my people' are all of you who identify with old America, and who hold dear what I hold dear, all of you who wish to defend the 'land where our fathers died.' I am a partisan of the South. because I feel that it embodies the real, original America best of all, and potentially may represent a resurgent 'America.'
Does that alienate my Northern readers? It should not. Because I prefer the South, having lived in both North and South, that does not mean I have animosity towards those of you from the North. So likewise because I write about the Anglo-American culture and heritage, which is neglected and despised by many people, that does not ''exclude'' those of you who have little commonality with that. I find this idea that particularism is somehow hostility towards others to be a curious, and rather liberal idea. It's the essence of political correctness, actually, this idea that we are to 'include' everybody and water everything down so as not to offend or 'leave anybody out.'
The nature of the world is that people group together in various ways, all of which include some and exclude others. That is also the essence of love: love excludes most, and prefers one, or the few, above the many.
Just because I love my particular heritage does not mean that I hate others' heritage.
I do find it hard to understand why my expression of my particular affinities is considered offensive. by anyone, unless it rubs salt in wounds based on past perceived resentments.
I write this blog partly for myself, because I feel compelled to write what is in my heart. This is one person's blog, not an attempt to speak to the whole world. This world, and even this country, is much too big and too complicated and too divided for me to be able to 'speak to' everyone or appeal to everyone. No doubt I offend some, but I cannot alter my message or my preferences because they 'turn away' some people. I cannot tailor my message to everyone.
Few people speak up for old-stock Anglo-Americans. Yet if this country ever succeeds in re-establishing any kind of unity, it will have to rally around a common heritage, and in old America, that common identity was the Anglo-based one. What else, pray tell, can we rally around? Like it or not, the Founding Fathers were Englishmen. English and male.
If any ethnicity or heritage deserves to be preserved as a cement which holds us together, the Anglo-Saxons heritage is the obvious choice. It served us well for many generations.
However, it looks as though a balkanized America is in the cards, with regions dominated by different peoples, but we will all have to decide to unite or separate. It is up to the other ethnicities, including the 'just Americans,' to decide with whom they will stand.
Upfront, I will say that this is my definitive statement on the subject. If it is raised in the future, I will just refer readers to this post, rather than saying it all again.
Yet again, I am being challenged as to why I focus on Anglo-American or WASP roots on this blog.
The implication is generally that I am excluding others, and failing to foster general American unity by focusing on one group, even if that group is the founding stock and the creative force behind the Republic that was established here in 1776.
The argument is made that Americans are all mixed, deracinated people who identify only as Americans, and that to identify with any particular ethnicity is to be divisive.
To what extent that is true, I don't know. I know that the 'generic American' identity is embraced by many people of mixed European ancestry, and I know that in many areas people are rather hopelessly mixed so as to identify with no particular ethnicity. That's a problem.
Is it possible to identify as just American when everybody else, especially minorities, have a strong ethnic identity?
Do I have to bring up yet again that many people outside the U.S. sneer at us because we are 'a people of no race or identity'? That is a common view of us in Europe. To expect Europeans to acknowledge us as cousins or even distant kin is often to be disappointed and rebuffed, as they hold us in low regard in many cases, and consider us mongrels, compared to themselves. Yes, there are Europeans who are more welcoming of us, but there are also many who regard us with a blend of scorn and condescension -- because we are a mixed people of no fixed origin.
The word 'American' once meant something. I was quite happy to call myself just American for many years, although I have had a strong Southron identity too. But over the years, the American 'brand' has been cheapened and made meaningless for many people because we are told that the many alien peoples residing here, who speak not a word of English in most cases, are ''new Americans''. Being an American is just a geographical condition, just an address, which tells nothing about who a person is. Remember those 'Ad Council' spots that ran on TV after 9/11, with many foreign people saying 'I am an American'? That's what 'American' has come to mean: anybody who is occupying some spot on American territory.
If America consists of an idea or a proposition, what then are Americans? Just anybody who says they believe in 'freedom' or 'equality'? Is it just a matter of pledging allegiance to a flag or a political system, as many Republicans would have it?
People need more than that. People need roots. They need a sense of kinship and belonging, a sense of who they are in a biological sense, where their actual ancestors came from, how they lived, what they accomplished. They need a sense of their place in history and in the human family.
I put it to you that Americans who feel themselves to be of no particular race or ethnicity, identifying only with a flag or a geopolitical entity, are a people prone to be deracinated, to lack an anchor, to lack confidence. Deracinated and confused people are ripe to be colonized and subjugated, as is happening now.
Such a people, I believe, are also more prone to miscegenation, to want to lose their weak 'identity' by interbreeding or intermarrying with any exotic group of people with an aggressive sense of ethnicity and race, hence you have young people becoming 'wiggers', talking Ebonics, or intermarrying with Hispanics and raising their children as Hispanic. Hardly ever do intermarriages result in the transmission of any kind of White identity. I can think of many cases, and all of them result in Whites becoming renegades to their own race, and 'going native', along with their children.
I firmly believe that we are in a time of re-tribalization. The world will become more ethnically divided, with smaller groups asserting, or re-asserting, their tribal or clan identities. If 'America' in its present form falls apart, which many have predicted will happen, what, then, will be left of an 'American' identity?
People may choose to align with some kind of regional identity. The South has a strong regional identity, or has had, until the recent immigrant influx, along with an earlier migration of Yankees during the Reagan era.
And as to the South, the fact that it had, before the recent Latino invasion, received relatively few immigrants meant that the people of the South were far more homogeneous than those in most of the Northern states. The Northern cities in particular had received most of the Ellis Island immigrants, and the heartland North had many Northern European immigrants (German, Scandinavian, some Dutch) who later formed the sort of generic White European core group.
However, the South had experienced less demographic change than the North. Southron Whites were fairly cohesive, perhaps partly in reaction to the presence of many blacks, and because of the history involving the War Between the States and Reconstruction.
Most of the old-stock Southron people were of British Isles descent. Many colonial stock Southron people identified as Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Saxon. It was understood among most people that there was no racial division between those two groups of people; the Angl0-Normans were generally thought of by Southrons as being the more aristocratic strain, although now there is a negative image of Normans as being some sort of foreign interlopers, with whom few want to claim a connection -- much the same as with the WASP identity in America, ironically.
My particular family line is mostly Anglo-Norman, with some Huguenot French and Ulster Scots roots, but by far, mostly Anglo-Norman. In this, I think my family tree is quite typical of old-stock Southron families. The idea that all areas of these United States are equally mixed in terms of descent is erroneous. The South preserved its original makeup for considerably longer than the North.
The much-criticized New England WASP colonial stock was actually 'ethnically cleansed', to a great extent, from New England as the Ellis Island immigrants fanned out across the East Coast. Many of my Yankee family members went West, settling the vast wilderness that awaited. Some stopped in the Midwest, settling there, others went far West, as far as they could go. The idea that there is some powerful yet strangely invisible 'WASP elite' in New England is persistent but lacking in basis. The old WASP colonial stock moved West, for the most part, preferring not to live in an overpopulated Northeastern megalopolis as the immigrants kept arriving.
A commenter asked why I had alternately referenced and criticized 'Albion's Seed' by David Hackett Fisher. It is an interesting book with much good information, but I find fault with it because I think it has fostered an oversimplified view of Southern ethnicity. Fisher I think has done a great deal, along with writer Grady McWhiney, to popularize the unproven notion of the South as being mostly Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish, it is claimed, gave the 'warrior spirit' to the South. And were the Anglo-Normans not likewise formidable warriors?
This kind of thing, this unwillingness to credit Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman people with any accomplishment or talent (other than 'oppressing' the victim groups of the world) is one of the things which prompts me to champion the Anglo-Saxon heritage of America. It's only fair to give credit where due.
And for some reason, perhaps because of media portrayals (Braveheart, for example) the Scots are seen as a glamorous, tough, admirable people, while the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman is seen as sneaky, cold, ruthless, and vicious. That pattern is repeated time and again in movies and novels. The same kind of stereotype of the English was seen in another Gibson movie, The Patriot. That movie, like others, takes liberties with history.
For the record, quite a few of my ancestors lived in the area of Carolina where the story took place, and they were in the thick of the revolution. Some of my ancestors died fighting the British, but I don't accept the stereotype of the British as being evil and cold-blooded -- and foppish, as well.
It's no wonder that few Americans want to identify with any British ancestry they may have; who wants to be connected to the bad guys, the perpetual villains? We see similar stereotyping in recent PC movies in which White Americans are the villains: remember 'Dances With Wolves', with its ugly stereotypes of dirty, bloodthirsty American cavalrymen? The only good Whites were the renegade Whites who went native.
This kind of propaganda has led to Americans being so reticent to defend themselves in the face of relentless attacks by all and sundry. We are a demoralized people who have been schooled to think we have no defense to offer for ourselves and our ancestors; they were bad people who oppressed and plundered the poor weak peoples of the earth, and we are equally bad, because we have a unique kind of original sin called 'innate racism.'
It's 'racism', supposedly, for us even to feel an identification with our White kin group. All other groups can be aggressive in their identity, while we alone can only safely call ourselves ''Americans'', and even that is now considered hateful and 'nativist.' Latin American interlopers in our country tell us that they are just as 'American' as we are. Some liberal educators propose we call ourselves 'United Statesians' so as not to wrongly appropriate the label American, which belongs to everybody from the North Pole to Cape Horn.
Where to, America? Our identity is too exclusive, and it doesn't really belong just to us -- just as America 'belongs to everybody' as many immigrants brazenly claim.
And our European cousins tell us, as one European commenter haughtily told me on this blog, we are neither a race nor a people. We are nonentities. We are ciphers. It's no wonder many of us are eager to lose ourselves in some exotic new culture or identity.
Where to, in this re-tribalizing world, where ancestry and race will become more important in deciding where we stand? Those Americans who think they can sit it out by declaring that they are 'world citizens' or cosmopolitan planetary citizens, are mistaken. They will have to pick a side, and even if they decline to, they will be assigned a side in the conflict, based on their skin color.
Yes, I agree that White people should unite and feel kinship. We are a dwindling proportion of the world's peoples, and some predict our demise, one way or another. Were it not for my religious faith, I think I would predict that European-descended peoples would be blended away in a few generations. However I believe there is a reason why 'peoples, nations, kindreds, and tongues' were created, and it is not in the Divine plan for the Tower of Babel to succeed this time, or ever. The hubristic plan to create one mingled race will not succeed. That's just my personal faith, and I cannot prove it. I believe we, our kin group, will continue, but we are under siege as apparently our rulers want to eliminate all inequalities, including and especially innate racial inequalities.
I am all for uniting with all ethnic groups in the European family. However I cannot unilaterally make that unity happen. I don't have that kind of influence or power.
There are a great many people whose ethnic grievances against Anglo-Saxons make them hostile towards anyone who claims descent from that group. Just check out any message board where Irish, Ulster Irish, or English people congregate. There is an incredible amount of bitterness over the Irish 'troubles' and remote historical events. Irish-Americans in many cases who have never been to Ireland hold grudges and curse the English. That has got to stop if there is to be any unity.
If I am hard on the ethnic 'Ellis Island' descendants, it is because all too often they tend to be open-borders sentimentalists who identify with immigrants more than Americans. and in many instances they hold grudges towards old-stock Americans (which as I've said includes more than just English.)
If they are willing to stop accusing America I am willing to accept them as brothers. The animosity does not start with me; my animus toward grudge-bearers is defensive, not offensive.
So, do I, and this blog, have enough influence to 'unite' Americans or White people generally? This is not one of those mega-blogs which gets thousands and thousands of hits, and which wields considerable influence. What I write here is unlikely to 'divide' Americans (who are already quite divided, thank you) nor to unite Americans. I am just one isolated voice, and I don't particularly wish to be anything else. I write what I write for the few; you, the readers, decide if you are one of the few I write for. If my words speak to you, then this blog is for you. If my words antagonize you and irritate you, perhaps you are looking for something I don't provide.
This blog is my individual attempt to cry out against what I see happening to this country, and to my people, and as I seem to have to repeat often, 'my people' are all of you who identify with old America, and who hold dear what I hold dear, all of you who wish to defend the 'land where our fathers died.' I am a partisan of the South. because I feel that it embodies the real, original America best of all, and potentially may represent a resurgent 'America.'
Does that alienate my Northern readers? It should not. Because I prefer the South, having lived in both North and South, that does not mean I have animosity towards those of you from the North. So likewise because I write about the Anglo-American culture and heritage, which is neglected and despised by many people, that does not ''exclude'' those of you who have little commonality with that. I find this idea that particularism is somehow hostility towards others to be a curious, and rather liberal idea. It's the essence of political correctness, actually, this idea that we are to 'include' everybody and water everything down so as not to offend or 'leave anybody out.'
The nature of the world is that people group together in various ways, all of which include some and exclude others. That is also the essence of love: love excludes most, and prefers one, or the few, above the many.
Just because I love my particular heritage does not mean that I hate others' heritage.
I do find it hard to understand why my expression of my particular affinities is considered offensive. by anyone, unless it rubs salt in wounds based on past perceived resentments.
I write this blog partly for myself, because I feel compelled to write what is in my heart. This is one person's blog, not an attempt to speak to the whole world. This world, and even this country, is much too big and too complicated and too divided for me to be able to 'speak to' everyone or appeal to everyone. No doubt I offend some, but I cannot alter my message or my preferences because they 'turn away' some people. I cannot tailor my message to everyone.
Few people speak up for old-stock Anglo-Americans. Yet if this country ever succeeds in re-establishing any kind of unity, it will have to rally around a common heritage, and in old America, that common identity was the Anglo-based one. What else, pray tell, can we rally around? Like it or not, the Founding Fathers were Englishmen. English and male.
If any ethnicity or heritage deserves to be preserved as a cement which holds us together, the Anglo-Saxons heritage is the obvious choice. It served us well for many generations.
However, it looks as though a balkanized America is in the cards, with regions dominated by different peoples, but we will all have to decide to unite or separate. It is up to the other ethnicities, including the 'just Americans,' to decide with whom they will stand.
Labels: American Heritage, Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Balkanization, Divisiveness, Ethnic Division, Ethnic Identity, Ethnic Solidarity, Regional Differences, Secession, South
0 comment Thursday, June 26, 2014 | admin
On December 21, 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
David Alan Black tells us about it here.
Labels: American History, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Colonies
0 comment Wednesday, May 28, 2014 | admin
An interesting snippet which was written just after the quake in Christchurch, NZ: Benedict Brogan, of the Telegraph UK, says of the New Zealanders
''We may not be able to get rescue teams there quickly to help the life-saving effort, but there are other ways we can show that the historic bonds of family and kinship mean something, and thereby defy that tyranny of distance Mr Hamilton spoke about.''
The mention of 'bonds of family and kinship' are rather surprising as people, that is, White people specifically are not supposed to think in these terms anymore. And above all we are not supposed to speak in these terms. It's excusive and xenophobic, you know.
It's possible to read too much into this, I suppose, but it is a nostalgic thing to see this mentioned, as it was taken for granted in pre-PC times that we of Anglo-Saxon descent were kin, whether we live in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the U.S.A.
This talk of blood kinship between nations sets off the radar of a few of the PC patrol on the thread, but it's refreshing to know that these old, and very natural, patterns of affinity are still not forgotten, despite decades of brainwashing and shaming.
I wish our cousins in New Zealand well, and my prayers go out to you in the aftermath of this disaster.
"...Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures,
I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours:
In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all,
That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall.
Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands,
And the Law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.
This for the waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle-bloom,
This for the Maple-leaf, and that for the Southern Broom.
The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not press my will,
Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still.
Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you,
After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few.
Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,
Balking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise � certain of sword and pen,
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men!
--Rudyard Kipling, England's Answer
''We may not be able to get rescue teams there quickly to help the life-saving effort, but there are other ways we can show that the historic bonds of family and kinship mean something, and thereby defy that tyranny of distance Mr Hamilton spoke about.''
The mention of 'bonds of family and kinship' are rather surprising as people, that is, White people specifically are not supposed to think in these terms anymore. And above all we are not supposed to speak in these terms. It's excusive and xenophobic, you know.
It's possible to read too much into this, I suppose, but it is a nostalgic thing to see this mentioned, as it was taken for granted in pre-PC times that we of Anglo-Saxon descent were kin, whether we live in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the U.S.A.
This talk of blood kinship between nations sets off the radar of a few of the PC patrol on the thread, but it's refreshing to know that these old, and very natural, patterns of affinity are still not forgotten, despite decades of brainwashing and shaming.
I wish our cousins in New Zealand well, and my prayers go out to you in the aftermath of this disaster.
"...Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures,
I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours:
In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all,
That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall.
Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands,
And the Law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.
This for the waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle-bloom,
This for the Maple-leaf, and that for the Southern Broom.
The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not press my will,
Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still.
Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you,
After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few.
Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,
Balking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise � certain of sword and pen,
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men!
--Rudyard Kipling, England's Answer
Labels: Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Ethnic Solidarity, Kinship, New Zealand
0 comment Sunday, May 11, 2014 | admin
In this discussion of Jared Taylor's new book, this comment appeared:
15 � highduke wrote at 10:33 AM on May 14:
Unless the British founding stock get a sense of identity, destiny & cohesion as a distinct group first, most of them will remain sceptical to WN. Italian-Americans like Tancredo, Borzellieri, La Bruzzo & DeAnna in politics and David Chase & Tom Fontana in entertainment are great allies but the movement needs more Becks, Nugents & Dobbs. A generic White identity must be established & promoted along with WASP identity within US WN. Taylor should make WASP identity the subject of his next book.''
Well, I agree with 'highduke' that the founding stock should, perhaps must, regain a sense of 'identity, destiny, and cohesion', but I sometimes despair of that happening. Founding stock Anglo-Americans are like amnesiacs; many don't know that they are descendants of English colonists, and others know but don't care, calling themselves 'just Americans.' Others are indoctrinated to see their ancestry as something for which they need to apologize. And there are many other Americans who hold founding stock Americans responsible for our predicament.
Promoting WASP identity is something that I think would be good; why should it not be good? I've done a little of that kind of promoting here, with very mixed, limited results. For some reason it's very controversial to promote Anglo-Saxon heritage. It's too exclusivist, it's elitist, it's divisive, so the arguments go.
I've thought about starting another blog which would be exclusively devoted to Anglo-American heritage and history, though I might only attract a handful of readers along with a certain amount of antagonism, but I may still go ahead, regardless. I think it's a worthy project, if only for my own personal satisfaction.
The comments by 'highduke' quoted above seem to tie in with this essay by New England writer H.P. Lovecraft, in 1915. Please note: the idiosyncratic spellings are his.
Americanism
by Howard Phillips Lovecraft
It is easy to sentimentalise on the subject of "the American spirit"�what it is, may be, or should be. Exponents of various novel political and social theories are particularly given to this practice, nearly always concluding that "true Americanism" is nothing more or less than a national application of their respective individual doctrines.
Slightly less superficial observers hit upon the abstract principle of "Liberty" as the keynote of Americanism, interpreting this justly esteemed principle as anything from Bolshevism to the right to drink 2.75 per cent. beer. "Opportunity" is another favourite byword, and one which is certainly not without real significance. The synonymousness of "America" and "opportunity" has been inculcated into many a young head of the present generation by Emerson via Montgomery�s "Leading Facts of American History." But it is worthy of note that nearly all would-be definers of "Americanism" fail through their prejudiced unwillingness to trace the quality to its European source. They cannot bring themselves to see that abiogenesis is as rare in the realm of ideas as it is in the kingdom of organic life; and consequently waste their efforts in trying to treat America as if it were an isolated phenomenon without ancestry.
"Americanism" is expanded Anglo-Saxonism. It is the spirit of England, transplanted to a soil of vast extent and diversity, and nourished for a time under pioneer conditions calculated to increase its democratic aspects without impairing its fundamental virtues. It is the spirit of truth, honour, justice, morality, moderation, individualism, conservative liberty, magnanimity, toleration, enterprise, industriousness, and progress�which is England�plus the element of equality and opportunity caused by pioneer settlement. It is the expression of the world�s highest race under the most favourable social, political, and geographical conditions. Those who endeavour to belittle the importance of our British ancestry, are invited to consider the other nations of this continent. All these are equally "American" in every particular, differing only in race-stock and heritage; yet of them all, none save British Canada will even bear comparison with us. We are great because we are a part of the great Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere; a section detached only after a century and a half of heavy colonisation and English rule, which gave to our land the ineradicable stamp of British civilisation.
Most dangerous and fallacious of the several misconceptions of Americanism is that of the so-called "melting-pot" of races and traditions. It is true that this country has received a vast influx of non-English immigrants who come hither to enjoy without hardship the liberties which our British ancestors carved out in toil and bloodshed. It is also true that such of them as belong to the Teutonic and Celtic races are capable of assimilation to our English type and of becoming valuable acquisitions to the population. But, from this it does not follow that a mixture of really alien blood or ideas has accomplished or can accomplish anything but harm. Observation of Europe shows us the relative status and capability of the several races, and we see that the melting together of English gold and alien brass is not very likely to produce any alloy superior or even equal to the original gold. Immigration cannot, perhaps, be cut off altogether, but it should be understood that aliens who choose America as their residence must accept the prevailing language and culture as their own; and neither try to modify our institutions, nor to keep alive their own in our midst. We must not, as the greatest man of our age declared, suffer this nation to become a "polyglot boarding house."
The greatest foe to rational Americanism is that dislike for our parent nation which holds sway amongst the ignorant and bigoted, and which is kept alive largely by certain elements of the population who seem to consider the sentiments of Southern and Western Ireland more important than those of the United States.
[...]
The main struggle which awaits Americanism is not with reaction, but with radicalism. Our age is one of restless and unintelligent iconoclasm, and abounds with shrewd sophists who use the name "Americanism" to cover attacks on that institution itself. Such familiar terms and phrases as "democracy," "liberty," or "freedom of speech" are being distorted to cover the wildest forms of anarchy, whilst our old representative institutions are being attacked as "un-American" by foreign immigrants who are incapable both of understanding them or of devising anything better.
This country would benefit from a wider practice of sound Americanism, with its accompanying recognition of an Anglo-Saxon source. Americanism implies freedom, progress, and independence; but it does not imply a rejection of the past, nor a renunciation of traditions and experience. Let us view the term in its real, practical, and unsentimental meaning.''
The above was written in 1915.
15 � highduke wrote at 10:33 AM on May 14:
Unless the British founding stock get a sense of identity, destiny & cohesion as a distinct group first, most of them will remain sceptical to WN. Italian-Americans like Tancredo, Borzellieri, La Bruzzo & DeAnna in politics and David Chase & Tom Fontana in entertainment are great allies but the movement needs more Becks, Nugents & Dobbs. A generic White identity must be established & promoted along with WASP identity within US WN. Taylor should make WASP identity the subject of his next book.''
Well, I agree with 'highduke' that the founding stock should, perhaps must, regain a sense of 'identity, destiny, and cohesion', but I sometimes despair of that happening. Founding stock Anglo-Americans are like amnesiacs; many don't know that they are descendants of English colonists, and others know but don't care, calling themselves 'just Americans.' Others are indoctrinated to see their ancestry as something for which they need to apologize. And there are many other Americans who hold founding stock Americans responsible for our predicament.
Promoting WASP identity is something that I think would be good; why should it not be good? I've done a little of that kind of promoting here, with very mixed, limited results. For some reason it's very controversial to promote Anglo-Saxon heritage. It's too exclusivist, it's elitist, it's divisive, so the arguments go.
I've thought about starting another blog which would be exclusively devoted to Anglo-American heritage and history, though I might only attract a handful of readers along with a certain amount of antagonism, but I may still go ahead, regardless. I think it's a worthy project, if only for my own personal satisfaction.
The comments by 'highduke' quoted above seem to tie in with this essay by New England writer H.P. Lovecraft, in 1915. Please note: the idiosyncratic spellings are his.
Americanism
by Howard Phillips Lovecraft
It is easy to sentimentalise on the subject of "the American spirit"�what it is, may be, or should be. Exponents of various novel political and social theories are particularly given to this practice, nearly always concluding that "true Americanism" is nothing more or less than a national application of their respective individual doctrines.
Slightly less superficial observers hit upon the abstract principle of "Liberty" as the keynote of Americanism, interpreting this justly esteemed principle as anything from Bolshevism to the right to drink 2.75 per cent. beer. "Opportunity" is another favourite byword, and one which is certainly not without real significance. The synonymousness of "America" and "opportunity" has been inculcated into many a young head of the present generation by Emerson via Montgomery�s "Leading Facts of American History." But it is worthy of note that nearly all would-be definers of "Americanism" fail through their prejudiced unwillingness to trace the quality to its European source. They cannot bring themselves to see that abiogenesis is as rare in the realm of ideas as it is in the kingdom of organic life; and consequently waste their efforts in trying to treat America as if it were an isolated phenomenon without ancestry.
"Americanism" is expanded Anglo-Saxonism. It is the spirit of England, transplanted to a soil of vast extent and diversity, and nourished for a time under pioneer conditions calculated to increase its democratic aspects without impairing its fundamental virtues. It is the spirit of truth, honour, justice, morality, moderation, individualism, conservative liberty, magnanimity, toleration, enterprise, industriousness, and progress�which is England�plus the element of equality and opportunity caused by pioneer settlement. It is the expression of the world�s highest race under the most favourable social, political, and geographical conditions. Those who endeavour to belittle the importance of our British ancestry, are invited to consider the other nations of this continent. All these are equally "American" in every particular, differing only in race-stock and heritage; yet of them all, none save British Canada will even bear comparison with us. We are great because we are a part of the great Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere; a section detached only after a century and a half of heavy colonisation and English rule, which gave to our land the ineradicable stamp of British civilisation.
Most dangerous and fallacious of the several misconceptions of Americanism is that of the so-called "melting-pot" of races and traditions. It is true that this country has received a vast influx of non-English immigrants who come hither to enjoy without hardship the liberties which our British ancestors carved out in toil and bloodshed. It is also true that such of them as belong to the Teutonic and Celtic races are capable of assimilation to our English type and of becoming valuable acquisitions to the population. But, from this it does not follow that a mixture of really alien blood or ideas has accomplished or can accomplish anything but harm. Observation of Europe shows us the relative status and capability of the several races, and we see that the melting together of English gold and alien brass is not very likely to produce any alloy superior or even equal to the original gold. Immigration cannot, perhaps, be cut off altogether, but it should be understood that aliens who choose America as their residence must accept the prevailing language and culture as their own; and neither try to modify our institutions, nor to keep alive their own in our midst. We must not, as the greatest man of our age declared, suffer this nation to become a "polyglot boarding house."
The greatest foe to rational Americanism is that dislike for our parent nation which holds sway amongst the ignorant and bigoted, and which is kept alive largely by certain elements of the population who seem to consider the sentiments of Southern and Western Ireland more important than those of the United States.
[...]
The main struggle which awaits Americanism is not with reaction, but with radicalism. Our age is one of restless and unintelligent iconoclasm, and abounds with shrewd sophists who use the name "Americanism" to cover attacks on that institution itself. Such familiar terms and phrases as "democracy," "liberty," or "freedom of speech" are being distorted to cover the wildest forms of anarchy, whilst our old representative institutions are being attacked as "un-American" by foreign immigrants who are incapable both of understanding them or of devising anything better.
This country would benefit from a wider practice of sound Americanism, with its accompanying recognition of an Anglo-Saxon source. Americanism implies freedom, progress, and independence; but it does not imply a rejection of the past, nor a renunciation of traditions and experience. Let us view the term in its real, practical, and unsentimental meaning.''
The above was written in 1915.
Labels: Americanism, Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Founding Stock Americans
0 comment Wednesday, April 30, 2014 | admin
At VDare, Kevin MacDonald has a review of the book by Eric P. Kaufmann, called The Fall and Rise of Anglo-America.
The full version of it can be found here.
There are discussions of it here and here, where Prozium says that
It is a sad testament to the decrepit state of American intellectual life that all of two books have been written about the most important subject in American history: the decline of its indigenous White majority. Even taken together, MacDonald and Kaufmann have barely scratched the surface of the subject. In contrast, hundreds (if not thousands) of articles and volumes have been written about the Holocaust and can be easily accessed in any decent college library, an event which didn�t even take place on American soil. This fact alone speaks volumes about ethnic constitution of America�s ruling class and their priorities.''
Given the politically incorrect nature of the subject matter it is surprising that even two books have been written on the subject. I'm not sure that it can be laid at the feet of an invisible Yankee WASP elite that this is the case.
As this reviewer points out, however, similar ground was covered in Samuel P. Huntington's Who Are We?,
And speaking of 'Who Are We?', the thought occurred to me to ask: Who is Eric Kaufmann, in other words, what particular axe is he grinding? Sure, I know, there is a presumption that books like this should present facts and not prejudices, but just about everything published these days has some implicit or explicit bias. I make mine known up front on this blog. But who is Kaufmann?
In his final chapter, Kaufmann introduces his own background: a Canadian born in Hong Kong with Jewish, Chinese and Hispanic ancestry but who is, in effect, just another North American Anglo in most social situations. With this mixed heritage established, he proposes a cultural regeneration of America based around what he terms "liberal ethnicity". He suggests that Wasp identity be accepted as just another ethnic option within the range of identities available for American people. He looks to a future in which the state is culturally neutral and all ethnic identities are expressed in cultural rather than racial terms, and are hence open to anyone who wishes to participate in them, on the understanding that those buying into a new culture do not expect it to change to suit them. He even postulates a future mixed-American identity, blending Anglo, African and Indian, akin to the fusion of Aztec and Spanish in Mexico. It is so refreshing to read a generous, open and positive book on this subject - what a pity that it is Huntington who has attracted the attention.''
Ah. One of those men-without-a-country, a real cosmopolitan.
It's clear that the reviewer shares this multicult viewpoint, too.
He betrays his preconceptions in this part also:
Kaufmann opens with an account of the creation of the Wasp culture, showing how American intellectuals, from Thomas Jefferson through to Henry Adams, seized on Dark-Age Anglo-Saxon culture as a mythic point of origin.''
I like his use of the term 'Dark Age Anglo-Saxon culture.' I personally think today is the dark age of Anglo-Saxonry, and I think that tomorrow looks to be darker if people like this have their way.
His implication seems to be that American intellectuals created a make-believe origin for themselves. The reviewer being British presumably shares the same ''dark ages'' culture; is his origin mythical too?
In any case, though I haven't read Kaufmann's book, the reviews don't make me want to go out and buy it (at $60 or so) or even to order it through my local library.
Of all the viewpoints I've read in this discussion, it seems that MacDonald's is the least inimical towards WASPs and Anglo-America. I think his review offers a number of good points. For instance, this part, discussing the declining dominance by WASP intellectuals. Kaufmann sees this as having been effected by both sides, with WASPs abdicating their dominant role, as much as by deliberate efforts of Jewish intellectuals:
Kaufmann also fails to recognize that many of the basic ideas of the New York Intellectuals derived from other Jewish intellectual movements, particularly psychoanalysis and the Frankfurt School. For example, the elitist, anti-populist attitudes of the Frankfurt School paralleled the attitudes of the New York Intellectuals and likely influenced them, and indeed some of the New York Intellectuals are also associated with the Frankfurt School (see Ch. 5 of C of C).
Common themes in this body of writing are hostility to American populism, the need for leadership by an elite cadre of intellectuals, and the belief that concerns about ethnic displacement and the rise of the power of ethnic minorities are irrational and indicative of psychiatric disorder.
This point should be emphasized.''
Not only in this context, but in general, I think the rise of the psychoanalytic point of view has had a massive effect on our society, in our perceptions of ourselves, of human behavior and human nature, the problem of good vs. evil, and moral responsibility. The rise of the psychoanalytic belief system coincided with the decline of traditional Christianity and the worldview that was part of it. The two belief systems are diametrically opposed, but the therapeutic faith has infiltrated much of Christianity, producing this changeling which is now so widely blamed for the fall of the West, and of Anglo-Saxon America particularly.
MacDonald also points out something that I allude to frequently: the fact that fewer people identify as Anglo-Saxon:
Even people of mixed European heritage now tend to identify with the non-Anglo-Saxon side of the family. For example, people of Italian-Scottish descent chose to identify themselves as Italian by a 3-1 ratio.''
It's generally said that only one-fifth of White Americans claim British or English origins. I wonder if someone who is expert with figures would be able to calculate how many British descendants there should be in America, based on the founding populations of English colonists 400 years ago? I should think it would be more than a paltry 20 percent of the population.
I see a tendency to oversimplify the question of what caused the fall of Anglo-America, and a danger of reducing it to 'self-hating WASPs' committing demographic suicide, as an easy alternative to what some see as the excessive blaming of Jews.
In addition, there is a popular caricature of WASPs as some kind of prim, cold, ''judgmental'' people (think: the Puritan witch-trials), and for Southrons, the WASPs have to be Yankees, as in the War Between the States. In recent years many people in the South have changed their self-identification to Celtic as a way of distancing themselves from those Yankees who were all WASPs. Actually, by the time of the War, there were many ethnic Northerners, recent immigrants or their sons, in the Union Army. They were by no means all WASPs wearing that blue uniform. And there were in fact plenty of Anglo-Normans in the gray uniform, including my kin. I think there is far too much caricaturing regarding WASPs going on.
I see also a trend toward considering the Puritan colonists as somehow a separate people from the Cavaliers who settled Virginia; again, I think that's oversimplifying. Is there that much innate difference between East Anglians and men from the South and West of England? I agree that today's Southron people are different in important ways from Northerners -- but the latter are by no means mostly WASP now, as many Southrons are. But that's another question that would need a separate blog entry.
There is a tendency to attribute excessive power to WASPs, which is absurd given that they have been underrepresented in influential positions for many decades now. Is there a vast WASP conspiracy, with crypto-WASPs passing themselves off as ethnics, controlling everything behind the scenes? Perhaps some leftists believe that, but I hope people on the right know better.
In the end does it really matter who is/was to blame for what happened in the past? As our ship is taking on water and looks ready to sink, does it help us to blame Anglo-Saxons in general, or prim Yankee Puritans? There is no identifiable Anglo-Saxon elite to hold to account. All that need concern us is: what do we do to reverse things? If we believe either that our destruction is inevitable or deserved, then let's just resign ourselves, and eat, drink, and be merry as the ship goes down.
Otherwise, it seems mostly counterproductive to verbally assail Anglo-Saxons for what has happened to America. I suppose, however, they are an easy target as so few will rise to their defense. A few bloggers out there will defend our Anglo heritage, and I give them credit (Old Atlantic, for one) but they are thin on the ground. So yes, it's easy to beat up on a group that does not even perceive itself to exist as a group, or see themselves as a group worth defending.
And if we completely demolish and discredit Anglo-Saxons as some kind of congenitally self-hating neurotics, as Austin Bramwell depicted them in a recent piece, then how can we salvage what is left of our Anglo heritage, or any kind of American identity that does not substantially include Anglo-Saxons?
What is left would be a hollowed-out America indeed.
It is, however, useful to try to unravel what is still going on now that prevents people from defending their people and their heritage, and their children's future. Along those lines, I would like to examine a lot of unexamined things, certain sacred cows of our time, one being that psychoanalytic belief system, and the way it has changed our society and our thinking in destructive ways. We might find more under that rock than poking around trying to find ways in which those old Puritan fathers caused this mess that we find ourselves in.
The full version of it can be found here.
There are discussions of it here and here, where Prozium says that
It is a sad testament to the decrepit state of American intellectual life that all of two books have been written about the most important subject in American history: the decline of its indigenous White majority. Even taken together, MacDonald and Kaufmann have barely scratched the surface of the subject. In contrast, hundreds (if not thousands) of articles and volumes have been written about the Holocaust and can be easily accessed in any decent college library, an event which didn�t even take place on American soil. This fact alone speaks volumes about ethnic constitution of America�s ruling class and their priorities.''
Given the politically incorrect nature of the subject matter it is surprising that even two books have been written on the subject. I'm not sure that it can be laid at the feet of an invisible Yankee WASP elite that this is the case.
As this reviewer points out, however, similar ground was covered in Samuel P. Huntington's Who Are We?,
And speaking of 'Who Are We?', the thought occurred to me to ask: Who is Eric Kaufmann, in other words, what particular axe is he grinding? Sure, I know, there is a presumption that books like this should present facts and not prejudices, but just about everything published these days has some implicit or explicit bias. I make mine known up front on this blog. But who is Kaufmann?
In his final chapter, Kaufmann introduces his own background: a Canadian born in Hong Kong with Jewish, Chinese and Hispanic ancestry but who is, in effect, just another North American Anglo in most social situations. With this mixed heritage established, he proposes a cultural regeneration of America based around what he terms "liberal ethnicity". He suggests that Wasp identity be accepted as just another ethnic option within the range of identities available for American people. He looks to a future in which the state is culturally neutral and all ethnic identities are expressed in cultural rather than racial terms, and are hence open to anyone who wishes to participate in them, on the understanding that those buying into a new culture do not expect it to change to suit them. He even postulates a future mixed-American identity, blending Anglo, African and Indian, akin to the fusion of Aztec and Spanish in Mexico. It is so refreshing to read a generous, open and positive book on this subject - what a pity that it is Huntington who has attracted the attention.''
Ah. One of those men-without-a-country, a real cosmopolitan.
It's clear that the reviewer shares this multicult viewpoint, too.
He betrays his preconceptions in this part also:
Kaufmann opens with an account of the creation of the Wasp culture, showing how American intellectuals, from Thomas Jefferson through to Henry Adams, seized on Dark-Age Anglo-Saxon culture as a mythic point of origin.''
I like his use of the term 'Dark Age Anglo-Saxon culture.' I personally think today is the dark age of Anglo-Saxonry, and I think that tomorrow looks to be darker if people like this have their way.
His implication seems to be that American intellectuals created a make-believe origin for themselves. The reviewer being British presumably shares the same ''dark ages'' culture; is his origin mythical too?
In any case, though I haven't read Kaufmann's book, the reviews don't make me want to go out and buy it (at $60 or so) or even to order it through my local library.
Of all the viewpoints I've read in this discussion, it seems that MacDonald's is the least inimical towards WASPs and Anglo-America. I think his review offers a number of good points. For instance, this part, discussing the declining dominance by WASP intellectuals. Kaufmann sees this as having been effected by both sides, with WASPs abdicating their dominant role, as much as by deliberate efforts of Jewish intellectuals:
Kaufmann also fails to recognize that many of the basic ideas of the New York Intellectuals derived from other Jewish intellectual movements, particularly psychoanalysis and the Frankfurt School. For example, the elitist, anti-populist attitudes of the Frankfurt School paralleled the attitudes of the New York Intellectuals and likely influenced them, and indeed some of the New York Intellectuals are also associated with the Frankfurt School (see Ch. 5 of C of C).
Common themes in this body of writing are hostility to American populism, the need for leadership by an elite cadre of intellectuals, and the belief that concerns about ethnic displacement and the rise of the power of ethnic minorities are irrational and indicative of psychiatric disorder.
This point should be emphasized.''
Not only in this context, but in general, I think the rise of the psychoanalytic point of view has had a massive effect on our society, in our perceptions of ourselves, of human behavior and human nature, the problem of good vs. evil, and moral responsibility. The rise of the psychoanalytic belief system coincided with the decline of traditional Christianity and the worldview that was part of it. The two belief systems are diametrically opposed, but the therapeutic faith has infiltrated much of Christianity, producing this changeling which is now so widely blamed for the fall of the West, and of Anglo-Saxon America particularly.
MacDonald also points out something that I allude to frequently: the fact that fewer people identify as Anglo-Saxon:
Even people of mixed European heritage now tend to identify with the non-Anglo-Saxon side of the family. For example, people of Italian-Scottish descent chose to identify themselves as Italian by a 3-1 ratio.''
It's generally said that only one-fifth of White Americans claim British or English origins. I wonder if someone who is expert with figures would be able to calculate how many British descendants there should be in America, based on the founding populations of English colonists 400 years ago? I should think it would be more than a paltry 20 percent of the population.
I see a tendency to oversimplify the question of what caused the fall of Anglo-America, and a danger of reducing it to 'self-hating WASPs' committing demographic suicide, as an easy alternative to what some see as the excessive blaming of Jews.
In addition, there is a popular caricature of WASPs as some kind of prim, cold, ''judgmental'' people (think: the Puritan witch-trials), and for Southrons, the WASPs have to be Yankees, as in the War Between the States. In recent years many people in the South have changed their self-identification to Celtic as a way of distancing themselves from those Yankees who were all WASPs. Actually, by the time of the War, there were many ethnic Northerners, recent immigrants or their sons, in the Union Army. They were by no means all WASPs wearing that blue uniform. And there were in fact plenty of Anglo-Normans in the gray uniform, including my kin. I think there is far too much caricaturing regarding WASPs going on.
I see also a trend toward considering the Puritan colonists as somehow a separate people from the Cavaliers who settled Virginia; again, I think that's oversimplifying. Is there that much innate difference between East Anglians and men from the South and West of England? I agree that today's Southron people are different in important ways from Northerners -- but the latter are by no means mostly WASP now, as many Southrons are. But that's another question that would need a separate blog entry.
There is a tendency to attribute excessive power to WASPs, which is absurd given that they have been underrepresented in influential positions for many decades now. Is there a vast WASP conspiracy, with crypto-WASPs passing themselves off as ethnics, controlling everything behind the scenes? Perhaps some leftists believe that, but I hope people on the right know better.
In the end does it really matter who is/was to blame for what happened in the past? As our ship is taking on water and looks ready to sink, does it help us to blame Anglo-Saxons in general, or prim Yankee Puritans? There is no identifiable Anglo-Saxon elite to hold to account. All that need concern us is: what do we do to reverse things? If we believe either that our destruction is inevitable or deserved, then let's just resign ourselves, and eat, drink, and be merry as the ship goes down.
Otherwise, it seems mostly counterproductive to verbally assail Anglo-Saxons for what has happened to America. I suppose, however, they are an easy target as so few will rise to their defense. A few bloggers out there will defend our Anglo heritage, and I give them credit (Old Atlantic, for one) but they are thin on the ground. So yes, it's easy to beat up on a group that does not even perceive itself to exist as a group, or see themselves as a group worth defending.
And if we completely demolish and discredit Anglo-Saxons as some kind of congenitally self-hating neurotics, as Austin Bramwell depicted them in a recent piece, then how can we salvage what is left of our Anglo heritage, or any kind of American identity that does not substantially include Anglo-Saxons?
What is left would be a hollowed-out America indeed.
It is, however, useful to try to unravel what is still going on now that prevents people from defending their people and their heritage, and their children's future. Along those lines, I would like to examine a lot of unexamined things, certain sacred cows of our time, one being that psychoanalytic belief system, and the way it has changed our society and our thinking in destructive ways. We might find more under that rock than poking around trying to find ways in which those old Puritan fathers caused this mess that we find ourselves in.
Labels: Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Cosmopolitanism, Multiculturalism, National Question, National Suicide, Western Decline