Polite Kid

''A multicultural society is one that is inherently prone to conflict, not harmony. This is why we see a huge growth in government bureaucracies dedicated to resolving disputes along racial and cultural lines. These disputes can never be resolved permanently because the bureaucrats deny one of the major causes: race. This is why there is so much talk of the "multicultural" rather than the more precise "multiracial." Ever more changes and legislation are introduced to make the host society ever more congenial to racial minorities. This only creates more demands, and encourages the non-shooting war against whites, their civilization, and even the idea of the West. '' - Frank Ellis, Multiculturalism and Marxism
But is it still a 'non-shooting war'?
The news story of the four police officers killed in Oakland has been much discussed in the right-blogosphere, though crimes like this are under-reported in the old media. The CofCC has a piece on the black radical group which organized what amounted to a celebratory march in honor of the killer, Lovelle Mixon.
Uhuru/APSP is one of several extremely militant anti-white groups thriving in black communities across the United States. Uhuru openly celebrates violence against white police and authority figures. They also denounce Obama as a tool of the "white power establishment."
The group is based in St. Petersburg, Florida and actively holds rallies and demonstrations in about a dozen cities. The leader goes by the name "Chairman Omali Yeshitela." The group claims a kinship with ZANU, the political party of violent Zimbabwe dictator Mugabe. It also claims to be allied with "revolutionary forces" in South Africa and other nations. Uhuru calls itself the "American front of the international African liberation movement."
It's an old story that the mainstream media treat groups like this as harmless and as 'civil rights' or 'activist' groups when they cover them at all, whereas we know that a White counterpart, if such existed, would be shrilly denounced as a 'hate group' or worse, and would probably by now have been raided and mass arrests carried out. But we all know that the double standards exist, and that nonwhite radical extremist groups will be handled with kid gloves and/or treated with exaggerated respect by the powers that be.
Another distressing aspect of the event and the old media coverage of it is the tendency to make the killer just one of the victims. This kind of thing is standard these days, especially when the perpetrator is of a 'victim group'. But this trend is an affront to the actual victims and to their families and friends. It is the ultimate in moral obtuseness.
I caught a few minutes of O'Reilly earlier this evening, and in his usual fashion he declared that the vast majority of 'African-Americans' deplore crimes like those committed by Mixon and that the majority do not support the march in support of the killer/rapist. Of course O'Reilly had nothing to back up that assertion, and I see no evidence of it in real life. I have to wonder if O'Reilly mixes and mingles with the ''African-American community'' enough to know what the majority there thinks or feels. I suspect his experience consists mostly of mingling with the blacks who work in the media or in other related positions, people like Juan Williams, who usually adopt a more moderate tone.
Surely, though, we can look back some years to the O.J. verdict and see how most blacks reacted to Simpson's acquittal (no doubt with the aid of sympathetic black jurors). Or we can go back a little further and remember the L.A. riots after the Rodney King incident. How many 'African-American leaders' expressed shock or dismay or chagrin over what they saw during those days? None, that I can recall.
Similarly, with Katrina, how many 'African-Americans' stood up to deplore what occurred there in the aftermath of that natural disaster? From what I recall there was much race-baiting, and accusations of purposely delayed evacuations, actual claims of conspiracies (levees being blown up, and so on) and charges of 'racism' in general from the national leaders.
Few or no blacks denounced the hysteria and the race-baiting, except for an occasional lone voice.
O'Reilly is like most media figures in that he leans over backwards to insist that it's only a 'tiny percentage' of blacks who commit heinous crimes and an only slightly less tiny percentage who excuses or even celebrates the criminals. However he is going to have to come up with something to back up these assertions if he insists on making them. But we know he will never do that; he will never have to. Most people are eager to simply let those statements pass or even to blindly assent, without any evidence of their accuracy. And we know why this is: political correctness.
Inevitably even those who recognize the dishonesty in statements like O'Reilly's will acknowledge that, and then proceed to justify the PC 'white lies' by saying ''oh, well, he has to say that, if he wants to keep his job. He can't tell the truth."
Yet O'Reilly is the guy who calls his TV program the 'No-Spin Zone', the man who claims to be so blunt and honest in contrast to the mealy-mouthed spinmeisters elsewhere in the media. He trades on his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is persona, and he is blunt enough when it comes to the safe topics, but when it comes to race, he is little better than any of the other PC-fied media minions.
So why does he make these silly PC statements about how 99 percent of blacks don't agree with the extremists, when the evidence to the contrary is everywhere? Why do many others do the same? We also see the same thing with those who insist that there are 'moderate Muslims' who are the peaceful majority, and only a minuscule number who actually support extremism and terrorism. Whenever the subject is the behavior of some minority group, there are the eager apologists who rush into the conversation to insist that ''but the majority are not like that! We can't blame all of them; it's just a few that cause problems. The majority are good people."
Perhaps it's some kind of psychological defense mechanism that makes people feel compelled to deny that there is a problem and that it does involve a great many people, not just a few troublemakers. Acknowledging that there is a problem and that it is more widespread than political correctness would admit would imply having to deal with the problem in some way, and many people prefer to avoid that.
And then there are those for whom PC is their quasi-religion; these people have to 'feel good about themselves' and these days, what better way to do that than to take a benevolent and all-tolerant attitude towards minorities who behave badly?
But these are people with their heads in the sand, believing that if they deny the problem, it will somehow evaporate on its own.
Maybe O'Reilly himself, who is so often accused of being 'racist' or 'fascist' is more sensitive to that criticism than he lets on. Despite his blustering tough-guy image, I think he cares very much about being seen as 'fair-minded' or unbigoted, even if it means denying obvious truths.
The media of late have gone all-out, as we've discussed here and elsewhere, to show us falsified images of blacks in positions of authority, wise, noble, kind, friendly, accomplished blacks, probably in an all-out effort to counter the crime stories or the evidence of our own senses from everyday life. The news channels and the media generally like to present us with blacks who belie the stereotypes and it has worked like a charm, apparently, for most people. However as I've always said, one exception, or the occasional aberration, does not disprove the rule.
Again, Frank Ellis said
A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bertoldt Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men.''
But we still, if we are honest and realistic, have to look at the overall statistics and the realities, without the rose-colored glasses provided by the media propaganda.
Political correctness kills; when I first said that on a forum some years ago, I was angrily challenged for it, but every day in the news we get more examples of how it can be fatal. I have to wonder to what extent PC affects law enforcement policies when 'interacting' with people in the ghetto or the barrio. I have to wonder how many people's lives are put at risk by this foolish insistence on believing in PC fairytales.

Labels: Anti White Racism, Crime, Cultural Marxism, Hate Crime, Media Bias, Old Media, Political Correctness

The word ''racist'' is used a lot. A great deal. Considering that the word does not even appear in my 1936 Webster's Dictionary, that word seems to be indispensable to modern life.
What does it mean? Why did it apparently need to be invented or coined? Some credit (or blame) Leon Trotsky for the word's invention, some blame others on the left. I am not sure who first used the word, but the main thing is, what does it mean now?
If I asked several random people what it meant, I would probably get varying answers; most people would probably mention something about 'hate' since that is another seemingly indispensable word in the 21st century English vocabulary. However I think that not only would there be varying definitions among individuals, there would be different definitions according to race and ancestry. I would wager that most blacks would define the word much more broadly and inclusively than Whites, and the same would probably be true of minorities generally.
However if these following examples indicate anything, it appears the word 'racism' is becoming more and more broadly and subjectively defined. For instance, 'future time orientation' is racist, according to Seattle School Dist.
Watermelon is a symbol of racism
Mr. Potato Head is racist
"Lord of the Rings" is racist
The word ''niggardly'' is racist.

Golliwogs are racist.
Criticizing Islam is racist. Of course.
Criticizing illegal immigration is racist, as we all know, and criticizing legal immigration is even worse.
And it is true that anything which is associated exclusively, or predominantly, with White people is 'racist.'
I remember the time when the word was not in the vocabulary of most people. During the early days of the Civil Rights era, the word that was bandied about to describe those who opposed forcible integration was ''prejudiced'' or ''bigoted.''
We can split hairs on the word ''prejudice''; it means ''an opinion about someone or something that is not based on reason or experience.'' That is the standard, traditional definition, and as such, it does not include the 'realist' opinions held by older generations of Americans. Their realism was based on history, observation, real life experience, and statistics. It was not, as some would have it, based on fanciful pre-conceived notions or irrational ''hate''.
Maybe the fact that the word 'prejudice' is not truly fitting in this context led to the popularizing of the neologism, 'racism.'
It came to be established, via the constant use of this word, that a negative assessment of someone of another race was a particular and unique kind of sin or, more properly, thoughtcrime. Somehow it was deemed more immoral or 'hateful' to criticize those of another race, and even more so if one chose to associate with those of one's own group.
At first, when the word 'racism' was used, it was used to describe the most egregious behavior towards those of other races, such as harassing, threatening, or attacking them without provocation, ''just because of their skin color''. Over time, the word became more and more loosely and liberally used, so that today it is absurdly applied to all kinds of ideas or products or words or attitudes. And worst of all, it is arbitrarily and subjectively defined and applied. Since none of us can anticipate every instance of behavior or speech that will be labeled ''racist'', we cannot be sure when or if we will be ambushed with that word, and of course the accusation is always assumed to be true, once having been made. Why? Because it is a given that 'Whites are racist' and that minorities don't lie about such things -- to even hint that they are capable of it is to be ''racist.'' So if you protest or deny it, you are making your accuser a liar -- and that's racist. You cannot win. Heads he wins, tails you lose.
The news media, the entertainment media, textbooks, web pages, all of them represent the acceptable, politically correct, anti-White perspective. There are a few isolated exceptions, but the fact that most of the information and discussion in our society excludes all but the PC point of view makes it certain that people begin to buy into it. This is most true of young people, because they have not known any world other than the racially-charged, obsessively anti-White world of today. Their perceptions of the past have been manipulated by Hollywood movies, TV programming, popular books, music, schools -- everything, in other words.
Most Americans would probably agree with the statement that America had a ''racist past.'' But what exactly do they understand by that phrase? Do they mean the Hollywood version of American history, things like Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', or Mississippi Burning, or any number of other movies with a PC message? Or do they simply think it means that yes, the races were separated in the past, especiallly in the South? Quite likely they think of slavery, and are convinced that slavery was 'an abomination', as someone on AmRen (a 'race realist') said recently. Those kinds of opinions are not uncommon even there. I think it's the old White guilt thing, or perhaps the desire to 'be fair' and concede something to the other side in the name of conciliation.
In any case, whether slavery was 'an abomination' or not, it is in the past. No White American of today is guilty of keeping slaves, and no black or other American of today has been a slave.
I see no reason to yield any ground to the other side, whether to minority partisans who want to accuse and condemn, or to White 'progressives' (read: renegades) who side with everyone but their own people. It makes us look weak; it is not appreciated by the other side. They are not impressed by our attempt at magnanimity or conciliation or self-examination. They simply see it as weakness or as an admission of guilt on our part. And having found that inclination in us, they exploit it to the hilt.
So I would exhort everybody to stop the self-condemnation or accepting guilt. Some will say: ''I don't feel personal guilt, but I know our ancestors did some pretty bad things." Really? Why not give the benefit of the doubt to your forebears? None of us would probably exist today if our forebears had been as PC as many of us are. How can we judge or condemn them? They had a hard row to hoe; they faced many hard choices. Our colonist and pioneer forebears grew up in a very different time in which today's obsessions and taboos were unknown. Universalistic, sentimentalist notions about human nature did not work in their hard-scrabble world. Their world was blessedly free of the ideas of Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and other such 'founding fathers' of today's insanity.
Let's give them some credit. I believe in honoring my fathers and mothers. I refuse to cast blame on them as a way of appeasing anybody.
The next time somebody uses the word ''racist'', I think it might be a good exercise, or a useful tactic perhaps, to challenge that word, asking for a precise definition. The word ''racist'' in the beginning was applied to people who acted out against minorities, who committed illegal acts: harassment, assault, threats of harm, murder. Those things are crimes already and should be prosecuted as such. Whoever does those things is already reprehensible; we don't need a special label to describe their criminal acts. In fact, many on the right deplore the idea of ''hate crimes'', under which laws people are punished more severely for their intentions or thoughts or attitudes toward certain groups. Punish wrongdoers for their acts, as the law prescribes, but not for their thoughts, feelings, or attitudes, or opinions. The idea of 'racism' is the prototype of the so-called 'hate crime' idea.
The 'race card' is mean to single out and punish certain people who hold politically incorrect ideas about certain groups of people. It is also meant to intimidate the White public at large, to demonstrate to them the dangers implicit in speaking too honestly. It's a weapon that is being used to corral us and keep us in our place. We learn to censor or to guard what we say, or to keep our mouths shut lest we incur the consequences of being a heretic on the subject of race.
I think the word 'racist' should be used to describe only people whose behavior or acts physically harm, or threaten harm to another. However, we already have laws against such behavior.
As far as using certain taboo words or displaying certain symbols, those things should not be punishable by law. In this country we have movements to ban the Confederate Battle Flag as a ''symbol of hate''. In the UK, Moslems have complained about the Union Jack and the St. George's flag, as well as the cross in general. This kind of totalitarianism had its inception in the 'race card' mentality; if one is of a protected group, one can single-handedly censor someone else, or silence them, or prohibit them from displaying certain symbols.
As for the word ''hate'' which is another favorite word in the leftist lexicon, it too is overused and abused. Every time someone criticizes or expresses disapproval of certain protected groups, the word ''hate'' is immediately called into action. I think it should fall under ''Godwin's Law"; the first person to call ''hater'' is automatically the loser in the debate. It is, like ''racism'', just used to silence and intimidate and label someone whose ideas threaten the left or their minority clients.
The word 'prejudice' is one that applies to our enemies more than to our side; likewise the term 'bigot' which simply describes a closed-minded, rigid, narrow person. Minorities, feminists, gays, are all groups who often hold bigoted opinions about straight, White Americans, most especially Christians and Southrons. Yet the professional victims cannot see these qualities in themselves, so full of their own self-righteousness are they.
I keep hearing that the 'race card is maxed out', and indeed it is; it has been for a long time, but many people are just now noticing it. The left is morally bankrupt but somehow just by inertia they seem to keep going. At some point we have to stop running, we have to stop conceding to them. We have to defend our forefathers, our heritage, and ourselves against their constant nagging, badgering, and accusing. When will we finally do that?

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Language, Political Correctness, Race Card, Victimolatry

At Steve Sailer's blog, following a post called The Ennui of the Left, there was one brief comment that caught my attention among a number of interesting comments.
That very prolific commenter, 'Anonymous', said this:
Steve, you're so wrong about post-WWII USSR. It was culturally conservative in a million ways. Its death was a giant victory for leftism - for gay rights, loose sexual morals, drugs, feminism, violent crime, ugly modernist art, etc. across a huge part of the globe.
Pre-WWII USSR was indeed leftist. It's ignorant to confuse them.'
It's pretty obvious to most thinking people on the right that we (the West) did not really 'win the Cold War', as the triumphalist rhetoric on the mainstream right still boasts. The mythology is that when Reagan said 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' that Communism sort of crumbled, or melted like the Wicked Witch doused with water, and before we knew it, the Berlin wall was down and the Eastern bloc countries were 'free.'
I've alluded before on this blog to the curious fact that the old Soviet communists were very prudish and very traditional in many respects on social/sexual matters. They may have been lenient in regard to making abortion widely available, and they may have been very 'feminist' in that they put more women into leadership positions, but in regard to culture they were much more conservative than we in the Western ''free'' countries were, even in the 1950s. The 1950s, remember, was the decade most American leftists describe as hyper-conservative and repressed.
I've told the story before of a news event that was reported when I was a child, when Soviet leader Khrushchev visited America. He was given a tour of a movie set, where the movie 'Can-Can' was being filmed. He disapproved of what he saw, commenting that ''the face of humanity is more beautiful than its backside.'' That was his broken-clock moment; he was right on that point. Nowadays, our entertainment media and pop culture are more than ever fixated on people's 'backsides' and on titillating entertainment and 'art'. We've gone from relatively tame scenes, like the one Khrushchev witnessed, to Lady Gaga and beyond.
The old Soviet Union disapproved of rock'n roll and jazz, and promoted classical and folk music. At the time, it seemed that our country perversely decided that if the Russians disliked these things and censored them, then they must be good, and that in defiance of our enemies, we would wallow in the things they tut-tutted about. I see the same sort of thing in regard to Islam's prudishness. Many 'conservatives' see our Western cultural and social decadence as an act of defiance against Islam, and a statement of 'freedom.' I think we have gotten a little confused here.
The anonymous commenter at Sailer's blog refers to 'ugly modernist art' which the Soviet Union banned. This piece describes in detail how the arts were censored and how the Soviet State made sure that all art had the correct political message, delivered in the correct style.
Works of art were censored for the following reasons:
"...* political reasons (criticism of the Soviet Union, CPSU, Soviet regime, particular political bodies and figures);
* political unreliability (temporary or permanent) of an artist, whose work was the subject of the publication;
* political unreliability (temporary or permanent) of an author of a publication;
* mentioning an unreliable person, unworthy fact or event in the text unless it was criticized (possible cuttings of the text or plates);
* generally prohibited subject (for instance: unofficial Soviet art);
* propaganda of fascism, violence or terror (horror films belonged to that category);
* pornography (a magic word - none of the censors could ever give a distinct definition of this term in their special vocabulary; the most frequent reason for art publications to become banned as most of the artists, since the ancient times, had made the studies of the nude models);
* themes, subjects, facts, events which caused or might have caused undesirable thoughts, associations or illusions not in favour of the Soviet state.
[...] The criteria for division of art of the past into two categories was quite simple: the work of art should bare or not some peculiar signs of progressiveness, such as themes of labour, struggle for justice, protest against the bourgeois society, pity for suffering, depiction of poor people, social and class struggle. For obvious reasons the mediaeval art, being the art which served the religion, was not worth studying.''
What seems to have happened by the late 1970s when the 'dam burst', as the writer says, was that the censorship seemed to have only whetted the Soviet people's appetite for what was termed 'decadent Western bourgeois' art and ideas. The Russians seem, since the fall of the old regime, to have plunged headlong into that Western decadence.
I remember when the so-called Iron Curtain came down being somewhat mortified by how fast the people seemed to embrace the libertine lifestyle, drugs, promiscuity, and the worst excesses of greed. Obviously they had not really believed in the stringent standards of their regime -- or were they just easily seduced away by rock music, blue jeans, porn, and the lure of easy money?
Just because our enemies hate the decadence they see in our popular culture, that is not justification for our taking pride in it or considering it a good example of 'freedom' as many people do.
But the question has often occurred to me: why was the old left socially and culturally conservative, honoring the best of classic Western art and culture, while the new left, the post-60s left, trashes our artistic and cultural heritage in favor of ugliness and corruption, worshipping the new and hideous rather than the old and aesthetically pleasing?
And now that the old Soviet Union seems to have been degraded culturally and socially, have 'we' won, or have they won? Or have we all lost? It seems that we have embraced some of the worst features of their leftism, and they have absorbed the worst of our ways.
Leftism seems to be able to morph itself into whatever form works best in the target society, like an opportunistic infection.

Labels: Art, Censorship, Communism, Conservatism Anti-Communism, Cultural Conservatism, Cultural Marxism

... the target of your stereotype is whitey.
I was going to blog something about the growing Obama cult, but I came across the link at Steve Sailer's blog
to this site.
In a way, the blog is a parody of itself. ''Whitepeople'' according to what I read on the blog are: materialistic, superficial, trendy, shallow, weak, bland, and boring.
I've often said that stereotypes always have a grain of truth, or more than a grain, in them. Is this droll stereotype of whites true? Yes, it's true of a type of white person. I would say it's more true of the younger people, the upper middle class and wealthy, the college educated, urban-dwelling, liberal/libertarian/leftist types. It is not true of older whites in many cases, or lower income whites, or rural people, or many people from the South, or people of a conservative political temperament.
Is it all in good fun, or does it contribute further to the disparaging of white people which is so popular today? And assuredly this kind of self-ridicule (I am going on the assumption that the blogger is in fact white) is hardly fresh or new; I've (unwillingly) watched parts of movies of the last ten years or so in which caricatures of white people were a central basis of the 'humor', movies like 'White Chicks' or 'Undercover Brother'. See the reader reviews of the latter on IMDB
The reviews of Undercover Brother at IMDB apparently included some complaints about white stereotyping but I could not find any such comments although they are referenced by comments like this:
Reading the negative comments on this film I wonder what movie some of the angry folks were watching. Racism is using one's own physical traits to establish social superiority over another person, or group of people, who don't look like themselves. I saw nothing of any of the African/Black/persons-of-color trying to "reverse role play" by holding themselves in a superior light over so-called "white people."
It simply wasn't there.
Myself, I hate "white guilt" messages in media of all forms. I've had enough social agenda thrust in my face. But that's NOT THE MESSAGE of "Undercover Brother."
What a lot of the "angry-white-commentators" are bothered by is the fact that they believe this film makes ALL so-called "white persons" look like evil-clowns, or condescending jerks. IT DOESN'T. If that's what you see in this film, then maybe you shouldn't be watching movies in the first place.
This film, as stated clear as day by both cast and crew, is an attempt to tackle a social problem with good humor. If you're offended by the jokes in this film, then you've completely missed the point, and are, in fact, the racist idiot that you claim this film to be (I believe psychologist call this phenomenon "projection," where someone refuses to acknowledge their own faults, and casts their own negative qualities on people they dislike).''
I would bet that this scolding reviewer would not unleash such a scathing putdown towards blacks who were 'offended' by stereotypes of their race. But whitey gets it with both barrels. It's always that way.
So I guess I too am a "racist idiot", "projecting", if I dislike the portrayal of whites in 'entertainment' like this, and, by extension, if I complain about the rather stale and predictable stereotypes of whites as on the blog.
A lone commenter here says
This site is incredibly racist. If this site was dedicated to pointing out what black people like, it would surely be deemed as racist. Why aren�t people proud to be white? Everyone should be proud of their own respective races and not bring down another�s. Multiculturalism will never work when sites like this one are up and running. This only causes racial tension.''
And is answered by the following post:
That�s why it�s called satire. Lighten up already.''
That response, too, is utterly predictable. Would 'Jerome' tell an offended black or other 'victim group' member to 'lighten up'? My money says he wouldn't.
This poster called justanotherwhiteguy says
As anyone heard of free speech? I think this is hiliarious that alot of people are getting bent out of shape b/c of one site. If you dont like it, dont read it! But for people with any kinda of brain, this site just makes you smile b/c you can relate to so many things on it. ie� The kitchenaid mixer, and the renovation.''
Dittos for this guy; he would not say 'if you don't like it, don't read it' to a minority of any kind.
Granted, the blog is understated 'humor' but when I read it, I begin to dislike the people illustrated by the blog; why would I care if this sorry bunch of self-absorbed, denatured, shallow, colorless (in more ways than one) people fade away into oblivion, or get absorbed into a third-world demographic tidal wave? Good riddance to them; they are ciphers and weak-as-water-and-twice-as-bland nonentities. Who would miss such a people if they became as extinct as the dodo bird?
The whole point of the obsession with ''diversity'' and multiculturalism is that white people are not a people, but a void; they are a non-people of no definite culture, with no qualities to speak of except receptivity and passivity in relation to other, more 'colorful' and 'vibrant' and aggressive peoples. Everybody has a culture except whitey, and everybody's culture is 'vibrant' and 'rich', while whitey has no culture or tradition except buying trendy gadgets and being self-effacing servants of the world's 'disadvantaged' peoples.
Why wouldn't we vote ourselves out of existence if we really are such a sorry excuse for a people?
The answer is: we are not the insipid and awkward and vacuous breed of invertebrates portrayed in the PC stereotypes. Certainly there are some of us who fit the description, but if we look at the larger picture, and the totality of our history, we can see that the flaccid people and their flavorless culture of the stereotype are a fairly recent phenomenon on the world scene. We were not always thus. We've been spoiled and weakened by unprecendented material prosperity, we've been dumbed down by our media and educational system -- and by Hollywood propaganda. We are down but we're not out.
While some prefer to rationalize what is happening to the West as a deserved punishment for our collective sins, and thus are willing to cooperate and collude in their own punishment, some of us would prefer to try to rediscover our traditions and our ways of life which surely merit a rightful pride. In doing so, it may be that we can rally to take a stand.
Maybe I should just laugh it all off, as a lot of people are doing. But why are we the only people who are expected to laugh at ourselves while we are being dispossessed and robbed of our birthright?
Some things, many things maybe, can be approached with humor, and laughed at, but some things are just too important to become joke fodder. And reading the site reinforces my doubts about my fellow Americans. I get the sense that many if not most of the commenters are young, having grown up under Political Correctness and multiculturalism. Their way of expressing themselves gives them away. If they are the standard-bearers for the future, then we are truly lost. And they think it's all wonderful. Which is sad.
Forum comments here.

Labels: Anti-White Racism, Cultural Marxism, Diversity, Humor, Multiculturalism, Stereotyping

I've been coming across a number of posts on conservative blogs or websites recently which have touched on the question of why conservatives seem underrepresented in the arts, or at least, do not seem to exert any influence in that field. Why this is so is something that might be discussed at length, having many possible causes.
However I've noticed, too, that there are precious few critics or commentators on the arts, including popular entertainment, who seem to be conservative or traditionalist or just politically incorrect. This is maddening.
I notice on Turner Classic Movies (a channel which is deteriorating slowly into another American Movie Classics) there is a newer movie called Glory being shown this evening. Now, to me, anything made after about 1960 is a 'new' movie because that time period was when political correctness became established in popular entertainment.
I know nothing about the movie Glory except that it appears to be a movie about the War Between the States, and as it stars Denzel Washington, I am certain the issue of race will figure prominently in the movie. In other words, the movie will be a morality play, and I know before watching a moment of it who will be the bad guy and who will be the sainted victim.
So I go to IMDB.com to read the comments on the movie. Knowing how firm a grip PC has on our society,I fully expect that all the reviews will be glowing and full of quasi-religious language. I was correct. Commenters speak of their 'emotional experience' watching the movies and it's clear that these movies about race issues in the Bad Old Days are to them what Foxe's Book of Martyrs is for Christians.
This comment is an example:
I find this one of my most difficult reviews to write. Even as I sit here for what must be the 206th viewing, I marvel, as acutely as I did in the very first viewing, that this tale has the compelling and overwhelming power to touch aesthetically, viscerally, profoundly and emotionally my sense of pride,injustice, soul. Even if this were not a true story, I would still recommend this movie to everyone with awe and reverence. And even as I watch, there is goose-flesh and damp eyes. As there always is...''
Political correctness, leading to what seems to be self-flagellation for white people, is a religious thing these days. Do these people who experience some kind of numinous experience watching the villainy of their ancestors, or take some form of twisted pleasure in seeing their forefathers painted as inhuman sadists or cold-blooded oppressors? Or do they comfort themselves that it was ''those other white guys'', somebody else's great-granddaddies who were the villains? Or do they accept that yes, their own forefathers were ''racists'', and do they then thank whatever gods they believe in that at least THEY are enlightened and better than their kin a few generations ago?
Is it some kind of catharsis that they experience through these movies? Do they experience some feeling that they have expiated their 'original sin' of Caucasianness by weeping over play-acted scenes of Denzel Washington being mistreated?
Who can fathom what goes through the minds of the self-castigating white people? I don't think that even in my liberal days I experienced this kind of emotion in watching these kinds of things, so I can't put myself in the place of these commenters.
I do notice that whichever movie you look up on IMDB, the comments are always uniformly liberal. I truly cannot ever recall reading any kind of dissenting conservative comment on any movie there. This leads me to wonder: does IMDB censor the comments based on PC or even political orientation? It would not be surprising or unprecedented if this were the case.
There seems to be a crying need for some kind of non-PC criticism of popular entertainment or the arts in general. There are examples like this
but this is rather mainstream 'conservatism', and mainstream conservatism tends to be politically correct.
Most of the 'conservative' blogs on movies that I've seen are politically correct.
This discussion on Free Republic about conservative movie reviews degenerates into a slanging match between some Christian social conservatives and the 'South Park' Republican types who sneer at Christian conservatives as being prudes.
Many 'conservatives' are conservative only on fiscal and military matters, and socially liberal, or perhaps libertarian on just about everything else.
So is there any hope of any politically incorrect counter-influence in the arts, even if only in the form of criticism or commentary dissecting the propaganda? Or is the answer to just 'enjoy' the low-quality tendentious garbage put out by Hollywood and MTV?
It does seem that as long as the enemy controls all the media and the subliminal and overt images our society absorbs, they will control minds and hearts. What can we do, if anything, about that?

Labels: Arts, Cultural Marxism, Entertainment Media, Liberalism, Movies, Popular Culture, Revisionist History

Selwyn Duke, always interesting, has a new piece up at American Thinker about 'cultural affirmative action.'
In a way, I prefer the old, overt affirmative action. While it was government-sanctioned discrimination, at least it was, in some measure, more honest than our cultural affirmative action. There is such a thing. It's when people in the market and media privilege others -- sometimes unconsciously -- based upon the latter's identification with a "victim group."
Probably a majority of Americans in some degree or other practice cultural affirmative action. They have the best of intentions, many feeling an obligation to right history's wrongs. And they point to continuing disparities disadvantaging blacks as a group. So they make an extra effort to be sensitive and maybe once in awhile the ones with power even let their thumb rest on the scale when it comes to redressing past grievances.''
Duke quotes a Financial Times piece by Christopher Caldwell about a new book, called Racial Paranoia:
''...In Racial Paranoia (Basic Books, $26/�15.99), the University of Pennsylvania anthropologist John L. Jackson Jr suggests that extravagant theories of white racism - from the widespread Aids rumour to Louis Farrakhan's allegation that the US actually blew up the levees to cause the deadly New Orleans floods during Hurricane Katrina - have their roots in the decorous language that mostly white leaders have invented for talking about race.
The US has not managed to eliminate racism, Mr Jackson thinks, but it has succeeded in eliminating racist talk. Remarks the slightest bit "insensitive" draw draconian punishment. White people, because they feel thoroughly oppressed by this regime, assume that it must be some kind of "gift" to minorities, especially blacks.
It is not. It is more like a torment. It renders the power structure more opaque to blacks than it has ever been, leaving what Mr Jackson calls a "scary disconnect between the specifics of what gets said and the hazy possibilities of what kinds of things are truly meant". If the historic enemies of your people suddenly began talking about you in what can fairly be called a secret code, how inclined would you be to trust in their protestations of generosity?''
Duke talks about how most politically correct people choose to lie to themselves rather than be faced with the uncomfortable choice of telling dangerous and unpopular truths, or feigning belief in them (and thus being hypocritical). It makes more sense to talk oneself into believing the platitudes on race, thus avoiding a real and painful examination of the issue.
Duke makes a lot of sense here, although I am not certain that I quite understand the point Christopher Caldwell is making in the quote above.
But if I understand Duke's idea of ''cultural affirmative action", I take it to mean the kind of extra consideration and leeway most well-intentioned people give to minorities. I've done it, and many if not most of you probably have, too.
Ever since the 60s and the Civil Rights revolution, and even before then, there was a perception that black people and other minorities, to a lesser extent, had it hard, and that they needed to be treated rather more charitably than fellow whites. These days, it's almost never condescension which motivates this kind of exaggerated politeness and saccharine niceness, but it's a genuine admiration on the part of many people who really do see minorities, particularly blacks, as being better than the rest of us in some ways, according to the trendy popular 'wisdom' of our day. Blacks, supposedly, have more style; they can dance. They are funnier. They are more expressive, whereas we are inhibited, stiff, and uptight. They have more verve and more hipness. And then there's the victimhood thing, which in our strange age is seen as an attractive quality; victimhood confers a kind of aura of nobility and worth to the victim. They are by definition good and innocent, and put-upon by evil people -- which in this context is us, or at least our racial brethren. Some people assuage their own sense of guilt by scolding and condemning their fellow whites so as to distance themselves and establish their own moral superiority. So pride and vanity play a part in this; it isn't all altruism or conspicuous generosity towards ones' lessers.
I think this exaggerated solicitude for minorities has roots in the idea that they really are in fact not our equals, but yet it's reassuring somehow to think that if only WE did more to 'help' them, their lives would be improved. The fact that they are not in every way our equals, economically or socially, is seen as our fault. So this in effect makes us feel that we have power over their circumstances; if we caused their ''plight'' then we can correct it also. We are again in a superior position. I wonder if liberals ever stop and think about it from that angle? I doubt it.
I can think of a number of cases when, as a liberal, I practiced this kind of 'affirmative action' towards blacks. When I had black employees under my supervision and authority, I tended to cut them more slack, and to be less likely to reprimand or 'crack down' on them. I wanted to be seen as a decent person and of course that meant leaning over backward to establish that I was not racist, but in fact their 'friend.' Was my leniency and preferential treatment appreciated? No; I was in fact taken advantage of because of it. I was viewed as something of a target, someone whose foolish good nature was to be exploited. I knew it and allowed it to happen because I was so indoctrinated.
Yet it took me years to acknowledge it.
Earlier, in the late 60s when I was a student, there were suddenly many black students in college because of outreach efforts, and many of them were not college material -- just as many of all races these days are not.
I had a black female classmate with a pronounced 'attitude' who constantly complained, loudly, that whites had everything easy, had everything handed to them, while Negroes (that was the accepted word then) had to struggle for everything. Whenever I got an A on a test, she would say it was because of my color, whereas her D's were because of her color. She asked, eventually, to cheat off my exam papers -- and, more fool me, I allowed her to. Why? Was it guilt? I really and truly did not feel guilty, and even less did I believe that anybody 'handed' everything to me; I knew I worked and studied for my A's, and I could see that she was not an A student; it wasn't ''prejudice'' that caused her low grades. But I suppose I felt sorry for her, because I knew she would have a tough time finishing college -- and maybe that is ''racism'' -- or is it realism?
But I was exhibiting racial bias when I let her cheat off my exam paper; I would never have let a white student do that. I was showing pro-black bias. And I'm not the only one to have done so. It's even more rife, this pro-minority bias, today than it was then.
When I hear the constant cries of racism, I find it ironic, because the most common form of racism exhibited by white people is the racial favoritism and altruism they show toward blacks. I have seen far more fawning over blacks than I have ever seen gratuitous unkindness toward blacks. I've witnessed far more white people, say, in retail settings, being excessively, fulsomely friendly towards blacks, while being indifferent or even rude toward their fellow whites. I've seen plenty of whites engaging in arguments with fellow whites over racial matters, and siding with minorities against their own fellow whites. This is the most common form of racial bias I see: anti-white, pro-minority racial bias. I see many whites who can scarcely say a good word about their fellow whites but who can only fawn over blacks and other minorities. It carries no social stigma to discriminate against fellow whites in favor of minorities, whereas any careless word to or about minorities risks considerable consequences. And the more 'multicultural' and open we are, the more social prestige accrues to us.
Why, then, do blacks and other minorities perceive so much rudeness and discrimination in their interactions with whites? How can it be that I see whites being ingratiating and smarmy towards minorities, while minorities claim that whitey is usually rude and insulting to them?
In my own personal experience, I've seen instances where the casual rudeness of a retail clerk, for example, is perceived subjectively as being racially motivated, even when it is utterly impersonal. I knew a woman who was convinced that a snooty clerk was condescending to her specifically because of her race, although there was no indication that race was a factor at all. As I tried to tell her: the offending woman was simply ill-mannered. We all encounter such people. But when you see the world completely through a racial prism, and imagine that every unpleasant thing that happens in life is due to ''racism'' then you will see racism everywhere. I think much, if not most, of the complaints of 'bias' and 'racism' are rooted in nothing more than the random rudeness we all have to deal with in our increasingly uncivil society. I wonder if blacks really believe that they and only they have to deal with incivility or casual rudeness? I think in their fantasies about ''white privilege'' they believe that whites truly have a red carpet laid out for them wherever they go, and that life is all smooth sailing for whites.
I think whites, too, have come to believe in the idea of 'white privilege' and they are forever overcompensating for this imagined privilege. Maybe when we are fully second- or third-class citizens (after blacks and Hispanics) in our own country will people feel that the 'playing field has been leveled.'
And those whites who are motivated by a feeling of pity because of the disparities between the races, as I was in my misguided youth, have to come to a realization as I did that life is inherently unfair, and that above all, we are not responsible for everybody. It is not in our power to be godlike and make everybody equal to everybody else. We can't remove all the obstacles that life puts in the paths of minorities; it is not possible for us to make things easy and comfortable for the entire world. The best we can do is to take care of ourselves and those nearest to us should they need help. We are not superhuman. People who truly believe in 'equality' as an ideal should recognize that we are at least equal in our lack of omnipotence. None of us can eliminate life's travails, and to acknowledge our common human limitations would be a first step towards getting over our liberal god complex.

Labels: Affirmative Action, Cultural Marxism, Egalitarianism, Political Correctness

God Will Be an Illegal Immigrant With An Ankle Monitor
I have a friend with an interesting theology.
He believes that God takes the form of whoever we are disgusted by.
He believes that God takes the image of the person, or group of people, that most revolt us. God does this to teach us mercy, compassion, humility. God does this to teach us grace.
He tells the story of a conversation with two policemen. Going back and forth, the two policemen spoke with great disgust about certain populations of people in the area.
''I can't stand the homeless,'' said one policeman. ''Yes, and I hate those Hispanics,'' said the other. ''And the gays and queers too,'' returned the first policeman.
And at that point, my friend realized that for those two policemen, God will take the form of a gay, homeless, Hispanic who will ask them: why did you not love me? Why were you so estranged from your fellow human?''
Frequently in various discussions around the Internet, some conservative accuses Christians of being to blame for the crises of our age, namely, mass, uncontrolled immigration, multiculturalism, and politically correct universalism. Ultimately, all of these things are facilitating our dispossession, all of us in the West, and our ethnic cleansing, in effect.
I've grown weary of trying to offer a defense of Christianity to deaf ears; people are just not willing to listen to arguments which absolve Christianity of blame for what is happening to our countries -- especially when they read things like the above-linked piece. The writer is a prime example of why a growing number of people think that Christianity is a mushy one-world socialist religion.
I thought to post this piece over in the Forum in the Christianity section, but decided that it isn't just an issue that Christians only have to deal with; it affects all of us, because it has to do more with liberalism/leftism/cultural Marxism than with real Christianity. The article illustrates the perverse thinking of liberals and leftists very vividly.
I've remarked on this many times: liberals and leftists are obsessed with society's downtrodden, or those they perceive as downtrodden, almost to the degree of idolatry. They actually place the 'others' of society -- those who are antisocial or aberrant in some way -- above the rest. They perceive that mainstream society mistreats and looks down on these aberrant people, whether illegal immigrants, prisoners, sexual deviants, or other such outsiders, and rather than merely treating these others as brothers, they overcompensate and exalt the outsiders as actually being above the rest of us, and in this piece, even equate these people to God himself.
It's true that our Lord exhorted us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, and give to those who ask, saying ''Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.'' But when we are enjoined to feed the hungry and be hospitable to the stranger, does this refer to occasional individuals, or does it extend, as the liberals insist, to feeding and welcoming tens of millions of uninvited guests?
I cannot imagine that the scriptures in question ask us to welcome mass invasions or to help people to the extent that we are harming ourselves and our own people, which we are doing when we welcome mass influxes of aliens. And the illegals for example: are they not guilty of covetousness, of greed, of avarice? Are they hungry? Or are they merely wanting more and better material goods than they have in their countries?
Our Christian forebears were much more devout, in general, than many Christians of today, with our casual, undemanding brand of Christianity. And yet for all their devoutness, they never imagined that the Bible told them to welcome mass invasions or to martyr themselves in the name of charity or hospitality. They had no qualms about fighting the Moslem invaders of Europe, but according to these modern liberals, they should have simply acquiesced to conquest in the name of hospitality. They should have 'seen God' in the Moslems, after all, if God chooses to manifest as the thing we most recoil from, they should have fallen on their knees to the Mohammedans.
Liberals in general, not just Christian liberals, tend to idealize and romanticize the outlaw, the deviant, the alien, and the marginal. To exercise tolerance toward such people is one thing, but the liberal/leftist goes much further: he, or should I say she (liberals are all feminine in their attitudes) lionizes the deviant or the transgressor. Look at the way liberals and leftists make heroes of killers, as with Mumia Abu Jamal . Look at the way the French liberals protected the fugitive murderer Ira Einhorn , and thwarted justice for years. Why? Because he was a leftist himself, or because he was a member of a 'protected' group like Mumia? I notice that liberals are rather discriminatory in choosing which criminals to defend; the criminal has to be of a victim group.
It seems as if the French were very impressed with Einhorn's supposed intellectualism and more, they wanted to stick a thumb in the eye of the bloodthirsty Americans who were demanding Einhorn face justice:
One thing that has impressed him and many French people about Einhorn is his voracious reading, the constant references to literature, historical events, scientific concepts. Concludes Guilloton: "I think this guy is a superior intelligence." If Einhorn is representative of an evolved American, then his case presents the opportunity to chastise uncivilized, fanatical, wolfish Americans. A number of people invoke boilerplate examples of despicable behavior, mostly hyperbole from Philadelphia columnists and editorialists, such as encouraging folks to throw tomatoes at photos of Einhorn. Fayaud had told me she was appalled by American blood lust and what looked to her like a kind of hysteria, conduct unbecoming.''
Liberals and leftists: they're the same the whole world over. Leftism, not music, is the universal language, it seems. The excerpt sums up the liberal attitude: defending the criminal is often just an in-your-face to ''the system'' or those evil conservatives who actually believe in backward ideas like law and order. The same motives are at work with the leftists who defend illegals. It's just a way of spitting in the eye of the rednecks, the nativists, all those troglodytes who aren't as 'compassionate and evolved' as the liberals. The liberal or leftist is in a permanent state of rebellion against Daddy and therefore all authority, order, and tradition, and will in a perverse way defend everything that offends ordinary, law-abiding people.
The homeless, a group that the left especially champions, are in rather a different category than say, illegal immigrants or criminals or sexual deviants. There are no doubt some who are homeless through some set of circumstances beyond their control, but in general, in our country, only a lifetime of bad choices can explain chronic homelessness. Some estimates put the rate of alcohol and drug abuse at 65-80 percent among the homeless.
The liberal will no doubt answer that addiction is a 'disease' over which these people have no control, but I am not convinced the 'disease' model has been proven. There is always an element of choice in these things. The liberal, of course, believes that most people are mere pawns, that they are victims in some way of bad upbringing, cruel conservative policies, and an uncaring society. In the liberal universe, we are all children who are not accountable for our actions -- with the exception, of course, being conservatives, who are to be blamed and held accountable at all costs.
Am I a bad Christian or a bad person if I find it hard to see the divine in a drug addict or a street drunk? I do feel pity and compassion, but if I give money to that person (which I have done, many times in the past) am I only helping them to harm themselves? Of course even the criminal and the addict are made in the image and likeness of God, I believe. But living a life of addiction and criminality tends to efface God's image in the human being; that's one of the tragedies and the sins of living a debauched or lawless life -- we deface the image of God in ourselves.
No doubt we should do all we can to help those lost in this kind of life; some Christians are very good at reaching out to the people most in need of help, but the individual has to want to be helped. And when we do 'reach out' to the criminal or the addict, do we embrace the image of God in them, or do we exalt instead their defects as being something admirable? I think the liberals and leftists do the latter: they have a lurid fascination with the dark side, and they tend to be drawn to criminality and the transgressive for its own sake.
In addition, many liberals are exhibiting pride in their superior 'compassion'. They feel puffed-up because of their superior ability to be 'caring'; they think they are the moral betters of the rest of us who don't share their morbid fascination with darkness. They don't try to lift the addict or criminal out of their sordid lives, but instead treat this kind of life as being something valuable in itself. For example, liberal Christians have decided that homosexuality is not unnatural or sinful, and they would like us to remove the stigma from that behavior, if not to outright 'celebrate' it.
In all of these habits, they are putting themselves outside the mainstream of Christian belief. I understand many liberals proudly call themselves ''allophiles'':
...positive attitudes for a group that is not one's own�is a term derived from Greek words meaning "liking or love of the other" (Pittinsky, 2005). Studied by social scientists, allophilia is the antonym of negative prejudices and the antonym of a host of "�isms": sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, anti-Semitism, elitism/classism, and phallocentrism. Allophilia can be felt towards members of a different race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, class, nationality, school, team, or workplace (occupation).''
Of course they try to make it a virtue, but in the old order of things, people like this were just called turncoats or, despite their delusions of moral superiority, traitors. For all their vaunted compassion, they are merely acting as accomplices and apologists for evil when they defend criminals and aggressors. The pharisaical liberal asks why some of us are 'so estranged from our fellow human beings'. I ask in turn: why are you so estranged from your blood kin, your fellow American human beings?

Labels: Allophilia, Cultural Marxism, Leftism, Liberalism, Open Borders, Political Correctness, Xenophilia

I don't watch the celebrity and glamor-oriented TV programming, but it's impossible not to hear about these things in real life and of course in the blogosphere. So there's no escaping them, even for those who are TV abstainers.
I am not going to mention the names of the principals involved because that will only draw the attention of those people who are googling the names and leaving idiotic and abusive comments on blogs and forums on this subject. The people involved are the current Miss California and some 'celebrity' blogger who practices a certain politically correct sexual perversion. I am sure most of you know who I mean. If not, the story is here.
And Old Atlantic's blog entry on the story is here.
I don't usually have much to say about these celebrity stories, but several issues about which I do blog are wrapped up within this story.
First of all, the 'culture war', which, like every aspect of the left-right battle, has heated up since November, and this includes the question of free speech and freedom of thought vs. political correctness. Then there is the dishonest newsertainment media which are fomenting all the controversy around this. There is also the issue of the increasingly virulent anti-Christian, anti-traditional morality faction in this country, which sadly includes not only the left-libertines, but the secular/atheist libertines on the 'right'.
To add one more troubling ingredient, there is the glaring picture of a dumbed-down apostate ''Christianity' which is illustrated by the remarks made by several professing Christian celebrities regarding this story:
"Love is love!" Britney Tweeted... "People should be able to do whatever makes them happy!"
Miley Cyrus Tweeted similar thoughts ... "Jesus loves you and your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! That's like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz he's gay and that is wrong and very sad! Like I said everyone deserves to be happy. I am a Christian and I love you � gay or not. Because you are no different that anyone else! We are all God's children!"
Apparently her comments are right in line with those of "Hills" star Heidi Montag, who is expected to marry the show's Spencer Pratt this weekend.
"God says in the bible that we should love our neighbor and he created us all as equals. I know in my heart that gays and lesbians should have the same government rights that Spencer and I will when we get married. So, yes, this blonde Christian believes in gay marriage and I hope to one day go to your wedding, Perez!!!"
Now, I am proud to say I don't know who Mzz Montag is, nor do I really want to know; I care only that she pretends to represent Christianity and wrongly cites the Bible in support of her libertine and oh-so-hip-and-postmodern views.
Miley Cyrus can be excused somewhat, as she is still a minor child who has evidently not had a good grounding in the Bible nor in Christian morality as set out in the Bible. I suppose having a parent in show-biz is also a definite handicap when it comes to having a good upbringing and sound values and morals. Still, she should know better, and I fear that many gullible and malleable young 'Christians' will follow her example and adopt similarly unsound viewpoints, if they haven't already absorbed them from the corrupt and ugly culture that passes as 'entertainment' in our day.
And I am not sure that the person to whom their comments were addressed will suddenly soften his views towards the Bible or Christians in general; I have encountered many such people in real life and they are perpetually embittered that there is a Bible which condemns their pet vice, and they hate the fact that anyone reminds them of that fact. Ergo they hate Christians.
One more bit of trivia about the 'celebrity blogger' who was the center of all this: he is an example of the much-vaunted ''conservative'' Cuban-'American' community of Florida. Now, does anybody care to tell me again how Cuban-'Americans' who fled Castro are such staunch conservatives and Republican stalwarts? Or how they are poster children for legal immigration?
Over at the Big Hollywood blog, which is incidentally not exactly too staunchly conservative either, a commenter mentions something about the pageant:
On the subject: As a pageant competitor you spend an entire year doing mock interviews, discussing every hot-button or political topic under the sun. There is NO WAY her pageant directors were unaware of her stance on gay marriage prior to the pageant.''
This is the question that occurred to me: was the question a set-up? I suspected that they knew the young woman's Christian background and set a trap for her, asking her a question which they knew she would likely answer 'wrongly' -- after which they could gin up a public brouhaha and make an example of her. The object? To further marginalize and ridicule Christian believers, to remind everybody once again, lest anybody forget, that there is only one correct viewpoint on 'gay marriage' and that deviating from that PC viewpoint carries some penalties.
I give the young woman considerable credit for answering honestly; she was probably savvy enough to know that she was giving the 'wrong' answer and yet she answered honestly. Many people (not just Christians, but people in general) would have dissimulated rather than risk the consequences of giving an 'incorrect' answer. She stuck to her guns. Good for her.
I am also left wondering how and why our popular culture exalts people like the 'celebrity blogger' in this day and age. It was true, once upon a time, that to become a celebrity, one had to be, if not talented or fascinating, at least attractive and presentable and well-groomed. None of these are true of the walking grotesquerie who is at the center of this story. Standards have fallen; I lament this often. We seem to have dropped our standards in every area of life. Nowadays we celebrate the ugly, the sordid, the grotesque, the freakish, and the repellent, not only in popular culture but even in the high arts. What happened to our ideals of beauty and grace? How do we get them back? And how do we banish the ugly and the corrupt, which dominate our public sphere so relentlessly?
And what do we do about weakening this politically correct tyranny which exercises enormous power via our corrupt 'entertainment' media? I personally think that the so-called entertainment media wield far more power than academia, the school system, and the so-called 'news' media. More people get their PC ideas from watching trashy entertainment programming than from any other source -- other than peer pressure, which also is more powerful, even among adults, than many people acknowledge.
I know of a good number of people of mature years who have reversed themselves on social and political issues based on what they pick up from the media; they learn to like 'gay' celebrities, for example, and decide that not allowing 'gay marriage' is hateful and mean as well as 'behind the times.' Many people in my area learn virtually everything they ''know'' about blacks from the flattering media; they then begin to fawn over certain black celebrities, and slowly adopt the PC, pro-black attitudes they learn from the media, becoming de facto anti-Whites.
As I've said before, those who find TV and movies offensive or objectionable always get the facile advice ''just don't watch.'' But there is no isolating oneself; even if we don't watch the propaganda, we are exposed to it second-hand, or third-hand. And if we shield our children or grandchildren from it by throwing the TV out and boycotting movies, they still absorb it from their classmates or neighbors. Unless we take up dwelling in caves in the most remote areas we can find, there's no avoiding it. Ultimately it finds you. You can run, but you can't hide.
And here, James Edwards writes about how it's becoming 'uncool' to have traditional beliefs about homosexuality. Even the supposed 'conservatives' like Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rick Warren have fallen in line with the PC viewpoint. I remember well when Dr. Laura was detested and denounced by gays because of her supposed 'homophobic' beliefs, and now she has recanted and joined in the PC chorus.
It may be that we are just seeing the wheat divided from the chaff; I never believed Warren was 'conservative,' especially in a Biblical sense, and Dr. Laura has been rather inconsistent on her religious beliefs, but it seems as though we are swiftly moving towards a time when it will not only be 'uncool' to refuse to toe the line on homosexuality, but it may soon be costly in terms of consequences, if not downright illegal.

Labels: Bigotry, Celebrity Culture, Cultural Marxism, Freedom Of Speech, Hate Speech, Mass Media, Political Correctness, Propaganda

We knew this was coming. But all the same, it doesn't bode well, for obvious reasons.
THE ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid to better police the internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.
Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.
"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff - the UK and the U.S. working together - the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as saying.
Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibilty.
"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Mr Burnham said.
Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper said.
[...]
"If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach," Burnham told The Daily Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."
He said some content should not be available to be viewed.
"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."
[Emphasis mine]
We all know that the interpretations of 'offensive' or 'harmful' or 'hateful' will rest with the liberals and leftists who are now to be in the drivers' seat in Washington, D.C. as of January. And if ''our" government is to work hand-in-hand with the leftist British government, no good can come from that for either country.
Blogs like this one, and many other, far less politically incorrect blogs and forums will be filtered if not removed entirely. It may not happen overnight, but this is the direction in which we are headed.
The politically correct vigilantes will be ever more emboldened to silence anyone who fails to toe the line.
We should be thinking about ways to circumvent this effort to quash free speech. We will have to find alternatives, and I believe where there's a will, there's a way. We will have to find alternative ways to communicate and to speak the truth that needs to be heard.
I'm convinced that one of the first acts of our new overlords will be to pass the 'hate speech' and 'hate crime' laws that they have been itching to push through, but failed to do in the last session. I am convinced that this is a priority for them.
"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." - John Adams
"In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Who ever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." - Benjamin Franklin
"For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time. - Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no Constitution, no Law, no Court can save it...Where do you stand Citizen?" - Judge Learned Hand
'"Truth is hate to those who hate the truth" - quote from protester Arlene Elshinnawy, from the WND article linked above

Labels: Bloggers, Blogs, Censorship, Cultural Marxism, Free Press, Free Speech, Freedom Of Expression, Hate Speech, Internet, Liberal Intolerance, Liberals

This response from Dr. Frank Ellis, answering David Cameron's speech at the Munich Security Conference, has been making the rounds, and has provoked a lot of discussion and much approbation.
I first saw it at Sarah, Maid of Albion's blog but it has been posted in many places. It's very incisive, very well-written, and he makes points that very much need to be made.
I am doubtful about how much 'mainstream' coverage Ellis will receive from this, though if we had an honest and objective, or even a non-hostile media, it would be widely covered.
This is very apposite right now:
In all the discussions about rising food prices, metals, access to water and productive farm land no one wishes to identify the real problem: specifically the reckless and unsustainable breeding of Third World Populations either in the Third World itself or in the Third World estates that Third-Worlders have been allowed to create in the First World.
You cite what has happened on the streets of Tunis and Cairo as an example of the compatibility of Western values and Islam: 'hundreds of thousands of people demanding the universal right to free elections and democracy�. Middle-class, English-speaking protesters might well press the right buttons when interviewed by some BBC reporter but the underlying problem of Arab states and Sub-Saharan Africa is massive, out-of-control and unsustainable population growth. This is the Malthusian nightmare writ large and it is being played out all over the Third World. Egypt�s unemployed will remain unemployed (many of them are unemployable in any case). Hunger and hopelessness will gnaw at them. The results are predictable. Democracy and civil society are preposterous and irrelevant abstractions outside of Western Europe and will not feed people, certainly not in Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa. Where populations spiral out of control, as they are doing in so many parts of the world, violence, exacerbated by religious/ideological fanaticism, is inevitable.''
But the most important part, to my mind, is his answer to Cameron's nonsense about multiculturalism and assimilation. Ellis says:
''Concerning multiculturalism in the United Kingdom you state the following:
Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We�ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We�ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.
For the avoidance of any doubt your repeated exculpatory use of "we" does not include me and, I suspect, millions of other Britons. Your use of 'we� refers to the last Labour government and the xenophiles who sought to impose the anti-white racist cult of multiculturalism on the indigenous population. It is emphatically not the responsibility of the indigenous population 'to provide a vision of a society to which they [immigrants] feel they want to belong�. If, according to you, the 'we� failed to provide this vision, then why did millions of Islamic immigrants join the first wave who could not find this 'vision�? If they have no 'vision of society to which they feel they want to belong� why do they stay? Why not go home to Somalia, Waziristan and Sub-Saharan Africa? That these millions of immigrants have no 'vision of society to which they feel they want to belong� yet still stay in the Christian-infidel-infested wasteland of Britain suggests to me that their continued presence in Britain has everything to do with the fantastically generous welfare provision they receive (all the wives included) and absolutely nothing at all to do with any lack of 'vision of society�.
You have been reported as saying that multiculturalism has failed. I see no clear statement of that in your speech at all. In fact, you claim that it is the indigenous population that has driven Muslims into their parallel societies. That you are still advocating some form of the cult is clear when you argue that 'instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity that is open to everyone�. National identity by its very nature is exclusive, partial and narrow. A national identity that is 'open to everyone� is not a national identity. National identity is determined by a combination of genetic, racial, cultural, psychological, geographical, linguistic and mental factors, tempered by the blows of history, by shared suffering in war and peace, by humiliation and glory, by the memory of those gone before. How can my English national identity be open to everyone? The answer is that it cannot. National identity that is open to everyone ceases to be a national identity; national identity that is open to everyone is just another way of promoting multiculturalism without using the m-word. In other words, it is a deceit, a ploy to disarm the critics of multiculturalism who have instinctively and rationally apprehended the cult�s national-identity-hating agenda all along. As an Englishman who still values his national identity I have no desire at all to share it with others.''
Bravo.
He obviously perceives the dishonesty and the hypocrisy in the blather by Cameron. Not only Cameron, but all the other Western 'leaders' recite the ritual disavowals of multiculturalism, knowing full well that they plan to continue to push that fraudulent ideology on their subjects despite their pretenses at being concerned about their own people, and about the grave problems of multiculturalism.
Despite the transparency of Cameron's attempt to delude his listeners, there are, believe it or not, still people all over the Internet cheering Cameron's supposed conversion. What has happened to people's attention spans that they no longer remember that these empty statements about multiculturalism are now a regular event? They say the words, these ''leaders'' and yet things don't change. Mass immigration goes on unchecked, and the 'hate speech' laws persist, and dispossession proceeds apace. Shouldn't a few people, besides Dr. Ellis, begin to perceive the obvious? The obvious fact is that Western political leaders are not serving their own people, and are in fact serving alien interests, or those of unseen 'elites' who pull their strings.
In any case, Ellis is right on target with this response.
I have noticed that commenters here and there keep saying Ellis is wasting his time because Cameron et al will not listen. It's likely true that none of the political leaders will heed what Ellis says, given that they serve other masters. But the value of Ellis's words are that they are, as in open letters generally, meant to convey a message, or set an example, or to inspire a wider audience. It may be that Ellis is seeking to energize others, to exhort them and perhaps give them courage to speak out or otherwise assert themselves. He may want to encourage more discussion of the dire situation in his country. Those are all reasons that may be motivating him. And I think those motivations are in a sense more worthy than trying to awaken some sense of conscience among the elected officials, which I think is mostly a lost cause. So I hope this statement by Ellis continues to be read and discussed, and that it has a snowball effect. Sooner or later, something has to get through to the somnambulists in our Western countries.

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Ethnonationalism, Mass Immigration, Multicult, United Kingdom

Steve Sailer ponders whether there really is a 'silent but sensible majority which believes in HBD, and a long discussion follows.
At Inductivist, Ron Guhname gives a negative answer:
'The GSS convinces me that the answer is definitely no.
Beginning in 1977, survey particpants were asked: "On the average, blacks have worse jobs, income, and housing than white people. Do you think these differences are because most blacks have less in-born ability to learn?"
See the results at the link.
It's often claimed on many ethnopatriot blogs that many people are savvy on these issues but will not, because of political correctness, give honest answers on surveys and polls because they know that such perceptions are socially stigmatized.
Meanwhile, I've wondered if most people, or the average person out there, would be familiar with the acronym 'HBD', or could puzzle its meaning out, if asked.
Of course everybody knows the word ''diversity'', since we are beaten about the head with that word every time we turn around, not to mention being assailed by the actual fact of enforced diversity. But I suspect that most people, who are not readers of politically incorrect blogs, would not know what HBD or even the full name "human biodiversity", meant.
What does it mean, really? There's a discussion of the term here in which several people take great pains to disassociate 'HBD' from such taboo concepts as 'White nationalism' or 'racism', although some of them seem to conflate 'nationalism' with 'supremacism.' But just as I surmised, the term HBD seems to serve the purpose of putting a scientific (and therefore 'objective) face on discussions of matters racial. I suppose this has its uses.
The term 'NAM', which I still do not like, is seemingly another way to put a neutral face on the description of minorities, classifying them according to what they are not -- Asian. The implication there is that Asians are in a category above the others, being seen as the high-IQ minorities, or the desirable immigrants. This, to me, places excessive value on IQ, which seems to be held in highest regard by the serious HBDers.
To return to the original question of whether there is a silent majority of people with realist views on race and ethnicity, I tend to think Guhname is more correct. Or it may be that, as HailToYou says in a comment that poll respondents back in 1977 gave more honest answers, not being as brainwashed as today's respondents.
Still, I believe there were more people who had commonsensical views then, based on popular wisdom and direct experience, and they had not yet learned that they had to toe the PC line and self-censor. As the older generations pass on, there are fewer and fewer people who express the old, pre-PC attitudes. I suppose this is the measure of the cultural Marxists' success.
Incidentally, the phrase 'silent majority' is most associated with Richard Nixon, though he did not coin it. According to this source, his phrase 'silent majority' referred to:
''Middle-class whites
Those who felt alienated by the counterculture
Conservative whites''
Is there still a significant silent majority?
Thoughts?

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Hbd, Political Correctness, Race Realism

It seems it's open season on Christianity at many blogs, including AmRen.
I'm willing to acknowledge that there are grounds for criticism, and it's fully understandable that many people on our side are disgusted with these multiculturalists in religious guise who are trailing two steps behind the secular multicultists. These 'Christians' are so eager to be in step with the current multicult madness that they can no longer see that they are emulating the world system, eager to be accepted by it and part of it. Christians should remember what our Bible says about 'friendship with the world.'
Lately I suddenly noticed that AmRen had been blessedly free of many of the anti-Christian comments that once plagued it, mainly the work of one particular poster who blamed Christianity for everything. Then I noticed that the comment policy had been revised, and now contains a warning about criticism of 'traditional Western religions.' Aha, that was why. But now it appears everybody is coming out of the woodwork with the usual ''Christianity is a slave morality'' nonsense via Nietzsche, et al. So back to square one. Christianity is to blame again, but notice the mods' statement on closing of this thread:
'' It is being closed before a certain conversation about a certain topic gets out of hand. Thank you for your consideration.''
I wonder what that unnamed topic could be?
We know it isn't Christianity which is the topic that must not be talked about. That conversation will continue unabated, and the criticism will continue -- deservedly so, to some extent. Thanks to those 'Christians' who have left their churches wide open to criticism by their misguided actions.

Labels: Anti-Christianity, Christian Chuches, Cultural Marxism

Tom Piatak writes about attending a live broadcast of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show.
I have been listening, on and off, to Keillor�s show for many years, and I�ve read several of his books. The interesting thing about Keillor is not that he is a Democrat, but that, despite his liberal politics, the show he produces has a strong conservative, even reactionary, streak.
Last night�s show was no exception. We heard, as is typical for Keillor, a lot of old American music, including a song from the 1932 campaign. Although an unabashed liberal, Keillor is a Christian, and his show often features old hymns and Gospel songs, and last night�s program had a moving hymn about the Good Shepherd.''
I, too, was a listener to PHC some years ago, and I found a certain charm in the program, and in Keillor's soothing, mellow delivery and style. I love the old-time music which was usually featured on the show.
And although, like Piatak, I never lived in a town which closely resembled Lake Wobegon, the small-town old America motif was universal enough that all Americans, at least those old enough to remember the old America, could relate to many of the endearing qualities of Lake Wobegon as described on the show.
I was also able to relate somewhat to the Scandinavian-tinged culture of the fictional Lake Wobegon through my experience of the Northwest, which in times past had a strong Scandinavian presence and cultural influence. The 'new' Northwest is fast losing that character and is on the way to becoming just another multicultural Nowheresville.
When I used to listen to PHC, I was still quite the liberal, and I sensed very much that Keillor and the gang were of the same persuasion. You see, liberals, especially of the baby boom generation, have a certain kind of slumming nostalgia for the 'old America', in the form of liking vintage clothes for dress-up, antique furnishings and gewgaws, and old-time music, especially of the 'downmarket' variety such as bluegrass, honkytonk, and blues. It's a kind of American multiculturalism: aren't those hillbillies and hayseeds quaint and funny? And aren't we oh-so-sophisticated for condescending to listen to their primitive music?
That kind of cultural tourism and condescension is one of the things that I find most irritating about my own jaded generation. And I perceived it in spades on Keillor's show. So as I became a fully-fledged conservative recanting all the liberal nonsense that had accreted in my life, I rather lost my taste for Keillor and his somewhat arch portrayal of middle America. With liberals, there is often a fine line between nostalgia and a certain kind of snickering at old America as sophisticated folks would snicker at their awkward country cousins.
Keillor is not, I am sure, a Christian in the sense that perhaps Tom Piatak understands it. I suspect where the 'Christian content' of his show is concerned, it derives from Keillor's 'cultural Christianity.' Christianity, specifically of the Lutheran variety, seemst to be a central part of the old American culture of Minnesota, just as some variety of Bible-believing Christianity is a central part of all small-town Southern communities. It's part of the culture, and everybody who grew up in the old American South imbibed some of it, even if they were not churchgoers, or real believers. Keillor is a 'cultural Christian' or perhaps simply a liberal Christian, which involves liberal politics dressed up in clerical robes, speaking Christian lingo.
I recalled this story about Keillor from just after the 2004 elections:
Born-agains should not have right to vote
Posted: November 15, 2004
Speaking in the aftermath of the presidential election, Democrat radio host Garrison Keillor says he is on a quest to take away the right of born-again Christians to vote, saying their citizenship is actually in heaven, not the United States.
Keillor, host of the popular National Public Radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," made the comments during a speech at Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel and during his radio monologue the Saturday after the election.
"I am a Democrat � it's no secret. I am a museum-quality Democrat," Keillor said. "Last night I spent my time crouched in a fetal position, rolling around and moaning in the dark."
According to a report in the University of Chicago's Chicago Maroon, Keillor told the audience: "If born-again Christians are allowed to vote in this country, then why not Canadians?"
And yes, some said, 'oh well, he's just kidding, just being satirical.'
Here, however, on this blog Keillor's response to a reader who questioned his statement is quoted. The reader had asked whether he had in fact meant to say 'postmillenialists' and not 'born-again' Christians:
Caroline,
I grew up among post-millenialists and probably that's why I conflated them with born-agains in one big ball of wax and I apologize for my inaccuracy. However, I don't think that the term "post-millenialist" would instantly register with our public radio audience, so one is forced to use shorthand. Thanks for your thoughts...
Keillor then went on to another subject entirely, his memories of singing the Star Spangled Banner.
So, after reflection, Keillor says he does not advocate a constitutional amendment taking the vote away from all born-again Christians -- just some of them. Thanks for the clarification.
Addendum (11/20/04): I received the following e-mail regarding Ms. Sato's (and Garrison Keillor's) use of terms:
Caroline Sato is incorrect. It's dispensational premillennialists who believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket. They believe in an always imminent rapture. Postmillennialists believe that through the preaching of the gospel, the world can be transformed.''
I find it curious that a Protestant, even a liberal one, would put down 'born-again Christians.' First of all, he would be aware that the Lord said 'except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.'
So in truth, all real Christians must be considered born-again. However, I've noted that liberal Christians often scorn that term, as do many Catholics. But if Keillor thinks 'born again' is a disparaging term, he is not a Christian in the Biblical sense, then.
Here, in the Wikipedia entry, there are many quotes from Keillor. For example, here's what he thinks of Republicans:
Keillor calls Republicans "hairy-backed swamp developers, corporate shills, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, lizardskin cigar monkeys, jerktown romeos, ninja dittoheads. .. .tax cheats, cheese merchants, cat stranglers, grab-ass executives, gun fetishists, genteel pornographers, nihilists in golf pants."
While claiming that his book describes "the politics of kindness, Keillor also says that Republicans are "criminal" and worse, "evil, deeply evil."
Well, a few years ago I would have been quite incensed by that tirade, but now, given my lowered opinion of Republicans and self-described 'conservatives', I have to say it's not 100 percent false. The truth hurts sometimes. Some Republicans are corporate shills, and all the rest.
The sad part is, many Democrats are worse, albeit their sins and crimes are simply different from those of the Republicans. But I suspect that Keillor's seething hatred of Republicans extends to real conservatives, and all of us who hold within us the old America, that of the era in which Keillor goes slumming and rummaging on his show.
As far as Keillor's own identity, which many are assuming he is drawing on in his performances, the Wikipedia article also contains quotes indicating that Keillor's on-air persona, with many references to Norwegian-Americans and Lutherans, is all fictional. He is not Norwegian by ancestry (his name should give that fact away) nor is he Lutheran by religious affiliation. Apparently his frequent references to Lutherans simply indicate his cultural familiarity with Lutherans in his native Minnesota. He says his family were members of an obscure group called the Plymouth Brethren.
Reflecting on all this, I can see that liberals like Keillor may wax nostalgic over old America, but the old America which they mine for quaint cultural relics is not the real old America, the one realists remember fondly. They put a liberal veneer on the past in order to make it acceptable by their standards. They expunge the parts of our cultural history that embarrass them. The bowdlerized liberal version of our past is, for some liberals, simply censored and cleansed of the un-PC parts. That's the Keilloresque version. It's apolitical for the most part.
For some, usually filmmakers, the view presented is a politically revisionist view of old America, in which political correctness reigned, and 'racists' were few and far between and were quickly put in their place by anachronistic liberals who saved the day. I've noticed how most movies of today have to inject some politically correct bits in order to show that the illiberalism they object to so much is the anomaly in our history, while their liberal, multicultural America was always there in an incipient form, at least. Movies like 'Gods and Generals', with the obligatory racial commentary scene, or The Patriot, which had its noble slave scene, and so on.
Liberal nostalgia is the cultural form of revisionist history; liberals like to conjure up a 'real' old America in which people make speeches full of 21st century cliches about tolerance and inclusiveness, and in which the people who represented the real beliefs and attitudes of the era portrayed are shown as slimy villains.
Keillor's Lake Wobegon may be a kinder and gentler kind of liberal nostalgia than the Hollywood preachy kind, but it's ironic that liberals who like to sentimentalize about certain aspects of the past are hellbent on destroying everything that remains of that past, content, it seems, to turn our heritage into a quaint museum piece, which is long-gone, and deservedly so.
In what appears to be willful ignorance, they refuse to see that the Lake Wobegons of our country are the unique creations and reflections of the people, the specific group of people who inhabit that place. The Norwegian bachelor farmers of Keillor's Minnesota created a distinct place which will never be the same once it is dominated by Mexicans, Somalis, or Hmongs. Those who believe that people are interchangeable and that the place makes the people, and not vice-versa, are taking a sledge-hammer to our unique heritage, and wreaking untold damage.

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Historical Revisionism, Nostalgia, Old America, Old Days, Vanishing America

Here's a piece from American Thinker called Coloring History. As you might expect from the title, it has to do with 'black history', and specifically about the beginnings of the NAACP. And it's also quite politically correct in content and tone.
I was aware of the fact that the organization had a mostly White membership at the beginning. And as the American Thinker article says that some of these people were the stereotype WASPs, again lending credence to the image of WASPs as being at the forefront of egalitarian efforts and ultimately the progenitors of today's totalitarian PC regime.
The discussion following the article is a mixed bag, with some rather un-PC comments here and there, but ultimately it devolves into the usual cliches, such as the 'persecution of the Irish' stories.
The article and the rather ragged discussion both bring home the point that we do have to attend to our history. We have to read, and encourage others to read, some real history as a necessary antidote to the politically corrected version which is peddled at every turn in our day, and most especially during White Guilt month, every February.
Over the last week or so there have been discussions around the Internet and the blogosphere about the 'dialogue on race'. On one such discussion thread, a politically incorrect commenter mentioned that African slaves were actually captured and sold to Whites by other Africans. Following that statement, another (black) commenter expressed shock at such 'hateful' comments and demanded proof of such an outlandish claim, challenging whether it was even factual. Disappointingly, the commenter who said it did not reply, with or without the requested 'proof', so an opportunity was lost to present some politically incorrect truth to the people out there reading the thread. It's amazing how few people have ever heard that African slaves were actually enslaved by other Africans. I think the race industry has firmly established a cartoon version of history, with evil Whites chasing down African people in their homelands and trapping them to be shipped off to America as slaves. I think this version has been reinforced by bad 'history' in popular culture, such as Haley's ''Roots'', a work of literary plagiarism which passes, to this day, as factual history.
Whenever any kind of halting 'dialogue on race' is begun these days, there are certain things that are always brought up by our opponents, slavery and its attendant wrongs being one such subject. Of course nobody wants to defend slavery as such, but there are a great many falsehoods surrounding that topic that are being used to stir up resentments and hatreds. The image of the evil White slave-hunter, the depraved White slave-owner, or the heartless White overseer are common images that are taken for granted. Much of the imagery which people have in their minds is the product of pop culture, as I've said, going back at least to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Even in her time, the book was criticized as not being grounded in fact; she had little or no first-hand knowledge of her subjects, but nonetheless her works are revered even today, and accepted as truth, for all intents and purposes.
A frequently-heard canard is the statement often made by various spokesmen for blacks is that 35 million (or some other large number, in the millions) of slaves were 'thrown overboard' on the voyages across the Atlantic, and that to this day, large schools of sharks follow ships along the route of the slavers, hoping for more people to be tossed to them.
Never mind that the numbers cited are absurd, and that there is no corroboration; these stories live on.
The sheer number of such canards repeated by blacks or their advocates seem to render us speechless and resigned, and these stories are strengthened by going unchallenged for so many decades now.
Why do so few of us try to answer these wild exaggerations or fabrications with facts? Granted, we are up against a loud army of zealots, White liberals and blacks themselves, who have the stamina and the fanaticism to shout us down, and on the Internet, many of our comments are censored and expunged while the other side is allowed free rein to spout nonsense with no one to counter it.
There are so many historical misconceptions that have taken root because there have been too few who have spoken up in opposition. While it's true that on many forums or newspaper comment boxes we are censored and banned if we post politically incorrect facts or opinions, we do have the blogosphere where we can try to disseminate facts and counter-opinions, even if only on our own blogs. But I see too little of this being done. Why? Have we given up on the truth? Or are too few people informed as to the real history and the facts?
It seems we have great holes in our history, blank spots which are unnoticed by many people.
Our history is in large part either rewritten to serve somebody else's agenda, or simply lost, like missing pages from a book
Another area of 'lost' history in which we seem to be deficient in understanding is the Reconstruction era; few Americans seem to have any notion of what happened then, and of how that era presages our current situation. Again, most Americans know nothing of how self-defense organizations grew during that era, and the reasons why.
Some of the canards don't have to do with blacks, but with other ethnic groups, usually in connection with the Ellis Island era of immigration. If you read the American Thinker comments, you will see the old stories about how the ethnic immigrants of the mid-19th century were badly treated, 'hated', and 'not considered White'. We hear how the Irish were 'worked to death', literally, to build the railroads, or so the story goes. Or the Chinese. We read here and there how the Irish were given back-breaking jobs that 'were too hard for even the slaves to do.'
If I believe these stories as they are presented again and again, I have to conclude that my WASP ancestors were cold-hearted, inhuman, evil, sadistic monsters. But wait: they were the liberal bleeding-hearts, like those who joined the NAACP, who have caused this country to veer towards being over-welcoming and self-abasing. It gets very confusing. Either way, the WASP is in the wrong, and is the root of all evil: either he's a kind of 'supremacist' who considered the Irish as an inferior race, or he was a radical egalitarian who denied all human distinctions.
I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody has told the tales of Irish immigrants' persecution at the hands of the dread Anglo-Saxons. So many people have somehow heard these stories by word of mouth, and will not be convinced that they are often myths or canards.
Did the Anglo-Saxon old-stock population resist mass immigration of Irish, Italians, and others? In many cases, yes. There were 'nativist' organizations and parties, about which I've blogged. They wanted to preserve the rather successful country their ancestors had created at considerable cost in toil and blood. They did not want their way of life to be swept away by large numbers of people with a very different culture and religion. These are the sentiments of normal human beings, not monsters or hateful bigots. Surely 'realists' of today can relate to those sentiments -- but often, the fact of having Irish ancestry, however remote, results in bitterness and grudges against WASPs for slights toward immigrants.
We have work to do to try to tear down some of the old myths, particularly the politically correct ones, which are so often being used to silence and discredit us. And the politically correct myths include those tales of persecution of the Ellis Island immigrants. Those stories serve only to divide White Americans, and to perpetuate resentments and grudges that should long since have been put to rest, if they were in fact justified in the first place.
Whenever I witness one of these discussions where everybody is claiming victimhood because of the sufferings of their immigrant ancestors, I can't help thinking of an old Monty Python sketch, in which a group of seemingly wealthy old men sit around a table, trading stories of how hard they had it as children. They try to one-up each other, taking turns with wildly exaggerated stories of poverty and privation from their respective childhoods.
What does it matter who had it the worst? How does it help our present predicament to recite stories of how bad one's immigrant ancestors had it? Is that not just a variation on the perpetual victimhood claims of blacks and other minorities? To me, it's all the same.
And I think it's unbecoming of us as a people to revel in claims of victimhood. Surely we ought to be taking pride in real accomplishment, not jockeying to see whose ancestors were mistreated and abused more. It's a sad commentary on our society that we make sob stories a basis for status.
There are already too many divisions among us for various reasons; we need to find ways to unite and put aside our differences, and to that end, to leave aside all the grievances against generations long since dead. Isn't it time -- especially now that we cannot afford division among us?
While some of our lost history needs to be found and used to press our case, there is some of the 'history' that might better be put aside, and truly lost. The grievances and grudges have to go.

Labels: American History, Cultural Marxism, Ethnic Division, Ethnocentrism, Historical Bias, History