0 comment Wednesday, October 15, 2014 | admin
All of us are aware, I think, of how popular culture is being used to propagandize and shape all of us. It's used especially to separate the young from their elders and, generation by generation, to further divide the population and at the same time to further the leftist/multiculturalist agenda, destroying the heritage and traditions that characterize our past.
This piece does a good job of detailing how it is being done in the UK, and although the specifics deal with the UK, it is substantially true here as well.
...At the beginning of the twentieth century the modernist movement set about destroying the form and grammar of traditional art, and thus the content, and made it both unintelligible and uninteresting. In the 60�s, cultural Marxists of the New Left became the avant-garde in the art word [world?] as they became the elites in almost all the avenues of culture. They hated our culture and traditions, and they have been destroying them and our young people ever since.
Aristocrat rulers had a sense of noblesse oblige towards the working-classes, and a sense of responsibility to posterity. But the new elites were driven by their hatred and personal gain to corrupt them.''
This last paragraph makes a good point. Much as our 'democratic' new America hates the idea of aristocracy, our aristocracy in the past, ideally, at least felt a sense of connection to, and a responsibility for, the common people, and above all, toward the perpetuation of our heritage. Our new 'elites', who are in no sense aristocratic, even though they may be wealthy, have no such allegiance or concern, being disconnected from us.
The Discrimination Act of 1975 cautions people against using degrading language in respect to certain selected groups. But our elites continually degrade working-class people and our young, whom they mock as "chavs". Our people rarely see themselves affirmed as human beings of value in adverts or on TV. Only the dark-skinned without English features are accorded a sympathetic treatment. The worst of it is the frequency with which our women are shown to the world as whores.''
The blogger references 'celebrities' such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Both these women have similar public images, based on their dissolute lifestyles, though Hilton came from wealth and Spears from a poor background. I've long thought that their public images are meant to 'inspire', if the word can be used in such a paradoxical way, young women towards similar lack of self-respect. The intention is to degrade our people and culture. What better way than through young women, who should be the mothers of the next generation? Former eras treasured these young women and encouraged them to maintain their wholesomeness and chastity, while today the opposite is encouraged and rewarded. It's an assault on our future.
'It is simply not intended that we should identify with ourselves. Why, then, would the elites have any conscience about bringing immigrants here to undercut our wages and take our jobs, and push us out of our communities? They consider us worthless.''
And, more importantly, they want us to consider our fellow White people worthless, and even ourselves.
In too many instances, this is what is happening.
The television programme makers are on the lookout for something to laugh at but we are now the targets and this is done to us before the rest of the world. It is conveyed by images as well as words which are read as body language and semi-conscious messages.''
I'm convinced that these media-generated images, which end up encouraging the same behavior in real-life people, are contributing to the general contempt already felt towards us by nonwhites, and people in general in other countries.
I know that many foreign people see the grotesque media images of White Americans and loathe us for it, if they don't already dislike us anyway.
In our household, we get BBC America, which presents truly hideous programming presenting British people in an unflattering light. It is being done to turn us all against each other, I think, and as life imitates art more often than the other way around, more people in real life live down to the stereotypes.
One of the shows one sees constantly advertised is 'Skins', which seems to be all about teen sex, and there is another show, whose name escapes me, whose 'comedy' seems centered on fat people's sex lives. Degrading for all involved.
Whites are presented as fat and over-weight, while ethnics are bright and clean. One Channel 4 programme, How clean is Your House, has two women visit couples homes to instruct them on how to keep the house free of grime. ''
I've confessed to watching 'How Clean is Your House' because it appeals to morbid curiosity as to how bad people's living conditions can be; sometimes people who look quite normal and well-groomed live in incredible squalor. Yet on reflection I've started thinking that this show, too, like Jerry Springer, seems calculated to show White people in the worst possible light. Most of the people whose filthy homes are featured are White people of 'indigenous' British ancestry. I've only seen one program with a nonwhite subject, a very overweight Chinese man.
By the way, there is now an American version of this, with the two 'cleaning gurus' visiting untidy and unhygienic Americans (some of whom live in rather 'upscale' areas) and showing us that we, too, are just as bad as the worst.
I think there is method to this madness; I think the idea is to show us that we needn't look down on the unhygienic ways of the Third-Worlders in our midst, who often live in very squalid conditions, typical of their home countries. I think it's also meant to further foster contempt for our neighbors, people who look like us. Liberals and the multiculturally-smitten love to find bad examples of White criminality, slovenliness, and just plain 'sorriness' to flaunt in our faces, and to show just how bad we are.
As the blogger says,
'It is done not just to degrade our own people, but to redress the balance with the behaviour of ethnic communities.''
On the subject of popular music:
Pop stars are arbiters of taste and behaviour and must take personal responsibility for the harm they have done to young people by creating degenerate images to make themselves millions. Young people identify with them, and are beguiled by their rebellious and exciting images while in reality they live in mansions, employ gardeners, maids, cooks and butlers, and send their children to the best schools.
The man who destroyed old America, and undermined the western world, Elvis Presley, has a religious devotion 30 years after his death, and his home Gracelands attracts worshippers on the scale of Lourdes or Mecca. These pop idols have replaced religious and national icons for millions of people. They are hypocrites who pose to corrupt and make money.''
I have to agree, reluctantly, with him on the second paragraph. I grew up in the rock 'n roll era, and rock music was, for me as for most people born since then, the 'soundtrack of my life', as the cliche has it. But looking back at what has transpired since Elvis and rock music came on the scene, I can see how the older generations may well have been right when they objected to rock 'n roll as a degrading influence and as a factor in the move towards 'integrating' our country and elevating nonwhites above Whites. There is no denying that the two movements were connected, and the influence of leftists and Gramscians at the higher levels of show business is undeniable also. One could argue, as some do, that it's a 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy to blame rock 'n roll for the social deterioration and the move towards multiculturalism, but there's no doubt that the two went hand in hand.
I mentioned before that a 1990s documentary on rock music, the name of which eludes me, openly and cheerfully admitted that yes, rock 'n roll was mean to 'loosen up' young White folks, who were seen as too inhibited and too repressed, unlike our more 'sensual' black population. The show biz figures who were interviewed laughed and said yes, they wanted young Whites to 'connect with their sexuality' and be free.
Back in the 1950s, of course, the denials were indignant: how dare those old fogies say rock 'n roll is 'smutty'? They are just old prudes who have dirty minds, looking for 'sin' everywhere, according to rock 'n roll's defenders. Now? It's all brazenly admitted.
So yes, rock music was a big, big step towards multiculturalizing everyone, making us more open to black music and black ways, and making young Whites see themselves and their people as deficient, lacking in qualities like 'cool' or to use an old 60s black shibboleth, ''soul.'' Whites, it began to be said, can't dance. Whites have no natural rhythm. Whites need to learn to loosen up and how better than by emulating blacks?
The antidote to all this? The blogger briefly mentions changes in our educational system and a revival of some practices like fairs and folk-music traditions, but using modern words and messages. I agree with what he says, as far as it goes.
It's a beginning. I do agree that the answer should be to try to retain what still exists of our culture, both 'folk' culture and high culture, and to restore what has been dismantled or neglected. And we don't have to have government grants or the 'elites' to help us do that, or do it for us; it has to be an effort by real people, a grassroots effort. We can all do our part within our own families and communities. We need to pay more attention to what remains, and to emphasize the beautiful and the worthwhile, and to stress that it is ours, not 'borrowed' or 'stolen' from some more 'vibrant' group of people.
There is an argument to be made that rock music has much more of a White, Southron origin than an African origin, although that may be a losing battle since people are firmly convinced that Elvis 'stole' rock music from blacks, and that its origins are African. I say: prove it, but in any case, rock music is firmly associated with multiculturalism and black culture, even though blacks want little part of it. They recognize that it isn't theirs, and prefer other types of music.
Much of our popular culture is credited to blacks when there is little evidence for the claims. Most White people are content to passively let everyone else claim credit for what is rightfully ours, and in order to regain some pride and some sense of proprietorship of what is ours, we need to become familiar with our own heritage and folk culture, as well as our high culture.
Television and the mass media in general being the source and the origin of many of the lies and distortions, we cannot look to them for any help or hope. It has to come from the people. That's us.
This piece does a good job of detailing how it is being done in the UK, and although the specifics deal with the UK, it is substantially true here as well.
...At the beginning of the twentieth century the modernist movement set about destroying the form and grammar of traditional art, and thus the content, and made it both unintelligible and uninteresting. In the 60�s, cultural Marxists of the New Left became the avant-garde in the art word [world?] as they became the elites in almost all the avenues of culture. They hated our culture and traditions, and they have been destroying them and our young people ever since.
Aristocrat rulers had a sense of noblesse oblige towards the working-classes, and a sense of responsibility to posterity. But the new elites were driven by their hatred and personal gain to corrupt them.''
This last paragraph makes a good point. Much as our 'democratic' new America hates the idea of aristocracy, our aristocracy in the past, ideally, at least felt a sense of connection to, and a responsibility for, the common people, and above all, toward the perpetuation of our heritage. Our new 'elites', who are in no sense aristocratic, even though they may be wealthy, have no such allegiance or concern, being disconnected from us.
The Discrimination Act of 1975 cautions people against using degrading language in respect to certain selected groups. But our elites continually degrade working-class people and our young, whom they mock as "chavs". Our people rarely see themselves affirmed as human beings of value in adverts or on TV. Only the dark-skinned without English features are accorded a sympathetic treatment. The worst of it is the frequency with which our women are shown to the world as whores.''
The blogger references 'celebrities' such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Both these women have similar public images, based on their dissolute lifestyles, though Hilton came from wealth and Spears from a poor background. I've long thought that their public images are meant to 'inspire', if the word can be used in such a paradoxical way, young women towards similar lack of self-respect. The intention is to degrade our people and culture. What better way than through young women, who should be the mothers of the next generation? Former eras treasured these young women and encouraged them to maintain their wholesomeness and chastity, while today the opposite is encouraged and rewarded. It's an assault on our future.
'It is simply not intended that we should identify with ourselves. Why, then, would the elites have any conscience about bringing immigrants here to undercut our wages and take our jobs, and push us out of our communities? They consider us worthless.''
And, more importantly, they want us to consider our fellow White people worthless, and even ourselves.
In too many instances, this is what is happening.
The television programme makers are on the lookout for something to laugh at but we are now the targets and this is done to us before the rest of the world. It is conveyed by images as well as words which are read as body language and semi-conscious messages.''
I'm convinced that these media-generated images, which end up encouraging the same behavior in real-life people, are contributing to the general contempt already felt towards us by nonwhites, and people in general in other countries.
I know that many foreign people see the grotesque media images of White Americans and loathe us for it, if they don't already dislike us anyway.
In our household, we get BBC America, which presents truly hideous programming presenting British people in an unflattering light. It is being done to turn us all against each other, I think, and as life imitates art more often than the other way around, more people in real life live down to the stereotypes.
One of the shows one sees constantly advertised is 'Skins', which seems to be all about teen sex, and there is another show, whose name escapes me, whose 'comedy' seems centered on fat people's sex lives. Degrading for all involved.
Whites are presented as fat and over-weight, while ethnics are bright and clean. One Channel 4 programme, How clean is Your House, has two women visit couples homes to instruct them on how to keep the house free of grime. ''
I've confessed to watching 'How Clean is Your House' because it appeals to morbid curiosity as to how bad people's living conditions can be; sometimes people who look quite normal and well-groomed live in incredible squalor. Yet on reflection I've started thinking that this show, too, like Jerry Springer, seems calculated to show White people in the worst possible light. Most of the people whose filthy homes are featured are White people of 'indigenous' British ancestry. I've only seen one program with a nonwhite subject, a very overweight Chinese man.
By the way, there is now an American version of this, with the two 'cleaning gurus' visiting untidy and unhygienic Americans (some of whom live in rather 'upscale' areas) and showing us that we, too, are just as bad as the worst.
I think there is method to this madness; I think the idea is to show us that we needn't look down on the unhygienic ways of the Third-Worlders in our midst, who often live in very squalid conditions, typical of their home countries. I think it's also meant to further foster contempt for our neighbors, people who look like us. Liberals and the multiculturally-smitten love to find bad examples of White criminality, slovenliness, and just plain 'sorriness' to flaunt in our faces, and to show just how bad we are.
As the blogger says,
'It is done not just to degrade our own people, but to redress the balance with the behaviour of ethnic communities.''
On the subject of popular music:
Pop stars are arbiters of taste and behaviour and must take personal responsibility for the harm they have done to young people by creating degenerate images to make themselves millions. Young people identify with them, and are beguiled by their rebellious and exciting images while in reality they live in mansions, employ gardeners, maids, cooks and butlers, and send their children to the best schools.
The man who destroyed old America, and undermined the western world, Elvis Presley, has a religious devotion 30 years after his death, and his home Gracelands attracts worshippers on the scale of Lourdes or Mecca. These pop idols have replaced religious and national icons for millions of people. They are hypocrites who pose to corrupt and make money.''
I have to agree, reluctantly, with him on the second paragraph. I grew up in the rock 'n roll era, and rock music was, for me as for most people born since then, the 'soundtrack of my life', as the cliche has it. But looking back at what has transpired since Elvis and rock music came on the scene, I can see how the older generations may well have been right when they objected to rock 'n roll as a degrading influence and as a factor in the move towards 'integrating' our country and elevating nonwhites above Whites. There is no denying that the two movements were connected, and the influence of leftists and Gramscians at the higher levels of show business is undeniable also. One could argue, as some do, that it's a 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy to blame rock 'n roll for the social deterioration and the move towards multiculturalism, but there's no doubt that the two went hand in hand.
I mentioned before that a 1990s documentary on rock music, the name of which eludes me, openly and cheerfully admitted that yes, rock 'n roll was mean to 'loosen up' young White folks, who were seen as too inhibited and too repressed, unlike our more 'sensual' black population. The show biz figures who were interviewed laughed and said yes, they wanted young Whites to 'connect with their sexuality' and be free.
Back in the 1950s, of course, the denials were indignant: how dare those old fogies say rock 'n roll is 'smutty'? They are just old prudes who have dirty minds, looking for 'sin' everywhere, according to rock 'n roll's defenders. Now? It's all brazenly admitted.
So yes, rock music was a big, big step towards multiculturalizing everyone, making us more open to black music and black ways, and making young Whites see themselves and their people as deficient, lacking in qualities like 'cool' or to use an old 60s black shibboleth, ''soul.'' Whites, it began to be said, can't dance. Whites have no natural rhythm. Whites need to learn to loosen up and how better than by emulating blacks?
The antidote to all this? The blogger briefly mentions changes in our educational system and a revival of some practices like fairs and folk-music traditions, but using modern words and messages. I agree with what he says, as far as it goes.
It's a beginning. I do agree that the answer should be to try to retain what still exists of our culture, both 'folk' culture and high culture, and to restore what has been dismantled or neglected. And we don't have to have government grants or the 'elites' to help us do that, or do it for us; it has to be an effort by real people, a grassroots effort. We can all do our part within our own families and communities. We need to pay more attention to what remains, and to emphasize the beautiful and the worthwhile, and to stress that it is ours, not 'borrowed' or 'stolen' from some more 'vibrant' group of people.
There is an argument to be made that rock music has much more of a White, Southron origin than an African origin, although that may be a losing battle since people are firmly convinced that Elvis 'stole' rock music from blacks, and that its origins are African. I say: prove it, but in any case, rock music is firmly associated with multiculturalism and black culture, even though blacks want little part of it. They recognize that it isn't theirs, and prefer other types of music.
Much of our popular culture is credited to blacks when there is little evidence for the claims. Most White people are content to passively let everyone else claim credit for what is rightfully ours, and in order to regain some pride and some sense of proprietorship of what is ours, we need to become familiar with our own heritage and folk culture, as well as our high culture.
Television and the mass media in general being the source and the origin of many of the lies and distortions, we cannot look to them for any help or hope. It has to come from the people. That's us.
Labels: Anti White Racism, Gramscianism, Media Bias, Multiculturalism, Popular Culture, Propaganda, Western Culture
0 comment Sunday, October 12, 2014 | admin
Several of you have mentioned the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' repeal. I have only a few things to say about it. First, it's been in the works for a long time, and of course what Clinton began, this regime is completing.
We've seen the military come increasingly under the sway of political correctness, what with things like 'diversity' being a primary objective in the military, and women on submarines, to mention only two examples. One of the most shameful and shocking symptoms was when Casey at the memorial for the victims of the Fort Hood massacre said that a bigger tragedy (bigger than the deaths of soldiers) would be if 'diversity' was decreased as a result. That comment should have evoked way more shock and outrage than it did.
The military has been captured by the left, which is bizarre because the leftists strike an anti-military pose. But now it's ''their'' military, you see, and they will remake it in their perverse image, with 'diversity' and tolerance being the goals, not defending the United States of America and its citizens.
The co-ed military was really the thing that made this latest step inevitable. The same arguments that we might make against gays openly serving (sexual tensions, destruction of camaraderie and morale, sexual distractions, 'sensitivity' issues, etc.) were made against the proposal for a co-ed military, and were rejected.
The left always works relentlessly toward their goals by increments. Women in the military first, now gays. What will be the next target? Because trust me, there will be a next frontier; some barrier they want to demolish and some standard and tradition they just have to trash. We already have non-citizens in the military. What next?
We could trace all this back to the whole affirmative action idea, too; if we choose or prefer people based on traits like race, then next comes gender and 'sexual orientation.'
I suppose there will be quotas for recruiting each type, with 'diversity' as always being the top priority.
I would think that in any case, patriotic Americans would not want to serve in this politically correct, ideologically-driven regime. However, do we want our military to be made up of various people who see the military as a place to make some kind of 'social statement' or to carry out some ideological war against tradition? Do we want our military to be made up of people who are joining only to get free education, training, or citizenship? That's something to think about.
We've seen the military come increasingly under the sway of political correctness, what with things like 'diversity' being a primary objective in the military, and women on submarines, to mention only two examples. One of the most shameful and shocking symptoms was when Casey at the memorial for the victims of the Fort Hood massacre said that a bigger tragedy (bigger than the deaths of soldiers) would be if 'diversity' was decreased as a result. That comment should have evoked way more shock and outrage than it did.
The military has been captured by the left, which is bizarre because the leftists strike an anti-military pose. But now it's ''their'' military, you see, and they will remake it in their perverse image, with 'diversity' and tolerance being the goals, not defending the United States of America and its citizens.
The co-ed military was really the thing that made this latest step inevitable. The same arguments that we might make against gays openly serving (sexual tensions, destruction of camaraderie and morale, sexual distractions, 'sensitivity' issues, etc.) were made against the proposal for a co-ed military, and were rejected.
The left always works relentlessly toward their goals by increments. Women in the military first, now gays. What will be the next target? Because trust me, there will be a next frontier; some barrier they want to demolish and some standard and tradition they just have to trash. We already have non-citizens in the military. What next?
We could trace all this back to the whole affirmative action idea, too; if we choose or prefer people based on traits like race, then next comes gender and 'sexual orientation.'
I suppose there will be quotas for recruiting each type, with 'diversity' as always being the top priority.
I would think that in any case, patriotic Americans would not want to serve in this politically correct, ideologically-driven regime. However, do we want our military to be made up of various people who see the military as a place to make some kind of 'social statement' or to carry out some ideological war against tradition? Do we want our military to be made up of people who are joining only to get free education, training, or citizenship? That's something to think about.
Labels: Cultural Marxism, Diversity, Gramscianism, Homosexuality, Military, Political Correctness
0 comment Sunday, September 28, 2014 | admin
I came across this discussion at a traditional music forum which is frequented by many people from the UK.
English culture -- what is it?
If you read through the thread, (scrolll down the linked page), you will find many exasperating responses which illustrate vividly how far the leftist/globalist/multicult agenda has penetrated into people's thoughts and feelings about their own country and heritage. It ain't pretty.
I have to say, sadly, that if you posed a similar question among a group of American 'folkie' or trad music types, that the responses would be just as dismal. Still, I suppose there is a case to be made, however weak and politically correct, that America has no native culture, but is merely a patchwork of various immigrant cultures. I disagree vehemently, of course, but still there's no denying that for the last 150+ years, America has absorbed a lot of immigrants from various places, and that some melding of cultures has occurred. But the UK, or Great Britain to use an older name, has not been a magnet for exotic immigrants until the latter half of the 20th century. I am aware that various smaller waves of immigrants have come to England, but their effect on the overall way of life there was negligible, unlike the present wave of Third World interlopers.
The media, the government, and the educational establishment in the UK are much more dominated by hard-core leftists and multiculturalists than even our institutions, and they seem to have accomplished their aim of mostly obliterating the sense of a national identity and culture.
The original poster on the thread simply asked a question, and was greeted with an incredibly hostile and venomous group of responses. What a plague on Western society leftism and ''liberalism'' are. They have truly left our Western countries sick unto death with their pernicious and malevolent ideas, and we have to work to find an anti-venom for this societal toxin or it will be the end of us.
A sampling of the comments, for those who don't want to wade through a very long and obnoxious thread:
If you want to "know" about "English" Culture I suggest you join the BNP...
****
What might be marvellous is England as the first culture free nation. Done with our reformation, civil wars, slavery, industrial revolution, class division we free ourseles [sic] of the burden of culture for a voyage of new discovery without a backward glance.
Heady stuff that.
*******
"My prob with the whole kulture game is it assumes there are shared resonances which elicit a unified response"
I'd disagree with that. I think we should celebrate the diversity and eclectic nature of our culture and fight against the uniformity that is creeping in - especialy [sic] the Americanisation and the threat to our wonderful family high street shops and small food-producers posed by the big supermarkets and ludicrous EU regulations.''
A question: why is everybody ready to see the threat from ''Americanisation'' and the EU (which is indeed a threat) but unable to see the threat posed by mass immigration and cultural Marxism? They have been schooled to believe that 'fascism and racism' are the only threats.
Back to the comments - beginning with a post by what seems to be a third-world immigrant:
Is it only English people who can comment on what English Culture is? I should think that, for people living in a sizeable proportion of the globe, "English Culture" is a mess of lies with which Public Schoolboy colonizers tried to replace numerous indigenous cultures.
[posted by a 'Guest with no English connexion']
Followed by a raving multicultist:
"Okay, let's put this in some sort or rational context. There is a vast difference in being interested in one's heritage and wanting to select through rose-tinted spectacles a romantic image of a Merrie Englande. The critical word here is 'select'!
I repeat my first post. In answer to the question the simplest and most accurate response is DIVERSE. In other words every bit of England (and everywhere else) has its own culture that is unique to that area, and the influences on those cultures are manifold and frequently not English in origin. For god's sake let's celebrate the diversity!
And a programmed lefty:
''The BNP are such a load of congenital idiots they can't even get the flag right. If it's British it should be the Union Flag and not the English Flag.
The whole lot are complete arseholes and - yes - I want my flag back please, and I want it to be looked on as a proud symbol for ALL who live in England.
Next, a dedicated multiculturalist:
"English culture as opposed to what other culture?
Do you mean something intrinsically English that doesn't occur anywhere else? You won't find anything, neither will you in any other culture.''
The original poster makes a valiant effort to counter the responses she gets, which are mostly hostile to her personally and to her question. And as you can see, the BNP are special targets of opprobrium. The leftists have done a bang-up job of marginalizing and (to use an obnoxious leftist word) 'demonizing" the BNP, and any kind of national feeling at all.
Sadly, though, she yields to the race-baiting and protests more than once that she is ''not a racist'' and that she, too, loves diversity. Bad mistake. Never give in to their game and never give any credibility to their name-calling and their 'racism' nonsense. That's letting them define the terms and create the rules of the game. They must be somehow put on the defensive. But why are we on our side so lost when it comes to doing this? Too often even the more politically incorrect at some point give in to PC and begin to protest that they are not ''racist'' or ''haters.'' Or worse, they start sniping at others farther to the right as a way of showing that they are not ''fascists'' or ''racists." This needs to stop.
There are a couple of common-sense responses that at least defend the existence of an 'English culture' which is identifiable. One such post seems to come from an American:
I think there is a definitive English folk music culture. I think this maybe the point of this
discussion. Certainly you could define the North Country Border rural music as "English" or areas such as Cornwall. There is an English ballad singing style. A.L. Lloyd or Ewan McColl has popularized it. Louis Killen as well. There seems to be a fiddling style that's unique to England.
I think Elizabethan Pro-Musica defines a tradition of Campion and Dowland which is
definitively English.
There is a Cockney music culture which as analogous to the city music halls of early America such as early Broadway or Second Avenue.
As in any country, there are regional styles that are a composite of the overall "culture".
As an outsider, I find that an English culture tends to be more subdued than the American one which is more bombastic like the German culture. These are gross generalizations, of course.
In the personalities on the stage, eccentricities of comics such as Monty Python,
the Goon Show, Spike Milligan, and even America's Danny Kaye seem to define a different emphasis on humor which tend toward the oddness of the characters. I think that English humor is different than in America which has more of a wise-cracking approach. The English appreciate the role of the clown in comedy. It's no accident that Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin instituted a brand of humor that is uniquely English in my opinion. I find the English Brit-coms equally reflective of British humor unlike the stuff from Stateside.
Ralph Vaughan Williams could not have originated in America, I believe. His music has
a distinctly English character as does Percy Grainger.
The tunes of Henry the Eighth typify an English musical approach. "Pastime with Good Company" could not have been written anywhere in the world except England.
Then there's the poets.
I think a strong case can be made for English culture citing these examples for a start.''
To me this is beyond obvious, and it is almost spooky how the British posters are so angry and aggressive in denying their own culture exists.
This behavior is groupthink at its most blatant, and is evidence of brainwashing. It really goes against all common-sense expectations for people to respond with hostility to the idea that their own people have a culture, that their ancestors created a distinct way of life. For people en masse to deny such things is just bizarre. It is not natural.
And lest anybody think I am criticizing British people too much, I can say we have more than our share of such brainwashed zombies in our country, sadly. If I am critical of the British in this context, it's only because I feel a strong affinity to them, based on common ancestry and history. All of us in America, even those who have no actual British ancestry, have partaken of a culture which has its origins in Great Britain, most specifically in England, so in a sense we are all a part of the extended family. So all of us should feel some distress over what is happening to Britain and to our cousins there, even though they seem not to want to own us as their kin.
I realize the commenters at that forum may be atypical; the 'folkies' I have known here and on the other side of the Atlantic are often, for some reason, rabid leftists. I posed a question before about why this is true, and I can't explain it fully. It makes no sense, on the face of it, to claim to love the traditional music of your people and country, and to care enough about preserving old songs, dances, and stories if you think that your country has in fact 'no culture of its own'. But leftists and liberals, it seems, are adept at holding many contradictory and nonsensical ideas at the same time.
The original poster is accused repeatedly of promoting a nostalgic view of 'Merrie England', which these cynics say never existed, or perhaps never should have existed. Why are leftists so cynical and hateful when it comes to the past? They seem to have declared all-out war on the past, and on memory, as I've said before. I am sometimes accused too of invoking an America that 'never was', a glamor-lensed view of old America. I realize the past is gone, and that no era or place is ever perfect. But by invoking the old America, I am not simply wallowing in teary nostalgia, but trying to awaken amnesiacs and try to bring them to their senses. Suppose an individual has amnesia (maybe it does happen outside movies sometimes) and has no recollection of who he is, where he comes from, where he belongs, and what he has accomplished? Our memory is a big part of who we are from moment to moment. Our memories define us to a great extent. We can't willfully forego our memories, erase our history, and still fully function as we are meant to be. So it is important to evoke the past in a warped world which denies and distorts that past.
I've quoted the following passage since the earliest days of this blog:
"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.
Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. " - Milan Hubl, quoted by Milan Kundera in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'
English culture -- what is it?
If you read through the thread, (scrolll down the linked page), you will find many exasperating responses which illustrate vividly how far the leftist/globalist/multicult agenda has penetrated into people's thoughts and feelings about their own country and heritage. It ain't pretty.
I have to say, sadly, that if you posed a similar question among a group of American 'folkie' or trad music types, that the responses would be just as dismal. Still, I suppose there is a case to be made, however weak and politically correct, that America has no native culture, but is merely a patchwork of various immigrant cultures. I disagree vehemently, of course, but still there's no denying that for the last 150+ years, America has absorbed a lot of immigrants from various places, and that some melding of cultures has occurred. But the UK, or Great Britain to use an older name, has not been a magnet for exotic immigrants until the latter half of the 20th century. I am aware that various smaller waves of immigrants have come to England, but their effect on the overall way of life there was negligible, unlike the present wave of Third World interlopers.
The media, the government, and the educational establishment in the UK are much more dominated by hard-core leftists and multiculturalists than even our institutions, and they seem to have accomplished their aim of mostly obliterating the sense of a national identity and culture.
The original poster on the thread simply asked a question, and was greeted with an incredibly hostile and venomous group of responses. What a plague on Western society leftism and ''liberalism'' are. They have truly left our Western countries sick unto death with their pernicious and malevolent ideas, and we have to work to find an anti-venom for this societal toxin or it will be the end of us.
A sampling of the comments, for those who don't want to wade through a very long and obnoxious thread:
If you want to "know" about "English" Culture I suggest you join the BNP...
****
What might be marvellous is England as the first culture free nation. Done with our reformation, civil wars, slavery, industrial revolution, class division we free ourseles [sic] of the burden of culture for a voyage of new discovery without a backward glance.
Heady stuff that.
*******
"My prob with the whole kulture game is it assumes there are shared resonances which elicit a unified response"
I'd disagree with that. I think we should celebrate the diversity and eclectic nature of our culture and fight against the uniformity that is creeping in - especialy [sic] the Americanisation and the threat to our wonderful family high street shops and small food-producers posed by the big supermarkets and ludicrous EU regulations.''
A question: why is everybody ready to see the threat from ''Americanisation'' and the EU (which is indeed a threat) but unable to see the threat posed by mass immigration and cultural Marxism? They have been schooled to believe that 'fascism and racism' are the only threats.
Back to the comments - beginning with a post by what seems to be a third-world immigrant:
Is it only English people who can comment on what English Culture is? I should think that, for people living in a sizeable proportion of the globe, "English Culture" is a mess of lies with which Public Schoolboy colonizers tried to replace numerous indigenous cultures.
[posted by a 'Guest with no English connexion']
Followed by a raving multicultist:
"Okay, let's put this in some sort or rational context. There is a vast difference in being interested in one's heritage and wanting to select through rose-tinted spectacles a romantic image of a Merrie Englande. The critical word here is 'select'!
I repeat my first post. In answer to the question the simplest and most accurate response is DIVERSE. In other words every bit of England (and everywhere else) has its own culture that is unique to that area, and the influences on those cultures are manifold and frequently not English in origin. For god's sake let's celebrate the diversity!
And a programmed lefty:
''The BNP are such a load of congenital idiots they can't even get the flag right. If it's British it should be the Union Flag and not the English Flag.
The whole lot are complete arseholes and - yes - I want my flag back please, and I want it to be looked on as a proud symbol for ALL who live in England.
Next, a dedicated multiculturalist:
"English culture as opposed to what other culture?
Do you mean something intrinsically English that doesn't occur anywhere else? You won't find anything, neither will you in any other culture.''
The original poster makes a valiant effort to counter the responses she gets, which are mostly hostile to her personally and to her question. And as you can see, the BNP are special targets of opprobrium. The leftists have done a bang-up job of marginalizing and (to use an obnoxious leftist word) 'demonizing" the BNP, and any kind of national feeling at all.
Sadly, though, she yields to the race-baiting and protests more than once that she is ''not a racist'' and that she, too, loves diversity. Bad mistake. Never give in to their game and never give any credibility to their name-calling and their 'racism' nonsense. That's letting them define the terms and create the rules of the game. They must be somehow put on the defensive. But why are we on our side so lost when it comes to doing this? Too often even the more politically incorrect at some point give in to PC and begin to protest that they are not ''racist'' or ''haters.'' Or worse, they start sniping at others farther to the right as a way of showing that they are not ''fascists'' or ''racists." This needs to stop.
There are a couple of common-sense responses that at least defend the existence of an 'English culture' which is identifiable. One such post seems to come from an American:
I think there is a definitive English folk music culture. I think this maybe the point of this
discussion. Certainly you could define the North Country Border rural music as "English" or areas such as Cornwall. There is an English ballad singing style. A.L. Lloyd or Ewan McColl has popularized it. Louis Killen as well. There seems to be a fiddling style that's unique to England.
I think Elizabethan Pro-Musica defines a tradition of Campion and Dowland which is
definitively English.
There is a Cockney music culture which as analogous to the city music halls of early America such as early Broadway or Second Avenue.
As in any country, there are regional styles that are a composite of the overall "culture".
As an outsider, I find that an English culture tends to be more subdued than the American one which is more bombastic like the German culture. These are gross generalizations, of course.
In the personalities on the stage, eccentricities of comics such as Monty Python,
the Goon Show, Spike Milligan, and even America's Danny Kaye seem to define a different emphasis on humor which tend toward the oddness of the characters. I think that English humor is different than in America which has more of a wise-cracking approach. The English appreciate the role of the clown in comedy. It's no accident that Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin instituted a brand of humor that is uniquely English in my opinion. I find the English Brit-coms equally reflective of British humor unlike the stuff from Stateside.
Ralph Vaughan Williams could not have originated in America, I believe. His music has
a distinctly English character as does Percy Grainger.
The tunes of Henry the Eighth typify an English musical approach. "Pastime with Good Company" could not have been written anywhere in the world except England.
Then there's the poets.
I think a strong case can be made for English culture citing these examples for a start.''
To me this is beyond obvious, and it is almost spooky how the British posters are so angry and aggressive in denying their own culture exists.
This behavior is groupthink at its most blatant, and is evidence of brainwashing. It really goes against all common-sense expectations for people to respond with hostility to the idea that their own people have a culture, that their ancestors created a distinct way of life. For people en masse to deny such things is just bizarre. It is not natural.
And lest anybody think I am criticizing British people too much, I can say we have more than our share of such brainwashed zombies in our country, sadly. If I am critical of the British in this context, it's only because I feel a strong affinity to them, based on common ancestry and history. All of us in America, even those who have no actual British ancestry, have partaken of a culture which has its origins in Great Britain, most specifically in England, so in a sense we are all a part of the extended family. So all of us should feel some distress over what is happening to Britain and to our cousins there, even though they seem not to want to own us as their kin.
I realize the commenters at that forum may be atypical; the 'folkies' I have known here and on the other side of the Atlantic are often, for some reason, rabid leftists. I posed a question before about why this is true, and I can't explain it fully. It makes no sense, on the face of it, to claim to love the traditional music of your people and country, and to care enough about preserving old songs, dances, and stories if you think that your country has in fact 'no culture of its own'. But leftists and liberals, it seems, are adept at holding many contradictory and nonsensical ideas at the same time.
The original poster is accused repeatedly of promoting a nostalgic view of 'Merrie England', which these cynics say never existed, or perhaps never should have existed. Why are leftists so cynical and hateful when it comes to the past? They seem to have declared all-out war on the past, and on memory, as I've said before. I am sometimes accused too of invoking an America that 'never was', a glamor-lensed view of old America. I realize the past is gone, and that no era or place is ever perfect. But by invoking the old America, I am not simply wallowing in teary nostalgia, but trying to awaken amnesiacs and try to bring them to their senses. Suppose an individual has amnesia (maybe it does happen outside movies sometimes) and has no recollection of who he is, where he comes from, where he belongs, and what he has accomplished? Our memory is a big part of who we are from moment to moment. Our memories define us to a great extent. We can't willfully forego our memories, erase our history, and still fully function as we are meant to be. So it is important to evoke the past in a warped world which denies and distorts that past.
I've quoted the following passage since the earliest days of this blog:
"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.
Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. " - Milan Hubl, quoted by Milan Kundera in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'
Labels: British Culture, Cultural Marxism, English Culture, Folkways, Gramscianism, Multiculturalism, National Identity, National Memory, Propaganda, Traditional Music
0 comment Sunday, September 21, 2014 | admin
The subject of multiculturalism and how it developed has come up many times on this blog. One idea that has been mentioned on discussion threads occasionally is the idea that multiculturalism and what has since become 'anti-racism' were very much a product of the Cold War era in American history. I agree with this assessment. The Cold War was one factor among a number of factors, but it was a substantial one, I think, in the development of what became the Civil Rights revolution. We can hear hints of this in John F. Kennedy's "Civil Rights Address" of 1963:
...this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality.''
It may be that other motives were at work here; of course there were do-gooders and utopian leftists as well as cynical, power-mad leftists at the center of this movement, but on the part of our government I can well believe that much of the rhetoric, such as that employed by JFK, was motivated by the fact that these racial incidents amounted to bad PR for America in the Cold War era.
At that time, the Cold War was at its height. Now, I am in no way dismissing the Communist threat, or the 'Soviet threat' although the latter was probably inflated. But we were obsessed with competing with ''the Russians" back then. I remember well how the news media constantly fretted about the Soviet Union. Newspapers often reported what the Russian ''news" media, such as Pravda and Izvestia were saying about America. We heard how they hated our popular culture, such as our decadent music like jazz and rock 'n roll, and our Hollywood movies, which they saw as examples of 'capitalist decadence.' That, of course, was the old left, which was quite prudish, even more so than the most conservative Christian sects. The postmodern left in the West embraces decadence enthusiastically, and in fact makes a virtue of it.
We read of how the Soviets banned much of our music and entertainment, and how they promoted a very negative view of the United States as a corrupt, unjust nation which let the poor starve and which denied blacks and other minorities their 'equal rights.'
We read many news reports out of the Soviet Union, describing how they brought many African students to Moscow to study at the university, and this was seen as a triumph of the Soviets' greater egalitarianism. We read of how some blacks from America, such as Paul Robeson, defected to the Soviet Union and found it to be a utopia, much superior to our country because the Soviets were 'colorblind.'
The Soviets courted emerging Third World countries -- which were then gaining their independence from the European colonial powers. The United States and the Soviets were in a worldwide competition to form alliances. We courted certain countries, and the Soviets had their sphere of influence. Cuba was a big crisis spot after the Revolution in which the Communist Fidel Castro seized power, and Cuba, being a ''multiracial'' nation suddenly became very important to us.
Obviously if these 'developing' nations, watching from afar, saw apparent injustices or 'brutality' towards blacks in our country, they would become hostile to us, and that wouldn't do, in a world which was being divided into two camps, Communist and 'free.'
It seemed to be all-important to our government to present a more egalitarian face to the world, so as to improve our image. We were in competition with the Communists, who claimed to have no color, race, or class barriers. So we decided, it seems, to compete with them on their terms, and to try to outdo them in being colorblind and equality-obsessed.
Another factor, with the aforementioned Cubans, was the presence of many Cuban refugees fleeing the Castro regime. They became an ethnic bloc who were to be pandered to, just as later 'refugees' from other Communist countries were. This put us a few steps farther down the multicultural road.
With the Cubans, the whole issue of bilingualism and the development of enclaves presaged the multicultural project that developed in the ensuing decades. And by the late 1960s, almost all immigration was from nonwhite countries, so that multiculturalism became a necessity, it seemed, as an alternative to pretending to assimilate unmanageable numbers of unassimilable peoples.
But our obsession with the Soviet Union as our greatest rival and threat led us to adopting the ill-omened policy of making ourselves over in the egalitarian image, with the Soviet Union as an exemplar for us. If they were 'colorblind' we had to be more so; if they welcomed Africans and other nonwhites, we had to outdo them so as to show how much better we were.
Decades later, we've become like a caricature of the old Soviet bloc countries in our zeal for 'political correctness' and re-education (alias ''sensitivity training"). Some years ago, Balint Vazsonyi, a Hungarian immigrant who became a patriotic naturalized American, warned us of how far we were straying down the same path as his former country in its Communist days. I am sure, were he alive today, he would be dismayed to see how much things have deteriorated even in the few years since his death.
The same pattern seems to be playing out in the West as a whole; everybody in Europe and in all of former Christendom has decided to embrace the extreme egalitarianism and multiculturalism. Of course it all fits very nicely with the drive towards a 'global world.' Funny how that worked out.
There is no doubt that our obsession with the Soviet Union, and our frenzied competition with them, was a bigger factor than most people acknowledge in the development of our present racially-obsessed system.
...this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality.''
It may be that other motives were at work here; of course there were do-gooders and utopian leftists as well as cynical, power-mad leftists at the center of this movement, but on the part of our government I can well believe that much of the rhetoric, such as that employed by JFK, was motivated by the fact that these racial incidents amounted to bad PR for America in the Cold War era.
At that time, the Cold War was at its height. Now, I am in no way dismissing the Communist threat, or the 'Soviet threat' although the latter was probably inflated. But we were obsessed with competing with ''the Russians" back then. I remember well how the news media constantly fretted about the Soviet Union. Newspapers often reported what the Russian ''news" media, such as Pravda and Izvestia were saying about America. We heard how they hated our popular culture, such as our decadent music like jazz and rock 'n roll, and our Hollywood movies, which they saw as examples of 'capitalist decadence.' That, of course, was the old left, which was quite prudish, even more so than the most conservative Christian sects. The postmodern left in the West embraces decadence enthusiastically, and in fact makes a virtue of it.
We read of how the Soviets banned much of our music and entertainment, and how they promoted a very negative view of the United States as a corrupt, unjust nation which let the poor starve and which denied blacks and other minorities their 'equal rights.'
We read many news reports out of the Soviet Union, describing how they brought many African students to Moscow to study at the university, and this was seen as a triumph of the Soviets' greater egalitarianism. We read of how some blacks from America, such as Paul Robeson, defected to the Soviet Union and found it to be a utopia, much superior to our country because the Soviets were 'colorblind.'
The Soviets courted emerging Third World countries -- which were then gaining their independence from the European colonial powers. The United States and the Soviets were in a worldwide competition to form alliances. We courted certain countries, and the Soviets had their sphere of influence. Cuba was a big crisis spot after the Revolution in which the Communist Fidel Castro seized power, and Cuba, being a ''multiracial'' nation suddenly became very important to us.
Obviously if these 'developing' nations, watching from afar, saw apparent injustices or 'brutality' towards blacks in our country, they would become hostile to us, and that wouldn't do, in a world which was being divided into two camps, Communist and 'free.'
It seemed to be all-important to our government to present a more egalitarian face to the world, so as to improve our image. We were in competition with the Communists, who claimed to have no color, race, or class barriers. So we decided, it seems, to compete with them on their terms, and to try to outdo them in being colorblind and equality-obsessed.
Another factor, with the aforementioned Cubans, was the presence of many Cuban refugees fleeing the Castro regime. They became an ethnic bloc who were to be pandered to, just as later 'refugees' from other Communist countries were. This put us a few steps farther down the multicultural road.
With the Cubans, the whole issue of bilingualism and the development of enclaves presaged the multicultural project that developed in the ensuing decades. And by the late 1960s, almost all immigration was from nonwhite countries, so that multiculturalism became a necessity, it seemed, as an alternative to pretending to assimilate unmanageable numbers of unassimilable peoples.
But our obsession with the Soviet Union as our greatest rival and threat led us to adopting the ill-omened policy of making ourselves over in the egalitarian image, with the Soviet Union as an exemplar for us. If they were 'colorblind' we had to be more so; if they welcomed Africans and other nonwhites, we had to outdo them so as to show how much better we were.
Decades later, we've become like a caricature of the old Soviet bloc countries in our zeal for 'political correctness' and re-education (alias ''sensitivity training"). Some years ago, Balint Vazsonyi, a Hungarian immigrant who became a patriotic naturalized American, warned us of how far we were straying down the same path as his former country in its Communist days. I am sure, were he alive today, he would be dismayed to see how much things have deteriorated even in the few years since his death.
The same pattern seems to be playing out in the West as a whole; everybody in Europe and in all of former Christendom has decided to embrace the extreme egalitarianism and multiculturalism. Of course it all fits very nicely with the drive towards a 'global world.' Funny how that worked out.
There is no doubt that our obsession with the Soviet Union, and our frenzied competition with them, was a bigger factor than most people acknowledge in the development of our present racially-obsessed system.
Labels: American History, Cultural Marxism, Gramscianism, Leftism, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Racial Division