Another Shining Illustration of Left-Wing, Anti-Racist "Tolerance"

Readers of AltRight are typically well aware of the sham nature of the Left's commitment to "tolerance," "diversity," and all their other favorite buzzwords. But the reaction of the One People's Project, a kind of left-wing parody, to the news of Elizabeth Wright's passing really drives home the point of what the cultural Marxist Left is really about. Like their Stalinist forbears, no dissent or genuine independence of thought is permitted, not even from those on whose behalf they claim to speak, whether workers or blacks. Here's some "anti-racist tolerance" for you:

ROT IN HELL!

ELIZABETH WRIGHT
CALLING HER A 'SELLOUT' WOULD BE CHARITABLE
d. 2011
How bad was Elizabeth Wright? She was a black woman, and we heard of her death via American Renaissance, complete with tribute to her written by Jared Taylor! Wright was one of those utterly despicable black conservatives that didn't just cover for white racism, she was a total apologist for white supremacists. In 1985, she started publishing the newsletter Issues & Views, and although she had this mantra that it "was derived from the wisdom of earlier generations of American blacks, like Booker T. Washington, who attempted to steer their people towards greater economic self-reliance," but to her that meant being concilitory and a segregationalist in many respects. She was no fan of multiculturalism, but that didn't stop her from defending neo-Confederacy. She was also a supporter of Holocaust deniers David Irving and Ernst Zundel while they were in jail, railed against the Civil Rights Act as "forced intergration", supported the stunt being promoted by white supremacists that the Republican Party focus only on reaching out to white voters and not anyone else and also had time to cry about the American Renaissance Conference being shut down in Charlotte, NC this year (we didn't even know she had written about that until we started writing this). Elizabeth Wright lived in New York City, which is probably why she made herself such a shut in. There were never many pictures of her, and DLJ did meet her once at a Black Conservative conference in 1995 in Washington DC, the week of the OJ Verdict (and a week before the Million Man March), and that's just as well. As we write this, the news has spread, but only to other white supremacist blogs. Seriously, if your legacy as a person of color has people who downright despise black people mourning your death as a collegue, it is probably pretty wise to hide your face. This woman will not be missed.

Wow. Robert Moore, Joey Vento and now Elizabeth Wright. Three Rot in Hells in one week. Pop the champagne and keep 'em comin'! The sooner these scumbags shuffle off this mortal coil, the better for the rest of us!

Are the Smurfs crypto-fascists?

Surely, only a Western academic leftist could come up with something as stupid as this. This is reminiscent of when the late televangelist yahoo Rev. Jerry Falwell suggested the Teletubbies were really just a bunch of closeted homos working subversively to turn good Christian children into fudge-packers. Totalitarian humanism is the fundamentalist theocracy of our era. Burn the universities!

Are the Smurfs crypto-fascists?

Editor's Note: The following article comes from Worldcrunch, an innovative, new global news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. This article was originally published in Le Nouvel Observateur.

By Tristan Berteloot, Worldcrunch

The stars of an upcoming summer blockbuster, the world-famous Smurfs are once again the talk of the town – though not necessarily for all the right reasons.

Known as Schtroumph in the original French, Puffi in Italian, Pitufos in Spanish, Stroumfakia in Greek, Kumafu in Japanese and Schlümpfe across the Rhine (since “schtroumpf” means “sock” in German), the little blue imps have been going strong for more than half a century, entertaining children the world over in comic books, animated cartoons and feature films.

More recently, however, the Smurfs have also caught the attention of a controversial French academic who says there may be more than meets the eye when it comes to the pint-sized characters. Hidden behind their charming veneer are some pretty dark undertones, argues Antoine Buéno, whose work “Le Petit Livre Bleu” (The Little Blue Book) accuses the Smurfs of being maybe just a bit fascist.

Buéno, who is both a senior lecturer at SciencePo University in Paris and a novelist, never set out to destroy the magical energy that emanates from these blue-colored characters. Nevertheless, he analyzes their society and ideology – Smurfology – through an unforgiving political lens.

“Le Petit Livre Bleu” focuses specifically on the man behind the cryptic cartoons, original Smurf author Pierre Culliford, aka Peyo. Whether he meant it or not, Culliford endowed his magical little creatures with some Stalinist, racist and anti-Semitic leanings, argues Buéno.

Read: Here comes the McBaguette.

Buéno first questioned the Smurfs' biological nature and sexuality: by the way, why is there only one Smurfette? Then, he tried to show that Smurf society is the archetype of a totalitarian utopia marked by Stalinism and Nazism.

Peyo came up with the word “Smurf” while dining in 1958 with his friend André Franquin. Peyo reportedly asked Franquin: “could you pass me the Smurf?” He meant to say “could you pass me the salt?” The rest is cartoon history.

The spirit of an era

Born in 1928 in Brussels, Peyo lived in German-occupied Belgium. As an adult, he did not look back fondly on that time in history. Nonetheless, Buéno thinks that “a piece of work can convey an imagery that the author himself does not support. Thus, the Smurfs seem to reflect more the spirit of an era than Peyo's political leanings.”

The Smurfs are self-sufficient. Smurf society is collectivist and interventionist. Its only leader, Papa Smurf, is all-powerful. And, like Stalin, his favorite color is red.

They all eat at the canteen and are all ridiculously puritan. In “The Black Smurfs” album, racism is obvious: blood purity becomes something vital and the dark brown Smurf is referred to as "the ugly one." In another album called “Smurfette,” Buéno notes how the Aryan blond is idealized.

The Smurfs are also united against a sworn enemy called Gargamel, a large-nosed, black-haired possibly anti-Semitic caricature, and his cat Azrael.

Smurf lovers have been quick to challenge Buéno’s “Little Blue Book,” saying his arguments are neither serious nor credible. “Generally speaking I’ve gotten two types of knee-jerk reactions: people saying that I’m either an idiot, or a crook,” says Buéno’s.

“But my analysis isn’t just coming out of nowhere,” he goes on to say. “People from other institutions have been looking at [the Smurfs] before me. People in the United States at one point suspected Peyo’s Smurf albums of being socialist propaganda, going so far as to say the word Smurf was actually an acronym for ‘Small Men Under Red Forces.’”

After Peyo died in 1992, his son, Thierry Culliford, continued to draw the Smurfs. Culliford's albums offered a much more educational approach. According to Buéno, that explains why “the Smurfs' village becomes more explicitly a metaphor for reality.”

The Smurfs make their next big appearance this summer in a 3D live-action movie directed by Raja Gosnell. The blue-colored creatures will besiege New York City for the occasion.

But before the movie is released, the Lombard Editions will publish a 29th album called “The Smurfs and the Golden Tree,” and in November, “the Smurf Encyclopedia”.

A Polemical Engagement with the Left

Matthew Lyons is a leftist writer of  the "watchdog" variety and has in the past worked as a co-author with Chip Berlet. He currently operates a blog called "Three Way Fight" which previously featured a critique of AlternativeRight.Com from a hard left perspective. More recently, Lyons published an extensive critique of the ideas and work of yours truly on the socialist New Politics website. I have since produced a three part response. See Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Lyons has posted a very brief reply to my reply. Readers of AltRight may find the exchange interesting or at least amusing.

Videos Worth Watching

Every year, Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe hosts a conference of his Property and Freedom Society at the Hotel Karia Princess in Bodrum, Turkey, which happens to be owned by his wife. Richard was one of the speakers at last year's conference and has written about his experiences there and about Hoppe, his organization, and ideas. Every year Sean Gabb of the U.K.-based Libertarian Alliance diligently films the events of the PFS conference and makes the footage available online. This year was no exception and Sean's video record of the 2011 conference can be viewed here.

I would invite readers of AltRight who are understandably turned off by libertarianism and associate it with globalist, plutocratic, or open borders nonsense to check out the writings of Dr. Hoppe and Dr. Gabb. In the tradition of Nietzsche, Schmitt, or Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Hoppe ranks alonside Alain De Benoist as one of the the fiercest contemporary critics of modern liberal democracy, albeit from a different theoretical premise. I wrote a review of Hoppe's landmark work on the democracy question some years ago which is still available online. Meanwhile, Sean Gabb has emerged as one of the U.K.'s leading critics of Political Correctness and has produced a highly valuable book on the subject which he distributes online for free. It might be said that Sean is for England what Paul Gottfried is for this side of the Atlantic. Suffice to say that Sean Gabb and Hans Hoppe are not your garden-variety U.S.-style libertarians obsessed with conspiracy theories, drugs, and science fiction novels. Indeed, I've always thought that the libertarian movement from outside the United States is of much higher quality than what we Yanks have on our side of the pond, probably due to its smaller size. Quantity often comes at the cost of quality. The Property and Freedom Society and the Libertarian Alliance are the leading lights of non-U.S. based libertarianism and, in my opinion, two of the very best libertarian groups anywhere in the world.

Meanwhile, I would particularly recommend this video of Dr. Gottfried's talk at this year's PFS gathering. What I find personally interesting about Professor Gottfried is that while he originates from the traditional conservative, Buckleyite Right and I came from the Chomskyite Left, we have reached a virtually identical analysis and conclusion concerning the state of our civilization and what the most viable solution to the crisis might be. For those who find Gottfried's speech at PFS interesting, I would also like to suggest this talk given last year by my National-Anarchist colleague Welf Herfurth, a native of Germany who was an activist in German far Right politics in the 1980s and who now resides in Australia. Welf has likewise come to a position not dissimilar to that of Paul Gottfried and myself.

pfs-2011 Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Politics, Money and Banking. Everything You Need to Know in 30 Minutes from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

The Trump Card

Tracy Morgan has declined to take my advice and fight his totalitarian-minded persecutors, and like a post-modern day Winston Smith, he appears perfectly content to declare his unabashed love for Big Gay Brother.

This is disappointing, but not at all unexpected. The desire to conform seems to run deep, especially among those who have become rich, famous, and successful. Once you’ve ascended to the mountaintop of such glorious adulation, it’s apparently hard to imagine doing without all the perks you’ve acquired in the process.

So Tracy has returned to Nashville, the scene of last week’s verbal transgressions, and put on his best Stepin Fetchit routine for the scowlingly butch and prissily effeminate bullies of GLAAD, as well as their legions of sodomic minions and “straight, but not narrow” fellow travelers. The grotesque absurdity of the entire spectacle can hardly be overstated; the dehumanizing degradation which suffuses Morgan’s Nashville repentance tour is as rank as the wicked atmosphere which no doubt permeated Tennessee slave markets during the antebellum era. Morgan is getting “owned” in the very region of the country where his ancestors were bought and sold years ago; only the masters, and the terms of ownership, have changed.

And who actually thinks Morgan has had a sincere change of heart in the few days between his rhetorical malefactions and his current fawning pleas for forgiveness? Those present for his willing self-emasculation surely know that, in his heart of hearts, Morgan must still feel the same disgust for homosexuality that he ever did before. Just the same, the reps of GLAAD must savor the power of knowing they can break a man’s will and spirit and shred his dignity at a moment’s notice; they are surely smiling all the while like cruel slavemasters, giddily anticipating the next occasion to crack their whips across the backs of all those uppity homophobes who still dare to resist their rule.

*

* * * 

*

There are a couple of observations that it may be useful to make at this point, putting the entire sordid affaire d’Morgan in social context.

The first is this: Morgan’s initial “rant,” as it was called (whenever the media doesn’t like what someone says, they disingenuously label it a “rant”), was a fairly typical expression of the mindset of the American Black community in general. Most blacks aren’t liberal in any sense of the word. They vote Democrat in droves only for reasons of presumed self-interest, because they see it as tribally useful; only Whites of a SWPL-bent vote Democrat as part of an overall desire to feel good about themselves, in smitten self-congratulation over their supposed enlightened sense of “tolerance.” Non-Whites, Blacks included, don’t tend to fawn before the “other,” nor are they in the least interested in righting any supposed historical wrongs; that is exclusive SWPL territory. They are eagerly ethnocentric in mindset, and thoroughly culturally conservative in temperament.

I have a couple of anecdotal tales which help give credence to this point:  

1. The other day I was listening to NPR (yeah, I know; give me a break…I am White, after all), to that most SWPL of all game shows, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. The show regularly features a group of hip and witty guests weighing in on current issues; it is a kind of more cerebral version of Hollywood Squares or The Match Game. The time I tuned in, one of the guests had a conspicuously Negroid voice, which was unusual. This fellow had a harder time chiming in with clever rejoinders and repartee; I could tell he felt a bit out of place, an odd man out; I frankly felt a bit sorry for him. But when the host of the show shared a ridiculous story about an animal-rights group deciding that pets should hereafter be labeled “animal companions,” this man suddenly felt compelled to speak up. “I want my country back!” he declared vigorously, bristling with outrage over the priggish silliness of political correctness. Most studio audiences would have roared with applause at this sentiment, but the SWPLs in the studio audience only sat awkwardly; such populist, anti-liberal elitist rhetoric clearly didn’t sit well with them, even as expressed by the token Negro in their midst.
2. Another moment of clarity struck me when I recently witnessed a black comedian (someone considerably less famous than Tracy Morgan) go on an extended tear against all those fools who oppose corporal punishment, or as he called it, giving kids a good “whoopin’.” This time, the audience--being a more representative cross-section of America than the public radio snobs cited in the previous example--went readily along with him, sharing the scorn he heaped on the pie-in-the-sky notion that children can be “reasoned” into proper behavior.

Both of these instances highlight the underlying reality of Black American culture, one I think most AltRight readers can admire; in spite of the obvious problems which plague and bedevil the Black community today, the bulk of Blacks seem to have no sympathy with the mamby-pamby, scoldy, schoolmarm-like atmosphere of effete, contemporary collegiate liberal-leftism. Most Blacks, in fact, are strongly religious, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-feminist, and pro-capital/corporal punishment. These views, for better or for worse on their own merits, are certainly signs of healthy defiance against the increasingly oppressive Zeitgeist which weighs down upon us all. That is to say, unlike Tracy Morgan, most Blacks today refuse to be slaves to the cultural commissars.

But another, more illuminating note might be sounded with regard to the significance of Morgan’s plight when we consider the hierarchy, if you will, of thought-criminality in the contemporary world. For there is clearly and unmistakably a pecking order which has emerged as far as persona-non-grata-ship is assigned to those who make the mistake of “ranting,” that is, expressing a negative opinion about a protected group.

The lowest of the low are, of course, straight White, Gentile males. Nothing could possibly rehabilitate the career of Mel Gibson, to cite the most conspicuous example. John Rocker, a Southern White male, took more grief than most serial killers ever have when he spoke his views regarding New York’s ethnic and sexual diversity a few years ago. Nor does being a Jew necessarily work in your favor, as raunchy comedian Andrew Dice Clay discovered when his act ran afoul of angry and powerful interest group agitators back in the '90s.

If straight Whites are the fairest of fair game, however, it is clear now that straight Blacks aren’t safe either, at least not when they insult gays. Blacks are prized highly by the liberal left for their presumed “victim” status, but not to the extent that homosexuals are; the love that at one time dared not speak its name (and now can’t seem to stop shouting it hysterically) seems to trump a high melanin count for immediate assessment of righteousness in the trendy-left multicult paradigm. A prominent homo who made pointed remarks about various negative Negroidal attributes would surely get off easier than Tracy Morgan has for speaking ill of the queers.

On the other hand, even being a fabulously flamboyant flamer has its limits. Just think of poor John Galliano’s ordeal earlier this year. Even the cred of being a famous and totally gay fashion designer was of no help to him, when, in a drunken snit during a heated verbal altercation, he shouted that he loved Hitler and told Jewish patrons of a restaurant that they ought to be gassed. No quarter has been shown for Galliano since this incident; he has been fired from his job, prosecuted for hate speech, and pelted with merciless scorn and invective.

What does this tell us? That being from a favored group is of no help if you make a sarcastic, flippant or tasteless comment about either of the two H’s: that is, Hitler and the Holocaust. It is here that we finally reach the outer edges of that perilous region known as “too far.” That this should be the spot where the forbidden meets the truly verboten should indeed give us pause.

STIHIE: The Fed Goes Gay

This particular controversy, which is ironically transpiring in the former capital of the Confederacy, may well symbolize the present state of Western Civilization as much as anything fostered by the forces of PC to date. A writer of absurdist fiction who wished to illustrate the madhouse that modern society has become would have a hard time thinking up something this good. The piously politically correct folks at the Federal Reserve may have destroyed the economy, but at least they are inclusive. Un-effing-believable.

The Richmond Federal Reserve Bank's attempt to show inclusiveness in the workplace by flying the rainbow flag outside its building has reignited a divisive gay-rights debate.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, is calling on the bank to remove the flag, terming its presence "a serious deficiency of judgment by your organization, one not limited to social issues."

In a letter to Richmond Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker, Marshall says the homosexual behavior "celebrated" by the bank "undermines the American economy."

"What does flying the homosexual flag, or any other similar display, have to do with your central banking mission under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress?" writes Marshall, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members.

The Fed, which deems itself an independent entity within the federal government, placed the flag at the request of PRISM, a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender bank employees, to coincide with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

Jim Strader, a bank spokesman, said the flag was raised to fly for the month of June, and that there are no plans to change the timetable. It hangs under the American flag on a pole in front of the building.

"We are flying the pride flag as an example of our commitment to the values of acceptance and inclusion," Sally Green, the bank's first vice president and chief operating officer, said earlier this week.

Opponents in the battle over gay-rights expansion in the state staked out familiar positions, with the conservative Family Foundation saying it's "disappointing" to see the bank participate in the "celebration."

"At The Family Foundation, we will simply choose to use this flag, like the view of Mr. Jefferson's Capitol, as motivation for the work that lies ahead," said Victoria Cobb, president of organization.

Equality Virginia, a Richmond-based gay-rights group, threw its support behind the Fed's decision on Friday, criticizing Marshall and the Family Foundation as "Virginia's self-styled morality police."

"The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond should receive accolades for its decision to recognize and celebrate its GLBT employees, customers and vendors during Pride month," said EV's Executive Director James Parrish.

Parrish took issue with the Family Foundation's claim that state residents spoke on gay rights when they voted 57 to 43 percent in 2006 in favor of the state's marriage amendment. He argues that people's attitudes on gay-rights issues have evolved and pointed to more recent polling.

The Fed is "a private business and should be able to make its own personnel and corporate policy decisions without Bob Marshall's guidance or the Family Foundation's approval," he said.

Marshall wrote in the letter to Lacker that homosexual behavior is a Class 6 felony in Virginia, referring to the state's sodomy law. That statute remains on the books despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional a Texas law that prohibited private, sexual acts between consenting same-sex adults.

Brian Gottstein, spokesman for the Virginia Attorney General's Office, said its attorneys "have not heard of a scenario in recent decades, even before the decision in Lawrence v. Texas, where a consenting couple acting in private was prosecuted."

That's consistent with the experience of Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring, who said "To my knowledge no one enforces consensual sodomy as a result of [Lawrence v. Texas]."

A Clash of Victimologies

In recent days, a video has been circulating online depicting the savage beating of a customer at a Baltimore McDonald’s by two teenaged African-American females. Richard linked to it in one of his recent posts. Here it is again. The victim of the beating appears to be a Caucasian female. After repeatedly taking some rather brutal blows, the victim is shown apparently going into a seizure. Loose hair that had apparently been torn from her head (or wig) is shown on the floor near the victim. The employees of the McDonald’s in question apparently stood by and did nothing to assist the victim. The only effort at intervention was made by an elderly white female customer. The incident was filmed by a McDonald’s employee by the name of Vernon Hackett whom we are told has subsequently been dismissed from his position.

It has since been revealed that the victim was a 22-year-old transgender woman by the name of Chrissy Lee Polis. (For those unfamiliar with PC terminology, a “transgender woman” is roughly defined as a former “he” turned “she” in terms of self-identification though not necessarily surgical alteration.) It also turns out that Chrissy Lee Polis is an epileptic, which likely explains the onset of a seizure during the attack. The probable motivation for the attack was the two perpetrators having taken offense to the fact that Polis was attempting to use the women’s restroom. For a time, the video was being circulated in some white nationalist circles as a chilling example of a brutal crime being inflicted on a white person by ghetto blacks (which it clearly was). Upon the revelation of the victim’s proclaimed “gender identity,” some in the white nationalist milieu indicated their inclination to withdraw or scale back their sympathy. But clearly this was a horrific and despicable crime, regardless of the racial or sexual identities of either the victim or the perpetrator. Predictably, gay rights and “sexual minority” organizations have demanded that this incident be investigated and prosecuted as a hate crime.

Of course, what is interesting about this case is not merely that a violent crime occurred. Murders, assaults, robberies, and rapes are routine daily occurrences. Nor do the racial or sexual identities of either the victim or the perpetrators make this crime particularly unique. The fact that the crime occurred at a McDonald’s is no big news either. Someone was shot to death at a McDonald’s a few blocks from my residence some years ago. If Chrissy Lee Polis had been just another “normal” white person, this case would be getting scarcely any attention at all. There might be a few posts on various paleoconservative, white nationalist or alternative right websites about the hypocrisy of a mainstream media that turns hate crimes against racial or sexual minorities into front page news and national scandals whose memory lingers for years (the Matthew Shepard case, for instance) but ignores comparable crimes committed by minorities against whites (for example, how many Americans have ever even heard of the Wichita Massacre?). But that would be about it.

If she had not been a sexual minority, the victimization of Chrissy Lee Polis would not likely be receiving the attention of the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, San Francisco Chronicle, and other representatives of leftist opinion. Nor would she be receiving the attention of London’s Daily Mail, the Australian, the India Times, or other outlets of the international press. It is unlikely that she would be getting the recognition of even neocon mouthpieces like Lucianne.Com. Even the “movement conservative” press generally had little to say about the events in Wichita at the time of their occurrence. Nor would her attackers be facing the prospect of having hate crimes charges brought against them. In fact, the crime would likely be just another among countless routine criminal assaults reported to local police departments, though if Chrissy Lee Polis’ attackers had been skinheads or stereotypical “white trash” types rather than equally stereotypical “ghetto” types it is likely her case would be receiving much more attention than it currently is.

What we have here is an example of the “clash of victimologies” that is likely to become more evident as political correctness becomes ever more institutionally entrenched and as the realities of demographic transformation become ever more difficult to ignore. If indeed the two girls who perpetrated this are prosecuted for a hate crime against a transgendered woman, tensions between the organized African-American lobby and the organized “LGBT” lobby are bound to escalate. It is the standard political line of Sharpton-esque race hustlers and demagogues that virtually every black criminal, no matter how obvious the offender’s guilt or how malicious the offender’s actions, is somehow a victim of racism, social injustice, white privilege, this, that, or the other thing. The most obvious and celebrated case of this type was the elevation of O.J. Simpson, a wealthy celebrity with a lengthy history of severe domestic violence who became a cold-blooded double murderer, into an ostensible civil rights martyr, as though he were some poor black kid railroaded for a petty burglary by racist cops and unable to afford a competent defense attorney.

It will be interesting to observe to what degree the self-appointed spokesmen for African-Americans call for solidarity with the two teenaged hooliganettes, make excuses for them, attempt to absolve them of responsibility for their actions, or attribute their legal status to racism. Perhaps they will try to make the issue go away by simply ignoring it. However the high priests of the civil rights industry respond to this situation, this incident is bound to raise doubts in the minds of many “LGBT” people about who their political friends actually are. After all, a transgendered woman who attempted to wander into the women’s restroom in a McDonald’s located in some stuffy white bread suburb might get some funny looks, maybe some teasing. At worst, some shocked little old lady or concerned soccer mom might summon a couple of patrol cops who in their bewilderment would go about their usual routine of asking for ID, running a name check, issuing a warning, and cracking jokes as they drove off in the squad car. No doubt the recipient of such treatment would consider herself harassed and embarrassed, but it hardly compares with being a victim of aggravated assault bordering on attempted murder. No doubt many from the “LGBT” community might begin to recognize that “victim” status does not necessarily translate into “tolerance," and subsequently start to wonder if replacing the traditional European-American majority with Third World immigrants would be in their best interests, given that the majority of immigrants originate from countries where “sexual minorities” are not exactly honored.

This incident has created an interesting dilemma for the Left. Which class of official victim groups are they going to side with on this one? The Battle of McDonald’s provides an illustration of why, I believe, the Left as it is presently constituted will fail in the long run, whatever its present level of institutional influence and however much it may be able to endure for a few more decades. The Left will eventually self-destruct because its core tenets are self-contradictory and cannot be sustained in real world social practice. The Left’s core constituent groups: racial minorities, immigrants, the LGBT community, feminists, “secular humanists,” the black and Hispanic underclass, wealthy Jews, etc. have interests that are ultimately incompatible with one another. As the Left becomes more powerful in the short run, as the realities imposed by mass immigration become more apparent, and the tensions between the official victim groups begin to surface to an ever greater extent, the coalition of the officially oppressed will begin to self-cannibalize. Each interest group within the victimology paradigm will begin to battle each other for the “More Oppressed Than Thou” championship title. This will be the death blow for PC. It’s only a matter of time.

The Aristocratic Left: Enemies of the Human Race

Professor Roderick Long is a Harvard grad who currently teaches philosophy at Auburn University. He is also a devout “Austro-libertarian,” an ideology that synthesizes Austrian economics with individualist anarchism in the manner championed by Murray Rothbard. He is associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank, the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and the left-libertarian Molinari Society. Professor Long is someone whose work I generally respect and which contains some interesting and valuable insights into matters involving political theory, class theory, political economy, legal theory, and a number of other matters. Unfortunately, Long is also a PC lunatic on social questions who once compared pro-lifers to Guantanamo torturers during an online discussion he and I were both party to. His argument? Childbirth is physically painful, therefore denying a woman an abortion at any time she wants for any reason she wants amounts to the imposition of physical torture. Pretty thin, huh? Apparently, women who undergo abortion procedures never experience any kind of discomfort, physical or otherwise. (By the way, I generally favor legal abortion, in case anyone is wondering.)

I was therefore surprised to see Professor Long offer the following insight during a discussion of how “Austro-libertarians” might engage in outreach to the Left:

There are some left-wingers whom I call the “aristocratic left,” and whom I despair of reaching. These are left-wingers who have a particular vision of an idyllic society and are prepared to hammer into place anyone whose preferences or behavior don’t align with the vision; in effect they see other people as their property. Back when I lived in North Carolina, on the city line between Chapel Hill and Carrboro, I used to watch with mixed amusement and horror as the affluent white “liberals” who ran the city councils of those two communities competed to see which city could impose the most callous and intrusively micromanaging legislation. In Carrboro, which incredibly billed itself as the “Paris of the Piedmont,” the council thought that old cars looked unsightly, and so declared that residents would be forbidden to park in their driveways any car older than a certain number of years (I forget how many). Unsurprisingly, this law had a more burdensome impact on lower-income households than on higher; so much for the idea that liberals are supposed to care about the poor. The Chapel Hill council, with similar solicitude, forbade a local copy shop to post its (low) prices or to use words such as “discount” in its advertising, because the emphasis on low cost seemed tawdry, and clashed with their vision of an upscale community. (I am not making this up.) I have to laugh when conservatives accuse liberals of practicing class warfare, because these regulations were certainly class warfare-but from the opposite direction from the one suggested by the accusation. The Carrboro council also thought that cul-de-sacs looked unfriendly and standoffish, too much like private communities, and so proposed not only to ban new ones but to ram streets through existing ones; apparently the beloved mantra of children’s safety only applies sometimes. Mercifully, I don’t think that one finally passed. The same council also wanted to require drive-in banks and restaurants to install downward-sloping exits, thus allowing cars to turn their engines off and glide soundlessly and emissionlessly back down the street. (I am still not making this up.) What gun laws were favoured by these two hyperactive city councils I leave to your imagination. I have no suggestions on how to sell Austro-libertarianism to left-wingers of this variety; they seem like enemies of the human race.

Of course, Professor Long goes on to contrast this evil “aristocratic Left” with the good Left:

There are many, many left-wingers whose primary motivation for their left-wing political stance is the very libertarian impulse to protect people who are being pushed around. These left-wingers look at contemporary society and see an economy dominated by massive, impersonal corporations with enormous and seemingly unaccountable power; they see lower- and middle-income people disempowered in the workplace and struggling to make ends meat; they see institutions and social practices rigged against blacks, women, gays, immigrants, and other oppressed groups-and they turn to government to address these inequities, viewing the democratic state as an institution in principle accountable to the public, and thus able to serve as a bulwark against private power and privilege. Call this variety of left-wingers the anti-privilege Left. And this is the Left we can reach.

Not so fast. Taken together, the two statements quoted above represent a dizzying combination of genuine perspicacity and utter obliviousness. On one hand, Professor Long is one of the very few from what might be called the “cultural hard left” to recognize that there is, indeed, such a thing as an “aristocratic Left.” (Obviously, “aristocratic” is being used here as an adjective or metaphor for the more general category of educated, affluent or wealthy elites.)

One of the more important insights advanced by the “radical right” is the recognition that liberalism is in fact an ideology of the elite. Most hard leftists regard nearly everyone to the right of Leon Trotsky to be an “extreme right-winger” and it is not uncommon to see such people denounce moderate conservatives as “fascists” or “crypto-Nazis.” The publications of the hard left persistently lament the supposed ongoing drift of domestic American politics to the “far right” even though American society continues to become ever more liberal, and the ideas of yesterday’s loony leftists become ever more mainstream and respectable. For example, expressing support for gay marriage, which would have been regarded as insanity during the supposed Golden Age of Decadence of the 1960s and 1970s, is now just another somewhat controversial but still respectable middle-of-the-road, perhaps slightly left-of-center opinion.

Likewise, the election of the first Black president is somehow dismissed by the Left as just a cosmetic feature that hides what a horrid, racist, White supremacist society America really is, even though nothing destroys the reputation and career of a public figure any quicker than accusations racism, no matter how mild or dubious.

Further, Professor Long recognizes that the upper classes and affluent upper-middle classes are hardly consistent or even frequent proponents of ostensibly conservative economic values such as “free markets” or “limited government.” Rather the wealthy and affluent are like every other socioeconomic interest group in that they want state intervention into the economy on their own behalf, not “free enterprise” or “market discipline.” This is a sharp departure from the usual leftist habit of dismissing conservative and libertarian critics of state-managed economies as mere apologists for the plutocratic status quo. But what Professor Long is missing is the insight that perhaps many of those who present themselves as champions of the workers, the poor, minorities, women, gays, immigrants, and on down the list of the officially oppressed might also have less than honest or honorable motivations, and might in fact frequently be charlatans, crooks, scam artists, or aspiring tyrants. Nor does it occur to him that perhaps those “aristocratic leftists” whom he labels as “enemies of the human race,” and who are persistently agitating for repressive gun laws and intrusive economic regulations, might in fact be the same class of folks who are similarly pushing the vast array of attitudes, institutional policies, and bits of legislation that have collectively been given the popular label of “political correctness.”

For it is among this class of upper-middle income and wealthy liberals that Long describes that we typically find the most zealous proponents of affirmative action, amnesty for illegal immigrants, legislated “rights” for the organized gay lobby that in fact abridge the associational, religious, and economic liberties of others, radical feminists who are not downtrodden seamstresses in garment factories but tenured academics or activist attorneys or other professionals, university professors and administrators, public sector bureaucrats who oversee the managerial state, corporate executives who pride themselves on their extensive commitment to “diversity” and “sensitivity,” and so on. Might it not just be that this socioeconomic demographic, those “aristocratic leftists” who are “enemies of the human race,” are in fact the exact same people who are the most zealous proponents of PC fundamentalism? And might they indeed have sinister ulterior motives for assuming such a stance?

This is not to say that many liberals and leftists do not hold the political beliefs that they do out of sincere regard for those whom they consider to be oppressed or downtrodden. But when we see the affluent and influential classes championing things like mass immigration or the suppression of public debate concerning taboo subjects along with all sorts of other pernicious legislation, economic policies, or social practices, perhaps we should ask ourselves why this is the case?

Whenever I have presented my “totalitarian humanism” theory to seemingly sincere liberals, the main difficulty they seem to encounter in comprehending my analysis is their inability to absorb the idea that those who claim to be waging a righteous crusade against racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, et. al. ad nauseam could possibly be motivated by anything any other than a desire to do good and make the world a better place. At worst, I am often told in response, the PC zealots are guilty of mere overreaction to past injustices or excessive exuberance in pursuit of a noble ideal. Indeed, I believe that it is this same mindset that accounts for the otherwise inexplicable phenomena of why Nazism has come to symbolize the ultimate in evil, while Communism has rarely received such a treatment in the history books, and is certainly not regarded in the same manner by intellectual and cultural elites, even though its murderous and genocidal propensities certainly rival that of any of its ideological competitors. Therefore, exposing the destructive proclivities of PC for the tyrannical anti-human ideology that it is becomes one of our most important tasks.

Totalitarian Pansies

In his hilarious, horrifying, and profoundly insightful short book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis assumes the persona of a mid-level administrative demon in Hell instructing his cousin, a guardian Devil on Earth, in the myriad ways to steer his client down the slick and well-trod road to damnation. At one point, the infernal bureaucrat narrator exults at just how cleverly demonic propagandists have trained the foolish humans to be on guard against the very type of wrongdoing that is least likely to happen in a given era’s Zeitgeist:

The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic… Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants, we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

Currently, a fashionable outcry has arisen in chic circles against the sadly ubiquitous phenomenon known as “bullying.” While many people are, no doubt, sincerely opposed to wanton acts of cruelty and humiliation by the strong and well-placed against the weak and vulnerable, one must nevertheless be aware that taking a political stand against bullying is, at best, a bland, empty gesture, much like opposing drunk-driving, homelessness, child abuse, or pollution; worse, it is quite often a brazenly fraudulent stance, since bullies as such are in reality not the true target of most contemporary “anti-bullying” campaigns. Instead, certain political interest groups have hit upon the idea of characterizing their opponents as ipso facto “bullies,” simply because they have the temerity to oppose what is so obviously right and true (gay marriage, legalized abortion, or some other ideological hobbyhorse), which can only be a result of hateful and repugnant motives, the same kind of mean senior football jock to steal a puny ninth-grader’s lunch money and shove him in his locker.

One would be hard-pressed to imagine, for example, that a Christian evangelical coed who gets mocked and threatened by militant campus homosexuals for expressing her conservative values would ever be considered a victim of “bullying,” no matter how egregiously cruel the abuse she endures. Nor are crocodile tears shed for Whites who are viciously assaulted by Blacks, or for Catholics gleefully derided by Jews. No, the campaign against “bullying” is nearly always invoked solely when a “victim” group favored by the Left (Blacks, Jews, homosexuals) is seemingly wronged by the “oppressor” class (namely White heterosexual Christians).

Targeting “bullies,” then, becomes a thinly-veiled means of advancing a political agenda for a trendy-Left cause. We have seen such many such shameless examples of loathsomely cynical handwringing lately, usually attendant upon the reportage of some high-profile tragedy. When Tyler Clementi jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge after his roommate taped him having sex with a man and showed the tape online, activists were eager to pin the boy’s death on the ill-defined thought-crime of “homophobia.”  Earlier this year, when Jared Lee Loughner shot and gravely wounded U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed several others, liberal talking-heads desperately tried to construe it as a hate crime provoked by certain designs on Sarah Palin’s website and a deterioration of “civility” in political discourse among Tea Partiers, when in actuality Loughner was a sad young paranoid schizophrenic with a pitifully deteriorating sense of reality and no connections to any political party or philosophy.

Now recently, it has emerged that one aspect of President Obama’s anti-bullying “initiative” involves public school teachers snooping around their students’ Facebook pages to see if they’re writing anything hurtful about their classmates. In addition to being an outrageous instance of the federal government ceding power to itself in a naked power grab (but what else is new?), this call for greater “pro-activity” on the part of educators in preventing bullying has certain transparent political, and politically correct, overtones. After all, in our homo-ideologized age, if a student ever playfully uses the word “fag” or utters the expression “that’s so gay,” he is to be brought before the authorities and severely reprimanded for his insensitivity, as well as shamed for his overall horribleness. One would be naïve indeed to think that this federally-funded Facebook-focused frenzy isn’t just another attempt to root out “homophobes” and subject them to deprogramming, the better to render the nation supine before the pitiless aggressions of Episcopalian bishops and Lady Gaga fans.

But who are the real bullies, and who the real victims of bullying today?

Certainly, old-school schoolyard bullies still exist, and will continue to exist. Weak, nerdy, ugly, and socially awkward kids will continue to be picked on by attractive, popular, confident, and secure ones. This is a shame, but hardly a travesty of justice; cruelty, unfortunately, is endemic to the human condition; it ought never be tolerated by anyone with a conscience, but we should never become so hubristic as to think we can somehow root it out entirely.

Personally, I am much more disgusted and appalled by the numerous powerful bullies who relentlessly vent their spleen against their enemies under the guise of being “anti-bully.” I mean the types of people who would throw men like Ernst Zundel, David Irving, Frederick Toben, and the “Heretical Two” in prison for expressing eccentric or unpopular opinions about historical events, or the sort who would prevent a peaceable group of well-dressed White men from meeting in a hotel ballroom in Charlotte, North Carolina, because they subscribe to certain un-kosher notions regarding the in-egalitarian nature of the races. The man who would rob another man of his freedom or livelihood because he doesn’t like the way he thinks is the worst kind of bully, since he disguises his cruelty as compassion; he’ll steal your lunch money and shove you in your locker, and all the while try to make it seem like you’re the bad guy.

The schoolyard bullies are ultimately of no concern. Their depredations can only last so long; their reign of terror must eventually end; they have no power over us that we don’t allow them to have. Once we attain the confidence needed to stand up to them, they leave us alone. But the hypocritical “anti-bully” bullies are a rapaciously hateful lot; opposing them just makes them angrier, and more prone to ever more coercive, tyrannical, strong-arm tactics of suppression.

Towards this latter group, we should be absolutely steely and relentless, showing no quit whatsoever. We must mock their stupid sacred cows, jeer at their attempts to shame us for not following their ridiculously nonsensical ideologies, and uproariously laugh at their maudlin expressions of naked cant and nauseating sanctimony.

Let us brave-heartedly bully the bullies who would psychologically brutalize us into humiliated submission. If we persist in heartily resisting these patently Screwtapian principalities and powers, I have confidence that our reward will be great indeed.

Socialist Soviet Republic of Kanuckistan

I read with interest Dr. Srdja Trifkovic’s account of his most recent experiences with the Canadian border authorities, who once again have denied entry to a law-abiding citizen on spurious or hastily manufactured grounds. This comes only some months after Richard Spencer’s own experiences, which resulted in him too being denied entry to the Great White North. And they are not the only ones. Even politically incorrect liberals like George Galloway, and peaceful U.S. protesters against the war in Iraq, have been banned. Here is a perplexing account by one of them:

The invitation said six members of the Canadian Parliament were to speak October 25 on Canada's Parliament Hill as members of a panel called "Peacebuilders Without Borders: Challenging the Post-9/11 Canada-US Security Agenda." I arrived at the Ottawa airport on the morning of October 25 expecting to be met by three members of Parliament and to hold a press conference at the airport.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Codepink Women for Peace and Global Exchange, was also invited by the Parliamentarians, but had been arrested the previous day for holding up two fingers in the form of a peace sign during the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified on Iraq, Iran and Israel-Palestinian issues. The October 24 committee hearing began with Codepink peace activist Desiree Fairooz holding up her red, paint-stained hands to Rice and shouting, "The blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands." As Capitol Hill police took her out of the House hearing, Fairooz yelled over her shoulder, "War criminal, take her to the Hague." Shortly thereafter, two Codepinkers were arrested for just being in the room, and brutally hauled out of the hearing by Capitol police. An hour later, Medea and a male Codepinker were arrested for no reason. Four of the five had to stay overnight in the District of Columbia jail; Medea was one of those and missed the trip to Ottawa.

I presented immigration officials our letter of invitation from the Parliamentarians that explained Medea and I had been denied entry to Canada at the Niagara Falls border crossing on October 3, 2007, because we had been convicted in the United States of peaceful, non-violent protests against the war on Iraq, including sitting on the sidewalk in front of the White House with 400 others, speaking out against torture during Congressional hearings, and other misdemeanors. The Canadian government knew of these offenses as they now have access to the FBI's National Crime Information database on which we are listed. The database was created to identify members of violent gangs and terrorist organizations, foreign fugitives, patrol violators and sex offenders - not for peace activists peacefully protesting illegal actions of their government.

The immigration officer directed me to a secondary screening, where my request to call the members of Parliament waiting outside the customs' doors was denied. My suggestion that the letter of invitation from the Parliamentarians might be valuable in assessing the need for me to be in Canada was dismissed with the comment that members of Parliament do not have a role in determining who enters Canada. I suggested the laws enacted by the Parliament were the basis of that determination. I added that the reason I had been invited to Ottawa by Parliamentarian was to be an example of how current laws may exclude those whom Canadians may wish to allow to enter. I also mentioned Parliament might decide to change the laws immigration officials implement. I also suggested, since the Parliament provides the budget to the Immigration Services, they might notify the Parliamentarians awaiting my arrival that I had been detained. The officers declined to do so citing my privacy, which I immediately waived. The Parliamentarians were never notified by immigration I had arrived and was being detained. Only when my cell phone was returned to me by immigration officers four hours later was I able to make contact with the Parliamentarians.

After nearly four hours of interrogation, I was told by the senior immigration officer I was banned from Canada for one year for failure to provide appropriate documents that would overcome the exclusion order I had been given in early October because of conviction of misdemeanors (all payable by fines) in the United States. The officer said that to apply for a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP) for entry for a specific event on a specific date, I must provide to a Canadian Embassy or consulate the arresting officer's report, court transcripts and court documents for each of the convictions, an official document describing the termination of sentences, a police certificate issued within the last three months by the FBI, police certificates from places I have lived in the past ten years (that includes Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia), a letter acknowledging my convictions from three respected members of the community (the respected members that I will ask to write a letter have all been convicted of similar "offenses") and a completed 18 page "criminal rehabilitation" packet.

Additionally, besides obtaining the TRP, since I was being banned for a year from Canada, I would have to obtain a "Canadian Government Minister's consent." The officer said the TRP and the Minister's consent normally took from 8-10 months to obtain. In the distant future, to be able to enter Canada without a TRP, I would have to be "criminally rehabilitated" and be free for five years of conviction of any offense, including for peaceful protest.

The senior immigration officer took my fingerprints for Canadian records, escorted me to the airport departures area and placed me on the first plane departing for Washington, DC. In the meantime, the members of Parliament conducted the press conference and the panel without my presence, but certainly using the example of what had happened to me, and previously to Medea Benjamin, as incidents that the Parliamentarians are very concerned about, specifically their government's wholesale acceptance of information on the FBI's database, information that appears to have been placed there for political intimidation.

As if this were not enough, over the years we have also heard many equally bizarre, puzzling, and alarming tales of confiscations and book burnings by the Canadian customs authorities.

I have had my share of frustrations with them too. Over the years I have lost count of the number of times a packet containing music CDs supplied to our various distributor mail orders in Canada have been denied entry and either been sent back or stolen by the authorities. 

On the occasions when the packet was returned, the reason given was that there was no return address—a highly unlikely reason, as all our packets to distributors are sent out with return addresses. Even if that were true, the incident always begged the question: if there was no return address, how did the customs officials manage to get the packet returned to us? How did they know where to send it? The answer is that in each case they found the return address in the invoice that was inside the packet. Why did they return it then, instead of permitting it to reach its intended destination? Had they not already obtained the information they needed? Had they not satisfied themselves that we were not sending pipe bombs, doomsday viruses, rotting meat, stolen organs, or child pornography? 

On the occasions when the packet was stolen, I was forced to send out a replacement, with no guarantee that it would not also be sent back or somehow disappear into the customs officials' record collections—or their book-burning ovens. Sometimes it took three attempts before we were successful. And the most frustrating aspect of this exercise was the lack of any obvious or practical way to claim compensation from the Canadian customs, or even take them to task or embarrass them for the time and money they wasted me.

Even my wife, who occasionally likes to send letters or gifts to friends in Canada tells me that she has found it difficult to get anything into that country. Again, letters fail to arrive, packets disappear, or they both get returned to sender without logical explanation.

What do these people look like? What are their faces like? In the present context, the images I found were not encouraging:

And then there is the matter of Canada’s oppressive human rights legislation, state-sponsored thought limits, speech codes, censorship, and political correctness—the Canadian authorities’ Orwellian effort to keep Canadian citizens from ever seeing, reading, or hearing anything that might upset someone. 

Worse still, it seems some in Canada have fully internalised this mentality, as Jared Taylor found out in 2007 and Ann Coulter did in March last year: both were prevented from speaking by wild Leftist hoodlums, who have a well-established track record of violent intolerance towards tolerance. Presumably these thugs represent the core of that not insignificant segment of the population in Canada which, as a recent major survey has revealed, welcomes mass immigration from all corners of the world. (Out of the eight countries surveyed, Canadian attitudes towards immigration in general were friendliest.)

I need to stress that this is not a reflection of all Canadians or even Canadians in general. My criticisms here are directed at the Canadian government and state apparatus, at the class of citizens—most of them White—who staff that system, which through its embrace of political correctness, of a soft totalitarian or “muscular” liberalism, have made of Canada an inhospitable country for White folk in general and for those who do not embrace PC in particular.

Some may want to argue that this is a reflection on all Canadians because Canada holds democratic elections and that the Canadian government is what it is because Canadians chose that government, and therefore PC. Well, no: so-called democratic governments in the West are hardly a reflection of the wishes of the citizenry. Four in five Britons voted against keeping Tony Blair’s Labour government in power in the 2005 general election and yet the United Kingdom was saddled with another five miserable years of Labour. And it is the same elsewhere. If one looks at the aforementioned survey, most respondents—and often the overwhelming majority of them—in the countries survived were against immigration, against their governments’ pro-immigration policies, and yet said governments persist in keeping the floodgates open. (Bear in mind also that in the era of PC, many respondents will be reluctant to express an opinion that may be considered by others racist, even in the privacy of their own minds.) Worse of all, and most significantly, democratic elections in the West typically offer a choice of two flavours of vanilla. (Actually, I wish it were vanilla!)

Indeed, I have personal friends of long standing in Canada who are scornful and just as frustrated as I am with this insanity.

Not surprisingly, some of them have retreated into the forest.

I wonder how long this will last.

Major Interview with Kevin MacDonald

As part of a series of interviews I have been conducting elsewhere with dissidents involved with writing and publishing, I have conducted a major interview with Professor Kevin MacDonald. 

Much has been written about him, but all of it, and even what he has written about himself, has focused on his intellectual background and current thinking on ethnic competition, immigration, twentieth century Jewish intellectual movements, and Leftist bias in Western academia. I wanted to find out more about the man behind the monster. What is it like to be a controversial professor? What is he like as a person? What about his pre-academic life? In his replies, we discover many previously unknown facts about Professor MacDonald, we obtain something closer to a full-length portrait of the man, and are even treated to never-previously-seen photographic images from his past. Whether you are a friend or a foe, what you will find there will illuminate, enlighten, and entertain—not to mention shatter some popular misconceptions. You can read the interview here.

Where Calvin Meets Mao

In this interview with Craig Bodeker, AltRight contributing editor Derek Turner provides what may be the most concise yet penetrating explanation of the origins and nature of political correctness I have yet to encounter. The full video is available on the website of the National Policy Institute.

Critics of PC have advanced several theses regarding its origins. Paul Gottfried has suggested that it is largely an outgrowth of left-wing American Christianity. Bill Lind considers it be a form of “cultural Marxism” derived from an inversion of orthodox Marxism advanced by the Frankfurt School. David Heleniak has an interesting thesis suggesting that PC is largely a derivative of the Christian doctrine of original sin that subsequently took on a secular form through the influence of the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Still others regard PC as good old fashioned Communism wearing a different set of clothes. My own efforts to investigate the historical development of PC (which I prefer to call “totalitarian humanism”) have led me to a position that is something of a synthesis of these narratives.

Derek points out that political correctness has become the most deeply entrenched in historically Protestant countries, primarily the nations of Scandinavia and the Anglosphere. Presumably, this can be explained as a manifestation of the sense of Calvinist guilt that has been woven into the cultural fabric and historical memories of Protestant societies. That colonial American Puritanism was a rather extreme manifestation of the Calvinist ethos, and that American left-wing Christianity came about largely as an eclipsing successor of orthodox Calvinism in the American northeast, may help to explain why PC first took root in America and exported itself throughout the Western world the way that it did. If indeed Rousseau’s philosophy provided a secular transformation of the notion of original sin, then it is not improbable that such thinking would take root in a cultural milieu where orthodox Calvinism had once been virulent, but was in the process of shedding that history while retaining some of its residual influences, which would have been the case with northeastern American Protestantism during the developmental periods of this country.

It should not be surprising then that the Frankfurt School found a home for itself in northeastern American universities following its exile from Nazi Germany (and after an ironic stay in Geneva, the city most closely associated with the legacy of Calvin!). Some of the iconic figures of the New Left, such as Angela Davis and Abbie Hoffman, were personally students of the Frankfurt School’s most extreme left-wing advocate, Herbert Marcuse, and it is another irony that just as Marcuse eventually settled in California, it was at West Coast universities such as Berkeley that the leftist student rebellions of the 1960s began to emerge before spreading throughout the West and even elsewhere. As for the relationship between orthodox Communism and PC, in my efforts to trace the origins of the term, I have encountered phrases such as “correct politics” or “correct political line,” and references to persons being shunned or dismissed from organizations for “incorrect politics” in old radical literature from the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly among Weather Underground-influenced groups or the most extreme offshoots of the “black power” movement. The Maoist influence on these groups is well-known, as is the fascination of some of the more extreme New Left radicals of the era with the Chinese Cultural Revolution. PC in many ways resembles a Maoist self-criticism session, so there is likely a connection there.

I actually grew up in part as a Calvinist fundamentalist myself during the 1970s. My family were adherents of old-style orthodox Calvinism of the kind represented by theologians like J. Gresham Machen and Cornelius Van Til, and for a time we were involved with a church associated with the theocratic “Christian reconstructionist” movement of R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North. All of my education up through and including my sophomore year of high school was done at a fundamentalist academy that adhered to dispensational Christian Zionism (think of Bob Jones University and you will get an idea what the atmosphere there was like). During the late 1980s and early 1990s I was a left-wing Chomskyite and it was during this time that I first began to personally encounter PC. Observing the psychology of PC and its behavioral manifestations up close and in an unadulterated form gave me a sense of déjà vu: “Where I have seen this kind of thing before?” Having long since abandoned my previous Christianity by that time, I came to realize that PC essentially amounts to Christian fundamentalism without a Christ (perhaps this explains the Left’s habit of elevating perceived progressive saints such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the status of Christ-like semi-divine figures).

Whatever the true historical trajectory of PC may be, its obscurantist and totalitarian nature is obvious enough. It is ironic that eccentric religious subcultures such as the ones I came from are demonized by the anointed as dangerous theocratic fascists about to carry out an Taliban-like coup any minute now (a view that wildly exaggerates the influence and degree of extremism of such subcultures), while a form of obscurantist totalitarianism that has actually has the support of elites, intellectuals, academics, journalists, and others of genuine influence continues to entrench itself in Western cultural and political institutions.

The Minicon Mind

My young friend Richard Spencer has observed that whenever neocon employees take “conservative” positions on social issues, they find irreproachably leftwing reasons to do so. Thus when they object to abortion, it is because its advocates and practitioners refuse to extend the egalitarian principle far enough—to the unborn. Or when minicons grumble feebly about quotas for Black, Hispanics and women, it is typically because such programs have the putative effect of making their recipients feel “inferior,” because they were given benefits that they might not have earned. Although one could find legion examples of such attempts by “social conservatives” to seem more liberal than Obama, a case that has popped up recently and stands out in my mind is a commentary by Rich Lowry on why “Huck’s censors miss all the points.”

Rich’s column begins by going after the obnoxious censors who have removed all of the 219 uses of the word “nigger” from the new edition of Twain’s classic being put out by NewSouth Books. Along the way, Rich also makes fun of the immoderate PC, which extends even to purging “the use of the word ‘injun’ for good measure.” But he then pushes his commentary away from the obvious reasons for objecting to the censorship, which are not the most fashionable reasons, at least in Rich’s presumed social circles. One, once we start bowdlerizing classics to fit current political hysteria, there is no end to this process. Every time a new obsession comes along or some designated victim group starts griping, we’ll have to rewrite what authors wrote in the past.

Such a course will soon result in the kind of reconstruction of culture that we see previewed in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. The Western “heritage” will be refashioned, including the language used in the past, to fit current ideological needs. Even the Communists and Nazis didn’t go quite as far as our present PC gatekeepers. The old totalitarians allowed old classics to be reprinted as they had been rewritten, but then appended their updated introductions.

Two, it is sheer hypocrisy to bowdlerize past authors to fit ADL or NAACP requirements when we produce and distribute movies that should be infinitely more offensive to minorities and most everyone else. Are the bowdlerizers of Twain complaining about Tarantino flicks or “Gansta rap” albums that are packed with “niggas” and “motherfucking” language? Such products of our cultural industry are far more insensitive than any book published in the 19th century? Why this bizarre double standard? Perhaps it is justified by the fact that filmmakers and producers of blasphemous “art” are part of the “intelligentsia,” along with the totalitarians who are now bowdlerizing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One should apparently only censor dead White males who will be read by children of the booboisie in state-run institutions.

But Rich has own, more PC reasons for opposing the sensitizing Left. Twain’s censors are not serious enough about making us detest Southern racists. They do not force the reader to experience the atmosphere of repression that existed in the Mississippi valley in the 1840s, when a mob killed the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. They are helping to “whitewash our history,” by making us less conscious of the burden of our racist past. Such censors are in fact easing “the sting of Twain’s rebuke” of what the American South in its pre-civil rights phase looked like. Rich quotes the beatified Martin Luther King, who “noted that genteel Southerners still couldn’t get their mouths around the word ‘Negro,’ saying ‘Nigra’ instead.”

Although one might criticize Rich for sucking up to the social Left while going through the motions of disagreeing with it, there is one thing he does very well. He has picked the target of his rant perfectly. If movement conservatives are looking for targets of abuse that won’t talk back, then go after Southern Whites. They’ll vote Republican even if the Republican candidate insults their ancestors as redneck scum, and even as in the case of presidential contender John McCain, Republicans attack the display of the Confederate flag anywhere, not only on public buildings. Southern Whites don’t seem to mind being collectively belittled; and particularly from “patriotic” Americans who are in favor of wars in which Southerners will be given a chance to fight. There are of course other groups that are less likely to vote Republican or to subscribe to Rich’s magazine. Here I am thinking of such prideful groups as Jews and Blacks, neither of which Rich would ever dare to take on.

Let us imagine what would happen to Rich and his Schmierschrift if he noticed certain undeniable facts: for example, that Jews were disproportionately involved as NKVD officials in the Ukrainian famine and in those brutalities carried out in Eastern Europe under the Communists after the Second World War; or that the rate of violence in just about every Black society is far higher than in white and Asian societies. I mention these demonstrable facts not to insult any group but to provide examples of what Rich and his colleagues would never dare mention, for self-evident reasons. They’d be history the moment they uttered them, and perhaps even reduced to the indignity of writing for the alternative right. It is safer by far to beat up on compliant Southerners, who won’t object, particularly when insulted by someone from the “movement.” Being soft on Southern Whites is a safe and politically expedient reason for Rich to be against PC censors.

The De-Niggering of Huck Finn

Much is made in the mainstream media of the alleged perfidy of certain revisionist historians on the Right, whom they accuse of falsifying documents, whitewashing, and distorting history to suit a political agenda. Yet, alert students of history know well enough that the Left is not above revisionism. Indeed, in Leftists we find yet another example of accusers who are guilty of doing similar things they accuse others of doing, and who, in fact, do it on a much wider scale. Leftist revisionism is not limited to history, but extends even to classic works of literature. The latest example of politically motivated revisionism was reported by the BBC earlier today:  

Furore over 'censored' edition of Huckleberry Finn

A new edition of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is causing controversy because of the removal of a racially offensive word.

Twain scholar Alan Gribben says the use of the word "nigger" had prompted many US schools to stop teaching the classic.

In his edition, Professor Gribben replaces the word with "slave" [219 times] and also changes "injun" to "Indian".

. . .

Two days ago, the publisher, New South Books, posted this on their website:

In a bold move compassionately advocated by Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben and embraced by NewSouth, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn also replaces two hurtful epithets that appear hundreds of times in the texts with less offensive words, this intended to counter the “preemptive censorship” that Dr. Gribben observes has caused these important works of literature to fall off curriculum lists nationwide.

According to the BBC, the publisher has received dozens of telephone calls and hundreds of emails protesting the falsification of Mark Twain’s work. Noteworthy is the fact that the act of censorship is being presented as the well-intentioned exact opposite. Could it be that Professor Gribben was so frustrated by the self-censorship pervading centres of learning that he saw his revision of the original text as making the best of a bad job? The Irish Times reports:

“Let’s get one thing straight,” says Gribben, an Aubern University professor who has been vilified by both the left and right. “Mark Twain was a notoriously commercial and populist author. If he was alive today and all he had to do was change one word to get his book into every schoolhouse in America, he couldn’t change it fast enough.”

To which the Irish Times reporter repliers:

But he isn’t here and he can’t answer for himself. Maybe Twain would have screamed in indignation that his work was being robbed of its original meaning.

Indeed, Mark Twain was sensitive about his prose. The BBC again:

Mark Twain did not take kindly to editing.

He is quoted as saying that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter".

And when a printer made punctuation changes to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Twain wrote later that he had "given orders for the typesetter to be shot without giving him time to pray".

More egregiously, the self-censorship Professor Gribben is attempting to work around appears driven mainly by spineless White lecturers, not by angry Black students. The Irish Times article highlights this quite well:

Gribben, a likeable straight talker, is adamant that he is not robbing Twain of anything, merely making a small change so that English teachers are no longer embarrassed to read out loud in class.

. . .

I wondered what other black people thought of the N word and whether removing it from Twain would help bury a painful past or save white America from confronting its own history. I was pondering all on the subway on the way home when I heard two black teenagers talking. “Hey nigga, what’s up with you?” said one. The reply was instant “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me nigga, something wrong with you though.”

Enter white Irish reporter with a copy of Huckleberry Finn and a massive avalanche of awkwardness. I stutter through an explanation of my article and show them a few of Mark Twain’s offending passages.

The first, 17-year-old Laurence Johnson, picks up the book, studies it for a moment and shuts it suddenly.

“So he said ‘nigger’. So what? People think slave owners called us African-Americans?” he says loudly. His friend laughs, so do some middle-aged black women sitting nearby, all of whom nod in agreement. Johnson, who is in his final year of high school in Brooklyn, puts himself in the place of a slave owner counting his slaves.

“One, two, three, four . . . damn, we got an African-American escaped up north!”

More laughter, some of the women are clapping their hands. “It’s about the timing,” says one of them, Katicha Spencer, a 42-year-old dental nurse from Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. “If some white person said that word to me, I’d be mad as hell. But if it’s from 100 years ago, and it’s someone trying to get the flavour of what people are saying, then that’s what people said. You can’t sugarcoat the past of this country, you can’t pretend it didn’t happen.” Her friends nod in agreement. “Mark Twain’s alright,” says one. “He’s not my boss.” Katicha gives her a high five and they laugh as they leave the train.

Another problem is that similar falsifications are also being effected with minor works of literature, where the arguments given to justify the bowdlerisation of Mark Twain cannot possibly apply. In 2002, Deodant Publishers, printed an edition of Bram Stokers’ Lair of the White Worm, with some. . . cosmetic alterations. An Amazon reviewer noted:

this Deodand version is not the original. It has been edited. One word has been changed throughout the book, but only in specific places: The 'good guys' do not say the "N" word, they say "native." The 'bad guys' use the "N" word.  

I do not remember any public debate triggered by the bowdlerisation of this book, which makes me wonder about the extensiveness of this practice, and whether we can trust modern editions of pre-PC literature by classic authors any longer. How many have been quietly edited in this way? How many more will they falsify, whitewash, or distort to suit, conform, or respond to the Left’s political agenda?

It reminds of the Stalinist practice of erasing inconvenient individuals from official photographs, following the individuals’ politically motivated murder. It seems old habits die hard…

Perhaps readers would like to share their views on this subject, in a polite and civilised fashion, with Prof. Alan Gribben (email: agribben@aum.edu).

Similarly, because businesses understand no other language but the once mighty Dollar, you may wish to give the publishers of Prof. Gribben’s revised Twain editions (due out in February) an idea of how enthusiastically you will be rushing to buy your copies: info@newsouthbooks.com.

Sandra Bullock: A Woman for Our Time

Sandra Bullock is People magazine's Woman of the Year! 

Having trouble remembering Bullock's devastating and sensitive filmic performance from this past year? Or even which movie she was in?   

Well, according to IMDb, Bullock appeared in a total of ... ZERO roles for the entirety of 2010.  

Was there some mistake? 

No. According to People,

For Sandra Bullock, 2010 was the year that changed everything: She became a mother to son Louis, ended her five-year marriage to Jesse James and reached new career heights with her emotional Oscar win for The Blind Side.

So, after being embraced by her peers for portraying a Southern Christian woman who brings a 300-pound Black into her family home and neglects her biological children on his behalf, Sandra got divorced, and then became a single mother by adopting an African orphan.  

This may be the first time a major magazine has given someone an award for living a politically correct private life.

"Free Speech" in Canukistan

Canada is given short shrift by most Traditonalist and conservative writers. Yet despite the relatively small role Canada plays in the worldwide power nexus, it lends itself to interesting case studies for right-wing Western commentators should they learn to take this small but politically intriguing country seriously.

Readers of Alternative Right will undoubtedly remember the controversy surrounding Anne Coulters prospective visit and speech to Canadian university students, where she was warned beforehand about a possible arrest should she say something that contravened “Canadian Speech Laws.” Unfortunately, a public admission that such “speech laws” exist did little to spark a debate on the nature of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nor did it provide the impetus to question and/or analyze the nature and limitations of federal and provincial authority, or even the merits of free speech itself. In fact, the average Canadian seemed hardly bothered by the notion of a speech law, although they were perhaps aghast (momentarily) to learn that the Canadian project does not include an emphasis or focus on freedom.

However, if Canadians were to look closely, or at all, at their Charter of Rights and Freedom they would discover section 2(b), which explicitly designates freedom of expression and opinion as a right for all Canadians.

However, what has consistently remains glossed over by marginal right-wing commentators in Canada is the provision in Section 1 in the Charter which states,

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

The disconcerting aspect of such a proclamation is that the vagueness of “subject to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” exposes Canadian “citizens” to arbitrary state rulings regarding what is and is not acceptable speech. The root of the problem lies in the definition of what is “reasonable” as this is a consideration whose contextual meaning also changes depending on the overarching goal of any, but in this case Canadian, society. Should one express a truth or even an opinion that sheds light on the dubious nature of the Canadian project, or exposes any inherent contradictions in it, one is liable to have his freedom of speech restricted regardless of the veracity of ones opinion, as long as this restriction is considered “reasonable.”

In other words, Canada has lawfully inscribed limits to any freedoms in the Charter if the restrictions of these freedoms are deemed justifiable in a “free” society. Personally, I choose to read the charter in this way:

Our self-proclaimed “free society” can and will restrict your freedoms if need be in order to better facilitate our social-engineering project. Even though what makes us a free society is that our society is composed of citizens who are free, if we restrict your freedoms, we are still a free society.

This of course begs the question—how free are we really?

PC Jumps the Shark... Again

I’m not making this stuff up, folks.

Plastic pig banned from UK toy set for fear of offending Jews, Muslims

The Sun in London

November 17, 2010

By Jane Hamilton

TOY shop bosses removed a plastic pig from a children's toy farm set because they feared it would upset Muslim and Jewish parents.

A mother who complained to toy store Early Learning Centre (ELC) when she found the pig missing was told it had been removed for "religious reasons," British newspaper The Sun reported.

The mother, named only as Caroline, found there was no pig with the cow, sheep, chicken, horse and dog in the store's HappyLand Goosefeather Farm.

Caroline, who brought the toy for her daughter's first birthday, said the farm set still contained an empty sty and a button that made an oinking noise when pressed.

But after writing to ELC's customer services she got an email reply admitting the pig was removed in case it upset Muslim or Jewish parents.

Both religions ban the eating of pork because they consider the pig an unclean animal.

The email said: "Previously the pig was part of the Goosefeather Farm. However due to customer feedback and religious reasons this is no longer part of the farm."

ELC confirmed it had taken the pig out of the set when contacted by The Sun.

A spokesman said: "The decision to remove the pig was taken in reaction to customer feedback in some parts of the world."

But later they said they would replace the pig in the set but no longer sell it in international markets where it may create offence.

 Why stop at plastic pigs?   Will we not be an equitable society until the government bans bacon?