Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Sam Francis, Bill Buckley, NRx.

One of the books I've finally got around to reading is Sam Francis's Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism. It's a book I'd highly recommend, in fact, its a book I'd insist that neo-Reactionairies include in their cannon because of the insights that it gives. I hope to make a few comments about the book in the next few posts, particularly with its relevance to the NRx but today I just want to make a brief comment on William Buckely, especially because there has been a lot of Buckley hate coming from the Alt-Right.

I, like Francis, have a mixed opinion of Buckley. His purging of the "lunatic fringe" from the Right, in my mind was necessary for its survival in the post war period, but on the other hand, he was unable to successfully reinvigorate it during his stewardship of the National Review and led its drift towards NeoConservatism. Part of the problem, in my opinion, was due to his attempt to create a "broad church" Conservatism, but in doing so, he gutted the core elements of conservative beliefs. The other problem, as I saw it, was that Buckley enjoyed being an "intellectual" and felt that intellectual argument alone would save the day.  This as Francis points out, was a fatal error and contributed much to political neutralisation of conservatism. Still, given the broad front from which attacks were being waged upon it, Buckley should be praised for keeping any sort of conservative operation alive at all.

Francis recognises that whilst under Buckley's leadership all was not well with Conservatism but it also needs to be understood that Buckley was right in purging the conservative movement of it's more idiotic elements. Something NRx's should note.
[Buckley] forcefully rejected what he called "the popular and cliche-ridden appeal to the grass-roots" and strove instead to establish a journal which would reach intellectuals. Not all conservatives agreed with this approach, but the young editor-to-be was firm. It was the intellectuals, after all, "who have midwived and implemented the revolution. We have got to have allies among the intellectuals, and we propose to renovate conservatism and see if we can't win some of them around." 
Yet while Buckley seemed cognizant of the "revolution" that had transpired and was, in fact, successful in attracting a number of intellectuals, he failed to see that the new intellectual class as a whole, which had indeed "midwived and implemented the revolution," could not become conservative. It could not do so because its principal interest, social function, and occupational calling in the new order was to delegitimize the ideas and institutions of conservatism and provide legitimization for the new regime, and its power and rewards as a class depended upon the very bureaucratized cultural organizations that conservatives attacked. Only if conservatism were "renovated" to the point that it no longer rejected the cultural apparatus of the revolution could intellectuals be expected to sign up.

 Moreover, by focusing its efforts in Manhattan, Washington, and the major centers of the intelligentsia and other sectors of the new elite, Buckley and his conservative colleagues isolated themselves from their natural allies in the "grass roots." While there was clearly a need for intellectual sophistication on the Right, the result of Buckley's tactic was to generate a schism between Old Right intellectual cadres and the body of conservative supporters outside its north-eastern urban and academic headquarters. Among these supporters in the 1950s and 1960s there flourished an increasingly bizarre and deracinated wilderness of extremist, conspiratorialist, racialist, and even occultist ideologues who loudly rejected both the Old Right mainstream and the Old Right's new friends in the intellectual and cultural elite, but who failed to attract any but the most marginal and pathological elements in the country and exerted no cultural or political influence at all [ED]. At various times in its history, National Review has found it necessary to "purge" itself of such adherents, and each catharsis, no matter how prudent, has rendered its "renovated" conservatism less and less palatable to ordinary Americans and more and more acceptable to the Manhattanite intelligentsia it has always sought to attract. 
Here Francis teaches NRx an important lesson. Firstly, whilst NRx is not populist, it's going to be irrelevant if it's not popular.  Simply being an intellectual exercise is not enough. Francis has more to say on the subject which I will comment on in later posts. But the other thing Francis realises is that Buckley's purges were necessary since many of the those attracted to the conservative movement were actually hostile to the "Old Right".

Buckley's three huge mistakes were in;

1) Trying to conform to the establishment.
2) Not having an adequate enough yardstick by which to measure a Conservative's credentials.
3) Purging the obvious psychopaths whist missing the more cunning snakes. i.e Neoconservatives.

It's the latter two points which worry me the most with regard to current developments in the dissident Right.  Looks a bit like history repeating.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

1488 and the Alt-Right.

Ramsey Paul put up a good video post a few weeks ago. It quite clearly explains the problems with the 1488 crowd and the Alt-Right.

Now some definitions according to me:

1) Dissident Right= All groups not represented by what is known as the mainstream Right. i.e. G.O.P, UK conservative Party, Australian Liberal party etc.
2) 1488= Supporters of the ideology of the Nazi party and its local variants.
3) NRx=NRx
4) Alt Right=?

Now, what I don't understand from the way the term seems to be used, is the Alt Right:

1) Alt Right = Dissident Right.
2) Alt Right = Dissident Right - NRx
3) Alt Right = Dissident Right - NRx - 1488
4) Alt Right = 1488 by another name?

From what I can see, in common usage amongst the Dissident Right, the term seems to be used interchangeably and without any specificity which I feel is a dangerous habit.  As Ramsey Paul points out, with the increasing mainstream acceptance of the "Alt Right" there seems to be a concerted effort by the 1488 crowd to co-opt that moniker.  In essence what the 1488 crowd are trying to do is associate themselves with the dissident right.

Cognitive misers--i.e. the average man--doesn't think in terms of concepts, rather, he "thinks" in terms of associations. And what matters for the hearts and minds of the proletariat is not what they think of you rather what they associate with you.  It's a simple principle of advertising and that's why when they're trying to sell you a product the actors in the commercials are always attractive or agreeable. On the other hand when they're trying to diss a product, the users are always hopeless and unattractive.

Whether the Dissident Right likes it or not, the infusion of quasi Nazi imagery into Alt-Right websites is going to associate the Alt-Right with Nazism. Not by any logical act but simply by the fact of human biology. It's how our brains work. Advertising 101. Furthermore, the use by the 1488 crowd of dissident Right memes serves to further conflate the the distinction between the two.

Why the 1488 crowd wants to call itself the Alt-Right is up for speculation. I imagine a section of it wants to gain political legitimacy for its ideas by repackaging itself in a form that doesn't trigger previous associations with Nazism but if that's the case, it's doing a very bad job.

My personal view, and it appears to be Ramsey Paul's as well, is that the the role of the 1488 crowd is to discredit the dissident Right. (Note, when Ramsey uses Alt-Right he uses it in a way that excludes the 1488 crowd.) And I don't think that this is a conspiracy theory that's too hard to swallow.

There are some really, really nasty people in the NeoNazi groups which the authorities would be wise to monitor. But there is considerable documentary evidence that many of the groups themselves may actually be heavily influenced by law enforcement officials. Some reading:

Records show Feds used ultra-Right radio host for years.

Neo Nazi Rally was organised by FBI informant.


FBI Nazi Bikers Bust FBI Nazi Group

From the FBI's own website.
"Domestic right-wing terrorist groups often adhere to the principles of racial supremacy and embrace antigovernment, antiregulatory beliefs. Generally, extremist right-wing groups engage in activity that is protected by constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. Law enforcement becomes involved when the volatile talk of these groups transgresses into unlawful action.
On the national level, formal right-wing hate groups, such as the National Alliance, the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) and the Aryan Nations, represent a continuing terrorist threat. Although efforts have been made by some extremist groups to reduce openly racist rhetoric in order to appeal to a broader segment of the population and to focus increased attention on antigovernment sentiment, racism-based hatred remains an integral component of these groups’ core orientations."
Given the Leftward shift of society, and given the Government propensity to weaponise its agencies against its political rivals, and given that the current administration is very hostile to right wing views,  it is highly probably that many of the extremist Alt-Right-- in the 1488 sense--are either complete nut-jobs or agents provocateurs. It's also quite probable that there are attempts afoot to discredit the Dissident Right by association with the 1488 crowd.


I think it's a rather sad state of affairs that they've even been able to gain admission and illustrates just how poor the state of Rightist thought is at the moment. (Another reason why the Left always wins). As I've said before, how can socialism for white people only be considered Right Wing?

The task ahead is to delineate what is Dissident Right and what it is not, and to walk the tight-rope between the Mainstream Right and the Nazi Party.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Between a Cuck and a Hard Place.


Matthew 7:13-21King James Version (KJV)

My greatest fear for the dissident right has always been capture by Stormfront entryists. Unfortunately, this seems to have come to pass with the successful influence of Stormfront types  who have successfully able to rebrand themselves as the alt-Right.  As Ramsay Paul points out that the problem for the Rightist who finds the mainstream Right repulsive is that alternative positions or movements he might wish to entertain have become increasingly constrained by the infusion of the alt-Right into what was formerly intelligent NRx.

NRx, particularly Christian NRx, is the long term future for the Right. However it is now getting squeezed by the mainstream Right and the alt-Right. Mainstream Rightists like to label any Rightist who is outside their opinion window as a Racist, on the other hand, their mirror image, the alt-Right, likes to label any Rightist outside their window as a cuck.

As much as NRx is an intellectual movement it does need people. Not just in terms of thinking, but in terms of disseminating ideas, organising people and so on. It doesn't need to be a "mass movement" but it does need to be a real movement, otherwise it's simply pie in the sky ideas and will be without any historical relevance whatsoever. The problem is for NRx is not just diagnosis, the problem is how to move the world. The apparent current strategy, of being the last man standing, is in my opinion false.  A collapsing society produces power vacuums and that vacuum is going to be filled either by NRx grasping power or someone else doing it. Power tempered by ideas is the ultimate imperative of NRx.

NRx is going to need people. Governance is not through ideas alone, rather it needs people who are going to implement them. Not the People-of-Walmart, otherwise known as sheep in the Bible, but shepherds. NRx seemed to provide a space where intelligent ideas could be discussed freely and a rallying point for those intelligent but dissatisfied people of the right. However, with the infusion of the alt-Right, thought policing--admittedly of different kind--has returned with methods of the SJW, driving away the intelligent people.

Racist is the term used by the Left for anyone who opposes their multicultural dogma, Cuck has now become the slur for anyone who opposes the Stromfront view of Race. There is quite simply no middle ground between the two groups. It's one set of puritans against the other. Dumb and dumber; the intelligent person just wants to walk away. The role of the Alt-Right is to proletise NRx.

For the Left this state of affairs is particularly fortuitous and sometimes you have to wonder if they bring out their alt-Right hitmen every now and then to discredit intelligent Rightist through guilt by association. Nothing, and I mean nothing, would benefit both Hillary and the GOP to see the Stormfront types endorse Donald and he likewise embrace their views. They are political poison.

Nationalism does not have to be toxic. The alt-Right makes it so. The reason why Victor Orban put Richard Spencer in Jail is because Victor Orban's racial awareness is not the same as Richard Spencer. Racial realism or more better still, group identity, does not imply a malignant racism.  Yet the Left would like you to think so and the alt-Right want you to do so. They work in synergy and they're working to kill NRx.

For the record. I have no association with Ramsey Paul whatsoever. I've simply reblogged his post because I thought it was very good.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Being anti-Left is not Right.

Apologies to all as my work/life balance has been heavily skewed toward work over the past few months so posting has been light, however a post in today's infeed serves to highlight a point that I've been trying to make for a while now i.e The Alt-Right is not really Right.

Here's the post, go have a read.

All this, of course, hinges upon the meaning of what it means to be "Right". This is a very important point which isn't given enough time in NRx and clarity in this issue will help separate,  as we say here in Australia, "the shit from the clay". Furthermore, clarity in this issue will help identify entryists  and crypto rightists who are nothing more than Leftists in drag.

As mentioned previously in this blog, most people are cognitive misers and their primary mode of "thought' is through associations. For the cognitive miser, "Right wing" means having opinions that are not Left wing and therefore someone who espouse anti-Left opinions is automatically categorised as Right.  This, of course, plays into the Left "frame control" by putting all their enemies into one "cognitive camp" hence the common claim that there are no enemies to the "right". The  Right, in this instance, being defined by the Left. 

What many of the "stupid Right" fail to realise  is that the Left's has its own sectarian battles and by making the frame of reference the dominant Left party, all the non-dominant internecine parties on the Left have a high chance of being classified as right, simply by their opposition to the dominant sect of the Left.  Furthermore, that risk of misclassification is greater if the Left sect espouses values which are sometimes associated with the Right.  A notional socialist does not become right wing by embracing nationalism he simply remains a left wing nationalist.

It is here where we come to an understanding of the failure of the Right in the 20th C.  It has defined itself as anti-Left instead of pro-something. Therefore there has been no standard by which to judge a movements "Rightness" except for its anti-Left credentials. Therefore it has formed alliances with groups who ultimately subvert it and as I currently see it, the role of the alt-Right is to subvert the Right. Here is a comment from the Radix blog which fairly well summaries the blog's position on several key philosophical points:

List of "AltRight" positions as declared here at Radix and in NPI speeches:
-Pro belief in global warming
-Pro gay rights
-Pro big government

It's much more accurate to simply say, "AltLeft" as Counter-Currents has rightly done.
How do they fit within the Right schema?

They don't.

This blog does not position itself on the Left-Right axis, it positions itself along the Right-Wrong one. Truth with a big T is the primary concern of NRx, and I'm quite happy to accept propositions from the Left that are true and reject propositions from the Right which are wrong. As the cards stack however, the majority of true propositions can be found in the Right, and that's why this blog assumes a Right flavor.

The role of the Alt-Right is not concerned about truth, it is concerned about power. Racial consciousness is the only standard by which all other epistemology is judged. If God is not "racially conscious" then God can be ditched and his followers persecuted.  For Christians, a "Right" which rejects God is no better than the Left, it's wrong. However it is a pernicious heresy and one that is very difficult to spot, especially for the cognitive miser of the Right.

The appeal of the alt-Right is that it does advocate some truths which instinctively appeal. The love of kin, the delight of manhood, the sense of brotherhood that they preach all appeals to the "blood" of the normal man.  It's not these things that I criticise it for, it's its hatred of God and his people that damns the movement to burn in Hell.

There is no Western Civilisation without the baby Jesus.

(A little wiki primer for those who are still confused.)