Nobody’s Fool: Appreciating Ann.

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Conservative pundits in America are frequently the subject of international ridicule. Judged to be theatrically insincere, eccentric and overdosed on faith, they rarely find an audience outside of their land of origin. Glenn Beck and his style have few fans in French or German conservative circles. Sean Hannity is not a household name in Finnish or Scottish right-wing society, and so on.

I can appreciate the reasons for this. American discourse is unusually brash and provocative, often quite deliberately so. Even if it were attempted, I doubt a weak-tea BBC Newsnight-kind of discussion would attract much attention there. American media is about viewers and advertising. A viewership on the scale required by sponsors can only be earned with fireworks, red cloth and bulls.

But this doesn’t mean that some American conservatives do not have real talent underlying their cable news methodology. One pundit in particular deserves a far more cosmopolitan – or any rate more international – audience than she seems at present to attract.

Despite acres of print arguing otherwise, Ann Coulter is not a ‘joke’ or a ‘novelty act’. She is admittedly a woman, and a blonde, long-legged one at that. I don’t doubt that some of her fanbase are motivated by apolitical factors. But I am not one of them.

I read Ms Coulter’s columns for their dark humour and cutting insight. She is gifted with a rapier wit, Adderall-sharp mind and her knowledge of the gut-workings of the Washington machine is unparalleled. Let me illustrate this with some well-known quotations:

“Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.”

“Since Adam ate the apple and let evil into the world, deranged individuals have existed. Most of the time they can’t be locked up until it’s too late. It’s not against the law to be crazy — in some jurisdictions it actually makes you more viable as a candidate for public office.”

“Liberals have managed to eliminate the idea of manly honour. Instead, all they have is womanly indignation.”

“One hundred percent of terrorist attacks on commercial airlines based in America for 20 years have been committed by Muslims. When there is a 100 percent chance, it ceases to be a profile. It’s called a ‘description of the suspect.'”

Some stuffy types might call this tone populist or dumbed-down, but that’s really quite unfair. It is actually the appropriate tone to use when discussing any kind of absurdity. When reality itself becomes self-satirical, mad to the point of losing insight, then the most accurate descriptions of it can only be phrased in comic language.

Humour is also a good means of getting a point across. Where would the anti-Islamisation movement be without the black comedy of Mark Steyn, for example? Some facts are so dark that one must one dust them in irony or laughter to make them palatable.

We are living in a world of beheadings, gays thrown from rooftops, forcible limb amputations and organised political rape. Most people would impulsively avoid knowing about these things. It’s all just too grim and defies too many human assumptions.

But we can’t ignore them. To put our fingertips in our ear canals only guarantees our destruction. The screams have to be heard. And I applaud and value people like Coulter for providing realism with the consolation of wit.

D, LDN.

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Pyongyang or Islamabad?

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American Liberty, Civilisation, Communism, Death Toll, Defend the modern world, Kim Jung-Un, london, North Korea Best, North Korea holidays, politics, Pyongyang, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, South Korea, Starvation, War

Here’s an interesting fact you might not be aware of: The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the only foreign country North Koreans are allowed to study in during their period of higher education.

No other nation’s universities are open to the citizens of the Communist republic, presumably because of the well-grounded fear that those students might choose not to return. It speaks volumes that the North Korean regime has no such fears in sending its citizens to India’s chaotic neighbour, and says even more that there have been no recorded defections to Pakistan in the time this policy has been active.

Ever since I read this information, I’ve been imagining which I would personally prefer out of the two great evils of our time. That is, whether I would rather live in a starving, cruel and genocidal Communist state or in a nation ruled (albeit unofficially) along the lines of Islamic fundamentalism…

It really is a tough one. On the one hand, the DPRK has advantages over Pakistan. Unlike Pakistan, the DPRK is not chaotic but orderly and the state has absolute control over the people. True, this is ordinarily a bad thing, but given the activities that prevail in Muslim states when the government loses control, it is surely comforting by comparison. Furthermore, the DPRK does not forbid intoxication, an important means of escape from an unpleasant or insufferable reality.

On the other side, Pakistan, for all its hysterical unreason, is in reality a variety box of primitives, some of them violent, some of them merely stupid and quietly devout. If a North Korean lucked out and managed to study in whatever passes for a liberal area of the Islamic Republic, he/she might discover a forbidden liberty, like reading non-state-sponsored books, or watching unbiased international news via satellite.

Of course, the most clear and obvious advantage in going to Pakistan from Korea is the opportunity, however perilous, to cross the border into India and from there to get to the West. Indeed one could even switch planes at a Pakistani airport and get to the Korean Republic instead of the DPRK. But this takes us away from the point of the thought experiment.

Let’s say instead, that you have a choice to live for the rest of your natural life in Pakistan or in the DPRK. What would appeal to you more. Where do you think your suffering might be least, and your prospects of happiness greatest?

After thinking it through, I would probably plump for the savagery of Pakistan, purely on the grounds that there must surely be pockets of civility in a country of that size. There is also the factor of nutrition to consider. A starving life is no life at all.

I’m very much interested in your responses and reasoning.

D, LDN.

Family Guy and the Acceptable Racism of the Left.

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America 911, American Liberty, anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Civilisation, Coffee, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Family Guy, london, Minority racism, Seth Macfarlane

Liberals are smart, kindly and open-minded; Conservatives are dumb, nasty and closed minded. Such is convention in even the most professedly informed circles of opinion. So sure are these principles considered in fact, that they lend themselves sufficiently to a grading system: The more Conservative you are, the more stupid and closed minded; the more Liberal you are, the more intelligent…

Nobody is confused about where this dichotomy derives from. It was born on University campuses in the Sixties, when Left-Wing professors added a compulsory Liberalism module to all academic degrees. Since that decade, almost every graduate, having emerged through an intellectual car-wash of politicised education, has self-identified as firmly on the Left. By this same process, the Right (and the thinking associated with it) has become associated with those not clever enough to attend University; the sub-professional class, or – if you prefer – the 95 percent.

But how accurate are these assumptions today? To find out, let’s use the favourite measure of the Left – Racism.

It is undoubtedly true that those who are consciously racist most often identify as ‘right-wing’, and those who consider themselves non or anti-racist, align as Left-wing. This, however says nothing about that sizable group of people who are racist without being conscious of the fact.

Racism, lest we forget, is not all about pointed hoods, Roman salutes and burning crosses. Before it becomes anything political, Racism is merely a mindset, a tendency of thought. A racist is someone who judges people according to categories too broad to be reliably accurate. He or she might believe (for example) that all Blacks are criminals, that Jews are greedy, that Hispanics are lazy, Arabs are violent, Russians are alcoholics etc… The specific error involved here is generalisation, and it lies behind every other vice of the political mind from misandry to misogyny, ageism to disablism…

To investigate the levels of unconscious bigotry in the liberal community, perhaps no better example can be found to work with than the satirical cartoon ‘Family Guy’. Despite airing on the FOX network, Family Guy is an unmistakably liberal creation, loudly opposed to religious belief, guns and ‘rednecks’, degrading to male sexuality and conservative politics, and as its unifying principle – hostile toward the values of the family. The lead writer and creator of Family Guy Seth Macfarlane also has an active political life outside of entertainment, playing a leading role in organised Atheism, Democratic advocacy and Gay rights.

As is typical of Liberal presumption, Macfarlane seems to believe that these political credentials provide him with a pass on all matters otherwise covered by political correctness. As a result, his long-running show, whilst always nominally leaning Leftward, draws from an open sewer of caricature against every group imaginable.

Hispanic characters in Family Guy are typically of suspicious origin, illiterate in English, and employed as menial labour. Blacks are smooth, handsome but stupid dolts permanently relegated to second-standing. Asians are uptight, slant-eyed freaks who cannot speak properry.

But of all its grotesque liberties, the representation of Jews on Family Guy is perhaps most worthy of note. Consider the analysis of Mark Pinsky writing in the Jewish Daily Forward:

“Anti-Semitism is a serious charge” he writes “…made too quickly and too often. But as someone who has followed (Family Guy creator Seth) MacFarlane’s career, I think it is well past time to call him out.”

In Pinsky’s words the show ” reinforces classic, anti-Semitic stereotypes: greedy, cheap, cowardly, whiny, averse to physical labor, and in control of Hollywood.”

The main Jewish character in Family Guy – Mort Goldman – (an accountant, naturally) -is usually portrayed as weak, shy, unmanly, and qualified only in numbers. Many other Jewish characters are wheeled on to add emphasis to this concept.

My point here – it should be clarified – is not to complain about FG’s lack of Political Correctness. In fact, I completely support its unfettered exercise of freedom of speech. My point is rather a question: Why can Liberals say these things, and not anyone else?

Why, for example, can Macfarlane mock the disabled (through the wheelchair-bound character – Joe) without attracting a whiff of public outrage, but a Conservative, or even Centrist comedian trying the same would be hounded to the grave? Why – to put the question simply – does Liberalism provide an exemption from Political Correctness? Indeed, if Political Correctness really is only a benign ‘institutionalised politeness’ (as Stewart Lee eloquently argued) then why are exemptions from it made at all?

The outdated British comedian Jim Davidson (whose live act is filled with jokes about Gay, Irish and Black people) was interviewed last year on BBC Newsnight. When asked why he was condemned by modern comics as being out-of-date, he said his mistake was not to play the ‘irony’ card. When asked to explain further, he described the attitude as “I can’t be racist cos’ I went to University”.

I have no affection for Mr Davidson’s act, but his description of the Liberal attitude is pin-point accurate. And until the Left addresses its own bigotry in this regard, its attacks on others will rightly be deemed hypocrisy.

D, LDN

Ukraine, Oil and Russian Decline.

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American Liberty, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Ukraine Vs Russia, United States

The dire situation in Ukraine threatens to awaken many sleeping dogs. Among them is the potentially violent question of how Russia relates to Europe; that is, whether it is content to be a peaceable neighbour with a diminished geopolitical status, a respected part of Europe itself, or else a threat to Europe.

Out of these three scenarios, the first is both the most desirable and yet also the most unlikely.

Russia has always regarded itself  – if for no greater reason than its gigantism – as a global Superpower, forever equal to both Europe and America.

The problem here is that no respected observer (inside the country or out) would accord Russia this kind of status economically, militarily or culturally.

While I’m far from in agreement with the US analyst who (in reference to Moscow’s reliance on gas revenue) memorably defamed the country as “Saudi Arabia with trees”. I can’t say I don’t understand the point-of-view. Abroad from the wealthy Moscow mega-region, Russia is almost uninhabited. Those who do dwell east of the Urals meanwhile are typically old, infertile (by choice and age) and threatened by endemic alcoholism.

The best (and indeed only) thing Moscow can do, in a vast country with a shrinking population, is to put the land to work instead, extracting every mineral and value contained within it and selling it to the West and China.

So far, this has proved a workable strategy.

Russia today is hardly poor and much of the influx of Western money has been redirected into creating an impressive native arms industry. Russia’s military currently boasts several indigenously designed 4th generation fighter jets, accurate and effective anti-sattelite missiles, and (lest we forget) cutting-edge nuclear arms too.

But this situation could change.

Even if the current EU and Obama administrations seem reluctant to do so, the succeeding regimes will almost certainly begin to invest in the huge reservoir of shale gas buried beneath both North-America and Europe. Some analysts predict that between them, there is enough energy to eventually stop American reliance on Middle East oil.  More to the point, it could also end European reliance on Russian energy.

The loss of the European market would be a catastrophe for Russia, and would almost certainly initiate huge geopolitical consequences.

Perhaps it is that dire prognosis which motivates Russia’s drive to secure an empire that will, at a later date, be impossible to construct.

D, LDN.

Immunised by Experience: The Irony of East-European Fortune.

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Belarus, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Eastern Europe, English Defence League, Eurabia, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Poland, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Russia, Slavic

Though still subject to debate, the landscape boundaries of ‘Europe’ have traditionally been drawn over the extremities of Russia in the East, and the coasts of Ireland and Portugal in the West. This mass is usually then cleaved into three (Western, Central and Eastern) cultural areas, each dominated by a regional giant – respectively, France, Germany, and Poland.

When we talk today of the ‘Islamisation of Europe’, we are normally talking exclusively about the Western and Central demarcations. The Eastern part of the continent remains, with a few isolated exceptions, relatively homogenous.

Poland, for an example, is currently over 90% Christian with a Muslim population below 1%. In Ukraine, the majority are either Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or irreligious, with Muslims barely a trace cultural element. Similar situations to these prevail in Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Hungary and Latvia too.

The reason behind this advantageous trend surely counts as one of the grandest ironies in history.

As you know, between the close of World-War II and the fall of the Soviet Union, the nations of Eastern Europe were held in political bondage to Moscow. During this period, the regime which saw fit to rule them, Soviet Communism, reduced such countries to economic ruin, and created a repressive and politically inflexible atmosphere, based – above-all – upon fear.

Throughout the Eastern bloc, young people, upon graduating from their indoctrinated universities, were allowed few aspirations beyond that of joining the cruel Soviet infrastructure itself. Goods were hard to come by. Food-production was poorly managed. Freedom of speech and conduct were radically curtailed. Businesses were bullied by the state, or else sank of their own accord. Only jails and torture chambers conducted a roaring trade.

Into this unfortunate situation, very few non-European immigrants aspired to enter, preferring, quite logically, the wealth and freedom of Paris, Amsterdam and London, to the midnight interrogations and bread queues of Warsaw, Kiev and Minsk.

When the iron curtain finally fell then, and with the seeds of demographic destruction already having been planted to the West of Berlin, Eastern Europeans re-awoke to find their societies starved, disorientated and angry, but otherwise relatively unchanged.

Though in the coming years, Cultural Marxists attempted to launch third-world immigration drives in Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania, they were never successful. Eastern Europeans were immunized to their deceptions by direct, bitter experience. They knew very well all the lies and buzzwords of the Left, having spent years in societies hearing nothing else. They also knew, more importantly, where such lies can lead.

In Britain, there is a running commentary in the football press, regarding the alleged ‘racism’ of Polish and other East-European fans at Euro football matches.

When the Polish national team plays the Dutch squad for example, explicitly racist taunting (monkey impressions, the displaying of bananas and watermelons, use of racial language) is often heard solely from the Polish terraces.

This is – of course – thuggish and unacceptable behavior for any civilized people, but perhaps there is more to this conduct than meets the eye.

These taunts, I believe, are rooted in political memory, and have behind them expressions of relief as well as – perhaps – just a whiff of Schadenfreude….

The Poles see in the (usually all African) ‘Dutch’ football squad, the realization of an ideology they successfully threw off, and which the West, once so chauvinistic, is now itself perishing under.

D, LDN.

Better than Reagan?: The Fate of George. W Bush’s Reputation.

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America 911, American Liberty, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Eurabia, George W. Bush, Islam and the West, Islamism, Pat Robertson, Rihanna Muslim, Ronald Reagan, Saudi Arabia, United States

If you ask a right-leaning American to name the greatest President in modern history, they will almost certainly answer with Ronald Reagan – the great slasher of budgets, and cold-warrior par excellence.

So great is the reputation of the actor-turned-politician that he often outranks Lincoln and Washington in polls to find the greatest historical American. The ex-President’s surname can be used to denote an entire system of economic policy, and he remains the standard against which Republican candidates measure themselves, often using – if they are wise – the term ‘Reaganite’ to describe their agenda.

To a foreigner like myself, this consensus – though understandable – seems a tad warped. Ronald Reagan was a great leader, a charismatic speaker and a fine diplomat, but to call him the greatest President in US history is surely excessive.

For me, he is at least equalled by the achievement of a more recent incumbent of the White house, George W Bush.

Reagans reputation derives largely from two things – his economic liberalism in the second place, and in the first, his aggressive handling of the Cold War which led to the dismantling of Soviet communism.

The latter achievement obviously deserves to be remembered, and Reagan and Thatcher will forever be ‘victors’ in the historic imagination, regardless of their (many) domestic failures. Soviet Communism was an affront to human dignity, human aspiration and the very idea of liberty. The downfall of socialism in Eastern Europe should, like the moon landing, rightly count as a triumph for the human race, rather than a merely Western or ‘capitalist’ one (let alone a merely ‘Republican’ one). Tens of millions of Soviet citizens were starved, often if not always deliberately, by a deathly-cold bureaucratic Moscow regime hell-bent on extending the privilege to the rest of the world. Reagan provided a muscular resistance against such vile ambition, and we are all the better off for it.

But Communism is only the second of the 20th century’s 3 great evils. Churchill and Roosevelt deserve enormous credit for dealing decisively with the first, that of Fascism in its German, Italian and Japanese manifestations.

And finally George W Bush deserves more credit than he receives for beginning to address the third evil of that turbulent century, that of radical Islam – the movement to violently Islamize the planet which began in Cairo during the downfall of Arab socialism in the 1960s.

Is this movement not as much of a threat to human dignity as the first two?

I would venture that it is an even more potent threat, as well one better-placed to succeed.

Pat Robertson, the much-mocked Evangelical tycoon and author, stated a few years ago that, since there are 1 Billion Muslims in the world, that would mean that if even 10% were Islamist (an understatement I would say) then the resulting 100 million-strong army would count as a greater military threat to Europe than Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union did at the height of their powers.

Is he wrong?

Robertson has spoken so much quackery in his time that his wisdom too easily goes unnoticed. This way of describing the Islamist threat is a tidying and clarifying one, and he should be thanked for it. Demographically, the pastor is right on the money. Islamism has greater (as least numerically so) human resources than Nazi Germany or the Soviets ever had. They are also encamped in some of the worlds most crucial regions.

For years the Soviet Union dreamt of breaking through to the Arab world and becoming a player in the global oil game. The Islamists are already there, and in many cases, in-charge. Moscow desperately wanted a presence in waters significant to global trade, like the Suez canal, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Islamist regimes have naval claims in all of these, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey respectively. Russia lustfully sought the latest military technology. Muslim Brotherhood-administered Egypt, Erdogan’s Turkey and Saudi Arabia all have large and modern US-equipped Air Forces/defences.

This threat then, in many ways superior to those which came before it, requires brave and visionary leadership. I believe that such leadership was briefly displayed by George W. Bush.

After the 9/11 attacks, America had for a brief moment, the sympathy of the entire world.

For many, George W, Bush squandered that sympathy. For others (myself included), he stood up to protect his country without regard for the sympathy of others.

Bush is remembered for “going it alone” on Iraq. But this is a lie. He didn’t go it alone at all. Britain, Spain, Italy and many other important powers lent support to the project, but even this is beside the point.

In the President’s mind he didn’t require the permission of Finland to defend America. Nor did he need the approval of Russia or China. He was willing to stand against the world in defence of the interests of his country.

Good for him.

Were I an American during the diplomatic heat of the build-up to the lraq invasion, I would have been filled with pride that my President cared so little for foreign opinion when defending my nation.

Why should the security of a country of America’s importance depend on the say-so of the Faroe Islands?

People may find US foreign policy arrogant, even offensive, but such is life. America as a nation is indispensable. The sooner we in Europe realise this the better. These days, with Islamism bubbling over onto our shores from North Africa and the Middle East, we need Uncle Sam more than ever. 

For now we must await a new President. A new George, W Bush.

D, LDN.

Obama, a Communist? Er…yeah.

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American Liberty, anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Barack Obama Communist, Christianity, Democrats Communists, English Defence League, fascism, Is Barack Obama a Communist?, Islamism, London EDL, No to Turkey in the EU

Is Barack Obama a Communist?

To answer yes to this question is to risk ridicule, and so most on the right disguise the affirmative response by calling him a socialist instead. Most on the left and many in the centre would say a flat-out no, thinking the idea absurd if not offensive.

But the reality is that not only is Obama a Communist, and an opponent of Capitalism, but he is surely one of the most talented in history – for he has managed to hypnotise even the most Conservative observer into stopping short of saying it.

True, Obama is far from a Communist of the old-style. But then that kind of Communism didn’t work so who would be?

No, Obama, together with our own EU labour movements, belongs very much to the movement of second-wave Communists; people whose philosophy can be backdated to the teachings of the New Left.

The words Socialist and Communist in this sense are not merely ‘connected’ but interchangeable.

How strictly does Obama play it?

Let’s see.

If there was a code of modern Communist conduct, it would probably read something like the following…

• 1. Never use the word Communist except in order to deny that you are one.
• 2. Never quote, credit or reference Marx, Lenin, or Trotsky.
• 3. Treat the accusation that you are a Communist as not only wrong but absurd.
• 4. Use where-ever possible the words ‘social-democrat’.
• 5. Link the charge of racism and excessive religiosity to those who accuse you of being a Communist.
• 6. Talk of ‘unity’ and of ‘one-nation’ governance. Mention ‘ending division’, and ‘bringing people together’ – this will sound much better than collectivism.
• 7. Construct a borderless ‘nation’ out of the poor. Make the poor of Canada relate -as if by blood and heritage – to the poor of America. Make the poor of America relate to the poor of Europe. Etc…etc…
• 8. Blame the wealth-creators for having not created enough wealth, the elite for not being elite enough. Ally with those who have not created wealth. Indulge their willful blindness. Appeal to their ego and to the romantic concept of the American ‘working man’ ( never, under any circumstances use the phrases ‘workers’ or working class.)
• 9. Mark, alongside your nation, any events created to remember the dead of Cambodia, North Korea and the Soviet Union. Behave as if the governmental errors and economic policies behind such deaths are incomprehensible to you.
• 10. In the same way a pimp tightens his hold around a prostitute, make the working and creative classes dependent on government funding.
• 11. In terms of foreign policy – if the nation is a third-world or poor country, deal with them kindly, and even when their behaviour prohibits you from allying with them, do not attack them. It will undermine the ‘nation of the poor’ narrative.
• 12. Divide the aspirational races. Connect together those who lag behind. Bind Hispanic immigrants to poor African-Americans. Divide aspirational Asians and Whites.

If this were the code of conduct for a modern Communist, then Obama plays it pretty close to the book, almost too close.

And it isn’t just America.

An unwritten law in politics dictates that what is in government will fall out of fashion, and what is out of government will come back into fashion. A right-wing government increases the chances of left-wing parties at the next election, and vice versa.  In Europe, although collectivism is out of government, it is very much in fashion. At our next election here in the UK, Labour’s Ed Miliband is favourite to sweep David Cameron’s Tories out of power and the Liberal Democrats into oblivion. In France the Sarkozy government has already given way to the socialist government of Francios Hollande. In Germany, Chancellor Merkel’s days may also be numbered, as left-liberal parties begin to bite at her ankles.

Wow.

The leader of the free world is leading it alright. But to where…?

D, LDN.