The Banality of Terror

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The attack in Nice, France – which resulted in the death by crushing of over 80 innocent civilians – has hardly caused a ripple on social media.

After the news had come through the place-name ‘Nice’ trended on Facebook for little more than an hour or so, after which it rapidly tumbled out of the ranking, replaced by such stories relating to the appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary to the UK government, speculation over Donald Trump’s VP choice, and the latest gossip relating to the Palin family.

There have been no diaphanous tricolours draped over the profile pictures of my friends this time around. Few have chosen to mention the incident in a status update, or even to share a relevant news story. And I have been no different.

I just can’t quite bring myself to be angry over this latest atrocity. I am not shocked, frightened, or agitated by it. The news of the attack has hit me rather like a report of sleet in Scotland, or wind in Wales. Terrorism, especially terrorism in France, now seems ordinary, banal, unremarkable.

This attitude (which is largely involuntary) is especially disturbing when one contemplates the gruesome manner in which the victims of the Nice attack perished. Unlike the more professional attack of last November, the victims this time were not put out of their happiness by a painless bullet to the head. They were crushed by several tonnes of metal and rubber; flattened, deformed under wheels. As banal as the observation might be, this must have been a hellish way to die.

But still, I’m not outraged – only bitter and depressed. I want all this to stop, but I really don’t think it will. And if an anti-Islamist blogger is becoming desensitised to terrorism, how on Earth can we expect the average Joe to maintain the required level of interest?

The man suspected of carrying out the Nice truck attack: French-Tunisian – Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel

The official response to Nice has been just as lacklustre as the public reaction. Boris Johnson, (whose appointment as Foreign Secretary must rank as the worst national embarrassment in years), has expressed little more than sadness at the news. In America, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton offered only cheap, hollow solidarity on her personal Facebook page. Even Donald Trump has been more muted than usual.

The only exception to this icy disregard has been (or seemed at one point to be) former US house speaker Newt Gingrich, who used the aftermath of the attack to suggest a very sensible policy by which the US would quiz individual Muslims upon entry to America on their views of Sharia Law.

Unfortunately, if also inevitably, when this commonsensical notion received the usual abuse from the usual abusers, Gingrich promptly drained the idea of its force, over-clarifying the concept to the point of retraction. How pathetic; how telling.

The reaction of the Western media (or at least the UK/US media) was to dampen out any loose sparks of anger that might have escaped the general apathy described. The ever-reliable ‘don’t panic’ libertarian Simon Jenkins, for example, hot-footed it into the Guardian offices to inform us that: “A Nice truck driver does not remotely threaten the security of the French state, any more than such acts do the security of America or Britain. The identification of the nation state with random killings of innocent people has become a political aberration….The implication that leaders can somehow prevent such attacks by armed response is a total distraction from the intelligence and police work that might at least diminish their prevalence. It nationalises and institutionalises public alarm. It leads governments into madcap adventurism abroad and “securitises” the private lives of citizens at home…What has happened in France is tragic and calls for human sympathy. Beyond that, there is nothing we can usefully do – other than make matters worse.”

Though this argument has the flavour of reasonableness, the implication of it is surely that we should do absolutely nothing in response to terrorism; indeed, that we should actively prevent our governments from doing anything about it – on libertarian grounds.

Someone should really inform Mr Jenkins that Western states in fact need little encouragement to under-react to terrorist atrocities. Doing nothing has been standard operating procedure ever since the twilight years of the Bush administration.

I personally have no doubt that Francois Hollande’s bungled security measures (including his declaration of an extended state of emergency) will end up doing more harm than good. Nevertheless, the general preference of the public must surely be for the state to do more to address this threat, not less. Jenkins and his ilk appear obsessed with getting the masses to calm down and to put things in a rational, non-emotional, context. We have been doing that for over a decade. A bit of non-rational rage really wouldn’t go amiss at this point.

French President Francois Hollande

All things considered, Nice has been an unmitigated triumph for ISIS. Not only have the swinish degenerates managed to send dozens of unbelievers to perpetual hellfire, they have also further diminished the life-force and rage-reflex of the continent on which they resided.

(On a side note  – It is worth noting that Westerners have not become incapable of getting angry about anything. We are still liable to go ape over the unlawful killing of gorillas and lions. It is only the value of human beings, and of Western culture, that is collapsing. One might justly speculate that if a dog or a cat had been caught under the wheels in Nice the reaction would have been rather more vigorous.)

Europe seems ever more like a wounded animal, yelping and moaning, bleeding and weakening. The old spark, the energy behind colonisation and empire, has been all but exhausted. The deathly prefix ‘post’ is now attached to every formerly noble concept: post-modern, post-national, post-racial, post-Christian etc… Everything is watered down and submissive enough that even the most barbaric challenger can overcome it.

I have nothing original to say about Nice. I will simply close by reiterating that Islam does not belong in Europe and never will. It is backward, violent, boring and false down to the letter. It must be resisted with everything with we have.

If indeed we still have anything at all.

D, LDN

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America is Not Going Down the Tubes

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One of the hardest things to endure when watching the GOP and Democratic debates is the tendency of politicians to fabricate an unrealistically negative prognosis for the United States as a whole. In both cases, talking points like the following are typical: “America is on its knees, screaming for help.” – “The American Middle Class is being decimated.” – “The American dream is dying.” – “Americans are losing hope.” – “If we don’t act now, our country will not survive” – And on, and on…

This kind of scaremongering is both irresponsible and starkly inaccurate. America is not going down the tubes. Indeed, relative to the faltering civilisation across the pond, America is booming, setting sail into a new century with strength, opportunity and stability. While there are certainly challenges America must deal with, such as the Latinisation of the Pacific South-West, mass retirement of baby boomers and a rising, potentially hostile China, none of these challenges – unlike the infusion of Islam into Europe – poses an existential threat to the historic entity itself.

So why do people say otherwise? Political expediency is an obvious answer. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a man I quite liked a few months ago, has since completely repelled my affection with an unceasing binge of melodramatic doom-mongering. There is no question as to why he indulges in this. Cruz is like the mechanic who subtly wrecks a fine-working part of the car in order to make his services more necessary than they are. He is putting greed before truth, manipulation before reality.

Among the GOP field, only two candidates are striking a positive and proactive tone – Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. The former, though born in the USA, still has the optimistic fervour of an immigrant. Coming from a family of Cuban exiles, Rubio still recognises the innate advantages of the American model, and he has yet to be corrupted by the Machiavellian orthodoxies of Washington. Going back and scribbling out many things I’ve said in the past, I would subsequently much prefer Rubio over Cruz were this the choice to be made.

Thankfully, it isn’t. Or at least not yet. Despite the unceasing onslaught from a corrupt mainstream media, Donald Trump remains the man to beat. In every major poll (barring the highly suspicious numbers manufactured by MSNBC), Trump is the clear front-runner to receive the final nomination. Nothing the billionaire has said or done in his campaign has been deceptive. His claims of American failings are all sourced from reliable data. America really is being taken for a ride by China and other low-wage worker colonies like Mexico and India. No exaggeration is required of the dangers in that.

This is very different from what other candidates are recklessly maintaining. Unlike them, Trump has never claimed that America itself is falling to pieces. Rather, he decries the stupidity of its leaders. He proposes to ‘make America great again’ because he knows greatness is still inherent within it.

Europe, by contrast, is a mess; a rickety, skeletal tribute to what it once was.  If we had half the reasons for hope America has, we would be among the happiest people in the world.

D, LDN

The Split Personality of William Maher.

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America, Bill Maher, Christianity and Islam, Defend the modern world, Gaza, Hypocrisy, Iraq, Liberals, Michael Moore, Multiculturalism, politics, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Real Time, Television, USA, War

The Liberal position in America is notoriously difficult to define. Many of the ideologies gathered under the term in the US would be classed at ‘Right-Wing’ in Europe (and almost certainly in continental Europe) where the label usually carries connotations of socialism and enthusiasm for the welfare state. American Liberals (against the claims of some Conservatives) are not at that point yet. More often, they align roughly with British centrists like the Orange-book Liberal Democrats or Cameronite Tories.

The American term for Liberals of the European style is ‘Leftist’, or collectively ‘The Left’. These are not often found in Establishment politics, or indeed anywhere close to the heat-field of democratic accountability. Rather they lurk on the fringes of Hollywood, music and (perhaps most of all) the booming trade of ‘political satire’.

A giant on this last stage is a Mr William “Bill” Maher.

Perhaps the most effective satirist in modern America, Maher has never made a secret of his adoration of President Obama (he was a big money donor to Obama’s re-election campaign) or of his violent loathing for White American culture and the rural poor. His well-honed spiel has been to accuse, with the merry confidence of a drunk, anyone exhibiting hostility toward the big-state idea as ‘racist’, a paid-for corporate toady or else a reprobate, homophobic, pro-life creationist. 

And this has worked extremely well. On my personal facebook page, I can never seem to avoid a re-post of Mr Maher’s latest routine, and his television show ‘Real Time’ is one of the most popular of its kind on American cable.

But despite such popularity, Maher has a quirk which makes his acceptance into Liberal high society controversial for more devout believers.

Maher is a Zionist. As a matter of fact, a very orthodox one. The comedian reliably supports the Israeli military in its offensives against terrorism wherever (and in whatever manner) they occur, and most recently found himself in hot water for doing so regarding Operation Protective Edge.

But why would I complain about that, you ask? It’s simple. Mr Maher’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself lies in stark contrast to his consistent refusal to grant this same right to America and Europe.

Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, Maher has repeatedly berated the US military for its excesses and sought (with some success) to diminish the morale of patriotic forces. The Bush regime in particular had no moral fibre for Maher and his baying amen-corner audiences. The invasion of Iraq was motivated by the price of oil. The assault on Falluja was a war crime. The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib meanwhile was not a singular episode but rather chimed with the moral tone of the whole enterprise.

Is it unfair to speculate that had the IDF been responsible for any of these events, Maher would have no trouble finding a way of rationalising them? I don’t think so.

And what would that be exactly? Hypocrisy? Tribalism (Maher has a Jewish mother)? Ignorance (that America and Israel are fighting the same wars)?

That I don’t know. But in my humble opinion the right Israel has to defend its liberal society extends to any other democracy, and wrong-headed hypocrites like Maher let us all down by obscuring this fact.

D, LDN.

Oprah Winfrey is a Talentless Scumbag.

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America, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, Defend the modern world, Martha Stewart, Multiculturalism, Oprah Winfrey, Police, race, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Television, United States, USA, Vulgarity

Shortly after the LA Clippers race ‘scandal’ hit the headlines; the television uber-personality Oprah Winfrey was quick to nominate herself as a qualified commentator.

“We’re not going back to the plantations.” She remarked to a waiting pack of reporters in her poorly ventilated, pre-op baritone voice, “Those days are over.”

Her comments were then duly reported across the world as if a whole new layer of meaning had been laid upon the story.

The comments under the article on the Daily Mail were dominated by the enquiry – Why?

Oprah Winfrey must be unique as a modern phenomenon. She is a billionaire, with uncountable books, television hours and celebrity connections to her name, and yet her renown and source of affection is limited entirely to her country of birth. No Englishman, Frenchman or (despite her laughable ‘tour’ down under) Australian has any regard for her whatsoever. Her success is an enigma; an American peculiarity – and the usual attempts at explaining it only seem to render it more foreign.

What distinguishes Winfrey from any other woman with the ability to read an autocue, expose straightened teeth and regurgitate ghost-written pleasantries?

In truth, Oprah is the longest-standing beneficiary of the racket of Affirmative Action. She has no disernable talent or charisma. Her personality is as multi-faceted as a plank of wood, and her physical appearance couldn’t be less photogenic. But none of this matters. She is clad in a suit of ebony privilege and arrived on the scene just as that privilege was beginning to grow in value. Now as it spikes, she is showered with more money that she knows what to do with.

This might be OK if Winfrey was merely vapid, but she isn’t. She is culturally damaging. The billionairess has built a well-earned reputation for being mentally shallow and ticklishly responsive to any passing trend, even to the point of self-contradiction. Through her talk show, she has endorsed just about every new philosophical or ‘spiritual’ fad under the sun, supplying each with the same rehearsed enthusiasm.

One could (as many do) dignify this tip-toed poise as open-mindedness. Didn’t Nietzsche remark that one’s thoughts should remain light and changeable and only tiredness lets them degenerate into convictions? Well yes, but he also had something to say about blindly following the herd.

Winfrey wastes no time in applying this malleable sense of loyalty to the field of politics. In her time, she has been friendly to both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. Only one aspect has remained constant, and that is her dedication to the theme of Black victimhood and the perennial nature of White guilt. Her jingoistic involvement in ethno-politics (like that mentioned above) is truly nauseating, as is her scumbag hypocrisy in amassing obscene wealth and preaching social justice.

Thankfully there are still some commentators with the balls to take issue with the Winfrey cult in public:

…But they are far from numerous.

The truth be told, I prefer America to my own country. I would gladly fight for America in a military conflict. But Winfrey gives me genuine cause for concern. Political correctness has sanded away the sharp edges of Europe. Affirmative Action has within it the same corrosive potential.

D, LDN.