The Revolution Is
by Clyde N. Wilson
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
So, the first non-white, the first non-American, and the most extreme leftist ever has been elected President.
What did you expect?
After all, the established forces of “American” society have been promoting the glory of the non-white and the foreign for two generations now. The educational system has cut off most of the rising generation from what used to be America, and from Western civilization. America is the land that invented advertising and public relations. Our political discourse now consists entirely of image and its management. It began with Teddy Roosevelt and was perfected with television and Jack Kennedy. Obama’s election merely registers a final triumph of affirmative action and the final mutation of the citizen into the TV-watching shopper.
Somehow, I don’t think this is what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had in mind. Or the men of Omaha Beach. The American experiment in liberty and self-government was founded on the understanding that the state, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. For the new American electorate the state is the beloved Nanny who keeps us safe and warm and binds up our scrapes and bruises. Socialism? You get Wall Street approved “socialism” with either party.
This election is not so much the triumph of a bad economic system as of something much worse—Cultural Marxism. Socialism is merely a disease of the purse. Cultural Marxism is a disease of the soul from which there is no recovery. Part of the ruling class can still be rallied to put brakes on the progress of socialism, but the entire ruling class, long before this election, had already crawled on all fours to render submission and gold to the destroyers of culture. Imagine how different the election and our future would be if the Republicans had had the courage and intelligence to represent real America rather than pretend to. The main predictable accomplishment of the Barack Hussein Obama administration will be the institutionalisation of the aggressive Cultural Marxism that already dominates the schools and media.
This is what happens when people put more value on their purses than on their honour, confuse personal profit with patriotism, and lose knowledge of the past and ability to take account of the future. America made its choice at Appomattox and the rest is merely interlude before the last act, in which the republican dream of the Fathers is dismembered for good.
On the upside, seldom does evil get such a well-deserved reward in this world as has been administered to the Republican Party. Restores one’s faith in the essential soundness of the universe.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by Bill Wilder on 5 November 2008:
Actually, I think this election, while certainly suffused with gauzy talk of “change” and “hope”, is really a referendum on the consequences of political and policy failure. The GOP deserved to be thoroughly thrashed for its incompetent, corrupt and destructive reign of the last eight years.
As for Obama, whatever ideological criticisms one may wish to make of him, he gives every appearance of being restrained, self-disciplined and circumspect in temperament. That is what our Presidents used to be before eight years of a self-indulgent, corrupt narcissist followed by eight further years of an incurious, shallow, intellectually dwarfed, untalented, and superficial man.
2 Comment by Robert on 5 November 2008:
Dr. Wilson,
I am pleased to see someone put the ax to the root of the victory, which is cultural and not political. “Socialism is merely a disease of the purse. Cultural Marxism is a disease of the soul from which there is no recovery.” This is as fine and comprehensive of a statement as can be said in a few words to describe the contemporary condition of America’s illness. The disease is so advanced that health is not even a memory in the patient’s now demented state. Exisitence and life describe two different aspects of our brief time on earth and the most that can be said of current conditions is that Western Civilization still exists in small pockets of our country, but has hardly any influence in that country’s life. It reminds me of Frost’s poem the Oven Bird, ” who knows in singing, not to sing.”
THERE is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. 5
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all. 10
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
3 Comment by David N. on 5 November 2008:
A college professor friend of mine is constantly saying of his students, “Young white people do not have the racial prejudice of their parents and grandparents. It’s the most positive development of my lifetime.”
I tell him that his students do have prejudices. In other words, they pick up the white self-loathing from the Cultural Marxist indoctrination. I also informed my liberal friend that this “tolerance” he is so proud of, is a one-way street. Nonwhites will very often not return it. My friend was surprised by this argument. It had never occured to him.
4 Comment by MJK on 5 November 2008:
How does one move forward in this life among the ruins that compose this cultural milieu? It becomes impossible to espouse an alternative view without fear of reprisal and alienation. Let’s face it: the situation is bleak.
I am truly surprised that David N’s friend remains his friend after offering up a perfectly accurate insight, which is so anathema to today’s prescribed cultural orthodoxy.
5 Comment by mike h on 5 November 2008:
I forget who said it first, but “the people will get what they voted for- good and hard!”
6 Comment by dwright on 5 November 2008:
That was Mencken, Mike.
7 Comment by Tom Flinn on 5 November 2008:
I suspect that we will hear less and less of presidential abuses of power once THE ONE has taken over the White House. Not that it won’t be happening. I look for it on a grand scale. It just won’t matter anymore because he is a leftist and there are no enemies on the left to the decrepit American elite. Much like the use of the term “white minority government” which I used to hear EVERY night on EVERY news station (referring to S. Africa or Rhodesia) ended almost overnight as soon as the black thugs obtained power. By the way, I understand that Obama’s first act as President will be to walk across the Potomac.
8 Comment by Robert on 5 November 2008:
4@ MJK”How does one move forward in this life among the ruins that compose this cultural milieu? It becomes impossible to espouse an alternative view without fear of reprisal and alienation.”
Be not afraid and don’t put your trust in Princes. Loneliness is a mood, God is the reality. A Marine Colonel leaving six children behind before Gulf War I, once said to me, “It was difficult for him but he really believed that where ever he went, God went with him.” Everybody will eventually test the faith of that answer:
“now, or at the hour of death.” Amen
9 Comment by MJK on 5 November 2008:
Robert – Beautifully stated, sir! AMEN and thanks for the sentiment…
10 Comment by Michael Hill on 5 November 2008:
Since the results came in last evening, the phone in The League of the South office has not stopped ringing. Apparently, at least some folks understand what is going down. Also, our website–www.dixienet.org–is getting record numbers of hits.
11 Comment by Tom Flinn on 5 November 2008:
My wife just advised me that on a local country music radio station alleged comedian Pauly Shore was commenting on the election and said that it was good that Obama was elected because he was a “great leader” like…….John Lennon! Wow. And I thought I was going to have to live through the 1960’s only once. Maybe he was thinking of the other Lenin. Of course, being the astute political philosopher and analyst that Pauly Shore is I suppose I shouldn’t just blow it off.
12 Comment by mike h on 5 November 2008:
[quote]Pauly Shore was commenting on the election and said that it was good that Obama was elected because he was a “great leader” like…….John Lennon![/quote]
BWAAAAAHHHHHH!
13 Comment by David N. on 5 November 2008:
4@ MJK asks how the professor remains my friend. He likes to talk to me because he says I have more knowledge of history than his liberal friends do.
The professor is probably not altogether happy today because of the ballot iniatives banning “same-sex marriage.”
14 Comment by Charles S. on 5 November 2008:
I don’t always agree with Prof. Wilson but here I do most emphatically. Well put, sir.
Regarding the just deserts received by the Republicans, it is a great shame that didn’t include Lindsey Graham. I don’t follow the politics of South Carolina closely but I thought it clear that Graham often voted against the interests and wishes of the majority of his state. He even went so far as to call those opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens “bigots.”
15 Comment by T.E. Connor on 5 November 2008:
Speaking of John Lennon. An elderly woman, with whom I used to converse, once asked me what the difference was between John Lennon and Vladimire Lenin. I responded that I didn’t know. She told me “Well, Vladimir Lenin was the first Premier of the U.S.S.R., but John Lennon was a bigger communist…”
16 Comment by Mark on 5 November 2008:
“He likes to talk to me because he says I have more knowledge of history than his liberal friends do.”
That should tell him something.
17 Comment by robert m. peters on 5 November 2008:
The tools which Obama has inherited, some having been created by the Bush regime and other pre-existing ones having been well sharpened by the Bush regime, included the Patriot Act with all of its attendant edicts, homeland security which fereralizes and militarizes many duties and functions of our society, the increased federalization of education and the further socialization of the financial and commerece sectors of the economy.
I expect Obama to move very quickly on his agenda, which will likely include some variation of the following:
1. Very high taxes on guns and ammunition. (He supports the 2nd amendment.)
2. Federally clearning the way for suits against gun and ammunition producers to be sued for damages resulting from the use of firearms. (He supports the 2nd amendment.)
3. Implementation of the “fairness doctrine” in radio, effectively shutting down the one place were conservative voices or at least allegedly conservative voices are heard.
4. Federal laws and regulations which will limit the growth of home schooling and which will tighten controls on private schooling.
5. Hate-crimes legislation, which, depending on its wording and the cadre interpreting it, could shut down radio programs, church services (Don’t preach Romans 1), and even websites such as this one.
There are, I am sure, many more. Those which have come to my mind are scary enough.
18 Comment by George Ajjan on 5 November 2008:
“non American”?
there’s plenty to criticize about Obama and what he represents, some of which was touched upon in this piece, but I’d love to hear what qualifies someone as “non American”?
full disclosure: I cast a write-in vote for George Washington and John Adams.
19 Comment by Bruce on 5 November 2008:
“Federal laws and regulations which will limit the growth of home schooling and which will tighten controls on private schooling.”
I doubt they’ll do that but they’ll drag my bullet-riddled carcass out of my house with CNN filming it all before my daughter sets foot in a public school. My sons too, but especially my daughter!
They can’t make the taxes on ammo high enough.
20 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 5 November 2008:
It is certainly true that we are in for “interesting times,” as the Chinese say when referring to political turmoil and oppression. I don’t think we should have any illusions about the coming horrors that an institutionalized and police-backed Cultural Marxism will have for our individual freedoms and lives.
On the other hand, we should take a grim satisfaction from the good, hard kick in the teeth that the centrist and accommodationist Republican Party and its neocon puppeteers received. I’ll bet the little frat-boy yuppies at National Review are weeping and wailing. And at Commentary they are probably on the phone to Tel Aviv, desperately asking for new orders.
Yet it remains eternally true that trials and tribulations are often the via dolorosa to ultimate triumph. Perhaps the coming four years of garbage will serve to toughen us for a more decisive battle. Remember Nietzsche: “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”
21 Comment by Eileen Og on 5 November 2008:
Dr. Hill at #10 has offered the only comment that calms me somewhat after having cast a ballot for Chuck Baldwin and wondering if I did the right thing by doing that and not voting for McCain. We live in a county that is about 50% black and have already encountered some unpleasantness from them in public places today.
Maybe this debacle will wake up a few more people to the truth of our history and the truth of what’s been going on for about 160 years more or less.
May God give strength and wisdom to us all, but especially to those in leadership positions like the League of the South, the secession movements and other like-minded folk.
22 Comment by Robert on 5 November 2008:
“I’ll bet the little frat-boy yuppies at National Review are weeping and wailing. And at Commentary they are probably on the phone to Tel Aviv, desperately asking for new orders.”
New Orders:”Clean out your offices, blame everything on Pat Buchanan and his crowd of crazies and apply for new jobs with the Democrats as centrists.”
23 Comment by J. Meng on 5 November 2008:
Apropos the Obama agenda, I suppose it will include his promise to repeal the ban on partial birth abortions. More and more, it seems, we are consolidating a cult of death in this nation. Anti-abortion propositions in Colorado and South Dakota were defeated. Meanwhile, in Oregon and Washington, propositions were passed that would grant a person the right to a physician-assisted suicide. We will have four more years of “legalized” abortions. And, we are blowing people to pieces over seas. If I didn’t know better I would say we are living in hell.
24 Comment by Dana Thompson on 5 November 2008:
“Well-deserved reward?” Unless the Nuremburg principles are false, no reward for the perpetrators of an unjustified war of aggression that kills a million people is well-deserved unless it involves the use of rope. Like Oliver Twist asking for gruel, I say “please, universe, could we have a little more soundness?”
25 Comment by D Simmons on 5 November 2008:
#10 As well it should Mr. Hill, and make sure they get a copy of the latest “Magnolia.” A marvelous edition laying waste to the notion that the LOS will rise to the bait of the left’s racial taunts, and instead it will swat them cleanly away along with their racial bigotry. The Kennedy’s book “Why Not Freedom” should sell very well in the coming years.
26 Comment by Josh Cooney on 5 November 2008:
American education in the future?
“A Soviet teacher must be guided by the principle of the Party spirit of science; he is obliged not only to be an unbeliever himself, but also to be an active propagandist of godlessness among others…Skilfully and calmly, tactfully and persistently, the Soviet teacher must expose and overcome religious prejudices in the course of his activity in school and out of school, day in and day out.”–F.N. Oleschuck, 1949 (Secretary of the League of Militant Atheists)
In one sense we are not as lucky as the Russians, since our “Party spirit” is not science, but multiculturalism. The study of science might actually lead to some truth. I don’t even think our multiculturalist and relativist masters have the guts to be atheists. That would require doctrine and dogma. They sure don’t make totalitarians like they used to.
27 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 5 November 2008:
#18. Non-American: in this case someone whose father was a visiting citizen of a foreign country. Curiously, amidst all the hoopla, Obama has zero connection with the long history of African-Americans. Of course, a foreign President is simply another sign of empire—it is not possible in a republic.
28 Comment by Robert on 5 November 2008:
Mr Frum says this morning that the GOP party needs to change:
“the question for the GOP is: Will it pursue them? To do so will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. And it will involve potentially even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy, and less polarizing on social issues. That’s a future that leaves little room for Sarah Palin – but the only hope for a Republican recovery.”
For a real belly laugh read the rest http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/DavidFrum.html
The basic theme is, ” Joe the Plumber has turned his back on the GOP, and now the GOP must turn his back on Joe.” You can’t make this stuff up.
29 Comment by Roy F. Moore on 5 November 2008:
Ladies and gentlemen,
As I posted on an earlier thread, so I post again.
In light of the Obama electoral and cultural coup d’etat, we are down to three choices and only three:
1) Mass suicide
2) Armed revolution
3) The Fatima Consecration
From what I’ve read on several alternative news websites and fora, many Americans are seriously making plans to emigrate to other lands. Costa Rica, Ireland, Iceland and Malta have been mentioned.
Some others, in their hearts, believe that God has abandoned them big time because of the election. And I fear they will end it all, for they have lost heart and don’t want the upcoming regime to persecute them. They don’t want to be martyrs or slaves, and have all but lost hope of escaping Hell after death.
Such massive events as these can either strengthen and toughen the human heart or shatter it to pieces. There will be a lot of shattering in the days to come.
30 Comment by matte on 5 November 2008:
John McLk was just doing his job as a born loser, conceding the election before the debates were even over. “maverick” means libtard.
31 Comment by Josh Cooney on 5 November 2008:
#27 It looks like Sarah Palin is going to be the scapegoat. Silly me, I thought this election was about the Iraq War and the corruption of Wall Street. But at least Mr. Frum sounds honest in that the GOP should quite pretending to be interested in social and cultural issues, and be overt about its support for Wall Street, multiculturalism, and globalism. Principles hardly matter to them, just so long as they can find jobs.
32 Comment by matte on 5 November 2008:
western voices world news says we should continue exploiting the Obamatard affirmative action presidency to garner more support for European-Americans.
33 Comment by George Ajjan on 5 November 2008:
Dr. Wilson is correct: Obama is black, but unlike his wife, shares no common roots with the African-American community and its collective history.
A year ago, the line was “he ain’t a brotha”. The black community was with Hillary – then Obama started winning.
But I’m still not buying the “non-American” bit. What of his mother and her heritage?
34 Comment by John Seiler on 5 November 2008:
“Restores one’s faith in the essential soundness of the universe.” And the next episode is the further economic rise of China to world pre-eminence, with the yuan — possibly backed by gold — as the world’s reserve currency. Obama will continue the Bush regime’s turning of America into a second-class country. Americans soon are going to find out what it’s like to have their economic destiny controlled by foreigners.
35 Comment by Robert Bruce on 5 November 2008:
Sounds like National Review is no longer a conservative publication, or one that believes in conservative principles. The GOP lost because it never really had any principles to begin with. It just pandered to a different crowd. Once it had the ring of power, like Gollum it mutated into something hideous!!!!
36 Comment by robert m. peters on 5 November 2008:
According to a radio news broadcast which I heard this early evening, the good folk of Kenya were taking the branches of trees to the grave of Obama’s father and chanting to his grave, “You have sired a king!”
Out of Africa has come our king, high and lifted up.
37 Comment by Brock H. on 5 November 2008:
George Ajjan @30:
Mr. Ajjan, to be an American is to be connected to its culture, its traditions, and the nation of people who founded them, and to have a common cause with them. This takes a few generations (on BOTH sides and ALL branches of one’s family) of living on the land which the American people occupy, being a citizen, and immersing one’s self in the real and authentic practices and customs of the American nation. Notwithstanding the fact that there is no single American nation and never was, Mr. Obama does not fit any of these categories. His roots are in Kenya and Indonesia, and his immersion was in the poisonous culture of hatred of middle-class white America and cultural Marxism both of which are firmly established on the campuses of Columbia and Harvard and the streets of Chicago.
Now the GOP will get a very just reward for their crimes against the American people, maybe not the most just reward, which would be execution for treason, but it is a just one nonetheless. This is the time, my good friends at Chronicles, to finish off the GOP once and for all by starting a grassroots revolution to abolish the party and replace it with a real opposition party to the Democrats.
38 Comment by Richard on 5 November 2008:
I though the main difference between John and Vladimir was that the latter could carry a tune
39 Comment by Alexander Coleman on 5 November 2008:
Dr. Wilson’s point–”Curiously, amidst all the hoopla, Obama has zero connection with the long history of African-Americans,”–is precisely what I have been pondering throughout the entire span of the primaries to now.
Mr. Bruce, you are correct, but National Review has not been genuinely conservative for a long time now.
David Frum is a hilariously twisted figure. I was astonished to hear a nugget of truth with which I agree on CNN, this from Ed Rollins on Lou Dobbs, noting that Karl Rove was indeed the architect of a realignment–for Democrats.
The neocon scapegoating of Sarah Palin, from David Frum to David Brooks, has been nauseating and tedious, much like the entirety of these concluding years of their wishes becoming policy.
40 Comment by Bobby on 5 November 2008:
Where are the women on these posts. They are so important, as part of todays politics?
41 Comment by The Western Confucian on 5 November 2008:
The Гимн Советского Союза would make a fine new national anthem for the U.S.S.A.; we just need to change the phrase “O Party of Lenin” to “O Party Of Lincoln.”
42 Comment by Josh Cooney on 5 November 2008:
In searching the “alternative conservative blogosphere,” I have to say that at least conservatives have not lost their sense of humor. I laughed out loud at The Western Confucian’s post. Granted, I have been drinking heavily for a few hours.
43 Comment by LMarja on 5 November 2008:
The new anthem has already been written. The Internationale couldn’t be more fitting.
44 Comment by John Seiler on 5 November 2008:
You know, I don’t know why you Southerns are so steamed about how we Yankees are running the country. You could declare independence, after all, imitating the events of 1776. You could call your new country something like — let me see — the Confederate States of America. You could locate the capital in one of your fine towns, such as Richmond. You could write your own Constitution. And, really, you wouldn’t even need an army. The United States government has always had good relations with its neighbors, such as Mexico, Canada, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua. And besides, democracies never to go to war with one another.
45 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 5 November 2008:
Robert Bruce@32
Mr. Bruce, National Review has not been a conservative magazine since the mid-1980s, and perhaps even earlier. William F. Buckley made a conscious decision to direct the magazine into total subservience to neocon ideology, and the result is the vampiric shell that goes under the old name.
The most obvious signpost of this change was the firing of the very articulate, perceptive, and popular Joseph Sobran, at the behest of Buckley’s new neocon allies in the other journals of opinion. This was a very sordid and underhanded move, Sobran being dismissed solely because some of his opinions didn’t please the AIPAC lobby and the Podhoretzes. The second was the quiet blackballing of Pat Buchanan, after he too began to question some of received notions of “centrist” conservatism.
Murray Rothbard claims that this process had an even longer gestation period, going right back to the magazine’s founding in 1955. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it is certainly true that there always was an imperialist, Save-The-World tone in much of NR’s rhetoric during the Cold War. Such rhetoric easily morphed into the neocon nightmare of Mandatory Enlightenment Liberalism and Secularism for Everybody.
But the larger issue is this: Buckley always arrogated to himself the right to police the conservative movement, and to discipline or excommunicate anyone whom he felt was a little too threatening to his personal ideals of aristocratic politesse. Revilo P. Oliver was eased out, the Birchers were declared anathema, James Jackson Kilpatrick was compelled to abjure his segregationist convictions, and even Frank Meyer got flak from Buckley because he once dared to question our national apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln. How many times did the loathsome Harry V. Jaffa appear in NR’s pages, hurling invective against any conservatives who dared question the ideology of equality?
Today, the magazine is a sick joke. I say this as someone who subscribed to NR from 1964 until the early 1990s, and as someone who worked with intense conviction in Buckley’s mayoral campaign of 1965, and in his brother’s senatorial campaign of 1970. There was a time when NR was a real voice for real conservatism.
That time is long, long gone.
46 Comment by David on 5 November 2008:
#17 Robert Peters….
Very high taxes on guns and ammo…
Mr Obama advocates the redistribution of wealth. Therefor all state property belongs to we the people. Rather than paying purchase and taxes, we need merely to take what we need, from those who have much and still more.
Mr. Obama would surely approve. As would Morgan, Mosby and Forrest. And besides, we would probably get better weapons than what we get today over the counter.
Further, we of the South have good experience dealing with revenuers. Whats not to like?
Cheer up, dear Friend. The grey clouds will part and the sun will shine again. Forward the Colours…
47 Comment by SternRepublicanVirtue on 6 November 2008:
This thread really underlines the impotence of the traditional right and why the Obama-wing of the Democratic party can look forward to many more victories.
Self-pity, snide remarks, self-righteousness, solipsism, complacency.
One looks almost in vain for people who think that actual engagement is as important to politics as thinking and writing, who have a policy agenda that addresses key issues with some imagination (the graduated legalisation of illegals, without guaranteeing them a vote, and freezing immigration for a generation or more), an attempt to enthuse voters by connecting with them as a populist (like Obama – some paleocons have as much contempt for ordinary Americans as any stock Manhattan liberal, and yet are outraged when the people don’t vote the paleo way!), and who appreciate that in an age of mass media the skilful use of slogans and advertising is – however little you may like it – an inseparable part of politics.
No, leave that all to the other guy and then bellyache when he wins.
48 Comment by George Ajjan on 6 November 2008:
Brock H. @34:
I don’t see how your definition fits Peter Brimelow, Srdja Trifkovic, and others who have featured prominently at “A Magazine of American Culture”.
49 Comment by MAP on 6 November 2008:
My ancestors decided that they didn’t want to be part of a country that benefited a few at the expense of the rest and, so, left to create their own country. But they were not allowed to this. Through a war that included bombing of unarmed civilians, deliberate starvation of women and children, plundering and pillaging on a scale unknown to the civilized world, they were driven back into the union at the point of the gun. Thus, they were denied the right to self government. Now, as “prisoners of state”, we proud descendents can watch the continuous descent into darkness of this forced union up close and personal.
50 Comment by Mark on 6 November 2008:
Received this as email:
Obama at one time or another has supported:
(A) Reparations. Redistributing money from European Americans to blacks, mestizos, and Asians.
(B) Criminalizing white parents who refuse to let their children practice miscegenation.
(C) Using “hate crime” laws to silence any criticism from European Americans.
(D) Using Third World immigration to overwhelm European American majorities.
(E) Expanding anti-white affirmative action programs
51 Comment by Senor Doug on 6 November 2008:
George Ajjan,
Let us stretch that definition a bit to encompass “bourgeois West,” and Messrs. Brimelow and Trifkovic fit in just fine. Mr. Brimelow at the least is American down to his DNA–he just lives here instead of England–and otherwise the contrast between them and Mr. Obama is abundantly clear.
How about Europe can have Obama and we take Brimelow and Trifkovic? That is, or was, the most gracious characteristic of the Anglosphere: the ability to absorb others willing to accept its traditions of Christian faith, the rule of law, and free enterprise. Obama stands for post-modern values of secularism, civil law, and socialism. He is part of the alien elite that has sprung up on our coasts and gained the levers of power.
52 Comment by EE Roberts on 6 November 2008:
“I’ll bet the little frat-boy yuppies at National Review are weeping and wailing. And at Commentary they are probably on the phone to Tel Aviv, desperately asking for new orders.”
I doubt it. That bunch voted for Obama anyway. Their coup has been successful.
53 Comment by White Cornerback on 6 November 2008:
Brock,
Obama’s roots are in Hawaii first and foremost, then Columbia, Harvard, and South Side Chicago. All American soil, all populated almost exclusively by American citizens. Growing up he spent four years in Indonesia, fourteen in Hawaii, zero in Kenya. He had nearly zero contact with his Kenyan relatives and father, none of whom played a role in raising him. His mother was your garden-variety liberal baby-boomer, his grandparents mildly eccentric white Americans.
Obama is an American.
54 Comment by MAP on 6 November 2008:
Since Ted Kennedy passed his ‘immigration reform’ bill in the ’60s, the population has increased from 200 to 300 million. During that time I watched the country change from something I recognized to something I no longer comprehend. Obama, I fear, is only the beginning as the third world invasion continues and minorities become majorities. I wonder: why has someone not named a sewage plant after Ted Kennedy?
55 Comment by Senor Doug on 6 November 2008:
WC,
There are plenty of people born on American soil who can call themselves citizens but don’t speak English and could not state the first principle of American constitutional governance. Obama is a bit further up the scale as a secularist social democrat, which may be the new American reality but it is not something organic to America. Furthermore, he strongly self-identifies with his Kenyan father rather than with his WASP mother or maternal grandparents.
56 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 6 November 2008:
Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln, , or for that matter Truman and Eisenhower, would not have regarded Obama as an American.
57 Comment by The Fronde on 6 November 2008:
I think SternRepublicanVirtue makes an important point. Political engagement by true conservatives is absolutely necessary now.
As far as I’m concerned, the situation is hopeful. I haven’t lost my faith in the American people. There were no riots, no beatings, no sneering demonstrations of superiority by Democrats on Tuesday night. There was nothing but genuine happiness on the faces of the crowd gathered in Chicago. People know that change must come to this country, but many people are misguided. The Americans voted for the wrong man, for the right reasons.
Paleos have ceded important ground through their lack of engagement. The country may yet turn in our direction (Yes we can!), but not if we refuse to put the mesage out their in a loving way. We need a deeply passionate, profound, convicted, intellectual leader who can tap into the same good nature and libidinous hopefulness that Barack Obama is currently exploiting. We have Bishop Sheen and John Paul II to prove that such figures exist; why can’t we find another one?
58 Comment by Bob Johnson on 6 November 2008:
Perhaps the thing I find most interesting about this is that according to the Exit Polls, people who identified their religion as “Jewish” voted 78-21 for Obama. This being a staggering 57 point victory that was even greater than his 52 point victory among those with no religion at all.
Is it that none of us remembered to tell them?
Oh well, I suppose I should conclude with some poetry:
The final motion of their arm
The final motion of their arm
Was to stab us in the back for one last time
I won’t lift so much as a finger
I won’t lift so much as one finger
To save that altar
That altar upon which so much has been sacrificed
Perhaps everything that was of value in the world
To save it from the taste of salt water.
I only hope the old Jew lover
I only hope the old Scoop Jackson lover
I only hope the old Media lover
I hope only
That he lives long enough to see how utterly wrong he was.
And do not let Lieberman caucus with the Democrats
O Obama!
Do not let Lieberman caucus with the Democrats
O Obama!
Thy purpose is not yet fulfilled.
59 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 6 November 2008:
I come late to this wake, but Dr Wilson, what do you mean by “cultural Marxism”?
I understand it’s a term of oppobrium, and grant that Obama is in many ways a man of the left.
I could impose a lot of meanings on the term (Frankfurt School, multiculturalism, reliance on identities other than class as the engine of revolution, for starters), but I’d like to know what <u)you mean by the term.
To me, BHO seems a social democrat with a black power admixture . Not good, but will he do more for socialism than W. just did, while we blinked?
60 Comment by Darlys on 6 November 2008:
I suppose I should not be surprised by the fear driven nonsense that I am hearing from a few, Lord knows we have had enough fear shoved down our throats for the last eight years, we should all be accustomed to that overwhelming feeling of panic…but people please remember we are all Americans, and we have come through the darkest days I can remember, we are here as witnesses to this transformation of our nation, to one of tolerance and respect, FINALLY! I maintain it is NOT unpatriotic to have voted for Barack Obama, it does not make me an atheist or a terrorist. I live in the Bible belt of this land and have been accused of everything from a communist to a radical castrating female…Hello…I am an Amercian…I was born here….grew up saying the pledge of allegiance and singing the National Anthem at the top of my lungs…I am also a Christian and my ancestors date back to the formation of our democracy…but because I am not a black man I don’t have to prove ANY of that to anyone…I am a white woman so the assumption is I’m one of the good guys…well folks…I believe with all of my heart that Barack Obama is one of the good guys and the past eight years has been an era of outlaws with complete disregard for our civil rights…I thank God that Bush is out and Obama will be leading our nation into the light once again!
61 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 6 November 2008:
GOM #59. Your definition covers the ground well. Besides, I thought I was the Grumpy Old Man.
62 Comment by White Cornerback on 6 November 2008:
Senor and Mr. Wilson,
Maybe we’re talking past one another, but I’d argue strongly that an American is nothing more and nothing less than an American citizen, with no regard for creed, color, etc. When you’re in, you’re in. And once you are in, there is no second-class citizenry. Which of course is why we must be very careful about who we let in.
I’m unclear just why Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman and Eisenhower would not consider Obama an American, once they were told he was a natural born citizen. If he’s not an American, why is he allowed to vote?
And Senor, there are many American citizens who DO speak English (and nothing else), and still could not “state the first principle of American constitutional governance.” They’re Amerians too. Crazy ones, but still American. People like Angela Davis, Rap Brown, Cynthia McKinney, Bill Kristol…
63 Comment by thomas miller on 6 November 2008:
Could someone please interpret what the following news article means? Since newspaper stories are written at a second-grade reading level, it is sometimes a bit difficult understanding what a journalist is getting at, in the same way that following an episode of the Teletubbies could be confusing.
From the opening two paragraphs of a frontpage USA Today article from yesterday celebrating Obama’s “historic victory” (shown verbatim):
IN CONGRESS, A DEMOCRATIC WAVE
Economic concerns fuel a ‘turning point’ in politics
by Susan Day
WASHINGTON – America’s election of an African American as president wasn’t the only breakthrough Tuesday night.
By defeating Republican John McCain in GOP-leaning Ohio and Virginia – capital of the Confederacy and a state that hasn’t backed a Democrat for president in four decades – Barack Obama was reshaping the electoral map that has defined American politics for a generation.
———
Putting aside her error in naming the State of Virginia as the capital of the Confederacy rather than the City of Richmond, what does that have to do with John McCain or the fact that a Democrat hasn’t won their in four decades? Is she suggesting that the Confederacy only ended 40 years ago?
And they wonder why nobody reads newspapers anymore.
64 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 6 November 2008:
MAP@54 wrote: “I wonder: why has someone not named a sewage plant after Ted Kennedy?”
Naming a sewage plant after a sewage plant is illogical.
65 Comment by Robert Bruce on 6 November 2008:
Stern Republican Virtue,
I wholeheartedly agree with your post @47. What we really need is an European Nationalist style party that is very professional, agressive, and knows how to effectively educate the populace along with mastering the art of good packaging/propaganda in drumming up support. The fact is that we truly do not have an oppostion party in this country, and the “wannabes”(Constitutions Party, Libertarians, Greens, etc) are too disjointed or infiltrated to be effective. The Greens are too progressive and really not needed as the Dems and RINO Republicans are close to what they are. The Libertarians have been painted as whackjobs as they have let in some real whackjobs as candidates(witches, warlocks, new agers, etc) in the past. Also they had Barr take over the Party, and did a great job at dividing and conquering the party as he really is a neocon agent. THe Constitution Party is the best one of the group, but it too was infiltrated somewhat and divided as necon Alan Keyes divided the party and although he lost the party nomination, got on the ballot for it in CA, as the Constitution Party is very decentralized. In fact, here in Michigan it is still on the ballot under its old name The US Taxpayer’s Party. A highly organized, disciplined party is needed if there really is going to be any hope of turning back this Marxist rampage that is about to be unleashed on us.
66 Comment by George Ajjan on 6 November 2008:
We could set up a new Cabinet post for the “Department of American-ness”, in which a team of politically appointed bureaucrats will oversee the establishment of a national ID card that scores the citizen, as well as the past 3 generations of his family on both sides, on how “American” they are, including projections of how they would have been viewed by Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman, and Eisenhower.
According to the score and the level of determined “American-ness”, the card would contain secret electronic data to inform local and state authorities as to which portions of the Bill of Rights should be extended to that individual.
67 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 November 2008:
Going to work at 6:00 a.m., I heard the comments of one Douglas Wilder, the former black governor of Virginia. The reporter mentioned that he is now mayor of Richmond in which mayors once put up statutes to Confederate generals.
I suppose that the public is supposed to interpret that as “progress,” a “new sensitivity,” “a proof that the New Left brings tolerance”!
68 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 6 November 2008:
@67 Robert
Monument Ave. is worth a look especially the latest addition — Arthur Ashe. The older statues are generals on horseback, the sort of thing poeple ignore as they go about their business. But there’s no missing the famous Richmond athlete who died of AIDS bashing little crumb-crunchers about the head and shoulders with a tennis racquet! A truly hideous sculpture, I guess the joke is on the reverse-racists after all.
69 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 November 2008:
GOM @ 59
In my quest for a degree in Germanistik, I was subjected both in America and in Germany to the ideological machinations of the disciples of Herbert Marcuse. In fact, I twice head Marcuse speak: once in the U.S. and once in Germany.
I had never heard of Barack Obama until I heard his televised speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Then, four years ago, between the lines of that speech, I heard the subtle echoes of Herbert Marcuse.
As I have listened to some of Obama’s speeches across the past two years, that voice has become more pronounced.
I also know that the disciples and disciples’ disciples of Herbert Marcuse sit across the U.S. in universities, not-for-profit foundations, and in government positions. I have not forgotten that among the black power advocates is one Angela Davis, a real disciple of Herbert Marcuse.
Two days after the election, I have McCain-voting conservatives telling me that Obama, despite their misgivings, is their President and they will support him. They add that the realities of Washington will reign any ambitions which he might have in. Then they add, contradictory, that Obama will reign in the excesses of a “radical Democratic Congress.”
They simply do not realize the cultural shift which has been made manifest by this election and who Obama really is.
70 Comment by Bob Johnson on 7 November 2008:
“Two days after the election, I have McCain-voting conservatives telling me that Obama, despite their misgivings, is their President and they will support him.”
My god.
Support him in what way?
I do think Obama should be supported vis a vis the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. After all, if we can’t be a European country, why in the hell should those white gentile hating backstabbers get to keep being a Jewish country?
If a Black can become President of the United States, why can’t a Palestinian be the Prime Minister of Israel?
Look me in the face, you worthless vermin infecting the Middle East, and tell me how you can support a Black American President, while stopping short of letting the Palestinians have any sort of real power.
But where else could a white non-liberal support Obama without selling out?
We still have 44 Senators outside of the Obama party, and if we put enough pressure on them (I mean REAL pressure, something in intensity if not ugliness like the anti-Zionists of the DailyKos puts on Democrats ALL THE TIME), we can quite easily stop 95% what Obama wants to do in terms of domestic policy.
So long as Obama has what Joe the Plumber wisely called “Patriotism to Democracy”, the damage from a Obama presidency will only come if we are weak-kneed enough to disengage from the political process.
And if it so happens that Joe the Plumber was being naïve about Obama?
Well, let’s just say there are still some pitchforks lying around from 1996.
71 Comment by Bob Johnson on 7 November 2008:
“Where are the women on these posts. They are so important, as part of todays politics?”
I think maybe they were scared off by Thomas Fleming’s idiotic refusal to admit that Elizabeth I was a great leader of the English People.
I honestly don’t know if Fleming is an Inquisition loving Catholic who laments that Elizabeth deprived that people of so charming an institution; or if it’s that he is incapable of seeing any female as a good leader.
The thing is that even the men of Elizabeth’s time, who without irony referred to her as belonging to the weaker sex, admitted that she was a great leader and formidable opponent who put her nation first.
In fact, she put her nation first to such an extent that her opponents had to concentrate on base personal attacks and convoluted religious arguments that though she made her people better off in this world, they’d be worse off in the next as they burned in hell for not being Catholics.
72 Comment by Brock H. on 7 November 2008:
Will someone with a spark of wisdom answer the ridiculous claims made by Mr. Ajjan, Ms. Darlys, and White Cornerback?? It is so easy to dissect and rebuke personal beliefs and philosophies which are rooted in globalism and cultural Marxism, but what the heck, I’ve got the time.
Mr. Ajjan, we Chronicles posters do not want any type of federal government intervention which is not authorized by the U.S. Constitution, not for determining the extra qualifications needed to run for the office of President of the U.S., or anything else.
We simply lament the state of affairs that the American “nation” is in these days. We find it sad and especially unbelievable that the party apparatchiks, delegates, superdelegates, and voters in this country have ceased to make the distinctions and judgments FOR THEMSELVES, regarding their candidate’s identity as a real and authentic American. A government committee isn’t needed to do that – not 100 years ago, not now, not ever! Our forefathers simply assumed that each and every American citizen made these distinctions him/herself, and that they would continue to.
White Cornerback, come back to this website when you become educated about America’s history, its heritage, and its traditions. Then you might realize that possessing a legal document declaring one an American citizen does NOT make one an AMERICAN. Anyone can wave a piece of paper in the air and claim they are American because it says so, but our forefathers, upon observing their different language, customs, and loyalties, would have known the opposite.
P.S. The people you mentioned forfeited their identities as Americans long ago. Their allegiances to Marxist and Trotskyite ideologies disqualifies them immediately.
Ms. Darlys,
Your comments are unintelligent, ignorant, and meaningless. I will retract that comment immediately if you can show me that the United States are, collectively, a nation. First, you must know the definition of a nation before you can rise to this occasion. Next, use the important documents from America’s Founding era, such as the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, to show me that our government is a democracy. You will first find out that it is not. I’ll leave the rest up to you. As for your love affair with the ideas of civil rights and absolutely equal treatment and opportunities under the law for minorities and women as there are for white Anglo-Saxon American men, you only need to open your eyes to break free from that spell. The traditional family has become an endangered species. Black or Hispanic Americans will proudly tell you today, if you ask them, that their interests, as minorities, are at odds with those of white Americans. Is that different now, Ms. Darlys, now that Mr. Obama has been elected?? He did say he was going to bring us all together and unite us under one common set of goals as a nation. Did things change back on Tuesday? Oh, let me guess, he has to be in power for a few months before St. Barack really starts changing things.
73 Comment by George Ajjan on 7 November 2008:
Brock, I think you missed the “wink” at the end of my post (to make the sarcasm of the ridiculous proposal more obvious than I already thought it was).
74 Comment by White Cornerback on 7 November 2008:
Brock,
I’m a regular and often sympathetic reader of Chronicles (and American Renaissance!). I understand the need to preserve the white, protestant, Christian European roots of this Republic, and I support ideologies and specific policies that protect the common values that spring from these roots. I’m talking here immigration policy, education policies promoting assimliation that we had 75-100 years ago, and a ruthless intellectual assault on the rootless secular universalist consensus that dominates our elite institutions. If I was an Austrian, I’d probably have voted for Haider; if I was a Brit, probably the BNP.
But despite our roots, we are not Europe. And there is a difference between a country dominated by white Christian European peoples and values and a white Christian nation. The latter of which I would argue we never have been. In 1830, there were 319,000 free black citizens. In 1865, there were millions.
If you or Mr. Wilson want to say that certain ideas are unamerican, I’d say fine, and I’d probably agree with you on specifics. If you’e saying that individual citizens who hold these pernicious ideas are not Americans, or that citizens of particular races or ethnicities are not Americans, then I would ask you why our founders took pains not to provide for such a test in the Constitution nor in any of the early statutes. Just why did the founders not see fit to prohibit athiests, freed blacks, or the children of immigrants from voting or holding office?
75 Comment by White Cornerback on 7 November 2008:
Another thing, off topic, but germane. Has a constitutional amendment ever been proposed that would prohibit dual citizenship? I might support it. Certainly, it is shocking that the new white house chief of staff actually enlisted in the military of another nation only 18 years ago.
76 Pingback by Politeuma · Post-Election Roundup on 7 November 2008:
[...] Wilson sees the election as the triumph of Cultural Marxism. Obama might represent the ideals of cultural marxism, but let’s wait and see if [...]
77 Comment by Homophobic Horse on 7 November 2008:
” Black or Hispanic Americans will proudly tell you today, if you ask them, that their interests, as minorities, are at odds with those of white Americans. ”
Cultural Marxism is the cyanide of the soul. That’s why.
78 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 7 November 2008:
White Cornerback@74
“Just why did the founders not see fit to prohibit atheists, freed blacks, or the children of immigrants from voting or holding office?”
For the very same reason that they didn’t pass enactments about radio transmissions or computer technology. No one among the eighteenth-century Founding Fathers, in his most nightmarish dreams, could have foreseen a nation where the very foundations of Western cultural and biological identity would be overtly attacked and systematically denigrated by the apparatus of government and the educational institutions.
The Founding Fathers may have been children of the Enlightenment. Some were of Whiggish temperament. Some of them were Freemasons. Some of them were Deists. Ok, fine–that sort of stuff happened to be in the air during that revolutionary time. Lots of people get swept up by the Zeitgeist.
But none of them were cultural degenerates or race-traitors. And none of them could have imagined that the nation they were founding would turn into the freak-show that we have today.
79 Comment by LMarja on 7 November 2008:
Bobby:
I severely doubt that many women read Chronicles. Most women endorse abortion on demand, “choice”, free-love, and no-fault divorce. Chronicles upholds the family. Why, then would most women read it?
If family was thought to be sacred, you might find female readers.
Brock:
I think you’re right to say that being American is more than holding a passport. For instance, giving suffrage to naturalized citizens is questionable. Although they might renounce their former citizenship and swear allegiance to the United States, they will be shaped by the traditions and culture of their natal land. They will be shaped by the ideologies and thoughts of their homeland, which will be influenced either from their own upbringing in the natal land or the influence of their parents. I think it would be prudent to give suffrage to the children of naturalized citizens.
I think the states were right to restrict suffrage at the founding.
I also think we should bring back property requirements for suffrage too, but hey, that’s a lot to ask for.
80 Comment by Bob Johnson on 7 November 2008:
“I severely doubt that many women read Chronicles. Most women endorse abortion on demand, “choice”, free-love, and no-fault divorce. Chronicles upholds the family. Why, then would most women read it?”
Even if that were true, it wouldn’t make Thomas Fleming’s mindless slander against Queen Elizabeth any less disgusting and wrong.
And in any event, a September 3rd Gallup poll put American Women 50% “pro-choice” vs. 43% “pro-life”.
43% is a lot of women, and you are trying dismiss them and their existence out of hand.
May God damn you.
And do you have any evidence whatsoever that women are more likely to support no-fault divorce and free love than men are?
Go ahead and only talk about what’s wrong with women, while ignoring the far greater horrors inflicted on our culture by men.
It shows what side you are really on.
81 Comment by LMarja on 7 November 2008:
Bob Johnson:
While Thomas Fleming’s diatribe may be disturbing, does it really represent the Chronicles “Canon”?
I concede that I was over-zealous in categorizing female readership by using broad general terms like “most” and “many”.
I don’t understand how I’m annihilating these pro-life women by saying they are unlikely to read Chronicles. Supposing all pro-life women read Chronicles, what percentage of these women would understand or enjoy commentaries on Xenophon? I’m sure it’s a small percentage of men as well.
I would also like to point out that a vast majority of the commentators bear traditionally male names and some evocative of Roman names. Perhaps this reflects upon the readers? Or perhaps female readers do not comment?
And no, I don’t trump either gender as superior. I prefer to attack ideas.
Do you refer to “men” as the male gender or “men” in the classical sense? Frankly, using the term in the classical sense, we’ve done it to ourselves.
Few would deny that the feminist movement helped destroy the family. Women ask for divorces more frequently then men. I don’t think men really adore the idea of free love since it erodes at their sense of honour.
No, we’re living in a not-fully realized Plato’s Republic.
82 Comment by Bob Johnson on 8 November 2008:
LMarja,
>While Thomas Fleming’s diatribe may be disturbing, does it really represent the Chronicles “Canon”?I concede that I was over-zealous in categorizing female readership by using broad general terms like “most” and “many”.I would also like to point out that a vast majority of the commentators bear traditionally male names and some evocative of Roman names.Perhaps this reflects upon the readers? Or perhaps female readers do not comment?”And no, I don’t trump either gender as superior. I prefer to attack ideas.Few would deny that the feminist movement helped destroy the family.Women ask for divorces more frequently then men.I don’t think men really adore the idea of free love since it erodes at their sense of honour.No, we’re living in a not-fully realized Plato’s Republic.<
Not if I can help it.
83 Comment by karsten on 8 November 2008:
The most important question in this thread seems, to me, to be the issue of whether to start a new party or reform the GOP. I think there’s no question that the latter is the only possibility. Anything else is political suicide. Split the vote, and the Left will be in power forever, and the country really will become Marxist.
Canada offers an instructive example. As the traditionally Right party, the “Progressive Conservatives” (sic – the schizophrenia was present even in the name) drifter further to the left, a new, more genuinely conservative part was created. This new party, the Alliance, slowly gathered support, and split the Right vote more or less down the middle, leaving the Liberals in power for decades. Decades.
Only when the Alliance and the old Progressive Conservatives merged into one party were they finally able to regain power, after decades in the wilderness.
The good news is this newly-merged party (now simply called “Conservative”) is somewhat more Right than the old PCs were. The bad news is that the Liberals were able to shift the country very far to the Left in the years that they were in power, basically unopposed. And the damage that they have done likely cannot be undone.
I absolutely agree with all of the criticisms of the GOP, particularly its contemptible subservience to Israel. But there is simply no choice. No matter how thoroughly it must be changed, victory can only come through that a transformation of the GOP into a more genuinely traditional-conservative party. Establishing a new party to the point that it can supplant the Republicans is an epochal project – and would only leave the Left unfettered.
Changing the GOP – fantastically difficult.
Creating a new viable party in time to stem the Left – impossible
84 Comment by LMarja on 8 November 2008:
Bob Johnson
And what exactly do you propose to stop?
85 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 8 November 2008:
#74 and other commentators on “non-American,” Founding Fathers, etc. Just as historical observation. The first Congress of the United States defined a citizen as “a free white person born or naturalised in the United States.” This was the rule for three-quarters of a century. Of course, the founders also clearly understood a point lost in modern confusion: citizenship and the right to vote are different things.
86 Comment by Bob Johnson on 8 November 2008:
LMarja,
>I severely doubt that many women read Chronicles. Most women endorse abortion on demand, “choice”, free-love, and no-fault divorce. Chronicles upholds the family. Why, then would most women read it?<
You seem to be supposing that Chronicles is read more by men than women, and that this is because men are more likely to have these conservative virtues that you admire.
But where is your evidence that women are any more likely to endorse…
1. Abortion on demand.
2. “Choice”.
3. Free-Love.
4. No-Fault Divorce.
…than men are?
In reality, the only across the board gap in voting patterns vis a vis the social issues you describe is between Married People (both men and women) and Single People (both men and women).
Ann Coulter has been good enough to point this out on national television, so I honestly don’t know why you wouldn’t know about it.
87 Comment by Eileen Og on 9 November 2008:
Re: #86 Mr.Johnson’s reply to LMarja:
This woman does read Chronicles, especially Dr. Wilson’s articles, and am totally against abortion, “choice” (if by that you mean acceptance of sodomy…maybe you don’t), free-love, and divorce. These are no-brainers if you read God’s word and agree with Him. Even if you don’t, they are destroyers of family, state and country.
88 Comment by Bob Johnson on 9 November 2008:
Good Eileen,
Because I don’t access to stats specific to this magazine/website, I had to resort to more general arguments against the sophistry of LMarja.