White Rites: Meditations on Mathematics and Materiality
Ὅ τι ἄν σοι συμβαίνῃ, τοῦτό σοι ἐξ αἰῶνος προκατεσκευάζετο.[1] That was how the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius put it nearly two thousand years ago: “Whatever may befall thee, it was ordained for thee from everlasting.” He was elegantly and eloquently expressing a core tenet of Stoicism, the ancient school of philosophy that taught dogged devotion to duty, tireless pursuit of virtue, and unshaken courage in the face of illness, oppression and disaster.
Bright bubbles on black water
But how and why was courage any more admirable than cowardice? Why was virtue worthier than vice? Or devotion to duty better than dereliction? Stoicism is a noble edifice that, in truth, collapses at a pin-drop. Or so some would claim. This is because that core tenet of the philosophy was determinism, the doctrine that the universe is bound by iron and immutable chains of cause and effect, operating from eternity to eternity. If determinism is true, we are bright bubbles on the black river of fate, born willy-nilly, bursting willy-nilly,[2] swirled this way or that between birth and bursting by currents over which we have no control and which hasten us or hamper us at their whim, not ours. Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”[3] The Stoics said: “All the world’s a machine, and all the men and women merely cogs therein.” As Aurelius went on: καὶ ἡ ἐπιπλοκὴ τῶν αἰτίων συνέκλωθε τήν τε σὴν ὑπόστασιν ἐξ ἀιδίου καὶ τὴν τούτου σύμβασιν — “and the coherence of causes wove both thy substance from everlasting and all that happens thereto.”[4]
Slime-mold and Stoic: Physarum polycephalum on left Marcus Aurelius on right (images from Wikipedia)
But the elegance and eloquence of Aurelius can’t silence a simple and possibly lethal question. If Stoicism is true, where does that leave the Stoics? Surely they were sawing, not sowing. They thought they were sowing true doctrine into the minds of men; they were in fact sawing off the branch they were sitting on. It was the branch of epistemology, of truth and reason, and determinism is, on some readings, fatal to those weighty things. In a deterministic universe, why should brains and logic have any higher status than stomachs and digestion? Why should the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius have any greater claim to truth and insight than the song of a blackbird in a bush? If everything we humans think, say and do is indeed fixed ἐξ αἰῶνος — “from everlasting” — then we might seem to have the same status as a sunset or a slime-mold. We’re phenomena, never philosophoi.[5] After all, cogs can’t cogitate. And Stoicism tells us that we are cogs in the world-machine. If so, it’s ludicrous to adjure cogs to be calm, courageous and good. Cogs have no control. Cogs do whatever they are compelled to do by external forces.
The whirl of the world
And so crashes into ruin the noble edifice of Stoicism, self-sapped, self-exploded, self-destroyed. Or so some would claim. But does determinism indeed destroy epistemology and the search for truth and insight? That’s too big a question to tackle here and in such a sordid setting. Nevertheless, I want to look at one aspect of it and to argue that, in one way, determinism is vital for epistemology and is, indeed, the only known guarantor of fixed and reliable truth. I also want to emphasize something strange and sublime about human beings. Or about some human beings, at least. I started this essay with a memorable line from the great Marcus Aurelius. I’ll continue it with a memorable line from the great Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930): “He shook his two fists in the air — the poor impotent atom with his pin-point of brain caught in the whirl of the infinite.”
Universe — Pin-point — Brain (images of Fireworks Galaxy et al from Wikipedia
That’s from a story called “The Third Generation” (1894), one of Doyle’s “Tales of Medical Life.” It describes the mental agony of a patient diagnosed with hereditary syphilis. The grandfather had sinned; the grandson would now suffer. Doyle himself was steeped in Stoicism and had undoubtedly meditated on The Meditations, thinking deeply about determinism and free will, about the mind and its relation to matter and the body. And he compressed his ideas into a highly memorable metaphor: the human brain is indeed a pin-point by comparison with the Universe. Or far, far less than a pin-point. By comparison with the Earth alone, let alone the Solar System or the Universe, a human brain is considerably smaller than a pin-point is by comparison with the human body.[6] And yet that “pin-point of brain” is, in a sense, far mightier than an entire universe of inanimate, unconscious matter.[7] Our pin-points of brain can contemplate and conquer infinity. Which is a strange and sublime thing. How can mere matter do that?
Primal Potentate
I’m talking about mathematics, a discipline that clearly proves human beings to be philosophoi, not mere phenomena.[8] And it’s not a coincidence that all those abstract polysyllables — mathematics, philosophoi, phenomena — come to us from ancient Greek, the language in which the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius composed his Meditations. As the oft-remarked dichotomy goes: The Greeks were thinkers; the Romans were doers. The Hispanic Hellenophile Marcus Aurelius was both. And just as Doyle must have read Aurelius, a contemplator of infinity, Aurelius must have read a conqueror of infinity. The Greek mathematician Euclid conquered infinity in his Elements, a textbook of mathematics composed in the third century before Christ and still studied in the twenty-first century after Christ. Here is that conquest of infinity set out in modern English, as Euclid demonstrates[9] the infinitude of prime numbers like 3, 17 and 101, which are evenly divisible only by themselves and 1:
Euclid’s proof that there are an infinite number of primes
(by reductio ad absurdum)
- Assume there are a finite number n of primes, listed as [p1, …, pn].
- Consider the product of all the primes in the list, plus one: N = (p1 × … × pn) + 1.
- By construction, N is not divisible by any of the pi.
- Hence it is either prime itself (but not in the list of all primes), or is divisible by another prime not in the list of all primes, contradicting the assumption.
- q.e.d.
For example:
- 2 + 1 = 3, is prime
- 2 × 3 + 1 = 7, is prime
- 2 × 3 × 5 + 1 = 31, is prime
- 2 × 3 × 5 × 7 + 1 = 211, is prime
- 2 × 3 × 5 × 7 × 11 + 1 = 2311, is prime
- 2 × 3 × 5 × 7 × 11 × 13 + 1 = 30031 = 59 × 509 (“Euclid’s proof that there are an infinite number of primes,” Susan Stepney, Professor Emerita, Computer Science, University of York, UK)
Euclid conquers infinity in Book IX, Proposition 20 of the Elements (see text at Wikipedia)
That’s simple but sublime. And supremely significant. I think that the proof above was a rite of passage for the human race — an intellectual rite of passage that dwarfs physical achievements like landing on the Moon or splitting the atom. Euclid, with his pin-point of material brain, proved the existence of an infinite number of immaterial entities known as primes. And we, with our pin-points of material brain, can understand and accept his reasoning. Indeed, if we understand his reasoning, we are compelled to accept it. That is the marvel of mathematics. Or one marvel among many. Mathematics is a deterministic system for generating truth. It’s the closest human beings have yet come to infallible knowledge, which is precisely why it doesn’t claim infallibility. That’s the paradox of infallibility: those who overtly claim it thereby prove that they don’t possess it. As Bertrand Russell said:
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. (“On avoiding foolish opinions,” Bertrand Russell)
Yes, there is persecution in theology — and in politics. And there are claims of infallibility in both. The Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski wrote in his magisterial Main Currents of Marxism (1978) of how Stalin “laid down the rules of Soviet historiography once and for all: Lenin had always been right, the Bolshevik party was and had always been infallible.” Meanwhile, Stalin’s rival Trotsky “imagined that he was conducting scientific observations with the aid of an infallible dialectical method.” If all art aspires to the condition of music,[10] then all epistemology aspires to the status of mathematics. But never achieves it, because mathematics enjoys the twin advantages of ultimate abstraction and insurmountable incomprehensibility. It’s incomprehensible to non-mathematicians, at least. That’s why mathematicians didn’t suffer under Stalin in the way that many scientists did. As Kołakowski also wrote: “Mathematical studies were scarcely ever ‘supervised’ ideologically in the Soviet Union, as even the omniscient high priests of Marxism did not pretend to understand them; consequently, standards were upheld and Russian mathematical science was saved from temporary destruction.”
Molded by matter
Like Popes and Ayatollahs, Marxists claim infallibility precisely because they don’t have it; mathematicians don’t claim it precisely because they do. Or so I would say. I’m not infallible, of course. Nor am I a mathematician or a philosopher. But I am two things that seem to be of great importance in mathematics and philosophy. That is, I’m White and male. Those are statements about my genetics, that is, statements about my materiality. But mathematics and philosophy are about mind, not matter. How can genetics be important in cognition? It can’t, according to orthodox leftists, who denounce as abhorrently racist and abominably sexist any claim that White men are especially or eminently suited to any field of intellectual endeavor.
Yet it’s obvious in a broader sense that genetics is decisive — indeed, deterministic — in mental matters. Humans can be philosophoi and not mere phenomena because they aren’t sunsets or slime-molds. No, they’re humans, which is a statement about genetics and material bodies. Humans and slime-molds are both products of DNA and the blind forces of evolution, but there has never been a Euclid or an Aurelius among the slime-molds, which are barred for ever from mathematics and philosophy by the mere materiality of their junk-jammed genetics.
Damning Derbyshire
That form of genetic determinism can’t be denied by leftists, who often protest too much in their denial that race and sex have been decisive factors in intellectual fields. This is the Black mathematician Jonathan Farley waxing indignant in the Guardian about the bigotry of a White mathematician:
John Derbyshire, a columnist for the National Review, wrote an essay last week implying that black people were intellectually inferior to white people: “Only one out of six blacks is smarter than the average white.” Derbyshire pulled these figures from a region near his large intestine. One of Derbyshire’s claims, however, is true: that there are no black winners of the Fields medal, the “Nobel prize of mathematics”. According to Derbyshire, this is “civilisationally consequential”. Derbyshire implies that the absence of a black winner means that black people are incapable of genius. In reality, black mathematicians face career-retarding racism that white Fields medallists never encounter. Three stories will suffice to make this point. … The second story involves one of the few black mathematicians whom white mathematicians acknowledge as great — or, I should say, “black American mathematicians”, since obviously Euclid, Eratosthenes and other African mathematicians outshone Europe’s brightest stars for millennia. (“Black mathematicians: the kind of problems they wish didn’t need solving”, The Guardian, Thursday 12nd April, 2012)
Like Euclid, Cleopatra was Greek and White, not a Black “African” (image from Wikipedia)
Guardiancaption: Euclid and other African mathematicians outshone Europe’s brightest stars for millennia.’
Farley was being dishonest in that last line, pretending that geography equates to genetics. Yes, Euclid and Erastothenes were “African mathematicians” in the sense that they lived and worked on one corner of the continent of Africa. But they were not Black Africans. They were White — and worse still, for a leftist like Farley, they were White colonizers, part of the Greek diaspora in the conquered land of Egypt. They cannot accurately or honestly be described as “African mathematicians,” because that suggests that they were something they weren’t, namely, indigenous to Africa and Black.
Euclid’s city of Alexandria, part of a Greek colony on one corner of Africa (image from Wikipedia)
And although Blacks can certainly be good mathematicians, Blacks have never been essential or important in mathematics or any other intellectual field. As I said at the Occidental Observer in 2022:
Here’s an astonishing fact: the White mathematician Claude Shannon (1916—2001) contributed more to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) than all Blacks who have ever lived. But then so did the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887—1920). And the Jewish mathematician Emmy Noether (1882—1935), which is even more astonishing. Jews have always been a tiny minority of the world’s population and men have always dominated mathematics, yet one Jewish woman in a short lifetime outperformed the teeming masses of Africa and the Black-African Diaspora over millennia. Blacks have never mattered in math or any other cognitively demanding field. But Jews have mattered hugely, in both good and bad ways. (“Rollock’s Bollocks: Interrogating Anti-Racism and Contemplating the Cargo-Cult of Critique,” The Occidental Observer, 13th May 2022)
But it’s in fields invented by goyim that Jews have mattered for good or ill. The words “mathematics” and “philosophy” are ancient Greek, not ancient Hebrew. And although there is some evidence that Black brains were pondering prime numbers 70,000 years ago,[11] it took the White brains of men like Euclid to prove that astonishing and awesome fact about prime numbers — that they never end, that the digits of an infinite number of them could not be written down if all the oceans were ink and all the sky papyrus.[12] I called Euclid’s conquest of infinity a rite of passage for the entire human race. If so, then it was a White rite in some significant way. But I’m not seeking to deify Whites when I say that, only to recognize an important fact that applies to intellectual history just as much as to active history: that Whites have been outliers and achievers there in ways that other races haven’t. Whites are the all-star all-rounders of the human race, capable of great achievements mentally and physically, musically and mathematically, abstractly and athletically.
And so, while mathematics might have been created in Mesopotamia, it burst its chrysalis in ancient Greece, where White men, with their “pin-points of brain,” proved things beyond all bounds of materiality. Men like Euclid weren’t “impotent atoms” “caught in the whirl of the infinite.” No, they were conquerors of the infinite. You’ve seen one marvellous proof by Euclid, one rite of passage for the human race. Now here’s another of his White rites — a stronger and stranger and subtler proof that should captivate and compel everyone capable of understanding it:
An irrational number is a real number that is not rational, that is, cannot be expressed as a fraction (or ratio ) of the form p / q , where p and q are integers.
[Proof] that the square root of 2 is irrational
Pythagorean proof, as given by Euclid in his Elements
proof by contradiction:
- Assume that √2 is rational, that is, there exists integers p and q such that √2 = p / q ; take the irreducible form of this fraction, so that p and q have no factors in common
- square both sides, to give 2 = p 2 / q 2
- rearrange, to give 2 q 2 = p 2
- hence p 2 is even
- hence p is even (trivial proof left as an exercise for the reader); write p = 2 m
- substitute for p in (3), to give 2 q 2 = (2 m ) 2 = 4 m 2
- divide through by 2, to give q 2 = 2 m 2
- hence q 2 is even
- hence q is even
(1) assumes that p and q have no factors in common; (5) and (9) show they they both have 2 as a factor. This is a contradiction. Hence the assumption (1) is false, and √2 is not rational. (“Irrational number,” Susan Stepney, Professor Emerita, Computer Science, University of York, UK)
One consequence of that proof[13] is that the digits of √2 never end and never fall into any repeating or regular pattern. In short, they’re entirely random[14] (while also being entirely deterministic). And one consequence of that randomness is that, represented in suitable format, the digits of √2 somewhere encode the entirety of this essay. And the entirety of the website on which it’s hosted. And the entirety of the internet and of all books in all languages in all libraries that ever existed. But √2 doesn’t just encode all that, it encodes it infinitely often. √2 is Borges’ Biblioteca de Babel, Borges’ infinite “Library of Babel,” with a single, simple, two-symbol label: √2.
If you aren’t awed and astonished by that, I’ve failed in what I’ve written here. With their pin-points of brain, humans haven’t merely contemplated and begun to comprehend the Universe: they’ve transcended the Universe and burst the bonds and the bounds of mere materiality. That’s certainly food for thought and maybe also food for theism. But that’s where, for now, I’ll conclude this White write on White rites, leaving the last word to Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950):
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone. — “Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare” (1923)
[1] The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book X, 5. See translations at Gutenberg and Internet Classics Archive.
[2] “What good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?” Meditations, Book 8, 20.
[3] As You Like It, Act II, scene 7, line 139.
[4] The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book X, 5. See translations at Gutenberg and Internet Classics Archive.
[5] Philosophoi is the plural of Greek philosophos, “lover of wisdom.”
[6] The Meditations makes a related point: “the whole earth too is a point [by comparison with the Universe].” Book VIII, 21.
[7] But what matters, of course, is not relative size but absolute complexity. The human brain is tiny by comparison with the Universe, but is the most complex object yet known there.
[8] Theories like that of the Jewish physicist Max Tegmark, stating that matter is mathematics, don’t (and aren’t intended to) solve the problem of the relationship between math and matter, or mind and matter, because “mathematics” is used in two different senses: the abstract system used by conscious human minds and the apparently unconscious and extra-rational entities that inspire and underpin that system.
[9] Or, more precisely, sets out the demonstration of an earlier mathematician. Euclid was a compiler of math, not a creator.
[10] Walter Pater said this in The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1877): “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other works of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it.” See Gutenberg text.
[11] See discussion of the “Ishango Bone,” an ancient African artefact with proto-mathematical markings that may symbolize prime numbers.
[12] “If all the trees on earth were pens and the ocean were ink, refilled by seven other oceans, the Words of Allah would not be exhausted.” — Qur’an, Surah Luqman.
[13] The proof is attributed to Euclid but possibly or even probably not by him. See “Square root of 2” at Infogalactic.
[14] Mathematicians assume that √2 is “normal” in all bases, that is, it contains all possible sequences of digits with the same frequency and probability.
Oligarchy of the Unfit: Governance in the United Kingdom and the Downfall of Corbyn
The UK has a severe structural crisis in leadership: each of the two main parties have defects that do not usually occur in tandem, but, when combined, are highly destructive. Each is oligarchic, not democratic. But, in contrast to most oligarchic regimes, each lacks the benefit of stability usually associated with oligarchic regimes — in other words, each are also extremely unstable.
Their oligarchic nature deprives each party of legitimacy with the broader electorate.
The instability derives from organizational defects which set each party literally against itself, and, once in power, sets the Government against itself and the other MP’s of the governing party. This explains, in part the vacillating and ineffective leadership UK governments have shown in recent years or in times of stress.
A close examination of the electoral and organizational structures of the parties shows the wide gap between the U.S. system and the British system. From a British point of view, a difference from the U.S. is not always viewed as bad. However, the “gap” here is in something crucial: elections. From an American point of view, there aren’t any.
Instead of “representative democracy, the term “oligarchy by quango” (with each of the parties’ central administration being the “quango”) might be a better descriptor. In fact, an American might justifiably conclude that elections for Parliament are far less democratic today than in the times of Henry IV or Charles I.
Structural Instability. Each party has, to an American eye, a (I) bizarre, convoluted, and highly centralized method of local Parliamentary candidate selection; and (II) since 1980 (in the case of the Labour party) and 1998 (in the case of the Conservative party) Parliamentary party leadership selection: namely, the Parliamentary leader of the party (think Tony Blair, Boris Johnson) is selected not by the Labour or Conservative members of Parliament but, rather, in each case by a vote of the “members” of the relevant party at annual conferences or special elections. Thus the situation could easily arise (and has recently arisen) where the elected head of the Parliamentary party — the Prime Minister, if in government, the Leader of the Opposition, if out of government — could be despised by a large majority of his or her “fellow” Parliamentary party members. The spectacular destruction of Corbyn, nominally the Parliamentary party leader from 2015–2017, by his own Parliamentary party and the Labour central executive at Southside or Brewers Green (take your pick),1 is a glaring example. This goes to the “war against itself” point.
However, the main issue is that none of these actors are elected in any meaningful sense. So much for “much representative democracy”.
Oligarchy. Stunning as it may be to an American, the UK voter at large has virtually no say in the selection process of Labour and Tory candidates or party governing officials. Unlike the U.S., where (in the old days) there were locally organized caucuses which morphed into (in the now days) full scale primary elections, the local voters, even by representation of intermediary bodies (e.g., the state legislature, or, in the UK, local councils) have virtually no say. The bottom base of each party is not, as in the U.S., those members of the voting public that identify on caucus or primary day (or a few months before via registration) as a Republican or Democrat and can number in the millions or tens of millions. Instead, it is comprised solely of the “membership” of each of the two parties. Becoming a member is not an easy process. It is quite a bit like the process of admission to a good lunch club. Roughly speaking, “candidates” for membership in each of the parties are proposed by the local constituency but are approved only by the central party leadership in London. (For the Labour Party, see Rule Book, Appendix 2, Section 1 A. and C. Labour Party Rule Book [skwawkbox.org]. For the Conservative Party, see Section 17.7, Part IV, of the Conservative Party Constitution (amended through 2021), Conservative Party Constitution as amended January 2021.pdf [conservatives.com]). This membership, so selected, has for most of the history of each party, been a miniscule fraction of the population of the United Kingdom. The Labour party currently boasts about 550,000 members and the Tory party about 350,000 members — a total of 800,000 members for the two main parties that comprise most of the seats in Parliament, compared with a potential UK voting public of 32 million that turned out in the 2019 general election.
Even if these members, through so-called local “constituencies” could freely select their candidates, about 2% of the full potential electorate would be choosing the candidates. In a sense, one could say that these constituencies “represent” the great voting public of the U.K. in making party selection. As a comparison, even at its most restrictive, in the 1790’s, the United States permitted (via property qualifications and the like) about 12% of its electorate to vote — directly for the House of Representatives, and indirectly, through popularly elected state legislatures or the Electoral College, for the United States Senate and President, respectively.
But that is not the half of it. In fact, the constituencies cannot freely elect candidates. Since the candidates themselves are also subject to central party approval, no one even gets to run before a constituency unless pre-approved by London Central.
And even if the constituencies were able to freely elect any candidate of their choice, since none of the constituancy are elected by the greater voting public, but are chosen by a “lunch club” admission process, one could hardly call candidate selection “democratic” in any case.
Due to the membership selection process, one can see that the idea that anyone could be a member — so that, in theory, millions could pack the membership rolls and democratize the process — is unrealistic. Careful selection procedures ensure no risk exists that the rabble holding distasteful opinions will be admitted .
To make things worse, each member, once admitted, is subject to expulsion by the central authorities of the party for violating the vague specifications set out in the governing rules of the parties.
In detail, the structure each party, described in seriatim, appears to work as follows.
Labour.
Until the “reforms” instituted by the Right Honorable Sir Anthony Litton Blair (aka, at his own surprising wish, “Tony”) as leader of the Party starting in 1997, the previous method of party control giving the Trade Unions a virtual veto was changed to reduce significantly the role of organized unions.
As currently constituted, after Blair’s reforms, the Labour party is no more democratic, but, from the capitalist point of view, is in better shape since it is subject to less direct Trade Union control.2
The party is an unincorporated association governed by a “Rule Book”, see Labour Party Rule Book (skwawkbox.org) that, in turn, sets forth in 15 Chapters the “Constitutional Rules” of the party. Id. Appended to this as part of the Rule Book are nine Appendices each with, one presumes, sad to say (given their contents), the force of the main body of the text.
The Labour party has the crippling defect that (I) the head of the party is technically a separate position from that of head of the Parliamentary party and (II) the head, the Executive, and the National Executive Committee to which the Executive reports, the National Committee, are not selected by the head of the Parliamentary party or by the Parliamentary Party leader, but partly by the Annual Conference vote (theoretically at least the members at large of the party) and partly by certain interest groups (such as trade unions) and the Parliamentary wing of the party. The Parliamentary wing of the party comprises a minority on the National Committee. One might almost point to a new Constitutional concept when Labour are in power: “King in Trade Union”.
Tory.
The organization of the Tory party — technically “The Conservative and Union Party” — is somewhat less at odds with itself than that of the Labour Party but is, nonetheless, baroque.
The Constitution of the Conservative Party, as amended through 2021 (the “Tory Constitution”) provides for what appears to be a dual leadership structure.
The “Leader” of the Tory party (a) must be a member of the House of Commons but (b) is elected by the members of the Conservative Party in accordance with the provisions of “Schedule 2” of the Tory Constitution. When so selected, he is the Prime Minister when in office; out of office, the leader of the opposition. His principal duty is to “determine the political direction of the Party having regard to the views of Party Members and the Conservative Policy Forum.” Tory Constitution, Part III (Section 11).
The selection of the Leader operates via a behind-the-scenes process, although less “behind the scenes” than it used to be. Since 1998, the so-called “1922 Committee” — so named since it first formed in 1922 to defeat the incipient Leadership candidacy of the unfortunate Nathanial Curzon, then Foreign Minister and formerly (and famously, the Viceroy of India) nominates pursuant to its own procedures a slate of nominees — or only one nominee, if it wishes — for the position of Leader. This slate is then put forth to the Conservative Party membership for a vote, and possibly a run-off vote if no candidate achieves a majority on the first round (Tory Constitution, Schedule 2).
Historically, before 1965, the Queen selected the party leader, presumably with the informal advice of party “grandees”. From 1965–98, the parliamentary party controlled. From 1998 to now, the parliamentary party runs ballots until down to the last two; then the last two go to the party members. But the “last two” rule is per the 1922 Committee rules, which can be changed. It would seem under the Constitution that the 1922 Committee could bypass the Parliamentary party members totally and just directly propose a slate of 2, 3 or more. It could also change its rules so that the Parliamentary MPs names which the Parliamentary MPs would be whittled down, say, to 5. The candidate receiving more than 50% of the vote becomes Leader (Tory Constitution, Schedule 2). It is notable that, although the slate is all of the MP’s selected by “establishment folks” (who are also MP’s), the vote among the candidates is made by a membership some — or in an extreme case — all of whom are not even resident in the United Kingdom and are not UK citizens (Join Us | Conservatives Abroad). One wonders if the Right Honorable Rushi Sunak, the previous Leader and “one-year” Prime Minister, could have better spent his time recruiting his fellow Gujaratti Indians in the northern subcontinent of India for Tory Party membership, since those in the UK don’t seem interested. After recruiting a couple hundred million of those (with Hindustani translations on the ballots of course), he could remain Tory Leader for the rest of his life. He would of course have to tweak the Constitution to provide that the current Leader must always be included on the 1922 Committee’s slate.. But with 200 million adherents….
The Leader, in turn, selects the “other” head of the Conservative Party — the “Chairman” of the Board of the Conservative Party. The Board is the supreme ruling body of the Conservative Party. It consists of 19 members, none of whom is the Leader. The Leader selects at his own discretion 3 members of the Board: the Chairman (above), one of the two Vice Chairmen, the Treasurer of the Party (who serves as an officer of the Party and as a member of the Board). In addition, the Leader (a) selects one other person, subject to the approval of the Board and (b) has the right of approval over an additional person selected by the Board, giving the Leader the right to appoint three members and to have a say in the appointment of two more, for a total of five members. The other members are the Chairman of the Conservative Party Conference, elected by the Membership (he serves as the other Vice President of the Party), the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, the three Chairmen of the English, Welsh, and Scottish Conservative Parties, respectively, and the Chairman of the Conservative Councilors Association. In addition, a member of the Tory party staff is selected by the Chairman of the Board. So, essentially, the Board is effectively outside the control of both the Leader and the Parliamentary conservative party. It is this confusing edifice that has the power of both candidate and membership deselection.
The Board crucially has, under Section 17.7 of the TC, the power in its “absolute discretion” to accept or refuse the membership of any prospective or current member. The power to “refuse” membership to a current member presumably is a roundabout way of saying the Board has the power to kick out any person from Tory Party membership it wants to, including, presumably, sitting members of parliament. If that weren’t enough, the TC rubs it in your face. Under Article 17.22, it has the power over “[t]he suspension of membership or the expulsion from membership of any member whose conduct is in conflict with the purpose, objects and values of the Party as indicated in Part I Article 2 or which is inconsistent with the objects or financial well-being of an Association or the Party or be likely to bring an Association or the Party into disrepute.” Well, that’s a lot of discretion!
Under Article 17.5 of the TC, the Board has the power over “the maintenance of the Approved List of Candidates in accordance with Article 19.1 of, and Schedule 6 to, the TC (Article 19 substantially simply refers to Schedule 6).
Under Schedule 6, Sections 14–21, the Board — like its Labour Party counterpart — incredibly has the power to “withdraw” associations — that is, local conservative party constituencies — from membership, thereby disenfranchising all of the members of the local association unless the Board decides otherwise. Schedule 6, Section 20. In other words, vote the wrong way, propose the wrong candidates, say the wrong thing, yer out, Jack!
The local Conservative “Associations” are no better. The model rules, attached as Schedule 7 to the TC, state that
[t]he Officers of the Association may move before the Executive Council the suspension or termination of membership of the Association of any member whose declared opinions or conduct shall, in their judgment, be inconsistent with the objects or financial well-being of the Association or be likely to bring the Party into disrepute. Similarly, the Officers may move the refusal of membership of the Association for the same reasons. Following such a motion, the Executive Council may by a majority vote suspend, terminate or refuse membership for the same reason. (Emphasis added.)
Good God. Even the toniest lunch clubs in New York do not have such discretion to decapitate members.
DISPOSING OF A LEADER
In getting rid of a leader who is Prime Minister, there are two ways: Parliamentary and Party.
The Parliamentary method is for the Parliament as a whole to vote, apparently by bare majority, that “the Parliament has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”. In such a case, there are 15 days in which the existing Parliament can try to find a new government. If not, a General Election is held.
The second is for the party itself to hold a vote of “no confidence” in the Leader (not the whole government). In the Tory party, 15% of the Tory members can petition to have a Leader no-confidence vote. In that case the vote is by the Tory Members of Parliament (not any other Tory party members) only. If the PM loses, a party election (by party members, not the parliamentary members) for a new leader. However, apparently under current rules (of the 1922 Committee?), there are preliminary ballots among the Tory Parliamentary party members only (of the whole House, not just the 1922 Committee). Once the ballot gets down to the final two, a choice between the final two is then put to the Tory party members at large. If the PM wins, no more “no confidence” votes are permitted for a year.
In the Labor party, there is no such thing as a vote of “no confidence” in the Leader. One challenges a sitting leader by mounting a candidate to oppose him. If that candidate gets 20% of the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party ) membership to support him (note that this is higher than the 15% threshold required for a non-removal election), the contest is on, pursuant to rules to be jerry-rigged by the NEC (National Executive Council) of the party. Which could be anything. There is a lack of clarity as to whether the incumbent can automatically run, or must meet the 20% threshold in terms of PLP member nominations. If the latter, a leader like Jeremy Corbyn could be unseated easily, because he probably would not get the requisite number of PLP member nominations, even though, if ON the ballot, he might win by a Corbynist margin of say 57% to 20% to 13% — a crushing victory among the Labor party membership. (Corbyn in his initial run got the requisite 20% support on a fluke, mainly from members that actually supported other candidates but assumed he would lose but split the vote in an advantageous way.) When Corbyn was challenged, barely a year into his leadership term, he obtained a ruling from NEC (which apparently by 2016 he controlled, even though he did not control the Executive Director (McDougal) who actually runs Southside) until 2018 when McDougal was replaced (even his replacement we now know worked against Corbyn) that the incumbent had a right to be on the ballot without meeting the 20% threshold, so Corbyn did not have to do what for him at that time would have been the impossible — namely, get the 51 MP’s necessary for a 20% endorsement. This ruling has now been affirmed by a High Court ruling that now stands as substantive law effective even in the absence of an NEC ruling to that effect. [1]
Even with the incumbent’s right to run, this is madness. It means that — as literally was the case with Corbyn — that a Leader could be elected by the members of the party at large (a) that only 20% (or less — see below on Corbyn) support and thus (b) whose leadership could be easily challenged and subjected to re-vote at a new party conference almost on a continual basis. Effectively, after Southside had “deselected” enough Corbynist Labour Party at large members, this is exactly what happened to Corbyn. See “What role should party members have in leadership elections?.”
DESTRUCTION OF CORBYN
So, with this as the background instability of the system, it is easier to see how Corbyn was destroyed and how, now, the former leader of Labour is no longer even a member of Labour.
However, the particular details of Corbyn’s demise can be traced in good part to his naivety and weakness.
Weakness. His weakness was that he was hated by almost the entire membership of the PLP’s — the Labor Party MP’s. In a normal year he would have been able to secure, at most, say 5% of the PLP’s — 15 points short of getting on an uncontested ballot for Leader. However, for a number of later-to-be-regretted tactical reasons involving other candidates, a number of his Parliamentary adversaries endorsed him despite despising him — enough to get him over the 20% threshold.
Having thus gotten on the ballot by pure luck, the Party membership — clearly, completely out of tune with the MP’s “representing” them — elected Corbyn by a crushing majority at that year’s Party Conference. Suddenly this reviled backbencher was Labour Party Leader!
Naivete. For reasons best known to himself, former GMB executive, Toby McNicol, who at the time of Corbyn’s ascension to the leadership of the Labour party, held the extremely powerful position of General Secretary of the Party, despised Corbyn. McNicol did not wish to serve under him. Accordingly, McNicol offered to resign (again, for reasons known only to himself — perhaps a last trace of English gentlemanliness). This was a huge gift to Corbyn and a huge “own goal” for the “New Labour” Parliamentary Labour Party establishment. Had Corbyn accepted McNicol’s resignation and packed the Labour Party executive with his own people, Corbyn might still today be Party leader. However, unbelievably, Corbyn did not take up this gift — he refused. So Corbyn’s sworn enemy — McNicol — remained as General Secretary.
The result was that the Labour Party executive at Brewer’s Green, then moving offices to Southside, continued to be occupied by either New Labour bureaucrats or others — like McNicol — who apparently hated Corbyn just as much as McNicol. Since, as noted in numbing detail above, the Party executive has the enormous power of selection and de-selection of candidates and entire constituencies and the power within extremely broad guidelines to set the terms of any leadership election or challenge, this was an enormous “own goal” on Corbyn’s part.
From that moment on, McNicol and the New Labour apparatchiks at Brewer’s Green worked as hard as they could to unseat Corbyn, as did the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), which, of course despised Corbyn as well.
The first result came in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote. The PLP demanded Corbyn resign. When he refused, a meaningless “vote of no confidence” was held by the PLP, which, predictably, Corbyn lost be a huge margin. Then PLP member Owen Johnson then got the requisite 20% of the PLP to endorse his challenge to Corbyn.
McNicol used every trick in the book to trip up Corbyn via the broad discretion granted the NEC in the Labour Party rule book.
First, he convened a meeting of the NEC without informing Corbyn that it was for the purpose of making a determination under the Labour Party rules that Corbyn, like any challenger, needed to get endorsements from 20% of the PLP to appear on the ballot triggered by the challenge. This would have forced Corbyn out, since he would have been unable to obtain that many endorsements. However, the Labour unions as a block voted with Corbyn, resulting in a rejection of that proposal. Although the Executive sued to reverse the NEC ruling, the ruling was upheld by the High Court. See above.
Second, McNicol convinced the NEC to disqualify any Conference Labour Party (“CLP”) members joining within the last six months. The result was to disqualify about 20% of the CLP, most of whom were the late-entering Corbyn supporters. The power of the NEC to retroactively disqualify the voting rights of these members was upheld by the Court of Appeal, after first being rejected by the High Court. See above.
Notwithstanding these maneuvers, Corbyn won a crushing victory among the general membership and retained his leadership position.
Having failed to unseat Corbyn through “behind the scenes” rule jiggering, the PLP, and the press (who also hated Corbyn) formed a new line of attack. Corbyn had always been a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and a critic of the Israeli occupation of the west bank. This, and his statements in support of this position were dredged up as evidence of “anti-Semitism”. Since the Party had foolishly made a rule prohibiting any Member from “anti-Semitism” — whatever that was at any given time — accusations of “anti-Semitism” could be deadly for any Member, including Corbyn. At first, the Party did not accuse Corbyn directly; rather it attempted to de-select a number of Corbyn’s senior party supporters
As Chris Willimson describes, instead of rejecting these claims out of hand, Corbyn weakly agreed to punish a couple of Party members attacked and agreed to a commission of inquiry to look into these claims. Of course, the commission would be staffed by the very Brewers Green apparatchiks, including Toby McNicol, who hated Corbyn. Predictably, this commission was used to smear Corbyn. In addition, it was used to deselect not only many of Corbyn’s few supporters in Parliament, but to deselect entire constituencies whose statements the Southsde folks did not like, essentially throwing out of the party anyone who supported Corbyn. This deslection process continued long enough that, by the end of 2019, Corbyn had been fatally weakened in the CLP itself.
So instead of accepting McNicol’s resignation, bringing in a Corbyn supporter at the head of the party, and then ruthlessly expelling from Brewer’s Green its current employees and replacing them with Corbyn supporters, Corbyn now faced a Labor Executive dead set on destroying him through endless “anti-Semitism” hearings.
Notwithstanding all this, Corbyn managed to fend off these attacks to come closer to a Labour victory — in 2017 — than any leader since Blair. However, after losing the 2019 election, and bloodied beyond belief by the PLP antisemitism war, he resigned as leader under duress. Very promptly he was literally “deselected” and thrown out of the party, despite being one of the longest serving labor MP’s then in Parliament and having served as its leader since 2015!
Some have blamed Jewish power exclusively for Corbyn’s downfall. However, although Jewish power may in some sense be blamed for Corbyn’s political demise, the bizarre structure of British politics, in which a man wildly unpopular among the PLP could become leader of the Party due to support by members paying 3 lbs each for the privilege, plus his own naivety and weakness, played even greater roles.
The Sad Conclusion: Support for Israel and Mass Immigraiton by Both Parties
But the implications for the desiccated state of Britain’s vaunted “mother of Parliaments” and its elective representative government albeit under a Monarchy, are dire. The people who clearly approved Corbyn have no say. Those who do “have their say” are immediately thrown out of the party. The result is that, when the 36 million-strong UK electorate gets to choose, they get to choose between two candidates who (a) slavishly support Israel and (b) slavishly support massive immigration, even though polling indicates each of these objects of elite affection are wildly unpopular.
So, no, it’s not “all the Jews’”. But any time you set up a system so centrally controlled — whether it is with the Tory or Labour parties, BBC, or CBS News, the chance that a small set of anti-social conspirators seize the levers of power for their own ends approaches 100%.
If the conspirators simply want money, then you lose money.
If the conspirators want to destroy the people itself, then the result is the destruction of the country.
That’s where you all are “English-folk”.
_______________________
1/ Brewer’s Green — apparently not Southside — was the labor central party HQ in 2015. From April, 2012 to December, 2015 the Labor Party hq was at Brewer’s Green. From December, 2015 to early January, 2023, it was at 105 Victoria Street in Southside, hence called familiarly “Southside”. See Labour Party headquarters (UK) – Wikipedia . From January 2023 to today, it has been at a series of two addresses in Southwark — not Southside. Confusing? Well, might as well have confusion of addresses to match the confusion in the Rules.
2/ From 1900 to 1978, new leaders chosen by parliamentary party. In 1978, an “electoral college” method put in, with 1/2rd members, 1/3rd trade unions, and 1/3rd parliammentary members. That apparently lasted until 2014, in which it went to [all members?} Well it is parliamentary MP ballots to get to the top 5, then those 5 go to the party members. That is how Corbyn got through because he was 5th out of 5 on the MP ballot, but then won the party members hands down.
[1] Nunns, Candidate, at 323 (no citation), OR Books, 2016. Foster v McNicol and Corbyn, High Court of Justice Queens Bench, Neutral Citation Number: [2016] EWHC 1966 (QB) (July 28, 2016). The High Court made a substantive ruling that the incumbent need not get any nominations; it did NOT simply issue a ruling affirming NEC’s ruling on either of the grounds (a) that the NEC was the sole judge of the rules or (b) that in this case the vote of the NEC was “reasonable” interpretation of the rules. Ibid. Accordingly, the High Court decision stands as a substantive interpretation of the rules that will bind further decisions of the NEC until if and when the underlying rules are properly amended by vote of the membership. Note that the court, noting that the Labor Party is an unincorporated association bound solely by a “contract” — namely the Rules — ruled on this as a normal interpretation of contract case. Id. Note, in Evangelou v. McNicol, the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), on Appeal from the High Courts of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Neutral Citation Number: [2016] EWCA Civ 817 (August 12, 2016), held that the NEC did have the power to retroactively disenfranchise all constituency members who had joined the party within a period of six months before the date of the NEC ruling, thus disenfranchising about 130,000 new Labor Party members from the vote.
James Edwards Interviews Former U.S. Representative Steve King (R-Iowa)
Let me take you back to another incident that really brought my attention to this. It was the opening night of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and I did a panel with MSNBC. Chris Hayes is the moderator. They had April Ryan, a black commentator there, and a fellow by the name of Charlie Pierce. We had our little banter going back and forth, and maybe it wasn’t all that friendly but I didn’t think it was bad, and then at the end, Charlie Pierce said, “One could be an optimist and hope that this would be the last Republican convention where old white people have anything to say about it.” They were ready to cut away, and I couldn’t let that go. I said, “Charlie, that’s getting kind of tiring. I’m tired of hearing that. I’d invite you to explain to all of us what other sub-group has contributed more.”
And Chris Hayes leaned over and leered at me, thinking he had me trapped, and said, “More than white people?” And I said, “More than Western civilization itself defined by everywhere the footprint of Jesus Christ laid the foundation.” That is when they targeted me as a white supremacist and a white nationalist and decided to squeeze me out of Congress eventually.
What follows is an interview conducted by talk radio host James Edwards with former U.S. Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) about his 18 years in Congress and his book, Walking Through the Fire: My Fight for the Heart and Soul of America.
* * *
James Edwards: You gave an interview with Tucker Carlson a few years ago that I consider to be the most enlightening explanation I have seen regarding how Washington operates. Let’s begin there. How does Congress actually work?
Congressman Steve King: Generally speaking, when freshmen arrive, they come in with ideals, objectives, and goals, believing they can achieve them. However, when I was first elected, I went through 11 days of what they called orientation, which consisted of about four days of actual orientation and seven days of indoctrination. During this time, they emphasized what you should never do, which helps them maintain control over you. Additionally, they insisted that you need to raise money because you can’t change the world if you don’t return next time. This kind of manipulation continues to build and intensify as time goes on.
I remember during the class election in 2010, I was walking over to an event one evening early in the session with a freshman. He mentioned, “Well, I got appointed to the Rules Committee, and I’m pretty happy about that assignment.” I replied, “Oh, you should be happy, I guess. You get to vote the way leadership tells you to on the Rules Committee.” It’s the speaker’s Rules Committee, and that’s how it has always been.
He responded, “Oh, no. They told me I could vote my conscience. I’m a free man. If I do well enough on the Rules Committee, I’ll be able to get on Ways and Means in a couple of years, and that’s my goal.”
Well, fast forward ten years, and he was still on the Rules Committee, voting the way the leadership wanted him to vote. That’s kind of what happens to a lot of them. My book covers what goes on in the inner workings of Congress and helps American citizens understand how devious the leadership can be, and why some representatives can’t allow the people’s voice to be heard in Washington.
Edwards: Your book is Walking Through Fire: My Fight for the Heart and Soul of America. In it, you write about so many key topics, such as political treason, media defamation, your relationship with President Trump, why Western civilization is superior, and the magnitude and impact of illegal immigration. Let’s hit that heavy topic. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines genocide as being the deliberate and systemic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. Polls indicate that most Republican voters now believe a “Great Replacement” is occurring and oppose it. What is your opinion on the issue, and do you think that it rises to meet the definition of genocide?
King: I don’t know if I would quite say genocide because it’s not pushing for a massive death. It’s just pushing for lower birth rates among whites, which is one of the things that they like to see, and bringing in massive numbers of aliens of all kinds, whether they’re legal or illegal, from every culture — almost everything but white culture.
I’ve looked at this for a long time, and I’ve had my concerns. I’ve been down to the border repeatedly, doing the calculation. What happens when you bring in military-age men by the millions from cultures that are violent, and they don’t accept our Western civilization? If you bring in one person from another culture, you’re importing their culture, too. It’s axiomatic. In small numbers, you can still assimilate, but the greater the number, sooner or later they become an enclave, and they reconstruct their own country here in an enclave in the United States.
Others will say, “All cultures are equal.” But they are not. Western civilization is a superior civilization. The First World doesn’t exist outside of Western civilization. People want to destroy the First World because they despise what has been accomplished by it. They’ve created this racial envy. They’ve said that Western civilization is white civilization, therefore, it is evil. They say that babies born with white skin are inherently racist.
But what I don’t understand is why the people who built the greatest civilization in the history of the world would hand it over because of something called white guilt. I think we’re entitled to some gratitude for all that’s been built here and the comfort that’s been created for all the people in this country.
This is also happening on a large scale in Europe. I don’t know how many trips I’ve taken there, but I’ve made several specifically to walk among the hordes of people marching from one horizon to the other, primarily heading for Germany. I’ve ventured into the no-go zones in most of those countries, entering unprotected even when the State Department advised against it. I just walked in.
I’ve seen it. I’ve talked to them over there. It is strategic. It is being pushed by George Soros and others and the objective is to tear down Western civilization. They believe that the chaos they create will allow them to take total power, which would result in a Marxist-style government led by a few oligarchs living in gated communities, while chaos reigns everywhere else.
Edwards: I believe every group of people ought to be proud of their history, their ancestors, their heroes, their culture, their folkways, and their faith. But humanity does consist of unique groups who oftentimes have conflicting interests and putting them all in one living space often fosters discontent. That said, if you asked any member of Congress how they plan to help African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, or whomever, they would have an answer locked, loaded, and ready to go. But if you asked them what their plan is to help the white working class, you might be escorted out of that town hall by security. Why do you think that is? And do you think that the day will ever come when elected Republicans will mention the name of the group that actually votes for them by majority?
King: It seems like there is a movement in that direction. In fact, I know there’s a movement in that direction. There are several different groups in the country that are starting to form that way to defend the culture and civilization that built the United States of America and they’re less and less apologetic about it. But I can tell you the pressure in Washington is just so utterly high. If you looked at what they attacked me for – I was misquoted in the New York Times – but even that quote shouldn’t have been anything that gave anybody heartburn. They conflated white nationalism and white supremacy with Western civilization, and I asked, “How did those terms become pejorative?”
Why did I sit in the classroom as a boy hearing the merits of Western civilization just to see it become a derogatory term today? The last part didn’t get quoted in the paper. But I was defending Western civilization, and I had done that before. I had been quoted 276 times defending Western civilization going back to the year 2000 and had never even used the terms white nationalism or white supremacism.
Let me take you back to another incident that really brought my attention to this. It was the opening night of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and I did a panel with MSNBC. Chris Hayes is the moderator. They had April Ryan, a black commentator there, and a fellow by the name of Charlie Pierce. We had our little banter going back and forth, and maybe it wasn’t all that friendly but I didn’t think it was bad, and then at the end, Charlie Pierce said, “One could be an optimist and hope that this would be the last Republican convention where old white people have anything to say about it.” They were ready to cut away, and I couldn’t let that go. I said, “Charlie, that’s getting kind of tiring. I’m tired of hearing that. I’d invite you to explain to all of us what other sub-group has contributed more.”
And Chris Hayes leaned over and leered at me, thinking he had me trapped, and said, “More than white people?” And I said, “More than Western civilization itself defined by everywhere the footprint of Jesus Christ laid the foundation.” That is when they targeted me as a white supremacist and a white nationalist and decided to squeeze me out of Congress eventually.
Edwards: You were the keynote speaker at a recent American Renaissance conference. Not very long ago, you would routinely see men like Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, and even yours truly, occasionally, on prime-time cable news programming. Those days have passed, but what concerns me is that conservatives too often give their enemies the power to determine those with whom they are allowed to speak and associate. At some point, public figures and elected officials will have to be able to speak with such advocates without fear of what so-called journalists think about it. I assume you agree.
King: I’ve had this attitude for a long time. I am a strong, strong advocate for freedom of speech, and when I see the freedom of speech of a person being curtailed because other people disagree with it, and then they organize to muzzle them, that’s not what made America. It has got to be a robust and competitive freedom of speech.
I think we need to lend a voice to the values and principles I expressed at that conference. It was supposed to be a 30-minute speech and 15 minutes of Q&A, but I got kind of carried away and didn’t step down for an hour and a half. But I was having fun, and they were paying attention. I don’t believe there is a reason why anyone of a different race or ethnicity can’t embrace Western civilization and succeed within the parameters that have been set up by it. Free enterprise, freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, the right to bear arms, all the way down the line. The pillars of American exceptionalism are accessible to everyone.
It is important to be able to tell people what you believe in, let them sort out what they hear, and then come to their own conclusions. Why should we fear speech? Why should we try to muzzle someone who says, “I am of European heritage, and look at all the things we brought with us over here. Look at the things we developed once we got here. What’s wrong with any of this?”
When you muzzle people like Peter Brimelow or Jared Taylor or Steve King or James Edwards, or anyone else out there, what you’re saying is you don’t have confidence that your ideology can compete.
Edwards: Though you were born in Iowa, you courageously defended Southern heritage while in Congress in a most remarkable way. Can you share that story with us?
King: This is another example of my commitment to the freedom of speech. I was walking to my office one day, and there was a debate taking place on the floor. I asked my staff, “What are they debating down there?” And they said, “Well, they’re debating amendments that Democrats are bringing to take the Confederate flag down somewhere.”
I listened to maybe 30 seconds of that, and once I realized what was going on, I ran out and went down the elevator to the tunnel. I ran through the tunnel over to the Capitol, up onto the floor, commanded the floor, and got recognized to speak. I was probably huffing and puffing through the whole five minutes, but I made the argument that the battle flag is about Southern pride. It’s not about advocating for slavery. If you Google “Southern pride,” by the time you get the barbecue out of the way, it’s all battle flags after that. If you Google “slavery” and get images, you get about seven or eight pages of black and white slaves. There’s not one battle flag in the whole thing. But now they’ve turned it into a verboten symbol, and they’re crushing Southern pride.
I also wanted to give credit to what happened at Appomattox when Lee and Grant negotiated the surrender. Lee asked Grant if those boys could keep their arms and their horses because they needed to go home and farm. And Grant said they could keep their horses. The officers got to keep their side arms. When the surrender was announced, a Union regiment fired off a volley in celebration, and Grant shut that down immediately. He said, “From this day forward, these rebels are our countrymen.” So, they got to keep their Southern pride, and their horses, and the officers kept their sidearms, but they also became countrymen again.
I made that argument on the House floor. I lost, but I put a Confederate flag on my desk as a symbol of freedom of speech and respect for Southern pride.
Edwards: On a somewhat similar note, you once shared a humorous story with me about an international trip you took with a former colleague, the late U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). Do you remember the one?
King: I served with her for 18 years, 16 of those years on the Judiciary Committee, and I traveled the world with her, sitting across from her on long flights. Uganda comes to mind. I remember sitting on a bus with her as we were going through Uganda. Sheila was looking out the window, and she said, “These are my people.” I said, “Sheila, how do you know they’re your people?” Her answer was basically that they looked like she thinks her people look.
I razzed her because she was opposed to any type of wall, fence, or barbed wire. But, in Africa, the only place where you’re safe is inside your own compound with a wall, broken glass, and concertina wire on top. So, I pointed that out by saying, “Sheila, look at that. What do you think of that? Are all these people stupid? Why did they build these things? It looks like it must work, huh?” And after a few days of me ribbing her, she asked me if I would treat my little sister like this. I told her that I do, and she can stand up for herself. So that’s how that went.
Then, another time, we were in Morocco, where there are these 40-foot-high stone walls. We were talking underneath them, and I said, “Sheila, you see these walls? They were built by slaves. Did you know that?” She perked up. And I said, “Yeah, they were built by Christian slaves with Muslim masters. The Muslims would emasculate them so they didn’t have the equipment to urinate, much less reproduce, and when they there were done with them, they would just throw them off the wall or out of a boat and into the sea.” So, I’m telling her about these white, Christian slaves, and that needled her a little bit because she always viewed everything from the lens of racism. Very late in her career, she even put forth a bill that would have criminalized thought crimes. I think we all know what that means.
Edwards: You still have connections, power, and influence that most people do not have. What’s next for Steve King?
King: I call Victor Orban a gold standard of Western civilization. He knows what he’s doing, and he is methodically protecting the Western civilization within Hungary and influencing it outside of there. I met with him back in about 2015 or ‘16, and it was fascinating. But I also went through Europe, and I met with the patriotic party leaders that have sprung up across there, and I was laying the foundation to build an international organization to restore Western civilization around the world. We were very close to announcing it and launching it when the ambush came in on me and more or less destroyed my political capital and everything else I had going on. But we still need to do that.
The short version would be to pull in all the countries in Western Europe, and Eastern Europe that are part of Western civilization, and then, of course, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Let’s pull those countries together with at least one representative who advocates for Western civilization. That means principled, conservative patriots. Each one of these countries needs to have its own identity and language but also be willing to pull together under the larger umbrella of Western civilization. I wanted to put up an organization that’s founded and planted in Vienna where we turned the Turks back in 1529 and in 1683, committed to saving Western civilization, and then let it grow from there into universities and elsewhere. That’s what I’d like to do in the future. I think we’ve got a chance to get it done. It’s going to take some work and money.
To order former U.S. Rep. Steve King’s book, Walking Through the Fire: My Fight for the Heart and Soul of America, please visit www.steveking.com.
Left to right: Actress Mindy Robinson, former U.S. Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa), Mr. and Mrs. James Edwards, and former U.S. Senate nominee Lauren Witzke (R-Delaware) pose for a photo together after an event last year in Orlando, Florida.
When not interviewing newsmakers, James Edwards has often found himself in the spotlight as a commentator, including many national television appearances. Over the past 20 years, his radio work has been featured in hundreds of newspapers and magazines worldwide. Media Matters has listed Edwards as a “right-wing media fixture” and Hillary Clinton personally named him as an “extremist” who would shape our country.
Andrew Grant “Charlotte” Fosgate: Suicide, Mockery, and Derision
The Suicide of Andrew Grant “Charlotte” Fosgate and the Mockery and Derision in Response
Stigma, Shame, and Other Negative Sanctions are Vital To Stopping the Transgender Menace
The above image features an image of St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon, featured in the last tweet posted by Fosgate’s “charlotteburntfishie” account.
Author’s Note: the nature of this essay, a time sensitive “news” story, is particularly subject to revision and expansion.
As some readers are likely well aware, there is some controversy on social media concerning the apparent suicide of a Portland teen who had succumbed to transgender delirium. His name was Andrew Grant Fosgate, who adopted the name “Charlotte” in order to pretend that he was a young woman. On May 2, 2025, he posted this tweet with a picture of St. Johns Bridge in Portland Oregon. This had gone unnoticed for several weeks, until it was alleged that his death was confirmed. Note there are some who doubt the veracity of these reports.
Right-wingers and edgelords on twitter soon became aware of this, and reacted with mockery and derision. This tweet was met with both support and outrage, just as Stonetoss made a meme with the image of Andrew’s last tweet his profile banner for his twitter account.
This in turn has mobilized transgenders and their enablers to denounce such reactions, many of them making death threats or condoning violence explicitly. The position asserted by this motley assortment of cretins is that it is morally reprehensible to mock or celebrate the death of the “child.” Much of the outcry uses the word ‘child’ repeatedly to describe a junior or senior in high school, a minor who can drive a car, be emancipated as an adult, and tried as an adult under certain circumstances. They further assert that it is this sort of cruelty which drove the young person to suicide. Until Friday May 30, this was largely self-contained on twitter and other social media outlets, although it had been covered on Perez Hilton. And today, May 31, it was covered on Rolling Stone, compelling the publication of this short essay on The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective.
It cannot be stressed enough that no one has shown actual proof that Andrew Grant Fosgate received any sort of pushback, criticism, or even bullying in relation to his mad delusion that he is a “girl.” In fact, according to the tweets and other materials reproduced below, his mother, a single mother, was proactive in feeding this delusion, enabling and encouraging his “transition,” even giving him estrogen shots according to the teen’s own twitter account. There is no evidence that any of his peers criticized, balked, or stigmatized this lunacy in any way.
Despite assertions to the contrary, there should have been a great deal of criticism and stigma by his peers and society at large, in order to deter him and anyone else from entertaining such an impossible delusion in the first place. Some, particularly those of a more mainstream persuasion, including some of those of a Christian faith, may find some of the tweets, memes, and other reaction to this incident distasteful. It should be noted, however, that the young man had become truly contemptible, advocating for White genocide. His detractors insist it is a joke, but when something has to be explained that it is a joke, it has necessarily failed in its attempt at humor.¹
It is also of note that embracing the death and suicide of Andrew Grant Fosgate to advance the transgender cause is contrary to sound principles related to suicide prevention and the copy-cat phenomenon. As hard as it may be for some to fathom, and in contravention to naïveté about “the free marketplace of ideas,” suicide, among many other harmful and irrational behaviors, rubs off on other people. The suicide rate jumped up some twelve percent after Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. This has led to a greater understanding of social contagion and the copy-cat phenomenon, as it has led to strict protocols on how suicide is covered.2 As a general rule, media protocols dictate that such stories are publicized only very briefly, with a mere statement of what had transpired, replete with disclaims including suicide hotlines and so on. Transgender lunatics and their enablers are instead publicizing this, making a martyr of the fallen teen and blaming “transphobia” for his decision when in fact his family and all of his local society in Portland condoned and encouraged this delusion. Suicide attempts by so-called “transgenders” could very likely go up as a result, but those advancing this sick ideology will use it to silence detractors and blame those against this insanity for it, rather than the infusion of this impossible delusion into the stream of culture.
More importantly, such protestations do not change the fact that transgenderism is being normalized, and becoming mainstream. The only way to push this collective delusion into the dark recesses of society is through overt stigma and shaming and, if there is a political mandate to do so, legal sanctions, from restricting to banning so-called “gender affirming care.” Such a legislative response would be akin to laws like anti-prostitution and anti-gambling laws that, while never able to completely eradicate these vices, do provide an important deterrent while signaling that society finds these vices anathema.
Until such time as a political mandate has been realized to use state power to impose such sanctions, stigma and shame are the best deterrents. It may seem distasteful to some, but the more cases like those of Andrew Grant Fosgate are mocked and derided or met with other negative social sanctions, the more people will be dissuaded from entertaining this mad folly in the first place. Such negative responses are essential in order to prevent deviancy being defined even further down3 by mainstreaming transgenderism outright.
Stated another way, right-wing stalwarts, luminaries, and provocateurs like Stonetoss are not what killed Andrew Grant Fosgate. Rather it is the dissemination and promulgation of this sick ideology that implants this impossible idea into the minds of people on a macro, societal level, further aided and encouraged by lunatics like his mother. That transgender ideology is nothing other than the maddest delusion is proven by even a cursory glance at this creature before his demise. Despite being draped in concealing clothing, the unmistakably male features are immediately apparent in the size of his feet, and the distinctly male if not masculine features of his face, this despite adolescent males often having babyface features, to mention nothing of the estrogen shots he was receiving from that mother of his.
Fighting a culture war is never for the faint of heart, which is probably why mainstream conservatives have done almost nothing but bring about defeat after impending defeat. As with other matters, mealy-mouthed murmurings from such fuddy-duddies need to be ignored. Their strategy has been tried, and it has largely failed.
The loss of young life is often tragic and lamentable, but those voices responding sharply to this event are precisely those voices that needed to be heard as soon as the transgender agenda entered mainstream society when Bruce Jenner appeared in Vanity Fair. Just as they needed to be heard in other ways society and culture have devolved in the decades before, defining deviancy ever further downward. For that reason, those with ideological focus and intellectual acuity will not condemn those who respond in this way, but join them in the fight.
ADDENDUM (June 2, 2025): some of the hysteria by tansgender lunatics and their enablers has died down somewhat. The story has since been convered by local Oregon news, as well as LGBTQ Yuck propaganda rag Pink News (as any internet search query will demonstrate). Transgender vermin and radical gender ideologues have made the spot where Fosgate jumped into a shrine, and those against this lunacy are leaving mementos in mockery and derision. As stated, publicizing the suicide in this way to push so-called transgender rights is in contravention to basic protocols to prevent suicide ideation based on the copy-cat and socail contagion phenomena. These cretins are far more interested in trying to appropriate the death of Andrew Grant Fosgate as a martyr for their insidious cause than trying to prevent copy-cats. Below readers will find screenshots demonstrating these developments, as well as a sample of incitement to violence by the left. The latter is protected speech under Brandenburg vs Ohio, but is liklely in contravention to terms of service under twitter any other mainstream social media platform.
Other articles and essays by Richard Parker are available at his publication, The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective, found at theravenscall.substack.com. Please consider subscribing on a free or paid basis, and to like and share as warranted. Readers can also find him on twitter, under the handle @astheravencalls.
1 There are other unsavory postings associated with his social media footprint. The interest of brevity prevents a further exposition of such matters, at least for now.
2 This is discusseed at length in “When So Many Do Jump off a Bridge.”
3 Those unfamiliar with this critical concept are directed to this brief description, taken from “What Consenting Adults Do Is Our Councern:”
Discussed in detail by the late Robert Bork in the introductory chapter to Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Defining Deviancy Down posits—quite correctly—that any society, no matter how moral or depraved, can only afford to regard so much behavior as deviant before that behavior becomes normalized. This is closely related with the Durkheim Constant, postulated by German Jewish sociologist Emile Durkheim, which posits every society, no matter how moral or depraved, will have the same quotient of behavior that society regards as deviant. A society of saints will have vastly different morals and mores than a society of sinners, but both societies will regard the same quotient of behavior on the outlying edges of that particular society as deviant. Quite critically, as deviancy is defined ever further downward, society will then regard behavior that had been regarded as normal and beneficial as deviant
‘Black Fatigue’ is Real
Due to the persistent problem of black dysfunction and criminality in America — the kind we witness in various forms each and every day whether it be on social media, nightly news reports or from personal experience — ‘black fatigue’ has reached epic proportions throughout the country.
An increasing number of white Americans, including those of other racial and ethnic groups, have grown weary of the entitlement attitudes, the violent crimes and societal disruption that blacks bring. They used to limit their dysfunction largely to their own communities, but it’s now spread everywhere. Social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, and TikTok document it all.
White Americans, of course, should have been fatigued a long time ago during the Rodney King incident and subsequent L.A. riots of 1992, or the Trayvon Martin fiasco, or the Michael Brown debacle of 2014, or the nationwide Black Lives Matter-George Floyd riots that managed to destroy large sections of numerous American cities at the cost of billions in 2020, divided the entire nation, and led to widespread ‘defund the police’ efforts. But these things take time, and a good many whites are still numbingly tucked away in their multicultural slumber.
Yet, the ripening of America’s fatigue of blacks has, apparently, reached its peak or at least close to it. This is especially evident on social media where criticism of typical black criminality is scorned and harshly condemned, often in explicitly ‘racial’ terms that are sometimes in coded language and other times not.
This was not always the case just a few years back when there were tighter controls over what one could say on the various platforms. But times have changed. It has become so common now to mock blacks openly on social media because people are fed up with their antics and victim mentality. Persistent comments on social media about blacks, such as “Ashamed of nothing, offended by everything, and entitled to everything,” or “The fatigue is real,” or “The 13% commit over 60% of the nation’s violent crime,” or “We don’t have a race problem, we have a problem race” are all indicative that much of the nation no longer believes the lies of black victimhood.
The overt thievery of large groups of young black males and black females who often commit their crimes attired as Ninjas to conceal their identities has caused increasing numbers of people to lose whatever good feelings they might have had of them. Criminal ‘flash mobs’ are almost exclusively committed by young black males, and most jewelry shops and Apple iPhone centers have learned to be wary of blacks in groups. The simple-minded may see it as ‘racial profiling,’ but it’s simply a matter of noticing repeated patterns committed by the same people.
The Dilbert cartoon creator, Scott Adams, rightly described blacks as a “hate group” when one considers all the malice they express against whites, including the crime and violence they routinely perpetrate on others. He admonished whites to just stay away from them: “Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people” . . . “Just get the (expletive) away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.”
Mind you, these were the words coming from a man who was once sympathetic to black causes and closely identified with them. But no more. Adams also said, “I’m going to back off from being helpful to black Americans because it doesn’t seem like it pays off . . . The only outcome is that I get called a racist.”
Blacks have no one to blame but themselves for these kinds of reactions. And it’s not a matter of whites being ‘racist’ either, but of them seeing the true nature of blacks which is marked by low intelligence, impulsiveness, menacing, temperamental, aggressive, and possessing strong proclivities toward violent crime and thievery. Is it true of all blacks without exception? Of course not. But there can be little doubt that a sizable population of blacks in any city or community will inevitably bring about enormous levels of street crime, murder, out-of-wedlock births, poverty, and a ‘culture’ that is inherently destructive to the black family. Whites have no need to destroy black communities; blacks freely do it to themselves.
This is why racially discerning whites have long maintained that blacks should not be allowed into white societies, and every effort to bring about an equality between the two races is doomed to failure because we are so very different in terms of our worldviews, our cultures, our morality, our intelligence, and our industriousness. Abraham Lincoln in 1858 expressed the same sentiments in one of his presidential debates with Senator Stephen Douglas:
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
Thus, when whites many decades earlier erected Jim Crow and Sundown laws, it was for the purpose of preserving the kinds of societies that whites created and of preventing blacks from destroying it. This is because they understood the nature and natural proclivities of black people having interacted with them for a period of almost two centuries prior. When blacks are allowed full legal equality and freedom in white societies, it’s just a matter of time before all of our once grand cities begin to resemble South Side Chicago, Birmingham, Selma, Baltimore, Oakland, and Detroit. This is beyond dispute because it’s not the Amish or German tourists who have made our major cities unsafe, but the presence of blacks and the thug culture that has become part and parcel to who and what they are as a people.
As harsh as it may sound to some ears, blacks culturally erode and inevitable destroy whatever societies are foolish enough to allow them to participate in it unless a firm hand is present to keep them out. But few whites today have the heart to do it having been softened and guilt-ridden by decades of anti-white racial propaganda. This is one of many reasons why America has failed. It has permitted a plague to fester in its midst all while convincing itself that things are not really as bad as they are.
This is, admittedly, hard for modern whites to understand because we’ve all been propagandized with government race dogma that tells us that whites and blacks are really no different from each other. However, a failure to understand that blacks and whites are fundamentally different in so many ways and that we are not compatible has led to a long history of race relations in America marked only by conflict, hatred, fruitless and costly government programs — as well as total chaos. It’s like trying to force a square peg into a round hole, so we have worked feverishly to force blacks and whites to live together, and it always fails no matter what pretty lies we tell ourselves to justify it.
Blacks in the past didn’t even need to live among whites in order to have relatively successful and happy lives. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s when blacks were mostly kept away from white society, there was comparably less out-of-wedlock births, less drug usage and less violent crime within black communities than today. The black family was also largely kept intact, and divorce was not as common. Thus, whites generally had a moral and civilizing influence over blacks that did not require both groups to live among each other. It’s only when the civil rights movement took hold along with the welfare state and feel-good government policies, did we begin to witness the breakup of America’s black families.
Some blacks claim to have the same level of black fatigue that many whites do. Maybe so, but this means relatively little because the number of blacks who speak out against normative black dysfunction is infinitesimally small. Those who do are generally condemned by their fellow blacks as “Uncle Toms,” as trying to appease the white man to gain his favor. This is one of many reasons why blacks are unable to self-correct on any collective level. Individual blacks may be able to civilize themselves and reform their conduct, but it will never happen in any collective sense. Decades of racial coddling and endless liberal excuses for why blacks are unable to achieve parity with whites in so many areas has created a people with appalling levels of self-entitlement and who believe the most irrational things about themselves (‘We was Kangs’).
Black dysfunction will never go away because the nature of blacks will never change, including the low and degrading cultures they create wherever they dwell. This is largely attributable to genetics and deeply engrained behavior. No wonder generational welfare is so rampant among blacks in America — they think nothing is wrong about it and feel entitled to endless government handouts. We need to remember that blacks are the only race of people on the entire planet that need to create inner-city campaigns to urge their young men to stop ‘sagging’ and pull up their pants!
Blacks in America have proven to be so ruinous to good order and civility that they can’t even take cruise ship vacations without engaging in large brawls. Whether it’s a waffle house, a backyard BBQ, a musical concert, a wedding, or even a funeral, blacks always find a way to create a disturbing public scene that does nothing but drive intelligent and decent people away from them.
One of the more recent trends among blacks is to dance and gyrate at their high school and college formal graduations. Nothing about it is subtle or subdued. I’m not against celebrating such events, mind you, but blacks have a way of demeaning themselves and the dignity of public events by their ghetto-ratchet behavior. Videotaped high school prom celebrations among blacks are often show them wearing the most tasteless and gaudy clothing while flashing money before the camera. Blacks see this as an expression of their success and achievements, but in reality, it’s one more garish display of a people who possess little self-awareness and introspection.
A recent incident showing how whites no longer care what blacks think can be seen in the case of a Minnesota mother, Shiloh Hendrix. While at a public playground with her son, a black child had allegedly attempted to steal something from Shiloh’s diaper bag. When she rebuffed the child, using the n-word, a black Somali man (Sharmake Omar) confronted her and began to film her. Shiloh replied by saying “fuck you!” and again used the n-word when she was challenged by the man.
Attempts were made to expose Shiloh and ruin her life as a result of what she said. The local branch of the NAACP (Rochester) has called on the city of Rochester’s Attorney’s Office and the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office to take action against Shiloh Hendrix. This prompted Shiloh to open a fund-raising account. At this time, she has received nearly 9,000 supporters and raised more than $754,000! This is all very encouraging, and she probably would not have received any financial support just a few years earlier. But the presence of ‘black fatigue’ has taken root among whites.
Who cares if Shiloh used the n-word or not, especially when blacks freely use it in almost everything they say! The point is that whites are starting to stand up for themselves and no longer give a rip what blacks think or what whites are allowed to say in their presence. And if the black child at such a young age is starting to take things he shouldn’t, then maybe it’s time to call him out for what he is?
Whatever one may think of Adolf Hitler, he rightly saw through the facade of America and its many lies about ‘racial equality’ and ‘diversity as a strength’:
I don’t see much future for the Americans. . . . [I]t’s a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities. . . . My feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance . . . everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it’s half-Judaised, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?” (Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations: 1941–1944 [Octagon Books, 1972]).
History has not proven him wrong. Only twenty years later, the U.S. began to unravel with its divisive civil rights movement (primarily funded and organized by Jews), affirmative action quotas that directly discriminated against whites, multi-city riots throughout the nation by violent blacks, including the onslaught of an endless third-world invasion across our borders, not to mention the spread of pornography and every stripe of filth that continually bombards our entire citizenry twenty-four hours a day.
Millions of Americans are drug-addicted and dependent on psychotropic pills just to get through the day. Jews largely control our Congress, the legacy media and Hollywood, and our financial institutions, while blacks are continually shoved in our collective faces telling us all how much superior they are and how culturally ‘enriched’ we’ve become as a result. That millions of Americans would think highly of such a criminal goon as George Floyd and that statues honoring him would be erected shows what a laughingstock the U.S. has become.
The great ‘noticing’ about blacks among an increasing number of white Americans is neither ‘racist’ nor unfair. In fact, it’s precisely what Martin Luther King Jr. wanted when he declared in 1963 that he looked forward to a day when blacks would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the “content of their character.” Today’s ‘black fatigue’ phenomena, then, has nothing to do with judging one’s skin pigmentation and everything to do with judging the character and conduct of far too many blacks.
Thus, MLK Jr. got his wish, but the outcome was something he would have never imagined in his wildest dreams.
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Another Neoconservative Bites the Dust: The Life and Legacy of Michael Ledeen
Michael Ledeen, the man who urged America to “to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall” every decade, met an end that many of his critics would call overdue. On May 17, 2025, Ledeen died at the age of 83. marking the passing of one of the last influential Jewish neoconservatives of his generation.
Ledeen obtained a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied under the Jewish German-born historian George Mosse. He took a particular interest in Italian fascism and wrote a doctoral dissertation that eventually became “Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928–1936,” published in 1972, which explored Benito Mussolini’s efforts to create a Fascist international in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
His academic career began at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was an assistant professor of history from 1967–1973, before becoming a visiting professor at the University of Rome from 1973–1977. Ledeen authored over 35 books throughout his career, including works on fascism, European history, and Middle Eastern politics.
His influence was most felt in the realm of national security though. Throughout his career, Ledeen held multiple advisory roles within the U.S. government, including as a consultant to the National Security Council, a special advisor to the Secretary of State, a consultant to the Department of Defense, and a consultant to the under-secretary of political affairs. Ledeen was an active member of numerous think tanks and regime-change advocacy organizations such as the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Additionally, he has been published in numerous philosemitic conservative outlets such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard. His influence extended beyond formal roles. According to the Washington Post, he was the only “full-time” international affairs analyst frequently consulted by Karl Rove, the chief strategist of then-President George W. Bush.
Ledeen’s career was not free of controversy, however. In 1980, Ledeen co-authored articles with Belgian-American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in The New Republic alleging Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy Carter, accepted payments from Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and met with PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He made those same assertions before a Senate subcommittee as the 1980 presidential election quickly approached. These claims, published weeks before the presidential election, reignited the “Billygate” scandal.
A 1985 Wall Street Journal investigation later confirmed that the stories were part of a disinformation campaign executed by Italy’s military intelligence agency (SISMI) to hurt Carter’s presidential re-election campaign. Italian intelligence officer Francesco Pazienza testified that Ledeen received $120,000 for his role and operated under the codename “Z-3.” Pazienza, who was convicted for extortion in connection to the operation, described Ledeen as a key figure behind the dissemination of false narratives.
Additionally, Ledeen was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration. As a consultant to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, Ledeen facilitated back-channel communications between U.S. officials, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. In this case, the Reagan administration was clandestinely negotiating hostage releases in Lebanon via arms sales to Iran, a scheme that bypassed Congressional oversight and later became a major scandal. Ledeen defended Ghorbanifar despite widespread skepticism about his reliability, subsequently detailing his perspective in the book “Perilous Statecraft.” While he never faced criminal charges, Ledeen’s role in Iran-Contra showcased his willingness to operate in the shadows, ethics be damned.
Like many Jews in the neoconservative movement, Ledeen has a long career of advocating for regime change in the Middle East.
Ledeen was one of the most vocal Jewish neoconservatives lobbying for the removal of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Along with other neoconservative luminaries such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, Ledeen signed “An Open Letter to the President” in 1998, urging Bill Clinton to topple Iraq’s Baathist regime.
Similar to other Jewish officials in the national security establishment, Ledeen was an unapologetic champion of using hard military power. Jewish neoconservative journalist Jonah Goldberg coined the “Leeden Doctrine” after reflecting on a speech he attended in the 1990s at the American Enterprise Institute. In that speech, Ledeen was alleged to have said:
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ledeen was one of the most energetic proponents of using military force against the country. Ledeen wrote a piece at the National Review critical of former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who advised against invading Iraq. Instead of exercising restraint, Ledeen called for turning the entire Middle East “into a cauldron”, as he explained in more detail:
Scowcroft has managed to get one thing half right, even though he misdescribes it. He fears that if we attack Iraq “I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a caldron and destroy the War on Terror.”
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists.
Ledeen’s hawkish stance on Iran was also a lifelong constant. He labeled the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini a “theocratic fascist”, and as Jewish political commentator Peter Beinart observed about Ledeen’s Middle Eastern political analysis, every problem in the region “traces back to Tehran.” Despite opposing a direct invasion of Iran in his later years, Ledeen championed aggressive support for Iranian dissidents and preemptive strikes against nuclear facilities if diplomacy failed to get Iran to kowtow to the United States.
Michael Ledeen’s death marks the end of a career that Jewish journalist Eli Lake described as one of “America’s most courageous historians and journalists.” His friend David Goldman, a Jewish international relations commentator associated with the Claremont Institute, wrote that Ledeen’s “personal contribution to America’s victory in the Cold War is far greater than the public record shows.”
Ledeen’s legacy is undeniably one and steadfast advocacy for Jewish interests within the American conservative movement. For those who saw his influence as a barrier to a more authentically gentile Right, his passing, like David Horowitz’s, may indeed be viewed as an opportunity for change as more of the Jewish founders of neoconservatism and their progeny exit the plane of the living.
For this author, Ledeen will certainly not be missed.
Also available at Barnes & Noble
Also available at Barnes & Noble
