The tarnished halo of “Saint Bob” Geldof

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In 2013 Bob Geldof was awarded the Freedom of the City of London for his outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace.

Strangely there was no mention of his services as a corporate mouthpiece for the financial services industry, which is an odd omission.

For at the time Geldof was in the throes of launching his own hedge fund and he was supporting what the Wall Street Journal  called, a “huge private equity push into Africa,” Geldof’s 8 Miles Fund boasts a distinguished team of advisors,  concentrates on African investments, and has attracted the support of J P Morgan.  Typically, he deflects awkward questions with a joke, calling himself a “private equity whore”.

But Geldof’s partner in this venture could hardly be more respectable.  Merchant banker Mark Florman is a former Conservative Party fund raiser, BBC trustee and, when not working on philanthropic ventures,  is busy defending the City of London from regulation via his other role as head of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association. Read more

Progressives Condemn Racist and Islamophobic European Advocates For Women

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German-feminist

Progressive woman promoting enlightened views on Muslim refugees. Definitely not a member of European Advocates for Women.

By Werombi Towradji

A new organization that claims to advocate on behalf of women has come under fire, with allegations that, despite appearances to the contrary, it actually seeks to stealthily spread racial hatred and Islamophobic bigotry. Despite all their rhetoric about “rape,” the so-called European Advocates For Women is a group of racist nationalists who oppose immigrants because of the color of their skin and their religious beliefs — nothing more. This terrorist group is asking women who think they are being attacked to violently repel their innocent immigrant attackers with tasers and pepper spray — all under the guise of protecting themselves from alleged “rapists!”

As many respected academics have shown, we know that rape is all about power, and since White males are the ones with power, only White males can rape. So obviously, Muslims cannot be rapists. Attacking and otherizing Muslims as rapists, is not acceptable, and progressives must speak out against it.

Let me be clear, the real rape epidemic is driven by White males. Muslims are not raping White women, period! They are, however, tragically being scapegoated by racists. This demonization has many parallels to the demonization that Jews underwent before World War II by Nazi Germany! So I thought, what better way to make these connections than to interview a well-known Jewish ethnic activist, Barbara Specter. Read more

The Real Ernest Hemingway?

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On June 20th, 2016, in an post entitled “The Real Ernest Hemingway,” The Occidental Observer reprinted the first few paragraphs of a writing that had appeared in the February, 1979 issue of Instauration, a white interests magazine, along with a link to the complete source.1   In introductory remarks, the TOO post characterized the Instauration material as “a fascinating portrait of an elite American [Hemingway] shortly before the Fall [which I took to mean the demise of white hegemony in this country]—extreme cowardice on race and Jewish issues combined with a veneer of hyper-masculinity.”  The post attracted 33 reader comments.

The prefatory remarks in TOO and the opening paragraphs from the Instauration writing, along with the TOO reader comments, piqued my curiosity, and I followed the link to National Vanguard, a white advocacy web site, where the reprint had first appeared a few days before and read the 1979 Hemingway writing in its entirety.

I found the Instauration material from 37 years ago to be as the TOO post described it, fascinating, and the contemporary response to it in TOO intriguing; and more than that, I found all of it important.  You’re invited to read the full Instauration writing as it appears in National Vanguard for yourself.   However, I’ll try to write this in a way that it makes sense even if you haven’t read what was in Instauration.  Read more

Donald Trump in Cleveland: Nationalism, Populism, and the Rise of the Alt Right

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Going into Donald Trump’s acceptance speech I thought he would pivot, as they say, from some of the positions that most annoy the New York Times et al. Far from it. It was all there. Build the Wall, no immigration from countries associated with terrorism (okay, he didn’t say ‘Muslims’, but it was an obvious proxy), immigration for the benefit of Americans (rather than, it is implied, as a moral imperative — which almost automatically implies a drastic decrease in legal immigration), crime by illegal immigrants (complete with poignant stories about the victims), the insanity of US refugee policy given the problem of Muslim terrorism and the inability to vet refugees — and in particular Hillary’s proposal to vastly increase the numbers. And that’s just immigration.

I also loved that he didn’t back away from detailing Hillary’s crimes—the email scandal, the lying about the email scandal, the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments associated with terrorism and human rights abuses while she was Secretary of State, with the crowd chanting “Lock her up.” The mainstream media is particularly piqued to think that the RNC delegates would act so uncharitably toward their darling (the LATimes called it a “lynch mob.” But just how much politeness does someone who has taken corruption at the highest levels of government to heights never seen in my lifetime (and I’m an old guy) deserve? Read more

Tocqueville’s Patriotic Republic: Nationalist Themes in “Democracy in America,” Part 2

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Part 1

The Centrality of Custom and Religion

Tocqueville strongly emphasizes the role of custom and religion in determining a society’s character. He notes that colonial America’s rather oppressive social laws (concerning issues such as adultery) did not reflect the will of a tyrant but of the people, with its particular social customs. Contrary to a great deal of “liberal democratic” and “developmental” hopes today, Tocqueville then asserts that social conditions and ills often primarily stem from the people rather than oppressive governments. Legislation and “the social condition” certainly tend to determine each other in a dynamic relationship, but Tocqueville asserts that society tends to be the more powerful factor (94).

Tocqueville takes an expansive definition of customs (mœurs, related to “mores”): “I understand by this term the entire moral and intellectual condition of a people” (426). Tocqueville strongly emphasizes the interrelation between religion and custom. The norms and behaviors a society consider sacred tend to become established as custom, often remaining in secularized form. Thus for Tocqueville: “one cannot establish the reign of liberty without that of customs, nor found customs without beliefs” (48).

The paradigmatic example of this were the original Pilgrim Fathers themselves: “they tore themselves from the sweetness of the fatherland to obey a purely intellectual need; by exposing themselves to the inevitable miseries of exile, they wanted to make triumph an idea” (76). Thus we have a powerful case of religion (or ideology) among humans: first an ideal is established in the mind, then the individual and society seek to materialize this mental representation in reality. Tocqueville notes that colonial-era Americans justified the education of children partly on grounds of Protestant religious zeal, citing Satan’s love for ignorance: “in America, it is religion which leads one to enlightenment, it is the observance of religious laws which leads men to liberty” (88). Read more

Tocqueville’s Patriotic Republic: Nationalist Themes in “Democracy in America,” Part 1

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tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America[1] is one of the great classics of the American political tradition, alongside the best writings of Thomas Jefferson or the Federalist Papers. This is no small achievement for a Frenchman. Indeed, Tocqueville’s magnum opus is, I believe, the only foreign-language book to be included in the Library of America series.

One can see why Democracy in America was so popular in American civics classes. The book is a highly nuanced portrait of the early American Republic, with many insights which help to explain the differences that endure to this day between Europe and North America, such as why the United States is “a nation of lawyers” or how America has steadily risen to being a global superpower. The work, being about Americanism and democracy, is highly relevant both for understanding the world’s leading superpower and indeed the nature of today’s heavily Americanized and “democratic” Europe.

Beyond this however, Tocqueville’s Democracy is a profound and subtle meditation on the nature of the ideal society and government. And unlike many classic works, Tocqueville’s reflections are eminently easy to grasp. Of interest to the Right is the fact that Tocqueville believed in the unalterable fact of human inequality. The work is therefore an education for a would-be responsible ruling class: some kind of democracy is inevitable in the modern age, Tocqueville says, but he warns against that system’s dangers, ultimately providing an apology for having democracy be informed by an enlightened patriotic elite. Read more

Rezension von Daniel Jonah Goldhagens „Das Böse stirbt nie aus”, Teil 3

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Teil 1
Teil 2

Juden und Kommunismus

Goldhagen verkündet verärgert, dass jedwede Behauptung, Juden „wären verantwortlich für die russische Revolution und ihre Prädation” eine „Verleumdung” sei. „Falls Sie Juden mit Kommunismus assoziieren, oder noch schlimmer, den Kommunismus für eine jüdische Erfindung und Waffe halten, dann wird jedes Mal wenn das Thema aufkommt, geschweige denn die Bedrohung durch den Kommunismus, den Marxismus, Revolutionen oder die Sowjetunion, Gedankengut heraufbeschworen, bekräftigt, ja sogar vertieft, dass Juden abträglich ist und die Feindseligkeit gegen Juden in den jeweiligen Ländern anheizt.”[1] Read more