Kevin MacDonald

Tag Archive for: Kevin MacDonald

Edmund Connelly on Selective Moral Panics in Higher Education

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The mainstream media is influential partly because of constant repetition. The theme of Edmund Connelly’s current TOO article, “Selective Moral Panics in Higher Education,” is one that should be repeated over and over again by White advocates. The least little public departure from political correctness receives wall-to-wall national media treatment and an outpouring of candlelight vigils and expressions of moral outrage, while murder and mayhem committed by non-Whites against Whites is ignored or given grudging local coverage in which the race of victims and perpetrators is downplayed if mentioned at all. This pattern is not merely an expression of media power and the cowardice of university administrators steeped in the culture of the left. It is also a harbinger of the future when Whites will be a minority in a sea of hostile non-Whites.

Neither of the two Kent state murders mentioned in Connelly’s article was the result of planning. It’s not as if the Black murderers consciously set out to murder a White person. They were impulsive crimes motivated by uncontrolled anger. For example, in the Kernich case, the  story I get is that Kernich yelled “you morons” (not “you Black morons,” much less the N-word) at a car that almost hit them. The Black men in the car got out and there was a fight–a classic male status thing made more intense because of race differences and perhaps because word ‘moron’ feeds into Black insecurities about intellectual ability. The fact that the fight escalated to murder was quite possibly facilitated by racial differences in impulsivity and behavioral restraint (see Rushton’s Race, Evolution, and Behavior). The racial difference may also have energized the murderers by tapping into latent or overt Black hostility toward Whites made  more intense by the emotion of the moment.

The bottom line, however, is that once again, a White person was victimized by a Black person and the media and the university did everything they could to downplay the  racial angle. Most importantly, the public is largely unaware that Black on White crime is vastly more common than White on Black crime and much more of a public policy problem than White fraternity boys making fun of Black History Month at UC-San Diego.

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White Anger Surfaces Again

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Kevin MacDonald: Today’s LA Times op-ed by David Paul Kuhn (“Revenge of the White Men“) is yet another indication of the increasing  racial polarization of American politics. “Among whites, only 35% of men and 43% of women say they will back Democrats in the fall election. Women’s preferences have remained steady since July 2009. But over that same period, white men’s support for a Democratic Congress has fallen eight points, according to Gallup.”

By any standards, this is a landslide and a good indication that identity politics has trumped social class for Whites, especially White males.

Blue collar White men are not turning to the Democratic Party despite the fact that they have been hit hardest by the recession. “Blue-collar men have suffered 57% of the job losses. And blue-collar white men, who make up only 11% of the workforce, constitute 36% of those who have lost jobs. In total, nearly half of the recession’s casualties are white men, having held 46% of all jobs lost.”

According to Kuhn, the fact that working class White men are not voting Democrat is understandable: “Think about the average working man. He has already witnessed financial bailouts for the rich folks above him. Now he sees a healthcare bailout for the poor folks below him. Big government represents lots of costs and little gain. Meanwhile, like many women, these men are simply trying to push ahead without being pushed under. Some of them once believed in Obama. Now they feel forgotten.”

As Sam Francis noted some time ago, American politics is an alliance between elites and the non-White underclass, with the White middle and working class left to pay the price even as they are increasingly dispossessed politically and culturally. Kuhn would seem to agree with Francis, although he doesn’t paint the class structure in the starkly racial terms that Francis does.

Kuhn ends his essay by suggesting that the Democrats should think about why they have lost the support of the White working class. But the strength of the Democratic Party is its coalition of  non-Whites — an alliance that includes a large Black and Latino underclass, as well as middle class and elite non-Whites, most importantly a large contingent of wealthy Jews and Jews with influence on the media. In the long run, it’s a winning strategy as they lobby to import millions more non-Whites and as Whites continue to sink to minority status. In the looming struggle on immigration reform, the racial fault lines will be obvious to everyone.

Kuhn points out that the theme of the angry White male dates from 1994 when there was a Republican landslide in the Congressional elections. But all of that anger so far hasn’t really changed things for the White working and middle class — a testimony to the corruption of Republican Party which has thus far managed to benefit from their votes without supporting their interests. The question is how this anger will play out politically in the next few elections as Whites see their power slipping away. At some point, they have to realize that this Democrat and Republican thing isn’t working for them at all.

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Philip Weiss on Philosemitism and Ethnocentrism

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Philip Weiss has yet another meditation on being a Jew married to a non-Jew (“Philosemitism’s threat to Zionism”). He and his wife live in a social world made up of mixed couples., and his wife prefers it that way.  I’d love to hear exactly what his wife means when she says that she prefers to socialize with mixed couples because some all-Jewish couples are too “strong” for her. Are we talking about the old stereotype of psychological aggressiveness, or is that an indelicate topic? Maybe it’s like the Jewtopia skit where a non-Jewish character says he loves Jewish girls because Jewish girls make all the decisions when they go out–where to eat, what friends to have, what to wear, etc., so that he doesn’t have to think any more. (Be sure to continue listening to see what happens when a Jew orders food at a restaurant; it’s the same psychological profile.) Maybe these Jews see life as a whole lot more peaceful with a non-Jewish spouse.

Weiss is the sort of Jew that most Americans think about when they think of Jews.  He is wonderfully liberal and open-minded, gushing at a marriage between a Jew and a Hindu. He does not have a sense of historical injustice, at least when he thinks of his own experience in America. As he acknowledges, in this regard, he is quite unlike most American Jews and certainly unlike the activists who staff the organized Jewish community — the Jews like Abe Foxman who use their sense of persecution as a badge and sword. Weiss notes that the Israel Lobby  “cannot trust [non-Jews] to act wisely without being politically coerced and bribed. The lobby has returned the incredible trust that Jews have been granted in the U.S. with suspicion.”

Indeed, he feels suffused by philosemitism, but then there’s the guilt at abandoning the tribe:

The objects of philo-semitism, myself included, feel some guilt about it. We know, or ought to, that we’re participating in an assimilatory process. We are hurting the tribe’s future as a tribe. And so for those who care about tribe, Israel gains a new significance: it is the bulwark of Jewishness, the place where Jews marry Jews.

Israel is indeed the bulwark of tribalistic Judaism. Weiss claims that the motive for Zionism was anti-Semitism in Europe. But in fact, a very large motive, especially for the racial Zionists, was retaining racial purity, and in that they have succeeded. Racial Zionists were part of the trend toward racial nationalism in Europe, and their descendants — the followers of Jabotinsky — are now in charge of Israeli politics. Here’s Arthur Ruppin, a prominent racial Zionist writing in the early 20th century:

Intermarriage marks the end of Judaism. Mixed marriage is regarded as destructive of Judaism even where the non-Jewish side adopts the Jewish religion, for it is understood, be it merely subconsciously, that Judaism is something more than a religion—a common descent and a common fate. Were it only a religious communion, assimilated Jews would actually have to welcome a mixed marriage which gains a proselyte for Judaism, but even among them this view is conspicuously absent. (Quoted in Separation and Its Discontents.)

An interesting recent example of Israeli racialism is Baruch Marzel, a former member of the Kach Party who would presumably still be a member except that Kach has been outlawed for its racist views. According to Haaretz, a Marzel has voiced his opposition to Leonardo DiCaprio marrying Bar Rafaeli, an Israeli model, because “it would dilute the Jewish race.”

Marzel is doubtless on the fringe of Jewish thinking — at least overtly. But the reality is that deep concerns about racial purity are always just below the surface in mainstream Israeli society. As reported in the Forward, a recent Knesset bill shows the continuing power of the Orthodox over conversion. The immediate concern was that foreign workers in Israel might convert to Judaism and therefore become eligible to be Israeli citizens via the Law of Return. As the bill moves forward, the trick is to write the legislation so that foreign workers would not be able to convert to Judaism while leaving intact the validity of conversions done by Reform and Conservative congregations in the Diaspora. The concern of Diaspora Jews is that ultimately the Orthodox will nullify all conversions except those performed by the Orthodox. Since the Orthodox already control marriage within Israel (so that Israelis who wish to marry people who can’t establish their Jewish ancestry must marry outside Israel), this would ensure the triumph of racialist Judaism in Israel.

Weiss understands that liberal forms of Judaism that exist in the Diaspora are dead ends. And he understands that therefore he will have “little influence over the body of Jewish life in the U.S. so long as I can’t imagine a corporate future.” So the tribe will endure without people like Weiss and his belief that “ethnocentric arrogance is unsustainable in a globalized environment.”

The problem that I have with this is that the racialists in Israel are firmly in charge and they have the overwhelming support of the organized Jewish community in the Diaspora. This isn’t going to change. Moreover, given the historical trends within Israel, Israeli racialism may well get even more extreme. People like Weiss and organizations like J Street function to give Judaism a softer veneer that is consistent with post-racial, multicultural America without having any effective influence on the “ethnocentric arrogance” at the heart of Judaism or even lessening the support of the Israel Lobby for Israel as an apartheid, racialist state. Intermarriage has many benefits for Diaspora Judaism as long as the racial core is not threatened, and the existence of Israel ensures that Jewish tribalism will remain long into the future.

Yet liberal Jews with many of the same beliefs as Weiss are the main bulwark of the left in America that has so successfully pathologized any sense of ethnocentrism by Whites — and only Whites. Pardon me if I refuse to disavow White ethnocentrism as I am sure Weiss advocates. I think we are going to need a very healthy dose of White ethnocentrism if Whites are to survive in a world that remains governed by the ethnocentric arrogance of others.

And pardon me if I predict that as Weiss gets older he will return to his Jewish ethnic roots. This is one of my working hypotheses about Jews and probably people in general. I discussed several examples in my books on Judaism, such as Heinrich Heine. Other examples (and counterexamples) are needed to make a good case, but the idea is that as we get older, our ethnocentrism tugs at us. We worry about the future of our people –what the world will be like in a hundred years, not just for our children and grandchildren, but for the wider group of people like ourselves. And right now, for people like me, it doesn’t look good.

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The SPLC’s "Jihad for Dollars" Is Fueled by Ethnic Conflict

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Having written an informative article on the SPLC, Jerry Kammer is now emphasizing that he is a liberal.  I suppose that’s a good way to dodge criticism when one is going after a pillar of the left. A video clip on Kammer by Media Matters emphasizes his charge that the SPLC is mainly about raking in the money: Morris Dees “learned that he can take in more money by exaggerating the size and menace of the Klan”  — “Jihad for dollars.”

As Kammer points out, many of the most trenchant critics of the SPLC have been on the left. But the interesting thing is not that the $PLC has gotten rich off the Klan. The interesting thing is why going after the Klan has such a strong appeal to its Jewish donor base. The menace of racially conscious White people is what motivates Jewish donors, not poor people. And that’s why the SPLC will lead the looming battle on immigration. The fact that there are millions of unemployed American citizens is completely irrelevant, as are the effects 0f immigration on destroying the labor market for American citizens — especially the among less educated. The massive public costs of immigrant health care and education are overlooked, as are the effects of overpopulation on the environment as amnestied immigrants import their relatives and swell the population to over 500 million by mid-century. This is because, despite all the lofty rhetoric, it’s really all about ethnic conflict in which White people, and especially working class White people, are the big losers and non-Whites are the big winners.

Forget about the Jewish donors to the SPLC. Surely no one would doubt that La Raza’s motivation is ethnic and that it has no concern at all if there are economic and political costs to the rest of America. For them, after all, it’s all about advancing the power and influence of la raza —  just as for the SPLC donors, it’s all about Jewish fear and loathing of a White, Christian America. It’s an ethnic war that White people are supposed to graciously lose in the name of abstract virtues without calling it for what it is — racial dispossession.

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Jerry Kammer: The SPLC depends on Jewish donors

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The Center for Immigration Studies has released a report by Jerry Kammer on the $PLC’s involvement in pro-immigration activism, its ties to La Raza, and its financial dependence on Jewish donors. Because the SPLC is able to get it’s messages into the media, its claim that FAIR is a “hate group” has been endlessly repeated in the media and touted by pro-immigration activists. Advocates then note that other groups on the SPLC hate list include the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, and the Aryan Nations.

The point, of course, is to remove all restrictionist arguments from having any public credibility — whatever their factual basis. Journalist Laird Wilcox is quoted “The SPLC has exploited the patina of the old civil rights movement. And this has a mesmerizing effect on people, especially reporters who are naturally attracted to heroic images of racial struggles and stark contrasts of good vs. evil. I’ve been astounded at how many of the SPLC’s claims have gone unchallenged.”

Kammer is careful to oppose any hint that ethnically based arguments have any validity. He notes that the pro-immigration group America’s Voice features a quote from FAIR founder John Tanton in its ads: “As WHITES see their POWER and CONTROL over their lives DECLINING, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an EXPLOSION” (emphasis from America’s Voice). Such a statement does appear on the face of it to be a claim that there is a huge ethnic angle to the immigration debate — not that there is anything wrong with that. This indeed is the big issue. Pro-immigration forces have been running roughshod over the interests and feelings of the White majority for decades, and I do believe that eventually there will be an explosion if the legitimate interests of Whites continue to be trampled on.

Kammer contextualizes Tanton’s statement as questioning the ability of non-Whites to assimilate into America and therefore absolves him of “racism.” And he notes that FAIR has tended to frame its arguments in economic terms — that immigration hurts American workers, while the SPLC, despite its supposed championing of Black causes, is remarkably unconcerned about the effects of immigration on American Blacks. In my view, that’s because the SPLC is heavily allied with and funded by Jewish ethnic interests in maximizing non-White immigration from all non-White groups. Indeed, Kammer notes that “A former SPLC employee told the Montgomery Advertiser that the donor base was ‘anchored by wealthy Jewish contributors on the East and West coasts’ ”

As I have said before, until White ethnic interests are legitimized, we are fighting this race war against Whites without our most potent weapon. As Kammer shows, activists like Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok have no trouble at all denying fact-based arguments on the economic effects of immigration. It’s just like the IQ debate in the media. Facts are always trumped by politics, non-White ethnic interests, and propaganda.

Until people can openly talk about the fact that the SPLC is a de facto Jewish activist organization promoting Jewish ethnic interests and that individual SPLC activists like Beirich and Potok have an ethnic interest in non-White immigration and work overtime to demonize White expressions of their ethnic interest, we can’t win the fight on immigration.

Kammer also does a great job on the slimy,sociopathic Morris Dees. Dees is not Jewish, but he has often acted as if he is Jewish — what one might term a “crypto-gentile”:

While Dees was raised a Southern Baptist, he suggested to some donors that he had a more diverse background. For example, in a 1985 fundraising pitch for funds to protect SPLC staff from threats of Klan violence, Dees made conspicuous use of his middle name — Seligman, which he received in honor of a family friend. A former SPLC attorney told The Progressive magazine that Dees signed letters with his middle name in mailings to zip codes that had many Jewish residents.

For Dees, it’s all about the money, and when it comes to donations to the SPLC, Dees is quite obviously aware that (falsely) advertizing his Jewish connections and hiring highly visible Jews like Beirich and Potok are excellent strategies.

Because the Jewish donor base is so critical, the SPLC appeals to “hate” rather than trying to make life better for poor people:

Ripping the SPLC as “puffed up crusaders,” [JoAnn Wypijewski wrote in The Nation]: “Hate sells; poor people don’t, which is why readers who go to the SPLC’s website will find only a handful of cases on such non-lucrative causes as fair housing, worker safety, or healthcare, many of those from the 1970s and 1980s. Why the organization continues to keep ‘Poverty’ (or even ‘Law’) in its name can be ascribed only to nostalgia or a cynical understanding of the marketing possibilities in class guilt.”

Jews fund the left in America, and that certainly includes the SPLC. Jews who contribute to leftist causes do so for typically Jewish motives — fear and loathing of the White majority, not compassion for poor people. The rhetoric of  helping poor people may be used if it aids in the larger anti-White agenda but is completely ignored when, as in the case of immigration policy, it does not. What’s good for the Jews and all that.

Kammer does a great job showing the ethnic commitments of La Raza — its rhetoric of anti-White hatred, quoting a La Raza honoree as having said “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”Kammer notes, “If FAIR adopted the SPLC’s diversionary tactics — probing for sinister motives rather than debating policy concerns — it would steer every conversation and refer every reporter to such statements, and it would demand to know why La Raza continues to cling to a name that derives from the ‘raza cosmica’ concept, which is explicitly based in the racist and eugenicist theories of its author.”

Of course, La Raza’s motives are not really sinister, but plain old ethnic competition suffused with hatred over historical grievances. The problem is that White people have not yet awakened to the reality that this is a race war.

Finally, Kammer does seem to acknowledge that it is legitimate for Whites to ponder the effects of immigration on them as Whites:

In her accusatory video for the “Stop the Hate” campaign, Beirich explains that the SPLC has also branded [FAIR’s magazine The Social Contract] as a hate group “because it puts out things like an issue on Europhobia and how white people are being destroyed by immigrants coming here.”142

This is another example of the SPLC’s habitual descent into hysteria and distortion. The allegedly hateful issue is actually a complaint against the hostility that multiculturalism is alleged to be fomenting against Americans of European descent. The offending essay expressed the fear that as the hostility spreads, “European-Americans will face increasing tension, discrimination, and perhaps physical danger.”143

This fear may be unreasonable, but it should certainly be open to consideration and discussion. It is precisely the sort of fear that — when expressed by minority groups who relate their own experiences with bigotry — occupies much of the attention of the SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance” project. To put it kindly, it seems strange for Beirich to put the “hate group” tag on a publication that provides a forum for people to express their fear of being hated as they ponder demographic trends that are moving them toward minority status by mid-century.

Of course, the fear is not at all unreasonable, especially when so many non-White ethnic activists — Jews, Latinos, and Blacks — have not been at all shy about their hatred. Any ethnic group that voluntarily agrees to its own demise is foolish, but hugely more so when the people that are displacing them harbor such hatreds.

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Pat Buchanan is Censored by Human Events

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Pat Buchanan is a national treasure — by far the most articulate and sensible spokesman in the mainstream media — or at least close to it — for a wide range of issues, from immigration, to economic nationalism, to foreign policy issues. Unfortunately, his exposure in the MSM seems to be on the wane. He still appears on the McLaughlin Group, but his former base at MSNBC has disappeared, and his exposure in the major newspapers seems non-existent. I can remember in the 1990’s when he was a regular on the LA Times op-ed page, which seems inconceivable now. (There was an LA Times column he did on the Frankfurt School at a time when I was starting to research Jewish intellectual movements. After reading his account of how the Frankfurt School undermined the family, I thought that there might be a Jewish story there. Not a bad guess. The Frankfurt School was labeled a “Jewish sect” by Gershon Scholem, and the Frankfurt School became the subject of Ch. 5 of The Culture of Critique and much subsequent writing. Thanks Pat.) Not surprisingly, Buchanan has a very long rap sheet at the ADL.

Buchanan’s latest article, “The Poodle Gets Kicked,” on the Biden visit to Israel will do nothing to endear him to the ADL. Buchanan makes an excellent case on the absurdity of supposing that US and Israeli interests are identical. The  interesting thing is that the version that appeared on the Human Events website was about half the length of the original. (See “Human Events Censors Pat Buchanan’s Latest Column” at Buchanan.org). Linda Muller, who runs Buchanan.org, suggests that this is the result of neocon censors at Human Events, and notes that the revised version leaves out any mention of AIPAC or the USS Liberty incident.

It should surprise no one that Human Events would be involved in such a clumsy version of censorship. These are the people who fired Kevin Lamb after a phone call from the SPLC. (See Lamb’s VDARE article, “The Leftward Course Of Human Events.“)

The Human Events censor seems to have been motivated to expunge statements implying extreme groveling by Biden, as in his ridiculous statement  “Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.” Of course, the opposite is the case. No space means that Israel can stall peace talks forever without having to worry that the US will do anything about it. Biden should have a special place in George Orwell’s Hall of Fame.

The censor also expunged the most egregious examples where Israel has demonstrated quite clearly that it has always pursued its own interests even when they conflict with US interests — not only in the USS Liberty case, but also stealing uranium during the JFK administration, transferring US technology to China, and spying on the US. (Buchanan was being kind by only mentioning Pollard; there are many more examples; see here and here.) The Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing on the West Bank and Jerusalem is therefore part of a long list of areas where Israel refuses to modify its goals by listening to its poodle. Why should it? Nobody cares what poodles think.

The following is Buchanan’s entire column with the censored parts underlined.

Actually, Joe set himself up. From the moment he set foot on Israeli soil, our vice president was in full pander mode.

First, he headed to Yad Vashem memorial, where he put on a yarmulke and declared Israel “a central bolt in our existence.”

“For world Jewry,” Joe went on, presumably including 5 million Americans, “Israel is the heart. … Israel is the light. … Israel is the hope.”

Meeting Shimon Peres the next day, Joe confessed that when he first visited at age 29, “Israel captured my heart.”

In Peres’ guestbook, he wrote, “The bond between our two nations has been and remains unshakeable.”

He then told Peres and the world, “There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security.”

As Peres spoke, Biden took notes. When Peres called him “a friend,” Joe gushed, “It’s good to be home.”

Even at AIPAC, they must have been gagging.

Walking around the corner to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office, Joe called him by his nickname, “Bibi,” declared him a “real” friend and said the U.S. relationship with Israel “has been and will continue to be the centerpiece of our policy.”

Then the sandbag hit.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced construction of 1,600 new apartment units in Arab East Jerusalem. Stunned and humiliated, Biden issued a statement saying he “condemned” the decision.

He then retaliated by coming late to dinner at Bibi’s house.

Netanyahu has apologized for the timing, but they are going ahead with the apartments. What are the Americans going to do about it? At this point, nothing but bluster.

Indeed, a day later, at Tel Aviv University, Joe was back at it: “(T)he U.S. has no better friend … than Israel.”

On his departure for Jordan, Ha’aretz reported that Israel plans to build 50,000 new homes in East Jerusalem over the next few years.

Biden may feel he was played for a fool, and Americans may feel jilted, but we got what grovelers deserve. And if we wish to understand why the Arabs who once respected us now seem contemptuous of us, consider that battered-spouse response to a public slap across the face.

Consider also the most remarkable statement of Biden’s first 24 hours.

“Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.”

Biden is saying we are a more effective force for Mideast peace in a region where Arabs outnumber Israelis 50 to one if everyone knows we sing from the same song sheet as Israel and have no policy independent of Israel’s.

How can America be seen as an honest broker between Arabs and Israelis if there is “no space” between America and Israel?

Even with the closest ally in our history, Britain in World War II, there was space between Winston Churchill and FDR on where to invade — North Africa, Italy, France, the Balkans? — whether to beat Stalin to Berlin, Prague and Vienna, who should be supreme allied commander, even whether the British Empire should survive.

Israel keeps its own interests foremost in mind, and when these dictate actions inimical to U.S. interests, Israel acts unilaterally. David Ben-Gurion did not seek Dwight Eisenhower’s permission to attack Egypt in collusion with the French and British in 1956, enraging Ike.

Israel did not consult JFK on whether it could steal enriched uranium from the NUMEC plant in Pennsylvania for its atom bomb program.

Israel did not consult us on whether it could attack the USS Liberty in the Six-Day War, or suborn Jonathan Pollard to loot our security secrets, or transfer our weapons technology to China. They went ahead and did it, knowing the Americans would swallow hard and take it.

Ehud Olmert did not consult President-elect Obama on whether to launch a war on Gaza and kill 1,400 Palestinians. Nor did Netanyahu consult us before Mossad took down the Hamas minister in Dubai.

What Netanyahu and Yishai are telling Obama with their decision to keep building on occupied land is, “When it comes to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, we decide, not you.”

And if Netanyahu has jolted Joe and others out of their romantic reveries about Israel, good. At least now we no longer see as through a glass darkly.

Israeli and U.S. interests often run parallel, but they are not the same. Israel is concerned with a neighborhood. We are concerned with a world of 300 million Arabs and a billion Muslims. Our policies cannot be the same.

If they are, we will end up with all of Israel’s enemies, who are legion, and only Israel’s friends, who are few.

And if our policy and Israel’s are one and the same, the Arab perception will be what it is today — that America cannot stand up to Israel, even when her national interests command it.

Joe’s performance before he got the wet mitten across the face only underscored the point: The mighty superpower is a poodle of Israel.

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Brain imaging evidence for the genetic basis of IQ and behavioral restraint

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A UCLA study points to very high heritability of IQ and behavioral restraint–probably the two most important traits in the modern world. It also points to the brain mechanisms responsible for differences in these traits. Paul Thompson and his colleagues

used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain’s axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain’s wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.

Genes appear to influence intelligence by determining how well nerve axons are encased in myelin — the fatty sheath of “insulation” that coats our axons and allows for fast signaling bursts in our brains. The thicker the myelin, the faster the nerve impulses.

For example, the connections in the parietal lobe associated with math and logic are 85% heritable, while the connections in the frontal lobe responsible for working memory and  for inhibiting impulsive behavior are 65% heritable. Behavioral restraint not really IQ  but relate to behavioral control–things like being able to inhibit immediate gratification and plan for the future . These are traits that show important race differences associated with criminality, especially impulsive criminality (as opposed, say, to most white collar crime).

The difficulty for the left will be to convincingly argue that the sorts of interventions they have been championing will really change brain myelination. As noted in my previous blog, they seem to be running out of ideas on how to improve educability of low-IQ populations, and Head Start doesn’t work either. They may take comfort in the possibility that genetic engineering could actually do the trick:

And could this someday lead to a therapy that could make us smarter, enhancing our intelligence?
“It’s a long way off but within the realm of the possible,” Thompson said.
This sort of gene therapy would be socially beneficial because it would increase educability and behavioral restraint. But it certainly would not be a panacea for White ethnic interests. Indeed, it would make these groups more competitive while not making them less ethnocentric.