Every now and then Gail pulls something out of comments and waves it under my nose: “You got some ‘splainin to do.”
This is one of those times.
Thank you to Matthew Panchisin for submitting the following question:
“Dear George,
With such a dreaded prognosis being undertaken for several years now can you explain to me why there is such ineptness on the part of Republicans?
There are wealthy conservatives corporations, so why no generous offers or hostile takeovers of ABC, NBC, CBS?
Why are there no new conservative platforms to counter Facebook and Twitter?
Why isn’t big tech being broken up?
If wealthy conservatives could lose everything why would they seemingly do nothing in such significant areas for all these years?”
Dear Matthew:
You’ve raised a very good question. After all, the Republicans have as much money and (guessing from the boffo GOP convention) as much Hollywood-like talent as the Democrats.
What gives? Why doesn’t the conservative movement have as much throw-weight, culturally speaking, as do the progressives?
I believe there are many layers to this conundrum. If you don’t mind, I want to start at the micro level, the bottom so to speak. That is, where the worker bees are bred. I may be wrong or myopic, but bear with me.
Reason number one is that many conservatives still suffer from a type of inferiority complex. As a young man, when I was in college, I never dared to come out as a Republican or Reagan supporter. (I was still a Truman/JFK Democrat back then but the McGovernite wind was blowing strong, even after Dick Nixon shellacked him in 1972.)
Bottom line: it wasn’t cool to be a Republican. The Young Republicans were laughed at. Dates with pretty girls were hard to come by, as well. (Hey, it’s always about the chicks.)
Which brings me to reason number two: the word on the street regarding Republicans was that they were all fuddy duddies who dressed for dinner and wore spats. When they weren’t in the country club acting all Thurston Howell III, they were at their factories whipping the proles, squeezing every last bit of productivity from their sweat. They were also the ones who were sending poor farm boys to die in the jungles of Vietnam. Or so we believed.
Reason number three: those of us who leaned conservative were in college to learn a profession or a useful trade. We kept our heads low because we didn’t want to attract too much attention and bust up the plan. Being pre-med myself, we were really careful to not rock the boat because we needed Professor Plum’s recommendation to get into med school. We didn’t question the theory of evolution, even when it was plainly obvious to even the most dimwitted among us that no professor could reasonably explain it. And then there was this thing you had to know about Professor Smith and Grad Student Jones: they resented those of us who were going to get an MD degree with the promise of making some serious jack. They, on the other hand, would be stuck forever in some tenured, not well-paying job, at some second-rate college, constantly being forced to publish. Or perish.
So serious conservative students were there to get a serious degree to be gainfully employed in some real job: Medicine, dentistry, law, engineering –you know, the so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mechanics) degrees. In our eyes, everybody else was there to pursue basket-weaving. (Nowadays there’s Lesbian Dance.) And you know what? Upon graduation, we did pretty well for ourselves in the real world. The basket-weavers, on the other hand, went on to work in some quasi-academic field. Or McDonalds. If they were really lucky, they went on to acquire some menial job in the corporate media. Now, thanks to digital media, they can signal their superior virtue writing for Salon or Vice or some such inconsequential periodical.
Don’t get me wrong –they were smart and clever and all that. When push came to shove, they could add pizzazz to the local nightly newscast or a Democratic political campaign. If they were really feeling their oats, they could grab a hammer and smash up car windows in Seattle because they believed that black lives mattered. Destroying property and burning city blocks was a good way to show your moral superiority. While the cultural Marxists are only a sliver of our population, the corporate media (and this includes Hollywood) are a force multiplier, designed to cow the rest of Americans into thinking that they have the high ground.
So, Matthew, these are three reasons (in my opinion) why there are so few foot-soldiers in the conservative media/entertainment industry. There’s no market for it. Conservatives, as a rule, are too busy working, being productive members of society and raising families. This leaves very little time for getting all hot-and-bothered about the latest invented microaggression.
This is not to say that there aren’t huge conservative cultural figures. William F Buckley, Jr, for example, was a giant. So was John Wayne and Archbishop Fulton Sheen. I’m sure you could name others. The fact of the matter though, was that these giants ran their own stand-alone operations. They weren’t culturally impotent, mind you, but as far as I can remember, it was all scatter-shot. Sure, we got together every now and then to win a resounding victory: think of Reagan in 1980 and then again with Newt Gingrich in 1994, but we still did not own the commanding heights of culture, which explains why despite these victories, we saw our momentum dissipate.
In the meantime, the culture was becoming progressively modernist. Feminism, gay rights, and other types of “emancipatory politics” (a Steve Turley phrase) kept wearing down the fabric of American society. The Church in America has likewise been hollowed out, a husk of what it once was. Andrew Breitbart said that “politics is downstream of culture”. He was right.
Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t win or won’t win again. It just means that we will never go back to the 1950s, when normative conservatism (or what I choose to call “normalcy”) ruled the culture. At least not in the foreseeable future. What it does mean, however, is that we have been engaged in asymmetric warfare (sometimes unknowingly), with us being the guerillas. As partisans, we can try to bring down the whole corrupt cultural/Marxist edifice. Or at least significant chunks of it. It’s not easy. But it is being done.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was proof of that. His victory was so unpredictable and out of the ordinary that it caused the Deep State to short-circuit. What we are experiencing is nothing short of a collective nervous breakdown in our Establishment. I suggest that we take this as a win. It would also be churlish of us to not recognize the many wins that Trump has given conservatives. Thus, we would be wise to ignore the cuckservatives and never trumpers. They literally don’t know what they’re talking about.
So, I guess the only conclusion one can draw is that if we conservatives are looking for a return to Eisenhoweresque normality, we’re not going to get it. We’re not going to control ABC, CBS, NBC, and the other corporate giants. Never gonna happen. In fact, we are dangerously close to losing FOX. If I were Tucker Carlson, I’d watch my back; he’s getting too close to the truth and there is some unwritten rule against it.
Facebook, Google and the other electronic giants are doing back-flips trying to censor the Dissident Right. Until they’re broken up or turned into public utilities, they’re going to continue to jiggle their algorithms to our disadvantage.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t get out the truth. It also doesn’t mean that we won’t –or can’t–win. We can and we will. Reality has a way of asserting itself even when corporate media spent decades trying to suppress it. The disastrous vice-presidential debate the other night is a case in point. Sen Kamala Harris has spent her entire adult life being mollycoddled in ways that no white man, especially a conservative and/or Republican in politics, ever was. She’s never been told “no” or “you’re a bigot” or “you can’t possibly know what it feels like to be a(n) X_______”. Like Democrats and progressives in general, she’s never been challenged on anything of importance.
And so she folded like a cheap suit when Mike Pence debated her honestly and rationally. Her only defense was her gestures and grimaces, what Gail calls “swag” that works so well for so many women in middle-management jobs. One of the texts I received during the debate was a group text from a liberal relative who said “Sista’s slayin’ it!” Clearly, I was watching a different debate. Even George “Gatekeeper” Stephanopoulos was swooping in like a white knight to do damage control, accusing Pence of “mansplaining” things.
Didn’t work. The universal position was that Kamasutra blew it big time. (There’s a double entendre in there somewhere.) I’ve seen it recently in a Facebook post in which a liberal friend of Gail’s wet his pants because she dared to question some of his premises, messing up his comedic delivery of memes. He perceived her articulate, measured questions as heckling and invited her to leave. He had been waiting all year to take center stage and didn’t want anyone throwing shade.
So Matthew, I suggest that you look at things from a different angle. Take the long view, like many traditionalists did in 1918 when the Bolsheviks took over the Russian Empire. The present cultural Marxist paradigm cannot last forever. The shrieking we are seeing are the sounds of its fissures widening. As mentioned, we saw that last night when Vice President Mike Pence handed Harris her ass. The screaming from the punditocracy was evidence of that.
This is real Darwinism. Life is like that. C S Lewis said that “conservatism is the ideology of reality”. And so when confronted with reality, Harris sank while Pence swam.
The future belongs to the realists. Hence, we should not concern ourselves with trying to create a “conservative news media”. That would be fruitless. In this sense, I’m glad that the billionaires on our side aren’t wasting money trying to create the next FOX news. We’re better off “going gonzo”, being our own journalists and activists or doing the Breitbart and Project Veritas thing.
Remember, it was a mere Czech tourist in Manhattan –not a professional journalist–who took that video of Hillary Clinton on November 11, 2016, when she was fainting and her security detail threw her in the van like a sack of potatoes. One man, with an Iphone, at the right place, and the right time, changed history forever.
Let the mandarinate, the punditocracy, and the rest of the Swamp occupy the capital. We will control the countryside.
Sursam cordam!
https://thespectator.info/2020/10/09/punk-icon-john-lydon-says-he-is-voting-for-president-trump/
The USA is in the midst of a soft revolution and many things are changing. Only one party will be left standing. Everyday more and more people who were once sympathetic to the democrats and political center-left make the switch.
Recently we witnessed palpable amazement and reprehension hearing a BBC reporter discover that a figurehead of “punk rock culture” viewed President Trump as a maverick rebel supportive of the working man, and being the only realistic good option to vote for president. It was not the interview the reporter assumed to have or what he desired to hear, but he could not stop it. This is more proof that in 2020 a major political realignment is occuring, culiminating in something grand!
quotes: Excerpts.
On the lockdowns: “I don’t think lockdown is doing any good for anybody. Wrecking an economy is not the smartest move to cure any illness or virus or disease. I mean we’re all capable of wearing masks. We’re all smart enough not to want to give each other filthy horrible viruses. Give people the chance to work. Don’t just close everything down…We’re being imprisoned, slowly but surely.”
On not working: “What bothers me quite a lot, and I don’t mean to sound selfish with this cuz it directly affects everybody equally, is that I can’t function. Live performance was the essence of Public Image Ltd. And to be denied that, well that’s, that’s crippling us and no doubt at some point if that continues will kill us off. And will kill off everything. It will kill off all industries. If we can’t work, right, well, us working class are going to get up and do something about that at some point.”
On Democrats: “Seems to me that what the Democrats here in America are promising will be tax hikes beyond belief, more lockdowns, more confusion, more bureaucracy and less answers…Yes, I am (voting Republican), oh I’m going to definitely…I have seen what Democrats have done to California. They have destroyed this place.”
On voting for Trump: “Well, he’s, he’s an individual thinker, I’ll give him that for a start. He’s not the most lovable fellow on God’s earth. But I cannot see the opposition as offering me anything by way of a solution. Joe Biden is, is in all practicality senile. And delinquently senile. My wife has Alzheimer’s, I know the symptoms, bugger that…”
“Yes, of course I’m voting for Trump, it’s bad person or not. I don’t want a politician running this world anymore…A businessman is a challenge to me. Because I could definitely do with some, quite a few tips on how to run me home a little more efficiently!”
Republicans are becoming the party of wicked cool counter-revolution.
FWIW, I was a mere youth in 1976 when I went to the storied Cain’s Ballroom in T-Town and saw the Sex Pistols during their tour of America. I didn’t know what to make of it at the time because I was unfamiliar with punk rock. It was –how shall I say it?–interesting.
Sid Vicious looked particularly ill.
I’ve always thought that to be a Christian you have to have a bit of a punk attitude. Not of the world. It has been a surprise that more people have not seen that punk attitude in the person if Trump. The traditional political version is Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ but Trump’s version is Sid Viscous’s
Death to the World http://deathtotheworld.com/about/
Turning them into public utilities wouldn’t necessarily help, George.
Look at the performance of the BBC on BLM, COVID and ‘Climate Change’.
Look the performance of the Australian Broadcasting Commission on the same.
Brendan, the examples you bring up come from overseas: Great Britain and Australia.
As I understand it, public utilities and/or legal monopolies (like the various sports leagues), operate under strict guidelines and they have to regularly appear before Congress in order to give an account for their activities. On the local level, utilities such as the electric company, gas & water, etc., have to appear before various legislative commissions in order to receive rate hikes. There’s way more accountability.
Basically, I want Zuckerberg, Dorsey and others to come before Congress and give an account of how they manipulate their algorithms. They are terrified of this prospect.
I also want the Republic to inform these mega corporations that the terms of service in the United States will be determined by the people of the United States though their representatives and not bey the megacorps. To do this, we need a democratic populist (I know, redundant, but you have to clarify what you mean by democratic these days) congress.
Having written all of the above, I did it to describe a symptom, not a cure. In a healthy society the culture and its various organs would be more uniform in its outreach to most sections of society. When Christians, conservatives and traditionalists opt out of popular culture, it’s because they’ve been driven out.
The end-result is something like this happening:
https://twitter.com/wretchardthecat/status/1311032585410113536
The bifurcation of our society is so complete that the Oligarchy can now act with impunity and not disguise its motives with happy talk.
Having said that, it’s not possible to go back and somehow “reclaim” Hollywood or the Academy. They are beyond repair and not worth saving.
IMHO, Mathew’s question is a bit of a non-starter. One can point out, for example, that the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, a publicly traded company run by a famously conservative family, is by some measures the largest owner of newspapers, radio and television stations in this country.
This excerpt is from Wikipedia: “Sinclair executive David Smith met with Trump during the 2016 election year, in which he told the future president, “We are here to deliver your message.””
Here’s another excerpt: “ Sinclair’s stations have been known for featuring news content and programming that promote conservative political positions, and have been involved in various controversies surrounding politically-motivated programming decisions, such as news coverage and specials during the lead-ups to elections that were in support of the Republican Party.”
By specials “during lead-ups to elections”, we’re talking about running a full day Benghazi special one-day before the vote.
Next, I’d like to address the point regarding tech giants. It’s a simple fact that Facebook and Twitter have been the catalyst behind the emergence of some of the largest and most influential conservative groupings to appear in the last 15 years. From the Tea Party, to MAGA (one can argue that Twitter allowed Trump to leapfrog the traditional channels of communication and speak to his base directly). These are for-profit corporations almost exclusively dependent on ad revenues, and they will go to great lengths to ensure conservatives continue using their platforms.
Finally, there are dozens of conservative websites that receive 1 million plus views monthly. Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Newsmax, Infowars come to mind. Then there’s FoxNews.com, which gets 100M views a month – second only to CNN at 120M, but absolutely dwarfing the Washington Post and NYTimes websites.
So… I’d like to argue that conservatives HAVE been using their wealth to acquire media outlets, and that there’s plenty of places for a conservative to go if he doesn’t trust the so called “lamestream media”.
Dan, I don’t disagree with you in the main. However in paragraph #5, I believe you are largely correct yet still missing one of my points. Yes, the tech giants have been instrumental in creating a gigantic Dissident Right media. Although I don’t for a second believe that that was their intention. Hence the scrambling behind the scenes to deplatform, demonetaize and otherwise disrupt the really powerful Dissident Right voices. Guys like Stefan Molyneaux, Styx, Really Graceful, and many others.
They created a Frankenstein’s monster but now that it’s rampaging across the countryside, destroying the narrative vomited out by the cultural Marxist media, they’re doing their dead-level best to rein it in.
Great personal reflection, George. Did you see the recent article in the American Conservative: “The Coming Conservative Counter-Revolution?” ? An interesting read. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-coming-conservative-counter-revolution/
Warren, thank you for this excellent piece by Beers.
The rout of properly understood Burkean conservatism has been profound with only those unqualified successes that he points out. I would add however another one: gun control is now off the table for at least another generation. Perhaps forever. The Left over-shitted itself with the Floyd riots. Now even liberals are stocking up on guns & ammo.
Wow George if lack of gun control id really the only substantial “conservative” victory what does that say.
Mr Beers otherwise fine article misses the boat for the same reason as most others. He does not get the necessity for a deeply lived Traditional Christianity to any reformation of our culture.
That lack is the ultimate reason Conservatism has failed and will continue to fail. Protestantism has always been in revolt against such a faith. The RCC mostly abandoned it long ago but surely with Pope John XXIII and forward.
There will be no “conservative” counter revolution without a foundation of Traditional Christianity. Even such a great writer as Wendel Berry has, I am told, gone over to the dark side of homosexual egalitarianism.
Only a Traditional Christian monarchy can do the job.
I don’t disagree with you at all, Michael.
So concluded Mary Tudor and Philip II! But they overdid it, and made England Protestant for good.
And monarchical Republicanism has an odd sound to it! 😉
It would not could not be Republican. The last Orthodox monarch was Halie Selassie of Ethiopia. I have seen the difference in attitude in the Selassie woman in our parish. True royalty.
A great man, but he was not Orthodox. He confessed monophysitism, like the rest of the Ethiopians church.
Tim R. Mortiss, you should keep up more on your historical reading. When what became known in the 1950s as “Whig History” was in the saddle it was just possible to maintain that Philip & Mary “overdid it, and made England Protestant for good.” Its last hurrah (on this particular subject) came with A. G. Dicken’s The English Reformation, published in 1964, but with a second edition in 1989 in which its distinguished author expressed some irascible incomprehension of the waves of “revisionist history” which since the mid-1970s had swept away the view that, after Philip & Mary, the English people turned with relief to Protestantism, except for a few recusant holdouts.
Rather, a whole phalanx of “revisionist historians” such as JJ Scarisbrick, Christopher Haigh, Eamon Duffy, Alexandra Walsham, and Peter Marshall, to name bur a few, have demonstrated that Catholic England “died hard” on a popular level, with Catholic liturgical items – vestments, missals, communion vessels, statuary – were spirited away into hiding in 1559, and retained for 25, 30, or even 40 years in the hands of conservative-minded families in the hope of “better days” (i.e., a return of the old religion and its rites). No do the Marian persecutions appear to have been particularly unpopular at the time at which they occurred, except among the small English Protestant minority (which included some wealthy and influential families), until Protestantized historiography made them retrospectively such. It was only when English nationalism, fear of Spain, and dislike of the papacy (primarily for political reasons) came together by ca. 1590 that the English can be said to have become a Protestant nation with a semi-protestantized people. Some religious historians have even expressed doubt about whether “positive Protestantism” made much of an impact on the English people in general much before the 18th-Century waves of religious revivalism (and in this they posit a significant difference between the English experience of Protestantism, and the Scottish experience of it).
If you look at the comments, the author of the anthology he’s reviewing (Bacevic) endorsed Biden.
American Conservatism RIP
Long live Classical Conservatism:
https://dlc.dcccd.edu/usgov1-2/classical-conservatism
MIsha, there is a subtle but very real cuckservative strain over The American Conservative. Not everybody for that matter there but still. Bacevich for example I can’t get my head around. He lost his son back in 2007 in Iraq. This was a neoconservative debacle as we can all agree on. Biden, Hillary, were all for it. Obama not. But then Obama became the biggest bomber of all time.
Trump, whatever his faults, can never be accused of taking us into another war. I therefore have to wonder about Bacevich’s (and others’) bona fides when it comes to Biden.
Let me be very plain: if Biden wins, the MIC will saddle up again and take us into more wars. They have to. A false-flag is necessary to do this. That’s the only way that they can pacify the domestic situation.
Yes, these people are evil. Obama/Biden squandered whatever moral authority they had during their administration by taking Bush/Cheney’s two wars to seven.
Here’s another example of the Dissident Right counter-revolution (caution: not safe for work):
https://youtu.be/5NlIG9t2nPo
Razorfist rocks!
George, your are not wrong in your analysis but the bigger picture is that despite the outward differences political conservatives and liberals share many of the key materialist assumptions and suffer equally from the disease of modernism, i.e. progress. That being the case there was no way to construct a viable alternative. At best they put on the brakes for awhile.
They were without a Traditional foundation or substantial faith. Their “conservatism” was a philsophy of the mind which eroded into an ideology unable and unwilling to actually respond in truth.
The Church stuck in our “Gangs of New York” ethnic enclaves is also unable to respond for the most part. Worse, the shame associated with being in an ethnic enclave has often led to an unholy alliance with modernism most clearly seen in GOARCH.
If God wills we will have the opportunity to be refined by bearing with persecution in a winnowing and restoration for those of us who are not chaff–which has yet to be revealed. We will all be tested.
Conservative, liberal, it will not matter.
Through the prayers our Holy Fathers and all the saints and martyrs, Lord have mercy and shorten the days.
Patience is a virtue. It takes time.
If you watch closely what’s happening while dispassionately ignoring distracting minor setbacks here and there, you will see that conservative media have made respectable strides in the last 25 years or so. And this is ongoing. Fox and One America Network, Washington Times, Washington Free Beacon, New York Post, etc. being examples.
MSM is a tough nut to crack, but it can be done. Suing them for defamation will likely be a key tactic. Up until now, they have enjoyed a great deal of immunity from lawsuits pursuant to the Times v. Sullivan case that stated that for public figures on matters of public interest, one must prove that the outlet knowingly printed falsehoods in order to recover from them.
The thing is, they have become so lax in their editorial standards and spoiled by that decision that they have been engaging in conduct which rises to that level. They print stories that contradict their own previous reportage. That is the basis of some of the suits from the right, including the president’s campaign committee.
With all the judges Trump has appointed, it may also be possible for the standard of Times v. Sullivan to be relaxed so that reckless reporting – things they should have known and actually did know were false – might become actionable. They need to be put out of business or hurt so badly that they can be acquired by conservative entities in hostile takeovers. I believe that will be part of the strategy should we enjoy a second Trump term. Only once Trump is re-elected will the fur really fly. Before then, he has to be circumspect about total war and instead be measured. After re-election, he can lay waste to the enemy.
They are so hopelessly corrupt and inept that the whole thing may come down all at once like a stack of cards surprising everyone.
But let’s be candid. Half the Republican Party were RINO enablers of the Democrats before Trump came along. All those elites had a vested interest in the same system which is why we kept getting Bushes, Romneys, McCains, etc. The game was good cop – bad cop – liberal vanguard, conservative brakes – an American Party with liberal and conservative wings. They were all marching in the same direction, just at different speeds.
Frankly, the Republicans had been fooling and using Christian conservatives for decades, having no earthly intention of changing the course of the aircraft carrier. Everybody had their hustle, was getting paid and knew what to say to keep the machine rolling. That’s why you don’t see George Will or Bill Krystol anymore.
And that’s why there’s bipartisan hostility to Trump. He had to overcome his own party in order to do what he has done and he has only managed to do so quite imperfectly. He still can’t get his own executive agencies to follow his policies.
Most people don’t realize how deep the fix was in for the Democrats. They have run this country since at least FDR. They completely control academia, Hollywood and the Mainstream Media. It’s miraculous that Republicans ever get elected to dogcatcher, actually. From time to time Republicans have gotten elected to the presidency and controlled one or both houses of Congress, but it is in the administrative state and the judiciary that liberal power truly has taken hold. Thus any Republican, let alone any conservative, victories have been ephemeral. Liberals have run this country unchallenged since the Great Depression. Any other assessment is a willful delusion.
Tammany Hall is alive and well. However, it has seen the possible advent of its own demise. That is why it has lost all semblance of civility in its “resistance”. And make no mistake, if the revolution is successful, you will know it. It will be unmistakably like nothing you’ve ever seen. If real Christian conservatives actually manage to replace Democrats decisively at the helm, it will be like the transition from black and white to color, but in the real world.
Hi George — I think the answer to the question involves “the money power.” Republicans of old were descendants of the “yeoman farmer:” self-reliant, Lockean in their instincts, and aligned with the kinds of concern voiced by Burke regarding technocratic revolutions guided by “Reason.” The convergence of eugenics, technocracy, and the Round Tables served to create an agenda for the money power that revolved around efficiency and management: the world would be divided into three regions — the Asian, the European, and the American — and the way to accomplish this involved integrating countries via treaties regarding everything from economics, to production standards, to IP issues, to human rights, etc. Cultural consolidation would, by force of gravity, follow. The traditional nation state would be allowed to die a slow, welcomed death through war and revolution and, like a Phoenix, from these alchemical ashes would emerge the proverbial “New World Order.” A serious plan managed by Sirius-minded men.
So, the money power, using its bases of power – universities (the Ivys?), banks, companies, government institutions – cultivated a political class of “Republicans” that, over the years, moved away from the yeoman spirit and system of values and embraced the free-market as the measure of conservatism: to be a Republican meant increasingly to embrace not Adam Smith and his moral reservations about unbridled capitalism but to promote Friedman and Von Mises as a segue into neoliberalism. In this way, Republicans left behind the conservatism of Burke and embraced Ayn Rand instead.
The money power created the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilaterals as North American extensions of the Round Tables from Europe. These globalists constructs and organizations were (are?) places for Republicans and Democrats to hang out in and conduct the “alchemical transformations” necessary to achieve the . . . well, how to put it? . . . agenda outlined on the Georgia Guidestones. Real Republicans, like real Democrats, were left behind in the media-created Potemkin village of partisan politics decades ago. Republicans long ago abandoned the culture war so there is no effective way to challenge the disintegration of norms and moral principle that has transformed America into something resembling a cross between the city of Panem in “The Hunger Games” and the Britain of “A Clockwork Orange.”
Stephen, there is a lot of what you say that rings true. I especially like what you write about the “yeoman farmer”. My question is: why did this class of people lose their realistic sensibility? A religious sensibility rooted in Calvinism? Why did they embrace Gnosticism?
The fault I believe lies in the Puritans, who imbued the American ruling class with elitist ideas, few of which were grounded in reality. At any rate, the modern Brahmin has only a barely perceptible belief in God (with the local Unitarian church being his social outlet) but he still believes in the elitist Puritan ethos of the Pilgrims. That they were somehow “better” people than everybody else. Because of this horrible delusion, they believe that they have the right and duty to go around the world remaking it in their own, superior image.
Interesting observations about the Puritans. I think there is definitely something to what you say. There’s an interesting book regarding John Winthrop, one of the founding members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He, among many other of the educated Puritans, was steeped in alchemy. When his son — John the Younger — landed in the Bay Colony, he brought with him a library full of books on the subject matter, including volumes by John Dee. This is particularly interesting given what would transpire at the Salem Witch Trials and accusations regarding the occult. Dee’s books — a combination of mathematics, Kabbalah, and Hermeticism — provide instructions for “talking to angels,” and the like. Many of the volumes Winthrop the Younger brought with him are now in the Yale library.
Walter Woodward is the author, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut, published by the University of North Carolina. Given the importance of alchemy for Masonry and Masonry’s presence in Boston, one wonders what the connections were between the Puritan founding and the latter. The idea of a “British Israel” was developed by John Dee, Elizabeth’s court astrologer, so what affect this sort of thinking had on the Bay Colony is an interesting question.
When I visited Judge Corwin’s house (the “Witch House”) in Salem a few years ago, I had a chance to speak with the curator of the house and received a “special tour.” I noticed a few “daisy wheels” and what seemed to be talismans in the room and asked the tour guide about it. He left the room and brought the curator back with him. We had a very interesting conversation about what we would call occult ideas among the Puritans, “corpse medicine” (the use of bone marrow and dried blood for medicinal purposes), John Dee, and hermeticism. She grabbed a flash light and took me over to a trunk that was original to the house and moved it to the side and directed the flashlight at it at an angle. You could then see a number of daisy wheels illuminate. Daisy wheels are part of “sacred geometry” and are thought to be able to trap evil spirits. She showed me other talismans in the house. I asked her what role the Puritan founding had with regard to the rise of Masonry later in Boston and she didn’t know. There seems to have been a strong strand of “magical thinking” among them and being favored by God so there’s probably more to the Puritans than meets the eye in the popular image presented of them.
Wow! Thanks for the history lesson!
Btw, Joseph Smith, Jr, the Mormon prophet had a Jupiter talisman on his person when he was killed. His father was a scryer who used peep stones to search for treasure. Smith’s mother called stuff like that the “faculty of Abrac”.
Smith was a Connecticut Yankee with familial ties going back to Plymouth Rock.
Correction, George — it’s not the Yale Library; it’s the New York Society Library. Yale has letters from Winthrop senior but his son’s books are in New York. Take a look at what his library contained and you’ll see a number of occult, hermetic authors. It casts an interesting light on the Colony and the Salem Witch Trials. It makes one wonder if Winthrop the Younger wasn’t dabbling in theurgy, Kabbalah, or mystical alchemy.
Perhaps the Puritan elites were exploring esoteric themes they believed were sanctioned because they were “Christian” in intent. If so, America, as Manley Hall claimed, was Bacon’s “New Atlantis” and Masonry was its “theology.” Your intuitions about the Puritan angle mentioned earlier certainly seems in keeping with that thesis.
https://www.nysoclib.org/collection/winthrop-collection
“…there is no effective way to challenge
the disintegration of norms and moral principle”.
Yes there is. It’s called Orthodox Christianity.
Amen, Brendan. Fr Peter Heers’ three courses on The Truth of the Faith, Fr Seraphim Rose’s Orthodox Survival Course from the 1970’s, and The Divine Liturgy began this week on Patreon. Stellar and presents, in toto, as you say, the only effective way to challenge the disintegration of norms and moral principle which is true Orthodox Christianity of which many in and outside of our Orthodox Church are still unaware. Faithful to the Holy Fathers and our Tradition, educational, empowering, and beautifully humbling.
Just finished the first session of The Fellowship of St. Moses the Black. All I can say so far is Convicting.
Michael, would love to hear more when you can describe either here or privately. I’m needing to favor Fr Peter’s courses which have a good amount of excellent supplemental reading as well as the course time right now but would love to benefit from any pearls you can share. “Convicting” to me usually is a great and much-needed thing for which I’m grateful so hope that is your experience as well. Thanks for letting us know about it.
Nicole, my experience with FSMB is different than many. I have known both Fr. Moses and Mother Katherine for decades as friends and spiritual siblings and mentors that is a long time. I love them both deeply. They are amazing people.
That relationship made me a bit complacent I am afraid. I was shocked to see some of the attitudes and prejudices in my own heart that surfaced as I listened to their words snd the words of Deacon Joseph. My heart burned. It still burns.
Much of which to repent.
In fact I just got off a phone call with Fr. Moses in which I told him in tears how sorry I was for my complacency.
We talked about many other things including the experience of being black Americans and how crucial the Church is to healing the wounds in all of our hearts that make us all less than human, especially our brother’s and sisters who are Afro-American with the legacy of slavery.
Fr. Moses, Mother Katherine, Fr. Turbo, Fr. Abernathy, Deacon Joseph (OCA, Serbian, OCA, Antiochian, and Antiochian respectively) as well as some of the lay leaders like Dr. Carla challenged me to really believe in the power of the Church to transform and heal and how much deeper I need to go. How destitute I am if I do not.
I retell one story from my friendship with Fr. Moses that he still remembers vividly as well:
1974, Detroit, MI just a few years after the race riots there in 1968 which were still in living memory.
He and I went together to see the just released Bill Cosby movie “Uptown Saturday Night” in a beautiful and quite large downtown movie theater. It sat at least 600 people and it was full. I was the only white person in the place. At one point I realized that and looked at Fr. Moses and commented on that. He gave me a wry, yet patient and loving smile with mirth dancing in his eyes. That beautiful, charismatic face. That smile still is vivid in my mind. It said and still says to me: “Welcome to my world bro! The one I live every day”. It also made me grateful for him being there with me. I was not alone.
In my parish we statistically ought to have 40-60 Afro-American families. We have one Afro-American person. One. So every time she comes to worship, and she is there every Sunday, it is not unlike my one time at the movies in 1974.
How can this be? It shames me, convicts me. It ought to all of us. We put up barriers and do not go in ourselves. Pharisees and Sadducees hypocrites. Michael Bauman, hypocrite.
Forgive me but we waste time and energy and faith on studying the advanced ideas of the spiritual life when we cannot do the simple thing: welcoming the folks who come, starving for truth, bruised and battered by the pride and intolerance of the world. Binding up their wounds instead of increasing them. That should take no study of the Fathers or Theological training.
Yet it seems to.
None of the Fathers will matter. It is no use being Orthodox if we cannot be Christian first.
Fr. Moses is carrying the wounds in his own body suffering and in pain yet still refuses to give in to the shame and despair which most would.
Please, at least, entreat and implore our Good God to sustain him and his lovely wife, Magdelena and heal Fr. Moses.
Inertia and selfishness and business as usual hit us all. The world, the flesh and the devil do not get tired or weary–just look at the interneine ethnic warfare we suffer through: Greeks vs Russians vs Arabs. Disgraceful. Not of God.
We need to learn to love our neighbor or we are nothing.
Me, I am polyglot with Russian, German, Irish, English primarily. Some of my ancestors came on the Mayflower (probably as indentured servants).
Poets, thieves, eugenicists, farmers, doctors and dancers. Human all, flawed all.
Frankly, I have NEVER understood the concept of ethnic pride, especially in the Church. Here of all places it ought to be eschewed. Yet it is not and so we continue to live apart, a scandal to man and God rejecting, mostly, the very people who would allow us to be American Orthodox Christians teaching us to actually bear suffering and shame by God’s power not our stupid pride.
My first reaction: personal shame, then anger, then sorrow and the beginning of repentance which has led to a determination to let other people know.
Forgive me any who are offended but I was offended myself at first. By the grace of God you will get over it.
There must be something in the water in Portland:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/11/rioters-topple-abraham-lincoln-teddy-roosevelt-statues-in-portland-museum-windows-smashed/
“There must be something in the water in Portland:”
Antifa the idea, not an organization, a myth really, held a soup drive in Denver, then used the collected cans as weapons to assault the patriot rally and the police:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/domestic-terrorism-denver-antifa-holds-canned-food-drive-hurls-cans-patriots-police/
When are Democrats going to put an end to this actual factual lawless violence by imaginary groups of Leftists? Or alternatively, white supremacists disguising themselves as Communists to commit crimes that make Democrats look bad, but that Democrats never seem to object to quite enough to arrest them for, yet if they somehow find themselves with a few in police custody, then they’re even less inclined to press charges.
Nearly 70 percent of people charged with crimes during the constant rioting in Portland have had their charges dropped:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/503060-portland-burns-riots-carnage/
Myst, the whole idea of “white supremacy” bears some thought. In my opinion, Antifa is very much a “white supremacist” organization, even if it is so unwittingly. Even if they categorically deny it, the reality is there. We see this for example here in America where white agitators have taken over positions of authority in black-separatist movements. To be sure, they pretend to be of part-African ancestry but it’s never the case: Rachel Dolezal, Jessica Krug and Shaun King spring instantly to mind.
During the Cold War, almost all Marxist guerilla groups in Central America were led by the castizo caste of European-descended Latinos. The indios and mestizos were invariably the foot soldiers.
Just for the record, it might be useful to look into what Karl Marx himself said about Africans, mestizos and other non-European races. (What he said about Jews was horrendous in and of itself, given that he was ethnically Jewish.)
Dear George,
Pardon my ignorance for I’m not politically educated and I’m additionally ignorant relative to the American constitution.
In the American Democratic Republic does the Supreme Court have say in whether or not it can be as they say these days be “packed”?
Can they (the Supreme Court) rule against such aggression against their system of governance from other branches or people that go rogue? If it is actually supreme that should be axiomatic,nay?
Is there self governance relative to the passions of men and women within the Supreme Court or is it actually a quasi place of justice for the sake of presented restraint and respecting presented so-called laws like Roe vs.Wade? Amy Coney Barrett can reference Thomas Aquinas at her confirmation hearings justly as Clarence Thomas? Freedom of Catholic rooted speeches and freedom of religion?
If it really did govern the passions which it does not individually or collectively it seems to me the Americans system would be much more secure, safe and noble. It would be fearless for God loving righteousness sake, hence evidenced and actualized as “Supreme”. Since it isn’t and doesn’t it seems it’s all smoke and mirrors so American citizens would never really see justice i.e. punishment for the ruling class that violates your laws (with impunity) your Supreme Court Justices would be weak unjust puppets, just as Joe Biden is and Mueller has been for those that are of the left decency party.
Anyway one looks at it, lawless choices are normal in America because it’s Masonic at it’s roots. There must be something in the water in America that President Trump has not drunk and is actually working very hard so that others are not deluded or emerge from delusion.
Well, another facet of it is that we are fighting a true Borg. It’s tentacles reach wide and deep and it is ubiquitous so many assume resistance is futile:
https://thepostmillennial.com/websters-dictionary-changes-definition-of-preference-to-match-democrats-attack-on-amy-coney-barrett/
Webster’s changed its dictionary definition of “preference” in real time, during the ACB hearings, to reflect the Newspeak just coined by the Demsheviks. That is truly, truly Orwellian. And it illuminates the reason that the power of these people needs to be eviscerated and destroyed. Political defeat in an election is not enough. They must go the way of the Whigs.
The New York Times and the rest of the corporate media also have some ‘splaining to do:
https://reason.com/2020/10/14/hunter-biden-new-york-post-story-media-facebook-burisma-ukraine/
Looks like Hunter Biden is this quadrennium’s Anthony Wiener. Looks like St Wiener’s Day came early this year.
I heard Mark Levin say the other day say something along the lines of that you might as well tear up the constitution if they pack the court.
It seems here that the United States Supreme Court must not have a very firm foundation. How can the entire Democratic Republic wobble in the balance by the rantings of one wobbly man (Joe Biden) whose own remarks are known to be incoherent on to many occasions.
Today CNBC mentioned that “Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday refused to rule out the prospect of increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, and said he would announce a firm position on the issue before election day.”
We are seeing that the entire American system of governance (peoples lives) are a play thing for the Democrats. How can the American people now empower Joe Biden and even consider voting for such people?
The revered American President Abraham Lincoln mentioned that soldiers went so far as to sacrificed their lives so “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” If most of the people have lost their minds (ergo 2020 in America according to the polls) American President Lincoln’s thoughts are vexing and destructive from the people and for the people of the earth, they’ll even destroy laws, historical representations and realities along with other one another.
These days one has to come to the conclusion that the Supreme Court must implicitly be a rather weak institution since it can be so easily politicized essentially, and potentially subject to being forced to morph into an official state created kangaroo court by those that forgo sanity should they continue to go on in disrespectful and lawless ways. Nevertheless, they are consistent with Lincoln’s thoughts ( with the exception of “shall not perish from the earth”) and democracy remains but one small step above anarchy.
I have an old friend, he is a lawyer in D.C. who modified his profession into being a printer of legal documents that are presented to the Supreme Court. I’m going to talk to him to see if he has any printer’s proofs insights. If my memory serves me correctly 40 years ago he was a committed Democrat so searching this out (I hope) could be interesting. Maybe it’s has something to do with how lawyers and others behave these days. I’m sure it is too often different than that of Sir Thomas More, in the west the patron saint of attorneys, statesmen and politicians.
Matthew : Psalm 146.
All earthly governments end thus, especially “representative” governments.
Thank you Michael, I understand.
I’m just searching out the pathetic American situation out now, it’s also clear to me that the Supreme Court is not “Supreme” but in reality is easily subjugated to political puppets along with a significant percentage of the populace.
Time will tell if slogans like “Live free or die” issued or presented on license plates in Maine have any substance along with other such words. Your blessed reference Psalm 146 most certainly always does, no checks or balances for believers in God who in reality trust in God Almighty are required therein.
You have also mentioned:; “All end thus, especially “representative” governments.”
I’m not so sure that America was founded upon merely being an earthly “representative” government, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Such documented thoughts are certainly noble, but too many Americans have changed within and with vigor and determination are in states of mindless pursuit to perversely change the ethos of the honorable foundation thoughts.
I don’t know, are all of the founding thoughts articulated by Masons?
Matthew certainly Masonic thought had a significant influence as did Deism, Unitarianism and Calvinism. The delegates from Maryland were Roman Catholic.
A man who traveled in those circles but had no impact on the founding documents, Philip Ludwig III, was a convert to the Orthodox Church. One of his ancestors used to attend my parish but moved.
However what American Christianity misses is any appreciation for holy suffering. Not the remotest sense of podvig or repentance. It is all triumphalism. God is on our side crap.
That is pandemic in our Christianity. So we have the appearance but not the power.
By His mercy!
The difference between the old USSR’s censorship and ours? Ours is much more subtle.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-says-blocking-new-york-post-story-was-wrong/ar-BB1a6f7Q?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-china-email-source-verifies
“Excuse me, Mr. Pilot, but I thought I should call your attention to the fact that the ground is coming up really fast . . .”
Joe’s done.
Joe was on Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chairing each, for years before becoming VP. God knows how deep the ring of corruption we’re looking at extends. Like Spygate, this will be another overwhelming blow to the Demsheviks, and you know, it couldn’t have happen to nicer people.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/16/giuliani-hunter-bidens-attorney-contacted-computer-repairman-after-ny-post-story-broke-wanted-hard-drive-back/
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/10/17/bombshell-person-on-hunter-biden-email-thread-about-chinese-investment-allegedly-confirms-veracity-of-email/
You see, you have to ask yourself, why would someone on an email thread involved in this confirm that it was Joe Biden referred to as the one getting the kickbacks, aka “the big guy”? Well, the FBI is now on this. They may have been before as well regarding child porn. Moreover Rudy is watching them.
They’re rolling people already. “Tell us what you know and you will suffer minimal consequences.”
It’s such a great time to be alive.
I voted early yesterday. Straight party Republican. I encourage you all to do the same.
Misha,
I’d love to think that you’re correct that “Joe’s done,” but where do you get your faith that our current systems are capable of holding our cultural/political elite accountable?
The Demsheviks ran the bogus “Russian collusion” story for 3 years – and there is clear evidence now that HRC made the whole damn thing up. Yet no one will be held accountable, because the powers that actually can hold people accountable – the elites who run our culture – don’t care.
What makes you think that the powers that be care to hold Biden accountable? I think he’ll skate by scot free, as all other Demshevik leaders do. They’ve already run with the “Russia did it” straw man on the Hunter Biden e-mail story – because they know that Russia-fear and Russia-hatred is so entrenched in parts of western culture.
I don’t want the Demsheviks to run my country into the ground because my children have to live here – but that’s what they’re intent on doing.
The venerable Justice Barrett is vilified nonstop by the cultural elite because her Christian worldview is considered dangerous – too dangerous for the secularists and hedonists to feel safe living in a society where she’s on the Supreme Court. How does a country recover once its cultural elite is at this point?
I’m envious of your optimism. How do you stay so optimistic about our cultural/political situation?
FTS,
“I’m envious of your optimism. How do you stay so optimistic about our cultural/political situation?”
This is a difficult time for everybody. In such times, one looks for the Hand of God working, if one can find it.
I literally, sincerely, believe that there is “some guy up there”; i.e., outside the Matrix, who created and manages it – in the same sense I believe I’m sitting in my apartment typing on my laptop. Given that, . . .
Something’s afoot. Russia is now a Christian, market based nation. “Sovereign democracy”; i.e., representative government with a very strong executive, is spreading in Europe and here. That is a historical wave which carries details rather than being carried by them. Trump is merely one embodiment of this trend. Boris’s Britons for Brexit is another.
The Norpoth Model: http://primarymodel.com/2020. Helmut Norpoth came up with a model for predicting the winner of American presidential elections based on the candidates’ performance in the primaries. Since the primary system came into effect in 1912, this model predicts every single American election except for two (25/27): 1960 and 2000. The two outliers were due to the candidates having virtually identical performance in their respective primaries. That is manifestly not the case this year. He gives Trump a greater than 90% chance of winning.
Common Sense v. The Polls: The Demsheviks are fighting a rearguard action. They are on the run and want to take minimal losses. Most of the polls are skewed to favor Democrats by oversampling registered Democrats. This is being done in order to stifle the Republican voting enthusiasm to minimize the size of the wave that’s coming. People who would otherwise vote for Trump inclined to believe polls may get disheartened and just leave it up to God or chance. That is the target of the polling effort. Less biased polls have it closer and that is before factoring in the Republican shyness factor. Alternatively, looking at it from a common sense perspective, Biden is obviously too addled to serve and has to be propped up by the media. Everyone can see that, and it will hurt him. He was picked because they had no other plausible centrist to stop Bernie, and that’s the sole reason. Trump has the incumbency and a sterling record on the pre-plague economy. The efforts of the MSM to sink Trump and fix this whole thing are not lost on the vast majority of Americans. Word spreads regardless of what Twitter allows.
Every other indicator points to a Trump blowout. When you look at Trump’s rallies before the plague and since the plague, he gets lots of Democrats attending. That is a portent of doom for the Dems. It was large percentages before the plague and I don’t think I’ve seen any news of decline:
https://www.amazon.com/Democrats-Buttons-Political-Campaign-Election/dp/B01I3PXTLA
This is a bit deep, but I believe it is valid: Trump has had 4 years to make deals with all the right people necessary to keep him solidly in power while allowing the clown show of American politics to go on to placate the Karens. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I believe Trump has convinced enough of the people whose phone calls are never declined by senior politicians that there is a better way to go about this than globalism and sexual Mardi Gras. Recall in the movie Hoffa that Jimmy promised the mob the contents of every third truck as swag at one point. You do what you gotta do. Trump’s looking like he has his ducks in a row.
Now, I could be completely wrong. But my instincts tell me that after all the blatant lies, the corrupt “investigations”, the faux impeachment spectacle, the pseudo-plague and, finally, the violent “peaceful” insurrection . . .
https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/16/seattle-cop-car-set-on-fire-with-officer-inside/
. . . that the American people are not tired of Trump.
They are tired of his enemies.
Is that going to make everything hunkey dorey? No. But a wave election would help quite a bit. One step at a time, one day at a time.
FTS,
“. . . where do you get your faith that our current systems are capable of holding our cultural/political elite accountable?”
I don’t. Not the current balance of power. But after the election, that’s another matter. What I do believe is that if Trump wins the WH and the Republicans hold the Senate and win the House – i.e., a “clean sweep” – that the Republican Party, under the leadership of Trump, will be committed to dismantling the Democratic Party apparatus. They will be highly motivated to do so by a sense of self-preservation. Trump will never have to face another election and re-election will be far off enough for the rest of the party to get bold.
When relatively stable apparatchik Democrats like Podesta start talking about secession – seriously – and relying on a military takeover, packing the Supreme Court, multiple impeachments, 25th Amendment, etc., the dance is over. You no longer have a partner with whom to boogie. They want the dance floor all to themselves and, like it or not, that makes it a zero sum game.
You have to occupy the field because someone’s going to.
2 age-dependent concerns about the election:
Pre-Medicare: Many “progressive liberal Christians” of my acquaintance or shared DNA seem to be assuming/understanding that Joe would not be in power long if at all, so are looking to Kamala as the real power behind the throne. They like her multi-racial background, her polished and educated look, and her liberal feminist politics. She’s the one they are voting for.
For the Medicare folks, Joe’s now the old guy who seems wiser about COVID than his same-aged opponent because he wore masks and did not contract COVID (to those only reading the NYT or watching MSM) and therefore is beginning to appeal to the older vulnerable Medicare folks.
I am concerned on both fronts…Praying lots. Heartened by Amy Barrett.
Kamla, I think barely practices her Indian religion, . She is not christian. Takes her beliefs from the mother’s side not the caribbean side of her father.
Well, its because the Republicans dumped Newport Beach their source of money of little old rich men and ladies. In fact Trump went to Newport Beach to get money even though the party is not helping the Korean lady in that congressional district to rise money.
Okay, but not really, now we just have to wait and see if the Americans certify America to be a banana republic as anticipated and actualized by the Democrats and the Republicans.