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« DVD Journal: "Who Gets to Call It Art?" | Main | Infinite Cuts »

November 27, 2008

Political Divisions

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* A Russian diplomacy prof is predicting that the U.S. will soon break up.

* The Free State Observer offers a report from the recent North American Secessionist Convention.

* Robert Lindsay gives some thought to ethnocentrism, and concludes that it's an inevitable and inescapable aspect of human life.

Best,

Michael

UPDATE: Ramesh thinks that our wild ride isn't over yet.

UPDATE 2: Greenland wants to secede from Denmark. Fact for the day: Greenland's population? 54,000 people. That's a lot of ice per person.

posted by Michael at November 27, 2008




Comments

Good to see the secessionists organising and co-ordinating. Soon they'll form a single national unit.

Posted by: Robert Townshend on November 27, 2008 2:14 AM



6 a.m. and you've already posted, Michael!

Does this mean that you've now adjusted to a total old fart schedule? I'm up by 5 a.m., even if I had a gig the night before.

The Russian guy is really just hoping. Russians have always had a serious bug up their ass about the success of America. Remember, they were going to bury us.

The ethnocentrism bit... I'm still reading. Did you catch the Sailer bit about the Canadian college that decided to abandon a charity... because the students thought that the proceeds might benefit white men? That was a choice bit.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on November 27, 2008 6:24 AM



Thx for the link. I have seen some of the posts here, and the writing and thinking is excellent.

Posted by: Robert Lindsay on November 27, 2008 6:28 AM



That Russian guy is far off base. There is no WAY we can get new flags ready in that short amount of time.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on November 27, 2008 10:43 AM



I suggest a Nobel Prize for Igor. Any old thing...Econonomics, Literature, Peace.

Also, it may be possible to get him an Oscar for any PowerPoint presentations he's done.

Posted by: Robert Townshend on November 27, 2008 1:51 PM



Yeah, sure the US is going to break up. But I'm with ST: this guy is way too optimistic/pessimistic (depending on your normative stance). I'm guessing it will happen in 80-90 years - around the end of my life, assuming I live to be 130 or 140.

As for Robert Lindsay, who is undoubtedly an interesting guy, are you a fan of TGGP, too?

Posted by: robert61 on November 27, 2008 3:07 PM



Igor doesn't say how those particular economic problems will cause the US to break up. I'd like to think he's right about that part, at least if I don't end up in the part of the former US that includes Washington DC, but it seems those problems could just as well cause the opposite sort of thing to happen. After all, that's what occurred during the last great depression: greater centralization, and voters virtually deifying their Dear Leader.

Posted by: Lester Hunt on November 27, 2008 3:42 PM



"Greenland wants to secede from Denmark." Impressed by the success of Iceland, presumably?

Posted by: dearieme on November 27, 2008 6:02 PM



viva revolucion...on the rocks.

Wake me up when the party really kicks off.

Posted by: Ramesh on November 27, 2008 8:58 PM



I love that everybody calls him Igor. I want to pronounce it "Eye-gor" as in the Marty Feldman character in Young Frankenstein. It sounds funnier when "Eye-gor" is predicting the breakup of the USA, though still not as funny as the real thing would be.

Sigh. Young Frankenstein. I looove that movie.

Posted by: PatrickH on November 27, 2008 10:32 PM



Iceland HAS been successful; after all, they're resourceful Nordics, with an egalitarian society, and a love of liberal democratic political institutions. Whether a more autonomous (or even independent) Greenland will manage its oil wealth well, and whether they will maintain functional democratic political traditions, is hard to say; but the historical record, in terms of how most of the native peoples of this hemisphere have fared in self-government (whether we're talking the Latin American Amerindian nations, or governments on reservations and reserves in the U.S. and Canada), is not encouraging (dictatorships in the countries; widespread corruption in band councils on many rezzes; widespread violence and poverty and social problems in both cases). (Canada's Eastern Arctic Inuit have had basically their own political territory, called Nunavut, for a decade now, and things haven't improved for the people there in that time.)

And of all the oil-rich nations, only the Arab and Muslim lands (and not even all of those) have done reasonably well in managing the proceeds of their oil wealth, for the benefit of their people as a whole; whereas other Third World oil-rich nations, such as two in this hemisphere, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago, have not done so well.

So, for all these reasons, I have me doubts, that a more autonomous Greenland would be a viable, healthy alternative to the status quo, for the vast majority of Greenlanders.

Posted by: anon on November 27, 2008 11:11 PM



Right now, somewhere in the USA, a couple of college drop-outs are tinkering at something new. They've taken over the family-garages, to the despair of their anxious parents who just want them to finish their educations. They are short on money. Their diet is poor, their personal habits alarming. They sweat and stutter when they try to chat-up the local cheerleader babe, who all but ignores them. Sensible people think that if the dropouts' ideas are so good they would already be embraced by governments and corporations worldwide. In China or Russia, they'd be guided by elders and superiors, and they'd be working or learning in proper institutions.

Whatever it is those greasy-haired kids are doing, as it grows, it's going to involve lots of waste and debt and ruthlessness...and it will transform my world in a couple of decades, and be worth far more than any Russian minerals or Chinese industries.

Faith. Freedom. Keep those two things, and you keep everything. (Yes, I'm aware how deeply unclever that sounds, especially if Igor is your idea of clever.)

Posted by: Robert Townshend on November 28, 2008 12:15 AM



Yes, I do enjoy TGGP's site as a matter of fact, and yes, I am pretty much sui generis, unfortunately.

I am Leftist to liberal on just about everything except race (race realist) and immigration (restrictionist). According to my colleagues on the Left, the 2% rightwing cancels out the 98% leftwing and automagically transforms me into something called "fascist" and "racist". Except I hate fascists and racists.

I'm confused.

BTW, America won't break up in my lifetime or in the forseeable future thereafter. No nations have broken up in the Americas yet for some very good reasons. Settler-colonial states don't break up on ethnic lines.

The future of the US is to become a part of the Americas - another Latin American country. We need to decide whether we want to become Chile, Uruguay or Argentina, or Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala or Mexico. This is a conversation we should be having right now. Of course we aren't, and we won't anytime soon. Don't you know such conversations are "racist"?

Posted by: Robert Lindsay on November 28, 2008 2:37 AM



Faith. Freedom. Keep those two things, and you keep everything.

A comment for the ages.

Posted by: ricpic on November 28, 2008 7:14 AM



Faith. In what, in particular?

Posted by: dearieme on November 28, 2008 10:46 AM



Robert Lindsay: The future of the US is to become a part of the Americas - another Latin American country. We need to decide whether we want to become Chile, Uruguay or Argentina, or Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala or Mexico.

That's very amusing, Robert. By what possible demographic eventuality would the U.S. latinize into Argentina, rather than Mexico? The "de-anglo-fication" of the U.S. isn't some abstract historical inevitability that can be managed to some preferred model. The U.S. is being latinized because it is being Mexicanized. As for "we need to decide"...who's asking us?

Settler-colonial states don't break up on ethnic lines.

There is nothing intrinsic to "settler-colonial" states that precludes that. That Canada, for example, hasn't separated along its enduring linguistic/cultural divide is due to many things apart from its settler-colonial history. The conditions that have prevailed in the past - mostly either small European-derived ruling castes or simple demographic dominance of linguistically/culturally unified European populations - are changing. "Settler-colonial" states evolve (or rather, have evolved) into plain old "states", and are subject to the same fracturing ethnic pressures that beset any human polities. (If internal migratory patterns are any indication, non-rich Anglos are not all that keen on being latinized, and have been "balkanizing" with their feet for a while now. Where it ends up, I do not know, but it seems to me naïve in the extreme to believe that ethnic fracture is impossible.)

I also have to ponder why Latin America qualifies as more "part of the Americas" than Anglo-America or Quebec. (I have come across some misinformed souls who appear to believe that Spanish is an indigenous New World language, but I don't think that's what you're getting at.) If it's because of greater perceived identification with Europe among nortéamericanos, or a relatively low population of indigenous peoples, I'm sure that there are some Argentinian and Uruguayans who might quibble with that characterization.

That said, Mr.Panarin has some very whimsical notions about the composition of the U.S.

Posted by: Moira Breen on November 28, 2008 11:12 AM



IINM Greenland is heavily dependent on financial assistance from Denmark. If independence would cause a reduction or cutoff of that assistance it wouldn't be good for the new country's economic viability.

On the other hand, the Nunavut example may not be entirely useful, as the Eskimos of Greenland seem to be more resistant to the social pathologies bedeviling their Canadian counterparts.

Posted by: Peter on November 28, 2008 11:34 AM



Robert Lindsay wrote: "I am Leftist to liberal on just about everything except race (race realist) and immigration (restrictionist). According to my colleagues on the Left, the 2% rightwing cancels out the 98% leftwing and automagically transforms me into something called "fascist" and "racist".

As a former liberal who has evolved into a traditionalist conservative, I welcome you, Mr. Lindsay, into the fold of race realists. And I empathize. I remember when, in my late 20s, I began to question my left-wing beliefs. I was disappointed that my friends were so hostile about it.

You've looked at the world the way it really is and recognized that the good intentions and idealism of the Left on these racial issues are simply wrong. Not because they mean to do wrong, but because the world doesn't work the way they want it to, and putting their race-related policies into place would not improve the world but would make it worse because those policies are incongruent with the real world.

May I, in a friendly spirit, suggest that if you look more closely at some of your other Left beliefs, you will find them similarly based on false premises and unsupportable optimism about human nature? Socialism is based on an unrealistic assumption about human nature - that people will work when workers are penalized to reward those who don't work. And another Left assumption: that homosexuality is no different than heterosexuality, that children can be raised in a homosexual household without both their male and female parents, with no ill effects on the child or society.

Two other Left-wing beliefs that are unsupported by actual human experience: that you can disarm a society and that will disarm criminals; and that women are just like men except with different reproductive equipment.

For me, traditionalist conservatism makes the most sense because it recognizes that human nature has not really changed in the thousands of years of human civilization, and that the lessons learned so hard by our ancestors, who evolved cultural rules designed to avoid those troubles, are to be re-evaluated only very carefully and with an attitude that they are almost certainly going to turn out to be the rules that society works best with.

Posted by: Mark on November 28, 2008 1:12 PM



Settler-colonial states don't break up on ethnic lines.

Bolivia under Morales (and not wanting to be...at least parts of it) puts paid to that idea.

By what possible demographic eventuality would the U.S. latinize into Argentina, rather than Mexico?

Exactly, since the difference between the two is largely the degree to which they are European in descent. America would have to decide to "latinize" itself should she choose the Argentinian option precisely by cutting off immigration from Mexico, Guatemala and the like, and opening it to...Europeans!

The future of the US is to become a part of the Americas - another Latin American country.

It's precisely this kind of predictive table-thumping that fills me with despair. There is nothing inevitable about the demographic transformation of America by means of immigration. There is nothing about the influx of Latino immigrants that could not be halted and reversed (with the help of a recession).

The entire benighted history of America spreading herself open to Hispanic immigration is one of choice. Choice by America's pestilential, even traitorous "elites", I might add.

I hope and pray (and even sometimes believe) that the American people will prevent an Obama/McCain amnesty from being passed by rising in collective recession-focused unity to prevent it.

The recession will take care of a good chunk of the illegals. E-verify will take care of most of the rest.

After that, end anchor babies, chain migration, "family reunification", and there will be no transformation of America into a Latin American country.

It doesn't have to happen, my American friends! You don't have to lose your country if you decide not to.

Decide, please. I like you the way you are. America would not be improved by being more like Mexico.

Posted by: PatrickH on November 28, 2008 1:27 PM



PatrickH - your sprited comment is much appreciated. But - I also hope your own country's traitorous ruling class doesn't Islamify your country.

Posted by: PA on November 28, 2008 9:23 PM



Moira: I meant, a "real" part of the Americas, with a dominant to serious role for the Spanish language, Latin American culture (even Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are not immune), and a society that is racially characterized by a heavy to extreme presence of Mesticization - the marriage of the two great races of Amerindian and White European. There's also mulattization, but that's not quite as much of a factor.

The US and Canada have not really been a part of the Americas in the real sense due to the lack (or low levels) of Spanish language, Latin American culture (Catholicism, corruption, collectivism, extremes of Left and Right and rich and poor), and Mesticization/mulattization. Much of Latin American culture is derived from Spain or Southern Europe and the US and Canada's was always derived from Northern Europe.

We can end up more like Argentina - Chile and less like Mexico is we halt or slow down this demographic process or switch to allowing in a higher quality of Latino immigrants.

Settler-colonial Canada may break up because it was settled by two distinct nations of settlers, one of whom formed a monoethnic and monolinguistic unit in Quebec. That has generally not been the case elsewhere. All or almost all breakups around the world are based on long-standing actual nations (not immigrant groupings or class lines) seeking to break away and form their own nations. We simply do not have the requirements for that in the US, except maybe in Hawaii, but even there, it won't happen.

This is why there have been no separatist movements in Israel, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, the Americas (crucially, except Quebec), etc.

The only intact nations that might break away would be native Americans, and they don't want to. Neither will Maori separatism go anywhere.

The class-intended breakup of Bolivia and possibly Venezuela will not occur. I'm not aware of any serious class-based separatist movement in the world today or historically.

The Mexican upper and lower classes do not act all that much different from the Argentine or Chilean upper and lower classes. That's what I meant by our choice.

Even if all the illegals left tomorrow, there is still a huge anchor baby base in the US. I am in California at Ground Zero. Hispanics are now a majority in the schools here. Further, many Whites are starting to marry into Hispanic families and vice versa. Looking at White families who have been in California 100 yrs or so, quite a few of them now have Hispanics (Mexicans) somewhere in their families, if not in their own gene lines.

That's what I mean. It's a lot more insidious than just illegal immigration, which isn't stopping anyway. The economy is in the dumps, but this town is still half illegal aliens.

Worse, when a state become illegal-inundated, remaining Whites run up the red flag, go native, whatever. You can't even discuss illegals in this town. If you bring it up with Hispanics, you're asking for a fight since 85% of them support the illegals. If you bring it up with other Whites, the conversation is almost always shut down quickly, and usually the White person takes a pro-illegal stance.

The illegal problem really needs to be dealt with when there is still a small number of illegals in the state and lot of angry White people. As the state gets more inundated, Whites tend to surrender or flee more than fight harder.

I don't see E-verify being implemented, or the anchor baby process being reversed, any time soon. Obama does not look promising in that regard.

Posted by: Robert Lindsay on November 28, 2008 9:30 PM



Mark, I am still a socialist. Actually, I am a revolutionary socialist who supports the armed Left in Colombia, India, Philippines, Palestine, etc. I support the govts of Venezuela, Nepal and Cuba.

My beef is that the Left has always been about economics, not race and gender. This is the old conversation about Identity Politics going back to the 1960's.

The Western Left is utterly hostile to White workers, esp White male workers. It's in love with racist philosophies like Afrocentrism and the Atzlanistas. I have White worker friends who say they are Communists but have nothing but contempt for the Western Left which they see as hostile to White workers.

I have some very serious issues with radical feminism on the Left too, which is puritanical and opposed to the spirit of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960's that I still believe in. Further, once again, it's hostile towards men. Hence, I am now a masculinist, and I argue that this is a revolutionary philosophy the same way feminism is.

I still support affirmative action, etc. I just think that there are differences in the races. The notion that differential racial outcomes is all due to White racism is unscientific and more and more resembles hate speech against Whites. Anyway, in this part of California, the only discrimination I see is against White people. Hispanics run everything here - how can they be oppressed?

Male homosexuals are born that way. The rest are not really of consequence. I came of age in the music - artist - writer scene in Los Angeles and Hollywood in the 1980's, so I know all about homosexuality (though I'm str8). It's not the bugaboo it's made out to be, and I'm not convinced that gay adoption has been proven to be harmful. Homosexuality is not a contagious disease that spreads through society.

If you want to have lots of sex in Leftist circles and you have other stuff going for you, just start hanging out and make open and clear how sick and tired you are all of all the faggotry - wimpiness with the guys and rampant lesbianism - male fear/hatred among the Feminazis.

You will quickly be labeled a disgusting reactionary sexist pig scum of the Earth, but a lot of the women (including the Feminazis) will want to have sex with you, because they really want a macho brute deep down inside. Feminists and Leftists are really just regular people like everyone else once you strip off the dressing.

I support gun control, and I'm a "gender realist" the same way I'm a race realist. A lot of sane feminists are coming around to the view that sexual equality is neither possible nor desirable in the bedroom.

I'm constantly challenging my Leftist beliefs for many years now and asking myself why I don't become a conservative. Haven't found a good reason yet.

Posted by: Robert Lindsay on November 28, 2008 9:56 PM



PA: fear not; our traitorous ruling class here in Canada is hell-bent on making us a mini-United Nations, so while Islamicisation is proceeding to an extent, so is Hinduization, Sikhization, Buddhizations, Africanization, Asianization, etc. We needn't fear Europe's dhimmitude fate, here. Rather, we'll just cease to be anything like the old Canada; of course, we already have. The Old Canada, of the Group of Seven, of Al Purdy, of George Parkin Grant, of Ontario Orangeism, is long dead.

Posted by: Will S. on November 29, 2008 12:16 AM



Robert,

Your comments are simply hilarious.

I suggest that you move to small town Iowa and live there for about 10 years.

The atmosphere you live in has just about nothing to do with America. You're living in the middle of a bunch of juvenile drama queens. They have long since lost touch with the world outside of movie making and academic babbling.

You would benefit tremendously by living for a decade among people who never feel it necessary to declare themselves as belonging to any ideological or sexual cult. Go meet some people who actually work in factories, on farms, etc.

This will cure you of the preposterous obsessions of Los Angeles poseurs.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on November 29, 2008 7:43 AM



"...the preposterous obsessions of Los Angeles poseurs."

Shouting Thomas, that may have been one of your choicest phrases to date.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on November 29, 2008 10:54 AM



"Go meet some people who actually work in factories, on farms, etc."

I ask you, ST, why? I've nothing against them as groups, of course, but why are people in these types of occupations always presented as more authentic or as having something to teach those of us who don't do those jobs? I worked in factory after high school, and I've been around ranchers having grown up in a rural town. A lot of those people are bitter assholes. I took a look around and quickly decided to get the fuck out of there.

Of course, there are a lot of good people in those jobs as well. But hey, for the most part, I've got nothing to say to them and they've got nothing to say to me. God bless each of us for having the inclination and skill to do our respective jobs. But no way in hell will I accept either of us as somehow more authentic.

That said, of course cities are teeming with assholes, just different types than you'll find in rural areas. Or I don't know, probably the same types, just manifested in different ways.

Posted by: JV on November 29, 2008 2:07 PM



I ask you, ST, why? I've nothing against them as groups, of course, but why are people in these types of occupations always presented as more authentic or as having something to teach those of us who don't do those jobs?

Point taken, JV, but isn't Richard talking about the loss of identity that comes from growing up amongst all the various factions of LA hipsters? While I also found something lacking in working in the factory (which I've done), I wouldn't give up the rock solid identity I gained from growing up in rural Illinois for... well, anything. At least, I know what it is to be a man. Most people in any place are beholden to the crowd. If you are going to be beholden to the crowd, you are a lot better off in traditional Illinois. The values of the crowd are better there.

The destruction of tradition that has been the mania of the identity obsessed left leaves a man a completely empty shell to be filled up with ideology and fashion. I have an indestructible core that isn't open to manipulation... a gift of my upbringing in a traditional society.

Certainly, assholes can be found anywhere... just as you say.

I watched a movie last night that really delves into the collapse of tradition and identity that began in the 60s... "Little Big Man." It's a fascinating movie. I haven't seen it in 35 years. In traditional 60s fashion, everything gets turned upside down. White men are genocidal fools. Indians are noble savages living in the Garden of Eden. General Custer was a preening megalomaniac and genocidal fool. All Christians are hypocrites who are secretly committing adultery at every opportunity.

50 years of tearing apart tradition has left quite a mess. It's so bad that many heteros are engaging in homosexual behavior to be fashionable. (I don't buy the innate theory... well, certainly for some homosexuality is innate.) Heteros in the hip communities are under such pressure to at least pretend to be homosexual that the world of the hip is now full of closet heteros.

When people twist their sexual behavior, and engage in sexual acts that are antithetical to their nature for the approval of the crowd... well, you are in the nascent stages of fascism.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on November 29, 2008 5:39 PM



you are a lot better off in traditional Illinois.

Shouting - I spent a couple of days once going from Paducah, KY, through Carbondale, IL, to St. Louis. This was in the mid-90s. Southern Illinois. Is that where you're from?

Posted by: PA on November 29, 2008 9:40 PM



PA,

Pretty close. One of my sisters went to SIU in Carbondale.

I'm from the middle of nowhere near Kankakee. Steve Goodman immortalized the town in "City of New Orleans".

"Train pulls out of Kankakee."

Casey Stengel played his first minor league baseball in Kankakee in 1910.

Since then, nothing much has happened in Kankakee. You can watch the corn grow, if you're looking for entertainment. A stock car race and demolition derby runs every fall out at the fairgrounds.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on November 30, 2008 8:41 AM



Comrades! Robert Lindsay has no right to speak unless he is fully on board with the multicultural agenda.

You will be overjoyed (as in, jumping up and down in glee) to learn that Lindsay's blog has been taken down. "In violation of Blogger's terms of service" reads the message.

Comrades! No room for racists! Crush fascism under the iron boot of correct thoughts!

Think correct thoughts...must think correct thoughts...! Oh no. Click here.

Posted by: S. Gruber on December 6, 2008 9:10 PM






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