With the arrival of 2012, the American Presidential election is sure to be a topic which is on many people’s minds, both in America and abroad.

Among the candidates, there is one person in particular who seems to earn the anger and vitriol of the media, special interest groups, and lobbyists.  That person is none other than Dr. Ron Paul, the 76-year old physician and congressman from Texas.

It seems every time there is a news story on the mainstream news regarding his campaign, it is almost always negative.  In contrast, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, the media gushed over Barack Obama, and the media coverage of his campaign was almost entirely positive.  What can only be described as an all-out attack on candidate Paul in the media, by both neoconservative and far-left pundits, should be very telling indeed.  While the media is consistently lambasting Ron Paul for supposedly “racist” newsletters published in his name, they hardly ever bring up Obama’s association with a black supremacist church.  Then again, if observation tells us anything about the way that the media operates, the more vociferously the media clamours against something, the better the chance is that there is something half-way decent about that something.  And, when the “left” and the “right” (for the lack of better terms) start agreeing on who to hate, that something might be a very decent thing indeed.

You may already be familiar with some of these criticisms.  On the left, people criticise him for being a “racist” and an “isolationist” who opposes illegal immigration.  They also dislike his views regarding civil liberties, because he would apply civil liberties equally to all American citizens, including European-Americans, African-Americans and Asian-Americans.  Of course, this isn’t good enough for social liberals, who believe that human rights only apply to certain groups.  But while we’re at it, neoconservatives aren’t helping Paul either, citing, among other things, his refusal to become a hard-liner with respect to Iran, and lack of support for Israel (disregarding that he’d end all foreign aid) as a key reason why he is “too extreme” to be a viable candidate.  Even the more liberal wing of the Republican Party seems to think that Paul is “too conservative”.

Ron Paul: Visionary or dangerous man?

It’s far from the purpose of this essay to endorse any candidate in a democratic election.  Moreover, here at RidingTheTiger, we’re far from being libertarians, although we might agree with Ron Paul that the government wastes too much time and money with things that are ultimately non-issues.  However, in one respect, Dr. Paul does deserve credit.  He has been consistent, and stands up for what he believes in.  And he comes across as being an honest man.

Te way that the media, as well as certain non-government agencies view Ron Paul is revealing.  The current front-runner, as the Iowa Caucus would have us believe is Mitt Romney.  But, Romney, it turns out, is not that different from Obama.  His record as governor of Massachusetts was far from what might be called “conservative”.  The American Spectator reported that in 2008, despite his attempts to cast himself as a right-of-center conservative, he had “previously staked out liberal positions on abortion, guns, immigration and a litany of other issues”.  Santorum, who came in second place in Iowa, was originally projected to get only half as many votes as Paul, causing some people to suspect voter fraud.

It is a known fact that most of the media favors the Democratic party.  Because of this, a weak Republican candidate would be seen favourably to the media, if only because it would make Obama look stronger.  For instance, some observers had noted that the choice of McCain as the Republican nominee in 2008 was a blunder, which allowed Obama to more easily win the election in that year.  But leaving aside party-politics for a moment, to those who pull the strings on Capitol Hill, if Obama’s not going to win, his opponent should at least be someone who is not that different.

One group has a vested interest in smearing Paul (besides the obvious suspects at the Federal Reserve) seems to be the Zionist lobby.  As the Forward reports, the far-left ADL accuses Paul of having “extreme views on U.S. aid to Israel” and having “racist and homophobic but also anti-Israeli” views.  It should come as no surprise that these are the same accusations being made in the media by both the “mainstream” sources, as well as those who consider themselves more “conservative”.  Meanwhile, a more recent Forward article praises Romney and Santorum for being “professed Israel-lovers,” while hinting that Republicans should jump ship and vote for Obama, in the event that Paul should get the nomination.  The reason for the ADL’s hostility is clear.  Paul’s ideas do not benefit Israel exclusively.  And it follows that the media, which is closely linked, politically speaking, to the ADL is being used to slander him at every possible opportunity.

People who are aware of their situation in America are tired of having their Constitutional rights violated.  Many people have also begun to realise that the liberals and neoconservatives are both two sides of the same coin, and are no longer surprised by any revelation of the government’s hypocrisy or crookedness. Ron Paul, at least in his rhetoric, and to a large extent in his voting record, has shown that unlike the other candidates, who are willing to circumvent the Constitution to either the bankers or foreign interests, he is at least willing to defend the Constitution.  On the other hand, the candidates championed by the media all promote the expansion of Federal power and cater to every possible definable special interest.  Ron Paul clearly opposes such an abomination and the media, as well as special interest groups (namely AIPAC and the ADL) support it.  This is the fundamental difference between Ron Paul and other candidates, and why the media and special interest groups go out of their way to denounce Paul much in the same manner that the Soviet commissars would denounce dissidents.  The great danger for the lobbyists and the special interest groups is that to the average person, Paul represents something of a bye-gone era of American common sense.

So, in perhaps what can only be described as a “Bizarro-like,” down-is-up (or politically speaking, “left-is-right”) fashion, we’re being told that Ron Paul would destroy America, and is somehow going to be bad for us if he wins.  It may ultimately be true, as others have noted here on this site, that America’s collapse is not too far ahead.  While it’s sad that those who choose to vote are voting for the lesser of two evils, I doubt that if Ron Paul wins, it could be any worse than another term of Obama, or a term of Romney or Santorum.  The fact is that if the liberals and neoconservatives are free to force people to act in ways far removed from the natural patterns of human behavior through social engineering, this process will be far more painful than it already is.   Nearly a century of bad politics have shown that their manifesto is a consummate anthology of disastrously bad ideas which have done more to harm Western civilisation than anything else.

However, for those who believe in self-reliance and personal responsibility rather than the Freudo-Marxist welfare state that America has become.

Ron Paul, however imperfect he may be, is miles ahead of the other candidates.

Deus Vult!

It is significant to mention that even though we may be by admission considered to be “reactionary”, it is also important not to be aligned with many movements and individuals which label themselves as such.  While many movements claim that they represent conservatism or even “paleoconservatism,” their actions and actual creed can speak volumes for their true intentions.  Tradition is a perennial set of principles which are eternal and ancient rather than a merely romantic yearning for dead past.  While pride in one’s own past and ancestry is a positive trait, and, indeed, a healthy one, traditional ideologies must show that they are living instead of frozen in time.  The web of espionage and controlled interests is thick, successful, and all too real.  There are many people who wish to wage a heroic, defiant, masculine, and aristocratic struggle only to fail because of idealism.  People of substance imbued with these values are hard to find, rare, and perhaps unreachable as they suffer from similar burdens of apathy, passion, and lack of trust.  It is necessary to bridge the spiritual distance between like-minded souls, but also with care and concern as the shadowy hand of spycraft will be close.  Caveat actor et cave canem.

Divide et impera – to divide and conquer is an ancient and effective strategy, but it is still very effective today.  The divisive natures of unwise men can be easily manipulated to achieve ends that unwittingly serve more Satanic interests.  Sadly, those manipulated are often completely oblivious to the real end of their actions, which are to continue to mental and spiritual slavery of others including themselves.  Those who are aware and yet still side with these foolish parties are committing a grave error.  They can be much more than just useful idiots oblivious: a real threat consuming resources and destroying legitimacy.  In this way, they are a part of the problem, and not a part of the solution to modernity, and become their own worst enemies.  A glimpse of their soul can be seen in actions and character.

There are also reasons beyond puppetry and incompetence that these “regressive” parties must be rejected.  Many of these movements do not only throw nations and regions into chaos, they also focus on ideas which are not all together Traditional in substance, and which in fact, will destroy society from within.  Syncretic, or atavistic, such organs often reject historical truth, spiritual developments, and philosophical thoughts indicative of a Divine Truth.  It is far simpler to deny a static yet adaptable form for something idealized, impossible, and dead.  In the convincing cloak of purity and piety these parties conceal changes to the doctrines of faith and ideology leading them to be erosive, violent, and toxic.  The yearning for wisdom, transcendent greatness, and temporal power leads to visions of a golden age.  Our young are most apt to fall for this image because it appeals to their need for a purpose.  It is important to guide them to the not-so-obvious true form of Truth in order to protect their hearts and souls while also protecting Tradition.  A struggle thus begins with these people to realize a vision impossible not just because of the difference of spirit between the ages, but also because the physical conditions make such goals impossible.  More simply, only time, effort, and perseverance will yield fertile fruits.  Enduring Tradition and Truth will prevail, but only with concerned spirits focused on cultivating it at the expense of those regressive and reactionary movements at once modern spiritually, intellectually contaminated reactions to modern realities.  The fungus and filth must be removed regardless of its seductive form.

The key is a return to the fundamentals.  Those who call themselves “fundamentalists” and who reject the fundamentals are charlatans.  They are a cancer.  Seek the Truth of Light, and find the reality behind the events and shifting formation of politics.  Though it is an optimism of our time to believe that religion and politics live truly in different spheres, the profane presence of the state and physical interests exist to corrupt, to control, and to strangle everything in its quest for a secular dominance.  Novus Ordo Seclorum: The goal to be attained by anti-Traditional forces cannot be withstood merely through political means, but also spiritually and mentally through proper skill.  This means not being led astray by that which is outwardly righteous and inwardly adulterous.  Always move with care and concern.  Remember, do not discount legitimate movements pursuing noble ends, but certain language, practices, and connections should make one wary.

Glória in excélsis Deo.

The life-long, unrepentant Trotskyist polemicist and warmongering atheist known as Christopher Hitchens has died of esophageal cancer.

Hitchens was a man of his time, an insignificant son of a World War Two British war criminal, who was catapulted to fame through his absolute hatred and intolerance of all things religious, while his younger and more conservative brother faded into obscurity.  He blasphemed against God, castigated the Pope, and openly brandished hate against the Catholic Faith (and to a lesser degree Islam), but was a fanatical and follower of modernism down to its last detail, and tolerated no dissent from its orthodoxies and doctrines.  In short, whilst those around him praised him as an unconventional and brave man who “dared to speak out,” nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite his associations with the New Left, his bile-filled invective against everything traditional, against culture, religion and identity, Hitchens found a home among the neoconservative clique of American politics.  FrontPageMag, the online magazine run by his fellow ex-communist, David Horowitz, has praised Hitchens as a defender of Western civilization.  In turn, Hitchens had reciprocated his admiration of neoconservatives.  He admired Paul Wolfowitz, and minced no words about his glowing veneration of the neoconservative movement, saying that ”it [could] turn US power into a revolutionary force”.  Like many neoconservatives (although he himself never used the label), would continue to promote wasteful, internationalist, and globalist wars in the name of “democracy,” but not necessarily because he actually supported the United States or its people, but because as Piatak says, “his entire politics is motivated by his hatred of religion and tradition; he’d be just as happy bombing St. Peter’s as the Taliban”.

To his credit, such an analysis of neoconservatism was an accurate, candid and frank one, even if he did not intend for it to be so.  Moreover, he did not make an effort to hide the reasons for his undying admiration of the neoconservatives, even if he refused to be associated with them in name; at least in this aspect of his life he had been honest and consistent.  Of course, it needs no explanation that the origins of the neoconservative movement, and its outgrowth from the New Left are not in dispute by any objective scholar, and this may have been its appeal to Hitchens.

If anything, in Hitchens and his work is a snapshot of the world we live in.  While Patrick Buchanan, Robert Novak, Joe Sobran, Charley Reese, and Eric Margolis are derided as “unpatriotic conservatives,” the Catholic-hating, leftist Hitchens found himself in good company among his neoconservative friends.  Moreover, whilst being praised as “defender of Western civilization,” he clearly must have known and understood that his writing, speeches, and his attack towards Christianity (the very foundation of Western civilization), were the catalyst for the destruction of the Western world itself.  Perhaps it is because he told people what they wanted to hear.  After all, we can hardly imagine a critic of the Talmud, gaining the same amount of fame – much less being showered with praise.  Even Republicans who dare to step outside the invisible bounds are castigated and shunned, but no matter what ridiculous rhetoric Hitchens comes up with, he remained a poster-boy of both the neoconservatives and the militant, atheistic left.  Indeed, shortly after Hitchens’ passing, the faux-conservative David Frum rushed to write a bleeding-heart eulogy for the late Hitchens.

The views that Hitchens held were undoubtedly repulsive on so many levels, representing everything wrong with not only Britain today, but the modern democratic-liberal system.  But it is no surprise that the world will perhaps remember him as a great man, just as they remember that most prominent of all heretics, Martin Luther.  As Saint Paul once said, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight” (1 Corinthians 3:19).  But even as the world moves ever closer to his twisted and perverted vision, his pyrrhic victory remains one of this world: Sic transit gloria mundi.

The protests on Wall Street seem to have gained a great deal of momentum, not only in New York, but in other American cities as well, and are continuing to spread throughout the country.  Many of these protesters are fed up with the growing corruption of the government, corporations, and banks, and others seem to be angered by the results of two simultaneous wars and its consequences.  While some of these are legitimate concerns, some of the other demands of the protesters might be an indication of everything which is wrong, not only with the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration, but indeed with the mentality of society as a whole.

It certainly can’t be denied that there are many problems with the condition of the American society, and that the breakup of the United States might be a real possibility in the future.  Moreover, we are not denying that it is wrong for corporations to abuse and demean the middle and working classes, nor that the illegal wars undertaken by the globalist elite are correct in their ideology.  The real issue, though, should not be viewed in a manner which separates these materialistic questions from the social ones.  Indeed, the social issues may ultimately turn out to be more dangerous than the economic ones, because the dominance of finance-capital is more of a symptom of a decayed society than a diagnosis.  This is to say, that ultimately the problems all derive from a fundamental breakdown of Weltanschauung (world view), which the theologian James W. Sire defined as “a fundamental orientation of the heart”.

The modernist Weltanschauung can be viewed manifesting itself today as being comprised of two related and complimentary parts: neoliberal globalism or democratic liberalism.  Both of these are secular and materialistic (i.e. inherently contrary to the Traditionalist view), and are based on inaccurate and unrealistic ideas.  For instance, both demand an egalitarian worldview at any cost, the former through capitalism and commerce, and the latter through redistribution of wealth gained by the middle and working classes towards the lower classes (i.e., the lumpenproletariat).  Both of these look to the secular state and uphold the concept of civic nationalism based on democracy.

In the case of America, the contradiction runs deeper at every level.  The United States is a fundamentally “liberal” country.  Its founders were Masonic Deists who rebelled against a legitimate monarch for the sole purpose of creating a Republic.  Since the purpose of conservatives is to preserve tradition, in America, the job of conservatives is to preserve liberalism.  Thus traditionalism in an American context is shown to be logically impossible.  For this reason, Evola had even gone so far as to term America the “Far West” in the seminal essay “Civiltà Americana“.

Today, the economic system is breaking down, and undoubtedly many people are rightly angered.  However, the majority wish to continue believing that democracy and liberalism are the obvious solution, while, in reality, it should have been obvious that the supposed “values” of democracy, liberalism, and so-called “freedom” have ultimately failed in their stated purpose of building an utopian society.  The fact that the protesters still cling to those ideas a most stubborn fashion is rather obvious from their list of silly and impetuous demands, whether it is “guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment,” or “open borders migration,” to name a few.  Instead of taking an honest look at the problems of American society, many of the Wall Street protesters are instead demanding a mad rush further down the road of modernity and globalism.  René Guénon goes so far in “The Crisis of the Modern World” to make such an observation: he rightly tells us that the West has abandoned Tradition, contemplation, and metaphysics, creating the situation we are in today.

For now we must address the miserable state of existence that the West has reached.  An honest and introspective look at the condition of world shows us that to solve the problems of the so-called “Far West” means a far-reaching solution which mobilizes the revolutionary masses not towards a progressive idealism, as the Wall Street protesters are wont to suggest, but rather towards an organic Tradition.  For those in the West, the starting point for this is none other than the Catholic Church and its values.

For all their posturing, the Wall Street protesters are in reality not opposed to the destruction of sovereign cultures or spiritual, intellectual and religious doctrines; they are concerned with obtaining more and more individual rights at any cost.  Were we to ask a majority of these protesters their opinion on these things, they would hardly be different from the viewpoint which the elites have trained the majority to believe.  They are hardly differentiable from their peers, and ultimately will only help the elites achieve their ultimate goals.

In the modern world, environmental issues are polarized.  The so-called “right wing” of the industrialized world shuns any notion of environmental protection for a number of reasons, chief among them being that such controls harm the ability of businesses or corporations to create a profit.  Meanwhile, the left-wing, keen to seize upon such an opposition by political rivals, has taken up the cause of environmentalism as their own, falsely stating that their concern was for mankind.

Thus, the state of environmentalist movements in the modern world reflects an entirely modernist and defeatist perspective, which is characteristic of the liberal mindset.  Such people are merely sentimentalists who, being trivial, participate in what they consider to be “saving the environment” because they have become oversocialized and entrenched in their own delusions.

No!

In the past, the traditional attitude towards the environment was much more subtle.  For instance, we see that in Hellenistic mythology, that the “Golden Age” was  associated with a primordial purity of both the spirit and its surroundings.  The philosophers Empedocles and Hesiod also emphasized that during this time, there was harmony in all of nature, including human society.  Sayyed Hossein Nasr, the Iranian traditionalist scholar, articulates that the underpinnings of the environmental crisis stem from the modern materialistic and secular worldview.  For Nasr, the solution to the environmental problems of the modern day is not the sentimental behavior of leftists, nor necessarily a change in government policy, but a rediscovery of ‘traditional’ religious cosmology, values and truths. Nasr explicitly draws on religious, mystical metaphysical systems of thought that have, in his view, been eclipsed by modernity and need to be revived.

In light of this evidence, we need to re-visit the attitude of conservatives when it comes to environmental issues.  It can be said that there is a dichotomy between environmentalism and conservationism.  The former believes that man must be subordinated to nature, while the latter makes man the master of his surroundings; the former is chthonic and feminine, while the other is solar and masculine.  Environmentalism is at best a re-hashing of primitive pagan ideas.  Conservationism and deep ecology, however, make man the steward of his environment and accord him the position of being the master of his surroundings, a perspective which is common to many higher religions.  The earth then, is subject to man, and can be modified by man to help himself.

Because Traditionalism, when applied to any political action, is meant to transcend the dichotomous concept of left-vs-right, the Traditionalist outlook on the environment need not be limited to liberal-bourgeoise environmentalism, nor does it need to totally ignore the fact that there are environmental issues.  What is needed, however, is to integrate the need for environmental soundness into a fully holistic worldview which is consistent with the a truly conservative worldview.

This means no less than a rejection of the right of the material world to pre-eminence in all things, a wholesale rejection of globalism, and a massive cultural reformation toward harmony with nature.  Such a cultural reformation would have to be based in Traditionalist ideas rather than modernist ones, because it would embrace socially conservative views along with traditional religious and ethnic-national cultures.  At the same time, we cannot be fooled into thinking that bureaucracy will create a green utopia, and we must be equally pessemistic about the way in which globalists have used catch-phrases to discourage independent nations from developing nature-harnessing projects.

Key principles of a “Green Traditionalist” perspective might include the following:

• Agrarianism: While the most important aspect of Green Traditionalism, it is also one of the more difficult to define.  While most traditionalist conservatives are cosmopolitan and many live in urban centers, the countryside and the values of rural life are prized highly.  In a practical sense, this means reduction of the ecological niche occupied by people (achievable through a number of methods).  The principles of agrarianism (i.e., preserving the small family farm, open land, the conservation of natural resource, and stewardship of the land) are central to a traditionalist’s understanding of rural life.

It is possible to live alongside nature while minimizing our impact on it

• Hierarchy and organic unity: A common theme in Evola’s works is the refutation of the liberal myth that everyone deserves the “right” to “human dignity”.  Likewise, the Traditional worldview was that society is innately hierarchical.  Traditionalists for the most part reject the Marxist concept of class warfare, believing that the organization of society does not pit classes against one another, but instead through class cooperation, allows for the preservation of the whole community simultaneously, instead of protecting one part at the expense of the others.  From a practical perspective, this means putting an end to social engineering projects, and allowing the best and brightest to rise to the top.
• Rebuilding the foundations of culture: The perspective of Traditionalism towards so-called “popular culture,” is that it is a modernist corruption of true culture.  Traditionalists are classicists who revere high culture in all of its manifestations (e.g., literature, music, architecture, art, theater). Additionally, Traditionalists respect the right of respective peoples to define their own cultural values.  To quote from Guenon:

To be resolutely ‘anti-modern’ is not to be in any way ‘anti-Western’; on the contrary, it only means making an effort to save the West from its own confusion. In any case, no Easterner who is faithful to his own tradition would view matters differently, and it is certain that there are far fewer opponents of the west as such- an attitude that makes no sense- than of the West insofar as it has become identified with modern civilization.

• Localism, and regionalism: For some of the above points to be accomplished, it would be necessary to look towards an increased role in local and regional governments.  In combination with the previous point, a practical application would be the reduction of immigration; as each nation, locale, and region has a right to preserve its identity, Traditionalists frown upon an influx of outsiders which change the character of the said locales and regions.

Americans, by most standards, are considered rather well off in comparison to the rest of the world.  The standard of living in the United States is one of the top 20 in the world by the standards economists use as measures of standards of living.  In the Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living, America ranks fourth in the world, behind Norway, Australia, and New Zealand.  Yet for all the benefits that an American life should theoretically bring, there are significant issues with life in America.  America has more poor, more crime and more ghettos than ever; while its middle and working class feel increasingly alienated and rejected by the government.

Imagine  – if you will – the Fosters, an ordinary suburban family in America: Bill is 33, an laid-off office worker who has spent a lifetime studying hard and working to succeed in life. He and his wife spend hours at the office, day after day, and reside in a modest home.  They pay a great deal in taxes and must work to pay off their mortgage and college loans.  They want to start a family, but know that it is not financially feasible with the way the job market is.  They are hoping, in a couple of years, to be able to afford one child, but they know that it will be extremely expensive sending their child to a private school. They feel it wouldn’t be right to send their child to a public school with under-qualified teachers and filled with drugs and crime.

Now imagine Latisha; she’s just moved in a few blocks away from the Fosters, into a three-bedroom townhouse in a gated community, that the Fosters would have loved to live in, could they have afforded it.  Not only that, she receives food stamps, and welfare payments. She knows that her assistance will increase upon the birth of her second baby.  Thanks to her EBT card, she can now eat steak and lobster for dinner on a regular basis.   Her family can recieve free medical care at a government-subsidized clinic, and when her children are ready to attend college – assuming that they graduate high school – they will be eligible for certain scholarships and affirmative action benefits.  She has no incentive to work, knowing that the government will continue to assist her financially no matter what.

Latisha’s case is not an isolated one.  “Official” government statistics place the rate of black welfare recipients at nearly 40%, despite the fact that blacks only comprise 12.6% of the total population.  72% of all black children are born out of wedlock, while the black and Latino birth rate is significantly higher than that of whites; accurate numbers are difficult to arrive at due to the number of out-of-wedlock births.  In what must be painfully obvious to almost any reasonable person, we are quite simply headed for a Malthusian catastrophe: the high birthrate of those receiving welfare outstrips our ability to finance meaningful programs to help the poor.  The effect can only be mirrored by the relationship between a parasite and its host.

Today, many municipalities pay sales taxes in excess of 8%, with sales taxes in California reaching 9.75%.  Federal and state income taxes amount to 30% for middle-class families, while the extremely wealthy are exempt from taxes.  At the same time, people like Latisha are becoming ever more common in major urban areas, despite the fact that state, local, and federal government spending on welfare increases to skyrocket.  In other words, the American middle class is coming under increasingly greater burdens to support those like Latisha.  If Americans knew, I am sure they would be furious that while much of the industrious working and middle classes are eating potatoes, pork and beans, and ramen noodles, their tax dollars are going to fund the extravagant lifestyles of those who refuse to work.  And since Americans are so fed up with the situation, we might ask ourselves in the tradition of Lucius Cassius, cui bono?

In the short run, Latisha wins.  Her food stamps, free rent, and government subsidies give her a relatively unfettered life of luxury,  free from the drudgery of everyday work, which, though many people would be loathe to say, is undeserved.  There is, though, another side to the story, since if the real intent was to help the poor, then there would be no need for such excesses.

The Section 8 housing program  authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households.  The program pays landlords for two years of the rent cost when a tenant begins the lease agreement.  The economic theory of  investments and time value of money dictates this is a favorable advantage as the funds can be invested elsewhere at a higher return.   Many of the real-estate developers also receive tax breaks to build these houses, and a portion of them make significant profits, so they recieve exemptions from paying income tax.

The reality for the people who must live here is not as pleasant, however.  As the housing bubble burst and home prices plummeted, and investors became desperate to make returns, they encouraged low-income to move from urban areas to suburban areas under section 8.  While this was supposed to help the poorer individuals, it had the opposite effect.  Lancaster, California, which retains 10 percent of all Section 8 contracts nationwide, the highest concentration of any city., has seen a spike in crime, while ethnic tensions have flared up.  Similarly, in North Memphis, Tennessee, increasing levels of crime were also linked to a Section 8 resident influx.

At the same time, the presence of government programs for food discourages many of the poor from working or ever attaining self-sufficiency.  It does, however, keep any politician who can promise to keep handing out the government dole out to those who refuse to work in power, which perpetuates a vicious cycle that keeps such politicians in power at the cost of ever-increasing government programs at an ever increasing cost.  Thus the real beneficiaries in the long run are the elites, who wish to keep people like Latisha at bay with bread and circuses.  The greatest victims are the working and middle classes, who have been sacrificed on the alter of political correctness.

Rich poor people

It must be painfully obvious to almost everyone who is reasonable by now: the high welfare-receiving birthrate outstrips our ability to finance meaningful programs to help the poor, and as the middle class becomes more and more aware of this, there will undoubtedly be more friction between various factions of American society.  Just as a true parasite which kills its host, the underclass of “lumpenproletariat” who refuse jobs and consume resources shall lead to the destruction of America.  Just as Rome succumbed to its own greatness and eventually imploded under the weight of economic deterioration resulting from excessive taxation, inflation, and government doles, America is just as likely to follow this path.

While an end to unrestricted welfare for parasitic individuals is not the be-all and end-all of solutions regarding the health of Western society, it is still a step in the correct direction.  The famous Finnish ecologist once made the following analogy:

What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat.

This is an apt analogy; it is time to sever the hands of those who threaten to sink the boat by weighing it down with parasitic behavior.

Aleksandr Dugin

Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin (Russian: Алексaндр Гeльевич Дyгин) is a Russian political scientist who came to prominence by promulgating a theory of geopolitics known as Eurasianism in his book Foundations of Geopolitics. He was a key member of a number of Third Positionist groups such as the National Bolshevik Party, which was an anti-liberal political organization critical of American interventions in the former Soviet Union. To some degree, he credited the Belgian theorist Jean-François Thiriart and Evola as inspiration.

In recent times, Dugin has become an increasingly mainstream fixture in the Russian intellectual élite.  It should be said at this point that many of Dugin’s political views have merit, and indeed some portions of his outlook are difficult or impossible to deny.  However, the focus of this article is not upon the Dugin’s theories themselves, but rather their genesis, and we will attempt, here to briefly analyze the relationship between Evola, Guénon and Dugin.

Evidence

The original basis of Traditionalism, as promulgated by Guénon was that, in high antiquity, a “primordial Tradition” (also referred to as “perennial wisdom,” or sophia perennis) had been revealed and existed among mankind.  As time progressed, the world and its people became decadent, slothful, and increasingly disconnected from this Tradition.  In the so-called “Kali Yuga” or “Iron Age,” there remain only a few traces of this Tradition, which manifests itself in the teachings of the major world religions.  Traditionalism, then, is a rejection of the myth of progress that had commonly been accepted throughout the 20th century.

Such a view was accepted by Julius Evola, whose works such as Revolt Against the Modern World and Men Among the Ruins, advanced Traditionalist theory.  Whereas Guénon expounded a religious and spiritual theory of Traditionalism, Evola expanded this to show how the religious and spiritual effects manifested in political and social phenomena.  In other words, Evola, though he has his differences, presents us with the utilization of Guenon’s ideas.  This can be seen readily in how Evola treats politics: while the “old” Traditionalists were not concerned with Politics, Evola does delve into politics.  Dugin, however, is explicitly and overtly political in his outlook.  It is Evola then, along with the other figures of the European New Right who influenced him, such as Alain de Benoist and Troy Southgate, who form the crucial link between the older Traditionalist school of  Guénon and Evola.

Dugin, however, does not reject modernity as definted by Evola or Guénon in its entirety.  In fact, he proposed “modernization without Westernization” in 1997.  While citing the two Traditionalists frequently in his work, it seems that his own theoretical work is geared towards an abstraction of these themes, and whilst Evola explicitly rejected the myth of progress, the national-Bolshevik idea coincided with the renewed sense of progress in Russia.  Moreover, On more than one occasion, Dugin has even proposed Alistair Crowley as a Traditionalist.  This shows a remarkable misunderstanding of the original Traditionalism, as Guénon had condemned Crowley as being a stark anti-traditionalist.

Verdict:

If Dugin is a Traditionalist, then he is the founder of a uniquely Russian interpretation of it, which instrumentalizes the original ideas of the 20th century Traditionalist scholars, but re-packages them so as to be useful in Dugin’s political Third Way-oriented worldview.  This is not to say that Dugin was not influenced by the Traditionalist school of thought, but rather that it does not play a major role in Dugin’s own thought.  And while it is true that there are plausible links between the Third Way and Traditionalist schools, the Third Way must be viewed first as a political system, and not as an entire worldview in and of itself.

“Capitanul” Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, born on this day in 1899.  Codreanu was a charismatic Romanian anti-Bolshevist politician, and the founder of the Legion of the St. Michael the Archangel (Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail), later known as the Iron Guard.  As an organization which was rooted in the notion of achieving national development, the Iron Guard embraced a revolutionary spirit with the goal of bringing about the transformation of all society, and combined with its heroic and revolutionary ideology the teachings of the Orthodox Church.

Corneliu Codreanu was born in in the Romanian town of Huşi, the son of a Ion Zelea Codreanu, a schoolteacher.  The elder Codreanu had been a colleague of the intellectual luminaries of his time, such as A.C. Cuza, who also influenced Corneliu later in life.  In 1919, after moving to Iaşi, Codreanu found Bolshevism as his new enemy, after he had witnessed the impact of Bolshevik agitation in Moldavia.  The Iron Guard would later continue to be an inspirational and prominent political movement which opposed all the trappings of modernity, such as Freemasonry, Freudianism, homosexuality, liberalism, atheism, Marxism, and Bolshevism.  His influence, albeit an oblique one, on Strasserism, is also evident from a cursory study of history.

Codreanu, who began his career in the wake of World War I as an anticommunist politician, would become the co-founder of the National-Christian Defense League.  His greatest legacy though would be the Iron Guard, which rallied the intellectuals and working class.

Today Codreanu is often considered one of the forefathers of the Third Positionist. movement, Codreanu left his lasting influence with the Traditionalist theorist Julius Evola, from whom this site takes much inspiration.  Evola was reportedly “dazzled” by Codreanu, who would later write: “one of the worthiest and spiritually best oriented figures that I ever met in the nationalist movements of the time.”  The Romanian-born Mircea Eliade, a Traditionalist historian of religion, fiction writer, and was also influenced by Codreanu’s movement in the earlier 20th century.

In 1938, he was accused of sedition by Romanian Bolshevists, and brought to trial.  The two consecutive trials were marked by irregularities, and Codreanu was forbidden to speak in his own defense.  His legal team was prevented from preparing pleas, and he lost the trial and was sentenced to prison and hard labor.  Later that year, he would be murdered by Bolshevists on November 30, 1938.

In a Romanian Television poll conducted in 2006, Codreanu was voted the 22nd among 100 greatest Romanians to have ever lived.

This article was contributed by Xiaochen Su in London.

The ceremonies are certainly as solemn as they have ever been.  Across the nation, people remembered that pivotal day exactly ten years ago, when America bore witness to a whole new kind of terrorism.  As buildings collapsed and lives lost, the Americans everywhere were forced to come to realization that the mighty economic and military strength of the only remaining superpower are not enough to protect themselves against a few skilled and determined “foreign operatives.”

 Shock and sorrow are bound to be accompanied by a certain degree of irrationality.  In the wake of the disaster, the Americans became blinded by their emotions.  They simply entrusted the government with handling any responses to 9/11, thinking that perhaps, amid their own sense of helplessness, their political leaders can come up with solid plans for revenge, for compensation, and for comprehending what was really going on that day.

 With the emotionally distraught constituents casting aside their usual doubts of government policies, America had unprecedented political unity in the years after the disaster.  People threw away their common senses of constantly questioning government actions, simply by arguing that the time was for immediate actions against the perpetrators, not incessant squabbles among voters and politicians that make inefficiency the norm in American politics.

With the voters voluntarily casting themselves aside and foreign states sympathetic with American sufferings, the politicians at Washington, DC were able to freely script foreign policies in the post-9/11 era with little domestic or foreign resistance.  They had the opportunity to reshape American image, and redirect American interests abroad to take into account that whole new factor of threat on the American homeland.  Yet, instead, our leaders simply accentuated the need to increase, even further, the presence of America in every corner of the world to stamp out existence of the “foreign operatives.”

Ideologically, the mission represented an almost coerced execution of liberal internationalism.  The creations of new democracies abroad are supposed to be supported by the locals and Western nations as institutionalization of social equality and legal fairness needed for economic progress.  Yet, under the propagandistic calls of the post-9/11 American government, democracy itself almost became a propagandistic concept.

 It was and still is democracy for the sake of democracy.  America sought to quickly turn around anti-American public opinions in foreign countries through direct and indirect oppositions to unpopular long-time rulers.  Insurgencies are supported by financial and military means, and the costly supports are justified to the increasingly skeptical populace back home as galvanizing support for “freedom seekers.”  Somehow, the government and the media succeeded to convince the public that there is direct correlation between the mere existence of militarily created, messy, unrestrained popular democracies and a decrease, even disappearance, of terrorism.

Ten years after the formulation of the liberal internationalist mission, the American government has persisted in its execution.  Despite costs of billions of taxpayers’ dollars and tens of thousands of deaths in innocent American soldiers and local civilians, the politicians are still determined to carry out the policy to its bitter end.  Washington is not giving up until every last “oppressed people” can have a taste of that sweet joy of “freedom.”

Surely enough, the increasingly aggressive military deployment has been instrumental in encouraging “freedom fighters” everywhere.  As witnessed by events across the Middle East from Libya to Egypt to Syria, any thuggish gangs vowing to fight against the non-elected local government is hailed by America as nobly fighting for freedom and democracy.  It did not matter what background they come from as long as their guns are pointed at “dictators” and not at America.

But the question remains whether America and the world at large has become more secure against future flairs of fanaticism that has been the root cause of 9/11.  As popular fanaticism continues to overthrow long-established regimes in the Middle East, the answer cannot be too reassuring.  After all, popular uprisings, unlike what has been long proclaimed by American liberal internationalists, have been caused by economic and social reasons, rather than simple desires for greater political participation.

Ten years of turbulence resulting from movements to establish democratic rule has not brought about economic development or social equality.  The newly rich and powerful emerged from Western-sponsored “democratic elections,” while the vast majorities of those who fought on the frontlines of the movements are left in exactly the same social and economic statuses as before.

It is only a matter of time before those involved realize the grim reality.  And when they do, they will realize the ludicrousness of the American liberal internationalist vision.   Then, it would only be a matter of time before the disgruntled once again turn their guns away from the “evil despots” of their native lands and back toward America.  The American voters, in renewed shock and sorrow, will have pay for their blind trusting of foreign policies to self-centered politicians.

America and ameriKwa are two ideas that represent the various aspects of the same geographical region.  The former, in its most literal sense, is a geographical designation which represents the landmass which separates the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  On a different level, it also metaphorically represents a nation which was founded some 200 years ago, when the descendants of British colonists living on the said continent revolted against the Crown and established independence.  In other contexts, it refers to a hedgemonic entity which arose from the imperialistic and interventionist nature of the said nation.Culturally, America is synonymous with the evolution of the nation from its inception until the post-WW2 era.   It is dominated by a sense of place and of history which is derived from its English ancestors.  It is concerned with the protection of property, but not its excess, and it is opposed to the therapeutic welfare state.

ameriKwa: the capital of quantity

The notion of “ameriKwa” is something quite different.  It does not refer to a place or a nation in the classical sense, but rather, is indicative of a type of civilization whose characteristics Evola termed the “reductio ad absurdum of the negative and the most senile aspects of Western civilization.”  While America can be assigned a number of positive traits, there are none to be found in ameriKwa, which is indeed the most recent manifestation of America.  Such negative traits of ameriKwa include the rootless nature of its culture, the fusion of consumerism and politics, its rampant egalitarianism and its liberal decadence.  Put another way, ameriKwa is the concept of the rejection of the organic society, and the embracing of the artificial anti-culture which is grounded in individualism and decadent modernist thinking.

We need to only observe the current state of ameriKwan society to understand what lies underneath its veneer of freedom, equality and benevolence: rap music, Hollywood movies which promote every form of degeneracy, dancing, violent racial conflicts, the crime in the streets and a generation of children born out of wedlock to a future of hopelessness are an example of some of these things.  In ameriKwa, the inversion of old orders are present everywhere: the irreligious are lauded to the heavens whilst those of faith are persecuted, and the most degenerate of individuals occupy high places once reserved for the most virtuous or intelligent.  Even as Hitler so concisely rendered his commentary on American society, “Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it’s half Judaized, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?”

The ameriKwan lifestyle can only be compared negatively to a neurotic one, with their material wealth only partially covering up their interior formlessness and barbarism.  In all aspects of life, the need for accumulation and the subservience to the material creates a world in which people are bound by economism, and in which all of culture, media, and government exist to subject people to further indignities at its own hands while also inflicting severe damage on the natural world.  The condition of modern ameriKwan society causes young people to be frustrated in their expectation of meaning in life by endeavoring to satisfy material needs and creating artificial ones.  Out of this, a new value system arises, which includes democracy, individualism, freedom, tolerance, diversity, and secularism – one which is clearly at odds with the Traditional outlook on life.

The transition from home life to the office was especially difficult on the American woman.  Hysteria, neurasthenia, psychoneurosis and other neuroses were quick to take root in the female population after they gained their so called “liberation,” and spread to the rest of society.  By the end of the 70′s, nobody was was safe from the medico-cultural virus of neurosis.  In this respect, in modern times, internally and externally, America is the epitome of a deformed society with no identity, no real past and no real future.

The America that Never Was

What remains of America is ameriKwa, and under the steel-and-concrete cities, and behind the facades of Wall Street or Congress, is a world depraved and corrput to its heart, a soulless world rotting away.  People around the world must thus heed the call against ameriKwa, and preserve their own ethnic and religious characters without without pretending that the promises made by ameriKwa of democracy and freedom will better their lives.

Having defined the character of ameriKwa, it should now be clear the gravity of the cultural struggle which various peoples around the world are currently engaged in.  To put it concisely. it is the former is the world of being, while the latter is the world of ceaseless becoming.