Feeding the crocodile, II

We all know the term ''fight or flight" in its usual sense, and in the sense in which we've discussed our predicament on this blog.
But how many are familiar with the phrase ''tend and befriend"?

That's a label applied to the supposed feminine strategy for dealing with a threat.

The model, called "tend-and-befriend" by its developers, won't replace fight-or-flight. Rather, it adds another dimension to the stress-response arsenal, says University of California, Los Angeles, psychologist Shelley Taylor, PhD, who, along with five colleagues, developed the model.

In particular, they propose that females respond to stressful situations by protecting themselves and their young through nurturing behaviors--the "tend" part of the model--and forming alliances with a larger social group, particularly among women--the "befriend" part of the model.

Males, in contrast, show less of a tendency toward tending and befriending, sticking more to the fight-or-flight response, they suggest.''

Here is an interesting analysis of that idea, in light of liberal and conservative politics:
Fight, Flight...or Tend and Befriend?

'When I was a psychology professor in the 1990s, it was commonly accepted that there were two ways that people coped with fear: fight or flight. The scientific understanding at that time was that when we sense a threat, our body shoots noradrenalin in our blood stream, causing our heart to pound faster, and our muscles to fill with increased blood. This biological response readied us to sustain increased physical activity, whether to fight or run away. The fight or flight theory lent credence to the liberal's contention that the conservative response to wage war in Iran was a response to fear-- to fight.

But a more recent theory supports the conservative contention. When Shelley Taylor at UCLA looked at the research on fight or flight, she found that it was primarily based on studying men. In her studies of women, she found a very different response to fear, which she termed "tend and befriend." It also had biological underpinnings. When women sensed a threat, they emitted oxytocin, sometimes called the bonding hormone. Rather than fight or flee, they would talk, soothe, and try to connect. I saw a similar response to fear when I worked with women rape victims. Many reported that rather than fight off their assailant or try to flee, they were kind to the rapist in hopes that he would change his mind.

Both ends of the political spectrum lob accusations at their opponents for feeling fear, as if it is a shameful feeling-- the adult version of the "You're a baby" attack. But I contend that it is more admirable to feel fear than to block or minimize it.''

In this real-life example of a female victim 'befriending' her attacker and captor, it appeared that the effort was a success and the woman's 'heroism' was hailed by the liberal media. It seemed that the 'tend and befriend' strategy was the answer. But did it work ultimately?

From Wikipedia, more information on the perpetrator and his trial:

The defense called psychiatrist Mark Cunningham to the stand to testify about Nichols mental condition. Cunningham said Nichols had an emotionally distant relationship with his parents because when he was a child they worked long hours and were seldom home. His father routinely drank alcohol and also smoked marijuana which led Nichols to begin abusing the same substances as a child.

Cunningham said Nichols was sexually abused by a cousin and his older brother and that he was bullied as a child. “The stresses of his childhood is what carries forward into adulthood,” Cunningham said.

He said Nichols began to show extreme beliefs in college and he presented a college essays that Nichols wrote in 1992. In them, Nichols lays out his belief that there is an organized and deliberate attempt by whites to eradicate the black race, by imprisoning black men, and keeping them from having children. One of Nichols essay read "If violence can be a righteous tool for the white man, then surely it can be used as a righteous tool for the black man. If violence can be used to murder defenseless women and children in South Africa and Vietnam, then surely it can be used to defend the human rights of dark-skinned people all over the world." Nichols wrote he believes blacks should use violence to rebel arguing that if violence is right in Vietnam and the Middle East “surely it can be used in South Central Los Angeles.”

Cunningham said those beliefs “are the seeds of what later grew into a delusional disorder" as he was confined in the Fulton County jail. Nichols said the conditions paralleled slavery: labor without pay, poor sanitation, chains; and he compared his white judge, Rowland Barnes, to a slavemaster. He said Nichols eventually became so delusional he thought he was at war with the government and that he did not know right from wrong even as he pulled the trigger. Cunningham also read an excerpt from Nichols confession: "I felt as though I was a slave rebelling. I was a slave rebelling against the government of the United States. And as a soldier, I don't feel as though I committed any war crimes.... Slaves have a tendency to rebel. And as a result, I felt as though it was my right as a human being, basically, to rebel as a slave. And I felt that it was my right to declare war on the United States government."

Prosecution: Nichols will always be dangerous

...Lead prosecutor Kellie Hill said jurors only have to read Nichols’ own words in letters to fellow plotters to realize that the risk of escape is real. Nichols’ last known plot was at the beginning of jury selection for this trial, when paperclips fashioned as handcuff keys were found in his cell at the DeKalb County jail, where he was housed after his escape plots were uncovered at the Fulton County jail, Hill said.

Also found in the cell were sharp pieces of broken tile that could be used as a weapon, Hill said. “His plots to escape are not fantasy — he is able to manipulate people inside and outside the jail,” Hill said. “He is still planning. He is still dangerous… He is someone who must be sentenced to death for the safety of our society.”

Hill read from one of Nichols’ letters to a Fulton County jail inmate where he talked about how he had bribed a guard and gave advice on how to overpower guards for their escape. The guard in question was later fired. “What better way to get a glimpse in to a mind of a cold-blooded killer than to look at his own words”, Hill said.

[...] Nichols, 36, had been a successful, middle-class, church-going man, earning $80,000 a year as an UNIX system administrator for UPS. His life began to fall apart when Nichols impregnated another woman, causing his girlfriend of seven years to end their relationship.''

There are a number of obvious lessons in the story of Nichols. He should have been a black ''success story" of the kind that Republicans like to cite as proof of the idea that blacks just need to acculturate and follow the rules. He did not come from a poor or 'disadvantaged' background. His parents were professionals. He himself got a good education and was making a good living, as mentioned above. So what went wrong? That's a question for another blog entry.

The issue here is the way in which the interaction between Nichols and his White female captive, his ''Angel," reflects our society's current approach to dealing with threats.

We are a feminized society, and when it comes to dealing with evil, we are losing because in liberal fashion, we try to 'block or minimize' fear, and to appease evil by 'tending and befriending', hoping that we can reform and redeem those who are out to harm us.

The White female hostage encouraged her captor, who had just been on a killing rampage, to read not the Bible, but Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life. If that isn't a commentary on the state of our watered-down 'Christianity' I don't know what is. And when this bit of proselytizing seemed to work, momentarily at least, this was hailed as a triumph for 'purpose-driven'-ism.

The accounts of Nichols' later comportment and behavior show that there was no 'conversion' or repentance, at least none of a lasting nature. The fact that anybody was naive enough to think that a little Oprahfied pop psychology and a dose of pop-Christianity could change this man in the twinkling of an eye should be cause for embarrassment. But it isn't, apparently.

We as a society are pursuing the same strategy with regard to all the threats which face us. We first try to 'block or minimize'' the fear we refuse to recognize, and we try to 'tend and befriend' all those who breathe out threats against us. If only we appease everybody, use all the politically correct, deferential language, and behave in a generally 'nice' fashion, we imagine we can win over our enemies, change them, save their souls, render them harmless.

The altruism about which I blogged yesterday is another manifestation of this 'tend and befriend' feminized response. And it seems that even those self-deluded liberals and leftists recognize on some level that threats do exist; everyone is not our friend. Not everyone means well. Danger is real. But the choice to block and minimize the threats and to deny the fear, and the choice to try to feed the crocodile in hopes of being eaten last, is the wrong choice. It's far better to acknowledge the reality of the threat and act accordingly so as to ensure survival.

Maybe Nichols' captive rolled the dice and won that particular time. Maybe she herself succeeded in escaping with her life. But it could well have turned out tragically for her. Appeasement of evil is always a huge gamble, and the odds are not in our favor if we rely on this tactic.

Now is not the time to 'tend and befriend'; it's been tried and found wanting. Let the more primal response serve its intended purpose.

The plan proceeds

Via Western Voices World News, a story about a California town which is being demographically changed by an engineered influx of Section 8 tenants.

'In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.

Now that police unit is the focus of lawsuits by black families who allege the city of 100,000 is orchestrating a campaign to drive them out.

Across the country, similar tensions have simmered when federally subsidized renters escaped run-down housing projects and violent neighborhoods by moving to nicer communities in suburban Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.

But the friction in Antioch is "hotter than elsewhere," said U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development spokesman Larry Bush.

An increasing number of poor families receiving federal rental assistance have been moving here in recent years, partly because of the housing crisis.''

Oddly, the link to the original story at MSNBC does not work; nor did another link which I found on another site, so it may well be that the story has been taken down by MSNBC. I wonder why? When a story as politically incorrect as this one appears, it usually draws many heated comments from both sides, and this sometimes results in the comments being closed, and/or the story being removed.

The officials quoted in the story that I read speak about trying to diffuse the poverty, and to end the segregation by income levels. It could also be seen as a typical deluded liberal attempt to 'raise' the level of the poor by planting them among more successful people, as if they can learn successful habits by osmosis. No, what happens is that they drag down the level of the neighborhood, putting their stamp on it, so that it becomes unlivable for the existing residents, and they flee, abandoning the now-decaying neighborhood to the newcomers.

Some people have suggested that this may be an effort to create the need for more housing to be built, as neighborhoods are destroyed and the displaced people have to seek homes elsewhere. This kind of slow-motion demolition can be very profitable for some.

But I suspect that the government, caught up in their 'diversity' mania, wants to ensure that there are no homogeneous White neighborhoods or towns left. We can run, but we can't hide. Diversity will find us wherever we go.

And we could also see mass immigration as another project along these lines, but on an international scale. If White neighborhoods are now considered forbidden, similarly will majority White countries be considered unacceptable and 'racist.'

If the answer to domestic poverty is to redistribute the poor throughout society as a whole, the same would apply to global poverty. The idea seems to be to bring the 'tired and poor' to our doorsteps like foundlings left on the church steps to be cared for. And the idea is to dismantle all semblances of neighborhood, kinship, and nationality.

As long as the soulless PC bureaucrats keep on with their mad schemes, they will have to step up the propaganda in order to quell the growing discontent, as people begin to realize what is being done to them and to their country. The social engineers are in a race against time. If they continue at too fast a pace, they risk provoking an enormous backlash. If they proceed too slowly, that gives dissenters more time to build awareness and sound the alarm. I think they are going for the accelerated approach.

Giving until it hurts, part II

Who Gives the Most? Americans, by a long shot

Americans give more to charity, per capita and as a percentage of gross domestic product, than the citizens of other nations. But why?
It would be nice to believe that as a group they are just more generous. Of course, it's more complicated than that.

For instance in the U.S., which is notably religious among wealthy Western nations, about a third of all charitable giving goes to houses of worship.''

This article confirms the same phenomena regarding charity and Americans.

It's worth noting that Christians tend to be bigger givers, as do conservatives generally, contrary to popular stereotypes of stingy conservatives.

Liberals give less, despite all their talk about the downtrodden poor. I suppose the idea is that Uncle Sugar is responsible for taking money from the greedy right-wingers and giving it to the worthy poor. If this is supposed to constitute 'charity', it seems liberals don't get the idea that charity cannot be coerced or demanded; it's always voluntary.

The writer of the Forbes article linked at the top of the post, Elisabeth Eaves, dissects the motivations behind the American altruistic tendency, examining various possible reasons for it, and ultimately, and rather disappointingly, says this:

In the end I don't think Americans are more generous in their hearts than other people, nor that they have more cynical motives than anyone else. They are responding, rather, to their culture.

For all its polyglot shifting, U.S. culture is unique when it comes to a belief in philanthropy. It's a value that may be rooted in Christian tithing, but has spread to the secular world. Maybe it's a recognition that with individual freedom comes responsibility, too.''
[Emphasis mine]

It's social expectation and 'peer pressure', ultimately, she says.

Well, yes, that's becoming the default liberal explanation for any and all observable differences among groups of people: ''it's the culture." This is the safe, non-threatening answer to all differences which can't be denied. ''It's the culture."

But as I've said before, this just shifts the question elsewhere: WHY do some people have certain cultures? What causes Western people in general, specifically Americans in comparison with other Westerners, to have a culture which values altruism and charity? Why should Americans have 'peer pressure' or 'social expectations' concerning charitable giving?

Could a nation of stingy, selfish, cynics value charity and volunteerism? What an absurd question. The reason we have the culture we have is because it embodies the innate traits and tendencies that we, on a communal level, share among ourselves.

So often in discussion of racial/ethnic differences, the answer to all obvious distinctions among groups is to blame (or credit) this mysterious thing called 'culture' for the differences. But which came first, the chicken, or the egg?

Some who believe in evolution and natural selection claim that because of the harsh climates in which European man developed, Europeans had to learn to be cooperative and altruistic, at least within kin groups, in order to survive. That's as may be; if it's true, why are not Eskimos, for example, the most altruistic of peoples, since they live in the coldest climate?

Other groups survived in harsh conditions without developing our traditions of helpfulness and altruism.
Some people credit (or blame) Christianity for our tendency to be charitable; obviously our charitable and helpful tendencies can be a vulnerability when interacting with people who do not share them, and who don't reciprocate.

This 'study' would seem to indicate that those who receive the most help will in turn be most helpful to others. If it's true, why are not Third World countries the most altruistic, since they are by far the biggest recipients of help, mainly from us?

But to return to the subject of Europe: why was Europe the only area of the world which enthusiastically embraced Christianity? It never really ''took'' in any other part of the world, despite scattered believers here and there in other regions. And I don't count Latin America; their ''Christianity" is too syncretistic, bearing little resemblance to European Christianity.

There's no avoiding the issue of how much of our behavior is genetic, and how much is environmental.
If I overemphasize the genetic aspect of behavior, it's only as a necessary corrective to the big error of our time, an error motivated by political correctness and cultural Marxism, towards denying all genetic components of behavior.

The subject of charity and altruism, which as this article says derives from the Latin alter or Other:

Coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte, the word "altruism" has dominated the social sciences’ discussion and measure of our behaviors toward the Other, and the motivations behind those behaviors. Altruism derives from the Latin alter, or "other." Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have since taken up Comte’s nomenclature.''

Certainly altruism is a good thing, but even good things can be excessive and then become bad things. We are now at a stage in which we are wrongly placing priority on the ''Other'' at the expense of our own, and ourselves. This is contrary to nature. I don't see how the secular believers in evolution or natural selection -- as many liberals are -- can champion suicidally altruistic behaviors such as the idea of open borders and special privileges for people of color. This is not natural, nor conducive to our survival and the survival of our progeny.

And those Christians who advocate this self-sacrificing preference given to The Other are slighting their own kin and people in doing so. It seems there is almost an idolatrous reverence for The Other, and the more ''other'', the more they are idealized by this type of Christian.

Many ethnoconservatives accuse Christianity of being responsible for our present precarious position. And they are correct that a certain faction of Christians, unfortunately the most visible and vocal ones, are promoting what amounts to self-genocide in the name of 'Christian charity' and loving one's neighbor. Yet these same people would not promote such self-abnegation if the recipients of the charity were our own people.

Has anyone noticed how virtually all of those TV appeals for starving children never show any American children? I actually saw one such appeal that did show some White American children, and it was startling because we never see that. Never, ever. I can hear someone say, 'well, we are so prosperous in this country that we have few or no starving children." Technically, we don't have starving children like those shown in the 'food for Africa' appeals. But we certainly have malnourished children and children in need.

The other response is usually ''anybody who can't find a way to prosper in this country just isn't trying, isn't working hard." To some extent, it's true, but in our increasingly difficult job market and with living expenses rising, many families are barely scraping by. So it isn't accurate to say that nobody need be poor in this country.

But why is it that we tend to rush to the aid of the ''other'' in preference to our own? Is it a perverse scramble for moral superiority, a desire to show off one's superior charitable tendencies?

Why is it that Americans tend to put foreign people on a pedestal? Some years ago, when Russian immigrants were a rarity in this country, there was a newspaper sob story about a Russian immigrant who had succeeded in getting to this country, but who was struggling to get on his feet. A follow-up story told of how the people in a local small town rallied to provide him with a car, a place to live, and a job. Who would do this for a local neighbor? Not many, but lots of people will rush to the side of a foreigner who has a sad story to tell. Why don't we seek out our kin and neighbors who have needs first, and if there truly are none, then give to ''others"?

It may be that this is an admirable thing; it may be that these people who will give the shirts off their backs for 'others' will have many stars in their crown in eternity. But somewhere we have lost the healthy love for our own that enabled us to prosper so well for so many centuries.

Whether something in our wiring has gone wrong, or whether propaganda can override our natural tendencies, I don't know.
Our altruism is something to cherish, only if we use it as it was meant to be used, to care for those nearest to us first, and for our extended family and tribe next. If all people everywhere did just that simple thing, we in the West need not have to be responsible for saving the whole world again and again.

''Truth is hate, to those who hate the truth"

We knew this was coming. But all the same, it doesn't bode well, for obvious reasons.

THE ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid to better police the internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.

Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.

"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff - the UK and the U.S. working together - the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as saying.

Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibilty.

"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Mr Burnham said.

Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper said.
[...]
"If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach," Burnham told The Daily Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."

He said some content should not be available to be viewed.

"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."
[Emphasis mine]

We all know that the interpretations of 'offensive' or 'harmful' or 'hateful' will rest with the liberals and leftists who are now to be in the drivers' seat in Washington, D.C. as of January. And if ''our" government is to work hand-in-hand with the leftist British government, no good can come from that for either country.

Blogs like this one, and many other, far less politically incorrect blogs and forums will be filtered if not removed entirely. It may not happen overnight, but this is the direction in which we are headed.

The politically correct vigilantes will be ever more emboldened to silence anyone who fails to toe the line.

We should be thinking about ways to circumvent this effort to quash free speech. We will have to find alternatives, and I believe where there's a will, there's a way. We will have to find alternative ways to communicate and to speak the truth that needs to be heard.

I'm convinced that one of the first acts of our new overlords will be to pass the 'hate speech' and 'hate crime' laws that they have been itching to push through, but failed to do in the last session. I am convinced that this is a priority for them.

"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." - John Adams

"In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Who ever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." - Benjamin Franklin


“For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time. - Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no Constitution, no Law, no Court can save it...Where do you stand Citizen?” - Judge Learned Hand

'"Truth is hate to those who hate the truth" - quote from protester Arlene Elshinnawy, from the WND article linked above

''Change never stops"

I've mentioned before that I collect ephemera, my favorite era being the early 20th century. I love learning about earlier times from the ephemera of the age: written material, magazines, even the ads tell a story. The artwork and the illustrations were often beautiful, much more so than today's counterparts.

One thing that catches my eye in the old ads and magazine articles is the presence of many upper-class people, dressed in their finery, attending some soigné event. Many of the domestic scenes in advertising depict elegant women at home with their housemaids. This kind of thing is conspicuously absent in our modern advertising, for obvious reasons. The world has turned upside down from what it was 100 years, or even 70 years ago. The egalitarian, downward-leveling trend has become the hallmark of our age. There are no clear class delineations as there were back then, with moneyed people and their luxuries. Nowadays, the rich often dress, act, and speak just like those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Think Paris Hilton.

And since the English language is on my mind these last few days, coincidentally I was just at a forum where the discussion centered on class
distinctions in the UK as reflected in language.

Apparently, there remain, despite all the leveling efforts of the leftists, differences in vocabulary as well as pronunciation in the UK.

This article from long-ago 1992 describes the class patterns in British English:

John Honey, an itinerant English professor educated at Cambridge and Oxford who is currently teaching in Japan, created a stir in Britain when his book was published. He urged Britons to acknowledge that speech accents are the coding of the class system and to strike a blow for equality by teaching everyone to speak the Queen's English, which Honey termed "received pronunciation," or R.P. The classic example of R.P. would be the crisp, clipped speech of most BBC news readers.

The Charles-Di split, then, is a matter of two different styles of upper-class speech. Prince Charles speaks a marked version of R.P. -- the upper-crust English, oozing privilege, spoken today mainly by senior members of the royal family, old Etonians and aging Oxford and Cambridge dons. R.P. speakers pronounce "cloth" as clawth and talk about the lorst pah of the British Empah (the "lost power of the British Empire").

Princess Diana has swung to the other end of the R.P. spectrum, occasionally assuming a trendy down-market variant, including traces of popular London speech, that approaches cockney. Its most prominent feature is "t-glotalling," which means strangling the final "t" in most words. Expert ears, for example, have detected Diana saying there's a lo' of i' abou' for "there's a lot of it about." '

From the perspective of today, it would appear that the 'received pronunciation' has long since lost the battle. I've noticed how 'the Queen's English' has been displaced in the British media by various regional accents and by more 'working-class' patterns of speech. When I watch old British films, (for example, today I saw ''Great Expectations" from 1946), the English spoken then is markedly different than that heard in the British media today.

There may be some of the older generation whose accents follow the old patterns but they seem to be few and far between.

I believe the cultural Marxists want to eliminate anything that hints at ''elitism'' and class distinctions and standards, the latter of which are
anathema to them in all areas of life. In the UK as in the United States and throughout the West, there is the mania for 'equality' and for a malicious pulling-down of those who are looked at superior or elite in some way.

And that, to me, is the crux of this issue of class distinctions in speech. The left is always busily destroying all vestiges of our former standards and ideals. Having distinctions of any kind amounts to ''discrimination" and this must always be stamped out.

This piece cuts to the chase, regarding speech:

Every detail of our selves and our lives — our appearance, speech, activities and associations — is perceived by others as an emblem of who we were, what we have become and where we fit in. The social profile of each person is recognizable and unique, like a fingerprint.

The ways we speak also reflect this combination of social similarity and diversity in fine detail.
[...]
Language has always helped to signify who we are in society, sometimes serving as a basis for exclusion. A Bible story tells how a password, shibboleth, was chosen because the enemy didn’t use the sh sound. “Shibboleth” has since come to signify an emblem of belief or membership, an identifiable sign of those who must stay outside the gate.

Societies use shibboleths in many ways. Indeed, speech is a convenient stand-in for other kinds of stigma that we recognize but do not openly acknowledge. For example, in our society, discrimination based on appearance, race, sex, religion or national origin is TABOO and often illegal, whereas discrimination based on particular details of language use by men or women, people of different religions, people from other countries and so on is often allowed.''

Do we have any class distinctions in speech in the United States? I would say we don't. It may be that some traditionally-minded people are unfavorably disposed towards those who have very uneducated speech, or strong regional accents in some cases. But this need not necessarily reflect a class bias, or a racial bias. We just tend to react somewhat negatively to someone who displays ignorance in their way of speaking.

It's often said, with some truth in the allegation, that people tend to judge those who speak with a Southern accent as ''ignorant'' or backward, even if the speaker uses impeccable grammar and syntax. The accent itself bears a stigma, I would say as much or more than ''ebonics''. And you'll notice I didn't specify that ''Northern people tend to judge'' Southern accents negatively -- just ''people.'' There are some who are born and bred in the South who carefully cultivate a neutral accent, modeling it on the media standard. Many of the younger generations do not sound Southron at all, even if their parents speak with a strong regional accent. I think this move away from the Southern speech is sometimes not a conscious thing; it's simply 'in' to speak standard American English as heard on TV or in Hollywood movies. Younger people who watch the mainstream media consciously or unconsciously absorb the accent they hear; it has connotations of being hip and cool, unlike the Southern drawl.

Other than that, however, we don't have a great deal of class distinction in our speech. Education these days does not do a very good job of educating. Sadly, most of those in academia these days are dedicated leftists who think that proper grammar and enunciation are ''elitist' and outmoded, as well as 'reactionary'. So who is there to uphold standards of good grammar and speech?

The linked PBS article argues (just as my linguistics professor did back in the 70s) that language is perpetually changing, and that we mustn't try to stop or impede the change. Language is 'organic', so the party line says. Languages just grow, like Topsy, and we can't control or even direct the change that inevitably happens. We can be 'descriptive' in discussing language, in other words, simply observe and note what we see and hear, but we can't be 'prescriptive' and uphold standards -- because everything is relative, you see. Who are we to judge the ebonics speakers or those who speak some sort of pidgin English or Spanglish or whatever argot?

A complex pattern of influences keeps the linguistic pot bubbling. Variation is everywhere. Change never stops. Language gatekeepers cannot control an ever-changing world of diversity. It’s hard on them, because in the gatekeepers' world, variation means error and change means decline.

What’s more, the very notion of a single standard of correctness in language is quite recent. “Correctness” is based solely on a purist’s own notion of what is socially or culturally correct: if it's not in, it must be out. A language purist works from a list of exceptions to the rule, ordinary speakers follow a hierarchy of patterns that reveal analogical similarities.''

Yes, the usual leftist arguments are heard in the realm of linguistics as in all other areas. Change is inevitable; embrace it. Celebrate it. Above all, don't judge it. Don't try to control it or contain it.

Change is sacred to the leftist.
And we ''language purists' who think (silly us) that there are rules and standards which apply to language just as to any other system, and who think that we should try to contain and direct change, are just sticks-in-the-mud who are impeding the 'diversity' and the richness of our ever-changing language.

I suppose we have to give the left some kind of credit for being consistent in their 'philosophy'. They are consistent to the point of being monomaniacal, when it comes to advancing their agenda in every area of life.

The larger question, though, is the loss of standards in our society.
I suppose it could be said that the beginnings of our country already contained the seed of our current obsession with 'equality' and leveling, which we see in the assault on all standards. Proper speech is now denigrated as archaic and rigid, the province of 'language purists'. Basic etiquette and social graces are scoffed at as passé and old-fashioned. Dress codes are going by the wayside, as people more and more tend to dress for 'comfort', regardless of the occasion. There are very few occasions for which Americans dress up nowadays. Jeans and T-shirts and athletic shoes are the universal uniform for all occasions from church on Sunday to the symphony. As I mentioned, even the wealthy are likely to slouch around in the ''uniform'' when in public.

Sexual mores, like all social standards, are now strictly up to the individual; who are we to judge? Tolerance of anything and everything is a mark of the sophisticated, ''enlightened'' 21st century American.

Profanity and obscenity are everywhere, with no respect for the people present. Oldsters, toddlers, nobody is spared the foul language.

The arts are no longer governed by any sort of rules regarding aesthetics or skill. This is true of the so-called 'fine arts' as well as popular culture.

Mediocrity and even ineptitude are no obstacle to attaining fame or success in the arts and popular entertainment.
Good taste has gone out the window; once I tried to discuss 'taste' with a liberal friend; it was a foreign language to her. ''Taste'' is an elitist construct, imposed by the aristocracy on the sainted common man.

The sad thing about all this is that the ''conservatives'' for the most part are rank egalitarians and levelers in most respects, just as the liberals and leftists. Perhaps the old American obsession with demolishing social class in general, the tradition of hating aristocracy, has gone too far. It seems to me that even conservatives have accepted many of the class warfare bromides of the left.

Our country was born from a revolution against English royalty, and there was an anti-aristocratic undertone to the slogans and sentiments of many of the Founding Fathers -- yet there was a movement to make George Washington a king, rather than President.

There was an old Southron aristocracy, and I am sure there were wastrels and other undesirables among their ranks, but on the other hand, many good men came out of that class: the aforementioned Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Lees, the Pages, the Randolphs, the Taylors, and many more. Aristocracy is not an innately bad thing, provided they are principled.

Can anyone argue that democracy is preferable? How is it working out for us now?
Our forefathers, at least the Founding Fathers, opposed the idea of democracy and 'equality', despite Thomas Jefferson's unfortunate phrase ''all men are created equal."

Democracy does not exist for a long time - it wastes, exhausts and destroys itself. There was never a democracy that didn't kill itself" - Samuel Adams

"Democracy always leads to conflicts and instability, but never provides for the security of the citizens or their property. Usually it is very short at life, and very bloody at death" -- James Madison

There are many more such quotes in the same vein. Yet somehow Americans have become enamored of 'democracy' and equality.
Equality and liberty can't coexist. Neither can equality and standards. If we are to level everybody, standards must be pulled down; those who excel or distinguish themselves in any way are to be pounded down so as to prevent inequality.

Not so many decades ago, we had a culture which encouraged all, rich, poor, or middle-class, to aspire to civilized, genteel behavior. Children were taught to be polite and courteous, and respectful of elders. Girls, in particular, were taught social graces and were often sent to 'charm school' to learn how to groom themselves, carry themselves, and to be gracious.

Everybody could, and most did, aspire to ''better themselves." Even those from a poor background could become educated, or educate themselves, acquire some social polish, and improve their status in the world. Now, it seems every economic class emulates the lowest level of society. The gutter culture is 'cool.'

The old-style rich in America were standard-bearers. While there were 'black sheep' among them, in general they comported themselves well in public; it was considered part of the duty of the 'upper classes' to set an example. Now that we no longer have a wealthy class with any sense of noblesse oblige, or with a desire to uphold higher standards of behavior, we have no exemplars at all, except vapid celebrities, who are often troubled people with no detectable standards. Or there are the overpaid athletes who are idolized by many.

On this blog we've often discussed the leadership void. Leaders need not be politicians or 'statesmen' -- and how many of the latter even exist today? Leaders are standard-bearers and standard-setters. They are people who, at their best, honor and uphold social and cultural standards and traditions, and set an inspiring example. We all need something to which to aspire, and we all need to aspire to something honorable and worthy. We have few if any such leaders and standard-bearers now. I wonder if, by killing our aristocracy metaphorically, we have done ourselves in. We can see in history how much harm was caused by the Jacobins and their obliterating of class distinctions.

Standards are necessary; our mania for 'democracy' and 'equality' is proving to be very destructive to our society. I believe any effort to undo all the horrendous errors of the last five decades or so must include a renewed respect for quality, excellence, merit, and achievement, as well as for order and beauty.

We live in an ugly, sloppy age dominated by willful adolescents. At some point, the adults will have to reassert control.
The liberals say 'change never stops', and if they are right, then the pendulum has to swing back eventually.

More Southernisms and Texas talk

A while back, when I blogged about various Southron dialect expressions, I mentioned the old-fashioned exclamation ''Well, I swan!" or ''I swanee!" I said that I took it to be simply a pious way of avoiding the phrase ''I swear", because Christians are warned in the Bible against swearing oaths.

I often heard the phrase as ''Well, I swan to goodness!" which further reinforced the idea that ''swan'' was a euphemism for ''swear'' in that context.

However when I was perusing City-data.com, I found this thread about ''Texas Lingo" where a couple of alternative explanations are given for the expression ''I swan":

''Well, I'll swan".......is a slurred version of the Old English expression of "I'll swoon" (i.e., I'm so shocked I shall swoon - faint - pass out). My grandmother's family were Brits and that was a very common saying in the family.''

It was a very common saying in my family, too, but I think it was current among the older generations, my parents' and grandparents' generations; it wasn't necessarily restricted by ancestral background, though most of the people of old Texas stock were of English and Scots-Irish descent.

Later on in the thread, a poster called TexasReb adds this about the phrase:

Here is something I found concerning that expression:

swan 2 (swŏn) Pronunciation Key
intr.v. Chiefly Southern U.S.
To declare; swear. Used in the phrase I swan as an interjection. See Regional Note at vum.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

Or...

verb (used without object) Midland and Southern U.S. Older Use. to swear or declare (used with I): Well, I swan, I never expected to see you here!

Origin:
1775–85, Americanism; prob. continuing dial. (N England) I s'wan, shortening of I shall warrant

My guess is that its use among older folks in the Southern and rural Midwest traces to a Bible Belt connection. That is, to "swear" had blasphemous connotations, so thus the euphemism "I swan" developed...?''

I believe I also speculated about a more widespread usage of the phrase because I came across sheet music (which I collect) for an old song
called 'Wal, I Swan', from 1907. The song depicts New England rural folk, so it seems the expression was one of those countrified turns of speech that was probably heard a hundred or more years ago in various parts of the country.

Language naturally changes as the world around us changes, but the changes to our ways of speaking (and writing) seem to be accelerating in our time. The younger generations tend to lose their regional accents and idioms, and the appearance of media-driven youth slang seems to spread quickly to the older generations, more so than in previous eras, I think. As in all things, the youth-worshipping older generations are emulating their children instead of the other way around.

I've been collecting these old expressions and linguistic oddities just for sentiment's sake, so I may as well share some with you here. Remember, they are as I heard them from the older generation; some of you from other places or who grew up in later eras may not have heard these as I heard them. And they are not necessarily presented in any kind of strict order or categories:

Pronunciations that differ from standard American English:
'Often' - the t is pronounced, not silent as in standard American English
Salmon - the 'l' is sounded, not silent

Some pronunciations were common among my parents' generation and earlier, but are now pretty much obsolete among the younger folks, for
example, pronouncing words like 'chance', 'dance', 'glass', 'gas' and so on with a long 'a', somewhat like the 'a' sound in the word 'range.' I think it started to decline in my age group and virtually no one pronounces the aforementioned words that way.

Incidentally, why is the ''a'' in the word chance or dance not given the 'long a' pronunciation? Usually such a word with the silent-e ending has a long vowel preceding it -- as in ''range'' or ''strange'. I suspect (though I can't prove) that the older pronunciation may have been like that of the older generations in the South.

The word 'rinse' was pronounced very similar to 'wrench.'

The word 'greasy' rhymed with 'easy', with the 's' pronounced with a voiced 'z' sound
I believe the 'z' sound in 'greasy' is the standard UK pronunciation as well; I'm open to correction if I'm wrong.

An obsolete expression: 'sody water' for coke or any soft drink. Nowadays, it's more likely to be called just 'coke'.

'Stove up" - stiffened up as with arthritis, having stiff joints

In taking leave of somebody, the older folks would always say ''Y'all come back', whereas the person or people departing might say ''Y'all might as well come go with us."

I've mentioned before the use of the word ''supper'' for the evening meal, instead of "dinner." Dinner is, of course, the midday meal.
Icebox -the more common term for refrigerator.

"In high cotton" - prospering, living well
"Well, who licked the red off of your candy?" - meaning who put you in a foul mood

"Good enough to make you slap your grandma!" Paula Deen of the Food Network used this expression on her cooking show recently.
"A sight on this earth" - meaning a sight to see
"All vines and no taters"--a false front, like the expression "all hat and no cattle"
"One day it's chickens, the next day it's feathers", and "The sun don't shine on the same dog's tail every day" - meaning that fortunes change
"favor "-- to resemble, "he favors his daddy", or as I was told I ''favor" my grandmother

''Above your raisin' "-- putting on airs; getting above oneself (usually used when someone's acting prissy or snobby).
Another variant is ''Gone back on your raisin' " meaning denying your roots or your upbringing.

"Workin' like a borrowed mule'' means working very hard, or this variant: ''he worked him like a rented mule", implying that the person was being ill-treated by a taskmaster of a boss.

This phrase was one I often heard: "He looked like he was sent for and couldn't go" or ''called for and couldn't come." The idea is that the person in question was ailing or not up to par.

Saying that someone ''looked like he was rode hard and put up wet'' implies he was exhausted and overworked. Obviously the metaphor describes a horse who has been ridden hard and not taken care of properly when put away.

Misbehaving children often heard this warning: "Don't act ugly. God don't like ugly." Or ''Set down and be quite" (meaning quiet) or ''Quieten down!" as my father would scold us when we were getting too rambunctious.

Incidentally the word ''ugly'' often connoted misbehavior or bad character, not a lack of physical beauty, although the following expressions do describe physical unattractiveness: "Uglier than homemade sin." (or "homemade soap"); 'Uglier than six miles of homemade mud fence", "Ugly enough to fright a haint [ghost; haunt] off a thorn bush" "Ugly enough to haunt a nine-room house". Or this often-heard one: "fell out of the ugly tree".

On the other side, we hear ''pretty as red shoes" or ''pretty as a speckled pup in a little red wagon."

On the subject of weather, the older generations would say ''it's comin' up a storm" or ''a rain", rather than just saying ''it's going to rain."
Recently, when we had sunshine and rain at the same time, I said to a friend ''the devil's beating his wife", which she found amusing; she says she'd never heard that expression before.

There are plenty more where these came from, but I'll stop here, and ask if any of you have recollections of old-time expressions or regionalisms. To me, the English language with its many variations is always fascinating, and these various expressions add color to life. They are worth preserving and passing on.

Flight and fight

I've just recently been spending some time looking at City-data.com, which provides statistics on many things about towns and cities in all 50 states. The information is on things like population, demographics, housing, education, crime rates, and so on. The website is one option for those who, contemplating ''flight'', are looking for a decent place to which they might relocate.


As I explored the website, I found this list of ''High-growth cities with relocation interest"

There are 100 cities listed there. I'm not familiar with many of the cities listed, but my curiosity is piqued by this list. Many of the cities look like prime destinations for illegal (and legal) immigrants, for example, #17, Los Angeles, and #19, Las Vegas. #1 and #4, Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas, respectively. But I wonder how many of these places are popular destinations for people fleeing immigration and ''diversity"?

The site also has forums which enable visitors to post questions on a given locality and which allow those questions to be answered by posters who live in the area, or who have knowledge of it.

The one thing I notice from reading the forums is the sheer numbers of people who seem to be on the move in this country, or at least contemplating a move. Perusing the forums, a reader can get the impression that we are a nation of nomads, shifting from place to place to cope with the constant changes in our country.

Most of the questions on one forum for a Southeastern state are from would-be migrants seeking ''good schools" ''nice neighbors", low taxes, and so on. It's easy to connect the dots and see that these are people who are now in places which have been overrun with immigrants of either the legal or the illegal variety, once-orderly places which are now mini-Babels with deteriorating schools, rising crime and taxes, the whole raft of problems with which ''diversity" tends to ''enrich" us.

A few of the posts even ask how much ''diversity'' exists in the destination town; however when there is any inkling that the question is racially motivated, the questioners sometimes hastily add that they just don't want an area with many ''illegals'' because of the problems they bring.

There are others who state they are looking for a ''progressive" town, though the area is in the conservative Bible belt. It seems to me that these people are looking in the wrong place for ''progressive'' towns, unless they pick the big city or the college towns, which are usually more liberal than their environs.

Another questioner wants to know if the locals will be''welcoming'' of their interracial marriage. Someone else asks about the presence of a certain politically incorrect pro-White organization.

So it definitely looks as if not all White flight, so-called, is by conservative, racially conscious people. There seem to be just about as many liberals and 'colorblind' respectables of whichever party who are fleeing all the 'diversity' and 'change', too. The difference seems to be that the liberals and ''progressives'' would not admit that they prefer to live in a non-diverse, mostly White area, and even worse, the liberals and 'respectables' refuse to see that liberal and open policies regarding immigration and 'diversity' are lethal to good towns and neighborhoods. They refuse to acknowledge cause and effect. They seem to think that when an area succumbs to 'diversity' and all the ills which follow in its train, the decay is caused by some inevitable natural process, not by stupid choices and policies on the part of the town fathers and the citizens themselves.

A friend and I were having a discussion about the infllux to our town. My friend pointed out that no matter who the people are who are moving here, their presence in such large numbers changes this town irrevocably. Why don't people realize this? The people who are moving like Bedouins all around the country, looking for fresh pastures, don't seem to get it, and the immigrants don't care. They simply see this as a place to be despoiled, and they see us as prey.

While most of the "flight" people who are new arrivals here are well-off people, professionals and others who might otherwise be an asset, they are no doubt bringing their ''progressive'' attitudes which portend trouble for this town, sooner or later. These new neighbors, relieved to have found a town with old-fashioned attitudes, natural beauty, low crime rates, and relatively good schools, will eventually revert to liberal form and bring their ''progressive'' and tolerant attitudes into our local culture, eventually changing the place. The very things that drew them here will gradually -- or precipitately -- be destroyed, and these progressives will wonder why. And then they will move on to some new, pristine place -- if there are any such places left. And of course a few steps behind these people will be the immigrants, mostly illegals who are hired to build the big sprawling houses the ''White flight" liberals like, and the illegals who are hired as domestic help. These same White flight types, often even the 'conservative' ones, will be those who think a colony of refugees would just be wonderful here.

How do we avoid this? Can it be avoided?
I can only hope that many of these liberals and 'respectable Republicans' who are fleeing the mess made by their misguided policies elsewhere, are reading sites like City-Data and ruling out the kinds of conservative areas where they do not belong. I am all in favor of them restricting themselves to places populated by ''diversity'' and by fellow deluded liberals, places where the amount of damage they can do is limited, because the places are already in ruins. It's only just, too, that they be forced to live with the policies they have pushed so relentlessly.

It makes no sense for liberals to deliberately park themselves in the Bible belt, where all those people ''clinging to religion and guns" live. Why do they do it? I think it's much like the Mohammedans who hate infidels coming to the West; they intend to 'convert' us, set us straight, or drive us out and replace us. Or the Mexicans, who, despite hating gringos, come en masse to our country. They all intend to come, see, and conquer.

I wonder if those of us who live in areas receiving a lot of ''White flight" should make our presence felt on some of these sites where people are inquiring about relocating. I think we should do all we can to discourage the ''progressives'' and the politically correct Republican types to look elsewhere for their next move. It isn't only the immigrants themselves who bring unwelcome change. This vast game of musical chairs will soon leave our country utterly unrecognizable everywhere, and unlivable in most places.

For those of us who might be looking for an area which is not too devastated by ''diversity'' just yet, we have to be aware of who else is looking to flee there; what's the use of relocating to some idyllic new place, only to find our new neighbors are our old liberal enemies from the big city?

Sussex Carol

Christmas 2008

I wish a blessed and happy Christmas to my readers and their loved ones.

'Of time and the moment'

Those who read this blog last year at this time may remember reading the following poem; I think it's worth repeating at Christmastime.

A new wind rises out of the hills
of America, and the song it
sings permeates the land.
It is a song of time and the moment.
It is a song of beginnings.

George Washington, the father of our country,
found a fount of new beginnings
when he knelt in prayer.
(Do we kneel today to ask for moments
that reveal some far horizon?)

Thomas Jefferson searched for an enduring
source of strength. And as he claimed
that source, it was a moment that became
for him a new beginning. "God who gave us
life gave us liberty," he said.
(Are we searching now for an enduring
source of strength?)

At Arlington, at every burying ground
where soldiers sleep, the wind is
but a whisper as it tells of memories.
Unnumbered crosses quietly proclaim that freedom
has been dearly bought to bring us
new beginnings.
(How do we honor those who gave
the gift of life?)

A new wind rises out of the hills
of America, and it sings of new beginnings.
We do not need new keys that open
to new worlds,
but old keys, making turns in
old familiar locks such as enduring
honesty, integrity, deep silences, and roots
of faith and hope and love.
Old keys, trusted and tried, that always open
to a world of new beginnings.

Oh, let a new wind rise
out of the hills of America---
now, at Christmas,
and as the old year turns.

- Melva Rorem

Snowed in

I don't know about the rest of you, but we have had a record-breaking December where the weather has been concerned. There is considerable snow on the ground and more to come over the next couple of days. So a lot of Christmas get-togethers and events have been postponed as many people are not able to get out and about. At this time every year, I am usually with family members some miles south of here, but this year is a stay-at-home Christmas -- which needn't be bad. The change is welcome in a way but at the same time, it's nice to have family members together when the weather allows.

For now, there is a beautiful snowy vista outside, with the Christmas lights on our main street visible when I look to the Northwest. It's a real greeting-card Christmas scene.

I hope all of you are safe, warm, and if possible, with loved ones and friends for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Who is the message intended for?

I know some of you are staunch proponents of the 'kill your TV' doctrine, but over the Christmas season, it's hard not to tune into at least some of the classic Christmas programming. And unsurprisingly, the propagandistic advertising assails your senses when you watch TV for more than a few moments. It seems that every commercial has to have some racial/ethnic propaganda, often coupled with feminist messages, all of which are delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Either the multicult is so overconfident that they no longer try to hide the agenda, or they are getting desperate and hoping to bludgeon us into submission as speedily as possible. I am not sure which it is; maybe both.

Just one example: a Big Lots commercial advertising Christmas sales, in which two couples are seen riding in a sleigh in a snowy landscape, dressed in rather cartoonish Victorian clothing. One of the males is black. To me this whole scenario is bizarre and unlikely in the extreme. Are we to believe that there were such improbable social arrangements back in Victorian times? Apparently so. But it's absurd, and it's hard not to feel one's intelligence insulted by these surreal scenes.

I suppose we have to suspend disbelief, because the advertisers are showing us not reality, or even a simulated reality, but their alternate view of the world -- as they think it should be. The world depicted in commercials is an alternate, politically-corrected, multicultural babel in which people are randomly mixed together in unlikely combinations. That's the prescribed order of things, the world as the multicult wishes it to be, plans for it to be, and strives to force it to become.

I used to think, as most people think automatically, that these ads with their mix 'n match groupings of people, were meant to make the nonwhite races feel accepted and to gain their goodwill and their business. Advertisers, we are led to believe, just care about the bottom line, and everybody's money is green. So 'green' is the only color advertisers see; they just want everybody's dollars.

There may be that aspect to it, but it seems the primary purpose now is to ensure that White people get accustomed to the idea that this is not a White-majority country anymore -- even though it is, numerically speaking. But it will soon be a country with a majority nonwhite population if the busy elites have their way. They are working night and day to change the makeup and the character and the face of this country, and the commercials are one way of subliminally telling us that this ain't your daddy's America anymore, and that we must accept that inevitability. Not only must we accept it, we must celebrate it, welcome it, weep with joy over it (as when Obama was elected). We must submit. Resistance is futile.

I've noticed, as I know others have too, that the cable news channels have increased their percentages of nonwhite 'anchors' and presenters and reporters and pundits. CNN is the most obviously nonwhite channel, which has actually been going on for some years, as the channel considers itself a world news channel, not an American one. Fox News is also following suit with more black personalities.

The Weather Channel must comb the country for 'diverse' meteorologists -- or are all those diverse faces real weather scientists?

Even the Food Network, which is one of the last refuges from politically correct programming, has become more ''diverse'' (read: more black) with at least two new shows featuring blacks and ostensibly 'black' cuisine.

The channels which supposedly specialize in documentary-style programming (like the History channels and the National Geographic channels, etc.) are also riddled with political correctness.

The shopping channels have their share of black presenters and models, but so far the PC message has not been successfully worked into the sales pitches -- unless you count things like their pushing the 'Obama coins' and commemorative plates. Who is behind this phenomenon, I wonder? Who writes the copy for these ads -- things like:

"His confident smile and kind eyes are an inspiration to us all." Or this line: " this will be a family heirloom."

I've been wondering if he himself is making a profit on these things though many of the irate pro-Obama commenters on Politico.com fiercely deny that he is making money from the merchandise.

But does he not have the right to control the use of his image, and to license products using it? There have been many celebrities who have sued those who used their image without permission on items like this.

But in any case the coins aren't legal tender, per Politico.com :

''Now, the real U.S. Mint has issued an advisory about the coins, warning consumers that the coins aren't official government tender, but merely plastic coating on real dollar coins.

Says the Mint:

These advertisements feature genuine United States coins that the private commercial businesses have altered by affixing a colorized image to the coin. Additionally, some businesses have treated the coins by gold-plating them.

These items are not official United States Mint products. Furthermore, these products, businesses, and advertisements are not approved, endorsed, sponsored, or authorized by the United States Mint, the Department of the Treasury, or the United States Government.

The United States Mint does not encourage, endorse, or sponsor products that alter the fundamental images depicted on its coins.'

How fitting: the coins are bogus, just as most of the multicultural ideology which propelled the Obama to the presidency.

I'm convinced that the "historic" election of Obama is the end result, direct or indirect, of the decades-long multicultural, anti-White advertising and indoctrination which the mainstream media specializes in. Decades of images of blacks as wise, superior people as contrasted to inept, feckless White males have had their desired effect.

The fact that so many people's views today are 180 degrees away from those of their parents and grandparents is proof of how effective this re-education effort has been.

And it isn't just here in the United States; I've heard similar complaints from people in all Western countries; it's going on everywhere. There seems to be a stepping-up of the effort to eliminate all dissenting viewpoints, and any remaining vestiges of traditional ideas and practices. And the underlying message being displayed is: 'surrender, Dorothy.' The change to the 'new order' is inevitable and it's for the best. Give up and give in.

The blatantly propagandistic commercials and the forced 'diversity' in the news media as well as the 'entertainment' media, is aimed only secondarily at the 13% or so of blacks or the 15% Hispanic viewers. It's aimed first and foremost at you and me, to inure us to the fact that we are being displaced, dispossessed, demoted, and basically written out of the script. And it's working, for most people, who seem resigned and even quite content to be second-class or third-class citizens in the land their ancestors created and fought for.

Getting people to disengage from the media and from the whole consumer culture would seem essential, but it seems that few are willing to do so until or unless they become aware of the obvious agenda, and begin to realize that the media are hostile to us, and toxic for us and for our national immune system. I know when I became more awake and aware, my radar for the media hazards became much more acute, and my tolerance level for the propaganda dropped. I sincerely hope the media and the whorish advertising industry will overplay their hand even more, and alienate people on a widespread scale. I believe that the educational system (falsely so-called) and the 'mass media' are the biggest pollutants of our minds right now.

We live in an age in which people worry more about minor environmental pollutants than about the real dangers, the mental and spiritual pollution to which we are being subjected.

Censorship at You Tube

We all know it's happening.
But one of the recent casualties of an apparently new campaign to exclude politically incorrect content is the video to which I linked several posts back, entitled 'Was America Ever a White Nation?' The video was an excerpt from the documentary called A Conversation About Race.

Of course honest conversations about race are still highly taboo in our society, so it's not surprising that some politically correct vigilante reported the video in question.

I view a lot of videos on You Tube, but to be honest, You Tube is a morass of idiocy when it comes to the comment section following the videos. You Tube seems to be the playground of a great many barely literate leftists, most of whom seem to be adolescents, in spirit if not in years. No matter what the content of a video may be, for instance, such an innocuous thing as the carol ''Good King Wenceslas", someone has to leave nasty comments of a political nature. Accusations of 'racism' and 'hate' abound among the misspelled and crude comments which litter the threads.

Personally I haven't registered at You Tube, so I cannot post comments or 'flag' videos as abusive. But it's evident that the many pestilential leftists who post there flag any video they deem as 'hateful' or 'racist.' I wonder how much of this our side does? Perhaps we ought to start being as free with flagging videos as ''offensive'', just as the leftists and multicultists do with anything even remotely favorable to our side and our culture.

I generally feel that debating or arguing with leftists and multicultists is a waste of time and energy, but I do think it would be a good thing if more pro-White, pro-Western people spoke up and left thoughtful and well-phrased comments so that the leftists won't win the day by default.

And as far as the left's wanton complaining and snitching on anything they dislike, it would seem that both sides could play at that game. It might throw a monkey-wrench into the works to start flagging You Tube videos lavishly, especially those which are unfriendly to our people and cause. For too long, the left has shouted everybody else down, and monopolized the public debate on virtually everything. When is our side going to start making a showing?

I grant you, political correctness being the devouring monster that it is, our side will be censored and banned all over the place, but even if comments stand for a short time, they have a chance of being seen by a few, at least. I personally think there's little chance of converting the lost, but there might be people who are vacillating, or who haven't yet really heard both sides fully, who might be open to hearing our side. That goes for other more neutral forums too; we can make our case in a reasonable, civilized way whenever and wherever we can. I used to do a great deal more posting on 'mainstream' forums and boards, but I find I have little time for it these days. Still, I think we need to make our voices heard, and not concede the field to the left everywhere.

Multiculturalism, and how it grew

The subject of multiculturalism and how it developed has come up many times on this blog. One idea that has been mentioned on discussion threads occasionally is the idea that multiculturalism and what has since become 'anti-racism' were very much a product of the Cold War era in American history. I agree with this assessment. The Cold War was one factor among a number of factors, but it was a substantial one, I think, in the development of what became the Civil Rights revolution. We can hear hints of this in John F. Kennedy's "Civil Rights Address" of 1963:

...this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.


We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.

We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality.''

It may be that other motives were at work here; of course there were do-gooders and utopian leftists as well as cynical, power-mad leftists at the center of this movement, but on the part of our government I can well believe that much of the rhetoric, such as that employed by JFK, was motivated by the fact that these racial incidents amounted to bad PR for America in the Cold War era.

At that time, the Cold War was at its height. Now, I am in no way dismissing the Communist threat, or the 'Soviet threat' although the latter was probably inflated. But we were obsessed with competing with ''the Russians" back then. I remember well how the news media constantly fretted about the Soviet Union. Newspapers often reported what the Russian ''news" media, such as Pravda and Izvestia were saying about America. We heard how they hated our popular culture, such as our decadent music like jazz and rock 'n roll, and our Hollywood movies, which they saw as examples of 'capitalist decadence.' That, of course, was the old left, which was quite prudish, even more so than the most conservative Christian sects. The postmodern left in the West embraces decadence enthusiastically, and in fact makes a virtue of it.

We read of how the Soviets banned much of our music and entertainment, and how they promoted a very negative view of the United States as a corrupt, unjust nation which let the poor starve and which denied blacks and other minorities their 'equal rights.'

We read many news reports out of the Soviet Union, describing how they brought many African students to Moscow to study at the university, and this was seen as a triumph of the Soviets' greater egalitarianism. We read of how some blacks from America, such as Paul Robeson, defected to the Soviet Union and found it to be a utopia, much superior to our country because the Soviets were 'colorblind.'

The Soviets courted emerging Third World countries -- which were then gaining their independence from the European colonial powers. The United States and the Soviets were in a worldwide competition to form alliances. We courted certain countries, and the Soviets had their sphere of influence. Cuba was a big crisis spot after the Revolution in which the Communist Fidel Castro seized power, and Cuba, being a ''multiracial'' nation suddenly became very important to us.

Obviously if these 'developing' nations, watching from afar, saw apparent injustices or 'brutality' towards blacks in our country, they would become hostile to us, and that wouldn't do, in a world which was being divided into two camps, Communist and 'free.'

It seemed to be all-important to our government to present a more egalitarian face to the world, so as to improve our image. We were in competition with the Communists, who claimed to have no color, race, or class barriers. So we decided, it seems, to compete with them on their terms, and to try to outdo them in being colorblind and equality-obsessed.

Another factor, with the aforementioned Cubans, was the presence of many Cuban refugees fleeing the Castro regime. They became an ethnic bloc who were to be pandered to, just as later 'refugees' from other Communist countries were. This put us a few steps farther down the multicultural road.

With the Cubans, the whole issue of bilingualism and the development of enclaves presaged the multicultural project that developed in the ensuing decades. And by the late 1960s, almost all immigration was from nonwhite countries, so that multiculturalism became a necessity, it seemed, as an alternative to pretending to assimilate unmanageable numbers of unassimilable peoples.

But our obsession with the Soviet Union as our greatest rival and threat led us to adopting the ill-omened policy of making ourselves over in the egalitarian image, with the Soviet Union as an exemplar for us. If they were 'colorblind' we had to be more so; if they welcomed Africans and other nonwhites, we had to outdo them so as to show how much better we were.

Decades later, we've become like a caricature of the old Soviet bloc countries in our zeal for 'political correctness' and re-education (alias ''sensitivity training"). Some years ago, Balint Vazsonyi, a Hungarian immigrant who became a patriotic naturalized American, warned us of how far we were straying down the same path as his former country in its Communist days. I am sure, were he alive today, he would be dismayed to see how much things have deteriorated even in the few years since his death.

The same pattern seems to be playing out in the West as a whole; everybody in Europe and in all of former Christendom has decided to embrace the extreme egalitarianism and multiculturalism. Of course it all fits very nicely with the drive towards a 'global world.' Funny how that worked out.

There is no doubt that our obsession with the Soviet Union, and our frenzied competition with them, was a bigger factor than most people acknowledge in the development of our present racially-obsessed system.

Pilgrims Land at Plymouth, 1620

On December 21, 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
David Alan Black tells us about it here.

Shepherds, Arise

Sung by Maddy Prior (of British folk group Steeleye Span) and The Carnival Band:

Chorus:
Sing! Sing all earth!
Sing! Sing all earth! Eternal praises sing,
To our Redeemer
To our Redeemer and our heavenly King!

Shepherds arise, be not afraid;
With hasty steps repair
To David's city: see the maid
With her blest Infant there.

Chorus

For us the Saviour came on earth,
For us his life he gave,
To save us from eternal death,
And raise us from the grave.

Chorus

To Jesus Christ, our glorious King,
Be endless praises given.
Let all on earth his mercies sing,
Who made our peace in heaven!

More on English identity

Further to my previous post, here's a rather more sensible discussion on English identity by a rather different group of people.

"The first step in liquidating a people is..."

I came across this discussion at a traditional music forum which is frequented by many people from the UK.
English culture -- what is it?

If you read through the thread, (scrolll down the linked page), you will find many exasperating responses which illustrate vividly how far the leftist/globalist/multicult agenda has penetrated into people's thoughts and feelings about their own country and heritage. It ain't pretty.

I have to say, sadly, that if you posed a similar question among a group of American 'folkie' or trad music types, that the responses would be just as dismal. Still, I suppose there is a case to be made, however weak and politically correct, that America has no native culture, but is merely a patchwork of various immigrant cultures. I disagree vehemently, of course, but still there's no denying that for the last 150+ years, America has absorbed a lot of immigrants from various places, and that some melding of cultures has occurred. But the UK, or Great Britain to use an older name, has not been a magnet for exotic immigrants until the latter half of the 20th century. I am aware that various smaller waves of immigrants have come to England, but their effect on the overall way of life there was negligible, unlike the present wave of Third World interlopers.

The media, the government, and the educational establishment in the UK are much more dominated by hard-core leftists and multiculturalists than even our institutions, and they seem to have accomplished their aim of mostly obliterating the sense of a national identity and culture.

The original poster on the thread simply asked a question, and was greeted with an incredibly hostile and venomous group of responses. What a plague on Western society leftism and ''liberalism'' are. They have truly left our Western countries sick unto death with their pernicious and malevolent ideas, and we have to work to find an anti-venom for this societal toxin or it will be the end of us.

A sampling of the comments, for those who don't want to wade through a very long and obnoxious thread:

If you want to "know" about "English" Culture I suggest you join the BNP...
****
What might be marvellous is England as the first culture free nation. Done with our reformation, civil wars, slavery, industrial revolution, class division we free ourseles [sic] of the burden of culture for a voyage of new discovery without a backward glance.
Heady stuff that.
*******
"My prob with the whole kulture game is it assumes there are shared resonances which elicit a unified response"

I'd disagree with that. I think we should celebrate the diversity and eclectic nature of our culture and fight against the uniformity that is creeping in - especialy [sic] the Americanisation and the threat to our wonderful family high street shops and small food-producers posed by the big supermarkets and ludicrous EU regulations.''

A question: why is everybody ready to see the threat from ''Americanisation'' and the EU (which is indeed a threat) but unable to see the threat posed by mass immigration and cultural Marxism? They have been schooled to believe that 'fascism and racism' are the only threats.

Back to the comments - beginning with a post by what seems to be a third-world immigrant:

Is it only English people who can comment on what English Culture is? I should think that, for people living in a sizeable proportion of the globe, "English Culture" is a mess of lies with which Public Schoolboy colonizers tried to replace numerous indigenous cultures.
[posted by a 'Guest with no English connexion']

Followed by a raving multicultist:

"Okay, let's put this in some sort or rational context. There is a vast difference in being interested in one's heritage and wanting to select through rose-tinted spectacles a romantic image of a Merrie Englande. The critical word here is 'select'!

I repeat my first post. In answer to the question the simplest and most accurate response is DIVERSE. In other words every bit of England (and everywhere else) has its own culture that is unique to that area, and the influences on those cultures are manifold and frequently not English in origin. For god's sake let's celebrate the diversity!

And a programmed lefty:

''The BNP are such a load of congenital idiots they can't even get the flag right. If it's British it should be the Union Flag and not the English Flag.
The whole lot are complete arseholes and - yes - I want my flag back please, and I want it to be looked on as a proud symbol for ALL who live in England.

Next, a dedicated multiculturalist:

"English culture as opposed to what other culture?
Do you mean something intrinsically English that doesn't occur anywhere else? You won't find anything, neither will you in any other culture.''

The original poster makes a valiant effort to counter the responses she gets, which are mostly hostile to her personally and to her question. And as you can see, the BNP are special targets of opprobrium. The leftists have done a bang-up job of marginalizing and (to use an obnoxious leftist word) 'demonizing" the BNP, and any kind of national feeling at all.

Sadly, though, she yields to the race-baiting and protests more than once that she is ''not a racist'' and that she, too, loves diversity. Bad mistake. Never give in to their game and never give any credibility to their name-calling and their 'racism' nonsense. That's letting them define the terms and create the rules of the game. They must be somehow put on the defensive. But why are we on our side so lost when it comes to doing this? Too often even the more politically incorrect at some point give in to PC and begin to protest that they are not ''racist'' or ''haters.'' Or worse, they start sniping at others farther to the right as a way of showing that they are not ''fascists'' or ''racists." This needs to stop.

There are a couple of common-sense responses that at least defend the existence of an 'English culture' which is identifiable. One such post seems to come from an American:

I think there is a definitive English folk music culture. I think this maybe the point of this
discussion. Certainly you could define the North Country Border rural music as "English" or areas such as Cornwall. There is an English ballad singing style. A.L. Lloyd or Ewan McColl has popularized it. Louis Killen as well. There seems to be a fiddling style that's unique to England.

I think Elizabethan Pro-Musica defines a tradition of Campion and Dowland which is
definitively English.

There is a Cockney music culture which as analogous to the city music halls of early America such as early Broadway or Second Avenue.

As in any country, there are regional styles that are a composite of the overall "culture".

As an outsider, I find that an English culture tends to be more subdued than the American one which is more bombastic like the German culture. These are gross generalizations, of course.

In the personalities on the stage, eccentricities of comics such as Monty Python,
the Goon Show, Spike Milligan, and even America's Danny Kaye seem to define a different emphasis on humor which tend toward the oddness of the characters. I think that English humor is different than in America which has more of a wise-cracking approach. The English appreciate the role of the clown in comedy. It's no accident that Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin instituted a brand of humor that is uniquely English in my opinion. I find the English Brit-coms equally reflective of British humor unlike the stuff from Stateside.

Ralph Vaughan Williams could not have originated in America, I believe. His music has
a distinctly English character as does Percy Grainger.

The tunes of Henry the Eighth typify an English musical approach. "Pastime with Good Company" could not have been written anywhere in the world except England.

Then there's the poets.

I think a strong case can be made for English culture citing these examples for a start.''

To me this is beyond obvious, and it is almost spooky how the British posters are so angry and aggressive in denying their own culture exists.

This behavior is groupthink at its most blatant, and is evidence of brainwashing. It really goes against all common-sense expectations for people to respond with hostility to the idea that their own people have a culture, that their ancestors created a distinct way of life. For people en masse to deny such things is just bizarre. It is not natural.

And lest anybody think I am criticizing British people too much, I can say we have more than our share of such brainwashed zombies in our country, sadly. If I am critical of the British in this context, it's only because I feel a strong affinity to them, based on common ancestry and history. All of us in America, even those who have no actual British ancestry, have partaken of a culture which has its origins in Great Britain, most specifically in England, so in a sense we are all a part of the extended family. So all of us should feel some distress over what is happening to Britain and to our cousins there, even though they seem not to want to own us as their kin.

I realize the commenters at that forum may be atypical; the 'folkies' I have known here and on the other side of the Atlantic are often, for some reason, rabid leftists. I posed a question before about why this is true, and I can't explain it fully. It makes no sense, on the face of it, to claim to love the traditional music of your people and country, and to care enough about preserving old songs, dances, and stories if you think that your country has in fact 'no culture of its own'. But leftists and liberals, it seems, are adept at holding many contradictory and nonsensical ideas at the same time.

The original poster is accused repeatedly of promoting a nostalgic view of 'Merrie England', which these cynics say never existed, or perhaps never should have existed. Why are leftists so cynical and hateful when it comes to the past? They seem to have declared all-out war on the past, and on memory, as I've said before. I am sometimes accused too of invoking an America that 'never was', a glamor-lensed view of old America. I realize the past is gone, and that no era or place is ever perfect. But by invoking the old America, I am not simply wallowing in teary nostalgia, but trying to awaken amnesiacs and try to bring them to their senses. Suppose an individual has amnesia (maybe it does happen outside movies sometimes) and has no recollection of who he is, where he comes from, where he belongs, and what he has accomplished? Our memory is a big part of who we are from moment to moment. Our memories define us to a great extent. We can't willfully forego our memories, erase our history, and still fully function as we are meant to be. So it is important to evoke the past in a warped world which denies and distorts that past.

I've quoted the following passage since the earliest days of this blog:

"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.
Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. " - Milan Hubl, quoted by Milan Kundera in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'

White Christmas

In our neck of the woods, we are expecting yet another winter storm, this time with considerably more snow, and high winds, unfortunately.

So far, we've been spared power outages, though we have been pummeled by a lot of winds and cold. So here's hoping and praying that we do not lose our power when these winds come through here tomorrow. Actually, the winds are kicking up now, as I write this, so if I fail to post on the weekend it will probably mean that I am not online, probably without power, due to this storm.

At any rate, it looks like a White Christmas is almost a certainty this year. I am no great fan of cold weather and snow, so I wouldn't be disappointed if the snow passed us by. I am actually dreaming not of a ''white Christmas'' but of a Christmas in sunnier climes in the not-too-distant future.

Meantime, I expect many of you are experiencing much the same as we are here, with the snow, ice, wind, and Arctic cold. Here's hoping all of you are safe and snug at home, and not having to be out on the treacherous roads this weekend, and that you are not finding yourselves without power or other such comforts.

The ideal man as seen in 1933

Here is an interesting view of men and male-female relationships as seen by actress Carole Lombard, in 1933.

It's quite a contrast to today's belief system according to the 21st century feminists, as cited in my recent post. But here's what Miss Lombard had to say:

"I like superior men," Carole Lombard says

By Carole Lombard

I could never admire a man unless he were superior to me in most ways, rather domineering in manner, and a much better player than worker.

To women who make their way in the world, directly competing with the homo sapiens, this may smack of lese majeste. So an explanation should be forthcoming.

In the process of evolution, affected by the sociologic scheme of things, man has had the advantage of development -- physically and mentally. This situation may be reversed a thousand years from now. But at present, with woman's emancipation a recent event, man is considered the superior animal....

Read the rest of the short piece at the link.

For those who are not classic movie fans as I am, and who thus don't know about Carole Lombard, you can read something of her here. She was one of the more fascinating actresses in a time when there were many memorable actresses (and actors) in Hollywood. She was a great beauty in her time, and she died a tragic death in a plane crash, leaving behind her grieving husband, Clark Gable.

She was known as something of a free spirit, very individualistic, and I suppose in today's world she might be classified as a feminist:

Carole was born Jane Alice Peters, 1908, the daughter of Frederic Peters and Elizabeth Knight. Jane Alice was a bold, little tomboy. The tag-a-long little sister of her two older brothers, Stuart (1905-1956) and Frederic (1902-1979), demanded to be included in all neighborhood baseball and football games... to be thought of as an equal.

But as you can see, believing in "equality" did not mean that she thought as feminists of today think.
It just illustrates how attitudes have changed since Lombard's time.

Many women of today look down on the women of her era as being downtrodden or unenlightened; I think the women of that era might beg to differ -- as do I.