Category Archives: America

NEW COLUMN: Bleeding Russia Dry And Then Next ‘Color Revolution’

America, Culture, Foreign Policy, Just War, Music, Russia, Sex, The West

NEW COLUMN, now on WorldNetDaily, The Unz Review, and the New American, is “Bleeding Russia Dry And Then Next Color Revolution,” wherein a distinction is made between a “justification” for war and a “reason” for war, I ponder whether Putin’s avid patriotism is matched by that of a younger Russian generation, and dole out some love for Tsarist Russia and Tchaikovsky.

Excerpt:

… A trickier question for those of us on the Old Right is this: Putin is a Russian patriot. This, in-depth interviews with the Russian president amply evince. He adores and is deeply acquainted with the nation’s “ancient faith,” its history and traditions. But could it be that we of the Old Russell Kirk Right, nostalgic for the very same things absent in our own societies, are romanticizing the Russian people? This writer shares Dr. Cathey’s love of Tsarist Russia’s great culture before communism. (Boyd says Rachmaninov; I say Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique,” his Symphony No. 6 is a singularly intense and sublime expression of the agonies of the individual, caught between salvation, sin and love of Mother Russia.)

But is this same sensibility present in younger Russians? No doubt, Putin is steeped in Russian culture. But do younger Russians share his traditionalism? True, very many hate communism, but that hatred is devoid of a civilizational dimension. I fear younger Russians are already in the market for a Western life filled with sexual titillation and consumerism. …

… The Rest of “Bleeding Russia Dry And Then Next Color Revolution” is on WorldNetDaily,  The Unz Review, and the New American.

 

 

UPDATED (4/30) On Patriotism, The Psychopath Teddy Roosevelt, And On America’s Best Presidents

America, Argument, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Founding Fathers, History, Nationalism, The State

I just noticed how much junk appears on my LinkedIn feed. Not sure why. I’m never there.

This, Alexander Duncan’s, post is collectivism, pure and simple. Good patriotism ought to mean standing by those select individual members of a commonwealth who deserve it—certainly not all of them, within or without the State. The “little platoons” of America, as Edmund Burke described a man’s social mainstay—his family, friends, coreligionists, coworkers—would be a better object for “patriotism.”

“We are the greatest nation” nonsense is of a piece with this categorical confusion. Are our founding documents great? Yes. Were the Founding Fathers great men, especially the anti-Federalists? Yes. Are the preponderance of people currently residing on the landmass that is America great? No longer.

As to Teddy 1, Theodore Roosevelt: He was not happy unless he was killing something. Like any good psychopath, this politician began with animals, starting, I believe, with shooting a neighbor’s dog when he was 20. He kept it up at obscene levels. See here.

Ivan Eland, author of “Recarving Rushmore,” has “ranked the presidents on peace, prosperity, and liberty”:

When you get down to the brass tacks of which American presidents most embodied the values of peace, prosperity, and liberty (PP & L), you find only few—a handful really—acted wisely, avoided unnecessary wars, “demonstrated restrain in economic crisis” and foreign affairs, practiced free-market capitalism and favored hard money; opposed big government and welfare, and limited executive and federal power.

Ranked No. 1 is the stellar John Tyler. He ended “the worst Indian wars in US history,” practiced restraint in an international dispute, “opposed big government and protected states’ powers.”

Grover Cleveland is second, as an “exemplar of honesty and limited government.”

Martin van Buren excelled—especially in rejecting economic stimulus and national debt and balancing budgets. He ranks third.

Rutherford B. Hayes is fourth. Likewise, he didn’t just preach but practiced capitalism and advocated for black voting rights, while recognizing the ruthlessness of Reconstruction.

UPDATE (4/30):  For those to whom Reconstruction is a new term, here: “The Radical Republicans: The Antifa Of 1865“:

…Although Republicans shared “the drive toward revolution and national unification” (the words of historian Clyde Wilson, in The Yankee Problem, 2016), the Radicals distinguished themselves in their support for sadistic military occupation of the vanquished Rebel States, following the War Between the States.

While assorted GOP teletarts may find the rhetoric of Radical Republicans sexy; overall, these characters are villains of history, for helping to sunder the federal scheme bequeathed by the Founding Fathers. In their fanatical fealty to an almighty central government, Radical Republicans were as alien to the Jeffersonian tradition of self-government as it gets.

Today’s Republicans should know that the Radical Republicans were hardly heartbroken about the assassination of Lincoln, on April 14, 1865. A mere month earlier (March 4, 1865)—and much to the chagrin of the Radicals—Lincoln had noodled, in his billowing prose, about the need to “bind up the nation’s wounds and proceed with “malice toward none … and charity for all.”

Radical Republicans were having none of that charity stuff. They promptly placed their evil aspirations in Andrew Johnson. A President Johnson, they had hoped, would be a suitable sockpuppet in socking it to the South some more. ….

… MORE.

UPDATED (4/10): NEW COLUMN & VIEWING: U.S. Cancels Countries, Kills Ancient Concept Of Neutrality

America, Ancient History, Foreign Policy, Globalism, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Race, Russia, The West, War

NEW COLUMN  IS “U.S. Cancels Countries, Kills Ancient Concept Of Neutrality.” It is now featured on WND.COM , The Unz Review, The New American, CNSNews. and American Renaissance, where “Ukrainian Refugees and Race” as a “Look-Away Issue” was the focus.

Excerpt:

… what do you know! Some countries have opted for political neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, choosing the classically liberal position—it opposes sanctions, as these are as useless in achieving political ends as they are ruthless in their effects on the most vulnerable. As far as their ultimate outcome—embargoed are counterproductive. What works is high-level diplomacy.

Chief among the countries that wish to remain politically neutral toward Russia and commercially engaged with it—while urging a diplomatic resolution to the conflict—are Hungary, Serbia (which sagely “bans its citizens from fighting in conflicts abroad”), China and India.

Spurred on by puppet President Volodymyr Zelensky and his American puppeteers, these countries, especially China and India, have been menaced by the Biden administration for maintaining military and commercial ties with Russia.

The concept of neutrality is an important part of Western Civilization. As expounded in one scholarly tract, “the concept of respect for neutrals appears early in Greek history and remains a nearly constant feature of Classical wars.”

By threatening to punish nations for practicing detached political neutrality in the matter of Ukraine and Russia, even as these neutrals call for comity between countries, and urge a diplomatic, peaceful resolution to the conflagration, things China and India have done—The Empire is working to sunder, as in obliterate, the time-honored, civilizing concept of political neutrality. Judging from its silence, the Stupid Party seconds the Evil Party on the matter. …

… THE REST. U.S. Cancels Countries, Kills Ancient Concept Of Neutrality” is on WND.COM and The Unz Review, The New American, CNSNews and American Renaissance.

WATCH “U.S. Cancels Countries; Kills Ancient, Civilizing Concept Of Neutrality” & SUBSCRIBE:

UPDATED (4/10): Recommended is the geopolitical analysis of Brazilian Pepe Escobar, once an analyst for quite a few leftist publications, now confined to the few outposts of critical thinking remaining.

WATCH: It’s Biblical, Zelensky: The Little Guy Must Deal With Reality; Not Bolster Hero Bona Fides

America, Argument, Ethics, EU, Foreign Policy, Morality, Natural Law

I never though I’d say this, but, if one is wedded to reality as I am—there is a place for Benthamite utilitarianism, however much natural-rights sorts like me dislike Jeremy Bentham’s reasoning.

AT ANY RATE, A LETTER IN RESPONSE TO THE YOUTUBE VIDEO I RECORDED TODAY elicited this rather utilitarian reaction from me. (I lost the letter in the posting-and-replying activity, so perhaps the viewer and writer, a critic, will be kind enough to repost it here at YouTube.)

Having covered and commented on this crisis since 2014, I will repeat the plain reality the commentary was supposed to convey and elucidate:

Ukraine is the little guy. As those Biblical examples offered were meant to vividly illustrate; the Little Weak Guy must deal with reality; not bolster his hero bona fides. For Volodymyr Zelensky, dealing with reality and discharging his duties as a leader ought to have meant engaging with Putin personally and respectfully long before the invasion.

HE CATEGORICALLY DID NOT. Instead, he played footsie with fickle America and kept baiting the Russian Bear. Now his people suffer. That’s a FAIL. The End.

WATCH THE VIDEO & SUBSCRIBE:

It’s Biblical, Zelensky: A Leader Who Fails To Negotiate For The Lives Of His People Has Failed

Columns on Ukraine:

https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/true-story-russia-finds-wmd-ukraine/
https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/uncle-sam-still-king-invaders-ukraine-realpolitik-wests-failure/
https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/01/neocons-neolibs-nato-inch-us-closer-nuclear-war-russia/
https://www.ilanamercer.com/2014/02/presstitute-cultivated-ignorance-on-ukraine/

Please Subscribe to the “Hard Truth” Video Podcast, where Ukraine has been covered (and which I enjoy much more than “speaking solo to the camera“):

https://rumble.com/c/HardTruthPodcast
https://rumble.com/vx058f-true-story-russia-finds-wmd-in-ukraine.html
https://rumble.com/vw897h-russia-to-us-on-ukraine-pot.-kettle.-black..html
https://rumble.com/vtea18-neocons-neolibs-and-nato-inch-us-closer-to-nuclear-war-with-russia.html

Peace to all—especially to the poor Ukrainians, failed by the US and by their US-co-opted leaders.