UPDATE II: Review ‘Into The Cannibal’s Pot’ on Amazon (Homesteading in the New South Africa)

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, GUNS, Ilana Mercer, Literature, Propaganda, South-Africa, Technology

“Into the cannibal’s Pot is brilliant, exceeding all my expectations; it is very courageous of Ilana also to attack the whole notion of ‘democracy.’ This is a much-needed shot at a holy cow.”

– DAN ROODT, Ph.D., noted Afrikaner activist, author, literary critic, director at PRAAG.

The word about my book is spreading—and will continue to spread slowly. But not without your help. I’d like to take the opportunity to ask readers to please review the just-released “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa,” on Amazon.

Many of you have read “Into the Cannibal’s Pot.” Thank you for the glowing (if somber) messages sent via email and Facebook.

However, a better way to help my work and its mission is to post your reviews to Amazon. Us talking among ourselves will achieve nothing in raising awareness of the issues covered in depth and in detail in the book.

And you don’t have to have purchased the book from Amazon to review it on the site.

The Kindle, e-book version, is available from Amazon too. Please note that you can purchase the lower-cost Kindle copy of “The Cannibal” without having to own a Kindle – all you need is a PC. This hyperlink describes the free Amazon software application for the PC. So you do not require a gadget to read the book on Kindle.

I appreciate your help.

Thanks in advance,

ilana

UPDATE I: THE SILENCE OF CELEBRITIES. Abelard Lindsey: Yes, I read Wilbur Smith’s novels in my teens. How am I to know what he thinks of the reality, as I describe it in my book (which has 800 plus endnotes), or if he thinks about it at all? We know Charlize Theron doesn’t think too hard. Lots of celebrities don’t think. That doesn’t mean you, the reader, should follow suit. Or that you should deduce anything from the silence of celebrities. The fact that a rich dude has a farm in CT, where I’m from, does not mean the “area is not adversely affected.”

The rich are more likely to afford high-quality private security than the average South African, whose right to bears arms has been severely infringed. The sub-chapter titled “Your Home: The ANC’s Castle,” in Chapter One: “Crime, The Beloved Country,” tells of what remains of gun rights in South Africa.

Take your cues from South African celebrity and Afrikaner activist, Steve Hofmeyr.

UPDATE II (June 24): As readers pointed out, the Cape’s demographics are different (and I thought I could duck that one on the blog!) However, it is still a relatively high-crime province when compared to where I live in the Pacific Northwest.

And farms (as I document in my book) are always under threat of expropriation by stealth. How? A “tribe” squats on the farmers property, cuts the fences, steals the crops, kills the livestock in slow torturous ways (cutting the calf muscles…), and claims the land in the newly indigenized courts. That’s homesteading in the New South Africa.

Any animal activists out there? Care about animals? Read the section titled “Killing God’s Creatures” in Chapter 2 of Into the Cannibal’s Pot.

UPDATE V: ‘The Mainstreaming of Michelle Malkin’

Ann Coulter, Conservatism, Gender, Human Accomplishment, Media, Republicans

Given the perpetual parade of “intellectuals” who are not intelligent in our media—Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and the “parrot press”—I don’t expect many Americans to be familiar with political philosopher Paul E. Gottfried. Nevertheless, Paul (he’s a friend) is one of the most important intellectuals in the United States. In “The Mainstreaming of Michelle Malkin,” he writes:

“A recent syndicated column by Michelle Malkin indicates what happens to interesting conservative commentators when they sign on as GOP flacks: They become predictable Republican mouthpieces and attack dogs against the Dems. For years I read Michelle with delight as she railed against weak-kneed politicians in both parties. She was murder on Republicans as well as Democrats—indeed, on anyone who truckled to the Hispanic immigration lobby. Even more refreshingly, she never indulged any politicians who caterwauled about victimized minorities. Michelle happily banged around the NAACP and other groups that played the victim card. The fact that she’s Filipino may have allowed her to get away with some of her rhetoric, but I doubt that particular ethnic background has provided her with much benefit. Being a devoutly Catholic Filipino doesn’t bring much in the way of liberal grace. That identity is far less useful than being an angry black woman like Michelle Obama screaming against American white racism.
“Yes, there is corruption in the Democratic Party, but this disease is hardly limited to those who bear the ‘D’ label.”

Then I noticed Michelle editorializing against corruption in the Democratic Party. On December 10, 2008, she began her new career with a long screed for National Review Online on the “Democratic Culture of Corruption.” After a series of polemics against Reid, Pelosi, and Barney Frank on Fox and in the usual GOP venues, Michelle came out with a well-publicized book, The Culture of Corruption, thanks to the tiresomely Republican publishing house Regnery. …”

MORE.

While I agree with Paul—and have expressed similar misgivings, for example here and here— I still harbor some fondness for Malkin and Coulter. Yes, they are of and for the mainstream, but they both have talent.

Next, Paul needs to tackle the second-tier, mezzanine-level, Republican tart brain trust: SE Cupp, Margaret Hoover, and similar heavy hitting idiots, who’ve never uttered an original thought, and whose writing is like Ann Coulter’s vomit (to paraphrase Kevin Michael Grace).

UPDATE I: I have to disagree with Brett Gerasim on the wonderful job Mouths of the Republican mainstream are doing. Someone who spouts half-truths is still a wholesale liar. Moreover, he/she lacks the intellectual wherewithal to grasp the whole picture—of what a devotion to limited authority and republican virtues actually mean.

UPDATE II: Prof. Gottfried replies:

“Like Ilana, I would prefer to listen to Michelle or Ann than someone like Sean Hannity. But that’s not the issue I address in my commentary. What irks me is that perfectly intelligent and highly articulate conservative commentators have turned themselves into GOP hacks to advance their careers. This is not something that Ilana or I, even if we had the opportunity to sell out, would be likely to do. Moreover, Michelle and Ann would hardly be paupers even if they behaved with dignity and stopped kissing up to the GOP. They raked in loads of money before assuming their present abject roles. Although I’ve only heard him a few times, I have a much more positive impression of Mike Savage, who is quite happy to sock it to both of our zombie parties. Savage does not look as if he’s hurting financially because he’s failed to line up.”
Paul

UPDATE III: I think Paul takes for granted his analytical gifts. My good friend imagines that these women are capable of his insights, but are holding back. But anyone with such well-honed herd instincts is not that bright. Both are brighter than average, but that’s not saying much in “Age of the idiot,” as my father has termed the times in which we live.

Coulter is smarter than Malkin. Malkin believes every warring word she’s ever uttered. Ditto Monica Crowley, who is no fool, but is a statist to the core. These ladies are limited in their analytical capacities and in their individualism. Their integrity is also capped.

UPDATE IV (June 24): MONICA MINDLESS? I made a horrible mistake. Prof. Gottfried was kind enough to correct me:

“I agree with your update. By the way, I knew Monica Crowley when she was still serving drinks for Richard Nixon during my visits to the former president’s home in New Jersey. She is far less clever and pretty than Michelle or Ann. Paul.”

UPDATED: McCain: Serial Killer By Proxy

Foreign Policy, John McCain, Neoconservatism, War

McCain was interviewed on Fox News practically pleading with Barack Obama to bring the matter of war in Libya to Congress. Why do you suppose McCain is craving congressional approval for America’s latest losing war? McMussolini’s just an old-fashioned neocon. He can’t wait for BHO to legitimize a war he’d like to take to the next level. (I’d provide a link if Fox New believed in the written word.)

George Will let’s McCain off lightly. He dubs him a “promiscuous interventionist”—rather than a serial killer by proxy.

Will has taken a long time to wake up. But better late than never: “Elevating the fallacy of the false alternative to a foreign policy, John McCain and a few others believe Republicans who oppose U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war — and who think a decade of warfare in Afghanistan is enough — are isolationists. This is less a thought than a flight from thinking, which involves making sensible distinctions.

Last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain warned that the GOP has always had “an isolation strain.” He calls it “the Pat Buchanan wing,” which he contrasts with “the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people all over the world. …Is Jim Webb an isolationist? Virginia’s Democratic senator, who was Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, discusses Libya with a trenchancy that befits a decorated Marine combat veteran (Vietnam) and that should shame reticent Republicans:

“Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere, as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress, as we did in Grenada in 1983? No, we were not.”

McCain, however, says we must achieve regime change in Libya because if Gaddafi survives, he will try to “harm” America. This is always the last argument for pressing on with imprudent interventions (see Vietnam, circa 1969): We must continue fighting because we started fighting.

UPDATE (June 23): Here is the McCain interview with Hannity. He also said that bringing the troops home from Afghanistan will put them at risk. You can see where Meghaaaann gets her brains.

UPDATE I: US Engineering & Egalitarian Education

Barack Obama, Bush, Business, Education, Europe, Feminism, Human Accomplishment, Israel, Labor, Technology

I heard it said that in the US there are two types of engineers: overworked or unemployed. A tough economy would indeed force increases in productivity: fewer and fewer workers are doing more and more of work. But there’s something else at play. It comports with what Eric Spiegel, chief executive in the US for Siemens, has exposed:

There’s a mismatch between the jobs that are available, at least in our portfolio, and the people that we see out there,” Mr Spiegel told the Financial Times. “There is a shortage (of workers with the right skills.)” … a recent survey from Manpower, the employment agency, found that 52 percent of leading US companies reported difficulties in recruiting essential staff, up from 14 percent in 2010.

German education is known for its rigor and high standards. But more importantly: The Germans run the same sort of schools I attended growing up in Israel, where, because no pedagogue believes all kids are created equal, students are streamed into different tracks.

Wikipedia:

… German secondary education includes five types of school. The Gymnasium is designed to prepare pupils for university education and finishes with the final examination Abitur, after grade 12 or 13. The Realschule has a broader range of emphasis for intermediate pupils and finishes with the final examination Mittlere Reife, after grade 10; the Hauptschule prepares pupils for vocational education and finishes with the final examination Hauptschulabschluss, after grade 9 or 10 and the Realschulabschluss after grade 10. There are two types of grade 10: one is the higher level called type 10b and the lower level is called type 10a; only the higher level type 10b can lead to the Realschule and this finishes with the final examination Mittlere Reife after grade 10b. This new path of achieving the Realschulabschluss at a vocationally-oriented secondary school was changed by the statutory school regulations in 1981 – with a one-year qualifying period. During the one-year qualifying period of the change to the new regulations, pupils could continue with class 10 to fulfil the statutory period of education. After 1982, the new path was compulsory, as explained above. Other than this, there is the Gesamtschule, which combines the approaches. There are also Förderschulen/Sonderschulen. One in 21 pupils attends a Förderschule.[2][3] Nevertheless the Förderschulen/Sonderschulen can also lead, in special circumstances, to a Hauptschulabschluss of both type 10a or type 10b, the latter of which is the Realschulabschluss. German children only attend school in the morning. There is no provision for serving lunch. There is a lot more homework, heavy emphasis on the “three R’s” and very few extracurricular activities.

The secondary school I attended (I grew up in Israel) provided a vocational track, just like German schools do, where kids with no academic aptitude acquired useful skills and graduated with a diploma in woodwork, welding, sewing, etc. The academically inclined were also streamed into grades in accordance with aptitude. You could take math, for example, on different levels of difficulty. We had a special math genius class of 5 kids with super high IQs. Nobody pretended everyone was equal. Kids were kept busy with the kind of work that was best suited to their abilities, not egos.

On the other hand, “evidence of how stupid American students (and teachers) are has been slowly amassing. The creeping cretinism is confirmed by reports like “A Nation at Risk.” Especially indicative are the below-international-average scores of 17-year-olds. One out of four children is dropping out and not graduating. High schools have been so dumbed down that even average students sit bone idle. Fully 50 percent of students with IQs that border on mental retardation manage to pass. Unlike our European counterparts, American universities, colleges and even corporations spend a fortune on teaching students elementary things they should have learned in high school. College professors attest to a decline in the quality of students entering colleges.” (“THE WORM IN THE APPLE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION”)

In the US of Obama’s “Yes We Can” and Bush’s “No Child Left Behind,” all kids are treated as equally able. If a subject appeals to a certain cohort—or selects for smarts—why then, we cancel it; make it fun by sucking out the hard work required to master it; make it girl/minority/Deep-Space-alien friendly. New Math replaces eternal math; social studies does away with history, etc.

Look, libertarians, yes, public schools and unions are a big part of the problem. As important, however, is the country’s progressive pedagogic philosophy, which dominates in private schools as well.

We’ve ditched canon and core curriculum. We’re replaced reason with sentimentality and attitude. We’ve manned our schools with females to the exclusion of strong male role models. I would not wish to be the parent of a young, hyper-active boy drawn to the hard sciences, in schools full of females, bent on promoting every mythical, politically correct orthodoxy that pervades the Zeitgeist.

What Herr Spiegel has observed is the end result of decades of these low or no standards.

UPDATE I (June 21): Abelard Lindsey: My sources confirm your point about HR. But you’re wrong about the MBA managers. They are no better: these are technically clueless individuals, hot-housed in America’s pinko business schools, who have no place screening for technical and temperamental competence. However, America’s most famed corporations have screening processes that go on for days and have a candidate interview in front of many higher-ups. One particularly brilliant friend, a genius who works for Apple, was regaled for days with the intellectual equivalent of a special ops training unit. He loved every minute of it. (I would have crumbled.)

Alas, the largest and richest corporation work a lot like government, the connections between private property and profits having been long since loosened. These giants consist of many fiefdoms, layered with deadwood, and governed often by nepotistic hiring practices. It takes massive failures, as Microsoft’s Kin project surely was, to instigate some corrections (but seldom any firings).