Email to New Culture Forum, from a concerned citizen

 Dear New Culture Forum,

I am a great admirer of your channel on YouTube, but was bemused by a recent piece you ran on the Telford grooming scandal. I missed the names of the two guests, but I gather one is a pundit and one a politician.

You discussed the Telford situation, as disgraceful as it is, for almost 12 minutes, and you did not once mention Tommy Robinson's video, nor Peter McLoughlin's book Easy Meat.

The only time Robinson was mentioned was when the woman said 'Tommy Robinson types' and the guy with the specs said 'Right-wing nutters'.

As a 'Right-wing nutter', myself, and having once been fired from a job for taking one simple phone call from Robinson, I appreciate the problem of association with a tainted brand. I am one, writing as I do for American Renaissance, Counter Currents, VDare, Taki's Magazine, New English Review and The Occidental Observer. People like yourselves are wary of even replying to people like me. I wonder if you will acknowledge this email...

I am currently having the same problem with Laurence's Fox's Reclaim Party. They won't speak to me, despite my obvious championing of their recent documentary Groomed. I would say the same thing to you I said to Fox. You will never be important enough to make big political deals with the devil, but on the way to wherever you are going, you will need to make lots of little deals with lots of little devils. People like Robinson. And like me.

You have a great channel with excellent guests. Peter Whittle is the ideal host. Hitchens Minor, Simon Webb, Kelly-Jay Keen, all great and vital interviews. But you would never have Robinson on, I suspect. Toby Young displays the same ambivalence. I asked him many times whether he would allow Robinson to join the Free Speech Union. Answer came there none.

When you fight for free speech, it is not just the right of some dullard to post transgender memes on a gormless idiot's agora like Twitter that you are going out to bat for. You get people like Robinson and me, too. We are part of the package.

That said, keep up the good work.

You can read a piece of mine on Robinson's video here.

Regards,

Mark Gullick PhD

Shameless self-promotion made easy

 

The author's office, earlier today

Three pieces have been published by the present writer in the last three days. The first two concern the fall of Boris Johnson, the first being at Counter Currents below;

https://counter-currents.com/2022/07/death-of-a-ladies-man/

The second is at Taki's Magazine below;

https://www.takimag.com/article/the-boris-johnson-show-is-over/

Finally, if you still crave more, here is a new monthly column at VDare focussing on UK immigration;

https://vdare.com/articles/union-jackal-on-u-k-immigration-five-items-diversity-is-fraud-asylum-seekers-to-nigeria-etc

And that's it for the week, good people.

The gathering storm

 

America, earlier today (1819)

The first volume of Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the Second World War was entitled The Gathering Storm, and the phrase seems eerily appropriate for what is happening across America - and the rest of the West, perhaps to a lesser extent - as we approach the end of this century's first quarter.

America seems to have a death wish, which can be good neither for itself or the rest of the West. It used to be said that when America sneezed, the world caught a cold. What happens if, rather than sneezing, America tries to blow her brains out or, rather more accurately, slowly apply the garrote to her own throat?

Where Trump was not allowed to govern, hobbled by the deep state, Biden has been helped in his administration's ruinous policies - which are more like dereliction of duty than positive steps to save a nation - by a compliant media, a puppet FBI/CIA, and dark game players such as George Soros. This cannot end well, and I have written previously about the apparent imminence of American Civil War 2.0. The gathering storm, indeed.

Crime is not treated as such and punishment is an insult to victims. Take this very recent case of a Dominican bodega worker in Harlem who fatally stabbed an assailant who was beating him up for the apparent crime of not selling his girlfriend potato chips (she also drew a knife). After the criminal (who, as you might expect, had a long criminal record) died in hospital, the bodega clerk was charged with murder. Message from the government? You can't defend yourself, and that's before we come for your guns.

The police have been defanged by the almost surreal campaign to defund them after the BLM riots, and also opposed by Soros-funded Democrat DAs, who give sentences so laughable and insulting you wonder if they are testing the bounds of how far they can go.

The British police have been similarly neutered, but not by defunding, far from it. No, British cops have plenty of money to spend on policing gay pride parades, painting their patrol cars in rainbow colours, and arresting people and handing out 20-week jail sentences to ex-cops for mean Tweets about George Floyd. The British police are unlikely to visit your home if it has been burgled, but Tweet that a woman is an adult human female, and you can expect a visit and possibly court and jail to follow. We have gone back to the future, and it is dated 1984.

So, we have all the elements of classic anarcho-tyranny, and the question is, at what point to people fight back against the state?

Consolidate your relationships and the cadres you are with, because if the current rate of social dysfunction continues, you may well need them. The storm is indeed gathering.

Hungary a year ago

 It is time for some back-catalogue, to give those of you who are new here a chance to see the style and tempo of the writing. Here is a piece of mine about Hungary and its President, Viktor Orban, just over a year ago...

www.takimag.com/article/respect-hungary/

The king is dead

 

Since the start of the 20th century, until today, nine British Prime Ministers had resigned from the highest political position in the kingdom. Just two of them were from the Labour Party, the infamous duo of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

On the Conservative list of those who stepped down, we find some big political hitters, although these tend to tail off to become ineffectual political careerists as we move into the 21st century. Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and David Cameron all fell on their respective swords, meaning that the last five British PMs have all jumped before they were pushed. Actually, make that 10 Prime Ministers and eight Tories.

Boris Johnson tendered his resignation today over a tawdry affair concerning a homosexual he promoted despite being aware (which he lied about) of the man's proclivities. Johnson's resignation speech was surprisingly jaunty, confirming my suspicions that he was getting bored with the job. He is a flighty, insubstantial man who has an estimated seven children with different women.

On the subject of women, Johnson's irritating wife will be vacating Number 10 Downing Street, which is a blessing. It is an ill-kept secret that she was the eminence grise behind a uxorious Johnson and tempted him into the absurd green nonsense that seemed to consume so much of his waking time.

He never really seemed as though he was that interested in the job, after the initial glamour faded. There is a sense with Johnson that he got to the top of the tree just because he thought he was fated to, but once there he found tenure dull and stressful. I suspect he misses the boozy lunches and office banter which would have been his environment when he was editor of Britain's oldest political magazine, The Spectator.

Johnson went through one of the standard routes for the upper classes entering politics, Eton College and Oxford University. Past Prime Ministers of note who attended the same two famous institutions include Cameron, Macmillan, Eden and Gladstone. Oxford and Cambridge are essentially Harvard and Yale but way, way older. These are the people who genuinely believe they were born to rule.

As to who the Conservative Party will foist on a weary public is anyone's guess. As recession starts to bite, as it surely will, the premiership may prove to be a poisoned chalice. On the other hand, the size of political egos can never be discounted, and the runners and riders are beginning to jostle in the stalls.

I was pleased to see Steve Baker announce that he may well run. Mr. Baker is a young man, plain speaking and energetic, and is actually a Conservative, which means that the deep state will never allow him anywhere near 10 Downing Street.

We will just have to wait and watch the latest chapter in Great Britain's decline.

Modernising the Mythos

Leda and the swan, earlier today

It is well known even to the non-classical scholar that the Greeks, and to a lesser extent the Romans, lived largely according to their founding myths. The Greeks had Homer, of course, but also, if you consult Robert Graves's seminal work account in The Greek Myths, there are literally hundreds of these fables. Tens of dozens of mythological characters, gods metamorphosing into animals, tricks played, battles fought above the clouds, the citizens of Olympus, the gods themselves.

Now, in an essentially godless Western world, one would assume that any founding myths Europeans, the British, or the Americans ever had would be long gone, and in a way that's true. Certainly, as history is erased by a new generation of cultural wreckers, Western man becomes increasingly untethered from his past, mythological or not.

But mankind cannot live without its myths, and if none exist it is necessary to invent them. Sadly, rather than having any charm or sense of wonder, these instituted 'truths'. have a grimly proletariat feel about them, a greasy appearance, a tawdry mythos. They have nothing of nobility about them, and instead reek of the hustle and the grift, the con-trick and the sting.

Let's examine a few modern myths, all instituted by the political Left in its new incarnation. Let's take some at random.

1. There is a racist police force in America routinely beating and killing blacks in unprovoked attacks.

2. A man can become a woman, and vice versa, simply by choosing to designate themselves as such. This new identity holds good at the level of the individual as legal entity.

3. Islam is a religion of peace.

4. White people are de facto racists simply by virtue of being white.

5. Blacks cannot be racist.

6. Words are the equivalent to physical violence.

7. Any public or historical figure even remotely connected with slavery cannot be allowed to remain in the historical narrative.

8. Men can become pregnant.

9. Children can decide their gender as young as five years old.

10. Many of the world's most important inventions were made by black people.

Now we see what happens when a society is allowed to formulate its own mythology without the expert guidance of the wisdom of the ages. Zeus may not actually have turned into a swan in order to seduce Leda, but at least we can draw an educational moral from the story about the nature of seduction and subterfuge.

From the (post-) modern inventory above it, you can draw little at all except a sense of despair.

Dixie redux

A dress rehearsal?

A recent report from an American university makes the extraordinary claim that 28% of Americans believe that it will, at some point, be necessary to take up arms against the government. Granted, this report is not out of Harvard or Yale, but it is out of the University of Chicago, and if they don't know a thing or two about violence, no one does.

Well, this goes some way to explain why the government are trying so desperately to annul the Second Amendment and take away your guns. Over a quarter of you want to march up Capitol Hill carrying something a bit more potent than a flaming brand and a pitchfork.

If there is a second civil war - and I have pointed out its distinct possibility for years - then it will not be over slavery but wider cultural and political concerns. This administration - and those in Europe have followed suit - has made it as plain as a pikestaff (as the English used to say) that they despise anyone patriotic, anyone who does not agree with modern teaching methods, anyone who wants less, and more controlled, immigration, wants (in the USA) to hold on for dear life to the First and Second Amendments, anyone who believes in biological gender and anyone who is not happy to suckle the teat of the state.

And the only way to make them change their minds might be to take up arms.

One thing we know to a certainty, in a situation of urban and rural struggle, the soy-sipping, NYT-reading, post-feminist academic fussing about personal pronouns is not going to fare as well as a man who can build his own log cabin. This is increasingly looking like the preppers were right, and a lot of people are in for a rude awakening once the law of the jungle kicks in.

The stakes in the first American Civil War were the Union. What are stakes in the second? Cultural hegemony? If you lost that to begin with, that was your fault. No, it is a good deal more basic than that. Victory to the right side would enable them to do something that has needed doing across the West for some time - slap a few faces, knock a few heads together, and generally beat some sense into people who threaten the very possibility of a decent life for decent people.

The hottest ticket in town

Ron De Santis pondering my suggestion, earlier today

There has been much speculation as to whether Donald Trump will run for President of the United States in 2024. It is the Democrats' greatest fear, of course, because Trump is not part of the political class but an interloper, an intruder, part gate-crasher, part insurrectionist, all threat.

His main opponent would appear to be Governor of Florida Ron De Santis. He has stuck to simple policies which are straightforward enough for ordinary people to follow and evaluate, and he has refused to bow down to the toxic ideologies currently affecting schools and public administration.

It would be a shame if the two men cancelled one another out, although the loser would be assured of a position of influence in the new administration. And that was what set me to thinking...

The role of Vice President of the USA has always been a complete mystery to me. If they did any less the post would almost become ceremonial, like the Lord Mayor of London or the homecoming queen. But what if the position were overhauled and given new vigour and purpose? What if the VP were given a dynamic, an accelerant, an active role to play in government.

And then what if you went out on a De Santis/Trump ticket?

It's brilliant, like all the best plans. The media are so deranged over Trump that he would draw their fire and allow De Santis to govern. Trump would be free to broker deals, which is what he does best. You wouldn't give Trump little chores, as are being found to occupy Kamala Harris's time, you would give him the range and the remit to identify problems and task-force them. Get the best people in. Thomas Sowell as economic advisor, Ayaan Hirsi Ali as cultural advisor, Peter Boghossian as cultural advisor.

Of course, this would all depend on Trump's ego, which is not modest. But if he really loved America, as he says he does, he would see that this is the way ahead for Conservatism.

If it happens, you read it here first.

Auditing the self

 

The Scientology E-Meter

The Church of Scientology is an organization whose ideas many people would find outlandish, but one of their techniques is worth our attention. Scientologists use auditing as part of their program. Auditing is more familiar to us in the context of the stock of a business or the trading accounts of a charity. My local store, for example, always has a minimum of one person checking stock, making notes, auditing. The store is on permanent hyper-audit.

But is it possible to audit the self? Scientology has auditors, mentor figures, who oversee the auditing. Indeed, we have auditors throughout our lives. Parents, teachers, priests, therapists - all these people audit us, take stock of us and report back, hopefully so that we can better ourselves.

But can a person audit himself? The first and most obvious objection to self-auditing - autognosis, as I've termed it - is confirmation basis. That is, to quote Paul Simon, a man hears what he wants to hear and he disregards the rest. We are anxious to review and revel in our more positive character traits. The other stuff? Not so keen, perhaps.

But taking stock of yourself and being honest about it remains both a possibility and something devoutly to be desired. There is the proviso that it is not always advisable to go too far into the cave of the self. You don't know what you might find there. Knowing oneself isn't necessarily a trip to the sunlit uplands, but can equally be a descent down cold and mossy stone steps that lead to the cellar.

So it is instructive to remember that when Socrates visited the oracle at Delphi, and read the famous inscription 'Know thyself', there was a second injunction, 'Everything in moderation'. If these two clauses are run together, we are being instructed, with Socrates as our proxy, to know ourselves in moderation.

But self-knowledge is possible and desirable. As noted in previous episodes, if things outside your window take a turn for the worse, it will be a useful tool to know your own strengths and weaknesses. So, self-audit. You never know what you might turn up, provided you are honest with yourself.