An Attack on Edward Said’s Legacy

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by Lawrence Davidson

Part I—Meeting Caroline Glick

I traveled to Israel and the Occupied Territories in the early 2000s with the progressive group Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. We made an effort to gain insight into most of the players in the conflict, and so a series of interviews was arranged with members of the Israeli right wing. I remember that one of them was Caroline Glick, an ardent American-Israeli Zionist. She lectured us on the positive personal relationships allegedly prevalent between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. 

It was an interesting and somewhat embarrassing experience. Glick and I are both American and both Jewish. Growing up, I had this understanding that American plus Jewish always meant being anti-racist. To be so was, in my mind, the prime lesson of modern Jewish history. What being anti-racist meant to Glick was unclear. She spent the better part of an hour giving us a defense of Israeli-Jewish treatment of Palestinians based on the classic “some of my best friends are Black” (read Palestinian) defense. In the words of the New York Times journalist John Eligon, this line of argument “has so often been relied on by those facing accusations of racism that it has become shorthand for weak denials of bigotry—a punch line about the absence of thoughtfulness and rigor in our conversations about racism.” And so it was with Glick, who explained that she, and many other Israeli Jews, had Palestinians who do small jobs for them and are treated well, and that this proves a lack of cultural and societal racism. It was such a vacuous argument that I remember feeling embarrassed for her. 

Things haven’t gotten much better when it comes to Ms. Glick’s worldview. She is now a senior columnist at Israel Hayom (Israel Today, a pro-Netanyahu newspaper owned by the family of Sheldon Anderson) and contributor to such questionable U.S. outlets as Breitbart News. Shealso directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. There can be little doubt that she continues to see the world through the distorting lens of a particularly hardline variant of Zionism.  

Part II—Glick’s Attack on Edward Said’s Legacy 

Recently, Caroline Glick launched an attack on the legacy of the late American-Palestinian scholar and teacher Edward Said. Entitled “Edward Said, Prophet of Political Violence in America,” it was recently (7 July 2020) published in the U.S. by Newsweek—a news magazine with an increasingly pro-Zionist editorial stand. As it turns out, one cannot find a better example of how ideology can distort one’s outlook to the point of absurdity. Below is an analysis of Glick’s piece in a point-by-point fashion. Ultimately, the ideological basis for her argument will become clear. 

1. Glick begins by resurrecting a twenty-year-old event. “On July 3, 2000, an incident occurred along the Lebanese border with Israel that, at the time, seemed both bizarre and … unimportant. That day, Columbia University professor Edward Said was photographed on the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese side of the border with Israel throwing a rock at an Israel Defense Forces watchtower 30 feet away.” She goes on to describe this act as “Said’s rock attack on Israel” and the “soldiers protecting their border.”

We need some context to put all of this in perspective: Israel is an expansionist state, and the original Zionist aim (as presented to the Paris Peace Conference following World War I) was to incorporate parts of southern Lebanon into what is now Israel. Southern Lebanon also briefly became a staging area for Palestinian retaliatory attacks into Israel. Thus, Israel invaded Lebanon multiple times only to be forced to withdraw in the face of resistance led by Hezbollah, a strong Lebanese Shiite militia in control of much of southern Lebanon.  

Said relates that during his 2000 visit to the Lebanese border with his family, he threw a pebble (not a “rock”) at a deserted Israeli watchtower (no Israeli soldiers were “defending their border”).  Said saw this as a symbolic act of defiance against Israeli occupation. Over the years stone throwing by Palestinian youth had become just such a symbolic act. And, it was from their example that Said might have taken his cue.

2. However, Glick wants to draw highly questionable consequences from Said’s act. She tells us that “with the hindsight of 20 years, it was a seminal moment and a harbinger for the mob violence now taking place in many parts of America.” By the way, the “mob violence” in America she is referring to is the mass protests against police brutality that followed the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on 25 May 2020.

3. Now that sounds a bit odd. How does Glick manage this segue from Edward Said’s symbolic stone toss in the year 2000 to nationwide inner-city rebellions against police brutality in 2020 America? Here is the contorted sequence she offers: 

a. Said was a terrorist because he was an influential member of the alleged “terrorist organization,” the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). “Terrorist organization” is a standard Zionist descriptor of most Palestinian organizations. Actually, the PLO is the legally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and as such has carried on both a armed and a diplomatic struggle to liberate Palestine from Israeli Occupation. In 1993, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist. This made little difference to the Zionist right wing who, like Glick, continued to use the terrorist tag for propaganda purposes. It is to be noted that all liberation movements are considered to be “terrorist” by those they fight against. And, indeed both sides in such a struggle usually act in this fashion on occasion. Certainly, Israel is no innocent in this regard. 

b. For Glick, Said’s alleged terrorist connection transforms his “rock attack” into a terrorist act. This is simply an ad hominem assertion on Glick’s part. There is no evidence that Said ever engaged in any act, including the tossing of stones, that can sanely be characterized as terrorism.

c. Glick tells us that, at the same time Said was ‘committing a terrorist attack’ on Israel, he was also “the superstar of far-Left intellectuals.” It is hard to know what she means here by “far-Left.” It is seems to be another ad hominem slander. Said was a scholar of Comparative Literature and, when not in the classroom, he advocated for the political and human rights of oppressed Palestinians—how “far-Left” is that?

d. Nonetheless, Glick goes on to assert that as a “far-Left” academic, Said waged a “nihilistic” and “anti-intellectual” offensive against Western thought. He did so in a well-known work entitled Orientalism published in 1978.

What does Orientalism actually say? Using mostly 19th century literary and artistic examples, the book documents the prevailing Western perception of the Near East and North Africa, which stands in for the Orient. This perception reflects a basically bipolar worldview—one which, according to Said, reserved for the West a superior image of science and reason, prosperity and high culture, and for the Orient an inferior somewhat mysterious and effeminate image of the “other” fated for domination by the West. Over time this view became pervasive in the West and influenced not only literary and artistic views of the Orient, but also impacted political, historical, anthropological and other non-fictional interpretations. Having helped create a superior sense of self, this orientalist perception served as a rationale for Western world dominance. It should be said that whether one agrees with every one of Said’s details or not, there is no doubt his well researched and documented work has made most scholars more aware of their biases.

e. Glick refuses to see Orientalism asjust an influential academic work. Instead, in what appears to be a pattern of illogical jumps, she claims that “in Orientalism, Said characterized all Western—and particularly American—scholarship on the Arab and Islamic worlds as one big conspiracy theory” designed to justify empire. This then is the heart of Said’s alleged “nihilistic” repudiation of Western scholarship. She particularly points to Said’s claim that “From the Enlightenment period through the present every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist and almost totally ethnocentric.” While this is a far-reaching generalization, it basically reflects an equally pervasive, very real Western cultural bias. What Glick describes as a “conspiracy theory” is Said’s scholarly demonstration of how that bias has expressed itself. And, it should be noted that such pervasive biases are not uniquely American nor even Western. Chinese, Japanese, Arab/Muslim, Hindu and Jewish civilizations have their own variants of such biases. Yet, it is Said’s effort to expose and ameliorate the orientalism of the West that seems to madden Caroline Glick.

f. For Glick, Said’s suggestion that both past as well as many present scholars have culturally biased points of view of the Orient becomes an accusation that any “great scholar” with a classical Western worldview “is worse than worthless. If he is a white American, he is an agent of evil.” Glick is now building a real head of steam and her account becomes more and more grotesque. She now claims that Said’s work is “intellectual nihilism.” How so? Because it “champions narrative over evidence.” What Glick is implying here is that Said’s work is an anti-Western screed presented without evidence. This is demonstrably wrong, but nonetheless provides a platform for Glick’s further assertion that Said’s fantastical narrative is told in order to “manipulate students to engage in political violence against the United States.”

Part III—What Is This All About?

Caroline Glick makes repeated illogical jumps. As egregious as these are they actually point the way to her larger ideological agenda.

1. Said is a terrorist because he opposes Israel and supports the Palestinians. Participation in the PLO is her proof of this. 
2. Because Said is a terrorist, his throwing of a stone at the southern Lebanese border is a terrorist attack against Israel and its defense forces. 
3. Somehow, Said’s throwing the stone was also “a harbinger for the mob violence now taking place in many parts of America.” The connector here is Said’s tossing of an intellectual “rock”—his thesis presented in Orientalism.
4. Just as his “rock attack” was terroristic, so Said’s book, Orientalism, is itself an act of terrorism as well as a “nihilistic” project. 
5. It is all these nasty things rolled into one because it calls into question established cultural assumptions that had long underpinned colonialism and imperialism, and which also just happens to underpin Israel’s claim to legitimacy.
6. But there is more. Glick tells us, “Said’s championing of the Palestinian war against Israel was part of a far wider post-colonialist crusade he waged against the United States. The purpose of his scholarship was to deny American professors the right to study and understand the world [in an orientalist fashion] by delegitimizing them as nothing but racists and imperialists.”
7. And finally, “Orientalism formed the foundation of a much broader campaign on campuses to delegitimize the United States as a political entity steeped in racism.”

Part IV—Conclusion

Glick’s attack on Edward Said’s legacy is beset with leaps of illogic. So let me conclude this analysis with my own leap, hopefully a logical one, to an explanation of what may be Glick’s larger agenda. Glick is attempting to turn the ideological clock back to a time before decolonization. Specifically, she wishes to resurrect an overall acceptance of Western colonialism as a benevolent endeavor whereby progress and civilization was spread by a superior culture. 

Why would she want to do this? Because if we all believe this proposition, then Israel can be seen as a legitimate and normal state. After all, Israel is the last of the colonial settler states—the imposition of Western culture into the Orient. It rules over millions of Palestinian Arabs as the result of a European invasion made “legal” by a colonial document, the Balfour Declaration, and its acceptance by a pro-colonial League of Nations. Our post-colonial age in which Edward Said is a “superstar intellectual,” is seen as a constant threat to Zionist Israel’s legitimacy. 

Edward Said’s legacy provides a strong theoretical foundation for understanding why the Western imperialists thought and acted as they did, and hence helps both Western and non-Western peoples to confront their own modern historical situation. However, Glick cannot see any of this except through the Zionist perspective. Thus, Said’s legacy is just part of an anti-Israeli conspiracy—an attack on those scholars who support the legitimacy of an orientalist point of view and of the Zionist state. 

She also suggests that Said’s undoing of historically accepted biases lets loose the “mob violence” seen in the U.S. There is no evidence for this, but it may be Glick’s  roundabout way of undermining student support for Palestinian rights on American campuses. 

Ultimately, what Glick is interested in is preserving the image of Israel as a Western democratic enclave in an otherwise uncivilized sea of Arab and Islamic barbarians. That fits right into the traditional orientalist belief system and justifies the continuing U.S.-Israeli alliance. Said has successfully called that perspective into question. Hence Glick’s assault on his legacy. 

Finally, Glick’s present attack on Said, and her attempt to tie his work into the protests that followed George Floyd’s murder, shows how frightened the defenders of one racist state, Zionist Israel, become when their principle ally, the United States, comes under attack for racist practices. Said as a “superstar” foe of all racism becomes the lighting rod for that fear. 

Bring In The Feds! Protection Of Natural Rights Trumps Federalism

July 27, 2020

by Ilana Mercer, posted with the author’s authorization

America circa 2020 continues to erupt in riots, spurred by the death-by-cop of George Floyd. The violence is qualitatively different to the violence that roiled the U.S. during the race riots of 1964.

Whether you thought those riots right or wrong, back in 1964, state police officers were a forceful presence for law-and-order. They did damage to rioters as deliberately as they defended people and their property.

“End-stage America” riots, referred to by the malfunctioning media as “peaceful protests,” have engulfed “over 2,000 cities and towns in all 50 states.”

Even Wikipedia has conceded that “most large cities [have seen and are seeing] large scale rioting, looting, and burning of businesses and police cars.” You know how bad things are when such habitual liars for the Left admit to “large-scale” destruction by the Left.

This “mostly peaceful” mob even murdered a man, in Minneapolis, and burned down a pawnshop, all in memory of George Floyd.

Neutered, coopted, infiltrated and compromised—the police force in 2020 is missing in action. In the rare event that they act in accordance with their constitutional obligation to protect innocent people and their property, the police are hobbled—prevented from deploying riot-control tactics and, thus, invariably “hurt and hospitalized.”

“End-stage America” and its kneeling, pleading police force is the result of institutional rot, brought about because of the Left’s lengthy control of the intellectual means of production (neocons and ConInkers are collaborators).

In 1964, The Law would not countenance the disruption of public order and tranquility. The Law in 2020 has helped invert ordered liberty, so that, in America today, the law protects the outlaw against the law-abiding.

Witness the case of Mark and Patricia McCloskey: Riffraff invaded their grounds and encroached on their residence. The legacy media faulted the St. Louis couple, framing the two’s self-defense stance and deterrence as dangerous aggression. The Law followed through with weapons confiscation and criminal charges.

The police, whose first duty is to uphold the negative rights of the citizens, appear to believe they serve not the citizens but local mob bosses like Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, and her crooked police chief, Carmen Best. The latter, who seems to worry more about the weave on her head and eyelashes than about the working people of the city, commanded her compliant and cowardly police officers to desert their posts and the people they swore to protect.

Another Black Lives Matter stooge—all-round coward and oath-of-office violator—is Paul Pazen, police chief of Denver, Colorado. He stands complicit in standing down so as to enable the violent attack on author and activist Michelle Malkin.

Ms. Malkin, the scrappiest, bravest woman in America, was physically assaulted at a “Back the Blue” rally, in Denver, Colorado, on July 21. Police were present all right. They watched on as a bulldyke with a baton advanced on a little Braveheart of a lady, who screamed her lungs out in fury, not in fear.

But the boys in blue for whom Michelle stood up, stood down.

Inspired by scenes of wanton destruction openly enabled by elected authorities and their private militia—the police—Chris Cuomo of CNN minted a new phrase for the kind of “peaceful protesters,” who physically struck the diminutive Ms. Malkin and are destroying structures across the country: “Inequality riots.”

“Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto”: Another morally corrupt celebrity, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat from New York, has made the Jean Valjean Argument from Bread: Rioters are hungry. Indeed, there are some “heartbreaking videos of starving New Yorkers stealing bread from … a Chanel flagship store on Fifth Avenue.”

The same scenes played out in thousands of cities across the country. Worst of all have been Portland, in Oregon, and Seattle in Washington State.

So, finally, President Trump has sent in the cavalry. The president launched “Operation Legend.” “Announcing a surge of federal law enforcement in American communities plagued by violent crime,” Trump added that he had “no choice but to get involved.”

This paleolibertarian supports the president’s belated defensive actions to launch a counter-terrorism operation with the aim of crushing a violent insurrection against law-abiding America.

It is essential to take back the streets, and to quit misnaming a repulsive specter that is neither democratic nor peaceful.

Upholding rights to life, liberty and property is a government’s primary—some would say only—duty.

Belatedly, and in furtherance of the violation of individual rights, Democrats frequently rediscover American federalism. (In fairness, to promote their political agenda, Republicans are as opportunistic about deferring to the division-of-power bequeathed by the Founders. Rather than mandate facemasks to save people from dying and killing others; Republicans have left local leaders to supervise the killing fields of COVID.)

The reason the president’s domestic counter-terrorism operation is warranted is because the people’s rights to life, liberty and property are being systematically violated.

And natural rights antedate the state apparatus. Federalism is an excellent principle, but it is not a religion.

Michelle Malkin has a natural right to walk about unmolested and speak her mind free of bodily harm. If Colorado officials will not uphold her inalienable natural rights in Colorado, and mine in Washington State, then bring in the feds. Better still, free armed citizens to do the job their representatives, ostensibly bound by the Constitution, have shirked.

What a shame that a debate that ought to be about inalienable individual rights is straitjacketed into statist terminology.

We are told that “federal authorities from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, DEA and ATF” have arrived in our states to protect federal property (court houses, in the main), when their true duty is to uphold inalienable rights undermined.

The level of decision-making is immaterial; what matters is the decision. No one has the right to threaten lives and livelihoods (that includes the Internal Revenue Service). By logical extension, it matters not who upholds those inalienable rights to work and walk about Seattle and Denver unmolested—which state or federal official—just so long as someone does.

Yes, suddenly loathsome local leaders like Seattle’s Mayor Jenny, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler (who was tear-gassed by federal agents on Wednesday night), Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) are decrying “a blatant abuse of power,” given that policing is the purview of “states, and governors and locals officials.”

To repeat, natural rights antedate the state apparatus and the federal scheme. And although federalism is an excellent principle, it is not a religion.

In their appetite for destruction, these liberal “leaders” have rediscovered principles for which they’ve hitherto had nothing but contempt.

In the liberal vernacular, States’ Rights are synonyms for racial hatred and discrimination. Now Democrats are shrieking louder than Dixiecrats ever did that the intervention by the Federal government in state affairs might undermine this “cherished” principle. (So, they know about the 10th Amendment?)

What’s next in liberal two-facedness? As they shield lawbreakers and attack the law-abiding, will Mayors Jenny, Lori and Ted lecture that, “We are a nation of laws”?

These confused casuists, whose reasoning is even more meager than their morals, don’t know that the long tradition of English and American law and the Christian religion favors the preservation of life, liberty and property over their forfeiture.

**

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She’s the author of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June, 2016). She’s on Twitter, Facebook , Gab & YouTube

What kind of “popular revolution” is this?!

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THE SAKER • JUNE 16, 2020

Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase

I have to say that I am amazed that so many folks on the Left seem to think that the current riots in the US are a spontaneous rebellion against police violence, systemic racism, and history of persecution and exploitation of Blacks and Indians, etc. As for the violence, looting and riots – they are either excused as a result of some kind of righteous wrath or blamed on “infiltrators”. In my previous article I tried to show how the Democrats and the US media tried to instrumentalize these riots and to use them against Trump’s bid for reelection. I accompanied the article with a carefully staged photo-op of US Democrats “taking a knee” in solidarity (as if the leaders of the Democratic Party gave a hoot about Blacks or poor US Americans!).

What I did not mention was how the US (and even trans-national) corporate world backed these riots to the hilt. Here are just a few examples of this:

YouTube:

Amazon, Bank of America & Sephora:

And it is not only in the USA. Check out what Adidas in Germany has been up to:

and finally, my personal super-favorite:

Jamie Dimon and the JP Morgan Chase Bank:

All those of us who thought that the corporate world was all about money, that the corporate “culture” had all the signs of severe psychopathy and that billionaires did not give a damn about the poor and the oppressed, but now we know better: we thought of them as evil 1%ers, and it turns out that there are kind, highly principled people, who care about injustice and freedom and who truly feel bad, very very bad, for all the injustices done to Blacks!

Do you really buy this?

I sure don’t!

These are not small mom-and-pop stores where ethics and kindness still exist. These are the very corporations who benefited most from all the inequalities, injustice, violence and imperial wars of aggression and it would be truly pollyannish to think that these corporations and their CEOs suddenly grew a conscience (the exact same applies to the leadership of the Democratic Party, of course!).

So let’s go back to the basics: corporations are about money, that is a truism. Yes, sometimes corporations try to present a “human face”, but this is nothing more than a marketing trick destined to create consumer loyalty. Now I don’t believe for one second that the mega-corporations listed above expect to make much money from supporting the riots, at least not in a direct way. Nor do I believe that these corporations are trying to impersonate a conscience because they fear a Black consumer boycott (what was true in Tuskegee in the late 1950s is not true today, if only because of the completely different scale of the protests).

So if not money – what is at stake here?

Power.

Specifically, the US deep state – at a major faction within that deep state – is clearly desperate to get rid of Trump (and not for the right reasons, of which there are plenty).

Another victory of the “coalition of minorities” and another defeat for Trump

There are plenty of signs that illustrate that Trump is even losing control of the Executive, including Secretary Esper contradicting Trump on what is a key issue – restoring law and order – or the US Ambassador to South Korea voicing support for BLM (I consider that these actions by top officials against their own Commander in Chief border on treason). Needless to say, the pro-Dems neo-libs at Slate immediately began dreaming about, and calling for, a military revolt against Trump.

Last but not least, we now have a “free zone” in Seattle, the notorious Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, “CHAZ” aka “CHOP” where, among other “curiosities”, Whites are told to give 10 bucks to a Black person. This means that until law and order are restored to what is now the CHAZ, the United States has lost its sovereignty over a part of one of its cities. That is a “black eye” for any US President who, after all, is the leader of the Executive branch of government and the Commander in Chief of a military supposed (in theory only, of course) to defend the United States against all enemies.

What do all of these developments have in common?

They are designed to show that Trump has lost control of the country and that all good and decent people now stand united against him.

There are several major problems with this plan.

For one thing, this is all completely illegal. What began as a typical race riot is now openly turning into sedition.

The second major problem of this plan is that it relies on what I call a “coalition of minorities” to achieve its goal, it is therefore ignoring the will of the majority of the people. This can backfire, especially if the chaos and violence continue to spread.

Will he take orders from Pelosi?

Next, there is the “Golem/Frankenstein” issue: it is much easier to launch a wildfire than to contain or suppress it. Nancy Pelosi might be dumb enough to think that she and her gang can control the likes of Raz Simone, but history shows that when the state abdicates its monopoly on violence, anarchy ensues.

By the way, it is important to note here that Trump, at least so far, has not taken the bait and has not used federal forces to reimpose law and order in Seattle, Atlanta or elsewhere.

He must realize that liberating the so-called CHAZ might result in a bloodbath (there appear to be plenty of weapons inside the CHAZ) and that the Democrats are dreaming about blaming him for a bloodbath. Trump’s strategy, at least so far, appears to let the lawlessness continue and blame the Democrats for it.

While Trump’s strategy makes sense, it also is inherently very dangerous because if the state cannot reimpose law and order, then all sorts of “volunteers” might decide to give it a shot (literally). Check out this headline “Bikers For Trump Organizing to Retake Seattle On July 4th“. Whether these bikers will actually try to take over the CHAZ or not, even the fact that they are preparing to do so shows, yet again, that the state has lost its monopoly on violence.

Finally, this strategy to oust Trump by means of lawlessness and anarchy could greatly contribute to the breakup of the United States, if not de jure, then at least de facto. How?

For one thing, the United States is a big country, not only in terms of geographical size, but also in socio-economic and even cultural terms. Some US states have a large Black population, others much less. But they all mostly watch the same news media. Which means that when there are race riots in, say, Los Angeles or Baltimore, the people who live in states like Montana or the Dakotas feel that it is their country which is threatened. Coincidentally (or not?), these mostly White states happen to have a large part of their population as, Hillary’s famous “deplorables”. Some liberals call these states “flyover states”. It also happens that civilians in these states own a large number of firearms and know how to use them.

The same applies to different locations within any one state. Take California for example, which many view as being very liberal, progressive. Well, that might be true for many cities in California, but as soon as you enter rural California, the prevailing culture changes rather dramatically. The same urban vs rural dichotomy also exists in many other states, including Florida.

The risk here is the following one: some parts of the United States can collapse and become zones of total lawlessness while others will “circle the wagons” and take whatever measures are needed to protect themselves and their way of life.

This does not mean that the US, as a country, will break-up into several successor states. That could only happen much further down the road, but it does mean that different areas of the country could start facing the crisis autonomously and even possibly in direct violation of US laws. When that happens, poverty and violence typically sharply rise. There are already reports of vigilantism in New Mexico(interestingly, in this case the authorities did send in the cops).

In his seminal article “Race and Crime in America” (an absolute MUST READfor any person wanting to understand what is taking place today!) Ron Unz makes a very interesting observation:

“The empirical fact is that presence or absence of large numbers of Hispanics or Asians in a given state seems to have virtually no impact upon white voting patterns. Meanwhile, there exists a strong relationship between the size of a state’s black population and the likelihood that local whites will favor the Republicans”.

In other words, the larger the Black minority, the more likely Whites will vote Republican. Of course, one can dismiss this by saying that these Whites are all racists, but that does not help either because it begs the question of why Whites do not become racists when living next to Hispanics and Asians, but do so when they live near Blacks. The explanation is in Ron’s article: “local urban crime rates in America seem to be almost entirely explained by the local racial distribution” (please see the charts in Ron’s article for the data supporting this conclusion).

This makes for a potentially very explosive mix, especially in a time when police officers now risk a reprimand, a demotion. being fired or even criminal charges for using “excessive force” against any Black suspect (yes, US cops often do use excessive force, but the solution here is not to paralyze the police forces, lest the civilians feel like they need to defend themselves.

As I have said it many times, I don’t believe that the term “race” has a scientific basis, nor do concepts such as “Black” or “White”. This does not mean that they don’t have a political meaning, especially in a country which is obsessed by race issues (yes, one can obsess about non-existing things). In the US most people self-identify with a color, thus to them this is something very real. For example, the figures used in Ron Unz’ article are based upon these concepts understood sociologically, not biologically, and this is the only reason why I use them too, though somewhat reluctantly, I will admit.

Conclusion: this is no popular revolution at all

It is undeniable that a major chuck of the US ruling classes have decided to support the BLM movement and the riots it instigates. Furthermore, these US ruling classes have instrumentalized these riots in a transparent attempt to prevent a Trump reelection in November. And just like the Republicans have been destroying the AngloZionist empire on the international scene, the Democrats have been destroying the United States from within. Far from being a real popular protest movement, the BLM movement is a tool in the hands of one faction of the US deep state against another faction. A lot of Trump nominees/appointees are now seeing the writing on the wall and are betraying their boss in order to switch sides and abandon what they see as a sinking ship.

My personal feeling is that Trump is too weak and too much of a coward to fight his political enemies (if he had any spine, it would have shown at the time when Trump betrayed Flynn only a month into his presidency). History, however, shows that a political vacuum cannot last very long. In Russia the chaos lasted from February to November 1917, at which point the Bolsheviks (who were a relatively small party) easily seized power and, following a bloody civil war, restored their version of law and order. I still don’t see a civil war taking place in the USA, but some kind of coup is, I think, a very real possibility. This is especially true considering that most Democrats will never accept a Trump reelection while most Republicans will never accept a Biden presidency. This is a case of “not my president” powerfully backfiring on its creators.

Those of us who live in the US better prepare for a very dangerous and difficult year!

The Barbarians Are In Charge: Scenes from the Sacking of America

June 13, 2020

by Ilana Mercer for the Unz Review, republished with the author’s authorization

On June 9, I tweeted out the following:

“Seattle’s East Precinct has fallen, as Police Chief Carmen Best orders Seattle Police to evacuate. The occupiers, aka the ‘peaceful protesters,’ declare victory. ‘They’ve given us the precinct,’ they boast. Not even in South Africa.”

A mere day on, and the City of Seattle is de facto occupied territory, fallen to the “peaceful protesters”—the same counterculture media darlings who’ve been sacking cities across America.

The rabble—Black Lives Matter sympathizers, which, as police arrest records show is almost entirely local—was further roused by Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, formerly of Mumbai.

Most reprehensibly, Pied Piper Sawant led the “peace makers” to occupy City Hall in downtown Seattle, on Tuesday, June 10.

The altercation between Council Member Sawant and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan gives new meaning to the “broad” sweep of ideas in this dysfunctional city. Sawant, a socialist, called on Mayor Durkan, a progressive, to resign over abuse of power (what power?) and systemic racism (a meaningless abstraction). This, as the city was being sacked.

Surrender Monkeys

As of this writing, the Seattle Police has surrendered without defeat.

Seven blocks of downtown Seattle, renamed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ), have been appropriated by the Peaceful Ones, with the imprimatur of the mayor and her police chief (Carmen Best aforementioned). Now loosed on the public, these buccaneering entrepreneurs are reported to have set up checkpoints to shake down residents who imagine they may come and go. Not in this satrapy.

On the positive side, Seattle now has that shithole-country vibrancy.

President of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, SPOG, penned an open letter to lunatic Mayor Durkan, pondering how he would fulfill his sworn oath of office to protect lives and property without so much as tear gas.

He got his answer. America did. Across the U.S., the message to law-abiding Americans, from city, town, county council members and other legislators came loud and clear: You’re on your own. Neither police nor politicians are coming to protect what’s left of your businesses or your banal, bourgeoisie little life.

Last I looked, there were 400,000 “guardian angels” in private security toiling to make up for the South African state’s failure to protect its people. Every year, millions in taxpayers’ money are forked out to private security firms to protect the new South Africa’s police stations. “South Africa’s protectors can’t protect themselves.” Will Seattle’s neutered policemen be investigating this option? It’s time for them to cut the shafted taxpayers loose. Let us go private.

When all is said and done, the George Floyd riots are a law-and-order-event. Nothing else matters in the overarching context of a failed state, in which ordered liberty is dead, and the law-abiding are utterly forsaken, even vilified.

Yes, victims are now villains and villains are … martyrs. Unbeknown to Nikolas Fernandez, a gainfully employed security guard, the Capitol Hill district of Seattle now belongs to the “peaceful protesters.” Fernandez dared to drive down it, only to be mobbed by the barbarians and forced to shoot an attacker possessing of animal-like agility. Legacy media quickly turned the narrative on its head. Fernandez, whose brother is a policeman, had invaded “peaceful protester” turf. His attacker took a bullet for peace. Hero.

Kneeling Ninnies

Next came the national kneeling. Once again, Washington State led the way. On June 1, after hundreds of looters ransacked major shopping malls in Bellevue, including the spectacular Bellevue Square, that city’s police chief, Steve Mylett, knelt down like a girl, instead of standing tall like a man for LAW-AND-ORDER.

“That was a scary scene in ‘Deliverance,’” someone quipped on Twitter. That was it. There was no stopping the kinky trend.

Soon, Chief Brian Manley of Austin, Texas, broke down in tears for … the protesters, not for property owners robbed. Real manly. It’s almost as though WASPS get a homo-erotic sexual charge out of prostrating themselves to The Evil Other.

The camera panned out across the country to reveal policemen and guardsmen caving. Against the backdrop of “Mad Max”-like dystopian destruction, men in uniform all collapsed to the pavement s like yogis to the command of their black tormentors. One after another. Here is Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills. KNEELING.

The forces, police and paramilitary, all squatted like sissies. Isn’t there some a code of conduct preventing uniforms from groveling? Police acquit themselves honorably by doing the job ethically. Activism is not in the job description.

In Parker, Colorado, masses assumed the postures of ordination: prostration, lying prone, limbs splayed.

Congressional Democrats, led by Nancy, did the same. Is twerking next? Finally! We have a man in the house! “Georgia State Trooper O’Neal Saddler, black, refused to kneel during a Black Lives Matter protest in Hartwell, saying he only kneels” for God.

And what a hot, decadent mess was this national guard bump-and-grind in Atlanta: men, women, and everything in-between, mostly fat, hips swaying as they give themselves over to Dionysian urges.

Cops can’t be responsible for every misstep a feeble-minded protester takes. An elderly geezer, Martin Gugino, in Buffalo, New York, came right up to a cop’s face when the latter was on the march. Cop pushed the git to get past him. The geezer was expecting a group hug. Wasn’t prepared for a shove. He lost his balance and fell back like a twig. I saw no excess force, except a “get out of my face” shove. But the cops were hung out to dry.

Frey The Faker

As to Jacob Frey’s schtick: His was total grief appropriation. Frey is the mayor of Minneapolis, where George Floyd, in whose honor the global orgy of abreaction and destruction is being carried out, died by cop. Only people who knew an individual can legitimately have a Frey-like grand mal when mourning him. Otherwise, Frey’s performance at the casket was farcical, inauthentic; histrionic. The advice of Humphrey Bogart, playing Rick Blaine in “Casablanca” (channeled by Woody Allen in “Play It Again Sam”), should have been considered: “I never saw a dame yet that didn’t understand a good slap in the mouth …”

The spectacle of mass contagion, where members of the public turn into professional mourners, flocking to funeral happenings for victims they never knew—this is warped. Grief is not a tribal affair. Communities don’t grieve; individuals who incur loss do. These are professional pornographers, not mourners. These phony displays among regular folks are at the root of our festering cultural commons.

As kids, we knew our local policeman by name. He patrolled our neighborhoods regularly and joshed around with us. He lived among us.

Community policing, however, is a thing of the past. Former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson—notorious for shooting Michael Brown—gave a clue as to why. Wilson told The New Yorker that while he didn’t want to work in a white area, liked the black community and had fun there—he had experienced “culture shock.”

Wilson described venturing into a “different culture”: a “pre-gang culture where you’re just running in the streets, not worried about working in the morning, just worried about your immediate gratification.” For his candor about an alien culture overtaking America, Wilson was called racist by CNN’s Boris Sanchez and Kate Bolduan.

“To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely,” said Edmund Burke, in his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (1790). Darren Wilson’s words suggest a variation on Burke’s theme: To make cops love the communities they police, the communities they police ought to be lovely.

Burke further reminded us in 1790 that, “To love the little platoon we belong to is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections.” But what happens when those little platoons are not so little and not so lovely?

A country that is without a modicum of cultural cohesion and is, by D.C. design, comprised of ever-accreting, competing factions—this kind of country cannot be lovely in the Burkean sense.

In fairness to law-enforcement, communities in America must be damn difficult to police.

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She’s the author of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June, 2016). She’s on Twitter, Facebook & Gab. New on YouTube