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Off The Shelf: Seasons Change By Michael Brendan Dougherty

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/book-review-the-russian-revolution-revisionist-history-sean-mcmeekin/

EXCERPT

Some observations about the Russian Revolution, and about Sean McMeekin’s new revisionist history of it.

Editor’s Note: Every week, Michael Brendan Dougherty writes an “Off the Shelf” column sharing casual observations on the books he’s reading and the passing scene.

“…….Luckily, in the midst of all this, I assigned myself the utterly light reading of Sean McMeekin’s blockbuster revisionist history, The Russian Revolution. Actually, I’m not even kidding. Compared with the history books I was reading in earlier editions of this column, the death counts in this one were much lower. Fewer long descriptions of mass torture; Stalin is not yet in full flower in this volume, which follows in the tradition of Richard Pipes’s history of the same. McMeekin’s book, however, does more to locate Lenin’s success as due to the assistance and wishes of Germany.

I was raised in an era where Communism was largely detested and laughed at even on the left. By the time I got to Bard College (where McMeekin teaches now), the presence at the school of an Alger Hiss Chair of Social Science was kind of a joke among the politically aware on campus. In fact, I still have a hard time taking McMeekin’s conclusory warnings against radical socialism and Communism seriously precisely because it all seemed so obviously discredited in my life, even in places that vestigially venerated Alger Hiss. Still, I’m grateful for McMeekin’s work, which corrects the dim and entirely incomplete picture of the Russian Revolution given to me in my high-school education.

McMeekin is very helpful in making observations about the state of pre-revolutionary Russia:

The strength and also the weakness of autocracy was that there were few intermediary institutions between the tsar and his subjects to absorb and dampen popular frustrations. Labor unions were illegal. There was no national parliament to focus the government’s attention on social problems. In the brief era of liberal concessions that had followed Russia’s humiliating defeat in the Crimean War (1853–1856), Tsar Alexander II had allowed the creation of small provincial assemblies known as zemstvos in 1864, but their power had been substantially curtailed by his more conservative successor, Alexander III, in 1890, when the zemstvo councils were subordinated to regional governors appointed by the tsar.

Pre-revolutionary Russia was also shocked by its embarrassing showing in a war with Japan in 1905, a conflict that began in divergent interests and could even be said to have made a permanent mark on Tsar Nicholas II, in the form of a three-and-a-half-inch scar, given to him in all the way back in 1891 when a Japanese police escort lunged at him with his saber.

The inevitability of Fortress Europe R.W. JOHNSON

http://standpointmag.co.uk/features-september-2018-rw-johnson-the-inevitability-of-fortress-europe-migration
Watching European attempts to come to terms with the problem of migrants from the Third World is to watch a slow-motion train crash. All manner of liberal nostrums about the duty to accept refugees, the right to free movement within the EU and even the notion of a secular indifference to religious distinctions are all being tested to destruction. There seems only one possible conclusion: a Fortress Europe with distinct echoes from its past as Christendom. This may not be what Europe’s elites would choose but popular pressure seems unlikely to allow anything else.

It has often been argued that the reason for the barbarian invasions which ended the Roman Empire lay in climatic changes in Central Asia producing famine conditions which propelled vast population movements westward. Today’s crisis lies in similarly profound events far from Europe which one could sum up as the failure of Third World nationalisms. These arose several generations ago under leaders such as Nasser and Nkrumah, with a promise to modernise and democratise the Middle East and Africa. This promise failed, for it is notoriously difficult to leapfrog the long historical development which has produced democratic modernity in Europe. The result in the Middle East was that although the Arab nationalists swept away the last kings — Farouk of Egypt in 1952, Muhammad VIII of Tunisia in 1957, Faisal II of Iraq in 1958 and Idris of Libya in 1969 — their successors turned out to be even more tyrannical and just as incapable of modernising their countries. One after another these regimes foundered in social unrest or civil war.

The story of African nationalism has been somewhat similar though the complication here is the huge demographic surge which will over the next generation add an extra billion Africans. There is simply no way that Africa’s shaky economies and polities can produce the housing, education and jobs required to meet that surge. The result will be large movements of population towards Europe — and these will be opportunistically joined by Afghans, Pakistanis and others. In other words, what we have seen to date is merely the first trickle of a developing flood. Without doubt all these migrants will claim to be refugees.

Great Britain’s Great Farce By Madeleine Kearns

Americans sometimes ask me whether British politics is really as shambolic as it looks. Beyond the 2017 general election, the indecisiveness over what to do post-Brexit vote, and the subsequent slew of Tory resignations, there are some other pressing queries.

Like, why hasn’t Jeremy Corbyn resigned already? Only last week, Labour MP Frank Field decided to leave his party of 40 years because he said its leadership is now “a force for anti-Semitism in British politics.” He’s right. To name but two examples: Corbyn has likened Israel to the Nazis and was caught on video making derogatory comments about Zionists at a Palestinian event in 2013.

Or, what is all this talk of a “People’s Vote”? That’s the increasing push, from what one political journalist rightly calls “a cabal of politicians, celebrities and millionaires,” for another vote on Brexit. Apparently, the 17.4 million people who voted to leave surely must have realized by now that they were wrong.

Knife crime, acid attacks… the Conservatives are now the party of law and disorder Allison Pearson

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/knife-crime-acid-attacks-conservatives-now-party-law-disorder

When did it happen? When did we become this ugly society where violent crime is an accepted part of life? See how our reactions are blunted, how hard it is for anything to shock us any more.

Acid thrown at two teenagers causes life-changing injuries? Oh, not again! Now, where did I put the Radio Times? A drive-by shooting on a street in broad daylight leaves an innocent girl dead? Mild flicker of dismay. Thinks: must call daughter to check she’s OK.

Man drives car at speed into cyclists on Westminster Bridge in an alleged copycat terrorist attack? Well, at least nobody died this time, quite lucky really. Another man is stabbed to death on a London street as police announce an inquiry into the murder of a nurse at her home in Teddington? Resigned shrug. Well, it’s the 100th such investigation in the capital this year. What do you expect?

The outrage tank is empty. Truly, it’s shocking how unshockable we are.

“It’s practically one a day,” John Humphrys said on the Today programme. It certainly feels like that. Last year, violent crime soared by 20 per cent, with 1.5 million offences recorded, and those are just the ones the police bother to write down. God knows what the actual figure is.

German City Becomes Rallying Point for Anti-Immigration Protests Demonstrations in recent days began after the violent death of a resident of the eastern city of Chemnitz By Bertrand Benoit

https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-police-brace-for-more-protests-over-immigration-

BERLIN—The German city of Chemnitz saw renewed anti-immigration protests Thursday, five days after the violent death of a resident turned the city into a rallying point for far-right opponents of the government’s refugee policy.

The demonstrations, which turned violent at times, have shocked the country and are the latest manifestation of the divisions caused by the influx of close to two million asylum seekers since 2015.

Police are currently questioning two men—one from Syria and one from Iraq—over the fatal stabbing early Sunday morning of a local man identified by police only as Daniel H.

Within hours of the killing, protesters had taken to the streets shouting anti-immigration slogans. A video later posted on social media showed a group of white men chasing two foreign-looking youths as one man yelled “You aren’t welcome here.”

On Monday, a demonstration registered by a local anti-immigration group drew around 6,000 protesters—some performing the banned Nazi salute—around the city’s memorial to Karl Marx. About 20 people were wounded in clashes between rival groups of demonstrators and the police, according to regional authorities in Saxony, the eastern state where Chemnitz is located.

The state’s interior ministry had requested police reinforcements ahead of another protest planned during a visit to the city by Michael Kretschmer, the premier of Saxony, on Thursday. Björn Höcke, a right-wing leader of the Alternative for Germany, or AfD party, has urged supporters to conduct a “march of mourning” in Chemnitz on Saturday. Mr. Höcke has previously called for a reassessment of Adolf Hitler’s rule.

Thursday’s protest drew an estimated 900 participants according to the Saxony police, making it much smaller than Monday’s. It ended after two hours in the early evening without any incident.

The refugee crisis that peaked in the summer of 2015 rocked the sedate world of German politics and boosted support for the AfD. The party’s ratings went from low single digits to a 12.6% score at last year’s general election, making it the largest opposition party in parliament. Some of AfD’s best electoral results were in Saxony, where it came second only to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

Earlier this summer, a dispute over whether to tighten immigration rules divided Ms. Merkel’s party and came close to toppling her government. The two sides eventually reached a compromise after Ms. Merkel pledged to negotiate agreements with other European countries allowing Berlin to turn back asylum seekers who have open applications elsewhere. CONTINUE AT SITE

Safe Spaces and Thuggish Violence at King’s College London By Tamara Berens

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/kings-college-london-safe-spaces-thuggish-violence/

The crisis of free speech on campus is not limited to the U.S.

King’s College London’s student union has a “Safe Space Policy” enforced by marshals who are paid the equivalent of $16 an hour to restrict free speech on campus. Under the policy, a speaker or student can be forced to leave a room if they are accused of using speech that discriminates against someone on the basis of ideology, culture, gender, race, religion, or age, among other characteristics. These categories are so ill-defined that almost any speech could be deemed a violation of the policy. The rationale is that if students have the unequivocal right to shut down those who offend them, the university can create a “Safe Space” where everyone is emotionally protected at all times. The administration believes that this approach is key to keeping student satisfaction high and preventing unrest on campus. But declaring the majority of student events “Safe Spaces” has in reality only served to encourage recurring unsafeness, in the form of violence against visiting speakers.

In January 2016, the Safe Space policy was in place when a mob of anti-Israel students prevented former Israel Security Agency head Ami Ayalon from finishing his talk on the university’s main campus. After the protesters barricaded the room, screamed deafening chants, and set off fire alarms, attendees were forced to flee the event through underground tunnels. This March, an offshoot of Antifa stormed a debate organized by the Libertarian Society between Ayn Rand Institute president Yaron Brook and political YouTuber Carl Benjamin. A familiar scenario unfolded in which smoke bombs were set off, a security guard was seriously injured, and the entire event was ultimately shut down by the actions of masked vigilantes who were invited onto campus by students at the university. At both events, declaring a “Safe Space” failed to stop students from making it unsafe.

Here’s What Happened When Zimbabwe Seized White Farmers’ Land By Todd Bensman

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/heres-what-happened-when-zimbabwe-seized-white-farmers-land/

Last week’s controversy over President Donald Trump’s call for his State Department to examine South Africa’s coming land reform policy — in which white farmers purportedly are to have their farmlands seized — recalled a similar tragic situation in neighboring Zimbabwe in the early 2000s.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson apparently started the ball rolling when he reported on South Africa’s plan to begin expropriating white farmers’ land. Carlson drew comparisons with a similar program in Zimbabwe 20 years ago that led to economic collapse and hunger there. The president apparently took his cue from Carlson; the talk show host called on the U.S. to take a human rights stand on the basis of how things turned out then in Zimbabwe for both blacks and whites. All of this has been portrayed elsewhere as “dog-whistling” to alt-right nationalists and white supremacists.

Even if the South Africa plan coincidentally excites some racists, Carlson is correct about naming Zimbabwe as the poster child for what can happen down this road. Zimbabwe was that bad — and the United States should put South Africa on notice that it and the whole world is watching if it chooses to follow Zimbabwe down this path.

I know a little about this. Some 17 years ago, while working as a reporter covering federal court systems for the Dallas Morning News, I’d had an interesting connection to the Zimbabwe situation referenced by Carlson. Back then, I heard through my source grapevine that a white family from Africa had arrived in Dallas and was pursuing a U.S. asylum claim. They, because they were white, claimed they had suffered racial persecution at the hands of a black-majority government.

This was classic man-bites-dog stuff, ironic beyond threshold as a news story to a broad general audience far wider than a few white supremacists. Naturally, I jumped all over it. Soon, I was interviewing Dave and Amber Penny and followed them in and out of the immigration courtroom.

A little background: Rebels supporting Mugabe and armed by the Soviet Union achieved independence in 1980 for the country once known as Rhodesia, about the size of Montana. Long before apartheid was dismantled in neighboring South Africa, Zimbabwe was seen as a model of how whites and blacks could live together after blacks replaced white minority rule, despite resentment that whites got to keep the nation’s land wealth. White farmers, who made up about 1 percent of the country’s population of 12 million but formed the backbone of its economy, were urged to stay as a minority class protected by law. The arrangement had been supported by the United States for decades, with appropriately little regard for whatever white supremacists in the U.S. might have had to say about it. CONTINUE AT SITE

Jihadist Psychopath : How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us Hardcover – by Jamie Glazov

This title will be released on December 18, 2018.

There is a war being waged on America and the West. The aggressors? Islamic Supremacists. Their method? Duplicating the sinister methodology of psychopaths who routinely charm, seduce, capture, and devour their prey.

Every element of the formula by which the psychopath subjugates his victim, the Islamic Supremacist likewise uses to ensnare and subjugate non-Muslims. And in the same way that the victim of the psychopath is complicit in his own destruction, Western civilization is now embracing and enabling its own conquest and consumption.

Anni Cyrus: Sold By My Father Into Child Slavery Under Islam. A Sharia survivor unveils the harrowing world of Islamic child marriage.

https://jamieglazov.com/2018/08/30/anni-cyrus-sold-by-my-father-into-child-slaver

On this new Anni Cyrus Moment, Anni discusses: Sold By My Father Into Child Slavery Under Islam, where she shares her harrowing personal story and unveils the barbaric world of Islamic child marriage.

Don’t miss it!

Julius Malema on ‘coloniser’ Theresa May and a ‘United States of Africa’ Julius Malema blasts the Commonwealth and calls for an end to white arrogance.

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-08-23-stay-out-of-sas-affairs
The US president tweeted earlier that he had asked his secretary of state to look into land expropriation without compensation in SA.

On Thursday, EFF leader Julius Malema lashed out at US President Donald Trump‚ whom he referred to as a pathological liar‚ demanding that he stay out of SA’s domestic affairs.

This comes after Trump tweeted that he had asked his secretary of state to look into land expropriation without compensation in SA.

Malema said at a media briefing at the party’s headquarters in Braamfontein that the EFF would not be intimidated by the US. “We want to send a strong message to the US authorities‚ just like we did to the Australian authorities: stay out of SA’s domestic affairs.

EFF leader Julius Malema addressed the media in Johannesburg on August 23 2018 on his response to US President Donald Trump’s tweet on land expropriation.

“SA is a post-colonial country with deep racial inequalities that were long designed by apartheid and colonisation. Our land expropriation programme seeks to realise the ideal of equality and human dignity‚” Malema said.

He said that the process of land expropriation was a means to force white people to share land which was gained through a crime against the humanity of black and African people.

“We must put it on record‚ unequivocally‚ [to] Donald ‘the pathological liar’ Trump: we are not scared of you and your US or Western imperialist forces‚” Malema said.