RUTHFULLY YOURS

Western civilisation is threatened by an unprecedented array of external adversaries and dangers, ranging from Islamist terror and Russian or Chinese aggression to the fall-out from failed states. It also faces internal threats — above all the collapse of confidence in Judaeo-Christian values and democratic capitalism. What solutions do liberals and conservatives have to offer in answer to this predicament? Can either the Left or the Right rise to the challenge of the present crisis? Or are both political traditions mired in self-destructive mind-sets that prevent them from grasping the scale of the task, let alone reversing the decline of the West? I shall sketch a diagnosis and propose a cure for these pathologies of Left and Right, but I can only hazard a guess as to whether our political class is ready to take its medicine in time to save the day. The future of Western civilisation will depend on how well the present can mobilise the intellectual resources of the past.

I want to begin with the Right, because the crisis of conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic seems too deep to be explained by the vagaries of individual personalities or parties. The example that most obviously illustrates this comes from America, where the fiasco of the Republican nomination process is fresh in our minds. How could one of the oldest political parties in the world, drawing on the vast pool of talent provided by a great nation of more than 300 million souls, end up with Donald Trump? I will suggest three reasons, which I have discussed at greater length in an article in the April issue of Standpoint.

First, the revolt of the masses, a phenomenon first analysed by Ortega y Gasset in 1930, made it possible for a demagogue to appeal over the heads of the elites to the most plebeian and philistine instincts, the lowest moral denominators. On the American Right, we see the mastery of mediocrity, the apotheosis of the average, the triumph of Trumpery — a word that ever since Shakespeare has denoted something showy but worthless, empty or ridiculous talk, and deception.

Second, the backlash against political correctness — a pathology that has spread from the universities via the social media to permeate every nook and cranny of society — has found its champion in Donald Trump. He is certainly not the sophisticated critic of illiberal liberalism that conservatives should wish for; indeed, he is quite illiberal himself. But he has captured the field by shooting from the hip, indiscriminately targeting feminists, Hispanics, Muslims and just about anybody else who gets in his way. Indeed, Trump may even have given political correctness a new lease of life by reminding people why it originally emerged.

Third, Trump may appeal to the masses by denouncing the liberal elites who have failed America, but he belongs to those elites in a particular way: he is the embodiment of that “culture of narcissism” diagnosed by Christopher Lasch in the 1970s, when Trump’s mindset was formed. In an America where narcissists flourish, a reality TV host is a plausible president. The French Revolution ended by crowning a war hero as emperor. The American mutiny may end by inaugurating a paranoid, narcissistic megalomaniac as commander-in-chief.

Jung Gwang-il does something unusual for a living: He sends information via helicopter drones into North Korea. The drones bear USB sticks and SD cards, which contain South Korean television shows, American movies, and more. This “more” includes videos of North Korean defectors, telling people back home what the outside world is like.

Jung himself is a defector. He survived the gulag and escaped North Korea in 2003. In May, he was a speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum, where I sat down with him. I will relate his story in brief — a story full of horror, but leavened with majesty.

He was born in China in 1963. His grandparents had immigrated there from Korea in the 1930s. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Jung’s father, a professor, was hauled away. The entire family suffered. Jung’s mother took them to North Korea in 1969.

“This might seem crazy,” says Jung, “but when I arrived in 1969, North Korea seemed like a heaven, compared with China. In China, you could not eat three meals a day. In North Korea, you could.” The Jung family believed in Communism. That included Gwang-il. And he tells me, “My younger brother is still in North Korea, and he still believes in Communism.”

Gwang-il, however, had some doubts in the 1990s. The country was dying of starvation. “Every morning when I went to work, I saw ten, sometimes twenty new bodies piled up, most of them children who had lived on the streets. City officials took them away like bags of trash.” This made Jung wonder about what the regime had taught him: Were North Koreans really lucky to have the Kim family and the Communist Party ruling over them?

He spent ten years in the military. Then he worked for a trading company — a state company, of course, the only kind there is in North Korea. He did well. In one year, 1997, he brought in $700,000 for the regime. He was a good and productive citizen.

Then, in 1999, agents of the State Security Department came in the middle of the night and hauled him off. Jung was bewildered. There had to be some mistake. It transpired that one of his employees had accused him of being a spy for South Korea. Others conspired along with the main accuser. For Jung, there ensued ten months of torture.

Here is a sampling of some recent news abroad:

A Russian guard attacked a U.S. diplomatic official at the door to the American Embassy in Moscow, even as NATO leaders met to galvanize against the next act of Russian aggression.

The Islamic State continued its global terrorist rampage with horrific attacks in Baghdad and Istanbul.

Iran rebuffed United Nations warnings and defiantly boasted that it will continue testing ballistic missiles. German intelligence believes that Iran, empowered by the release of $100 billion in impounded cash, is violating its recent American-led nonproliferation deal in an effort to import nuclear bomb-making technology.

North Korea conducted a test (unsuccessful, apparently) of a submarine-based guided missile.

There are various ways of interpreting these ominous events.

They could represent just more empty chest-thumping by our enemies.

Or, because this is an election year in the U.S., enemies are posturing in order to advance their agendas, as they often do in times of uncertainty about who will be the next president.

Or, Obama is perceived as an exceptionally lame lame-duck president who is hoping to wind down his tenure in passivity, without a major incident abroad that might imperil his presidential legacy.

Or, after the explosive rise of ISIS, the disaster in Benghazi, the failed reset with Russia, the unchecked Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, the concessions in the Iran deal, the veritable implosion of the Middle East, and the president’s counterproductive sermonizing about Brexit, enemies sense that the U.S. is directionless. These enemies may be unsure whether America still wishes to — or even can — exercise its traditional leadership of the free world and remain the custodian of the post-war international order.

But perhaps there is yet another catalyst prompting such events.

The United States appears to be entering another era of dangerous internal instability similar to the one it endured in the 1960s-1970s.

After the attacks by radical Islamists in San Bernardino and Orlando, Americans did not rally together as they had after 9/11. Instead, almost immediately, the country was torn further apart. About half the nation saw the terrorist killings as a reason for stricter gun control rather than a reason to fear the continuing spread of radical Islamic terrorism. The other half worried that political correctness and the president’s refusal to even mention radical Islamic terrorism are eroding the ability to deter it.

America’s enemies draw their own conclusions.

After the Orlando attack, al-Qaeda urged lone-wolf terrorists in the U.S. to focus exclusively on white targets. The organization’s leaders apparently worry that if terrorists again hit minority communities, it will prompt a bickering America to blame itself rather than give full credit to the attackers.

After the recent deaths of two black men in confrontations with police (in Minnesota and Louisiana), followed by national Black Lives Matter protests and the killing of five law-enforcement officers in Dallas, it might appear to our enemies abroad that the American superpower is internally unwinding into tribalism in the fashion of the Balkans, Iraq, or Lebanon.

As in the case of Islamic terrorism, America seems to have no answers to racial tensions. Half the country believes African Americans are inordinately targeted by police and that inner-city violence can be attributed to a long history of racism, national neglect, and economic stagnation. The other half blame disastrous social-welfare and big-government policies for creating dangerous dependencies and a dearth of jobs in America’s inner cities, as well as a popular culture that glorifies rather than discourages the excesses of many young black males.

One America believes that the Obama administration genuinely tried, but so far has failed, to resolve the tensions between inner-city residents and police. The other America thinks Obama sought to leverage those tensions for political reasons.

Either way, most of America privately thinks that Islamic terrorist acts and racial tensions are going to get far worse — a perception that is probably shared overseas as well.

Our enemies increasingly may gamble that provocations won’t elicit a U.S. reaction. Or that even if America did respond, the resulting domestic divisions and turmoil would diminish the effectiveness of the response.

Reprinted from InvestigativeProject.org.

Why has the West been so supportive of Palestinian nationalism, yet so reluctant to support the Kurds, the largest nation in the world without a state?

The Kurds have been instrumental in fighting the Islamic State (ISIS); have generously accepted millions of refugees fleeing ISIS to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG); and embrace Western values such as gender equality, religious freedom, and human rights. They are also an ancient people with an ethnic and linguistic identity stretching back millennia and have faced decades of brutal oppression as a minority. Yet they cannot seem to get sufficient support from the West for their political aspirations.

The Palestinians, by contrast, claimed a distinct national identity relatively recently, are less than one-third fewer in number (in 2013, the global Palestinian population was estimated by the Palestinian Authority to reach 11.6 million), control land that is less than 1/15th the size of the KRG territory, and have not developed their civil society or economy with nearly as much success as the Kurds. Yet the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League, and other international bodies have all but ignored Kurdish statehood dreams while regularly prioritizing Palestinian ambitions over countless other global crises.

Indeed, in 2014 the UK and Sweden joined much of the rest of the world in recognizing a Palestinian state. There has been no similar global support for a Kurdish homeland. Moreover, Kurdish statehood has been hobbled by U.S. reluctance to see the Iraqi state dismantled and by regional powers like Turkey, which worries that a Kurdish state will stir up separatist feelings among Turkish Kurds.

It is an old story: A self-hating leftist willing to sacrifice anyone and anything, even herself, on the altar of political correctness for the sake of the latest, trendy, political cause.

Last January, Selin Goren, the spokesperson for the national youth wing of the Left Party, a far-left German political party, was attacked late one night close to her family’s apartment in Mannheim. With her grandparents visiting from Turkey, Goren had stepped out to get some fresh air.

At a playground, she noticed three young men hanging around, drinking alcohol. But unfortunately, she did not notice one of them sneaking up on her. He threw her to the ground and, with his two accomplices, forced her to perform a sex act before robbing her.

This is not an uncommon event nowadays in Germany. The number of young female and child victims of sexual assault has increased dramatically since Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed, unscreened, more than one million migrants, primarily from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, to pour into the country in a few months.

But what Goren, described as a “convinced socialist,” did next was not only uncommon, but disgraceful – and probably illegal: She lied to police. Which Goren herself revealed in an interview in the German publication, Der Spiegel, in early July.

The nature of Goren’s lie concerned her attackers’ ethnic background. She told police they were a “mixed group” of white Germans and youths of immigrant appearance. And they spoke only German.

Twelve hours later, however, after being persuaded by a friend, Goren, of immigrant background herself, returned to police with the truth. There were no white Germans and her assailants spoke only Arabic or Farsi.

So why did Goren lie about her own violation?

The future, socialist politician, who is involved in migrant issues and has visited Middle Eastern refugee camps, provided the answer herself in “an open letter to a fictional refugee,” which she posted on Facebook (since deleted). Namely, she did not want her rape to bring migrants into disrepute and “fuel aggressive racism.”

“I am really sorry that your sexist and line-crossing treatment of me could help fuel aggressive racism,” she wrote. “I’m going to scream…I will not stand by and watch, and it can happen, that racists name you as the problem. You’re not the problem. You’re usually a wonderful human being who deserves as much as any other to be safe and free.”

This incident is a good example of how poisonous and self-destructive the leftist ideology really is.

Firstly, it seems incredible that someone who postures so publicly as such a compassionate and caring human being as to visit refugee camps would so heartlessly sacrifice and endanger other women’s safety for the sake of her twisted beliefs. In case she had forgotten, her lie had caused police to look for the wrong persons, leaving the culprits free to rob and rape again. And equally hypocritical is the fact that she is a “representative of a political organization that, next to feminism, has anti-racism inscribed on its flag.”

Secondly, her rapists are not “wonderful” human beings, but criminals who need to be removed from society as quickly as possible. They have already brought themselves into disrepute by their actions. So there is no cause for worry on that account.

A move by Italy — the third-largest economy in the eurozone — to abandon the euro could strike a potentially fatal blow to the currency and to the bloc itself.

Meanwhile, at more than 130% of GDP, Italy has one of the biggest public debt burdens in Europe, second only to Greece.

“A perfect storm of slow or zero Italian economic growth, low interest rates and politically connected, often corrupt, lending have combined to create a situation where the Italian financial system is in need of a large rescue.” — Mihir Kapadia, Sun Global Investments.

M5S blames the euro for Italy’s woes, and many Italians agree.

The eurosceptic Five Star Movement (M5S) has overtaken Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) in several opinion polls and is now the most popular political party in Italy.

The poll results represent a significant shift in Italy’s political landscape and have potentially far-reaching implications for the future of the European Union.

M5S, which would win national elections if they were held today, has called for a referendum on whether Italy, which is facing the collapse of its banking system, should keep the euro, the single currency of the European Union, or bring back the Italian lira.

A move by Italy — the third-largest economy in the eurozone — to abandon the euro could strike a potentially fatal blow to the currency and to the bloc itself.

An Ipsos poll, published by the newspaper Corriere della Sera on July 5, gave M5S 30.6% of the vote, up from 28.9% in April, while Renzi’s center-left PD fell to 29.8% from 31.1%.

A Demos poll, published by La Repubblica on July 1, gave M5S 32.3% of the vote, compared to 30.2% for the PD. An EMG Acqua poll for TeleGiornale La7 television on June 28 gave M5S 31.7%, compared to 31.2% for the PD.

According to Ipsos pollster Nando Pagnoncelli, the polls show that M5S “is increasingly viewed as a political force that is capable of governing the country.”

The anti-establishment M5S was founded in 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a well-known comedian and blogger who has led a popular fight against rampant corruption in Italy’s political system. The party advocates for direct democracy — a system in which political decision making is devolved from the government to citizens — as a way to bypass traditional political parties embroiled in corruption scandals.

M5S, which portrays itself as post-ideological and draws support from both the left and right sides of the political aisle, has leveraged the internet to attract millions of voters, especially among the young.

The 67-year-old Grillo recently handed over the reins of the party to a new “directorate” of five young leaders, of which 30-year-old Luigi Di Maio has become the most prominent. He is widely expected to be the party’s candidate for prime minister at the next election.

Britain is a very small island, a tiny off-shore fragment. England taken alone has a population of over fifty million crammed into a land area about twice the size of Tasmania. Due to immigration England now has the highest population density in Europe and the fifth-highest in the world. The last thing such a country, one that was once a major source of emigration, needs is more people. Yet it is experiencing very high levels of immigration due to the stupidity and wilfulness of its political rulers, who are happy to ignore the resentment felt by the ordinary citizen at this influx and some of whom, like Gordon Brown when he was prime minister, even condemn these ordinary voters as “racist”.

Between 1995 and 2014 an extra four million foreign-born people settled in the United Kingdom. In any one year as many as half a million new long-term immigrants arrive. England now has 419 people per square kilometre, which is up from 379 in 2001. England has overtaken the Netherlands in population density and it is England, not Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, where the immigrants are settling. It is projected that the density of population will rise to 460 people per square kilometre by 2030. The prospect is intolerable.

The result of this mass immigration has been a marked but deliberately concealed fall in the standard of living of the indigenous population and a large rise in inequality. The lying politicians, notably Tony Blair, have boasted about the rise in total national income due to the extra labour the migrants have provided, but most of this increase has gone in wages and welfare payments and services to the migrants themselves. Very little of it has ended up in the pockets of the indigenous population and that little has been completely offset by a rapid and substantial rise in house prices, as more people are crammed into a fixed space. Rents and mortgage payments have rocketed and these are of course a very large part of the expenditure of British citizens and particularly the poorer ones. Not only can the building industry not provide new dwellings fast enough, but as it tries to do so it gobbles up our unspoilt countryside. Britain is being concreted over and is ceasing to be a green and pleasant land. Travel has become impossible, with clogged roads and crowded trains. Our land has been stolen from us. Immigration is theft.

The Left-liberal proponents of an open-door policy, the ones who have imposed this hell on an unwilling people, are the same ideologues who whine about rising inequality. Yet immigration is a key cause of rising inequality. If there is an influx of relatively unskilled migrants, it is those among the indigenous population without skills or capital who are bound to lose out. The leftists were recently excited about Thomas Piketty’s best-selling and utterly misguided book Capital, which set out in an over-simple algebraic formula why we were getting more unequal. However, by capital Piketty meant wealth and a large part of that wealth consists of land and housing. It is the value of these that has risen enormously. When house prices rise there is a transfer of wealth in favour of those who own one from those who do not. Those who lose out are the ones struggling to purchase or rent one. My own modest house is worth ten times what I paid for it, far more than the rate of inflation. Today I could not afford to buy it. The situation is made worse by affluent foreigners buying up the better-quality housing purely as a speculative investment.

“Curse You, Curse You, Curse You, Mr Blair!”

Just what makes Anthony Charles Lynton Blair tick is very hard to fathom. Admired by some, and loathed by others, this “all-over-the-place” politician may well be judged by history (as he is judged by many already) the worst prime minister of the British twentieth century.

The usual suspects of the Left view Blair as a war criminal for the “lies” that took Britain into the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, and feel exonerated by the Chilcot Report, but to numerous men and women Blair’s crimes are those he committed against his own country during his prime ministership (1997-2007).

In the current issue of the Australian conservative intellectual and literary magazine Quadrant Welshman Christie Davies (author of The Strange Death of Moral Britain) articulates this viewpoint with clarity and passion.

Pointing out the societal, economic, and ecological problems associated with Britain’s record high levels of immigration over the last two decades, with England now the most densely populated country in Europe (419 people per square km) and projected to become even more congested by 2030 (460 people per square km), Davies notes that the warnings of demographers during the 1960s regarding future overcrowding if the birthrate did not fall are never alluded to today.

(Anyone seen the slogan “Zero Population Growth” lately? No. Didn’t think so. Since the immigrant population is driving up the birthrate these days it’s much too politically incorrect to suggest that the maximum number of babies per family should be two. Ever seen the Greens arguing that immigration numbers should be restricted, given the fact that swathes of unspoiled countryside and greenbelt land are now being cemented over to meet the need for housing consequent upon today’s massive population surge? Ah, that’ll be the day!)

International support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – despite its rejection of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter – could be exploited by China to blunt international action following an unfavourable ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration against China in The Hague.

Having boycotted those proceedings, Chinese President Xi Jinping then immediately dismissed the decision – which denied China had any legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea:

“China will never accept any claim or action based on those awards”

His rejection was as peremptory as that of the PLO – which declared in Article 18 of its original 1964 Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based upon them are considered fraud.”

This position was revised when the Charter was redrafted in 1968 – Article 20 declaring:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

These provisions have been a major contributing factor in preventing a resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict for the last 52 years.

The international community has not punished the PLO for its unilateral demolition of these international-law building blocks but to the contrary has granted the PLO diplomatic recognition whilst also welcoming the PLO into the United Nations.

Should China be demonised because it also chooses to ignore a determination in international law that it regards as inimical to its national interest?

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/07/13/theresa-may-becomes-prime-minister-immediately-stages-shocking-coup-by-appointing-boris-johnson-foreign-secretary/ Well, well … it seems like Britain’s new prime minister, Theresa May, is as tough as a box of rocks. While most commentators expected her to play it safe after officially succeeding David Cameron today, she actually caused a ruckus by sacking Chancellor George Osborne (a close ally of Cameron) and appointing Brexiteer Boris Johnson […]