The Crass Pragmatism of Shapiro and McCain

Posted on July 31, 2018 by leslie

William James b. 1842, credit Wikipedia

The Crass Pragmatism of Shapiro and McCain

By Ilana Mercer

Ben Shapiro is an anti-Trumper, who continues to assert baselessly that “the future of the Republican party is anti-Trump.”

Fox News, generally pro-POTUS, persists in exposing Deplorables to Shapiro’s twitter travails and spats with a left that, in turn, doesn’t know left from right—for Ben is no rightist; he’s a neoconservative media-pleaser.

In this farcical tradition, Ben was asked to comment on the election of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, whom Rush Limbaugh—he knows a thing or two—calls the female Barack Obama.

Since winning the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th congressional district, Cortez, a hard-core socialist, has been the toast of the town. Continue reading →

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Humphrey Jennings – ‘poet’ of the British Cinema

Posted on July 30, 2018 by leslie

Still from London Can Take It

Humphrey Jennings – ‘poet’ of the
British Cinema

by Stuart Millson

Just a few years after the Second World War, a small film company – Wessex Film Productions Ltd. – issued a “short” – an information film (for the Central Office of Information) – with the title, The Dim Little Island. The subtitle was, for such a modest film, quite lengthy and intriguing: ‘A Short Film composed on some thoughts of our past, present and future from four men.’  The four men in question came from very different walks of life: the great composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams; a naturalist, James Fisher; John Ormston of Vickers Armstrong; and the artist and illustrator, Osbert Lancaster.

The aim of the Producer and Director, Humphrey Jennings, was to examine the idea, prevalent in that time of post-war austerity, that England and Great Britain was, despite its victory in war, an exhausted country, with little to be optimistic about. Jennings had spent most of his life producing “films to order” – documentary, even propaganda films (if you take the cynical view), but with sensitivity, subtlety, and a sense of involvement for the audience. His aim was not just to convey the view of government ministers, but to show the best of the country – and the truth of life in Britain. Even when presenting its less appealing aspects, such as “dark, satanic mills” or unemployment (Jennings was both a patriot and a social reformer), there was an emotional and moral purpose to what he did. If the works of author George Orwell contained a fusion of what (on the face of it, at least) are the two separate ideals of traditional nationhood and the welfare state, then it was Humphrey Jennings who celebrated – and fused – those ideals for the British cinema. Continue reading →

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Eton Mess

Posted on July 29, 2018 by leslie

Lord Mayor’s Show 2008, Christ’s Hospital*

Eton Mess                                         

Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Run Britain, by Robert Verkaik, One World Publications, 2018, pp 349, reviewed by Bill Hartley

Posh Boys takes a fresh look at a familiar story: the role of the public schools in Britain. Most people are aware that social mobility has scarcely shifted in decades and that the life chances of children from poorer families are severely restricted. Robert Verkaik argues convincingly that a significant impediment to change is the public or independent school, as they prefer to call themselves these days.

Posh Boys is no mere addition to the list of books advocating abolition of the public school system. For example, the author does a better job than many on the history of British education since the Middle Ages and how we got to where we are now. He shows how the ideals of those who founded and endowed these institutions have been corrupted. The most famous of them all, Eton College (est.1440), was founded by King Henry VI for the education of 70 poor boys. As a consequence the school and others like it are still able to claim charitable status. It would be interesting to know if this ever crosses the mind of a Russian Oligarch who sends his son there.

One less well known fact is how the British public school brand has been franchised with branches in China, Russia and even Kazakhstan and that the straw boaters of Harrow can be found in Bangkok. As Verkaik notes, having invented inequality of education Britain is now exporting it to the rest of the world. Continue reading →

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Doubting the Intelligence of the Intelligence Community

Posted on July 26, 2018 by leslie

Still from The Third Man

Doubting the Intelligence of the Intelligence Community

By Ilana Mercer

Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, on July 12.

In no way had he failed to discharge his professional unbiased obligation to the public, asserted Strzok. He had merely expressed the hope that “the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating such horrible, disgusting behavior.”

But we did not elect YOU, Mr. Strzok. We elected Mr. Trump.

Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated “Intelligence Community,” itself part of the sprawling political machine that makes up the D.C. comitatus, now writhing like a fire breathing, mythical monster against President Donald Trump. Continue reading →

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Western own Goals, as Russia Scores Big League

Posted on July 23, 2018 by leslie

Western own Goals, as Russia Scores Big League

By Gregory Slysz

The huge success of the World Cup in Russia was certainly not part of the script of those who sought to undermine it. The initial reaction from Western quarters following Russia’s successful bid in 2010 to host the tournament was largely confined to sour grapes, especially from the losing bids, with accusations of corruption being the most pugnacious charges that were levelled against Moscow. Yet over the next few years, amidst worsening Western-Russo relations over the Ukrainian, Syria and the Skripal crises, all of which Russia stood accused of, this relatively benign approach steadily escalated into something much more menacing, that was to see a synchronised anti-Russia campaign between politicians of all hues and the Mainstream Media, for different ideological reasons, not witnessed since the bleakest days of the Cold War.

It was, therefore, imperative for Western governments to discredit the World Cup and even to prevent it from happening at all. Centred around a project fear, it foretold of mass terrorism,  state sponsored hooliganism, some of the ‘Nazi female thug’ type, risks of contracting various diseases, Putin organised ‘honey traps’, dirty hotels,  and racist and homophobic attacks. One player, England’s Danny Rose, went as far as to advise his family not to travel to Russia for fear of being racially abused. Continue reading →

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Violence in a Civilised Society, part 2

Posted on July 19, 2018 by leslie

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Violence in a Civilised Society, part 2

by Mark Wegierski

Concerning the question of violence against the state or its ruling groups, some would argue that “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.” However, are there in fact any right‑wing terrorist groups in the West today, apart from some miniscule fringes? Apropos the “right-wing threat,” many of the incidents of swastika‑daubing in the former West Germany were staged by the Soviet intelligence services and Far Left activists. Some liberals have portrayed the vicious terrorist attacks in Oklahoma City and in Norway as typical of a generalized right-wing and tried to link the Arizona shootings to the Tea Party.

There are a large number of criteria by which a terrorist can be distinguished from a legitimate fighter for national self‑determination or other cultural goals. Especially during the Cold War era, liberals tended to see many groups employing terror as “freedom‑fighters,” while at the same time seeing many quite restrained oppositionists as “terrorists.”

Liberals appear to be less concerned about threats to “social order” and even “civil order” when the threat is posed by the Far Left (e.g. the Red Army Faction) or by criminal elements. But any possible crimes that can be attributed to an unfairly generalized “right-wing,” such as the bombing of abortion clinics or shootings of doctors who provide abortion services (which are clearly carried out by obviously disturbed individuals), are met with the strictest severity, and by attempts to extend permanent blame onto the entire right-wing. Continue reading →

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Rise of the New Right

Posted on July 17, 2018 by leslie

Rise of the New Right

The Rise of the Right: English Nationalism and the Transformation of Working-Class Politics, Simon Winlow et al., Policy Press, University of Bristol, 2017, reviewed by Allan Pond

The claim that the ‘left’ has replaced traditional socio-economic concerns with ‘intersectional’ issues such as gender and ethnicity is hardly original. Many commentators on both the left and the right have concluded that the left ‘lost the economic battle but won the cultural one’. A set of interviews with supporters and members of the English Defence League (EDL) is the peg upon which the authors hang a larger argument about the decline of the traditional working class left.

The middle class, liberal left preferred adaptation to capitalism rather than its transformation. This caused the working class to feel abandoned and patronized, so they adopted right wing’ ideas instead. That, in a nut-shell, is the authors’ argument. This new left no longer had faith in the working class and looked instead to the ‘fragments’ as the motor of change. The traditional (white) working class were now deemed ‘redundant’ (to use the title of one of their chapters) not only in the sense of being surplus to capital’s requirements, but also in terms of the liberal left’s analysis of agents capable of leveraging change. Continue reading →

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ENDNOTES, July 2018

Posted on July 17, 2018 by leslie

Picasso, Guernica

Endnotes: July 2018, Michael Tippett, an overlooked English composer, by Stuart Millson; Steven Osborne, Martin Kasík, recitals reviewed by Leslie Jones

Sir Michael Tippett – a greatly admired figure in the 1970s and ‘80s, especially during Proms seasons – has fallen from public view in the last 30 years. His huge choral-orchestral work, The Mask of Time, opened the 1984 Proms to great acclaim; and his post-war operatic output rivalled that of Britten. Despite his radicalism and his embracing of liberal causes, Tippett’s fundamental Englishness shone through; and perhaps it was this “cultural DNA” which partly led, in our age of increasing musical nihilism and shunning of national feeling, to his eclipse.

Like Britten, unofficially enthroned at Aldeburgh, Suffolk as the “magus” of English composers, so it was that Tippett – especially in royal tributes, such as his Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles – became, in the eyes of an unforgiving avant-garde, an English establishment composer.

Michael Kemp Tippett, 1905 – 1998, had a mixture of West Country and Kentish ancestry – his (well-to-do) family exhibiting a strong grain of free-thinking, non-conformist idealism. Early associations with Socialism, with the workers’ educational movement, with Morley College (he was appointed its Director of Music in 1940) placed him, at first, as a figure who seemed to be against the grain of his country. But his music was championed by our conducting knights of pre- and post-war fame – the conservative Sargent and Boult – and latterly by the more progressive Colin and Andrew Davis, and Simon Rattle. Continue reading →

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Lindsey Graham’s Lies

Posted on July 15, 2018 by leslie

President Assad

Lindsey Graham’s Lies

by Ilana Mercer

On just about every issue, in 2016, candidate Trump ran in opposition to Sen. Lindsey Graham. Donald Trump won the presidency; Lindsey Graham quit the race with near-zero popularity, as reflected in the polls.

The People certainly loathe the senator from South Carolina. A poll conducted subsequently found that Graham was amongst the least popular senators. No wonder. Graham is reliably wrong about most things.

But being both misguided and despised have done nothing to diminish Sen. Graham’s popularity with Big Media, left and right. Thus were his pronouncements accorded the customary reverence, during a July 10 segment, on Fox News‘ “The Story.” Which is when he told anchor Martha MacCallum that “Putin is not doing anything good in Syria.” Continue reading →

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In Memoriam, George Parkin Grant, 1918-1988

Posted on July 9, 2018 by leslie

In Memoriam, George Parkin Grant,
1918-1988

 By Mark Wegierski

George Parkin Grant (who usually called himself George Grant) is virtually unknown outside of Canada, and should not be confused with the American conservative writer of the same first and last name. The exploration of the combination of the four words used to describe George Grant – conservative, Canadian, nationalist, philosopher– is the backbone of this essay.

George Grant was not a narrowly partisan politician confined to the day-to-day mud-slinging and hurly-burly of “practical politics” — rather, he was a political philosopher who looked at society from a “world-historical” perspective. Although Grant wanted to be widely understood, his writing is far more abstract and abstruse, and far less crudely biased, than that found in “practical political” discourse.

George Grant was not an analytic philosopher (i.e., he loved broad vistas rather than minutiae); nor was he a political scientist in the sense of the kind of person in political studies who aspires to put on a lab coat to lend themselves prestige; nor was he a student of international relations; and certainly not an administrative or management theorist. By his preference for political philosophy, Grant set himself against the rising tide of disciplines, which are proceeding – despite some exotic postmodern fraying at the edges — in the direction of analytics, the scientific model, a mathematical modelling of international relations, and administrative and managerial approaches. Continue reading →

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