Victoria: Chapter 16

By the third decade of the 21st century, the dissolution of the United States had reached the point where each year brought a new crisis. The crisis of 2023 began with the Persell Amendment to the Clean Air Act, a measure intended to prevent the smoking of tobacco.I am not making this up. I know it sounds like satire, but it happened.In the 1990s and 2000s, as the greatest country in the world turned itself into a cultural toxic waste dump, one of the great issues that absorbed the federal government's attention was – tobacco smoke.The government and the “health industry” that lived off the government whooped it up that tobacco smoke was second only to Xyclon B as the worst thing you could inhale. At first, they just tried to get smokers to quit. But like all bandwagons of the absurd, once their campaign got rolling it rolled over everybody. Soon, they were shrieking that just smelling the smoke from someone else’s pipe, cigar, or cigarette was enough to put you in the grave tomorrow, or by next week at the latest. They called it “second-hand smoke.”Of course, you got far more crap in your lungs just walking past a bus, but that didn't matter. Smoking was outlawed far and wide where anyone might smell the smoke. Smokers were literally driven out, into back alleys and onto loading docks for a furtive puff.A reasonable man, or even woman, might have considered that people had been smoking for some centuries, yet by a miracle the human race had survived. Smokers and non-smokers had even managed to get along, quite nicely in most cases. The secret was etiquette. Good manners dictated that some places were for smoking and some were not, and that where the lines were uncertain, smokers asked the assembled company for permission before they indulged. Previous to the hysteria, permission was usually graciously given, and no one seemed the worse for it.But by the early 2000s, anti-smoking militancy was the “cause” of the day. Avoiding tobacco smoke had become the equivalent of Fletcherizing – the 19th century movement that promised sparkling health and a Methuselah lifespan to anyone who chewed each bite of food one hundred times. Americans always were suckers for health crazes.And politicians were always on the lookout for suckers. So when the Clean Air Act came up for renewal in 2023, Senator Whitman Persell (“Wimpy” to his friends), Democrat of California, saw a chance to score some points with the anti-tobacco harpies. He proposed an amendment whereby anyone who smelled tobacco smoke anywhere might sue any nearby smoker. The plaintiff did not have to prove that the smoker was smoking at the time; the fact that he or she was an admitted smoker was considered proof enough. The amendment encouraged triple damages for “pain and suffering.” With the enthusiastic backing of the Cisneros administration and the usual craven collapse by Congressional Republicans, the amendment was signed into law. The Health Nazis triumphantly proclaimed “the end of tobacco smoking in America.”As the law intended, smokers found themselves hunted like rats. A smoker, placed under oath on the witness stand, had to admit smoking or be guilty of perjury. But if they admitted they smoked, they lost the suit, along with their life savings and most else they owned. Repairmen, neighbors, even family members would come into a smoker’s home and promptly file a lawsuit, which they won. If someone smelled smoke in someone else’s clothes, they sued and won. The Surgeon General even issued a pamphlet suggesting ways smokers could be trapped into revealing their filthy habit, and then sued. It was a virtual reign of terror, enforced by impoverishment.But the result was not the end of tobacco smoking in America. The result was war. Smokers fought back.It started about six months after the Persell Amendment took effect. In Pasadena, a little old lady had been sued by a Meals on Wheels deliverywoman who had spotted a telltale cigarette butt in her kitchen garbage. As usual, the smoker lost, and the court ordered her home seized and sold to pay the deliverywoman her winnings. In the final court session on the case, the little old lady pulled a Saturday Night Special out of her handbag and blew away the judge and the plaintiff.She was shot down herself by a sheriff, but on her way to court she had sent a letter to the L.A. Times explaining her action. “I had nothing more to lose," she wrote. “I would rather die quickly than be left on the street, penniless. And I won't stop smoking. I was born and grew up in England, and I remember how, in 1940, when a Nazi invasion seemed certain, Churchill had posters printed up saying, ‘You Can Always Take One With You.’ So that is what I will try to do.”Her story was picked up by the rest of the media, not in sympathy but to demonstrate how all smokers were dangerous extremists. However, smokers got a different message. “You Can Always Take One With You” posters appeared on walls and street signs. Other smokers who had lost everything, or feared they soon would, began shooting. They shot judges and lawyers. They shot the people who had sued them, or other members of the plaintiffs families. They shot government health personnel. One of them shot Senator Persell; regrettably, he survived. They all left the same message: “I had nothing more to lose.”Up in Maine, our Maine First state government saw an opportunity. The Governor proposed, and the legislature adopted, a “Resolution of Nullification” that stated that hereafter, the Persell Amendment would not apply in Maine. Maine folks still had good manners, and we would handle tobacco smoke the old way, as a matter of etiquette.The feds understood quite well what nullification meant for them; that battle had gone the other way in the 1830s, and the long-ago victory was still an important part of their power. They went to the Supreme Court and Maine was overruled.But our Governor, John C. Adams, stuck to his guns – or rather, our guns. He wrote to the President and told him the Nullification Ordinance still stood, and that whatever a federal court might rule, no monies based on a Persell Amendment judgment would be paid in Maine. If Washington didn't like it, they could try to send in federal agents again. We Christian Marines made it clear we were not averse to another meeting like the one at Lake Sebasticook, and the state militia raised on the occasion was still available.Under normal circumstances, Cisneros probably would have sent in federal agents, or troops. But the federal government was by this time caught up in a real crisis, and it didn't have much attention to spare to the tobacco question. Once it was clear we had successfully nullified Persell, Vermont and New Hampshire did the same, as did the states of the deep South. Elsewhere, smokers kept shooting.The smokers’ defiance had showed the power of leaderless resistance. In former wars and revolutions, effective, sustained resistance required leadership and organization. Without a Continental Congress or a Jacobin Directorate or a Bolshevik Party to guide and direct and order, action could not be sustained. Now, in the 21st century, the Internet supplied “virtual organization” by allowing the actions of one to inspire others, and the actions of those others to instruct and animate more. From the standpoint of the government, it was a nightmare; the rebellions (there were soon many) had no head that could be cut off, no junta or central committee or official spokesmen who could be arrested or assassinated. The ubiquity of the Internet meant it could not be silenced, and it could not discipline itself to pass over stories that people wanted to see. For good and for ill, the Internet was the sorcerer's apprentice.Now pardon me, if you'll be so gracious, while I light a fresh cigar.

On Loyalty and Identity

Recently I received an email from a friend commenting on ethno-nationalism. She contends that while group belonging by birth is a factor in establishing societal cohesion, loyalty is in reality much more important to that end. I generally agree with her assertion, but with some qualifiers.Group or institutional loyalty certainly goes a long way, but it is only a part of the whole equation. The other side of that coin is acceptance by the rest of the group, which in turn nurtures loyalty. Loyalty and acceptance together form an identity, a term that the Right needs to learn to embrace.The word “identity” works well because it does things that other terms such as “race,” “ethnicity,” or “nationality” cannot, at least not as elegantly, and it paints a picture of the realities of human tribalism. This is because identity is not like loyalty to a sports team. Fans can pick the team they like, wear the jersey, and cheer for the men on the field who wear those same clothes, all while requiring no measure of personal sacrifice. But arbitrarily declaring citizenship, waving the flag, and singing the state anthem simply does not cut it. Tribal identity requires more than superficial markers of loyalty.Birth into the group and blood heritage are concrete foundations—reasons for loyalty. Coincidentally, they are also the primary bases for group acceptance. One's blood ties to his ancestors supports admission to the tribe and provides an impetus for learning the myths and traditions of the folk. Loyalty to the tribe develops organically, because it is “ours.” Our people, our culture, our God, our king, our homeland, our ancestors are all worthy of great sacrifice.“Identity” is also useful, particularly these days, because it is not hung up on purity. It gets us to focus on race to the extent that it matters. Identity acknowledges that being of the blood is integral to tribal identity, but also that it is unproductive at best to quibble over percentages of foreign admixture. It simply is not important. Belonging to the tribe is akin to being part of the family, rather than whether one falls into a category that must be defined by statistics and figures. The important questions must be, “Are you tied to us by blood or similar bond?” and “Are you willing to sacrifice everything for our culture and our people?”Julius Evola, one of tR's greatest inspirations, wrote extensively about the relationship (and even preeminence) of “race of the spirit” to “race of the body.” In Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race he writes,

Race is a profound force manifesting itself in the realm of the body as in the realm of the spirit. In its full meaning the purity of race occurs when these two manifestations coincide; in other words, when the race of the body matches the race of the spirit and when it is capable of serving the most adequate organ of expression.

And later,There are actually too many cases of people who are somatically of the same race, of the same tribe, indeed who are fathers and sons of the same blood in the strict sense of the word and, yet who cannot “understand” each other. A demarcation line separates their souls; their way of feeling and judging is different and their common race of the body cannot do much about it, nor their common blood.  The impossibility of mutual understanding lies therefore on the level of supra-biology. Mutual understanding and hence real togetherness, as well as deeper unity, are only possible where the common "race of the soul" and the "spirit" coexist.Merely being tied by blood, although significant, is not enough to form an identity. Loyalty to the group, its culture, and its institutions are all prerequisites for acceptance and belonging.Ignoring loyalty and identity is having tremendous ramifications for governments today. Decades of rule by disloyal ideologues is withering away at the legitimacy of the post-Westphalian state. The modern nation-state is no longer an instrument for the defense and betterment of a people (if it ever really was), and people are beginning to realize this. They are recognizing that their leaders are not part of the tribe.Identity may be the state's only hope of survival and, yet, coincidentally, is the only political movement with a possibility of shaping what might come after it. It is also the only vehicle rightists can use to revive and defend Western Tradition. Resource:http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Sunic-Evola.html

David Frum Owes Conservatives an Apology

[PHOTO] Iraqis who have volunteered to join the army and fight ISIS militants parade in Baghdad. (Reuters/The Atlantic)Wow! Former neocon hawk David Frum urges against further US involvement in Iraq in this Atlantic op-ed. I was shocked when I saw the title: “Iraq Isn’t Ours to Save: A Hawk's Case for Caution.” While the article is not a complete repudiation of his past neo-conservatism, it’s not nothing either.First what it is not. Frum is careful to clarify that he still supports an active interventionist foreign policy. He begins by stating:

I was a strong supporter of the Iraq war. Now I urge caution about military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgency in the country.U.S. intervention to defend its interests and support its friends remains essential.

He advises against US involvement primarily because he believes saving the Maliki government serves the interests of Iran, which reveals he still has that peculiar neocon obsession. But contrary to the hysteria of many of his fellow hawks, he concedes that ISIS is a purely regional threat and not the global or, even more foolishly, existential threat that the alarmists are making it out to be. He also believes there is little likelihood that ISIS will succeed in “taking over” Iraq. They will meet increased Shiite and Iranian resistance as they move toward more heavily Shiite regions.For someone who once co-wrote a book called An End to Evil in which he treated the mere existence of terrorist and rogue regimes as a threat that the US must confront, his admission that ISIS is only a local problem is a significant concession.It is this concession, though, that is most shocking:

The United States overestimated the threat from Saddam Hussein in 2003. Without an active nuclear-weapons program, he was not a danger beyond his immediate vicinity. That war cost this country dearly. The United States failed in its most ambitious objective: establishing a stable, Western-oriented government for all of Iraq.

Again, for someone who was a chief neocon propagandist prior to the Iraq War, this is a significant admission. He concedes that we overestimated the threat from Saddam Hussein, although the “Without an active nuclear-weapons program…” clause leaves room for him to warmonger against Iran in the future. He also admits that we failed in our mission to establish a Western-friendly government. While he doesn’t say as much, he arguably implies that this was an unrealistic goal to begin with. He says we left Maliki with a framework, but expresses no surprise that that framework was quickly subverted.I think some of what we see here is part of Frum’s broader transformation to “thoughtful” moderate. Frum began as a fairly typical mainstream conservative who even once wrote a book chastising the Republicans for not being conservative enough on big government and spending. He slowly transformed into a “reform conservative,” aka a moderate, which cost him his job at the American Enterprise Institute and National Review. While I don’t agree with his move toward moderation, I have always thought that Frum, while blinded by his ideology on foreign policy and too quick to smear his perceived enemies, is not a complete idiot and knows how to count.For example, Frum has always been sounder on immigration than many of the other neocons, I highly suspect this is because he can do math, apparently unlike many of his fellow Republicans, and knows that importing a bunch of new Democrat voters does not bode well for the future electoral success of the party that supports his foreign policy agenda. Likewise, his move to moderation likely reflects his ability to count noses and his belief that the GOP must become more competitive in the Northeast and Upper Midwest if it is to remain a viable national party. As a true-believing conservative I don’t support this approach, but it is clearly recognizable pragmatism.What has always struck me as obviously unworkable about Frumism, however, was his seeming belief that he could keep his hawkish foreign policy interventionism but wed it with social and economic moderation. There is simply no significant constituency for this. Just look at how well Rudy Giuliani fared outside New York. (And Giuliani really isn’t that much of an economic moderate.) Moderates tend to be moderates across the board. People who value moderation for moderation’s sake are likely to be social, economic, and defense moderates. I believe Frum recognizes that a hawkish foreign policy is also a liability with the moderation caucus he is attempting to court, hence his efforts, which began before this article, to polish the rough edges off his militarism.That said, here is what I want to know: Now that Frum has admitted that the Iraq War was a mistake, when is he going to apologize to all the paleoconservative and libertarian war opponents that he slandered in his now infamous National Review hit piece, “Unpatriotic Conservatives” In that piece he smeared many conservatives who are likely favorites of readers of this website such as Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Thomas Fleming, Sam Francis, Joe Sobran, and Charley Reese. They clearly got the Iraq War right, and Frum now admits he got it wrong. Is it not fair to believe an apology to these fine men, several now deceased, is in order? Come on Mr. Frum, we’re waiting. Dan E. Phillips, MD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia. His work has been published at Lew Rockwell, Chronicles Magazine, Intellectual Conservative, the Abbeville Institute blog, and several other places. He can be contacted at danphillipsmd@gmail.com.

Mr. Lind Goes to Washington

Earlier this week, our own William S. Lind made an appearance on C-SPAN to discuss America's unwinnable wars. See the video here.

Victoria: Chapter 15

War is the extension of politics, and politics may also be an extension of war.By 2022, the first shots of America's Second Civil War were audible. This time, instead of a few cannon firing at Fort Sumter, its heralds were the popping of thousands of caps. Blacks shot whites because they were white, and Hispanics shot blacks because they were black. Whites usually still called the police to do their shooting for them, though the results seldom justified the cost of the phone call. Koreans and Jews got shot by everybody.Right-to-lifers shot abortion doctors, who in turn relied on their needles and forceps to terminate potential future right-to-lifers. Farmers shot EPA agents, and the feds threw farmers into jails where they were homosexually raped. Once a week, somewhere in the country, the gays fire-bombed a church. Somewhere else, once a week, a bomb in a car or a briefcase took out a government office. Insurance companies would no longer sell life insurance to IRS employees.Like real war in every place and every time, it wasn't pretty. I hated it.In Maine, our hope was to keep our distance, and increase it wherever we could. That was the Maine Idea, and after we had beaten the feds both on our home soil and in Vermont, most folks were enthusiastic about it.I was pretty sure the whole political system would go down the drain sooner or later, and probably sooner. But in the mean time, we had to use it intelligently for whatever it could do for us.The Maine Idea had attracted some folks who understood politics better than I did, and I was happy to let them take the lead. They weren't politicians, just normal people who had done the grass-roots organizing that gave the Maine Idea its clout. An idea, even the best idea, seldom goes very far on its own. A good idea plus lots of people who will work for it leads to a different future.I was happy to play a fly on the wall in the meetings where Bill Kraft and other grass-roots leaders put together the Maine First Party. They figured that if a political party based on the Maine Idea controlled the state legislature and the governor's office, Maine would improve its chances of saving itself from the coming catastrophe.They found ordinary people, good people, to run for office. They got candidates on the ballot for every office in the state. They made clear exactly what they were for: a Maine that stood as far apart from the rest of the country as it could get.They also wanted a place where we could live the way State o’ Mainers had lived in times past. When some greasy reporter up from New York asked Bill Kraft what that meant, he replied with the words of the old Book of Common Prayer: we wanted to live a Godly, righteous, and sober life. To most people in Maine, that summed it up nicely.The Maine First Party faced the Establishment, local and national, with its greatest nightmare: an anti-Establishment alternative the average person could vote for. And vote for it they did. In November of 2022, when all the votes were counted, the Maine First Party held every statewide office and had majorities of better than 80% in both houses of the legislature. The Republicans and the Democrats had been wiped off the state political map.This victory at the ballot box was as important as any victory we ever won on the battlefield. It quickly led to Vermont First and New Hampshire First Parties in those states; as in Maine, they swept into power on a tidal wave of public support. The victories of the home state parties gave upper New England the chance for recovering our freedom when the time came, and laid the basis for the Northern Confederation.In Massachusetts, the same effort failed. Too many citizens of that Commonwealth found their wealth in the common trough that was government, and they were afraid of losing their regular ration of swill. They paid for it, later.I made certain every Christian Marine understood the relationship between war and politics, and politics and war. The actions we had fought, especially the Battle of Lake Sebasticook, made the Maine First victory possible. The victory of the Maine First Party in turn made it possible for us to fight for Maine's freedom, and win. Each victory fed on the other. Neither was possible without the other. Neither had any meaning without the other.Throughout history, some soldiers have argued that politics should stop when the shooting starts. What fools.

The View From Olympus: Mr. Maliki Takes a Baath

June 13, 2014The Iraqi pseudo-state is collapsing and its foreign-bred military is going home. The only surprise is that both lasted as long as they did. Once again we see the main lesson of Fourth Generation war: once a state is destroyed, no one can re-create it.President Obama is edging toward committing U.S. airpower to the conflict, though not American ground troops. With no effective force on the ground to support, air power is unlikely to be decisive. The only source of a competent ground force is Iran, and while it would be amusing to see American warplanes providing close air support for the Al Quds Force, there is no reason for America to be involved in a Sunni-Shiite civil war. On the contrary, our interests are best served if that war is long and bloody. A region with vast numbers of young men with no prospects is going to generate war. Better they fight each other than us.This latest phase of the war in Iraq has several aspects that have not received much attention. One, noted briefly by The New York Times, is that the Baath is back. Former Baathist leaders and, I suspect, Republican Guard troops are playing a significant role in the Sunni offensive. I think it likely that the role of the Baath is greater and of ISIS smaller than new reports suggest. It was only a matter of time before the Sunnis launched a strategic counteroffensive to restore their rule over all Iraq, and I suspect we are now seeing it. For Iraqi Sunnis, being ruled by Shiites is intolerable. The Sunnis are outnumbered, but the Baath knows how to organize, which the Shiites apparently do not. They may yet win this.A second unremarked aspect of the Sunni offensive is that ISIS seems to be trying to draw the Kurds in. The Kurds want Mosul, and they will be sorely tempted to move now to take it. How would this benefit ISIS? It could potentially add a Kurds vs. Arabs dimension to the conflict, and some Shiites might choose to line up with Arab Sunnis against the Kurds. This being the Middle East, everybody hates everybody else. The question is who hates whom more right now, and all Arabs hate the Kurds. (Remember, this is a place the neo-cons promised to turn into Switzerland.) Both ISIS and the Baath are smart enough to know the rule, divide et impera.A third aspect, one directly related to the collapse of the Iraqi Army, is that once again we are seeing that Arabs fight well when they rely on their own traditional way of war, which is essentially irregular light cavalry warfare. With only one exception, Jordan, Arab armies that try to adopt Western models fail. Of course, the fact that the present Iraqi Army is simultaneously a foreign creation and a collection of Shiite militias that get government paychecks are also factors in that army's collapse.The role of  the Baath and a resurrected Republican Guard in the Sunni counteroffensive may give the Sunnis an interesting mix of capabilities, with the Western-model Republican Guard serving in effect as the heavy infantry and ISIS as the light cavalry. If so, look for the Republican Guard to be the cheng force and ISIS the chi. All this would be something the region has seen many times over many centuries.Viewed  from the perspective of the state system, the best outcome would probably be a Sunni victory followed by a restored Baathist Iraq. The Baath have shown they can make Iraq into a real state; none of the other parties has evinced that capability The Baath would have to crush their new allies, ISIS, but in that part of the world you can welcome a man as your brother in the morning and slit his throat at lunch (and keep on eating). The fact that a Baath revival would best serve Washington's interests shows better than anything else the bottomless ignorance and folly of the George W. Bush administration and the neo-cons. We are left hoping for the return of the Iraq they destroyed, though, once again, America's real interests are served best by an Islamic Thirty Years War.Meanwhile, have empathy for all our men who fought in Iraq. They now face a war of lost victories. One of war's most inexorable rules is that a higher level dominates a lower. The Bush administration's failure at the strategic level could not be redeemed at the tactical level. It is a rule German soldiers of the 20th century learned only too well.

A Time For Wolves

The Wolves of Vinland are Building a Tribe Outside the System

Brothers will battle to bloody end, and sisters’ sons their sib betray;woe’s in the world, much wantonness;axe-age, sword-age — sundered are shields — wind-age, wolf-age, ere the world crumbled;will the spear of no man spare the other.– “Völuspá”

Grimnir moved barefoot through the dirt at Ulfheim like he didn’t know he wasn’t wearing cowboy boots.

He rolled his shoulders, shook out his neck, and called out to Frejulf. This would be Grimnir’s third match of the day, and it wouldn’t be his last.

Frejulf seemed chipper for a kid who knew was about to get his face fucked up. He was a junior patch member of the Wolves, and this was going to be a disciplinary beatdown. Grimnir, leader of the Lynchburg chapter, had promised that if Frejulf didn’t get some extracurricular mixed martial arts training within a few months, he would show him why he needed it. Frejulf knew his time was up.

A red bearded patch with an algiz ᛉ rune tattoo on his freckled shoulder started picking out a tune on the banjo.

Grimnir and Frejulf touched their MMA gloves. Then hoots, hollers and brawling.

The fight was over in less than a minute.

Frejulf had blood on his face when he got up. He looked a little dazed, but he was smiling. He’d taken his medicine like a man, and hadn’t made too bad of showing — all things considered.

Paul Waggener, who you know as Grimnir, gave him a quick hug and a pat on the back.

There’s this video making the rounds designed to convince people that the worst thing you can tell a young male to do is “man up.”

It’s far worse to let a young men luxuriate in his own tears and fears and fantasize that he’s something special for doing nothing special. That’s a degradation of his spirit and a waste of a perfectly good Y chromosome.

A fat lip is just a fat lip.

Grimnir grabbed a wifebeater, cleaned the mud off his face and called out for a prospect to bring him a beer. He looked on as the fights continued. A few more serious matches, and a lot of light sparring. Another bloodied smile, a mild concussion and some vomiting. All in good fun.

Grimnir told me that the fighting was just a warmup for the main event at dusk. His brother, Jarn-nefr, who runs the Wyoming chapter, added later that the greatest achievement of the Wolves has been their ritual practice.

The Wolves of Vinland officially identify themselves as “a tribe of folkish heathens.”

About seven years ago, Grimnir and Jarn-nefr were running a black metal venue in the Lynchburg, Virginia area, and they decided to start a regular Viking theme night. They drank beer, played Icelandic folk music, and started reading the Eddas. As more of their friends became interested, they decided to move things outside. The Wolves started holding regular sumbels in a National Park.

The sumbel is a common practice in Germanic paganism, derived from ancient texts like Beowulf, Lokasenna and Heimskringla. Sumbel loosely means “feast” or “gathering” and often involves “boasting” or “toasting” with drinking horns filled with mead.

As the Wolves entered their second year, the guys started wrestling at sumbel, and some of the members started wearing motorcycle gang style “battle jackets.” From the initial “come one, come all” approach, a natural hierarchy and sense of collective identity emerged. The men felt the need to determine who was “in” and who was “out.” Oaths of loyalty were taken, and new members were filtered through a prospecting system. As Grimnir said to me, “why hang out with just anyone?”

By the end of the third year, the current system was more or less in place, and all new members had to be voted in unanimously at the Lynchburg group at Ulfhiem. The Wolves have members in eleven states and a handful of international prospects. They’ve been denounced as “luckless bastards” by some more “settled” heathen organizations, so they decided to make a joke of it. Several of the Wolves wear “luckless bastard” patches on their battle jackets.

Ulfhiem is a 12-acre property owned by the Wolves. There’s a small cabin, a tool shed, and a structure for smaller fires where music is played. In 2013, the group crowd-funded the construction of a massive longhall, which is almost finished. The majority of the group’s activities, however, are funded by dues.

The afternoon of fighting was part of the Wolves’ monthly “moot” — a word with deep Indo-European roots that means “meeting” or “gathering.” It’s where “moot point” comes from. Originally, “moot point” meant an issue that needed to be resolved by an assembly of a people, but has come to indicate an issue already resolved and therefore irrelevant. Part of the moot’s purpose is for patched members of the Wolves to discuss official business. At some point during the afternoon, Grimnir called them over and they disappeared to vote on patching in a new member — and other subjects unknown to outsiders.

As Sköll chased the sun across the sky, I joined some of the prospects at the top of a hill. They were cutting themselves and using their own blood to draw runes and sigls on a large piece of white fabric. It was the sail for a fifteen or twenty foot long mock wooden ship they’d built earlier. I helped them fill the hull with branches for the night’s ritual — a yearly celebration of Baldr’s funeral.

The women of the tribe prepared food and we ate as home-brewed mead and beer were passed around. Grimnir joined a few of the other musicians and played country music. A couple of kids had their own wrestling matches. Everyone was restlessly waiting for dusk. As golden hour approached, a tall guy with several runic brands on his lanky frame came over to talk to me about the ritual. His name was Finnulfr, and he’d given a workshop on sigils earlier in the afternoon. He invited me to come down and “get crazy” with the guys in their ritual pre-funk.

Grimnir handed me the end of a bottle of home-brewed mead and told me to kill it. It was deliciously dry compared to the sugary meads I’d tasted in the past. I followed him and a few others into the woods and down a hill to a place called the Ve. There was already a small fire going, and Finnulfr and the others were busy preparing for the ritual. It was almost dark, and the failing light beyond the crackling fire of the Ve seemed cold and blue. Three black, rune-painted drums were beaten in a steady, ominous rhythm. The men took off their cuts and shirts and passed around a bowl full of black ash, blood and  mead. Each Wolf smeared it on his face, chest and arms. One of them asked me to draw algiz ᛉ on his forehead. I wasn’t sure how much I should participate as an outsider, but I was glad when he smeared the black goop across my face in some unknowable configuration.

After they’d all anointed themselves, they gathered around one of the drums and started a group death drone that sounded a bit like low Mongolian throat singing. Different men picked up different registers, adding growls and howls to an otherworldly mix of primal sounds.

This is the point where you decide whether you want to remain a smug “objective” outsider, or allow yourself to be moved by the experience and become part of it. You decide whether the movie is good enough to lose yourself in it.

I wanted this experience. I traveled across the country for it. I closed my eyes for a while and let go.

Somewhere between the drums and the hums and wild throat singing, out here in the darkness, we folded into the headspace of our barbarian fathers. Men, magic and nature were all the same thing, and the world was alive again.

After a few more minutes, the drumming reached a climax and stopped. The men got up and there were embraces and pats on the back and shoulder and the hand-to-forearm handshake the Wolves favor. There was some joking and quiet laughter, but the Wolves reminded each other to keep the mood.

I was seated beside an eight foot wooden stretcher covered in black cloth that symbolized Baldr’s corpse. Grimnir came over and handed me a plastic milk jug full of wormwood-infused homebrew.

“This should get you in the mood.”

I took a few pulls, but Grimnir and Lyðulfr insisted that I keep chugging it until I’d swallowed what I’d guess was at least a full pint. I drank until they were satisfied and joked about being an old man, but the truth was that I wanted to make sure I’d be able to remember the night.

It was whispered that we had about twenty minutes before the actual faining would begin. Finnulfr explained later that it was called a faining instead of a blot because no sacrificial blood would be spilled during this particular ritual. Some of the guys relaxed, and some of them focused on final preparations. Grimnir, Jarn-nefr, Finnulfr and Lyðulfr had each prepared readings for Baldr’s funeral and they quietly coordinated them.

The story of Baldr’s death, harrowing and rebirth comes from the Völuspá in the Poetic Edda, was developed in the Gylfaginning in Sturluson’s Prose Edda, and was retold by poet Matthew Arnold in 1855.

Baldr was the son of Odin and brother of Thor. As the god of light and purity, he was known as the most beautiful of all the gods. He and his mother, Frigg, dreamed of his death, so Frigg asked all of the plants and animals and stones to swear they’d never hurt him. She overlooked the mistletoe, because it seemed harmless and too young to swear. Because nothing could hurt him, he became invincible, and the gods made a game of hurling things at Baldr — knowing he’d be unharmed. Loki, ever mischievous, made an arrow (or a spear) of the mistletoe, and gave it to the blind god Höðr to shoot at Baldr. When he shot the arrow, Baldr fell dead.

The gods wept and placed his funeral pyre on a ship to burn at sea, “for that is what the dead desire.” In death he went to the underworld, with Hel, and although his mother tried to broker his release, he was forced to remain there until Ragnarök, the end of the world. After the other gods die and the giant Surtr sets fire to the world with his flaming sword, Baldr will be released from the underworld and begin a new age with the survivors of the cataclysm.

The story of Baldr is a story of hope and the rebirth of beauty and purity following an age of darkness and despair.

We saw lights following the path down the hill. The drums started up again and everyone took their places. The women and other members of the tribe gathered above the Ve.

When everyone was settled, Finnulfr called out the directions with a spear — invoking the land spirits, gods and ancestors. Grimnir, Jarn-nefr and Lyðulfr gave fiery, nearly Nietzschean speeches about self-overcoming through discipline and will, and increasing the honor of the group by becoming a higher version of oneself. Grimnir reminded the assembled heathens that they were in a place “out of time,” consciously revolting against the modern world and becoming a different kind of man. He spoke about the evils of the encroaching world and concluded that it was a good time to be a wolf, because the future belongs to wolves. Lyðulfr spoke about the rebirth of Baldr and knowing that light will come from darkness. He ended his grim, pagan sermon by shouting “LONG LIVE DEATH!”

After all of the men had spoken, Jarn-nefr introduced a prospect who had travelled from Wyoming to moot. He was a tall, solid guy with white-blond hair. I’d watched him win a boxing match earlier that day. Jarn-nefr wrapped a wolf skin around his shoulders and directed him to a stone podium to read out his oath to all and become a full member of the Wolves of Vinland. His name was “Ref the Fox.”

At that point Finnulfr and the others “loaded” some mead with galdr, meaning that they sung sacred songs over it. The women of the tribe took the sacred mead around the group and filled each horn with enough for one toast to the gods. After drinking, we each spit in a bowl that was passed around, and the contents of the bowl was poured out onto the ground.

Jarn-nefr initiated the procession back up the hill, and told everyone to prepare their thoughts for sumbel and take a moment to be sure their words would be “worthy of the gods.”

The Wolves carried Baldr’s body carefully and somberly up the switchbacks, and laid him on his pyre.

We gathered in a circle around the ship, and sumbel was held, with toasts made by all to gods, heroes and ancestors followed by a round of more personal boasts and oaths. Some toasts were serious, some were grand, some were sad, and some were funny.

When we’d gone around the circle three times, someone placed a rune-painted plaque in front of Baldr’s corpse. Some words were spoken in his honor, and Jarn-nefr set the ship on fire. We watched the conflagration grow from a light crackling of hay bales and branches to a blazing bonfire with flames jumping fifteen or twenty feet in air.

The tribe dispersed, with folks going back to the smaller fire to check on children or to grab musical instruments or more booze. Several songs were sung in unison, including the Wolves’ own battle hymn, “I’m A Good Old Rebel” and some old seafaring tunes. I pulled out a pack of cigars, offered one to Grimnir and a couple of the other guys. We smoked them by the calmed fire, which still glowed in the outline of a ship. Grimnir put the moves on an unattached female and disappeared into the woods. Some of the Wolves retired to tents, some to cars and some just passed out in the dirt next to the glowing coals.The Wolves wouldn’t want me to trivialize my experience by comparing it to something as bougie as a television show, but I have to admit that my time at Ulfeim felt like a cross between Sons of Anarchy and the Vikings.The exception is that, unlike those shows, Ulfheim is not just a set up for another go-girl narrative or another hair-pulling drama between women. What happens at Ulfheim is designed to create authentic brotherhood between men. It’s about escaping to another world, not just for an hour or even a day, but for good. The Wolves of Vinland are becoming barbarians. They’re leaving behind attachments to the state, to enforced egalitarianism, to desperate commercialism, to this grotesque modern world of synthetic beauty and dead gods. They’re building an autonomous zone, a community defined by face-to-face and fist-to-face  connections where manliness and honor matter again.If they can do it, what’s stopping you? Originally posted at Jack Donovan's website.

Victoria: Chapter 14

When people read Sun Tzu's saying, "He who knows himself and knows his enemy will win 100 battles," they figure the hard part is knowing the enemy. They're wrong. The hard part is knowing yourself.After we had rubbed Cisneros's nose in it, some of our guys were feeling pretty cocky. It seemed to them that Maine could go its own way then and there.I saw it differently. The victory at Lake Sebasticook was genuinely ours. We won it by combining the unexpected, speed, and initiative at the most junior level, which is to say by fighting smart.But the rest of it was a pure gift from God. As King Philip of Spain of Armada fame found out, God doesn't like it when you presume He's on your side. The next time, the other guy might get the breaks. When the other guy was the whole federal juggernaut, we'd get flattened.It all came back to something I'd said to my fellow Christian Marines many times: we had to wait for Washington to fall of its own weight. We could drop an occasional banana peel in its path, by setting up a situation where it was likely to embarrass itself. But it was far too strong for us to take on, head on.Vermont gave us a lesson that way. Our success in Maine had emboldened friends and fellow “racists, sexists, and homophobes” elsewhere in the country. But it had also enraged the enemies of Western culture, the cultural Marxists, who were looking for opportunities to counterattack.In Vermont – another state with conservative people but a liberal government (God, we were stupid back then) – the governor went on the offensive. He got a law through the legislature that required every Vermont jury to "look like America," which meant it had to be half women, 10% black, 15% Hispanic, 10% gay (the real number would have been maybe 1%, but these were political numbers), and so on.Some old-fashioned Vermonters saw an opportunity. Calling themselves the Green Mountain Boys, they declared a "White Strike." No white male would agree to serve on a jury, which would mean the jury could not look like America. Under the new law, that would appear to mean no jury.The whole thing was a flop. A good number of white males joined up, but a good number wasn't enough. The Green Mountain Boys hadn't thought the situation through. To succeed, they needed near 100% support from white men, which they were never going to get. There were still some white male lefties, and beyond them lots more white males who didn't want to listen to the third act of Medea every night over the dinner table from their feminist wives. The courts had to go through more white men than they otherwise would to make up a jury, but eventually they always found enough.Our cultural enemies won a victory. Their triumph in Vermont allowed them to say their defeat in Maine was just a strange accident; the country was really still on their side.One Friday evening in late November, 2021, the phone rang. I always hated the damn thing; Ambrose Bierce was right when he defined it, in his Devil's Dictionary, as "an instrument almost as useless as the telescope, but unfortunately equipped with an annoying bell." I had to set down my cigar and my book, dump the cat off my lap and walk into the cold back hall to answer it.Finding one of the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys on the line didn't improve my mood. "We've got a problem," he began."You sure do," I said. "You screwed the pooch. Didn't help us any in the process.""Ayuh. Sorry about that," he replied. "Look, we heah you folks have some sort'a organization that helps think these things through. Bunch of fo'mah Marines, so we'ah told. Any chance we could get theah help?""Waal, I don't rightly know," I said, talking Emmett myself. "Sounds to me like you want us to pull you'ah chestnuts out'a the fiah.""Ayuh, I guess that's what we want, all right," he replied.I had to think about it a bit. I was tempted to let them sleep in their own poop. On the other hand, the Christian Marines did intend to reach out to the rest of New England, eventually. This was an opportunity to start. We needed to reverse the defeat in Vermont."Waal, I guess we can talk about it, anyway," I finally said. "Get your folks togeth'ah at the Norrich Inn Friday night. I'll be the'ah."By the time we met, I'd done a bit of legal work, with the help of Uncle Earl. It seems Vermont wasn't exactly living up to its own law on this jury business. It couldn't. The problem wasn't the White Strike. Vermont simply didn't have enough blacks and Hispanics to make up the required percentages on the juries. So they were just saying they tried and letting it go at that.The Green Mountain Boys had about a dozen men at the Norwich Inn that Friday evening, the last Friday in November. After we got to know each other a bit over some supper and cider, I laid out a plan. "Any of you know a lawyer who thinks like we do but doesn't let on?" I asked.“Sounds like you're talking about my neighbor," one of the Boys replied. "Over pie and coffee in the kitchen, he's as pissed off as the rest of us. He talks funny, of course, since he's a lawyer. ‘I have no desire to live in an America that has been Hispanized, feminized, and sodomized,' is the way he puts it. But he always looks over both shoulders to see who's listening before he says it, because he figures he'd lose half his business if his clients knew where he stood."“It sounds as if he's the right man for a pseudo-op.""What's that?" another of the Boys asked."It's where you dress your troops up in the enemy's uniforms and have them do something embarrassing to the enemy," I answered."What we need from your lawyer friend is this," I continued. "Representing the 'oppressed peoples of the world,' he files a suit demanding that the State of Vermont stick to its own law. Trying to get the right percentages of gays, blacks, whatever on a jury doesn't cut it. Each and every Vermont jury must have all the numbers right, or it can't be empaneled. He should file the suit in such a way that it goes straight to the Vermont Supreme Court.""How the hell does that help us?" asked the first fellow."According to my Uncle Earl, who knows his judges hereabouts, the Vermont Supreme Court is as politically correct as you can get. He's willing to bet real nutmegs to wooden ones that the court will rule in favor of such a suit. If it does, the Governor either has to repeal his law or go without any juries. In practical terms, that means repeal, which also means we win."Well, they bought it, and the lawyer filed suit. The Vermont Supreme Court made Uncle Earl look good. It said the law is as the law reads, and the juries have to get all the right numbers of blacks and Hispanics and gays, or they aren't lawful.But what happened next came as a surprise.

***

The governor, a fellow named Fullarbottom, felt the hollow eyes of all the "oppressed minorities" fixed upon him. He had been their great hope, a “sensitive, caring, feeling white male.” Now he had to dump them, and they'd howl like a sack full of cats.So he went to the legislature with an ingenious proposal. Instead of repealing the requirement that Vermont juries “look like America,” Vermont would turn to the rest of America to achieve the "balance" it sought. Any American citizen could sit on a Vermont jury if his or her presence were required to make a quota. Fullarbottom concluded his message to the legislature with the words, "We are proud to welcome our oppressed black, Hispanic, and gay sisters and brothers as ‘Vermonters for a day’ to aid us in our battle to reverse two hundred years of white male oppression."It is in the nature of war that the enemy sometimes makes a good move. This was one. Unfortunately for Fullarbottom, like most good moves, this one had to work fast to work at all. And it couldn't. The Vermont state constitution required that a juror be a legal resident of the state. That meant the governor needed a state constitutional amendment, which in turn required a two-thirds vote in the legislature. And he didn't have the votes, not right off, anyway.With the rest of the Establishment cheering him on, Fullarbottom launched a campaign to get the votes he needed. The papers, most of them, backed him with editorials; various black, Hispanic, and gay entertainers, sports figures, and other “celebrities” came to Vermont to support him; President Cisneros himself even paid a visit. In the past, this sort of thing had worked.But it took time, and that gave our side a chance to counterattack. By 2021, Vermonters who believed in traditional American values had a good grass-roots network. They quickly organized their own campaign, one aimed both at state legislators and at the average Vermonter. They struck some deep chords, especially when they blanketed the state with posters and bumper stickers asking, "Where Will It Stop?" If out-of-staters could serve on Vermont juries, what else would they be allowed to do? Vote in town meetings? Help themselves to the Vermont treasury? Send their kids to Vermont schools, at Vermont taxpayers' expense?By January, 2022, it was clear Vermonters were becoming uneasy with Fullarbottom's proposal. The legislature would meet in March. Its members were feeling the public pulse, and getting nervous.But something was still needed to push them our way, once and for all. We needed an action average Vermonters could do that would scare politicians. The thing that scared politicians most was the danger of becoming un-politicians, of losing their office. The problem was, how could we make them feel that fear when an election wouldn't come until the Fall?Late in January I got an idea, so I drove over to Montpelier to see the head of the grassroots network in Vermont, Sam Shephard. On anything important, I always tried to meet people face-to-face; no fax or phone call or email was as effective in getting things done.In typical North Country style, we met in his kitchen. “It seems to me," I said, "that we need to appeal to your politicians’ patriotism.” That was my usual expression for grabbing somebody by the balls. "We need to let them see what happens to whoever opposes us, and we need to make Fullarbottom himself the example.""Good idea," Sam replied. "How do we do it?""I've done a bit of research about your state. You don't have a recall provision in your law, but over the years, a good many folks have said you ought to. My proposal is this: launch a petition drive to recall Fullarbottom. Explain that if you get a majority, not only will it tell the governor to back off his plan to import out-of-state ringers and put them on your juries, it will also tell the members of the legislature you want a recall law. And it will tell the members of the legislature that their own necks are in danger if they vote the wrong way on the jury issue.""Hmm, that's not bad," Sam replied. "Let me run it by my people. Still, it would have a lot more punch if we could actually toss Fullarbottom out.""Well, maybe we can," I said."How?” Sam asked."Leave that to the Christian Marines," I answered.Sam was good to his word, and his folks bought the idea. Early in February, they announced the recall campaign, and their people got out with the petitions and started knocking on doors. The public's mood had been swinging steadily our way, and the petition drive took off. On the 7th of March, exactly a fortnight before the legislature was due to convene, the "Campaign to Kick Fullarbottom's Bottom" announced that more Vermont voters had said they wanted the Governor out than had voted to put him in.At this point, Fullarbottom's earlier sense of tactics deserted him. His emotions took over his judgment. On the battlefield, that leads bad officers to order on-line frontal assaults. In this case, it led Governor Fullarbottom to call a snap news conference."I was elected Governor of this state and I will stay Governor of this state as long as I want the damn job," Fullarbottom roared. "I don't care what these people want or what anyone wants. I spent my life working my way to this position. For thirty years, I did all the crappy jobs the Democratic Party asked me to do, squeezing money out of every store owner in Burlington, kissing the backsides of all the party bigwigs, marching in the damn Jefferson-Jackson Day parade with a blintz in one hand and a kielbasa in the other. If the people who elected me wish they hadn't, tough. The office is mine, and I aim to keep it until I don't enjoy it any more."It seemed Vermont's politically correct governor was, in the end, merely political, and of the Fafnir school of politics – the dragon in Das Rheingold. He sought only to lie in possession.We had the moral high ground. Now we could move to the physical level of war.

***

As soon as Vermont had come up on our radar screen, the Christian Marines had started recruiting. As usual, we had found allies among the cops, including the state cops. One of our state cops arranged to be the Governor's driver.On Thursday, March 10, 2022, Governor Frank Fullarbottom was on his way home to work on his speech to the legislature. He knew it had to be a good speech, if he were to have any chance of getting his blacks, Hispanics, and gays from out of state on Vermont juries. A very good speech. He was so absorbed in thinking about it that he did not notice when his driver took a wrong turn, down a lonely country lane. Around a bend, where the view was concealed by a clump of pine trees, the Christian Marines were waiting with a pickup truck blocking the road.There was no violence; that would have worked against us. We had a shotgun pointed at the cop's head, so it was obvious there was nothing he could do. We handled him just rough enough to maintain his cover. As for the governor, he was quickly wrapped up mummy-style in duct tape and tossed in the trunk of a waiting sedan.The next morning, the Montpelier paper found a message on its email from the Green Mountain Boys (we let them take the credit). It read:

Last night Vermont again became a democracy. The will of the people, as expressed by the majority of voters in their petition to recall Governor Fullarbottom, was carried out. Mr. Fullarbottom is safe, well cared for and comfortable. He will be returned to his home the day after his term of office expires. In the meantime, he regrets to announce that he will be unable to carry out the duties of his office.

Of course, there was an enormous hue and cry from the Establishment, both local and federal. President Cisneros denounced "right-wing fanatics who dare take the law into their own hands." (We always thought the power of the law properly belonged in the people's hands, but of course politicians don't see it that way.) The FBI was called in, along with ATF, federal marshals, the whole works. We expected that. We also expected no one would look for the Governor of Vermont on a Portuguese fishing boat off the Grand Banks, and no one did.The good people of Vermont do have a sense of humor. Outsiders have trouble seeing it sometimes, but it's there. They know a typical Emmett joke when they see one. As I drove through the state on my way back to Maine the day after Fullarbottom went on his cruise, I saw a good number of thin smiles.Vermont juries remained the province of Vermonters. Vermont also got a law permitting recall. Politicians can be fast learners when their careers are at stake.

The View From Olympus: An Animal Shelter Foreign Policy

On Wednesday, June 4, President Obama spoke in Warsaw's Castle Square. Responding to Russia's recent actions in Ukraine, the President said, as reported in the June 5 New York Times,

"Poland will never stand alone. Estonia will never stand alone. Latvia will never stand alone. Lithuania will never stand alone. Romania will never stand alone."

After meeting with Ukraine's newly elected president, Petro O. Poroshenko, President Obama added, "The United States is absolutely committed to standing behind the Ukrainian people and their aspirations, not just in the coming days and weeks but in the coming years." Unaccountably, Ruritania and Graustark were forgotten.This is an animal shelter foreign policy. Based entirely on sentiment, we are taking in any and every little country that somehow feels threatened by a state that actually counts. We equally "stand with" Vietnam and the Philippines against China, in an area long known as the South China Sea. Just what "standing with" means is left vague. Does it mean that if they get knocked down, we're in a fight with whomever threw the punch? If so, the Obama administration is making one of the worst foreign policy errors a country can make, casually and thoughtlessly offering commitments that can lead to war.Even apart from that risk, we are making a fundamental mistake. These little countries can do nothing for us. A commitment to them benefits them, but does absolutely nothing for us. It is to such a "giveaway" foreign policy that sentiment invariably leads.In contrast, a foreign policy based on realism and interests would lead us to want big, powerful countries as allies, not little weak ones. The two most obvious candidates are Russia and China. Both could do a great deal for us. They have vast resources (Russia), a powerful manufacturing economy (China), nuclear arsenals, effective conventional armed forces, highly competent espionage operations, all things that could do us real good. What can Poland do to help us? Sell us cheap kielbasa? Maybe Romania can teach us how to steal.Yet the price of playing international dog warden and filling our kennel with mutts and strays is that we are turning Russia and China into opponents. Just as they can offer us effective help, they can also do us real damage. What might result if they reciprocate our folly by "standing with" al Qaeda and the Taliban? Had either Russia or China supplied the Taliban with the latest shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, we would have been driven out of Afghanistan years ago.History shows over and over again that foreign policies based on sentiment lead to disaster. They sound good up front to domestic audiences, who cheer as, depending on time and place, they ride to the rescue of fellow Catholics/Protestants/monarchs/democrats/Teutons/Slavs/etc. But because nations in a nation-state system have objective interests, the results are invariably unhappy. Policies based on sentiment end up working against interests, and in the end, it is the interests that count. Whether or not we "like" the current governments of Russia and China, our relations with them involve very important interests. We have no important interests at stake in Ukraine, or Poland, or the Baltics, or Vietnam, or the Philippines.As I have written before, conservatives owe the Obama administration due credit for not getting this country into more stupid wars. We equally owe it condemnation for offering casual commitments to countries where we have no interests at stake, commitments that could result in future conflicts. As bad as the pointless war against Iraq was, it was less bad than a pointless war against Russia or China because one of them kicked a dog.

Victoria: Chapter 13

The fate of Governor Hokem made it clear that, once Mainers thought about it, they were on the right side in the culture war. While the establishment in Maine remained liberal, it got pretty quiet about it. It was not looking forward to another test of strength with those of us who followed the old ways.But we knew the feds would come in eventually. They always did. Our victory in Maine had not gone unnoticed in Washington. The forces of cultural Marxism were still dominant there, and they were looking for an opportunity to take us down.Through the winter of 2020-2021 and into the spring, I worked to build the Christian Marines, and the Christian Marines worked to spread the Maine Idea. Most of the grass-roots groups had gone for the concept, and they were hitting the hustings to spread it around. It wasn't really that hard; most folks already understood that all Washington did was take their money and spit in their face.I knew the Maine Idea would not become real, however, until Maine had to fight for it. Even if we fought and lost, it would help. The fact that we dared fight the federal government would strengthen people's desire for independence, as the Battle of Bunker Hill did in the first revolution. If we could fight and win – that would give the people of Maine hope that our dream of being free again might become real.The challenge, and our opportunity, came in the early summer of 2021. The Democrats were back in power in Washington, and their slogan was "A Rainbow Over America." For Maine, that translated into an announcement on June 22 by "Ms." Lateesha Umbonga LaDrek, the Secretary of HUD, that her department had purchased two large apartment clusters in Bangor. The current rent-paying residents would be moved out, and 350 black federal prison parolees from out of state would be moved in. LaDrek said the purpose of this action was "to offer oppressed people of color a second chance by letting them serve as ambassadors of diversity to the people of Bangor, who were imprisoned in an all-white ghetto."Maine seethed. But after years of being told that they were evil "racists," people felt morally unable to defend themselves. They dared not speak openly against the trashing of their community.I knew we had to turn that around. The first step was for us Christian Marines to put our heads together. When we met at the Old Place on June 25th, I put the problem squarely. "I think Maine can stop this, if it will fight. But it has to know it's in the right before it will fight," I said. "You all know the problem. Any resistance to black scum, even by decent blacks, brings screams of moral outrage from the cultural Marxists. Most folks have been so conditioned by this crap they can't stand up to it. They think they're Hitler if they dare defend their – our – community. So we have to win the moral fight first. How can we do that?""First, let the feds win a partial victory," said Major Fitzgerald from Portland. "Let them throw the current residents of those apartments out. They've given them only 30 days to vacate, and the TV news is playing that up. The feds look heartless, as they are when its a matter of white folks. Seeing all those people's lives suddenly disrupted tells Mainers there's something wrong here.""OK, that makes sense," I replied. "Let the enemy overextend himself. But how do we keep them from moving the black scum in?""By moving someone else in first." The speaker was one of our more unusual recruits, Father Dimitri, an Orthodox missionary from Russia. Russia was again a Christian nation, under a new Tsar, and she saw her mission as carrying the Word to the repaganized West. Father Dimitri was one of many Orthodox missionaries working in the States, and he was also a Russian Naval Infantry chaplain. Some of our former "spooks" had brought him in to the Christian Marines; they knew him, and I trusted them."What do you mean?" I asked."The enemy is presenting these black criminals as ‘the poor,’ so good people feel it's wrong to oppose them," said the priest. "Of course, with your liberal churches, no clergy tell them that Christianity historically has distinguished between the deserving poor, who are poor through no fault of their own, and the undeserving poor, whose poverty is caused by their own sins. Before the undeserving poor qualify for our charity, they must repent – they must change their ways. Otherwise, we are just helping them along the road to Hell.""As it happens, I know of some deserving poor who very much need this housing," Father Dimitri continued. "Three weeks ago, a ship brought almost 400 Egyptian Christian refugees into Montreal. Throughout the Muslim world, Christians are being driven out or killed. These are good people who escaped only with their lives. They are survivors of one of the oldest Christian communities, dating to the earliest days to the Church. Why don't we move them into these apartments before Washington can move in the orcs, then dare Washington to throw them out?"“What are orcs?” Sergeant Danielov asked.“The word is from Tolkien,” Father Dimitri replied. “He was one of the great Christian writers of the 20th century. In his Lord of the Rings, which is Christian analogy, orcs are soldiers of the Evil One. Those creatures your government wants to move in to Bangor are orcs, believe me.”"How would we get your Egyptian Christians here?" I asked. "The Border Patrol would never let them in.""Don't worry, we Russians are very good at smuggling things through northern forests," said the priest, laughing."Illegal immigrants are among the liberals' sacred ‘victim’ groups,” said Fitzgerald. "Usually that means trash from south of the border, but we can turn it around on them by bringing in good folks the same way. They'll have to face their own arguments, used against them. That's disarming."The more I heard, the better I liked Father Dimitri's idea. In fighting merely to keep the orcs out – I'd read Tolkien, too – we were trying to beat something with nothing. That never works. His way, we would launch a pre-emptive strike, occupy the position, and make the feds try to re-take it.I also knew that by giving refuge to these Egyptian Christians, Maine would be striking at least a small blow in the Third World War. That war had been under way since at least the 1980s. It was a war of militant, expansionist Islam against everybody else. The Islamics had been pushing out in every direction – north into Russia and Balkans and also into Western Europe (immigration can be a form of invasion); south down both African coasts, where the ancient Christian land of Ethiopia was besieged on every side; east into the Philippines (a Muslim Indonesian dagger was pointing at Australia as well); and also West. Since the l990s, Islam had become the fastest-growing religion in North America.I knew we would have to fight the Islamics eventually, as we did. Of course, the North American Muslims were all for "toleration," as the Koran commands when they are weak. Once they are strong enough, the message changes. The Koran puts it in a way that is hard to misunderstand; "Kill those who join other gods with God (i.e., believers in the Holy Trinity) wherever you shall find them, and seize them and slay them, and lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush."By accepting some Christian refugees from Islamic terror, we would put Maine on record as to which side we were on in this world war. And it would be hard to find people more civilized than Egyptians; they'd been at it for a good 5000 years. The Egyptian church even spoke Egyptian, the language of the pharaohs, not Arabic."Anyone have a better idea? If not, I say we go with it," I concluded. No one did. "OK, that's settled. Anyone who can help Father Dimitri smuggle the Egyptians in, see him after the meeting. The next question is, how will the feds counter, and what do we do about it?""We know how they will counter," said Trooper Kelly, who'd come up from Massachusetts. "We know from Waco and Ruby Ridge and many other places that never made the papers. The federal government has militarized law enforcement. They'll send in INS, federal marshals, probably FBI too, all in combat fatigues, with heavy firepower and armored vehicles. They'll deport the Egyptians back to Egypt, where they'll probably be killed as they come off the aircraft. They'll move the orcs in, and arrest anyone who tries to stop them. And they'll stay to make sure that if anyone objects to the black crime they'll bring, they are arrested for violating their ‘civil rights.’ Bangor will find itself under foreign military occupation.""I agree," I said. "That is what they'll do. The question is, do we let them win that way, and count it a moral victory for our side, or do we try to stop 'em?"We had to think about that one for a while. If we tried to stop them, it meant war – at the physical level as well as the moral.After some talk, our Bangor CO, former Army captain Don Vanderburg, brought us to a decision. "We have two questions to answer: should we stop them if we can, and can we do it? As to the first, it's clear to me," Don said. "Of course. It's my town, my home. And if the feds can rape Bangor this way, the Maine Idea will look hopeless. Most people will give it up. So I think we have to try to stop them.""I also think we can do it," he continued. "They look like soldiers, but they're not. They're just civil servants in tree suits. Most of them have never studied war. They don't know the terrain, while we do. Plus, we'll have the support of the people, and they'll be invaders. That support translates into all kinds of help, especially information.""We may be able to do this in a way where no blood is shed. Remember, these guys aren't up for a fight. Most of them just want to make twenty and get out. They aren't our enemies. Most of them share our values and will be privately hoping we win. It's the people they work for who are our enemies. If we can avoid fighting them, they will try not to fight us."So we decided to resist.The first part of the operation went according to plan. With some help from folks who knew the back roads, Father Dimitri got his Egyptians in. We hid them in local churches, then on July 23, one day after the apartment buildings were cleaned out, we moved them in.By now, we had our prep down pat. We had friends in the media, including national media, forewarned and on the scene. We had a dozen clergy, led by the local Monsignor, out front of the buildings to explain what we were doing. The mayor and police chief of Bangor were on hand too, to explain that their city welcomed good people who were in need; it just didn't want violent criminals. We made the evening TV news all across the country, and on the whole the coverage was favorable. We'd taken the moral high ground.In Washington, an enraged President Cisneros held a news conference the next morning. After denouncing this "racist, insensitive, hurtful, and illegal action by people who want to hold back the future," he announced that a convoy of federal law enforcement agents were on their way to Bangor "to uphold the lawful actions of this government and ensure that justice is done on behalf of Americans of color." Forgetting that his lapel mic was still on, after he had gone backstage, he put it more directly: "I'll show these white crackers who's running this place now.”Like everywhere in the old U.S.A., militias had been sprouting in Maine (most called themselves a neighborhood watch). Some were for nut cases, most were not. Most were made up of decent people who realized their country was falling apart, and when it fell completely the only security would be local security. They were preparing to provide that. The Christian Marines had ties with some of the more serious groups in Maine, and they were willing to work with us to fight the federal invasion.Equally important, we had a great intel system: the cops. Most of the state police in Massachusetts and Maine and many local police were with us by this time; they realized our values were also their values. The feds needed the cops’ help, didn't realize they'd been penetrated, and provided them the route the convoy would take. The Washington boys were so confident they did the obvious, coming right up I-95.Our ambush site was near Newport, Maine, where I-95 crosses the marshes at the southern end of Lake Sebasticook on a long, low bridge. The State Cops told us the convoy would leave Boston about 5 AM on June 27, which would put it into Newport around 10 AM the same day. Forewarned, we'd moved our folks into position the night of the 26th.We were prepared for a real fight, but it was not what we wanted. Dead feds would quickly be turned into martyrs by the media, and most of those guys were privately on our side. The challenge to the Christian Marines was to try to handle this so we won, but with nobody wounded or dead. As always, the physical level of war had to serve the moral level or it would work against us.I was with an OP we had established just south and east of the bridge. Of course, we'd gone over the plan time and again. More important, everyone understood our objective: defeat them, but don't hurt or kill them. The militias we worked with had the self-discipline to make sure their actions served that intent, even when events outran the plan (which they always did) and men had to improvise.We had a radio in the OP tuned to the state police frequency, and the trooper out front of the convoy broadcast its position every five minutes. Officially, this was so the local cops could clear out the civilian traffic; the feds never thought to ask who else might be listening. Right on schedule, the convoy – a HUMMWV in the lead, then two Bradley Fighting Vehicles, two more HUMMWVs, seven five-ton trucks, and a final HUMMWV as tail-end Charlie – hit the south end of the bridge at 10:13 AM.We had wired the end panels of the northbound bridge with explosives set for command detonation. From the OP, I could see the whole span, and once all the convoy was on it I hit the detonator. Both panels blew with a roar every fed could hear, even with the vehicles buttoned up.Immediately, before the agents could figure out what was happening, I broke into their net. "This is the Maine militia," I said in my best command voice. "We have cut the road before and behind you. You cannot move forward or back. We have every vehicle targeted with crew-served weapons, including .50 cals and 90 mm recoilless. If you open fire, you're dead. Lay down your weapons and come out of the vehicles, slowly, one at a time."At the same instant, a company's worth of infantry, militia and Christian Marines (general staff types also get to mix it up on occasion), were in their faces. We'd positioned them not at the ends of the bridge but under it, along its length (a modern light infantry defense works parallel to an enemy mech column, not across its head). They were equipped with grappling hooks and climbing ropes. As soon as they heard the end panels blow, they swung their grapples for the hand rails and rappelled up. They had weapons leveled at the drivers before the vehicles came to a stop.This was the critical moment. We weren't bluffing; we did have heavy weapons, and we would take the vehicles out if we had to. No one moved, or spoke. The whole thing took less than a minute, but time slowed down so it seemed like hours. Then, slowly, one of the Bradleys started training its turret to the right, as if to look for a target. "Shit," I thought, "the dumb bastard is going to open up."A sixteen-year old kid from Rockland saved the day for us. He was on the Bradley's left side. He saw the vehicle commander had popped his hatch to come up for a better look. With the agility you lose by the time you're twenty, he was on the vehicle, and the commander got a face full of rifle butt before his head was all the way out. The kid, La Riviere, dropped two smoke and one CS grenades down the hatch, slammed it shut and sat on it, with his AK trained on the infantry hatches.Two federal marshals came out of those hatches, saw the AK in their faces and gave up. The rest of the crew, choking and puking, came out the rear hatch with their hands in the air – the Italian salute, we used to call it. I was on my feet now, where our guys could see me, gesturing madly and screaming, "Get away from the vehicle!" As soon as our troops and the prisoners were behind the next vehicles in line, I slapped the 90 gunner in our OP on the shoulder and said, "Take that Bradley out."Like the Russian BMP, the Bradley was an explosion waiting to happen, a tin-clad rolling armor dump that any anti-tank weapon instantly turned into a Viking funeral for its crew. The 90 mm recoilless rifle round hit the ammo and it blew, the turret turning pinwheels in the sky until it plunged sizzling into the lake. The chassis was quickly reduced to a molten mass of metal and treads.The Feds had seen enough at that point. As Trooper Kelly said, they weren't soldiers. Like anyone in law enforcement, they knew they might get shot at, but a full-scale battle was a different matter. Plus, it had all happened so fast. Wrapped in the smell of real fear and fresh excrement, they crawled out of their vehicles and surrendered.We brought our POWs, 83 federal marshals and INS agents (no FBI this time), and our own guys down from the bridge on ladders. We had three Bangor city school buses waiting on the parallel secondary road, and bundled everyone on board. The buses were as close as the feds would get to Bangor.Before we pulled out, we took the opportunity to play some mind-games with the real enemy down in Washington. With a video cam rolling, we turned the .50 cals and 90 mms on the remaining, empty vehicles. The tape of exploding, burning military trucks, HUMMWVs and remaining Bradley, coupled with footage of the line of federal prisoners marching off with their hands behind their heads, went to all the networks. In 24 hours, the whole nation knew Maine had fought the federal government, and won.Our challenge was to turn a tactical victory into a strategic one. Maine was with us; the Battle of Lake Sebasticook, as it was quickly known, made the Maine Idea real. The slogan appeared overnight on hand-lettered signs in yards, on bumper stickers, on banners hung from highway bridges. But we were nowhere near ready to defeat a full-scale federal invasion, and we knew one was coming.Washington was still full of fight. President Cisneros, trying to position himself as a second Lincoln, vowed the Union would be preserved, at any cost. Never was the old rule of "first as tragedy, then as farce," so applicable. He announced the 82nd Airborne was on its way to Bangor.But we had an ancient and effective weapon with which to defend ourselves: hostages. As our militiamen returned to their homes all over Maine, many carried an unusual cargo in the trunk of their car: a trussed-up federal agent. Of course, the feds had specialized hostage-rescue units. But they didn't have enough of them to hit sites all over Maine simultaneously, even if they could find where the agents were hidden.On the 30th of June, we made the feds an offer, through an open letter to Cisneros printed in the Bangor paper. The key part read:We have no desire or intention to harm anyone. We could easily have killed many, perhaps all the federal the agents who invaded our state. We have killed none of them, and all are now safe and well cared for. We look forward to returning them to their homes and families as soon as possible. We do not regard them as our enemies.However, our first responsibility is to our own homes and families, which you now threaten. Therefore, we regret we have to say that we cannot guarantee the safety of the federal agents now in our custody if further federal forces enter Maine.To underscore the point, we arranged for CNN to interview several militia units that were holding some of the prisoners. They allowed that if those paratroopers landed in Bangor, or the feds tried any rescue ops, the lot of their policeman would not be a happy one. One unit already had a noose hanging from a large oak tree. It was a bluff, but Washington couldn't know that.We had a few agents at Ft. Bragg, so we knew within hours that the airlift had been put on hold. Cisneros was waffling.Meanwhile, the 250 black parolees who were to move into Bangor had been stuck in a couple of motels near Worcester, Massachusetts, waiting for the federal troops to clear their way in. The Justice Department's lawyers had determined that, since they had been paroled, they could not be kept under guard. It seems a few of them got tired of waiting and decided to go have some fun. The date was July 4, 2021.A summer day in New England is a true joy. That Fourth of July was especially nice. The temperature got up to 77 degrees, with low humidity, a gentle breeze out of the northwest and a few white, puffy, cotton-ball clouds, the kind that children like to see animal shapes in. Sister Mary Frances of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament had brought her Bible school pupils, grades two through five, to a small park on the bank of the West River. They had sandwiches and cookies, toys, a big American flag and sparklers to celebrate the day. Sister Mary Frances had planned to read them the story of the Ride of Paul Revere.Thirteen of the parolees discovered them there just after lunch. By the time the police found them later in the day, the Sister and most of the children were lying where they had knelt to say the Rosary, praying for the protection that did not come in this life. She had been raped repeatedly before being strangled with the chain on her Crucifix. Perhaps she had bought the three surviving children the time they needed to crawl off into the woods and hide. A posse of state troopers and frantic parents found them there just after dusk.The media might well have passed over the event in silence, at least outside Worcester; it didn't fit their agenda. But "Ms." LaDrek of HUD happened to be in Worcester that very weekend. She had come to open a new high-rise public housing development, modeled on St. Louis famed Pruett-Igoe. At her news conference, she said that the slaughter of Sister Mary Frances and her young charges "was nothing compared to what people of color had suffered in America since the white invaders first arrived. Maybe it would help the white people of Massachusetts have a better understanding of Black Rage. If so, it might be a positive experience for Worcester."The news conference had been carried live on most of the Worcester TV and radio stations. It concluded with Ms. LaDrek leading the new residents of the housing project into the commons room for a nice lunch. By 12:30, the courtyard in front of the project was filling with Worcester's citizenry, and they weren't in a celebratory mood. They were construction workers, housewives, good Catholics most of them, some coming straight from the noon mass at Blessed Sacrament. Their kids could have been the ones raped and butchered. In some cases, they were.The priest from Blessed Sacrament himself, with some of the nuns, led the uninvited guests into the luncheon, chanting the Dies Irae. The distinguished Secretary of HUD tried to bolt out the back door, but one of the nuns, a sturdy Irish girl, tackled her. The swift, new elevator whisked LaDrek and a party of escorts to the top floor, where a window was knocked out. The Honorable Secretary of HUD followed the shards of glass down, to a hard and fatal landing in the front parking lot.It's almost uncanny; our Thirty Years War also started with a defenestration. This time, no angels (or manure piles, if you're a Protestant) broke the fall.A story like this couldn't be hushed up. The nation was appalled, not by the assassination but by what had preceded it.In Maine, we moved swiftly to take advantage of the public's mood. The militias set up recruiting stations in every shopping center and on each town common. The slogan on a banner over each station read, "The Maine Idea – Defend Our Families." Any male with a weapon could join. The lines ran a block or more long. Within 48 hours we had more than 100,000 men pledged to fight for our state.In Washington, Cisneros knew he was beaten. The order went to the 82nd Airborne to stand down. Resorting to one of the city's oldest tricks, Cisneros asked Congress to establish a "Blue Ribbon Panel" to investigate the whole affair. Announcing that "until the panel is appointed and has conducted its investigation, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further," he crawled into the deepest hole he could find. The panel, everyone knew, would take years to complete its work, then issue a report that said nothing. That's what "Blue Ribbon Panels" existed to do.So we'd won. Some might say it wasn't a good, clean victory on the field of battle. It wasn't, but that isn't how war works. War is politics, propaganda, fighting, maneuvering, luck, all boiled up in one big cauldron. This time, our side had bubbled up to the top.At least we showed that victory doesn't always belong to the bigger battalions.

The View From Olympus: Obama Gets It Right, Then Wrong

President Obama again showed his conservatism in foreign affairs when he announced that all U.S. troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, finally (and years overdue) ending our involvement in another failed Fourth Generation war. Conservatives have no desire to spend American lives or money trying to remake hell-holes on the far side of the world.He then followed this correct, courageous, and welcome decision by getting the strategic situation wrong again in his speech on Wednesday, May 28 at West Point. He said, "For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism."Terrorism is merely a technique, and the most part not a physically effective one. Other than the attacks on 9/11, terrorist incidents in this country have done little physical damage. The attack on the Boston Marathon killed three people.Americans have been conditioned by excessive media coverage to react to terrorist events with panic, encouraged by the federal government because it facilitates government grabs for more power over our lives. Conservatives should see this game for what it is. Liberty requires courage, not hiding under the the bed while begging government to "protect us." It will promise protection in return for our liberties, but leave us neither safe nor free.What President Obama should have said at West Point was, "For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to Americans at home and abroad remains the increasing weakness of states." The decline of the state and the rise of non-state entities as alternative primary loyalties is the broader phenomenon that lies behind terrorism and a great deal more besides. It underpins growing waves of migration, which are greater threats to strong states than are occasional incidents of terrorism. Weakened states provide happy homes for a growing black market economy, much of which deals in illegal substances such as dangerous drugs and also funds international gangs, themselves a potent element in Fourth Generation war. The decline of the state means the 21st century will see a world increasingly divided between centers of order and centers and sources of disorder. The challenge will be for this country to remain a center of order, and that may prove a difficult challenge.Some people who call themselves conservatives, such as senator John McCain, a man who wants America to be at war everywhere and forever, argue that we should attempt to maintain order around the world by sending in U.S. troops. Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan demonstrate where that approach leads, to American failure and, on the ground, more, not less, disorder. Because the origin of the state's weakness is a crisis of legitimacy, foreign intervention tends to make a situation worse, not better. Any state established or maintained by foreign troops is, to the locals, Vichy.In his West Point speech, President Obama called on Congress to provide $5 billion for a "Counterterrorism Partnership Fund" to train troops from vulnerable and weak states. $5 billion is excessive -- $500 million might be about right -- but the training idea has some merit, if two conditions are met. First, our presence in the country in question must be close to invisible. Any visible American presence will further undermine the host state's legitimacy. Second, the training we offer must be appropriate to the host country's situation and capabilities. Too often, we train the locals in our outdated, Second Generation conflicts and which the locals cannot in any case do because they lack the expensive systems for delivering massive firepower that it requires. Worse, much of the training we now offer is derived from "political correctness," aka cultural Marxism, leaving us wasting the trainees' time with Jacobin notions of "human rights," "respect for women" (as defined by feminism) and other ideological claptrap that is irrelevant to their culture. The Obama administration is itself the source of the latter problem, so it should be able to fix it.But the main task the decline of the state poses for for this country is isolating ourselves (yes, I just said the forbidden word) from disorder elsewhere. This means rigid limiting of immigration, especially those immigrants who claim "refugee" status (because they come from the areas of the worst disorder), preventing international sources of disorder such as Islam from establishing bases here, breaking up gangs (at some point we may have to make gang membership itself a capital crime), and building an American economy that does not depend on imports. It is difficult to isolate yourself from sources of disorder you depend on, as our relationship with Saudi Arabia demonstrates.These, not terrorism, are the most direct threats America faces for the foreseeable future. Like most terrorism, they are products of the decline of the state, at home and abroad. Will anyone in Washington focus on the disease and not the symptoms?

Victoria: Chapter 12

Anyone who wondered where we Mainiacs were coming from could find out by sitting down to a typical Maine dinner. Everything was boiled, and if the cook was feeling exuberant that night, it might be seasoned with salt and pepper. Then again, it might not.Any people with food that bad had to be conservative. And we were, in the old sense of the word: we lived pretty much as Americans had lived all along, and we liked it that way.The funny thing was, Maine kept electing liberals. The liberals’ crazy ideas didn't seem to matter in Maine. They could talk on, as they were wont to do, about this or that group of "victims," and Mainers could nod, because there weren't any of those people Down East. They weren't about to move in next door.Then, in the Fall of 2020, they did.The "they," in this case, were the gays. They were our one home-grown minority.As our culture began to fall apart, in the 1960s, the gays started "coming out." This broke the old rule of "Don't frighten the horses," which had allowed mutual toleration. The rule meant that they were not open about their orientation, and we pretended not to notice it.By the 2000s, they had become one of the cultural Marxists' sacred "victims" groups, which meant they were encouraged to flaunt their vice and we were supposed to approve of it. This was justified in the name of "toleration," but toleration and approval are different. You may tolerate things you don't approve. I was willing to tolerate gays, but I would sooner have given my approval to an act involving three high yellow whores, a wading pool full of green Jello, and Flipper.As usual, Maine had elected a liberal Governor, a former Senator named Snidely Hokem. He'd gotten tired of the Caligula's court that was Washington, where he'd competed hard for the role of Incitatus's hindquarters. But he still liked having his own backside kissed, so he figured being Governor might be about right for him.To keep up his liberal standing, he had to find one of the "victims" groups and abase himself and the State of Maine before it. That was a challenge, since our winters kept out most "minorities" and our women had too much real work to do to be feminists.The gays provided the perfect answer. So on September 23, 2020, The Honorable Snidely Hokem issued an executive order that each public school in Maine, including every elementary school, had to hire at least one homosexual guidance counselor. The order explained that this was necessary so "students with different sexual preferences would not feel excluded." In order to determine who had what "sexual preference," the gay counselors had to be given "unrestricted public and private access" to all the kids.Suddenly, Mainers found their "luxury liberalism" had turned on them and bitten them, hard.It takes a good bit to stir Yankees, but this did. The outrage was widespread. All over the state, parents came to PTA meetings and raised hell.I expected Hokem to back down in the face of the voters’ wrath. After all, he was a politician. But he didn't. Instead, he got on the television and gave a real stem-winder about how "we were all guilty of oppressing people who were really no different from ourselves." Far from condemning them, "we should confront our own homophobia, which is a greater sin than any they might commit, not that what they do is sinful." "Let us ask ourselves," he concluded, "whether our children are not safer with these counselors than with the average Roman Catholic priest. After all, the sexually victimized have never led an Inquisition."I realized it was time for the Christian Marines to go into action. I read in the Bangor paper where the leaders of a number of grass-roots groups were meeting in Augusta, and I decided to join them. Mr. Kraft had the connections to get me in, which he was happy to do. As a student of war, he understood that most crises were also opportunities.The meeting went as such meetings tend to go. It was full of good people who didn't know what to do because they didn't know how to operate outside the system.Someone proposed a petition drive. Someone else raised the question, a petition to do what? And who would do it? There wasn't much point in petitioning the state's liberal establishment, which was no different from that in Washington, only smaller.Others wanted to elect more conservatives to local school boards. But the boards, which knew where the public was coming from and had to run for re-election eventually, were already on our side, most of them. However, they had no authority to countermand a state directive.Someone suggested, rightly, that we turn Hokem out at the next election. But that would be too late. The gays would be in the schools by then, and they'd go straight to court if a new governor moved to fire them.I waited ‘til everyone had their say, then I got mine. "If we're serious, there is a way to stop this, I think," I said. "The schools need two things to operate: money and students. We can cut them off from both." In war, a frequent route to victory is through the enemy's logistics lines."How?" was the simultaneous question from a dozen different voices."By going on strike. Until the Governor's order is rescinded, we will neither send our kids to public schools nor pay our property taxes," I replied. The schools got most of their money from the local property tax, and tax bills were due soon. They'd be out of money in six weeks if a strike were widespread. That meant no pay for the teachers. We'd see whose side they were on once they had to choose between their ideology and their wallets.People took a while to digest this. A voice finally said, "We'd be breaking the law.""That's right," I said. "It's called civil disobedience. If you remember back to the civil rights movement, civil disobedience is something the liberals did a lot of." At the moral level of war, it often disarms your enemy when you use his own tactics against him.The chairman of the meeting, a local woman from a group called Fight for the Family, asked, "What do we do when they come to arrest us – and take our homes away for non-payment of taxes?”"First, there's strength in numbers," I replied. "I think lots of State o' Mainers are mad enough to join a strike. They can only arrest so many. They can't go after half the population; they don't have enough police, prosecutors or jail space, not to mention that they'd look like idiots.""Also, it takes time to seize someone's house for not paying taxes,” I continued. “They have to give warnings, go through all kinds of legal procedures. We'd tie them up in their own knots, for once. And the schools would have dried up and blown away for lack of money by the time they got through all that." War is a competition in time. If the enemy can't react fast enough, his reaction does him no good.I could tell the rest of the folks at the meeting liked the idea, the more they thought about it. So I sweetened the pill. "They may try to arrest a few people, to make examples of them and scare the rest," I said. "So what we need are pledges to a strike fund. We'll only ask for the money as we need it. We can build up pledges of a few million dollars, I'll wager; plenty of people are mad enough to pledge. If they come after someone, the strike fund will give his family an income while he's under arrest. It will also pay for his lawyer. If Hokem and his lackies see we've got millions of bucks to fight them with, they'll be less eager to make any arrests.""If they do arrest us, we can turn that around on them." I recognized the voice, though I couldn't see the face from where I was in back. It was John Fitzgerald, a former Marine major who'd retired around Portland."Everyone who is arrested, for truancy or non-payment of taxes, should demand political prisoner status. If the state won't grant it, then go on a hunger strike. If the person arrested can't stand such a strike, one of us does it as a stand-in for them. At least half the Catholic priests in the state will volunteer for that duty, I can promise you."That was the kind of thinking I liked. I'd talk to John afterwards about the Christian Marines.There was a good bit more discussion, but the momentum was our way. Finally Madam Chairman spoke. "It's time for a vote. We can't make a final decision here; we all need to go back to our people and get their reaction. But we need to decide if we're in favor of it, ourselves. All in favor say 'aye.'" The ayes were resounding."We meet again in one week. See if your folks are willing to go along. And we need them to sound out their neighbors. This will only work if we have numbers. This meeting is adjourned."The Christian Marines had done what we existed to do. We'd provided good advice. Now, we had to wait and see what would happen.As always, the news of what the supposedly closed meeting had done leaked out. Because the media thought they had a "scoop," they made the strike proposal their top story on every news program in the state.The next day, school attendance was down 30%. That made the news too, which amplified the effect; the day after it was down 65%, then 85%. By the end of the week, the schools were empty.A few towns had already sent out their property tax bills. Skowhegan was one. After a rally in front of the school, the folks there made a bonfire and burned the tax bills. That made good footage, which put it on the evening TV news all over the country.In the small town of Waite, they didn't. They didn't have their tax bills yet, so they burned down the town hall instead.At this point, it was clear the troops were out in front of their leaders. I realized that was a good thing. As long as everyone knows the objective, a unit on the attack does well if everyone advances as best he can. We didn't want to rein our troops in; on the contrary, the challenge for the leaders was using the momentum to drive on even faster. So I called Mr. Kraft."How well do you know the lady who chaired the last meeting?" I asked."We have worked together before,” Kraft answered. “What would you like me to do?""Suggest she call a news conference tomorrow morning. At the news conference, she should announce a torchlight parade of all opponents to the governor's plan in Augusta next Saturday night.""Why a torchlight parade?" Mr. Kraft asked."Because I don't think the Governor will feel real comfortable about thousands of torches in the hands of our people in the state capital. Not after Waite. Most of those state office buildings are pretty flammable. Just to make sure Hokem gets the point, she should announce that the people of Waite have been invited to lead the parade.""Consider it done," Mr. Kraft said. "I know the Fight for the Family people will love it."They did, and the news conference was big news the next day. By the end of that day, buses were being chartered and convoys organized all over the state.One rule in war is to game the situation from the enemy 's standpoint. If I were Governor Hokem, what would I do? One thing, clearly, would be to mobilize the state police and the National Guard. That meant if Hokem tried to do so, and couldn't, his situation would worsen. We'd be inside his cycle, as Colonel Boyd liked to say. And he'd start to come unglued.I called Sam Briganti, who was a Christian Marine – a former intel Staff NCO – and a Maine State trooper."Sam," I said, "I've got a mission for you. We need to box Hokem in, isolate him. I'm sure he's going to turn to the State Police to protect his town from our march. I need you to prevent the cops from responding.""You're right about the first part," Sam replied. "All leaves have been canceled and we're waiting for orders. It would really kick his ass if we didn't turn up. I'll have to think about how to do that – and not get caught.""Let me know if you can't do it, or if you need help from any of the rest of us," I replied. "Otherwise, I'll trust you to make it happen." Sam had a first-rate mind plus determination; I knew that was all the order he needed.He didn't fail us. The way he went about it showed a good understanding of war. Often, all it takes is some carefully injected ambiguity to force the enemy to abandon his plan. Sam put an anonymous message on the State Police online message board: "Blue flu Saturday." He made sure a copy of it went to the Governor's personal email.Hokem knew what it meant. He emailed the head of the State Police. "Will your guys show Saturday or not?" he asked."You can always count on us, sir," was the reply."How many of your men and women saw the 'blue flu' message?""Virtually all of them, sir. Every trooper has his own computer.""How many of them will go along with it?""We have no way of knowing, sir.""Then how can you say your cops will be there for me?""Because you can always count on us, sir."Hokem recognized an ass trying to cover itself. After all, he'd appointed the guy. A former Air Force general.And we knew Hokem's problem was growing, because we were also reading his email.His back-up was the National Guard. But we had friends there too. The head of the unit in Bangor was one, so I went to see him and told him what we needed to do.It seemed he'd already been giving thought to the problem. For some years, the Maine Guard had been trying to get the money for new trucks. They'd told the Governor the old ones just weren't reliable any more. So who could he point the finger at if, at some critical moment, they just broke down?His email went to every Guard unit in the state. "All, repeat all, trucks in 721^st Engineers C-4. Impossible to meet any mobilization requirement. Please report status of your trucks."Mainers aren't dummies, and I doubt there was a Guardsman in the state who wanted gays counseling his kids in elementary school. Suddenly, every National Guard truck in Maine just wouldn't start. We made sure the Augusta newspaper heard of this interesting fact. The Governor read the paper.At this point, the march was just three days away. Luckily for us, Hokem loved anything "high-tech." His smartphone, which conveniently combined audio and video calling with all the privacy of a screen door, never left his sight. One of our guys was a former wirehead Master Sergeant who'd worked for the National Security Agency. It didn't take him long before we were recording Hokem's conversations and filming his meetings.At precisely 2 PM, on October 3^rd, 2020, Hokem convened his last staff meeting. He'd invited only his most trusted advisers, the people who had created him."Okay, guys, I've got just one question: how can you get me out of this one?" Hokem opened."At this point, frankly, I don't know," said his chief fundraiser. "Why in hell did you give that god-damned speech? It sounded like the most radical gay activist in the state wrote it for you.""That's because the most radical gay activist in the state did write it for me. It came straight from Don Rexrod's office.""Shit, he's head of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Even most of the other gays don't like those perverts," said Hokem's chief of staff, "Ms." Virginia Teitelbaum. "Boss, if you're dancing to his tune, you've got to tell us why.""Because Don and the rest of the gays have me by the balls, that's why," Hokem said. "Well, not that way, but you know what I mean.""No, we don't know what you mean," said Teitelbaum. "We can't help you unless you tell us what the real problem is. You know what you're doing is political suicide. Exactly why have you gotten so far in bed with these people?""Now cut it out," Hokem yelled. "I'm not in bed with any gays. I'm perfectly normal. I've got a family, after all. Hell, if I weren't normal I probably wouldn't be in this mess.""Come on, Snidely. We need to hear the whole story. Now." The voice was that of Fred Farnsworth, the political boss who had found little Snidely Hokem years ago, working at his father's town newspaper."OK, here it is," Hokem said. "Years ago, back in the early 1990s when I was on the Senate Armed Services Committee, a bunch of us took a junket out to the Army's training center at Ft. Irwin in the California desert. We figured that wouldn't look like a junket to the folks back home, but the place was close to Vegas. We flew back each night to Caesar's Palace, where we had the usual free suites. Anyway, a bunch of us got plastered at the bar and we spotted some really nice tail. I mean, they were gorgeous.""We figured, what the hell, we're Senators, right? Who's gonna make trouble for us? So we took them upstairs and started having some fun. Strangely, it was right where they held that Tailhook party.""I swear, none of us even suspected they were drag queens. By the time I figured out something was where it shouldn't be, we were all in pretty deep. And the bitch, or whatever she, or he, was, was wired for sound. They had the whole goddamn thing on tape! The drag queens gave the tape to a bunch of gay political activists. So when our gay friends call, I listen," Hokem concluded.Now we had a tape of our own. By the next morning, it was all up on the internet.With the governor's office vacant and the ruling about the gay school counselors rescinded by a very nervous lieutenant governor, the torchlight parade was a festive occasion. During the parade, I spotted Mr. Kraft on a hotel balcony, wearing a smoking jacket and a fez, puffing on his pipe and quietly enjoying the spectacle. I looked him up shortly after the rally ended."Not a bad week's work, if I do say so myself," I opened."It's a start," he replied. By Maine standards, that was a high compliment."What do you think should be next on our agenda?" I asked."Understanding why we won," he responded."Why did we win?" I inquired."Because we kept the fight within Maine. You call it ‘localizing the battlefield,’ I believe," he said.He was right on that. If the Feds had been involved, we would have been overpowered. They would have occupied Augusta with the 82^nd Airborne. We wouldn't have been able to get in the town."What can we do with that lesson?" I asked, continuing my game of 20 questions. It was a useful game if you were playing with someone who could think."The same group that started all this is meeting here this evening. They're the folks you met with, when you came up with the battle plan that worked. Meet us here in my suite at ten o'clock and you'll find out."I was there, and was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Kraft now chairing the meeting. It seems the rest of the folks had asked him to. They already knew what I was learning: in his Retroculture way, he was a first-rate strategist."Meeting is spelled 'waste of time,' in most cases," he opened. "So we'll keep this one short. We won this past week because the issue was decided by the people of Maine. If we can decide matters without Washington sticking its snout in, we'll usually win.""There's an idea I'd like to ask you to take back to your people, the folks in the groups you represent in this coalition. I call it the 'Maine Idea.' And it's what I've just said. We want to decide matters for ourselves. We want to separate ourselves in every way we can from Washington and from the rest of the country. If they want to mess their lives up with all these modern notions, that's up to them. But we want no part of it. We know the old ways were better, and we want to stick to them.""Our own government up here is rotten," Mr. Kraft continued. "But we can do something about that. This business of putting gays in our elementary schools has awakened the people of this state. We can't fix Washington. So the hell with Washington. The 'Maine Idea' is to shut Washington out.""How do we do that?" I asked. I liked the theory, but wondered how the mice could keep out an elephant."By being Moltkes, not Schlieffens," he replied. "You understand what that means. Moltke did not try to foresee every event in a campaign and plan too much beforehand. He campaigned opportunistically. So must we.""The first step is to get the idea accepted. Ideas have consequences. When a majority of Mainers share the Maine Idea, opportunities will arise, as one did here in these past few weeks. I'm sure we will have some good Marine advice as to how to use those opportunities," Mr. Kraft concluded.When Kraft talked, other people listened. They would take the Maine Idea back to their members. And gradually, it would spread along our rocky shore and through our stone-fenced fields.I waited until the others had filed out; I wanted to extend a private invitation to Mr. Kraft. "You know about our Christian Marine Corps," I said. "You don't have to be a former Marine to join. We'd like to have you. You're general staff material if anyone up here is.""Thank you," he replied. "You're not the first person to think so. I am honored by the invitation. I have always thought well of Marines. I will be happy to work with the Christian Marines and assist you in any way I can. But I am not at liberty to join you. I wear a different uniform."I was intrigued by this answer, but Mr. Kraft's tone did not suggest the subject was open for further discussion. So I thanked him for his offer of support, said we would be back to him for assistance, and bid him a good evening.Which it certainly had been.

The View From Olympus 34: Important New Book on 4GW

Much of the writing thus far on Fourth Generation war gets it wrong. Most frequently, the author does not understand that a generational change is a dialectically qualitative shift (doesn't anyone read Hegel anymore?). Tom Hammes makes this mistake in defining 4GW as insurgency. Insurgency is clearly not a dialectically qualitative shift. States have been dealing with it at least since the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon, and so long as the fight is for control of the state, it represents only a change in means, one that more often than not fails.It is therefore with pleasure that I can announce a new book that gets it right. The book is Winning Wars Amongst the People by Peter Kiss, a Hungarian-American who served twenty years in the U.S. Army.Winning Wars Amongst the People gets it right in a multitude of ways. First, the author has a correct definition of 4GW. Briefly, he defines it as “violent asymmetric confrontation between non-state actors and the state's security forces.” The book's first table explicitly contrasts Westphalian conflicts and Fourth Generation conflicts in five different categories. Such categorization is useful because readers can apply it to whatever conflict they may face. In general, the book's second chapter offers what may be the best single summary of all the generations, with the valid observation that it is premature to start speaking of a fifth generation. In my view, the Fourth Generation is so vast a phenomenon that it will take at least a century to emerge fully.The second way Peter Kiss gets it right is that, having clearly established the theoretical framework, he turns to case studies, four in number. Case studies are an excellent way to study war.Here yet another merit appears: the author is not politically correct. He does not look merely at 4GW in places like Afghanistan, where NATO's failure means it is unlikely to undertake similar ventures in the foreseeable future. Kiss understands that 4GW comes to a theater near you, and for him (Kiss writes from a Hungarian perspective), that means Europe. One of the book's four case studies is titled “France, 2005: The First Act of a Religious and Ethnic Insurgency.”France and other European countries already face 4GW on their own soil—4GW driven by Islam. Kiss is not afraid to violate the dicta of cultural Marxism by recognizing this fact. He writes:

Islam does not accept the notion that certain areas of either public or private life may be outside its reign; it rejects the nation-state and subordinates freedoms and individual rights to the teaching of religion and the interests of the umma (Islamic community). Few Muslims have been willing to give up the teachings of their religion; instead, they have chosen to isolate themselves. They have rejected the values, morals, and laws of France and rejected the education system that would offer their children the opportunity to integrate into the host society … This carries within itself the danger that a steadily increasing proportion of the society forms a “fifth column” in the heart of the country.

The book's last chapter considers how one state, Hungary, might prepare to meet the 4GW challenge. What applies to Hungary is relevant to other European states as well. While Hungary has a real conservative government that could consider 4GW objectively, the rest of Europe's politicians including nominal “conservatives,” are so paralyzed by cultural Marxism they can do nothing. Those responsible for security in European counties, however, must think about the 4GW threat on their own soil, even if they do so quietly. The Ostrich posture will ensure only that Europe gets its bottom kicked.

The Works of Russell Kirk

One of traditionalRIGHT's mentors and my greatest inspiration is the late Dr. Russell Kirk. Dr. Kirk, whom I got to know late in his life, was in some ways the only real conservative in the post-war conservative movement clustered around William F. Buckley and National Review. The rest of the NR crowd was made up of a collection of anti-Communists and advocates of a free market economy, both worthy causes to be sure but not the essence of conservatism. Dr. Kirk knew that, and while he wrote a column for National Review, he also wrote vastly more, works that embodied the heart of conservative thought, not merely its capillaries.The word "vast" is appropriate when referring to Russell Kirk's works because he wrote a great deal. Fortunately for those who would know real conservatism, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in 2011 published a book-length bibliography, compiled by Charles C. Brown, of Dr. Kirk's writings. The bibliography includes all his books, essays, columns, lectures, and novels (he wrote Gothic fiction) as well as translations of his works and reviews and other writings about him. The book, Russell Kirk: A Bibliography, is invaluable.When facing the Everest that is Dr. Kirk's published Nachlass, the question is, where to begin? It may be said of Russell Kirk, as of Samuel Johnson but few others, that everything he wrote may be read with profit. But neither that advice nor Charles Brown's bibliography, which is not annotated, are enough for those approaching Mt. Kirk for the first time. So let me offer a bit of advice.The best of Dr. Kirk's books for the beginner is The Politics of Prudence. This work looks at a variety of components of the current conservative movement and topics facing contemporary conservatives from a genuinely conservative perspective. It warns conservatives at the outset against the foxfire of ideology. It discusses ten conservative principles, the conservative cause, ten conservative books, and ten exemplary conservatives . It considers Davidson and the Soutern Agrarians, the economics of Roepke, the cultural critique of the curmudgeonly Malcolm Muggeridge (who argued that "Once a society gets television, it is finished.") and conservative populism. Prudence scourges the libertarians, cheers for the cultural conservatives (including a small institute I once led), recommends a foreign policy based on American interests (no "wars of choice," please), warns against centralization, cautions about the risks of popular sovereignty, and ends with a dollop, no more, of hope. In short, it takes on a tour d'horizon of applied conservative thought, which is just the right place to start.After The Politics of Prudence, he who would know real conservatism may plunge in where he wills, with Russell Kirk: A Bibliograghy as his guide. However, if he wishes to attain Everest's summit, sooner or later he must tackle Dr. Kirk's summa, the book which made his name and still his greatest, The Conservative Mind from Burke to Eliot. First published in 1953 and republished since in many new editions (some significantly different) , The Conservative Mind is essential reading for all conservatives who want to understand what they are at. I will not attempt to summarize it here, as it is too weighty for that. But if you want to know what traditionalRIGHT is all about, read it you must. If it daunts you at first, it quickly becomes a pleasure.Dr. Kirk's style was somewhat antique when he was writing, and may strike the reader as more so today. Remember that "antique" usually means higher, not lower, and better, not worse. Learn from it. You too may someday write.Bon Voyage!

Victoria: Chapter 11

The summer of 2017 marked the beginning of work. As Trooper Kelly had warned, building an organization proved to be anything but exciting. It was slow, it was dull, it was frustrating. I often felt like I was trying to drive a thousand blind geese through one tiny wicket. But slowly, the Christian Marine Corps grew.The first thing I did was identify a small group of people I could turn to for advice. I knew better than to think I had all the answers, or all the questions, either. The questions were more important, at least at the start. As Sir Francis Bacon said some centuries back, if you start out with questions, you may end up with answers. But if you start out with answers, you will end up with questions.The first and most important question was, what did we want to do? We knew the answer to that one: we wanted to take our country back. We wanted to take it back for our traditional, Western, Christian culture – in short; for the Ten Commandments.We realized this was a tall order. We were living in a country where a teacher who posted the Ten Commandments on the wall of his classroom would be fired. (By 2016, in Massachusetts, he would also be fired if he did not put up a state-supplied poster titled "The Ten Commandments of Safe Sex.")But we also knew the cultural Marxists, seemingly so powerful, had reached what in war is called the "culminating point." They were running out of gas. As they stuck their big noses into the business of more and more average people, they were building up a tremendous backlash. Our goal was to shape, strengthen, and guide that backlash.That was itself a challenge, but one we thought we could manage, God willing. To further limit the task, we decided we would focus on New England.The second question we faced was, how do we do it? Here too, we had an answer: by offering the other good people who had the same goal our expertise in war. We sought only to be advisors, never controllers – a true general staff.The secret of success in the culture war would be "leaderless resistance," where people worked independently but with efforts harmonized by shared objectives. The worst thing we could do was create some kind of formal, hierarchical organization. That would be easy for the other side to attack, it would demoralize our own troops by reducing them to pawns on someone else's chessboard, and it would leave us dependent on one or a handful of brains when we could have many brains thinking and acting for us. Also, it would generate office politics as people within the organization struggled for power. I'd seen enough office politics in the Corps to last me the rest of my days.Ultimately, the Christian Marines did not want to be about power. This, we recognized, was our biggest difference from all the other factions. We did not want power. We did not want a new country built around power, or struggles for power.Power was itself an evil, maybe the greatest evil. Tolkien was right; the Ring of Power, which is power itself, cannot be used for good. That was another lesson we learned the hard way in the U.S.A. At one time, America had shunned power, refused power, at home and abroad. Those had been our happy days. Then the "Progressives" came along, who thought the power of government could be used for good. Eventually, they decided the power of government was good in itself – because they controlled it.That's how it always works: power looks good to whoever has it. But it isn't. Our war was in a way the strangest war of all, a war to bury power, not to seize it.Advisors – only – we would be. In the heat of battle, when someone had to decide and act, fast, we would do that. And our advice itself would be action, because it would counsel action. But in the end, our goal was to return to our plows, Cincinnati, not Caesars.Only with these questions answered did we turn to the third (too many people started with this one): what kind of organization would we be?First, we would start small. The old German motto was correct: "Better no officer than a bad officer."That meant we could not simply recruit former Marines. There were people from other services, and people who had never been in the military at all, whom we would want. And, truth be told, the number of Marines who really understood war was small. The Corps had put strong emphasis on studying war, beginning in the 1980s, but most Marine officers blew it off. Their focus was on looking good in the uniform and maxing the Physical Fitness Test, they read nothing beyond the sports page and their only talk was about trout fishing and getting promoted. To us, or to anyone, they were useless.One of our great fears was that if actual fighting started, civilians who shared our values would turn to retired senior officers for leaders. Most of these guys, the colonels and generals, had never been soldiers. They were milicrats – military bureaucrats. In the old American military, once you made major, further promotion was based on how well you used your knee pads and lip balm, not military ability. If our side ended up led by milicrats, we would be defeated before the battles even began. We would be like the Whites in the Russian Civil War, who got all the old Tsarist generals as their leaders. The Reds got guys like Trotsky, who were serious students of war. We all knew who had won that one.Because we would stay small, a few hundred men at most, we could avoid formal processes for recruiting. In fact, we avoided formal processes for everything, because the focus of any process becomes the process, not the product. We would accept new Christian Marines only by consensus, and we would consider candidates only on the basis of what they had done, not what they told us. We wanted to see actions, not words: articles or books published, speeches given in places where they counted, people mobilized, victories in free play military maneuvers (and later, as it turned out, in real combat), victories over the Establishment – results.Das Wesentliche ist die Tat.A final rule we adopted was one I insisted on, as only someone who has just learned something important himself can insist. Any Christian Marine had to know the canon of our culture. He had to undergo my "baptism by immersion" in the great books and ideas of Western civilization. We couldn't hope to fight for that culture, and fight well for it, unless we knew what it was. A few of our recruits came to us with that knowledge – more accurately, that understanding. The rest had to start where I had started. That was true regardless of how well they understood war. An officer should never be a mere technician.For the next couple years, as we slowly grew in numbers, we kept a low profile. We weren't exactly a secret organization, but we didn't put out any press releases, either. If we succeeded, people would know us by our works, which were all that counted. If we failed, better our failures remained obscure. In any case, Stabsofficiere haben keine Namen – general staff officers have no names.Carefully, we built our cadre. New Christian Marines were recruited, and accepted, one by one. I spent a lot of time doing detective work. When our side won a battle in the culture war, like keeping pro-homosexual propaganda out of the schools, who had provided the leadership? That might be someone we wanted. When a Marine – or anyone – who had written knowledgeably about war moved to New England, he was potentially one of us. Where did he stand on the cultural issues? Were there other men who believed as we did in key positions in the state legislature, or the National Guard, or the state police? If so, they could be important to us.Did we infiltrate the power structure in the New England state governments? Of course, wherever we could. In Massachusetts and lower New England, we didn't get very far; the cultural Marxists were fully in charge there. But we gradually made some key friends in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Some of those friends became Christian Marines. Others just knew who we were and what we had to offer.We also infiltrated the active-duty forces. Our goal was not to overthrow the United States government. We were never enemies of the old U.S. Constitution. But we knew that government and its Establishment were going to fall, of their own weight, corruption, ineptness, and disinterest in actually governing. We were looking, always, to the time after it fell. We wanted as many active duty Marines – and soldiers, sailors, and airmen – as we could get who would come to New England when it happened, and help us save something worthwhile from the wreckage.By the first decade of the 21st century, the message that the U.S.A. was finished, that it was only a question of when it came apart, not whether, found many a receptive ear. Books like Martin van Creveld's The Transformation of War had opened quite a few minds. Only the people in the capital, in Washington, could not see it coming. They were like the citizens of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, watching the rain come down in buckets but not thinking about the dam.For us, in Maine, the dam started to crumble in the Fall of 2020.

Pussycats

For several decades now, Western armed forces—which keep preening themselves as the best-trained, best-organized, best-equipped, best-led, in history—have been turned into pussycats. Being pussycats, they went from one defeat to the next. True, in 1999 they did succeed in imposing their will on Serbia. But only because the opponent was a small, weak state (at the time, the Serb armed forces, exhausted by a prolonged civil war, were rated 35^th in the world); and even then only because that state was practically defenseless in the air. The same applies to Libya in 2011. Over there, indigenous bands on the ground did most of the fighting and took all the casualties. In both cases, when it came to engaging in ground combat, man against man, the West, with the U.S at its head, simply did not have what it takes.On other occasions things were worse still. Western armies tried to create order in Somalia and were kicked out by the “Skinnies,” as they called their lean but mean opponents. They tried to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan, and were kicked out. They tried to impose democracy (and get their hands on oil) in Iraq, and ended up leaving with their tails between their legs. The cost of these foolish adventures to the U.S alone is said to have been around 1 trillion—1,000,000,000,000—dollars. With one defeat following another, is it any wonder that, when those forces were called upon to put an end to the civil war in Syria, they and the societies they serve preferred to let the atrocities go on?By far the most important single reason behind the repeated failures is the fact that, one and all, these were luxury wars. With nuclear weapons deterring large-scale attack, for seven decades now no Western country has waged anything like a serious (let alone existential) struggle against a more or less equal opponent. As the troops took on opponents much weaker than themselves—often in places they had never heard about, often for reasons nobody but a few politicians understood—they saw no reason why they should get themselves killed. Given the circumstances, indeed, doing so would have been the height of stupidity on their part. Yet from the time the Persians at Marathon in 490 B.C. were defeated by the outnumbered Greeks right down to the present, troops whose primary concern is not to get themselves killed have never be able to fight, let alone win.One would think that, aware of the problem, the politicians and societies that so light-heartedly sent the troops to fight under these circumstances would do everything in their power to compensate them in other ways. For example, by allowing them some license to enjoy life before a bomb went off, blowing them to pieces; making sure that those put in harm’s way would be given a free hand to do what they had to do; allowing them to take pride in their handiwork; celebrating them on their return; and giving them all kinds of privileges. Was it not Plato who suggested that those who excelled in war on behalf of the republic be given first right to kiss and be kissed? After all, in every field of human activity from football to accounting it has always been those who enjoy what they do who do it best. Conversely, in every field those who excel are those who enjoy what they are doing. Is there any reason why, in waging war and fighting, things should be any different?Instead, far from honoring their troops or even showing them respect, Western societies have done the opposite. During training and in garrison, they are surrounded by a thousand regulations that prevent them from doing things every civilian can do as a matter of course. That includes, if they are American and not yet 21 years old, buying a can of beer and drinking its contents. On campaign they are bound by rules of engagement that often make their enemies laugh at them, prevent them from defending themselves, lead to unnecessary casualties, and result in punishment if they are violated. Anybody who openly says that he took pride in his deadly work—as, for example, the legendary, now retired, Four-Star U.S. Marine Corps General Jim Mattis at one point did—will be counseled to shut up if he is lucky and disciplined if he is not.American troops returning from a tour undergo obligatory testing for post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. PTSD, of course, is a real problem for some. However, as all history shows, it is simply not true that fighting, killing, and watching others being killed is necessarily traumatic. Suppose the Roman Army had dealt with PTSD as we do now; would it have conquered the world? Nor, contrary to what one often hears, is it true that historical combat was less terrible than its modern equivalents. Perhaps to the contrary, given that the combatants could literally look into each other’s eyes, hear the screams, see the spurting blood, and touch the scattering brains.As I wrote decades ago in Fighting Power, the real origin of PTSD is found in a personnel system which, for reasons of administrative efficiency, treats the troops like interchangeable cogs, isolates them, and prevents them from bonding. Adding offense to injury, the abovementioned tests, introduced with the possibility of liability in mind, are humiliating. Wasn’t it Frederick the Great who said that the one thing that can drive men into the muzzles of the cannon trained on them is pride? Nor do things end at this point. Far from celebrating the troops’ courage and sacrifice, society very often treats them as damaged goods. Indeed things have come to the point where it expects them to be damaged.An important role in all this is played by military women and feminism generally. In every known human society (even, as far as we are able to judge, in some animal societies) since the world began, whatever treatment was considered suitable for males has been seen as too harsh for females. Conversely, to be treated like women was perceived as the most humiliating thing men could undergo. By insisting on gender equality the way they have—even putting in place “equal employment opportunity officers” charged with hounding any man who dares “offend” a woman—Western armed forces have dragged their men’s pride through the mire. The more so because, as the distribution of casualties shows, it is the men who do practically all the fighting. At the same time they have often confronted women with demands that were too much for them. The proof of this particular pudding is in the eating. Proportionally speaking, far more female than male soldiers are said to suffer from PTSD.Had the system been deliberately designed to sap the fighting power of Western armies, it could hardly have been improved on. This might well make us ask: cui bono? Who profits? There are several answers. First come thousands of “mental health professionals” hired to treat the people in question. Like the female psychologist in Philipp Roth’s book, The Human Stain, who asks a Vietnam veteran whether he has ever killed anybody (firing a machine gun from a helicopter, he has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands), most would not recognize a bullet if they saw one. Next come the corporations that produce all sorts of psychopharma (the standard method for treating PTSD is to drug the patients). Third are the media. Always eager to throw the first stone, very often they have a field day selling those suffering from the symptoms to a slavering public. Between them, these three make billions out of the enterprise.Last not least are feminist organizations which always insist on “equality” (in reality, privilege) even if it means going over the bodies of many “sisters” and wrecking their countries’ military. Two points remain to be made. First, as their repeated victories prove, the Taliban, their brothers in arms in other countries, and non-Western societies generally know better than to follow the West on its self-destructive path. Second, societies that lose their fighting power by treating their troops in this way are doomed. Sooner or later, somebody will come along, big sword in hand, and cut off their head.Let those with ears to listen, listen.

The View From Olympus 33: Islam's True Face

Boko Haram's abduction of some 250 Nigerian schoolgirls has again, with good reason, focused attention on the real nature of Islam. Even al Qaeda is reportedly trying to distance itself from Boko Haram. But this is dishonest. Boko Haram represents Islam's true face.To be sure, much of the response in Nigeria to the abduction is also an act. Sources inform me that Boko Haram was created by the Nigerian government, which retains ties to it. Why would a state create a Fourth Generation entity? Beyond stupidity and hubris, the apparent reason was so that Boko Haram could serve as a bogeyman, used by the Nigerian government to distract attention from its own crimes. Such is politics in black Africa's pseudo-states, where the state is merely one criminal gang among many. No wonder the governor of Borno state, where Boko Haram is based, was quoted in the May 12 New York Times as saying, “Honestly, I am so desperate, if the Americans were to colonize, I say so be it.” The best times most of black Africa ever knew or ever will know was when they were European colonies.Islam promises relief from the endless corruption of African states, but what it actually offers is the puritan tyranny Boko Haram represents. This is inherent in Islam. The problem is that the Koran is to be read literally. Biblical literalism in Christianity is both new and very much a minority view. While the statements in the creeds are to be believed literally, the church as a whole has always understood that the New Testament is heavily metaphorical. That is not the case in Islam. Any Islamic who does not take the Koran literally is a lax Islamic (peace be upon them). Taking the Koran literally, however, yields exactly the sort of puritanical brutality we saw in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, in the areas ruled by al Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria and in Boko Haram. If you read the Koran (as I have), you will see it is a long list of verbots, coupled with endlessly repetitive denunciations of unbelievers, some of which command violence against them. Take that literally and voilà!, you have Boko Haram.Puritanism springing from Koranic literalism is in fact the Achilles' heel of Islamic 4GW organizations. Violent puritanism alienates the population and also, as government, simply doesn't work. I have previously referenced a superb monograph on this, one that deserves much more attention from the American national security establishment than it has received. The reference is to Terror's Mask: Insurgency Within Islam by Michael Vlahos. Vlahos agues that Islamic puritanism creates an endless cycle. Puritan movements arise, take power from the corrupt (by Koranic norms) elite, become “corrupt” themselves because pure Islam cannot govern, and thus gives rise to new puritan movements. This cycle, coupled with a reinvigorated Sunni-Shiite civil war, explains a great deal of what is happening today in the Islamic world.Because Islam commands violent, literalist puritanism, it is not compatible with other religions, cultures, or secular philosophies. It is, and must be, at war with them. Boko Haram is a warning to any society that tolerates Islam. What it has brought to Nigeria today it will bring to your soil tomorrow. In places such as the suburbs of Paris, tomorrow is not very far away.

PS: In my previous column I discussed some ways in which the Russian armed forces have adopted techniques from 4GW entities. An excellent paper published by the National Defense Academy of Latvia's Center for Security and Strategic Research, Russia's New Generation Warfare in Ukraine: Implications for Latvian Defense Policy by Janis Berzins offers a much fuller treatment of this subject. I recommend it strongly, despite the author's error in attempting to identify technology-driven 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th generations. One would expect people from former Soviet lands to know their Hegel well enough to realize dialectically qualitative changes, which is what “generation” means in this context, are rare.

Ethno-Nationalism Bites Back

One wonderful thing about the modern Right as a group is that we are willing to engage in debate and exchange ideas rather than resort to ad hominem attacks or emotional responses toward those who do not toe the party line as is characteristic of the Left. Ed Kozak's critique of ethno-nationalism is welcome. Deeper analysis of the issue brings the Right closer to the truth of the matter and helps to keep fanaticism at bay. It also allows us an opportunity to clarify our position in regard to the role ethnic identity plays in building a society.I will begin by addressing a couple of Mr. Kozak's points and then lay out traditionalRIGHT's position regarding ethno-nationalism.Revolutionaries vs. Reactionaries, Traditional vs. ProgressiveMy first nit to pick is Kozak's charge that ethno-nationalism is “wholly revolutionary.” The article, “The Flag of the World,” offered a commentary on the different attitudes and approaches taken by supporters of ethno-nationalism, not whether or not the issue itself is reactionary or revolutionary. Ethno-nationalism may very well be revolutionary—in fact, everything that dissents from the current order and modernity is—but that was not the point.Kozak suggests that “ethno-nationalism is neither traditional nor Right; it is certainly not a traditionalist conservative belief.” It is true, ethno-nationalism is not conservative, but Traditional (capital T), it absolutely is. Conservatives derive their identities from their loyalty to abstractions: states, kingdoms, institutions. Traditionalists find their identities in concrete truths: blood, tribe, heritage.Here is a longer quote from the critique:

“Although nationalism can also have a unifying effect, it is still revolutionary, artificial, and destructive. Take for example Germany and Italy, another two 19^th century inventions for which ancient kingdoms, principalities, and dynasties were swept away; hardly a conservative endeavor.”

Again, I agree, ethno-nationalism is not conservative. To be conservative would be to cling to evil, decrepit institutions that have long since passed their expiration dates, which is why American conservatives continually try to “restore the Constitution.” traditionalRIGHT is not conservative, but Traditional. Conservatism died 200 years ago.DefinitionsEthno-nationalism, at its simplest, is something virtually anyone can get behind. The ethno-state, if the state as an institution is to continue to exist at all in the future, is TR's default position of support concerning geopolitics. I like John Derbyshire's explanation:

“If a nation is to hold together, the great majority of its people need to be bonded by ethnic kinship—shared history, a shared outlook. One’s outlook arises from one’s brain, which is a product of evolution—including, we now know, historically recent evolution.Because ethnies overlap on most traits, a particular Turk may become a good German … However, since we can’t tell in advance whether he will or not, a wise nation severely restricts settlement from foreign ethnies and vigorously deports those who prove incompatible.A big ethnic minority with a different outlook spells national discord.”

Simple enough. The ethno-state minimizes conflict because its raison d'être is to act in the benefit of a specific group. The government is rendered less corruptible by special interests and competing groups that game the system for themselves at the expense of others. Ethno-nationalism offers a solid base upon which a civilization may be built and is not an end in itself.There is nothing ideological about this. There is no magical invocation of “rights.” Ethno-nationalism only recognizes that different peoples have different interests and are better served by determining their own destinies.TR's Perspective and the FutureCulture, loyalty, and patriotism, or “God, king, and country”—the primary conservative values—are undeniably important and can certainly be powerful unifying forces. But they are secondary values. The plain truth is that blood and soil create culture. The institutions that we (Traditionalists and conservatives alike) value so greatly came from within a people.Indeed, these are interesting times. Defenders of Tradition have never really had to consider ethnicity's effects on society at large. Surely not as intensely as they do now. Political globalism, multi-national corporations, mass communications, and high-speed travel have brought historically disparate peoples and cultures together like never before. Third-world peoples are settling in first-world lands. And who can blame them? The West is a wonderful realm in which to live.The question for conservatives, though, is this: how can you maintain a first-world country if it is populated by third-world people? We can “assimilate” foreigners, but each passing generation of the new integrated nation will be a cheaper and thinner imitation of the true West.traditionalRIGHT's objective is to preserve Western civilization. The prerequisite for that goal is to preserve Western people. As immigration of the third-world into Western nations continues to increase and the state progressively weakens, it may become necessary to form non-state entities to defend and provide for the European diaspora. Only a coherent Western consciousness will facilitate such an effort. Supporting ethno-nationalism as a general principal for all peoples is a step in that direction.

Victoria: Chapter 10

If the Christian Marines were to be the general staff for our side in what was coming, I needed to figure out just what and who our side was. I wanted to get to know them, and, more importantly, let them get to know me. That was the first step in establishing trust.So one April evening in the year 2017 I drove down to Waterville. When I got there, I could tell Spring was coming to Maine. I could smell all the winter's dog poop melting on the green.The local chapter of the Tea Party was gathering that night to hear one of their top leaders up from Washington. I knew enough about the Tea Party to realize it was on our side. Many of the folks in it later became brothers in arms and leaders in the Recovery. But like all such groups in the last days of the American republic, it had a fatal flaw, the nature of which I was to learn that evening.The fellow from Washington, whose name I long ago forgot, gave the usual pitch the "Inside-the-Beltway" types fed to the local yokels. The gist of it was that the future of the country depended on them (in fact, by that point, it had already been determined); they should respond to what their leaders asked them to do (when it should have been the other way around); and, most important, send money.After he'd made his pitch, there were a few questions, a bit of discussion of this and that. Then a tall fellow in back stood up. He was dressed in about the year 1945: well-cut brown double-breasted suit, wide tie, holding a brown fedora. By Maine standards, he had a good bit to say, and he said it well."I appreciate you taking the time to journey all the way up here," began Mr. William Hocking Kraft. "But frankly, you represent the problem, not the solution.""The problem, put simply, is this. Our leaders always sell us out. Maybe they start out thinking like we do, I don't know. But once they get to Washington, and see how nice life can be once you're a member of the club, the Establishment, their goal becomes joining that club. But our goal is to close it down.""They—you—always end up getting sucked in to the Republican Party," Mr. Kraft continued. "It holds the keys to the club. And it sold us out long ago. Sure, it tells us what we want to hear, but it snickers and winks the whole time it's talking. The only people it delivers for are those on Wall Street and in the country clubs.""The fact of the matter is that you can't create what we believe in, a country that follows the Ten Commandments, from Washington. The people in Washington follow only one commandment: Promote Yourself. You have to create it here, not by what you say, but by how you live."Kraft's words brought to mind something my friend who worked for a Senator had said to me. He said the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party was the difference between Madonna and Donald Trump.The fellow from Washington slid and slithered as best he could, but it was clear Kraft had said what others were thinking. And he was right. No matter what the group was, it ended up with leaders who wanted to join the club. Those leaders sold their own folks out, because that was the condition of club membership.I was struck by Kraft's definition of what we wanted: a country that followed the Ten Commandments. That was what the Christian Marines wanted, too. And we needed action, not just words. So when the meeting broke up, I introduced myself.His reply to my introduction was a surprise. "I already know you, or at least know about you," he said. "I have some friends in the Corps—I'm something of an amateur military historian—and I heard about your raid on the feminists at Expeditionary Warfare School. You showed the rarest of qualities in the American officer corps: moral courage. I would be honored if you would join me for dinner at my home, if you're free."I was, and Kraft was clearly someone I wanted to know better. We walked out together to his car—an immaculate 1948 Buick Roadmaster. "I'll wait for you here," he said. "Just follow me."His house was a typical 1920s bungalow, nothing special from the outside, but when I walked through the front door I got a shock. It was like going through a time lock.Everything was as it might have been seventy years ago. Everything—the big floor model radio (no television), the Brussels carpets on hardwood floors, the appliances, the 1948 calendar on the kitchen wall (as always in Maine, we came in the back door, through the mud room), even the way his wife and children were dressed. It had been a long time since I had dropped in on someone and found his wife in a nice dress waiting to serve dinner.He introduced his wife as Mrs. Kraft, his young son as Master Billy and his daughters as the Misses Evelyn and Lula Bell.I expressed my hope that my unexpected arrival for dinner was not a problem."Not at all," replied Mrs. Kraft. "I always prepare enough so that if Mr. Kraft brings someone, we have plenty. That is, after all, one of the duties of my sphere."The feeling of having gone through a time warp was growing stronger.We sat down in the dining room, with its 1930s floral wallpaper and oak wainscoting, polished mahogany table and built-in breakfront, and Mr. Kraft said grace—in Latin. Mrs. Kraft, and only Mrs. Kraft, served, from the kitchen. Somehow, it all felt right, even though my generation had been taught it was wrong."This is sure a change from most places I visit," I ventured, being somewhat unsure how much notice I should give to what then counted as eccentricity, at the least."Thank you," said Mr. Kraft. "It has taken some effort on our part, but we have created a home where you can leave the 21st century at the door. Here, at least, things are as they were, and should be.""We're Retroculture people," added Mrs. Kraft."I don't know how much you've heard about the Retroculture movement," Mr. Kraft said."I'm afraid we lead a rather sheltered life in the military," I replied. "The only culture we get is the kind that grows on old bread.""You may remember what I said earlier this evening, at the meeting,” he continued. “You cannot create, or, more precisely, re-create, the world we want simply through words, least of all through the words of politicians. You have to do it by how you live. The Retroculture movement is people—individuals, families, sometimes whole neighborhoods—striving to live again in the old ways, following the old rules.""I'm sure you've been told, ‘You can't go back,'" Mr. Kraft went on. "Like most of what you are told these days, it's a lie. The one thing we know we can do is what we've already done. We can live in the good, wholesome, upright ways our forefathers followed.""So there is more to this than furniture, clothes and manners?" I asked. The manners were obvious: we were holding an adult conversation at a table that included three children."Of course," Mr. Kraft replied. "Things are important tools; our furniture, our clothes, my Buick, all help separate us from the modern world, which is what we want to do. We're like the Amish in that respect. But also like the Amish, the essence of Retroculture is our beliefs, morals and values. We believe what Americans used to believe. We hold the same values, follow the same moral rules our ancestors followed.""What era do Retroculture people want to live in?" I inquired."Any time before 1965," Mr. Kraft responded. "That year marks the beginning of the cultural revolution that destroyed America. Our period is the 1940s, though many of the things you see here are older than that; back then, people didn't throw out their furniture every ten years.""Many Retroculture people have chosen the Victorian era as the time they want to live in, and for good reasons. The Victorians were astoundingly productive people, building, inventing, creating, conquering, all the things we need to do if we are ever to amount to anything again, other than a Third World country. The basis of their success, of course, was their strong, Christian morals.""But other Retroculture folks have chosen the 1950s as their era, or 1910, or even the colonial period," Mr. Kraft continued. "The specific time period does not matter, so long as it is a time when traditional American culture was strong."“Each person, each family decides for itself just how Retro it wants to go. There's no set of rules, except that it must be before 1965 and must include the values if it is to count as Retroculture. Most people follow the simple rule of common sense.""The colonial period would interest me," I said, "though as a Marine, I was told that bleeding was bad for the other guy, not good for me. I'm not sure I'd like depending on 18th century medicine.""Don't worry, you wouldn't have to," Mr. Kraft replied. "We had our children vaccinated against polio, I assure you. We have no desire to bring back the tiny braces and little iron lungs. On the other hand, we don't want modern medical technology to keep us alive when our natural life span is over, so we can waste away in some nursing home. When my time comes, I want the doctor to come to the house with his little black bag and give me some morphine to ease the passing, just as he would have done in the 1940s.""Good luck finding a doctor to make a house call these days," I replied, wondering just how practical Retroculture was."We have such a doctor," Mrs. Kraft said. "He's in the Retroculture movement too. When one of us is sick, he comes to the house in his black Detroit Electric automobile from the 1920s.""You're lucky to have a wife who goes along with all this," I said to Mr. Kraft, thinking how most of my friends’ wives would have reacted to the idea of going back to the past."The good luck is mine more than his," Mrs. Kraft replied. "These days, women are told they were oppressed and mistreated in the past, and that they will be happier if they can live in the business world, the world of men. That is another modern lie.""As a wife of the 1940s, I have my own sphere where I am in charge: this home, my family, and my community, where I do a great deal of volunteer work, as women did in the past. It is a more important sphere than the business world where Mr. Kraft works, because it is the sphere where babies grow into children and then into men and women. I, as the woman of the house, hold the future in my hands.""I agree with that," Mr. Kraft said. "Unless women create good homes and raise the children right, those things go undone. They are not natural to men. We see all around us what kind of children come from homes where the wife is not a mother and homemaker. As Arnold Toynbee warned, our barbarians have come from within.""As far as all the nonsense about women being oppressed by being given charge of the home," Mrs. Kraft added, "I find quite the opposite is true. Creating a good home is a greater challenge than most matters in the business world, and it allows more room for creativity. The home you are enjoying now is my achievement. How many women in business achieve so much? Or are so loved and honored for their achievement as I am by Mr. Kraft and our children?""That you are indeed, Mrs. Kraft," Mr. Kraft replied.They had a remarkable home life, as I could plainly see. It was the sort of home most people of my generation knew about only from books or plays or family memories. But it was exactly the kind of home we all wished we could live in—not just for the beautiful things, but for the warmth and contentment and absolute solidness I could feel radiating from every corner.After an ample and excellent meal, Mr. Kraft and I adjourned to his den while Mrs. Kraft did the dishes. As he busied himself filling and lighting his pipe, I started to think. Maybe this was the answer to the puzzle I was facing of how the Christian Marines could explain what we were fighting for. In a broad sense, we knew the answer: a nation where the Ten Commandments ruled. But I knew our program, our goal, had to be developed beyond that to be understood by other people.The danger facing us was falling into an ideology. Retroculture avoided that danger, because unlike an ideology it was not based on some abstract scheme of ideas. It was simply recovering what we used to have and used to be, which was the ultimate in concreteness. And we could know it would work, because we knew America had worked in the past. Logically, what worked once should work again."Just how many of you Retroculture people are there?" I asked Mr. Kraft."Tens of thousands," he replied, "and growing fast. You don't hear about us much in the general media, because we represent a rejection of everything it stands for. But we have our own magazines, books, clubs, and societies. We come in all varieties – there is even a group of non-Amish who live like the Amish, what they call, “plain.” There is growing talk of founding new towns where everyone would live in a certain time period and there would be nothing out of place for that time.""It kind of makes you wonder what a whole Retroculture country might be like," I mused.”It would be splendid, as America itself once was splendid, before the squalid sixties," Kraft replied. "Remember, we had a country that worked.""That is hard to remember now," I responded."But people do remember," Kraft said. "Take a look at this—and it is from more than twenty years ago."He handed me a copy of a poll taken in 1992 by Lawrence Research for something called the Free Congress Foundation. It was a survey of people's attitudes toward the past, and the findings were remarkable. 49% said life in the past was better than it is today; only 17% said it was worse. 59% said the nation's leaders should be trying to take the country back toward the way it used to be. 61% thought life in the 1950s was better than in the 1990s. 47% said their grandparents' lives were happier than their own – and the margin was 15% higher among blacks, whose grandparents had lived under segregation.When given a menu of times and places in which they could choose to live, a typical suburb in 1950 came in first with 58%; in last place was Los Angeles in 1991. When asked for a second choice, the winner, with 32%, was a small town in 1900; modern LA again came in last.56% of those polled had a favorable impression of the Victorian period. 45% said they saw signs of people and things turning back toward the past—and that it was a good thing."For America, that poll represents nothing less than a cultural revolution," Mr. Kraft said. "From the days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony onward, Americans have been future focused. We have always believed that the future would be better than the present, and that the present was better than the past. We don't believe that any more. We believe—in fact, we know, because unlike the future, the past is knowable—what we once had was better than what we have now. Caught as America is in an endless downward spiral of decline, decay, and degradation, we have no reason to hope for our future—unless that future can be a recovery of our past.""Thanks to a certain professor from Dartmouth College, I've read a bit about our past," I said. "Not just America's past, but the history of our Western culture. My impression is that through most of history, we were past-focused. We saw the past as a model we should try to recapture and emulate. Is what we're seeing here a return to normality?""Yes," Mr. Kraft responded. "Most of our culture's great leaps forward have come from attempts to return to the past. The Renaissance is a good example. The Renaissance was an attempt to recover the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome. Of course, such efforts don't exactly recreate the past; 15th century Florence was not the Roman Republic. But the attempt to recapture the classical past created a new synthesis that was brilliant—and that could never have been created by looking only to the future, which is, after all, a void.""Do you think an attempt to recapture our own past—Retroculture—could give us a renaissance?" I asked."Again, the answer is yes," Kraft replied. “Retroculture is something solid, something real people can put their hands on and understand. Most people know how their grandparents or great grandparents lived. They know they were good people who lived decent, satisfying lives. They can grasp the fact that we can live that way again. Once they realize it is possible, once they realize that the saying, ‘You can't go back,’ is a lie, it is something they want to do. And if they do it, as we have done it in this home, in our lives, they find it works.""One final question, if I may," I said. "If some people were willing to fight for a country where Retroculture could flourish—not one where it was enforced by law, but where people could live Retro if they wanted to, without any hindrances from the government—would you be willing to help?""Of course," Mr. Kraft replied. "At present, Retroculture can't go much beyond home life, because all kinds of government regulations and regulators and lawyers come down on you if you try. As I said, some of us would like to create whole new towns and communities where everyone would live in a certain time. But we know the government would prevent that, because one or another of these ‘victims’ groups would protest.""Retroculture isn't political," he continued. "Retroculture is about escaping politics and government and all that nonsense. It's about simply living a normal life, the kind of life Americans used to live. It seems to me that if we're going to talk about a new country, that's the kind of country we should want."I thought that summed it up pretty well. After drinking a glass of good Port and smoking a cigar to accompany Mr. Kraft's pipe, I bid him good night and headed home through the April slush. Another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

The View From Olympus 32: 4GW Lessons for Russia

Russian operations in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine show that the Russian military has learned some tactical and perhaps even operational lessons from Fourth Generation fighters. An article in the April 22 New York Times, "New Prowess for Russians," states that Western experts

 see a military disparaged for its decline since the fall of the Soviet Union skillfully employing 21st century tactics that combine cyberwarfare, an energetic information campaign, and the use of highly trained special operations troops to seize the initiative from the West...Military experts say that the sort of strategy the Kremlin has employed in Ukraine is likely to work best in areas in which there are pockets of Russians to provide local support.

By using small numbers of highly trained men whose uniforms have no national insignia, the Russian military is showing its understanding of the advantages 4GW elements gain from not being state armed forces. As John Boyd argued, ambiguity works as well as deception, and the ambiguity of the "green men" allows Russia a wide variety of options, military and diplomatic. Critically, it allows its forces to avoid the delegitimizing designation of "foreign invaders," a designation the American armed forces suffered from heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan. If an operation fails, Russian prestige is not on the line, because it can deny ownership. If it succeeds, Russia can give the credit to the locals, strengthening the legitimacy of the elements it supports.As the Times noted, the current Russian approach depends on a supportive ethnically Russian population. Here Russia has drawn on another aspect of 4GW, namely the fact that ethnic loyalty increasingly trumps national loyalty. By leveraging loyalty to "Mother Russia" among ethnically Russian citizens of Ukraine, Russia has been able to maintain a light footprint, reducing the diplomatic and economic price of her actions.This, however, is a double-edged sword for Russia. The Russian Federation includes many peoples  who are ethnically non-Russian. Others can use them as the Kremlin has used ethnic Russians.Here we begin to see a lesson from 4GW which Russia has not yet learned: once the disintegration of a state is set in motion, it is very difficult to halt or reverse. Russian actions are destroying an already fragile state in Ukraine. The Kremlin appears to believe it can spur or reign in state disintegration in eastern Ukraine, pushing it far enough to prevent Ukraine from joining the West but halting before the east becomes anarchic. That may be optimistic.While the West assumes events in eastern Ukraine are driven by Moscow, just as Moscow says events in Kiev are driven by the West, there is increasing evidence that, green men or no, local Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine are not taking orders from anyone. Local struggles for power and loot are becoming more influential than any outside actors. A "Brinton thesis" cascade of small coups, leading ever toward the greatest extreme, may already be underway. If so, chaos will spread, deepen, and defy all efforts at control, regardless of who is behind them. Moscow needs to remember that it can no more order the tide to retreat than can Washington.For states, playing with 4GW is playing with fire. Some tactics and techniques may be drawn from it and used effectively by states. But states need to remember that those tactics and techniques work best in a weakening state and also contribute to a state's dissolution. The emergence of new stateless regions is in no state's interest. However clever its tactics, if Russia finds itself facing prolonged stateless disorder in eastern Ukraine, it will have failed strategically. A higher level of war trumps a lower. Stavka should know that, and so inform President Putin.