Are Things as Bad as They Seem?
Posted By Beau Albrecht
How bad are things now? “Pretty bad” is a decent answer, though a brief one. We’re faced with daunting challenges, quite obviously, though it’s a mischaracterization to say that all is lost. This has some very practical considerations.
The importance of realism
When getting our message out, rather than the excesses of optimism or pessimism, we should steer the middle course of realism. Positive thinking is all well and good, but “don’t worry, be happy” clearly doesn’t fit the situation as it is nor does it rouse the masses to action. On the other hand, an overly negative outlook will cause hopelessness. Too much optimism leads to apathy, and too much pessimism leads to the Black Pill. We have to convey the urgency of the present situation while keeping in mind the goal of inspiring effective action. Let’s not demoralize ourselves; that’s the enemy’s job to do!
Note well, anyone trying to prevent our success will want to take us off the middle course of realism. This means promoting apathy or demoralization within the public, or even within our ranks. They can suggest that our concerns are overblown, there’s no real problem, and we’re merely jumping at shadows. Alternatively, they can say that Leftism and globalism are foregone conclusions, and there’s nothing we can do except hide out in a bunker and sulk until Doomsday. (Let’s not add to all that, shall we?) An odd synthesis of the two, occasionally heard from our side, is the suggestion that we should enjoy the decline; if society is in the toilet, why not have fun on the ride down the tubes? Accelerationism is another misguided response [1].
What’s telling is that The System certainly doesn’t believe we have no chance of winning. That’s what they say, but they also act like we’re Public Enemy Number One [2]. (I hope to explore this in greater depth at a later time.) Pretending that we have no popular support or potential is psyops on their part, trying to demoralize us and discredit us with the public. If they really have victory in the bag, why do they go to such ridiculous lengths to censor an ideology that they believe has no chance of success? If their power is that unlimited, then what’s the point of pearl-clutching hysterics over tiny Narrative Violations, or the cheap intimidation tactics? Are they the ones jumping at shadows? Not exactly; they know very well that if they lose control over The Narrative, then they’ll lose control over the public. That’s the problem with building an ideology out of lies.
How things were
To assess where we’re at now, let’s examine an earlier time: the 1980s. In many ways, it was a charmed era compared to now, and impossibly normal by contemporary standards. Still, that doesn’t exactly mean it was a golden age.
President Reagan did well to call out demagoguery, but that wasn’t the end of it. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were up to their usual antics. However, even before then, it had become taboo for politicians to be openly pro-white, even mildly so. (No, coded language or “dog-whistling” doesn’t count; not when minority politicians had impunity to mouth off endlessly about wypipo.) Political correctness hadn’t gone full retard yet — oops, I meant mentally challenged! — but there was no shortage of crabby Leftists. The flapdoodle over Narrative Violations by James G. Watt, Al Campanis, and Howard Cosell revealed an underlying prickliness that would increase greatly during the “walking on eggshells” 1990s. Even Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson got in trouble over bad attitudes about Jews.
Many readers, likely most, don’t remember this far back. Few of those who do were involved in the Dissident Right. (For those who were, please comment and add your experiences!) As for the USA, there was the National Alliance, Fraternity Tri-Kappa, a tiny number of militants, and about half a dozen fairly tame advocacy groups. Eventually, skinheads emerged onto the scene, and some were my friends. This was the greater part of the visible Dissident Right back in the day. The munchkins at the tricky “watchdog” foundations surely had less naughtiness to document on the “hate maps” useful for scaring senior citizens into donating.
Among the grassroots were all too many big talkers, gossips, and armchair Caesars; I knew some of those too. Jared Taylor described his impression of the scene around that time as “funny-looking people in ill-fitting clothes.” That was a pretty grim assessment, but having seen it myself, I have to admit that there was at least something to it. Flaky types still exist, of course, but nobody honestly can claim that they’re the face of the Dissident Right today. Fortunately, it’s the Leftists who are notoriously grungy [3] these days.
Among the general public, I saw a tremendous amount of apathy. When I was in high school, I had a little success in getting the message out. However, for most of the students, I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. The “Don’t worry, be happy” factor added to the boundless lack of enthusiasm typical of American teenagers. College turned out to be a lot worse, since my campus was more Leftist than the University of Leningrad. (On the bright side, I learned a lot about Marxists and what makes them tick.) Among those who weren’t indoctrinated, apathy still was common. I recall one conversation discussing immigration; the rejoinder went like, “What, you want lettuce to cost $20 a head?”
Why all the apathy? As of the 1980 census, the white population (deducting Hispanics) was about 81%, merely down from about 90% in the mid-1960s when the floodgates were opened. The public was a lot more concerned about nuclear proliferation and what would happen if someone pushed the Big Red Button. The only people who were saying that mass Third World migration could end badly were “extremists” like David Duke. Why, surely he was just blowing smoke, right? “Don’t worry, be happy!” The malaise of the Carter administration was a thing of the past; America was no longer in peril. We won — well, didn’t we? Reagan did legalize a few million illegals, but the other side of the compromise is that the Republicans would fix the immigration problem, boy howdy! (Worked out great, didn’t it?) These days, with the white population probably a little above 60%, it’s obvious to anyone not wearing the PC blinders that we’re not in Kansas anymore.
There were some exceptions to the apathy. During that time, I got a flippant letter to the editor into the local fishwrap, which (among other things) said that television was for propaganda. Two people wrote me back directly with heartfelt letters of encouragement. Apparently it was inspiring enough for them to look me up in the phone book, write a note, and put a stamp on it (a small but tangible sacrifice). Neither gave a return address; this is how intimidated they were. By now, a large fraction of the white public realizes that something is deeply wrong, but they haven’t been able to find the answers. The good news is that these days, it’s a lot easier to do so. Like-minded members of the public (or even the merely curious) easily can find Dissident Right opinions. These days, anyone can write an email of support for free, or participate in an online discussion.
Corporate information control was nearly total. There were only three commercial TV networks, all headquartered in the same neighborhood of Manhattan, all dishing out much the same bullshit, and PBS was hardly an alternative. The Clinton News Network isn’t much to write home about, nor even LOX News, but not even these were around back in the day, or the international stations. (For the record, I recommend avoiding TV.) Right-wing talk radio — such as it is — didn’t exist yet. There was little ideological variety in broadcast media, unless you happened to have a shortwave receiver.
Publishing houses weren’t as centralized yet, but free self-publishing was nonexistent. Our books couldn’t be found at conventional bookstores; I asked a shopkeeper who was fairly sympathetic, but he didn’t have a way to get titles like that. Our music was very difficult to find, and usually came as tapes copied several times. As for our publications, National Vanguard and Instauration [5] were the major ones of note. Most of the rest were a handful of smaller organizational newsletters and samizdat zines. Good luck finding them at the local newsstand; hardly anyone knew they even existed, other than those with Dissident Right contacts. Any other information about us that a citizen might get would’ve come from some MSM hack who wrote a hit piece run through the Narrative Filter.
These days, there are countless places for the public to go to get our message straight from the source. Lately, we don’t appreciate the Tech Tyrants illegally practicing ideological censorship, forcing us to find alternatives. In the past, we didn’t even have that, since Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet. Lately, The System is losing a game of Whack-A-Mole trying to get information back under wraps, but all they’re doing is making themselves look bad. Vast amounts of counter-Narrative information have gotten out already, saved on private hard drives and on servers outside of their reach. There are thousands of blogs and video channels that haven’t been shut down yet. If someone censors mine, I know where I’ll relocate it, and when I come back, no more Mr. Nice Guy!
There have been some other interesting counter-Narrative developments since those days. The Bell Curve reignited the intelligence debate. (That’s huge, since it’s an alternative to the Leftist tautological explanation about amorphous forces like “privilege” causing differing average outcomes for populations.) Science has advanced, providing specifics on which genes boost intelligence and which populations tend to have them. Moreover, there’s further information on genetic clustering [6]. These things took at least some of the piss and vinegar out of race denialism.
All told, the USA of the 1980s was immeasurably more normal than now. Even so, for the reasons given above, my assessment was that there was a lot of desperation in the Dissident Right at the time. Say what you will about our bad fashion sense, only we were seeing clearly which way things were going, but we had no way of reaching the public. If things seem grim now, things were grim four decades ago. (For earlier data points, one can consult Commander Rockwell’s [7] 1950s-era tales of horror [8].) Still, it’s a fact that we’ve made some very significant advances.
Dark days in the past
When things look bad now, this is a good time to reflect on all the crises that have been overcome in the past. Sometimes fortune gave us a last-minute reprieve, but usually, it took action. The brave individuals who saved their society were the heroes of their time, whether their deeds were recorded in history or not. Note well, the stakes are too high in the present-day crisis to count on blind luck getting us out of this mess; action certainly will be needed.
Some of the first keynote events in which our fate hung in the balance were during the High Middle Ages. The Mongols overran Russia and were beginning to press further. An advance into Poland was stopped at the Battle of Liegnitz, in which European unity held the day. A southern offensive into Hungary posed a threat that suddenly ended after the second Khan died, apparently of illness. During the next century, the Black Death emerged onto the scene and quickly wiped out a third of Europe’s population. (Our present-day Wuhanic Plague is small potatoes compared to that!) The Islamic threat, already entrenched in Europe’s home territory in Spain and the Balkans, and a menace across the Mediterranean, would continue for a long time.
As for America, interesting times are nothing new. This began very early on, with the first and much-besieged [9] settlement at Jamestown. This wasn’t the only time that things hung in the balance [10] for colonial America. (The local Indians weren’t exactly peace-loving Red hippies.) Later, the Civil War brought devastation not seen here since then. Fast forward to the 20th century. The politicians tricked the public into two World Wars. Between them was a massive depression caused by Wall Street gambling, leaving a quarter of the country out of work. We didn’t know it at the time, but all throughout, globalists and Communists had been infiltrating the government. Much espionage and hamstringing of our foreign policy followed.
In 1946, it might’ve seemed like we were past the difficult times. Still, dark days were at hand. The infamous Morgenthau Plan was still unofficially in effect, a blot on our history. Then there was much babble and happy talk about the new United Nations becoming the one-world government. Fortunately, it became merely an expensive cookie pusher boondoggle, and proverbially a talking shop for Third World dictators. Also in 1946, the tricky bankster Bernard Baruch got the globalist boy wonder Dean Acheson to create a whitepaper (coauthored by TVA commissioner David Lilienthal) about placing nuclear weapons under the control of an international agency. If that turkey had flown, then the Big Red Button would be in the hands of some unaccountable globalist NGO capable of holding the defenseless world hostage. Instead, we were about to get into a decades-long nuclear standoff with the USSR, only a marginally better outcome.
Then early into the 1960s, that Cold War almost became very hot indeed. A direct military confrontation was now out of the question, but by some strange coincidence [11], we found ourselves amidst an unprecedented cultural revolution. Summer became race riot season, degeneracy was chic, and Leftist radicals [12] were up to the usual. (That wasn’t so different from now, was it? In some ways it was worse!) Moreover, America’s archetypal spit-in-your-eye war heated up. By the 1970s, it looked like the free world was hanging in the balance. When the 1980s came along, it was morning in America, but hardly the best of times for the Dissident Right.
Summary
For the apathetic, Samuel Adams had a public service announcement for them a long time ago:
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
For the Black Pilled, I say the following. The USA is undergoing some very difficult times now, as are other Western nations. Perhaps the major part of the struggle has just begun. Although the Dissident Right isn’t yet where we need it to be, our position actually has improved over the years. The situation now isn’t going to be the same as what we’ll face in the future. In some ways, things are nearly certain to get worse, but other things will probably improve. In the times to come, there will be unexpected developments and new opportunities. (The Internet has been one of them, partially circumventing the information blockade.) Let’s be prepared to take advantage of whatever comes our way and maneuver into a better position yet.
As of now, the demographic situation from population replacement migration is our most pressing concern. The Evil Party stuffing the ballot box by opening the borders is practically treasonous. The Stupid Party’s failure to do anything about it is inexcusable negligence. The only good news is that the “boil the frog slowly” strategy only goes so far. “Don’t worry, be happy” isn’t working like it once did.
Another problem is about the pestilential Leftist radicals specializing in dirty tactics such as depriving critics of their livelihoods. Mob violence is becoming increasingly popular. They wouldn’t hesitate to put us in reeducation camps, of course. They can’t because they don’t have the power to do that. Well, let’s keep it that way!
It’s true that the government has become increasingly corrupt and repressive, big-money interests exert undue influence, and the two-party system is about as genuine as professional wrestling. The System seems powerful now, but no dynasty lasts forever. Also, in the broad historical context, things could be worse. Despotism has been the norm over the last six thousand years of human civilization; actually, some governments have been positively horrid. We’ve gotten a bit spoiled because classical liberalism worked a lot better than modern liberalism. Fortunately, there are certain remedies for bad governments. For now, we don’t have someone like Robert Mugabe in charge — and let’s keep it that way, too.
These problems — among others — obviously are daunting ones. Still, the fact is that our society has been through worse on several occasions, and we survived. We too may be called upon to do that which is necessary for ourselves and our posterity.
With dedication and the right action, we will prevail!
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