Some Thoughts on Paul Gottfried’s THE MYTH OF ‘JUDEO-CHRISTIAN’ VALUES

http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/untimely-observations/the-myth-of-judeo-christian-values/

Gottfried’s article offers fresh perspectives on Jewish-Christian relations. The term ‘Judeo-Christian’ has become part of the political, cultural, and spiritual lexicon in the Western World. Both Jews and Christians have reasons for embracing the term. Jews, vastly outnumbered by Christians, use the term to remind the majority that their religion is an outgrowth of the Jewish religion. Given the history of the persecution of Jews–blamed for the murder of Jesus–at the hands of Christians, it’s useful to persuade Christians that Judaism and Christianity are cultural-spiritual relatives. ‘Judeo-Christian’ reminds Christians with latent antisemitic feelings that Christianity is the spiritual offshoot of Judaism.
But the term is useful to Christians too. In the 20th century, especially after the Holocaust, it’s been argued that the Nazi genocide of the Jews was the culmination of Christian antisemitism. Christians are eager to demonstrate that Godless neo-paganism was to blame and that Christians, despite their stained history, really appreciate and love Jews and Jewish tradition. By embracing the concept of Judeo-Christian tradition and values, Christians seek to distance themselves from the horrors of extreme antisemitism.
There is another reason why Christians embrace ‘Judeo-Christian’. Jews are immensely wealthy, powerful, and influential(and immune to criticism thanks to a clever playing of the Holocaust card), and therefore Christians want to ingratiate themselves with the Jews. If Christians were filled with sympathy for Jews after WWII, they are now filled with fear and guilt–by the 60s, Jews not only accused Germans but all gentile whites, directly or indirectly, for the Holocaust. Fearing and trembling before Jewish power, Christians are desperate to win Jewish approval and love by Hannukazing Christmas and being even more blindly pro-Zionist than most American Jews are.
　
Paul Gottfried makes a good point about how relatively recent the phenomenon of Jewish-Christian collaboration is, especially when it comes to a shared revulsion for the Muslim world. Many Christians think mutual respect between Jews and Christians has a long pedigree when the two communities had been marked more by enmity than amity.
Of course, Jews know better, not least because your average Jew is likely to be better read, educated, and knowledgeable than your average Guns-and-God white Christian. Though there are opportunists on both sides, a greater number of Christians than Jews have a simple-minded notion that Jews and Christians are natural allies against the Muslims–when in fact, Jews are only using white Christians to fight anti-Zionist Muslim enemies in the Middle East. If it weren’t for Israel and the resultant hostility between Jews and Muslims, most Jews would surely be using Muslims and Arabs as another ‘people of color’ victim group against the ‘racist’ and ‘neo-imperialist’ West–just as Jews have played that card using Latin Americans against Gringos for decades.
Even so, the dynamics of shifting alliances and allegiances between Jews and Christians is nothing new or extraordinary. It’s a common theme throughout history. When France was powerful, Anglos and Germans were ‘natural’ allies. When Germany became the premier European power, Britain and France became ‘natural’ allies. When Japan was the first East Asian nation to modernize, Americans favorably viewed Japanese influence in Asia as a Westernizing and modernizing force. US didn’t protest Japan’s occupation of Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, and other parts of China. It’s only when Japan became overly ambitious that US leaned closer to China and grew wary of Japan.
During WWII, Americans and Chinese were supposedly great friends and allies while the Japanese were a nation of degenerate imperialist monkeys. But after the war and especially when the communists conquered China, Japan became the democratic and peace-loving friend of the US while China suddenly became evil and totalitarian Empire of the Blue Ants.
So, perceptions of other peoples evolve along with the political climate. Friends can suddenly become enemies, enemies can suddenly become friends. France had long been regarded as a friend of the US, from the Revolutionary War through World War II. But there has been bad blood too. French have been prone to see America as an Anglo-dominated superpower, an monstrous perversion of British power. The French aided the American colonials against it arch enemy, the British Empire, but United States eventually became another Anglo-dominated superpower whose relation with Britain, in the long run, proved deeper than one with France. Besides, there’s the lingering feeling that both the Anglo-British and Anglo-Americans stole Canada from the French. Though US is now a nation ruled by the Jewish Power Elite, many French are still likely to associate the US with Anglo-power.
　
Throughout the world and history, some peoples and nations are more likely to be friends or enemies. This is due to geography, race, religion, or ideology. The ideology of communism at one time forged an alliance between the Russia-dominated USSR and China, but age-old differences and tensions eventually revived ancient hostilities. The West and the Near East often clashed for cultural, racial, and religious–Christianity vs Islam–reasons. The relations between US and Canada–both settled largely by Anglos–have been smoother and more stable than between the US and Mexico, a mestizo majority nation with a white Hispanic elite.
　
Alliances and allegiances shift back and forth. Extraordinary and exceptional–in the aftermath of WWII–is the fact that most whites have become blindly and mindlessly pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist no matter what the Jews do. This isn’t the case in Eastern Europe where people readily express hostility against the Jews IF Jews are perceived to be harmful to their interests. But, the rise of Holocaustianity–essentially a secular substitute for Christianity whereby Anne Frank is the new Virgin Mary and Jews are the new Jesus(or Jewsus)–, there is an irrational slavishness toward Jews on the part of many white gentiles.
Just as the ancient Hebrews were commanded to bow down before God at all times and never question His authority, there is a kind of deification of the Jew or Judeification in the West.
It’s sinful to even ask if Jews and their agendas may be evil or harmful to the West. Though whites are still allowed to oppose the agendas of the liberal and neocon Jews–about 95% of the Jewish community–, they are not allowed, at least in mainstream circles, to point out ‘JEWS ARE DOING THIS TO US.’
　
So, the shifts of alliances/allegiances per se among Christians and Jew are not out of order. For the sake of Israel, it’s only natural for Jews to forge an alliance with the Christian Right. And there are certain advantages for Christians too, though far less.
What is really odd is that white gentiles–Christians or otherwise–have pledged not only a political but also a spiritual allegiance to the Jews–even to secular Jews. Political allegiances can be broken depending on changing political climate. US and USSR were partners during WWII but then enemies during the Cold War. No white American thought he must love Russians NO MATTER WHAT. Similarly, Germany was an enemy during WWII but a friend during the Cold War.
Spiritual allegiances, on the other hand, are irrational and impervious to reality. The problem is Western whites are now devoted to Jews in the way ancient Hebrews were devoted to Yahweh.
　
Even so, the concept of ‘Judeo-Christian values’ is not without merit, especially in the context of secular modern world. ‘Judeo-Christian’ doesn’t necessarily refer to religion or spirituality. It also has a cultural and moral meaning. For instance, secular liberals, socialists, and communists can argue that they too are part of the Judeo-Christian cultural legacy since universalism and egalitarianism have roots in Christianity which has roots in Judaism. No Judaism, no Christianity. No Christianity, no Western universalism and egalitarianism. So, when ‘Judeo-Christian’ is used morally, philosophically, and culturally than religiously or historically, it’s not without validity.
　
When Christians were devoutly Christian and Jews were dogmatically Jewish, there was indeed much distrust and hostility between two groups. Jews saw themselves as the chosen children of God and regarded Jesus as a heretic. Christians saw Jews as the spiritually stingy killers of Jesus
blind to the everlasting truth of Jesus. It was the Eternal Jew vs the Everlasting Christian. Jews and Christians who were mentally and emotionally confined within their religious dogmas were less likely to see the moral and philosophical connection between the two faiths–similar to the one between Hinduism and Buddhism.
It was only with the decline of religious authority among both Christians and Jews–especially following Emancipation–that the connections between Judaism and Christianity became more apparent. With the rise of Reason and Science, both secularized Jews and Christians began to approach the Old Texts–Jewish and Christian–more as history, literature, and culture than literally as religion.
　
Even so, one could make a religious case for the ‘Judeo-Christian’ concept as well. Though Jews rejected Jesus as Christ or the Messiah, they had long had a prophetic tradition in Judaism awaiting the arrival of such figure. And even though Jews maintained their tribal ways and customs, their concept of the ONE AND ONLY GOD over all mankind was bound to lead to a universalized form of Judaism, which eventually became Christianity.
Indeed, prior to the coming of Jesus, some Jews had tried to convert gentiles to Judaism. Jews, however, demanded that converts not only accept the creed of the Jews but also dress, eat, and live like Jews. And men were expected to be circumcised. It wasn’t easy to be a Jew and not much fun.
Christianity was a real breakthrough because, like Buddhism, it set aside all the mumbo jumbo tribal cultural stuff and emphasized the spirit and creed. Though Christianity revolutionized certain precepts in Judaism and soon set itself against the older religion, there’s no question that Christianity is the intellectual, spiritual, and historical descendant of Judaism. A son may hate his father, but he is still the son. God came to hate His creation of Man, but there was affection and pride too.
Similarly, Lenin and Mao may have deviated from orthodox Marxism, but they too were the children of Marx.
　
There was a great contradiction within Judaism, one that cried out to be resolved. The spiritual crisis became more acute as Jewish consciousness evolved from the mythic to the historical. As the thoughts and dealings of the Jews became more worldly and political–and better documented–, Jews felt a growing distance between themselves and God. Worse, Jews were under pressure from both Greco-Roman militarism and cosmopolitanism. They were threatened with the stick and tempted with the carrot. If pagan peoples accommodated themselves under Pax Romana, the religion of the Jews made this more difficult. Pagan peoples respected the gods of mightier peoples since their concept of godly power was measured in materialistic terms. If the Romans were powerful, their gods must be powerful too–indeed more powerful than one’s own gods. But Jews had a different way of measuring spiritual power. Their God was the one and only true god while all the rest were false idols. Romans had problems with this spiritual intransigence just as American troops have problems with the Taliban in Afghanistan. (In the modern world, secular Jews worship their own brilliance, wit, and genius as godly, and thus cannot accommodate themselves to the world of the gentiles. Rather, the gentiles must embrace the TRUTH ACCORDING TO THE JEWS.)
　
Judaism is nothing without profound contradictions. It has been, at once, fiercely tribal and profoundly universal, doggedly conservative and fervently revolutionary. There was ONE GOD but God favored a particular people. But through his chosen people, all the peoples of the world would be blessed. There was a great emphasis on love, justice, and wisdom. There was also a great deal of advice on opportunism and power-lust–essentially on how to deal with filthy and stupid goyim. Judaism taught Jews to respect and live with gentiles. It also taught Jews to look upon gentiles as dogs unfit for Kosher food.
The contradiction within Judaism–between its universalist concept of God and its tribal laws/ particularist customs–was somewhat similar to the contradiction in American history between the Constitution and white racism. The Constitution guaranteed freedom and equal political rights to all men, but whites still practiced slavery in the South until the end of the Civil War. Even after the end of slavery, American government, society, and culture favored whites–especially Northern European whites–over others though the Constitution banned such things.
Just as the contradiction in American History was bound to produce the Civil Rights movement and the rise of men like Michael King–aka Martin Luther King Jr–, Judaism was bound to produce someone like Jesus, especially a time of major crisis.
To the extent that Jesus, his disciples, early followers, and men like Paul were Jews, Christianity was indeed a direct outgrowth of Judaism. Christianity was not created by gentiles who ‘stole’ from Judaism and distorted matters for their own purposes. Christianity was created by Jews themselves, and as such, even though most Jews rejected Christianity, it has a direct connection to Judaism, not only spiritually and culturally but ethnically. Christianity was later adopted by pagan gentiles who came to define and dominate the movement, but it genuinely and authentically grew out of Jewish traditions and from Jews themselves. It is crucial that Jesus and his followers were mostly Jewish.
　
Though Christianity was sufficiently different from Judaism, it was morally and intellectually a ‘logical’ progression from the earlier religion. Christianity successfully resolved the contradiction between universalist God and particularist tribalism. For God to belong to all men, the emphasis had to be placed on the meaning and love of God, not on what Jews did with their food or dicks. Though Christianity required converts to reject their pagan ways, there were–notwithstanding the elaborate ritualism of some Christian sects or denominations–very limited rules on diet, dress, rituals, and etc if any. Christian advice on food was moral–"don’t be a glutton"–than cultural–"don’t eat lobsters.".
So, given the direct link between Judaism and Christianity, one can speak of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Jews created Christianity, and Christianity successfully and ‘logically’ resolved the Judaic contradictions. That they became bitter enemies still doesn’t disprove this fundamental fact. After all, the notion of Earth revolving around the Sun grew out of the idea of Sun revolving around the Earth. Even if the earlier belief had been wrong, it still paved the way for the Copernican model by conceptualizing Earth and Sun as spherical heavenly bodies whereby one revolved around the other. Galileo and Copernicus couldn’t have arrived at the correct observation without there having been an earlier theory proposing that the Sun revolved around the Earth.
This isn’t to imply that Christianity is superior to Judaism but only to point out that Christianity was morally a more satisfying religion given the nature of God in the Old Testament. If there is only one God and if He offers the way for the redemption of all mankind, then there was a need for a religion with a bigger scope than Judaism.
　
However, the element of Son-of-God business must have been pagan in origin since there’s nothing in the Old Testament that would indicate God would give birth to flesh-and-blood Man as Zeus or Odin did in pagan mythologies. Perhaps, Christianity would have been more appealing to Jews if not for this quasi-pagan element. It’s also possible that it was more appealing to pagans precisely because pagan myths were rife with stories of gods having sex with women who then gave birth to half-god/half-man folks.
On that element, Judaism is indeed closer to Islam than to Christianity. Both Judaism and Islam find the idea of Son of God ridiculous. And one could argue it is the weakest part of Christianity. Perhaps it would have made more sense if Jesus was said to have been an angel sent by God to live and die as man.
Even so, one cannot speak of a Judeo-Islamic tradition in the way we can speak of a Judeo-Christian tradition. Nor can we speak of a Judeo-Christo-Islamic tradition.
Christianity really grew out of Judaism. It was the creation of Jews dealing specifically with contradictions within Judaism itself. Christianity began as a Jewish thing and then spread out to non-Jews.
Islam, in contrast, didn’t sprout from Jews or Judaism nor from Christians or Christianity. Muhammad was neither a Jew nor a Christian. If Christianity organically evolved out of Judaism–like the polar bear evolved from a brown bear–, Islam has no organic roots in either Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad clearly came in contact with Jews and Jewish ideas and Christians and Christian ideas, but he remained a man apart. Islam wasn’t so much like the polar bear that evolved out of a brown bear but more like a tiger that donned the hides of both brown and polar bears.
　
Christians worshiped the New Testament, but they didn’t alter nor tamper with the Old Testament. Both Testaments were respected as sacred texts. The New may have been a revolutionary departure from the Old, but it directly sprang from the latter.
Muhammad did something far more radical. He denigrated both the Old and New Testaments as corrupted and flawed texts and rewrote the whole thing based on his visions or delusions. If the New Testament was a sequel to the Old Testament–like Godfather II is to Godfather I–, the Koran is a complete remake. It is based on elements in the Old and New Testaments, but it is not a continuation of those traditions.
　
The fact that for most of their history Jews had an easier time with Muslims than with Christians may suggest that Jews have more in common with Muslims than Christians, but the truth is far more deceptive.
Paradoxically, one could argue Jews had an easier time with Muslims precisely because Jews had less in common with Muslims than with Christians. For Muslims, Jews were simply the People of the Book who were as yet too benighted to accept the ultimate truth of the Koran. Jews could be tolerated as such.
In contrast, Christians had a much deeper emotional investment–both positive and negative–in the Jews. Jews were the killers of the Christ, yes. But, Jews were also the people through which mankind would gain salvation, redemption, and the return of Christ. Muslims hoped that Jews would convert to Islam but didn’t care much beyond that. Christians, on the other hand, had a much deeper emotional commitment in the fate of Jews. Conversion of the Jews was seen as necessary not only for Jews but for Christians since the salvation of the entire world depended on Jewish redemption. This love/hate for the Jews marked all of Christian history. Consider Martin Luther who had placed great hopes in the Jews, only to bitterly turn against them when Jews proved to be stubbornly Jewish. Familiarity breeds contempt. The most powerful passions–good and bad–exist within the family. A husband and wife or a father and son are capable of greater love or hatred of one another than a worker and a co-worker. Christians accepted the direct connection between the Old and the New Testaments, and therefore insisted that the Jews get with the program. Only the New could redeem the Old, and only the conversion of the Old could redeem the New. Muslims, on the other hand, were blithely confident in the superiority of the Koran over both the Old and the New Testaments.
Christians, in accepting the sacredness of the Old Testament, wanted Jews to accept the sacredness of the New Testament. (Something perversely similar exists in today’s politics. If old-time Christians wanted Jews to respect New Testament universalism in exchange for Christian respect for Old Testament particularism, today’s Christian Right wants Jews to support white nationalist particularism in exchange for the Right’s recognition of Jews as universal saints.) Muslims don’t much care what Jews or Christians think. Their Koran is the only truly holy book, and it’s only a matter of time before the world is converted to Islam.
　
Islam and Judaism may superficially seem similar on the outside, but Judaism has deeper connections to Christianity. It’s like English uses a lot of French words but it is really a Germanic language. It’s true that Muslims adopted a lot of superficial customs from the Jewish religion. A hairy rabbi looks more like a hairy iman than like a well-shaven and crisp looking Christian priest. And, it’s true that both Jews and Muslims go for circumcision and dietary laws.
But, we must keep in mind that Islam also incorporated a lot of local Arab customs that were alien to the Jews. And before Muhammad reformulated Allah into the monotheistic God of Ibrahim, Allah had been one of the indigenous Arab gods. Allah, in this sense, isn’t an Arab version of Yahweh/Jehovah but a remaking of an indigenous Arab deity into an imitation of the Judeo-Christian God.
　
Furthermore, Islam failed to resolve the contradictions within Judaism but only compounded their problems. And it certainly was no improvement on Christianity. The only possibly superior thing about Islam over Christianity is the greater honesty about power. ‘Turn the other cheek’ stuff just doesn’t work in this world, and indeed, even the West gained dominance through aggression and violence. For this reason, Muslims are incapable of the kind of suicidal self-loathing that has overtaken the West rooted in Christian conscience. Muslims don’t lose sleep over all the wars they’ve fought, lands they conquered, peoples they’ve forcibly converted, or the slaves that they’ve owned.
The greater emphasis on individual conscience and collective morality has made it possible for the West to make greater social and political progress, but an excess of that stuff is now leading white folks to their ruin.
　
Nevertheless, Islam wasn’t much of an improvement on Judaism or Christianity. If Christianity really did resolve a troubling contradiction within Judaism and formulated a universal faith, what original contribution did Islam make to spirituality? If anything, Islam is a muddled mess. It is both painstakingly particularist and painfully universalist. It insists that Allah is for all peoples and all cultures but then demands that all cultures and all peoples live like Arab tribes of the 7th century.
It’s like a Romanian communist insisting that it’s not enough for all peoples around the world to read Marx and practice socialism but that they must also dress, eat, sing, dance, and speak as Romanians do. Islam similarly tries to have it both ways. It tries to be Jewish, Christian, and tribal-Arab at the same time, and then puts forth this ungodly concoction as the salvation for all mankind.
It’s no wonder that Christianity had greater appeal around the world–and not only because of the rise of Western imperialism. It’s easier to convert a Chinese or African to Christianity than to Islam.
Perhaps, the features of Islam were necessary for Muhammad if he were to succeed and gain power in his lifetime. After all, Jesus got killed and his followers got hurt real bad until their religion finally took hold centuries later. For Muhammad to gain political power over the Arabs, he had to pander to their tribal ways, customs, and prejudices. He could be bold intellectually but not culturally. (Similarly, Stalin brought back Russian nationalism to win the hearts and minds of the masses who little understood Marxist theory. And Christian kingdoms and nations developed their own ethnic version of Christianity. Even so, Christianity and Marxism maintained a strict wall between theory and practice. A German Christian may have practiced a Christianity different from that of a French Christian, but neither a German Christian nor a French Christian would have mistook his national and ethno-cultural traditions for the soul of Christianity. Similarly, though Soviet communism was heavily Russian and nationalist, no Russian communist would have said communism is synonymous with Russianness. But Islam, though striving to be universal, did become synonymous with Arab culture and customs of the 7th century.) Muhammad had to flatter the Arabs that their culture–much of it anyway–was pretty cool stuff and worthy of being emulated by–or forced upon–all the other peoples of the world. A man who seeks worldly power can never be as morally or intellectually purist or consistent as Jesus and his early followers who were willing to die for their ideals. Those who are willing to kill for their ideals tend to have more compromised or muddled ideals.
　
Finally, Jews in the Christian world gained greater prominence than Jews in the Muslim world, and therefore there is a tendency to associate the Jews with the Christian West than with the Muslim Near East. Though Jews did prosper in Muslim lands, their success could only go so far since the Muslim world turned static and stagnant. A rich Jewish merchant in Syria of the 19th century was likely to have fewer possibilities than a rich Jewish banker in 19th century Europe. A Jewish scholar in the Muslim would couldn’t achieve as much as Jewish scientists in modern Europe. Of course, Jewish Emancipation coincided with the decline of Christian power in Europe, but even secular Europe could be seen as a cultural and moral outgrowth of Christian Europe.
Today, Jews own and control much of the Christian world whereas they have no power in Muslim countries. And Israel could not have been established without modern Western Imperialism which functioned as a kind of neo-Crusade in the 20th century.
Both the greatest triumphs and tragedies of the Jews happened in the Christian West. Holocaust happened in the German empire, and the Super Jew phenomenon happened in the US. Jews also committed their greatest crimes in the Christian West, especially as agents of communism–to an extent, a secularized form of Judeo-Christianism–and anti-white-ism. (Obama and the coming decline of white power in the US are largely the doings of liberal Super Jews.)
Whatever tragedies Jews suffered in the Christian and Islamic worlds, I wonder if they could have risen to such power if not for the spread of those two religions. Suppose Europe and the Middle East had remained pagan. Pagan peoples would not have seen Jews as fellow People of the Book. Christians hated the part where Jews killed and rejected Jesus, but they still regarded Jews as the Chosen People through whose salvation Jesus would return to Earth. Muslims thought the Old Testament was corrupted, but Jews were still seen as the People of the Book. Indeed, Christians treated Jews much better than they treated pagans. Jews suffered pogroms and deportations now and then, but pagans were put to death as Satan-worshipers and witches. (Pagans, not Jews, were the main victims of Christianity, and the monotheistic intolerance at the core of Christianity–and Islam–was inherited from ruthless Judaism. In that sense, Jewish culture and ideas indirectly led to oppression and deaths of countless pagans who were wiped out spiritually and even physically as Neanderthals had been wiped out be Cro-Magnons. From this perspective, neo-pagan Nazism could be seen as an indigenous European vengeance against the whole history of Judeo-Christian oppression, which would include communism.)
Jews faced discrimination in the Muslim world, but they were treated hell of lot better than the ‘infidels’–pagans who were NOT ‘of the Book–who immediately had their heads chopped off.
It’s worth wondering if there would have been such peace and stability–relatively speaking–in the West and in the Near East if not for the unifying and stabilizing force of Christianity and Islam. Indeed, Jews essentially went where the Christians went and where the Muslims went. At the very least, they were all the ‘People of the Book’. Some Jews settled in India, China, and other places, but even if tolerated, they had far less in common with the natives since non-Christians and non-Muslims had no cultural linkage to Jews or Judaism. Jews bitch and whine about white imperialism and conquest of the Americas, but could Jews have succeed in North America if it were inhabited by indigenous Native American pagan tribes than by Western Christians?

--P.V.

The Hidden Liberal Elite Motive behind Affirmative Action

Many reasons are put forth for affirmative action policies, but there’s one that is almost never discussed. Affirmative Action, especially at top ranked schools, is a means by which the liberal Jewish elites seek to gain control of the intellectual, economic, cultural, and political leaderships of the two main minority communities–blacks and Hispanics. Since both groups are very large and tend to be mired in poverty–especially blacks and non-white Hispanics–, they are bound to be a source of much social tensions and problems. The rich and powerful Jews don’t want to be called out, scapegoated, and attacked by blacks and Hispanics. They’d rather mold blacks and Hispanics to direct their anger against white gentiles.
　
Every community has a head and body. The head comprises the most intelligent, industrious, ambitious, shrewd, clever, and ruthless members of the community. Generally, most people–the body–don’t think and don’t even want to think. They want to be led, to be told what to think, how to feel, and what to do. The leaders of any community are its top businessmen, politicians, artists, entertainers, intellectuals, and spiritual leaders. Generally, the cream of the crop of any ethnic community go to the best schools and achieve the greatest successes in life.
The problem is even the smartest blacks and non-white Hispanics generally aren’t qualified to be admitted to the best schools where Jews dominate as both faculty and student body. This means that powerful Jews in the academia cannot gain direct contact with the future leaders of the black and Hispanic community.
For that reason, liberal Jews favor affirmative action so that the best of the blacks and non-white Hispanics can attend schools like Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. Liberal Jewish professors and students can then ‘work on’ these future elites of the black and Hispanic community. Jews will teach them that evil white oppression–‘racism’–is the main problem in history and society. Jews will teach Hispanics and blacks that Jews are their natural allies against evil ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobic’ whites. Jewish professors will lecture on white evil. And even non-Jewish white professors will teach blacks and Hispanics the same thing since most of them are intellectual toys or puppets of radical left-wing Jews. This way, liberal Jews achieve two things. They make themselves the patrons and ‘friends’ of the elites of the black and brown community, and black/brown anger, resentment, and hatred are diverted toward non-Jewish whites.
　
Just look at Barack and Michelle Obama. Could Jews at Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, and University of Chicago been able to contact and work on those two IF it weren’t for affirmative action? No, there are smart blacks, but even most smart blacks are not smart enough to make it Ivy League schools on intellectual merit alone. They need the aid of racial preference. Jews don’t want to live in close proximity with masses of poor blacks and Hispanics, but they want to gain access to the prospective elites of both communities. And, Jews want to get started with the best of black and brown minds from a young age. Jews want to mold and shape the minds of blacks and browns. Jews figure that if they control the heads of blacks and browns, they will also control the bodies–the masses. After all, blacks ideologically and politically follow their leaders. Until Obama, Jews had a difficult time controlling black politics since most of the leaders were not products of Ivy League but of street politics. But, Jews gained access to Obama because Obama got into Columbia and Harvard through affirmative action. And though he was an intellectual lightweight, Obama was given a job at University of Chicago law school because of Jewish connections. Obama got admitted to schools and got hired on the basis of affirmative action. Jews support affirmative action because it gives them direct access to the future stars of the black and brown communities.
　
During the peak of Ottoman power, the Turks scrounged through Greece to pick out the brightest, strongest, and most promising Greek boys. They were brought to Turkey, converted to Islam, and raised as Janissaries–military men committed to the defense and expansion of Ottoman power. Though Jews can’t go that far, they too hope to pick the best of the black and brown community and mold them into agents of Jewish power. Of course, Jews don’t spell this out or spill the beans. How could they? Rather, Jews speak of ‘diversity’, ‘equal opportunity’, and ‘progress’. And blacks and browns who graduate from Ivy League schools may sincerely believe they are studying and working to serve their own communities–and that Jews favored and helped them out of good will.
But, to the extent that they are turned anti-white and converted into political allies of the Jews, the result is very much something orchestrated by the Jews. Consider that 30-40% of Hispanics have been conservative. Yet, something like 95% of the Hispanic leadership in politics is Democratic. Why would this be? Shouldn’t the leadership be at least 30% conservative or pro-GOP? It’s because the academia and media work on cream of the crop of the Hispanic community. It doesn’t matter what the brown masses believe. The fact is Jews gain direct access to and work on the prospective elites or the heads of the Hispanic masses. Control the head, the body will follow.
Besides, affirmative action isn’t about helping poor browns or blacks. It generally favors rich or upper middle class blacks or browns over poor and working class whites. So, affirmative action isn’t really about so-called ‘social justice’ or helping the poor. No, it’s about Jewish elites gaining direct access to the most privileged elements of the black and brown communities. Jews want to control and shape the minds of people like Michael Dyson, Cornel West, and Henry Louis Gates so that these guys will, in turn, control the minds of the rest of the black community. And, the message is overwhelmingly anti-white.
　
But, we can see the effect of this on the GOP as well. We know that the GOP is controlled by Jewish neocons. Jews figure that as long as they control and buy & sell the gentile elites of the GOP, the conservative masses will just follow like sheep. And the conservative masses did indeed follow lockstep behind Bush into the war in Iraq and all the other policies of ‘compassionate conservatism’ which were really big government liberalism favored by the likes of David Frum. The conservative masses finally woke up and challenged the GOP elite when Bush and McCain tried to push amnesty, but much of the damage has been done.
Even today, the GOP is essentially controlled by Neocon Jews. It doesn’t matter what WE want since the likes of Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin will do as their neocon masters tell them to.
　
Anyway, this is one more reason to oppose affirmative action. It is a Jewish ploy to gain access to the cream of the crop of blacks and browns and turn them against whites. And since privileged blacks and browns, through the aid of rich powerful liberal Jews, gain great wealth and power by stepping over poor and working class whites, the lessons that they learn is "stick with the Jews against the whites and reap great rewards!!"

--P.V.

What Is a Manufactured Crisis?

Noam Chomsky the famous left-wing Jew spoke at length about manufacturing
consent, about which he must be an expert since he’s been manufacturing ideological
consent among his zombie-followers. Though some people value Chomsky as a voice
that speaks truth to power, he’s really in the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky. Chomsky speaks not so much truth to power but lie to power so as to can hog and control truth himself. A world where the media were owned by the likes of Chomsky would hardly be free. While it is true that
Chomsky has been a tireless crusader against the Consent-driven MSM, he only wants to replace one form of consent with another. To be sure, there are plenty of people on the White Right who would do the same if they had the power. Power is something that corrupts politics, ideals, and souls. We all want and need it, but it often gets the better of us because of the temptation to grab all of it. Even so, some personalities and ideologies are more prone to radical greed for total power than others.
　
Anyway, for the media to manufacture consent, it must first manufacture crisis. By ‘manufacturing crisis’, the media don’t necessarily have to make things up–though that’s done too; just consider the cases of journalists who made up stories(and even won awards for them). In most cases, a crisis is manufactured through selective reporting, suppression of opposing accounts/stories/ideas, exaggeration of truth, emotional heart-tugging, whipping up of mass hysteria, fear-mongering, guilt-baiting, hope-peddling, and a creation of a grand narrative.
There are some crises which are so huge and major that the media simply do their job. 9/11 or Pearl Harbor were prime examples. Of course, HOW the media covered, handled, and shaped them did involve a fair amount of manipulation and bias, but some crises are really worthy of the name. If an asteroid hit Texas or California and killed millions, the media would merely doing their job by reporting the event.
　
But more often than not, the crises we hear in the news are more manufactured than news-worthy. Part of the reason is economics. Nothing sells like crisis and anxiety. TIME or NEWSWEEK sell more copies when they run fear-mongering cover stories about the global warming, how some epidemic is gonna wipe us out, how our educational system is a total mess, how Iran is on the cusp of having nukes, etc. Hope sells too but hope must follow crisis. We cling to hope because we are worried about a crisis. Oprah and Dr. Phil peddle crisis and then peddle hope. You need a downer before you need an upper.
　
But there’s more to the art of manufacturing crisis than dollars and cents. Most people who go into journalism tend to be change-the-world idealists. Today, most of them have been weaned on censorious and self-righteous political correctness. If past journalists grew up in rougher times and came from diverse regions with different experiences–and valued toughness, thick skins, and resilience–, today’s journalists come from nice middle class families, watch the same news, read the same highschool and college textbooks, and have had little experience with the real world. As reporters they finally come to see some of the darker realities, BUT since they’ve been emotionally and intellectually shaped during soft, cushy, and pampered formative years by political correctness, they lack the edge and courage to see beyond their PC blinders. Anyway, what they do have in common with journalists of the past is the change-the-world idealism. To feel morally superior and wonderful about themselves, they report on social crises–poverty, ‘racism’, ‘sexism’, oppression, poverty, ignorance, violence, etc–so as to awaken the nation to confront and fix the problems. And this template especially goes back to the 1950s and 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement was aided and abetted by conscientious and good-willed publishers, broadcasters, and reporters. The role of journalism wasn’t merely to report the news but to change the world. Since there’s no shortage of news and crisis to be found across a country as large as America, the national media have been careful to pick and choose only those stories that suit and serve their liberal agenda. (To be sure, modern journalism has always serve one agenda or another. This has been as true of the Right-wing press as of the Left-wing press. William Randolph Hearst, it is said, used the full force of his media empire to fan the flames of war against the Spanish Empire in places like Cuba and Philippines. He even spread false rumors, a practice that continues to this day, sometimes by mistake, sometimes willfully.)
　
In a country as large as ours, a news organization can select and create any crisis they wish. There’s a lot of black crime, and if MSM were owned by the likes of Peter Brimelow or Jared Taylor, all of America would be talking about the crisis of BLACK CRIME, especially against whites. But it just so happens that liberal Jews own most of the media and choose not to highlight the crisis of black crime. Not only do the liberal Jewish dominated media suppress stories on black crime, they spread the alarm that anyone who blows the whistle on black crime is a ‘rabid’, ‘virulent’ and unforgivable ‘racist’. So, even media outlets owned by conservatives for the most part do not cover stories where blacks in America assault, rape, and murder whites. In Canada, it is illegal for news organizations to even mention the race of the criminals since a disproportionate number of them are black. The media not only can manufacture bullshit crisis but it can suppress real crisis.
This was obviously true enough in Nazi Germany and Maoist China. When Nazis were rounding up and slaughtering millions of ‘subhumans’, there wasn’t a peep about it in the Nazi-controlled media. When 30 million starved to death in China in the late 50s due to Mao’s economic policies, not a single communist controlled newspaper covered it. Totalitarian media are not free, we all know that. They can create monsters out of thin air and hide real monsters.
But it would be foolish for people in democracies to think that they enjoy a truly balanced press. What passes for news in democracies almost entirely depends on what a handful of corporate conglomerates decide is newsworthy. Most of these conglomerates are owned by liberal Zionist Jews. Since the media determine what is true and untrue and can even make or unmake the reputation of politicians, even politicians dare not question the truisms set forth by the media. To be sure, politicians being afraid of the media sounds like a good thing and indeed would be in an ideal world. The real problem is that even good honest politicians are afraid of speaking the truth because the liberal MSM care less for the truth than for the liberal agenda. Suppose a courageous and honest politician wants to discuss the dangers of illegal immigration and what it’s doing to this country. The MSM will tear him down as a ‘racist’ and ruin his career–and then go after his funders and supporters. The MSM, instead of giving voice to contrarian and opposing voices, favor only the politically correct voices who play by the rules. Again, things would not be much better if MSM were controlled mostly by conservatives as power corrupts all. Nevertheless, the point is the MSM, rather than standing up to the government and those in power, merely seek to work–or even collude–with those in power to push certain agendas. The MSM will pretend to represent or give voice to the little people or ‘oppressed’ groups but this has less to do with social reality than with political agendas. We all know illegal aliens are not oppressed. They violated the law to enter into this country by breaking the law. We know that rich blacks step over poor whites via affirmative action programs. We know that rich liberal whites–and even rich conservative whites–made a pact with rich blacks to keep power for themselves while sacrificing the rights of poor whites. Affirmative action doesn’t affect rich whites as it does poor whites. Rich whites generally score higher than poor whites(and/or have political connections), so it is poor whites who are set aside to make way for rich blacks or well-groomed chosen for instant success by the liberal white elite. We know that Jews are the richest and most powerful people in America. But by playing up the Holocaust Card, Jews justify their hogging of the media and academia in the name of serving minority or ‘victim’ interests. Jews are big people acting like little people.
　
Certain crises are indeed manufactured, as in falsely made up. One such crisis was the story that one out of four college girls are raped. This was a cover story in TIME magazine in the late 80s or early 90s. People all across were alarmed and shocked.
It turns out ‘rape’ in this scenario was a semantic sleight of hand. Rape even included sex in which the girl was initially unwilling but changed her mind. In other words, if she first said ‘no’ but then later said ‘yes’ because of sweet nothings whispered into her ears, that counted as rape. Or, if a guy got sex from a girl by showing off his superior status–as an upper class man or as ‘big man on campus’–, that was counted as rape too. (Following that logic, any rock star or athlete who gets sex from his fans is a rapist too.) It was all manufactured bullshit.
In the book BEAUTY MYTH, Naomi Wolf said 100,000s of women die each year from anorexia nervosa, and she blamed this on the beauty ideal erected by patriarchal men. The national media ran with this CRISIS and Wolf became an overnight sensation. Needless to say, she’s a left-wing Jewess. It turns out a only handful of women die from the disease per year. Also, the ideal of super-slimness is not something desired by most men but one favored by gay men who dominate the fashion industry, something feminists like Wolf dare not admit or deal with.
　
Also, why was there so much emphasis on white males raping white females in college? Consider that the majority of American youths don’t go to college. Consider the far more numerous cases of rape and assault among black and Hispanic youths. And consider the problem of black-on-white rape, which has risen to epidemic proportions. Yet, the media suppressed all such real crises. They didn’t fit into the liberal political agenda. Such stories might make blacks come across as savages. And reporting on black-on-white rape may stoke white ‘racism’, and of course, we can’t have that, so says the left-wing Jew.
Instead, the liberal Jew-owned media decided to focus on white college males raping white coeds en masse. Why? The whole story wasn’t really about rape. Indeed, it wasn’t really even a news story but an epic use of liberal Jewish feminist propaganda to make white females fear and hate white males. No race was specifically mentioned, but almost all the news were about white fraternity boys, white seniors, white this, white that. And, most of the so-called victims were white too. The whole bullshit crisis was an ideological program to drive a wedge between white females and white males, between oh-so-sensitive white liberal males from manlier conservative males.
　
And we’ve heard endless stories about ‘campus racism’, though most of the incidents have been carried out by ‘people of color’. But even when the culprits turn out to be non-white, the liberal media turn the stories into issues about ‘white racism’.
And who can forget the Duke Lacrosse case where the entire national media and academic organizations jumped to conclusion and called for lynching of those white males. The liberal Jews in the media have done to white gentile males what Nazis once did to Jews. The liberal Jews are hellbent on dehumanizing white males. Liberal Jews even perform a kind of spiritual or mental eugenics. They may not cut off the actual balls of white gentile males, but white gentile males are utterly feminized and wussified by constant assault on their manhood, racial pride, and sexual health.
　
And there is the issue of ‘gay rights’ and ‘gay marriage’. Though there are indeed instances of ugly gaybashing, we know full well that most gays are getting on well enough. But, you’d think there’s a huge crisis of gays-in-danger all across America. Worse, the targets of the gay agenda are not only violent gaybashers but good normal people who oppose abominations like ‘gay marriage’. (Notice that the clever liberal Jew media now changed it to ‘same sex marriage’ to give it a mainstream ring.)
　
In foreign policy, why was there so much more news about Sudan than about Congo? We were reminded over and over that 100,000s of people were dying in Darfur, but we heard almost nothing about the 3 million that died in the Congo in the same period. Why was Darfur a bigger issue? Because Chinese heavily invested in Sudan, the anti-Chinese liberal Jew media sought to morally and politically embarrass the Chinese. Also, the crisis could be spun as Muslim Arabs killing innocent blacks. In other words, Zionist Jews in the media were trying to send a message to the black community that Arab Muslims are the enemies of blacks–meaning blacks should keep their political alliance with Jews. (The Janjaweed who were accused of the crimes are indeed Arab in the cultural-lingustic sense, but they are mostly racially black., a fact suppressed by the liberal Jew media.) And we know all about how the liberal Jewish media report heavily on Palestinian violence on Jews but under-reports all the violence and oppression committed by Jews against Palestinians. And the liberal Jew media don’t give a damn about crises such as Afrikaner farmers being robbed, raped, and murdered en masse by savage South African blacks.
　
So, what goes by the name of ‘crisis’ in most cases is simply a matter of what the liberal Jews who run the academia and media designate as such in order to push a certain ideological and ethnic agenda. A famous case is the rise of Fidel Castro. When Castro had just a handful of men in the jungles and was on the ropes, NY Times reporter Herbert Matthews wrote up one helluva inspiring story that Castro out to be a shining hero leading an mass uprising. Liberal Jews in this country manufactured the ‘crisis’ and ‘hope’ that led to Castro’s victory. Cuba was a country with many problems to be sure, but Castro couldn’t have come to power without the aid of the Western Press, which is to say the liberal Jew press. So, when you hear ‘crisis’, more often than not, it’s some liberal Jew who’s been taught to cry wolf. And when there’s major crisis, the liberal Jews can always make something up–just like they inflate economic bubbles through their buddies on Wall Street and the Fed. And when a real crisis is the product of liberal policies such as Great Society, the liberal Jews will evade blame by distracting out attention to some new hopeful solution... devised by liberal Jews of course.

--A.F.

Why Do Western Feminists De-Emphasize Islamic Oppression of Women?

In politics the enemy of your enemy is your friend. We need to remember this if
we are to understand why Western feminism for the most part turns a blind eye
to the mistreatment of women in the Islamic world.
It isn't so much that Western feminists approve of the culture and values of
the Islamic world. It's that they see Western Patriarchal-racism-imperialism-
capitalism to be their main enemy. Though feminism developed in the West, it
was usurped by radicals whose ethnic origins were largely Jewish. Also, even
non-Jewish feminists came to take their inspiration from the Jewish ones like
Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Katha Pollitt, Martha Nussbaum, and
others. Everyone past infancy should know that most
Jews are on the Left and committed to bringing about the decline of white gentile power.
Jews are thus obsessed because Jews are smart and
talented, thus hungry for near total elite power. Since white gentiles are their only
real rivals, Jews want to weaken their power as much as possible. Jews use all sorts
of methods to undermine white power. Not only socio-economic networking
but employing the media and academia to portray white gentiles as
historically sinful and collectively stained with the evils of 'racism', 'sexism', imperialism,
and whatever-other-ism.

Jews hate Muslims too, especially in regard to Israel. However, the fact is anti-Islamism
in the West is essentially a stance taken up by the Right. Since the Right exploits
anti-Islamism as a political issue, the Left--of which feminists are a part--cannot jump
on the bandwagon. It's not so much that feminists are okay with Muslim mistreatment of women. They just can't stand the fact that the issue has become a political weapon of the Right.

Of course, the Right isn't exactly pure-hearted on this either. Rightists are not anti-Islam because they really care about Muslim women. No, the Right uses this issue to push for rightist causes. One is anti-immigrationism. By highlighting Islamic evils, Western white rightists argue
immigration from the Third World is a bad idea. Or by emphasizing how the Western
treatment of women is far superior to Muslim treatment of women, the Western Right
absolves itself of any guilt in the area of sexual inequality or repression. By pointing to
what's wrong in the Muslim world, the Western Right smugly feels superior, the implication
being that progress is no longer necessary in the West since 'we' are so much more advanced
than the Muslim 'ragheads'.
Anti-Islamism has also been used by the Right--especially neocons--to justify American foreign intervention, especially in the Middle East. Bush and neocons emphasized how much the Muslim world had to gain by having advanced Western values and ideals shoved down their throats and up their arses. Anti-Islamism, in other words, has been used to justify Western 'neo-imperialism'.

So, the Left isn't wholly unjustified in seeing anti-Islamism as a political ploy on the part of
the Western Right to push its agendas. Just consider the issue of gay politics. The Western Right opposes the gay agenda but is eager to point out that Western treatment of gays is far superior to Muslim treatment of gays. In other words, we no longer need any more progress on the gay issue since we are so much better than the Muslims. At least we don't hang gays.

This is why the Left don't want to fall into the trap of anti-Islamism. By pointing out how
backward and brutal the Muslims are, the Western Right can simply rest on its laurels and
argue that the West no longer needs progress since it is better than Muslims or whomever.
Of course, given the 'progressive' agendas proposed by the Left, I can only sympathize with
the Right for resisting 'change' cooked up by perverted gays, sicko feminists, aggressive and hateful blacks, and obnoxious illegal aliens. But, I must admit it is somewhat disingenuous
on the part of the Western Right to argue against progress solely on the basis that we
are so much better than the Muslim world. This would be defending child labor on the basis that 'at least we don't use our children for human sacrifice like other cultures do'.

Feminists agree that Muslim world is unfriendly to women, but as they live in the Western world and deal with Western rightists on a daily basis as their main enemies, they don't want
to be distracted by the issue of Muslim barbarism.
Similarly, the Western Right doesn't want to hear too much about poor needy starving Africans
since the Western Left uses that particular issue to argue for more aid to Africa, more immigration from Africa, more investment in Africa, etc.
The Western Right is very much aware of the hellish conditions in Africa but merely want to acknowledge them in order to argue against closer ties to hopeless Africa. They don't
wanted to reminded night and day about how poor Africans are so desperate and in need of our
love and compassion. The politics of compassion--whether for Muslim women or for African children--is really a weapon used by both sides. By pointing out how terrible things are in the Muslim world, the Western Right stokes Western pride and glory. By pointing out how terrible
things are in Africa, the Western Left fuels Western guilt and redemption.

Consider the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. You'd think feminists would embrace her since she's for women's freedom and liberation from the oppressive clutches of Islamic male oppression. But,
feminists have been cool to her because she's forged an alliance with elements of the Western
Right that is anti-immigrationist, anti-Third World-ist, and anti-feminist. This is all very ironic.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls for feminist rights for Islamic women but she's embraced by the anti-feminist Western Right but rejected by the feminists of the Western Left. The Western Right
embraces not Ayaan's feminism but her critique of the non-Western world. A black Muslim
women saying that the white Western world is so much better and more humane than the black/Muslim world is music to the ears of Western Rightists. But, it's poison to the ears of the Western Left and feminists. They may agree with her views on freedom for women but they cannot forgive how she has allowed herself to be 'duped' and 'exploited' by the Western Right.

Politics is really funny business.

--P. N.

Sorry, Political Apology Doesn't Work Like Personal Apology.

In life it's often necessary to apologize because every individual commits wrongs. Sometimes, it's accidental, neglectful, or mean-spirited, but in any case, we wouldn't be human without conscience, and conscience requires that we owe up to our faults and apologize to family members, friends, co-workers, or anyone we may have wronged.

But, apology in the political sphere is another thing. I don't mean individual politicians apologizing for their misdeeds, which is perfectly understandable and necessary. What I mean is politicians or so-called leaders apologizing for the entire nation, people, culture, heritage, or etc.

This isn't to say that a nation-at-large or a certain community can't go bat-crazy and commit acts of evil. There have been too many instances of such throughout history.

The problem arises when we fall into the habit of thinking collectively or eternal-istically when it comes to the goodness or evil of a people. Yet another problem is an entire people can never be wholly innocent nor guilty. Were all Japanese to blame for what happened in WWII? What about people who opposed the regime? What about people thought they were on the right side of history and that their nation was doing good(based on available news and info)? What about newborn babies? And what about later generations? How do they share in the guilt of what their forbears may have done? Is a son guilty of a murder committed by his father? And what gives any politician or leader the right to speak for the entire nation, people, or community?

Though all nations have a moral and intellectual obligation to remember and know their histories, no nation can be said to be forever guilty or innocent. The meaning of apology breaks down when it grows more collective. If you cheat, lie, steal, rape, or kill, YOU need to apologize for your crime. Why should the blame apply to your relatives or your friends? Why should they share your guilt?

Suppose one argues that every individual is the social product of people who may have influenced him; thus, his parents are guilty for bad upbringing or his friends are guilty for corrosive peer pressure. But, maybe not. Children of nice parents also turn out bad. If it's meaningless to blame the entire family or friends for the wrongdoer's misdeeds or crimes, does it make sense to blame the whole village or town, the entire city, let alone the nation? Why not just blame all of mankind? If all Germans--past and future--are guilty for the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis in the 1940s, then why not blame all of humanity? After all, Nazis were humans. Since humans did it, all humans should be blamed, including the Jews.

There's no doubt that many Germans took part in the crimes of Nazism in the 30s and40s, but h the sad fact of masses mindlessly following the great leader--good or bad--has been commonplace throughout human history. At any rate, it's something that happened at a certain time and place. All that future Germans should do is to remember their history honestly. The idea of an eternally guilty Germans is ridiculous.

People also need to know that political or social evil has generally been a matter of which side has more power, an ever-shifting reality. There are no permanent winners or losers in history. Any well-meaning or morally pompous group or nation that fills itself with collective guilt--and dumps it onto future generations--over what they or their ancestors may have done in the political or macro-social sphere is only asking for trouble. Romans committed violence against the Germanic barbarians, but it wasn't long before the Germanic barbarians had the upperhand.

What good would collective moral guilt among Romans have achieved when Germanic barbarians were sacking Rome, raping and killing left and right? Ex-victims were the then-victors as Rome fell and burned.

Many people think Japan should apologize to China for WWII, but China is now a fast rising power while Japan is a fading one--without much in the way of political independence. China today isn't what it was in the 1930s or 1940s. Japan has also greatly changed. This isn't to say that Japanese should not take an honest look at Japanese war-mongering in WWII. But, if Japanese go for a collective POLITICAL APOLOGY, it will disadvantage all future generations of Japanese vis-a-vis the Chinese. True, many Japanese took part in the brutal conquest of China in WWII, but that was then and this is now and the future is the future. Why should all future generations of Chinese feel morally superior to all future generations of Japanese due to what happened during a decade of the 20th century? I can understand individual Japanese soldiers who served in WWII apologizing to Chinese victims. But, why should all future generations of Japanese be burdened with this? It makes no sense, and worst of all, it is politically fatal and suicidal for Japanese political and national interests in the future. Whenever tensions arise between Japan and China in the future, Chinese can point to ETERNAL Japanese evil admitted by collective/political apology made by the representatives of the Japanese people.

I don't endorse the Japanese Far-Right which denies the war-time atrocities or tries to justify Japanese brutality as a noble crusade to save Asia from Western Imperialism, which is a lot of crock. The Japanese Far-Right is indeed made up of moral equivalents of Holocaust Deniers or Jews who suppress Jewish role in communism. But, most Japanese today are not members of the Far-Right. They are not evil people. Why must they be burdened with eternal national guilt for terrible events during a part of the 20th century? If so, I suppose Mongols should forever apologize for the exploits of Genghis Khan. I suppose Greeks should still be apologizing to Hindus for Alexander the Great's war-mongering.

Take a look at South Africa in the present day. Black thugs now rule the country and commit horrible crimes. They are poised to pull off what Mugabe did in Zimbabwe. Black savages roam about looking for white men to butcher and white women to rape(and butcher).

But, the world seems to ignore all this because they've morally eternalized the memory of Apartheid. One can make an argument that Apartheid was wrong, but that was a time when whites had power over blacks. That is no longer the reality of South Africa.

Again, nothing is eternal in politics. There are no permanent winners or losers, no permanent conquerors or permanently vanquished. At one time, Asiatic peoples swept through Russia and oppressed white Russians. Later, Russian gained great power and conquered all of Asian Siberia. At one time Greeks conquered what is modern-day Turkey. But, Ottomans later conquered and ruled over the Greeks. Muslims once ruled over Jews in the Holy Land; today, Jews brutally rule over the Muslims and Arab Christians. Whites once ruled over blacks all over Africa. Most whites left Africa in the 60s and 70s, though a large number remained in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Zimbabwe eventually turned to black rule, and most whites were driven out. And whites no longer hold political and military power in South Africa. Today, whites live under black oppression.

Consider that at one time, Muslims--the Moghuls--ruled over Hindu India. There was a Hindu resurgence under British rule, and India came to be mostly Hindu-dominated.

For many centuries, Tutsis ruled over Hutus in what are now Rwanda and Burundi. But, with the arrival of Europeans, Hutus gained power over the Tutsis. In the 90s, the Hutus, who had long been the victim of Tutsis, carried out massive genocide against the Tutsis. And, then the Tutsi army conquered Rwanda and now it is again ruled by a Tutsi elite. So tell me, which side owes which side an eternal poltical apology? Should Tutsis politically and collectively apologize for all eternity for having oppressed Hutus in the past? Or should Hutus apologize eternally to the Tutsis for the horrible genocide of the 90s?

This is why political apologies are meaningless. An individual apologizes for a specific act he committed at a fixed moment in time. If you steal, you apologize for the theft and for nothing else. And no one is guilty but you. This kind of apology is specific, clear-cut, rational, and makes sense. But, collective guilt or national apology--or political apology--makes little or no sense. (But, given the deterministic models that came to dominate social sciences since the 19th century, we believe less and less in free will and more and more in collective guilt and collective redemption. Morality is less individualist and more statist. Entire peoples are blamed, and only the all-powerful state, in the name of social good for all people, is seen as the solution.)

Just look at Germany since WWII. It's as if all Germans forever should feel the burden of guilt. Worse, all of German history has been smeared and simplified as a long sick process culminating in the Holocaust. Consequentially, Germans are not only apologizing for the Holocaust but for all of Germany and all of Germanness. Indeed, being German has become a sinful.

Germans were right to take a hard honest look at their history. That is to be lauded. Japanese, in contrast, have generally been dishonest and neglectful about what happened in WWII. But, Germans have done more than take an honest look. They've done to themselves what Nazi Germans did to the Jews during the 1930s and 1940s. The Nazis came up with the notion of the ETERNAL JEW, always evil, always venal, always up-to-no-good no matter the place or time.

Now, we have the ETERNAL GERMAN as a consequence of POLITICAL GUILT or NATIONAL APOLOGY on the part of Germans. Germans have become like the character in THE SHINING--film by Stanley Kubrick. The character of Jack Torrance is forever condemned to live the life of a murderer in one incarnation after another. He is forever guilty. He can never be free of this cycle of evil. He is always the murderer of his wife and children. This is how Germans have internalized the guilt of WWII.

As we look at what's happening in South Africa, we need to ask the same question. Does it make sense to blame forever and ever the whites of that country? They no longer have the power. They are being raped and murdered. Also, can we say that whites were truly evil while blacks were truly noble in the past? Or, was it more the case that whites had more power than blacks? Since whites had more power, they used it to their advantage over blacks. But now that black have more power, they are using it against whites. Politics has been and always will be mostly about power.

This isn't to say there's no morality in politics. Indeed, there is plenty. Civilized peoples practice a more moralistic form of politics. They don't believe might is right or that people with power should exploit the weak.

But, there seems to be a lot of dumb liberals who go beyond political morality and have embraced a kind of spiritual eternalistic politics where certain peoples are eternally guilty or wicked while others are eternally noble and wonderful. Because of Western domination starting from the 16th century, many white liberals think that white domination is a given, a constant, a permanent reality. They see whites as forever powerful and forever ruling over everyone else. Given this mindset, they believe whites need to feel all the burden of morality, guilt, and conscience for all eternity. These idiots obviously have a very limited understanding of history. And for all their professed interest in non-Western cultures, they know next to nothing about all the brutality and wickedness that have existed in the non-Western world. The West was never worse. It only grew more powerful, thus gaining greater leverage over other peoples. 'White evil' was less moral and spiritual than political and materialistic. If other peoples had gained greater power, they would have done the same thing--build larger empires.

Anyway, white power is slipping, especially with the rise of Asia. Worse, the West is becoming inundated with waves upon waves of Third Worlders who have lots of babies. In Europe and America, blacks go around beating up whites. In the US, the so-called victim-Jews now constitute the most powerful and richest elite the world has ever seen.

Given the shifting nature of politics and power, does it make sense for whites to hold onto an ETERNAL GUILT or keep making POLITICAL APOLOGIES? No!

-- A. F.

Neo-Fascist Review of HURT LOCKER by Mark Boal & Kathryn Bigelow: War Drug.

HURT LOCKER is a film about war as drug–ironic considering our ongoing War on Drugs. Though HURT LOCKER deals with the Iraq War, it may shed light on why we fight the war on drugs. There is, of course, the sincere wish to be rid of the scourge of narcotics. However, could there also be an addiction to keep on fighting among those involved? Could they be addicted to the fighting the addiction? If so, the means have become the ends. We’ve all heard the expression, ‘ends justify the means’ but what if the desired ends are forever out of reach? In that case, could we end up with a scenario where means justify or become the ends? Consider Great Society programs of LBJ which were supposed to be temporary measures in the war against poverty. But poverty is still with us, and the government has only gotten bigger and bigger. Since the 60s the government has been growing bigger just to grow bigger and bigger. Government employees, politicians, and entire segments of the population have become addicted to government–for power, privilege, favors, security, handouts, etc. Though we still hear high-minded words about the need for more programs to solve social problems, we know that more programs are essentially for more power for the elite and for more handouts for the masses. We’ve all grown addicted. The means are the ends.
　
The same could be said of the US military. During WWII, it grew to massive size to defeat Nazi Germany and militarist Japan. During the Cold War, the rationale was resisting and fighting communism. One might have expected a scaling down of the military after the fall of the USSR, but the military only grew larger under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Many industries have grown addicted to military development and expansion. Many politicians have grown addicted to military power as the symbol of national power and glory–despite the fact that our ‘empire’ abroad is bleeding us dry. Many young males–and females–have grown addicted to the military career as jobs have seen off-shored to other countries. And Jewish Neocons have become addicted to American military power as an instrument of Zionist policy. Republicans, having little to offer to the American people, drum up militarism as the last bastion of patriotic fervor. Liberals, not to be outdone, do much the same. Besides, both GOP and Democratic politicians come from states which relies on military bases or military-related industries. Much of it is about pork.
　
HURT LOCKER is about men on the ground, what we might call the ‘honest soldier’. But it’s so simple as Bigelow and Boal present these soldiers as more than just pawns in a game. CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER–with Harrison Ford–presented a picture where political bigshots were the bad guys while US soldiers assigned to duty–and then abandoned–were rock solid heroic good guys. Notwithstanding the fact that chickenhawk Neoconservatives pulled a lot of strings to take US into the Iraq War, it is bogus to say that every US soldier on the ground is an innocent, a victim of corrupt politicians. Bigelow and Boal are right to show that many–if not all–US soldiers also get a kick out of militarism and war.
Of course, no one wants to be shot or blown up, but the fact remains that there is a thrill in being shot at–and firing back–and feeling the adrenaline around danger zones.
　
HURT LOCKER gives us three characters, each of whom is half unique and half archetypal. They function as individual characters but also serve as certain social-cultural-mental-emotional types. The main character William James–played by James Renner–is a war lover, much like the character of John Hersey’s novel of that title. It’s not that he likes to kill people, but he loves being at the center of action, danger, and attention. As Ernest Hemingway said, there is nothing as powerful as war. We all know war is hell, but it is also a spectator sport or videogame. Of course, war is miserable for most civilians and hellish for crippled or dead soldiers and their relatives. Also, few people would actually want war to come to their own towns. Even William James wouldn’t want bombs to fall where his family lives. We all want peace and safety for our loved ones. But, peace and safety can be boring. For men with a sense of adventure or wanderlust, war is the thing. Nothing tests a man’s mettle like war. It’s no wonder that among the most fundamental literary texts of the Western canon are The Iliad and the Odyssey. Iliad is about war, horrible but overpowering and thrilling. The Odyssey is about a man who has to fight his way home. Odysseus wants to return home, but it’s the dream of home that is more alluring and romantic than actually coming home, which can only be anti-climactic. To cherish and dream of home, one must be away from home.
　
William James obviously cares for home and his wife–or woman–and child, but when he’s home, his mind longs for the war zone. It’s as if he has two homes. James the husband and father is at home at home. James the warrior is at home in war. It’s the hunter instinct which makes him want to roam, fight, struggle, conquer.
Granted, not all nor even most soldiers feel or think this way. Many serving in Iraq and Afghanistan would probably just come back home and forget about the whole thing. But, there are people for whom war is more than a political or military objective; it is a psychological, even spiritual, fix.
In the opening scene of APOCALYPSE NOW, we hear Capt. Willard’s voice-over narration about how all he could think about was getting back in the jungle when he was home on furlough. In the movie RIGHT STUFF, those jet pilots and astronauts get high on danger and risk, on pushing the envelope. Though only a relatively small number of people are willing to go so far as climb mountains or skyscrapers or walk the tightrope for a fix, we are all addicted to need for thrill and excitement. Perhaps, the most infantile-ized form of this is the theme park roller coaster ride or the horror movie. It may scare the hell out of us, but we know at every turn that it’s just for thrills. But for some people, make-believe isn’t enough. They must push the limit. They want to feel the thrill of being face to face with the real danger, real death.
　
HURT LOCKER has one such character, William James. His foils are Sgt. Sanborn and Specialist Eldrige. Clearly, Sanborn and Eldrige signed up for the military because they believe in the warrior code and all that, but they don’t see war as a game where they must prove something–to others or to themselves. Their main goal is to win or, at the very minimum, survive. Probably most soldiers are like Sanborn or Eldrige. But, there are the William Jameses of the world–in all levels of society. If William James worked in Wall Street, he would be a big gambler. As a gangster, he would be want to top henchman. As an athlete, he would want to be champion. Normality and mediocrity are simply not in his game plan. (He’s like those boxers who keep fighting even though they don’t have a chance of winning the championship. They need some higher goal in life, no matter how elusive. They need to be in the center of action.) Many viewers may admire him because our culture is obsessed with EXTREME shows on TV–like who can eat a live snake or lie in a tub filled with scorpions? ‘Reality shows’ test contestants to see who has the toughest nerves–or the smallest brain as far I’m concerned. But, if most TV contestants are dufuses looking for 15 minutes of fame, there is indeed something admirable–though also dark and disturbing–about Sgt. William James. He goes for the REAL thing and is obviously a man of great skill. He is also odd in his emotional makeup. He loves EXTREMES but is usually soft-spoken and withdrawn. He’s easygoing but intense. He’s ultra-competitive but also laconic in demeanor. There is a kind of bipolar madness held under check by granite will. Perhaps, William James senses on some level that he is a time bomb himself and feels the need to be distracted by or occupied with other bombs, lest he trigger something within his dark soul and set off an explosion. It’s kinda like some highly aggressive men would likely be criminals if they weren’t police officers. Violent by nature, they must fight crime if they aren’t to be tempted by crime.
　
To an extent the bombs in HURT LOCKER serve as metaphors for humans. Externally, the film is about men trying to defuse bombs strewn across Iraq, but internally the film is about the bombs inside the hearts of men. Every person is a capable of blowing up and being destructive. Just consider the Columbine and V-Tech killers. But as HURT LOCKER demonstrates with bombs, what really matters is the WIRING. William James generally works with wires than with bombs themselves. A bomb, no matter how powerful, is inert without the wiring. Similarly, what we do with our bodies is a matter of wiring. Faulty wiring leads to mayhem and murder. Anyone can physically pick up a gun and shoot people at random. Most of us don’t because of proper wiring in our brains. But, psychopaths and sociopaths have faulty wiring which makes them explode and do crazy stuff like shooting a whole bunch of kids in school. This fault wiring could be genetic or a product of prolonged social trauma or stress. Even so, all of us have the capacity for massive destruction, and there is no such thing as a perfectly normal person. Evolution designed organisms to be capable of aggression and competition. There’s conflict among nations but also among individuals. There is also conflict within every individual between the ‘good’ and ‘evil’, reason and unreason, the sacred and the profane, the egocentric and the empathetic. The presence of a psychologist in HURT LOCKER suggests to the problems of wiring within the human psyche. (Bigelow shares something with Walter Hill in that though she’s aware of psychology, she feels man must ultimately be measured by what he does.)
　
Indeed, much of HURT LOCKER isn’t so much about Americans vs Iraqi insurgents as about Americans vs Americans. The three main characters–James, Sanborn, and Eldridge–work closely and rely on each other, but they are not easy partners, especially James and Sanborn. There is something of ‘kid’ in Eldridge. He’s a fresh-faced lad, a good guy, and fine soldier. But, he’s a natural follower than a leader. He’s not a man of initiative but one who prefers taking orders. He’s either naturally a beta male or as yet too green to be truly manly.
Sanborn, the black guy, is a more interesting character. He is physically and emotionally made of iron. If he can’t lead an assignment, he at least wants to be an integral team member and be fully appreciated for his input and effort. In the opening scene of the movie, he seems to have good rapport and mutual respect with Sgt. Matt Thompson, who is killed and replaced by the radioactive William James. William James is like a walking nuclear reactor, which may account for fearless forays into danger zones. It’s as if he intuitively feels that he himself is the biggest bomb around. Though possessed of great self-control, we sense instability lurking underneath. He reminds us of the Tom Sizemore character in STRANGE DAYS–also by Kathryn Bigelow. Sizemore’s character was cool and helpful on the outside, dark and violent inside. If he ultimately turned out to be evil, William James ultimately comes across as a ‘good guy’. But both share a certain thrill-seeking/power-lusting nihilism. Both act as agents serving to defuse mounting social tensions or military crises but thrive in such environments. They are to constant crises what bees are to honey. In a way, William James is a more intelligent and socially competent version of Travis Bickle of TAXI DRIVER. Just as Bickle could not leave the city he loathed, James cannot tear himself from battle even as the stress drives him to the edge. He’s what one might call a warcenary. A mercenary loves money and will kill for it. A warcenary loves war and will sacrifice everything–sanity, happiness, family life, friends, etc–for it. Just as some fireman are obsessed with fire–not merely as profession but as the holy grail–, William James only truly feels at home at war.
　
HURT LOCKER has been hailed as the first great Iraq War movie, but not really. HURT LOCKER is actually closer to FULL METAL JACKET(or even THIN RED LINE) than to other films about the Iraq War. Both HL and FMJ, though set in particular wars, are really about the psycho-mythology of war than about specific realities of a particular war. One could add APOCALYPSE NOW to the list as well. If the Oliver Stone triology–PLATOON, BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY, and HEAVEN & EARTH–were clearly meant to be about the Vietnam War and if SANDS OF IWO JIMA, BIG RED ONE, and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN are about WWII, HURT LOCKER, though keen on the details of the Iraq War, mainly focuses on what war–any war–means to human psychology. William James could have been just as well a character in WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, or the Gulf War.
Indeed, he shares the name with a man who is considered the greatest psychologist in American history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James His specialty was the philosophy of religion, and his masterpiece is considered to be VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES–some of which were drug-induced. Perhaps, the main character having the same name as the psychologist was mere coincidence, but it’s undeniable that the ‘hero’ seems to find some kind of mystical communion within the realm of war. And of course, drugs, stress(induced externally or internally), and mystical experience have always been inter-related throughout history–from soma of the ancient Hindus to self-flagellation during the Middle Ages to LSD of Bigelow’s boomer generation. If war is William James’s drug, it can also be said to be his spiritual high.
　
Religion gives us a glimpse into the connection between the instant and eternity, between life and death. The core of religion is dualistic, with simultaneity running through its entire length. It allows us to feel both flesh and spirit, the here & now and forever, happiness and sorrow, sin and redemption, birth and death. William James’s religion is the Zen of Bomb Defusing. It is in the heart of such activity that he feels most alive, paradoxically because he’s closest to death. He feels most important, almost god-like, with all eyes fixed on him. He also feels most humble, as the slightest glitch can kill him. He also has the dirtiest job, which reminds us of Dirty Harry–"Every dirty job that comes along." He feels like a man of granite, a lion of steel–invincible and unbreakable. Yet, he also knows he can be splattered into a million pieces.
As Jesus was both all-powerful as God and all-vulnerable as man, William James is both bigger than any General and lower than any private. He’s a whore assigned to the dirtiest jobs and a god who saves entire blocks–and who-knows-how-many-lives–from destruction.
Though it may be stretching it, there is even a dual sexual quality about his work. Though tough and manly, his work requires a kind of feminine gentleness and patience. In a way, he’s like a midwife delivering a baby.
The spiritual element of his speciality is driven home when he’s confronted with an Iraqi man booby-trapped with a TIME bomb. No amount of his ingenuity, talent, and experience can undo this predicament. He can undo bombs but not reverse time. The doomed man kneels and prays to Allah before he blows up. In a way, it’s a simple enough action scene, but it can also be interpreted as battle between Man and God. William James is Man with a Promethean will to steal fire from the gods. He has overcome the fear and anxiety that make most men run and hide from. He’s as fearless as they come. But even he has to run as time keeps ticking away. In the end, nothing is greater than Time and God. In previous instances of defusing bombs, James could work at his own pace. Under supreme duress held in check by iron will and meditative concentration, it was as if James entered into a state of mind where time is suspended or non-existent–at one point, he even tosses away the headphone as if to cut off all links with human reality. A state of mind where time is suspended must feel like eternity, as if one entered the realm of God. So, it is crucial that in the later scene, the time bomb reminds James of his humanity and mortality. Even so, it’s as though William James feels nearest to God when he challenges the limits attributed to Man by God.
　
James is also like some of the obsessive people in our lives. They may be supremely gifted and skilled, but they want to be work on their own terms. I knew someone who was good with computers. I once took my computers to his house for him to fix. It was a simple enough problem, but that didn’t interest him. He found one problem after another after another–most of them trivial and insignificant for my needs or purposes–, but he insisted on checking everything, and he got very testy when I told him I only wanted him to look into one single problem. It was almost like he took an obsessive interest in the computer. He ignored the fact that I had to wait for hrs and hrs for things I didn’t care about. It was either HIS way or the highway. In other words, there are computer geeks and then there are COMPUTER GEEKS!! William James, tough and manly as he is, is a kind of super war geek with a kind of cyberpunk-ish obsession with explosive devices.
For whatever reason–class background, lack of education, lack of connections, personality type, predilection for asocial behavior, etc–, he isn’t destined for glory in socially stable America. Without war, he would probably be a policeman chasing down crackheads, fireman hanging around the firehouse, or an air conditioner repairman. His greatest talent–fearless courage–wouldn’t be of much use in a normal society. To fix a car or heater requires skill but not courage. To defuse a bomb requires as much courage as skills. Nobody calls a car repairman a god or hero. I suppose there is sports, but very few have access to athletic glory–and besides most of them are Negroes anyway.
　
In a way, there’s a little William James in all of us. As mentioned above, we love the thrill of the roller coaster. But, it’s everything about our consumer society. We want our kicks and fixes all day and night. Near the end of the film, William James is back home at a supermart. Everything is quiet, normal, and dull. He sees shelves and shelves of sugary breakfast cereal. On the one hand, the image is one of dull and bland suburbia. But, it also indicates that we are all junkies in a way. What are most breakfast cereals made of? Sugar. From morning to night, from cradle to grave, many of us wake up to the kick of refined sugar, which some nutritionists consider a form of drug–even more damaging than heroin and marijuana. From the food we eat, movies we watch, games we play, sports and festivals we attend, porn men and women devour, twitter we twit, and myspace we disgrace, we are all addicted to non-stop thrills. Of course, it doesn’t cost us life or limb, though some would say it has snuffed out our souls. Given all the bogus and make-believe nature of all these inane thrills, William James wants to seek out the REAL kind. One might say that bullets are the real pills for real men. Losers pop pills, tough guys pop bullets.
　
Is there a racial element to HURT LOCKER to the extent that Iraq War pitted the West vs the Middle East? Also, one of the leads is a black guy, and the US military is known for its racial mix. Though we aren’t sure to what extent the tension between Sanborn and James is racial or personal, the tension is undeniable. This is just as well since reality is complex and not reducible as most message-laden Hollywood movies would have us believe. BLIND SIDE is for people who want the message, HURT LOCKER is for those who want complexity.
One racial element in the film revolves around US soldiers being in a foreign country. They might as well be on another planet among an alien race. There is very little understanding or meaningful contact between Americans and Iraqis. Most Iraqis are civilian standbys, but any one of them could be a potential terrorist. That uncertainty is the greatest terror that the Americans are faced with, especially since they are officially in Iraq to bring freedom and justice to the people. US soldiers in HL might are much like the fighting men in Robert Heinlein’s STARSHIP TROOPERS. They are mostly fresh-faced soldiers trained to fight and kill and not much else. In a way, it’s worse because STARSHIP TROOPERS presented a total war scenario where the ‘good guys’ could just blow up the other side as much as possible. In HURT LOCKER, we see Americans trying to save Iraqi neighborhood from bombs planted by Iraqis–to be more specific, the mostly Sunni insurgents among them. Talk about being caught between Iraq and a hard place.
When it comes to Iraqis, HL is like the typical Hollywood movie. Iraqis, like Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese, Europeans, Somalis, and others before them, are just part of the background, with a few token characters thrown into to be more fairminded. Oliver Stone’s HEAVEN AND EARTH gave us something rare and precious–war as seen, felt, and experienced by the people of the Other country. While many US soldiers have died in foreign wars, many more civilians of those countries experienced far greater misery and perished in much greater numbers. For American movies to have ignored this fact most of this is understandable but somewhat distressing.
Most moviegoers demand hard action and things blowing up in a war movie, not a patient and empathetic understanding of lives of civilians of another country. Of course, it’s somewhat different if it’s about American civilians. HEAVEN AND EARTH tanked at the box office whereas GONE WITH THE WIND is the biggest hit of all time–adjusted for inflation–because Americans would rather see a Southern belle in a romanticized version of war than a Vietnamese peasant girl caught in an hell-hole. Also, BORN IN THE FOURTH JULY was a moderate success in the tradition of BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.
　
But to be fair to HL, it is not about the Iraq War per se. Its POV may be limited and narrowly America-centric like most war movies, but the film is true to its intentions and concerns. Indeed, given its thematic material, an attempt to be ‘fairminded’ toward Iraqi civilians would have been superfluous and strained. There is one effective scene which brings William James too-close-for-comfort with the inner world of Iraqi civilian society–in a kind of Kafkaesque-or-Mamet-like turn of events, James enters an almost surreal zone of paranoia to ferret out the killers of a young dvd-peddling Iraqi boy he’d casually befriended. (William James buys pirated dvds and defuses pirated bombs. The instant and all-pervasive availability of dvds even in a battle-worn wasteland suggests how far yet how close an American soldier is to any part of the world. Indeed, the internet has given us the Insta-War, where anyone anywhere can turn on the computer and see the war happening in real time through live cam. It’s more than C-Span, which is a professional news service. War has also been personalized through images captured through countless cellphones and digicams. Ironically, cellphones are also used to set off bombs. It’s almost like a surreal Bunuel-ian dreamscape where a cigar is more than cigar and a cellphone is more than a cellphone.)
The most disturbing scene between Americans and Iraqis is when the army psychologist decides to see some real action. Trained for psychiatry but not psyched for war, he’s too much of a ‘nice guy’ when trying to persuade suspicious Iraqis to move out of the area. Trained to analyze and understand behind closed doors than command and take charge in the open, his decency proves weak and fatal. It is to Bigelow’s credit that the character isn’t poked fun at and lampooned as a useless ‘geek’ as he could have been. He’s out of place, but he could be just about any American unprepared for battle.
　
The other racial element in the movie involves the black guy. This element isn’t overt and perhaps not really even intended, but given the racial realities in America, it’s something we cannot overlook. Sometimes, a movie tells us more about our racial issues and problems by what it represses than reveals. HURT LOCKER is correct that overt racial tensions in the military are essentially things of the past. It was long ago when blacks would have been called ‘niggers’ or when black soldiers would have said stuff like, "Man, why is I fightin’ for the white man??? The gooks didn’t call me no nigger!!" The official mainstream narrative is that the military is the most successfully integrated sector of American society. Even so, there are bound to be some racial tensions, especially since the military is a competitive field of toughness. The battle for king of the hill in toughness has long been between white males and black males. This is even more pronounced in sports where blacks reign supreme in the most prestigious sports. NBA and NFL have mostly black knights with white cheerleaders and groupies swooning over them; white males have been reduced to playing the role of squires on the team and serfs in the stands. If there is less racial tension in the military, it’s because the discipline and hierarchy don’t allow the kind of jive-ass show-boating you see among blacks in sports. Black soldiers have to behave or else. Also, unlike sports, higher rank in the military isn’t necessarily based on physical toughness or raw courage. Even a geeky officer can pull rank on a big tough lower-ranked soldier. In this sense, the military is a paradoxical institution. Nothing matters more than toughness and courage in battle, BUT toughness and courage alone are no guarantee for higher rank or prestige. The top brass and higher-ranked officers are generally graduates of military academies, the kind of people who experience less of the real battle.
There used to be a time when even the biggest athletes respected and bowed down to their coaches in a bygone era, but that is no longer the case in our utterly commercialized society. Today, in our ultra-individualistic and celebrity-crazed culture, even top coaches must cater to the vanity and narcissism of top athletes. Also, since blacks dominate the sports and naturally tend to be unruly and aggressive, they’ve set the new template of how athletes should act. Sportsmanship is a dinosaur ideal. Every top athletes tries to be like Muhammad Ali or Shaq O’Neal. There was a time when white liberals were excited by the rise of the UPPITY Negro–as a force of self-assertion, self-pride, and self-esteem among blacks–, but things have gotten so out of hand that liberals now dream of Tiger Woods as the nice Negro lad–before the scandal–, Oprah–the billionaire mammy–, and Obama–the half-Negro who speaks like a white guy. Liberals used to wax romantic about the White Negro; now they dream of the Black Whitey.
　
In HL, there is little overt talk of ‘nigger this’ or ‘honkey that’, not even the obligatory kind in movies like HAMBURGER HILL. Rather, the tensions are subdued and leave us wondering if the friction is racial or personal, or more racial than personal or vice versa. Sanborn is, on the surface, a solid soldier. He’s tough and seasoned. But there is an element of insecurity and testiness beneath his hard exterior. After William James ‘goes solo’ on a mission, Sanborn feels ‘dissed’ and speaks of his experience in the field of Intelligence. Sanborn carries what might be called the Affirmative Action Malady–irritation that whites might not take him seriously and regard him as just as a black guy favored by AA. Sanborn wants James to know that he’s not just some AA baby but a guy with real knowledge and experience, thus deserving of respect. This belies a certain insecurity. Sanborn goes so far as to call James a ‘redneck’ to drive home the point. In other words, Sanborn is nobody’s inferior or nobody’s boy. James takes all of this in stride, and we can only guess what he really thinks since he’s so Zen about most things.
But, there is more than insecurity in Sanborn. There is also a bit of resentment that he has to play second fiddle yet again. He was subordinate to Sgt. Matt Thompson who dies in the first scene but then has to serve under William James. Thompson was less of a cowboy and more of a team-player, which made Sanborn feel appreciated. James, on the other hand, walks into danger like he’s Achilles the Greek Hero. Sanborn naturally feels ‘dissed’. We can only guess as to his real feelings, and he may not know his true feelings either. Does he feel ignored for racial reasons? Or is he angry at James’s reckless game-playing? Or both?
Sanborn, as a black guy, may also feel that HE should be the leader. There is a biological basis to this. Blacks, due to biochemistry, tends to be more assertive, aggressive, and commanding. Blacks generally weigh people’s worth according to physical prowess and charisma, and this means most black guys cannot respect ‘white boys’ as figures of authority. Blacks don’t respect nobody whose ass they can whup.
Now, this doesn’t mean that Sanborn is a typical black guy. It may well be that lots of black males are not typically black and just wanna lead peaceful normal lives–especially if they’re matured in yrs. But, there could be an element of racial resentment in Sanborn when his anger boils over with James. After the second mission when Sanborn is ‘dissed’ again, he strikes James in the face. James takes it in stride–like a big bear that got scratched by a cougar–, and that seems to be that. Sanborn perhaps thought he had to teach the ‘white boy’ a lesson not to mess with a badass ‘nigga’.
And we may even surmise that William James’s reckless courage has a racial tone as well. Since whites cannot top blacks in strength and power, the only area left is daring and courage. It’s like "you may have a bigger dick, but I got bigger balls." Indeed, the military–especially the more exclusive special forces–has become a kind of ersatz sports team for a lot of white guys who can’t make it into college/professional sports dominated by blacks. Gun is the great equalizer. This is why so many angry, frustrated, and resentful white males–who are sick of blacks winning in sports and taking more and more blonde blue-eyed babes as their sexual prize–load up on guns and more guns. Facebook is filled with seething white males who desperately try to reclaim and demonstrate their manhood by posting photos of themselves holding pistols or uploading videos of them blasting away with semi-automatic rifles. They put on a "I’m an angry white warrior" facial expression which looks rather silly on a social networking site known more for quizzes, games, and virtual gifts. You bet they are fantasizing about shooting a whole bunch of left-wing Jews and black males–and possibly ‘race traitor’ white females who are into ‘jungle fever’.
　
Anyway, HL has surprises. William James’s approach to people is very much like his approach to bombs. He takes his time and works at his own pace. After Sanborn attacks him, he doesn’t show anger or blow up at Sanborn’s face. He doesn’t apologize either. You’d think the score is Sanborn 1 James 0. But there is more to James than meets the eye. It’s not that he’s someone who holds grudges forever; rather, he’s someone who has to see things through. So after an evening of carousing, he confronts Sanborn in a game of who-can-punch-whose-gut-hardest?
Sanborn surely has the natural edge since black bones and muscle are harder, but James is slightly the bigger guy and has much greater mental will. Sanborn, as tough as he is, cringes in pain and screams like a child–or even a little girl–when James gains control by sitting atop him. Though the punch-the-gut match is more or less even on the physical level, James wins the mental aspect of it. So, their rivalry score stands throughout the movie at James 2 Sanborn 1.
　
Sanborn is interesting as he’s both a fully realized individual AND a shopworn black stereotype we’ve seen in many movies. How can this be? We’ll have to credit the skillful writing and directing of Boal and Bigelow. Sanborn is, to an extent, what we might call a reverse-stereotype. In our ‘progressive’ society which disdains racial stereotypes even as it promotes them–blacks as studly athletes, Muslims as swarthy terrorists, Jews as wits, funny-accented Asian-Indian convenience store owners, Chinese computer geeks and William Hung, Italian mobsters, Mexicans-who-look-and-sound-like-Guillermo-on-the-Jimmy-Kimmel-Show, Teutonic Germanic types–, we are sometimes treated to the anti- or counter-stereotype as if we are all about ‘judging people by the content of their character’. So, we see the dumb mild-mannered Jew–like Ross on the TV show FRIENDS–, a loud and brash Asian girl, a very normal father-knows-best-like gay boy, or a self-controlled and reliable black guy.
In reality, we generally associate blackness with jive-assery, and indeed GUNNER PALACE did a wonderful job of showing the difference in attitudes among rapping & trash-talking black soldiers and white soldiers who were either more laid back or more conscientious(especially among the higher ranks). The way some of the brothas were rappin’ in GUNNER PALACE, you’d think Iraq War was the biggest baddest gang warfare they ever done seen.
To this extent, Sanborn could be said to be an anti-stereotype, which too is a form of stereotype. An anti-stereotype doesn’t necessarily favor reality over caricature but merely replaces one caricature(negative) with another(positive). But Sanborn is more because he’s so well realized and brought to life. He has credibility as a realistic character.
But as an anti-stereotype, he recalls the black guy in DAWN OF THE DEAD, Angela Bassett in STRANGE DAYS, Danny Glover in LETHAL WEAPON, the Boat Chief in APOCALYPSE NOW, and many others. He may even remind us of Woody Strode character in MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE. If so, the anti-stereotype of the solid, stable, and straight-arrow black guy may partly be a ‘progressive’ reworking of the old stereotype of the loyal Negro.
In DAWN, the short white guy was the adventurer and gambler while the black guy was cautious and methodical. We have a similar dynamic in HL. More interestingly, the racial dynamic of STRANGE DAYS–also directed by Bigelow from a rotten script by James Cameron–was similar to one in HL. In both SD and HL, it is a white guy who has a mad obsession while a black character tries to restrain him and bring him back down to Earth. If SD is really a sleazy and stupid movie and the Bassett character was too-good-and-badass-to-be-true, this can’t be said for HL. To be sure, SD is sci-fi apocalyptic fantasy whereas HL is a realistic war drama, but SD would have been better without the Cameronian excesses and simple-mindedness.
　
I don’t know what the ‘white nationalist’ crowd would make of a movie like HURT LOCKER. My guess they would have loved it if it didn’t have the ‘positive’ black male character. Of course, there is a wide range of ‘white nationalism’, from those who believe that the West should be white-majority nations–sites like Vdare.com–to those still admire Adolf Hitler and deny the Holocaust–Stormfront and other such moronic sites. There is also defensive white nationalism–in response to the rise of the Obama regime, tide of illegal immigration, and affirmative action–as opposed to aggressive white nationalism–the kind of idiots who think everything would have been great if Japan and Germany won WWII.
Whatever the case, the presence of the black guy will be most troublesome to white nationalists. Black service in the military is welcome to many white conservatives but anathema to white nationalists–who aren’t necessarily conservative–Christian, capitalist, and/or individualist.
Many white conservatives hope that black military service will boost patriotism in the black community. Gee, maybe patriotic blacks will even join the GOP!!! White conservatives also see the military as the most effective institution that can train, discipline, and humanize unruly black males into constructive members of society. For a long time, Colin Powell was the wet-dream among white conservatives. Indeed, how nice if the military could turn more blacks into Colin Powells–or so that was the hope until Powell showed his real black nationalist face and endorsed his brotha Obama. If Saul Alinsky provided Obama with his rule book, it seems Powell’s career was ordained along the lines of the movie THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJGD5NAQwc8&feature=PlayList&p=499F675FC139EC95&index=0
　
White nationalists, unlike mainstream white conservatives, regard blacks as the MAIN enemy. Though white nationalists cooked up high-sounding anti-war rhetoric for opposing the American Empire and foreign wars, their main reason for opposing foreign wars is that many of them want to prepare for the REAL WAR in America–the race war between whites and the blacks, with browns caught somewhere in the middle. White nationalists wonder why we are wasting our resources and men against Iraqis and possibly Iranians who can’t possibly do us any harm when it is the blacks who are beating up ‘white boys’, taking white women–by rape or seduction–, and driving white folks out of high-crime integrated neighborhoods. Why are we over in Iraq when we are being invaded along the Southwest border by Illegal Mexicans and over-productive ‘poon cannons’ of anchor-baby muchachas? Why are we trying to save the world when the (Third)world is flooding into the US and European countries?
To white nationalists, the priorities of the American government–Democratic or Republican–make absolutely no sense. Worse, in fighting all these foreign wars, the US military needs as many recruits as it can get. Many of them are black and even possibly illegal Mexicans. Whites having to fight alongside blacks and illegal Mexicans in places like Iraq and Afghanistan compels all of them to be a band of brothers. They must rely on each other to fight, kill, and survive–as blacks and whites did in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, blacks asked, "why we be fightin’ the gooks when they aint called us no ‘nigger’?" but whites could have just as well asked, "why are we fighting the gooks when they never raped our women and pussified white men into a bunch of faggoty-maggoty-assed dorks?"
The main threat to black Americans have always been white Americans, and vice versa. Even during the peak of the Cold War, there was far less chance of Soviets nuking the US than white women getting raped by blacks, white businesses getting burnt to the ground by blacks, white males getting beaten up by blacks, white people being robbed and murdered in their homes by blacks, and so on. Soviet were a distant enemy that could be held at bay. Blacks were within the walls of America and wreaking havoc on white society through crime and destroying white male pride and confidence by whupping the ‘white boy’ in the streets, in the ring, and on the sporting fields.
For white nationalists, there can be no easy truce with blacks. BLIND SIDE is for naive white conservatives as far as white nationalists are concerned. If mainstream conservatism is still informed by a good-willed and all-embracing Christianity–conservative churches are at the forefront of adopting and bringing lots of African and Haitian babies to America–, white nationalism long ago gave up hope of racial harmony. Not all or even most white nationalists call for a Race War, but many have a very bleak view of the future. They think whites must stick together just as other races are vying for their own slice of tribal power.
The good-willed nature of white conservatives is partly sincere, partly disingenuous. As Christians who believe in America-as-the-city-on-a-hill, they really seem to want to do good. But their excessive show of compassion to blacks and Jews is a means to overcome the sins of the Right associated to slavery and the Holocaust. Though they oppose liberal statism, they are eager to show that they CARE MORE for blacks than even liberals do. In BLIND SIDE, a conservative white family takes a huge-ass Negro kid into their own living room. It’s not just a case of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner but Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Staying to Fill Up His Fat Black Ass(and become a famous athlete and have sex with lots of white women). Of course, what we are shown is a jolly looking de-sexualized Fat Albert type when in fact your average big black guy brought into a white house will soon be ogling and even fondling the missus and the daughter–who may actually like it, as young kids’ main passion today is jungle-feverish rap music and hip-hop.
The main reason for black problem isn’t slavery but biology. No amount of white conservative good-will or redemption can fix this. As for the guilt trip over the Holocaust and the mindless GOP support of Israel, why should white Americans feel guilt over what Germans did? Do white Americans feel guilt for what Japanese did in China? One could say white Americans didn’t try to enter the war and save Jews until the attack on Pearl Harbor, but did Jews try to save Ukrainians from Stalin or the Cambodians from the Khmer Rouge?
I suppose one could argue that White Americans and Nazi Germans were of a similar cultural lineage with deep roots in antisemitism, but one could argue that American Jews and Soviet Jews also shared a long and deep radical, subversive, and ideological lineage. If white American gentiles must feel guilt for the Holocaust, then American Jew should feel guilt for the evils of communism. Of course, the real problem is Jews are rich and smart, bought off nearly all the major media outlets and control most of the academia. They control the brain centers, so even most white conservatives think in terms and ideas framed by the Jews–leftists, liberals, and neocons.
　
Anyway, the thing is the military necessarily draws the various races closer. Whites, blacks, and browns must all fight together, especially in wars cooked up by liberal Zionists and Jewish neoconservatives. White nationalists feel that their main enemies are blacks and liberal/leftist Jews. If whites should fight any people, it’s the blacks. If whites should bring down any power, it is the JEPE–Jewish Power Elite.
White nationalists respect the military and what it stands for, but they see it as hopelessly compromised and perverted by racial diversity and by its being subordinate to civilian government which is no longer that of the white majority but of the Jewish liberal power elite which is using blacks and illegal aliens from Mexico to undermine and destroy white power and well-being. Worse, more and more white females in the military are going with black officers and soldiers, further pussifying white males who can only watch with resentment and envy. Whites males feel doubly emasculated–by PC and by the stronger blacks. If a white guy in the military complained about interracist or interracial relationships, he’ll either be court-martialed and dishonorably discharged and/or get beaten up by the black guy to the merriment of his white ‘race traitor’ girlfriend.
So, from this angle, HURT LOCKER may seem like just another Hollywood Neocon liberal Zionist interracist fantasy to white nationalist types.
　
But not all or even most white nationalists regard art and culture purely in propagandistic or ideological terms. Not everyone is as myopic as Richard Hoste for whom racial purism is just about the only lens through which to judge and understand society. Only a myopically jaded person like Hoste would underhandedly praise North Korea because of its racial purism. Never mind it is one of the most psychotic and miserable places on Earth. Hey, so what? They have a racial policy to give Nazi policies a run for the money.
Hoste’s view of HURT LOCKER is no less myopic. Though we should note and discuss the ‘subversive’ elements in HL in relation to white nationalist interests, our understanding and appreciation of art and culture should go beyond the Nazi-esque obsession with race. Hoste is so ideologically one-dimensional that he can praise a psycho-state like North Korea because it’s racially homogeneous–never mind North Korea is gives racial homogeneity a bad name–while dismissing an excellent and multi-faceted movie like HURT LOCKER because it has, by golly, a ‘positive’ black guy. This is perhaps why the Left and Jews are far ahead on the field in the appreciation and creation of arts and culture. Even as the Left and Jews may detest the politics or views of a Richard Wagner or Louis-Ferdinand Celine, they know great art when the see, hear, or read one. Not that HL is some super masterpiece, but we should be able to be able to appreciate it something other than a simple PC propaganda on racial progress.
　
Bigelow isn’t and will never be a great master. At best, she is a superior filmmaker with a fair amount of ambition which, thankfully, isn’t as strained as that of her ex-hubby James Cameron. The godawful STRANGE DAYS–which is more interesting to think about than to watch–was very ambitious but it had Cameron’s fingerprints all over it. Bigelow at her best seems to know her limitations. Even so, she seems unable to escape the habit of artiness in most of her pictures. If I like K-19: WIDOWMAKER the most, it’s because it’s the most conventional. When Bigelow goes for personal style, she tends to falter, and HURT LOCKER is no exception. My biggest gripe against the film is the artiness around the edges. The artiness isn’t enough to kill the movie but it can be irritating. Some people have complained about the hand-held camera style, but that’s not the main problem. Rather it is arty and self-conscious use of that style. What we end up is a kind of unnatural naturalism. It would have been less troublesome if the film had been shot by an amateur documentarian in a slapdash manner. Whether one likes the hand-held camera style or not, such would have been straightforward and honest–and even compelling–, like so many uploaded footage of war we’ve seen all over the internet. Unfortunately, what we get in HL is a very calculated and self-conscious kind of naturalism. It’s kinda like prole hands with fancy finger nail polish.
　
Worse, some of the jerky camera movement isn’t very purposeful but arbitrarily arty, possibly the worst kind of artiness. Instead of calling attention to the raw ‘reality’, it calls attention to itself. Now, consider what Steven Spielberg was able to achieve in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. SPR has a rather syrupy and ridiculous plot, the writing isn’t all that good, and the acting is ho-hum, but it is a visual action masterpiece, especially in the opening scene. Even the slightest camera movement bounces off a certain stimuli, danger, fear, anxiety, violence, etc. The camera shakes with the tremors of war. Come to think of it, it’s as though the camera is desperately seeking order and balance in a world being torn asunder. Human senses normally seek order and balance, and so the tumultuous visuals seem natural than forced in SPR. It’s as if the camera is being shaken against its will than for the hell of it. It’s the POV of chaos seeking order than vice versa. In HURT LOCKER, there are many scenes where the camera needlessly lurches about even when not much is happening. Why? Still, it’s not a fatal flaw, and we kinda get used to it like we get used to mosquitos at a picnic.
Besides, when Bigelow gets it right, she gets it very right. The best scene in the movie is when our guys come upon British mercenaries dressed up as Arabs. Soon, a firefight breaks out with Iraqi insurgents hidden in a far-off bunker, and Bigelow lets the scene languish under the merciless sun. This is the most surreal scene in the film, almost like a cross between Bunuel and Sergio Leone. It is a duel to the death that feels both desperate and eternal. The insurgents are hidden in a bunker while out guys are under the hammering rays of the sun. They grow more dehydrated by the minute. They don’t even know if they’ve killed all the insurgents or not. Pinned down, all they can do is wait and wait, as they slip in and out of hallucinatory slumber.
There’s more to this scene than struggle for survival. It could also be a matter of pride, and pride too is a drug, an addiction. Like a video game player who has to make it to the next level, Sanborn may feel a prideful need to finish off all the enemy.
　
This scene is also full of surprises. Ralph Fiennes–star of STRANGE DAYS–makes an appearance as a dashing and courageous–if also rather uncouth–war adventurer; he’s the kind of guy whom bullets usually evade or bump off of in movies. He gets shot stone cold dead. It is then Sanborn takes over the rifle, and we expect a dramatic shootout that will end the scene in a bang. But, the scene stretches on and on until we don’t know what to expect anymore and finally ends with a whimper than a bang. It may be the best thing Bigelow ever did, something even Spielberg cannot touch.
　
All said and done, a fine film.