To The Australian           The death of Roger Scruton invites us to consider the nature of conservatism and the role it might play in the coming life of our own nation ("Life of a contrary don", 14/1). Scruton's horror of mob violence witnessed in France in 1968 alerted him to the need to oppose the revolutionary doctrine (it is nonsense) of human equality. He soon grasped that high culture was a vital bulwark in the defence of the ways of the elders. You are right ("Roger Scruton's brilliant mind") to applaud this life lived in devotion to "beauty, reason and tradition". However, the essence of conservatism is the honouring of the sacred, of the mystery of the holy; and Scruton does not seem to have been strong enough on this. Australians also tend at present to adopt a cavalier attitude to this source of truth, hence the current confusion generally in our intellectual forums. We can learn from Scruton, but we can learn more from the world's great sacred traditions and their wisest exponents.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

To The Australian         Nadia Schadlow quotes Thomas Mann ("Come the hour, come the Mann", 15/1) as having believed that "democratic nations were at risk of separating their lofty ideals from inescapable realities", by which he presumably meant the self-interested machinations of the powerful and ruthless. She should have added to the demons of fascism and communism the current ongoing tyranny of the super-rich. She is right, of course, to champion the dignity of man, the open society and political freedom for the individual; but where both she and Mann may be in error is in their conviction that democracy is the best form of political order. "Rule of the people" is not so very attractive when you look at the behaviour of lots and lots of people! Perhaps aristocracy ("rule of the best") is superior, but how to transition to it in an age of globalisation, digital infrastructure, excessive surveillance and loss of autonomy is a question not easy to answer. However, the West's uncertainty and depleted confidence in democracy suggest that the effort should be made.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic
    

     Marvel has announced that a trans character is coming very soon in a film … I can hardly wait. They have begun the woke, politically correct push with the Captain Marvel film, which did ok riding on Avengers: Endgame, but most other woke films have gone belly up, especially the no doubt final Terminator movie, Cats, and Charlie’s Angels, all with an over-the -top feminist ideology:
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/12/31/video-marvel-studios-president-says-trans-character-coming-very-soon-in-upcoming-film/
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/12/31/hollywoods-most-notable-flops-of-2019-schwarzenegger-charlies-angels-and-cats/
  https://affirmativeright.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-long-goodbye-review-of-star-wars.html
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC-vExHeBII

“Unpopular social justice messages are to blame for some of the biggest failures as Hollywood continues to force feed left-wing ideology to audiences, who are catching wise to the game and rejecting it wholesale. Franchise fatigue was another factor, as creatively bankrupt studios continue to pump out sequels and reboots to diminishing returns. Hollywood is in panic mode. The domestic box office is expected to drop 3.6 percent in 2019 compared to last year, the largest percentage drop in five years. Audiences are shunning the cinemas in favor of at-home entertainment options, which include Netflix and a growing array of competitors. Here are some the year’s most notable box-office flops, and how much each stands to lose.

     The magazine Christianity Today featured a December article arguing that Trump should be removed from office because he is .. well something, immoral I guess.
  https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/21/christianity-todays-op-ed-isnt-attacking-trump-its-defending-christianity/
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/politics/christianity-today-trump-evangelicals.html
  https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/12/23/christianity-today-doubles-down-in-call-for-trump-impeachment/
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/23/franklin-graham-again-slams-christianity-today-for-anti-trump-stance/

“The CEO of the evangelical journal Christianity Today (CT) published an editorial Sunday defending the magazine’s call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. In his essay, CT president and CEO Timothy Dalrymple defends the magazine’s decision to side with those demanding Trump’s removal, saying that CT has received “countless notes of encouragement from readers who were profoundly moved” by its editorial and insisting that the journal is beholden to God alone and not the Democrat party. “Out of love for Jesus and his church, not for political partisanship or intellectual elitism, this is why we feel compelled to say that the alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness,” Dalrymple writes. “It has alienated many of our children and grandchildren. It has harmed African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American brothers and sisters.” Mr. Dalrymple suggests that the perceived alliance between the president and evangelical Christians in the U.S. has hurt the credibility of Christians across the globe. “While the Trump administration may be well regarded in some countries, in many more the perception of wholesale evangelical support for the administration has made toxic the reputation of the Bride of Christ,” Dalrymple writes. As evangelicals we are “associated with President Trump’s rampant immorality, greed, and corruption; his divisiveness and race-baiting; his cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees; and more,” he states.

     The US version of 60 Minutes, has really put a mountain lion amongst the black pigeons with a TV special on the alleged suicide of Jeff Epstein, notorious elite paedophile who had a pleasure island where the elite could go an rape underaged girls, while he filmed it all for blackmail purposes. In the program Dr Michael Baden said: “I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicide hanging.” Numerous pieces of evidence did not fit the suicide hypothesis:
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-autopsy-a-closer-look-60-minutes-2020-01-05/
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fake-noose-60-minutes-shreds-epstein-suicide-theory

“Among the injuries found on Epstein during the autopsy are contusions on both wrists, an abrasion on his left forearm, and deep muscle hemorrhaging in his left shoulder muscle. Photos 60 Minutes reviewed also show an injury to the back of his neck, a cut on his lip, and an injection mark in his arm, though it is unknown whether the latter injuries happened during an attempt to resuscitate Epstein at the hospital. Dr. Baden said small burst capillaries, known as petechiae, found on Epstein's face, mouth, and eyes are often an indication of strangulation. But it was injuries to Epstein's neck that make Dr. Baden call into question the official ruling of suicide. Autopsy photos show fractures of the left and right thyroid cartilage, which sits at the front of the neck, and the left hyoid bone, a u-shaped bone that sits under the jaw and acts as an anchor for the tongue. "I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging," Dr. Baden tells Alfonsi on the broadcast. He added: "Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40–50 years, no one had three fractures."

     We talk a lot about the coming social collapse here, but we are not the only ones, for much raw material can be found in mainstream sites, if one looks. Take California, the great liberal progressive experiment, for example:
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/09/12/why-california-keeps-making-homelessness-worse/amp/

“California is home to some of the world’s toughest environmental and public health laws, but skyrocketing homelessness has created an environmental and public health disaster. The 44,000 people living, eating, and defecating on the streets of L.A. have brought rats and medieval diseases including typhus. Garbage is everywhere. Experts fear the return of cholera and leprosy. And homelessness is making people violent. “We are seeing behaviors from our guests that I’ve never seen in 33 years,” said Bales. “They are so bizarre and different that I don’t even feel right describing the behaviors. It’s extreme violence of an extreme sexual nature. I have been doing this for 33 years and never seen anything like it.” Bales says he was one of the people who urged the US Government’s Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) to intervene. “We’ve been crying out for a National Guard-like response,” said Bales, whose church provides food, showers, and shelter to 1,350 people camped nearby. In 2016 Bales lost the lower half of his leg to a flesh-eating bacteria from contamination on Skid Row. How did things get so bad in California? The state has long prided itself on being humanistic and innovative. It is home to some of the world’s largest public health philanthropies, best hospitals, and most progressive policies on mental health and drug addiction. The Democrats have a supermajority. What went wrong? According to Bales and other experts, California made homelessness worse by making perfect housing the enemy of good housing, by liberalizing drug laws, and by opposing mandatory treatment for mental illness and drug addiction.

     When race hate speech was introduced in various countries, some proponents said that they would like to see the death penalty for those falling foul of this law. Well, Nigeria is now leading the way here:
  https://www.dw.com/en/nigeria-bill-aims-at-punishing-hate-speech-with-death/a-51419750

“While hate speech on social media is a problem affecting the world, not many countries resort to such extreme measures as are in the offing in Nigeria. Ignoring strong criticism, the nation's highest lawmaking body, the Senate, is preparing a law which will make it possible to sentence to death by hanging anybody convicted of spreading hate speech. The Prohibition of Hate Speech Bill is being sponsored by Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, a lawmaker of the ruling All Progressives Congress party. The bill, which was initially thrown out following a barrage of attacks, resurfaced suddenly a fortnight ago, going through two readings in just two weeks. It is a very extensive piece of legislation, which covers a slew of possible wrongdoings, including the publication or presentation of material deemed to stir up ethnic hatred. It also takes aim at written or visual acts seen as threatening, abusive, insulting or offensive.

     If it is linked to the UN, beware, because there will be some globalist agenda on the horizon, something bad, something, evil. Take climate change. Isn’t a matter of just knowing the science and seeing the truth, since all of those bloody scientists back it, don’t they? Don’t they? Well, why then is the idea being floated now of using the UN mercenary armies to kill anyone disagreeing? How democratic is that? What have they got to hide?
  https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/12/03/danish-academic-u-n-might-use-military-to-enforce-climate-agenda/

“The United Nations may resort to military action against states that defy its mandates on global climate action, according to Ole Wæver, a prominent international relations professor at the University of Copenhagen. In an interview with ABC News in Australia, Professor Wæver cautions that what he sees as “climate inaction” might draw the U.N. into considering other means to ensure its goals are met, even if that leads to global armed conflict. Professor Wæver says more resistance to change could potentially threaten democracy although the U.N. would counter that the end justified the means in much the same way countries like Greece had their debt crisis solutions forced on them by European Union bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg. “The United Nations Security Council could, in principle, tomorrow decide that climate change is a threat to international peace and security,” he says. “And then it’s within their competencies to decide ‘and you are doing this, you are doing this, you are doing this, this is how we deal with it’.” He believes classifying climate change as a security issue could leave the door open to more extreme policy responses.”

     Here is yet another book which I have not read, and will not, having no research money, but the local library might be able to get it on interlibrary loans: Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness, Cracks in the Ivory tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, (Oxford, 2019). This is not a critique from the close ‘em down James Reed school, but details the failings of the universities, from immoral fraudulent advertising, to turning a blind eye to student cheating, especially from various ethnic groups, to the marking nonsense. I managed to read a slice of it on Amazon, in its freebee taster section. OK, nothing we are not aware of, but it is one more bit of weaponry to cite in out eternal war against one of the greatest evils in the known universe: universities.
  https://www.amazon.com/Cracks-Ivory-Tower-Higher-Education-ebook/dp/B07NYT5P7C

     I think of academia, following the lead of our own resident alcoholic, James Reed, as being like a toxic waste site, where the deadly poisons eventually leak intro the wider society, destroying all in their glowing green path.
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/idea-laundering-in-academia-11574634492?mod=rsswn

“The reason you’ve heard them is that politically engaged academicians have been developing concepts like these for more than 30 years, and all that time they’ve been percolating. Only recently have they begun to emerge in mainstream culture. These academicians accomplish this by passing off their ideas as knowledge; that is, as if these terms describe facts about the world and social reality. And while some of these ideas may contain bits of truth, they aren’t scientific. By and large, they’re the musings of ideologues. How did this happen? How have those working in what’s come to be called “grievance studies” managed to extend their ideas far beyond the academy, while convincing people that their jargon adds something meaningful to public discourse? Biologist Bret Weinstein, who was run out of Evergreen State College by a leftist mob in 2017, calls the process “idea laundering.” It’s analogous to money laundering. Here’s how it works: First, various academics have strong moral impulses about something. For example, they perceive negative attitudes about obesity in society, and they want to stop people from making the obese feel bad about their condition.

     It has taken some time, but now there is an emerging small degree of criticism of China, not in academia, or much of the media, but a start in parliament:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7752737/Senator-Jacqui-Lambie-slams-Chinas-insidious-influence-infiltration-Australian-politics.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

“A line-up of powerful senators has condemned China's 'insidious' and growing influence on Australia, warning our democracy and way of life are being undermined. One by one they spoke out against the Communist superpower, from the bribing of Labor Party officials to the suspicious death of a Chinese intelligence informer, groomed as a possible Liberal candidate. The outspoken crossbench lawmakers savaged China's growing influence only hours after official figures showed Australia was even more reliant on our major trading partner to prop up the flagging economy. For the first time since 1973, Australia's exports were worth more than the imports for two consecutive quarters - a rare situation known as a current account surplus. Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie accused the Coalition government and the Labor opposition of ignoring the China threat - hours after the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures were released. She stressed her concerns were with the Chinese government and not Chinese immigrants, who first came to Australia during the 1850s gold rush. The major parties joined forces to defeat the call for a Senate inquiry into China.”

     Here is a recently published movie guide for white nationalists, put out by my least favourite site, American Renaissance. Reading the list, very few of the movies have much race realism in it, as defined by that site. Thus, American Psycho is on the list, but the great John Wayne movie the Searchers, regarded as a racial realist movie here, reviewed by our own John Steele:
  https://blog.alor.org/index.php/the-searchers-testosterone-and-racial-realismby-john-steele
  https://mjolnirmagazine.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/film-review-searchers-john-fords-look.html

     Doesn’t appear on the list at all. Nor do we see this years’ anti-immigration classic, Rambo: Last Blood. No doubt too much fire power there for the gentle Asian IQ worshipping folk.
  https://www.amren.com/commentary/2019/12/pro-white-conservative-movie-guide/

     This is highly significant – a transgender trailblazer, one of the first has now gone back and reclaimed the male sex:
  https://www.theepochtimes.com/transgender-trailblazer-legally-reclaims-male-sex_3192279.html

“An Oregon court that granted the first individual legal recognition for his “non-binary” sex designation has rescinded the status and restored the sex on his birth certificate to “male.” In a dramatic repudiation of the transgenderism movement and the industry that supports it, the request for the change came from James Shupe, an icon of transgender activism, who denounced the movement and the idea that one can change one’s sex as a fraud. “I’m saying my experience should very much serve as a cautionary tale, to everyone, from males like me with sexual paraphilias and false beliefs about being women, to the lawyers, doctors, judges, therapists, and lawmakers that allowed this whole sordid tale to happen,” Shupe told The Epoch Times via email. Paraphilias, according to WebMD, are “abnormal sexual behaviors or impulses characterized by intense sexual fantasies and urges that keep coming back.” News of Shupe’s restored male sex status broke in a Dec. 31 interview with Tyler O’Neil of PJMedia. “The charade of not being male, the legal fiction, it’s over,” Shupe said.”

     Remember the old line that diversity is a strength? Does this mean that there cannot be any negative side to the diversity ideology? Presumably so. But that seems absurd, since every doctrine has counter-arguments against it, even such things as the nature of existence. Thus, the diversity ideology was only intended to be marketed in the early stages, before mass migration developed a mind and momentum of its own.
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/22/italy-nigerian-mafia-forcing-girls-as-young-as-twelve-into-prostitution/

“According to testimony from a teen girl who escaped sexual slavery at the hands of the Nigerian mafia in Italy, the organised crime syndicate has forced girls as young as twelve to become prostitutes. The testimony comes from a 15-year-old Nigerian girl who told prosecutors in the city of Bologna that she had been sold to the mafia by her father in Nigeria and smuggled illegally into Italy through the Mediterranean migrant route, Il Giornale reports. One in Italy, the young girl was put under the control of a so-called “Maman”, an older woman who has often been a former prostitute themselves. Intercepted phone conversations between a Maman and others revealed that the Nigerian mafia prefers to use illegal migration to bring in young girls rather than air travel due to the lack of oversight and regulations. The woman, who is said to be 26, also claimed that she knew of a 12-year-old girl who had been forced to prostitute herself. She later complained about the 15-year-old who ran away to Italian authorities, telling the young girl’s father, “I bought her a 300 Euro phone too, but nothing has changed. She doesn’t respond, she’s unruly.”

     We don’t hear much about this, but Japan, with its low birth rate, is also being subjected to immigration, not for replacement, as in the West, but on economic grounds, for the capitalists to keep the profits up. It is causing untold problems in this still relatively homogeneous population:
  https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/over-30-of-japanese-managers-feel-intense-stress-from-working-with-foreigners-survey

“In recent years, an increasing number of foreigners have been finding jobs in Japan, and not just in humanities and international services roles like teaching and translation. As more non-Japanese workers start joining the general-purpose Japanese workforce, though, some of their Japanese bosses are struggling with the changes to the business landscape, as shown in a recent survey by Japanese employment agency Persol Group. In a survey of Japanese managers with foreign subordinates, 34.3 percent of the 872 respondents reported that they feel intense stress because of the challenges the situation presents. Moreover, 17.2 percent of the managers of foreign workers said that if they could, they would like to quit their jobs immediately.

     I have been following articles on the net about the likelihood of World War III following Trump’s order of the assassination of Iran’s Soleimani. The neo cons have been quite openly rejoicing about the coming global war, for they are usually evangelical Christians, hoping that this Armageddon will bring on the Second Coming.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/world-war-iii-trending-twitter-iran-hawks-rejoice
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/red-flag-jihad-raised-1000s-mourn-death-suleimani-baghdad
  https://saraacarter.com/president-trump-to-iran-if-you-retaliate-we-will-hit-you-very-fast-and-very-hard/?utm_source=izooto&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=iran&utm_content=&utm_term=

     The fear of a new draft, or what we call conscription, led to the Selective Service System website crashing, as anxious young people sought information. Hopefully World War III will be over quickly this time, and people left alive will be able to pick up the radioactive fragments of Western civilisation and see if anything can be put back together. Probably not.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/selective-service-website-crashes-amid-wwiii-draft-fears 
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/no-more-threats-trump-warns-iran-52-targets-will-be-hit-very-fast-hard

To The Australian        Commenting on monarchy (11-12/1), Michael Schilling expresses a dislike of its "degree of social elitism and inequality by birth that should not be part of an ideal world." However, the truth is that human societies always need to enshrine their leaders in a blaze of glory that inevitably contradicts the foolish advocacy of political equality. People need elites to brighten their lives and stimulate their dreams. Think the wealthy, think celebrities of all kinds, think heroes and heroines. Schilling's invocation of "contemporary reality" and "individualism" is also questionable. Some realities do not change with time and the glory of monarchy is one of them. There is no comparable glory of republics. As for individualism, this is sometimes good but sometimes not. We must not confuse worthwhile creativity and courageous independence with selfishness.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     With all the nonsense talk about extinction from climate change it is good that former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is focusing on the real extinction threat facing the West, which is coming up real fast now. The death of the West is happening right now, in real time:
  https://buchanan.org/blog/our-real-existential-crisis-extinction-137964

“For many First World countries, there are more compelling concerns. High among them is population decline, and, if birth rates do not rise, the near-extinction of many Western peoples by this century’s end. Consider. The number of births in Japan fell in 2019 to a level unseen since 1874, around 900,000. But there were 1.4 million deaths for a net loss of 512,000 Japanese. An even larger loss in Japan’s population is expected this year. Japan’s population has been shrinking since 2007, when deaths first exceeded births by 18,000. And with 28% of its population over 65, and fewer births every passing year, Japan is aging, shrinking and dying — with no respite in sight. Across Japan, writes The New York Times: “Whole villages are vanishing as young people choose not to have children or move to urban areas … The Government estimates that the population could shrink by about 16 million people — or nearly 13 percent — over the next 25 years.” South Korea has an even lower birth rate, and its population is expected to start diminishing this year. But it is Eastern Europe where the population crisis is most advanced.

To The Age        John Pinniger is wrong (11/1) to describe our monarchy as "a failing organisation that is becoming less relevant by the day". Perhaps the truth is the other way around: that there is a danger of the Australian people failing the Crown. Our constitutional monarchy brings a special grace into our lives that no republic can ever do. It calls on us to bow to the sacred and to live lives for the benefit of the common good rather than for selfish pleasure. It helps maintain a national memory of our history, its grandeur and the examples of our heroes. It offers a focus of national unity beyond party politics. It is a fair bet that if the republicans triumph here, it will not be long before a sizable majority of Australians yearn for a return of the monarchy; but by then the stable door will have been long opened and the horse bolted, alas!
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave

     I wish that I had a dollar for every time I read or heard that the bushfires were a product of climate change. Why, I would buy enough alcohol to put myself well and truly out of this misery, perhaps permanently! Just joking. Seriously though, the bushfires are a product of lack of clearly of vegetation, and having crazy fire bugs lighting up the place.
  https://phys.org/news/2020-01-wildlife-ravaged-australia-decades-recover.html
  https://summit.news/2020/01/03/australian-police-say-arsonists-lightning-to-blame-for-bushfires-not-climate-change/

“Authorities in Australia are working on the premise that arsonists and lightning strikes are to blame for bushfires that have devastated numerous areas of the country, not “climate change” as many global warming alarmists have claimed. Since November, the fires have struck various regions of the state of New South Wales, destroying thousands of buildings and killing at least 22 people. Despite the fact that bushfires are not uncommon in Australia, the severity of the damage led numerous climate change alarmists to blame the disaster on man-made global warming. Earlier this week, Bernie Sanders blamed those who were “delaying action on climate change” for “the blood-red sky and unbreathable air in Australia because of raging forest fires.” However, according to those tasked with investigating the fires, climate change has nothing to do with it. “Police are now working on the premise arson is to blame for much of the devastation caused this bushfire season,” reports 7 News Sydney. Authorities in the country have formed Strike Force Indarra, comprising of detectives from homicide and arson units in an attempt to find the culprits. Other causes for the fires include lightning strikes and a natural weather phenomenon called Dipole, again neither of which have anything to do with man-made climate change. Many bushfires are also actually caused by environmentalist ‘green’ policies which prevent land owners from clearing their own vegetation to protect themselves. “Governments appeasing the green beast have ignored numerous state and federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of “prescribed burning,” writes Miranda Devine. “Also known as “hazard reduction”, it is a methodical regime of burning off flammable ground cover in cooler months, in a controlled fashion, so it does not fuel the inevitable summer bushfires.”