Mr. Auster, being a traditionalist conservative, calls this “a catastrophe for America, for Western civilization, for the white race, and for the whole world.”
To which I would add: Unless you like burritos. (I love burritos!)
Actually, I think it’s worth discussing how America is different with a 67 percent white majority compared with an 89 percent white majority (as in 1965, when the immigration floodgates were opened). It’s certainly worth speculating how America might change as the white majority shrinks toward 50 percent.
I am not an open-borders guy. Maybe some sort of immigration moratorium is a good idea, so we can absorb the millions of new foreigners already in our midst.
But I’d like to remind Larry Auster of one thing. The last time Congress acted to restrict immigration – back in 1924 – Auster’s own Jewish immigrant grandparents were the sort of people that the white majority wanted to keep out.For a bit of historical perspective, let’s read the words of Madison Grant (pictured), one of the ideological godfathers of the Immigration Act of 1924. To Mr. Grant, it is Lawrence Auster’s presence in America that represents a catastrophe for the white race.
Here’s some of what Madison Grant wrote in his 1916 treatise, “The Passing of the Great Race”:
MADISON GRANT: [T]he view that the Negro slave was an unfortunate cousin of the white man, deeply tanned by the tropic sun and denied the blessings of Christianity and civilization, played no small part with the sentimentalists of the Civil War period and it has taken us fifty years to learn that speaking English, wearing good clothes and going to school and to church do not transform a Negro into a white man. …
Americans will have a similar experience with the Polish Jew, whose dwarf stature, peculiar mentality and ruthless concentration on self-interest are being engrafted upon the stock of the nation.
Recent attempts have been made in the interest of inferior races among our immigrants to show that the shape of the skull does change, not merely in a century, but in a single generation.
In 1910, the report of the anthropological expert of the Congressional Immigration Commission gravely declared that a round skull Jew on his way across the Atlantic might and did have a round skull child; but a few years later, in response to the subtle elixir of American institutions as exemplified in an East Side tenement, might and did have a child whose skull was appreciably longer…. In other words the Melting Pot was acting instantly under the influence of a changed environment.
What the Melting Pot actually does in practice can be seen in Mexico, where the absorption of the blood of the original Spanish conquerors by the native Indian population has produced the racial mixture which we call Mexican and which is now engaged in demonstrating its incapacity for self-government.
… Whether we like to admit it or not, the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized and lower type. The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew. …
The result of unlimited immigration is showing plainly in the rapid decline in the birth rate of native [white] Americans because the poorer classes of Colonial stock, where they still exist, will not bring children into the world to compete in the labor market with the Slovak, the Italian, the Syrian and the Jew.
The native American is too proud to mix socially with them and is gradually withdrawing from the scene, abandoning to these aliens the land which he conquered and developed. The man of the old stock is being crowded out of many country districts by these foreigners just as he is to-day being literally driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews.
These immigrants adopt the language of the native American, they wear his clothes, they steal his name and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race.
The comment about Polish Jews reminded me of this:
ReplyDeleteCan a Jew join the KKK?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9CKq_qIXsIo
That was cool, SJ! I like that Safran guy.
ReplyDeleteOne of friendson EbonyFriends.com and I both read the article, we think it is funny, if we can join, we must do it.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
That was quite an interesting video. This guy certainly has guts and, as is shown in the video, apparently good wit as well, since he posed some questions the KKK's 'grand dragon' found impossible to adequately answer. It is a common flaw in such organizations; there seems to be some measure logic in what they believe at first glance, but there actually is none. If Safran's questions could not be answered, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the organization's principles, meaning there is a distinct lack of logic. The issue Safran referred to with regard to the bloodline is quite similar to Auster's and Hitler's who had 25% Jewish blood flowing through his veins. The essence defining a person is apparently not determined by descent but by his or her beliefs. The logic in bloodline structures is evident, the reason in person's beliefs is not in many cases. This is the area where the elite operates. It is how Auster's perception became affected and it is where he clouds other people's views as well. And all the while, like this video clearly showed, guys like him make fools of themselves when they fail to answer questions that require them to explain the logic in their convictions. Only fools appreciate an audience of fools.
ReplyDeleteGrant refers to the three European races. UBM, being a race researcher of extreme diligence, can you enlighten us? I don't think the Tour de France is one of those races.
ReplyDeleteHit wrong key
ReplyDeleteFeh. I might have to start calling myself beige out of pure embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteNot only were Eastern European Jews kept out by the 1924 act, Auster's predecessors (ideologically, not ethno-religiously, speaking) worked hard to prevent any exceptions to the Act's provisions after the rise of you-know-who in you-know-where.
ReplyDeleteI'm not comparing Auster to anyone: I'm saying that any attempt to halt immigration for what amounts to concerns about race and/or ethnicity carries a heavy burden of proof.
RC: Happy to oblige. By Madison Grant’s theory, the three European races are the Alpine race (“of Eastern and Asiatic origin,” and prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Slavs… basically, “a race of peasants”); the Mediterranean race (much of Spain and Portugal, but also abundant in France, the British Isles, Southern Italy, etc.); and, of course, the Nordic race.
ReplyDeleteThe Nordics of Northern European Grant describes as “the white man par excellence” – fair-skinned, fair-haired, light-eyed. “The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant and democratic character of the Alpines.”
If the name and theories of Madison Grant seem buried in the dustbin of history, well… those bright fellows at American Renaissance are still selling his writings. They call him a hero:
“Perhaps more than any other man, Madison Grant created what we might call the ‘racialist moment’ in American history. … He joined, chaired, and often founded its organizations. He counted among his closest associates U.S. Presidents, top industrialists, best-selling writers, and some of the greatest scientists of the time.”
I wish the old boy were alive today, so I could buy him a burrito.
Henry Ford also thought that Jewish immigration into the US represented a catastrophe for America, the White race and the West. He bought and for several years funded a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, through which he communicated to America and the World the calamitous results for the US of 'The International Jew' (also the title of the 4 volumes collecting what were, if I recall correctly, the Independent's editorials on the Jewish question. And a fascinating read it is, too).
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of people who will always remember what Auster imagines he can obscure with white nationalist verbiage: namely that he is a Jew and that Jews are 'different.'
As you point out, there is no logical stopping point once you accept the principle of white nationalism and start ordering (or as they would evasively claim, 'distinguishing') races. Grant and his like-minded contemporary Lothrop Stoppard saw an intra-racial hierarchy within the White race, with Germanics at the top, Slavs at the bottom, and Latins (whose early pre-eminence in civilisation was too blatant to be denied) representing a fall from greatness into decadence. Jews were usually regarded as falling outside the White race, being alien, oriental interlopers (this view was not confined to the right: decades before Grant and Stoppard opined so fulsomely on this topic, Proudhon had declared that the Jew must either be exterminated or driven back into his Asiatic homeland!).
That's why Auster's stand as The Great White Nationalist is as risible as it's delusional: many who share his opinion in this respect wouldn't even recognise him as a member of the White race, and some of those have in the past already demonstrated that they don't consider anyone like him a member of the human race. A Jewish Nazi really ought to be a contradiction in terms.
But Auster's curious - though always entertaining - ethnic schizophrenia aside, aren't you too dismissive of the role of ethnicity in national identity, David? Every established nation is a product of its history, which is informed by its culture, which is in turn related to its ethnicity. To take one example: all Anglo-Saxon countries have a distinct family resemblance re their institutions, values and high-levels of political competence. Another example occurs to me: all Arab countries also closely resemble each other, but as a sort of cultural bizarro counterpart to the Anglo-Saxon countries. The Palestinians have been yearning, stone-throwing and organising for their own state for decades: as soon as they get it it turns out to be just another corrupt, violent, and generally unpleasant Arab state. But most astute commentators expected that, just as they expect Iraq to be a disaster whether US troops stay or leave.
I do believe that the ethnic composition of a state has real consequences for its welfare (it is, for example, part of Japan's good luck to be so homogeneous as to have no need to devote resources to managing ethnic conflict; contrast that with the eternal ethnic rivalries and conflicts that have ruined the prospects of most sub-Saharan African states). If that's the case, then immigration can justifiably be controlled - or even suspended, or further still, reversed - in the interests of the existing, established population. That much is implied in Auster's statement - if we leave aside his now habitual manner of expressing himself in the hyperbole-charged screams of an hysterical drama-queen - and that much of Auster's position is, I think, valid and true, whatever damage it may do to anybody's ear-drums.
p.s. - Kevin Macdonald, in his trilogy about sociobiology and so-called 'Jewish evolutionary strategies', gives a plausible argument about why it would have been better for America to have excluded as many people like Lawrence Auster from entering as immigrants. I've seen a lot of abuse heaped on his work (including screaming denunciations by the Grand Dame of White Nationalism, Auster himself), but nothing that comes close to resembling a refutation. The sociobiological arguments in the books are redundant, if not ridiculous (as if every group with a conscious sense of itself didn't behave in the same way); the political, cultural and economic arguments, however, are very weighty.
VictorK
Victor: Thanks so much for the meaty commentary. Many points I'd like to respond to...
ReplyDeleteFord's "The International Jew" is indeed a fascinating read. I bought my copy nearly 20 years ago... in a black-owned bookstore! (Where you could also buy tapes of Farrakhan speeches, etc.)
If you don't mind my correcting you, Grant's contemporary was named Lothrop Stoddard, for the sake of anyone who might want to read more about him and his 1920 treatise, "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy." (Stoddard's also a hero to the American Renaissance set.)
You ask: "... aren't you too dismissive of the role of ethnicity in national identity, David?"
I don't mean to be. Which is why I made a point of saying we should publicly discuss the ramifications of America's shrinking white majority. (Even though this post wasn't devoted to such a discussion, but to a reminder that we've been here before in terms of the wailing and gnashing of teeth concerning immigration.)
I don't wish to bully anyone into silence about the shrinking-white-majority question. But the restrictionists (especially those who may be Jewish, Slavic, Italian or Irish Catholic) should acknowledge the white Establishment's race panic of the 1920s and ponder what it means for today.
What black folks and liberals need to ponder is, as you say, the degree to which America's high level of political competence is due to the high "civilizational" standard (to borrow a word from Auster) of its white majority.
Of course, I think individual blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, etc. -- if thoroughly assimilated -- can uphold that high civilizational standard, and can be mayors and judges and college presidents, and keep the institutions running well. But I'll never lose sight of the fact that those institutions spring from the Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition.
Rather than just pick on the white racialists who worry about the "rising tide of color," maybe I should do my part to publicly discuss the big "civilizational" question, and encourage others of good will to do likewise.
It's a minority of minorities who have that civilizational standard, UBM. And if you're honest with yourself you'll acknowledge that fact. Indeed, as the white majority decreases so does that standard (which has made this country so great) weaken correspondingly. But, alas, we (meaning the majority) are to blame. We could stop this headlong rush into oblivion but most seem happy to trot right in....
ReplyDeleteCorrection accepted with pleasure (after all, I had indulged in some inadvertent consonantal shift).
ReplyDeleteRegarding Stoddard, I'd also draw people's attention to the fact that he debated W.E.B. DuBois in 1929 on the proposition 'Shall The Begro Be Encouraged To Seek Cultural Equality.' DuBois' speech supporting the proposition is worth looking at (I read it in the second volume of 'W.E.B. Dubois Speaks', edited by Philip Foner).
I've not seen Stoddard's speech against the proposition, but it would have had to have been something extraordinary to have trumped DuBois' very powerful contribution.
VictorK
It is said that there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.
ReplyDeleteThe Netherlands and Belgium are as crowded as Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.
Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to "assimilate," i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.
What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?
How long would it take anyone to realize I'm not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?
And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn't object to this?
But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.