The Most Rational Place on Earth

by The Cat Lady

Disney Land may well be "the happiest place on Earth," but last weekend's American Renaissance conference near Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C., was surely the most rational. More than 250 people attended, and, as Jared Taylor put it in his opening remarks, on Friday February 22nd, it was "great to be among people who understand." Taylor also made a rather disturbing claim: at a previous American Renaissance conference, 15% of the attendees were Nazis and 15% were Jews. I turned to one of my neighbors, a genteel Nazi from Georgia, and whispered, "I hope there weren't that many Jews!"

The main day of the conference was Saturday, February 23rd. The first talk was by Dr. Sam Francis on "Immigration and National Security." I respect Francis tremendously as a columnist and rate him second only to Joe Sobran. But his talk did not make much of an impression on me, primarily because Francis is a better writer than speaker, and as a regular reader of his columns, I was familiar with all his points. Still, it was nice to have a summary of just how crazy America's immigration policies are from a national security standpoint, and it was great to be in a room filled with people applauding the call to throw the bastards out.

The second talk, by Glenn Spencer of American Patrol on "The Second Mexican-American War," was very impressive, both factually and rhetorically. I had forgotten most of what I learned about the first Mexican-American war and knew very little about the brazen calls to reconquer the American Southwest by means of illegal immigration. Of course, once the Mexicans turn the American Southwest into a Third World septic tank, they will be leaking across the border into the remainder of America searching for work and handouts. As a speaker, Spencer is a slow starter. But so were Churchill and Hitler. Nevertheless, by the end of his speech, as he outlined a chilling scenario for how a second Mexican-American war could start, there was an undeniable power and dignity to his presentation, and as the audience stood to applaud, I could see how he has motivated so many people in California to stand up and fight the brown tide.

Professor Michael Levin, the author of Feminism and Freedom and Why Race Matters, applied his training in analytical philosophy to the topic of "Reparations for Slavery?" Levin organized his criticisms of reparations in a continuum from polite to "rude." The polite arguments are, of course, the ineffectual pragmatic arguments given by Republicans who grant the moral principle that reparations are deserved but plead that reparations are too expensive or are otherwise impractical. Levin warned that if Whites rest their case on such arguments, they will end up paying reparations. The only hope is to get rude. Levin raised such rude questions as, "Wasn't Affirmative Action all about reparations?" "And what about all the massive costs of blacks in terms of crime, inefficiency, welfare, etc.? Shouldn't those costs be subtracted from the total?" But the rudest answer is: There is another explanation for why Blacks are poorer than Whites. And it is a better explanation than racism and the legacy of slavery. The explanation is that Blacks are genetically inferior to Whites in a number of crucial traits that determine success in our society, intelligence being the most significant. Levin suggested that the incessant Black calls for reparations are not merely motivated by greed, but also by the awareness of their own inferiority and their desire to convince themselves that they are not at fault for their plight. Levin was, of course, preaching to the converted. But I hope that a printed or taped version of his talk can be widely circulated to those who are not converted. It might be just the thing to put some backbone into the opposition to reparations.

In the next session, Professor Richard Lynn, the author of Dysgenics and co-author of IQ and the Wealth of Nations, shared the podium with Professor R. Philippe Rushton, the author of Race, Evolution, and Behavior. Lynn summarized the argument of IQ and the Wealth of Nations, showing a strong correlation between average intelligence and productivity, although of course other factors, such as relative economic freedom and natural resources, play roles as well. Professor Lynn also proved that there is no necessary connection between high IQ and being able to use a microphone or place transparencies on an overhead projector.

Rushton's talk, "In Search of the African IQ," detailed the results of IQ tests administered to black students at Africa's best university, the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. The tests were administered because of the general incredulity that greeted the revelation, in Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, that the average African IQ is 70, which in Whites is one of the criteria for mental retardation. The talk was beautifully presented and accompanied by extremely useful slides designed to answer the standard objections to IQ tests. Two slides in particular -- of questions on Raven's Matrices, the IQ test he administered -- were sufficient on their own, without comment, to refute all contentions that the test was culturally biased. The results of the tests were completely consistent with the findings of The Bell Curve. Again, the speaker was preaching to the converted, but it would be nice to make his talk available to an unconverted audience.

Jared Taylor, the founder and leader of American Renaissance, gave the next talk, "Ethnic Conflict: Race, Sex, and Violence," which had the tone of a keynote address. Taylor writes and speaks beautifully. His topic was the goodness and naturalness of racial solidarity and how, in its absence, Whites are being victimized and ultimately will be destroyed. He was masterful at illustrating absurd racial double standards. I was sickened and had to leave the room when he launched into a horrific discussion of the racial nature of prison rape, but I returned in time for his rousing finale.

The best speech of the conference was by Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party. I had met Griffin on February 21st in Washington and heard him speak in Arlington later that evening on why Americans need a party like the BNP. (I found his argument completely convincing, by the way.) His talk to American Renaissance had a similar focus on doing something practical -- which was particularly welcome after a whole day of hearing largely factual and theoretical talks about matters that were mostly familiar to me anyway.

Griffin is a superb, magnetic speaker and an ideal political candidate. He is obviously very intelligent and quick-witted. He moves with a natural grace and self-confidence. He has a pleasing voice and accent. He is masculine, but with a boyish charm that does not threaten silly females. Most importantly, he has the capacity to establish an emotional bond with his audience, to make each person feel somehow visible.

I also found his message very appealing. The BNP is not only a racial nationalist party, it is also a socialist party. The BNP does not demand state ownership of the means of production, but it does advocate a welfare state and it stands up for the working class, promising to protect workers from the depredations of unregulated capitalism. Griffin was scathing in attacking elitist disdain for "Joe six-pack," disdain that can only impede the creation of a mass political movement. According to Griffin, because of an increasingly centrist and depolarized political mainstream, the BNP has been able to stake out vast territories to the Right of the Tories and to the Left of Labour.

The BNP is also a forthrightly revolutionary party, not merely a Bourgeois conservative or reformist party or an organized pressure group. Griffin's goal is clear: to grasp political power in order to revolutionize a corrupt nation and save a dying race. At one point, Griffin made the stunning claim that things have gotten so bad that "We have nothing left to conserve but the color of our children's skins."

The BNP is not an explicitly anti-Semitic party, but in his Arlington speech, Griffin -- who clearly knows the score regarding the Jews -- pointed out that when Hitler was pursuing power, he hardly ever spoke publicly about the Jews either.

In short, the BNP has all the positive characteristics of Hitler's NSDAP. Yet it has none of the baggage of post-war neo-Nazi movements, which have adopted all the external forms and symbols of the NSDAP and have thereby betrayed the political genius of Adolf Hitler. When it came to political tactics, Hitler was a ruthless pragmatist who recognized the necessity of accommodating political movements to their particular times and places. The swastika, the runes, party uniforms, torchlight parades, etc. all had deep roots in German history and the German collective unconscious, so Hitler exploited them. England and America have different histories and political cultures. Different symbols strike a positive chord, while -- in spite of all considerations of truth and justice -- the symbols of classical National Socialism strike very negative chords, and no amount historical revisionism will alter the impressions made by World War II and seven decades of anti-Nazi propaganda.

Griffin was extremely sharp during the Question and Answer session as well. I was particularly impressed by his answer to the question of the role of women in the BNP. Griffin said that the BNP, like the American Right, is mostly a men's club. (Of the more than 250 people at the AR conference, there were probably fewer than 50 women.) Griffin said that the women who have joined the BNP are among its most active and hard-core members. But, he continued, women are leery about joining the BNP because it is still socially and politically marginal, and women regard marginal affiliations as threatening to their families. (As I once put it to a friend in Georgia: The average woman regards the politically incorrect opposition to immigration as a greater threat to her children than their living as a minority in a Third World America.) Griffin added, however, that women will join the BNP in greater numbers once it is perceived as the only force that can secure a future for their children.

Note to Jared Taylor: For the next AR conference, offer half-price or free admission to women to encourage more women to attend. Then set up a special event for women only to meet, network, and discuss activism. Like it or not, women have the vote, and the tender hearts of female voters are one of the chief allies of our enemies. We have to win the hearts and minds of women or we are finished as a people.

On Sunday, February 24th, there was an abbreviated morning session before people scattered back to their homes. The first speaker, Frank Borzellieri, related his experiences of being a frankly racist and Euro-centric columnist for a small New York City Newspaper chain. I enjoyed this talk tremendously. Borzellieri is a courageous and intelligent man, with a wicked sense of humor. (The title of one of his columns in particular sticks in my mind: "For Whom The Bell Curve Tolls.") Again, it was nice to hear a report from an activist on the front lines.

I was very disappointed to learn that French writer Guillaume Faye was unable to attend. He was scheduled to speak on "The Rise of Islam." Faye is now an official thought criminal in his native land. Most of his works are as yet untranslated, but you can read an excerpt from his book L'Archéofuturisme here.

Next was a panel discussion on Patrick J. Buchanan's The Death of the West by Sam Francis and Jared Taylor, as well as Dr. James Russell, the author of The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, and Sam G. Dickson, the author of Shattering the Icon of Abraham Lincoln and three law books. Sam Francis revealed that The Death of the West was originally much more explicitly racialist, but that it was toned down because of threats to its publication from Jew-know-who.

My conclusion, at the end of the discussion, was this: Although Buchanan is ultimately a Catholic universalist, not a White racial nationalist, and although The Death of the West does not give the right answers to the questions it poses, it deserves a great deal of credit for at least posing the questions and getting thousands and thousands of people to think about and debate the fate of our race. We White nationalists should not be whining that Buchanan did not do our work for us, but leap to exploit the opportunity he has given us. Buchanan poses the question to which White nationalism is the answer. We have to make people see this.

Sam Dickson concluded the conference with a "secular benediction" -- a stirring and eloquent call to go forth and preach the truth to our people and work for their salvation.

This was my first American Renaissance conference, and I had a wonderful time. Like most such events, though, I got more from socializing and networking outside the lectures than from the lectures themselves. I was surrounded by some of the nicest fanatics and hatemongers I have ever met. I particularly enjoyed meeting Bill White and discovering that he is a fellow Julius Evola fan. There were a number of VNN fans present as well. One very good-looking young man leaned over conspiratorially and said, pointing to one of the more eligible bachelorettes, who had attracted quite a lot of male attention, "They say she's The Cat Lady." I smiled, wondering how many marriage proposals that rumor would garner her.

Note to Jared Taylor: It would be great if the next AR conference were at a non-smoking hotel, or at least at a hotel that makes some attempt to seal off smokers from non-smokers. I was not the only person constantly clearing my throat because of the omnipresence of noxious fumes, and it was sometimes a real distraction in the sessions.

A number of friends who have attended all past AR conferences told me that this one was pretty much the same as the others. But they did not enjoy themselves any less because of it, and they correctly emphasized that it is necessary to hammer away at the same points over and over for the benefit of a constant stream of newcomers. There are, furthermore, limits to what AR will discuss. The focus is entirely on race and immigration. These are absolutely crucial topics, and it is absolutely necessary to have people who focus on them.

But AR refuses to touch the Jewish Question with a barge pole, even though race and immigration would hardly be the issues they are were it not for the Jews. Instead of attacking the Jews, AR features Jews like Michael Levin on its programs. And there were a few obvious Semites in the audience as well -- though surely less than 15, much less 15%. AR also skirts tough economic and political questions about capitalism, globalism, and environmentalism. A good number of the people present were little more than race-conscious libertarian capitalists. These people fail to see that capitalism by its nature leads to a racially and culturally homogenized global barbarism, and that a great deal of economic regulation is necessary to preserve racial and cultural diversity, not to mention biodiversity. To its credit, AR has debated the role of Christianity in contributing to our present predicament. Another limitation is that AR offers very little by way of advice for people who want to engage in concrete forms of activism.

But it is simply not fair to demand that AR do everything. Although ideologues like me think in terms of systematic, unified worldviews, political movements must submit themselves to practical necessities like the division of labor.

There was a strong National Alliance presence at the conference, and even though I am not a NA member, I enjoyed talking to a number of them. Two particularly ballsy NA members, both of whom have Italian names, challenged Taylor on the Jewish question at the end of his talk. His reply seemed evasive to some, but perfectly fair to me: "If you wish to discuss the Jewish Question, then put on your own conference."

I think that this is a great idea, and I hope that someone will take Taylor's advice to heart and create an organization that approaches the Jewish Question with all the scientific rigor and sheer class that AR brings to discussions of race and immigration. I would like to see other such organizations spring up to focus on economic questions, religious and philosophical questions, and real world activism. I would love to see a company that makes high-quality, low-cost video documentaries presenting and illustrating the arguments of Jared Taylor's The Color of Crime and R. Philippe Rushton's Race, Evolution, and Behavior. I would rejoice to see a White Working People's Party formed on the lines of Nick Griffin's BNP.

If these things came to pass, what else could you call it, but an American Renaissance?

THE CAT LADY

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