FOR ANY political movement that seeks eventual ascendancy, it is incumbent to engage in regular bouts of self-analysis. As a casual but sympathetic observer of the so-called far-right, I have compiled a list of what I believe to be some of the tactical errors and misconceptions made and held respectively by many racialists, white nationalists, devotees of the European New Right, paleoconservatives, and other like-minded defenders of what remains of the beleaguered Western world and its people. Not all of these errors in judgment are common. Neither are they necessarily held by the same people all at the same time; it is only natural that a given individual’s political beliefs will change and develop with time and experience, and his opinion on a particular issue may vacillate often, especially in regard to those things that he deems to be non-essential.

The goal here is not to present some ironclad ideology from which no one may dare to deviate. Indeed, experience suggests this only leads to the kind of fruitless sectarianism that has historically plagued us. It is my earnest conviction that most everyone outside of the mainstream right, when it really comes down to it, is on the same page. That is, they seek to live in a world that would be worthy of their ancestors’ many sacrifices–what G.K. Chesterton (pictured) famously referred to as the “democracy of the dead”–and eschew the abstractions of universalism and egalitarianism for the concrete realities of their own lived experience. Above all, they believe in the furtherance of those things tending toward the survival and benefit of their descendants.

This list makes no claim at being exhaustive. As already suggested, is intended to be constructive rather than defeatist or accusatory. And while some of those things listed may seem obvious or merely fundamental, in our age of confusion and outright deception it is sometimes the obvious that is in most dire need of being stated unequivocally.

– Citing the UN Convention on Genocide as support for the white genocide argument:

While this strategy is not entirely without its place, neither is it ideal in that it tends to shine the light of legitimacy on a globalist, universalist organization that is profoundly hostile to the survival of European peoples and historic Western civilization. It would prove a great challenge to find anyone of consequence at the United Nations who sincerely believes that European-derived peoples have a right not to be displaced from their homelands by culturally and/or racially incompatible immigrants. While international NGOs and the various UN agencies may rightly stand up for the welfare of some primitive indigenous groups (though we should have serious reservations about the ultimate aims of such organizations as arbiters of dispute) they will never extend the same assistance to us.

The mainstream right has tried to employ a similar rhetorical strategy for years by pointing out the double standards regarding race and gender displayed by leftists in direct contradiction of their own professed strictures. But the left, being in complete control of the culture, is entirely immune to such charges of hypocrisy, and the end result has only been to solidify the proposition that racial and gender issues (framed of course in terms favorable to the left) should be central to political discourse.

Appealing to our enemies to abide by the rules they have laid down can at best reap only limited gains and must be done selectively; it should not form the central thrust of our efforts. It must always be remembered that “human rights,” like “multiculturalism,” “anti-racism,” and other liberal discourses, is mostly a sham that serves to disarm the opponents of the global liberal order. As such, it can be bent or ignored by its proponents whenever convenience requires them to do so.

– Believing that it is us against the world:

Although it is true that Western nations alone have been marked for demographic replacement by the powers that be, and these powers reserve a special animosity for European peoples (indeed, the destruction of what remains of the historic West is key to their triumph), liberalism is currently being foisted upon nations throughout the world by a variety of means. Most often non-white, non-Western peoples do not fully comprehend the true nature of what is being done to them in the name of development by USAID or UN agencies like UNESCO. Instead, they tend to unsuspectingly assume that radical feminism (euphemistically labeled as “gender equality”) and the Marxist subversion of traditional institutions (packaged as “democracy building”) are integral to modernization and joining “the community of nations.”

Sadly, this worldwide coup is being accomplished with little effective resistance. Unprincipled third-world elites, who have either internalized liberal values or are willing to pay them lip service, are all too happy to accept the resources and plaudits showered on them by their globalist patrons–resources often transferred at the expense of the working and middle classes of first-world nations. Under the influence of Jewish/white-liberal international development specialists and their own Western-educated politicians, the non-European peoples of the world come to associate the West, not with anything it has historically stood for, but with degenerate liberal values, a sentimental humanism traditional peoples view as weakness, and financial handouts that always work to inspire resentment and envy rather than gratitude. The result is the average citizen of the Third World, whether educated or illiterate, now holds a highly skewed vision of Western societies.

It is not the legacy of colonialism that sets the world against us–as we are constantly led to believe by our media and academic establishments–so much as it is the machinations of today’s globalists who seek to transform the world.

– Maintaining an hysterical fear of ‘contamination’ from association with non-European peoples and things:

Given the reality of modern communication and travel, it is almost inescapable that one, at some point in their lives, will come into contact with non-Europeans peoples or cultures. Familiarizing oneself with foreign peoples and things does not, in itself, make one a globalist, multiculturalist, or otherwise fawning devotee of all things non-Western. After all, it is only in contrast to the alien Other that one can come to fully realize, in their entirety, the uniqueness of European man and his achievements.

Much leftist harping on the virtues of diversity is superficial and comes without serious study of the non-Western peoples, cultures, languages, and religions they so uncritically extol. Actual knowledge of the relative strengths and weaknesses of foreign peoples–their virtues as well as their vices–provides ammunition and opportunity to embarrass the left (insofar as this is an effective tactic) and gives the lie to those who would dismiss us as merely provincial ignoramuses. More importantly, the advent of an alternative globalism, replete with strategic alliances with certain non-white groups, may in the future prove integral to the survival of European peoples. Former Croatian diplomat Tomislav Sunic, who is no stranger to dealing with the foreign, has expressed a similar sentiment, one many may find surprising to find in a defender of the West:

“American and European traditionalists and racialists make a mistake when advocating Sameness as a precondition for their ethnic and cultural survival. Often it is the Otherness in its geographic or racial expression that helps a person discover his own national and racial uniqueness. No traditionalist, no white spokesman of his in-group identity can ever deny the fact that in his lifetime he has more than once been victimized by his fellow tribesman and in his homeland. Sometimes, meeting a distant alien or moving to a far away country becomes the only solace.”[1]

Indeed, incorrigible white ethnomasochists, especially those with the power to shape public opinion, probably represent a far greater danger to the survival of European peoples than do those reasonable nationalists who may be found among other peoples.

– Maintaining unrealistic notions of isolationism:

In relation to the points above, I am continually astonished that many on the right–right-wing libertarians, paleoconservatives, and white nationalists among them–seem to believe that our ultimate goal should merely be to attain a comfortable nest for ourselves where we can develop alone while the rest of the word goes to hell. Many apparently consider foreign policy and international diplomacy to be superfluous issues that can be addressed at some indefinite point in the future–if at all. For now they seem content to allow these things to remain the exclusive domain of our enemies: neoconservatives and liberal internationalists with perhaps the odd foreign policy realist in evidence. Likewise, the dominant sentiment among us seems to be that imperialism and colonialism are absolute evils that lead only to unwanted mixing of peoples and cultures. That the drive to explore and conquer might have anything to do with the nature of Western man or, indeed, his very existence outside the European continent goes largely unconsidered.

Though I understand their reticence to engage with international issues, I would humbly submit that those who hold too tightly to such views are engaged in a fantasy. Even an ethnostate would require a corps of diplomats trained to engage and negotiate with other peoples, if only for the purpose of keeping them on their side of the border. After all, force and threats of force are, by themselves, blunt instruments that are more often than not insufficient to maintain international order. And though we should rightly eschew all avoidable wars, we will always have interests (a necessarily ambiguous term in the context of foreign policy) to pursue abroad, which at the very least would take the form of needed material resources.

In regard to the impulse to liberal universalism that has grown out of the West and is currently wreaking havoc in the world, it is less a continuation of historical imperialist tendencies than it is a distorted and cancerous form of them–one characterized by the substitution of self-loathing for a healthy ethnocentrism and further confused by the mostly pernicious influence of the Diaspora. But we are not alone in the world, and there are other peoples who aspire to displace us, even if they currently lack the means, with systems and ideologies we would find no less distasteful–Islamic fundamentalists and the nationalistic Chinese among them. This is a dispassionate statement of fact, one that stands apart from the alarmism and warmongering (which come of course in conjunction with a naive or insincere “humanitarianism”) of our globalist elites, who would have us responsible for the entire world.

But this demands qualification: None of the above is meant as a rationalization for a rapacious and unsustainable empire or a justification for the subjugation of other peoples who, like ourselves, seek their own autonomy. Instead it is a positive affirmation of Western man and his very real attributes. In contrast to what critics like Jared Diamond argue, it is these inherent qualities, and not just accidents of history or geography, which have allowed us to straddle the world for the past 500 years or so. In truth, we have given other peoples much more than we have taken, and often to our own detriment.

As might already have been guessed, I wish to be counted among those, few as they may be in our circles, who are not yet ready to abandon the idea of America or the broader West for what comes after it, be it an isolated ethnostate of necessarily limited geographic size or something else not yet imaginable. A defensive retreat from the world is unbefitting European peoples and seems indicative of a terminal decrepitness rather than a rising vitality. It is not anti-globalism that we should seek so much as it is a sane global order–one that is not predicated on our destruction or, for that matter, that of any other people.

– Engaging liberals and mainstream pseudo-conservatives on issues of public policy:

Turning from the international to primarily domestic concerns, when dealing with the average citizen, rather than becoming embroiled in arguments over the specifics of public policy, a more fruitful tactic is to challenge the essential premises of the liberal system. If anything might cause some of these people to see the light, it is not the realization that they have been wrong on a particular issue (e.g. immigration or multiculturalism) but that they have been working from an unsound basis all along. It may come as a surprise to some that even the average leftist PhD is unlikely prepared to intelligently defend, on the spur of the moment, the absurd and self-contradictory assumptions upon which he bases his claims. Equality as an absolute good and the incontrovertibly Western provenance of the supposedly universal values they espouse, are among the most obviously flimsy of the tenets they cling to. As the politically ill-fated Joseph Sobran wrote in other contexts but whose advice is nevertheless helpful here:

“What is effective is to place the opposition, to localize it, to point out that its own slogans are not emanations of pure reason, but rather proceed from a specific–and, in its own way, provincial–set of presuppositions which are themselves controversial….[T]he habit of social deference toward the intellectual classes has allowed theses notions to hover in the air unchallenged, and, in time, unnoticed.”[2]

“Eventually a certain attitude comes to prevail by sheer attrition. One gathers not so much that it is true as that there is nothing to be gained (and maybe much to be lost) by contradicting it. And today a good many perverse views have seized command of public discussion by claiming to monopolize sophisticated opinion. The devil’s favorite phrase must be ‘of course.'”[3]

One should choose one’s battles carefully though, and from there proceed with caution. I would never recommend revealing one’s real political beliefs to, or for that matter even directly challenging on any contentious issue, a college professor, employer, or anyone else with the power to retaliate. This is simply impossible to do safely in the current political environment, as Sobran himself was to eventually discover.

– Cultivating negativity and discord:

Whenever I read certain authors, Chesterton and Russell Kirk come to mind immediately, I’m struck by the quality of hope and joyfulness, even in describing disappointment and adversity, that pervades their work and makes them a pleasure to read. I suspect this comes from their convictions as Christians, which some might look upon as delusional and as having contributed in no small part to the present state of things. But whatever one’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof), the importance of keeping a positive attitude and engaging in civil discourse, even with those with whom we disagree, is not the stuff of pop psychology or a Sunday school nicety. Wherever I turn, and even in spaces of high intellectual debate, I am struck by the negativity and discord that pervades our movement. If we mean to attract people to us, and even to maintain our own personal mental well-being, it will not do to waste countless hours denigrating and blaming other peoples for their offenses against us, either real and imagined, or arguing amongst ourselves. Ideally, we should each be able to calmly articulate why our concerns are legitimate, even to those who are hostile to us (so far as they are willing to civilly listen), without lapsing into histrionics or name calling and without unrealistic expectations that they will immediately come to see things our way. Many decent people of perfectly adequate education and intelligence, busy with raising families and earning a living, have not, even at this late hour, awoken to the increasingly perilous position that they and their posterity inhabit. They will not snap out of their slumber instantaneously, and growing frustrated with or berating them will do little good in the delicate task of persuading them of the legitimacy of our cause.

– Believing we might be able to capture the moral high ground or win significant numbers of converts by expressing our sympathy for the Palestinians or similar leftist pet causes:

It is really nothing to criticize Israel these days on a college campus or in any other space frequented by the hard left for that matter. However, discussing Zionism apart from shallow and pedestrian expressions of moral outrage at injustices perpetrated by Israel will quickly raise eyebrows. For the left to maintain any semblance of internal coherence it can hardly go about attacking a group of people who even now maintain enormous capital when it comes to playing the role of the victim, and the “anti-Semitism” exhibited by the Occupy Wall Street crowd is mostly an anomaly, existing primarily in the hyperactive imaginations of Fox News pundits. Few of these sorts of leftists, who are often followers rather than the independent thinkers they pride themselves on being, really understand the issue at hand, and their tendency to be fanatically self-loathing, middle-class whites bent on tearing down what remains of their own civilizational inheritance makes them difficult to approach on most other issues. Moderate liberals and mainstream conservatives who, despite the latter’s stubborn philo-Semitism, actually tend to have some economic and emotional investment in their society and its future, tend to be a more fertile ground for sowing the seeds of common sense.

– Investing too heavily in historical revisionism:

Thinkers such as Santayana and Orwell were certainly correct in their assessment of the importance of historical knowledge and interpretation. However, attempts to rehabilitate the Nazis or the Old South are wrongheaded and lead only to a never-ending path of meager returns. Most Americans are not receptive to looking upon their nation’s history as a series of frauds and debacles, and I would tend to sympathize with them in this regard. It is all too easy to level criticism upon our forefathers from our position of historical hindsight, forgetting that most men and women, even those of genius and vision, are not in a position to alter the course of events as they unfold–at least not on their own. It may well be productive to dispassionately discuss how figures associated with, say, the Conservative Revolution shared some of the concerns that American patriots do today, but presenting Hitler as would-be savior of the Western world is a poisonous nonstarter for those concerned with the defense of our heritage, not to mention a too-simplistic inversion of history. Proving the veracity, or lack thereof, of historical accounts accomplishes little, since simply by virtue of raising the questions one is immediately discredited in the eyes of the average citizen who will tend to listen no further, a judgment reinforced by the established powers. Extreme erudition or a charming demeanor can do little to counteract this reality.

It is enough for most people to know, at least initially, that behind the Civil Rights Movement, and every related movement in demand of “equality,” are the forces of Marxist subversion. Most conservative Americans feel this instinctively anyway even if they cannot articulate it. Neither do I think that helping them to further understand that Israel (and by extension the Diaspora) is something less than our “greatest ally” should require bringing down the entire mythological edifice of America and the West.

– Putting too much stock in the idea that white liberals and mainstream conservatives will eventually see the error of their ways:

In moderation of the previous points, although Western survival demands our best efforts, we should not spend too many sleepless nights contemplating why it is that others cannot seem to grasp the obvious. The human capacity for self-deception can hardly be overestimated. People will believe what they want to believe, and unfortunately many people desperately want to believe that the fact America’s founding stock were of European extraction has nothing to do with the character of their country’s culture or its material prosperity. This they will maintain even as liberals send their children to schools conspicuously devoid of black and mestizo students, and conservatives complain unceasingly about immigration whilst claiming the issue has nothing to do with race. America, for these people, is a creed or an idea. To them a culture is, curiously enough, anything but an expression of the biology of the people it arises from. Geographic and historical factors or the Protestant work ethic are responsible for the success of the United States, we are meant to believe, but not its white majority.

Even the average Tea Party enthusiast, regardless of how “implicitly white” he and his associates may be, is very rarely able to make the important distinctions that would really serve him, such as between the divergent interests of America and Israel and the naturally different abilities and proclivities of blacks and whites. Some of this is attributable to the propaganda they have imbibed all their lives and some to the desire, perhaps especially pronounced in European peoples, to think the best of others and behave with altruism. The sad reality is that many of these people will maintain these unfortunate attitudes until it is too late, and they find themselves fighting from a position of weakness from which there is no return. For them denial is a sickness unto death; let it not be so for us.

– Claiming we’re ‘beyond left and right,’ third-positionists, etc:

Is it really true that in today’s world the left-right spectrum has come to lack validity? Even if that is in fact the case, does hastening to discard this paradigm give us any real political advantage? In a related vein, do following laissez-faire principals to the extremes of outsourcing work to foreign countries and importing incompatible immigrants to the point one’s own existence is imperiled make one a conservative or “right-winger”? Conversely, does not wanting one’s hometown given over to ugly corporate chain stores peddling cheap junk from China place one on the political left?

I would venture to suggest that the answer to these and similar questions is an emphatic “no.” Furthermore, I would contend that embracing the morally barren philosophy of self-interest of the Jewess Ayn Rand, who was rightly sneered at by many of her contemporaries and yet remains inexplicably popular, makes one less an archetypical rightist than it does an average citizen of our times.

Hierarchy and social and economic inequality are certainly necessary, but not because the poor and less capable are peons we wish to trample upon. Instead, it is because inequality is integral to the functioning and overall well-being of an ordered society in which men receive their just due, whether it is inherited from family or earned through their own efforts.

Setting aside associated delusions about the necessity of endless development and the primacy of technology, a market economy works provided people maintain the proper understanding of money and material things: that they are not the ends of existence, and one’s loyalty belongs to one’s own nation and not the global marketplace. It is the realization of this sacred trust that necessitates sane limits on efforts to cut costs and increase efficiency and demands serious–that is, more than symbolic–charity to those beneath us. The mainstream right’s abandonment of nation and race for short-term material gains reveals them, not as men of the right, but as proponents of left-wing chaos and nihilism.

We are not fooling anyone; no one outside our immediate circles would describe us as anything but the far-right. However, this is not to let our enemies define us, for a correction is necessary: There is nothing marginal or extreme about us. We are not the far-right but the real right, as we should boldly proclaim.

The old fascists, whose legacy I for one do not embrace, were undoubtedly not, as some disingenuous or misguided people (usually mainstream conservatives) have claimed, a phenomenon of the left or the center. Their opposition to both Bolshevism and its more insidious twin, predatory capitalism, sprang from a concern for the maintenance of a decent social order and the defense of the eternal virtues, hallmarks of any authentic right-wing. This holds true no matter what their failings may have been–and they were many–in terms of theory and practice, as well as fascist hostility to conservative elements of their time. Not that such clarifications matter a great deal given that the notion of fascism as an absolute evil has long ago solidified in the minds of most Americans, probably irrevocably.

– Taking the arguments of Traditionalist and esotericist writers too seriously:

The writings of figures like Rene Guenon and Julius Evola have become, I believe, unduly influential in certain circles. But as rarified and removed from day-to-day concerns as they are (and were intended to be), I wouldn’t venture to claim that they are without any practical value to us whatsoever. The Traditionalists understood, perhaps more acutely than anyone, the ills of the modern world and the ultimate futility of many a superficially conservative campaign to renew civilization simply through the reinstitution of what is itself only a less advanced form of decay. Far from being engaged in mere quasi-historical fantasy, the Traditionalists provide an emotionally, if not rationally, satisfying answer to the search for meaning in history. Myth, I think most would agree, can sometimes provide a more beautifully concise and, indeed, “truthful” explanation of the world than empirical science, and certainly the picture painted by Traditionalism in many ways parallels actual human experience of alienation in the post-modern world. Personally, I’ve never felt that there is anything wrong with simultaneously entertaining several competing explanations of reality alongside one another. Nor do I believe that the embrace of scientific and historical fact necessitates rejecting all the claims of religion or vice versa.

That said, if one takes the claims of Traditionalism too literally it leads, I sense, to an outlook that I can only describe as pathological, not to mention dangerously Utopian. Every age has its challenges and ours is no different; it is not at all an exaggeration to say that our future existence hangs in the balance. But the world proposed by people like Evola never really existed and probably never can exist, and there is much to love about the Enlightenment values and bourgeois existence he despised. I fail to see how embracing the notion that this age is the Kali Yuga is anything but a recipe for a rejection of life as severe as that represented by the strictest of Christian sects. Similar criticism can, I think, be fairly leveled at the other partisans of the Aryan occult such as Miguel Serrano and Savitri Devi. I cannot shake the instinctive feeling about this stuff that, when taken to heart, it only leads one toward discontentedness and misanthropy and even, perhaps, to the truly demonic, if such can be said to exist.

– Believing Russian neo-Eurasianist Aleksandr Dugin is a potential ally:

Dugin, taking after his French associate and mentor Alain de Benoist, has offered much valid criticism of the liberal international order and appears to aim to construct an alternative model that would serve the interests of white Westerners, among other peoples. However, behind his seductive talk of the necessity of a “multipolar world,” Dugin seems to be little more than a typically chauvinistic Russian nationalist. When one closely exams his theories, they reveal themselves to be a thinly veiled plan of Russian expansionism in radical contrast to the world of ethnostates he purports to advocate. As his liberal critics have noted, neither is it at all clear how his desire to radically reshape the present world order could be practically implemented without inciting general chaos and perhaps even world war.

Dugin is much influenced by the overly idealistic anti-modernism of Rene Guenon and Julius Evola, an inauspicious point of intellectual departure in my view. As is characteristic of some Russians, he is prone to bouts of irrationality and self-contradiction, and his early Traditionalist-influenced writings sound at times like the ramblings of a delusional mystic. Not unironically, the geopolitics-obsessed Dugin seems to have developed into a mirror opposite of the Neoconservatives he rightly despises, offering what amounts to a peculiar variant of their ideas in which ethnic Russians replace the Jews as the world’s indispensable people, a fact which, like the Neocons, he seeks to obscure.

In considering the various critics of global liberalism, be they Russia, Iran, China, or Islamic fundamentalists, it is wise to keep in mind that, more often than not, the enemy of our enemies is not our friend. That stated, Dugin’s ideas might prove to be of selective use to us even if he has his own ulterior motives for proposing them.

– Believing the Jewish Question might somehow resolve itself given enough time:

It may be true that increasing rates of intermarriage and the self-embrace of the decadent values Jews have long promoted for gentiles are working through a process of slow attrition to diminish Jewish power, but this is not something it would be wise to place stakes on. If the post-modern environment might act upon them in such a way as to eventually significantly dilute their influence, it will not be until far into the future–by definition uncertain–that the affects of this may make themselves felt.

It must be remembered that among these people, the nominally religious and the ethnically mixed have often been at the forefront of attacks on Western civilization. As ever, this eternal problematic remains in need of being addressed objectively and dispassionately by the best of men without lapses into irrational hatred or undue ascription of influence and ability to the Jews. Regrettably, whereas at one time famous and respected men were able to more or less honestly address the issue publicly, present realities allow for this to be done only circumspectly by way of discussion of the State of Israel.

Yet there are some among us who are all too happy to embrace self-censorship in the misguided pursuit of mainstream credibility. To them I caution that we only fool ourselves when we believe that by downplaying or never mentioning the issue, while harping on the problems created by other minority groups, we are being sophisticated or discreet. If Carl Schmitt is to be believed about what constitutes the very essence of politics, then we are lost when we begin to lose sight of the distinction between friend and enemy.

– Rejecting cultural concerns for a purely biological worldview:

In truth the nature-nurture debate probably represents a false dichotomy, at least in part, for just as culture is an expression of biology so, too, does the environment we place ourselves in and create for ourselves act upon us. This is not to deny the primacy of genetics: It would be ludicrous to blame dysgenic trends among European populations solely or even primarily on our increasingly vulgar popular culture–but it certainly must have a reinforcing effect. Hollywood aside, mindless entertainments like NASCAR and contemporary country music, to name but two of the least objectionable, seem to be more a reflection of an inherent white pathology, whether cultural or biological, rather than any pernicious outside influence.

The reality that white trash exists, and always has in one form or another, does not in any way diminish the fact that Western man is a unique creature with a special mission, one that is readily evident from just about any standpoint he may be viewed from. But one has to question the developmental trajectory of a people when their majority holds the viewing of professional sports and the addictive abuse of various entertainment technologies to be among their highest values. Neither am I completely comforted by the notion that only an elite minority can be expected to carry us forward in the future while the rest are left to their own devices. Our interest exists in seeing the largest possible number of European-derived people reach for high ideals. There must be some middle ground, or better yet a synthesis, between the ineffectual culturism of traditionalist conservatives and the reductionist absolutism of some racialists, who remind me at times of Marxist ideologues, so simplistic are their beliefs, and who often steep themselves in a world of substance abuse and vulgarity. The celebration of high culture may be the most readily attainable and ennobling, not to mention the most humane, eugenics program imaginable.

– Unreflectively embracing positions, extreme or otherwise, simply because they strike one as ‘anti-egalitarian,’ ‘rightist,’ or because they were held at some point in time by such-and-such an admirable organization or individual:

We are not in a contest to create the world’s most pitiless and hierarchal society. Rather we ought to set our sights on restoring and maintaining a tolerable civil social order that serves our interests. Believing, as some seem to, that one is a part of a natural aristocracy or intellectual elite that is bound to come out on top in an eventual struggle for power is foolish conceit. No matter how well prepared, we will all be very vulnerable when the liberal order starts to finally unravel, whenever that may be. Nothing is guaranteed to us, and we cannot take our own eventual success for granted.

– Embracing homosexuals as “culture bearers” integral to the cause of Western survival:

The claim, recently revived with enthusiasm in some fashionable quarters, that intolerance of such practices is rooted entirely in a Judeo-Christian monotheism that ought to be discarded, should not go unscrutinized. So too the claim that such intolerance has greatly stifled relationships of platonic affection between men, which, so far as I can tell, are alive in many a military unit and sports team. Those with a vested interest in the acceptance of these sort of specious ideas are usually the ones who put them forward, I believe it is safe to assume. And while I think it can be conceded that homosexuals tend to posses disproportionate levels of creative talent beneficial to society as a whole, in the interest of disease prevention and the general welfare of society, their worst impulses need to be discouraged and channeled. The normalization of homosexuality and other non-reproductive sexual practices–especially in combination with readily available abortion and massive third-world immigration–amounts to nothing less than a cult(ure) of death.

(Part 1 of 2)

***

Notes:

AS EVER, BUT ESPECIALLY in our present state of civilizational malaise, there is a need for figures with the power to inspire — men who in less confused and cynical times would have been unabashedly described as heroic. One such figure is Corporal John Alan Coey, a young soldier who has perhaps not yet fully received the tribute he deserves though he has been dead these past 37 years.

In March of 1972 Coey, a young American from Ohio, boarded a flight to white-ruled Rhodesia, a country then facing United Nations sanctions and very soon to find itself beleaguered by the forces of communist-backed black nationalism. Only a day prior to his departure Coey had graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in Forestry. He had also recently been released, at his own request, from the Marine Corps NROTC program he had nearly completed, thereby declining a hard-earned commission as an officer.

Coey’s motives for seeking to enlist in the Rhodesian Army rather than continue his service in the U.S. Marine Corps are probably more readily understandable in retrospect than they were at the time. Like many, he was repulsed by the emergence of the New Left on college campuses and saw nihilism clearly lurking behind its messages of free love and pacifism. Coey also concluded that the newly ascendant radical Left represented neither an authentic grassroots movement nor a bona fide countercultural alternative to the old liberal order. “The left wing has recognized the dehumanizing trends of industrial society,” he wrote, “but its activism to change society has been channeled by the real revolutionaries of Internationalism.”

Though a confirmed Cold Warrior, Coey was not a reflexive supporter of the Vietnam War. He discerned in the handling of that conflict, as well as that of the Korean War before it, the seeds of American overreach and eventual dissolution, a trend that seems to continue unabated today. As Coey’s older brother, Edward, would later write of American involvement in Vietnam, the American people had been given “The Choice Between False Alternatives,” made to choose “between a protracted no-win slaughter and a humiliating surrender.” The younger Coey did not believe this state of affairs could be attributed merely to incompetence or negligence on the part of those prosecuting the war either. The primary threat to the West, Coey concluded, was not Soviet or Chinese Communism but malevolent forces that emanated from within. Coey somewhat quaintly referred to these forces, which he considered more or less amenable to communism, simply as “the Conspiracy.”

While he was an apparent reader of Oswald Spengler and keenly aware of the depth of the civilizational crisis facing the West, Coey was not given to despair. He insisted those of European descent must struggle to the bitter end to save their inheritance, a deeply held conviction that determined his own choices. Coey well understood that “the fight for Western Civilization is not in the battlefield, but in the realm of the intellectual, spiritual, and psychological.” He lamented also “that under present conditions one cannot be a soldier without furthering the aims of the Internationalists, the liberals, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Zionists, or other alien groups.” Still, Coey longed above all else to do his part as a warrior in defense of what remained of his beloved civilization. Rhodesia, he believed, provided him the best and perhaps only opportunity to be of service in a worthy cause. Again, this is in spite of the fact that Coey already new the likely outcome:

“In the eyes of the mass media the black man can do nothing wrong and the white man can do nothing right, for even his sacrifices and help are discredited. The world cares nothing for Rhodesia, not even America, England, or the sister colonies. Rhodesia is to be sacrificed; they will not help Rhodesia. It has already been written off.”

Coey in Africa

Having successfully gained a position with the Rhodesian Special Air Service or SAS (an elite unit approximately equivalent to U.S. Army Special Forces), Coey attempted to communicate — perhaps imprudently — his concerns to the general public in a series of magazine articles and letters to newspapers in Rhodesia and South Africa. One article in particular, provocatively titled “The Myth of American Anti-Communism” and published in the Rhodesian Army journal Assegai, would land him in trouble with Rhodesian authorities despite, or perhaps because of, its appearance in an official publication. As a result, Coey was kicked out of the Rhodesian Army’s officer training program and eventually the SAS, placements he had received only after excelling at a grueling selection and training process. As Coey himself reflected:

“It was brought to my attention today that the article I submitted to Assegai magazine is considered ‘subversive,’ not because it is anti- Rhodesian or criticizes the State here, but because it ‘destroys misconceptions about America being pro-Western, and may lower morale if read by the general public.’ Although what I have written is true, it is feared that the public may not be able to stand the truth. The facts I have presented may make the article appear anti-American to those who do not yet understand how America is ruled by the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] oligarchy, whose interest is total world power.”

Despite this and other setbacks, Coey would persist in his writing. Throughout his time in southern Africa he kept up an extensive correspondence as well as a journal which would eventually be published posthumously as a book. This book, A Martyr Speaks, would have undoubtedly proven an even more interesting historical document had not vast segments of Coey’s original journals been redacted by Rhodesian authorities following his death. Despite this censorship, Coey and what was left of his writings remained controversial enough that it would take his mother 13 years to find a willing publisher.

Though no longer being considered for a commission and forced to choose another unit to serve with, Coey would also persist in attempting to make a contribution militarily to Rhodesia. Even as he experienced moments of serious doubt and self-recrimination following his unceremonious expulsion from the SAS, Coey completed a medic course and transferred to the Rhodesian Light Infantry. There, despite resistance from some of his superiors, time and again he insisted on accompanying infantrymen into combat at great personal risk to himself, effectively introducing the role of combat medic into the Rhodesian Army:

“When I finish this tour of duty, I think that at least in this battalion [1st Battalion, The Rhodesian Light Infantry], which does the bulk of the fighting, that the medics will become like the Medical Corpsmen in the U.S. forces. I am the first of what are now called ‘Combat Medics’ here. There will be others; so I have accomplished something.”

Again though, Coey’s efforts were not always understood or appreciated. Some — though certainly not all — of his fellow foreign volunteers seem to have been merely adventurers or opportunists who did not share in his motivations or commitment. Among the Rhodesians, Coey’s older brother later wrote that the younger Coey “found some few Rhodesians awake, but generally…found a people too narrowly provincial to fully appreciate the worldwide implications of the savage attack being unleashed against their small country.” Coey himself wrote of the Rhodesians, for whom he came to have a special affection (indeed, he sought and was granted dual citizenship): “Most white Rhodesian families have been here for several generations and have nowhere else they can call home. They will stay and fight, I’m pleased to say. They understand their position racially and historically, but come short politically.”

An additional source of conflict for Coey — even with fellow believers — were his religious convictions. From a reading of his journals, it is evident that Coey’s faith was the primary source of his strength and allowed him to persevere where others often gave up. It also provided a source of comfort to him in his darkest moments — moments which were plentiful in combat in the African Bush. Many on the true Right have abandoned Christianity for a multitude of reasons, citing among other things its universalist pretensions and the tendency toward a dangerous and unhealthy cultural and racial self-effacement prevalent among contemporary Christians. Still, Coey possessed a vital and muscular understanding of the Faith similar to that which must have underlain much past Western dynamism. Coey, a Lutheran, attempted to share his belief with others through quiet example rather than a boorish evangelism and was dismayed at the errors into which many of his fellow Christians had fallen:

“I’ve been going to Baptist church services. The Gospel is preached there, but I have decided to go elsewhere because these Baptists are convinced that the Zionist takeover of Palestine is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. They believe that the Second Coming of Christ is near, and think that they have the Revelation figured out completely. They expect to be ‘raptured’ away from the coming terror to help Christ rule in the Millennium. I remind them of Christ’s words, ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ and ”No man knoweth the hour when the Son of God shall come again.’ But they choose to ignore that. . . .”

Neither, of course, did Coey abide the paralytic sentimentality of liberal Christians:

“Last night I talked with a Christian man who is convinced that he must never resort to violence to defend himself or fight in any way, even for his life and liberty. He feels that communism should not be opposed by arms, and that the Second Coming of Christ will occur before they could take over the world. He believes that all governments, no matter how evil or corrupt, are ordained by God. Christianity for this man has destroyed his instinct for survival, his will to resist evil. If every Christian were to think this, we would be doomed.”

The Significance of Coey

Coey was only one of a number of foreign volunteers who came from a variety of countries to fight for the lost cause of Rhodesia. Likewise, he was only the first of a total of seven Americans who would eventually die there. Of these foreigners, however, Coey was probably the most driven by principle, as well as the one most successful at communicating to the general public his motives for joining the Rhodesian forces.

Admittedly, at times in his journals Coey comes across as a somewhat fanatical figure — albeit one who is never truly unlikable. Though he presents a fairly consistent worldview in his writings, it is also helpful to remember that Coey did not style himself as an intellectual but instead a man of action. He considered it necessary to complement his words with deeds, and his short life was lived as one of selfless sacrifice in defense of not only a country that he considered to be at the very frontier of the West — but of all peoples of European descent and their shared civilization. Coey, importantly, always sought to lead by example and never played the sectarian:

“…I am helping to unify the Europeans, simply by my presence and association with these people. For they are coming to realize that there is no important difference between Americans, White Africans, or Europeans. The accents, dialects, and languages are superficial; the customs, religion, styles of government, and thinking are the same. I believe that only when all European peoples are unified, can communism and the alien conspiracy be smashed.”

There would be no such triumph of course, either in Rhodesia or elsewhere. Perhaps it was for the best that Coey didn’t live to experience the heartbreak of witnessing his adopted homeland fade into history.

In the final analysis, it was the very things that drove Coey to excel as a soldier that led to his early demise. He was possessed of that fatal combination of youthful idealism and, what is rarer, the will and strength of character to actually put that idealism into practice. As his older brother Edward recalled, Revilo P. Oliver of the University of Illinois had written Coey a letter prior to his death in which Professor Oliver had lauded him for having made “‘…the Choice of Achilles.'” That is, Coey had opted to die with glory in combat rather than to live a long but unremarkable life. Then again, Coey may have simply been following the dictates of fate. “I feel that I have found my historical role here,” he wrote, “and, once that is finished, I don’t know what I will do. . . .”

The anticipated moment came swiftly and unexpectedly. On July 19, 1975, as he was descending into a dry river bed in an attempt to aid two fallen Rhodesian Light Infantry troopers, Coey was struck and killed by terrorist bullets. One wonders if it can really be only a strange coincidence that he was hit in the head and in the heel? Whatever the case may be, his shining example of total selflessness stands in marked contrast to the widespread moral corruption of the modern military of his native United States, a military whose senior leaders obediently serve the alien and transnational forces that Coey believed he was fighting.

Though he is decades gone now, Coey’s timeless words continue to resonate. Yet it is fearful to think that they might outlast the civilization to which they immediately pertain, and perhaps might only serve as a warning to some future people:

“The basis of race, culture, and nation is vital for the survival of Western Civilization. Blood and soil, conservation and nationalism are what make a country and civilization sound, strong, and healthy. But faith is needed, faith in our way of life, our civilization, and faith in a Higher Destiny and the Divine Sanction of God….

“This generation of the West must believe when there is apparently no hope; it must obey, even if it means death; and it must fight to the end, rather than submit. Against the Spirit of Heroism no material force can prevail. Nothing can defeat that except inner decadence.”

Ultmately, Coey’s significance probably resides in whatever ability his memory has to inspire. As Dr. Anthony P. DiPerna, a professor of African history, observed in a letter to the Coey family: “I do not think John’s sacrifice was in vain. There are many episodes in history where those who gave their lives in a losing cause served as an inspiration to others who eventually carried the banner to victory.”

If Coey could join us today, he would not lose hope over the rapid deterioration of Western societies that has occurred in the decades since his death. He would doubtlessly implore us to redouble our efforts at self-preservation, however modest or even futile we may believe our individual contributions to be.

* * *

Reference:

Coey, John Alan. (1988). A Martyr Speaks: Journal of the late John Alan Coey.
CPA Books.