It is depressing but fascinating how many people on the left don't notice that their parties and movements are full of people screaming about the Jews.
To this day, you can still find people in northern parts of the UAE and in Oman with distinctly Iberian features. Locals often say they are the descendants of Portuguese sailors and warriors who reached these shores in the 16th century and mixed with the local population!
Agreed. What I don’t understand is what is really the driving force for this. Why have so many Americans rejected the centrist politics that oversaw some of the greatest flourishing we have ever seen? Was Post WWII America really that bad?
I think a major factor is technology and the ability of loud people who represent mainly themselves to attract attention and money.
The vast majority of people aren't paying attention to most of the "big things" each day. The small percentage who are have outsized influence, and they tend to be kooks.
The Wrong Side of History is my favourite Ed West offering.
Yes the Will Solfiac piece was very illuminating. As Steve Sailer tells us, Noticing is a key requirement for a proper analysis of any phenomena. It's a pity that an academic career in the Social Sciences depends on Not noticing.
As for Gorton and Denton, the best analysis I have seen is by Aris Roussinos on UnHerd. He points out that ethnic groups voting on ethnic lines is not a novelty on the British mainland - the change is that Labour does not always benefit. Also that whites will increasingly gravitate to identitarian parties, and that the most electorally successful identitarian party at any one time will always be vulnerable to being overtaken by parties on their right e.g. Reform by Restore. As has happened in Ulster.
I preferred the joke that Reform, Restore, Reclaim and Advance could all be treatments for erectile dysfunction!
"This is why subsidised public transport and road pricing are both good things."
I agree with you and Russell Kirk on this. I never understood how the car came to represent freedom. The freedom that good public transport brings is at least as freeing as owing and operating a car.
"It’s an iron law that wealthy American cities with enviable set-ups have to push the most insane political ideologies imaginable. "
Perhaps some would see New England as not enviable enough, but as a life-long Bostonian I have to disagree with this over-broad generalization. We do have crazed lefties here, in good number, but they don't seem to have the vast power they wield on the left coast. Some level of sanity still obtains in the politics of the Boston area, perhaps the residual power of the old Yankee spirit we got from Britain.
Looking forward to your take on the Ned Flanders vote. Probably a reluctant Trump voter but he could surprise us. I suspect at least one of his sons, Rod and Todd, would be an outspoken "Exvangelical" New Atheist in the early 2000s but perhaps becoming woke later.
"Imagine if the British had ended up invading Ukraine in 1926 and running the country, and what a job we’d have done: give the farmers back their land and feed the world. Let them rough up the commies but hang anyone who tries to start a pogrom. Lots of children named ‘Stanleybaldwin’ by grateful parents."
Churchill wanted to overthrown the Reds around 1919, and was hated by the Left ever after. It is shocking to realize that the British, French, Japanese, and Americans could have killed off Communism in 1920 but chose not to. Just too tired, even though the Kaiser was a trivial danger by comparison.
My mother's mother's family were wealthy Jews from Ukraine. My grandmother recalls that when she was 12 (probably around 1910) her. Grandfather told her he was sending her to America with her brothers since there was no future for Jews in Ukraine (an accurate prediction). He didn't leave and was murdered with a number of my others relatives during the pogroms of the Civil war. Most of my relatives survived that but my family lost touch with them in 1930. After reading Anne Applebaum's on the Red Famine, I realized they must have been annihilated in the Holdomor.
On an unrelated note, wasn't Bulgakov Ukrainian? He wrote the great Ukrainian civil war novel the White Guard.
The World of Yesterday and the Radetzky March are beautiful memorials to the Hapsburg Empire. I enjoyed Yaroslav Hrytsak’s Ukraine: the Forging of a Nation, but I thought his claims for Ukraine's literature, as if comparable to Russia's, completely mad.
I can’t recall exactly what he said on the subject, but I have to admit being pretty ignorant of Ukraine’s literature, whereas Russians feature strong among the very greatest in the canon.
When the war started, Steve Sailer noted that Wikipedia was now calling Gogol a "Ukrainian" writer, though of course he wrote in Russian, lived in Moscow, and is considered by Russians to be one of them.
It's perfectly understandable that some Ukrainians would want to claim him. We Irish do the same thing with Oscar Wilde, even though he spent his adult life in England and on the continent, and his works are all set in England. (Apart from Salomé, of course, which is set in ... Palestine? Israel? Roman Judea? It's all so complicated!)
You might want to rethink that Dubai visit. I've been receiving videos today from a friend on his balcony there showing Iranian missiles being intercepted.
The way for a nation to erase its proud history is to change all the names. Kiev was the capital of Kievan Russia, an ancient and powerful state. Kyiv is an ugly 20th century city somewhere in eastern Europe that gets bombed a lot.
You miss the point. To educated English speakers, Kiev is Kiev, not Kyiv. In Ukraine they may well pronounce it keev, and they have a bad transliteration from Cyrillic which call is it Key-iv.
Thus, in English, it should always be called Kiev, because that is the name that has a history attached. I don't know about German, French, etc- they may have other names. And the north Russians can call it Key-ev or Key-eff if they want. In Cyrillic is it the same for both north and south Russians?
Why should we perforce use the Russian version of the name? Should we decide to call London "Londres" because French speaking kings once reigned there?
Yourself excepted I think will solfiac is the best writer around on uk politics, that article is a great example of why he’s so good
he’s great
Will Solfiac liked this message
It is depressing but fascinating how many people on the left don't notice that their parties and movements are full of people screaming about the Jews.
To this day, you can still find people in northern parts of the UAE and in Oman with distinctly Iberian features. Locals often say they are the descendants of Portuguese sailors and warriors who reached these shores in the 16th century and mixed with the local population!
Could they not also be descended from slaves?
To my knowledge, there is no record of European slaves being brought to the Arabian Peninsula!
" ... it does point to a future where the older parties are being outflanked."
This has also happened in the U.S. The parties have kept their names and their vibes while their policies have shifted or even transmogrified.
Agreed. What I don’t understand is what is really the driving force for this. Why have so many Americans rejected the centrist politics that oversaw some of the greatest flourishing we have ever seen? Was Post WWII America really that bad?
I think a major factor is technology and the ability of loud people who represent mainly themselves to attract attention and money.
The vast majority of people aren't paying attention to most of the "big things" each day. The small percentage who are have outsized influence, and they tend to be kooks.
You are a wise lady.
Thank you. I like to think, at least, that life has knocked a lot of the foolishness out of me by now.
The Wrong Side of History is my favourite Ed West offering.
Yes the Will Solfiac piece was very illuminating. As Steve Sailer tells us, Noticing is a key requirement for a proper analysis of any phenomena. It's a pity that an academic career in the Social Sciences depends on Not noticing.
As for Gorton and Denton, the best analysis I have seen is by Aris Roussinos on UnHerd. He points out that ethnic groups voting on ethnic lines is not a novelty on the British mainland - the change is that Labour does not always benefit. Also that whites will increasingly gravitate to identitarian parties, and that the most electorally successful identitarian party at any one time will always be vulnerable to being overtaken by parties on their right e.g. Reform by Restore. As has happened in Ulster.
I preferred the joke that Reform, Restore, Reclaim and Advance could all be treatments for erectile dysfunction!
"This is why subsidised public transport and road pricing are both good things."
I agree with you and Russell Kirk on this. I never understood how the car came to represent freedom. The freedom that good public transport brings is at least as freeing as owing and operating a car.
Life at the Frontlines of Demographic Collapse - a Substack post about Japan's shrinking population:
https://www.250bpm.com/p/life-at-the-frontlines-of-demographic
"It’s an iron law that wealthy American cities with enviable set-ups have to push the most insane political ideologies imaginable. "
Perhaps some would see New England as not enviable enough, but as a life-long Bostonian I have to disagree with this over-broad generalization. We do have crazed lefties here, in good number, but they don't seem to have the vast power they wield on the left coast. Some level of sanity still obtains in the politics of the Boston area, perhaps the residual power of the old Yankee spirit we got from Britain.
Looking forward to your take on the Ned Flanders vote. Probably a reluctant Trump voter but he could surprise us. I suspect at least one of his sons, Rod and Todd, would be an outspoken "Exvangelical" New Atheist in the early 2000s but perhaps becoming woke later.
"Imagine if the British had ended up invading Ukraine in 1926 and running the country, and what a job we’d have done: give the farmers back their land and feed the world. Let them rough up the commies but hang anyone who tries to start a pogrom. Lots of children named ‘Stanleybaldwin’ by grateful parents."
Churchill wanted to overthrown the Reds around 1919, and was hated by the Left ever after. It is shocking to realize that the British, French, Japanese, and Americans could have killed off Communism in 1920 but chose not to. Just too tired, even though the Kaiser was a trivial danger by comparison.
My mother's mother's family were wealthy Jews from Ukraine. My grandmother recalls that when she was 12 (probably around 1910) her. Grandfather told her he was sending her to America with her brothers since there was no future for Jews in Ukraine (an accurate prediction). He didn't leave and was murdered with a number of my others relatives during the pogroms of the Civil war. Most of my relatives survived that but my family lost touch with them in 1930. After reading Anne Applebaum's on the Red Famine, I realized they must have been annihilated in the Holdomor.
On an unrelated note, wasn't Bulgakov Ukrainian? He wrote the great Ukrainian civil war novel the White Guard.
The World of Yesterday and the Radetzky March are beautiful memorials to the Hapsburg Empire. I enjoyed Yaroslav Hrytsak’s Ukraine: the Forging of a Nation, but I thought his claims for Ukraine's literature, as if comparable to Russia's, completely mad.
I can’t recall exactly what he said on the subject, but I have to admit being pretty ignorant of Ukraine’s literature, whereas Russians feature strong among the very greatest in the canon.
When the war started, Steve Sailer noted that Wikipedia was now calling Gogol a "Ukrainian" writer, though of course he wrote in Russian, lived in Moscow, and is considered by Russians to be one of them.
It's perfectly understandable that some Ukrainians would want to claim him. We Irish do the same thing with Oscar Wilde, even though he spent his adult life in England and on the continent, and his works are all set in England. (Apart from Salomé, of course, which is set in ... Palestine? Israel? Roman Judea? It's all so complicated!)
Isaac Babel, possibly the greatest ever writer of short stories.
You might want to rethink that Dubai visit. I've been receiving videos today from a friend on his balcony there showing Iranian missiles being intercepted.
I heard they're targeting the chocolate mines. The brutes!
"I'd like to write a post about translation at some point"
Ed I've translated about 10 million words professionally, so feel free to inquire with me about translation stuff if you want. :D
thanks! I will do that
"David Goodhart on whether majorities have rights."
Steve Sailer has already asked this question (before anyone else according to a (pre-AI) Google Search):
https://www.takimag.com/article/do-whites-have-civil-rights/
The way for a nation to erase its proud history is to change all the names. Kiev was the capital of Kievan Russia, an ancient and powerful state. Kyiv is an ugly 20th century city somewhere in eastern Europe that gets bombed a lot.
Kyiv is an Latin alphabet version of the Ukrainian name for the city- which dates back centuries, nothing modern about it.
You miss the point. To educated English speakers, Kiev is Kiev, not Kyiv. In Ukraine they may well pronounce it keev, and they have a bad transliteration from Cyrillic which call is it Key-iv.
Thus, in English, it should always be called Kiev, because that is the name that has a history attached. I don't know about German, French, etc- they may have other names. And the north Russians can call it Key-ev or Key-eff if they want. In Cyrillic is it the same for both north and south Russians?
Why should we perforce use the Russian version of the name? Should we decide to call London "Londres" because French speaking kings once reigned there?
Киев = Russian
Київ - Ukrainian