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American Renaissance: About American Renaissance (31 January 2011)

American Renaissance is a monthly magazine that has been published since 1991. It has been called “a literate, undeceived journal of race, immigration and the decline of civility.” We consider it America’s premiere publication of racial-realist thought [...] Race is an important aspect of individual and group identity. Of all the fault lines that divide society – language, religion, class, ideology – it is the most prominent and divisive. Race and racial conflict are at the heart of the most serious challenges the Western World faces in the 21st century. The problems of race cannot be solved without adequate understanding. Attempts to gloss over the significance of race or even to deny its reality only make problems worse. Progress requires the study of all aspects of race, whether historical, cultural, or biological. This approach is known as race realism.

Southern Poverty Law Center: Intelligence Report, Summer 2006, Issue Number 122 (2006)

American Renaissance, based in [editor Jared] Taylor’s home in Oakton, Va., also publishes frequent articles on the discredited field of eugenics – selective breeding to improve human genetic stock. The foundation has hosted biannual conferences since 1994, and its website, featuring stories on black crime and the like, recently rose to one of the top 20,000 in the world after a makeover. In recent years, Taylor has added several budding racist intellectuals to his staff, including Ian Jobling, the website editor and E-list moderator, and Stephen Webster, assistant editor of American Renaissance. Even before he started the New Century Foundation, Taylor wrote on race, penning a 1992 book, Paved With Good Intentions, that argued because sterilizing welfare mothers would not be publicly accepted, authorities should instead provide such women with “five-year implantable contraceptives.”

Wikipedia: American Renaissance (Magazine) (31 January 2011)

American Renaissance is a monthly racialist magazine published by the New Century Foundation. The magazine and foundation were founded by Jared Taylor, and the first issue was published in November 1990. A main theme of the magazine is a claim that non-white minorities pose a demographic threat to the United States and other Western nations. The magazine argues that the United States’ major social problems are due to racial diversity and a weakening of the country’s white racial heritage by increased non-white immigration.

Charlotte Observer: White Nationalists’ Conference Stymied (26 January 2011)

When a white nationalist magazine announced a conference in Charlotte, anarchists and other groups vowed to protest or disrupt the gathering. But behind the scenes the conference apparently met an unexpected obstacle: Charlotte City Council member Patrick Cannon. On Wednesday, American Renaissance magazine said plans for its annual conference are now in limbo because the hotel where it was scheduled to take place canceled the reservation. An e-mail Cannon sent to a constituent early this week suggested he was lobbying local hotels to refuse to book American Renaissance. Cannon wrote that he had contacted hotels and that “they seem to be cooperating. An attempt was made for accommodations at another hotel but based on what I ask to take place they were denied again,” the e-mail said.

The Jewish Defense Organization: Death to Nazi Scum! (31 January 2011)

Charlotte City Councilman Warren Turner, Charlotte City Councilman Patrick Cannon and the NAACP plus other anti-racist groups have had the meeting of the American Renaissance Party cancelled. Councilman Turner sent out an email to all of the hotels in Charlotte informing them to alert the police if AmRen booked space with them. Councilman Cannon also advised these hotels to be in compliance with the law. When the Airport Sheraton Hotel checked its convention bookings it found that AmRen had booked under a different name for the dates in question. The Sheraton returned the deposit that the Shockleyite scum had put down to reserve the meeting room where the Nazi meeting was to be held. JDO is warning other hotels in the area to be on the lookout for anyone who tries to book for the same dates. JDO believes preaching racial inferiority can lead to lynchings, cross burnings and murder and mayhem.

The American Independent: White Supremacist Group American Renaissance Forced to Move Location of Annual Conference in Charlotte (26 January 2011)

Rev. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, said of the planned visit to Charlotte by American Renaissance, “Racial hatred, and those who promote racial animosity, has no place in our American society. Certainly people have a First Amendment right to have their views, but we think people should stand up. We stand opposed to any groups that promote white supremacy.”

One People’s Project: Here We Go Again! (27 January 2011)

This time, it wasn’t us who mounted the campaign against AmRen. Sure, we were the ones who alerted the Southern Anti-Racism Network, who took the lead in opposing the 2011 American Renaissance Conference, which was slated to take place Feb. 4-6 in Charlotte, NC. And yes, we have been meeting and planning for our opposition since November (we were actually in one of those meetings when news of the Tuscon shooting broke – which Fox News tried to connect to AmRen). And yes, our plans are still going forward at this time, even though AmRen’s plans seem to be meeting the same fate as in DC last year – squashed. Nothing is etched in stone, however. Jared Taylor & Co. have not officially announced a cancellation (probably trying to see if a TGI Fridays would hook them up with a back room or something), so we are still waiting to see what comes of this. But while we sounded the initial alarm, this was all due to the efforts of the community saying no to Taylor and his New Century Foundation. It is now being reported by local press that the hotel that Taylor tried to keep under wraps had been discovered, the hotel bounced them out, and other hotels won’t accomidate [sic] him! And before you say it, everyone who opposes AmRen has freedom of speech and association too. People had a right to alert area hotels that this was going to take place and they might not want to have this going on. Hotels have the right to close their doors to unwelcome elements. And we have the right to say that it doesn’t matter where AmRen goes. We will always be there to sound the alarm.

American Renaissance: An Appeal to the City of Charlotte and to Mayor Pro-tem Patrick Cannon (31 January 2011)

On July 29, 2010, New Century Foundation signed a contract with the Sheraton Charlotte Airport Hotel to host the biennial American Renaissance (AR) conference. (New Century Foundation is the non-profit organization that publishes the monthly magazine, American Renaissance.) We explained to the Sheraton that many people think the ideas discussed in AR are controversial. We explained that in 2010 a hotel that had agreed to host our conference came under pressure and broke its contract with us. The Sheraton agreed that it was therefore important to keep the location of the conference confidential. Our contacts said they understood what was at stake and that they believed in free speech. On January 25, the Sheraton sent us a one-line e-mail message saying that because of “recent disclosures as to the nature of your event” they were breaking their contract. Since then, they refuse to speak to us. The pretence that it did not know what might be discussed at an AR conference is a pathetic, embarrassing lie. Perhaps what the Sheraton actually found out was that Patrick Cannon, Mayor Pro-tem of the city of Charlotte, does not want AR to come to Charlotte. In an e-mail message to a constituent he wrote: “I have all hotels, motels, and gotels [sic] on notice and they seem to be cooperating well still.” The date of this e-mail was January 25, the very day the Sheraton canceled its contract. We can only imagine that the Sheraton must have come under very heavy pressure to walk away from tens of thousands of dollars in revenues – 100 hotel rooms for two nights, a formal banquet, bar and meal tabs – and to subject itself to a five-figure cancellation fee. [...] At an AR conference, middle-aged men in suits give speeches to other middle-aged men in suits. We have nothing to hide. Our speeches are videotaped and made available on our website, amren.com. If our ideas are hopelessly wrong, they should be easy to refute. They should be a threat to no one. Why is Charlotte in a panic about this conference? It is because we disagree with certain prevailing views and we have the courage of our convictions. Your city is not even attempting to understand our views, much less debate them. You are trying to silence us and drive us away. Are your citizens proud of what you are doing? In an era that claims to value “tolerance and diversity,” why do you have no tolerance for the most precious kind of diversity of all: the diversity of ideas? [...] We think better of Charlotte than this. We call on Patrick Cannon and Warren Turner to consider how their actions soil the reputation of their city. We believe they should support free speech. We believe they should take a stand for genuine tolerance of a genuine diversity of ideas. We call on them to issue an apology to American Renaissance and to make a city-owned property available to us to rent for our conference. It is still not too late to encourage the qualities that made America great, not the totalitarian impulses that Americans – at least traditionally – have always despised.

Articles continue at links.  You know, it was only a few decades ago when I was the anarchist tearing down posters of groups I didn’t like from telephone poles.  I made collage art (that’ll learn ‘em!) from the posters I tore down.  And I was the anarchist preventing groups I didn’t like from marching in the streets.  I thought of myself as a champion of freedom and as a protector of the people.  But I wasn’t.  I was (very, very slightly) lessening the amount of freedom in the world.  If such a thing as “the people” exist, I did nothing to protect them.  Protecting people from ideas is not something I advocate today, although I confess I did decades ago.  I was (albeit with nearly no effect) close to the opposite of the person I thought I was.  And so today I take some pains to do penance.  I advocate freedom of thought and speech and assembly and association.  And I try to advocate these freedoms for those I disagree with with as much rigor as I advocate these freedoms for those who think like me.  Not as a natural right or as an American or as a Western man, but out of basic civility.  Don’t want to go?  Keep away.  Want to air your differences?  I’m guessing Mr. Taylor would be happy to debate you.  Vigorous protest are entirely appropriate, for or against the Sheraton Charlotte Airport Hotel and for or against American Renaissance, if you have some vigor in you.  Boycott or bankroll any group you see fit.  But don’t do like I did decades ago and be the bully you think you’re beating.

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

It must be admitted that the structure of our social environment is man-made in a certain sense; that its institutions and traditions are neither the work of God nor of nature, but the results of human actions and decisions, and alterable by human actions and decisions. But this does not mean that they are all consciously designed, and explicable in terms of needs, hopes or motives. On the contrary, even those which arise as the result of conscious and intentional human actions are, as a rule, the indirect, the unintentional and often the unwanted byproducts of such actions. Only a minority of social institutions are consciously designed, while the vast majority have just “grown,” as the undesigned result of human actions, as I have said before; and we can add that even most of the few institutions which were consciously and successfully designed (say, a newly founded University, or a Trade Union) do not turn out according to plan – again because of the unintended social repercussions resulting from their intentional creation. For their creation affects not only many other social institutions but also ‘human nature’ – hopes, fears, and ambitions, first of those more immediately involved, and later often of all members of the society. One of the consequences of this is that the moral values of a society – the demands and proposals recognized by all, or by very nearly all, of its members – are closely bound up with its institutions and traditions, and that they cannot survive the destruction of the institutions and traditions of a society. [...]

In order to make my point clear, I shall briefly describe a theory which is widely held but which assumes what I consider the very opposite of the true aim of the social sciences; I call it the “conspiracy theory of society.” It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it about.

This view of the aims of the social sciences arises, of course, from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society – especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike – is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups. This theory is widely held; it is older even than historicism (which, as shown by its primitive theistic form, is a derivative of the conspiracy theory). In its modern forms it is, like modern historicism, and a certain modern attitude towards ‘natural laws,’ a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan War is gone. The gods are abandoned. But their place is filled by powerful men or groups – sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from – such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the imperialists.

I do not wish to imply that conspiracies never happen. On the contrary, they are typical social phenomena. They become important, for example, whenever people who believe in the conspiracy theory get into power. And people who sincerely believe that they know how to make heaven on earth are most likely to adopt the conspiracy theory, and to get involved in a counter-conspiracy against non-existing conspirators. For the only explanation of their failure to produce their heaven is the evil intention of the Devil, who has a vested interest in hell.

Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted. But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproves the conspiracy theory is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy.

Why is this so? Why do achievements differ so widely from aspirations? Because this is usually the case in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. Social life is not only a trial of strength between opposing groups: it is action within a more or less resilient or brittle framework of institutions and traditions, and it creates – apart from any conscious counter-action – many unforeseen reactions in this framework, some of them perhaps even unforeseeable.

To try to analyse these reactions and to foresee them as far as possible is, I believe, the main task of the social sciences. It is the task of analysing the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions-those repercussions whose significance is neglected both by the conspiracy theory and by psychologism, as already indicated. An action which proceeds precisely according to intention does not create a problem for social science (except that there may be a need to explain why in this particular case no unintended repercussions occurred). One of the most primitive economic actions may serve as an example in order to make the idea of unintended consequences of our actions quite clear. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have intention of encouraging some people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless. We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all results, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

From The Open Society and its Enemies Volume 2. Princeton University Press 1966

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

It is annoying to attend religious services and annoying not to. One who has had deep feelings for some organized religion finally gives up on its extant and visible self, usually after bouts of non-involvement, aggrieved attendance, and conquering indifference.

“It is the evil of the age,” explains the voice of tradition. “It is the self-judgment of an illusion,” comes the modern explanation. Have we really no slicker attitudes to cop than these: a sour sense of personal purity or an embittered belief in our rational integrity?

The real culprit is the whole idea of organized religion, which ought to be stacked next to military intelligence, public education & jumbo shrimp in a museum of dizziness.

How could we have believed that we could walk into any mosque / church / temple – the spiritual equivalent of a waiting room – and find our undiscovered and secret desires? Shame shame shame on us for having tried to share our spirit with less care and precaution than we would ordinarily exercise in sharing our sperm.

The people with whom one can do religion are as rare as those with whom one can make love – and not always the same persons!

Better to make religion a beautiful personal solace, like masturbation, than to rely on paid priests / rabbis / imams, licensed by the state to practice unsafe spirituality and spread mental diseases, especially those which undermine the mind’s natural defenses and immunities against silliness.

Anyone will tell you that religion is a private thing – but I teach you that religion must be a secret thing! Fools, guard your dreams! The wise have none so beautiful as yours!

Therefore, Moorish Orthodoxy. Because the title is less cumbersome than Anarchopaganzen – Hebreaochrislam.

Moorish Science Monitor. Volume 2 Number 6. Winter 1987.

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

In our End Of Year Show Mat [Fraser] and Liz [Carr] are joined by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and BBC Disability Affairs correspondent Peter White to say goodbye to 2010 and hello to 2011.

[...]

TANNI    I’ve heard a lot of people, which I haven’t heard for a long time, talking again about how they can protest. And it’s more than just writing letters to your MP, how can they come together and find the right way to protest. And the trouble with that, someone was telling me about ‘let’s organise a flash mob.’ But when you can only get two wheelchair users on a train coming down from the north east and get left on at Kings Cross, it’s a bit harder to make that happen. 

LIZ    They’ll just end up on a mobile phone ad anyway won’t we?

PETER    I also think something else has happened really since… sorry, this is being my serious BBC Disability Affairs Correspondent head on,,, the organisation, the disability organisations, aren’t as strong as they used to be. In the ’90s, in the ’80s, when you’re talking about when people chained themselves to buses and so forth, disability organisation was strong. And Labour did something very clever and I reported on this quite a lot and nobody took any notice of me, which often happens. What they did was they incorporated all the leaders of the disability movement into their various quangos and organizations and disability rights commissions and you got Baroness Campbell, friend of Baroness Grey-Thompson’s here, they put them in the Lords they cut the head off the tiger, that’s what they did. 

[...]

PETER    I don’t think, you know, Disability Discrimination Act and any of the legislation, I don’t think had anything to do with celebs, What it had all to do with solidarity and marching and people tying themselves to things. That worried people and it really got to people. That is what made the difference between sixteen attempts to get a disability discrimination bill into Parliament and actually getting it there, because it was when that really built up. So I’m sorry that is what people say, ‘oh why do people demonstrate?’ They demonstrate because it works. 

MAT    So are you saying that that’s what young disabled people should be thinking about now in view of the cuts?

PETER    Well I’m not going in incite them on your programme, Mat. I’m just saying that is what works and if it gets bad enough that is what will happen. Nothing gets given to you by sitting around and it doesn’t get given to you because a celeb says it ought to happen.

Highest recommendations for the twice-monthly Ouch Talk Show from the BBC.