Category: View

Rainbow Fascism at Home and Abroadrnby James George JatrasrnSome years ago, when I was a consular officer in the oncenotoriousrnborder city of Tijuana, I spent a few days in MexicornCity on my way back from a temporary assignment in Matamoros,rnanother border town just across the Rio Grande fromrnBrownsville, Texas. At a social function, I was...

VIEWSrnCeltic Justicernby Michael Hillrn”For any displeasure, that they apprehend to be done unto them by their neighbours,rnthey take up a plain field against him, and (without respect to God, King, orrncommonweal) bang it out bravely, he and all his kin, against him and all his.”rn—King James VI of Scotland, Basilikon DoronrnI n the summer of...

VIEWSrnDon’t Feed the War Machinernby Bill Kauffmanrn^ *” T T is sympathies were for race—too lofty to descend tornX J.persons,” a wit once said of the aboHtionist SenatorrnSumner. For how else could a man countenance the slaughterrnof his countrymen, not only rebel Southerners but noblernRobert Gould Shaw and Berkshires boys, too?rnThe most dangerous people—the ones...

VIEWSrnWorld Citizens on Main Streetrnby Bill Kauffmanrn^*’ I t’s a small, small world,” or so chirp the marionettes ofrnX Michael Eisner’s Disney, the outfit that brought vournNHL hockey in Orange County and a free Pocahontas glassrnwith the purchase of a Happy Meal at the McDonald’s in Ouagadougou,rnBurkina Faso.rnIn fact it is not a small world,...

The Rise of the Profanernby Thomas MolnarrnAt some point in their development, civilizations cease believingrnin the sacred and plunge into a new set of absolutes.rnNo community likes to speak of decadence and its usual-rnIv harsh symptoms; no one may even grasp the meaning of suchrnan upheaval. Yet new absolutes appear on the horizon whichrnseem to...

Whither the Popuhst Wavernby Paul GottfriedrnFor at least a decade, a changing political climate has beenrnupsetting the media and the practitioners of politics asrnusual. Populist movements have been spreading through thernWest under such names as the Lcga Nord (Italy), the NationalrnFront (France), Freiheitliche Partei (Austria), the Reform Partvrn(Canada), and Pat Buchanan’s American Cause. Thoughrnthere are...

The Populist RainbowrnBlack Nationalists and the Militia Movementrnby Jesse WalkerrnIt is June 1994, and Anthony Hilder is attending a SouthernrnCalifornia gathering called “The New World Order.” Twornoverhead projectors beam book-covers alleging Masonic conspiraciesrnonto the walls. Hilder, white and middle-aged, is thernhost of two syndicated talk-radio shows, Radio Free Americarnand Radio Free World. He has brought...

Contingency and Chance in Scottishrnand American Historyrnby Jeremy BlackrnWhy did the Americans win and the Jacobites lose? Thernclassic answer is that the Americans represented thernfuture, a future of liberty, freedom, secularism, and individualism.rnThe Jacobites were the past, reactionary and religious, thernproducts of a hierarchical society motivated by outdated dynasticrnloyalty. This difference was supposedly reflected in...

Cleaning Our Stablesrnby Gore VidalrnIn the mindless babble that passes for political debate in thernUnited States, nothing means what it appears to mean, particularlyrnthose key words “liberal” and “conservative.” For politicalrnpurposes the latter seems to have demonized the former.rnBut has this really happened? Americans tend to be divided byrnrace, religion, and class. The idea of...

The Russo-German Symbiosis in the First andrnSecond World Warsrnby Ralph de ToledanornWith the collapse of the Soviet Union and the retreat ofrnLeninist forees within the empire, hosannas ha’e rungrnout in the Western world. “Hie Cold War is over, the ColdrnWar is over,” the leaders of the West have exclaimed, and demandsrnto turn swords into knitting...

Russophiliarnby Ewa M. Thompsonrn• ^^H HrnPHHHHIHHII^^^^rn• ^Ji^ J^^^Arn1 ip J0<^^^ArnI M^^r ^ ^^m^Wj mrnH|^jp^rn^Kt^^^’^^^WirnWFjI^Mffr • ^^ $s^rn•i^^fSP^Mrn^rnr#’fC/ ^ 1rn^oj, t^ IrnfljK Hrn^ ^ HrnThe deluge of statements, articles, and books on Russia inrnthese turbulent (for Russia) times comes as no surprise.rnWhat surprises is the ingratiating and monotonouslv uncriticalrnterms of discourse in which American opinions about...

Writer and Communityrnby Fred ChappellrnMost writers feel honored by literary prizes—in the way Irnfeel so honored by the award of the T.S. Eliot prize—rnwhether they accept them or not. At the same time, manyrnwriters share the wish that their vocation could be carried onrnanonymously. By the time they have become suitably proficientrnat their art and...

The Plains States and America’s Futurernby Anthony HarriganrnThe halls and vast columned spaces of the St. Scholasticarnconvent in Atchison, Kansas, are dark and empty now.rnThe sisters who filled these buildings with busy religious life forrnseveral generations are dead or departed into the secular worldrnwith the virtual demise of convent life as a result of Vatican...

The Zhirinovsky Phenomenonrnby Alexander Yanovrn., -fT^rn’rn;- ‘j^ \rn^* i’rn/:rn•4rnirnirn’ ‘ rf^rnx’rnrrnLrnfrn’/rn*rnirn,1rn^^^^HH^^rnVladimir Zhirinovsky, one of President Yeltsin’s mostrnformidable opponents, is not well known in the West, hirnthe former Soviet Union, though, he is despised and feared byrnboth political camps: the reformers and the “patriots.” EvenrnLeonid Kravchuk, president of the Ukraine and a former communist,rnconsiders Zhirinovsky extremely...

The Politics of Employmentrnby Richard Vedder and Lowell GallawayrnJ; ” obs Issue Dominates Defense Cuts Debates,” the LosrnAngeles ‘iimes proelaimed in a recent artiele. The storyrninformed us that the end of the Cold War has brought aboutrnlavoffs for many workers in the defense industry. This, inrnturn, has led members of Congress to wonder if the...

Three Bads and an ExcellentnLet’s say that you have an enthusiasm for golf, tennis, orndining out but hve in an area in which the necessary facihtiesnare available exclusively on a membership basis in privatenclubs. Assume also that any very extended exclusion fromnthese activities leaves you bored, dejected, morose. In thesencircumstances, and on the added assumption...

In February 1941, the world was at war. Nazism andnfascism ruled virtually all of Europe and parts of Africa.nImperial Japan was poised to conquer much of East Asia.nJoseph Stalin still controlled the worfd’s largest land mass,nalthough Hitler was soon to shake Stalin’s throne. That year,nPitirim A. Sorokin, born in 1889, delivered the LowellnInstitute Lectures on...

VIEWSnJack and Jill, or Why I Am Not a ConservativenHe who has seen the present has seen everything, saidnMarcus Aurelius, and this is why the floor of my studynis made concave by the aggregate weight of all the newspapersnand magazines I have acquired since moving tonCambridge: I simply cannot bring myself to throw away ansingle...

Tragedy, Comedy, and Modern Timesne&B»n<^’:•–‘?*T^nThis essay grew out of a request that I conduct a reprisenof “The Bull’s Eye of Disaster,” my wrap-up conclusionsnon the Vietnam War that appeared in the August 1989nChronicles, in light of what’s happened in the post-ColdnWar world since that essay appeared. I was thus thrust ontonthe stage of modern times,...

Leviathan’s ChildrennThe Family Policy of Sweden . . . and the U.S. ArmynWashington apparatchiks have spent the last twondecades in a frustrating search for a theme that couldncarry the sagging American welfare state. There are signsnnow that they have finally identified a, two-headed creaturenslouching toward Bethlehem-on-the-Potomac to be born:n”families” and “children.” Jimmy Carter had a...

VIEWSnThe Spiritual Meaning of Philosophynby Stephen R.L. ClarknIn 525 A.D. the Lady Philosophy reminded Boethius, innhis death-cell, that true philosophers must think body,nrank, and estate of less importance than their understandingnof what was truly their own. This understanding of philosophy,nwhich is also Epictetus’s and Aurelius’s, as somethingnmore than a pleasant enough word game, has been...

Books and Book Reviewing, ornWhy All Press Is Good PressnWhen Bob Woodward published Veil: The Secret Warsnof the CIA, in October of 1987, two things madenthat book news. One was his assertion that William Casey,nthe late director of the CIA, had admitted to knowing aboutnthe transfer of funds in the Iran-contra deal. The other wasnthe...

family, it appears, is to defend natural, voluntary patterns ofndependency that are unrelated to, but threatened by, thenstate. At a deeper level, “social biology” reveals the family asnnatural, innate, and biologically derived—an institution thatncan generate powerful emotional and economic forces thatndefy the social engineers. Indeed, the family still survivesntoday because of that power: through its...

101 CHRONICLESnVIEWSnCEREMONIES IN THE CATACOMBSnby Octavio PaznThe following is the text of Mr. Paz’s address at then1987 IngersoU Prizes Awards Banquet.nIt moves me to be the recipient of the T.S. Eliot Award,nestablished by The IngersoU Foundation to honor poetsnand writers of different languages. The emotion I feel isnonly natural. Primarily because of the award itself...

301 CHRONICLESnand he was always an ardent defender of it, never attemptingnto disguise his admiration of its most hideous aspects,nlike the slave labor camps, in his numerous books, pamphlets,nand newsletter. When he moved to Vermont in then1930’s, he became an early Country Fake, publishing booksnon that, too. Throughout his career, as people who knewnhim and...

VIEWSnA MOUSE OR A PROMETHEUS by Gojko DjogonIt is said that whatever theme a poet chooses to dealnwith—the insignificance of a mouse or Prometheus’nheroic deed—what really matters is the ways in which ancertain reality, certain feelings, and certain events arentransposed into a poetic image. There are few objechons tonthis opinion—it is supported by many works...

only recover by putting aside the world and the self thatnfrequents the world,”nAnd it is curious—yet not really surprising—that almostnthe same thought about the writer’s writing self should havenbeen expressed by a quite difierent writer, Somerset Maugham.nIn his fictional portrait of Thomas Hardy in Cakesnand Ale, Maugham, by a wonderful stroke (which earnednhim much abuse),...

201 CHRONICLESnDAVID JONES: THE LAST LITURGICALnPOET by Thomas P. McDonnellnThe Welsh poet David Jones (1895-1974) wrote two ofnthis century’s outstanding literary works, and yet neitherna single line of his writing nor any mention of his namenis included in so recent a collechon as The Harper Anthologynof Poetry (1981), an otherwise excellent volume ofnEnglish and American...

22 / CHRONICLESnVIEWSnTHE MOST UNBELIEVABLE THINGnby Robert NisbetnThe following is the text of Professor Nisbet’snspeech at the 1985 IngersoU Prizes AwardsnBanquet:nOne of Hans Christian Andersen’s lesser-known storiesnbears the title “The Most Unbelievable Thing.” Anking offered a fortune to the subject who created the mostnunbelievable thing in the arts. Competition was intense andnprolonged. When at last...

and saved Poland from foreign domination.nDecorated by the Polish government,nde Gaulle evidently regardednPoland as an exception to the perfidiousngeneral run of foreign countries.nHe condemned the Yalta settlementnfrom the beginning and, as late asn1967, visited Gdansk and said, “Thenobstacles that you think are insurmountablentoday, you will without anyndoubt surmount them. You know whatnI mean.” Poland too...

commands attention. For years now.nGreene has been promoting a simplenidea: replace all categorical incomentransfer programs with lump-sum pa)-mentsnin cold, h:ird cash. In this book, hencalls the payment a Guaranteed IncomenSupplement. It resembles Friedman’snnegative income tax and the ill-starrednNixon Family Assistance Plan, Greenenthinks that by cashing-out and adjustingnbenefit amounts, we (the body politic)ncould eliminate the morass...