Between Asgard and the Western Paradise

On this day in 993 AD, St. Ulrich of Augsburg was canonized.  A German monk of Alamanni and Swabian descent, he lived a devout life of celibacy and simplicity before becoming Bishop of Augsburg.  He would later become a general in the dfense of Augsburg against the Magyars.

In 1054, Chinese and Arab astronomers recorded a supernova in the region of ζ-Tauri, making the Crab Supernova the first to be recorded in human history.

In 1359, Gil de Albornoz, supported by the Malatesta of Rimini, defeated Francesco II Ordelaffi, securing the northern Italian city for the Papacy.

In the United States, this otherwise uneventful day is known as Independence Day.  But what is America?  From its beginnings, America has always represented the false idol of progress, and Americans worshipped this idol more above all else, Chistianity included.  Wherever there was an old idea to be overturned, Americans were the first to embrace such ideas, and thus gave rise to the disease we now label ‘liberalism’.  As a result, America has become a cultural wasteland, in which the only products of creativity are mass-marketed items such as rap music, Hollywood movies, and the like.  In modern times, internally and externally, America represents the other side of the Bolshevist coin.  The most dangerous strain of Bolshevism may only take root through the ruthless uprising of the masses, and establish the so-called ‘worker’s state,’ and deprive the people of their material well-being in the process.  Americanism, though it does not value dialectal materialism is just as dangerous in being advocates of its unmasked opposite.  Furthermore, as an economic system, Bolshevism can co-exist and protect certain aspects of culture; the Soviet Union, for example, was far more resistant to cultural degeneracy than America.  In this respect, Americanism is the far more dangerous beast, for while uttering the false spell of ‘liberal democracy’, and with the standardization so commonplace through mass indoctrination in the media, begins the crumbling of higher culture.

In a previous entry, I discussed the concept of Eurasianism and Atlanticism.  Having defined the character of Americans, it is now much clearer when we speak of the kulturkampf of the Eurasian and Atlantic worldviews.  To put it concisely: the former is the world of being, while the latter is the world of ceaseless becoming.   

I leave the gentle reader with some famous quotations and food for thought:

“America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization.” - Oscar Wilde, English author

“The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, ‘I think, therefore I am’: Americans do not think, yet they are. The American ‘mind’, puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardisation.” - Julius Evola, Italian philosopher in ”Civiltà Americana“

“Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it’s half Judaized, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?” - Adolf Hitler, German politician

“[The Americans]…are enterprising, defiant, and touchy; impatient of authority; furious politicians; very tolerant of fraud and violence; possessing much high and generous spirit, and some true religious feeling, but strongly addicted to cant.” - Francis Galton, English naturalist

“[Their] preferred music…is created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires” -Sayyid Qutb, Egyptian scholar, in Amrika allati Ra’aytu

Many people who study history are already familiar with the propaganda posters of the early 20th century.  As early as World War I, the Americans used a variety of propaganda and public service announcements in order to convince citizens to contribute to the war effort.  They are immediately identifiable in their artistic stye, and have become a part of the American ‘cultural’ identity.

Today, many people might speak of ‘Chinese propaganda’ or ‘Arab propaganda,’ when referring to opinions that they don’t agree with, but few realize that America still generates a large deal of propaganda themselves.  The primary difference is that control of propaganda has passed from the government to the private and corporate sectors, and as a result, is not immediately recognizable.  For example, consider this cartoon from shortly after the September 11 attacks.  The purpose of this piece is two-fold: it not only asks liberals, homosexuals, feminists, and athiests to undertake an ideological battle against the “right-wing fundamentalist” Taliban, but tells ordinary Americans to fight terror by encouraging these groups.  Although it may lack the virile symbolism of “socialist-realist” propaganda, the tone of this propaganda piece still echoes the far-left socialist axiom of using ideology as a “hammer which we use to crush the enemy,” or “supporting everything the enemy opposes”.

Government propaganda still exists, but has taken on a form altogether different from that in World War II. During WWII, many propaganda posters focused on developing a concerted war effort in all areas.  Thus, they not only encouraged people to save materials, but also that the war was going smoothly to increase the morale on the home front.  After World War II, such propaganda became less and less common.  Those old enough might remember the Village People’s hit 1972 song “In the Navy,” which was actually intended for use in recruitment ads, until there was a dispute over the appropriation of taxpayer funds for the musical group.  With the rise of professional and corporate advertisment, military recruitment propaganda changed its appearance completely, is now euphimistically called “advertisment”.  However, while government propaganda in the domestic sphere has been relegated to commercialist natures, the functionality of the product is essentially identical: to convince dedicated young people to join the army in the service of their country. Internationally, the American arm of propaganda consists of Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America, all of which attempt to favorably sway non-Americans to sympathize with America, America’s allies or American interests in the name of democracy.

This brings us to our next point.  Another aspect of American propaganda is found in the media.  At first, some Americans might deny this, citing that America has a “free press”.  Despite being free in the spirit of the law, the media does often favor certain perspectives, helping to enforce stereotypes and acheive political ends.  Thus, through a process of selectivity and clever misuse of logic, the media is able to influence the opinions of the public at large.  As an example, nations like Iran are seldom mentioned except in a negative context.  A more recent example that some people might be familiar with is the treatment of the Olympic Flame relays in Europe and North America.  There was relativley little coverage of those who came out to support the Flame, and many Chinese overseas complained that the media chose to focus on the protestors.  This may speak to the tendency of American tendency towards a more cynical media which reports negative facts, but is nonetheless an example of one-sidedness.  Of course, all media has biases, and we should not make the mistake of believing that a propagandistic media is exclusive to the United States.

Joel Garreau’s book The Nine Nations of North America is one which addresses some interesting features of North American bioregionalism from racial, political, economic, and environmental perspectives.  There seems to be, at least in the implied sense, the idea of a “real state,” that is, one which is either held together by cultural cohesiveness, or which is a product of historical events.   As the title implies, Garreau is primarily concerned with America, he argues that the United States is largely an artificial construction; a cobbling-together of various subregions with an internal character that  are held together only in by texts which define the said polity (i.e. the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence). 

The implication of the struggle between “artificial states” and “natural states” applies in a grander scheme too, expressing itself on the super-national and super-regional scales.  For example, in pre-modern times, it would not be unreasonable to the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, and Turkey into a natural cultural sphere, which was known as al-Khilaafa.  Likewise, it was possible for a Europa Magna to exist as Christendom, and for various Chinese dynasties to exist.  In other words, what bound the various regions of the world was more than just geography, it was also culture: an organic “natural” manifestation of the patriciate.  In addition to the three historical superstates we mentioned before (Christendom, the Caliphate, and the Sinosphere), there was also Hindustan as well as the greater Slavic territories.

In modern times, the constructions of how the world is viewed from the suprapolitical standpoint have changed.  America, the reductio ad absurdum of the worst and most regressive aspects of Western Europe is the prime example of this, as is the monstrous imperialist bund known as NATO.  Whereas in the past, it was culture that held the supranational entities together, in the case of NATO, it is unculture and politics.  NATO is the expression of the dangerous geopolitical doctrine known as Atlantocentrism, which is essentially an attempt to create a ‘New Rome’ with a center in Washington, DC and bring the world under its control by spreading “liberalism” and so-called “democracy”.  However, “democracy,” in this context, far from meaning a system of representative government is a mere euphimism for a system of government that is essentially assimilated into the NATO order.  The current conflicts in the world, from Serbia to Tibet, are all indications of the militant Atlantocentric designs of the United States and its allies.  Israel is a special case, and is a strategic base in the Middle East for the continuation of an Atlantocentric policy.

Opposing the Atlantocentrist imperialism is Eurasianism, which forms a much more natural suprastate in geographical terms than Atlantocentrism.  For historical reasons, this is also a more comfortable arangement: the Silk Road stretched across Eurasia.  The conflict of Atlantocentrism and Eurasianism is thus one of land (tradition, religion, identity) and sea (liberalism, atheism, individualism).  Therefore, the establishment of Eurasianism is both political and cultural.  One one hand, we see many nations rejecting American and Western culture, which is based on the material, and turning to their traditional cultures.   This is best summed up in Aleksandr Dugin’s book Osnovy Geopolitiki: “The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us. This common civilisational impulse will be the basis of a political and strategic union”.

 Today, both Russia and China, along with Iran, are contributing to the fall of the Atlantocentric imperialism and attempting to establish their geopolitical prominence in the world.  Iran has experienced a full revolution based on the principles of Islam, while China has rejected the subversive influence of communism.  China’s military might may soon challenge that of the US, spelling the reversal of fortunes for Atlantocentric interests worldwide.