A reader makes a number of keen observations and poses a series of timely questions on the our current civilizational crisis.
Let’s start with givens:1) Our side needs to avoid supporting those who hate us.2) Our side needs to fund those on our side who are trying to rebuild/recapture Christendom.3) Our side is very divided/atomized and very demoralized.4) Our side is too comfortable and addicted.5) Our side has been intellectually compromised through brainwashing, lies, propaganda and con-artistry.6) Our enemy is well coordinated, has penetrated every institution and has nearly captured every institution.7) The fact that they have done this without eating their own indicates Satan’s hand in the matter.8) The underlying war is spiritual. The arenas are cultural, socio-economic, political, generational and religious.
And our proposed or acted upon solutions have been:1) Support independent creators in the publishing field.2) Support Vox Day on various projects.3) Support Mike Cernovich on two documentaries.4) Vocally support alternates to social media but never manage to pull the plug and move away from controlled territory (not sure it would be beneficial anyway in regards to doing counter-prop)5) Complain on social media, blog posts, blog comments about the satanists. Waste most of our time and energy debating about our complaints with the traitors/moderates in our camp.6) Still doing our independent thing.7) Purity spiraling and disavowals on the good on our side, and failing to eject the clear entryists on our side.8) No real leadership. What has risen have been cons or oppositionally-funded gatekeepers. 9) Only proposals made have been to support independent groups – nicely divided and not united – and to sit on our hands. Or you know, build your own internet service provider or payment processor. Keep complaining to those who refuse to listen. And prayer, which is very good but I don’t know what that looks like or how well it is being heeded in our atomized Christianity where a Solemn Mass and a Hillsong Concert are considered equivalent Sunday worship to God Almighty.
Items 4 and 5 deserve particular attention. I maintain that pulling the plug and completely disconnecting from all converged platforms would indeed be counterproductive, if only because it’s clearly what the enemy wants. See Facebook’s 24-hour ban on Larry Correia.
Social media got Trump elected in 2016. Whether or not he acknowledges this fact, his enemies certainly do. Withdrawing from social media entirely would cede our only means of reaching a mass audience.
Regarding the fifth columnists LARPing among our ranks, wolves in sheep’s clothing are even more dangerous than the enemy. Quislings like Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, and Will Chamberlain are paralyzing effective resistance to the globohomopedo elite with a big song and dance about how the real threat is socialism. It’s imperative to stop listening to these saboteurs.
So where do we go from here? We can’t keep this up, it will only be a slowing action as the wrench continues to tighten in one direction. And while we can pray for deliverance or for the chastisement, sitting around does not give God much to work with. There’s no forum to have serious discussions on actually fighting the culture war. There’s no leader who has the capacity to do it and wants to also do it. No unified, clear vision to unite behind.
Lots of Spaniards probably got antsy during the planning phase of the Reconquista. The whole project ended up taking almost 800 years.
It’s always far easier to destroy than to create, and the enemy spent at least a century undermining the West’s foundations. The mess will not be cleaned up quickly–possibly not in your lifetime.
The reader is still operating under the assumption that the people reading this–and the millions of other like-minded folks out there–just need the right organizational structure, the right plan, and the right leader to rise up and cast down the Death Cult in a final, climactic battle. Ain’t gonna happen.
First, God is the Lord of History. His will is sovereign. Our job was to glorify Him in such fashion and according to such gifts as God decreed. Instead we’ve spent at least the last 300 years royally fucking up.
God’s standard response when a people turn their backs on Him is extensively documented in Scripture. He lets their enemies rise up against them, takes away the Kingdom, and gives it to someone else who’ll be faithful.
Understand that with the legalization and celebration of infanticide, sodomy masquerading as marriage, and the sexual warping and exploitation of children, that outcome can no longer be averted.
We can always shorten the duration and severity of the chastisement, since God always offers mercy, but we need to get our collective act together first.
That is the true utility of prayer. It’s not, “Please, Lord, make the H1Bs and Guatemalans go away so I can afford to binge Netflix in my McMansion.” It’s, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner! Grant me increase in humility, patience, perseverance, and strength that I may grow in virtue and direct my every action to Your glory!”
If even a tithe of virtuous, masculine men remained in the West, we would not be facing disaster, degeneration, and war. To know the problem’s cause is to know the solution.
I can build the forum. I can propose ideas. But these are skill sets I currently don’t possess. Is that all I can do? Pray, build, hope good people show up to help the effort rather than a bunch of gammas come in and muck the place up? I plan to enter both local parish/diocesan politics and local secular politics once we can settle, but that’s still a few years away. I have a hard time watching our side just take it and spin. What efforts are done are vanity projects usually, a way to make a living, and less about mission.
It’s enough. Most of us probably aren’t going to be fighting boldly in actual combat for the ashes of our fathers and the temples of our gods. Thinking otherwise is pride.
Much more beneficial, and much harder, is to live humbly for God and our families.
What’s your take? What is the next step in trying to actually get our side to unite, to coordinate, to build plans and new platforms/institutions and then make them happen? To build communities, to develop systemic war strategies against Leviathan, and try to find end runs around things like the Mark of the Beast before it happens?
My next, and ongoing step, is to daily put myself to death, take up my cross, and follow Him who showed the Way before me. Imagine if we all did the same.
God bless, and may our Lady, on this Solemnity of Her Ascension/Dormition, watch over you and protect you.
P.S. Prayer may be contemplative, but it brings the spiritual water that nourishes active fruits. I fully intend to stay at my work in the vineyard. Here’s a sample.
The reader is still operating under the assumption that the people reading this–and the millions of other like-minded folks out there–just need the right organizational structure, the right plan, and the right leader to rise up and cast down the Death Cult in a final, climactic battle. Ain't gonna happen.
Should have been more clear in my email as I am not of the opinion this will be settled soon via a climactic battle. Either you, or someone else or just thinking over it for the last few years has disabused me that will work. My recent comments probably did not help as they probably came off more militant than metaphor.
I'm just over the complaining and the waiting. Our side seems to prefer staying at home and complaining rather than going out and doing.
Anyway, I just wanted your take on how to possibly contribute towards the long process of building the West up again. If organization is really pointless along with attempts to enervate our side, than so be it.
Prayer and virtue development are necessary no matter what, along with raising virtuous and properly ordered children, just seems a pity there is nothing more to do to even begin the long process of turning this around. Bitter pill to swallow as I look at my children.
Thank you though for the reminder, brother.
I guess going forward then I'll just continue with my plans to:
1) Develope my faith, understanding of it, practice of it, and my virtue.
2) Work on helping my wife and children do the same.
3) Seek a healthy, traditionalist Catholic community since soon that will be all that is left.
4) Eliminate all debt.
5) Invest wisely in a way so that my children can pick it up and build upon it.
6) Build an even closer knit community of like minded folks around our family. Especially families who would be worth forming alliances with via marriages.
7) Seek antifragility and self sustainability.
8) Develop new and useful skills.
9) Help the children find their vocation and if occupation is to come, push them towards ones that fit them and will also assist the family and community.
10) Keep money exchanges for goods and services within the community or with good companies as best as possible.
It's a big enough of an order.
Mea culpa for misunderstanding your outlook. Thank you for clarifying.
To clarify my position, I don't think attempts at raising morale and organization are pointless. They should and must continue. However, they are necessary but not sufficient victory conditions.
Notice how every time we achieve an apparent win, we somehow manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It's not just the 2016 election. Look at the Planned Parenthood expose, all of Project Veritas' work, and the current Epstein debacle.
In a just society, any one of those enormities would have seen the perpetrators getting what they deserve behind bars. But ours is not a just society, and that is the remaining condition that must be fulfilled to make morale building and organization effective.
And no, we needn't have a majority of righteous men. 11% should suffice. That is indeed a tall order.
As for leadership, the leader of the true opposition to the Death Cult is probably in junior high right now, if not younger. Patience obtains all things.
Oh no worries, I was not insulted, and if I was, I’d try to eat it as graciously as possible since you are friend who, as far advice I know, bares zero ill will to me but in fact wishes me well.
11%. That number sounds familiar to me but I can’t pinpoint where I’ve heard that too, that all you need is about a little more than 1/10 of a group to have a revolution. Do you recall?
And yeah, I hope Gen Z will give us the hero generation we need. God help us if they end up like Gen X and miss their moment.
As to the “just society” part…that cuts to the matter. It’s not the laws that impart justice, it’s the morality of the people making the laws that allows for true justice to flourish. Until the morals of the society recover, we can’t move forward.
I think a form of Trad Catholic Infantada with some light organization of such like minded communities might be one of the solutions to help, while cultural-media projects like yours and others hopefully help wayward souls who know something is off to find a light in the storm and come safely to shore. Also shining a light on the darkness helps too when events present themselves. But really, based on the metrics, kids are likely to be the better bulk of it.
"all you need is about a little more than 1/10 of a group to have a revolution."
That's what I was referring to, yes.
One thing everyone can do, and is indeed very critical, is to move within 15 minutes walking (not driving) distance of your Church. There are many critical reasons for this:
1. Daily Mass
2. If you live within 15 minutes of Church most other parishioners will live within 15 minutes of you. This is necessary to live in a real community (as opposed to the fake or LARPY ones we content ourselves with today).
3.If you don't see the other members of your community face to face regularly throughout the week you're not in a community, you're LARPing.
4. It's not possible to live a full Christian life as an atomized individual, you can only achieve this is in a community.
5. If things get really bad, for example homeschooling gets a federal ban, you'll have a group of strong men to band up with to make sure you can all protect each other from hostile Feds (I disavow violence). As an atomized individual you have no chance.
6. It gives a Christian community for your kids to interact with. I remember when I was a kid and all the neighbor kids would go out onto the street and play hockey or other games outside. No one does this anymore. Furthermore most of the younger people Catholics I meet seem severely under socialized and (counter-intuitively given that they're most likely sheltered) particularly susceptible to modern attempts at corruption because most of them work off of peer pressure, something these kids have no defense against.
7. As scripture says, iron sharpens iron, it's a lot easier to grow in virtue when you have a support network to help you out. If you have to drive to your support network it isn't going to be very effective, it has to be something that's around you all the time.
8. It can act as a foundation to form voting/power blocks that can easily mobilized to fight poz in local organizations and parishioners can be strongly pressured or forced to participate in the fight whereas otherwise its very easy for most people to be slothful or negligent in action. Muslims are the only group of people so far who have successfully resisted poz at their local level and this is because when they come in they form ethno-religious neighborhoods that they completely control. Even in the US groups of muslims have gotten transgenderism completely removed from their local public schools. Forming these community blocks is how.
Moving within 15 minutes walking distance of your Church is step 1. If you haven't gotten to step 1 yet don't worry about step 2.
Certainly agree with you that you need to move and locate near a healthy parish community that is not compromised by modenist heresy. And you need to form relationships and be a part of a the life of an actual community…but be prepared to build that community yourself. The atomization of modern life has mostly penetrated every nook and cranny of Western civ. Many don’t know what community looks like or how to engage in one. The new default is to treat community like another option on the menu of what you’ll do today after you get off from work.
For 8, This is part of why I said I would try to engage in the parish council, boards and even local government once we find a community worth planting into. That’s also part of the engagement. Instead of complaining about your leaders, consider becoming one.
This is what I mean about forming some type of plan. Pick some good communities worth moving too with other like minded people. Build from there.
You can look throughout history and see a lot of situations that mirror the one we're in now. The sentiment here is correct, waiting around for a united front with a single charismatic leader to tell us what to do is not a plan. It's a daydream.
In the past underdogs that would go onto win always did the same thing: they created guerrilla groups. Now I'm not talking about the kinetic kind since we're in a cultural war and not a kinetic one. We really should be thinking in terms of forming up into cliques and cells of like minded folks with the aim of supporting eachother morally and financially.
I do that by buying books of folks like Mr. Niemeier and the others on our side. I also have made a solemn promise to myself to never publicly disparage anyone on our team. That's a lot harder than it sounds but so far its working for me.
If you want a great example of this concept in action let's look at Larry Correia (since he's mentioned here). He is the most prominent member of a group I call the "Utah Clique". They're a group of writers in the Utah region that know eachother and support eachother both in person and online. If you follow the people Mr. Correia promotes and talks about a lot you'll see what I mean. It's a model I'm trying to replicate in my area. But let me tell you, its a lot harder than it sounds.
But it works. And I think we need more of it.
Agreed
Hear, hear, and thank you!
The other thing that stands out to me about the Correia clique is that they appear to having a blast telling tradpub where to stick it and laughing all the way to the bank. They like their fans, appreciate them, and have fun with them. This whole business with Pinelandia and Krasnovia is a riot raised to the power of a hoot.
Brian,
We need to think in a 4D warfare mindset.
So
1)adapt what the monasteries did from 475-1100. A very decentraluzed community recognizing an other world authority while preserving the good.
2) review the reconquista from Portugual to Hungary and draw strategy and tactics therein for our times.
3)support not just artists but workmen of all kinds (I include service providers)
4) establish a community not only of faith but works too. Each member passes on what they know to other members. Both practical and spiritual.
5) get involved in local politics like the community and municipality so we have a bulwark against the admin state and to inculcate our morality .
xavier
Great exhortation. As Lecturer of my local Knights of Columbus council, I'll be using this as a springboard at our next meeting.
A mantra I've had in my head for a while now is "Make Catholics Catholic Again". If we won't be the leaven within the leaven, who will?
Tip for every night: the 3-2-1 examen. Thank Almighty Father for 3 things; apologize to Christ for 2 things; make 1 resolution to Holy Spirit. From St. Ignatius I believe.
Please do use the exhortation. I'm glad you find it salutary.
Amen to your entire comment.
I have been pondering my conversation with Mr. Durandel from the other thread the other day and finally correlated it with something in Leftist rhetoric that has been bothering me for a while. After every publicized mass casualty event involving guns, the Left almost immediately waxes snarky, if not profane and blasphemous, about the inefficacy of prayer. The clamor is always to "do something" as if "Prayer" and "Doing Something" were mutually exclusive propositions. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but we ought to take their dismissive and derisive attitude toward prayer as confirmation of its usefulness, just as we take their insistence upon passing $PetLawDuJour as a firm indication that we must oppose doing so with every means at our disposal.
The next layer of irony in this false dichotomy between 'pray' and 'do' is that we seem to have internalized it ourselves, at least in some parts of the Body. Any time you hear one Christian say to another something along the lines of, "I will pray for you. I'm sorry I can't do more," the speaker has mistaken prayer for inaction. The deeper layer of irony is that while "faith without works is dead," the Holy Spirit can a faith that is alive enough to pray to deepen the faith and change the life of the supplicant. I believe the expression is "lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi." Even if the prayer is "I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief," or "O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner," the Spirit can work in us, "both to will and to do according to His good pleasure."
Jesus said we ought to see to the planks in our own eyes before worrying about the motes in our brethren's eyes, so my plan for the immediate future is to pray a lot more, starting with my own household and my own students, to ruminate on the Armor of God passage in Ephesians, and to apply insights into its meaning as I gain them.
On a related note, I'm a poet. My wife has wanted me to publish for years. I've got couple of decades worth of old poetry to go through, scan, and type up, but perhaps something there will be worth publishing that passes the Philippians 4:8 test.
Bring it out to people. I used to go to poetry nights at bars and similar full of college lesbians, potheads and hipsters, but there were always maybe 10% out of step with that, reading serious, moving stuff, and people would seek them out over the course of the night and talk with them. They made it worth it. They certainly helped me grow my way back to God.
If you've got a light, shine it in public!