Refugees and children

Remember this when the SJWs and other pro-invaders start throwing out their sob stories about poor little immigrants and children “jes’ wanting to start a better life in their new home”:

Two of the suicide bombers who caused carnage in the Paris massacre are thought to have sneaked into France by posing as refugees from Syria.The disclosure, which came amid claims of French intelligence failures, inevitably raised new security concerns about Europe’s borders.

Police said the two men, who arrived in Greece last month, were among seven attackers, one as young as 15.

Even Marine Le Pen isn’t taking it far enough yet. Most people don’t realize yet that it’s the moderates who are the heretics. Not the radicals. But even so, at least she appears to be moving in the right direction.

“Urgent action is needed. Islamist fundamentalism must be annihilated, France must ban Islamist organizations, close radical mosques and expel foreigners who preach hatred in our country as well as illegal migrants who have nothing to do here.”

It looks as if Reconquista 2.0 will begin soon. But not soon enough for the people of Paris.

The nation is not the soil

Richard Fernandez doesn’t quite grasp the new post-Parisian reality.

The dream of a “borderless Europe” has taken a body blow.  Now all courses run ill. The momentum of the migrant tide is already too great to simultaneously pacify public opinion and avert a human tragedy. A million people are on the road, strung out all over the place. Reuters reports that migrants are now making their way through the Arctic route, coming in through Norway via Russia clad in pitifully thin coats. “Ali left Syria to avoid the army draft and paid $2,500 all-inclusive for the trip to the border, which included flying to the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk via Moscow and Beirut. Like others reaching Norway, he cycled the final stretch, as Russian authorities do not allow travelers to proceed on foot.”

Ali may not be as welcome any more.  You can’t let them freeze and Paris can’t let them in. Like Syria itself, there are no easy choices left to the Europeans. EU efforts to bribe African countries into repatriating their citizens were met by a blank refusal.

    The European Union has been forced to drop controversial plans to deport failed asylum seekers who do not have passports after African countries blocked the move.

    European leaders offered more than £1billion aid in a bid to persuade their African counterparts to take back tens of thousands of illegal migrants.

    But a migration summit in Valletta, Malta, descended into farce after the Africans rejected the EU plan to expel those who do not qualify for asylum using special papers.

The dilemma the West now faces is that it cannot survive on the basis of the platform which its elites have carefully constructed since WW2. They are being beaten to death with their own lofty statements. They must either continue to uphold the vision of open borders, multiculturalism, declining birthrates, unilateral disarmament and a growing state sector at all costs — in other words continue on the road to suicide — or retreat. As recent events at American campuses have shown, when faced with the choice of saving the Left and saving the actual world, the odds are that “the world” goes over the side first.

If the elites will not save the world, then the world must be saved from the feckless elites.

UPDATE: Paris Attacker Was Syrian “Refugee” Who Arrived in Greece Last Month

Readersource request

So, we’ve got something big to announce on Monday. And by big, I mean something that is going to enable Castalia House to take the next serious step forward as a publishing house.

While we have had a number of successes, from blowing up the Hugo Awards to Amazon bestsellers, the one area where we have been absolutely abysmal is in informing the media of anything we’re doing; despite being covered in every media publication from the Wall Street Journal to the New Zealand Herald, we have not sent out a single press release to anyone. So, while others are talking about us, we haven’t been publicizing our side of the story.

That’s going to change. But here’s where I need your help. I have a great list of media contacts in the game industry that dates back to 1988 and consists of literally hundreds of names and email addresses. My list in the publishing industry presently consists of 17 names and email addresses. That is genuinely pathetic.

So, if you’re interested in helping Castalia, what I would appreciate is if each of you would find ONE name of a journalist or blogger who regularly covers books or writes book reviews, and then email the following information to me:

NAME
PUBLICATION/SITE
EMAIL ADDRESS

Once you’ve done that, post the name and publication here so that others can see they’re checked off the list. And yes, it would be very funny indeed to send me John Scalzi’s email, but I’ve already got it, so you needn’t bother with that.

One useful trick, if you’re looking for the more esoteric publications such as military journals, is to see who has written about an author, or a similar author, before. For example, that list of 17 consists solely of journalists who have written about Martin van Creveld. If you happen to find a journalist that way, please mention the reference author and/or work as well. Thanks very much. I do appreciate it.

Also, Brainstorm Annual members, don’t forget that tonight’s event will feature Mike Cernovich talking about his latest book, Danger and Play: Essays on Embracing Masculinity. The event will begin at 5 PM Eastern.

Category error

Brad Torgersen wants to fight SJWs, but he is unnecessarily leery of certain tactics in a discussion of a Kate the Impaler post at the Mad Genius Club:

The reason they “win” right now, is because they rely completely on civilized people being too polite to tell them all to fuck off. Over the next twenty years, civilized folk may decide they’ve had enough, and then we’ll send the gerbils packing. The pendulum won’t stay stuck in one position forever. The trick is to not become them in the process of fighting them — which is a very tough chore. The values of the Enlightenment — also known as actual liberalism — don’t have to be destroyed in our zeal to see the gerbils run out of our institutions and our seats of power.

Right now those Enlightenment values only come into play to protect SJW protests and safe spaces. They do not do anything for the college presidents that have failed to confess and apologize for their white privilege to these cultural revolutionaries.

To which Jeffro Johnson replies:

Actual liberalism is done. It’s gone. Very few people under thirty even believe in the principles of free expression. We’ve been conceding our culture without a fight for decades while behaving as if that makes us better than the barbarians. It doesn’t.

In my opinion, Jeffro has the right of it. How are we going to “become them” when we don’t subscribe to their ideals? George Patton didn’t become a Nazi or even a German by adopting maneuever warfare tactics and using them against the Wehrmacht. The Mossad didn’t become terrorists by adopting assassination tactics against the PLO.

To claim that we can become like them by virtue of utilizing their tactics is a fundamental category error. Tactics are not strategy, grand strategy, objectives, or ideals.

They are not SJWs because of their behavior. They are SJWs because they subscribe to the totalitarian dream of social justice convergence.

AKs in Paris

Machine gun fire has been heard in central Paris, close to where the Charlie Hebdo shootings occurred in January. The shooting on Rue Bichat, is thought to have led to several deaths and injuries, although authorities are yet to have confirmed this. Police and other emergency services are at the scene.

Many people killed in restaurant by a man with Kalashnikov near Place de la République, according to reports…. 

It seems there may be three possible attack sites: a restaurant, a bar
and outside the Stade de France. Details are very much confirmed at this
stage. 

Not that anyone will be surprised, but it is confirmed to have been Muslims again.

Louis, inside the Bataclan, told France Info radio the men opened fire and shouted “Allah Akbar”. 

The latest reported death toll is 160+.  

FRANCE24 reports 100+ hostages are being held at the
Bataclan. 

Now reports of more shots fired at Les Halles, the huge underground shopping mall near the Giardin Nelson Mandela. 

That sounds very brave and all, but if war is upon you, then why aren’t you fighting the enemy?

According to BFMTV, one of the gunmen shouted: “It’s for Syria” at Bataclan and “Allahu Akbar”. 


BREAKING: PRESIDENT HOLLANDE DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN WHOLE COUNTRY: BORDERS CLOSED

A little late for that. But a good first step, assuming it is followed by mass deportations. I just heard from a French friend. Let’s just say “absolutely and utterly furious” would be a reasonable way to describe his reaction. I do not think the French will take this lying down, regardless of how the government responds.


 Police state 100 people were killed in the attack on Bataclan concert hall. Three suspected jihadists were killed when police stormed the venue, police sources said.   

This is infuriating: people inside the concert hall were texting and begging for help for TWO HOURS before the police finally stormed the hall. 118+ killed by 4-6 jihadists in the meantime.

Lesson: CARRY A FUCKING GUN!

Mailvox: the Farmer’s Iowa call

Farmer Tom makes a prediction:

I’m personal friends with the Iowa campaign managers for Trump and Cruz. I know Carson’s Iowa guy, Huckebee’s guy, hate the a-hole who was Perry’s guy. Met several times Rubio’ s guy, once in his Senate office.

I know these people and the insides of the system.

I can tell you right now that Trump will not win Iowa, he will get second or third.

1. Carson
2. Trump
3.Cruz
4. Probably Rand because the RP people will hang to the end.

I don’t predict American politics anymore because I’m far too out of touch with them. But that’s the word from the ground in Iowa.

Fixing what already worked

Milo reports on a gaming-oriented charity deciding to expand its focus:

Operation Supply Drop, a well-respected charity established to help veterans ease back into civilian life using video games, and which provided active personnel with care packages featuring consoles and the latest games, is being torn apart. Insiders allege that this is happening at least in part thanks to negative portrayals of games and gamers in the media.

OSD is in crisis after its founder and many senior staff departed this month, citing the incumbent chief executive’s desire to refocus the charity away from video games, using money raised from gamers to fund a shift into mainstream, non-gaming activism.

Ex-Army veteran Captain Stephen Machuga, known online as Shanghai Six, started OSD on November 1, 2010. The charity claims to have raised $8 million since, but Machuga left on 1 November this year after disagreements about the direction of the organisation, and has pledged to launch a new charity called Stack-Up.Org, which will cleave to the original design and spirit of Operation Supply Drop more closely.

Sources close to Operation Supply Drop allege that its chief executive, Glenn Banton, is manoeuvering the charity away from video games, at least in part because recent negative press and a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode dramatising poor treatment of women in the game industry might make corporate fundraising for gaming-focused programmes difficult, given Banton’s grand ambitions for the charity.

Banton denies this, telling Breitbart that he is “frustrated with this concept of gamer-only water fountains and a trend of not letting non-gamers participate in gaming activities.”

Whatever else this is, it is remarkably stupid. Does Banton think the big breast cancer charities would raise more money if they turned their focus away from breast cancer in the interests of being more inclusive? Without its gaming component, Operation Supply Drop become just another veteran’s charity. As a general rule, expanding your focus is a very good way to miss the target.

I have no idea of Banton is an SJW or not, but this does certainly smack of entryism.

Star Wars worked

The good news is that the Strategic Defense Initiative appears to have worked well enough to deter potential enemies from planning to launch orbital missiles. The bad news is, there is a developing alternative to space-based attacks that even the U.S. Navy’s superiority at sea can’t do much about.

The Kremlin has confirmed “some secret data” was accidentally leaked when Russian TV stations broadcast material apparently showing blueprints from a nuclear torpedo, designed to be used against enemy coastal installations.

During President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with military officials in Sochi, where the development of Russia’s military capabilities were being discussed, a number of TV crews were able to capture footage of a paper that was certainly not meant for public viewing.

The presentation slide titled “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” showed some drawings of a new nuclear submarine weapons system. It is apparently designed to bypass NATO radars and any existing missile defense systems, while also causing heavy damage to “important economic facilities” along the enemy’s coastal regions.

The footnote to the slide stated that Status-6 is intended to cause “assured unacceptable damage” to an adversary force. Its detonation “in the area of the enemy coast” would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that the region would not be used for “military, economic, business or other activity” for a “long time.”

According to the blurred information provided in the slide, the system represents a massive torpedo, designated as “self-propelled underwater vehicle,” with a range of up to 10 thousand kilometers and capable of operating at a depth of up to 1,000 meters.

“Accidentally leaked.” Right. Anyhow, this is particularly interesting because we had a submission for Riding the Red Horse vol. 2 that had to be withdrawn due to the fact that it was still under some sort of embargo by the naval service concerned. The torpedoes it described were not so massive, but they were fast and land-launched, and my impression was that they were designed to be used to deny control of the sea in places like the Persian Gulf, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz.

4GW isn’t the only challenge facing the U.S. Armed Forces. The naval dominance enjoyed by the U.S. Navy since the dawn of the aircraft carrier is on the verge of ending, as the combination of aircraft-killing lasers and long-distance, land-launched torpedoes looks likely to render them as vulnerable, and therefore outdated, as battleships in WWII.

And since the United States is a maritime power, the loss of naval superiority necessarily means the loss of its superpower status.

GOP Establishment prefers Clinton

This Washington Post article demonstrates that there is, in truth, but one bi-factional ruling party:

Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.

Party leaders and donors fear that nominating either man would have negative ramifications for the GOP ticket up and down the ballot, virtually ensuring a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency and increasing the odds that the Senate falls into Democratic hands….

The apprehension among some party elites goes beyond electability,
according to one Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to talk candidly about the worries.

“We’re potentially
careening down this road of nominating somebody who frankly isn’t fit to
be president in terms of the basic ability and temperament to do the
job,” this strategist said. “It’s not just that it could be somebody
Hillary could destroy electorally, but what if Hillary hits a banana
peel and this person becomes president?”

Angst about Trump
intensified this week after he made two comments that could prove
damaging in a general election. First, he explained his opposition to
raising the minimum wage by saying “wages are too high.”

Second, he said
he would create a federal “deportation force” to remove the more than
11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. “To
have a leading candidate propose a new federal police force that is
going to flush out illegal immigrants across the nation? That’s very
disturbing and concerning to me about where that leads Republicans,”
said Dick Wadhams, a former GOP chairman in Colorado, a swing state
where Republicans are trying to pick up a Senate seat next year.

And one of the biggest concerns to the ruling party is that Trump will lead a nationalist surge against immigration. But keep this in mind when you hear them re-run the old “Most Important Election Ever” song-and-dance and use the Lizard Queen as a scare tactic. They would rather have Hilary as president than either Trump or Carson.

Second time farce

I used to think David Goldman’s “Spengler” columns were pretty good. But as time goes on, he seems to be getting almost deranged:

Kissinger’s latest offering has the distinct virtue of reducing the foreign policy Establishment’s thinking to absurdity. Kissinger saw the major powers as fixed entities to be moved around on a geopolitical game board, in a Parker Brothers’ version of the Congress of Vienna or the Treaty of Berlin. He missed the internal decay of the Soviet economy and its strategic consequences–the Russians’ realization in the mid-1980s that they could not compete with the American economy and its capacity to invent new military technologies. It wasn’t quite Stratego, to be sure: Kissinger drew on non-trivial mathematics, for example Thomas Schelling’s game theory. Variables in an equation and tokens on a game-board, though, both remain fixed entities to be arrayed according to given rules. Sometimes the long-term sometimes overtakes the short-term and mugs it.

The internal decay of present and former nation-states from Libya to Afghanistan is even more obvious, and even more germane to the politics of the region. Kissinger’s current recommendations for the Middle East, outlined in an Oct. 16 essay in the Wall Street Journal, treat the region’s players as if they were fixed entities that can be manipulated into a stable balance of power. It is obvious, though, that nothing is fixed about these entities, and this leads Kissinger to torture logic until it expires on the rack. Here for example is a characterization of Iran: “On one level, Iran acts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy, even invoking the safeguards of the international system. At the same time, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemony based on jihadist principles….The U.S. should be prepared for a dialogue with an Iran returning to its role as a Westphalian state within its established borders.”

One can imagine Iran’s supreme leader attempting to parse Kissinger’s logic: “Westphalian? What is ‘Westphalian?’ I have Googled it, and behold!, it is a kind of ham! The infidel Kissinger likens us to pork!” Iran perhaps the least Westphalian political entity on the planet. It is not a nation-state in any sense of the term but the rump of a collapsed empire, in which Persians comprise barely half of the population, with “Azerbaijanis (16–25+%), Kurds (7–10%), Lurs (c. 7%), Mazandaranis and Gilakis (c. 7%), Arabs (2–3%), Balochi (c. 2%) Turkmens (c. 2%)” making up the rest, according to Wikipedia. Shi’ite messianism and attendant imperial ambitions are its raison d’etre. It is like saying, “Excuse me, Mr. Hyde, but is Dr. Jeykll at home?”

And about what should the United States engage Iran in its “Westphalian” incarnation? “It is preferable for ISIS-held territory to be reconquered either by moderate Sunni forces or outside powers than by Iranian jihadist or imperial forces.” If we had some Westphalian ham, we could have ham-and-eggs, if we had some eggs: if we had “moderate Sunni forces” we could persuade the “Westphalian” Iran to withdraw the “jihadist or imperial” Iran to acquiesce in the reconquest of ISIS-held territories by Sunnis. Then “The reconquered territories should be restored to the local Sunni rule that existed there before the disintegration of both Iraqi and Syrian sovereignty.” Someone should break the news to Dr. Kissinger that Saddam Hussein is dead and that the previous Sunni regime is not available.

Is Iran any less a nation-state than the USA? If diversity is our strength, is it not also the strength of “the rump of a collapsed empire” in which there is still an ethnic majority more solid than a mere “proposition nation”?

And Spengler misses, or more likely, intentionally ignores Kissinger’s observations about the breakdown of the Westphalian state. Indeed, some of Man’s foremost thinkers about Man’s oldest art have been thinking very hard indeed about the implications of what they call “the crisis of the State”.

The fact that Kissinger could be – and in my view, observably is – wrong about the dangerous geopolitical situation in which the world finds itself does not mean that either the man or his ideas should be belittled, especially by someone who is so shortsighted that he genuinely believes his people can simply jump to China when their welcome in America finally wears out.

The original Spengler was tragic. This pale imitation smacks of farce.