Tag: history

TRANSLATION: Zaragoza

Castalia House’s epic quest to translate the entirety of the historic Spanish Episodios Nacionales into the English language continues with the publication of the sixth book, Zaragoza, about the French siege of the Spanish city during the Peninsular War.

The sixth volume of the Episodios Nacionales — the great historical novel cycle of Spain — Zaragoza takes Gabriel Araceli into the most terrible siege in modern European history: the second French assault on the Aragonese capital, where sixty thousand civilians and soldiers held the ruins of their city against Napoleon’s marshals through two months of bombardment, starvation, plague, and hand-to-hand fighting in the cellars.

Gabriel arrives in Zaragoza half-starved and in rags, having escaped a French prisoner column in the company of Don Roque. They sleep among beggars in the shattered monastery of Santa Engracia and are taken in by Don José de Montoria, a proud Aragonese labrador of iron convictions and volcanic patriotism, who has given both his sons to the defence. The elder is already dead. The younger, Agustín, is a theology student whom the siege has transformed into a soldier and who is carrying on a desperate love affair with Mariquilla Candiola, the beautiful daughter of the most hated man in the city: el tío Candiola, a miser of Dickensian proportions whose house stands at the very edge of the French advance.

As the French tighten the noose, the novel compresses with the siege itself, from the open streets to the barricaded quarters, from the quarters to single houses defended room by room, from the houses to the tunnels where Spanish and French sappers dig toward each other in the dark. The city burns. The plague spreads. The dead lie unburied in the streets. Women carry ammunition under fire and friars take up muskets. And through it all, Gabriel watches the collision between Agustín’s love and his father’s honour, between the miser’s gold and the patriot’s sacrifice, between the claims of private tenderness and the needs of a city that will not surrender.

The book has already been delivered to the paid subscribers supporting Castalia’s translation efforts. You can read an excerpt from Zaragoza at Castalia Library.

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The Zero Literature Campaign

We know about Clown World’s Zero History campaign. We can see signs of it everywhere from Fructidor to the Khmer Rouge. But it was also accompanied by a Zero Literature campaign. This is not just our imagination at work. You can still see it in action. But the campaign to disappear traditional literature with historical Western values began at least a century before the ALA was cancelling Laura Ingalls Wilder.

A division of the American Library Association has voted to remove Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a major children’s book award over concerns with how the early-to-mid 20th century author portrayed blacks and Native Americans.

The Association for Library Service to Children’s board made the unanimous decision Saturday at a meeting in New Orleans. The name has been changed to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

The association says the work of Wilder — best known for her Little House on the Prairie novels — “includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values.”

The first award was given to Wilder in 1954

I have no doubt that if Laura Ingalls Wilder had published a century before she did in a language other than English, we would never have heard of her. Both Benito Perez Galdos and Zenaide Fleuriot were much more significant in their native languages than Wilder was in English, and yet somehow, the English publishing world never saw fit to translate them despite producing dozens of editions of far less popular, far less marketable, and far less significant works.

This is why it is absolutely vital to stop blindly supporting those things that the mainstream feeds you, and go out of your way to find those things and support those things that are in line with your values, and not the “core values” of things like the ALSC.

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Fake Patriots Proved

I’ve told you from the very beginning that the Patriot Front was obviously fake, definitely Fed, and probably gay. All of which is true, but now we know that it is an offshoot of the SPLC thanks to Razorfist:

Charlottesville was organized by paid informants for SPLC. Every organization directly involved were therefore tainted by SPLC funding.

American Vanguard was one of those groups.

After Charlottesvile, they changed their name.

To Patriot Front.

It was always obvious that it was fake because there were never any of the usual police obstacles, doxxings, media hit pieces, deplatformings, permit issues, or any of the other things that always target genuine resisters.

And yes, a few people who were fooled by the organizers were arrested. Look, I know how this works. because those SPLC-paid informants tried repeatedly get me to come and speak at Unite the Right. I wasn’t interested because I’m neither a public speaker nor a political activist, but I had already smelled a rat in Richard Spencer by that time.

No organic group is going to be allowed to grow in Clown World’s Union of Satanic Affiliations. There are a panoply of controlled opposition groups and gatekeepers, while organic individuals and groups are either a) infiltrated and converged like the Tea Party or b) banished from the platforms that would permit their rise to popularity.

It’s not always going to be this way because Clown World is collapsing. The good news is that the reason these fake groups keep being constructed and offered up as false opposition is because the terrible truth about Clown World is gradually penetrating the mainstream. And I can pretty much guarantee that there is a very good reason the clowns are so desperate to conceal the truth, because it is almost certainly much worse than any of us, including me, are fully capable of imagining.

Remember what Rome did to Carthage and Jerusalem, and what the Conquistadors did to Technochtitlan. That’s what they fear.

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Israel Admits Genocide

But not the recent one in Gaza. The Armenian one of 1915 to 1917, committed by the Turks.

The Israeli government’s decision to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide has become one of the most symbolic and politically sensitive steps in Israel’s relations with Türkiye. On the surface, it may look like Israel feels the need to restore historical justice: A state founded by a people who survived the horrific tragedy of the Holocaust proclaims a moral obligation to recognize the tragedies of other peoples and oppose the denial of crimes against humanity. But in world politics, moral arguments rarely exist in isolation; most often, they gain traction when they coincide with national interests.

 Israel’s move was addressed not so much towards Armenia or even Türkiye, but towards the US, where a struggle for the future balance of power in the Middle East is unfolding. Israel increasingly perceives Türkiye as the next major regional rival after Iran. While in the past, despite political crises and harsh rhetoric, Ankara and West Jerusalem had maintained space for pragmatic interaction, today this model has effectively collapsed. Türkiye pursues an independent role in the region, seeks to expand its influence in the Muslim world, and is striving to become one of the centers of power in the new architecture of the Middle East. This poses a strategic challenge for Israel. For decades, its security relied heavily on its qualitative military superiority, secured in part by US military aid, access to advanced technologies, and a special status within the US alliance system. However, if Türkiye gains expanded access to Western technology, this balance could begin to shift. This is precisely why the issue with the F-35 jets, and more broadly, the strengthening of Türkiye’s military-technical capabilities, is of fundamental importance to Israel. This isn’t just about the fighter jets; it’s a question of whether Israel will maintain its technological advantage in the region or whether Türkiye will gradually approach it in terms of the quality of its weapons, industrial base, and military capabilities. 

This is where the US factor comes in. In the US, the Armenian issue carries certain political weight because of the Armenian diaspora, congressmen, and lobbyists. By recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Israel may attempt to integrate into this sensitive agenda and thereby strengthen those forces in Washington that oppose excessive rapprochement with Türkiye.

In other words, Israel may intend to activate not only pro-Israeli but also pro-Armenian circles in American politics in order to oppose certain defense concessions to Ankara.

Playing the Armenian Genocide card is another sign that Israel is expecting to be engaging in military hostilities with Turkey sooner rather than later. Although I’m not sure it will be necessary, since Turkey already appears to be disengaging from NATO and the West in favor of Russia, China, and Iran, which even without Turkey has proven to be a more formidable alliance than anyone had anticipated.

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Repent

I’ve got one word for every Christian Zionist, every “Judeo-Christian”, and every Christian who “supports Israel”.

Repent.

This isn’t AI or a misinterpretation. I thought it might be an exaggeration, so I went and looked it up. You can see it for yourself. What she actually said is arguably even worse, although she didn’t use the word “holocaust of Gaza” but “the ruins of Gaza”.

“I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did when they murdered their families, raped them and kidnapped their citizens! Neither a dove nor an olive leaf, only a sword – to cut off Sinwar’s head!”

And to anyone who says “oh, well that was just one Jew, mouthing off two years ago” I will point out that a) May Golan is a current Israeli Cabinet member, b) she was literally reading a written speech in her official capacity as an Israeli government minister, and c) I am still being banned from various platforms and organizations for a single misquoted response to a very public racist attack on white people from 2013. So don’t even try that excuse.

In fact, it’s more than a bit ironic that for at least the last 15 years, we on the right have been relentlessly pilloried for our “extremism” in seeking to ensure that our nations, cultures, languages, and Christian faith survive intact and were falsely accused of being “Nazis” while the mainstream media has not only overlooked, but actively covered for the perpetration of an active ethnic cleansing that has now turned into a literal genocide.

As for the Israeli Minister of Social Equality, I would merely observe that she will very likely get what she wishes for. People will tell their grandchildren exactly what the Jews did for many generations to come, not only with regards to Gaza, but also with regards to the USA and Europe. And I have no doubt that her great-grandchildren, if she has any, will claim, falsely, that it is a blood libel and an antisemitism to do so.

It’s an interesting shift of the Overton Window, though, for Jews to go from denying the Gazacaust to a) openly admitting their responsibility for it and b) declaring they are both responsible for, and proud of, “the ruins of Gaza”. One wonders what other historical events exist for which they will eventually be sufficiently emboldened to publicly claim responsibility.

Besides, of course, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

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The New Definition of “Quote”

QUOTE verb (used with object)

quotes, quoted, quoting

  1. to repeat (a passage, phrase, etc.) from a book, speech, or the like, as by way of authority, illustration, etc.
  2. to repeat words from (a book, author, etc.).
  3. to use a brief excerpt from.The composer quotes Beethoven’s Fifth in his latest work.
  4. to cite, offer, or bring forward as evidence or support.
  5. to commit an antisemitism by reference

It’s fascinating to see how the definition of antisemitism is now being expanded to include accurately quoting something that a Jew has said about his genuine intentions, motivations, and objectives. Especially when we’re now reaching the stage that a comparison of current Israeli rhetoric with historical National Socialist rhetoric is unfair to the latter, as evidenced by the recent genocidal rantings of Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir:

For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn!

With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit. All of Lebanon must burn. Our supreme duty is to protect the citizens of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF, and this commitment takes precedence over every other consideration.

I told the Prime Minister, even in our private meetings: For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.

Enough with the ping-pong. In the Middle East, you don’t win with measured responses and restraint—you need to go berserk. To obliterate. To crush the terror.

Remember, this is the same group of military geniuses who declared that after Iran was defeated, Turkey was next. But they are no more victims than is the serial killer who was abused as a child. And it makes absolutely no difference how some of their relatives were historically treated on a different continent in a different century, history is not a license for psychopathy or genocide.

If I ran around scalping people and offered the defense that it was justified because my relatives had been massacred in previous centuries, as they quite literally were, I would likely be declared insane. So anyone, and particularly any Christian, who still entertains the idea that God will bless them for supporting this murderous psychopathy needs therapy and quite possibly an exorcism.

And if you’re going to accuse everyone who is unabashedly sane, anti-satanic, and anti-psychopathic of being anti-semitic, well, you should probably stop and think very hard about the unavoidable implications of your accusation. While you’re at it, you would also do well to look into the linguistic etymology of “the accuser”.

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Natural Partners

This natural partnership between India and Israel helps explain why the entire tech industry in the USA has been enjeetified, and may even predict where one of the flashpoints of the 2050s and beyond will be.

For Israel, India represents a steadfast ally in an increasingly critical world. Neither India’s government nor its Muslim minority has been anything like as vocal over Israel’s offensive in Gaza — which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, and reduced most of the enclave to rubble — as their counterparts in Europe.

“Israel is probably today the most trusted partner as far as India is concerned in terms of strategic partnerships,” says Happymon Jacob, director of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank.He adds that “even the Russians . . . may be ambivalent about their support for India” given the Kremlin’s ties to China, India’s big regional rival, and also cites Trump’s increasingly strained personal relationship with Modi. “Therefore, you are probably looking at Israel as the country that comes without any strings attached, even when it comes to intelligence sharing, when it comes to weapon systems.”

Azar, the Israeli ambassador, notes parallels in the evolution of India and Israel as independent nations from 1947 and 1948.
“We both started as states that are secular and socialist,” he says. “And we became more conservative and more capitalist” and “to a certain extent” more religious. That, he says, makes the two countries “natural partners” in a sometimes hostile world.

Greater Israel has needed a new partner since China declined the opportunity to replace the USA. India was the solution with regards to the manpower problem, but no one wants to live in India, including the Indians. And then there is the obvious conflict between two low-trust cultures in close proximity to consider. Thus the Argentine development, which if this reading is correct means that we can expect to see a major Argentine-Indian-Israeli alliance soon. Call it AIIPAC…

Which means that the latter half of the 21st century may see South America turning into what the Middle East was the second half of the 20th century.

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A Pipeline to the Stars

In which a member of our community has built a system to unlock a whole host of old Hebrew and Latin texts:

This started as an offhand question.

I was chatting with Claude about some obscure Hebrew books related to my interest in the history of astronomy and cosmology. One of them contained a firsthand account of encounters with Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

I started by asking what Claude knew about the book from reviews, catalogs, and other online references. The information was sparse. Then I thought: why not go to the source?

Knowing that Vox Day had used AI extensively for translation work, I asked Claude what it could do with a scanned PDF.

The answer seemed almost too good to be true.

So I tested it.

“Here’s a 250-page PDF. Translate it.”

That didn’t happen.

Claude explained that the PDF would need to be broken into smaller batches. I would have to upload each section separately, start a new chat for each batch, run a translation prompt, and then manually stitch everything together afterward. It even suggested shell commands to help.

That also didn’t happen.

Instead, over the next five days, I used Claude Web and Claude Code to build the functional scaffolding that eventually became my translation pipeline. As an experiment, I kept it completely code-free at first. I wanted to see how far I could get simply by describing what I wanted.

The answer turned out to be: surprisingly far.

Read the rest about how the translation pipeline was constructed and find the link to the growing compendium of ancient and medieval texts at AI Central.

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Natives and Americans

A fellow American Indian points out that regardless of what the historical grudges exist – and the American track record is a lot worse than the Manifest Destiny apologists taught back in the day – the Clown World program is not and has never been in our interest.

Natives need to bear firmly in mind that if the demographics of this nation wildly vary from the traditional white majority, it won’t be some great development for us.

It will be the opposite. We share a history with the whites, good and bad, but it’s behind us now. The whites like and admire us, and as little as some of us want to admit it, they have helped us enormously.

The newcomers don’t give a damn about us. We have no history with Pakistanis or Afghans or whoever. They are coming to conquer, that’s it.

If we don’t stand with the whites, we will fall together. It’s that simple.

I don’t know that I would go so far as “helped us enormously” but reservations and casinos is a much better deal than many conquered peoples ended up with, although I do think that any state or federal agency who tries to play eminent domain games with Indian land should be treated in exactly the same way a soldier who independently wages war on a foreign power is.

But the point stands. And it really would behoove Americans to be honest about what was done to the American Indian, in order to learn from it and avoid meeting a similar fate. Because it’s all in the legalisms…

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What if it Wasn’t Libel

What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light:

Epstein case revelations: U.S. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert stunned Newsmax after reviewing the unredacted Epstein documents:

“It’s far darker than anyone could have imagined: emails about torture, constant references to ‘consumption,’ a place literally called the ‘Cannibal Restaurant,’ and code words like ‘jerky’ and ‘human meat’ being tossed around as if it were nothing.”

Yes. She directly asked whether we are dealing with cannibalism. With literal human consumption.

This is no longer some fringe theory. A sitting member of Congress is openly saying what no one else dares to say: these monsters not only abused and trafficked children — they may have eaten them as well.

I suspect we are soon going to learn why a certain “libel” not only wasn’t ever a libel, but explains why those to whom it historically applied are persona non grata in dozens of countries to this day. And I suspect it’s going to go deeper, darker, and wider than anyone, including me, really wants to imagine, in the same way that I correctly anticipated what would be found around the ziggurats of Central America.

It’s important to keep in mind there are both spiritual and material elements to this. But anyone who has ever condemned groups like the Inquisitions, the Romans, and the Conquistadors should be considered suspect, because groups like that have been the historical instruments of rooting out and eliminating the ancient evils preying upon Man.

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