Thursday, October 05, 2006

The War Against… What?

The JoustWhen I posted “The Emperor is Naked” last week, I really started something — much more than I could ever have hoped for.

A group of commenters, more or less led by Vicktorya and Beach Girl, became energized by the idea of taking a proactive stance against the Great Jihad and its enablers on the Left. Vicktorya opened a discussion group on Yahoo (so far known only by its number, “910”, although its members like to refer to it as “VRWC”), invited all interested parties to join, and a new and vigorous initiative has started rolling. If you’re curious, revisit the comments on the post and get involved in the group.

But “910” is only part of a larger synchronicity that has recently appeared in our corner of the blogosphere.
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Almost simultaneously with my post, Pim’s Ghost arrived at a similar point in “The Time Has Come“. She has also signed onto the 910 project, and made the snowball that much larger.

Yesterday a reader wrote to me, wanting to get a message to Fjordman to ask him some questions. After an exchange of several emails, the result was Fjordman’s most recent post, in which he lays out ideas and suggestions about what the West can do against the Islamist tide, and especially against the enemy within. I notified the 910 people, and a vigorous discussion ensued in the comments.

Dymphna didn’t dub Fjordman “The Dark Prophet of Norway” without good reason; here is an excerpt from some one of his comments in response to readers:

My personal view is that the Jihad riots in France in 2005 could be interpreted as the early stages of a civil war, one of several Eurabian civil wars to come. What will happen to the hundreds of French nuclear warheads? Will they be used to intimidate the rest of the West?

Maybe future historians will dub this the Multicultural World War. I find this to be a more accurate term than “The Islamic World War” because what is causing this world war is Western cultural weakness more than Islamic strength. The wars in the Balkans in the 1990s will in hindsight be seen as a prelude to the Multicultural World War.

[…]

Regaining our cultural confidence is a more complicated and longer term goal. It probably cannot be achieved until today’s version of Western Europe has collapsed. Western Europe is now a collection of several layers of different Utopias, Multiculturalism, welfarism and transnationalism, that will soon come crashing down.

But, strangely enough, Fjordman is actually optimistic about the West’s chances in the long run; that’s why he’s offering suggestions. In the short run, however, he sees rough times ahead, especially for Europe. He’s all but certain that Western Europe, in its present form, will cease to exist in the near future.

Commenter “s” had an interesting point to make:

Many of the suggestions are what I’d term governmental issues: immigration, foreign policy, enacting anti-sharia laws, controlling foreign aid and use of foreign oil. These are areas that an individual can only really control through their vote. For the ambitious, they can actually contact their relevant legislators. The latter might prove to be frustrating, especially in the U.S., since our elected officials seem to have no clue about the nature of Islam and have their own Muslim constituents to please. Or appease, as the case may be.

“S” is highlighting a perennial phenomenon in the blogosphere: the Armchair General. “We need to do such-in-such about immigration.” “The best policy towards Iran would be thus-and-so.”

Yet even the most prominent bloggers are powerless to affect any of these issues. These policies can only be brought about by our elected leaders and the permanent bureaucracy; the most we can do is stand on the sidelines and yell real loud.

On the other hand, the mandarins of mainstream media, as a collective enterprise, do have the ability to influence such policies. One of the reasons our response to Iran has been so hobbled is that the politicians always have to keep one eye on the New York Times and CNN when they chart their courses of action. Things have gotten so bad that it is virtually impossible for a Republican to take effective action in the interests of our national security — the leakers in the permanent bureaucracy at State and in the CIA are willing to do anything to stymie such efforts.

Someday the MSM will wither away and be supplanted by the new media, including blogs, and the power of the legacy media will gradually disappear. But that day is at least a decade away, and I’m not sure we have a decade’s worth of breathing space in this war. It’s all but a certainty that Europe doesn’t.

So we can’t wait around for the old man to die and leave us his inheritance; we need to give him a gentle push towards his final reward.

That’s why I’m pushing for proactive behavior among our blogs. We do very well reacting to events, such as Rathergate and Reutergate, but such efforts absorb an enormous amount of blog energy with only incremental results. Look at the Foley Affair — it’s sucking up all the energy on the internet, and for what good reason? Yes, I know the Republicans may lose control of Congress as a result of it, but, given the behavior of many Republicans these days, that’s not as big a tragedy as some people may think.

Believe it or not, there are much more important issues, really crucial issues, life-and-death issues, which begin slowly, run for a long time under the radar, and then cause great harm when they finally reach their maturity. By the time they appear on the TV news, and the NYT and Richard Cohen stake out a position on them, it’s too late. The damage is done.

These are the things we need to be proactive about. These are the issues that we can quietly organize around, laying the groundwork for events that won’t mature for years or decades. From a personal standpoint, that’s why this is so gratifying to me: the young energetic folks who are organizing the 910 group and similar initiatives are going to be around long after I’m pushing up daisies, when the West will need them the most.

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The most important part of this war is the civil conflict within the West, a war of ideas and information. It is a war that pits an ad-hoc alliance of aggressive Islam and its useful idiots in the West — old-school Socialists, the UN and NGO internationalists, the academic deconstructionists, and the let’s-bring-down-Bush media — against the traditional culture and values of our civilization.

If our cultural weaknesses were not exacerbated by the saboteurs with our system, Islam would not be a threat to us.

Nothing I do directly is going to have an effect on this. But the advantage of the new media is their distributed nature — we can have an effect, when we act collectively. So far our effects have been reactive.

Big Daddy WarbucksBut, once again, I propose a proactive initiative: the acquisition of a controlling interest in an organ of the major media. It would be a reprise of the “Buy Up CBS” movement of the 1980s, only this time accomplished by a lot of little guys acting together instead of a few Big Daddy Warbucks types.

An acceleration of the necessary changes — the changes that are required to avoid the worst case scenarios in the future that Fjordman outlines — is only possible if the stranglehold of the anti-American left on the major media is broken. Fox News isn’t good enough; after all, Saudi Prince al-Walid bin Talal bought 5.5% of Fox News for the avowed purpose of inhibiting any negative coverage of Islam.

But if 5.5% of Fox News is effective, why not 10% of the Washington Post or some other MSM organ, in the hands of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy? A small individual investment by lots and lots of little people could pull it off.

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None of this will happen if the meme is restricted to little blogs like Gates of Vienna. If it doesn’t spread beyond our neighborhood, it will die a well-deserved death.

By all means blog on it yourself. But if the meme has merit, spread it up the chain. If not to the really big blogs like Instapundit and LGF, then to blogs like Dr. Sanity or Gateway Pundit, just to name two. They bring in lots of traffic, they read most of their email, and they’re open to suggestions.

The project will need to be couched in easily understandable terms. It must have a positive and uplifting mission statement. Above all, it requires a catchy title.

And that’s where we come back to the 910 Group. Vicktorya and Beach Girl and all the others have been working hard, creating an organization and dividing up their projected efforts into sub-headings for more effective implementation — Politics, Education, Business, Media, Technical, Spiritual, Feedback, Military, and Arts, the last I heard.

So what should it be called?

My suggestion, as always, is: Take Back the Culture. But they think that it has negative and reactive connotations, and that it will put some people off.

All right. Next I suggested The Restoration Project. Nope; can’t do it. It’s got the same problem.

So I said that we’re bound to offend somebody unless we call it The Rainbows, Unicorns, and Fluffy Bunnies Society. And maybe even then…

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We’re in a war. We’re fighting somebody.

Most of the people here in the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy know that the “War on Terror” is a dumb name. We’re not fighting an emotion. We’re not battling a tactic.

And we’re not even fighting Islam or the Islamists: we’re waging an information war against those who would, with far greater firepower than our own, destroy the great traditions and values of Western Civilization.

Our strategies should be proactive, but we are fighting to recover something that has been taken from us. We are waging a war of words in order to overthrow the usurpers of our culture, in the name of those values which are great and true and good.

So it has to be a fight against something, but that’s OK — people will be inspired by our effort if we state our aims clearly. If we use a Christian metaphor, we may offend Jews or Hindus or atheists. If we use a martial metaphor, we may offend pacifists and people who avert their thoughts from blood and slaughter.

But we’re going to put some people off, one way or another. A lot of those people cannot be won over, and will eventually be co-opted by the enemy, willing to surrender their ancient liberties and pay the jizyah in order to save their sorry skins.

But so be it. The rest of the people — which group includes the vast majority of Americans — will be inspired and energized if they hear the truth of their cause spoken clearly and unashamedly.

Jan III SobieskiThink of Jan III Sobieski. When he led the victory against Islam in 1683, he fought for a number of things:

  • He fought for Vienna.
  • He fought for Poland.
  • He fought for the Bishop of Rome.
  • He fought for Christendom.
  • He fought for God.

We are his heirs, even if our war is only one of words, and God is dead, and even if our cause is merely that grubby bastard child of Christendom called Secular Modernity.

We’re already backed up into the citadel, and the enemy is within the gates. If there’s nothing here worth saving, let’s just turn over the keys to the imams and be done with it.

Otherwise, let’s pick out a name and get on with the job. The Latter-Day Crusaders sounds great; nothing you choose will offend me.

A rose by any other name will smell as sweet.

20 comments:

Simon de Montfort said...

If all that "we" are fighting for is "Secularly Modernity", the chances for a worthwhile victory are probably not good

How about "Judeo-Christian-based Secular Modernity" ? That might rally a few more troops

Sir Henry Morgan said...

If you're thinking along these lines, you might find some ammunition in my first ever blog post:

http://gandalf-reconquista.blogspot.com/

Some numbers presented in graphical form. I've got some projections too, coming up this weekend, and they don't make comfortable reading at all. The first posting is really only half of the whole posting - it just takes me too long to do to get it up in one go - and anyway, there's too much of it, and I'm not a Fjordman. Salute to you sir. The numbers and the graphs have been checked by two people, at least one of whom is a highly qualified academic.

We have to get some serious co-ordination in this war. And oh yes, the numbers make it quite clear that it really is a war.

Vicktorya said...

Thanks for keeping the energy circulating, Baron!
What I've described this little meeting place, 910@ ... is "coordinating the movement for worldwide Liberty." By any name, it is a sweet rose.
Write me for entering the domain of pro-activating the blogging world.
Time for action ... and everybody plays!
Vicktorya

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Why not make it the "Fight for Civilization"?

It's not just the West. Bloody borders stretch everywhere. The Islamists are against everybody.

Jeffery Hodges

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KG said...

"Project Civilisation"
PC for short. :o)

Vicktorya said...

Hi -
For any who want to be 'counted in' and on the egroup, send me your email, or make sure your address is on your blogger profile or somehow I can get it.
We are NOW working, privately, on the egroup, and your good ideas here need to be coralled onto 910, by whatever name (as it IS already a number; So, more important than the name or explanation, is 'getting together'.)
Again, write me, vsk at vicktorya dot com, tell me something about you, and I'll approve you on.
Vicktorya

KG said...

I urge you to go here:
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/
And read the post "Frank Miller takes no prisoners"
After viewing the trailer to the movie it occurs to me that the name "The 300" would be very apt indeed. It would also honour those who have died for liberty and Western civilisation down the ages.

FrauBudgie said...

I do enjoy the "Fluffy Bunnies" ... but then, I suppose, you offend folks who think they are carrots.

KyleS. said...

While having a name which identifies our purpose is a positive thing it does, as the Baron suggests leave us open to attack. And we know well how words get twisted. (even if they are 600+ years old and only being quoted)

so perhaps keeping things on the DL, and going with just the "910 project" would be best?

Dymphna said...

HJH --

The "West" is civilization. It's unfortunate that the geographical referent became the term for it, but that's the way it goes. Australia and New Zealand were always in it; Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and India have joined it.

X said...

Personally I think The 910 Project has a nice ring to it. Lovely and enigmatic without being overbearing.

Knitting a Conundrum said...

So many times I feel like I am standing on a rock, screaming to any who will listen about the gathering dark.

It would be a shame to let the light of civilization go without putting up a fight.

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Dymphna, I think that the West scores pretty high on the civilization scale -- insofar as Western principles go.

My point is that there are a lot of people out there who don't consider themselves part of the West but who do feel themselves threatened by Islamists and who would readily join in an alliance against jihadists.

That's why I suggested "Fight for Civilization."

Jeffery Hodges

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Papa Ray said...

While a good cause needs a good name. Lets not forget what the future is really all about.

Our Children and our Grandchildren and on and on.

Who has the keys to our childrens minds, who helps shape and inform them?

Parents? Yes, but who else has the greatest influence?

The children's teachers. From the grade school teacher and principle that won't allow Christian teaching but encourages the teaching of the Qur'an to the university professor who intertwines his socialist anti-americaism into the class subject matter and grades on who agrees with him the loudest or most.

So by all means, lets map out our efforts, drill out the outlines, install our principles and fill out our ranks.

But unless we start with the elimination of the liberal socialist crap being taught to our children all their lives, the battle will be unending and unsucessful.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

Vicktorya said...

KG -- wow on the 300! http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/hd/
Loved the line, "Then we will fight in the shade". A Must View trailer! (tingly, yes!)

Now -- with tingles fully engaged -- NOTE: If you aren't yet on the 910 egroup (to get us '300' or howevermany geared up) then write to me to get on. Tell me something about yourself (to avoid trolls) -- and, we be rockin'. vsk at vicktorya dot com, if you please.

TonyGuitar said...

The Freedom War.

Here is what you can look forward to if you choose to join the exciting life.

[ a little U-Tube ]

http://whatwouldcharlesmarteldotm.blogspot.com/2006/10/simple-math.html

http://tinyurl.com/mj2g4

*For the *Religion of Peace.*

My credentials can not be hidden, for they sit in public view on several blogsites; warts and all. = TG

TonyGuitar said...

Ooops, Scrolling down I see a familiar U-Tube production. = TG

Vicktorya said...

Kyle --
Yep, as far as I'm concerned, smarty-pants athiests can play, too. As long as you don't mind a few boomshakalakalakas, Hallelujah's, yeehaw's, 'Thank God for 910', and my own brand of divine inspiration.

Only religion I can think of (as Victor Hugo also said *) -- is Toleration.

Now, get yerself onboard -- all of you -- there is some beautiful jazz playing,
Vicktorya

If you're in the 'need to know' -- send an email, with a little note about yourself to 910-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
and 'shuush', it's top secret. :-)

* There is nothing more powerful as an idea whose time has come.

Baron Bodissey said...

Kyle,

You're mistaken if you think I anguish about the name! I'm a tuning fork; I vibrate with the anguish of others.

An offensive name would be a good one. "Nuke the Ragheads" is fine. So is "Amalgam Tattoo", for that matter. Call me anything, just don't call me late for dinner.

Petey said...

In the spirit of conspiracies and "Glorius Peoples Resistances" a number sounds better than a long title, kinda like how "The Chicago 5" or "MS 13" sounds way cooler than "The Shining Path" or "Bretheren of the Mennonites."